Mom wasn't okay, Mirn could tell that much. The woman who had adopted them had been lost in thought ever since she had seen that news program. She didn't act with as much of her normal cheerful and confident enthusiasm, and seemed sad and confused sometimes. So Mirn decided to ask her to do things that she had talked about doing with them that she had seemed excited about. Starting with clothing shopping, following a side stop to sell the labyrinth loot.

Clothing shopping involved a vast and confusing array of choices, many of which Mom dismissed as too expensive. Pity, that one dress had been particularly nice and looked like it would be more comfortable than pants and such. So Mirn picked one a lot like it that was much lower in price. "This one."

Mom's ears perked up happily. "Oh! Cute and flowery! I can see it fitting you very well! Okay, let's buy this and find you more!"

"I need more?" Mirn complained, then began to rethink their complaint. If it made Mom happy, so be it. "Okay, more would be okay."

"Okay, let's take a look at this! And..." With that Mom made Mirn try on way too many dresses. They tolerated it and, well, some of those dresses were okay. Also a few pants and shirts, but Mirn decided they preferred less confining clothing, like dresses.

Still, it took too long for Mirn's taste and they could see Mom was beginning to get sad again.

So Mirn said, "Okay, that's enough. Let's do something else."

Mom paused, brushing her own new denim dress with her hand. "Oh, tired of shopping? Alright, guess we've bought enough dresses for now. Which one of those do you want empowered for battle?"

Mirn thought for a moment and decided to go with their favorite. "The first one."

Mom nodded. "Okay! We'll find someone who specializes in flowweaving. It's more expensive, but far more permanent without any need for recharging and better overall than simple Word imbuements not to mention that flowweavers are more versatile since they aren't limited to a few ideas like Word users are. Oh, flowweaving is a Mystery that's harder to learn and way slower than Words but is really good for long-lasting empowerments compared to normal usage of Words. Oh, but an Adept, which's anyone with mastery of part of a Mystery to a Transcendental level, can do enough of a good job at empowerment that it really doesn't matter, though flowweavers are still the most versatile."

Mirn considered this, then a thought occurred to them. "You have a Transcendent Sigil. Does that mean that you're an Adept?"

Mom shook her head. "No, you need to have full mastery of a Word to the Transcendental level. Oh, but getting Transcendent Sigils is a step toward that. And then there are Adepts then there are High Adepts, and finally Grand Adepts. The division isn't as clean as that between non-Adepts and Adepts, but one idea is that High Adepts can affect things on a major scale such as a whole region or even a whole nation, while Grand Adepts can make world-shaking effects. That's just one of many such ideas and some countries have different ranking names and divisions, some even having even more than three ranks. Anyways, empowerments by even an Adept are too expensive for our budget, so let's just find a good flowweaver!"

After giving the dress to the flowweaver, which Mirn only accepted because of being assured that they would get their dress back even better, Mom found a cheap hotel and reserved a room. Then since it was still too early to sleep Mirn suggested she show them a movie, another thing she had been excited for. As it turned out the movie was a bit confusing but enjoyable. "I get why she died for her sister, that's just protecting family even if it kills you, but I don't get why she kept talking about protecting her sister's honor and all. Why can't the sister protect it herself?"

Mom shrugged. "It's the job of the strong to protect the honor of the weak, since they can't protect it themselves. One of those duties that comes with being strong. If the sister for example slapped that guy who was insulting her integrity, he probably would've done worse than slapping her, like breaking some bones or even killing her. But because the one who slapped him was strong, that guy had to stand down or risk a real fight. Besides, if the strong doesn't step up to protect the weak, who will? The police just protect the interests of the people paying them."

"Duties of the strong..." That definitely was a lot of food for thought for Mirn to digest. "Is that why you were protecting me?"

Another shrug from Mom. "Partly that, partly because you're cute, and partly because I've grown attached to you. I think of you like my child. Um, are you okay with that?"

Mirn smiled. "It's fine, I already think of you as Mom."

"Argh! My heart! Too cute!" Mom clutched her heart.

"Are you okay?" Mirn asked worriedly.

Mom just nodded. "Yeah. I was just exaggerating."

Sometimes Mom could be strange.

~~~

In the morning, Mom decided the two of them needed to see a weaponsmith that specialized in weapons for monsters and natural weapon amplifiers. She explained, "We'll pretty much have to go labyrinth running in less than a week with all those expenses, but they'll pay off in the long term with greater safety when we go back. And with that, we can work on getting a good reputation as successful labyrinth runners, which we can use to get more kinds of jobs and eventually work our way up to safer careers, plus get you some good education."

Mirn already felt like Mom was doing a perfectly good job teaching them, but they supposed they could learn a lot more. After all, there was a whole world they apparently didn't know much about! With that thought, they tilted their head. "You can't teach me everything?"

Mom shook her head. "I'm not someone with the Word Teach or otherwise skilled at it. I've been only teaching you simple things so far. There're far more difficult things that'll benefit you to learn. Evolver can also teach you some things, but a quality education can't be underestimated."

Hmm. Mirn would just have to adapt and learn. "I want to learn from someone as nice as you."

Mom nodded. "I'm sure we can find someone--oh, there's the smithy! You know, mass-produced stuff is cheaper, but you can't beat the quality coming from someone with the right Mystery masteries, and quality'll save our lives..."

Mirn stared at the angular opal building. It looked too quiet to be a place where weapons got made. But once inside the lobby, a wave of heat hit them and they almost beat a retreat back outside. However, the heat proved not too bad, probably because there was a line on the floor between the lobby and a place with some kind of roaring forge. On the line was a sign reading, "Heat shielding provided for your protection."

But wait, if it was this hot outside the heat shield, just how hot was it inside? The monster inside didn't seem to care, her massive rippling muscles hard at work as she shaped some metal with careful pounding from her hammer... while another hand alternated strikes with a second hammer and two hands held firm the tongs. In appearance, the four-armed smith was rather reptilian, covered with fiery orange scales. She had four eyes, each one with a burning iris, and her snout was rather crocodilian. A pin on her apron which seemed more there to protect her clothes than herself stated that her pronouns was she/her. Not pausing in her work, the smith said in a high whistling tone, "Your orders?"

Mirn caught Mom staring at the smith's arms. But Mom also seemed to catch herself and said, "A polearm of whatever type you think best for my child here and a versatile core to amplify their mimic abilities. And a hex core plus claw extenders for me."

The smith grunted. "Not a cheap order. Need to know you're good for it."

"Certainly." And Mom poured nearly all of the leftover labyrinth money into a jar labeled 'Payment' on a lobby table. "I checked your listed rates online for those things."

The smith raised an brow. "Cash? Judging from that and your order, labyrinth runner?"

"Yeah," Mom affirmed.

That got a nod from the smith. "Not judging, lotta my customers are runners. Not judging you either for eyeing my muscles. I'm Grace, and you are?"

"Um, a curse prevents me from having a name." For some reason Mom seemed atypically nervous.

"First time heard of that. But I know how whacky business curses can be..." It seemed as if Grace was about to say something but it came out as a cough instead.

"Ah... I felt that. You tried to give me a name? A sexy one no less, naughty you." For some reason Mom was grinning.

Grace just chuckled. "Had to check. Sexy name would've fit you. Okay. Just a bit and I'll measure you two for the claw extenders and the polearm."

"Leaving pretty little me no choice but to watch your rippling muscles at work?" Mom grinned again.

"You aren't a slouch in that department either." Grace winked before turning her focus back to her work.

Baffled, Mirn mentally asked Evolver about those two's behavior. The following explanation was longer than expected and very informative. Mirn asked Mom, "So you were flirting with her? Because you wanted to mate with her?"

Mom was drinking some water from a water cooler when she heard the second question and for some reason she spat out said water in surprise.

Grace had to pause to laugh hysterically. Mirn had the thought that it was fortunate that Grace had finished the hammering part of her current job for the moment.

~~~

In the end, the weapon the smith gave Mirn later in the day was... a plain and boring spear. But when Mirn asked why, Grace explained that a light and fast weapon was the best fit for someone like Mirn. And indeed when Mirn tried out a few pokes and other motions, they found the spear far easier to handle. The more they tried it out the more they liked it. They could get much more speed with it, making for more deadly stabbing, and they could still hit someone (in this case, the battered looking target dummy in the smithy's back yard) just below the tip for a more blunt hit, which would help against armored opponents.

"Like it?" Grace asked. "Look, I empowered the tip here for better stabbing. It can also extend cutting energy for slicing when you need it, if you activate it with your energy like this..." A demonstration removed the head of the dummy, which Grace just shrugged at and then plunked the head back on, doing something that made it fuse back with the body.

Eagerly, Mirn nodded and Grace continued, "That drains the spear's energy faster, so you better save that for when you really need to cut up something. It'll replenish itself, of course, so you just need to let it rest. It's also empowered for easy handling, durability, and self-repairing. I used flowweaving, so that stuff'll last. Now let's look at your versatile core. It isn't quite as good as a more dedicated core, but it'll enhance just about any ability you mimic. Now, to use this, you just need to swallow it."

Mirn looked skeptically at the multi-faceted prism of pure energy in their hand, then looked at Mom who was wolfing down her own hexer core without any hesitance. That reassured Mirn enough that they carefully swallowed the versatile core... and felt it melding with an immaterial part of themselves. To test it out, they extended out their shadow claws and found them longer yet easier to handle, plus sharper. They felt sure they could do a more deadly acid spit, but decided not to test it out right here.

Mom was grinning while flexing her hands, causing claws about as long as Mirn's shadow claws to pop out. "Okay, between those awesome claws and my core-strengthened afflictions, I'm raring to go! Wanna do a quick labyrinth jog?"

Mirn looked directly at Mom. "Mom, you said we had a few things to do first."

Mom deflated a little. "Right, right, hey, I bet your battle dress is ready!"

Honestly Mirn was so excited to get their new dress back that they had trouble sitting still for the flowweaver tailor's explanation about the improvements to the dress. But increased durability, self-repairing and self-cleansing, increased protection, and the new pockets that could hold a lot more than they looked like all sounded nice. Seeing how much Mirn liked those pockets, Mom promised to get ones like them on the other dresses once they had th money for it. Apparently the other pockets would be simple Word imbues, so cheaper but also drawing on Mirn's energy for every use.

As they sat on the bus back home with Mirn being careful to keep their spear out of others' way and the tip covered with padding like Mom taught them, Mirn caught Mom frowning again. "You seem sad again," Mirn said.

"It's just... Mirn, do you think I'm a bad person?" Mom asked.

Mirn just shook their head. "You taught me about what good people do, and you taught me about the duties of the strong to the weak. I don't think those're things bad people do."

"Hm.... Ah, you're right!" Mom immediately brightened. "I must've had a really good reason for killing those people. Either that or someone forced me!"

It was good to see Mom happier, Mirn thought.