A New Prentice Arrives

The next morning James had barely begun cooking breakfast when the sound of a helicopter came from outside the house. Johnson rushed out still in his night shirt. James couldn't leave the pancakes he was making and just peaked out from the window.

A young woman in her twenties came striding towards the house as a few other passengers stepped off the helicopter. The young woman completely ignored James' master and entered the house.

After a few moments James could not be unaware that she had approached him and now stood just inside the kitchen door.

"You must be the other apprentice. Nice to meet you, my name is Violet."

She said immediately.

"Hi, Violet, my name is James. It is nice to meet you too."

Replying back James felt a little awkward as Johnson, who as the master should have been greeted first, walked back into his own house.

"Listen, I was briefed on everything. We have to split up the work of helping this senile old man, right?"

Violet gestured towards Johnson.

"Right, yes, I am happy to do whatever."

Agreeing with only part of her statement, James looked over at Johnson who gave him a wink and did a cranking motion. James had no idea what the cranking motion was supposed to mean, but if Johnson wanted to be thought of as senile it was his decision.

"Good, I heard that you don't have a beast of burden, but to tell you the truth I would prefer to do the house work. I am trained in such things. Can you tame a beast of burden? Or how do you feel about working with my beast of burden?"

Trying to work out a deal Violet was bluntly offering to make the house work her responsibility.

"Sure, I can work in the forest and process materials in the shed. And I am happy to work with any pet. I am not sure if I can tame any new pets currently..."

Trailing off James was happy to take the forest and the shed, both were where he felt he was likely to learn more.

"What about the lab downstairs?"

She seemed to know everything already, where James had to be led around by Johnson for two days just to start to understand.

"I can do the lab work, too. No problem."

Actually, James felt that now he was doing much more than half the work. But again he was feeling sort of happy to have the lab work too.

"Alright, I am going to take this room, too. You can have the apprentice quarters all to yourself."

Violet pointed to a room down the hall which she could see standing in the door of the kitchen. Then turned as three people as well as an assortment of critters came inside the kitchen. Johnson continued to try to speak with Violet, who completely ignored him the entire time.

"Oh, let me introduce you. These are my pets. Jojo, Kitty, and Rielly, they are evolved forms of the dog, cat, and rhinoceros. These others are not quite evolved to the same level, you can basically ignore them. Rielly will be your beast of burden. You will help James here out, won't you Rie?"

Only introducing the three people, Violet ignored all the animal pets.

"Yes, mistress, of course!"

Rie said in a monotone voice. There was absolutely no hint what her character might be like from her voice.

"Good, all that is settled. I can see you are cooking something, don't worry Jojo and Kitty will take over. Won't you girls?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

Jojo and Kitty both answer with much more enthusiasm.

James was absolutely stunned as he had never met a human pet before. As he openly stared he saw that they were not actually completely human. Both of them had the respective dog or cat ears and tail. But these were the only signs that they were anything but human.

"Ah, I can see that this is the first time you are seeing beast men. Aren't they wonderful?"

Violet said encouraging James to approach them.

First of all it was awkward to be pushed into talking to someone and second he didn't know how he felt about bossing individuals that looked just like humans around.

"Hi, it is nice to meet you!"

In his nervousness that was all that James could think to say.

"It is nice to meet you, too. I look forward to working with you."

Kitty said and bowed.

"Me, too! Do I smell pancakes?"

Jojo was less formal and more excited.

Both of them went directly back to the kitchen while Rielly stuck with James for a moment and then was called by Violet who had just commandeered one of Johnson's rooms.

"Rielly come move this radio out!"

She called and then both her and Reilly went to work completely rearranging her new room. They didn't ask Johnson where he wanted everything, Violet just found new spots around the house.

"Master, is this okay with you?"

James had learned he could ask his master pretty much anything.

"Yes, I am fine with being just a senile old man for now. I need more time before I get myself involved in anything. Once I do my life here will be over."

His master explained and then had to pause as his eyes became a little misty.

"But, don't worry about me. I know Violet and her pets will take good care of me. Come on let's go gather some materials in the forest. No need to stay around here and watch her make a mess of things!"

Johnson said and then headed out of the house.

The rest of the day was spent in gathering and processing materials. It was a painstaking process to learn everything that he needed to know. At a certain point Johnson went back to the house and left James to continue familiarizing himself with the forest and the processing shed. He still called it the processing shed, because that is what his master called it.

Before he left Johnson told him that starting the next day he would teach James the recipe for the light pill and the other assorted alchemy that they would need to run all the tech in the house for a week.

Victoria stayed in her room decorating now. James had a premonition that he wouldn't see much of her. But her pets were another matter, the animals came visiting individually that night to investigate him. Even Jojo and Kitty came down to the sub basement apprentice space to talk.

They didn't talk about anything consequential, but it was good to have someone to talk to. James was still amazed, talking to a pet vocally had never been even an idea in his imagination.

Jojo said.

"Only the highest levels of trainers could evolve a pet to the point where they could take human form."

Kitty, laughed at Jojo,

"She just says that to make herself sound more important. Violet is just rich. She comes from a rich family, right. It all comes from having the wealth to afford the top class evolution materials. Cats and dogs are really the only animals who can evolve into human shapes. They don't know the evolution paths for other pets. Oh, except for Rielly, she was an accident. Victoria wanted to make Rielly even stronger, but accidently gained the human shape skill."

"We can all take our normal forms when we want to. I like to sleep in my dog form."

Jojo said and transformed into a white terrier with a brown head and saddle on her back. She rubbed up against James' leg and it was pure habit to reach down and scratch her ears. 

"Oh, not fair!"

Kitty also transformed back into her cat form too, a grey with long hair and a white belly. 

James was just as familiar if not more familiar with cats and gave Kitty a scratch as well. He wasn't sure if it was appropriate to scratch them the way he would pet a normal dog and cat. But they definitely loved the experience.

Eventually they gave up and went away, back to their own master.

[Do you think they will hunt us?]

As soon as they were gone Wilbur showed up.

"No, at least not if I ask them not too, but I can't ask them not to, at least not right now. They will know that I have pet mice and right now I want to keep you guys a secret."

[Alright, boss. No worries, we want to stay as hidden as we can for as long as we can.]

Wilbur physically shrugged, it made him look really cute.

[Alright, I have to get back to taking care of my pups. Do you need anything tonight?]

"Yes, can you get me some of the moss? My master wants to run some tests."

[Sure, I will go get it now.]

Wilbur ran off and was back within a few moments with a little cloth bag filled with a few small clumps of moss.

"Oh, wait, one more thing! Don't mess around with the supply depot. I promise to figure out how to build one someday for you. Just for now, don't take anything from the forest or the depot. Okay?"

Remembering his worry, James asked Wilbur to hold off from stealing.

[You mean, that place at the bottom of the elevator?]

"Yes, that's right. I went down and back up several times today."

[Oh, no worries then. I told Kareen about it and she is excited to build one. So don't worry, we won't need to steal anything from your master!]

Wilbur reassured James.

However, James was confused. Kareen couldn't build the a supply depot in the mouse dungeon. It was not big enough for one. But also the mice didn't have the building experience or building knowledge to begin with.

The next day was going to be another long day of learning more about alchemy. It was nice to finally sleep in an actual bed after the last two nights of sleeping on the couch. The bed was not much better, it had fresh sheets but the apprentice lab was still had a lot of humidity. Water condensed and ran down the walls it was so humid. And there was a definite smell to the huge room that hadn't been entered for who knew how long. Shuddering James hoped that it hadn't been ten years! 

Tomorrow, I am going to have to go through and start cleaning this whole place.