SIXTEEN: Boe, Part One

Boe, Part One

Alden stepped out of the elevator, yawning.

Maybe I really will go get breakfast before I come back.

It was five in the morning, but a coffee shop had to be open somewhere. It would be nice to hang out in a place other than consulate basement while he researched his new class.

He stopped by the vending machine to buy a fruit punch for Gorgon, then he headed toward the lobby desk.

“So, I’m a pre-affixed Chainer now,” he said as he passed the alien the bottle of juice.

“That is an extremely rare assignment.” Gorgon spoke in the same totally inflectionless voice he always used when the conversation turned toward anything Alden might construe as advice.

“It seemed like something I could trade more easily. The guy I got it from seemed to think so, too. I think I was really lucky, but he was a little odd about it. I’m gonna go grab a bite and figure out why.”

“I see,” said Gorgon. “Thank you for the juice.”

Alden hesitated, considering his next works carefully.

“I’m still thinking over what you said to me last night. I…noticed it.”

He felt the need to acknowledge Gorgon’s hint now that he was positive there was no uncomfortable servitude thing going on between the two of them.

He had been relieved when he returned to the consulate last night with things that might qualify as actual luggage in hand, and the alien had completely ignored him. Alden had fumbled a two-person sleeping bag, snacks, bottled water, his book bag and his ancient laptop into the building. Yet Gorgon hadn’t lifted a finger for him.

But he couldn’t help noticing that the alien’s gray skin was looking downright charred beneath his magical bonds.

So Gorgon had crossed some sort of line for Alden. And Alden didn’t even know how to say thank you properly without possibly making the situation worse for him.

For a beat, the alien was silent.

Then, instead of replying to Alden’s attempt to subtly express his gratitude, he said, “I have received confirmation that you are allowed to have your friends accompany you into the trading room. They would only be able to provide you with moral support, however. My supervisor was disinclined to grant them temporary access to the trading interface.”

“Wow. Thank you. I really didn’t even expect that much.”

Gorgon shrugged. “Normally, she would have been easier to persuade. But she’s recently been penalized for consorting with a demon, and I believe she’s trying to appear more law-abiding than usual.”

“Your supervisor hangs out with demons?” Alden asked. “Not like you, but actual monsters made of pure chaos?”

He didn’t have a lot of knowledge on real demons. Earth was only contractually obligated to deal with one or two a year, and they all landed in a controlled zone on Anesidora where they were demolished in a matter of seconds by a few hundred Avowed working together.

No media were allowed, so the semi-annual event was never more than a minor headline.

Still, it didn’t sound like they were beings you’d want to consort with.

“All Artonans of the highest ranks have interactions with what some might call true demons. My supervisor just picked a worse one than she should have.”

“Well, let’s not make her mad, then,” Alden said.

“Indeed.”

The conversation ended on that disturbing note, and Alden headed out.

The walk down the still-dark street cleared his head, and after a few blocks he came to a bakery that was just opening its doors. He ordered a matcha and bought a vegan brownie from the section of the case where the shop kept its day-old baked goods.

Despite multiple attempts to force-feed himself old favorites like shredded cheese and bacon, all Alden had managed to do so far was nearly choke to death.

He had confirmed that his new, magically enforced diet was only a diet though. It didn’t affect other aspects of his life. He could still use one of his dad’s old leather belts, and he’d enthusiastically murdered a cockroach he’d found running across the kitchen floor a couple of nights past.

He might be able to make peace with the situation. Eventually.

At least the brownie’s really good.

He set his laptop up at a small corner table and started delving into the Chainer class. At first, it was all normal stuff. There were reputable sites with basic intel on the class’s natural stat bonuses and a few surprisingly sparse lists of the starter skills offered to each rank.

Interestingly, Chainers didn’t seem to have access to spell impressions. Or at least none of them had ever publicly admitted to earning one.

Must be a soft restriction.

It meant that System-granted spells were probably reserved for the class’s S-ranks or as special rewards instead of something they could earn just by leveling up.

The latter wasn’t a clear-cut or guaranteed process for Avowed. Not in the same way it was in a video game.

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Alden didn’t know about Chainers specifically, but for most classes, leveling purportedly involved expanding the functions of your starter skill through a harrowing mix of trial, error, and epiphany. Nobody had ever really come up with a sure-fire method for doing it, as far as he knew. And it wasn’t like the System told you how to improve your skill.

You just had to keep hacking away at it on your own and make it work. Somehow.

Even with a limit on spell impressions, the Chainers weren’t suffering. In fact, there was an entire multigenerational family full of them on Anesidora.

Which was one heck of a shock to Alden, since classes didn’t run in families.

Avowed almost always married other Avowed. And more often than not, their children were chosen by the System. But though they tended to inherit ranks similar to their parents’ own, naturally they couldn’t inherit classes.

They got the same random selection as everyone else.