Divina slammed her silverware down on the dinner table.

“A DRAGON?!” she screamed.

Gio’s family collectively gaped at the retelling of the story. Even his uncle looked a bit shocked. Gio bashfully looked away from his mother’s frantic gaze.

“I’m in one piece,” Gio replied nonchalantly.

Well… I won’t tell them about the shattering part.

“What does that mean? In one piece?” Divina growled, eyes scouring Gio’s face for a glint of meaning.

She’s got to have some sort of omniscience skill.

“Mom… I’m fine. That’s what ended up getting me my class.” Gio replied.

“My sweet baby boy… I have to worry about you. I can’t just… be immune to this. I know you’re trying to be tough for us, but… just tell us what really happened. Please.” Divina said, calming herself.

“Okay… to save my friends from the undead dragon… I overloaded my reflect spell, using a synergy to reflect copies of this crazy light spell back at it. The backlash of all the mirror mana in the spell uh… shattered me.” Gio stated.

“Whoa, that’s cool,” said Hatra.

“Hatra!” chided Aunt Dola.

“What? He’s clearly doing very well! We all knew that this was going to be crazy for Gio. I don’t think that being all doom and gloom about the scary crystal school is going to help him, is it? I’m proud of you, Gio.” Hatra replied, rebuking her mother.

Gio giggled. “Thanks, Hat”

“I still want to strangle your teachers. I mean, what are they doing in the meantime?” Divina fumed.

“Well… there’s much more to it than what I’ve portrayed. I don’t even fully comprehend the nuances of the situation, but there was something about an old noble family keeping a secret vault in an abandoned part of the school. There’s… a lot of history in the school.” Gio replied.

“Ugh, I know what you mean. The Essence Distillery was built on top of an old alchemical dungeon. There are parts of the building that spawn weird creatures. I’ve leveled up a few times just from disposing of the caustic solution down the trash shoot near my station. Apparently, once in a while, the plant manager tosses a bomb down to clear out any mutants that grow resistant to acid damage. There’s supposed to be some crazy legacies down in the pipe chase… but I’m not ready to do any dungeon delving just yet.” Hatra said.

Gio’s cousin had evidently stopped dying her hair in the months since Gio had seen her, and she was currently sporting a short pixie cut, in the signature deGloria family silver. The Ataraxian roots of the family were very potent, often dominating over any other hair color, as evidenced by Gio’s father’s pitch-black hair, which was in stark contrast to Gio and his sibling’s silver.

“Whoa. I didn’t realize that the essence distillery was so… interesting. So, did you get some sort of alchemy class?” Gio asked, relieved at the chance to talk about something other than himself.

“Well, sort of. [Essence Distillery Technician] is my occupation, but [Apprentice Thaumaturge - Spirit Distiller] is my class. ‘Spirits’ means a solution using alcohol in this context, by the way. Thaumaturgy is… weird. If Alchemy is like… adding magic to mundane chemistry, then Thaumaturgy is like taking the concepts of something and distilling it down to a raw, mana-based slurry. The Essence Distillery is a multi-disciplinary plant, we have a lot of different classers that manage the processes. Depending on what we’re currently shipping, we could be stripping rare tree bark, boiling seawater, or combining chemicals, you get the picture. It gets weird sometimes.” Hatra explained.

“Does anyone know how Quinn is doing at the Huntsman Agency?” Gio asked.

“He’s having a rough go at it. They’re working him to the bone out there in the wilds, but he’s safe. Last I heard, he had just managed to learn a sword technique called [Whirling Strikes]. I’m proud of my little warrior,” said Uncle Heath.

Heath worked long hours at the clinic but had always made time to treat his family members when they got sick. His [Head Triage Nurse] Occupation had some very useful skills for diagnosing common illnesses, and he could heal small cuts with one touch.

The family traded stories over dinner, catching up on the events of the past few months. Gio congratulated his mother on her new position, and Gio managed to pull his uncles aside after dessert had been served.

“Uncle Paulo, I was wondering if I could ask you something about your time at the school,” Gio asked, settling into the couch with a mug of cocoa.

“Sure bud, what's up?” the muscular man replied, putting his arm around his husband.

“Well… Mid-terms will be held at the end of the next semester, so I’ve got about two and a half months to figure out how to get a domain spell. I was wondering how you managed to do it.” Gio said.

Paulo and Heath tensed a little at Gio’s question.

“Paulo, we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. Gio, I’m sorry, but this is a bit of a rough topic for him.” Heath said, placing his hand on Paulo’s

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“No… Gio should know. I… tried to say as much as I could before you enrolled. It’s tough for me to talk about… I’m sorry if I didn’t prepare you enough for what it’s like there. The answer to that is that I took a commission with another noble family. It didn’t go well. I grew up in the Silver Ring as a… branch member of a minor family there. Although we were technically nobility, we had been in decline for a long time, and they chose to allocate the family resources to my cousin because she was a full-blooded member of our clan.” Paulo said.

“So when it came time for me to get a domain, there wasn’t any money for me. I ended up taking a commission with a house that promised me a good job once I finished school… and things were good for a long time. What I didn’t realize is that the contract that they gave me was only good until my third year. I don’t know how much you know about the milestone system that the school uses, but if it’s still structured the same as it was twenty years ago, your fourth year will entail demonstrating a familiar summoning spell. When I talked to the representative of the house I was supposed to work for… they told me that I’d need to do something else for them If I wanted to get the spell I needed to continue learning at the school.” He continued.

Gio felt slightly nauseous because he thought he knew what his uncle was about to say. He needed to hear it from his uncle’s mouth.

“They… tried to get me to sign a blood contract.” Paulo finished, looking out the darkened window.

“That’s… inhumane,” Gio said, feeling a slight heat rise from within him.

“They said that If I were to make a contract with their familiar, I would need to further prove my loyalty to their house. I knew that if I signed, I wouldn’t ever be able to back out of the contract. I’d have to work for them forever. They told me it would be a privilege.” Paulo spat.

“So… what did you do? How did you break off your commission and keep learning?” Gio asked.

“I didn’t. The commission makes it so that you can’t take any other employment offers until they release you from it… so I did what I had to do. I ruined my class to make sure that I would be worthless to them. They were furious, and they demanded every spell from my spellbook- even the ones that they didn’t provide. I couldn’t do anything to stop it. My family disowned me, and I fled to the Copper Ring. They didn’t stop there, though. They issued a debt to my name… It’s followed me for years, even to this day. They tried to come after Heath when we got married, but thankfully they didn’t have a solid case. If they tried to come after our son… I don’t know what I would have done.” Paulo finished.

“That’s awful. I knew that these deals were bad… but that sounds like… slavery.” Gio said.

“It’s not slavery in the eyes of the Ringed City. It’s more like indentured servitude. I knew some people from my grade who ended up taking the deal, and to the credit of those houses, a lot of them were happy. They’ve got permanent jobs, and their children will be able to get benefits that they didn’t have. To end this story on a positive note, I met your uncle when I came to the Copper Ring, and now I have a better family than I could have ever hoped for. You’re all precious to me, and I wouldn’t change a thing about how it all worked out. I bonded with your father a lot about traumatic upbringings, and your father inspired me to take the deGloria name instead of my father’s name, just like he did.” Paulo finished.

“If you don’t mind me asking… what was your name? And what family did you take a contract with?” Gio asked.

“I don’t want you getting any ideas. Those days are over, and I want nothing to do with either of those houses. I’ll tell you… just promise me that you’re not going to say anything to anybody about this. My given name was Paulo Ballantine. The Ballantine family is doing… better. They’re not flush with money, by any means, but my cousin brought a new surge of prosperity to the family. The house that I was contracted to was the Wisterleist family. They’re a lineage of fire users.” Paulo said.

“I met with them. Their representative was a pretentious jerk. I… wow. I guess I never really seriously considered their offer, but I’m kind of amazed that I was even put into a room with someone from a house like that.” Gio said, fuming.

“Hey… look, you need to understand that they view people like us differently. Try not to be too mad at whoever set up those meetings for you… they were just trying to put you in a position where you could continue your education.” Paulo replied.

“Honestly, I’m amazed that you can say that after what they put you through honey. I don’t care if they think that they’re doing us a service… contracting kids to a life of service like that is insane.” Heath interjected.

“I agree… but what’s the other option? The school has demands. The teachers can’t provide much to the students by law, and so in order for students to be allowed to keep benefitting from the magic of the school, they have to bend to the whims of the powers that be. I… I’m sorry but I think I’ve said enough. I am going to take a walk.” Paulo said, getting up.

The burly man apologized and made for the door.

“I’m sorry if this isn’t what you were hoping to hear, Gio. It’s been a long time, but it still hurts him. He has brothers that don’t talk to him anymore. His mother died a few years back, and we didn’t find out until after she was buried that she was even sick. She went against her husband’s wishes and sent us a bit of money in her will… but the Wisterleists took most of it.” Heath said, putting a hand on his nephew’s shoulder.

“I appreciate you and Uncle Paulo telling me this, Uncle. It does suck to hear… but it helps me put a few things into perspective. You should go catch up to your husband… I’m gonna go help Mom clean up.” Gio said.

_____

After wooing his mother and siblings with [Cleanse], Gio retreated into his room, closing the door.

He stared at himself in the old standing mirror on the back of his door.

“Alright, I know you can respond to me. I wanna talk.” Gio signed.

After a long, tense moment, Rio visibly sighed and relented.

“What’s up? Talk with Uncle wasn’t a surprise. Nobles are bad.” Rio signed.

“First of all… how long have you been able to do this? I thought you couldn’t do this outside of the mirror room.” Gio replied.

“I… am in the mirror room. Please trust me, but you don’t want to know.” Rio said.

“Trust you? Buddy… we’re the same person. Of course, I trust you… but you can’t hide things from me. What did you do?” Gio demanded.

“The Shattered Man class.” Rio signed.

“How? I thought you were my reflection. I didn’t take that class!” Gio signed animatedly.

“When you declined… something reached out to me. I swore that if it tried to make me hurt you I’d break the mirror from the inside… it said that it didn’t want to hurt you, but it did want to “shake things up”. I wanted to do more. I’m still powerless without the mirror… but with this, I can be in multiple places at the same time.” Rio replied.

“Okay… that’s… I guess a little less malevolent than I was expecting. It’s not… making you crazy or anything?” Gio asked.

“Do you feel crazy?” Rio replied.

“Well… I’m upset. But that’s pretty common recently. Is there anything else you want to tell me?” Gio asked.

Rio held three sheets of paper up to the mirror.

“Copy these,” Rio signed.

“WHAT?!” Gio shouted.

“Is everything okay up there?” yelled Maxwell from the kitchen.

“Sorry Dad, everything’s fine!”