Giichi the halfling sat inside his sanctum, atop his favorite stool in front of his favorite workbench, and learned something new.

He was over three hundred years old now. He’d stopped counting birthdays a long time ago, but one tended to notice when the century counter ticked up by one, so he could at least be that precise. And in those three hundred plus years, he had followed his passion. Inscribing, it had once been called. Manacrafting, it had been called even before that. Whatever the words used to describe it, it was simply the art of investing objects or—as he had discovered—living things with runes that would activate with a specific mana-based effect.

He was a master of the Etching craft. He could say that without hubris, merely stating a fact. After several lifetimes spent in pursuit and perfection of his art, he was likely the master of it all.

However, he would never presume to believe he knew all there was to know about it. That was the nature of true mastery; not that one got to a point where there was nothing left to learn, but that one reached that point, and then continued learning as others brought in new advancements or understandings that may have escaped you in the time you were learning other aspects of the craft.

And before him, clamped in a small jeweler’s vise he’d constructed for just such delicate tasks, were a pair of simple copper-framed spectacles that were teaching him all manner of new things.

The technique itself was rudimentary, of course. Assuming that it was the boy’s own hand that had lain down these inscriptions, he couldn’t have had more than a couple year’s practice and the lines—while decent for an amateur’s work—were far from the straight and true lines of a master. The medium too was the most basic; copper was known to be the simplest metal to work with when it came to etching. It was a beginner’s medium, something to be learned upon and then discarded when higher skills were obtained.

Even the runes themselves were rather pedestrian. Workmanlike in their construction, not the elegant style even a journeyman of the art would have utilized.

But it was the theory behind the runes, the combination in which they were used, that was utterly fascinating. It opened up whole new avenues of thought to him—many of which he would admit he had dabbled in and dismissed as beneath his notice many decades before. This boy, assuming it was indeed he who had constructed these strange spectacles, had discovered an entirely new way to interact with the menu system. More, the methods he were using seemed… natural.

He doubted seriously anyone other than himself would have seen it, but the way the runes wove together and enacted their purpose… It should not have been possible. The way the System was set up, it should have rejected these scrawlings, should have at best simply failed to activate and at worst blown up on the boy’s nose. But they didn’t.

It was as if the System recognized the intent behind these runes, and was accepting that intent as right and proper even if the runes themselves should never have worked.

How curious.

Giichi, unlike his employer, did not feel the need to constantly seek out new ways to entertain himself in order to stave off the ennui brought on by the march of the years. Like his employer, however, when something caught his interest, he instantly desired to know more and would go to some lengths in order to do so.

The ancient halfling leaned back away from his desk and stroked his short whiskers. He needed to speak to this boy.

Did he go to the lich with his request? No. No, to do so would require a reason, and the only reason Giichi had to reasonably give was that of the glasses, and he would not reveal their existence to the lich just yet. He was grateful to his employer for the job that allowed him to pursue his craft when he was not etching those boring tattoos onto various prisoners, but he certainly did not trust the creature.

So. He would have to go speak to the boy himself. surreptitiously. Not a difficult proposition. There might be guards, but slipping by them would be child’s play with the array of etchings available to him. He would be able to unlock the door as well. And even dampen and disable the eavesdropping enchantments Araxesendenak had on each of the cells—the lich didn’t know Giichi knew about those, he was certain.

But would the boy talk? That was the question. He had been obstinate and obstreperous in the chair, but seven out of every ten prisoners were like that before he worked his art on them. Granted, the boy had remained recalcitrant even through the end, so perhaps…

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Oh, now this was interesting. His questing fingers found the rune section that described the glasses’ main function, and he discovered that they would work for anyone who wore them. Out of sheer curiosity, he slipped them on over the bridge of his own nose. They were a little large, but he made do… And made an approving noise when confronted with the streamlined interface and the utterly unique sensation of moving around while looking at one’s own menus.

He also discovered, upon barking his shin on his workbench, that perhaps some features were not as wondrous as they first appeared.

The status screen was of special interest to him. It displayed his own stats accurately, as was to be expected, but he also discovered with a little bit of ingenuity and the right menu spell cast outside the glasses at the right time, he could also access a history of everyone who had ever worn the glasses. It was clearly an unintended bug, the boy had not baked it in himself but rather made it possible through three different pairings of rune-combinations that Giichi knew to have a very specific flaw in them.

Surprisingly, considering the uniqueness of the object, several names popped into existence in front of Giichi’s eyes. Samuel Tolliver was listed as the latest wearer, which was to be expected—and now he had a name to put to the face, which might add an opportunity to demonstrate familiarity to the boy and perhaps establish a rapport.

But beyond Tolliver, there were a few other names. Nathaniel Sand-In-His-Shoes, for one. An elf, clearly. As well as a string of a dozen names that could only be goblins, and finally Annie Tolliver. A relative, obviously. Possibly a sister? Well, that was another point of conversation he might utilize in order to get into the boy’s good graces.

But while the names were diverting, it was Tolliver’s stats he was truly interested in. There wouldn’t be much beyond basic information there, of course, but every little tidbit was a possible lever he could use to get the boy talking. His build would reveal things about how his mind worked. What skills or abilities or spells he chose might speak to what he found important, or where his passions lay. All information was useful, even if it did not seem so at the time.

The base stats were about what he had expected. Low-to-mid level, a strange class that he had never encountered but which must be tied to why his Majesty Araxesendenak was so annoyed with the boy. The race and sub-race, those were intriguingly unique as well. Humans he had met before, but Human(Unaltered) was not one he had encountered even in theoretical texts. And this Freed Unique Mob subrace? Just what under the sun was this boy?

The abilities as well were odd. Some of them were clearly part of the Guardian class, and so were unfamiliar to him. Others, such as Mana Etching, were familiar enough. He made a mental note that the boy’s understanding of runecraft seemed greater than his skill tree suggested. Perhaps he had found a Respec Stone somewhere in his travels, and that might explain the discrepancy?

He scrolled past the combat abilities with barely a glance. Strength of arms was something he was not interested in, even as a possible topic of conversation with which to ingratiate himself to the youth. There were some levels to which he simply would not stoop, and he had little time for considering the more violent arts. They were Thuggish and beneath him—

He stopped.

His eye, wandering as he scrolled, nearly tripped across an ability that was familiar to him but for completely different reasons as the Mana Etching abilities.

I’ll Bite Your Kneecaps Off! (2)

That is impossible.

He checked again, leaning in as though that would bring his eyes closer to the interface projected onto the glasses lenses. The text remained the same. He selected the ability, read through it twice, then rocked back on his heels, mind spinning.

A racial ability. That was a racial ability. A halfling racial ability. No human in the world would have been able to select that. It was an impossibility. And not just merely impossible in the way that it was ‘impossible’ for any adventurers to depose Araxesendenak from the seat of his power.

No no, this was the impossibility of the sky turning green, or of a thukaash rune not creating a column of fire when paired with a sugakki rune in the correct sequence. It was the impossibility of trying to not just bend the laws of reality but to break them altogether and utilize the resulting pieces in the construction of a small ornate bird feeder.

It was an impossibility that the very universe enforced upon its denizens.

And somehow, this Tolliver child had circumvented that.

Giichi was a man of dedication and passion. He had devoted hundreds of years to his craft, single-mindedly pursuing not perfection, but understanding. It was his reason for existence, his underlying purpose. It was the reason he had sought out and offered his services to an undead despot in return for a magically elongated lifespan. It was why he allowed said despot to utilize his skills for something so pedestrian as securing prisoners.

For three hundred years, there had never been any desire for anything in Giichi’s life save for the time and ability to continue pursuing the mastery of his chosen profession.

And here, suddenly, was this.

He could feel it already, stealing his attention, foiling his concentration, diverting his precious focus from his true purpose into questioning this… This… Anomaly.

For the first time in centuries, Giichi felt true anger boiling up inside his withered breast. He snatched the spectacles from his face and glowered at the wall of his work room as though it had offended him personally.

This would not stand. This could not stand. Something must be done. And quickly.

And it was in the midst of making this decision that he looked down to see that the spectacles, utterly without fanfare, had vanished from his grasp.

Samuel James Tolliver, he thought as he stood and began collecting the materials he would require. Just what are you?