+1 Endurance, Strength, Kinesthetics.

Shifting has reached level 8!

Shifting has reached level 9!

….

This party’s gonna suck.

Calvin dragged himself down the hall from the exercise yard towards his bed. After a week of scraping together cash by the skin of his teeth, they had finally caught a break.

Well, not exactly. Kala had come back from her diplomat work one day with good…well, fair news.

The notorious penny-pincher Murak was hosting a ball! Not just any ball, arguably the worst ball in the history of Ussein. Potentially.

According to Kala he’d conned someone else into funding the party, then pocketed most of the funding, along with charging most of the men and women invited to the party a modest cover charge.

To reiterate, there would be an entry fee, no musicians, bring your own drinks, in one of the skinflint’s invitee’s personal mansions, rather than his own one-bedroom apartment.

Uuugh, It sounded like a crap sandwich.

It actually reminds me of Scrooge Mcduck and button soup.

Who the abyss is that?

Nevermind.

Clearly, the party was going to be awful, and the only people there were the ones desperate for a loan from the penny-pinching bastard.

Clearly.

Calvin was run-down. It felt like he’d been running from one fire to the next, using his Knick-knacks to supplement workflow and income wherever he possibly could, but a business with no less than two thousand employees consumed money like a hungry giant.

And when he got up in the morning, he had to wizard up some booze and musical instruments.

Maybe I could dupe the booze, then I wouldn’t have to pay for it.

Yeaaah, that’s probably not a great idea. When it leaves your system you’d get a wicked case of lightheadedness, and a teensy bit of damage on a cellular level from any of the absorbed water and sugar molecules disappearing.

Who said anything about me drinking it? Calvin thought, putting his hand on the door handle. Copy some nice vintage stuff and pass it off as a gift to everyone.

Might work.

only lasts ninety minutes, though. that’s not enough time for Kala to diplomacise for an entire evening.

Calvin suppressed a sigh. He’d just have to scrounge up the means to liven up the ball tomorrow.

He would have preferred to just pay the cover charge and get in, but Kala said that they needed to prove they were capable of paying a loan back, so they should make a show of being able to afford to liven the ball up a little bit.

If everyone has that idea, it might not be that bad. Except for the fact that it’ll be populated by people desperate for money.

And Maruk would still turn a profit.

Calvin shook his head. You gotta do what you gotta do, I guess, he thought, opening the door to his room and stumbling in.

Calvin tugged off his shirt and was halfway done with his pants when he spotted the Uleisan woman under the covers. It was one of the mothers they’d hired recently…Alicia, was it? She had full lips and round cheekbones that made her look a little chubbier than she really was.

“Can I help you?” Calvin asked, blinking, hoping that maybe his sleep deprivation was just making him see things.

“I’m here to help you sleep?” She said, the nerves in her voice turning it into a question.

The sheets were tucked up to the swell of her chest, but Calvin could hazard a guess that she wasn’t wearing much under the covers.

“That’s very thoughtful, and I respect the amount of bravery that it took to commit to this, and I get the confusion, but sleeping with me isn’t actually in your job description. I don’t need any help falling asleep. I’m bone tired, and if you don’t make room, I’m just gonna pass out standing up.”

“Oh,” she said, sitting up and scooting aside, holding the covers over herself. “Should I – “

“At your discretion,” Calvin said, collapsing on the bed and practically burrowing into his pillow.

As he was rapidly sinking into unconsciousness, Calvin heard his door click closed.

Is there a reason you didn’t take the chance to get some stress relief? Because you need it.

Whatever Kala, Ella and I have, I don’t want to disappoint them or ruin it somehow.

That it?

I almost certainly killed that woman’s husband. Feels like a line I shouldn’t cross.

Ah. That makes sense, in an arbitrary sort of way. We’ll work up to banging widows later, then. It’s not a big hitch in your plans to become a wizard king.

Fuck you.

Calvin fell asleep to Elliot’s laughter.

***Kurawe***

“This party is going to suck.” Polluq said, looking around the undecorated room populated by rickety tables and chairs, also free of any decoration. The stage was completely empty, the dance floor had scuff marks from the previous generation.

“It’s like a young nobleman’s first practice ball.” Polluq said, shaking his head.

Kurawe couldn’t help but agree. He gave Murak two Glimmer, and the man had borrowed a well-used dance hall from a ‘friend’ and rented tables and chairs, pocketing almost the entire sum.

“You asked me to throw a ball, and I have,” Murak said with a shrug. “And come now, if I were to throw a ball and spare no expense, wouldn’t that be far more unusual? More likely to attract attention and possibly scare off our quarry?”

“It’s true, no one is going to think this is a trap.” Polluq said, nodding as he scanned the room, arms unfolding to encompass the sorry sight. “Because the bait is awful!”

“My presence here is the bait. The young captain has been attempting to seek a loan from me for the past week.”

“Then give Kurawe back his money!” Polluq said. “The gods know your costs are covered by your ridiculous cover charge.”

“I will not,” The richest member of their Order said, standing straight in front of Polluq and daring him to make a move.

“Consider it the price for his assistance,” Kurawe said gently, putting a hand on his enforcer’s shoulder. He met Murak’s eye. “Active assistance.”

“…Fine.” Murak grumbled.

“At some point, the princess will approach you, and most likely charm you with her presence.”

“She is charming,” Murak said, nodding.

“Did you see her reading The Giving Tree at the orphanage?” Polluq demanded. “I almost cried.”

Kurawe sighed.

“After however much time you deem necessary, take her and Captain Gadsint to the room we’ve prepared to discuss the details of a loan. He’ll most likely be uncomfortable with you taking her anywhere by herself, so it shouldn’t be hard to make him think tagging along was his idea.”

“I’ve been doing this awhile, Kurawe. I can handle it.” Murak paused, considering. “Unless my joints are flaring up that day, then I can’t be bothered.”

“You’ll be there, or I’ll strap you to strings and puppet you around your own damn party!” Polluq shouted into the wiry old man’s face.

Murak gave them a gap-toothed smile.

“Once you take your seats, your job is done.” Kurawe said.

“Sounds easy enough.”

“Hold on,” Kurawe said, raising one of his oversized hands to caution Murak.

“My informants have led me to believe that the boy has some kind of mind-reading mutation based on gaze. This is pieced together from a few dozen eyewitness accounts of inexplicable behavior. So keep your thoughts and feelings under control, and try to keep your eyes on the princess.

“A mutation?” Murak asked, eyebrow raised. “A useful one? And he doesn’t have hair growing everywhere or an ass for a head? Lucky bastard.”

“Not so lucky after tonight,” Polluq said.

“I suppose we’ll have to see.” Kurawe said. “Now, my spies have informed me that the captain is well-known in Gadvera for revoluntionizing dupdomancy as a tool for war by copying exotic, dangerous materials like God’s Fire in huge quantities and letting them do what they do best. He wears belts around his shoulder and waist – “

Kurawe motioned across his shoulder and waist. “Filled with tiny samples of dangerous chemicals, poisons, explosives and what-have you. If you can, make sure he leaves those belts at the door. That’ll take a bit of the risk out of the job.”

“He also has a peculiar summoning magic, and can create at will, an army of knickknacks as a source of free labor, and wasps, ranging from normal sized to big enough to ride, in massive quantities. These wasps are highly lethal above four inches long, and he can fill an entire room with them, so when the fighting starts, run and don’t look back, Murak.”

Kurawe looked up and saw Murak’s eyes sparkling. “Did you say free labor?” The old moneylender’s nose for profit never steered him wrong.

“No, you aren’t going to torture the spell out of him. I don’t care how many dampeners you put on him, It’s still a grossly destabilizing influence on the labor market, and a little extra cash in your pocket isn’t worth sending the economy into the Abyss or causing a revolution.”

“Bah. I’ve already got all my Skills, anyway.” Murak muttered, turning away from the two of them.

“Make sure you take the ass-wipes too!” Murak yelled at the laborers who were busily moving furniture and toiletries from the mansion, ostensibly to ‘make space’ for all the guests.

“Is he…stealing from the host?” Polluq said.

“Sort of. I imagine he’ll roll the laborer’s entire bill into one tab and force the host pay for it by ransoming the man’s furniture back to him.” Kurawe said, rolling his eyes.

“I almost admire the audacity, but most of me wants to punch him in the face.”

“You’re not the first. How do you think his nose got so squished?” Kurawe asked, motioning for Polluq to follow.

They arrived at ‘the room,’ where Kurawe’s team of problem solvers were busily preparing the false walls they would be hiding behind. Each of the mercenaries had an open Dampener clattering at their hip.

Dampeners were thick steel collars lined with four Glimmers worth of solid Nem, making them incredibly expensive. The interior was lined with layers of enchanted glass, designed to forcibly draw Bent out of the victim. All that Bent was redirected towards normalizing the target’s physical abilities, allowing even physical-oriented Legends to be subdued by them.

It didn’t prevent the casting of spells, per se, but not many people were able to think fast enough to win in the handful of seconds before they were completely empty of Bent.

And to make sure the boy didn’t cause too much trouble while his Bent was being drained, there was the team.

On the surface, they seemed…unique, but Legends tended to be.

There was a powerful Ilethan illusionist, Matthias, who was putting up the semi-permanent optical illusions of walls, fussing over every detail. The man wore a black and blue robe with a splash of gold embroidery, complementing his thick black hair and pointed beard nicely.

Sitting in the corner was a hulking brute of a man with fur clothes and pointed teeth. A mercenary Genosian who’d been exiled from his clan. Euha, he called himself. He bore a crystalline axe he must have gotten in Uleis, along with a solid steel club hanging at his side. At a certain level of strength, wood clubs just didn’t cut it.

There was a lithe, well-traveled Uleisan Wizard named Suppan who was well versed in counter-magic. She was dressed in traditional Uleisian garb, idly reading at Maruk’s desk.

And lastly, there was the ever-rare Legend burglar. People with thieving Skills seldom announced it, and even more rarely allowed themselves to be caught in large battles.

Kate was probably around here, somewhere.

“The ball’s in two hours. Is everyone clear on the plan?”

“Don’t look at him,” the Genosian said with a thick, if cultured, accent, “Until Murak sits down, at which point I rush in and slap a collar on him,” he pointed at the woman behind the desk, who waved. “Suppan unravels his summoning spells. Kate and Matthias provide backup if necessary. We understand our roles.”

“I don’t know about you,” Kurawe said, hooking his thumbs in his belt. “But I think this Ball will be terrific fun.”

***

“Check this out,” Calvin said, holding out his hand.

Shifting.

Calvin targeted his hand as one object, and the rest of his body as the other, then shifted as much of his Mass into his hand as he could.

At level eight, that amounted to sixty-four pounds.

Calvin immediately felt off balance, and his shoulder muscles began to scream at him.

He yanked his hand forward, and his body slid back about half that distance.

He returned the mass to normal and flexed his arm back and forth for Karen to see.

“So like this my body weighs a hundred pounds, while my hand weighs sixty-five. Once I get the skill to level twenty, or close enough to matter, I’ll be able to move my entire body in midair simply by twisting my hand.”

Calvin waggled his wrists and ankles. “I could do it with my feet, too. Imagine what I could do if I could target each extremity of my body separately.”

“Wouldn’t that cause a tremendous amount of torque?”

“No.”

Karen stared at him, uncomprehending. “I don’t get it.”

Calvin held his hand up and moved it back and forth.

“This doesn’t move my main body at all, does it?”

“No.”

“And it takes zero effort to move basically, what?” Calvin glanced at his palm. “A pound of flesh back and forth, side to side?”

“Right.”

“So why would it take more effort to move my entire body around my hand if my entire body weighed a pound or less? Nothing, even? The answer is, it wouldn’t. The only difference in perceived effort would be wind resistance from greater volume.”

“Once I get the hang of seamlessly transferring mass back into my main body while it’s moving, I can literally generate kinetic energy from nothing, allowing me to walk on air and maneuver without ever touching the ground.”

Karen was sitting with her chin on her palm, watching him with glazed eyes.

“This is why I can’t stand Mages. Can we get on with this? You told me you were on a tight schedule today.”

The impatient front-liner picked her sword up and charged him.

….

After a couple minutes of being repeatedly hacked to death trying to dodge her blades with nothing but Shifting, he finally got what he wanted.

Shifting has reached level 10!

Shifting level 10: : 50% shift, 10 minutes, targets limited to 1000 pounds in mass.

+1 Will

Please choose an Ability or Mutation:

Multiple Shift: 1 extra target/5 levels in Shifting.

Shift Storage: Adds an extradimensional space Mass can be shifted to. Limits and duration match that of Shifting.

^Does not actually store things, just allows the User to make both objects lighter.

Extended Shift: duration becomes level squared.

Unbound: User may freely swap the targets of the Shifting link for another

Mutations:

Center of Mass: User may move their center of mass 2 inches per level of Shifting, at Will.

Xeno-Adaptation: Mass increases or decreases relative to the gravity of the planet to keep the User at the same perceived weight.

F*ck the Square-Cube Law: Endurance and Strength grow proportionally to the User’s mass while using Shifting.

Calvin noted the two extra entries in the Skill’s description, then chose Multiple Shift as he’d planned, heart hammering with excitement.

I can’t wait to try this…Calvin thought with glee as the technique buzzed through his mind.

Multiple shift linked all the objects together, and Sliding shift let him move mass between them at will. At level ten he could choose four objects and freely move mass between them, draining up to half of the object’s mass and feeding it to any combination of the others.

“We doing this?” Karen asked.

“I wanna experiment for a minute,” he said.

Shifting.

He targeted both feet, the rest of his body, and the ground. Four targets.

Calvin swung his left foot up with a bit of zing and dumped a combined total of five hundred and eighty pounds into it on the upswing.

“Oh, shit!” Calvin cursed as his suddenly hefty foot continued swinging upwards of it’s own volition. There was absolutely no stopping it with the rest of his body’s meager eighty pounds.

So? Make Ganja juice.

Calvin’s leg flexed as he pushed down against his own foot like he was going up a flight of stairs, pulling his body up as his foot continued its unstoppable upward momentum.

He swung his other foot up, Shifting the mass over to that one midstride.

“Whooo!!!” Calvin screamed with pure joy in midair as his left foot was suddenly dangling, while the other was propelling him upward for a second glorious step on nothing but air.

“You know there’s an Airwalk Ability in Footwork and Dodging, right? Way easier.” Karen called up at him.

“Do NOT ruin this for me!” Calvin shouted, pointing at his foster mother from his superior vantage point moments before he fumbled the trade-off between legs.

He hadn’t stabilized his body before taking the third step, and it threw him wildly off-balance, and when he tried to shift the mass again to stabilize, it was injected into an unconsciously flailing foot, which continued on its path, zipping off to the side wildly, nearly pulling Calvin’s femur out of it’s socket, spraining every muscle in his leg as he was forced to do the splits before being slammed violently into the ground, breaking his ankle and knee.

“Uuugh…” Calvin groaned straight into the dust of the practice yard as Karen laughed. “Needs work.”

I recommend Lots of practice where you can’t kill or maim yourself by messing up before you try this in the field.

What do you think I’m doing here? Calvin asked.

A pinch brought him out of his Shadow Boxing.

Calvin inhaled deeply as though he’d been asleep, sitting up in the carriage, a bottle of expensive Bolean wine resting on his chest.

“We’re here,” Kala said, nodding to the door.

Well, let’s go see how bad Maruk’s balls are, Calvin thought, stretching his aching muscles as he hopped out of the carriage.

I guess we won’t know until we go inside. Could be good, could be bad. They’re Schrodinger’s balls. Hah.

Calvin Gadsint

Body:

16

Strength:

13

Kinesthetics:

14

Endurance:

13

Mind:

34

Intuition:

18

Stability:

16

Will:

26

Bent:

2/15

Skills:

Stealth

9

Talking to Girls

11

Acting

10

Read Expressions

10

Sense-Grafting

15

Knife-Work

10

Dupdomancy

18

Hunting

10

Meditation

18

Chained Spirit

18

Calvinian Summoning

18

Your Princess is in Another Castle

7

Fishing

5

Genosian Language

5

Beli Ma

10

Shifting

10