In the past Adam would have been despondent from discovering the system thought he had no home, but he had taken far too many hits in too short a time to truly be stunned by another. He was more surprised by receiving auditory messages from the system than the fact that Hearth Call didn’t work. Taking Hearth Call had been the last grasp at defying reality from his quickly fading childhood. One last attempt at recovering all that he had lost. Someday, when his debt slavery was over with, he might have a chance to track down his second family, but his first was never coming back.
Despite his childhood taking its last chance, Adam’s growing sense of necessity realized he would need more than just Hearth Call. Before he left his mindscape he had spent one more skill point obtaining perhaps the most important skill he had access to at the moment, Multi Task. He had high hopes for the skill being able to help him in myriad ways, although he was gambling on it helping him with reentering the mindscape most of all. Whether it worked for that purpose or not he didn’t yet know, but it was certainly proving its worth already.
With the help of Multi Task, a portion of his mind was still dealing with the emotional fallout of the message he had gotten when attempting Hearth Call. A monotone, androgynous voice had spoken into his mind, saying, “You have no Home. This skill requires the caster to have established a Home Hearth to return too. Would you like to initiate the binding process using the nearby Hearth as your Home?” While the words were harsh, the cold, unemotional delivery had continued on to present the necessary information about the skill’s failure to transport him somewhere else, dragging him from his misery to inform him of further possibilities. Not that setting his Home Hearth as a way station in the middle of the Blue Sea Forest seemed like a good idea.
There was the minor possibility of escaping the duke for a short period of time by Hearth Calling back to this point after they had already reached the duke’s household, but Adam was beginning to doubt that escape from slavery was quite so easy. He had been magically branded afterall, and even the system acknowledge he was a slave. Perhaps more important than the fact that he was a slave, was that he was only beginning to get an idea of what exactly that meant. He was young, newly Gifted, and woefully ignorant of the world. Slavery wasn’t his first option, or even his hundredth, but it was better than dead, which was a very likely outcome if he tried to run now. Waiting until he knew enough to at least have a chance seemed like the best choice. For now, he silently promised himself.
The other portion of his mind was busy finishing breakfast, gathering his things, and tracking down Martin’s cart. Adam was unsure, as of yet, how many different tasks he could do at once, or even how to precisely figure out what a task was. He figured it would become obvious at some point, and resolved to remember anything that didn’t work with the skill as soon as he found one.
Martin was surprised when Adam made it to the cart. As the day and their journey began again, he studied the Apprentice. The boy showed none of the emotional turmoil he had expected to see. The older man decided that Adam must have shed a lot of spiritual weight in his most recent trip to the mindscape, or he was better at hiding his pain than Martin was at spotting it. As the time rolled by, the man decided he could no longer call Adam a boy in his mind. He showed too much maturity to be referred to as any form of child any longer, although he didn’t yet have the size, power, or gravitas of a man. Some thought led him to decide on calling him a teen for now, although perhaps some more information would help him decide on something more fitting.
He decided to break the silence. “So, what have you learned?”
Adam was slightly startled at the abrupt conversation, but it wasn’t the first time it had happened during the trip and he adjusted quickly. He shot the man a quick look, curious as to his intent. “About my class?” Seeing the nod he quickly organized his thoughts. A sigh. This would be a difficult conversation.
The boy’s sigh worried Martin. It was the sound of a much older man. Children -No, teens- shouldn’t make such a noise. There was too much emotion in that sigh for someone of Adam’s years.
“The name of my class is a little… It’s not… Look, does anyone really need to know the name of my class?” Adam was frustrated, embarrassed, and strangely possessive. Being known as a Mother would be a difficult thing to endure, but it wasn’t that that made him possessive. It was his class, and he’d be damned if he willingly let others demean him for the Gift he had been given. He might not be right for it, but it was beginning to look to him like a very powerful class indeed.
Martin barked a laugh. “Of course the duke will need to know the name. Or at least he will demand it.” He turned a stern look on Adam. “I’ve been trying to educate you on your situation. The brand makes it impossible to keep secrets if he orders you to tell him, and resisting only means you suffer unimaginable pain before you tell him your secrets anyways. Fear, pride, embarrassment, none of these are worth the suffering you would have to endure, particularly when failure is the only result.”
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
Once more, Adam had to remember his position. It had only been a few days, but he was already tired of the necessity of the constant reminders, as well as the reminders themselves. No matter how often he tried to reason with himself to just accept it, he still rebelled in little ways. He wasn’t ready for any of what was happening to him, but there were no other options. Another sigh escaped him.
“Mother,” he said quietly. Then with more strength, as if admitting it made it easier to accept, “My class is Mother.”
The man snorted at the lunacy. “I told you, Adam, he’ll force the answers out of you. You can’t keep it secret from the master.”
He barely caught the fact that Martin had called the duke “master” for the first time in his hearing. It was a worrying slip of the tongue, leading him to a number of concerns over the validity of many of the things Martin had told him of slavery. He wasn’t sure how he would do it, but he vowed to find another source of information on his new station in life.
Slip of the tongue aside, he still needed to convince Martin of the truth, or they’d spend all day going round and round on the subject. “My class really is Mother. More specifically the combat variant. It has that little “C” symbol next to it and everything.” He snuck a look at the man, finding a look of irritation on his face. Not enough yet then.
“It’s a multi role class focused on children. I’ve got five different categories of skills that cover protection, healing, leadership, trades and crafts, and either damage or control. I’m not yet clear on that last one. I’m also unsure how it’s a combat class when I can't use weapons and armor, although tools get some sort of weird effects added. It also gives me huge increases in strength, reflexes, and senses, as well as a form of Intuition that only works on kids, I think.”
There was only silence in response to his short rant. As it stretched on, Adam worked hard to not look at him again. Having his thoughts divided by Multi Task was actually making certain things easier, but needing to defend the veracity of his class was irritating him enough that his meditation was still failing. He was curious if he could handle being both in the mindscape and reality at the same time, or if Multi Task would end when he dropped into his mind.
There was movement beside him as Martin surreptitiously looked around to see if anyone was paying them more attention than normal. There were minor enchantments on the cart to reduce the sounds it made and more on the bench to reduce the noise of the driver and any passengers, but a dedicated effort by some of the more sensitive classes could get by those. He stroked his mustache, thinking, then pulled up a necklace from under his shirt. A little fiddling extracted a ring from the small loop on the lower end of the necklace. He slipped it on, and concentrated briefly.
Martin stretched, hiding his last look around. He stared straight ahead, his lips barely moving as he spoke quietly. “Listen close. The duke will not believe you. There is simply too much to your class, and I can tell you didn’t tell me everything. If you tell him the same way you told me, he will not go easy on you. He will forcibly extract everything he can from you, and then things will become worse. Your class sounds like it is of a particular type, called Fluid Classes. Typically this would be a great thing because they greatly increase the odds of their holders surviving. They are valued for survivability more than anything else, as while they are fairly rare, they are not necessarily more powerful. But you are a slave. The duke would find more value in selling you to the highest bidder, or training you to be a personal body slave, than the current plan for you. He would force specific skills on you to mold you into exactly what he thinks he needs after breaking your mind into unfeeling, unthinking servitude.”
Adam just shrugged. It was just another thing added to the list of horrible things that could happen to him, a list that was already so long it was numbing. He needed solutions, not more worries. “Anything I can do to prevent it?”
His teacher sighed, and rubbed his temples with one hand. Relaxing back into his normal cart driver position he spoke. “OK, you have a chance. We’re lucky we caught it now, but you’ll always have to be careful in the future.” Adam nodded, and he continued.
“The duke isn’t always the most specific when declaring orders. Most likely he will order something along the lines of ‘Tell me about your class,’ or ‘Describe your class.’ Both of these will require you to talk about your class, but they don’t request specifics, complete honesty, or any sort of details. He knows you only just got a class, had terrible education, and only entered the mindscape for the first time today. There is no expectation for you to remember everything about your class, and as long as it adheres to his assumptions he won’t go looking for more.”
“So what does he assume my class is?”
“Some form of combat nanny.”
“Well, that’s not wrong, I guess. How do I convince him that’s what I am?”
“We’ll need to create a modified version of your class to explain things, and pray he gives you the chance to use it.”
Adam grew thoughtful, remaining quiet.
Looking over, Martin saw the look on his face and asked, “What is it?”
“I think I’ve got a skill available for that.”
The man sighed, suddenly feeling even older. New Apprentices and their skills. Always looking to the system to find the solution to their problems. He shook his head. “Even if your skill applies in this situation, at its low level the duke would know you were using a skill on him and become suspicious. Just tell him whatever it is we come up with as calmly and straight as you can, and it will all work out.”
“OK, I can do that. Can we change the name though? Because I’ve got a great idea.”