“Since you have me all to yourself, why don’t we tailor the lesson to your needs,” said Freddy. “What do you know about humanoid law, and what do you want to know about it? And if you don’t know what you want to know, what kind of interactions do you plan on having with them in the future?”

“I know the basics, but nothing specific,” replied Elise.

“The basics?”

“Don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t destroy other people’s property… Stuff like that.”

“Good, good,” he said, nodding. “Those are sometimes the hardest to grasp for our members. You’re doing great if you’ve already got that down!”

The bar is really low, she thought.

“What about your plans? You are living with Emilia and her tribe of Drow currently, right?”

“Yes, but I don’t plan to stay for much longer.”

“Where are you going to go?”

“I don’t know yet. Somewhere with people.”

“In that case, might I recommend getting adopted as a pet?” he said. “For our more adorable members, that is often the best way to get close to humanoids, and if you don’t mind me saying, you might be our most adorable member to date. Or you will be, once you sign the contract.”

“If I sign the contract,” she corrected.

“Still hesitant?”

“Well…” she started. “No. I’ve made up my mind. I won’t sign.”

“That’s a shame,” he said, frowning for the first time. “Why not?”

“I don’t know enough about Ostra to contract myself to them for life.”

“And you can’t learn about us until you sign the contract,” he said, nodding. “Yes, it’s quite the conundrum. How about this: we’ll make a separate contract. I’ll tell you more about us, and if you still don’t want to join, you will submit to having Jerry wipe your memories of that conversation, and all will be as it was.”

It was a much more tempting offer than the first. She still didn’t like the idea of having her memories wiped, but aside from that, such a contract had no downsides. She would have to triple check the conditions, because when death was a possibility for breaking the contract, she didn’t want to sign without knowing exactly what she was getting into.

“Deal,” she said. “But I want to look over the conditions and maybe make changes first.”

“No problem!”

He flicked his hand and a sheet of paper appeared in it. As she watched, words started to appear on the page as if an invisible hand was writing them at inhuman speed. A few seconds later, the page was complete with a line at the bottom for her signature. She read through it, then read it again, then read it a third time, then looked back at Freddy.

“Can we change a couple lines?” she asked.

“Of course.”

It took another quarter of an hour before Elise was satisfied. She couldn’t help but feel that she might be starting to annoy Freddy, but he gave no outward signs, so she took that as permission to continue. By the end, the contract had quintupled in length, and it had so many specific conditions and caveats that if she hadn’t helped create it herself, she imagined she would have found it incomprehensible.

“Now that that’s done, what would you like to know that would make it more likely that you would join us.”

“What specifically are you doing?” Elise asked. “‘You’ as in the Chairs and whatever other higher-ups there might be.”

“Many things,” said Freddy. “We take a more hands-on approach to integrating the non-humanoids into humanoid society. We are directly infiltrating the most powerful organizations in the world and pushing our agendas.”

“Pushing your agendas how?”

“However we can.”

“Assassination?”

“Usually we look for other options first.”

“Like what?”

“Diplomacy.”

Elise stared at him, waiting for him to elaborate.

“Well, we start by talking, obviously,” he continued. “If we can convince someone to side with us without resorting to other means, that is ideal. However, the humanoids don’t like us much, so that rarely works. Bribery, blackmail, brainwashing, memory manipulation… Direct threats and direct control if the situation is dire enough.”

“…I’m sorry, I can’t join.”

“What we do is no worse than what they do to us,” said Freddy.

“I don’t see how those things further your goal of peaceful coexistence.”

“You can’t create peace with peace. You need to get your hands dirty if you want to get things done.”

“I don’t want to be involved.”

“You won’t be. You need 20 years of membership to be eligible as a Chair.”

“I don’t want to sign a life contract with this group.”

“It’s just secrecy,” he said. “I think that’s a small price to pay for what we can offer.”

“No,” she said.

The more she denied him the more certain she became of her decision. The fact that he wanted her to sign so badly meant that he had ulterior motives. She was weak. She was young. There was no reason for him to be so patient and agree to all her conditions, just to convince her to join. Either there was something special about her that he wanted, or there was something special about the contract and neither were reassuring.

She was also struck by how predatory the contract now seemed. From the outside, it looked like the members were getting a lot more than they gave. Free food and information whenever they wanted, and all they had to do was not tell anyone. However, now that she knew some of the finer details, it was much less friendly.

In exchange for resources that they might have been able to acquire on their own, they had to be permanently tied to an organization of which they knew very little about. If their existence was discovered, anyone who signed the contract could be incriminated, no matter how little involvement they had with the Chairs’ sinister plans. That was less of an issue, since most of the members would probably be hunted by the humanoids anyways, but for those trying to integrate into human society, that could be a death sentence.

Why didn’t Emilia warn her about this first? Being forced to choose between signing a life contract, or having her memories wiped seemed cruel. Did Emilia just assume Elise would want to join and wouldn’t have a problem with it? Or was she trying to force her into the group?

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“What if the contract wasn’t for life?” asked Freddy.

“What do you mean?” she replied.

“A renewing contract. You can sign a contract for a set amount of time, and if you still don’t want to be involved later, we can wipe your memories then.”

“No,” she said. “Unless you offer me membership with no conditions, I will not join.”

He pursed his lips. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

“I’m not,” she said.

“Well… Can you keep our conversation private until tomorrow morning, or do I need to call Jerry over right now?”

“I can keep quiet.”

“Good. Let’s get back to what we’re supposed to be doing then. Since you’re thinking about living with the humanoids, I’ll tell you a bit about pet laws…”

Elise spent the remainder of the hour trying to stay focused on the lecture. It was a losing battle. If it wasn’t for the fact that the boringness of his lectures was already well-known, she would have thought he was doing it on purpose in retaliation for her rejecting the contract.

He went into great detail on all laws surrounding pets in not just every city in Jelor, which he confirmed was the country they were in, but even on specific districts and neighborhoods within each city. He supplemented his lecture by conjuring legal documents from thin air to read to her as references. Any tension that had been built by the debate about the contract dissipated in minutes.

When that period was over, Freddy flew up to announce the end, and the room shuffled as people made their way to their next lectures of choice. Jerry and Hampton’s lectures were still packed, since everyone was taking them back-to-back, so Elise opted for the lesson on seduction from the succubus and incubus. She wanted to take her mind off the contract talk, and figured seduction would be a good distraction. It was, but not in the way she hoped.

As it turned out, many of the Ostra members were not familiar with human reproductive organs or sexual habits, so the lecture opened with a live demonstration. None of the other audience members found it strange, but Elise also noticed that none of the audience members were humanoid monsters either. Elise was more glad of her rabbit form than she was at that moment for no reason other than that she couldn’t blush. She just had to sit there and pretend to be interested while the rest of the students looked on with fascination.

Once that part was over though, the rest of the lesson was actually quite interesting. It helped that it was more focused on getting the target into bed, rather than what to do after. There were occasional acted-out skits, but the two demons were actually pretty good at acting, and Elise only found herself cringing once or twice.

“There are two main types of seduction,” explained the succubus, Valerie. “Lustful and Loving. I far prefer Lustful, because it’s quicker, easier, safer, and there are more targets. However, there are times that a loving seduction is necessary. It all depends on your goals.”

“For example,” said Damon. “If you want to get your hands—or paws or claws—on some sensitive information that only your target can access, a seduction of Love could be your best–or only– option.”

“However, as I hinted at before, love takes time,” said Valerie. “Unless your target is especially naïve, you could be in for a seduction many months in the making.”

“Seductions of Lust, on the other hand, can happen in seconds,” said Damon. “Especially if you have high Charisma, or you learn the skills for it. And even if you don’t, a simple change of outfit is enough to seduce a good number of humanoids.”

“Here are a few outfit suggestions for various types of targets,” said Valerie.

From there, the two demonstrated a skill that let them freely change both their clothes and their appearance. The skill was good enough that Elise couldn’t tell if they were actually transforming, or just using an illusory disguise. Most of the outfits were more or less what Elise expected, but a few came as surprises to her.

For example, according to the succubus, elven men preferred more skin showing on their women than human men. Shorter hair was en vogue among Jelorian women lately, and was more likely to catch the eye than longer hair. For giants—the same species as the two tall men she saw from Emilia’s purse—they preferred modesty to an extreme. Aside from the face, any shown skin was a turn-off, even the hands, so gloves and turtlenecks were a must.

She also enjoyed Damon’s demonstration of the races’ preferences for men more than she cared to admit. Even as a bearded dwarf, he managed to be handsome. Elise couldn’t tell if it was him, or his Charisma stat. It was no doubt his highest.

The second wave of students for Hampton and Jerry’s courses was much smaller, so Elise decided she would start with Jerry, only to realize the reason that they were smaller this time. Between the third and fourth period, there was a one-hour lunch break, after which the real second wave arrived, and Elise was stuck packed like a sardine in the too-small space in front of Hampton.

The lectures were very informative, and she was sure she would be able to use most of the information, but she was glad they were over. Many of the Ostra members did not bathe, and with so many packed into such a small space, the smell was less than pleasant. She had at least gotten to {Inspect} Jerry before leaving though.

[Dreamwalker Mammoth, lvl ???]

She chose the joint lecture on humanoid technology and weaponry next, followed by the lesson on geography. This ended up being what she considered to be the most useful lecture. Bobbi wasn’t the most amazing speaker, and constantly went on long tangents telling random stories about things that had happened to her in each location, but her knowledge was clearly immense. Between her stories and the dwarven maps, she was able to get a pretty solid mental image of the continent she was on, and a vague idea of what the other continents were like. The lecture also provided corroboration to what Freddy said about them currently being in the capital of Jelor, which was also the location of the famous Jelor University. With that, she was confident she could find her way back in the future when she was ready to check in on the Grays.

For her last lecture, she chose to visit Jag’s. He was right in that it wasn’t useful for her, but it was by far the most entertaining lesson she had attended that day. Watching Jag demonstrate puppy dog eyes and roll over to show his stomach for rubs made the entire trip worth it.

At the end, she gave him polite thanks for the lesson and show, then left so he could talk with the other students who actually had questions. She turned to head back toward the center, where a new assortment of food had been laid out for dinner. Her eyes immediately locked onto a bowl of fruit, but she also noticed the warg heading her direction from Freddy’s corner, so she decided she’d circle around to the other side first, and come back once the warg had moved.

However, the warg didn’t stop, and continued around the tables, his eyes locked onto her. She didn’t know what he wanted, but it couldn’t be anything good. She made a full circle around the food-laden tables, just to confirm her suspicions, then started thinking about what to do.

She could keep flying around in circles until he gave up, but that would draw attention to them, and she didn’t want that. It would be better to confront him and get it over with, but she wanted to do it near someone who could stop him if he tried to attack. Freddy was the ideal option for that, but she wasn’t sure she could trust him, so she stopped in front of Jerry, who was tossing melons from a bowl into what seemed to be an invisible bag strapped to his back.

When the warg caught up to her, she noticed that behind her, Freddy was keeping a close eye on them, and a sinister thought crossed her mind. What if Freddy had asked the warg to do something to her. Maybe a threat, to make her feel like she had to join? But that would be stupid. It was so obvious. Freddy definitely had some part in the warg’s actions though, because when it stopped in front of her, Freddy nodded and smiled at it.

“Elise,” growled the warg.

“Yes?” she said, trying to keep her voice neutral.

“Elise smell good.”

Definitely a threat, she thought. But why?

The warg glanced up at Freddy, who was still smiling and nodding. “Does Elise want be Walter friend?”

“You want me to be your friend?” she blurted.

“Yes?”

The warg glanced up at Freddy again, who was now giving a thumbs-up.

What the hell is he planning? she thought.

“Piss off,” she said, turning around.

The warg stayed where she left it as she flew back toward Jag. He still wasn’t done talking to people, but he was the only one in the room she felt fully comfortable with. When he finally finished, they grabbed dinner, and sat down to eat. Her mood was improved by his company, and further improved when Emilia returned and joined them halfway through the meal. The warg spent the meal with Freddy, and the two of them glanced up at her occasionally, but neither tried talking to her again for the rest of the night.

The next morning, Emilia brought Elise back into the ballroom one final time. This time, the only ones there were Jerry the elephant, and Freddy, who was missing his usual smile.

“Are you certain that this is what you want?” he asked. “It’s not too late to change your mind. We can work out the conditions.”

“I’m certain,” she said.

“You’re always welcome to join in the future, if you are so inclined.”

“If it seems like you’re more open to it, I will bring you back,” said Emilia.

“Fine,” said Elise. “Just get it over with.”

“Hold still,” said the elephant. “I won’t make a mistake unless you squirm.”

Elise braced herself as he put his trunk up to her forehead and closed his eyes. Freddy had said it wouldn’t hurt, but she didn’t imagine that the experience of having her memories altered would be pleasant. The more she thought about it, the less she liked it. Her heart rate escalated with every second that she had to wait until it was beating like a jackhammer, and she almost wanted to run away.

I don’t want to lose my memories, she thought, half-panicked.

“When you wake up, you’ll probably be back outside,” said the elephant.

There was a surge of mana rushing from his trunk to her head, and then her vision turned gold, then went dark. When she woke up, she was indeed outside, dangling from Emilia’s shoulder in another vine purse. However, her memories weren’t gone like she was promised, and a System window was waiting to greet her.

[ More information about {Rune of Fate} is now available. ]