As much as the exchange fascinated, which was very little, the still-growing crowd demanded progress on fairy categorization. “Do a test, not an argument,” Gabdirn Haubentlag proposed. What sort of test he was unable to describe with more detail, but he was ready to transmit the results to the general public.
Odibink tried. “Excuse me, sir, are you human?” he asked the nearest fairy.
“What direction does it get warmer?” the fairy answered.
“Oh, south, usually, but there are air currents as you know.”
“I used to, but I forgot.” With that the fairy took off. That completed the test of whether the people who vanished simply happened to be especially poor at interrogating fairies but left the present issue unresolved. Then again, who wanted to relocate to warmer climes in that season? The weather was the area's most commendable quality.
Autopsies were suggested, despite the many witnesses to eviscerated fairies who discerned no differences between the guts of the two species. They were not medically trained, after all. Still, reservations about conducting recreational dissections, even with the consent of their owners who expected resurrection afterward, prevented anyone from advancing the notion as something other than an emergency response to a plague or similar.
The matter seemed hopeless, every deviation from human standards explicable as a Fairy class ability, until the assembled agreed to lower their standards from “absolutely incontrovertible” to “overwhelmingly indicative.”
“In that case, there are rituals which apply to all humans of every class so far as we know, barring the interference of specific substances,” Dirant said.
“Ah, the sio incident,” Nalfenk recalled. “That is satisfactory, since we may afterward check for monsterization easily enough.”
The demonstration was swiftly arranged. Atkosol himself, a man unattached to either side but attentive to any opportunity for refining the public store of knowledge, picked celebrants from among a multitude of volunteers both human and fairy. He further selected one from a list of relevant rituals compiled at his request by Patklenk Ost, who was to perform the ritual to prevent a distortion of the results, whether by trickery, incompetence, or the subtle influence of bias.
Atkosol chose the Ritual of Dark and Light, which had much to recommend it. Enduring records testified to its universal applicability. Members of every class from Zero to Acrobat manifested marks on their palms when it was performed, a triangle for those born in daylight and a rectangle for the more dismal sort. The choice contributed to general cultural education as well. Upon hearing what it did, numerous spectators at last understood those lines about three-pointed day and four-pointed night which poets they never read for pleasure insisted on inserting, not to mention the more veiled allusions. Their teachers often lectured them that “the four-cornered world” indicated that the scene occurred after sunset, but seldom the reason, which likely they did not know themselves.
Encouraged by the confirmation they were still capable of learning, the members of the audience, by that point nearly the entire camp in size, sought further knowledge about the ritual. What was its purpose? Knowing what time of day someone was born seemed, at best, useless, and at worst also useless. Why did Ritualists develop that specific ritual at all?
“Those questions are easily answered when we abandon the idea that a ritual is a success merely because it works, or alternatively is a failure on the grounds of not doing what was intended,” commercial Ritualist and graduate of Todelk University's respected school of ritualism Dirant Rikelta informed them. “That particular ritual was developed as part of a general effort to collect information about newborns for the purpose of accurate predictions as to potential classes, careers, health, and so. Most rituals from that period are forgotten today because they were either uninformative or superfluous. The Ritual of Day and Night persists as a curiosity rather than something which fulfills its intended purpose.”
Dirant went on to answer questions from the crowd and discuss the points raised in detail. Ritualists typically refrained from attempting to instruct laymen, an endeavor always fruitless for the lecturer and unwelcome to the lectured, but professional courtesy distinguished that moment from the usual. While Patklenk Ost prepared the ground and taught the celebrants their roles, activities necessary but tedious, his colleague distracted the onlookers, finishing his discourse on the Ritual of Day and Night just as the practitioner embarked on the interesting section.
The crowd turned to watch a true Ritualist at work, something rarely seen. Unfortunately, as a true modern Ritualist, Mr. Patklenk carried out the affair with the same grace and showmanship as a wolf displays when it devours a rabbit. Certainly there was an appeal in his efficiency to Dirant's trained eye, but whether the ordinary spectator enjoyed anything about it was far from sure.
Still, Patklenk could not dispense with the chanting, his own inclinations notwithstanding, and that created a distinct atmosphere. To describe it accurately required an expert in aesthetics such as a Visionary specialized in a field other than construction or a Colorist who had not abandoned his class for a more financially secure one, but as none of those spoke up, the onlookers could do nothing but feel it. The anticipation their minds alone comprehended before seeped into their very muscles to render them still but for some quivering.
Stolen story; please report.
The ritual finished and Patklenk began the inspection, calling out to another of Atkosol's employees each mark he saw.
“Triangle.”
“Triangle,” the recorder confirmed.
“Triangle.”
“Triangle.”
“Rectangle.”
“Rectangle.”
“None.” That was a fairy. Spectators jostled one another, and the ones broad-minded enough to entertain the lost tribe hypothesis received the jabbiest elbows, the most gloating expressions, and commiserations on their prompt defeat.
“None.”
“Triangle.” That was for celebrity participant Shtaugirs.
Takki shook Dirant's sleeve. “Look at Mr. Shtaugirs. Don't you think his expression communicates something like, 'I couldn't be more relieved even though I knew all along?' I really think there's something suspicious about him, and it isn't just because I want a new mystery now that the initial one is solved.”
That final assurance did not convince Dirant, but he agreed nevertheless. “His exceptional reaction does suggest something of the kind. It may be ordinary for Jingens or for him in particular, and I know neither group well enough to guess.”
Patklenk was going right along, heedless of the vague accusations made against certain celebrants for tendentious reasons. His focus was so narrow in fact that he did not pause even for three blinks of an eye after a noteworthy, some might even say flabbergasting, discovery, the significance of which clearly eluded him.
“None.”
The reaction to that announcement was one to drive a theater producer to madness with envy. Exclamations joined together in a wholly indecipherable mass which eventually alerted Patklenk to the fact that he had just declared Atkosol Tellanstal's wife to be inhuman.
Seeing his perplexity, Lommad clarified the matter. “Yes, I am a fairy. Keep at it, Mr. Patklenk.” He even did for a short time, so serene did she sound, much like a collector who upon reviewing her inventory finds every item in the place she put it.
Nobody knew for sure how to respond to Lommad's frank admission. Should they be scandalized at the secret of Atkosol's family? Glad at the example the couple set as far as cordial relations between fairy and human? Was the whole affair as humorous as they suspected it to be? The entire assembly looked to Atkosol, drawn by his charisma and his expertise in Lommad-related matters.
Atkosol applied his capacious intellectual capabilities to the revelation, scratched his chin, and said, “After all, I am not so surprised as I might be.”
Lommad's unmasking, if it could be called such when nobody had ever bothered to confirm she was human, not even when she entered a contest to stay underwater the longest, had two immediate consequences, each realized within a different milieu. For one, the reporters fell to writing articles and requesting information from their offices about every aspect of Lommad Okliten's life. The details, they learned, were unexceptional but in no way inconsistent with long-term fairyness. A childless couple of high station and respectable wealth adopted her as a baby, raised her according to their nature, and that was all.
“A fairy comes to be as practically nothing and then becomes what she is. One picks a name and then grows into it,” Lommad explained. Her ready responsiveness to such inquiries supported the existence of a cultural facet to the behavior of the underground fairies, who came off all the worse for it. She of course could say nothing about the fairy realms or what personages Hacanthu, Ydridd, Zatdil, and the rest may have been, but she addressed the interaction of classes and fairies which had become more enigmatic than before. “We don't have to take a class. I knew Mommy and Daddy thought it important I should be a Zero, so I was, and then that I pick a real class, and so I did. Padarpdig said it was all right if I became a Small Fry.”
That last was taken as a delightful turn of phrase for describing class selection except by Dirant, who suspected the god of good health had personally granted her a dispensation to enter a class designed for human use. Either way, she was able to prove her possession of such, and since it was a special occasion, no one objected to a show of her status.
Small Fry
Priestess of Stosta
LV 24 970/1000
HP 868
Muscle 39 (+3)
Coordination 43 (+11)
Verve 64 (+10)
Sticktoitiveness 52 (+7)
Discernment 30
Gumption 22
Tit-for-Tat 46 (+1)
Receptivity 26 (+8)
Panache 40 (+5)
Class Abilities
Unflagging Tenacity
Boredom Mitigation
Illness Mitigation (Expanded)
Tenacious Pessimism
Tenacious Optimism
Pain Mitigation (Improved)
Tenacious Loyalty (Perfected)
Demise Further Distant
Illness Recuperation
Inconspicuous Withdrawal
Tenacity Against Fairies
Inconspicuous Entrance
Boredom to Excitement
General Abilities
Adaban (Fluent)
Dvanj (Fluent)
Desurvyai (Fluent)
Ashuraluon (Fluent)
Heweks (Fluent)
Saueo (Fluent)
Tabilidgeir (Fluent)
Usse (Fluent)
Yosribdi (Fluent)
Yumin (Fluent)
Obaluon (Intermediate)
Drastlimez (Intermediate)
Auzisthuic (Intermediate)
Jingenna (Intermediate)
Tandish (Basic)
Hosting Fundamentals
Horse Riding (Basic)
Party Planning (Advanced)
Negotiating Fundamentals
Hiring Fundamentals
Remedy Lore (Basic)
Hosting Expertise
Adroit Display
Fan Etiquette (Basic)
Some claimed to detect the fairy in her unusual facility with languages, while others saw merely the wife of a prominent former politician who entertained regularly.
The tenor of reporting on the topic leaned toward the approving. Correspondents of the Baozir Nalna sort viewed the tale of a woman alone in the world on account of her heritage who wed a wealthy, non-ugly statesman as romantic to an excruciatingly pleasurable degree, while the Kodol “Pots” Hinpabafnoren category could not resist admiring the guy who got himself an attractive fairy wife. Both supposed their readers would take similar attitudes once they realized those fanciful rumors the reporters claimed to be debunking were not being debunked in the slightest. Aptezor meanwhile received word he had been fired on suspicion of insanity and therefore took no position.