Chapter 151 - 148 - Family Emergency
Isabella stormed through the entrance to her family's manor, guards trailing behind her until the moment the gate shut. The moment it did, Tomás sprinted with a speed that would have surprised her, dashing ahead and into the manor.
But she was too angry to notice or care.
Who was James to tell her what Classes to pick? To call her a child? The sheer rudeness, especially in front of their classmates, in public!
She wanted nothing more than to storm through the manor, avoid her family, and lock herself in her room and perhaps scream into her pillow.
Instead she forced herself to go to her least favorite gazebo, where she stomped around blowing off steam.
Her entire extended family would be here tonight, and through the day after tomorrow. They were invited to a family party celebrating her Choosing Day: her older brothers and sisters, her aunts and uncles on both sides, her other aunties and uncles who weren't really related but were close friends of her parents, and some number of her cousins who never missed an opportunity to party at someone else's home.
In the dozen minutes Isabella took to calm down, her father was struggling to contain himself and maintain his composure.
Tomás had dashed in like it was an emergency, and given him the sign that there was an emergency, but it was of the sort that would be best if Isabella explained herself. Though he also indicated it was the most severe of emergencies.
So, regrettably, the family friends were quietly informed there was an emergency, and they departed to their hotels and inns nearby.
Close family remained: his sons and daughters and their spouses; his brother and sister, and his wife's two brothers and sister, and their spouses. Their children were all taken away for a small sweets-tasting party, and from there they would be put to bed by the maids while the family prepared itself for whatever was happening.
Baronet Izguardia and his wife were waiting in the drawing room, feigning relaxation, when their daughter stormed in with a scowl and puffy red eyes.
Isabella's mother moved first.
"Oh, dear, dear Isabella, come here, sit with me a moment." She pulled her daughter over to a sofa and began dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. "What's wrong, my darling?"
"It's, it's that stupid coward James! He embarrassed me terribly, mother, he's just the most uncouth…" She continued in that vein for some time as her mother made soothing noises and her father grit his teeth and clenched his fists.
He was considering his options to punish the impudent boy who had upset his daughter so greatly when the word 'Avenger' caught his ear.
The blood drained from his face and he met his wife's wide eyes, though Isabella was too caught up in her rant to notice.
"...even Raven was agreeing with him, but I've never even heard of such a class. Mother, would it really be so wrong to take both Enchanter and Merchant for my classes?"
There was the slightest moment of calm before the storm.
The Baronet leapt to his feet, and Isabella's mother grabbed her face in both hands, forcing their eyes to meet.
"Yes. It. Would," she hissed, all her protective instincts flaring.
A wave of intimidation swept through the room, the sensation of a sword's tip tickling one's throat. But the head of the family ignored it and swept his wife and youngest daughter into a hug, holding them tight.
"We need to have a very serious discussion," he murmured. His Merchant instincts whirled in his mind, proposing and discarding ideas for how to proceed with negotiations. In the back of his mind, he decided that Tomás deserved a very hefty bonus for how he had handled this.
A moment later, he let go and stood.
"We'll have a full family meeting. This is a matter of grave importance not just for the company or the baronetcy, but for the family."
Isabella had never heard her mother and father speak like that before, let alone to her directly. Not even in the most tense of negotiations that she had been allowed to sit in on.
There was a whirl of maids moving things about and suddenly Isabella was the center of attention, not in a good way. She sat on a couch pushed against a wall, with her parents on either side blocking her escape. In a broad semi-circle surrounding them were all her extended family, and every one of them had a grave expression on their face.
It was exceptionally rare for the head of the family to call a family emergency and lock down the family manor entirely.
"We gathered here to celebrate Isabella's Choosing Day, the day she truly becomes a young woman and an adult. But I have to confess that I have neglected my fatherly duties, and I failed to give my daughter the information and the wisdom needed to prepare her for her Class selection, which is now only hours away." Baronet Izguardia bowed his head to his family. "I humbly beg you to assist me in this matter, for there is little time and much to be said."
His younger sister was the first to speak. "You didn't give her the Talk?!"
"Bernardo, seriously…?" his younger brother asked.
"I also share the blame," Isabella's mother declared, head held high though her hand trembled, gripping Isabella's tightly.
"Carmen…" her younger brother murmured.
"Our parents would have tanned your hide if they were here, Carmen. You know better," her older sister scolded, though the woman's husband rubbed her hand soothingly.
Isabella was so far beyond appalled she had stopped breathing.
First James had insulted her so deeply in front of her new friends, in public.
Now her parents were doing the same thing in front of their entire family.
"Ahem," she cleared her throat to draw everyone's attention. "My parents did give me the Talk. We talked about how Choosing works, about synergies, and I had thought—" she shot her parents glares each in turn, "that they trusted me to Choose the Classes that were best for me." She jerked her hands out from her parents' grasp and folded her arms over her chest.
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"Please, help us," was all her father said and he and her mother both bowed their heads.
"Isabella," her aunt Sofia said kindly, "you said something really stupid, didn't you?"
"I did not!" she protested.
"Well then, what Classes are you considering? Tell us, and why you think they're a good fit," her mother's brother Diego proposed.
"Well, I had decided on Enchanter, and have spent the last two weeks studying at the Enchanter's Guild, and by the way I passed the written test for everyone's information! And I was thinking about opening my own workshop within the family business" one of her cousins nodded along, "—so I was considering also taking the Merchant Class—"
The cousin instantly stopped nodding.
Aunt Sofia clapped her hands, silencing the wave of protests that had barely begun.
"Aha, there it is," she said softly. "No wonder your parents are panicking, if you're still considering such nonsense so close to your Choosing."
The glare she turned to Isabella's parents, however, was hot enough it could have melted stone.
Maya, the cousin closest in age to Isabella, had had her Choosing day less than a year ago. "Isabella, you must, you really must choose a Combat Class. Classes are permanent, you can't change them, no matter how much you might wish to."
"I'm fully aware of that!" Isabella snapped. But Maya shook her head. "No, clearly, you're not."
"I daresay you've spoiled her, Carmen."
"Bernardo, I told you having guards escorting her everywhere was a bad idea."
"Isabella." Aunt Sofia's voice cut through the din once more. "Let me tell you about the Avenger Class."
Sofia was considered the best storyteller in the family, and for several minutes everyone was engrossed in a tale about an Avenger that had cropped up in Valenciaga.
"...the cursed flames burned for weeks, down to the foundation, down to the stone beneath the foundation, even. There wasn't a single survivor from that family. Not even the Avenger herself: she perished in her own flames, Gods rest her soul."
"Gods rest her soul," everyone else murmured.
"But," Isabella protested, "what they did to that girl was terrible! Nobody's done anything like that to me!"
"Yes," Sofia replied, "and that is because, as your friend said, nobody would be so foolish as to harm a child. And, Isabella, for at least the next few hours, you are a child."
"I am not—"
"Isabella!" her mother raised her voice. She flinched, and her father pulled her into a hug.
"You are, Isabella, and only for a few hours more. Then, you will Choose, and you will be an adult and there won't be any going back."
Maya bit her lip.
"So enjoy these last precious moments, and listen to your family's wisdom. Trust us that we're speaking out of love, to help you, not to slight you."
Isabella pushed out of her father's embrace and took a deep breath.
She could be mature about this.
Her mother took her hand again, and Isabella let her.
"So now you know about the Avenger Class," her cousin Grim said.
He had chosen the name himself, shortly after his Choosing Day. He sat casually with his legs spread on the floor, and everyone gave him slightly more space, especially given the long, curved sword he kept on his hip even here, among family. "And you know why nobody messes with kids before their Choosing Day." He leaned forward slightly, and several in the room flinched. "So let me tell you how people mess with each other after they get their Classes."
Kidnapping. Slavery. Torture. Robbery. Extortion. Crime after crime, criminals and victims were described in excessively graphic detail.
Cousin Grim was the Izguardia family enforcer. But standing around looking scary while contracts were being signed was only his day job; he also tracked down criminals and when they wouldn't come quietly, he cut them down. He was wearing loose-fitting clothing open at the chest, revealing a disturbing number of nasty looking scars over his rippling muscles.
His eyes were matte black, reflecting no light as he spoke.
"...and the reason scum try this with young men and women just after their Choosing day is because they know they don't need to worry about Avengers coming after them: no kids orphaned, no problem. And it's easier: just after you Choose is the weakest you'll ever be. Tomorrow's going to be the most dangerous day of your life, because you'll have no Skills for fighting, for fleeing, for even detecting danger."
Grim glared sharply at his uncle. "You raised Isabella way too soft. You better keep those guards with her until she's got a couple levels in a combat class."
Grim was one of the few people who could give an order like that to the family head and get away with it. Even in a situation like this, there were limits.
But the Baronet merely nodded. "As you say, Grim. You're right. I'll keep the guards assigned to her until she can hold her own."
Isabella trembled and squeezed her mother's hand. She'd had no idea about Grim's nightwork. She thought he dressed like that as a fashion statement and looking scary was as far as his job went.
"Is, is that true? Do such awful things truly happen, even here in Cordova?" she asked, and a chorus of responses confirmed what Grim had said.
Uncle Roberto, who had remained quiet until now, spoke. "So, Isabella, which will it be? Enchanter, or Merchant? You have to choose one."
"...Enchanter," Isabella decided. Roberto nodded. "A wise choice. You can get along just fine without an entire Class dedicated to being a Merchant, especially if you want to run an Enchanting workshop. Your Enchanter Class will be able to grow into at least that much—workshop management."
"What about your Combat Class?" Maya asked quietly, just barely above a whisper.
"Not Mage," Grim asserted loudly.
"She can't even Choose Mage anyway, that's why she's going Enchanter. No affinities," another cousin declared, but Aunt Sofia's husband, Uncle Augustine, refuted him. "There are Mage classes that don't need affinities. But Grim is right, Mage as the only Combat Class is extremely foolish. It's barely better than not picking any Combat Class at all."
"Wait," the Baronet commanded, bringing silence to the room, and then he looked down at his daughter. "Isabella, the choice is yours. As I said when I attempted to give you the Talk before. But what that means is that, during the Choosing, you are alone with your Classes. It's not so much a matter of trust, as it is that nobody can stop you from making a mistake at that point. All we can do is try to help you as much as we can before your Choosing, by sharing knowledge and hard-won wisdom."
Isabella's eyes moistened. She nodded, and then turned to her extended family and bowed her head as her parents had before. "Please, everyone, share your wisdom. What would the best Combat Class be for me, now that I've decided to choose Enchanter?"
The discussion carried on the entire night. Debates about specialization and generalization. Dissertations on synergy. Heated arguments about boosts from Classes, and a shocking amount of information on potential combat Skills and how to unlock them as fast as possible.
Maya had an unusual amount to say about weapon types, and the value of being able to conceal weapons in polite company.
Isabella noticed that Grim was staring at Maya intently, with a furrowed brow.
The discussion went on and on and then it was dawn, and Isabella's soft gasp instantly silenced the room.
Her father and mother rushed to get one last word in.
"Remember, you can talk to your Class choices, and ask them questions," her father said.
"And you can back out of the Class selection if you need to ask us anything," her mother said.
Class System unlocked. 0/2 Classes chosen. Please select a Class.
The pull was overwhelming, and Isabella's eyes fluttered closed as she entered the world of her soul.
But the advice in the forefront of her mind was that which she had received from the Knight's blonde retainer, who had told her to pick her Combat Class first, lest she be tempted.