The old fisherman took a moment to enjoy the air as hell itself ensnared his canoe.

There was something distinct about the earthy scent of rain mingling with the maritime aroma of the open ocean, and Santiago had acquired a liking to the smell over the many decades of his career.

A bolt of lightning touched down atop a nearby wave which was more than thirty feet high.

Its light blinded him for a few seconds, and the thunder it spawned remained in his ears as a ringing sound long after it was gone. He gave a soft chuckle at his good fortune, reasoning that if not for the tall waves around him acting akin to lightning rods, his canoe would have been the prime candidate for being struck—something that would have almost certainly resulted in his demise.

Of course, those very same waves represented an even bigger threat to his survival than the lightning. Each one was like a brick wall, tall enough to cast shadows upon him as they approached, and his only saving grace was that he was far enough from the coast that they did not break on top of him.

He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the sideways falling rain buffeting against his face. The sensation was like an endless slap, such was the ferocity of the wind, but Santiago couldn’t help but smile a little: Although most fish were less active during storms and therefore harder to catch, there were a few species—each of them desirable to catch—that were most active in these conditions.

His canoe went airborne for a moment as it came off the crest of a wave.

Santiago shifted his weight in response, maneuvering the canoe as though it were part of his own body because, indeed, after more than 70 years of experience, it was. Although the strength of youth had long since departed from him, decades of practice allowed the frail old man to move in harmony with the sea. With each wave, he positioned himself at just the right angle to avoid capsizing.

And all the while as he did so, Santiago Alvarez held his fishing rod out over the water.

He’d been waiting in this spot, his efforts thus far fruitless, for more than 12 hours.

Another fisherman perhaps would have found frustration in this situation, but not Santiago. He listened to the storm unfolding around him and judged that it would pass quickly. As such, he decided that he might as well wait it out. There was no reason to waste what little energy he had fighting a storm that would soon be gone. With a breath of contentment, he continued his daily labor unperturbed.

And so there he sat. For quite some time, he sat in peace, staying relaxed amid the constant thrash of waves and wind, but fortune came his way after another hour or two of waiting: he had a bite.

The line drew tight in an instant. Whatever was on the other end of the line, Santiago knew, must have been strong. Eager to discover the culmination of his efforts, the old man started reeling it in. His rod bent under the strain, threatening to snap, but the old fisherman knew that he had to trust his equipment. A smile made its way onto his weathered face as the struggle continued.

Minutes turned into hours. Santiago knew better than to rush; impatience had cost him hundreds of catches over the years and by now he had learned his lesson. Whether it took 3 minutes to reel something in or 3 days, Santiago knew not to hurry. The fish would tire eventually. That was certain.

Sure enough, the sun had set and the storm had passed by the time it happened, but the exhaustion had finally become too much for the fish to bear. With one last heave, Santiago hauled out of the water.

A huge fish landed in his canoe. The old man recognized it as a Steelback Bass, and he smiled.

Weighing in at over a hundred pounds, it was notable for the huge bone-white ridges it had for scales. In no way did the creature feel like a normal fish as he held it in place to keep it from flopping back into the water: its scales were harder than rock and each one was more than an inch thick. They were sharp enough that Santiago had to be careful not to cut his hand on them.

No ordinary sea creature had teeth capable of piercing their rigid exteriors, and Steelback Bass scales were so resilient against being punctured that many soldiers used them to make armor, which was said to be as tough as chainmail while weighing less than half as much.

Santiago chuckled to himself. This was a prize catch. The sea had been kind to him.

With the storm long gone, tranquil water surrounded him. Pleased with himself, Santiago started paddling back toward his home village of Malako. The old man knew he would sleep well that night.

♦

Santiago sat on a rickety wooden chair. It was a chair he’d owned for more than 50 years, and it squealed in protest whenever he made even the slightest movement. His home—a simple fisherman’s hut built atop tall wooden stilts that jutted out from the seabed beneath—was prone to squeaking and squealing as the ocean waves brushed up against its sides. Santiago, after having lived here his whole life, had long since learned to appreciate the sounds his home made and paid them no mind.

His hut was a quaint little patchwork of wood nestled up against the side of a cliff in the underbelly of a sea arch. This location made it an idyllic place to call home, but it also made him hard to reach, and there were only two proper ways to visit him: one could either try their luck with the ladder that went down the side of the cliff or take the much safer option of floating over on a boat.

The kid sitting in front of him, legs dangling over the side of the porch and gazing down into the ocean below, had used neither option. Her name was Alma Delanio and, because her parents had been unwilling to lend her their canoe, she’d swam the entire mile or so village proper and Santiago’s abode.

The waters surrounding the island of Malako were shallow and relatively safe by the standards of the Nezelian Archipelago, but they were still dangerous: the waves surrounding the coastline could get rather large depending on the tide, and getting swept up in them was a very real possibility. As if that alone were not enough to cause concern, Alma had made the whole trek before sunrise.

He’d already given her an earful about that though. Now that his elderly responsibility to chew out the youths of the world had been addressed, the two were having breakfast together.

Alma was in the habit of visiting him every Saturday morning to hear his tales of the sea. Although Santiago had repeatedly told the girl that she would be far better off focusing on school, she always insisted that she wanted to become an angler like he was. Although he enjoyed having a fellow kindred spirit to talk to, the old man wished that she would limit her fishing-related endeavors to a hobby.

“Is that legit?” asked Alma, frowning as Santiago finished telling the very much true account of the time he’d encountered a Belial Leviathan. “You’d better not be pulling my leg, old man.”

“I’m young at heart,” said Santiago. He took a sip of his coffee, silently thanking the merchant who’d given him a 10-pound bag of coffee beans as a gift for the time Santiago had warned him about an incoming storm that would’ve killed the man and his crew should they have ventured out into it. Santiago’s experience as a fisherman had rendered him adept at predicting weather. He knew how to read the clouds and watch the birds to sense an incoming storm, and he was highly sought after for this skill. “The story is true,” he continued, “If anything, I’m probably understating it.”

Santiago was hardly surprised that Alma was reluctant to believe him.

Not many people, after all, enjoyed knowing that there were untold scores of creatures the size of cities hiding in the depths of the sea. Belial Leviathans, for instance, measured more than a mile long and—like all species of Leviathan—were known to be exceedingly sadistic. If encountered, it was pretty a given that they would attack. Santiago had only survived because the beast hadn’t noticed him.

“I guess I’ll find out whether you’re telling the truth soon enough,” she said, a grin working its way onto her face. “I turn 16 in a few days, and you already know I’m gonna find a way to convince you to let me be your apprentice somehow. Mark my words, old man, you’re gonna teach me everything you know!”

Santiago chuckled at that, finding the gesture endearing, but his lips soon curled into a frown. He did not enjoy going into lecture mode, but Alma was giving him no choice but to do exactly that.

“Malako is a dying island,” he began. “I admire your resolve, but there’s a reason not even my own children went into fishing…”

Santiago paused for a moment, his gaze drifting out into the endless expanse of ocean in front of him.

“The world is changing, Alma. Things aren’t like they used to be.”

Fueled by the new king’s efforts to democratize education both mundane and magical, technology was rapidly advancing. Boats nowadays were not hewn from wood but forged from steel, and they used reinforced nets large enough to ensnare thousands of fish at a time.

A single fisher, while still capable of providing for themselves and their family, simply couldn’t compete with the industrial fisheries, and the result was that the profession—at least as Santiago had known it—was dying. Malako was a relatively isolated island, so things were still much the same as they traditionally had been, but Santiago understood that the only universal constant was change.

The old fisherman knew that his profession would soon be relegated to little more than recreation.

“Your grades are good,” he continued. “I’ve heard that you’re the most promising student this island has produced in over 50 years. Some say you might even score high enough to attend a mage academy if you take the National Exam. If that were to happen, you’d have a bright future ahead of you.”

“Not you too…” she grumbled. “Everyone wants me to take it, you know. They want me to leave the island for some ritzy school with a bunch of spoiled brats on an island where I know nobody… but I like Malako. Is it so wrong for me to want to stay where my family has lived for centuries, Mr. Alvarez?”

“I think so,” answered Santiago, seeing no reason to sugarcoat things. “The Blight killed more than half of the people who once lived here, and most of the surviving younger folk left the island after recognizing Malako for the doomed place it is. This place will be destitute before long. You should leave.”

“I know that this place is done for,” she said, “but that doesn’t mean you can tell me to abandon it.”

“True,” Santiago said, “I’m in no position to tell you to do anything. But I’ll speak my mind as I please.”

“And I’ll do the same: if you want me to do well for myself, teach me how to fish. If you teach me everything you know, there’s a chance I could surpass even you. Geopolitical quandaries be damned, if I could fish like that, I wouldn’t have to worry. This fish you served up for breakfast was a Steelback Bass, wasn’t it? Those are valuable. I’d be rich if I could consistently catch special-grade creatures like that.”

“That you would be,” said Santiago, letting his shoulders slump over a bit. “But not even I can do that. Even if you did eventually reach that level, it would take decades before you got there.” He sighed. “Is becoming a mage such a dreadful prospect? I don’t know much about magic, but everything I do know suggests that you have what it takes to become a master of the arcane; you could end up making more money than everyone on this island put together.”

Alma gazed out at the horizon where the ocean met the sky.

“Old man,” she began, her voice steady, “I understand what you’re saying, and you’re probably right: if I graduated from a mage academy, I’d end up wealthy. I know that much but, even so, my heart belongs to the sea, just like yours. I’m going to become a fisher regardless of if it’s the ‘smart’ thing to do, and I hope you’ll respect that decision. You should know that I don’t plan on living with regrets.”

Santiago nodded, not with approval, but understanding.

“Very well, Alma,” he said, a faint smile crossing his weathered face. “If you’re truly determined to follow that path, I’ll stop trying to dissuade you from it—but I won’t encourage it either. I won’t have you as my apprentice. You can visit me as much as you want, but I refuse to teach you anything about fishing.”

Alma looked up at him and shook her head.

"You won't teach me?" Her voice quivered as she spoke. "After all these years of coming here, after all the stories you've told me, you won't even give me a chance?"

Santiago met her gaze. He felt terrible about what he was doing, but he felt all the same that he had to do it. He refused to be the reason that a talented child grew up to be a destitute adult.

"I'm doing this because I care about you. If you were an average kid, I might have agreed to teach you what I know, but you have the potential to do so much more than fishing. Don’t limit yourself.”

Alma stood up and spun around to glare at Santiago.

“You think you can just decide what’s best for me?” she shouted, her voice trembling. “You won’t even give me a chance to prove myself? What the fuck is wrong with you, Santiago?! Here I am trying to keep this tradition alive, and you’re just gonna spit at me for it?”

Santiago let out a slow sigh.

“Please try to understand. I’m not doing this to hold you back. I’m doing it because I care about your future.”

Alma’s fists clenched at her sides as tears welled up in her eyes.

“I thought you believed in me,” she whispered, her voice choked with emotion.

Without waiting for Santiago’s response, she dived off the porch and started swimming away.

Santiago watched her retreating figure, his wrinkled face etched with sorrow.

He knew he had hurt her, but he also knew that he had done the best thing he could. Someone as talented as her would never be able to live up to her full potential on an island like Malako. She was destined for greater things, and he refused to be the person who kept her from achieving those things.

As Alma disappeared from his view, Santiago was left alone on his porch.

He sat there listening to the crashes of waves and the cries of seagulls.

♦

It had been a few hours since his conversation with Alma.

Standing in his hut, Santiago was gathering his things in preparation for an outing. He grabbed his trust oar, his faithful fishing rod, and a wicker basket Alma had made for him a few months prior. The old man was hoping that a healthy dose of work would ease his ailing mind, but he didn’t think it would.

Dressed in simple clothes and a straw hat, Santiago stepped into his canoe.

With a firm grasp on the oar, he pushed away from the dock.

His destination today was a large grotto, accessible only at low tide and known only to him. Found only a few years prior, it had since become Santiago’s favorite spot because of the high quantity of special-grade fish living in that specific sea cave. There was a lot of money to be made in a place like that.

If he had found it when he had still been young enough to work with intense vigor, he reckoned he could have earned enough money to send at least one of his children to a mage academy. He was still proud of having managed to scrounge up enough funds to send them to any school at all though.

He had never had the privilege, after all.

Santiago started paddling, his canoe moving noticeably faster than his age would suggest.

Paddling a canoe was a very straightforward task, yes, and it was almost entirely dependent on strength—something Santiago had lost with age—but decades of refining that one simple motion had given rise to a mastery over the movement that largely compensated for his deteriorating physique.

A few hours later, he arrived at a secluded cove, its rocky sides lined with cliffs and its entrance so narrow that nothing larger than a canoe possibly could have entered.

The inside of the cove was rather large and scenic, with bushes and moss growing along its roughly cylindrical sides. Santiago took a second to appreciate the view before paddling into the cave.

The grotto was a spectacle to behold. Its entrance was almost invisible from the outside, a mere slit in the rock wall that easily could’ve been mistaken for a simple crevice. Yet, once inside, it opened into a large dome that was perfectly still aside from the occasional drip of water from the tips of the enormous crystal that hung from the ceiling.

Owing to the magnificent stalactites, Santiago rather uncreatively called this place Crystal Cave.

The water inside was calm, a stark contrast to the roiling sea outside, and was filled with bioluminescent plankton that would light up the cave in a soft glow every time Santiago's paddle disturbed the water.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Like most special-grade creatures, these plankton were a bit dangerous, and Santiago knew from experience that putting his hand in the water would give him a stinging sensation. That was minor insofar as special-grade creatures were concerned, but it was something to be mindful of all the same.

Santiago paddled deeper into the cave, his eyes scanning the calm waters illuminated by the bioluminescent plankton. The glowing light reflected off the stalactites hanging precariously overhead, casting eerie shadows that danced on the cave walls.

Despite the fantastical sight, Santiago remained focused on the task at hand.

He slowly maneuvered his canoe into a favorite spot, an especially deep patch of water where he'd had good luck in the past. Drawing a deep breath, he stood up and started getting ready to cast his rod.

But the sight of something strange stopped him dead in his tracks.

A plain-looking white door, levitating a few inches above the water, was right beside his boat.

It was almost as though the door—wooden and painted white—had snuck up on him.

How that was possible, Santiago didn’t venture to guess, but the reason didn’t matter.

Not wanting to take his chances with such a thing, he started paddling away.

Or, rather, he tried to.

The water had become like glue, and his oars refused to move, no matter how hard he pulled at them.

Santiago broke out into a cold sweat. He had had his fair share of close calls in this grotto—it was a place where special-grade creatures, which were almost always dangerous to some degree, were commonplace—but there had never been anything like this.

He wanted to jump out of his boat and swim away but, seeing how immovable his oars were, it was obvious that he would get stuck if he tried that. Not wanting to suffer a slow death drowning in what was essentially magical quicksand, he refrained from doing anything rash.

And so, all he could do was stand in his boat, staring dumbstruck at the door.

It was close to the point that it pressed up against the side of the boat, but it didn’t seem to be doing anything. Santiago had no idea what to make of it. For a moment, he entertained the idea that it would go away if he would ignore it, but he knew that was ridiculous.

The thing had approached far too deliberately for that, and the fact that it had more-or-less trapped him with it suggested that wanted him for something. He shuddered to guess what that might be.

“What do you want with me, door?”

The door, of course, did not respond with words.

Instead, Santiago’s arm started moving toward the silver doorknob as though it had a will of its own.

He grabbed the arm reaching for the door with his other arm and pulled it back. The rogue arm fought against him, struggling toward the door, but he trapped it between his other arm and his chest.

A moment later, however, he lost control of his other arm. Both hands shot toward the doorknob.

The world went black the moment his fingers touched the door.

He was still conscious, however, and Santiago almost felt as though he were underwater—the gravity that weighed down his old joints no longer seemed to be there—but the strange thing was that he could breathe, and there was nothing resisting his movements the way water would have.

He tried swimming, but it didn’t work.

Not that he would have known even if it did. All that surrounded him was a white, featureless abyss.

Just as he was starting to think that he had died and that this was the afterlife, a man materialized out of thin air, appearing just a few feet across from Santiago.

His skin and hair were both snow-white, and he had an amused smile on his face as he looked at Santiago with pale blue eyes. He wore a shiny leather jacket with a hem so low that it might as well have been a trench coat along with a pair of strange, tar-black pants.

“Sup!” he said, the tone unexpectedly casual. “Welcome to the Mechanism. You’ve been selected as a new user of this tool. My name, in case you’re wondering what to me, is Administrator of the Mechanism, but you can just call me the Admin. With that being said, what should I call you?”

Taken aback by his abrupt and casual demeanor, Santiago blinked for a moment, confusion washing over his face. It wasn’t every day a man of his age—or anyone at all, for that matter—encountered something like this.

“Call me Santiago,” he managed to reply, his voice firm, despite the circumstances. Santiago was an old fisherman, who had weathered many storms, both on the sea and in life. He didn’t know much about the supernatural, but he knew to stay calm. "What is this place? And what do you mean by 'tool?’”

“This,” said the Admin, “is the Control Room. I run the Mechanism from here.” He grinned. “As for what the Mechanism actually is, well, that’s a bit of a complicated question, but long story short… you can think of it as a way to accrue a great deal of power in a relatively short amount of time.”

The statement seemed to hang in the air for a few moments as Santiago processed it.

“…What?”

“Yeah, there are a few layers to it, but the basic gist is that by defeating foes and completing tasks, you gain something called XP; I would explain how it ties into vital flux and all that, but I get a hunch that you wouldn’t understand it, so I won’t bother. All really you need to know right now is that if you get enough XP, you’ll level up, which will result in you becoming more powerful. Got it? Good. I’ll initialize your statsheet.”

“My what? I don’t—”

Before Santiago could ask any questions, a floating rectangle appeared in front of him. It had a bunch of words on it and, even though Santiago was illiterate, he could read them just fine.

[BASIC INFO] – [Tasks] – [Stats] – [Items]

NAME: Santiago Alvarez

LEVEL: 5 (0%)

TITLES: Fisher

TYPE: Human (Standard)

“What the…” Santiago stared at the information in front of him, stunned into silence.

“Yeah, so looks like you get the gist of it,” said the Admin. “You can pull up your Mechanism interface simply by willing for it to appear, and nobody will be able to see it but you. Also, you can’t tell anyone who isn’t a Mechanism user about the Mechanism. Everything making sense, Santiago?”

“N-no…” he stammered, “What the hell is happening right now? And why me?”

“What’s happening is that you’re gaining access to the Mechanism. As for why you, in specific, are receiving said access, I haven’t got a clue. I don't decide who gets selected or why they've been chosen. I’m just a human-looking magical construct who facilitates the process, you see.”

The Admin gave a very overdramatic sigh.

“That said,” he continued, “I did receive a little bit of information I’m supposed to pass on to you. Someone called ‘Alma Delanio’ is also going to receive Mechanism access later today, so make what you will of that. On a separate note, make sure you complete your daily task before midnight tonight. You’ll be rewarded if you do and penalized if you don’t… Think that’s pretty much everything. If you don’t have any questions, I’m gonna send you back to the material world now…”

“What's the task?” asked Santiago, still feeling blindsided.

“Eh, that depends both on the day and on you. I guess I could tell you, but I think I'll let just you see that for yourself,” answered the Admin. “Also, aside from daily tasks—which will generally give you a few different options as to what you can do to complete them—most tasks are optional. You can just do them if you want the rewards they offer or if you were going to do what they entail anyways.” He paused, giving Santiago some time to process the information. “You’ll also get a mandatory ‘quest’ every now and again, which will generally be very involved and can be thought of as ‘payment’ for your access to the Mechanism, but those are uncommon. Think that’s the gist of it.”

The admin shrugged. “As for rewards and penalties, those depend on the task. Generally speaking though, rewards are worth the effort and penalties are something you’ll really want to avoid. You have until midnight tonight to complete your first task. Don’t miss it! I’ve gotta be going now, so bye!”

Before Santiago could ask any more questions or voice his concerns, he was back in his canoe.

The white door had disappeared, and the bioluminescent plankton continued to dance in the water.

He couldn't help but wonder if it had all been a strange dream but, sure enough, when he willed for his statsheet to appear in front of him, it did exactly that.

[BASIC INFO] – [Tasks] – [Stats] – [Items]

NAME: Santiago Alvarez

LEVEL: 5 (0%)

TITLES: Fisher

TYPE: Human (Standard)

Definitely not a dream, he decided. This Mechanism thing was the real deal.

He was curious to know what his ‘daily task’ was and, sure enough, just by thinking about it, the information in the rectangle changed to show him what he had to do.

[Basic Info] – [TASKS] – [Stats] – [Items]

DAILY TASK: 3 Options. Complete at least 1. Expires in 11.5 hours.

- Swim 1 mile [0%].

- Catch 10 fish with only a fishing rod [0/10].

- Accept Alma Delanio as your apprentice [0/1].

Base Reward: 1 Stat Point.

Failure Penalty: 30 minutes of torture.

BULLETIN: Optional time-limited tasks.

Special-grade Angler: Catch 10 special-grade fish using only a fishing rod [0/10]. 7 days remaining.

- Reward: Receive an Angler Rod.

Newbie Gains: Do 100 pushups every day for 14 days [0/7]. 7 days remaining.

- Reward: 10-point Strength increase.

BIG ONES: Long-term tasks that you really ought to work toward completing.

Literate: Pass a basic literacy test [0/1].

- Reward: Receive the Bookworm trait.

Mage Aspirant: Learn how to sense your vital flux [0/1].

- Reward: 50 Stat Points.

QUEST: You have none of these right now. Try to get stronger to improve your odds of survival!

Santiago furrowed his brow.

That was a lot to process, and his first thought was that he was too old to be dealing with something like this. Having spent his whole life on a rather isolated island where special-grade phenomena like this were all but unheard of, Santiago had no idea what to make of what he was looking at. He also still had no idea how he was able to comprehend what he was reading, but that was probably one of the mundane things about this whole ordeal and he decided not to think too hard about it.

The thing that most quickly caught his eye was the ‘Failure Penalty’ for not completing his ‘Daily Task.’

Half an hour of torture—If this ‘Mechanism’ could really inflict such a thing—did not sound pleasant.

He let out a sigh as he sat there in his canoe. The grotto was silent around him, with only the occasional trickle of water droplets down from the stalactites interrupting his peace. Santiago welcomed the stillness of the place, finding that it soothed his now very turbulent mind.

He remembered that the Admin had mentioned something about visiting Alma.

His lips curled into a frown at the thought of that, and he started paddling his canoe out of the grotto.

Alma had enough problems as it was. The last thing she needed was a supernatural being of unknown intentions further confusing matters for her. Although Santiago did not look forward to speaking to her again so soon after their conversation that morning, he decided that he needed to see her immediately.

He hoped he could get there in time to prevent the Admin from bringing her into the ‘Control Room.’

Santiago did not know exactly what kind of benefits or risks were associated with the Mechanism, but his instincts told him to be wary of it. The fisherman trusted his gut.

The old fisherman sped toward Malako at the fastest pace he could.

♦

Santiago stood hunched over with his hands on his knees as he struggled to catch his breath.

The Crystal Cove was several hours away from Malako, even when the wind was blowing in his favor, and he had been paddling nonstop throughout the trip. In his old age, he had probably put himself in serious danger by exerting himself as much as he had, but none of that mattered now.

He was in the village of Malako, standing in front of Alma’s home. It was built halfway up a steep hill and most of it was underground. In many ways, the place resembled a mineshaft, which made sense seeing as those belonging to the Delanio family traditionally made their living working in the mines.

Santiago knocked on the door, and Alma’s father answered.

He was a hardy man, his body tempered from a lifetime of physical labor, and he had the same jet-black hair and bushy, expressive eyebrows as his daughter. Cerro Delanio greeted the old fisherman with a handshake and a smile, though there was a smidge of worry in his eyes as he began to speak.

“Hello Mr. Alvarez,” said Cerro. He was in his early thirties and had a youthful face by virtue of spending most of his time underground, away from the sun. “What brings you here today?”

“Your daughter visited me this morning,” answered Santiago. “Is she… acting strange today?”

“Hmm…” Cerro scratched his chin. “Well, now that you mention it… Yeah. She was awfully quiet this morning, but just a few hours ago she burst out of her room all giddy with excitement and… started doing pushups in the living room? I asked her about it, and she came down with a terrible coughing fit when she started to answer. It was horrible! Anyways, yes, she’s acting unusual.”

Santiago broke out into a cold sweat. The Mechanism, he guessed, was the reason for all that.

“Since you came all this way,” continued Cerro,” Do you know what’s going on with her?”

Santiago tried to tell him about the Mechanism because he felt that Cerro deserved to know what had happened to his daughter, but all that came out when he began to speak was a choked cough.

He recalled that the Admin had something about not being able to tell non-Mechanism users about the Mechanism. To think that he would be physically incapable of doing so, however, was a terrifying thought to him. If the Mechanism could restrict his speech, it stood to reason that it was also capable of inflicting torture—just as the failure penalty for his ‘Daily Task’ had suggested.

“Are you okay, Mr. Alvarez? You look ill.” Cerro had a slightly nervous expression on his face, which Santiago was unsure how to interpret. “Would you like to come in? I’ll get you a cup of coffee.”

“Sure, Cerro, and thank you.” Santiago followed Cerro into the house.

Although it was a cave comprised of solid stone, the sheer abundance of carpets, rugs, and various tapestries would have made it hard for the uninformed eye to know that. The reason Cerro had given for having so many fabrics was that they absorbed dust and moisture from the air.

Santiago wasn’t sure how effective such methods were but, to the Delanio family’s credit, their home had a pleasant smell. That had more to do with the incense they burned than the carpets though.

Cerro offered him a seat on a padded chair, which Santiago gladly sat down upon while remarking to himself about how luxurious the seat was. All the furniture he owned were pieces he had thrown together over the years, and it was strictly nails and wood for him. He appreciated sitting somewhere nice for once and, as Cerro handed him some coffee, he felt as though this were the peak of hospitality.

“Thank you,” he said, taking a moment to enjoy the smell of his beverage. “I must ask though, is Alma home right now? I’d like to speak with her if it’s not too much trouble.”

Cerro shook his head.

“No. Like I said earlier, she’s been acting strange today. I don’t know if the stress of turning 16 in a few days is getting to her, but she refused to work in the mines today and instead went out to the wharf in hopes of catching pufferfish, of all things…”

“Pufferfish? Why? Those aren’t edible. They’re so poisonous that some hunters coat the tips of their arrows in their innards to improve the lethality of their bows.”

“I don’t know her reasons, but she said that she was going to the wharf.”

“I see.” Santiago frowned. “Well, I don’t mean to be rude, but I came because I need to speak with her. It’s somewhat urgent, so I should probably be going now. Thank you for the hospitality, Cerro.”

He hobbled up to his feet and started walking.

As he left, Cerro called out to him one last time.

“You’re not going to accept her as your apprentice, are you?”

“Of course not,” answered Santiago. “I know as well as you do that my trade is a dying one.”

“O-oh... I see. Well, I suppose you’re right about that… Good luck with whatever business you’re here for, Mr. Alvarez. Just know that between you and me—don’t tell my wife—I have no problems with her going into fishing. If that’s truly what she wants to do, it’s best not to live with regrets, right?”

“I’ll take that into account,” said Santiago.

He waved a backhanded goodbye as he went out the door.

♦

“I had a feeling I’d find you here,” said Santiago.

He was standing at the edge of the wharf. Alma was sitting in front of him, her back turned to him as he held a fishing rod out over the water. Malako’s docks had once been a place rife with activity, but the island’s steady decay meant that merchant ships were a rarity nowadays.

Aside from Santiago, Alma, and the occasional bird, the wharf was empty.

“I had a feeling you’d be visiting me soon,” said Alma, not turning to look at him. “The Admin visited you too, didn’t he? You have access to the Mechanism now, right? Ah, you don’t even need to answer. I’m pretty sure that the fact that I was able to ask you those things in the first place proves me correct.”

Santiago let out a big sigh.

“And what do you make of it?”

“I think we’ve been given an opportunity to be something more than what we are.”

Santiago let out another sigh.

“That’s an optimistic viewpoint,” he said. “A young person’s viewpoint.”

“I take it you hold the pessimistic viewpoint. The old person's viewpoint."

“Do I have any reason to be happy about this? I was content with my life as it was, and you would have been perfectly successful regardless of if this… ‘thing’ had intervened in our lives. Now, we face a complete unknown. An unknown that has no qualms about torturing us.” He paused for a moment. “Is your penalty for failing the Daily Task the same as mine?”

“I already completed my task, so no worries there, but the failure penalty was 30 minutes of torture.”

“So it’s the same. Can you say that this entity has our best interests at heart while at the same time knowing that it would go out of its way to make you suffer if you disobeyed it?”

Karamel shrugged. “Hey, no pain no gain, right? The penalty is harsh, true, but I completed the task and got my Stat Point. I put that point into ‘Sense’ and, sure enough, my eyes are a little better now. If there’s more where that came from, I’d say the downsides are justifiable. Everything balances out that way.”

“I admire your optimism but, the way I see it, this Mechanism has taken both of us hostage. We have no choice but to make use of it, lest risk bringing torture upon ourselves. Moreover, we don’t know the nature of the entity responsible for bestowing it upon us. I suspect it has its own agenda.”

“I suspect the same,” she said, “but as you suggested, I’m pretty sure our only choice is to be players in its game. If this entity is strong enough to create the Mechanism, it’s also strong enough to destroy us.”

Santiago let out another sigh. For a time, he was quiet.

“If you’re trying to catch pufferfish,” he began, “you’d have better luck casting your line from the ledge overlooking the reef. They have a greater sense of security in the sheltered walls of the reef, so they tend to spend most of their time there. The best time to catch them is halfway through a rising tide.”

Alma popped up to her feet and spun around. She was smiling from ear to ear.

“That’s an awful lot of advice from someone who said they wouldn’t teach me anything about fishing.”

“All of what I said is just common sense,” he said. “I’d hardly call that teaching.”

“Common sense to you, maybe. Got any other ‘common sense’ to share?”

“They can be hard to catch because most species of pufferfish—including all of the ones you’ll find on the coast of Malako—subsist mostly on algae. When they do eat meat, they usually go for small invertebrates. Worms, if you’re using those, can work but probably won’t. The best bait you could use would be sea snails.” He sighed. “With all that said, may I ask why you need to catch pufferfish?”

“It’s for something called a ‘recipe.’ If I get pufferfish ribcages and ‘miscellaneous fishbones’ and take those things to a loom, I’ll be able to create ‘Catacombic Mesh,’ which can in turn be used to make pieces of ‘Skeletal Armor.’ Not sure what that’ll do for me, but I figure I could at the very least sell it.”

“…I did not understand a word of what you just said.”

“You know how to open the statsheet, right?”

“Is that the thing that had the tasks?”

“That’s the one. Open it and go to the items tab.”

“I think I can do that…”

Santiago willed for the statsheet to appear in front of him. Sure enough, it did.

[Basic Info] – [Tasks] – [Stats] – [Items]

INVENTORY:

- Not yet applicable.

RECIPES:

★ Catacombic Mesh

★ Angler Rod

★ Worm Ring

★★ Rumination Recliner

★★ Diving Bracelet

“I see it,” said Santiago. “I also see the Catacombic Mesh you were talking about.”

“Neat. What else do you see?”

He listed off the other items.

“Huh, strange. So we have Catacombic Mesh in common, but everything else is different. My options are the Catacombic Mesh, a Scholar Notebook, a Learning Pistol, Awareness Incense, and something called a Pocket Gauntlet. When you look at your recipe details for Catacombic Mesh, what does it say?”

Santiago willed for the recipe details to be shown to him, and they were.

★ Catacombic Mesh: A very durable bone-based fabric comprised of interlocking fishbones. Can be used to make Skeletal Armor, which can be crafted at a loom (no recipe required).

- 1 pufferfish ribcage.

- 1 pound of miscellaneous fishbone.

- Craft at a loom.

He told Alma what he saw.

“Okay, so that’s the same. Cool.” She shrugged. “You know, I gotta hand it to the unknown entity responsible for creating this thing, the Mechanism sure is easy to use.”

“I suppose so.” Santiago let out a sigh. “So. What now? Try to keep living as we always have?”

“The circumstances have changed, old man.” She grinned. “So hell no! Malako may be a dying island right now, but the Mechanism just might give us what we need to save it. Just so you know, I was seriously considering leaving the island for school until today, especially after you rejected me. Now though, I’m definitely not leaving Malako until I’ve made my mark. As fellow Mechanism users, we should work together. What do you say, old man? Will you take me as your apprentice?”

“The circumstances have changed,” said Santiago. “That much is certain.”

Santiago gazed out over the horizon, contemplating the situation.

His main problem with accepting Alma as his apprentice had always been the fear that he would in some way be limiting her future in doing so. The simple life of a fisherman, after all, was not something he thought someone as talented as her should aspire to.

Now that he was a Mechanism user, however, things were different. He was now uniquely qualified to help Alma achieve great things. Aside from him and her, after all, Santiago didn’t know of any other Mechanism users. Insofar as he could tell from his limited knowledge, the best thing he could do for Alma’s development was agree to take her as his apprentice, at least tentatively.

And so he arrived at his decision.

“Sure,” he said, “You can be my apprentice.”

Daily Task Complete: Accept Alma Delanio as your apprentice [1/1].

Reward Earned: 1 Stat Point.

“I always knew you’d come around to it. What’s next, old man?”

“Supper, of course.”