Adamant Blood

By the time evening rolled around, Mark was pissed at the world again and ready to talk to people about it, so he was very ready for this ‘get together at Black Chess’.

This was his first real time walking throughout Citadel, though, so he was a bit distracted by that.

The Citadel of Freyala was divided into a few different parts, sort of like a sliced-up cake, with the center carved out for its own purposes. Central Citadel was actually off-center, toward the southwest. Mark roomed in the dorms further southwest, in Building 5 of 20-ish total. Healing Hall and most of the ‘academy’ was nearer Central Citadel, though only some people called it ‘the academy’.

The technical name was the Ecclesiastical Centers of Freyala.

People just took classes and clubs in that area. There was an actual Academy Freyala, located in southern France. That place was an arcanaeum and university both. Here at the Citadel they just had practical clubs and classes to help people with introductions to the world beyond Tutorial, or to help them in their active choices to become adults. This was a ‘starter zone’ of rest and military might, and people choosing where they wanted to go from here.

The Curtain wasn’t enforced here at the Citadel. All information was open for all to see and know, to make choices about where they’d go, now that they knew more about the real world.

It was mainly a place of powers, of recruiting, and of life decisions. Many of the classes were overseen by volunteers in the faith, which could either mean paladins on downtime, on recovery, or noble houses that had people that wanted to teach (and recruit).

And so, Citadel had everything. There was a coliseum on the north side where exhibition matches were held on the main field. The east-ish side of Citadel was all residential and religious; mostly noble houses and shrines and the like. Between the academy area and the coliseum, to the far west, lay the air field.

The actual center of Citadel was all business and nightlife and recreation.

Trams ran pretty much all the time between the various centers, and through them, too. Almost no one had cars but there were some out there, especially hovercars. The Citadel was pretty average for most walled cities in the world. Maybe 40 kilometers in diameter? Something like that.

Mark got off of the tram at the southwest side of the city center. Black Chess was a bar for students, located far from the academy and at the other side of the city center. Mark could have taken a tram closer, but he wanted to walk through the center of Citadel Freyala.

It took Mark half an hour of walking to get to his destination, which was okay by him. It was nice to walk through a big city, because he had never been allowed into places like this back home. Back in Orange City, this sort of place would have been called ‘the Hero Quarter’, and kids were strictly not allowed.

Mark understood now why he wasn’t allowed here as a kid, and that understanding pissed him off. Or maybe that was just his background feeling these days. How long would that last? Forever? Maybe.

Mark watched a waiter at a restaurant set down food between a man and a woman. That food glowed with mana. Literally. The steak was bright, like a white spotlight was on it, while the veggies and potatoes were green and yellow. It was mana food, and, based on the color, the steak probably fortified everything, because it was white, while the veggies and potatoes fortified Kinetic and Mind, because of the green and yellow hues to them.

Even the smell was magical, and it made Mark feel stronger, somehow, just to smell it. Eating it would probably grant a whole host of special enhancements.

A lot of the people at the restaurant were eating things like that, and the restaurant’s name was ‘A Colorful Feast’, so maybe they hyped up the whole color theory of astral bodies? Through Talents? Or preparation? Mark didn’t know. The price tags on the menu by the door told him that he could not afford to eat here, though.

25,000gl for a steak dinner. Who had that much goldleaf to spend on food? No one!

… But apparently a lot of people did.

Over there was a gadget shop with signs that read about deals on astral shields. ‘15% off on all our tier 2 shielding stock! Guaranteed to boost all aspects to at least 20!’ That was impressive. Mark did not understand exactly how impressive it was until he thought about it for a little bit, though. Curtain Protocol would have denied him all understanding.

If Mark were to put on one of those shields, his scores in Body, Shaper (sometimes people said ‘Kinetic’), Mind, Natural (sometimes people said ‘Spiritual’), Arcane, and Arch, would all be Power Level 20, meaning he would have a tier 2 level of astral body resistance against all incoming attacks, as if he had a 20 in those attributes. That wouldn’t do shit for his ability to use his own Powers, but it would allow him to shrug off a goblin’s claws, which had damage ratings of between 0 and 10 for most of them.

At 20 Power Level, skin was still skin, but against a PL 0-10 set of claws, the goblin would have to get lucky or have very sharp claws in order to do anything against his skin.

Power Level wasn’t the end-all-be-all of deciding factors in a fight, but it was a very good start.

A book shop over there was called ‘Intro Books’. It was a small bookshop. Reading any of the books in there at all would have caused a mana baptism, for sure. They had a sign out front that said as much.

Coming to any of these places as a kid would have assuredly done a number of things to his astral body, which meant Awakening him early. Most of those possible outcomes were the development of a Knack, or a Knowing. The lowest of innate magical powers. Incredibly random, too. Having one would knock Mark out of the chance for Tutorial and almost all of them were simply… bad.

Everyone knew a kid growing up who ignored the warning of adults and sought knowledge he should have not sought. For Mark, that kid was Tim Shanks. A former best friend.

Tim, Sally, and Mark. Three inseparable kids growing up on Gladegrove near-ish to each other. They met in kindergarten.

In middle school, Tim tried to get them all to go into the Hero's Quarter when Glorious Man was supposed to be there, to see him give a speech about something. Mark couldn’t recall what the speech would have been about. Thinking about it, that speech might have been about Red Thunder and Mistress Storm’s first flyby. But anyway. Sally and Mark didn’t want to go and get saddled with a Knack. They had heard the horror stories of kids going to the Hero's Quarter and Awakening to a Knack. Or worse. A mana baptism that killed them, turning them into monsters, though that was pretty rare, actually. Overhyped, according to what Mark now knew.

Mark walked through the ‘Hero's Quarter’ of Citadel Freyala, spotting all the kids with their parents. They were probably born in high-magic households, so they were already ‘flavored’ to start, and thus not incredibly vulnerable to outside magical forces. Or else their parents had made the decisions to give their kids Knacks and forgo the dangers of Tutorial altogether.

Tim had been raised like Mark and Sally; with parents who never did any magic anywhere near them. Within-sight-of, sure, but not actually near them.

Tim had had no such protections when he went to see Glorious Man’s speech.

He managed to sneak into the Hero's Quarter rather easily, too, which Mark and Sally had never understood. Mark and Sally had told each other that the people in the Hero's Quarter would see the kid and stop him from entering. That’s what their own parents had told them all the time. ‘There’s no reason to go anywhere near it. The guards will stop you at the entrance.’

But there was no entrance here, at Citadel, to Citadel’s ‘Hero’s Quarter’.

Mark doubted there were entrances at Orange City’s Hero’s Quarter, either. Mark knew there was just a street, named Hero’s Street, that crossed from one side of the city to the other, and that to go beyond that street was to be put in danger. Mom and Dad had told him never to go anywhere near it, and Mark never did. Sally never did, either.

Tim went across Hero’s Street, and straight into Hero’s Quarter, to see Glorious Man’s speech.

And yeah. There hadn’t been any guards. Only the barest of checkpoints. Tim had gotten in and then gone to see Glorious Man’s speech, and in the middle of the speech, he had gotten a message from Malaqua, disbarring him from Tutorial. Tim had gotten a mana baptism without even knowing it.

He got a Knack. He was able to distinguish colors by looking at them. Great eyesight, too! But the Knack was just a Knack.

Tim couldn’t be their friend after he Awoke.

Mark walked through the night life of Central Citadel, and wondered what sort of Knack or Knowing he would have gotten if he had followed Tim. Mark had stopped himself from thinking those thoughts back in middle school, back when Tim had to move away. But he let those thoughts come to him now.

Mark walked in a vaguely angry daze toward Black Chess.

It was a nice-ish place. Big black chess pieces on the sign, ringed in purple neon, and young people at wooden tables, drinking wine or beer and talking. The walls were wooden and the lighting was ample. A bowl of condoms sat by the entrance and the music was soft techno, which was perfect for talking closely with others.

Mark’s vague unhappiness with the world, with himself, with the day, came to a rapid head.

Social anxiety roared in his mind.

Mark turned and walked—

“Hey! There he is!” Raoul’s voice came to Mark from behind.

Mark froze.

“Yo, man!” Jacob’s voice said, also behind Mark.

Mark was stuck.

He pushed down everything anti-social and turned with a small smile, saying, “Hi…” And then his voice kinda just stopped.

Raoul was there with Jacob, both of them wearing acolyte white. Svea stood up from a table, smiling brightly, in some grey clothes. And there were two other people there in sand-brown; outsiders to the Church, but still welcome, and probably poor or new to this life, just like Mark.

Raoul smiled and grabbed Mark in a half-hug, pulling him inward to the table, saying, “We’re glad you showed up!”

Jacob punched Mark’s shoulder in a friendly sort of way, saying, “You’re late!”

Mark was very, very thankful for how friendly Jacob and Raoul were. For a moment, it felt like Mark was back on the field with the rugby guys.

Raoul pulled away from Mark, gesturing to the other two people at the table. One was a guy with skin so dark it was nearly black, and the other was a woman of vaguely lighter skin. They looked almost like brother and sister. Raoul named them, “Pako and Nala Shehu, brother and sister.” And then he named Mark, “Mark!”

Mark didn’t have time to feel awkward.

Pako instantly said, “I want to buy you a beer, Mark.”

Did they know who he was? Yeah, they did. Look at those eyes, and that caution. They knew Mark was Mark Careed. Mark didn’t need to be super empathic to know what he was seeing. With that mystery solved, Mark was left wondering why anyone would want to buy him a beer.

Mark blurted out, “Why?”

Pako happily said, “Because you deserve it!”

“And I will buy the next one,” Nala said.

Mark was suddenly on edge. “Why?”

Pako’s face was solid as he said, “Because it sucks to be used like that.”

Nala said, “That’s why Pako and I are not going into the military. Staying as far away from those pricks as we can.”

Svea added, “They’re not the only ones. I want to stay here long enough to satisfy grandfather and Freyala, and then I am leaving to join the Slayers. If I never have to follow orders ever again, I will be happy.”

“Freyala is okay,” Raoul said, “But I will not be going back to Spain.”

Jacob said, “I heard they had mandatory service in your neck of the world, Mark. We have that in South Africa, too. Unless a miracle of Freyala happens, then I plan to serve a year to become a full citizen and then leave for Daihoon.”

The talk at sparring club today had been light. Probably because they were being overseen by Instructor Charms the whole time, and she didn’t allow for much chatter anyway. If a person could talk, then they could get out there and fight; that is what she said more than a few times.

But this was deep stuff, and fast.

They all just… just laid that out there, and now here was Mark, feeling unmoored.

Mark felt a weirdness burble up. “Yeah… Yeah it… It really fucking does suck to be used by archmages.”

Pako asked, “So how about that beer, Mark?”

Mark felt more weirdness. He huffed a small noise that might have been a laugh, if one were exceedingly charitable. He sat down. “Yeah. Let’s try it.”

Pako grinned, and then he got up, and teased, “You’re a lightweight, yes? No beer for kids in America?”

“I’ll take a 12% ABV anything,” Mark said. “They have it that strong here, right?”

Pako chuckled and he went to the bar.

Ah. Mark had not meant to make a joke, but he would take it!

Nala leaned toward softly saying, “It goes up to 25% for high-brawnies.”

Mark chuckled— And then he lost his chuckle as he remembered what he was mad about before, and what he wanted to talk with Svea, Jacob, and Raoul about. He said, “I just found out today that over half of Earth doesn’t do the Curtain! And that I grew up in a fundamentalist nation! ECU is fucking nuts about the Curtain. Gods!”

Maybe it wasn’t that simple, but the starter information for his Understanding Curtain Protocol class had had some strange statistics.

Jacob grinned and Raoul laughed. Nala chuckled.

Svea spoke with a fresh hatred of her own, “And if you would have been even the least bit exposed in the womb, you would have been born with an astral resistance, like they have on Daihoon.”

Mark exclaimed, “Yes!”

Svea said, “Whatever your mother had, even if it was shitty, you would have been primed to develop later in life. You could learn about magic and be around adults with magic like a normal kid and not be doomed to Awaken as a Brawny, or primed to mana baptize with something shit through accidental learning.”

Mark said again, “Yes!”

“It’s not that simple,” Nala said.

Svea rolled her eyes.

“How is it not that simple?” Mark asked.

Nala gestured to Pako, walking back with a very tall beer. “Our mother is a summoner. She made sure we were exposed to that magic in the womb, even though the village elders didn’t approve. We could have been born monsters.”

Mark said, “But that’s so rare, though. One in a million?”

There were some ambivalent looks.

Nala said, “It was a danger either way, to be born with powers behind the Curtain.”

Pako said, “Ah! We are talking of the Curtain then?” He handed Mark his drink, with a smile. “Congrats on learning that the powers-that-be are shit.”

… And on that note.

Mark waterfalled the beer. It took half a minute.

Everyone watched as he did that, and as he got near the end, Pako laughed and Nala clapped, as Svea reminded Nala that she had the next one, yes? Nala got a round for the table, and Jacob started to talk of his time under the Curtain.

“I had one friend actually monsterize!” Jacob said, as he held onto a new beer from Nala.

“No!” Svea said, scandalized.

Mark almost said the same thing, also scandalized. “No way.”

Jacob nodded. “I only ever saw him on weekends, when his parents were home from work and when they could watch him. It was some sort of play date that our parents organized. His name was Ivan and his people were from Russia and they do the Curtain even crazier over there, you know.”

Mark didn’t actually know that, but everyone else nodded.

Jacob continued, “It was a failure on… on so many levels. Something happened on the wall at the Cape of Good Hope. Nightgoblins got into the city. Some went undetected and they got into the waterways. I was playing with Ivan by the lake— Small lake. No dangers usually— and then there was a goblin. It came out of the water and bit Ivan, clean through his entire right arm... and… And that was it. He was already dead in that simple touch. The goblin dragged him into the water and let him bloat while it protected his body... Gods, it was so fucking horrible. Ivan was still alive when it was happening. He was dead, but he was alive. He became a few goblins. The official count was 3, but I saw at least 6. That’s probably just a kid’s recollection, though. I still have nightmares.” Jacob was having trouble talking, but he powered through. “Ivan had no astral body at all. A complete baseline. No resistance. The infestation took him over and then the burbling started. I was lucky. I had no astral body either. I was a meter further from the water. Ivan went closer to the water to… to get something. I can’t even remember what it was.” He breathed. He said, “And that was when I was 8.”

Everyone drank.

In a distant, insistent way, Mark felt that Jacob’s story wasn’t really a story about a mana baptism turning a person into a monster, and yet… Goblins turned people into monsters; this much Mark knew. Outside of the Tutorial, a natural goblin was as dangerous to a community as any mimic infestation.

… So maybe the bite of a goblin was a mana baptism, and Mark had just never understood that before today.

Something began to click in Mark’s mind.

Exposure to magic often resulted in mana baptisms. Did a goblin’s mana count? Maybe. That would explain why Lola had talked about them not letting people out into the wilds to fight monsters until they had a Body of 20, for frontliners, and 10 for everyone else—

Mark said, “Oh holy shit. A goblin’s attack really is just a mana baptism, isn’t it? The ‘Talent’ it Awakens is ‘goblin’. You need to be Awakened to a 10 in Body to survive that?”

As if Mark had said the most natural thing in the world, Jacob said, “It’s something I’m studying, but I don’t really know yet. ‘Yes’, is the simple answer. Monsters are much more careless with their mana than people.” He added, “I do know that even a 1 in Body can make you live long enough to get to a healer to remove any sort of basic monster infection, but any sort of existing astral body at all would have saved Ivan. The goblin bit through his entire arm. Blood flowed freely, and so did the infected saliva. Most of the infection would have flushed away with the bite. Daihoon kids have 2 in everything due to womb imbuement. If we were raised like they do over there then Ivan would be alive today.”

Mark wondered if that was true, though. The part about Ivan still being alive. If the monster hadn’t gotten a victim, then they would have attacked more to get what they wanted. Both Ivan and Jacob might have died.

Mark did not speak of that, though.

Everyone took another drink.

Pako said, “Goblins are the worst ones. I can handle wolves and monkeys, but the corruptor goblins are horrific.”

“Corrupter goblins?” Mark asked. “There’s a difference?”

But Svea exclaimed, loud and disbelieving, “You can ‘handle monkeys’?? In the trees! I would just die— Wait. Do you not have slinkers in Nigeria?”

Mark tried to think if they meant anything specific by wolves or monkeys. He knew the general monster classifications, but not any specific ones, and ‘wolf’ and ‘monkey’ were two general categories; ‘Fast moving dog-like land animal’ and ‘tree dweller’. Some people used ‘wolf’ and ‘dog’ interchangeably. Dealing with land animals was difficult, but wolf-types were one of the most common types, and everyone had to train with the idea of killing those types. Monkeys were easier, in that you could usually stay away from trees and be fine. A ‘dog’ that could attack and hide up above was called a ‘cat’. Cat-shaped monsters were dangerous monsters. Goblins were technically ‘cats’, in that sense.

Svea absolutely meant something specific by saying ‘slinker’, though.

Jacob answered Mark’s question, though, saying, “A corrupter goblin is any strong-transform goblin. Nightgoblins are a classification of that. Not all corruptor goblins are nightgoblins.”

Mark nodded. “Ah.”

Pako was drinking, so Nala asked Svea, “No? What are Slinkers?”

Svea nodded; she understood something now. “Slinkers are a European monster, mostly. They camo against a tree like a very large stickbug.”

Raoul said, “Very dangerous. We have them in Spain, too.”

Jacob, Pako, and Nala didn’t know what they were. Mark didn’t either.

Svea said, “We got tens of varieties in Germany; all over Europe and parts of Russia, too. Never go into the woods outside of the city, and if you do, only stay in the places where they keep the bottom 2 meters of trees bare of branches. That is where you might be safe. Slinkers look like branches, you see. If you see branches on a tree below the 2 meter mark then you know you are looking at a slinker. They are easy to see and kill in maintained woods or if you have a woodswitch with you, but never go into a strange forest outside of city walls in Europe.” She leaned forward, a little drunk. “And we are in Europe right now.”

It was all so serious and deadly and maybe Mark was a little tipsy, that the whole thing suddenly felt like telling ghost stories. He laughed. Raoul laughed in response to that, and soon the whole table was laughing.

Svea was offended, “I am not lying!”

Mark said, “Sorry! It just sounds like ghost stories!”

Svea said, “Monkey monsters are the worst. Do not disregard them as simple.” She asked Pako, “Tell me how you would ‘handle monkeys’— Ah shiza. I know.” She groaned, and then pressed a hand to her head. “You unfair Naturals. You can just do your magic.”

Pako chuckled. “I would simply cut all the branches down and a few trees too, if I had to.”

“How?” Mark asked.

Nala rolled her eyes at her brother. Jacob grinned, Raoul drank, and Svea looked pissed.

Pako smiled brightly and held up a hand and summoned a dagger from nothing. It floated there in his hand. He twirled it around telekinetically, spinning it, twisting it, and then he shattered it into motes of metal-grey light. “I am a Sword Summoner! The best type of summoner. You and Nala are supremely jealous.”

Mark instantly laughed, and he wasn’t the only one.

Nala said to her brother, “My golems last more than one attack, you one-shot wonder.”

“I’m working on it!” Pako said, grinning. He told Mark, “I can cut through small trees right now. I hope to be able to cut through large trees soon.”

Mark grinned a little. “That’s a good Talent.”

And then something weird happened in the group.

People looked at each other a little bit. They went contemplative.

Pako looked ready for an inquisition.

Svea began the inquisition. “What’s your attack range?”

Mark wasn’t sure what that meant.

Pako said, “Up to 15 right now. I’m tier 1.”

Ah. They were talking about the ability to injure things directly with Talents, based on Power Levels versus Power Levels.

Svea said, “I’m not tier 1 yet. I can only hit 10s with my bolts. More if the target is weak to an element I can utilize. Fire against plants, light against dark.”

Jacob, “Still tier 0 here, but Sound Kinetic is never going to be useful for direct injury unless I break tier 5— when I break tier 5. Confusion is simple, though, and can hit through all tiers relatively easily.”

Nala said, “Tier 1 golem summoner. Power based on materials, and earth is PL 0 or 1. Mostly 0. My golems use swarm tactics to pile onto small monsters and smother them. I am not sure how I will progress higher than just making bigger golems.”

Pako said, “Dirt in Daihoon is PL 2 to 5. That will make up enough difference for most things.”

“Not really, but I will grow faster when we can go there,” Nala said.

Raoul said, “Still tier 0 here, but I can hex monsters to be weaker to everything. That is most of what I do. I hope to be on kaiju teams someday…” For a moment he looked hopeful, and then he crashed. “But that is probably a dream. Affecting a whole kaiju? Ha!”

Mark said without reservation, “I’m going to murder dragons someday.” He added, “Demons and Fallen and all of them and— And I don’t know how, or any specifics... But that is my goal… Still tier 0, though.”

They looked at him and they knew nothing of Mark’s conviction.

Not exactly. In small, unknown ways, they knew. In larger ways, they did not. They tried to reach out, anyway.

Pako was serious as he said, “What they made you do was beyond the call of duty.”

Mark saw nods and otherwise.

He gave no indication of anything, himself.

He wasn’t sure what he was feeling.

Svea was quietly furious at something unknown, before she said, “I Awakened as a Mage and they won’t teach me anything without contracts making me beholden to them. I’m not going back. I can learn magic on my own if I have to.”

Mark’s eyes went wide. A real Mage! The path for them was supposed to be long, but they were the ones that most often became archmages… But now that Mark thought of it, he wondered if ‘Mage’ was based on Arcane, or on Arch. What was the connection between Mage and ‘Archmage’? No one Awakened as an Archmage, right—

No wait. Mark knew the answer here.

‘Mage’ was an Arcane Talent. Archmages were only archmages because they Contracted to Demons. It was probably a lot more complicated than that, though, but that was the basic division between a mage and archmage.

Jacob said, “The purpose of those contracts is to tie you to humanity, Svea.”

It was a statement that was a lot deeper than it appeared to be, and it already appeared to be pretty damned deep, according to the expressions on the faces of the others.

Svea said, “I’ll have connections. I’m not going to be some crazy person out living in a tower, blasting beasts that come round and making them into dinner…” She frowned. “Though that does have a sort of appeal.”

Raoul snorted. Svea looked only partially offended.

Jacob grinned. “I heard monster cows are delicious.”

Nala said, “It is! Have you never tried it?”

Svea said, “Death to all monsters, so that we can eat them!”

Raoul laughed at that. Mark felt his heart lighten, and he smiled.

Pako raised a glass, “Death to all monsters!”

They all cheered, “Death to all monsters!”

Mark tried to get piss drunk after that, because apparently beer was free for all freshly-Awakened, and COFR had marked all of Mark’s group as freshly-Awakened even before he walked into Black Chess.

With a cheerful accusation, and not feeling even tipsy, Mark scoffed at Pako and said, “You offered to buy me a beer but you didn’t pay for it!”

They all laughed, and Pako especially.

Pako said, “I’ll buy you one someday, I am sure!”

Mark just laughed at that, then he got more beer. Healthy Body did a lot to combat poisons like alcohol, apparently. The guys made fun of him for that; he was going to be an expensive drunk, they said. It was fun to talk to them. It was great to set aside the problems of life and just meet new people.

Mark’s social anxiety was nearly non-existent, for some reason.

As night truly fell and the world turned dark, the music in the bar turned louder.

It was a good night.

Time flew, and soon it was 11 pm, and most of the other groups had disbanded. It was time for their group to disband, too. Mark said his ‘nice to meet you’s and ‘farewell’s, and then he began the walk back to his room in Building 5. Others went other directions, with Pako and Nala headed off to the residential part of Citadel and Raoul, Jacob, and Svea, walking with Mark for a short ways, toward the academy area. They hopped on a tram together, and they talked about this and that on the way back to the academy. When they got off at their stops, they went their separate ways.

Soon, Mark was alone, walking at midnight, under shining stars and the lights of night guard. Citadel didn’t sleep, after all. Lights still stayed on in most places, banishing the dark as much as they could. Monsters still needed to be fended off, and especially in the dark.

That was when Mark realized that the entire get-together at Black Chess had been an interview.

A group interview.

Mark breathed in deep, absorbing the fact that he was being scouted by others, and that lives and teams were being put together. That’s what Black Chess was all about. That’s why all those people had been there… Well. That, and sex, Mark was pretty sure. This was the time in a young Awakened-person’s life when their whole world opened up before them, and if they wanted to fight the good fight, they needed a team.

Why did they need teams?

Because it was safer that way; that was the traditional reason. It was a true reason, sure. But it was half of the story. The other half was more concrete, and it had to do with astral bodies. Every person had Talents along certain directions. Mark had a Body, Shaper, and Natural Talent. So, at his most basic nature, Mark was naturally resistant to those categories, or at least he would be. He would only really have Shaper and Natural-type attacks, though, but only if he could ever lift adamantium or learn offensive breathing.

But monsters could be of any category at all, which meant that they might attack in any sorts of ways, and be vulnerable to any other sort of power that wasn’t their own.

So you needed a team in order to not come up against something that would absolutely body you; you had to count on friends.

Even with 3 Talents, Mark knew he could never go it alone. He would always be a bit vulnerable to Mind, Arcane, and Arch powers. Most people, with only one Talent, were incredibly vulnerable to the category directly across from their Talent, from their main focus of their astral body.

Body was vulnerable to Natural, and also the other way around. Kinetic was vulnerable to Arcane. Mind was vulnerable to Arch.

And so Mark needed a team, just like everyone else his age.

The only people who didn’t need teams were archmages with their demons.

Mark would never get a demon, though, and he hoped Svea didn’t, either. Would she be a good teammate? Maybe. She was an Arcane, which was one of Mark’s vulnerabilities that he needed to cover—

Mark stopped in his tracks. Holy shit! That entire night had been a gigantic interview, and Mark needed to make decisions for the entire rest of his life…

Oh wait.

A building pressure suddenly snapped.

A social weight fell to the side.

Mark was under observation by the Paladins of Freyala.

For at least 6 months.

Maybe a year.

Ah.

No team selection right now.

… Huh!

It was still nice to meet new people.

That made all of that a whole lot easier, didn’t it? Mark smiled a bit as he resumed walking.

If he was stuck here for a year, then he didn’t need to make any decisions regarding teammates. Most people just went with organization-organized teammates for the first year, anyway. Svea had talked about the Slayers as her preferred organization, but Mark had no idea who they were. Jacob and Raoul were going into the Paladins of Freyala, if they could. Same for Pako and Nala. Whatever the case, and unless they found anyone they truly wanted to party with, they’d probably all get shoved into COFR-assigned groups that would match Talents to skills in the best possible way… Or maybe Freyala made the groups herself?

Mark didn’t know about any of that.

Besides! He still wanted to party with Sally…

… Would Sally want to party with him?

Mark wasn’t sure.

Could two brawnies work together well? Or was that a detriment? Mark wasn’t really a brawny, even if he did have a Body Talent, but now that he was thinking about it… Earth produced a lot of brawnies, didn’t it? Where did they all go? Into teams? Because that would mean a whole lot of duplicate…

Oh wait.

They just turned into soldiers on the walls. Right. Mark knew that. The brawnies got on the walls and then manned the guns or whatever, using their bodies to kill monsters that probably killed them just as much. Mark imagined a Natural-type monster just… just running through the wall guard of a city, killing everyone they touched, until a brawny got a lucky blow against them and splatted the monster across the wall.

Fuck, that’s a depressing thought.

Under the starlight sky, Mark walked to his dorm.