Rain dripped down over the edge of Persephonia’s awning, and Jun was overjoyed. I watched as she danced about in the absolute deluge, splashing in three inches of standing water that covered the training grounds. I didn’t feel the same elation as she did, and as such I stood on the other side of the glass doors and sipped on a drink that tasted like a mixture of weak coffee and cheap chocolate beverage. Not actual chocolate milk, but the stuff that couldn’t legally put ‘milk’ on the packaging. It had come from a packet Persephonia left out on the table, which could have led to the taste, but I was just happy to have something warm on this freezing cold day.

A swipe through my interface told me it was negative five degrees celsius, and I couldn’t find a way to switch it to imperial units for this one thing, so I suffered through it. How the rain hadn’t changed to snow had been a mystery until I took a deep breath and smelled an overwhelming aroma of salt, which might have explained how the corals had survived. If they were anything like the one on earth, of course, which only lived underwater. And didn’t grow to be the size of trees and boulders. So… maybe not.

“How aren’t you freezing your ass off?” I asked when Jun stepped close, allowing my voice to reach her through the downpour. “It’s below zero out there.”

She shrugged and brushed the water off her face, then stepped under the awning and donned her armor before stepping inside. “Oh, I’m freezing. I can barely feel my toes, and all I can taste is salt. But rain is really rare back home, especially since all the big cities have collection devices over them so we don’t waste one drop of water.”

I threw a towel to Jun and she bent over to dry her boots, then the floor under her. She slid into the chair that her armor had scratched to all hell, then glanced over at the glass square I was pointedly ignoring. “We did make a deal with the Matria, you know.”

“I know, I know.” I grumbled. But I’d stupidly agreed before I saw what I’d be working with. On the glass square was a shorthand version of the two recruits’ stats, and an equally short description of their cores.

Harvester

Core: Ironheart Core

Core Stats: Mas:1 Haz:0 Hea:68

Core Function: Shield Wall: The benefits of the Resilience stat are increased. Spend Battery to enhance a specific object or person’s Resilience.

Armor Stats: Bat:2 Spe:2 Pow:2 Res:4 Rec:2

Scalovera

Core: Lifeglow Core

Core Stats: Mas:1 Haz:0 Hea:71

Core Function: Give Aid- The benefits of the Recovery stat are increased. Spend Battery to enhance a specific object or person’s Recovery.

Armor Stats: Bat:2 Spe:3 Pow:2 Res:2 Rec:3

I slid the square over to Jun, and less than fifteen seconds later, she shared my view on our new prospects.

“Persephonia took these stats from them when they didn’t have their armor on, right?” She muttered, then shook her head. “The absolute least someone could have is… two in each stat, right? One in each from the core itself, then another one from each of the nodes?”

“Technically they could un-slot their stat nodes, but yeah.” I nodded. “Two is pretty much the lowest anyone could ever get.”

“So unless an entire suit of armor is giving Scalovera a grand total of two stat points, these couldn’t have been taken with armor on.” Jun decided, sliding the glass square back to me with a huff. “I guess if we took off all of our armor we wouldn’t look so strong either. But why’d Matria Persephonia only give us this, and not their fully armored ones too?”

I had an idea, but it didn’t really make sense. The only reason I’d ever looked at my unarmored stats was to double-check that I’d slotted all the right stat nodes, and considering that Scalovera and Harvester probably didn’t have any free nodes, it couldn’t be that. So the only explanation was that unarmored stats were the standard for a Staura for some reason, even if nobody would ever venture into a hazard without being fully equipped first.

“She isn’t showing us their node gain or mastery gain functions.” I pointed out. “I know what they are, but why wouldn’t she show us? If she wants us to help them get stronger, wouldn’t that be the best place to start?”

Jun grumbled something under her breath, then leaned closer to me. “Maybe she’s trying to see how much your interface tells you about things. Like if you could see what functions a core had just by looking at its name.”

That idea was unsettling, but as I thought about it, it also didn’t feel right. Persephonia hadn’t had a single problem going straight to me with any questions she’d had so far, so why start tiptoeing around now? No; it had to be something else. I thought back to everything I’d seen Persephonia do, and how she’d reacted to everything, but nothing stood out to me as obvious.

“Does Persephonia play favorites?” I muttered to myself, rereading the two short stat stubs over and over again for any clues. “I know that hammer and those swords had to be better than anything I could’ve gotten from the starting store, so why didn’t it feel like they could use them?”

Jun cleared her throat, and I turned to look at her with a raised eyebrow. “You got any ideas?”

“More like something I completely forgot to tell you, actually.” Jun said sheepishly. “When I talked to Persephonia after my fight, she seemed really surprised that I could use a weapon at all. We weren’t trained to use them, which I thought was because the system helped us with that, but apparently that’s not how it normally works.”

It was how it worked for me, and for Jun, and for everyone I’d known before the reset. I signaled for Jun to keep going when she looked at me expectantly, since I didn’t have anything to add.

She chuckled and leaned back herself, then spread her hands helplessly. “I’d hoped you would have something to say, because I don’t have anything else. Apparently we both get instant injections of knowledge, but everyone else has to work for it. That’s got to have something to do with these barely there stat sheets, right?”

I scratched my face and groaned into my palm as I realized what Persephonia wanted us to do. “She wants us to help them with their basics. Not their cores.”

“Their basics?” Jun narrowed her eyes. “You don’t mean stuff like footwork and stances, right? We learned all that in training. And neither of us actually know how we use our weapons, just that we can use them. How’re we supposed to teach that?”

“You told Persephonia that the knowledge just popped into your head, right?” I asked, and Jun nodded. “Then she should know that we can’t teach that. I might be able to do a few things and tell them to copy me, but that’s about it for my teaching prowess. Even with everything I know, I don’t know how to do that.”

“You never taught anyone to fight back in your old life?” Jun asked, her words seasoned with suspicion as she gestured at herself. “I think you did just fine helping me out, so can’t we just do that for Scalovera and Harvester?”

I tapped the side of my head, then reached over and tapped Jun’s forehead. “Because you’re a lot like me for some reason, Jun. I barely taught you anything, just told you to do the things that had worked for me, and they miraculously worked for you. But we already know they won’t work for Scalovera and Harvester.”

Jun nodded slowly as my words sank in.

“Well, no point worrying about it then.” She decided, rising from her chair and making her way to our shared room. One that Persephonia insisted on splitting in two with a solid coral-wood partition. “I’ll get changed, then we’ll go see what the Matria expects of us.”

“I’ll be here.” I responded, looking down at the glass square feeling more confused than when I’d started. I’d never done anything outside of my armor except raise my health stat, and I’d never known anyone else that did either. So why did it seem like Persephonia was putting an emphasis on it?

Ten minutes later, Jun assured me she was dry under her suit of armor and we made for the meeting place I’d marked on my interface map. I wasn’t surprised when it led us out of the settlement, but what did surprise me was how many of Jun’s people I saw on the way without a single piece of their armor on. Even in the freezing cold, not a single one of them wore anything that would give them stat bonuses, relying on what their stat nodes gave them and nothing more. It was such a drastic change from the paranoia-laden small towns we’d carved out for ourselves before the reset, where taking off your armor was accompanied by a thousand looks over your shoulder and a tenseness in your gut that never went away until you were fully suited up again.

But for once, Jun seemed equally disturbed by this as I was. She was blatantly uncomfortable when she had to cross paths with a young woman, stepping back a little bit too far so Jun didn’t run into the pedestrian. Who then sneered up at Jun and muttered something under her breath about ‘armor addicts’ and how they were ruining the cities.

“That’s the first time I’ve heard that.” I said with a frown, watching the woman walk away in the pouring rain as if it was the most normal thing not to protect herself. “Do all of your… does everyone walk around unprotected all the time?”

“Apparently.” Jun snorted, crossing her arms and shaking her head in disbelief. “A level one hazard almost killed me so many times, and that ‘eel’ could easily kill a few people here unless someone like Persephonia was here to stop it. It doesn’t make any sense.”

So we agreed. I chuckled and pressed Jun forward. “I agree, but it’s not like we’ll find the answers standing in the middle of the street. Persephonia obviously knows more about this place than we do, so we’ll ask her about the armor thing.”

Jun grumbled agreement, and the rest of the short walk was spent in silence as she shot glares at anyone who got too close. Most people didn’t seem to care that we were fully armored, and I saw one very small person that looked at us with something like awe. Jun laughed at me for not recognizing a child when I saw one, and I felt the need to defend myself due to the fact that I didn’t know how short or tall a member of her species could be. She pointed out that the child was holding hands with two other much taller people, and I couldn’t really defend myself after that.

“At least it’s peaceful enough.” I muttered, watching the parents lead their child away as it barraged them with questions about us.

“Peaceful enough for… nevermind.” Jun interrupted herself, watching me watch the parents. “Nobody had kids on your go around?”

“A few did, but it didn’t end so well for… most of them.” I reluctantly said, then shook my head. “I’ll tell you later. We’re here, anyway.”