Roy the Undying Hero flexed his hands. Despite all of the unusual situations in which he found himself over the past several years with the System, the current one had him extremely confused. Uncertain, he rubbed at his newly liberated wrists. “I don’t understand what you are trying to do.”

“What’s not to understand? You are going to be my date for Randidly’s birthday,” Neveah said regally. She then pointed to the suit that she had brought down for him.

Roy’s mouth twitched. It was the same message Neveah had said when she had originally come down to the cell he had been locked in for the last few weeks and released him. But he was still having difficulty coping with the sudden change in treatment.

But what was Roy supposed to say? That he had been secretly plotting his escape and finally was prepared to make the attempt now that most of the Riders and Neveah herself would be gone for a day? Had she done this on purpose because she had become aware of his plans…? The narrative here was very difficult to follow.

“No, I mean… why would you take me as a date?” Roy shifted rather lamely. For someone who prided himself on always having a sharp comeback. He currently felt extremely… stifled and bland. Neveah’s unexpected arrival made him think very seriously if he underestimated the Ghosthound’s Soulbound companion.

Perhaps their partnership is more even than any of us assumed.

“Ah… well if you must know, someone I was briefly engaged to will be at Randidly’s birthday party,” Neveah's face fell into a look of nervousness. “And I hear the human way to deal with is to bring another date so that your ex will become jealous. So, you will be my date.”

“...but I’m just a skeleton,” Roy said slowly, letting his illusion fall away and pointing to his skull with a bony finger. “Isn’t the point to bring someone… desirable as a date when making someone jealous?”

Neveah let her illusion fall away as well.

Roy’s first impression of Neveah’s true form could be summed up in a single word: power. She was at least three meters tall and twice as wide as Roy himself. The bones of her limbs were thick and strong. Grey tendons stretched between her joints, holding everything together. Her mouth was a maw of razor-sharp teeth that seemed capable of turning a human body into a smoothie in under a minute. Two large protrusions of bone spread out from her back, a horror-enthusiast’s imitation of wings. Twisting spikes of bone protruded from every joint.

Roy wondered how Neveah managed to move around effectively when her true form was at least double the size of the illusion. And it reaffirmed in his heart that he had very little chance of escaping as long as Neveah herself watched over him.

Then the illusion was back, and the pretty, petite, and smiling woman with black hair was standing in front of him. “Well, your Class is Hero, and I think that’s pretty desirable to humans. You all get so riled up over the term. So, any more questions?”

*****

Randidly picked up one of the sharply stylized pieces of metal on the table and examined it closely. He drew his thumb almost gently over its surface. Whoever had done the forging was relatively skilled; although he didn’t test the limits of it, casually prodding with 1000 Nether Brawn infused fingers wasn’t enough to warp the piece. In addition, someone else had done a tight piece of Engraving along the backside of the wrought metal, giving it the ability to conjure a Skill Level 125 Mana Shield for several seconds that recharged once a day.

At the current Level of Earth, a pretty impressive ability, Randidly thought as he set the piece back on the table amongst five hundred other similar pendants.

The pendant was shaped like a sword thrust downward with an X across it. So there were points in five directions, and a hilt sticking up at the top. Randidly glanced sideways at Tatiana, who was watching him touch the objects with a small smile. “What are these?”

“Party favors, obviously,” Tatiana responded.

Randidly rolled his eyes. “You know I meant the shape. Have you been looking forward to this conversation for a while? The workmanship is really impressive. Doubly so because both the metal and the Engraving were made without my input and they are both very well done.”

“You’ve trained the people of Kharon well,” Tatiana said smugly. She walked away from the door to the ballroom out onto the black tiles that covered about two-thirds of the ground, away from the buffet table, the party favor table, and the bar along the back wall. “But as for the shape, it’s the symbol we’ve decided to put onto Kharon’s flag.”

Randidly watched the light slowly gather around Tatiana’s feet as she walked out onto the black tiles. It seemed he got the sensitivity right; despite her shoes, the floor immediately activated. The brightness quickly grew from a firefly, to a reflection of the moon on a lake, and then to a bonfire of incandescent color. Not blinding, but eye-catching. Good. “But I use a spear. Why a sword?”

“Not everything is about you, Randidly Ghosthound,” Tatiana said rather haughtily. The light around her feet continued to grow but gradually slowed in its size increases. Then she shrugged. “Although in this case, it is paradoxically about you; we think it’s best that Kharon not be so tied to your name and identity. This is obviously your city, but other groups will take Kharon’s government more seriously if we aren’t just your lackeys.”

Randidly winced. “Do people treat you like my lackeys?”

“Well they haven’t had much of a chance to interact with us. This is a preemptive measure. And I am something of a worry-wort,” Tatiana pointed out. She spun lightly in a circle, allowing her long beige dress to spin around her and draw additional attention to the light at the base of her feet. “Still… I’m very impressed with the floor. I think it will be a wonderful addition to the festive atmosphere. Oh and… Happy Birthday, by the way.”

Randidly chuckled awkwardly. “...Thanks. But I have the feeling that this won’t be as restive as my previous birthdays.”

“How old are you, if you don’t mind me asking?” Tatiana stopped spinning and tilted her head as she considered Randidly. Her amber eyes sparkled as she looked at him.

“Including time spent in Dungeons and things?” Randidly asked. After Tatiana had nodded, he shrugged. “I think twenty-seven. But it’s getting a little hard to keep track.”

“And the System makes actual ages less relevant than how old you were when the System arrived. The research from Donnyton indicates most people stop seeming to age at around 25… but the number of teenagers who survived the initial danger of the System was pretty low. We will have to wait a few more years for more data…”

Then Tatiana paused. “...Randidly, if the System hadn’t arrived, who do you think you would have done with your life?”

For almost a minute, Randidly was silent. His eyes remained fixed on the luminous light coming from the area around Tatiana’s feet. Tatiana, for her part, was content to let him think as she performed a last-minute inspection of the ballroom. She walked around the area, cooing in pleasure as the light matched her movements perfectly.

“I don’t know,” Randidly finally admitted. Then he shook his head uncomfortably. “Or rather, it might be better to say that I don’t remember who I was at that time. I was just a kid, really. I wasn’t even living on my own then. As for what I wanted… what I was good at… I really can’t seem to remember. But… despite everything, I was definitely a worse person.”

“Why?” Tatiana asked.

Randidly looked down at his hands. One flesh and the other a black metal lined with lines of white light. So much has changed. He chuckled and tightened his hands into fists. “The most important rule for living is to face your fears. Both in yourself and in the world. And the me before the System… did not have the strength to take a deep look at who he was.”

“That’s probably why you can’t remember anything about that version of yourself,” Tatiana noted. Then she walked back across the ballroom toward the platform on which Randidly was standing with the party favors. “But you need to leave soon, to prepare for your grand entrance. Everything set up with your demonstrations? Do you want to hear the security reports?”

“Everything’s ready here,” Randidly said with a nod. Then he waved his hands. “And I can sense that we are stopping everything that’s trying to infiltrate Kharon, so the details aren’t important. But are you seriously using this as a giant training exercise for the Order Duics…?”

“Yep!” Tatiana’s wide smile didn’t even have a fraction of shame in it. She stopped a meter away from the edge of Randidly’s platform, light still blooming beneath her feet. “It’s time-consuming to track down Raid Bosses strong enough to pose a challenge to the applicants so long as we aren’t in the Wildlands… besides, I’m a practical woman. If all of these groups are determined to be serious threats to our existence, I’m not above using them for my own purposes. I figured you would be proud of me.”

Snorting, Randidly turned away and took one last look at the large ballroom. Truly, everything was ready. Then he spotted Tatiana’s expectant expression and raised an eyebrow. “What is it? Did you think that I would judge you for making my birthday party a training exercise?”

“No. I just figured you would show off a bit at this point and am disappointed you haven’t yet.” Tatiana gestured to the ground. “Give me a sneak peek of what’s going to happen at the party when you finally arrive.”

Rolling his eyes, Randidly walked over to the edge of the raised platform. Then he crouched down and lowered the pointer finger of his right hand to the ground. The tip of his finger touched the cool tile.

Immediately, the light beneath Tatiana flickered and began to dim. Tatiana rubbed her chin. “Are you suppressing me, or-”

“The floor is based on relative strength,” Randidly said easily. At this point, the light beneath Tatiana had shrunk to the burning head of a match. And then an incandescent blaze began to form at the spot where Randidly touched the ground.

Randidly quickly removed his finger from the ground before the blinding area of light grew any larger than a fist. He gave Tatiana a grin. “Satisfied?”

“A little,” Tatiana walked over to the spot that Randidly touched which was slowly dimming to look like the headlights of a car. “The effect lingers?”

“If your image is strong enough, yea,” Randidly rubbed the back of his head and cracked his neck.

Tatiana walked up onto the platform next to him. “So? How will you spend your time for a while?”

“I suppose I’ll…” Randidly thought about it. “...take a bath?”