THIRTY-THREE: Falling

THIRTY-THREE: Falling

You have a knack for arranging possessions so that they suit their owner.

Alden reread the skill description. In his message, Boe had added that the Level Two version of the skill had the exact same description, but with knack replaced by strong knack.

If anyone has leveled it past that, they havent posted the details online, hed written.

The foundational supplements were in dexterity, processing, and strength. And they were small, just like Aldens had been.

C-ranks who chose the skill had three traits to choose from, all active only during skill use. One would increase the accuracy of their movements. Another muffled sound in their immediate vicinity. And the third was Rose Rabbit, which Alden himself had been offered. It was the one that increased attention to detail.

As he headed up the hillside toward his destination, his cart trundling along in a line behind others that were filled with examinees, Alden tried to add up everything he knew about skills, Manon, and the boater.

It wasnt a lot. But it was enough for him to be more nervous than ever about the other Rabbit.

The skill was obviously intended for the use most people put it to. The traits would all help you beautifully arrange physical objects for their owner. The one that muffled sound was probably for those who wanted to maintain a quiet presence while they did their work.

Having had a lot of experience watching students in the lab recently, Alden could even see Tailor Environment being a valuable skill in that setting. The assistants the examinees brought with them seemed to spend half their time making sure supplies were prepared, organized, and close to hand for their junior wizard.

Manon would be amazing at that.

Alden could think of a dozen other uses for the skill as well. Boe had said she did event planning and weddings in addition to interior decorating. But shed be able to streamline almost any busy setting. Having exactly the things you needed in exactly the place you needed them at the right moment would be fantastic.

The skill even had obvious support hero applications. If Alden had been a C-rank, he might have chosen it himself.

It was a very Rabbity talent. And a versatile one, too.

So its a little dark that Manon said she wanted to use it for human resources in that interview. I mean I get itif youre good at knowing where things fit, you could theoretically be great at placing people inside an organization, too.

But when Alden read a skill description about arranging possessions for an owner his first conclusion was definitely not that he should try it out on people. The morality of it would depend on how the skill worked on living things in the first place.

If Manon just had a general sense for where people would be most useful to their employer, that was okay. She could take Bti-qwols job and do it twice as well.

But if her knack gave her insight into why people fit in certain places, then it was getting closer to mind reading than most humans would be comfortable with. And if the arranging was an active part of the skill, maybe at higher levels, and gave her some additional ability to directly manipulate the things she arranged would it apply to another persons thoughts or actions?

Wouldnt that would make her a knock-off version of a Sway?

Alden grimaced.

Knowing what he did now about how a persons perception influenced what they could do with their skill, he thought it was definitely possible that Manon was doing at least a little bit of freaky mind control stuff with her power. And knowing that shed quit her job and leaned hard into decorating like it was her dream career as soon as the skill started getting popular made it seem even more likely.

You could keep info about your skill private and spin it however you wanted when it was just yours. But when it became popular and lots of other people picked it up, somebody who cared more about their follower count than trade secrets was bound to start showing off all the little nuances youd prefer to keep to yourself.

Especially at C-rank, when your peers made up more than thirty percent of all Avowed. Even a rare class like Rabbit had enough representatives for people to start figuring everything out.

Manon had the advantage of being a full generation or more ahead of most of the skills users. She probably had several levels under her belt. And luck or natural talent might have played a role in her figuring out alternate uses for the skill when she was young.

But one day, other people who were a little twisted were going to think, What if I could somehow use this thing on humans, too? And as soon as one of them was careless enough to let it slip, all the other users would suddenly be subjected to intense scrutiny.

There was no reason for her to drop her old job like a hot potato if the skill didnt have something similar to a mind control element. I meanunless she really did just discover a sudden love for tablescapes.

For a while, Alden toyed with the idea that LeafSong had even hired Manon for the purpose of keeping their other employees in line. But then he dismissed it.

The Artonans werent allowed to use mind control on Avowed humans unless they presented an immediate, life-threatening danger to themselves or their summoner. And if they were going to violate the Contract, they would probably do it with a real, S-rank Sway hidden in the shadows.

Not a middling Rabbit using her skill in her own personal off-label way.

So she must be doing it for herself, right? But how? And how would she become an owner of other people? Even if she was a megalomaniac who imagined that others belonged to her, that probably wouldnt be enough. Not for controlling other Avowed. Not with a skill that wasnt exactly designed for it.

He stared at the carnivorous plants along the pathway without really seeing them. Authorities would clash during mind control, right?

For the past two nights, under Joes tutelage, Alden had been grappling with a concept the professor usually translated as authority, dominion, or influence. Though he assured Alden that none of those were ideal word choices.

It seemed to have no perfect translation in human languages, but it was the ability to impress your own desires uponeverything. The fundamental essence of magical power. According to Joe, Artonans could feel this ability from birth and train it like a muscle. Most other species couldnt.

As an Avowed, Alden had the ability. And he could use it. But as a human, he lacked a conceptual frameworkand possibly the actual anatomythat would allow him to feel it in the same way Joe did.

Even his subconscious kept misinterpreting it as willpower, or a lack thereof. That flaw was fairly normal for humans, and it was also what Sophie had been getting at when she was trying to make him stop doing his rag-doll impression in front of the lab cabinets the other day.

Alden had decided it was like trying to control your own internal organs. Yeah, they worked for you. But for the most part you couldnt will them to do things.

As for how that applied to Manonwhen one persons authority came into conflict with anothers, the stronger party would win. That was how Alden had lost a fight with a tree he hadnt even known existed.

Joe was surprisingly unwilling to discuss how Avowed ranks worked, but hed indicated that they were heavily correlated with authority. And it was well known that Sways had more difficulty mind controlling other Avowed. Higher ranking Sways could usually suppress lower ranking ones.

It stood to reason that Manon, as a C-rank, couldnt truly mentally enslave more than a dozen other people. And she couldnt really own them without them somehowyielding themselves to her?

> Sophie said later while they cleaned up the messes the students had left. >

You sure know how to make a guy feel confident.

Alden was scraping chunks of perpetually smoldering wood into a pail. He wasnt sure if he was supposed to wet them or smother them before he added them to the rest of the pile they were collecting near the teleportation alcove, and Joe had left the lab to visit with one of the other professors.

Im fine, Alden added. Im just practicing a wordchain, and Im on the worrywart end of it.

He did wonder how well Sophie could actually smell him through her helmet, though.

>

Would you really? Alden asked. He had been curious about it. Grivecks were notorious for being culturally okay with murder in a wide number of circumstances. They werent mindless killing machines, despite their reputation, but their take on the subject was unique to their species.

>

Like that.

A rule about not murdering people after giving them your phone number implied that if Sophie hadnt given him permission to send her private messages, slaughter would still be on the table.

Thats good. I like hanging out with you even if it is just for work. It would be a downer if we met again, and you killed me.

Sreeeakk. And I would like to see Earth, but your planet does not allow griveck tourists for some reason. I appreciate the sentiment, though.>>

About twenty minutes later, Alden was finishing up the work while the griveck kept him company. He was always the last one done, since many of the chores required fingers and Sophie didnt have them.

So only the S-ranksI mean the topmost ranksbecome Ryeh-bts on your planet? How does that even work?

Alden was tightening all the caps on the bottles in the mini fridges. Because apparently the examinees were a bunch of privileged ingrates who were incapable of doing it themselves.

Sophie had been telling him about her planets Avowed, and it was blowing his understanding of the System out of the water. Her species had ended up with an entirely different class set-up from humanity. They only had two of them. And they didnt even consider them to be classes. There were just bunches of Avowed who got to pick from a menu of hardcore combat skills and physical buffs, and a few overpowered Ryeh-bts who spent all their time trying to figure out how to turn their domestic helper skills into hardcore combat ones.

>

Alden suddenly wondered if the griveck felt sorry for him. Here he was, Mr. Totes Stuff Around, the B-rank Ryeh-bt who was currently coming down from a self-inflicted anxiety spiral. While she was a rapid-regenerating organic tank.

He cleared his throat. You know, Rabbit is a pretty popular class on Earth. Even if its not the best for combat, lots of people want it.

>

And I can do things you havent seen yet. I can run pretty fast.

Sophie tilted her helmet. >

Oh. Hed walked right into that one. It wouldnt be appropriate indoors

>

A piercing whistle sounded, and Alden clapped his hands to his ears. His vision brightened alarmingly as text filled it, and a voice spoke the words simultaneously.

[EMERGENCY TELEPORT AUTHORIZED. ENTER THE NEAREST ALCOVE IMMEDIATELY OR BRACE FOR TRANSPORT.

TELEPORT IN 4]

Alden was already on his feet and running for the alcove that theyd just used to dump all the garbage. His body was being driven more by adrenaline than thought.

3

Whats going on?

[MINOR MEDICAL EMERGENCY. APPROVED RESPONDERS: ONE. PREPARE TO FOLLOW

2

INSTRUCTIONS FROM SUMMONER ON SCENE.]

Aldens heart was pounding. What was he about to be dropped into? Was he really going to be the only person responding? What if he screwed up?

He slammed into the alcove, barely managing to avoid smacking his head. The space was hardly big enough for a person. Alden wasnt even sure it counted as a full-service teleportation device. Maybe it was just a direct connection to the dump, and the System wouldnt even use it?

Wait, what am I supposed to do in a medical emergency again? Follow instructions. Right, the pills! I packed the bottle of emergency drugs this morning, didnt I? I think

The runes on the alcove lit up, and before Alden could finish his thought, he was outside in the humid air.

And he was falling.