Cara’s words hung in the air.

“What do you mean, ‘I don’t exist?’” Mark asked, unable to keep the nerves out of his voice. All he wanted was to be a boring person that nobody looked at twice. Apparently, he was terrible at it.

The old woman stirred uncomfortably. “My Trait grants me a sense of connectedness between all things—a web of causality that I see as threads. They’re commonly referred to as ‘threads of fate,’ but that is a poor term. They’re more like threads of probability. Lines connecting anything to everything, suggesting how those things might interact.”

“I don’t understand how I fit into that,” Mark said.

“Neither do I!” Cara said, throwing up her hands. “Even when I strain my senses, I can’t detect you within that web of causality.” She took a die out from a drawer on her desk and placed it in front of him. “Pick that up.”

Unsure what else to do, Mark picked up the die.

“See!” Cara exclaimed as though she had proven a point.

Mark’s mom looked at him, then at Cara. “I don’t understand.”

Cara sighed. “When I look at that die, I see the connection between it and everything that might act upon it. Everything, that is, except Mark. To my eyes, there should have been near zero probability of him being able to influence the die. But then he goes and picks it up easy as you like.”

She looked at Mark. “It’s only in the instant where the future becomes the present that your existence makes itself known, and that’s only because I can see the other threads fluctuating wildly as they respond to your presence. It feels like I’m seeing the wake of your passing rather than your literal existence. It essentially renders my Trait unusable and is, to be honest, rather nauseating to watch.”

“So, I’m what? Changing fate?” Mark asked with a smile, trying to pass off his serious question as a joke.

“No, nothing like that,” Cara said, laughing at the notion. “The threads of fate represent possibilities of what might happen, while what does happen is a product of your Luck interacting with those possibilities. It’s more like…like you’re an extraordinarily improbable thing that keeps happening.”

“I don’t know how to take that,” Mark said.

“I’d be stunned if you did,” Cara deadpanned.

Mark stared at her, not knowing what to say next. “So, uh…is this going to be a problem?”

Cara looked skyward. “What do you think? No? No smiting today?” She looked back at Mark. “Just because you’re creeping me out doesn’t mean I’m going to do anything about it if my god doesn’t give me guidance in that direction. If anything, you’re such an outlier that I’m more confident in leaving you alone. It beggars belief that Ádhmór is unaware of your existence, and if he’s not inclined to do something about you, far be it for me to second guess him.”

Mark let out a deep breath. He hadn’t been sure where this was headed, and while it wasn’t ideal to have yet another person seeing him as an oddity, at least this one didn’t have him terrified for his life. Anymore, at least.

The release in tension was enough for Mark to refocus his attention on the content of their discussion, and one word in particular jumped out: Threads.

Cara’s terminology wasn’t surprising. After all, it wasn’t like the idea of fate being represented as a weaving was anything new. But it was still curious. The one time he’d deliberately tried to use his magic, there had been something vaguely threadlike about the points of light he saw and the resonance he felt in his staff. Were those points of light actually the threads of fate Cara was describing? And if so, did their relative brightness reflect the likelihood of those things occurring?

If that was the case, this could be the breakthrough he was looking for.

A small note appeared in his hand, the contents springing into his mind of their own accord.

SPELLS (ish?)

We’ve got some folks looking into it, but I think we had a bit of a win with that staff of yours. Giusexxe over in technical worked out how to track the amount of “Resonance” you’ve got stored up at any one time (that’s what we’re calling it for now—we’re workshopping some better names. Carl put up a whiteboard in the breakroom for people to make suggestions, but unless you want to call the power in your staff “Zappy McWeirdstuff,” I’d suggest waiting). As for your staff’s maximum capacity…yeah, we’re coming up bagels. We’ll keep at it and let you know if there are any breakthroughs.

As for what to do with the Resonance once you have it, well…you’re on your own there.

Resonance Remaining: 4/?

An interesting development, to say the least.

“What does a person’s Luck score do, then?” Mark’s mom asked, bringing his attention back to the conversation at hand. “Change probability?”

“Oh, gods no,” the old woman said, laughing slightly. “Nothing changes probability.”

His mom’s brow scrunched up. “Then how can someone be lucky? If we’re playing a game, but you’re more likely to win because of your Luck score, isn’t that the same as altering probability?”

“Not at all,” Cara said. “If I set up a contest with a prize for who can hit a ball the farthest, does it seem odd if the person with the highest Strength wins?”

“No,” his mom answered.

“What about a contest for who could juggle the most balls? Both you and the other person have the same rules in place, but for the most part, the person with greater Dexterity would win, correct?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Luck is no different than any other Base Stat,” Cara said, interrupting her. “The threads of fate reflect your stats and those of the people around you, not something that can be changed after the fact—whether that be a contest of Strength, Dexterity, Luck, or anything else.

“So, are you saying fate is real?” his mom asked. “That everything is predetermined based on your Base Stats?”

“Of course not,” Cara said. “If that were true, there wouldn’t be a god of Chance to begin with. The threads of fate merely represent the likelihood of something happening. Besides, those likelihoods break down rapidly the further you get from the present.”

“How so?”

Cara snapped her fingers at Mark. “Give me that die back,” she said, opening and closing her hand until Mark passed her the die. She placed it on the desk in front of them, orienting the pips with care. The action felt practiced, as though she’d taught this lesson before.

“There are six sides on this die, but look closely,” the woman said. “Notice that it is not numbered one to six. Instead, four sides have four pips, while the other two display six pips and one pip respectively. What is the most likely outcome of a roll?”

“Four, obviously,” Mark’s mom said.

Cara nodded. “What if I asked you to add two rolls together and predict the outcome?”

“Eight is the most likely total, but less likely than four was on the first roll since you’d have to roll a four twice in a row.”

Again, Cara nodded. “And what about the sum of three rolls? Or ten? The further one gets from the initial roll, the muddier the chances. So go the threads of fate. Some events are more likely, others less so. But no matter what, the further you look from the present, the less accurate you become.”

Mark pondered Cara’s words.

If his suspicions were confirmed and his magic dabbled in the chaos of probability and possibility, then what she was describing was an excellent avenue to explore as he tried to learn how to consciously control his spellcasting.

“How far into the future can you see before things get muddy?” he asked.

Cara shrugged. “It depends. If you drop a boulder, the threads will show its future with minimal variability until it hits the ground. If it was dropped off the back of a cart, that would be a short period of time. If it was dropped off the back of a dragon in flight, that would be a lot longer. If you wanted to predict a person’s movement through a crowd, though? That would be a fool’s errand from the start. There are simply too many threads interacting at once.

“That’s why my Trait is most effective when coming up directly against a person’s Luck stat,” she continued. “To you, a flip of a coin is random. To me, I can see how people’s Luck interacts with the world and alters potential outcomes. Those tiny shifts can have big impacts, even in the short term.”

Mark nodded. He wasn’t surprised at the limitations, but her description still left a lot of wiggle room. “So, your Trait is more like a limited precognition than actually seeing the future.”

His mom looked at him with an eyebrow raised. “Precognition? Where did you pick up that term?”

He shrugged. “It’s a Jedi thing.”

She chuckled. “Of course it is.”

“Jedi?” Cara said, looking back and forth between them. “What’s that?”

“They’re from a myth back home,” Mark said. “A group of magic-using warriors who could see a tiny bit into the future to help them in battle.”

“Ah!” Cara said, perking up. “They must have been clerics of Ádhmór. Advanced awareness during battle is the main purpose of the Trait, after all.”

“Really?” he asked. “If it’s for battle, why did you use it on us when we arrived?”

Cara looked at him like he was a simpleton. “I said it’s a Trait, not an Ability. You can’t simply turn a Trait on and off at will. Nor would I want to. What’s the point of being able to see incoming attacks if you only use it when you already know someone is trying to kill you?”

“Why would we want to kill you?” his mom asked in surprise.

Cara gave her a wry look. “I have no idea. That’s why the Trait is so handy.”

His mom shook her head and shuddered. “This city is so grim.”

“I don’t see it that way,” the old woman said with a shrug.

“How could you not? Everywhere I look, all I see is massive economic disparity, danger around every corner, and a people who are practically enslaved. How much grimmer can it get?”

“Then what are you prepared to do about it?” the old woman said, leaning forward in her chair. She turned to Mark. “Or you? A city can only truly be grim if it is without hope, and hope begins with you. I live in a city with hope because of my work to bring about a better future.”

Mark snorted out a laugh, quickly holding up his hands in apology as Cara glared at him.

He couldn’t help it. Sometimes people sold themselves on a fantasy because they couldn’t admit the truth. He should know—it had taken him a long time to accept that the trajectory of his life had changed forever because of his diagnosis. Hell, most of his fatherly conflict was because his dad hadn’t come to that realization yet.

“Sorry, that was rude,” he said. “But come on—you’re a cleric. A sense of purpose is part of the job. It’s not so easy for the rest of us.”

“Don’t be naïve,” Cara shot back. “You think I realized this orphanage was my calling the moment I donned the cloth? Far from it. It’s not like I acquired a Trait that could predict the path of arrows and the explosions of magical forces because I thought it would be handy for avoiding baby spit-up. No, I thought my path lay in a different direction, but time taught me that who I am meant to be and who I thought I was weren’t the same thing.”

She looked at each of them in turn, then leaned back in her chair and gave her head a shake of self-reproach. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be so harsh, especially not to a pair of refugees.”

Mark’s mom leaned across the desk and squeezed the woman’s aged hand. “Don’t you worry about it for one second. I used to be in a line of work not all that dissimilar to yours, and I know how frustrating it can get.”

She looked around the spartan office thoughtfully. “Do you have much help around here? I imagine it’s quite a lot for just one person.”

“Oh, certainly,” Cara said. “There are three of us who work here, although the older children help as well. That tends to be the theme of their quests.”

“Only three?” Mark said, surprised. He wasn’t the best with numbers, but the orphanage was a big building. “How many kids live here?”

“Maybe seventy, give or take?”

His jaw dropped. “Three people for seventy kids?”