I looked out at the group of kids and didn’t even try to hold back the sigh that came to me. Everything had been going so well today too. Then Mom had decided to take me on a trip to the temple, into a side room, and then tell me that she was going to leave me there with ‘others of a similar age range’. Which, in this case, meant snot-nosed brats. Literally, as in one of the kids couldn’t keep his hand out of his nose. Most of them were playing with soft-edged building blocks or dolls or just screaming as little kids do. In truth they were acting like typical three to five year olds would; which meant I had absolutely nothing in common with them.

I then glanced over at where some of the older kids were, the six and seven year olds, and couldn’t really see myself fitting in there either. Beyond the fact that those kids were twice my size, the reality was that childish games just didn’t interest me. A few seemed to be playing some game that reminded me of Four-Square and a few were playing some simple card games. Really, the most interesting thing was one kid who kept on setting himself on fire. It was magic fire, shown by the fact that his clothes were untouched, and I would be more excited if the kid appeared to know how to do it. Instead he just seemed surprised and confused whenever he flared up and tried to pat himself out before going back to playing dolls with the one nearby girl who didn’t flinch whenever he burst into a human torch.

“Mom.” I spoke slowly, trying to get across my exasperation. “What, exactly, am I supposed to do here with all these children?”

There was a slight crack in her calm façade but it was covered over too quickly for most to notice. “Make friends, have fun, be a child. The world isn’t all magic and training, you know.”

I took a moment to think about it. On the one hand the change of scenery was nice. On the other hand the noise very much was not. I could always ask Mom to take me on a walk or get Row to take our semi-regular training sessions to a different spot for a day. I just really didn’t want to deal with these brats. “Do I have to?” I asked in my most whiniest, most dejected, most annoying voice that I could manage. Anything I could do to get across my lack of excitement at this plan would be worth it if I could just leave.

“Yes, you do. You need time with others of a similar maturity level.” She somehow spoke those words with a completely straight face. I have no idea how, but she did it.

I gave her a look and then turned my gaze pointedly toward the kid who was still picking his nose, then looked back toward her.

Her frown deepened but her posture remained set. “You won’t need to be here too long and perhaps you will find someone who will surprise you.” She then pushed me forward toward the group and then walked away before I could voice any other objections.

The play area was a longish section on the outside edge of the temple zigarat, half of it below the towering ceiling and half of it below the open air. The grass below the open portion was well trodden but still green while some sort of rough carpet was farther in toward the interior of the building and the two halves were separated by a line of stone. Or was it concrete? It looked like natural rock but who knows in this magic world. There were a few things for kids to climb on but they were all simple and low to the ground. There were also a few areas designated for certain indoor and outdoor games, but nothing looked even vaguely interesting. Other than that, the area was mostly just empty except for the few adults who tried to encourage the children to amuse themselves. I was not amused.

Unfortunately, if nothing else, the people in charge knew how to keep kids wrangled. There was a fence of solid brick too tall and too smooth to climb and every exit had at least one adult playing gatekeeper. There were also enough other adults around that I couldn’t be assured of clearing an exit by making a distraction. I guess I would just have to stay. I could try going over toward the older kids farther down, nothing was really stopping me, but the difference between the ‘functional man child’ I admitted myself to be (I played video games for a living, after all) and the ‘actual children’ I saw around me just didn’t leave much in common.

So instead I found a place inside, briefly contemplated asking about the temperature controls they were apparently using to combat the very sudden heat wave that had arrived, and then focused on my own project. Dad had told me about the weird cutting magic that he had used before and, while it was difficult, it was also somewhat simpler than the more common magic that Row had been teaching me. Apparently if you form the magic into a recognizable task and then call out the name of the magic the effect will just show up, just like the traditional ‘verbal magic’ system that half of every Lit-RPG uses. Unfortunately something about this world’s ‘chaos/order boundry’ (whatever that was supposed to be) meant that this sort of magic was more difficult to learn and less easy to control than the other weird internal/external, push/pull, whatever magic system that I was also learning; or at least that is how Dad explained it to me, only with a lot more technical wordage.

He did, however, reveal that to learn the cutting magic I would have to learn something simpler first. It was for this reason that I was holding a ball-bearing in my hand and scowling at it with a determined face. What I was trying to do was make it move with my mind and magic, but that was far easier said than done. The first step was being able to interact with my magic and the second was controlling it, which I had, but the third was to pull it outside my body while still controlling it and the fourth was giving it enough physical force to effect the world around me. I was still stuck on the third step. After both of those, and only then after building up the strength of the technique, I could move on toward making something sharp and fast enough to have it work similar to a weapon.

Strangely enough there were other ways to learn to do the same or similar things in that other magic system. For instance I could build up to the cutting spell by focusing on adding sharpness to a blade and then, over a series of steps, add sharpness without a blade. Some of these ways of getting a cutting spell had other requirements, like building up from strengthening a Karate chop meant you could do the ranged cut but still had to do a hand motion; but for most the link to the older skill was entirely non-mechanical, such as the cut without a blade forcing you to think of a sword’s edge while using it. For others the new skill would completely consume the old one, like a magic blast evolving into a magic cutter, even though it worked exactly the same as pretty much every other way to magically cut things at a distance. In fact, most skills would eventually reach a point where they could either evolve or you could keep pushing them to an almost absurd level.

Of course my Father had decided to teach me the version who’s prerequisite skill had more ‘utilitarian applications’. The fact that it was less likely to mess up the house, and therefore less likely to piss off Mom, probably had something to do with it as well.

I wasn’t sure how long I had been sitting there, staring at my metal ball, when I was approached by another kid. He had similar features to most of the people in the area; tanned skin, dark but not black hair, and a rounded face; but stood out in that his clothes were of obviously higher quality than most and almost looked like a normal suit, though sized for a six year old, as compared to my Jedi youngling cosplay. He also looked to be a couple years older than me. “Hi fellow kid, what are you so focused on?” he asked, his words confirming how he wasn’t as normal as either of us pretended to be.

“I’m trying to move this bearing around WITH MY MIND!” I said in a melodramatic tone, then calmed down to be a bit more reasonable. “Also with magic, but saying it the other way is funnier.”

He smiled and tilted his head. “I’m not familiar with that magic, is it something you made up?”

I shook my head. “No, it is something my Dad showed me, but I can’t get it to work. Still, there isn’t much else to do here that is interesting.”

He nodded back. “And what else would you be doing, if you don’t mind me asking?”

I shrugged. “Probably practicing offensive magic or trying to figure out attack forms. I just figured that the adults would frown on that sort of thing, us being ‘kids’ and all.”

“You might be surprised,” he answered, standing to his full height. “As long as they don’t have to revive anyone or regrow a limb or something, and so long as both people are in agreement with it, they don’t really mind a friendly spar. So what do you say, do you think you can take me?”

I put my bearing away in my pocket and stood up. He was a couple levels beyond me so his base stats would be somewhat higher than mine, but that was assuming that he didn’t start out with anything unnaturally high. I mean, I didn’t, but most of the rich people did and he looked to be the type. There was an easy enough way to know, just go fishing for information! “Are you sure you can take me?” I asked in a bragging tone. “I’ve got a guy teaching me to fight a few days a week. What do you have that could compare to that?” I managed to stop myself before throwing out the sarcastic mention of his higher level, more time to learn, better equipment in the form of more protective clothing, and a better grasp on how duels like this were supposed to work.

He smiled back in a prideful way, taking my bait. “I’ll have you know I started out with ten full points in defense. While other kids were scraping their knees, I was utterly invincible!” Was ten a lot? He was talking like ten was a lot. Still, he didn’t mention any combat training or Dex, so I was probably all right. There is very little that is more disheartening than fighting someone who can’t be hit but can hit you back at their leisure.

“How do you want to do this?” I asked, getting into a side forward fighting form, reminiscent of a martial artist. I took notice that his forward facing form, similar to a boxing form, was really, seriously bad. My mind immediately went toward his weaknesses where I could attack and his strengths that I needed to avoid. His stats were all higher, so I would have to compensate; but that was nothing unusual for me. High defense meant that I would have to beat through him offensively but my low offense would make that take a while. I also reminded myself that base stats weren’t everything. Speed was both dexterity and reflexive skill, defense was both the stat and the ability to roll with the blows, while attack was both strength and controlling the flow of the battle.

“Till one of us bows out, is unable to effectively go on, or till the caretakers step in. Does that sound good to you?” The unsure tone of his question showed me that he was less experienced than I feared. I may seriously have a chance.

“Sounds good.” I answered, still keeping my head in the game. The one area where I would struggle, despite my experience, was stamina. If I ran myself down and started slowing first then even my experience wouldn’t save me. In match ups where stamina would be an issue Row had told me there were two options. Either go hard and take your target down before you feel the burn, or control your exhaustion while making the enemy run themselves into the ground. I didn’t exactly think I could take him down all at once, so the second option was really my only option.

He smiled what he likely thought was a bloodthirsty grin, intimidation attempt unsuccessful, and dashed forward. I got ready to move, ready to attack, keeping my movements as minimalistic as possible to conserve my energy.

Franklin Everbeazer:

This kid was interesting, challenging someone so much stronger than he was to a fight! He tried to act confident but I could see his eyes darting around and feel his mana gathering. I watched the kid take a fighting stance like someone posing on TG show and breathe out slowly. He barely seemed to be moving but at least didn’t seem distracted. I should probably go easy on him, I thought, and rushed forward to finish things quickly.

Just before I reached him with my overhand punch to finish things off the guy moved forward and a glowing punch bounced ineffectually off my side. My first powerful right punch wasn’t in a position to hit him so I swung wildly toward him with my left, briefly imagining myself as being a protagonist from one of my programs as they fought the forces of evil. He just moved farther to my left side and I flew by him without hitting a thing. He didn’t even counter me, just let me past.

When I turned around he just looked at me, standing in almost exactly the spot where he had started. He wasn’t even really doing anything, just looking. No more jumping forward then. I readied myself for an attack, started my swing and stepped forward to put him in range, but before my swing could follow through he had moved backwards and to the side, circling me to my left. I tried again and he did the same thing, moving to my left again. So I got ready to swing with my left hand this time but apparently that was what he was waiting for and batted my swing away with a glowing hand. Still no damage though, so I’m not sure what he was wanting to with all the glowing stuff.

I took a couple more swings and had a couple more misses. This time he was circling to the right, which made him a little closer to my right fist but was still quite awkward. He kept punching my left hand whenever I tried to hit him with it, and by now the hits were starting to hurt. I growled to myself in frustration as I tried to catch my breath. The kid wasn’t even tired.

Fine, if that is the way he wants to do things then I just won’t let him dodge. Rearing down I let out a roar as I went in for a full body tackle with both my arms out to catch him no matter which way he tries to dodge. The little gremlin might be fast as fuck but he is still a lot smaller than me. The look of surprise on his face is something I would cherish. Or, at least, it would be if he didn’t somehow counter by throwing himself backwards to the ground.

It shouldn’t have worked. I’m over twice his weight and my stats should be double his, triple in the case of body, so there is absolutely no way he should have been able to stop me from just landing on him and finishing the fight. Instead his foot seemed to glow as he threw it out at me and then it just stopped mid air, as though I weighed nothing against it. Instead of landing on him I hit his foot low to my belly and rolled over him. He might have used his other foot too, I don’t know, I was too busy being thrown arse over noggin from whatever it was that he did.

I glanced up from my spot on the ground in time to see him roll over on his side and scramble to his feet. He took a deep breath but didn’t show any signs of fatigue while I quite thoroughly had my breath knocked out of me. He also didn’t advance on me, for some reason. Was he some sort of super kung-fu counter master that couldn’t attack unless he was attacked first? Those always made good Tele-Globe shows but they always seemed unrealistic; “I can counter any move you may bring against me… except standing back and throwing random bricks.” I heavily pulled myself off the ground and faced him down.

He didn’t move toward me, nor did he move back, instead he just smiled. It was a grimace of a smile, showing his teeth on display as his expression failed to reach either the intensity of his eyes or the nonchalant readiness of his stance. Was he trying to intimidate me? Was he trying to show me just how outclassed I was in his area of expertise? Was he succumbing to the battle rage like a proper little berserker, and just waiting for his chance to either rip me to shreds or see me piss myself in fear? Whatever mind games he was playing, as we stared each other down, they were definitely working.

William Townsen, thirty seconds earlier:

Crap, crap, crap. That tackle thing he did almost worked. He had me scared there. If he grabbed me there would have been absolutely nothing I could do. I mean, there are some things I could try but they would all be longshots that really shouldn’t work. So instead had I thrown myself down, dodging in the only direction I could, and used that first magic that I had learned to push him back. Normally it turned my strike into an unstoppable force, even if it didn’t have much actual force behind it, but when he hit me he just kept pushing forward. It was all I could do to angle him over me before he landed right on me. That would have been bad.

But now I was starting to feel the exertion, which meant I had entered the first level of fatigue. That was bad, really bad, even if I wasn’t as tired as he was. He could deal with the exhaustion better than I could since its numerical effect was to reduce stats and he had more stats to loose. I needed to gasp for breath but I didn’t want to show weakness by standing there with my mouth gaping open like a dead fish. Keeping my mouth closed wasn’t really an option, so maybe I would just try to keep my teeth clenched? Open my lips with my teeth together so it isn’t obvious what I’m doing and breathe in the sweet, sweet air. Uh, he is looking at me. Pretend to be smiling? Sure, I’ll go with that. He is giving me a weird look, I don’t think this is coming across as normal smile. Still, I’m not sure what else to do and this is giving me a chance to rest so I’ll take it. In for a penny, in for a pound; isn’t that how the saying goes?

I stared at him, getting my breathing under control. He stared at me, slowly starting to breathe more quickly. Slowly a look of dawning realization came over his face. Was he going to attack? Had he figured out my bluff.

And then he started laughing. “You just might be one of my new favorite people,” he said for reasons unknown and completely confusing to me. “My name is Franklin, Franklin Everbeazer. I think we got off on the wrong foot. What is your name?”

I relaxed my stance since the spar was apparently over. “William, William Townsen.” I answered.

“And what brings you up here?” he asked, glancing at some of the other children. “You can obviously take care of yourself, so I doubt that you are here because your parents need somewhere to keep you safe.”

I shrugged. “My parents, mostly my Mom, wants me to make some friends of my own age. I’m pretty sure she plans to dump me here every day till it works or I outgrow the place.” I sighed the most aggravated sigh that could be sighed.

The other kid smiled, “I count, don’t I?” Then his smile grew a bit larger. “Come on, lets go to my house. I can show you around.”

I nodded my head but then had a thought. “I’ll have to contact my mom first. She is afraid that someone will attack me in a side alley and try to kill me if I try to run off.”

He shook his head along with me. “Some parents can be so paranoid. Stuff like that doesn’t actually happen.” I opened my mouth, trying to figure weather I should say something, but he continued. “Wait, your parents care if you wonder off? I didn’t realize you were upper class?"

“Upper class?” I asked.

He nodded. “Things are different underground, a lot more Law of the Jungle then on the surface. People who live above are known as the upper class, while those below are known as the lower class. There are more differences than that, but that is a simple way to keep track.”

How very literal of them. “I mean, my family are doing ok, but I don’t really think of us as really being on top of the social totem pole or anything.” I answered.

He let out an amused noise before continuing. “There is a lot more to things than where you live, but people choose things like where they live for a reason. You know? It doesn’t even mean that you are all that privileged. Above you are the high class and nobles, and I would have seen you at some of the parties if you ran with that crowd. I even hear that there are higher levels, like ‘friends of travelers’ and ‘enlightened’, but even those nobles who are in the know don’t want to talk about it with outsiders.”

“Right, so apparently me living on the surface means something more than that my parents can afford to not live in a cave, even if it doesn’t make me all that socially important. One thing it means is that my parents actually care where I go. Sounds weird, but whatever. Can we just have one of the caretakers contact my Mom and be done with it? It doesn’t seem like that big a deal.”

“It is more than you think. If you want to hang out with me then we will have to talk with our parents in person. My parents are likely to be a handful, so I would rather put that off. What if we go to your house first, get permission from your mom? That would work! Let’s go!” He grabbed my hand and started dragging me off toward the entrance. I followed with a bemused expression rather than offering any real resistance. It wasn’t like I wanted to stay here. Really, what is the point of this excursion in an overall sense? If this were a story then running off to get a quick ‘ok’ from our parents would feel like word count for the sake of word count. Hopefully it contains some world building elements that will become important later on.

When we got to the door we were told that Mom was at one of the local Assassin’s Guilds, so we should look for her there rather than going to my home. Did I ever mention how cool my Mom is, that she is an actual member of something like an actual Assassin’s Guild? The only thing cooler is Row’s membership with the local Adventurer’s Guild. She refused to take me there in the past, saying that it was a serious place for serious work, but if I had a good enough reason to follow her there, or at least a good enough excuse, then she shouldn’t be able to complain! I also found out that Franklin had a bodyguard/escort who could walk us to our destination once we convinced the caretakers to let us out. Apparently the caretakers aren’t keen on letting children walk around the city unsupervised. Who knew?

Mom and Row tried to tell me that the various guilds were just normal things and not something amazing like the staples of fantasy literature that they so obviously are. She tried to say that it wasn’t a shady organization due to the fact that everything was legal, in fact the biggest contractor was the state taking out hits on lawbreakers. Of course it is still a bit different, considering death isn’t the big ‘game over’ it was before, and apparently there are lots of good reasons for even normal folks to want to off someone. Death stifles people’s upward growth for a while, gets them disconnected from anything that they might have illegally acquired, and can forcibly end certain types of deals; but by far the biggest reason to do it is that it leaves the person weakened for a time. This can be used as a kind of probation to keep troublemakers from being capable of making trouble or, in more serious cases, makes the target weak enough to be spawn killed repeatedly till they either leave the area or could be more easily captured.

The Adventurer’s Guild was explained as more of a hunter’s safari headquarters, which was awesome by itself. As much as Row tried to tell me how different the Adventurer’s Guild was from my expectations, it really was exactly what a person might think when hearing the name. They did all the staples; such as extermination, material collection, guard duty, and exploration; but they also did some other similar jobs such as creature capture and training. It is a place filled with manly men and rough-and-tumble types who can get a bit rowdy, with a jobs board separated by ranking, and a set of return windows usually staffed by cute girls! It is even closely connected with a bar type lounge! In fact it seems like every stereotype that I can think of for a typical ‘Adventurer’s Guild’ is a perfect fit!

The one thing a bit different is how big a deal the whole ‘capture and training’ thing is. Apparently over a third of the population keep some form of creature capable of combat use, and that number goes up when dealing with the super rich, but there are lots of reasons to want a companion creature. Normal animals are kept for pets and as relatively cheap guards that can be trained to be extremely well behaved; Monsters, which are mutated animals, can help with labor and are powerful, if straightforward and overly vicious, attackers; Elementals have industrial purposes and can put out an endless stream of cheap and exotic attacks, but they tend to be dumb as a bag of rocks; and Chimera combine the strengths of the other groups with the tradeoff being that they are more rare and hard to capture.

As we approached the Assassin’s Guild I smiled as I thought about how stereotypical this place was, it would fit into nearly any story I had ever read with no real modification necessary. Granted, they had ‘legitimate reasons’ for fulfilling all the tropes, so it had nothing to do with the whole ‘Assassin’ thing. The place was dark and filled with twisting underground passages because it helped prevent teleporters from easily infiltrating, and had nothing to do with the shady business they did. Everyone wore masks and dark cloaks or gear that hid their forms in order to make it clear when they were on the job and to hide themselves from reprisals during their downtime, and they definitely did not do it because they were shady characters who killed people for a living. Even the out-of-the-way location was supposedly so that the surrounding area wouldn’t be bothered by the overflow of their completely legitimate business, and not because the shady people needed to be located in a shady part of town.

Though, can we be fair about at least one thing? They were always located in shady party of the town. Afterall, a dilapidated warehousing district or the red light district was about as shady a part of town as one could get. Not that they are shady, or anything. Mom was very clear on that point. The place Mom worked from was near some old industrial machinery that apparently absorbed mana from the air for various purposes but was otherwise left neglected.

The bodyguard, who insisted that he didn’t have a name and so went by the ulta-cool title of ‘Nameless’, spoke up as we approached the door down the side alley between two seemingly decrepit buildings. “Master Franklin, this seems to be one of the better run establishments for an Assassin’s Guild. Be sure to keep close at all times, since there may be very little I can do to protect you if things become violent.” He waited till he got a nod of understanding before knocking on the innocuous wooden door that lacked an exterior handle of any sort.

A slip of material pulled open from the center of the door revealing about a third of a man’s head from inside. He wore an eyepatch and had something dark smudging his already heavily tanned skin. I also caught sight of a cloth covering over the lower portion of his face but it was hard to see much more than that. “What do you want? Visitors aren’t allowed. Go away.”

I tried not to smile with glee at seeing my first pirate-assassin and spoke up. “I need to see my Mom. Her name is Thea. She should be here.”

He scowled. “You know this ain’t no place for playing around, right? If you are Thea’s spawn then she’ll want to see you, otherwise know that we’ve got no hesitation slitting the throat of someone who wastes our time.”

I nodded and, after a few moments more hesitation, the door began to open from the inside. Almost immediately on the other side the floor descended into the dark with a set of curving stairs. Below I found my Mother among a set of darkened tables with a number of other characters sitting around her. All of them were dressed in long cloaks with their hoods up and I might not have recognized my own Mother if she hadn’t stood up when I entered. The room hadn’t exactly been loud before but her movement cut even that noise off. We made are way across to her and the bodyguard got even more paranoid by the time we took some offered seats at the table.

My Mom looked at both of us kids and then turned to the adult escorting us. “What did he do now?” she asked.

Nameless glanced around at the people who seemed to be quietly listening in. “Well he did beat up my young charge, and left him lying on the ground. Though, everything turned out well in the end.”

“William…” my mother demanded in a warning tone.

I quickly began to backpedal. “No, it wasn’t a problem. He asked for it.” She scowled. “No, literally. He asked for it. I said I was learning to fight and he asked me to show off what I could do.”

Thankfully Franklin decided to speak up. “I was greatly impressed with your son’s skills. I hear he has a teacher, isn’t that expensive?”

She gave him and me a look but quickly relented. “He is an old friend of the family and is doing it as a favor during his downtime, we don’t actually pay him.”

He nodded, continuing the conversation in a way that seemed to get my Mother to somewhat relax. “And what brought you to want him to learn such a thing? Surely you could teach him your trade better than your friend.”

She shook her head. “While William was interested in combat my husband and I decided that it would be better for him to focus on hunting rather than personal combat.” I nodded. It was the age old debate among theory crafters: to build for PvP or PvE. The difference was in learning to fight people or creatures that go bump in the night. Granted, there was a lot of overlap, but I could understand my parent’s reluctance to send me out against people considering what happened before.

“Well I, for one, was impressed.” He answered with a broad smile. “He seemed like an interesting person and so I wanted to try hanging out with him in a less dry setting.”

I glanced back at my Mom as she raised an eyebrow. “And who are you? What were you thinking of doing?”

He smiled and bowed his head slightly during his introduction. “My name is Franklin Everbeazer. My parents are business people, working as go-betweens for some of the biggest projects in the area and employing a significant portion of the underneath population. I honestly just wanted to hang out, show him my house and possibly see if there was something fun to go watch. Nothing too outrageous and my friend here can keep us both safe.” He nodded toward Nameless as he spoke.

“And why my son? I’m certain you could have found plenty of other strays to accompany you.” Her voice was firm but not as negative as I might have expected considering what she was implying.

He made a considering noise, glancing at me before returning his gaze to my Mother. “He seems interesting. Also he doesn’t act like one of the immature little kids around here who can appreciate nothing but little kid activities. If I go to a play or a spar or watch sports with someone then I would like a companion who can respond intelligently to what we are seeing.”

My mother let out a sigh and turned to look at me. This seemed like a good chance to interject something of my own. “You wanted me to make friends. And look, I made one the very first day! Isn’t this great!”

My words didn’t exactly have the desired effect but at least they didn’t make things worse. “Why couldn’t you have found some normal kid to befriend?” She asked rhetorically. She then turned back to the other adult in the conversation to lay down some ground rules. “You will need to see my Husband in order to get his approval. He may be far more difficult to sway than myself, so be prepared. Also, I need you to make it clear to the other involved adults, including young Franklin’s parents, that my boy is not allowed to make any deals or shake hands on anything. If you want him to associate as a friend then he must not be treated as a business associate.” She stood and held out her hand toward Nameless.

Nameless stood, looking somewhat surprised and taking her hand with a nod of agreement. “I didn’t think it would be quite that simple, to be honest. You really don’t have any other questions or concerns?”

My Mother gave a smile, the type that sets my hair on edge the very few times I have seen it. The smile didn’t reach her eyes but was somehow visible under her face covering. “Look around you, Rileah. Do you not yet realize where you stand? I have been identifying you and your charge since before you stepped in the room. Half the room is the same. I could track you straight back to where you sleep if I had the desire. I know more about you and your habits than your employers know. What questions do you think you could answer that I do not already have the truth?”

After that she didn’t speak, she just looked at him. As I looked at Nameless standing there, as they began to visibly sweat (apparently that can actually happen in real life… Who knew?), one thought kept running through my head: Mom called Nameless ‘Rileah’, ‘Rileah’ is a girl’s name, so does that mean that Nameless is a girl? They were wearing fairly gender-neutral clothing in the form of a suit, but they lacked the sort of chest definition that I would expect from a girl living in a society where body modification was as easy as moving the slider on a character generator. They also were far more bulky than most women and had a face that, while lacking a beard might let it go either way, seemed more male than female. Franklin seemed surprised as well, though that may just have been because of something else my Mom had said since I assumed he knew his own bodyguard’s gender.

Nameless let out some choked goodbyes and very quickly escorted us out of the building.

She seemed to almost have a heart attack when my Mother sent her a message with my Father’s location.

Unlike what my Mother had said, Dad was not difficult to convince. At all. He didn’t even need any convincing, he just jumped straight into congratulating us for meeting each other and invited us in to sit and talk. And talk we did, for at least a couple of hours. I won’t bother any mind readers with the entire conversation, two hours of talking is a lot of time, except to say that it seemed to go fairly well.

Though, if there are any mind readers listening in right now: SHAME ON YOU!!! HOW DARE YOU LISTEN IN ON A POOR YOUNG CHILD’S MOST PERSONAL THOUGHTS! Er, except that my family is actually fairly well off, even if we don’t flaunt it. And I don’t really think of myself as being as ‘young’ as my appearance would imply. And my thoughts aren’t really all that personal. Though I do likely still count as a child, at this point, so you should feel properly chastised for your uncouth etiquette. Except, it really is not that I actually care; I’m not exactly hiding away the mysteries of the universe in my secret thoughts, after all. But I feel like I should be incensed, even if I’m not really. Um, and if you are reading my mind you probably heard that last bit as well…

Moving on… My father had lots of questions about Franklin and his family. Apparently his family works as deal brokers between a lot of the rich and the masses of poorer people who make up the majority of the work force. His father makes deals to get the work done, as though he was rich himself, and the work gets done without the upper class ever having to directly deal with those below them. It still spins my head how literally the whole ‘upper class’/‘lower class’ thing referred to where people chose to live. Also, Franklin wasn’t planning to go ‘underneath’ with me but assured us that his father would go quite often with no real problem so it really wasn’t all that bad. While Franklin was talking about how safe the ‘underneath’ was, I didn’t miss the fact that he had a bodyguard or that Nameless rolled his (her?) eyes when the subject came up of how well liked the senior Everbeazer was.

Franklin’s mother was an ‘expectant socialite’, which meant that the other true nobles treated her as though she hadn’t earned her place among them but still were willing to humor her by allowing her presence. Not that anyone said this directly, but Dad somehow teased it out of him through a series of questions about social events and such that she had attended and her thoughts on them. That was another thing that somewhat surprised me, though it really shouldn’t have: there were apparently lots of ‘big deal’ social events going on regularly for the upper class and even their betters to attend. I had never been, and my Father let slip that it was because my Mother hated associating with those people, but Franklin had been more then once. My father’s explanation came across as a made up excuse, but I know my Mom’s intolerance for pageantry well enough to be certain of the truth.

We were currently standing inside Franklin’s family home, which looked like a veritable mansion, waiting to talk to his mother. Apparently she would be the more cross of his two parents to meet me second. She was a social climber, and her son obviously was more than comfortable in luxury, so I just had to wonder. “Why would you want to hang out with me when you have access to all those super rich kids for friends?” I blurted out. My Mother’s earlier question had gotten me thinking and his explanation just didn’t strike me as genuine. After all, the other super rich kids could appreciate high class events better than someone like me could.

My new friend got a complicated look on his face then pulled me to the side toward some nook within the sprawling hallway leading to his mother’s study. The bodyguard took a few steps back, giving the illusion of privacy even though I was absolutely certain that she could hear every word we spoke. “Look, I’ll tell you, but you have to promise me you won’t laugh. Ok? Pinky swear?”

That was a bit unexpected, even more so when I realized that he meant to touch the tip of our pinky fingers rather than hook them, but I agreed with the childish gesture and went through the motions.

He exhaled and looked around at the finery with an exhausted expression. “The truth is that when I was born here, in Paradise, I never really wanted all this. My before was as a child of a noble who himself became a noble and sired other little noblelings. The life of luxury and plenty are nice but they come with other requirements and expectations that stifle one’s very soul. Those other kids, most of them want nothing but to become nobles themselves to do upper class activities as they look down on anyone who is too far below them. I’ve lived that life, and I don’t want to live it again.”

“So what does that have to do with me?” I asked. It almost sounded like I was nothing more than a convenient ‘token normal person’ for him to befriend.

“Well, to be honest it really is because you seem to be interesting and not as dumb as most of the other kids our own age.” He began, and to be honest I couldn’t really object with his insult toward the other kids. “You seem to be willing to push yourself forward but not towards the same worthless goal that I spent my entire before on. In all truth, it made me curious; curious enough that I realized that you are a pretty meaningful guy, even if you are a bit weird.” Hu, that was a weird compliment. I’ve never been called ‘meaningful’ before.

He took a deep breath and prepared to speak something difficult. It took a few seconds but finally he pushed it out. “I don’t really have a goal to pursue in this life except to not do things like I did last time. I know that seems pretty ironic considering the type of luxury I have around me, but it is true. They say that your deepest desires from before inform where you end up here, so what does it say that I am born to an up and coming family of basically-nobles? That…” he paused as his voice got much quieter, so much that I could barely make out the clarity of his words in the building’s deathly silence, “That scares me.”

There were a more than few moments of quiet where his admission sank in. He wasn’t really a noble, nobody tried to suck up to him like they would for a real one, but he was close enough for discomfort. What would it be like to get a second chance at life, to try to do something different with yourself, but to be set on the same track that led to your old life? It is probably more common than one would think since, even if people want to change, the life they lived is the only life they knew and the decisions they themselves are likely to make are the same ones that led to their old life. They may start in somewhat different circumstances but it is far too easy to end up in exactly the same place as before. What would it be like to want to fight against that but to have absolutely no idea how?

And then it hit me: Maybe our struggle to not conform to the circumstances of this world was the reason why neither of us acted our apparent age. Sure, I may feel and act immature sometimes, but I absolutely don’t act like a typical four year old would. The same is true of Franklin, though for someone who looked like they were six. From there my mind started spiraling off into other possibilities. Was this age disparity unique to this world, as having a perspective from before would very much change things, or was this something that normal people might experience if sufficiently motivated at a young enough age? How would I test something like that? Ethically, I mean.

Suddenly I was pulled back from my rabbit trail by Franklin speaking up in a more solid voice. It took me a few seconds to recollect my thoughts back to the previous subject. “Look, I admit that if you were one of those high classed brats who aspired to become just another high classed adult then I wouldn’t have paid you any attention. But you aren’t, so that doesn’t matter. I just hope that spending time around you will help me find some direction to really apply myself toward. Are you all right with that?”

I thought for a moment. It wasn’t the most selfless of explanations, but then we had only known each other for a few hours now. I decided to answer back in kind, if only to show there were no hard feelings. “My Mom threatened to take me to different places with kids my own ‘age’ until I managed to make some friends. I’m just glad I didn’t have to settle for playing with blocks or something.”

He smiled at that. “So we are cool?” he asked with only a hint of doubt in his voice behind his normal confidence.

“We are cool.” I confirmed.

He smiled. “Don’t be too sure, you’re about to meet my mom. You could always run away screaming. I wouldn’t blame you.”

“She can’t be that bad.” I rolled my eyes.

He lost his smile. “Just… just be ready. You don’t look like much so she will probably be a bit condescending at first, but she is a good person once you get to know her.”

I nodded as he led the way forward but didn’t comment. His words made me far less confident in how well this meeting was going to go. In my experience people who are described as being decent ‘deep down’ were not worth the trouble to go digging that deep.

Franklin knocked on the door and we both were surprised to hear a male voice answer. “Come in.” I looked at him and then at the carefully blank face of his bodyguard before following them in.

Inside was a lounge area in the center of the room with a flowery desk toward the back and with walls lined with bookcases that were filled with crafts and knick-knacks. It reminded me of the headmaster’s office in many ways, only much more richly decorated. Sitting in a pair of extravagant seats were his parents. His mother’s chair matched with the pink and yellow decorations of the room but his father’s chair was all dark wood and leather that felt distinctly out of place. The other chairs were nice and well cushioned but noticeably lessor than those two seats.

I took a moment to look them over as I approached. The mother was done up in an elaborate dress that kept the yellow and pink coloration of the room. If I had to describe it in one word, that would be ‘frilly’. She was beautiful and well-proportioned but to such an exacting degree that she looked distinctly fake. The upper class ladies that I had seen at my birthday party just looked like normal women, albeit fit and in extremely fine clothes, so it made her look like she was trying just a little too hard. The father of the duo looked like he would have fit in with the rich people I had seen before, though indistinctly and without standing out in any noticeable way. Both had the lightly tanned skin and light brown hair that was common in this area.

I walked forward to introduce myself as they remained seated. “Hello. My name is William Townsen. It is good to meet you.” I bowed slightly as I had been instructed.

The mother raised a perfectly decorated eyebrow and spoke. “You aren’t related to anyone famous, are you?”

I wasn’t sure what she was talking about. “Um, no? I don’t think so.” I floundered.

Nameless saved me by speaking up. “William’s father works at a small rented laboratory in an impermanent part of town, though it is on the surface. His mother works for an Assassin’s Guild.”

“Hmmm.” His mother gave an unapproving noise.

“Where did you find this one?” his father asked, ignoring me.

“He was at the Temple, his mother wanted him to get to know some other people. They are well off enough that they didn’t need to depend on charity for supervision. We spoke and got to know each other before deciding to head out.” I noticed that he ignored the whole fighting thing, though that may have been for multiple reasons.

“I see…” he spoke, and it didn’t sound happy. “And why were you drawn in toward this younger boy?”

Franklin shrugged and looked away. “He seemed interesting and not so stuffy as some of those other kids I keep being introduced to.” His mother’s eyebrow rose at his statement and he spoke up quickly. “Look, he isn’t a bad guy. He even knew how to act appropriately. Isn’t that good enough.?”

His mother spoke up quickly. I got the impression that his parents were double teaming him and understood why he had wanted to speak with them separately. “Look at him! His clothes are barely acceptable! Does he even have more than the one pair?” Of course I have more than this one pair of clothes, though with the whole ‘cleaning’ spell that was less of an issue. I frowned at her but knew better than to speak up. These rules of conduct were really annoying.

“Son, we are only looking out for your best interests. Why do you spend your time among those commoners with no true ambition?”

Franklin seemed to be losing his cool as he spoke back in a barely restrained outburst. “That’s not true! He does have ambition! He has a tutor that teaches him how to fight and he even managed to beat me in a duel, even with his younger age!” I wanted to speak up, if only to calm Franklin down, but a disapproving glare from his mother silenced me. His reaction reminded me that, even if he didn’t usually act his age, he still had some childishness in him.

“Really now?” His father turned to me and I tried not to shrink back from his assessing gaze. “That must have cost a lot of money. Your parents could afford that?”

Could they afford it? How should I know? Probably, they both made decent money, but I had no idea how much someone would charge for the tutoring that I was getting. Considering Row seemed skilled at not just the doing but the teaching of his skill, he could probably charge even more! I decided to just tell the truth as minimalistically as possible. “He is a family friend. He is doing it as a favor.” He always says that he is doing it for a favor from me, but I doubt I could really do anything to pay him back. He is on good terms with my parents, though, so he is probably just paying them back for something they did in the past.

“I assume they must not be completely destitute if they are able to promise him something worth his time.” He answered, then quickly switched gears as he looked me over again. “But do excuse our rudeness, my name is Rayden and my wife is Pelica.” He stood and moved toward me raising a hand in my direction. “I trust that you have had a good experience here and have nothing negative to say about your time with us.”

I was still flipping out a bit by the guy’s name to realize that he was reaching for a handshake. Seriously, I wasn’t sure that ‘Raden’ was even a real name except in mortal combat, and this weaselly little guy somehow lucks out with such a sweet moniker.

Nameless stepped forward and spoke before I could reply. “I was asked by the child’s mother to let you know that he is not allowed to shake hands. She is in good standing with the Lower Quarter’s Assassin’s Guild and seems to be well liked. She made it very clear that I should pass this information on to you and any other adult he interacts with.”

The man pulled his hand back like he had been burned and looked me over again as he sat in his chair. “Perhaps this child has some worth after all.” He observed.

On the one hand: Go Mom. Apparently you are even scary enough to get this stuck up guy to pretend to be a decent human being. On the other hand, while Franklin seems ok, I really don’t want to have to deal with his parents.

There were a few more seconds of uncomfortable silence as us kids stood there waiting as we were observed by his parents. They glanced in each other’s direction several times and I got the distinct impression that they were having some sort of conversation. If it was magic then it was subtle enough that I couldn’t see it happening.

Finally his mother spoke up toward Franklin. “You have permission to associate with this boy.”