Mark stepped off of the tram in the residential district, wondering if he was making a mistake—
Correction.
He knew he was making a mistake, and the only way to get better was to make mistakes.
Time to be brave, Mark, he told himself.
For the last 10 minutes, ever since the tram entered this part of town, Mark only saw opulence. From towering mansions four stories tall to gardens filled with roses to fountains and hovercars; the residential district of Citadel Freyala was a place of richness. Of nobility and power. But this, right here, was the heart of it all.
‘The Clubhouse’.
A parking lot with hovercars, with each space with a number on it. A wide reflection pool and a massive fountain of Freyala with wings in the middle. Tall oaks and other sorts of trees, several of which were in full bloom with bright white flowers each the size of dinner plates. Flowered vines trailed up brick buildings here and there, scenting the air with jasmine. The buildings themselves looked fancy in ways that Mark had never really known, except outside of a screen, in the movies. Everything was built large. Too large, really. Massive archways. Pillars. Wide stairways.
A few people were out and about. All of them wore fine clothes, with multiple layers of dress for the women and stuffy suits for the men. Mark only had his basic brown clothes on, for that is all he could afford. ‘Free’ was a very good price point for him.
It was 2 minutes to the start of Xerkona Etiquette Class 101.
So Mark put his hesitation aside and walked forward, trying not to run too much, toward the front entrance of the place, up a wide, courthouse-sized staircase. A man in a silver/grey suit stood beside the open archway, near a thin podium. The guy was older and stern, but he did not look angry. Mark felt the guy should have been angry at seeing some shit of a kid walking up in basic brown.
Mark approached, flinched as he felt a spike of worry in his gut, and then stood up straight. His voice did not break as he asked, “Hello? I am looking for Xerkona Etiquette Class 101. Could you please direct me where I need to go?”
The man gave the smallest of nods and politely said, “The day’s class is meeting in Orange Hall, Mister Careed.”
Okay. So the guy knew him. Okay.
Mark steeled himself, and asked, “Is it going to be weird to show up wearing basic brown?”
“Yes, but this is not outside of expectations for acolytes and otherwise. You will be judged for this anyway.”
Mark wanted to turn right back around… But he squared his shoulders, and said, “Thank you… sir.”
As if it wasn’t phenomenally weird that the old man knew Mark’s name already, he then said, “Good luck killing kaiju. I look forward to your rise through the ranks of society. Orange Hall is inside, to the right, and then around the way. There are signs.”
Mark felt his heart beat hard, and then he nodded and walked through the giant archway leading inside, to the Clubhouse.
A bar with crystal glasses and people in expensive clothes drinking expensive drinks. Stone floor that looked like marble. High roof that held chandeliers, filled with light and frescoes and wow were those beautiful. Big windows overlooking gardens where people took lunch in the sun. It was all so opulent.
People looked at Mark and judged his clothes. They would probably be doing that a lot—
A gold-colored metallic sign held on the side of the foyer over there, on the right side, in front of a hallway. It read ‘Orange Hall and Red Room’. Mark started walking that way—
Oh.
The Clubhouse was set up in the Power Hex. The Blue and Green wings were to the left from the entrance. Yellow was the big area beyond the glass of the foyer, maybe. Or maybe it was further beyond that area. Maybe the eating area was in the center. Orange and Red were over here, on the right hand side.
Mark passed through a whole wing of the Clubhouse with little red sconces on the walls, and then he entered an archway that led to Orange Hall, as indicated by the color of the sconces on the walls.
There was a side room, or maybe a back grand hall. A doorway. A plaque held beside that door read Etiquette Class 101. Even from beyond the room, Mark saw people inside who were his own age. They were dressed finely.
… For a moment, Mark saw himself hesitating. He didn’t have time to hesitate, but he hesitated anyway.
This was going to be difficult. He’d be meeting people who came from much larger backgrounds than him and he’d be expected to interact with them in a personable manner…
And then Mark thought of Addashield’s High Dragon, and his fears fell away. He had much bigger things to fear than people his own age.
That sort of helped.
Mark went inside.
It was a banquet hall with three separate tables, each a good five meters long and set up to the left, right, and far side from the door. People were standing around, talking with each other and waiting. To the left of the room stood a man in white robes who might have been the teacher of the class, Mark wasn’t sure. He was an older guy with white hair, who was currently tapping away at a tablet—
The man set the tablet down and then looked up, and spoke to everyone, “Class begins. Come to attention, please.”
Some training took over.
Mark stepped to the side, getting out of the way of the door to stand halfway facing the door, and half-facing the middle of the room. He stood with squared shoulders and an even expression, with his eyes level and his feet shoulder-width apart. Some people stood like him. Others just stood where they were. Some faced the front. Most faced the instructor.
The instructor stepped to the entrance of the room, and then he walked forward one step. He looked to Mark, and asked him, “Why did you stand like that, at that weird angle?”
Grandpa had taught him this.
Mark said, “In the absence of knowing the highest power in the room, you must stand facing the door and the center of the room, if you can… Er… Are you the power in the room?”
Mark might have made a miscalculation somewhere; he only realized this after the fact.
The Xerkona man nodded and walked on, toward the center of the room, saying, “I am not the power in this room, but also, I am. We’ll go over that later. For now, pretend I am just another person. Therefore, standing as the young man is standing is the correct stance to take. There are variations based on multiple entrances to rooms and such, and we will encounter them in the next week. For now, everyone correct yourself.”
The people in the room moved to obey, rotating a little or not, depending on where they stood.
The professor stepped to the center of the room, turned and said, “I am Mage Wavecrash. Welcome to Xerkona Etiquette 101; the start of a new week and a new lesson plan. This Class repeats every week, in mostly the same fashion, and most of you will pass this class in a few days, or later. You do not have to come to further classes after you pass. Most of you are only here to be eligible for Social Club, which is easy enough to achieve.
“Once I sign off on you, you’re eligible to attend the club, which is usually held at a different noble’s house every weekend, on Saturday. They plan these things out long in advance. If you are eligible to attend Social Club, you can look up who is hosting that week on COFR.
“I will be teaching you all Xerkona Etiquette for mercenaries.
“I do not teach etiquette for nobility; that is a mire that is as deep as the ocean. The hope is that by the time I sign off on you for the club that you will be able to walk into any sort of proper space and act with honor, in order to receive honor in return. Exactitude is not necessary. The rules of Xerkona Etiquette are not set in stone. The only truly important thing is to always act with the highest level of personal honor that you can achieve.
“And now, you may take out your phones.”
… Er? Phones?
Mark looked around, and saw a few people who were confused and most people who simply did as told.
Mark brought out his phone, and the screen flickered COFR gold, and then morphed into words.
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‘THE EMPIRE OF FOODSTUFFS!’
What followed were lessons that grandpa had taught Mark growing up, but done in a rather novel way.
Mark was ‘Mister Apple’; a persona assigned to him by the program.
It was his goal to talk to people and protect the nation from falling.
It was kind of a surreal experience that involved Mark walking around the room according to the directions on his phone and talking with people according to what his phone told him to say, though he could choose to freestyle as he desired. He did not desire to freestyle at all. He picked the prompts that sounded best.
… It was kinda fun.
A lot of fun, actually.
Mark approached a pair of people, like his phone told him, but those two people were engaged with a third person. They were in the middle of their own scripts. According to Mark’s script, he had to greet them and find out their names in the process of telling them about a rumor he heard about someone named ‘Mister Peach’, without interrupting their conversation unduly. Mark’s name for this interaction was ‘Mister Apple’.
His goal here was to find out names, but his larger goal was to secure the eastern front.
Guy #1 read off of his phone to the third person, “The eastern front is starting to fall apart. We need provisions that Mister Mountain is unable to provide. My compatriot and I have heard that you are able to provide meats to our soldiers, Madame Riverlands.”
Madame Riverlands, the third person, read, “The Riverlands has a great many resources available to those in need, but we cannot give away foods without gaining something in return, Mister Garden.”
Guy #1 in Mark’s script suddenly changed, his name filling in as Mister Garden. Mark still didn’t know who the girl with Mister Garden was, though, so ‘Girl #1’ remained Girl #1, and Mark did not have an opening in the conversation to ask her name, or to share his own script. It was possible that she was ‘Misses Garden’, but that could be wildly inaccurate.
Girl #2 glanced at Mark with wide eyes, trying not to be too circumspect in recognizing Mark as Mark. A lot of people had been doing that, actually. She said nothing. A lot of people had tried to say something to Mark about who he was, but Instructor Wavecrash told them all to stick to the script or freehand the storyline; this was not a gossip class.
Mister Garden said to Riverlands, “Should the eastern front fall, then your lands will be in danger as well.”
Riverlands said to Garden, “And if we should give away our meat it will be just as bad as falling, for starvation is a danger to us all.”
Mark’s phone flickered, and he saw an opening. He spoke up, “Pardon me. I’m Mister Apple, and I could not help but overhear that the eastern front is having supply issues. I’ve heard that Mister Peach, my cousin, is near the eastern front, and he’s willing to support troops on his lands in return for protection in the Empire. He is about to be overrun but he has a whole farm in the mountains with lots of ducks.”
Garden looked happy about that, while Riverlands looked worried. Riverlands flicked through her script, and then frowned as she found a message waiting for her. Garden got the same sort of message on his phone that Mark had just gotten at the same time.
Decide the fate of this encounter on the Eastern Front amongst yourselves. What you decide here will have ramifications upon the rest of the scenario.
Mark gained a ticker that tracked his personal objectives.
Find out Mister Garden’s name. 1/1
Find out Madame Riverlands’ name. 1/1
Find out Unnamed Woman’s name. 0/1
Mark looked to Girl #1 and tried to clear away that last completion mark, by freestyling, “Pardon me, I caught their names, but not yours.”
Girl #1 said something weird in that moment, simply saying, “I am no one of importance.”
Okay.
Well that was not good.
Everyone else noticed that problem too, but only with Mark pointing it out had it become a problem that they were all now looking at.
Madame Riverlands attacked, “I have not caught your name either, miss.”
Mister Garden said, “Pardon my companion here, she is merely shy.”
Okay. Something weird was happening there, too. Mister Garden didn’t name his companion?
Mark was having fun!
Madame Riverlands said, “I cannot trust someone who is fortifying the eastern front who is unwilling to unveil the name of their companion.”
Mark added his voice to Madame Riverlands, saying, “I would tend to agree with Madame Riverlands on this. We are all working toward the stabilization of the eastern front, are we not?”
Girl #1 muttered, “Fuck. Okay. I’ve been found out.” She rotated her phone to them, showing off an image of a mask coming off a person and revealing a goblin underneath. “So I’m like, some sort of impostor? I’m not sure what’s happening here, exactly.”
Mister Gardens sighed. Showing off his phone. There were bodies, and goblins standing over them. “My cousins died. She was holding them hostage. Maybe I should have just…” He frowned, his words unsaid.
Mark smiled, though, thumbing toward another part of the room, where another person stood, talking to other people, “I saw it over there at that other group. That guy was a goblin, too, and he got found out. I think we’re uncovering all the goblins today. People are dying because we’re uncovering them, but every goblin that succeeds plants destruction for the future, so we have to root out all the goblins no matter what— well… Or maybe unveil them when they can do less damage?”
Mister Gardens said, “That’s what I was aiming toward, actually.”
The goblin girl said, “Sorry. For what it’s worth, I’m just supposed to act like a normal person, so I wasn’t purposefully doing it. Is this the end of my role, though?”
Mark said, “You’ll get another role after this.”
Girl #1 looked at her phone again and another role was already coming on the screen.
Mark’s phone flickered, too, saying that this scenario was not complete, and to finish up the plan for supplies for the eastern front with Madame Riverlands and Mister Garden—
“Oh.” Mark saw another twist to the scenario, actually. He held up his phone, showing them what it read. “I don’t have a cousin named Mister Peach. That was a ruse to allow me to unite with Riverlands and figure out what was going on here.”
‘Madame Riverlands’ confided, “This is all quite heavy handed and nothing would ever work out like this in real life.”
Goblin girl nodded.
‘Mister Garden’ said, “It’s a child’s game of introduction; what do you expect.”
Mark chuckled. “I’m having a lot of fun. This thing is great.” Mark’s phone flickered and new instructions came up. He glanced at them and said to the others. “It was great to meet you, Riverlands, Garden, and Goblin.”
The three others all said similar things, which was rather appropriate, but Mark could tell that at least Miss Goblin wanted to say something specific to Mark. She refrained.
Instructor Wavecrash was watching.
The various gatherings and mostly-scripted events continued for an hour, until noon, when the Clubhouse served lunch to everyone in the class. Lunch was another lesson in etiquette, but it wasn’t too fancy. There were only two plates, two forks, two drinks, and a normal amount of other utensils. One of the drinks was water, the other wine.
It was really quite good food, only marred by the fact that Mark had a whole miniature lesson on his phone, sitting in front of him and telling him how to eat (slowly and with care) and what topics to discuss with other people (more Empire of Foodstuffs plots). Mark never really knew what to say or when to say it while eating, so this was pretty… well it was good food, anyway.
After lunch came another hour with the scripted game. Wavecrash walked around the room, joining conversations at his own direction in order to correct people’s postures or tones or even specific words they were using outside of the scripted events.
It was basically how to stand (tall and forthright), how to act (deferential and calm), how to respect authority (which involved several people being named as ‘authorities’ temporarily), and how to tell authority to respect you in turn (which was a whole lot of calmness in the face of scripted anger). Mark passed with flying colors, mostly because it was stuff he already knew and all the instructions were right there on the phone. Even better than that, Mark didn’t need to talk to anyone about himself, or Addashield’s Dragon, or anything like that.
Oh sure, everyone noticed who Mark was; that absolutely happened. People whispered, for sure.
But when 2 pm rolled around and the class was over, Mark felt like he had truly accomplished something. It had been really fun to ‘play’ the scripted game.
At the end, Wavecrash brought them all to attention, and said, “The alliances forged at the party today will shore up the entire Empire of Foodstuffs. From the eastern front where the hordes are coming, to the southern lands where a dragon invades, to the house disputes in the north and center, and to the coastal lands in the west, your actions have kept the Empire together for another month. That is, of course, provided that everyone does what they said.
“Keeping one’s word is, unfortunately, not something that we can train in a scripted party.
“Honor starts with words, but it lives in action, and today was all words. You all did well. I will not be vetting anyone for a club party today. Try again tomorrow. Dismissed.”
Mark bowed. When he rose, he saw that he had been about the only person to bow. Almost everyone else just started walking away. The professor Wavecrash didn’t seem to care, as he went back to his tablet, to tap away at it.
… Mark got to walking out of the Clubhouse, too, he supposed.
And quite fast!
Nope! Let’s avoid those looks and that possible conversation! Not yet.
Why did he go fast? Why did he try to avoid friends?
He had no freaking idea why he did that.
Soon, Mark was holding onto the railing of the tram, watching the expensive side of the residential district vanish behind him as the tram went through more moderate neighborhoods.
When he got back to his room in building 5, he wanted to change out of his normal clothes, put on gym stuff, and go for a run. He wanted to push himself on the wall course that ran around all of Citadel...
But he had mostly calmed down from that intense social event, and now he wanted to be inside, doing nothing.
And he saw his Understanding Curtain Protocol books on his desk along with his History books. Studying was quiet and nice. So that’s what he did for the next 8 hours, ripping through coursework and tests and reading and essay writing.
He did spend an hour before bed reading about Xerkona etiquette, though. Upon actually studying the discipline, Mark realized that something had been bothering him about that class ever since he went there. It wasn’t called ‘etiquette’ in Xerkona culture. It was called ‘Xerkona Honor’.
Mark smiled at that.