The team arrived at the entrance to the Archives, based on Luther and Ada’s direction. The description of the book stack sculpture was accurate. Jonas tried the doors and found them easy to open. Like many public-type buildings, it had a small desk inside with a Professional, reading a book… and writing notes. Hearing them enter, his head rose and he greeted them.

“We’re here because we were told to meet a scholar named Babbage.”

“Oh, you’re there for Charles? He’s probably holed in there. Which team?”

“We’re the… Adapted Team.”

The scholar blinked. Then he shook his head and ran further into the building.

“Looks like we’re famous,” Ira said.

The man came back a few minutes later.

“He’s coming. So you’re the Team who started in those far zones? Can I ask for some clarifications?”

“Uh? What for?”

The scholar pulled out a small booklet and opened it. Jonas peered and suddenly realized that the notes in the margin were… in his own hand.

“Oh, is that Cowen’s book?”

“Yes. Her team turned the book back in since she had quite a few new notes and presumably wasn’t going to go back there. But I’m interested in that Othary mountain pass…”

For a few minutes, Jonas answered the questions on the encounter with the crow elite triplets they’d fought over that treasure box. The treasure itself had been a glove with Agility and Presence, useless for any of them. Then, they got interrupted by a small throat noise, and found a young man at the door, looking at them.

“Here they are, Charles.”

“Thanks, Haywood. I’ll be back in Reading room 4, in the extraordinary case someone else needs me today.”

He turned and invited them into the depth of the Archives. They followed, entering a large and tall corridor with shelves lined with badly-bound books. Seeing the curious look, Babbage quickly explained that those were raw notes, collected over the years. Everything known about lairs and zones. Jonas was surprised to learn his margin scribbles, as well as the answers to the receptionist’s questions, would soon end up somewhere there.

“Probably in the next hall. That’s for the data on far west zones.”

Reading room 4 had desks, lecterns, and a few chairs. Babbage invited them to take seats wherever then raised his wrist for a descriptor exchange. Jonas let him read his at length, then set out to explain, once again, what had happened.

Babbage was most interested in the sequence Jonas and the rest had experienced between the Gate destabilizing and them landing in the throes of Adjustment in Ovildian’s Plaza.

“So you were… suspended. In the transit.”

“Yes. It felt… maybe like limbo. A place where there’s nothing. That was kind of the same sensation you get briefly when you Recall, except it lasted. The only thing was that descriptor. Which changed.”

“As if someone or something was making a kind of decision.”

“Something?” Jonas asked.

“You can build machines that make decisions. It’s a long tradition. Sometimes you have fakes, like that chess player[23], but there are automata that change behaviour, based on what happens around them.”

“Do you think that’s what was going on?”

“Who knows. We have a single example of people getting caught, so it’s very hard to conclude. Still, it’s one example, which is more than none. So you can get non-Profession Milestones. Interesting.”

“Her Highness thought this looked like a Profession, without being one.”

“Uh? Well, a bit. But it’s very obviously not a normal Milestone. For two reasons,” Babbage replied.

“You get more and more Potentials with each Milestone, you mean.”

“That, and the benefit is in the wrong column.”

“What do you mean, the wrong column,” Guss asked, intrigued.

“Your normal Milestones’ permanent bonus are all found in the right column of the descriptor. All of them. In the left column, you get all kinds of variable bonus from whatever gear you are wearing at the moment, or any status affecting you.”

“Oh. And the levelling speed is in the left column.”

“There are many pieces of gear who also give you an additional bonus for things you’d get out of a Milestone. But your Adjustment Milestone’s bonus does not appear to be a bonus you get from a normal Milestone… even though it shows as one.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed,” Jonas said.

“Not enough experience with additional Professions. But yes, that’s why we know – or at least we think we know – you can’t get things like accuracy or regeneration from Professions. It’s all left column stuff. But… maybe the left column is merely very special Milestones.”

Babbage beamed a large smile.

“I like new ideas. Even if they will make my job difficult.”

“Your job?”

“Well, I’m a scholar. I am very good at mathematics, probably even better now than I was before entering the Labyrinth. There’s half a dozen of us studying the theory of Professions, and we do make a side living by doing build consultancy.”

“What do you mean build consul… thingy?” Ira asked.

“I guide Professionals in Profession choices. Give them advice, and then point out where their team should go if they want to be better faster.”

Babbage straightened in his chair, before starting.

“General introduction to builds. This is a lecture I give to everyone at least once, although it’s usually while they’re still in tier-one.”

“When you consider your Professional status, the main thing you usually look at is your level. It’s obvious, it’s flashy, and it usually tells you – at least early – what you can and cannot use as gear.”

“Yes, we’ve noticed it’s important.”

“It’s important, but not the only thing significant. I mean… if you look at both Ira and Jonathan, who are both level 61, and Laymen, what’s the difference?”

Ira Irwin Heard

Health: 1143/1143

Mind: 504/504

Endurance: 455/455

Aether: 318/318

Effective level: 61

Level 37 Layman

Level 24 Defender

Experience: 12879/64348

Jonathan Bennett Gilbert

Health: 739/739

Mind: 434/434

Endurance: 440/440

Aether: 492/492

Effective level: 61

Level 31 Layman

Level 30 Watcher

Experience: 39100/53913

“Well, Jonathan has worse gear,” Ira reluctantly said.

“That, but it can be fixed easily if you got more gear. The main difference is that you do have more tier-two levels than he does.”

Jonathan immediately understood.

“And those give you more vitals?”

“And slightly faster and bigger Milestones. The former is not a very large difference, but one important point in builds is that higher-tier levels matter more than lower-tier ones. A tier-one Profession gives you a total of 12 vitals per level, and a total of 8 Potentials every 15 levels, or a bit over ½ Potential per level. By comparison, a tier-six Profession would give you 90 vitals per level instead, and 35 Potentials every 10 levels, or 3 and a half Potentials every level.”

“That’s a lot bigger,” noted Laura.

“And the amount of experience you need for a level depends on the total number of Professions you have, not the tier.”

“That was the thing we weren’t really sure of. So the lesson is that, all things considered, you always want to level the highest tier of Profession you can,” Jonathan concluded.

“More or less. It’s a bit more complicated since different Professions give different skills and bonuses. The first thing is that it’s easy to follow the main path up to tier-four. You start at tier-one, gain until you get tier-two, then level until you qualify for tier-three, then you gain levels… and you realize there’s no way you can qualify for tier-four. Realistically.”

“How so?” Jonas asked.

“Did you have a look at one of the Plazas on the Great Line?”

“Yea, Zilbarn. We took a temporary Recall there,” Jonas said.

“And what did you notice there?”

Jonas thought for a second.

“All Professions had two requirements.”

“So do tier-four ones. And at five you have Professions with three required Potentials. We’ve seen one tier-seven Profession with four.”

Suddenly, Jonas realized where the discussion led.

“And you only get five different Potentials per Milestone, not all ten.”

“And sometimes not the right ones. Or at least not enough of those. At tier-three you have only one realistic choice, which for you would be Solid Aethershaper…”

Babbage stopped himself and shook his head.

“And it’s a bad example. Because you’re the black swan.”

“Black swan?”

“The absolute rarest of rare things. Spellcasters can’t pick anything but Solid Aethershaper for their third Profession. Normally.”

“But… thanks to Adjustment III, I qualify for Massive Aethershaper. I saw that one on the Zilbarn Plaza.”

“And for anyone else, you would need a starting 20 in Constitution, and since it always picks the highest Potential, 20 in Intellect as well, and luck into the Labyrinth giving you Aetherist rather than Defender when entering. Even 20 in Intellect is rare, but to get both that high is close to an impossibility. Until today, that was an entirely theoretical build.”

“So, if I pick Massive Aethershaper?”

“Then you get plus 2 Strength per Milestone and can get to Solid Spellwrangler with very few Milestones. The alternative version for people who have to take Solid Aethershaper would be to aim to Massive Spellwrangler, but at 2 points per Milestone, starting from a normal 15 or 16 Constitution requires an enormous amount for the 36 required at tier-four.”

“So what do people do?” Jonas asked.

“For normal Professionals, you can’t realistically accumulate Milestones that way. So, when you pick your tier-four target… you need a separate, faster source of Milestones to give you the missing appropriate Potential.”

“That’s what I heard called side Professions,” Laura noticed.

“Exactly, Miss Harvey. A side Profession is a lower-tier Profession you have to take to help you achieve the qualifications for a higher-tier. Tier-four is when you can’t avoid those. The Chinese, for instance, use a different word for Professionals up to tier-three, when you can climb straight across tiers, and after tier-four when you need to go wider.”

“You want to pick as few levels as possible in those low-tier ones, then,” Jonas guessed.

Babbage wiggled his finger.

“Usually. But there’s another factor to consider in a side Profession. The skill spheres and bonus. The more skill spheres you have in common with your main skills, the better, since for Milestones, you may get smaller Potentials, but skill ranks and bonus are the same, regardless of the tier.”

“So you want a side Profession with a needed Potential, the right bonus and the right skills,” Laura concluded.

Babbage pointed at her.

“Congratulations on passing Build Making 101. Or if you can’t find that one Profession, two side ones, which is usually required for either tier-five and six. Or sometimes, you can get three side ones for a tier-five, and then you get immediately to tier-six after finishing that tier. There’s… nearly endless combinations.”

“You need an expert,” Ira noted.

“That’s me. Any scholar of Professions worth its salt can memorize all the possibilities – that’s why most of us are in the Intellect-related Professions, the high score helps your memory – and figure out, based on what kind of skills you like to use, what’s your best path.”

He immediately added, “And, then, it gets even more complicated, of course.”

All the team remained silent, waiting for Babbage to elaborate. Seeing as he couldn’t get a question, he pursued his speech.

“Early levels in each Profession cost less than late levels. So, there are basically two schools of build-makers. The Fast, and the Deep.”

“The Fast ones are obvious. I’m a Fast, by the way. You pursue the highest tier you can, you get as little in extra side Professions you can, and you go far and fast.”

“What’s the Deep then?” asked Jonas.

“Well, going from, say level 55 to 66 in a tier-five Profession will cost you a lot less experience than going from 80 to 90 later in your tier-six. So, while you get more of that tier-six milestone and those 10 levels, it will require a lot less experience to do the former than the latter.”

Jonas saw the logic behind that calculation. As did the rest of the team.

“So that’s the Deepers. Their idea is that, if basically, you take as many Milestones as you can get for useful skills, the fact that you get slightly lower vitals per level is way compensated by the extra skill ranks and the fact that you get to that level a tiny bit faster than later.”

“And you’re suggesting we go Fast rather than Deep?” asked Jonas.

“Yes, because fighting creatures give you experience based on their level, but also your level vs theirs. The higher a creature, the more experience you get, but the higher your average level vs that creature, the less you get. So, having higher vitals per level makes you fight for slightly more experience over time, but going Deep makes that experience apply slightly faster. And nobody can agree what is really more significant.”

His voice lowered.

“I think the Deepers might have a point, but they always forget that people hate having low numbers. Telling them to not take a high-tier Profession yet because they can squeeze a bit more out of a level now rather than the level they’ll get in ten years is doomed to failure.”

Then he straightened.

“And in your case… well, it’s different. Because you already have the equivalent of a free side Profession, plus your experience requirements do not grow as fast. If you really get a new Milestone every Profession… you can go fast and furious and skip entire side picks.”

“So, can you give us advice yet?”

“You would need to take a side Profession to see how that affects you. I understand you don’t want to experience that growth pain unnecessarily. But it won’t change much your progression until past tier-four. So… basic – and free, of course – advice for your next two Professions.”

“Jonas, as you can guess, you’d probably want that Massive Aetershaper you saw rather than Solid Aethershaper. It will allow you to aim straight for tier-four Solid Spellwrangler next, without any side Profession and you’ll get some nice defensive spells to help your team, but at the cost of having to wait until tier-four for additional elemental spells.”

Then Babbage slapped his face.

“Which, of course, you can get at any time. That reminds me, there are things we should do while you’re there.”

“Like what?”

“Check some skills. There are a few pieces of equipment people get that have ranks on skills no one has ever acquired. Since those items are often wasteful, they get donated or sold cheap to the Archives so we can collect them for reference. We’ll do that next.”

“That’s the Archive storage. They got some interesting stuff from treasures all over the Labyrinth. I’m pretty sure there are a few weird skills artefacts and heroic gear. If you can… just learn from them, then we can properly document what those skills are.”

Babbage pulled out a register and flipped the pages, muttering.

“Haven’t got too many items below 61 with unknown skills. But let’s see what we can do.”

He moved to a shelf, checking numbers, and pulled a box, getting out a shiny leather glove inlaid with silver strings.

Enhanced Gripping Gloves

Hands

Heroic

Requires: Level 57

Provides: +171 defence rating, +16 STR, +12 DEX, +11 FOC, +154 health, +1 Boneshatter ranks

“Nobody knows what type of skill it is, probably a melee one from the name the Labyrinth gives us. But it could be physical-offence, for you Ms Harvey, or maybe equipment-offence straight into Mr Raby’s sphere. Or maybe it’s an exotic one like opponent-offence. Let’s solve the mystery!”

Both Laura and Alton slipped the glove, but they reported only the slightly disconcerting feeling of a skill they did not have. The rest of the team tried the glove as well, just in case that skill was even more exotic than the name sounded, but to no avail.

Silken Caress

Head

Heroic

Requires: Level 51

Provides: +124 defence rating, +9 INT, +9 WIS, +129 mind, +97 aether, +1 Fire Funnel ranks

“It should be obvious this is more for you, Sims, rather than Mr Fullmore.”

Jonas slipped the headband over his scalp. It felt scratchy at first… and a new entry blossomed in his descriptor.

Skill unlocked: Fire Funnel

Fire Funnel

Aether/Offense

Rank 1: Does 17.5% of INT in fire damage per second to any hostile at the targeted location, within 2.25 feet. Lasts 11 seconds. Costs: 1.99 aether per base damage.

Upon hearing that, Babbage grew excited.

“Good. Note down the exact description and values. Then remove the gloves and note the baseline at rank 0 as well.”

“Can I keep…?”

“I don’t think so. These items are in the Archives because of interest, but they still are worth some money. That one is under-levelled but it came from a level 348 Ancient in mid-tier-four. If you can pay, they’ll probably release it now that we know what it’s about, but until then… I’ll ask. I’m only an associate researcher, I don’t make decisions on this. The Royal Society does.”

By the day’s end, they’d unlocked only two skills, the Fire Funnel and a Talon Shred for Alton. Most of the equipment in storage was in the hundreds to four hundred levels required and couldn’t be tested. But Babbage extracted a solemn promise to come to check the next unknown skill at 98.

Massive Aethershaper

(tier 3)

Required: 45 INT, 20 CON

Provides:

+5 health/+3 endurance/+7 mind/+12 aether per level

+1 Milestone per 13 levels

Massive Aethershaper Milestone: +7 INT, +4 DEX, +3 WIS, +2 STR, +1 PRE, 2% elemental economy

Skillset: Aether / Defence