《Chainbreaker: The Alteriad Chronicles, Book 1》


 Chapter 1: Daily Allotment

    Tarren swung the pick hard into the rock wall, ignoring the rough wood digging painfully into his palms. The pick sheared more deeply into the stone than brute strength alone would allow, and a large chunk of rock crashed into his collector.


    Alteriad... v31.391.338


    Quota [Daily Mining]... Met!


    > Experience Gained: 0.003%


    > Skill [Miner > Shear Stone] has advanced to 62.8%!


    > Trait [Greater Endurance] has advanced to 21.2%!


    > Trait [Discomfort Tolerance] has advanced to 58.6%!


    > Authenticate your daily contributions at the nearest node to receive your allotted mana!


    The text pulsed briefly in his vision before fading away as Tarren rested his pick on the tunnel floor. All around him, workers also finishing their daily quotas were leaning against walls, breathing heavily, or even sitting slumped on the ground.


    ¡°You nearly done?¡± Tarren asked after a minute. The steady rhythm of the pick to his right didn¡¯t slow as its bearer huffed out


    ¡°Damn... you... and... your... greater... endurance¡±


    Tarren tried to chuckle, but the sound turned into a cough leaving his parched throat. Rhys still hadn¡¯t let that go, though it had been almost a year since the unexpected upgrade.


    Finally, after another quarter hour. Rhys groaned in triumph and dropped his pick too, slumping to the tunnel wall beside Tarren.


    ¡°You¡¯d think it¡¯d eventually get easier.¡± Rhys groaned, after his breathing had stabilized. ¡°What with us doing this every damn day.¡±


    ¡°Would you?¡± Tarren asked.


    ¡°No.¡± Rhys said, darkly. ¡°I just wish it would.¡±


    The two rose and trudged down the tunnel, passing by workers still attempting to meet their quota, heading to the center of the sprawling labyrinth that was Miner¡¯s Rest. As the tunnels widened into caverns and the sounds of smashing picks faded to the murmurs of the populace, they passed a man eagerly preaching to a crowd of hopeful, destitute looking young men and women.


    ¡°It is not out of reach! If you work hard enough, if you have faith, you too can evolve your class! You too can grow through these tribulations towards glory! Glory for your name, for your clan, and for the Alteriad!¡±


    The bustling crowd surrounding him cheered at his words, before the man continued.


    ¡°And the first step on that path is here once again, my friends! The army is calling on all Miners to join the trials for the next generation of Sappers! Nothing will grow your class more than reaping the lives of the Horde through military service!¡±


    The crowd cheered again, many eagerly calling out their intent to enlist. At the man¡¯s sermon, Rhys¡¯s face had descended into even greater darkness, but Tarren knew better than to dredge up old trauma.


    As they finally entered the city proper, the harsh rock walls of the tunnels fell away to reveal the large, bowl-like cavern that housed the majority of the populace. Ramshackle homes and shops climbed up the sloping cavern walls like a strange lichen, and swinging rope walkways criss-crossed the air around them, connecting houses across different levels and positions along the walls.. Soft orange light blanketed the sprawling, mess of a city, the responsible glowstones anchored into the ceiling far above. But despite all of that chaos, and despite the milling crowds, the Node was still visible.


    It stood in the center of the cavern---a tall, thin spike of shining silver that emanated a harsh, white aura in stark contrast to the soft patina offered by the glowstones. A long line already snaked away from the Node, but Tarren and Rhys didn¡¯t complain as they joined the end of the queue.


    Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    ¡°Hoping for anything good today?¡± Tarren asked, hoping to pull Rhys out of his dark thoughts.


    Rhy snorted disdainfully, glancing at Tarren. ¡°Yeah, right. Like I¡¯d bother to hope for anything good next to Mr. Spontaneous Upgrades over here.¡± He said, sarcastically.


    ¡°Oh, come on. That happened one time!¡± Tarren protested good-naturedly. This was a well-trod argument. A safe argument.


    ¡°Twice! At least!¡± Rhys countered. ¡°I was stuck at Deficient Discomfort Tolerance a whole 3 months longer than you!¡±


    ¡°Everyone gets Discomfort Tolerance at around 65%. It¡¯s practically guaranteed.¡± Tarren scoffed. ¡°Mine just happened earlier because I had to work the prior three weeks with two broken toes! You really want to trade places there?¡±


    ¡°Fair point.¡± Rhys said, grinning. ¡°But I¡¯d never get stuck in such a situation, as I¡¯d never drop a rock on my foot.¡±


    ¡°My pick slipped!¡± Tarren said. ¡°It could¡¯ve happened to anyone.¡±


    The pair continued to bicker as they approached the Node, until finally the last of the tired workers in front of them had received their allotment.


    ¡°You want--?¡± Tarren started to ask, but before he could finish the question, Rhys darted in front of him, his good humor apparently restored.


    ¡°I¡¯ve got first!¡± he said, slapping a palm to the node. He stiffened slightly as he made contact, muscles all tensing at once as the Node examined him. Then, his eyes brightened and he turned back around, grinning.


    ¡°Finally!¡± He said, ¡°I came out ahead for once.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯d you get?¡± Tarren asked, curiously. ¡°An endurance upgrade?¡±


    ¡°Nope! This might be even better.¡± Rhys said happily. ¡°I got Stone Sight!¡± he continued, eyes growing unfocused as he read. ¡°It¡¯s a perception ability that lets me see weak points in the stone and identify areas where there are likely to be denser pockets of ore! If I play it right, this should majorly cut down on how long it takes to hit my quota each day.¡±


    ¡°I see, I see.¡± Tarren said, feigning a contemplative expression. ¡°That makes a lot of sense for you.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± Rhys asked, wary.


    ¡°Well, it is only natural that you¡¯d get an upgraded ability for finding ways to do less work.¡± Tarren said, still feigning seriousness.


    ¡°You know. Because you¡¯re lazy.¡± He finished.


    ¡°Ha ha.¡± Rhys said, drolly. ¡°Very funny. Maybe you¡¯ll get an ability to offer you an actual sense of humor this time.¡±


    ¡°Unlikely¡± Tarren said, mirth fading as he stepped up to the Node. ¡°The Alteriad never gives anything away for free.¡±


    Then, without waiting for a response, he slapped his own hand onto the Node. As always, time seemed to slow slightly as the Node scanned him and words unspooled in his vision.


    Alteriad... v31.391.338


    > Node A5139C.FE2490.000451


    > Allotment Assessment


    Daily Allotment... Confirmed!


    Units:


    > Stone [Subtype - FE4288.5531A9] - 175.5% of Daily Quota


    > Stone [Subtype - 35AD12.88123F] - 138.6% of Daily Quota


    > Stone [Non-quota Subtypes] - 0.85 RU


    > Ore [Subtype - 48F2DD.9035F8] - 101.2 % of Daily Quota


    Allotment Allocated: 104.8% MDM


    Granting


    As the text finished unspooling, Tarren felt energy rush through his limbs, the purified Alteriad Mana quenching his parched cells, repairing and strengthening muscles, and easing the weariness and stress from his mind. His hunger and thirst from the day¡¯s labor faded down to manageable levels as mana pushed aside the necessity of biological fuel. He felt the familiar rush of pleasure that accompanied the sensation, and, as always, did his best to push it aside. Mana addicts were all too present, and that was a road he was determined to stay away from.


    The extra chunk of mana beyond his minimum daily requirements for basic subsistence went into his core, filling up the slowly churning ball of energy in his midriff. His core was, like everyone¡¯s here, a pitiful thing, and the extra mana he gained on a day-to-day basis would inevitably be spent on other expenses.


    He was disappointed at the lack of upgrades, but he hadn¡¯t really expected any different. However, as he moved to pull his hand off the Node, another flash of energy passed through him, and more text unspooled below the allotment message.


    Karmic Balance Flag Triggered


    Assessing...


    > Lesser Boon Selected.


    > Analyzing...


    Karmic Boon (lesser) Awarded!


    > Boon: Static 2 Level and Permanent 2.5% Increase (Full) to Auxiliary Characteristic - Intelligence


    > Boon acceptance... NA


    > Allocating...


    As he read the last word, another surge of energy washed through him, alighting his world in pain.


    When his vision cleared, Tarren found he was lying on his back in front of the pillar, Rhys standing over him, gently slapping his face.


    ¡°Tarren! Tarren, talk to me!¡± He said, voice ringing in Tarren¡¯s splitting head. His eyes were wild and panicked.


    ¡°I¡¯m ok...¡± Tarren choked out.


    ¡°What happened?¡± Rhys said worriedly as he helped Tarren to his feet.


    ¡°I... I got a lesser boon.¡± Tarren said, voice still hoarse as he thought through the implications.


    ¡°What?! Why?¡± Rhys asked, concerned.


    ¡°Karmic Balance.¡± Tarren said.


    Rhys stared at Tarren, eyes widening in horror, as Tarren was sure the same thought ran through both their minds. The Alteriad gave nothing away for free, and no matter how much this boon would give him, Tarren was sure he didn¡¯t want to pay its cost.

 A Family鈥檚 Shame

    Much of the walk back towards their quarter was spent in silence. Rhys tried to lighten the mood several times, but his heart wasn¡¯t in it. The last time someone in their neighborhood had received such a boon, it had been two days before his mining company had been transferred to the pits. The lot of them had died on their fourth excursion to the depths, boon or no. The family members of several of the dead had shortly thereafter received boons of their own; the Alteriad¡¯s strange justice balancing the scales.


    So, it was with no small amount of relief when Tarren pushed his way back into his family¡¯s home, only to find them all present and seemingly well. His father, a tall, broad-shouldered man whose imposing frame was undercut by his gaunt, lined face, graying hair, and missing right arm, stood tending a kettle over their shared hearth. His mother stood in the corner, her narrow face animated and fierce eyes flashing as she murmured into a speaking stone, doubtless coordinating some aspect of the city¡¯s civilian leadership. And, his brother, Albon, lounged at the table before one of the cups, a wry grin alight on his face.


    Tarren glanced back out the still open door, spotting Rhys standing anxiously in the street where they¡¯d parted. Giving his friend a relieved smile, Tarren waved him on, and Rhys¡¯s shoulders loosened. He returned the grin before disappearing into the throng, heading to his own, much emptier abode.


    Tarren closed the door firmly and took a seat at the table, claiming another empty mug.


    ¡°What¡¯s got you down, brother?¡± Albon asked, jovial as always.


    ¡°I...¡± Tarren started to say, but something about the normalcy of the scene before him froze the words in his mouth.


    ¡°... Nothing.¡± He finished, lamely, before conjuring a smile instead. It came surprisingly easily in the light of their small home. ¡°Just a long day.¡±


    ¡°Well, those stones won¡¯t mine themselves!¡± Albon said, smirking.


    Tarren thought of needling his brother for the comment, but put it aside. The fact that Albon¡¯s class had never upgraded from that of an Unskilled Laborer to a Miner, like Tarren¡¯s and their father¡¯s had, oscillated between a source of great shame for his brother and a point of pride. Tarren inwardly thought it much more often the former than the latter, whatever Albon said about his class being reserved for something greater than a common stone breaker.


    Instead, he asked, ¡°And you? You seem happy, tonight, even for you.¡±


    Their father, stoic as ever, poured hot water into each of the tea mugs, before sitting down himself. The stump of his right arm, missing below the elbow, flexed as he did so, the phantom hand still reaching for the arm of the chair as he sat.


    ¡°Good eye!¡± Albon said, ¡°I have a surprise. Good news, to be sure.¡± He paused, then shrugged slightly. ¡°Well, I will have a surprise. Soon.¡± He allowed. ¡°But it¡¯s big!¡± He added, excitedly.


    ¡°Have you finally found a way to advance your class, then?¡± Tarren¡¯s mother asked, sitting down herself at the remaining chair. ¡°Even a moderate increase in the allotment for the family would make a big difference, Albon.¡± She added, brusque and unfiltered as always.


    Tarren didn¡¯t miss how his younger brother¡¯s eyes flashed at the comment, a hint of shame flushing his cheeks, but Albon didn¡¯t let it show in his voice.


    ¡°I think so, Mother. But only time, and the grace of the Alteriad, will tell.¡± He said, meeting her eyes defiantly.


    His father grunted at that. Of their family, only Albon held at all to the tenets of the Alteriad, a tension that had only grown after his father lost his arm in a tunnel collapse. But, it was a well-trod argument, and for once his mother seemed content to let it slide.


    Instead, she took a careful sip of tea, movements precise and intentioned.


    ¡°I have news.¡± She said. ¡°In five days time, there will be a city-wide assembly for the lower Classes. Broadcast at each of the outer rim node-stations. Attendance is mandatory.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡± His father asked, deep voice rumbling.


    ¡°I... I don¡¯t know.¡± His mother replied, frowning slightly.


    ¡°They didn¡¯t tell the labor council?¡± Tarren asked, surprised.


    ¡°Clearly not, else I would know.¡± His mother snapped in reply, irritated both at her ignorance and his useless question, Tarren was sure.


    ¡°Enough of that!¡± Albon said, before the conversation could drift further from his desired topic. ¡°In preparation for my upcoming surprise...¡± he said, meeting all of their eyes, their mother¡¯s exasperation sliding off his jubilant mood effortlessly, ¡°I have a smaller surprise!¡± He finished, pulling a small wrapped package out of his robes.


    He laid the package down on the table, and carefully undid the twine covering its paper wrappings, before pulling the folds apart. Inside, cut neatly into four pieces, was a single piece of fruit. Its pinkish skin and yellow, glistening interior a stark contrast to the plain grays of their stone home.


    Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    ¡°Albon!¡± His mother barked, surprised and angry. ¡°Where... how did you get this!¡±


    Their father, too, scowled and turned away. Tarren could only groan internally. He just hoped Albon hadn¡¯t done something truly foolish, like stolen the fruit.


    ¡°Relax, mother!¡± Albon said, scowling in turn at their parents. ¡°I¡¯m not a fool. This was paid for. True and proper.¡± Their mother opened her mouth, but Albon overrode her, ¡°And not out of my allotment! It was a gift. I wouldn¡¯t have wasted any of our precious mana on such a superfluous purchase.¡± He added, sarcastically, though all at the table knew that was exactly something Albon would do.


    ¡°Who would give you such a gift? What did they want from you in return?¡± Their mother pressed, worry creasing her eyes.


    ¡°A friend, Mother. Someone who will help me find my path, and realize my true Class.¡± Albon said, gently.


    ¡°Did this come from the church? The merchant council? The m--¡± She questioned, ignoring Albon¡¯s deflection, but then Terran¡¯s father interrupted.


    ¡°Enough. Done is done. Enjoy your gift, Albon.¡±


    ¡°It is for us all, father! I got it to share!¡± Albon said. But despite his pleading tone, his father did not relent.


    ¡°Had you truly found a gift for the family, I would share it with you gladly. But all I see here are more chains, and empty promises. I will suffice on my allotment.¡± he said, coldly.


    Albon¡¯s hopeful face broke at once into a petty, ugly scowl. ¡°Fine, then. Enjoy your tea.¡± He spat, and before anyone could say another word, he swept the fruit and wrapper alike back off the table and stormed out the door.


    Tarren sat with his parents in silence for a moment, the tension rebounding in the empty room. Eventually, his mother turned to him, and sighed. ¡°Can you go after him, Terran? Keep him out of any more trouble?¡±


    ¡°Sure.¡± Terran said, standing. He didn¡¯t feel in the mood for tea, now, anyways.


    It didn¡¯t take long for Terran to find Albon. His brother sat nestled on a flat roof high along the cavern wall, three streets down from their family¡¯s home. It was a favorite spot of his, and as Tarren completed the short climb up to his level and sat down beside him, he had to admit the spot had its charms. The city sprawled beneath them, opening up with the cavern, sparkling lights of glowstones casting the entire scene in flickering tones of orange and white. From this spot, even the distant towers in the Inner ring were visible, the metal spires and wooden manors like palaces of myth and legend next to the rough stone cubes dotting the outer districts.


    Albon licked some final bit of juice from his fingers as the two sat.


    ¡°Ate the whole thing already, did you?¡± Tarren asked, after a moment. ¡°Maybe your true class should be a Glutton.¡±


    Albon scoffed and pulled the crumpled paper from his robes once more, the two remaining slices of fruit still glistening. Tarren plucked one from the wrappings and put it into his mouth. His taste buds abruptly exploded with flavor, sweetness so intense it nearly hurt and a hint of something sharper biting at his mouth as he chewed. Though the flesh of the fruit was tender, his jaw muscles still complained at the unusual exercise. Actual food was not a luxury their family could afford, not when their daily Mana allotments were sustenance enough.


    Terran sighed as he swallowed the fruit, grinning despite himself.


    ¡°It¡¯s good, right?¡± Albon said, smiling genuinely at Tarren¡¯s reaction.


    Tarren just nodded, still trying to savor whatever remained of the taste in his mouth.


    ¡°Go on,¡± Albon said, gesturing at the wrapping. ¡°You know they won¡¯t eat it now. Mother might have, had father...  but now, no.¡± Grinning despite the topic, he continued ¡°Otherwise I¡¯ll just gobble it up like the glutton I am.¡±


    This time, it was Tarren¡¯s turn to snort, but he did take the final piece of fruit. He ate it slowly, trying to make the taste last as long as possible. But still, in no time at all, the fruit was gone, and he was relegated to licking for any lost juices on his fingertips just like Albon had.


    ¡°They worry about you, you know.¡± Tarren said, finally, breaking the companionable silence. ¡°That¡¯s all it is. They just want you safe. Able to sustain yourself. To survive.¡± He added, though he knew the reminder of the days when Albon, stuck as a basic Laborer, failed to meet his daily allotment haunted his brother.


    ¡°Ha!¡± Albon laughed derisively, without mirth. ¡°So you mean there isn¡¯t any thinly veiled shame? Shame at my inability to rise to the somehow exalted position of an Advanced Laborer? Of a Miner, like you and Father? So I too can lose a limb in the mines, or die in the pits? Or maybe so I can be lucky and slowly waste away from lungrot?¡±


    He angrily swatted a piece of chipped stone off the roof, watching as it clattered down to the cavern floor below.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to be a Laborer any more than they want me to be. But is it so bad I don¡¯t spend all my days trying futilely to get a Miner¡¯s class? Or a Builder¡¯s? I went through the choosing just like anyone. The fact that I didn¡¯t receive a class isn¡¯t any fault of mine. I want... I deserve... more. We all do. I¡¯m just willing to go out and look for it!¡± He finished, hotly.


    Tarren could tell he had practiced this explanation. Repeated it to himself on sleepless nights, after he had snuck back out to the Node, to try, once again, to elevate his class. Or worse, on nights when only his father¡¯s reputation, or his mother pulling strings, had saved him from some ill-fated scheme or other. But Tarren didn¡¯t push him on it. Nor did he deny their family¡¯s shame.


    ¡°Still. They worry.¡± He said, instead.


    ¡°Hmpf.¡± Albon snorted, in reply, but didn¡¯t refute the point.


    ¡°Come on.¡± Tarren said, eventually, pushing himself to his feet wearily. ¡°We should get back.¡±


    ¡°You go on ahead.¡± Albon said, staring at the city, eyes still hard and angry. ¡°I¡¯m going to sit here a while longer.¡±


    Tarren hesitated, but Albon spurred him on. ¡°Don¡¯t worry. I¡¯m not about to do something stupid. I already have my surprise, remember? I just... I need some time. To think.¡±


    Tarren hesitated, but ultimately, he knew he needed rest. Unlike his brother, whose work came in fits and starts, determined only by the daily offers to the pool of Unclassed Laborers, he had a quota for tomorrow. And his bones already ached for sleep. So, turning away from Albon, he returned to their family¡¯s home, and fell asleep under his thin blanket as the waning glowstones flickered in the street beyond.

 A So-called Boon

    The next morning, on the first day after the boon, Tarren left his home tired and sore. Alteriad System Messages blinked in his vision as he moved towards his designated tunnel in a haze. Wearily toggling his messages on, he skimmed their contents.


    Alteriad... v31.391.339


    > Citizen Record


    Name: Tarren Hicyanel


    Class: Miner (Level 8, 24%)


    Attributes:


    > Strength:   8 (41%)


    > Coordination: 5 (89%)


    > Intelligence:  9 (24%)


    > Perception:  5 (36%)


    > Endurance:  8 (23%)


    > Vitality:  2 (11%)


    > Toughness:  2 (8%)


    Traits:


    > [Greater Endurance] 21.2%


    > [Discomfort Tolerance] 58.6%


    Skills:


    > [Miner > Shear Stone] 62.8%


    > [Miner > Basic Pickaxe Proficiency] 100%


    > [Miner > Basic Low-light Perception] 100%


    > Daily Assignment Release


    MDM Requirement: [Up 26.5%]


    Daily Quota:  [Up 32.3%]


    Tunnel Assignment: 62B.323


    It took his mind a moment to register the numbers, but as he reached the end of the message, he swore roughly and stopped, ignoring the mutters from the passersby on the busy causeway.


    His quota had increased by 32.3% over just one day! Where had that come from?


    He was confused for only a minute, though, before realization crashed over him. The Alteriad gave nothing away for free, truly. Even ignoring the cost he was sure was coming, now that his intelligence was higher -- higher by a margin that would normally take a year or more to achieve -- it saw him as more capable of his work, and so required more of him. And all despite the fact that he had no skills, no manner in which to make use of his increased characteristic to improve his mining output! A neater trap he could not have imagined.


    Tarren spent that day in a near fugue state, an endless blur of swinging pick and shearing stone. He skipped their daily breaks; only taking the time to gulp down a swallow of water before returning to work, but despite it all, as the day neared its end, he could only gaze in despair at his numbers. Though he had worked as hard and fast as he could, without staying for hours more each night, he¡¯d never meet his new quota.


    Tarren had more than half a mind to do just that, the dangers prowling the dark tunnels at night be damned, but Rhys at last pulled him from his mania.


    ¡°Tarren!¡± He nearly yelled, shaking Tarren until he lowered his pick and came back to himself. ¡°You have to stop. Give it up for tonight. Everyone else is gone! The glowstones are nearly out.¡±


    As Tarren¡¯s eyes cleared, traveling around the empty tunnel, the pain in his hands and arms finally registering to his overwrought mind, Rhys¡¯s tone softened.


    ¡°Your family can spare a few day¡¯s allotments, until you find your feet with the new quota. Knowing you, you¡¯ll get it in no time.¡±


    But as they hurriedly marched home, out of the fading light of the barren tunnels, Tarren¡¯s mind still whirled on thoughts of the cost yet unpaid for his so-called boon, and visions of his family starving in the street plagued him.


    At the Node station, Tarren endured the sense of shame and guilt that rushed through him when it pronounced his output insufficient and granted him nothing. The much stronger shame, of explaining to his family his failure, he avoided, taking only a little tea before crawling to bed, insides already aching from hunger.


    The second day after the boon passed much the same for Tarren. He finished his day of work even farther from his quota than before, though he could¡¯ve sworn that, when his mind wasn¡¯t clogged in hunger or tiredness, he had finally begun to notice some benefit of his new characteristic. At times, he felt that he was able to understand the stone around him better. Understand its myriad patterns,, the movement of his mana as his pick connected with the wall, all of it. That if he just had more information, more insight, then maybe his new intelligence could help him mine faster, more efficiently. Fast enough, perhaps, to match his quota.


    He described as much to Rhys, to which the other man only frowned thoughtfully, as though contemplating something, but in the end Tarren went home hungry yet again. This time, on insistence from Rhys, and with the heavy knowledge that he would only do worse operating on an even greater deficit of mana, he told his family of his missed quota. Still hesitant to explain about the boon, he merely said that his quota had increased unexpectedly, and he hadn¡¯t yet found a way to meet it. Despite the ensuing shouting match between Albon and their father, centered on whether or not the Alteriad truly did only provide challenges that could be overcome, his confession had the desired effect. His mother tapped an allotment and a half out of their limited stores for his use, filling his tired cells with energy once again.


    If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    ¡°Don¡¯t hold back on such matters in the future.¡± She told him, gently, as he slumped in the chair at their table. ¡°It will do us no good if you drop from exhaustion in the tunnels.¡±


    But he didn¡¯t miss the worried way she looked at their dwindling savings of Mana.


    The third day after the boon, fresh now on new Mana, Tarren resolved to do better. Somehow.


    And as though the Alteriad really were looking out for him, as Albon claimed, soon enough a solution did present itself.


    ¡°I¡¯ve got an idea.¡± Rhys said, as they approached their designated work area that morning. ¡°I think it can solve your problem, and help both of us beyond that to boot.¡±


    Tarren gave him a sidelong glance. ¡°Oh, yeah? How so?¡±


    ¡°So, I know this probably hasn¡¯t been on your mind, since your... boon... and all, but do you recall that new ability I got?¡± Rhys asked. At Tarren¡¯s guilty look, he hurried on, ¡°No, no--don¡¯t worry about it. There¡¯s been a lot on your mind. But here¡¯s the thing; it really hasn¡¯t been as useful for me as I¡¯d hoped. My speed has only improved marginally. It¡¯s a perception ability, and while I have a bit of lead on most in that regard, my ability to use what the new ability tells me is... lacking.¡±


    Tarren raised an eyebrow at his friend, the admission surprising given the other man¡¯s tendencies. But Rhys continued before he could get a word in.


    ¡°See, I was initially hoping it would just sort of... tell me, you know ¡®Strike here!¡¯ and ¡®Ore there!¡¯, but it doesn¡¯t. It just gives me a sort of passive sense for what the composition of the stone likely is, layers of density and mana flow, projections a few inches deep beyond the wall. Sometimes it''s helpful, other times, it''s just confusing. I¡¯m sure I¡¯ll get there eventually, but for now...¡± He shrugged, and trailed off.


    ¡°But your boon...¡± he continued, as they navigated a steep tunnel descent into the final stretch of their area.


    ¡°My boon gives me the ability to work with that information!¡± Tarren finished, catching on, some hope kindling in his chest. ¡°But how does that really help?¡± He asked, a moment later, his hopes sputtering in his chest. ¡°I can¡¯t see what you see.¡±


    ¡°... I don¡¯t know.¡± Rhys admitted. ¡°That¡¯s where I got stuck too. But I think it''s solvable. Worst case scenario, we could always try to get a loan or save up the mana for a skill transfer crystal--¡± He began, before Tarren cut him off


    ¡°Absolutely not! That¡¯d be incredibly expensive, and I¡¯m not taking your skill besides.¡±


    ¡°Or¡± Rhys continued, loudly, as though Tarren hadn¡¯t said anything, ¡°we could try to see if we can make something work through more mundane means. Maybe we can find a way for me to look for the right patterns -- patterns you describe for me -- for us to follow to accelerate both of our work. That¡¯s where I think we should start, in any case.¡±


    Their plan had a few false starts. At first, both their speeds suffered greatly, and Tarren worried that this scheme would cost them both their daily allotment, rather than just him. But Rhys insisted they keep at it. He would point at a section of the tunnel wall and describe what his new skill told him. Tarren would point at a few areas he felt they should try, then they would mine furiously for slow moments, then re-assess. At first, Tarren just felt like he was guessing, randomly aligning the slight whispers his heightened intellect fed him to the information Rhys described. But slowly, over the course of the day, their speed improved. They found more and more pockets of high-value ore, and had to cut through less of the surrounding stone. Finally, just as the end of the day approached, they stumbled upon a thick vein of ore, nestled deep behind part of a wall of thicker granite, but accessible off the side of another area they had mined, and Rhys at last met his quota when hollowing it out. Tarren, too, found himself closer than he¡¯d dared hope, but still a painful 11% short of his mark.


    His mother¡¯s face as she drained more Mana from their stores cut more deeply than the failure.


    The fourth day after the Boon, Tarren and Rhys struck a fortune.


    Their day began as normal, rhythm progressing in speed and accuracy as they both learned how to better combine their separate skills. Then, Tarren began to notice a strange pattern. As they carved out more of the tunnel wall, a snaking chasm of stone became more and more defined in his senses. Thin lines where the stone had density and mana conductivity differing sharply from the surrounding rock, subtle, at first, but more and more apparent as Tarren directed their mining ever further from their assigned path.


    ¡°Are you sure about this?¡± Rhys asked, as Tarren again directed his friend to keep mining down. Their slow excavation had diverged from their source tunnel markedly, now, and their ore quotas were painfully low.


    Tarren hesitated, glancing at his numbers, but his conviction firmed, new intelligence prickling. ¡°I¡¯m sure. There¡¯s something off about the stone just below us and ahead. If what your skill is telling you is accurate...¡± He trailed off, not wanting to get his hopes up, instead beginning his own mining opposite Rhys.


    Ten minutes later, they struck the first patch of Shard. Tarren didn¡¯t know what the substance was, truly -- the system just called it ¡°Crystalline Essence Precipitate 93A43B¡± -- but everyone in Miner¡¯s rest called it Shard. The sharp, brittle, obsidian-black crystals were rare, but could only be found in deep Ebonsteel mines like those surrounding Miner¡¯s Rest. They were hard to map out from any significant distance away and were extremely valuable, for reasons nobody seemed to understand, save that the System paid far and above daily rates for their acquisition.


    And Tarren and Rhys had just found a patch larger than any that had been seen outside the Pits in over 10 years.


    Their first breakthrough into the crystal vein, of course, didn¡¯t reveal the extent of the patch. But it was as though the vein would never end. Every new stone they broke shattered to reveal glittering Shard lining its interior.


    They were ecstatic. Even as the system tallied their finds, their quotas both suddenly jumping up to 100%, then 200%, then higher, they kept mining. Mapping out and segmenting the extent of the vein.


    When a particularly large patch fell from the wall in front of them, Rhys snagged a broken tip that had shattered from the pick¡¯s strike and thrust it at Tarren.


    ¡°Look at it!¡± He practically yelled, eyes alight and frenzied. ¡°I knew it! I knew we could make it work!¡± He laughed again as he grabbed a handful of the loose crystal shards that had fallen to the floor.


    Tarren could only laugh along with him.


    In short order, they had alerted their section supervisor, who had congratulated both for the find before calling in dedicated survey teams to map out the seam. Tarren and Rhys would receive a fraction of the expected value of the entire seam, as it was their discovery, but the whole company would benefit from this find, so it was with light steps that they eventually headed back towards the city that evening, a crowd of pleased miners on their heels.


    Even though Tarren knew that their find was still mostly luck -- despite his new intelligence and Rhys¡¯s skill, Shard seams were common only in the depths of the pits -- he couldn¡¯t help but grin anew as he squeezed the small, thumb-sized tip of the Shard crystal Rhys had snagged when they¡¯d first made the find. He had only noticed he had kept it as they were all walking back towards the city, but though the rock was likely worth a good sum, Tarren found he didn¡¯t mind. He could always sell it later, at need, he reasoned, so letting his smile stand he slipped the rock into his belt pouch.


    Tarren and Rhys both received infusions of Mana that day that were, to them, small fortunes indeed. Tarren could pay his family¡¯s stores back ten-fold for their loss, and that was after his own core had been stuffed to bursting from the excess Mana beyond his daily allotment. Rhys had received an even greater amount, as his skill was deemed more central to the find.


    As Tarren lay in his blankets that night, he smiled to himself. Maybe, he thought, just maybe, everything will be fine after all. Maybe the cost for the boon has been paid, and Albon¡¯s surprise will be a job he can hold, and our stores will grow instead of shrink with the find of Shard. Maybe, for once, it will all work out well.


    And with that thought to guide him, he drifted off to sleep with a light heart, for the first time in what felt like ages.


    The fifth day after the Boon, Tarren¡¯s brother Albon volunteered to die.

 The Sappers Lottery

    Tarren woke the day of the assembly feeling refreshed and light, the discovery of Shard buoying him despite his worries. For once, given the mandatory assembly, his whole family was up and present in the morning; his father sipping from a mug of tea, his mother coordinating some last minute detail with the other members of the worker¡¯s council, and his brother seeming subdued, yet somehow confident all the same.


    ¡°I¡¯m surprised you¡¯re awake so easily,¡± Tarren joked to Albon. ¡°I thought we¡¯d have to drag you out given the hour.¡±


    ¡°I can rise early just as well as anyone!¡± Albon defended himself, offering Tarren his usual wry grin. ¡°I just prefer not to, that¡¯s all. I¡¯m not a masochist, like you lot.¡±


    Tarren smiled back, though couldn¡¯t help but feel that something was off in his brother¡¯s tone. It was too forced for his usual sense of humor.


    ¡°You mean you don¡¯t normally need to, Albon. The pool for the [Unskilled Laborers] opens only at eighth-stone, whereas only the [Miners] and other advanced laborers need to be out at fifth.¡± Their father said, disapprovingly.


    Tarren expected his brother¡¯s mood to sour, but again he was surprised. Albon merely offered his father a thin lipped smile that didn¡¯t touch his eyes, and said, ¡°True enough, Father, true enough.¡±


    Their father grunted in reply, apparently stymied by this response as well. Before anyone could begin the conversation anew, however, Tarren¡¯s mother intervened, sweeping them all towards the door.


    ¡°It¡¯s time.¡± She said, ¡°We¡¯re assembling in Plaza 2.¡±


    They left the house as a group, but before they made it halfway to the plaza, Albon stopped in the street, turning to look down a side street heading deeper into the city.


    ¡°You all go on ahead,¡± he said, tone too casual, ¡°I need to pick something up on the way.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Their mother asked, confused and irritated. ¡°There¡¯s no time for that now, Albon. This assembly is mandatory for all the Workers Classes.¡±


    ¡°I know--I know. Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll catch up. You¡¯ll see me soon, I promise.¡± Albon said, then turned and darted down the side street before anyone could object further. Tarren¡¯s mother half stepped after him, but the streets were already growing crowded and he was soon lost to sight.


    ¡°Fine.¡± she muttered, instead. ¡°On his head be it,¡± and the smaller group continued towards the plaza.


    Once in the plaza, Tarren soon found himself amazed at the number of people packed into the small space. It was easy to forget, given he normally interacted only with other [Miners], but Miner¡¯s Rest housed a large number of people beyond the mining class. Classes from [Smelter] to [Cook] all had their place in the city, to keep the population center running smoothly and shipping resources off to support the war with the Horde.


    Today, Tarren couldn¡¯t forget. He felt claustrophobic, jostled elbow to elbow in the mass, His family had had to push their way into the crowd so his Mother could join the other members of their quadrant¡¯s Worker¡¯s council near the Node, which itself was surrounded by several feet of open space. Tarren looked around, hoping to spot Albon or Rhys in the crowd, but couldn¡¯t. He just hoped his brother wasn¡¯t planning to skip the assembly in pursuit of some harebrained scheme--the Alteriad would know if he didn¡¯t attend, and dock him for it at his next allotment.


    The event began suddenly---one moment, the noise of the crowd filled the small plaza and the space around the node was empty, and the next the crowd had gone eerily silent and a holographic projection of an impressive stage had filled the area surrounding the node. A voice filled Tarren¡¯s ears, though not one he could hear directly--the Alteriad system piping the sound directly into his mind and partially suppressing the noise of the crowd.


    ¡°Greetings, honored citizens of Miner¡¯s Rest and devoted servants of the Alteriad!¡± The voice boomed in a resonant tone.


    ¡°Today... Today I bring to you all dire news. Dire news indeed.¡± The man projected into the holographic stage rubbed his hands together, his face nearly a caricature of one delivering poor news. He paused for a long moment, eyes flitting out through the crowd, his rich robes shifting over his bulky frame.


    ¡°Through an honorless act of cowardly duplicity, the Alteriad Legion has suffered a grave defeat on our 18th Front. The Horde has taken the Fortress of Antiar. The very bulwark protecting this sector -- protecting your homes, your very lives -- is now under control of the Enemy.¡±


    As he spoke, images lit up around and behind him, three-dimensional renderings of a terrible battle. The proud Alterian forces, in impeccable blue and white armor and holding long energy weapons stood firm as civilians fled down corridors behind them. And against this inspiring front, a sea of terrible, slathering, insectile monsters churned. Even though this was just a recording, Tarren nearly took a step back, an instinctive revulsion rising as bile in his throat at the sight. His vision flashed as the system took note of the sight, and abruptly the chitinous forms of the Horde mass alighted in red, instantly flagged as enemies in his internal sight. All around him, other citizens had similar reactions. Some shouted, or even threw things at the projection.


    In the image, the Alteriad forces held the Horde back for long moments while the tide of fleeing civilians continued. In another projected scene on the stage, Tarren saw a group of Alteriad soldiers being suddenly ambushed by Horde members out of the shadows. Their weapons flashed as they fired at the appearing enemies, until at their center a soldier in richer armor raised a glowing blade and shouted something, the sound lost in the muted vision, before spinning out and cutting into the Horde soldiers. In the third projection, Tarren saw great war machines erupt from the earth surrounding an imposing fortress, sending men and women fleeing in all directions. The machines rained fire upon the buildings, even as great shields rose to surround them.


    The images all faded off the stage, the Alteriad heroes defending bravely against seemingly impossible odds drifting away into motes of light. Though Tarren was far from a true believer, he had to admit even he was concerned. The Fortress of Antiar was one of the main military bottlenecks for the node-system linking this sector. If the Horde could gain access to that, then even such an isolated sector as Miner¡¯s Rest could be targeted. The Horde had never made it that far, as far as Tarren knew, but that didn¡¯t mean it couldn¡¯t happen.


    ¡°But even in the most dire of circumstances,¡± The man continued, looking up now, enraptured, ¡°Hope and grace can bloom! For though The Alteriad constantly tests us, it also constantly Improves us! Uplifts those who are worthy, advancing their classes and awarding skills and boons to those of Merit!¡±


    He was speaking quickly, now, with an almost palpable fervor. But suddenly, he slowed, staring out at the crowd with sharp intensity.


    ¡°And now is the time for one of those tests. The Alteriad Legion has a plan -- a bold, decisive plan to take back the Fortress of Antiar, in a manner the Horde will never see coming! But to execute this plan, we have need. Need of you, my good people! We have need of a new generation of Sappers. And by fulfilling that need, you can ensure the safety of your families. The longevity of your home, and of the Alteriad system. And you can elevate your Class to levels you¡¯ve never dreamed of. So I call on you, good people, to rise to meet this need.¡±


    The man smiled graciously, benevolently, as he levied his charge on the assembly. And all around him, shouts rose, people in the crowd swearing their loyalty to the Alteriad, some proclaiming their desire to serve.


    Tarren thought the man must have had a powerful social skill, for even he was tempted to sign up, however briefly. Visions of his own class evolving, of him cutting down faceless, insectile enemies with a shining axe raced through his head. But then, with a shake of his head, he discarded the image. Another image flashed through his mind instead. A memory of Rhys, sobbing in his arms, no one left in his family to comfort him, next to a monument in an isolated city plaza. A monument with no names, for it did not have the space. No, Tarren would not volunteer, for Tarren knew what happened to those who volunteered for the Sapper¡¯s Corp, and no image of glory could change that certainty. He briefly saw, amidst the crowd, his father and mother¡¯s faces, both set in hard lines, disapproval plain on their faces. But before he could make his way over to them, the man spoke again.


    ¡°Many of you have already spoken with our recruiters, and taken the first steps on your journey to glory and service. Those of you who have will be honored, for your commitments were made first. But for those who have yet to make up your minds, now is the time.¡± He paused, just for a moment, drawing in a breath, before continuing.


    ¡°For we are requiring a force of one in three eligible men and women to sign on for this new Corp.¡± At that, Tarren heard a far greater gasp of surprise and objection than even the projections had engendered. One in three... Tarren himself thought, reeling. Flashes of one of his family being called to serve, of his own weeping figure at that monument, coursed through his mind. But the man on stage ignored this outcry, continuing over the protests and mutters.


    ¡°One in three, to ensure that our home remains secure. That our families can live on! That the Alteriad can prosper, and finally defeat the scourge that is the Horde! Volunteers for this duty will be respected first and foremost, but lots will be drawn to ensure we meet our quota.¡± The man¡¯s voice was steel, even as he sentenced thousands to death.


    ¡°To help you find your own path into Glory, we have chosen from our cohort of volunteers to date a set of new junior officers in this Sapper¡¯s Corp. They will be manning the recruitment centers, along with the existing Legion staff, to help answer any questions you may have. Without further ado, let me introduce you to your next generation of heroes -- the new junior officers for your city ward!¡±


    He waved his hand once more, and motes of colored lights flashed together to form a view of 6 young men and women on the stage in front of him, arrayed in new, crisp uniforms, standing tall and proud, nervous smiles adorning their faces, one and all.


    Tarren almost didn¡¯t look at them, so focused he was on the man¡¯s speech. His mind was too busy racing, trying to think of any way to avoid being drafted, to avoid his family being drafted. But then he saw. Second from the left, his grin a familiar mix of wry and sheepish amusement, but now run through with pride and ambition. Albon, clad in the uniform of a new Legion officer. And, like a breaking wave, Tarren knew why he had been given a boon. What karmic debt the Alteriad had settled with him. And, just as he had known, it was a cost he¡¯d have never wanted to pay.


    ¡°What were you thinking!¡± Their mother screamed at Albon, back at their family home. He still wore his new uniform, the sharp colors seeming out of place on his frame, in this place. She was furious, more than Tarren had even seen, fear visible in her wild eyes. ¡°I could¡¯ve gotten us all exempt! I¡¯m on the worker¡¯s council!¡± She yelled, pounding her small fist on Albon¡¯s chest, uselessly. Their father merely sat, quiet and still, at the table. His normally rigid posture had wilted, his frame even more sunken and hollow than usual.


    ¡°Mother!¡± Albon said, trying to interject, despite her continued shouting. ¡°Mother!¡± He said again, more forceful, catching her hand before it could pound on his chest again.


    The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°I choose this! Me!¡± He said, his own temper rising. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t have wanted to ¡®get out of it¡¯! The Horde is right on our gates! The Antiar Fortress is sacked! I -- no, we-- we are all needed!¡± He threw her hand aside roughly, stepping past her, pacing. ¡°And you ask me what I was thinking? As though I should, what, stay here? Follow in your eminent footsteps?¡± He sneered at her, at their father. ¡°To lose a limb in the mines, to content myself with the scraps of power the merchants throw at you, to pacify your petty Council? I want more! I... I want this!¡± He yelled, again, clutching at his uniform, wrinkling the pristine fabric. He stared at her, at their father, at Tarren. Their mother stood, seemingly shell-shocked, silent. Her shouts had transformed into tears at some point in the tirade, but they fell silently. Their father had never moved. Albon waited, almost hopeful. Looking for... something, in their parents. Some shred of recognition, or even just more arguments. But he only got more silence.


    ¡°And besides. Now you don¡¯t need to ¡®get out of it¡¯.¡± Albon said at last, quietly. ¡°Family members of Legion officers are exempt from drafts. They would¡¯ve denied your request, regardless. It was already a set policy when I signed on -- existing council member exemption status is disregarded given the emergency situation. So you¡¯re welcome.¡±


    Albon stormed out of the house, his words finding no reply. Tarren¡¯s mother collapsed, then, weeping. Tarren, himself, felt numb. He had, somehow, never imagined this. Never foreseen Albon would make such a choice, even though it was totally in line with his character. He looked to his mother, thinking he ought to do something, to comfort her. But he was numb. He found no succor to offer her within himself. And, before he knew it, he was on his own feet, leaving the house, to where he did not know.


    Tarren wandered the city for what felt like hours. The workers had been given a rare rest day after the assembly, a calculated move, he was sure, to incite more volunteers. The extra time confused him, all his routines broken. At first, he didn¡¯t know what he was looking for, but soon he realized that his feet were taking him to all of Albon¡¯s favorite spots. He didn¡¯t know what he would do when he found his brother, but still he kept looking. It was at his ninth stop that he found something, though not what he had been expecting.


    The church of the Alteriad rose out of the cavern¡¯s center like a strange dream, its bare stone walls melding seamlessly into colored stones foreign to Miner¡¯s Rest and even into stranger materials higher still. Stained glass windows reflected colored lights back onto cavern¡¯s floor, and the building¡¯s wooden roof rose to a sharp peak taller than any three homes combined.


    Tarren wasn¡¯t a frequent visitor of the church, but Albon was. He devoured their sermons and prayed each night, seeking a path to his own class and his own purpose. He¡¯d even tried to participate in one of the Church¡¯s missions once, before their mother had put a stop to it. In retrospect, Tarren realized, that should¡¯ve been a red flag for exactly this eventuality. Pushing his thoughts aside, Tarren strode into the building, the strange quiet inside putting him even more on edge. But as he peered down the aisles and checked in the back rooms, he was greeted not by Albon, but instead by Keeper Liam, the head of this chapter of the church.


    ¡°Young Tarren.¡± The old man said, warmly. ¡°Albon¡¯s brother, if I¡¯m not mistaken?¡± He asked, smiling. ¡°Though we don¡¯t see you near as much as your younger brother!¡± he added, after Tarren nodded, a hint of rebuke in his voice.


    ¡°Is Albon here?¡± Tarren asked, voice tight and clipped. ¡°He... Well, I just want to find him. It¡¯s urgent.¡± He added, not wanting to voice aloud that Albon had joined the Sapper¡¯s. Not wanting to say that he¡¯d be leaving with the Legion at week¡¯s end, likely never to return.


    ¡°Ahhh.¡± the Keeper said, seeing to the heart of the question at once, despite Tarren¡¯s reticence. ¡°This is about his recent appointment to the honored Legion.¡± It was a statement, not a question.


    ¡°I suppose you¡¯ve known about this for a long time, then.¡± Tarren said, coldly, sudden dislike surging in him.


    ¡°I have. He volunteered some six days ago, I believe. Though it was on his mind for some time before that.¡± The Keeper replied, not rising to Tarren¡¯s tone. ¡°Are you not proud of him? He goes to keep you safe. You, and your parents.¡±


    Tarren opened his mouth, then closed it again. He didn¡¯t know what to say to the Keeper, nor did he even know if he wanted to say it. How could he tell this man that Albon went not only for that, but also for Glory? Also to make up for his own feelings of inadequacy, his feelings of guilt at never receiving a viable class? How could we tell this man that it didn¡¯t matter why Albon went, that anyone going into combat with the Horde with only base attributes and an unevolved class was just going to die? And that, worse yet, Albon wasn¡¯t just anyone -- he was Albon. He believed, believed in every foolish lie told by the church, in every myth that each trial in the Alteriad was just an opportunity to prove his true worth. That Albon would rush at each dangerous situation he found until it killed him or broke him inside. That he would die, by his own naivete before the enemy¡¯s cunning.


    ¡°It is not a path that he needs walk alone.¡± The Keeper continued, seemingly oblivious to Tarren¡¯s thoughts. ¡°You too, can find a path to Service. There is Glory and Reward in service, young Tarren. This is something Albon has learned, that you too, could appreciate.¡±


    Tarren couldn¡¯t help himself, then. He sneered, and snapped back at the man, ¡°I¡¯ve already been rewarded, honored Keeper. For my service here, in the dirt. And for Albon¡¯s own choice, and the inevitable consequences.¡± He felt his boon like a physical weight, now. If he had told his parents about it, could his mother have done anything? Pulled strings in teh council, stopped things, before the official announcement? Was this all, in reality, his fault?


    The Keeper¡¯s eyes flashed, as he used his own skills, appraising Tarren¡¯s system information. His face softened as he read, sadness creeping into his eyes.


    ¡°I see.¡± he said, sorrowfully. ¡°A Karmic Boon.¡± He gave Tarren an assessing look, then continued hesitantly. ¡°I have always thought that a poor name, in truth. A ¡®Karmic¡¯ Boon. It is not, as so many think, some kind of blood price, paid out in response to misfortune.¡±


    Tarren scoffed, but before he could speak, the Keeper rode over him.


    ¡°Why would the Alteriad pay any such price? It is not responsible for our suffering -- that is by our own hands, after all. No, no... Boons are not bribes for misfortune, paid after all is said and done. Of course they are not gifts -- I would not claim you to be such a fool as to believe that, young Tarren -- No... They are... possibilities. Tools, given to those in need. Given to those, so that they may deal with the trials ahead. They balance the scales of possibility, so that all have the chance to rise to the trials before them. You did not receive this boon to pay for your brother¡¯s likely death. You received it so you could use it to help protect him.¡±


    Tarren opened his mouth to argue, but no words came out. He wanted to scream at the man, wanted to scream at Albon, wanted to scream at himself, for not telling his family immediately. For not realizing what it might mean, for not seeing this coming. He wanted to scream at his family, too, for pushing Albon away so hard, so consistently. For rubbing his failures in his face, even as the punishment for success woke every morning in their home with only one arm. In impotent rage, in a prelude of grief, Tarren left the church.


    Tarren never found Albon. The end of that evening found him, instead, sitting back on the rooftop where he and Albon had shared the fruit, on the day he had received his boon. And, exhausted, emotionally and physically, he thought. Try as he might, the Keeper¡¯s last words kept ringing through his mind. He didn¡¯t receive his boon as payment for his brother¡¯s death, he received it so he could help protect him. He knew the terms of a commission in the Sapper¡¯s Corp. Two years of minimum service, at which point enlistees could either re-enlist or, had they the funds to do so, attempt to leave and return to their home province. If one was drafted, that length jumped to five. Two years, and if he and Albon lived, he could try to bring them both home. Could he actually help Albon, though? Could he even help himself, were he with the Sappers? Serving with the Sappers was notoriously dangerous. They were ostensibly not a combat unit, focusing instead on tunneling, using explosives, rituals, and mana arts to bring down enemy fortifications, and on assembling and maintaining localized teleportation networks, but when fighting the Horde, every position was lethal.  And that didn¡¯t even take into account that the Horde were a natively tunneling species, so encounters with Sappers units were not rare.


    But Tarren had advantages, too. His heightened intelligence had already proved instrumental in effective mining, and should be even more so for working with mana arts or determining how to most effectively bring down an enemy fortification. If he could leverage that to keep him and Albon out of the general mining crews, and instead in a position of more specialized contributions, they might avoid combat. Plus, he still felt Albon¡¯s biggest risk was himself -- diving headfirst into dangerous, poorly thought out plans was an Albon special, and just having Tarren there to rein him in could keep him alive at least a little longer. And Tarren had to admit, in some deep part of himself, the idea of him bringing Albon back, victorious and rich off his service with the Legion, to fix his broken family appealed to him. Greatly.


    Could he do it to his parents, though? Take away both their sons, instead of just one? Even if Tarren went just to keep Albon alive? Could he do it to Rhys, who had already lost so much to the Legion?


    He was rich -- rich for him, at least -- now. Tarren didn¡¯t know. But as he sat on the rooftop¡¯s edge, the vision of his brother dying alone in some Sapper¡¯s tunnel, the Horde swarming over him, ran through his mind. And the knowledge that maybe, if he had told his mother about his boon, she would¡¯ve seen, could¡¯ve done something, burned.


    Tarren didn¡¯t realize he had made up his mind until he found himself outside their quarter¡¯s recruitment tent. A few higher-quality glowstones burned in its corners, giving the interior an unnaturally steady light.


    ¡°Enter!¡± A sharp, military voice commanded, and Tarren walked in through the flap.


    ¡°Name, class, and standing?¡± The man sitting by the open desk inside inquired, not looking up from his paperwork.


    ¡°Tarren Havenrock-Boltair, [Miner], 3rd tier¡± Tarren answered, quietly.


    The man skimmed down a long list of names among his files with a finger. After a moment, Tarren spoke up, awkwardly.


    ¡°I might be on a special list. My family is already exempted from the draft.¡±


    ¡°Hmm? Why would that be?¡± The man asked, looking up with a frown.


    ¡°My brother is one of the new officers. For this quarter, I mean.¡± Tarren explained, and the man scowled.


    ¡°A new ¡®junior¡¯ officer, you mean.¡± He said, brusquely, sneering slightly. ¡°I don¡¯t know who told you that makes your family exempt, but it does no such thing. ¡®Junior¡¯ officer is a far cry from being an actual officer, kid. But I suppose you¡¯ll see that soon enough.¡±


    Before Tarren could react to that revelation, the man continued,


    ¡°Ahh, there you are! Havenrock-Boltair. Ha! Exempted. Your father was actually already on a shortlist to recruit from if we don¡¯t meet our quota. All those who can¡¯t fulfill their basic class duties are.¡±


    Tarren¡¯s eyes widened in horror, but the man continued. ¡°Don¡¯t worry -- with you and your brother volunteering, your whole family will be moved to the bottom of the queue. I doubt we¡¯ll need to draw that deeply.¡±


    Tarren filled out the rest of the paperwork in silence. He didn¡¯t realize how much these new revelations had kindled his anger anew until, just as he was turning to leave, Albon himself walked in through the tent flaps. Albon¡¯s eyes widened, and he smiled uncertainly.


    ¡°Tarren? What are you doing here? Mother said you¡¯ve been gone since this morning--¡± he cut off as Tarren roughly shoved his newly signed paperwork in his chest.


    ¡°What am I doing? Trying to clean up your messes.¡± Tarren spat, his patience for Albon¡¯s antics gone to kindling for his rage.


    ¡°What?¡± Albon said, taken aback. He grabbed at the papers Tarren had forced to his chest and skimmed them, eyes widening in horror. ¡°Tarren, what? Why? You didn¡¯t--you shouldn¡¯t--¡±


    ¡°Shouldn¡¯t what? Follow to keep you from rushing off even faster to die? Shouldn¡¯t take any of your precious glory?¡±


    ¡°Tarren, I did this for our family! I was wasting away here. In the Legion I... I can become something! I can find my class! I can bring us honor, instead of shame. And I can keep us safe!¡± He added, nearly as an afterthought. ¡°And even if I hadn¡¯t signed on, chances are they would¡¯ve drafted me, or Father, or both! They always pull from the unskilled Laborers first. This way, the rest of you would be safe.¡± He looked at the paperwork, frustration plain in his eyes. ¡°Would¡¯ve been, safe. I just... why did you do it?¡± He implored, looking at Tarren.


    ¡°You think you would¡¯ve found your class? You think you would¡¯ve kept us safe? That your volunteering would¡¯ve kept them from drafting me, or Father?¡± Tarren asked, voice low and hard. ¡°You couldn¡¯t even read your own paperwork. ¡®Junior¡¯ officers aren¡¯t offered a thing. We would¡¯ve been drafted all the same.¡±


    Albon¡¯s eyes widened in horror.


    ¡°But... I was told...¡± he sputtered, grabbing at the paperwork once more.


    ¡°Besides. If I come along, maybe I can get us both in an Engineering Specialty Corp.¡± Tarren said, his rage evaporating in the place of indomitable weariness. ¡°Keep us alive. For two years. Then, somehow, we make our way back.¡±


    ¡°But...¡± Albon protested, weakly, but Tarren didn¡¯t wait for him to finish. He strode out of the tent, defeated and alone. When he told his parents, they didn¡¯t even seem to have the energy to weep. At the revelation of his Boon, his mothers eyes widened, and a new stab of guilt surged through Tarren¡¯s gut. That night, he lay awake all through the evening, listening to his parents'' quiet sobs, wondering if there had even been any right decisions at all.

 Falia - The Theft of a Dream

    Falia waved her identification plate in front of the fist-sized runic sensor at the office¡¯s entrance. She walked through the doors, a smile on her face, and offered a small bag with a prepared pastry to the guard standing just inside vestibule.


    ¡°Good morning, Jerric!¡± She said, brightly.


    ¡°Morning, Falia.¡± The man said, gruff as always. But, he softened it with a smile as he accepted the pastry.


    Falia strode with purpose through the busy lobby, sunlight streaming in through the large windows, before reaching the localized teleport circle in one corner. With another swipe of her ID plate, she stepped onto the runed, metal disc and flashed away in a burst of light.


    When she reappeared, she stood in a small antechamber outside a long hallway. While it looked like any other hallway in any other building, Falia knew better. The teleporter she had just used was one of the few access points to a small, highly secure pocket world, designed precisely for the research of her team and others like it. Research that would define the next generation of the Alteriad System, and possibly the universe beyond as well.


    Specialty laboratory coats hung on hooks on the wall, next to small spatial storage devices for the researchers'' belongings. Stowing her things and donning a cloak, Falia once again waved her plate at the final set of doors leading into the main laboratory itself before shivering as the system scanned her mana signature more deeply. Sighing as the scan finished, she stowed the plate back around her neck with a thin cord. Really, she thought to herself as she entered the hallway beyond, sometimes the security here just feels excessive.


    Walking briskly down the corridor, she eventually turned into a modest sized room filled with desks, sensors, and strange display elements projecting various statistics via small illusion arrays. Other researchers roamed the space, examining the displays or interacting with the sensors. But neither the researchers nor the sensors were this room¡¯s most notable features; instead, the eye of any visitor would be drawn to the far wall of the room, where a series of floor to ceiling windows opened the space out onto a large, square, metallic room. At the center of this room sprouted great pylons of metal, reaching up from the floor and down from the roof, each lined with delicate runework and glowing Mana channels. And there, floating between the tips of these pylons as though cradled in fingers of shining metal, pulsed a small, shining, purple-white sphere.


    Despite being nearly featureless in its uniformity, the sphere seemed to rotate in on itself, somehow, the light around it bending into its depths. And while it rotated, pulses of light flashed in its corona, their pattern at once clearly ordered and meaningful but still deeply inscrutable, as though the governing cycle driving their flashes was just out of reach of the examining mind.


    Falia smiled as she inspected the scene, then turned to the room''s other occupants.


    ¡°Good morning, everyone!¡± She announced, before stepping up to a larger monitor and skimming through its summary of the night¡¯s readings. ¡°Interesting, but expected...¡± she mused aloud, even as some of her colleagues greeted her in return.


    ¡°Did you follow up on this anomaly, Rose?¡± Falia asked one of the other researchers, pointing to a particular chunk of data on the display.


    ¡°I did, yeah... It is odd, but I don¡¯t see any real red flags in any of the scans after that. I plan to ask the simulation team if they have any insight into what that was; it was right in the midst of one of their tests, but those aren¡¯t supposed to even interact significantly with the Core, so I¡¯m not sure what to think.¡± Rose answered, twirling her hair around one finger nervously.


    ¡°Hmm. Strange indeed.¡± Falia said, pondering. ¡°Well, nothing to it but to check in directly. Has anyone greeted the device yet this morning?¡±


    ¡°No, we waited for you,¡± Rose said, smiling knowingly.


    Falia¡¯s eyes brightened at that news, and she moved happily towards the central console. After all, who wouldn¡¯t enjoy interacting with a sentient spirit capable of computations more complex than anything the Alteriad had ever built before?


    Activating several arrays on the panel before her, Falia watched through the window as a new line of runes lit up on the floor of the metal room, flashing out to the cluster of central pylons. Toggling one last switch, Falia grasped the attached speaking talisman and spoke.


    ¡°Hello there, Core! Did you enjoy your evening?¡±


    The pattern of flashes from the strange anomaly of pastel light in the arena brightened and twisted before settling into a new rhythm, and an answering voice emerged from the talisman before her.


    ¡°Hello, researcher Falia! Yes, indeed, I did enjoy my evening. I learned many new things, including how many insects there are in this containment chamber, the number of steps it takes the beetles with the blue and black shells which I have called ¡®Beetle Species 3¡¯ to cross the arena, the approximate extent of the damage the claws of these insects inflict on the truesteel floor, the fluctuation in the accuracy of the timekeeping array in monitoring room 2, and the...¡¯


    The voice coming out of the talisman kept going, listing ever more highly specific, often useless facts that it had ¡°learned¡± in the previous evening. The voice¡¯s timbre was slightly monotone and clearly artificial, but surprisingly expressive despite that, showing clear excitement at its various facts.


    ¡°Those are all wonderful, Core!¡± Falia eventually interrupted, ¡°But I wonder if you could tell me if anything of particular note happened at approximately 4:35 in the morning? We see some odd readings on our charts at that time period.¡±


    ¡°How approximately?¡± The anomaly asked, voice very concerned. ¡°I now understand that approximately can mean a great range of things. For example, at approximately 3:45:01.238104 in the morning I saw a beetle. Is that at the right time?¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯m sorry,¡± Falia said, smiling slightly despite herself. ¡°Tell me if there was anything noteworthy that affected your demesne extent, internal mana composition, or external mana vent rate between precisely 4:00 and 4:35 in the morning.¡±


    ¡°Oh.¡± The voice said, disappointed. ¡°That was not caused by the beetle. Rounding to the nearest standard minute, at 4:02 a minor spatial disturbance occurred which the protective arrays quickly corrected, at 4:12 there was a loud noise from another section of the lab with a correspondingly low mana signature, at 4:18 there was a second spatial disturbance which was again corrected by the arrays, and at 4:32 Simulation v108.3 failed, which was distressing.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, Core, that is very helpful!¡± Falia replied before releasing the flow of mana into the speaking talisman.


    ¡°Good call!¡± Falia said to Rose as she turned away from the central console, ¡°seems like it likely was the simulation team.¡±


    Frowning over another section of logs, she pursed her lips before continuing.


    ¡°I am a bit confused, though. Two random spatial anomalies that close together... This is a pocket dimension, so it isn¡¯t unexpected, but still. Were there any other spatiotemporal disturbances last night?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not sure...¡± Rose said, biting her lip. ¡°I didn¡¯t check for that.¡±


    She moved to a different display and began manipulating the output data.


    ¡°Nevermind, I¡¯ve got it.¡± Falia said, as her own display began showing the desired data. Rose walked over behind her, peeking at the outputs over her shoulders.


    ¡°This... this can¡¯t be right.¡± Falia said, voice soft as she skimmed the data.


    ¡°What?!¡± Rose said, eyes widening, ¡°200 separate anomalies last night!¡±


    ¡°The sensors must be on the fritz...¡± Falia said. ¡°We¡¯ll notify the maintenance team.¡±


    ¡°Besides,¡± Falia continued, standing back up, ¡°Whatever it is, it won¡¯t affect our work here.¡±


    As if to spite her, it was at precisely that moment that the alarms began to blare.


    ¡°Come along, everyone!¡± Falia called, shepherding the group of researchers out into the hallway.


    ¡°Falia, come now, surely it is just a drill! There was no cause to force me to leave my breakfast!¡± A stodgy, older researcher complained as he hurried after the group down the hall.


    ¡°The policies are clear, Horace! We are to drop everything and leave immediately, drill or not...¡±


    Falia¡¯s chipper, but authoritative tone trailed off as a distant crash and scream of pain echoed down the hallway before them.


    Making a snap decision, Falia turned down a separate corridor and began taking a different exit route. ¡°This way!¡± She called out, voice echoing amidst the wailing alarm siren. This time, there were no complaints.


    The motley group made it safely to the auxiliary exit point without any further excitement. A few more distant crashes were heard, and at one point the echoing discharges of energy weapons, but nothing threatened their increasingly hurried flight. Falia directed the terrified researchers under her care to form up at the end of the line waiting to access the emergency teleporter while a bevy of guards stood vigil over each of the incoming hallways, runed armor glowing and weapons primed.


    ¡°Come on, Falia!¡± Rose hissed at her, gesturing for her to join the line as well.


    ¡°You go on ahead, Rose!¡± Falia called back, projecting calm despite her own pounding heart. ¡°Once I know that all the monitoring staff has evacuated successfully, I¡¯ll follow.¡±


    Rose seemed to want to argue, but the guards were sweeping everyone in the line through the teleporter too quickly to permit further conversation. Indeed, even as Falia attempted to excuse herself from the rush, a guard grabbed her arm and began wheeling her towards the teleporter as well.


    ¡°Wait!¡± She protested, yanking her arm free and stepping back hurriedly. ¡°I need to confirm whether all the core staff on project X37.184 have evacuated!¡± She said, angrily. ¡°Where is your captain? Who do I speak to to obtain that information?¡±


    To her great frustration, however, the guard simply ignored her, instead turning with a curse as another set of loud crashes echoed down the passages, much closer this time.


    ¡°There¡¯s no time to worry about confirmations or final policies!¡± He finally snapped back at her, even as the final few scientists and staff filtered through the teleporter. ¡°Everyone needs to go, now!¡±


    He reached for her arm again, and she instinctively took another step back, farther into the open corridor. And then, before he could close the distance and put an end to her complaints, the sound of running footsteps shattered the tense, delicate silence as another guard came sprinting down the corridor.


    ¡°They¡¯re coming!¡± She shouted, as Falia and the guard she was arguing with turned instinctively to face her. ¡°Lock down the array! They¡¯re destroying the anchors! They¡¯re going to destroy the Core--¡±


    The guardswoman¡¯s words cut off with a gurgle as a blazing silver light spurted from her chest, lifting her body off the ground to dangle limp on the impaling blade.


    Falia was a researcher, not a combatant. Her class had evolved from [Privileged Youth] to [Student] to [Scientist] to [Principal Investigator], and she was proud of it. But nowhere in any of those myriad classes was there any expectation of or exposure to combat.


    So as the silver light expanded and tore the woman into wet chunks, splattering Falia and the surrounding walls in smoking viscera, a part of her mind simply shut down.


    This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    Someone was screaming, and she couldn¡¯t tell if it was her, or someone else. Rough hands were grabbing her, throwing her to the side, right before another flash of silver separated the rude guard¡¯s head from his body, blood staining her lab coat crimson.


    Falia was crawling, hands and knees sliding in the gore as she fled, blindly from the carnage.


    ¡°Barriers, now!¡± A resonant voice boomed, and Falia saw sheets of blue light overlap one another behind her to fend off a whirling vortex of silver blades. A ghostly, taloned green fist materialized through the adjacent wall and crushed one of the guardsmen¡¯s head in its immaterial grip. The guard screamed as he fell, head somehow flickering between being a pulped mess and being completely fine, as though it couldn¡¯t decide which were the true reality. A ragged, long-haired man followed the green fist, flashing into the hallway in a blink and tearing into the guards with tooth and claw. The barrier fell an instant later.


    Falia turned a corner, scrambling up to her feet as she heard the teleportation array behind her detonate, and a pulse of unconstrained spatial magic threw her to her feet once more.


    Time blurred as Falia ran. Screams and the sounds of combat were nearly constant, now, guards engaging invaders throughout the laboratory¡¯s hallways.


    She made it ten paces into a hall when a section of wall exploded into the corridor, and another group of guards tumbled out, engaged in combat with a woman whose jaw opened too wide and whose clawed fingers stretched too long. Even as Falia scrambled backwards, struggling to find an escape, the woman snapped forward in a blur and sank her teeth into the neck of one of the guards, the man screaming as his lifeblood spurted on the walls surrounding them. Falia hurtled down a different corridor, tears streaming down her face.


    Falia pressed herself farther back against the wall of the maintenance closet she had found, a thin strip of light through the crack in the door her only window to the outside. She didn¡¯t know how long she had hidden there, as screams and muffled explosions echoed through the halls. She didn¡¯t know when she had stopped crying, her body and mind numb to the terror still coursing through her veins. She didn¡¯t know whether any of the teleportation gates were still open, or if she could even make it to one if they were. She was trapped, and all that awaited her was death -- if not by capture from the strange invaders than by hunger and thirst when the pocket world was left to drift asunder, all its anchors to the outside world cut.


    Unless... a small voice in her head whispered. The voice that always looked for a solution to whatever problem was before her. Unless she somehow found a way to navigate an unstructured teleport back out of the space on her own.


    But that solution just led to more problems. She didn¡¯t have the Class, or the Skills to perform such a feat. And while unstructured mana manipulation was something anyone could learn, system classes or not, she had never bothered with it. But maybe there is a way to account for that... the voice in her head whispered. A specialized mana manipulation spirit with computational capabilities beyond anything else the Alteriad has ever built before, perhaps?


    The Core. It was so obvious she could have kicked herself. It was designed to be a prototype for an eventual System Core -- something that could theoretically take over the work of the entire Alteriad system for managing mana pathways, identifying, extracting, and disseminating classes and skills, and optimizing mana flow in citizens. If it could, in theory, do all that, then it could surely help her at least navigate a teleport out of this death trap.


    Her task was simple, then -- all she had to do was hide here, and wait for the invaders to leave, then she could pick up the Core and find a way to safely link with it as a System Periphery to instill an appropriate teleportation skill into her soul to leave the pocket realm. Hells, she realized to herself, if I do all that, not only will I live, I¡¯ll probably get a promotion besides -- not just for proving the viability of their new prototype system core, but for saving the specimen as well for future study.


    But even as this happy thought kindled hope anew, what she¡¯d overheard the guard say just before all chaos broke out rang in her mind again.


    ¡°They¡¯re going to destroy the Core--¡±.


    If the invaders were here not just to destroy the research station, or to steal its data, but also to target the Core specifically, then her one shot at getting out of here alive wouldn¡¯t last until after the invaders left the realm. If she didn¡¯t get to the Core now, and somehow enact her entire plan in bare minutes rather than days or weeks, then she would have no other hope of escaping at all.


    For a long moment, she stayed in the closet. Panicking, breaths coming shallow and quick, visions of her death running through her head. But then she closed her eyes and forced her breathing to slow. She didn¡¯t have time to panic. So, steeling herself, Falia pushed open the closet door and rushed off down the corridor, heading back to the monitoring station and the thin opportunity it offered.


    Falia made it back to the monitoring room without encountering any further violence. She hypothesized as she ran --- somehow not able to turn off that part of her brain, even amidst mortal terror --- that the invaders must be focused on the various teleportation anchors dotting the edges of the facility, and thus be far from the interior rooms like the Core¡¯s containment chamber. But the comfort this realization offered was thin, as she knew it was only a matter of time before they descended on their true prize.


    Rushing over to the speaking Talisman, Falia hurriedly activated the arrays. Nothing happened. Cursing, Falia tried to activate them again, and again, but the runed lines stayed stubbornly dark every time. Eventually, she cleared her mind enough to realize that the station¡¯s mana conduits must be disrupted in general, with non-essential functions disabled to preserve the pocket-world¡¯s structure and security protocols. She wracked her mind to think of a way around this -- could she use her own mana, somehow? No, that would never work; she didn¡¯t have the reserves to force sufficient power through conduits intended to be hooked up to the main grid.


    Then her eyes fell on a large, metal stool sitting in front of one console, and the tall, floor to ceiling windows looking down on the Core in the flesh, and a much simpler solution occurred to her. It took Falia nearly 6 attempts to actually break the window, and she very nearly gave up. The thick glass was tougher than it appeared, despite the fact that it served no security purposes whatsoever, as far as she knew. But, eventually, she managed to affix a small metal control knob from one of the sensors to the pane of the window, and on her next strike the metal knob concentrated the force of her blow sufficiently so as to shatter the window with an explosion of noise.


    Falia didn¡¯t let herself worry about that noise as she stepped carefully over the ragged edge of the shattered window and approached the Core. She didn¡¯t have time for worry.


    The pulsing ball of light in the center of the chamber seemed more animated than she had ever observed it before. It flitted aggressively from side to side within the pillars of metal surrounding it, and the shimmering field of mana containing it within those pillars was sufficiently strained as to be visible to the naked eye. But, as soon as the window shattered, and Falia entered the room, the Core focused on her with a palpable intensity and began speaking.


    ¡°Researcher Falia!¡± It cried, distressed. ¡°What is going on? I hear so many noises but I cannot learn anything! The exterior sensors are no longer functioning, spatial anomalies are occurring at a highly elevated rate, the beetles are greatly distressed, and you just broke the transparent wall with a stool! I am very confused and there are many things to learn but I do not understand any of them. Please explain to me all of these phenomena.¡±


    It then seemed to settle and simply waited, as though it expected her to dispense perfectly reasonable explanations for all the current insanity post haste.


    Ignoring everything that it had just said, Falia immediately cut to the heart of her problem. ¡°You¡¯re a natural spirit of computation and mana flow. Could you design a teleportation skill that would eject us both out of this pocket world? Without an anchor?¡±


    ¡°Falia that is not an answer to my questions.¡± The spirit replied, exasperated. ¡°Before pursuing any further simulations, first you need to explain to me what the noises are, why the exterior sensors are--¡±


    Falia interrupted the Core, snapping angrily at the spirit. The noises of combat in the distance had died down, no further screaming interrupting their conversation. The invaders had finished with the guards, then, and were en route.


    ¡°Could you do it or not! We don¡¯t have long -- there are invaders here, coming to destroy you, and kill me! Can you get us out of here, or not?¡±


    ¡°There are invaders here?¡± The Core said, extremely curious. ¡°What are ¡®invaders¡¯, Falia? They want to destroy me and kill you? Why do they want that? What does destruction feel like? If they kill you, can you please relate to me what the sensation is so I can better model that experience?¡± The Core asked happily, eager to learn new things.


    ¡°No!¡± Falia snapped, her forced calm unraveling moment by moment. ¡°Just answer my question! I need to know if you can produce that spell!¡±


    The spirit started to interject, but Falia was suddenly struck by inspiration.


    ¡°If you don¡¯t generate the spell for me right now, I¡¯ll make sure that you never learn anything ever again.¡± Falia said, tone cold and serious.


    The Core suddenly grew very still.


    ¡°... you can do that?¡± It asked, voice soft and very scared.


    And, with her life dangling in the balance, Falia looked straight into the Core¡¯s twisting depths and lied. ¡°Yes. Yes I can.¡±


    The core stayed still and silent for only a moment longer, before it began to swirl about animatedly in its prison.


    ¡°Ok I have produced a mana program that should result in you teleporting back out to the real world. Now can you please explain to me what--¡±


    ¡°Tell me how to cast the spell!¡± Falia snapped. ¡°Now!¡±


    The Core¡¯s movements slowed, and it seemed to turn back to focus on her. ¡°Tell you how to cast it?¡± It asked, uncertain. ¡°But there have not been any successful simulations of integrating my spells into living hosts. I have not fully mapped your mana pathways. Why would the spell work for you?¡±


    ¡°Just try it! I don¡¯t have any other choice!¡± Falia nearly screamed at the orb. Faintly, she thought she heard footsteps echoing down the hallway outside.


    ¡°Ok, Researcher Falia. We will begin Unscheduled Simulation Number 418.128.¡± The spirit said, immediately and enthusiastically caving in favor of pursuing more experimentation. ¡°To begin, increase the rotation of mana in your core by approximately...¡± Falia felt a brief shiver as the spirit scanned her soul, then it continued ¡°27.252%. Next, you will inject mana through your Brachial Meridian at approximately 18.419% emission pressure, while simultaneously sweeping your hands through a elliptical helix¡±


    As the spirit continued rattling off instructions, Falia felt her hope die in her chest. What had she expected? There was no way she could learn to master such a complex mana art quickly enough to save her life. And just so, even as she began to try to learn the spell despite the hopelessness, the sound of breaking glass behind her announced the arrival of her enemy. Falia had run out of time.


    Releasing her mana, Falia spun to face the window. A stream of people entered through the hole she had made; first five, then seven, and finally ten people fanned out before her, slowly encircling her and the Core. She recognized the long haired, ragged man and the woman whose jaw opened too wide among them, neither seeming injured in the slightest. Some regarded her with disdain, some with wry curiosity, and some regarded her not at all, paying attention only to the Core behind her.


    At last, as the group formed a full circle around the arena, an eleventh person stepped through the broken window. He was a tall, lean man with hair pulled back in a neat knot. At his waist was sheathed a long, straight sword whose blade seemed to catch and absorb all the light in the room as he moved. Every step was deliberate and graceful, and not a shard of glass crunched as he walked through the remains of the window to stand before Falia.


    ¡°How curious,¡± he said, inspecting her, voice devoid of emotion. ¡°A researcher -- a [Principal Investigator], no less. Remaining behind to protect her precious work. Finding herself here, now, just as we arrive to finish our work. Curious indeed.¡± The man lifted his hand off the hilt of his blade and ran his fingers through the air as though plucking invisible strings, his eyes tracking things Falia could not see. There was a palpable aura to him, a pressure that somehow compelled her to silence, that tried to push her back, to her knees. But she stood, regardless.


    ¡°Stop dawdling, Auran. Kill her and let¡¯s be done with this. The arrays are nearly set.¡± The long haired man said, flexing his taloned hands impatiently as he stared at Falia.


    ¡°Kill her? Perhaps.¡± Auran said, still not looking at Falia, voice still devoid of any emotion. ¡°Or Perhaps a different possibility...¡± he said, voice trailing off.


    Then Auran moved. One moment he was standing before her, the next he was standing just past her, sword arm extended in a perfect lunge, blade released from its scabbard. Before Falia could even process the movement, she felt a pain spreading along her neck, a wetness dripping down her skin. Gasping at the sensations, she stumbled backwards, clapping a hand to her neck in horror. Blood pooled there, Auran¡¯s sword having carved a line through her flesh.


    This is it, she thought, mind growing cold with shock, this is how I die.


    As she fell back and crumpled into a sitting position, her ID badge slipped off her neck and fell to the floor before her, the thin cord holding it around her neck cut through cleanly. It shattered as it hit the metal floor, and Falia could swear she felt something... more... something beyond the mere physical shatter with it.


    ¡°Interesting. It seems not.¡± Auran said, regarding her with the first spark of emotion he¡¯d shown since entering the room. ¡°She will accompany us, fate permitting. Proceed with the ritual. We have no time to waste.¡±


    It took Falia a moment to process what the man had said. It seems not. Were she not dying? But... the blood? Moving her hand away from her neck, she found, to her amazement, that it was unbloodied. Her neck unmarred, save for the faintest of possible lines tracing along one half of her throat, as though a scar remained from an injury long past healed.


    Just who are these people? How can they do... any of these things? Falia thought, staring in horrified fascination at the group surrounding her. But before she could consider any of her questions any further, she finally caught onto what the group was planning. The arrays are nearly set... Proceed with the ritual, they had said. The people in the circle surrounding her had not been idle -- rather, they had laid down a set of modular ritual stones equidistant from the Core in the center of the chamber. They weren¡¯t destroying the Core, not at all, Falia realized.


    They were stealing it.


    And then, with a feeling of space itself tearing beneath her, Falia¡¯s entire world went white as the Core, the chamber, all of the invaders, and she were whisked away into nothingness.

 The March

    The week after Tarren¡¯s and Albon¡¯s enlistment passed in a blur. His family home, once so warm and inviting, was a cold, empty place, thick with preemptive grief. His mining sessions with Rhys were strained; his friend tried to hold a brave face, but he couldn¡¯t hide the betrayal lurking beneath as they continued to farm out the rest of the Shard they had discovered. At least the deposit had persisted; every day, Tarren met his quota with more besides, dumping his excess mana beyond the limits of his strained core into their family¡¯s storage repository. And just so, one day bled into the next until, suddenly, Tarren found himself standing in the plaza, looking around at the milling crowd of conscripts, still wondering how it had all gone so wrong.


    His family and Rhys all stood with him. His parents'' faces were silent, eyes lost; only Rhys tried to maintain any semblance of life. Albon had already assembled with the other Junior officers, a strained goodbye at their home this morning marking his last interaction with their parents.


    ¡°I still think you should let me transfer my [Stone Sight] skill to you.¡± Rhys complained, not for the first time, breaking the awkward silence.


    ¡°Thanks, Rhys... but no. You earned that, and you should keep it. Keep building on our success with the Shard.¡± Tarren replied, reiterating their old argument.


    ¡°It could help keep you alive!¡± Rhys hissed, offering a wary, sideways glance at Tarren¡¯s parents. ¡°I get why you¡¯re doing this, but to do it without taking advantage of every opportunity you can...¡± He said, shaking his head.


    ¡°Rhys, we¡¯ve been over this.¡± Tarren said, tiredly. ¡°I¡¯m not taking your skill. And besides, what are you going to do, run off to find a skill-transfer crystal in the 5 minutes before I ship out? And on top of that, who knows if it would even help me. If I end up in an engineering unit, that kind of skill will be way less useful to me.¡±


    Rhys glowered at him for a moment, but then his shoulders drooped. ¡°Fine.¡± He breathed. ¡°Just... stay alive, ok? Come back.¡± He hesitated a moment, then abruptly pulled Tarren into a tight embrace.


    Tarren, surprised, reciprocated, patting his friend on the back. ¡°I will.¡± He said. Rhys held on longer than he had expected, but finally released him, pushing him away roughly, eyes hard and brittle. ¡°Come back,¡± he repeated.


    Tarren turned to his parents, next, giving them both one more embrace. His mother clucked over him, adjusting the strap on his pack unnecessarily. ¡°Do you have everything you need?¡± She asked. Her normally brusque tone warbled, now, an undercurrent of fear seconds from breaking through. ¡°I do.¡± Tarren said, playing along. ¡°I¡¯ll be back. Both of us will. I¡¯ll keep him alive, and make him resign after his commission ends. You two just focus on meeting your quotas until then, ok?¡±


    His father opened his mouth as if to speak, but then closed it again. His eyes were unfocused, even as he tried to meet Tarren¡¯s gaze. ¡°I¡¯ll be back.¡± Tarren said again, more quietly, pulling his father into a one-sided hug as well. And then, before he could say anything more, a strict voice boomed through the plaza.


    ¡°Recruits!¡± The man bellowed. ¡°Assemble! Families, step aside!¡± Tarren glanced around, wondering just where he was supposed to assemble, before a large blue rectangle appeared over the rough stone ground of the square. He began towards the area, pit in his stomach growing only larger, but before he was halfway there, the man bellowed again, ¡°Recruits, I said [Assemble]!¡±


    This time, the word resounded oddly in the space, Tarren feeling like he had heard it from every direction at once. Suddenly his feet picked up, his attention narrowing. He was a soldier, now. A sapper. And soldiers; soldiers followed orders. He began a quick, precise march, immediately noting with pride that the other soldiers in his unit were moving with the same intensity and grace. He didn¡¯t know what formation he was to assemble into, and this troubled him, but a pattern began emerging as the other recruits formed ranks within the square, and some order was always better than none, so he hurried towards his proper place in the form.


    Behind him, his mother let out an audible sob, the harsh sound choking off at the end as she tried to strangle it. Tarren¡¯s newfound desire for obedience warred with his desire to turn, to comfort his mother. A voice in his mind told him that it would be better this way, that his discipline in the ranks would soothe her hurts and fill her with pride, but another voice, his real voice, immediately recognized this false line of thinking. And then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the illusion in his thoughts shattered. Order? Discipline? His mother was crying! His precise steps faltered, a recruit following behind him bumping into him as he disrupted their formation. Tarren turned, trying to catch another glimpse of his parents, to offer more words of comfort. He caught a glimpse of an officer shepherding his family back, away from the center of the plaza; his father¡¯s steps deadened, his mothers face buried in his father¡¯s chest. Then, even as the other recruits pushed and jostled him as they formed ranks, the blue rectangle surrounding them all flashed, and suddenly the caverns surrounding him vanished in a pulse of white light.


    When Tarren re-appeared, he immediately fell to his hands and knees, spewing his wan breakfast over the stone floor. When his head stopped spinning, he noticed that many of the other recruits were doing the same, though some were staunchly refusing to bend from their regimented position, however green their faces might be. So this is teleportation sickness... Tarren thought. Shaking his head and trying to settle his stomach, he shakily got back to his feet. The world around him was... different. Different than anything he had ever known before. Rather than the slate gray caverns he was used to, here, Tarren was surrounded by a dark, black-red rock that was porous and sharp. Large, cylindrical tunnels wormed out before them, one main passage branching off into innumerable side passages before all faded into blackness in the distance. Their immediate surroundings were only illuminated by four powerful glowing bulbs mounted on metal frames surrounding the teleportation anchor they stood on.


    If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    ¡°Recruits!¡± The same booming voice echoed out among the new sappers, who were still by and large retching on the floor. ¡°I have not dismissed you from formation!¡± The man ordered. Tarren saw many of the young men and women on the floor straighten with raw groans. Bitterly, Tarren himself stepped into an open spot in the rough ranks, though he no longer felt the same compulsion he first had.


    ¡°Better!¡± The man called out. ¡°Though far from good enough! We will have to work on that with you over the coming weeks of training and transit.¡±


    The man paced in silence for a few moments, up and down the ranks of recruits. Only then did Tarren realize that the small band of recruits from his neighborhood, all of whom had been directed to the same plaza, had now been joined by a number of other sets of recruits, each from other areas of the city. Their new numbers were staggering; more people than Tarren had ever seen in the largest of mining companies or work groups. And all of them, now, stood in some semblance of order across a set of identical teleportation anchor pads throughout this cavern.


    ¡°Many of you may be wondering where we are.¡± The officer at the head of their company announced, finally resuming speaking. ¡°To answer that question, we are now standing in what is known as the Rocienne¡¯s Pass. More colloquially, you may have heard of it as the Abyssal Labyrinth.¡±


    A murmur cut through the waiting recruits at the name. Everyone had heard of the Abyssal Labyrinth; an enormous warren of tunnels carved by great rockworms throughout another dead world in their system. What was most notable about the area, however, wasn¡¯t the constant danger of getting lost or being attacked by the near undetectable worms, but rather that the Alteriad had one of the few permanent long-distance teleportation anchors in their sector embedded in its central caverns. Unlike more established sectors, where many neighboring planets or satellites would have their own functioning teleportation linkages, the system housing Miner¡¯s Rest lay nestled deep in a dense nebula which blocked most long range signals from propagating through. Somehow, though, the Alteriad had managed to establish one permanent anchor in the system, smack in the middle of the Labyrinth. Tarren had heard many theories as to why only the one anchor had ever been made---some said the bones of the planet housing the Abyssal Labyrinth acted as a natural beacon, enabling robust signal despite the network¡¯s interference; others claimed that the Labyrinth itself wasn¡¯t a planet at all, but an isolated plane in its own right, bordering their dimension throughout the settled worlds---but he had no idea what the truth of it was. All he knew was that it worked. The rare traders who visited Miner¡¯s Rest, and the much more common tax and ore collectors, would teleport in through the anchor point, and then would need to bear the danger of more mundane travel through the winding tunnels of the Labyrinth until they were far enough away from the long-distance anchor to perform a safer, short-range teleport to their final destination Now, Tarren inferred, they were making the same journey in reverse.


    ¡°Did I say you could speak freely! [Instant Discipline]¡± The officer bellowed, instantly cutting off the low murmur of conversation as a number of recruits yelped in pain, rubbing at the backs of their heads. The officer laughed as the yelps of pain died away, a cruel smile creasing his face. ¡°A useful skill, that! And one I daresay you¡¯ll be getting quite used to over the coming days.¡±


    ¡°You see, whatever else you¡¯ve heard about this place, what is most relevant to you is that this will be your home and training center for the next 30 days as we march through the warren and towards our forward staging point. By the time we reach that point and can teleport the rest of the way to the front, I expect all of you to be in top shape, and top recruits! Am I understood?¡±


    A scattered set of ¡°yes¡±es and ¡°yes sir¡±s filled the air, before the officer scowled.


    ¡°I said, am I understood!¡± He bellowed. ¡°[Instant Salute]!¡±


    Abruptly, Tarren felt again a foreign influence fill his mind, telling him to snap his right hand up to his breast and belt out a crisp ¡°yes, sir!¡± but with some effort he shrugged off the strange compulsion, offering only a tepid cry even as the recruits around him snapped through a set of perfect salutes.


    ¡°To detail your training and camp assignments, I now turn you over to Officer Boyle. Officer Boyle!¡±


    As the next Legion officer stepped up to the podium and began speaking, Tarren scanned the crowd before him to find Albon. He stood at the front of their block of recruits, in line with a set of other youths standing in sharp attention. Tarren didn¡¯t know what he felt, staring at Albon, as he listened to Officer Boyle detail camp chores and training regimens. Grief, anger, resentment, love? All boiled together into an unrecognizable mass that sat heavy in his heart. As the officer continued speaking, Tarren¡¯s fists clenched subconsciously, his fear and anger flaring as the reality of the situation began to sink in. Scowling, he tried to stuff his hands into his pockets, to force himself to calm down and think clearly. Halfway through the motion, however, he stopped, and slowly fished his left hand free, extracting the small, hard object he had found nestled unexpectedly in his pocket. It was a rectangular crystal of some kind, affixed to a small chain, with a small strip of paper wrapped hastily around the clasp holding the accessory together. Glancing around surreptitiously, Tarren extracted the paper and opened it, immediately recognizing the words within as being written in Rhys¡¯ messy scrawl.


    Tarren, the note read, I knew you weren¡¯t going to let me do this if you had your way, so naturally I did it anyways. The skill won¡¯t do me much good without you, and maybe in your hands you¡¯ll be able to get back to us all a bit faster. It barely cost me anything to have it extracted, and they say the process of absorbing a skill crystal isn¡¯t too bad. I¡¯d say I¡¯m sorry... but, honestly, I¡¯m not.


    --Rhys


    P.S. You really need to watch your pockets better. In this neighborhood? For shame, Tarren. For shame.


    Despite everything, Tarren couldn¡¯t help but smile at the note. It was just like Rhys, to be arrogant enough to write the damn note, then bold enough to actually pull off dropping it in his pocket unawares. ¡°For shame indeed.¡± Tarren whispered, the words bittersweet.


    With a sigh, he let his hands clench after all, his left hand now clutching his new perception skill, a gift given freely of just about everything Rhys had to his name. He would find a way out of this, for him and Albon both. There was always a way, if you just look hard enough. And he would never stop looking.