“Don’t talk so loud,” Alden groaned, smashing his pillow to his face in an attempt to hide from the lights in his capsule.

“What? Are you hungover?” Boe asked.

“Oooo, are you? Isn’t it illegal for Avowed to drink?” Jeremy said. Loudly.

“Not on the Triplanets,” said Boe. “I guess they might still have age restrictions of some kind, though?”

“I’m not hungover,” Alden said into the pillow. “I’m probably the only person on campus who isn’t. How can there still be an exam this morning? I was promised sleep. There was a whole speech about sleep. There are pills just for it, and then they took it away when I wanted it most. They’re torturing me.”

“It’s pretty mild as far as torture goes,” said Jeremy. “Go wash your face in cold water.”

“Drink coffee.”

“I’d have to ask the boater to share theirs, and I hate them. I hate everyone this morning.”

“Ouch.”

“Harsh.”

“Except for you guys,” Alden amended. He ran his tongue over his teeth. The costume fangs were still in place. It was a wonder he hadn’t swallowed one of them in the night.

After meeting Stuart’s father, and having the scariest-ever handholding session with the strange wizard, he’d fled back to the dorms. He’d collapsed into his bed with his ears still ringing, and that dark, shameful memory boiling closer to the surface of his mind than it had in years.

What the heck is the Primary? It sounded like a title. An important one. But Alden had never heard it before.

“Sounds like an awesome party,” said Jeremy.

Alden had only told them about the normal-ish parts. Not the night’s conclusion.

“I guess it was for the guests. For me it was stressful. And exhausting. And a little demeaning. And hot… why is it perpetually hot on this stupid planet?” He paused. “I did get so many tips, though. So many. I don’t even know what for. About halfway through, when all the faculty and parents got plastered, random Argold amounts just started popping up on my interface every few minutes. And some of the students slipped things in my pockets. They’re either sticks of chewing gum or some kind of party drug or a magic thing that does who knows what—”

“Yeah, you should definitely throw those out,” said Boe.

“Obviously I wasn’t going to eat them without asking someone what they were,” said Alden. “Anyway, it lasted forever. I’m gross. I need to shower, but the boater people are hogging them. I did get to play with a magic ring, though.”

“You should steal it!” Jeremy said brightly.

“What’s wrong with you? You were worried he was going to his death a week and a half ago, and now you’re encouraging him to rob a wizard?”

Alden’s morning timer flashed once to catch his attention. He had forty-five minutes. If he didn’t get out of bed soon, it would grow more insistent.

He sighed and tossed his pillow away. There was a smear of black and orange paint across it.

#

“Good morning, Alden dear,” Joe said with a revolting amount of cheerfulness as soon as he entered the lab. The professor was going through his usual drill of removing select items from every table.

“Uh-huh.” I can’t believe he’s still alive.

The last time Alden had seen him, Joe had been modifying the hookah with potions from his little case full of vials. Apparently he kept the party potions right beside the mishnen-killing ones.

“Ah, you’ve kept your fangs! Making a statement?”

Sophie padded over and tipped her helmet in interest. <<A definite improvement,>> she said. <<Do claws next.>>

Alden smiled at her then turned to Joe.

“Actually I can’t get them out. Like…at all. I tried everything short of bashing them with a hammer this morning. I had to quit when my gums started to bleed. The artist didn’t actually cement them to my teeth, did she?”

If he didn’t figure it out soon, it was going to be difficult to explain the fangs to a dentist when he got back to Earth. Yes, I put these on myself. No, I don’t know what I used. Crazy how that happened, right? Please, make them go away.

“How should I know?” said Joe, sniffing a jar of pickled mice. “I can look at them for you when we finish setting up. Maybe it’s some kind of dissolvable glue.”

Not wanting to miss out on that offer, given the lack of alternative solutions, Alden did his best to perk up and help with the work.

“Let’s take away these gold boxes,” he suggested.

Joe blinked at him in surprise. “The Et-lor compressors?” he asked. “I’m fascinated by the suggestion. Why would we deprive the students of those?”

“Only a couple of people use them in each session. And they make a really annoying sound.”

Like nails on a chalkboard in a cave.

“I’m so used to them I never noticed.”

<<They sound like prey,>> said Sophie.

“They’re horrible screechy boxes, and you always fail the people who use them,” Alden said blithely, carrying one away from its table. “I’m doing the students a favor.”

<<What happened to him last night?>> Sophie hissed to Joe. <<Is he going feral?>>

“It seems he’s not a party person. A pity. He was a very big hit.”

Alden felt much better after placing all seventy-five Et-lor compressors in the Corner of Shame where they belonged. When he was done, he helped Joe finish the fridges, and then held his mouth open while the professor examined his fangs through his smart lens.

“She did use some type of glue on them,” he said. “I have several things that will dissolve it, but just keep them for now. I’ll figure it out over lunch. I know absolutely nothing about human tooth enamel, and I imagine you’d rather I not learn through trial and error.”

“I can use Artonan tooth cleaning gum,” Alden reported. And since he was thinking of it, he pulled one of the strange flat sticks out of his pocket and held it out to Joe. It was wrapped in folded waxy paper. “By the way, is this gum? Or is it drugs? Or is it like a chewable magic potion?”

Maybe it wasn’t for eating at all, but it looked like it was. And it smelled like one of the herbs that was popular in food here.

Joe stared at the stick and snorted. “Someone gave you one of those last night? That’s a little…anyway, yes. It is.”

“It is what?”

“Those three things you said.”

Alden stared at him. “It’s a gum-drug-potion?”

Joe was shaking his head in amusement. “Yes. They’re easy to make, if you have the funds for the ingredients. So they’re perennially popular with wealthy young people.”

“What does it do?”

“You chew it, and then you pass it off to someone else to chew it—”

“Well that sounds disgusting.”

“—and a mild sensory link is created between the two, or more, of you for a few minutes.”

Alden stared down at the stick in his hand. “It’s telepathy gum?”

“Sensory. You don’t share thoughts, only senses. Taste, smell, touch, etcetera.”

That…was even better. Alden had been immensely frustrated and a bit jealous about the fact that Artonans felt and managed their authority as an actual sixth sense. If this was sensory gum…

“Could I use this stuff to feel my magic like Artonans do?” he asked excitedly.

Joe looked baffled. “How would I know? It’s not for humans, and it’s not usually used in that—”

“That would be awesome! Oh, but I’d have to chew it with someone who had that sense.”

Alden was turning the gum over in his hand thoughtfully, helped along by Joe’s unreturned ring. “Plus it could be good for combat training, maybe? If you could feel what someone who was more of an expert than you did when they moved. And it would be AMAZING if you could see your surroundings and someone else’s at once…I guess that might make you really dizzy though. It’s got to have lots of practical applications. How long did you say it lasted?”

“A quality stick should last around eleven minutes,” said Joe. “But it’s not designed with humans in mind, so if you’re determined to put it in your mouth, at least wait until there’s a qualified healer nearby.”

“Do you think I could buy more of these?” Alden said seriously.

“For your combat training. As a Ryeh-b’t.”

“Just for whatever I might think of later. I’ve never heard of this stuff before. Do you think it’s very hard to find on Earth?”

Joe sighed. “I neither know nor care. And no. You can’t buy more of it here on the Triplanets legally. Pharmacies aren’t going to sell you something that’s not designed for your species. Just be happy with the piece some young fool gave you, and don’t accidentally poison yourself.”

Alden nodded. “I’ve got fourteen anyway. That should be enough for now.”

“You got fourteen?”

“Yeah. I counted when I was pulling them out of my pockets last night.”

Joe shook his head. “I think I went to the wrong parties in my youth,” he muttered.

“Jel-nor even gave me one. And then she stared at me really hard while she ate a plate of those little cube-shaped burgers.”

“You should remember which piece was hers if you can.”

“Why?”

“Because it will either definitely kill you or definitely be safe for you to consume. Most likely the second since she was trying to imply you should eat the ‘burgers’ together while you were under the influence of the gum. A sort of bribe or peace offering I imagine. In either case, she would have researched the chemistry of it before giving it to you.”

“Noted.” He really didn’t think he wanted to make peace with her, though. More like avoid her at all costs.

“Alas,” said Joe, looking toward the doors, where the quiet sounds of anxious students could be heard. “We have to let them in yet again. No matter how many I test, they just keep coming.”

<<You could fail them immediately,>> Sophie suggested.

“Do you know several people told me last night that I was unacceptably difficult and cruel to their children?” Joe said. “Nobody appreciates my exacting standards.”

#

Maybe because the previous day had been so weird and long, the return to the ordinary routine made the hours fly by. Alden was in a good mood by lunchtime, even though he had to spend the last twenty minutes of his break biting into a nasty-tasting square of gel Joe had made for him.

“Success!” he shouted, when he finally unlocked his jaws and saw the fangs stuck in the gel. “I’m me again.”

<<You look awful.>>

Alden bared his teeth at Sophie.

<<Put them back.>>

He laughed. “I have this friend named Boe at home. You two would get along.”

<<His name is almost the same as the professor’s?>>

Alden blinked. “Yeah it is. But somehow I don’t think they would get along.” The accumulated intellectual superiority and snark would be unbearable for everyone around them, too.

There was only a single lab exam on the final day of his time at LeafSong. So from this moment, there were only four more total before he could go home.

Four lab sessions, two nights’ sleep, three trips to Moon Thegund. He was supposed to leave just after noon on the last day, but Joe had gotten permission to keep him a few hours longer. As soon as he arrived back at the summonarium after the last trip, though, he’d be teleported back to Earth.

I can’t wait to breathe the air in Chicago.

The finish line for this insane first summoning was in sight, and with any luck, he wouldn’t have another for weeks. He’d be plenty busy without it. His to-do list was a mile long.

And the first thing on it is just “Calm down, and think.”

He’d been summoned a few hours after affixing his skill. And for a job this long. It was ridiculous. He was going to sleep for an entire day when he got back and then wake up the next morning and sit on the sofa by himself with a bowl of popcorn and a notebook and try to figure out how to get started on the rest of his life.

No biggie.

Today, let’s just focus on today. The guy whose table he was standing beside was mixing the green and purple goo together. Something always went wrong when you mixed the green and purple goo together. Alden knew that, and he didn’t even have a clue what the goos were.

Trash Rabbit on duty, he thought, smiling at the unlucky student, about to steal your stuff.

That afternoon, Alden rolled toward Hot Lab 7 in a cart and had the peculiar experience of being greeted on his way by several professors and students he didn’t recognize at all.

Guess I’m famous. Please, don’t summon me for your future parties, people.

As soon as the doors of the lab opened and the cool air rushed out, he heard a muffled shout from Joe. “I’m down here today! You can come in.”

He was on the floor of the actual laboratory instead of in his office.

For the first time, Alden went straight inside. He stopped in the chamber that separated the entryway from the center of the building and looked around at the sanitizing equipment. He had absolutely no clue how to use any of it except for the sink.

“Joe, do I need to do anything in here?”

“Just put on a pair of boots so you don’t track in dirt. There’s nothing delicate going on in here right now.”

A minute later, Alden stepped inside wearing a too-tight pair of rubber boots. He headed down a metal staircase, taking in all of the strange equipment with interest.

“What are we doing down here today?”

Joe was standing in front of a large display on the wall that was flashing through sciency information so quickly Alden didn’t have a hope of reading it.

“You are standing there, and I am running a few final simulations on something you will take with you on your way to the lab today.”

“What?”

“Contract,” Joe reminded him absently, still staring at the display.

“Oh, right. Sorry.”

They reconfirmed the private contract, and Joe said, “It’s a bomb.”

Of course it is.

Alden sighed. “Why am I taking a bomb with me today?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Are you blowing up the lab so that the corporation can’t have the rest of your stuff?”

“I’m strategically tidying a few sections it. You’ll need to take two bombs, actually, and deliver them to Thenn. One today. One tomorrow. They’re quite unusual and magically potent, and I don’t want them to strain your skill too much.”

Thenn-ar was the leader at the lab. She’d be one of the last two people evacuated. “Great. Now I’m complicit in blowing up buildings.”

“It’s just some light remodeling really,” Joe said. He glanced over at Alden. “So you’ll do it?”

Oh wait, Alden realized. That’s right. I don’t have to.

The agreement was that he would pick up people and supplies. Not carry bombs over there. He’d been about to say yes without even thinking about it.

Joe was too easy to get along with.

Even now, he was patiently going about his business without applying any additional pressure. And he did help Alden out with things that were well outside of their agreement. The mishnen, the party, even the fangs earlier today. It felt like they were almost friends lately, even though that couldn’t be an accurate description of the relationship. Joe was old and powerful and openly engaged in illegal stuff. And he was a wizard.

An individual private contract they formed might be fair to both parties. But the real underlying dynamic was so unbalanced between them, it probably couldn’t ever be made truly right.

Maybe there was no reason to overanalyze every little thing, though.

“I’ll take it,” Alden said.

“That’s nice of you.”

“Actually, it’s spiteful. It made me really angry that the Yipalck Corporation sent Avowed to rescue their own people and made them leave everyone else behind.”

Joe shook his head. “Even your spite is nice,” he said in a slightly admonishing tone.

“Sorry. Can I ask questions now?”

Joe waved his permission and walked over to feed his vat of eels.

“Who is the Primary?”

“Ah. So he introduced himself to you. He shouldn’t really have done that. But even if he’s aware of how it draws attention and complicates things, I doubt he cares much.”

“So it is a title. Why haven’t I ever heard it before? If he’s someone important, I should have, right?”

“You know, this isn’t skill instruction. Which is what our lessons are supposed to be about.”

Alden paused. “I mean…you don’t have to answer.”

“I know I don’t have to answer. What did he say to you last night? When Stu-art’h said his father wanted to meet you, I thought he was either mistaken or trying to give you some sort of misguided compliment. The people who were aware of the man’s arrival at the party were frankly alarmed. He’s not someone who does a lot of socializing, and they were afraid he might be offended by the nature of the festivities.”

“He held my hands.”

Joe almost dropped the shaker can full of eel food he was sprinkling into the vat, and he turned around sputtering. “Why?”

“His sister told him to.”

The professor stared. “I’m sure you’re leaving something out.”

“He asked me really personal questions. It was…I thought it was some kind of lie detector test, and he was going to want to know about what had happened with the mishnen. Or he was going to ask if I intended to betray Stuart’s trust, but I…don’t think that was it. In fact, he more or less said he wouldn’t do anything to me if I did tell on his son—”

“Don’t. I’ve got ever so many wonderful things going on because of that excellent mishap.”

“—so it was just about me? I think?”

Joe looked troubled. “He must have been using some talent I’m not aware of to examine you. I’m afraid I can’t answer your question.”

“He said I should go home and live well because one day we’d meet again.” Alden rubbed the back of his neck. “It kind of worried me.”

Joe’s eyes widened and he spun back around to face the eels so quickly that Alden didn’t even have time to interpret the expression.

“Joe?”

“I think, truly, that answering your questions about the Primary is not the best use of our limited time together. Let’s return to our regularly scheduled skill lesson.”

“Now you’re kind of worrying me.”

“Touch the ‘Triangle of Absolute Secrecy,’ please.”

Alden stared at his back. “We already reconfirmed the contract for today.”

“Ah, I would like to clarify a point. Today’s lesson is going to be special, you see. And I would like you to confirm specifically that you will not, through any means or by any permutation of interpretation, intentionally reveal the information I’m about to disclose to you with anyone else of any species without my permission. Ever.”

Surprised but intensely curious, Alden thought through the wording. “That’s way too strict, isn’t it? It means even if I hear the information from someone other than you at some point, I still can’t ever repeat it. Or even act on it in a way that I thought would allow it to become known.”

“Yes, that’s right. Anything I say that you’re already aware of is yours to do with as you please, but any new information I reveal falls under this agreement. Also you will not use this knowledge to advise or instruct another person in a fashion that would allow them to take advantage of it.”

“Uh…do I even want to know whatever it is?”

Joe was silent for a minute. He was still staring down at the eels. Finally he said, “I’m not sure. However, it will undeniably benefit your skill development. Which is what I promised to help you do.”

Obviously I’m not going to say no. He’d never stop wondering what he’d missed out on learning if he did.

Something on a table along the far wall dinged.

“My bomb is done!” Joe’s tone was cheerful. “Let me just box it up, and then we can have a proper seat in the office for the rest of this discussion.”

#

“You had ice all this time? And you didn’t tell me?” Alden said accusingly as he took a seat in one of the armchairs that looked down on the lab.

Under his shirt, the tattoo was burning in a way it never had before. He had felt the gremlin watching the contract modification with interest, but it hadn’t objected, so he guessed it was fine. But Joe must have really meant it when he did whatever it was he did with his magic to set it in place.

“You always refuse my drinks.” Joe dropped a few cylindrical pieces of ice into a cup of dark blue tea.

“That’s because they’re always hot. I didn’t even know Artonans drank chilled beverages until I served a couple last night.”

“Usually not in winter.”

“This is winter?”

“Yes, though it’s always mild here. They have a pleasant climate. You didn’t realize?”

“It just never occurred to me that it might be,” he said as he accepted the tea. It tasted floral, but it wasn’t awful.

Joe sat in the chair beside him. He took one sip from his own steaming cup, then without any further ceremony, said, “Lesson One—”

“I knew there had to be a Lesson One!” Alden cried.

“I was thinking of how much I should tell you and how to frame it for you. I was going to use it as the finale of our classes, but then it occurred to me that you might have follow-up questions. And I wouldn’t be doing my sincere best if I just dropped the information on you then sent you back home.”

“Thanks,” Alden said. “Really. That’s thoughtful of you.”

Joe rolled one eye at him. “Lesson One—you should never accept another skill or spell from the System.”

He sipped his tea again. The steam curling from the cup was fogging the lens of his smart monocle.

Beside him, Alden sat motionless. Beads of condensation were forming on the glass in his hand.

“You’re not saying anything,” Joe noted.

“I’m waiting for you to explain the joke.”

The professor’s smile was tight. “Do you really think I swore you to eternal secrecy just so that I could deliver one?”

Alden didn’t. But he still couldn’t process the advice he’d been given. “I don’t understand.”

“I know you don’t,” Joe said simply. “But nonetheless, the lesson is the same. In my opinion, someone in your situation should refuse to accept skills and spell impressions from the System. Or from other sources, should they be offered.”

“The entire benefit of being an Avowed is collecting new skills and spells and foundation points!”

“You should limit the number of foundational improvements you accept, too. I don’t think you have to entirely reject them, but be frugal. Try to keep your physical and mental enhancements within the realm of reason for your class, age, and rank.”

“My class is Rabbit, and my rank is B,” Alden said, raising his voice without meaning to. “What am I supposed to do with one weirdass skill, one shitty little spell, and hardly any superhuman abilities?!”

“One spell?” Joe said in an interested voice. His eye flicked behind the lens. Then he laughed. “You never affixed your second! Did you even need my advice?”

“I haven’t affixed it because I couldn’t find a spell I liked on the list! And it was important to me to be careful and make the most of it! I was going to study all of them when I got back home!”

It was strange to feel threatened by advice, but Alden did. What the professor was saying was unheard of, incomprehensible, and unwanted.

“Is it even possible to refuse skill and spell rewards?” he demanded. “I couldn’t refuse to get a skill in the first place! The System was all something, something thank you for your service, if you don’t choose in a few months everything will be randomly affixed for you against your will. ENJOY.”

“I’m not that nice, you know,” Joe said, raising an eyebrow at him. “I won’t bother elucidating any further if you keep flinging teenage emotions at me like I’ve personally done you some injury.”

Alden looked away from him. His grip tightened on the cold glass.

Joe spoke after a moment of silence. “It’s astonishing. They really didn’t explain a thing to you, did they?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Alden said stiffly.

“Whichever one of my colleagues told you to pick that class. And that skill.”

Alden stopped breathing.

“I suppose it could have been another Avowed, but there shouldn’t be any on Earth at this early stage of your planet’s development who would know enough to give you that kind of advice. It must have been an Artonan official, but I can not fathom how you would have come to know one well enough for them to make such a suggestion. Without any sort of protective contract in place no less.”

“I just picked it because it sounded cool.” Alden spoke steadily, but he didn’t trust himself to turn around.

“No. You didn’t,” Joe said in a thoughtful tone. “You’re not the kind of person who thinks being a Ryeh-b’t sounds ‘cool.’ For a while, I wasn’t sure, because you do have a couple of qualities that suit the job. You’re comfortable around other species and open-minded about vast cultural gulfs, for example. But you find the aspects of the class that most humans regard as perks tedious, and you highly value assignments you deem morally worthwhile.”

The professor paused, then added, “It’s only happenstance that you got one of those from me, and you have to know that. No human who preferred rescue missions to parties would pick Rabbit. Or a skill called ‘Let Met Take Your Luggage.’ I looked up the initial English description just to be absolutely sure there wasn’t some clue, and I can imagine no scenario in which someone with your personality would have selected it from the multitude of available options, unless you were advised to do it by someone you trusted.”

Alden frantically tried to come up with a believable reason to have chosen the class and the skill…and he couldn’t. Even if he said he wanted money, it would sound like a lie. There were Rabbit skills known to be good for that. He’d picked a complete unknown.

Why is Joe paying that much attention to me anyway!? He’s not supposed to be so freaking curious that he psychoanalyzes every little thing.

“You don’t have to look so nervous. Any Artonan who knows enough to recommend the skill is either my equal or my superior, and they have a strong disrespect for certain rules. I’m hardly going to report someone like that. I’m just surprised that they gave you something with such a specific kind of value but they apparently didn’t offer you their personal protection or want you to know how to use it. It’s baffling.”

It would look that way if you assumed it was an Artonan instead of Gorgon, trying to deliver advice without being punished by his magic chains. At this point, the only thing Alden could do was steer the conversation away from how he’d gotten the advice in the first place.

“Why can’t I accept more skills and spells? When I level up and they’re offered, am I really just supposed to refuse to affix them?”

It sounded like madness. And also… depressing.

“The Contract only forces affixations on Avowed in uniquely dangerous cases or as a last resort. I’m sure you noticed it goes to great lengths to cajole people into accepting it semi-freely instead. And it’s almost always successful. Every version of the System walks a tightrope, trying to maintain a certain amount of control over its planet without absolutely bleeding resources, and it only grows more complicated with every passing generation. Nearly two thousand years ago, the first version of the Contract was designed as something beautifully simple and effective. However, that’s changed.”

“Effective at what?” Alden asked.

“Managing a problem that can never be truly solved,” Joe said vaguely. “That’s not a good topic for the two of us to delve into tonight. But do you remember what I said about the way Artonans generally viewed Avowed?”

“Beasts of burden, existential threats, children that should be bossed around, or gifts from the holy universe.” It was a hard conversation to forget.

“I’m sure I said children in need of instruction, but your version will do. The initial idea of selecting Avowed from resource worlds was a product of minds who would view your existence as a great gift. For our planets—we only had the Mother and Artona II back then—and your own. It was, and is, an arrogant point of view. One centered on Artonan needs and our assumptions about what other species should value.” He shrugged. “But that particular point of view is the only one of the common four that assumes Avowed should both have extraordinary power and be given all the tools they need to use it as a matter of course.”

Alden frowned at his tea. It was turning aqua as the ice melted. “Are you saying the secret to ‘extraordinary power’ is refusing to accept skills. Because I’m confused.”

“That’s because you’re not letting me finish. There was an initial set of around three hundred skills, designed with the fervent passion and care of those who believed they were on a holy mission to save existence itself. The designers proposed that delivering these skills to Avowed and facilitating their use should be the entire point of the Contract.

“But the creation and implementation of a stable, global agglomerate spell that could do everything the Contract does was—and is to this day—the largest magical undertaking in Artonan history. Those dreamers who wanted a certain type of Avowed couldn’t do it themselves. It was an endeavor that required the cooperation of nearly a third of the magic-capable population.”

Alden wondered how many wizards that actually was. Artonans were, as far as anyone knew, the most numerous highly intelligent species in the universe. The Triplanets today had a population of nearly thirty-five billion. Even two thousand years ago, a third of all wizards had to be a staggering number.

“Do human schools ever force you to work on your educational assignments with partners?” Joe asked.

“Group projects?” said Alden, surprised. “Of course.”

“Aren’t they perfectly horrible? It’s rare to get a group of even four or five people to function cohesively. I’m sure it’s the same for humans. We’re unbelievably similar. Imagine a planet-wide group project that everyone agreed must be completed…and then imagine that nobody wanted to complete it in the same way.”

“The ‘Avowed are Gifts’ people didn’t get their way I guess?”

“Oh, they got their way. And so did absolutely everybody else. Which means that nobody got their way. And there is still today an exhausting, never-ending battle waged at the very pinnacle of wizarding society about how exactly the Contracts should be managed.”

He sighed. “It’s embarrassing. Our resource worlds imagine we’re soooo clever. Even the ones that loathe us think we’re competently evil. And I suppose we have managed an absolutely shocking level of success given the in-fighting involved. But virtually everything about the current Systems are a result of negotiations between different Artonan philosophies. They’ve got strong beating hearts we all more or less agree on, but they’ve been enfleshed and clothed by a thousand different committees.”

“Is that why some of the talent names and descriptions are so…”

“Obscure on your planet?” said Joe. “Yes. It’s not as though they couldn’t be explicitly described. But every time someone designs an interesting new skill for Avowed, someone else comes along and says ‘If you give them that, they will hurt themselves!’ And yet another person is shouting, ‘They will kill us all!’ And some idiot is always off in the corner trying to convince his friends that all Avowed should look like supermodels, or have their brains turned off when they’re not in use, or be able to chew through boulders with their teeth.”

“That’s…”

Terrifying. Alden was startled to realize that he actually preferred the idea of cohesive Artonans with dark intentions to flailing politicians who might screw up his planet in a hundred different ways at any given moment. At least evil overlords would probably want Avowed to be alive and useful.

“Well, try not to lose sleep over it. We haven’t blown anything up too badly in my lifetime. All of this was just the lead-up to the part that is of interest to you. In this day and age, due to prevailing mindsets and a widespread belief that the universe is not in the immediate danger we once feared, most skills aren’t designed to be developed beyond a certain point. They have ceilings. There are different ones for every skill, but it’s common for them to top out around Levels 4 through 10, as you would think of it.”

Alden knew that already. “Level 10 Skill User” had a certain connotation of complete mastery. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why don’t you let them go higher?”

“It’s not like that. They don’t ‘go higher’ because there is no higher for them. If we focus on the skill-based classes like Ryeh-b’t, then skills are…ah, this is hard to explain since you don’t have any background knowledge…they’re usually designed to rapidly reproduce the effect of a difficult but desirable spell.”

Alden blinked. “That’s not something I’ve ever heard.”

“How much of this conversation has been? Anyway, even if we just take your skill, at its most basic level, as an example, there are spells that preserve things. Obviously. It’s not like I can’t cast them myself. I’m actually quite good at that genre of magic given how useful it is for my job. But knowing the right spell for the right situation and being able to cast it precisely when it’s needed isn’t nearly as easy or convenient as saying, ‘Hey, Alden. Go pick that up.’”

“So skills are just big, complicated spell impressions?”

“Very similar to that. The main differences are that spell impressions are almost always weaker than equivalently ranked skills, and they tend to be perfect duplicates of a real spell, with the casting instructions impressed onto your being so that you don’t actually have to know how magic works and you literally can’t screw them up. Skills are often based on spells, but they’ve been re-engineered to allow the Avowed to slowly come to terms with what they are and master what they can do. More flexibility, more complex end results, much steeper learning curve. But when you reach the end of that learning curve you’re done. Whatever the maximum level is, once it’s reached, the skill is complete, and you have to select a new one and start building it.”

Alden had about a thousand questions, but most importantly… “Do you know what the maximum level for my skill is, then?”

Joe giggled. It was frightening.

“It doesn’t have one,” he said. “The original three hundred skills all still exist in one version of the System or another. The philosophical descendants of the designers make sure they don’t get completely excised. I’m not certain if they really believe those skills will save us all, or if it’s just a point of pride they can’t yield.”

Alden already knew where this was going. But the professor’s next words still sent a frisson of shock through him.

“Yours is number one hundred and twelve. It was hidden under a shroud of mediocrity by the factions that hoped you would never find it. It would be tragic if you uncovered it only to fall into the next trap that has been laid for you.”

“The trap is…taking another skill?”

“Or a spell impression. Or too many foundation points. All of the ways you would commonly wish to increase your power will only slow you down and limit the skill’s growth. I’ve given you all the hints you need to guess why. And you’ve been a fairly good student.”

Oh no.

The look on Joe’s face said this was some kind of pop quiz, and Alden had seen enough of the professor’s teaching style to know that if he answered wrong the lesson would likely end at once.

He had developed theories, but he considered them half-baked.

“My ability to do magic—my authority—is wrapped up in the skill and the trait I chose,” he suggested finally. “The skill going up a level is a result of my authority increasing. But if the System always offers rewards for leveling in addition, is it like there’s excess authority? Like as I develop Let Me Take Your Luggage, part of my power is naturally wrapped up with the skill, but part of it’s still unbound?”

That made sense, Alden decided. In a headachey way. Since he’d finally gotten used to the idea of authority over the past few days.

“So the rewards the System offers every time I level aren’t exactly free gifts,” he concluded. “It’s transforming my unbound authority into a talent. Which means when I accept them, the excess authority…gets set back to zero. But in exchange I get powers I can actually use.”

Joe slapped the arm of his chair. “Yes! Excellent for a human. Some clarifications as a reward: your ‘unbound authority’ will never be zero, though it’s usually significantly lower for Ryeh-b’ts than others due to class design. It’s why you’re only granted talent rewards for leveling, and summoners can’t usually offer them to you as payment for services rendered. Another bizarre set of complicating factors sponsored by centuries worth of politics and peoples’ feelings about the different classes. Blah. Don’t worry about it.

“Instead, wonder about what happens if you don’t give the System permission to affix its little rewards when it wants to.”

“Eventually it’s going to force me to do it, right?”

“The key word there is eventually. It doesn’t want to take that route. It’s absolutely horrible on the budget, and it’s considered morally monstrous by far more Artonans than you would expect. So the System isn’t allowed to force an affixation until it’s exhausted all other possibilities. Instead it will let you level the skill and level it again and probably a few more times besides without taking your reward. I haven’t actually seen it happen before, but from what I understand, it will resort to outright bribery right before it gives up on getting your permission and violently modifies you.”

“How does it bribe people who refuse to accept any kind of magical improvement?”

“It almost never occurs, but I’ve heard it usually involves the creation of high end equipment. You asked once about accumulating a large number of refusals; I imagine something like that would be on the table, too.”

That sounded awesome. “Why don’t more people do it then?”

“Why don’t more people train endlessly in an effort to increase their power and then, at the moment of achievement, refuse to increase their power?”

“I mean…somebody has to have tried it just out of curiosity.”

Joe shook his head. “You have to consider the fact that the first thing that will happen is nothing. And the second. And the third. And only then does the System start to get concerned about the unbound authority creating a dangerous problem for the Avowed.”

“What happens?”

“A scale tips. Too much excess authority will unbalance the original skill affixation and damage it, which would result in either a gruesome and agonizing death or something much worse.”

So maybe don’t give the System a hard time just for your own amusement then, Alden thought.

“So, if I level and refuse my rewards and never take one from a summoner either, eventually I’ll get a last-ditch bribe?”

“You don’t want the last-ditch bribe. You want the thing that will, I think, come before it. With you, the System will have an additional option. If you’re refusing the rewards the Triplanets would prefer you take, it can offer you the next step on the original progression path for your skill. The old one, designed by wizards who assumed you would be training with this one skill for your entire life.”

“What is it?”

“I’m not sure,” said Joe.

Alden made a sound of protest.

“I’m not an expert on the original skills. You’re lucky I even recognized yours as one. It’s not like it has a flashing label beside it when you’re summoned. Your abilities show up here—” he pointed at his monocle, “—as sets of useful data for the summoner. It shows me that you have a preservation talent. Most people experienced with the type will note that it’s a little unusual. It almostlooks like it’s poorly made, but it’s just based on ancient tastes. No contemporary wizard would design an Avowed skill that would let you bring your full authority to bear almost instantaneously at level one.”

“It makes me too powerful?”

Joe gave him a flat look. “Aren’t you optimistic? No. It just lets you exhaust every last bit of what power you naturally have at once. So that the person in charge of lab exams has to make sure you don’t accidentally touch the wrong thing, pass out instantaneously, and then explode.”

Alden felt himself blush. “Thanks.”

“It’s fine. The students didn’t make anything good enough to have that effect anyway.” He sounded disappointed.

“So Lesson One,” Alden said. “Level the skill but don’t accept any rewards until I get something that looks like the start of a super old skill-specific progression path?”

“Correct. And thus, I think I have more than fulfilled the offer I made you on the first day.”

“Offer?”

“I asked if you wanted me to advance your knowledge of your skill by twenty years compared to your fellow humans. Instead, I have advanced it by several decades and levels of information access according to Artonan standards.” Joe looked terribly pleased with himself. “Maybe I am nice after all.”

“You’re nice,” Alden agreed absently, still a little shellshocked and worrying over the apparent irregularity of his skill. Trying to figure out how to be an Avowed on Earth was hard enough; he never once thought he’d have to work out the political ramifications of his skill from a Triplanets perspective. “I see why I’m not allowed to talk to people about this. It’s a little…am I going to be in some kind of trouble with other Artonans? Just for having the skill?”

“That’s why I was so surprised your secret benefactor hasn’t done anything to take you off the table. If I were to tell a young Avowed to pick a skill like this, I would lock them into a long-term contract the very instant they affixed it. Mostly to keep people from finding out I’d done it but partly to keep one of my more panicky colleagues from summoning you into the path of a strategically timed bullet.”

Alden winced.

“I offered you a long-term largely in jest that first day. I was still trying to figure you out, and I was worried you were some kind of convoluted trick sent by one of my enemies. You were, after all, carrying one of the few talents that would help me with my problem; and you were all wrapped up like a present in that pretty coat that nobody ever buys.”

“It’s because most Rabbits don’t want coats for working in bomb labs, Joe.”

“Finally. He admits it.”

Alden groaned and downed the rest of his blue tea in one gulp. “I wanted the agility stats. To complement my movement trait. For superhero school.”

“Oh my stars,” said Joe.

“You’re going to say something awful. I know it.”

“That’s precious.”

“I’m serious about it!”

“That makes it even more precious. I can’t believe someone adopted such a precious little Ryeh-b’t and then abandoned it to the harsh cold realities of the world.”

“What the hell? I’m not a puppy someone left in a box outside the grocery store. I have plans.”

Admittedly, those plans kept taking a beating. But Alden was sure he could put them back together. In some form.

“I really will adopt you if you want,” Joe said. “As soon as I finish wriggling out of some of my problems. It would have been no trouble for me to permanently hire a B-rank before, but it’s a bit out of reach just now. Maybe a year from now. After I’ve had enough of a wrist slap to satisfy people, I should be able to successfully challenge the limits on my summoning rights.”

“That’s…good of you. And I like you. But I really don’t want to live here. I want to go home,” Alden said firmly.

Joe nodded. “I thought you’d say that. You should be fine for now. Most people won’t have the foggiest idea what the skill is, and they won’t care as long as you don’t do something insane with it. The ones who do know will almost all think it’s happenstance that you ran across it, and they’ll assume there’s no reason to worry. It’s not like it’s illegal to have the skill. We’re the ones who keep putting it in the pot with everything else after all. It’s just a small percentage who will know and dislike it enough to make your life difficult. It will be fine.”

“For now.”

“For now,” Joe agreed. “A couple of decades from now, on the other hand—”

“Joe it’s not going to take me decades to level it high enough to get the special perks, is it?” Alden said in a slightly panicked voice. “Because I don’t think I have the mentality—”

“I don’t know how long it’ll take before the System offers it. Five levels maybe? It’s just a guess.”

“Still…five levels could take me years. I mean, I was hoping to do three a year, but I knew that was ambitious of me.” One per year was more common. Two was practically a standard for Apex schools. But plenty of people never leveled at all.

“Endure,” Joe said dryly.

At least two years. Just sitting around with the exact same package of talents he had now. Well, the skill would still improve as it leveled. But he’d get no new low-rank skills to work with. No spells. He’d be putting in all the work of someone who seriously cared about progressing their powers, but he’d have almost nothing to show for it.

And he wouldn’t even be able to tell anyone why.

If I get into a hero development program, they’ll think I’m slacking off. They’ll expel me for lack of progress. Do I even want the super mysterious original Avowed universe-saving power?

Well, when he put it that way it was hard to say he didn’t.

“Gah!” said Alden, leaping up from his seat. “I can’t think anymore. Where is the bomb I’m supposed to be delivering?!”

“So eager,” said Joe. “By the way, there is one person I want you to tell about this conversation.”

“Seriously?” Alden said in surprise. “The Triangle of Absolute Secrecy still feels like you branded it into me, by the way. Who am I supposed to tell?”

Joe steepled his fingers and stared down at the vat of eels writhing below them in the lab. “One day, when the Primary realizes which skill you have, he’s going to make your life absolutely miserable.”

That sent a chill down Alden’s spine. “Why?”

“I won’t tell you that. But he will eventually realize it if you achieve anything of note with it. And when the time comes, there’s the most perfect way of getting back at him. Yes. We have to do it. No matter the cost.”

“Your face looks so scary right now. And the Primary is not someone I want to make mad. I’m almost positive I’m going to refuse.”

Joe ignored him. “When you see the endless misery on the horizon, that’s the moment. Tell him then.”

“Tell him that you told me this huge Artonan secret?”

Why? Joe acted like he was scared of the Primary. And Alden really wished he wouldn’t use the phrase “endless misery” to describe Alden’s own future.

Joe looked him in the eye. “It will shock him.”

“You want me to tell the Primary something that might get you killed because it will shock him?” Alden repeated. “Are you all right?”

“I don’t think he’s been shocked since he was a teenager,” said Joe. “It will be good for him.”

“Yeah. Okay. I’ll take a moment out of my day when I’m feeling, apparently, very miserable to deliver a shock. To the Primary. For you.”

“Thank you, Alden Ryeh-b’t,” said Joe. “I’ll entrust you with the message. Even if he takes my head off for it, it will be so very worth it.”