I looked down at the three chains in my hand, scanning each with God’s Eye.

Obfuscation Chain

This chain holds a moderate obfuscation enchantment, blocking all forms of identification skills.

Obfuscation Chain

This chain holds a strong obfuscation enchantment. When Identified, the wearer will show up as they are, with the following modifications:

Name: Tess’Astorius

Level: +2

Class: Jack of All Professions

Prestige: 500

…

Obfuscation Chain

This chain holds a masterwork obfuscation enchantment. When Identified, the wearer will show up as they are, with the following modifications:

Health: 300

Prestige: 200

Additionally, blocks most truth sensing and forcing effects.

I raised a questioning glance to Suds, unsure why I’d been given so many. Was I supposed to choose a specific chain for each occasion?

“You wear ‘em all.” He pointed to the smallest of the three, which also had the weakest of the enchantments. “Bracelet. Very standard. Keeps most people from being able to see your details.” He then pointed to the middle of the three. “Necklace. Less common, but whenever someone breaks through the bracelet’s enchantment, they’ll be thrown off the trail by the fake status.”

Finally, he pointed to the largest of the three. “Wear that one under your clothes, around the waist. If someone can break through the necklace, it’ll just look like we’re lying about your class and the fact that you weren’t given the family name. Minor scandals, but they won’t figure out that you’re a Protagonist.”

Seemed like a lot of effort to mislead people, but then again, that was kind of the point, wasn’t it? I did like being alive and not hunted for sport, after all.

Before I could even get a “thank you” out, he reached into his bag and pulled out more items which he tossed at me. This time around, instead of chains, they were clothes, shoes, and a heavy bag. I caught it all, surprised most by the bag’s heft as it jingled.

“None of your coinage is gonna be good here. If you want, I can work on exchanging it for you, but this is easier. An ‘allowance’ for my ‘beloved granddaughter.’ You also needed new clothes. Already stick out enough as it is — no reason to make it worse. Plus, they all have a circle of fabric sewn into their center where you can hide the third chain. Should be more comfortable than wearing it directly against the skin.

“Should be fine as long as you stay within the district… Just don’t be dumb, get out, and go be less boring!”

Without giving me time for even the briefest of followup questions, he shut the door on me, disappearing as abruptly as he’d appeared. I was left standing there with my arms full of obfuscation jewelry, new clothes, and my “allowance”.

“Um. Thank you?” With Suds having already left, I spoke the words to no one but myself. Still, it felt like something that needed to be said.

After dumping everything onto my bed, I first opened up the bag, finding a wealth of copper and silver. I transferred the coins into my dimensional pouch.

Guess he doesn’t really do half measures, then. I leafed through my clothing options and went with a gray and blue blouse, alongside a matching pair of simple subtly patterned gray pants. The fit was surprisingly good, although the style was somewhat unfamiliar to me: The blouse was cinched tight against my waist, but then continued downward, flaring out into four flaps. It blurred the line between a shirt and a dress, and I was hoping that I was correct in wearing pants with it, as it would reveal far far too much worn alone.

After finding the aforementioned inner section for my obfuscation chain, I threaded it through, and after changing into the outfit, put on the necklace and bracelet as well. They look a bit plain, truth be told, but I imagine Suds knows the fashion scene here better than I do. The bracelet fit snuggly next to the wooden bracelet I’d gotten back in Ftheran (on my definitely-not-date), while the necklace slipped on underneath my Shower Gem Pendant.

Ready to head out, I opened the door to find Suds well gone. I’d hoped to possibly ask him for some local recommendations, but it seemed I was on my own.

“Well, that’s fine. I got this! Time to explore a little.”

With night having fallen, when I at last left the house, it was dark out. With my recently gained Illuminated Sight, however, I was able to see the city just as well as I would have during the day.

And it was a sight!

The city of Sylum was almost as unlike Ftheran as it was cities from Earth. Sure, I spotted endless rows of clay-like animated-earth buildings, but that was one of the only similarities. The architectural style was much more utilitarian, with tall, boxy buildings that I was tentatively guessing were apartment complexes. While some of the buildings had been painted in neutral tones, many had forgone even that, maintaining their natural brown coloring.

The exception to this, of course, was Suds house. It seemed to tow the line between wanting to be a mansion and trying to seem down to earth. It was large enough to compete in size with the surrounding apartment buildings, but opted for a fairly drab steel-gray and earth-brown paint job with numerous crests on it which I assumed represented the Chamber of the Commons.

Probably kind of weird basically being a ‘lord’ when your entire job is supposed to be representing common workers. Wonder what that dynamic is like. I filed it away to eventually discretely bring up with Markus, as I imagined it might be a bit weird to ask Suds himself.

With as late as it was, at least where I was, there weren’t a ton of people walking by. Still, there were some. Interestingly, their facial features were markedly different from those I’d seen in Ftheran, though neither places neatly corresponded to any Earthen analogues. The difference likely spoke to a pretty significant distance between Sylum and Ftheran — we’d yet to cover world geography or exactly where Sylum was in relation to the deadlands, but I was guessing the answer was far.

Curiously, curly hair seemed the norm here, to the point where I wondered if any straight hair I saw had been straightened. Much as had been true in Ftheran, I was considerably paler than everyone I saw, with most people having various shades of brown skin.

I started to wander about, identifying a few people as I walked by. Shockingly enough, their average level lay around 13. In fact, I couldn’t find a single person under level 10 save for teenagers or small kids. I also didn’t spot any of those kids under level 10 with a class — if Sylum had its own Scepter of Assignation, I’d yet to see any signs of its use.

The streets, at least in the common district, were paved with the same snake-skin like material I’d seen in Ftheran, but this time a deeper copper color. They were also almost claustrophobically narrow to me, only able to admit perhaps three people in a row. Not that it was any surprise, but very clearly, the city hadn’t been built with cars in mind.

So… What exactly am I looking for here? A park? A late night cafe? Some kind of night market? Or-

My musings were interrupted by the raucous sounds of a late night pub in the distance.

Yeah, let’s be honest. Think I already knew the answer to that question. Guess it’s time to check out some bars?

The bar soon came into view, a sign hanging above the door so very eloquently marking it as “The Hairy Hangover.”

From the sign and the sounds, I had no illusions about what sort of bar it would be, and entering it quickly proved me right. It was divey.

On second thought, I wasn’t sure that divey was a word that could apply to bars here — the decor was too different, just slightly alien in a way that an Earth transplant would recognize as other. It was at least a pub though.

Finding an empty seat at the bar, I ordered a beer.

I’d love to say that I somehow instantly became the life of the bar. That I started chatting up the people next to me. Made a lifelong friend out of the bartender. Heck, maybe even gotten roped into some sort of bar game.

But I didn’t.

The entire place had that sort of feel to it where you could tell most of the people inside had been coming there for years, if not decades. It was a local spot. I could see the appeal, but mostly I just felt out of place. My natural extraversion wasn’t quite high enough, and my actual system-granted social skills were pretty low too.

Admittedly, I had the sense that if I stuck around long enough, people would start chatting me up. I looked pretty funny, and if that wasn’t enough, while I often forgot about it, I theoretically had a pretty decent Charisma stat. Still, after having just enough to get the lightest of buzzes, I scrammed, intent on finding somewhere else.

I wandered for a tad longer until coming across a street with multiple bars packed together. At random, I ducked inside one of them. Much like the last, it was loud, but the scenery and crowd were notably different. Younger. More bar games.

Not that I actually recognized any of the games — there was no pool table or darts here — but they were at least clearly recognizable as games. A small conglomerate huddled off to the side playing some form of card game, and a giant table stood in the room’s center, housing something that looked like if shuffleboard had gone to magic school. Six people were playing, but I couldn’t quite figure out the rules from watching them.

I walked up to the bar, the place not packed enough for me to have to shove. Spotting a bottle I was pretty sure I’d tried back in Ftheran, I asked the stout woman behind the bar for some sort of cocktail with it after plopping myself down at a stool. Soon thereafter, I was silently sipping on a pleasantly fruity drink.

I turned the bulk of my attention to the table game, wondering if it was something I wanted to try butting into at some point. Enrapt as I was trying to figure out the rules, it caught me by surprise when a woman shouted out at a volume far too loud to be polite for the space: “Fuck!”

Reflexively, I turned to see what was happening.

It turned out to be one of the card players, her hands gripping her hair in exasperation. I spotted some coins on the table, and it was easy enough to put together what had happened.

In a situation like this, in general I probably would have turned away and left her to it. I was going to, too, except the woman herself was so eye-catching that I found myself staring. In short, she was ripped.

They make people like that here? Even sitting down, I could tell she would loom over me. Like most people here, she had curly black hair, and I pegged her at a few years younger than me, but all that paled in comparison to her sheer physique.

I’d met some people with a fair chunk of Strength, but I’d yet to see such a raw display of pure muscle, save perhaps for Agath, the mayor back in Drawgin. The two looked like they would have been fast friends, battling against one another in competitive watermelon crushing contests. Seeing no reason not to, I Identified her.

Alara’Valis*: Level 14 Dense Brawler, 230/230hp

Target is Obfuscated. Obfuscation broken with Illuminated Sight.

Epic class? Considering how rarely I ever saw those, I wondered what her story was.

Unfortunately for me, I’d ended up zoning out while staring at the woman, a fact which sadly did not go unnoticed. The woman — Alara, I supposed — locked eyes with me. Before I could look away, she snapped her arm down from her head, pointing directly at me. She shouted out, once again at an unreasonable volume: “You!”

Not… how I was planning on making friends.

At a much more subdued level, I replied from across the bar. “Um. Me!”

She gestured down to the cards laid out before her and the other players. “Do you know how to play this game?”

Phew. All I need to do is honestly say no, and it looks like she’ll leave me alone. “Sorry. I’ve never seen it before.”

Much to my surprise, this seemed to delight her. “GOOD!” she boomed. “Come here! I won’t be the worst one playing anymore.”

I blinked, not having expected to get sucked in. I mean, you did kind of want to meet people, and you were thinking of playing a game. I didn’t really have ‘hulking loud muscle lady’ on my bingo card for the night, but might as well?

What the hell. If I hated the game, I could always bow out. With a shrug, I approached the table with my cocktail. As I sat down, Alara shot her arm out towards me with all the force of a steam engine.

“Hello friend! I am Ala-” She stuttered for a moment. “Alex! Yes! I am Alex!” She forgot to ask for my name, but to her credit, she did introduce the other three.

Don’t want to give out your actual name? Kind of weird. Well, whatever. The other three — all men — appeared somewhat bemused on my behalf.

“She will be worse than me!” Alara — Alex? — boldly asserted. “But I do not wish to swindle her! She will watch until she is ready to play!” Each sentence was delivered percussively and with full force, as if someone had taken a golden retriever and tripled its lung capacity.

No one argued with the hulking woman, and I did my best to pay attention to the game while Alara (poorly) explained the rules, while almost entirely losing every round.

I thought I got it. Kind of. It was poker-esque in a way, although the deck had 15 cards, five suits, and the winning hands were all different from what I was used to. Clearly I was still getting the hang of things, as a few times when I thought Alara had won, they all agreed that one of her opponents had won instead. Hoping to figure out what I was getting wrong before I jumped in, I stopped them.

“Can someone explain why he won?”

Perhaps eager to answer before Alara could start shouting, the winner explained. “I have the house of elves, see?” He pointed at his cards, listing them off.

Only, the cards he said weren’t the cards he had at all.

“Did you just say this card was a four? Isn’t it a-” I reached out and grabbed the card in question, immediately feeling a small tingle as it touched my skin.

Weird, that feels kind of like mana. Why would- Oh. Oh!

“It’s an illusion,” I muttered without thinking. The mana surrounding it had been so incredibly thin, I hadn’t even seen it, with Illuminated Sight and God’s Eye teaming up to let me cut through the illusion like it wasn’t even there. My tactile Mana Sense, however, was still able to feel the mana surrounding the card.

All three of the men instantly tensed, and belatedly, I realized I probably should have Identified them. Two of them were fairly normal, but the third — the one who’d just won — had a class that set off alarm bells for me.

Level 16 “Lucky” Gambler

Note, this target is Obfuscated. Obfuscation broken with Illuminated Sight.

Ughhhh. How had I gotten roped into this?

Alara was the first to react, snatching the card from my hand. As soon as she grabbed it, the mana dissipated for some reason, dispelling the illusion and making the true value of the card clear for all to see.

Needless to say, Alara was not exactly happy about this.

“You- You- You tricked me!” Her eyes swung to the pouch of coins that hung at the swindler’s side. “You have done well to fool me! Now that your trickery has been uncovered, though, you must hand back what you have taken from. Rejoice! I will let you off easy this time.”

The three men, startled though they were, took a moment to look at one another.

Then, wordlessly, they jumped out of their seats and bolted for the door.

Damn, poor girl. Pretty much just got robbed. I guess I’m glad I didn’t end up gambling with- OhhHH SHIT! Suddenly my body was flung from my seat as Alara practically half-yanked half-scooped me up, pulling me with her as she rocketed from her seat to pursue them.

While my body was in motion, in a mixture of being dragged and carried along, I had time for one clear thought.

Huh. Not quite how I thought tonight would go.