Shantu’s place wasn’t a restaurant the way I thought of it. It consisted of a series of what were essentially rough-cut picnic tables set up on a coarse wooden deck in front of an open kitchen. There was no menu to order from; everyone who wanted to eat got a tin bowl of thick stew with vegetables, beans, and meat, a slab of dark brown bread, and a piece of fruit. I chose a smooth, bright pink fruit the size of my fist, mostly because it looked unbruised and didn’t feel too soft in my hands. All that cost a quarter of a taan; I paid a young man out front a gray taan, and he gave me a wooden board with four charcoal slashes on it.

“Keep this, and don’t let the slashes get rubbed off,” he instructed me. “If you do, or if you lose it, you won’t get those meals back.”

“Seems like an easy thing to cheat,” I observed. “I mean, anyone can get hold of charcoal and add as many slashes as they want, can’t they?”

“There aren’t so many people in Murkburg that I can’t remember them all,” the man said primly. “If someone were to try that, Miss Shantu would ban them from her establishment, and they’d either have to start cooking their own meals or living on rations.”

I grabbed my food and sat down at one of the tables. The people near me scooted over, clearing a space for me – really, a larger one than I needed – and I put down my metal tray with its contents and began to eat. The stew wasn’t bad; it was a little bland, but then, I guessed if the cook were making it for everyone, too bland was better than too spicy. The vegetables were chewy, the meat stringy, and there was a sheen of oil over the top from the grease and fat in it, but I supposed if I wanted fancier cuisine, I’d probably have to look outside of a frontier town in the middle of nowhere.

The last of my headache and lightheadedness faded with the food. I was sure hunger was part of it, but most of it came from the past few hours I’d spent letting bugs into my brain over and over again. The first several times, I’d succumbed to the flameclickers’ senses and had to have Sara talk me out of it. Eventually, though, I managed to catch the bug’s thoughts in a cage as they entered my mind, and it was much easier to push them out when I retained my awareness and perceptions. The damn sheriff still had me practice over and over again, though. According to him, a true handler could block themself off from a beast’s thoughts instinctively, without even thinking about it. I supposed that made sense; as easily as the ‘clicker overwhelmed me, I shuddered to think what would have happened if the sheriff hadn’t been around when I bonded the bonesnapper. I might have gone feral and run off into the night – or attacked anyone I saw.

I flipped open the book the sheriff gave me and stared at the pages, turning them at Sara’s direction. After a few minutes and a dozen pages or so, the script shifted and swirled, resolving itself into elegant, calligraphic letters in good old English that I could read effortlessly.

“Finally,” Sara sighed. “This script is beautiful, John, but it’s ridiculously complex. Either their literacy rate must be really low, or the people of this world must have a natural talent with languages.”

“It’s probably both,” I observed. “No one seemed surprised when I said I could read, but I haven’t really seen a lot of signs in writing, either. Most everything is pictorial.” I glanced up at the charcoal drawing of a steaming bowl with a spoon sticking out of it that marked Masani’s place.

“True. Can you go back to the beginning of the book? I don’t want to miss anything.”

I happily obliged, flipping the pages slowly and allowing Sara to scan each one. The book itself wasn’t too thick, only a couple hundred pages at most, but the writing was cramped closely together, packing a lot of information into each page, along with hand-drawn graphs and charts, a few illustrations, and several of what looked like runes.

“So, the sheriff found himself another student,” a voice spoke, one that didn’t really sound too friendly. I glanced up and saw the woman I’d watched yesterday, the handler who’d had the wolf-scorpion creature, standing over me holding a tray identical to mine.

“He did,” I nodded, looking back down at the book. I didn’t look up as she sat down across from me, even as the silence between us grew oppressive, cut only by the sound of me turning pages. Finally, she seemed to grow tired of it.

“What are you even doing?” she demanded, reaching out and stopping me from flipping the next page.

I looked up and smiled at her, trying not to let my sudden irritation show in my eyes. “I’m reading. It’s pretty interesting.”

“No, you aren’t. No one can read that fast. You’re just flipping pages. Are you trying to show off? To make people think you’re smarter than you are?” She snorted. “There’s no point, you know. People in this town respect strong, not smart, and you’ll never be strong until you’re a handler.”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged, not bothering to tell her that I’d bonded a creature already. “Shina seems to be pretty well respected, and she’s not a handler. Maybe they respect both.”

I lifted her hand from the book and resumed flipping the pages. Something about the woman irritated me, but since she was a handler – with a monster that I had a feeling could kill mine pretty easily – I didn’t really want to piss her off. I figured, the less I said, the better. Sadly, she didn’t feel the same way.

“That’s not respect,” she scoffed. “The people behave themselves there because they’re afraid of the sheriff, not her. Without the sheriff, people would do whatever they wanted there; no one would care if Shina didn’t like it.”

“You might be right,” I shrugged, still concealing my growing annoyance. In a small act of pettiness, though, I refused to look up at her as I continued to flip pages, which I had a feeling drove her crazy. Something told me she considered herself to be pretty important in the town, and being ignored seemed to drive her crazy.

“Put that damn thing away. There’s nothing good in it, anyway – at least, nothing useful.”

“Oh?” I asked, not looking up from the book.

“Nope. I read the damn thing myself – at least, I tried to. There was nothing in there. It talked about where handlers came from, and how your scores work, and all kinds of shit that don’t matter.”

“Why doesn’t it matter?” I was genuinely curious as to her answer. I didn’t really care about her opinion – I trusted the sheriff a lot more – but I had a feeling she’d come to speak to me for a specific reason, and I wanted to know what it was.

“Because handling isn’t about numbers, or theories, or boring old histories. It’s about feeling and instinct. A good handler knows what to do without needing all that.”

“So, you bonded your wolfion without any instruction?” I asked. “How did you handle its thoughts in your head?”

“I just pushed them out, no big deal,” she shrugged. “A real handler doesn’t need all that.” She waved at the book. “If you really want to know, the best way to learn is to go out, find a beast, and bond it. Hell, I’ll take you out myself and find you something. Din can catch it and hold it down, and you can bond it. It’ll take a day, and you won’t need any of this shit.”

“Thanks for the offer,” I nodded at her, still flipping through the book’s pages. “I’ll be sure to consider it if the sheriff’s way doesn’t seem to be working.” My Detect Deception ability blared warnings at me while she’d talked, but I didn’t need it to know that she was lying through her teeth. Paisley might have been a good handler, but she had no idea how to lie convincingly. Her entire body screamed falsehood, from her nervously twitching fingers to the way her eyes darted around as if watching to see who could overhear to how she lifted her chin after she spoke as if daring me to contradict her. Part of me really, really wanted to get her into a card game; I could make a lot of money in a short time, and her pet wouldn’t help her in the slightest there.

“Don’t think too long,” she snorted. “Besides, there’s probably no point anyway. You know not many can even be a handler, right? Might as well go ahead and try it and find out, so you can stop wasting your time.”

“Well, I’ve got plenty of that right now,” I chuckled. “I guess no one will care if I waste it.”

“I certainly don’t,” she snapped, then fell silent as she dug into her already-cooling food. We ate in silence, and eventually, her spoon clattered in her empty bowl, and she stood.

“A word of advice,” she said in a much quieter and more serious tone than she’d used before. “Murkburg isn’t big enough for another handler, and I’m not about to give up my place, here. You want to try handling? Be my guest. Just do it somewhere else.”

“I intend to,” I agreed, glancing up at her at last. “My plan is to learn how to do it well, then move on. There’s a lot of world out there, and I plan to see more of it than Murkburg.”

“Good,” she nodded. “So long as you keep that thought in mind, you and me won’t have reason to tussle.” She leaned closer. “Forget it, though, and you’ll find out up close and personal what a wolfion’s sting feels like, you hear?”

I resisted the urge to say something snarky and looked back down at the book, flipping the last couple of pages, then opening it all the way back to the beginning. I felt as much as saw her move away, and I did my best to ignore the whispers of the people around me who’d overheard the entire conversation.

“Well, Sara, did you get it all?”

“Of course.” She suddenly appeared in the seat opposite me, allowing me to look at her as she spoke. Her short-cut blonde hair looked less ragged than it had, more evenly cut, and she wore an outfit similar to mine instead of a biker jacket. Even her face was slightly different; she still resembled my old weapons dealer Skye, for the most part, but her features looked smoother, more even, and less pixie-like.

“You look different,” I noted. “Did you do that, or did I?”

“A little of both,” she shrugged. “I took Skye’s appearance originally because it was one of the few images you trusted. Now that I think we trust one another without need for that sort of association, though, I’m steadily drifting toward what you’d consider to be an ideal. Does it bother you?”

“No, not really. It surprised me a little, that’s all.” I smiled at her. “Although maybe you shouldn’t get too close to my ideal. Things could get weird if I started crushing on you.”

“I don’t think there’s any danger of that,” she laughed. “You had those sorts of feelings for Skye, after all, and you haven’t transferred them to me so far. I think we’re safe.”

“Probably,” I agreed. “Of course, that could also be because we’ve spent most of our time together trying not to die or to let thousands of people die. That tends to put a bit of a damper on those sorts of thoughts.”

“I would imagine so, yes.” She suddenly shifted form, and I had to fight not to yelp as her hair darkened, lengthened, and pulled tightly back behind her head; her face grew round, with sagging jowls and deep pockmark scars dotting it; her body widened and dropped as it expanded to fill a flowered dress with a ridiculously loud print.

“Would this be better?” she asked archly. “You feel nothing but disgust for this image.”

“Good God, no! That’s my high-school math teacher! Turn back, turn back!”

She shifted back to her previous form with a laugh, and I couldn’t help but shake my head and chuckle, drawing a few strange and curious looks from the people around me. I ignored them and focused on the AI.

“So, what did we learn from that book?”

“Quite a lot, actually,” she said with a smile. “The first part of the book is mostly history and theory, as Paisley indicated. She’s right about one thing; while I find it fascinating, it’s not terribly relevant to learning how to be a handler.”

“It might be relevant to the reason we’re here, though,” I pointed out. “I’m pretty sure I didn’t come here to become a great handler and gain fame and fortune, after all.”

“No, probably not, but I can give you the history in pieces while you’re working at Shina’s. It’ll help pass the time, and like I said, it is sort of interesting.”

“Sounds good. So, after the history…”

“Is the practical theory. That’s the part that’s most important to you, because it teaches someone how to gain the skills they need to choose a path as a handler.” She grinned broadly. “Even better, it gave me enough details that I can turn those skills into abilities for you and skip that part of your training entirely. Once you choose a path – or profession – I can give you the requisite abilities you’d have needed to gain it.”

“Is there any benefit to waiting?” I asked. “I could just pick all three right now.”

“You could, but if you do, it will probably show up if the sheriff analyzes you. Learning those skills should take months, maybe even years. Your high scores might drop that to weeks, but a single day could be pushing it.”

“Good point,” I grunted sourly. “Of course, that’s a week of lost XP, isn’t it?”

“Not necessarily. This world works a little differently than most. Normally, I have to gather and store the energy for your XP myself, and I can only hold it so long before it dissipates. Puraschim handles that function itself, and while I think I can get more energy out of each battle than the world can, it won’t vanish in a day or two here. You’ll lose out on the extra XP I might have been able to get you, but most of it will wait until you gain a path, and you can assign it then. You won’t lose much, really.”

“That’s something, at least,” I sighed. “What else did you learn?”

“Well, there’s a lot of technical information in there that isn’t important right now. Things like how paths level, how to rank them up, and exactly what scores like yours mean. I guess the people on this world have done the math and figured out a lot of the numbers, but those will only matter when you get to the point that you need them. There are two things that are of much greater importance, at least for right now.

“The first is that the book listed all the different creature types you might encounter.”

“Hold on a second. That book tells you every type of monster on this world? It wasn’t that long!”

“No, not the individual species,” she corrected. “The types. Every creature has – I guess you could call it a certain affinity or association. Flameclickers with fire, for example.”

“Yes, the sheriff mentioned that,” I recalled. “Are they the elemental types? Earth, air, fire water?”

“Yes, but also wood, vermin, lightning, metal, predator, and prey – and various combinations of those types. The more powerful and higher-ranked a creature is, the more likely it is to have multiple affinities, like fire and earth together to make magma.

“Simple ranked creatures only ever have one type. Lesser creatures can have two and Greater ones three. High ranked creatures can have up to five, and Paragon can have seven. It doesn’t mention Epic creatures, but I’m guessing they can have something around ten.

“You’ll note, though, that I said they can have that many. Most don’t because most advanced creatures are just Simple ones that ranked up. Creatures with two types are about half as common as those with one; creatures with three are about a quarter as common as two, and those with four are about an eighth as likely as three. So, extrapolating, for every three hundred billion creatures with one type there are out there, there’s one or two with ten.”

“So, not the sort of monster I’d expect to just run into, then,” I chuckled silently.

“No, not at all. Oh, and according to the book, the sheriff is right. Each affinity does best with a certain personality type, which explains the affinities you have – and the ones you don’t. People who are natural hunters and stalkers, who are willing to kill but don’t go looking for it, make the best handlers for predators. People who are swift and decisive make better handlers for air creatures, and those who are patient and adaptable do better with water. People who think that the best defense is a sudden and overwhelming offense go well with lightning. All of those things are part of your personality, so you’d do well with any of them.”

“What’s the bonesnapper?” I asked. “I mean, obviously, it’s water, but…”

“It’s a type called a wildwave, a hybrid water and predator. You’re actually very suited for it, which is probably why the bond happened so quickly and easily. According to the book, it usually takes a new handler several tries to bond a pet, and that’s if they choose a simple one they have a high affinity for.”

I nodded. I wanted to say that I was lucky to bond something that suited me right off the bat, but it sounded more like I bonded something quickly only because it suited me. If it hadn’t, I supposed it wouldn’t have happened so easily – if at all. Although I supposed I was lucky to run into something that suited me so well right off the bat like that.

“No, not really. Predator types are the second most common, behind prey types – which are the only kind that can be domesticated – and water types are common near a large river. A wildwave was probably the third most likely creature you could meet here, behind the pure predator and water types. Now, if you’d been in the mountains and met that thing, I’d start looking for someone setting you up for something – or maybe tell you to go start gambling at the high-risk tables!”

I snorted in amusement, again drawing curious looks from those around me. I glanced around and saw the young man at the front glaring at me, probably wanting me to clear a space for more customers. My food and drink were long gone, and with the book closed, I had no real reason to be sitting at the table anymore, taking up room. I tucked the book under my arm, rose to my feet, and followed a few other people with empty trays.

“So, anything else that’s useful?”

“Well, there are some exercises that are supposed to teach you the skills you need for each path, and I think doing them might boost your scores even if you don’t need them to gain the requisite abilities. That’s not the best part, though.”

“Oh? What’s the best part!”

“Runes, John. The book tells you how to make runes!”

She looked excited as she walked along beside me, and honestly, I was pretty happy as well. Arcania was my highest stat on this world, and that meant I’d be stupid not to learn and use as much magic as possible. On the last two worlds, my command of magic – unique magic that others didn’t possess – was crucial to my success, and I had no reason to think it would be different here.

“So, does it actually give you runes, or is it just an instruction manual on how to make them?”

“Well, it has examples of five different runes that it says are critical for any handler to know. That’s handy because I can teach you how to make those runes pretty easily. The bigger deal is that it goes into the theory of how runes work, and while the information’s basic, it’s good enough that I think I can reproduce any rune you see in action if you watch it with See Magic active. If I work out enough of them, I might even be able to extrapolate entirely new ones!”

“I like the sound of that,” I replied with a grin. “So, when can we get started?”

“You’ll need supplies, first, and they might cost a bit. You might have to save up for them, but I think you can get what you need from the general store. If not, again, the sheriff can probably direct you to the right place.”

“That’s fine. It’s not like I could grab a path and go out leveling tomorrow anyway – at least, not without the sheriff starting to question exactly who I really am. If I have to wait a week or two before I can choose a path without alarming him unduly, then I’m not exactly wasting time by waiting to get the materials I’ll need.”

“True. And even though you don’t need to learn the skills required for each path, the exercises for them will probably start them at a higher level. It won’t hurt you to practice them.”

I repressed another sigh. It sounded like I was going to spend the next week or so grinding, and I really hated grinding.