“Hi, my name is Laura Dubois de la Sablonnière, and it’s a pleasure to meet you.” I extended my hand to greet the woman before me.

Just like myself, the woman was dressed in a business attire, and, as unlikely as that sounded, she wore the exact same luxury brand I did. Of course, her two piece skirt and blouse were probably bought with her own money, whereas I was still using my father’s card to pay for mine.

“The pleasure is mine mademoiselle. I’ve heard good things about you from your bother. Would you please follow me to the interview room?”

I followed the lady to the adjacent room. She took a seat behind her desk, as I took a minute to admire the view from her window. The building I was in was located at the east side of the Puteaux district, and from the 63rd floor of this office, I could just about make out the grey silhouette of the Great Arc. We were as close to the edge of Pris Proper as the Defence Guild would allow people to get.

“Mademoiselle?” The interviewer called out.

“Yes, I’m sorry,” I quickly took a seat. “The view from your window is quite breath-taking.”

“Are you not afraid of working this close to the Wild Lands?” The woman, whose name plate read J. Everard, asked.

“Well, I would be lying if I said I didn’t have any reservations, but I do believe that my skills can be particularly useful in this context.”

“And are those skills similar to those of your brothers?”

“They are on a similar level…” I bit my lip, hoping that I would at least get the chance to tell Mrs. Everard about my work experience before she asked to see my status window.

“Well, if is that case, would you mind sharing your skills with me?” She asked.

Her voice was neutral, even somewhat innocent, which made me feel even worse. I tried to deflect the question.

“Maybe you would like to hear about my qualifications first? I have taken several online courses in data analysis. If you have a computer on hand, I could even show you-”

“Mademoiselle.” She cut me off. “I’m afraid I cannot make any exceptions in the interview process, even for someone with your name. Plus, and I would appreciate if this would stay between us, your father has sent me a letter asking to take good care of you. So, I need to make sure you will be safe within our company.”

“It’s just that I am a bit anxious to show my skills to strangers,” I said shyly.

I put a hand over my chest and tried to look as innocent as I could in hopes of convincing this woman to let the issue slide.

“Well in that case I will go first,” She smiled, trying to sound reassuring. “Share status window.”

A semi-translucent screen appeared before my eyes.

Justine Everard

AFAB She/Her

32

A+

Oracle

Civil Specialisation

Foresight [Pa]

Adaptive Foresight [Ac]

Surcharge [Ac]

Imperfect Immunity [Pa]

Wondering Mind [Ac]

Doubt [Ac]

Skills below level B+ not displayed

Physical skills not displayed

I held myself back from commenting that a career in business analytics had been a strange choice for someone with her lot of skills. ‘Supercharge’ was an extremely powerful electricity-based attack. I supposed she might have had low MP, which she had decided not to display, making it impossible for her to use attack skills.

“I apologise in advance, my external status window isn’t as neat.” I said, as an attempt to gain some more time to mentally prepare.

“No worries.” The woman reassured me, and I suddenly got the feeling that she might have had a low-level passive calming skill.

I couldn’t stall for much longer, so I braced myself for a rejection from this job, and said:

“Share Status Window.”

A semi-transparent screen appeared for both of us to see.

Laura Emilie Geneviève Dubois de la Sablonnière

23

S

Courier

Social stealth adept

Environmental Awareness [Pa]

Backtrack [Pa]

Planar Shift (upon death) [Ac]

Short voyage [Pa] (0 MP)

Long voyage (upon death) [Ac]

Mind Stop [Pa]

Black Trail [Pa]

Dark Vision [Pa]

Luck

59/100

MP

12/100

Strength

11

Dexterity

17 = 11 + 6 (class benefit)

Constitution

9 = 8+1(ruby pendant)

Intelligence

14

Wisdom

9 = 13 – 4(unexpected side-effect)

Charisma

10 = 11 – 1(external stress)

“As you can see,…” I started, but bit my lip and stopped. What was there to say?

“Mademoiselle,” the interviewer trailed of, clearly as much at a loss for words as me. “Would you mind elaborating on what some of these skills do? I don’t believe I have ever seen … most of them before. And your class, a courier? I do not mean to sound rude, but I thought most of your family were Dragon-Children …”

I clenched my fists and gathered all my courage.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. Is there any way we could continue with the interview?”

The lady gave me an apologetic look.

“I am very sorry mademoiselle. But we have strict regulations here. All out employees, no matter their entry level, must have at least one combat skill. One active combat skill that is …” She trailed of again.

The worst part of it all was that she sounded genuinely sorry for me. It was not unlikely that I was the first high-ranker who had only passive skills that she’d ever met.

“I understand. In that case, thank you for your time.”

I got up and quickly left the room, before Mrs. Everard had had another chance to apologise for not being able to hire a daughter of the Dubois de la Sablonnière family. This was the third position I had been rejected from solely because of my skills.

The worst of it was the fact that I couldn’t even defend myself by coming up with some far-fetched reason why my skills were useful. The truth was that I had no idea what most of them did. Even worse, I was not Laura, the fifth child of Henry Dubois de la Sablonnière. Up until very recently, my name had been Sybil White, and I came from a world where all this skills and status nonsense did not exist.