Tutorial Day 1

  The cloaked guards followed us, or continued to multiply as we neared the onyx-marble clocktower. At first I had believed it to be of one solid coloring, but it actually resembled a Go piece more than I originally believed. With its black and white coloring. The only reason I considered that the guards might not be the same men or women was that the stories of the buildings we passed continued to increase and I couldn’t understand how they could be moving that fast and climbing higher.

  Fong ignored them, and me to some degree, as he continued to slowly lead the way. I, in some ways, ignored him as well, too focused on the cloaked danger surrounding us. So when he suddenly wasn’t in front of me anymore, it took me another five steps to notice.

  A polite cough echoed off the brick walls, causing me to look around. I don’t know what I expected to find. Perhaps a cloaked individual who had descended from the roofs, but I didn’t expect to see Fong in the doorway of the last building before the central Onyx-Marble tower.

  “Oh, shit,” I mumbled as I rushed back to join him. He gave me a tight-lipped smile and then moved through the doorway into what looked like darkness beyond. I wasn’t far behind him, which was why I discovered that the darkness was just in comparison to the multi-sun illumination outside. Inside the building was lit by flickering candlelight, but also not.

  The light was coming from fixtures on the walls, but instead of fire, the interior of the sconces were filled with orange crystals that flickered. Fong spoke up for the first time in minutes, “These are called Sun Stones—it is how we determine night and day here.”

  He pointed back through the doorway, seeming to say, ‘You know with all those suns.’

  “What do you mean?” I asked, truly confused by how a flickering stone could determine the night or day cycle.

  “Six suns are blue, six suns are yellow. They take a long while to revolve. Likely ten to eleven days for each sun to rise as another disappears. These Sun Stones go from a bright constant light to flickering, and finally dark before reversing in a twenty-four hour period.

  “Right now, it is either early morning or evening.”

  “You don’t know?” I asked, incredulous.

  He gave me a strained smiled, then a small shrug, before leading me down the hallway past staircases on both sides and a few doors. The doors at the end of the brick hallway were clearly different. Like Mr. Varnish’s double doors. They were huge wooden things with inlaid metal bands holding together the planks. There were also metal spikes driven through, and would likely injure people who attempted to batter their way in bodily.

  I wondered if that made them stronger structurally or not, but Fong reached a hand forward and knocked, cutting that question short. The sounds of scraping wood behind the door made me squint as I tried to understand what was going on. Only when I heard the scraping stop and something slide free in a swish, did I fully grasp the situation. The door was ‘barred’ in the literal sense.

  A moment after the bar was taken out from the door, it swung open to reveal eight cloaked figures. In my distraction, I’d missed Fong unbuckling his sword. Still, holding his right side, he held it out with his other hand to the individuals and they took it before patting the man down thoroughly, but not roughly.

  I was next, and when they found no weapons, they checked again. I couldn’t see anyone in the hoods, and I tried. Their hands also felt odd. More like a single wooden oar than an appendage with fingers that could act independently. Still, I could see five-fingered black gloves on the hands, so I shrugged the strange sensation away.

  The eight figures surrounded us after the second pat-down check and Fong limped forward again. I wondered why they hadn’t taken Fong’s Bag of Holding, and only his sword. Surely, I could pull a Pick out of my Necklace if needed—and Fong likely had back up Swords, no?

  The moment we passed through the doorway, something in the air changed. It was like gravity had increased, or perhaps—like my mind was aware of something that it couldn’t quantify? The only way I could think to describe it was with an idiom I had never understood. The room felt oppressive. Like my clothing was pressing into my skin instead of sitting atop it. Like the oxygen in the air was fractionally harder to breathe.

  My eyes scanned the room, looking for the cause of the change. They found nothing but more shadows and a man seated in an overly large wooden chair with red cushions. The fact that my eyes found hundreds of ‘shadows’ made me question something Fong had said earlier. How could there only be fifty-five hundred people total, when I’d seen at least two or three hundred of these cloaked figures already?

  Was this Malestrom Tribe the strongest in the Tutorial and able to dedicate this many people to ‘guard’ duty?

  Fong sighed wearily, “Kai, you must leave this room from time to time. You will not discover an exit if you stay locked here and only send out your Shadows.”

  “Maybe I would leave more often, Fong, if you didn’t vanish every time I turned around!” The man on the throne—clearly Kai, answered, his voice also robotic. Kai wore a black suit of leather armor and a crown made of the same Onyx stone as the Clocktower outside. His features were eerily similar to Fong’s.

  “I told you that I refuse to be confined to Tutorial Town.”

  “Enough of this, you are my tool, and if I want you here–then that is where you should stay. Who is the boy?” Kai ordered, looking like he was angry with Fong, or perhaps just frustrated by what he had said. It was tough to tell with an inflection-less voice. Still, why would Fong wanting to leave Tutorial Town frustrate Kai?

  Sure, Fong was strong, but with all these guards already here?

  “Maelstrom, this is Brodie, yet to choose an alias. He is a new arrival.”

  “A new arrival? Fong I told you that I don’t want any others around that I can’t trust. Why would you bring a possible spy into our Tribes’ deepest sanctum?”

  Fong sighed and motioned at the room around us. “This stupid room that you paid extra for because you feared assassins. You’re calling it a sanctum now?”

  “What do you know? You weren’t the one attacked by those assassins. There are loopholes to the rules, and I almost died!”

  “We’ve been here for sixty years, Kai,” Fong responded. “Perhaps it is more risk that will grant us freedom.”

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  The interplay between the two was strange. I couldn’t be sure what it all meant, but I had a feeling that the war had started between the Tribes for nefarious reasons. The other thing that was abundantly clear the more they said, was that Fong and Kai had known each other since before the Tutorial. Maybe Kai was part of the party Fong mentioned?

  Only one other thing was strange. Fong wanted out. Why wouldn’t Kai?

  The other piece of information Fong had let slip was that the cloaked people surrounding us weren't people at all. They were ‘shadows’ and likely created by one of Kai’s Skills. The two men stared at each other, making me feel like I should be sweating, especially in the room we were in.

  “At least ask the boy what he does, Kai,” Fong said.

  “Why?” Kai answered. “I don’t want any new members.”

  “And I do,” Fong stated. The Shadows moved off the walls getting into stances that seemed martial to my eyes.

  The glaring resumed and this time I did begin to sweat. I could feel the line it traced down my spine. Maybe it would have been better to have been found by someone else? It was clear that this Maelstrom, whose real name was likely Kai, wasn't taking new members for his Tribe.

  I crouched down myself, getting ready to at least protect myself if I had to. Still, when I went to reach for my Mana, I couldn’t feel it. A lump of intense worry formed in my throat, and I almost stood back up. But thought better of it. I pushed harder toward Dragon Heart, desperately needing to feel the Mana there.

  I was just starting to feel the buzz of the electrified resource, when Kai interrupted my focus.

  “Fine!” Kai’s mouth moved and the translation came through. He was still staring at Fong, looking worried when he asked, “Boy what do you do?”

  “I’m a Gatherer, but I think I could use my Skill for Crafting as well,” I answered, my voice sounding unconvincing even to my own ears.

  Fong looked at me with a raised eyebrow, but gave no other reaction, even as Kai leaned forward in his seat. It was only then that I realized that my tone likely wasn’t coming through to them, if the translation worked the same way it did for me.

  Kai’s words a moment later confirmed it for me. “You have a Skill that you’ve used for multiple things already? Or are you unsure and just hoping you can figure it out?”

  Drawing on what Fong had said on the way to Town, I slowly answered, “That’s how I unlocked all my Stats, yes.”

  I saw Fong smirk. Even if someone had a Skill that could detect the truth—I wasn’t lying, not exactly. So, why was Fong smirking?

  Kai showed only an interested look as he leaned even further forward in his chair. “That is something few here can do now—and you’re claiming that kind of Skill Mastery?” He made an appreciative noise and then leaned back in his chair. “What Crafting Skill do you think you’d be most suited for?”

  That question had been something I’d been thinking over in my head since Fong had become more withdrawn in the presence of the attending Shadows. There were really only three that I could claim—since they’d been on the System message when I’d unlocked the Crafter Class. Two of which were Blacksmithing or Leather-working which I highly doubted I could pull off. Even with Smegma’s help.

  That left Alchemy, which I figured I might get away with. First, it was a rarer Profession on Earth, so the chances of someone having it here were lower. But second, and more importantly, I hadn’t seen any in the cross-corridor that bisected the Districts or in the Central Square.

  Fong had also claimed that many Gatherers became Crafters here—so if I claimed I thought my Skill could help me with a rarer Craft—all the better, right?

  “Alchemy, I think?” I said, and got to see Fong flinch as his smirk vanished. His flinch caused him to redouble his effort on holding his stomach, which drew my gaze even more.

  “Have you done any Alchemy before?” Kai asked, the translated voice not matching his expression. I shook my head. “Do you have any of the Equipment needed?”

  His body language looked upset and so I wanted to give a non-verbal response, but realized I couldn’t convey what I needed to say without an answer this time. “Not yet, but I believe I can make some in time.”

  “Have you worked around Alchemists on Earth?” Fong asked, his hand not holding his stomach twitching toward me, like he either wanted to place it on my shoulder or hit me. Since he'd only tried to help me on the way here I chose the former and nodded while ‘thinking’ heavily about Smegma as an Alchemist. Fong turned to Kai.

  Kai was studying me with narrowed eyes and a face that was beyond my capability to read for emotions. Something was going on, but what it was, I couldn’t say.

  “Maybe the kid could actually do it?” Fong suggested.

  “You know the targets of the previous war as well as I do, Fong,” Kai answered, and I blinked.

  Targets? Of the war? So the war was between the Tribes not with some outside force?!

  Fong looked at me with a slight grimace. “I am assuming we can keep this one or whichever inheritor is chosen better protected, then?”

  Kai leaned forward and all of the Shadows even stepped up as well. “Fong, are you offering to personally watch over the child?”

  Fong studied my face, and then gave a world-weary sigh. “No, I will not. Perhaps in time, if he proves to be a potent Alchemist, but I must search outside the Town for the exit.”

  Fong’s head fell and I thought for a moment it was in disappointment or perhaps sadness at the words he’d just spoken. Instead, I saw his hand cradling a locket on his chest, holding it out just far enough that he could likely see it.

  It was a locket that usually held pictures of precious people. Like wives, children or other family.

  * * *

  The door closed behind the newcomer. Kai turned back to his five Shadows in the room. Standing from his throne broke the illusion, and suddenly the room changed, becoming more of a sitting room that one might find in an Apartment.

  Kai was in a corner of the room, and one of his Shadows had occupied the chair that once been the throne.

  “Is that really necessary?” Fong asked.

  Kai narrowed his eyes at Fong, as he stood up. In one motion, he dashed behind Fong and touched the back of his neck. The wooden doll collapsed to the ground, illusion gone, and its ‘wound’ on clear display.

  Something had clearly taken a bite out of his puppet's side. He shook his head and began pulling the Skill Orbs out of the indents in the wood that had been specifically designed to hold them.

  This puppet was made of a different material than the Shadows on display around him. His was a much more expensive and harder to find wood. Thankfully, he had back ups for these sorts of reasons. He called out.

  “Bring me a spare,” knowing that his other disguised puppet would obey. Unlike Fong, this other puppet was obedient.

  Kai opened his locket and stroked the picture of his son and daughter. He was distracted enough that when the puppet that was the spitting image of his daughter dropped the Superior Puppet at his feet, he jumped. He transferred a narrow-eyed scrutiny onto her.

  Was she beginning to act out like Fong?

  “Why do you let brother Fong get away with so much?” She asked.

  “None of your business,” Kai responded, and began slotting the Skill Orbs into the new puppet. “Take this one–” he motioned at the damaged puppet. “–and see if the Carver can do anything.”

  “Yes, father,” she said.

  “Don’t call me that!” Kai shouted. As the girl reached down to grab the broken Superior Puppet, Kai raised a hand. “Keep an eye on that boy who just left as well. His story is too convenient. Also, I felt something earlier–like a pressure against the wards on this place.”

  “Surely you don’t think that boy–”

  “–Of course not, but that doesn’t mean that one of the other leaders didn’t send him.”

  “Well, have your other spies watch him since he’ll be at the Alchemy Academy. If he tries to join a Party, I’ll watch him then.”

  Kai nodded, before he connected his Skill to the new Fong puppet. It instantly hopped to its feet, and Kai placed the image of his son atop it. As his daughter left, he told the new Fong about the boy waiting outside, and where he should bring him.