Chương 68: Taking Stock

Geography class. I'm standing by, waiting for it. I've looked around the room, and nobody has any ID flags on them to let me know that they're playing a significant role here. Other than being living people with their own intrinsic value, history, backgrounds, families, rich inner landscape and tapestries of thought. Besides all that they're just not registering. The teacher got through the roll call and as each name was called out I fixed on each person present to make sure I did not miss anyone.

That's odd, though. I didn't see any tags. No romance partner in this timeslot? No love interest? In a way that's actually more disturbing to me, it means that the rules have unexplained exceptions. Consistency is where you can make a plan, exceptions are where you need contingencies. And just when I had gotten myself worked up into a state over that, the door opened and the unexpected happened again.

"Ah, class, it seems we've had a transfer from another class. Miss Roadaway, please take a seat near the middle of the room." Well, I was sitting near the middle of the room, and the only empty seat in the area was right next to me. And the girl walking towards me with her head bowed, was Belisa Roadaway. The one that I thought had been taken out of the game entirely when I handed her that box full of Kudder's blackmail information. And she had an identity flag over her head.

[Belisa Roadaway][Love Interest][Antagonist][The Broken] And you know what? I'm really at a loss to decide which part of this bothers me the most. The fact that she's still here? The fact that she's right here? The fact that she is not actually a double-love-interest like Kurumi? Or that her descriptor is "The Broken"? But... she kind of looked it. With her head hung forward and her bangs dangling over her eyes, her face looked blank and haunted.

Her hair, never quite styled or neat, was now just brushed straight and left that way. Her coat hung off her shoulders, the sleeves drooped over her hands. She looked shell-shocked, and it's still the first year of school. Even her bad ending doesn't have her look like this until second year. Broken. She sat, and stared down at her desktop. Her hands hung straight down, she did not even take her coat off. I glanced her way, and decided not to interrupt whatever was going on in her noggin. She was processing stuff.

Also, I suspected that if I made a sudden movement or sound near her she might start screaming. I had last seen her on Oneday, in the cafeteria. What the fuck had happened to her in the past forty-eight hours? An assassin. A ruthless. A healer, a professor, a huntress. And, The Broken. I'm starting to suspect that my love interest lineup is not really the sort of people that I would have picked given the chance.

Maybe, my role as a Rival and Antagonist might give me a selection that is a bit darker and bleaker than what Nathan attracts. He's got the Energetic Goofball and the Brash Tomboy and the Dutiful Princess, which casts a very different tenor than my options. Even Belisa is listed as a "Tragic Damsel", and she's got one of the darkest plotlines. Or Zauria, "Aloof and Stubborn". That's very different from "The Broken".

It's been a while since I cussed out the Goddess from the void for fucking with me and setting all this in motion. It might be time to bring that back. At lunch I was looking for Lere Lowyer, just in case she was one of my Antagonist Love Interests. She is an Antagonist, and she is still The Poisoner, but at least she's not goin to cozy up to me. She's cute, don't get me wrong, and she and I did hit it off when we were chatting at the Vuryta household back when I was ten years old.

Nathan was already thoroughly charmed by Curigi Ghant, his first crush, and he had been entirely blind to Lowyer, who had clearly been prepared and briefed to honeytrap him early. Well, they had spent the first ten years of her life teaching her to be the perfect bait for Nathan only to have her strike out immediately. But that does not mean that she goes away, she still has the rest of her life to live out. A long, lonely, bitter, angry life. And part of that life involves going to the Academy for school.

So now she's here, an Antagonist, and potentially a Pawn for me. But not a love interest. Well that's interesting, because lunch is considered to be one of the class periods for purposes of Nathan's class schedule. He's got an assigned love interest for this time slot, Kiri Sizomaji, after all. So where's - - No. I sat at my table, with my Mean Girl friends.

I was slowly coming to the painful comprehension that I'm not the "secretly nice girl undercover with the mean girls" character, and in fact I'm much more likely to be the ringleader whether I like to think of myself that way or not. Vancy was chatting about something vapid, Larianne was sitting all cool and dark and reserved.

Elica was slowly losing her train of thought, her monologue about someone she hated was tapering off, her voice fading slower and quieter as she stared at the heartthrob that was walking our way. [Yheta Snairlin][Love Interest][Antagonist][The Mafioso]"No," I said, staring. The game is shipping me with Yheta. Also, not to detract from that, but, "the mafioso"? He's in organized crime? I thought that he was being trained by his uncle the unscrupulous merchant with connections in - ooooooh I get it now.

Okay, That's one I should have seen for myself. For Nathan, Yheta's sister Filly is the Childhood Friend. But that's not how Yheta and I relate. I'm the Rival, he's the Mafioso. He sat down next to us, and Elica was all blushing and shy monosyllables, utterly charmed by his presence. I picked up the slack.

"Hello Yheta. You remember Elica, Vancy, and Larianne."

"Yeah, I do. I was wondering-""Yheta," I said gently.

"Please be polite to my friends." He had the grace to duck his head and look lightly abashed.

"You are quite right, Lady Harigold, I apologize. I was distracted and that is no excuse. How do you do, ladies? Miss Vancy, Miss Larianne. Lady Elica."

"We're doing great today Yheta!" Vancy answered for us.

"We just found out that Princess Lachel was secretly one of the influences behind that festival declaration that offended the Minor Houses!" Well, Vancy sat there while Elica and I made up that rumor right in front of her, but Vancy can be counted on to accept what she's told. Yheta raised an eyebrow.

"Really? That must not go well for her. The Federalists made hay drumming up offense at the way that proclamation shifted responsibility for transport expenses." Yheta, also, can be counted on not to think too critically about rumors that he hears.

"Anyway, ladies, I was wondering if any of you have any hot tips about which parties to avoid for these next few weeks. I've stumbled into shark-infested waters in the past, and the mentor that was helping to minimize my blunders graduated last term. My uncle gets really annoyed when I walk into the wrong reception and accidentally promise soft support for a particular family alliance, but he's not willing to reveal his sources to me yet."

Elica turned to me with hope glowing in her eyes but I was already on top of it.

"I'm developing a reputation for making my own rules, but I think that Elica has good sources," I said with what I hoped was bland matter-of-fact indifference.

"As a third-year you're much better at getting an off-campus pass for weekends, and if your invitations offer a plus-one you can help her get out of this stuffy old place as well." With her mouth closed and without making a move, Elica was releasing a high-pitched excited squeal. Yheta did not seem to notice it.

"That's a good suggestion. But won't you need a pass as well?" I smiled with lots of teeth.

"Yheta, it's me. The school would have to scribe a whole new set of barrier sigils around the entire fenceline to keep me from leaving. That is kind of my thing."

"I thought your thing was killing people?" Vancy looked confused.

"And getting away with it," Larianne added, smirking. Yheta looked around.

"Where are those Vendetta Vermin?"

"I call them the Byeview Boys, but I think I like yours better," I admitted, and craned my neck to see if I could find the pests that kept bothering me in public.

"Oh yeah that one guy, he's in my math class and history class and my lettering class," Vancy said.

"He's been counted absent all day today."

"Huh," I said, shrugging.

"Well, I can enjoy the peace and quiet. Yheta, is it all right if Lady Elica helps you pick which events to attend or dismiss, in exchange for sharing your exit pass?"

"If you're not going to need it-" he said cautiously. I laughed brightly. It had to sound fake, but none of these four were going to call me out on it.

"I'm going to come and go as I please. And I'm cultivating a reputation for recklessness, among other things. Not all of the choices I make are going to meet your uncle's approval. Most of them will, you'll see me out and about for sure. But it is best if you are not counting on me as your primary source." If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. I could see him calculating.

He knew that Elica and I spent a lot of time together, after all every time he saw me she was right there nearby. So he had to consider that staying near her would increase the odds that I will be nearby as well. And, well, it's not entirely inaccurate. I'm a lot more likely to attend a party that Yheta is at if I think that Elica will be there to blunt his presence a little. So the outcome of the assumption is correct, even if the reasons for it are a little askew. The Mafioso. This recontextualizes things.

Should I start looking to him when I need things in a more "organized crime" sort of vein? What even would that mean? I probably shouldn't worry about it. I'm sure I'll start finding out real soon. In my sorcery class, I was completely unsurprised to find out that the only person who regularly talks to me and makes an effort to reach out to me is the designated love interest for that time slot. But, I did find out that he's got a last name.

[Kimothy Ubohm][Love Interest][Antagonist][The Sorcerer] I'll bet all that information was available from Oneday on if I'd just looked for it. Toggling the Status tags is easy enough, I just had never bothered before. After all, for the first fifteen years of my life it only ever showed me my own stats. These new functions only opened up when the game started, on the first day of school.

"You did it again," he said, managing to sound both accusatory and amused at the same time.

"You're measurably stronger today than you were yesterday, and stronger again than you were on Oneday. You have a secret to share? Because everyone here would love to learn about it." He waved a hand across to indicate all the other students, most of whom were working on technique and practicing to get their gestures smooth, fast, precise and controlled.

"Well, if you must know I've been doing some adventuring on my downtime," I said.

"It's why you never see me in the game room after study hall." Kimothy chuckled indulgently.

"Ah yes, the well-known path to power, treasure hunting. Hm, you don't strike me as a thief-taker or patrolling vigilante, what's your angle?"

"Monster hunter," I said blandly. He started to laugh, but stopped. I was hoping that if I said something strange and unbelievable with a flat and blunt tone, he would treat it as a bad joke that fell flat, but that only worked for a second. Almost immediately, he seized on the understanding that I had not been making a joke.

"Where do you even find monsters to hunt?" he said.

"This is completely pacified lands! It's been human-controlled for centuries!"

"You have to know where to look," I hedged. He could see that I was hedging. I could tell that he wanted to push for more information. Instead of taking this to a difficult place, he backed off a bit.

"And adventuring? That is how you've been making these strides?" I nodded.

"Honest. Harigold honor," I said, raising a hand as if taking a pledge at court. Kimothy conjured a recliner out of fog and leaned back on it, solidifying it into real cushions.

"Hmm. There is a long-documented link between adventuring, and great power among warriors, mages and scouts. I think the general consensus is that people who have remarkably great powers will be compelled to test their limits in unconventional ways. There's only so much you can do in a normal lab or shooting range, after a time you want to find out what you can do against large, powerful opponents.

Wouldn't it be an upset of the conventional wisdom if we had a causal link, that adventuring does create greater power?"

"I don't know if it works that way for everyone," I said with perfect honesty, "but so far it's been working that way for me." He could tell that I'm holding back a lot. For the zillionth time I'm wondering why I haven't been spending skill points on Deception.

"And another big jump tomorrow?" he prompted.

"Gods willing," I said with a smile. But probably not much more than that. The game does not grant XP for killing monsters under your level, after all, it's real easy to advance yourself out of a job as an adventurer. And, each level takes more XP to progress, as well! Harigold Glitter was not meant for players to jump in and fight their way to fame and fortune, slaying foes until great power is within reach. It's just not that kind of game.

The XP mechanic for combat is kind of tacked on as an afterthought to make it appeal to a larger audience. You can tag your game in more categories if there's a combat-progression mechanic. So the higher my level got, the fewer of the monsters I could even get any XP from, and the more I'd have to do to get any XP at all. And it still takes only several thrown rocks to kill me, after all. I got beaten two-thirds dead in camogie practice yesterday, for pity's sake!

"Well, now I'll have to be jealous," Kimothy said, as the chair floated upwards with him in it.

"You're getting a lot stronger, which was what you wanted, and you're not having to give up any of that variability and versatility for it. And until we figure out how to extend those benefits to others, you're the only one."

"You seem to be firmly convinced that is a 'when' issue and not an 'if', I said, floating up alongside him to match his movements.

"Of course I am!" he laughed, leaning back deeper into his cloud chair.

"I've got Lady Natalie Harigold on the job! Discoverer, adventurer, inventor, sorceress, world-traveler! She does the impossible and makes you wonder why you didn't do it first!" And then he sat up, folding down the footrest, and got a lot more serious very quickly.

"Also, it's very important that we get this. The changes you could make would bring sorcery up to the same level as the other brands of magic. If the average sorcerer could conjure steel, air, silk and fire, we wouldn't have to sit at the back of the room. We'd be eligible to enter the magister's college. We'd get decent pay scales for our work. We could show the world that even if our magic doesn't have permanent effects, or if can't affect something miles away or move thousands of tons of earth...

we still have real magic." Kimothy had a pang of regret there, and I flinched a little. Kimothy had been practicing as a scrivener, to be a highly respected mage with a real promotion track in front of him. And then he developed sorcery powers and it derailed everything. His scrivening was set back, nearly useless, and his chances of ever seeing a high office or real importance was gone.

He could no longer label magic with symbols and names and charts, he was seeing it as essences, associations, nebulous hazes that turned into ultimate truths. It is impossible to move from truths to facts. Hell, I'm probably the highest-titled sorcerer in the kingdom. And certainly one of the most dangerous, if not the most powerful. But nobody is ever going to compare me to any wizard, scrivener, or magister. Not in any positive association, that is.

The greatest of sorcerers is still known to be less than the least of wizards. Partly because we just fall into it. Nobody goes to school to become a sorcerer, nobody has to work towards it. It's easy come, easy go. Oh, you have to practice a lot to get good at it, like I have, to shape the spells cleanly on the first try. But getting that first foot in? One day you just wake up and you know that magic is made of spirit and embodiment, transcendent ethos and fundamental abstracts.

Sorcery doesn't happen to people who want it, or to people who think they deserve it. You can't force your way into it and demand it. There cannot be a price put on it, there cannot be an exchange made for it. So when it comes time for the world to put a price tag on what we can do, the world shrugs its shoulders and chucks us into the discount bin. Unless we, sorcerers, got strong enough to set our own wages, make our own price tag. But for that, we need to understand me.

If we could understand my condition, if we could replicate my condition, then sorcery would be almost as useful as the other forms of magic. I watched the professor, Magister Braux. She turned, saw me staring, and grimaced. She's been trying, but none of her research seems to match up to what makes me unique. Every new avenue is a dead end, there's just no answers. Some day.