Dyani chuckled as she ran home. Her new partner was a lot of things, but self aware wasn’t one of them. She’d seen how much he’d enjoyed having someone to banter with, how much his isolation was hurting him.

She recognized it in herself.

Dyani had thrown herself into exploring and fighting to advance, but that hadn’t been the true end goal. While she wanted a useful talent for her own sake, there were two major goals that were driving her. The first was obvious. She wanted to live up to her father's legacy and solve his murder. The second was less dramatic, but felt equally important in her heart.

If she could join the Slayer’s Guild, she would be reunited with her friends.

Daggan, Nodin, and Veraine had only gotten busier as they progressed through their training. They were currently engaged in a month-long course in wilderness survival, which was open to extension if their instructors were unsatisfied with their developing skills.

On the few occasions she had seen them after they joined the guild, they were too exhausted to do more than exchange cursory information. She hadn’t told them about her monster fighting, since she didn’t want to add to their obviously high stress levels, which had only made her feel more isolated.

Her mother was amazing, but she was her mother, not a friend, and she couldn’t share her exploits with her either, albeit for a different reason.

But Pikawon was around her age, and even engaged in the same day to day work she was doing. Dyani was still a bit irritated that he was getting paid for it, but she would fix that tomorrow.

She even enjoyed his caustic personality. After all, every hero needed a partner to balance their righteous quest for justice with a bit of realism, and Pikawon obviously needed a friend right now as much as she did.

When she finished rushing home, she was relieved to see she had beaten her mother there. She had an excuse prepared about Hoss keeping her working late, but she would prefer to lie to her mother as little as possible.

She took a quick shower, during which she made a note to get Pikawon to engrave a set of his cleaning runes in the bathroom. The floor was still stained with the sludge from her first advancement, and the smell had lessened, but hadn’t disappeared completely.

When she was as clean as she could reasonably be, she dried herself in a hurry and raced to her bedroom. Her father’s old interface was stowed in a box under her bed, right where she’d left it.

She rolled the uneven crystal over in her hands. It was twice the size of her fist, and filled with jagged striations and swirls of color. While she ached to bind it, she forced herself to wait. She had no idea how long it would take or what kind of mess would be left behind, and with her mother coming back at any moment, it wasn’t worth the risk.

In addition, she was also suspicious of the interface’s state of repair. The description it came with listed its condition as ‘acceptable’ but ‘incomplete’, which didn’t sound too bad, especially given its apparent ability to self-repair, but it looked like someone had given up halfway through smashing it to dust.

Dyani felt guilty for doubting something she’d been left by her father, and doubted the Slayer’s Guild would’ve allowed her to have it if it was dangerous or unusable, but she was more inclined to caution than blind trust.

Pikawon wasn’t a logomancer, an enchanter who specialized in mental constructs, but he did have some enchanting knowledge. She would feel more comfortable if he took a look at the interface first, and was with her while she bound it.

“Not to mention the cleaning runes,” she said to herself. The rancid slime the body released when advancing an attribute for the first time might be too much for even his impressive setup to clean, but it would at least be better than ordinary water and soap.

***

The monster corpse rested untouched on his table, coagulated blood leaking out of the bite wound so slowly it was only noticeable because Pikawon had been staring at it intently for the last half hour.

His stomach growled, even after eating two meals worth of non-perishable rations.

“Shut up.”

Pikawon had checked in with his boss, who had been more than happy to excuse his incomplete route when his inspector gear revealed he’d killed a level 3 monster. He’d even received a bonus from the enchanted device that converted the experience from their loot pendants into notes. Normally inspectors got half of the generated money, but thanks to the higher level of the monster, he’d gotten 60%.

He was even told he could finish today’s route as his next assignment, cutting tomorrow’s workload in half.

He should be ecstatic. He had less work, more money, which he was alive to spend, but, like every other good thing in his life, his talent was here to ruin it.

The False Hydra corpse lay in front of him, a feast of experience, but he fought against the instincts to rip it apart and consume every piece. His rational mind, weak as it was from underuse, told him to give in, to grow stronger, but his emotions rebelled.

“I am a man, not a beast.” He might have the claws, eyes, and teeth of an animal, but he wasn’t one. He wouldn’t tear into a monster corpse like a monster himself, even if every one of his talent granted instincts insisted it was the right move.

But Pikawon also wasn’t an idiot. As much as he’d love to turn in the corpse for an extra reward, his only way to gain experience and advance was eating it.

Eventually, his resolve broke and he settled on properly preparing and cooking the meat before eating it.

He’d heard once that the way to know if a compromise was fair was if both sides were unhappy with it. This must be a great compromise, because his instincts were raging at the pointless delay and his long standing hatred of his talent was roiling with revulsion.

The snake thing was thick enough that even when the heads, scales, and spines were removed, there was a fair amount of meat left over. Even before he’d been whisked away to live like a chained prince, he hadn’t done much cooking, but he knew enough to cut it into slices and fry it with a bit of oil.

He didn’t have any kind of seasonings, so he was forced to choke down the monster steaks as they were, but his talent didn’t seem to care. While the feedback from his tongue informed him the meat was bland and oily, his instincts flooded his mouth with pleasure. He scarfed down the rest of the meal, unable to stop himself, until his belly was achingly full.

Tossing his plate aside to clatter off the floor, he collapsed into his cot as he began to digest. He could feel a pleasant burning in his stomach as his body extracted the experience, feeding his spirit in a trickle.

He drifted off to sleep, hating how good he felt.

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***

While Dyani hadn’t gotten an exact location for the Office of Sewage Management but, thanks to her mother’s position at the city’s recycling plant, she did know where to find the Department of Logistics, who oversaw everything from waste management to food shipments. After waiting in a short line that moved at a crawl, she finally received the needed location, along with a pamphlet on the ‘amazing benefits’ of a job as a sewer inspector.

For some inexplicable reason, the city had difficulties hiring and retaining employees to navigate the sewer and fight monsters for a meager paycheck.

This worked out for Dyani, as Pikawon’s boss, who was now her boss, had her hired and geared up nearly before she agreed. He’d even accepted her stipulation that Pikawon would train her. She’d told him that Pikawon had referred her and that they were friends, which wasn’t a lie, even if Pikawon didn’t know it yet.

It was all worth it when he shuffled in, head down, with the morning shift and did a double take. He strode over, dark clouds forming over his head, but didn’t manage to say anything before their boss started the morning meeting.

Henock looked something like a raindrop, narrow at the top and rounded at the bottom, with a pair of thick, black anklets, which were probably enchanted. His voice was surprisingly high pitched and grating, like a pair of wrestling whistles.

“At attention, inspectors.” He received a few half hearted salutes and as many rolled eyes.

“We have a new recruit,” He gestured to Dyani, “Dyani here was referred by Pikawon. Make her feel welcome.”

Pikawon gave her a flat look and raised an eyebrow. She carefully did not meet his eyes, mouth quirking in a smile.

“Now for the routes.” Henock distributed a pile of battered, leather portfolios to everyone except Dyani and Pikawon.

“Pikawon, you’ll finish up your route from yesterday, while you show Dyani the ropes,” Henock said, before raising his voice to address the whole group, “Pikawon killed a level 3 monster yesterday. Let’s all give him a round of applause.”

The inspectors gave a few, half hearted claps, clearly unimpressed. Dyani could tell that several of them were level 3 themselves, while Henock was at least level 4, but she still felt they were being flippant about killing a higher level monster.

“Hail Pikawon, slayer of giants,” she said, clapping and whooping. Even Henock gave her a weird look, and if her friend curled into himself any more, he’d cease to exist. Dyani felt a touch of embarrassment, but she didn’t let that stop her.

“Hey, it’s no easy feat to kill something above your level. And that False Hydra was terrifying.” Realizing she’d revealed too much, she backpedaled. “At least, the description of it that I read was.”

No one reacted to her slip up, not even Pikawon. He was too busy convincing the world that he didn’t exist.

“That’s true,” Henock said, “Congratulations again Pikawon, you’re a credit to our group.”

To her friend’s obvious relief, their boss gave a few more announcements and released them to their routes.

When he was free, Pikawon bolted for the exit, leaving Dyani to scramble after him. He rounded the building and went in the back entrance, which held a set of lockers for each inspector, the showers that Dyani had coveted, and a thick steel door.

He went straight for the door, which he did his best to wrench open, but it was clearly very heavy, so Pikawon only managed to slowly pry it open, muscles straining. He took a few panting breaths before slipping inside, and the door started closing with the finality of a tomb.

“Oh, no you don’t.” Dyani had to leap forward to make it through in time, but she was more comfortable betting on her speed than the strength required to open the door back up. She was sure that if she waited for the next inspector to help her open it, Pikawon would be long gone.

Even after rushing through, he was already rounding a corner.

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” she shouted. Pikawon froze, glancing back at her, then to the corridor in front of him. After a moment of deliberation, he sighed, shoulders slumping, and gestured for her to follow. It only took her a few seconds to catch up.

“Is the word ‘subtle’ not in your vocabulary?”

“I don’t know. What about you and ‘gratitude’, ever heard of that one?” Dyani wasn’t normally this sarcastic, but she prided herself on her skills in self defense, verbal included. Pikawon started moving again, but this time at a normal speed.

“What exactly am I supposed to be grateful for?”

“Your friends weren’t exactly being supportive. Killing a higher level monster isn’t easy, even just one level above you. You should’ve gotten a medal, or at least a celebratory cake.”

“They’re my coworkers, not my friends. And I don’t like cake.”

Dyani stared at him like he’d just admitted to murdering babies in his spare time.

“What? It’s too sweet. I don’t like sweet things.”

“You’re a monster.”

Pikawon flinched at that and rubbed his thumb up and down one of his claws. Dyani opened her mouth to apologize, but his guarded expression made it clear that it wouldn’t be welcome.

She’d obviously noticed his inhuman features, his metallic claws, sharpened teeth, slightly pointed ears, and reflective yellow irises, but she hadn’t thought much of them. After all, her mother appeared far less human than he did, and she was the nicest person Dyani knew.

Whether those features were the result of a skill, talent, or ancestry from a humanoid species she was unfamiliar with, she just thought they were awesome. Dyani certainly wouldn’t mind a set of built in weapons.

“I can feel you’re still level 1 and full of experience. Why haven’t you advanced yet?”

“I didn’t have time to advance down here yesterday, and I didn’t want to stink up my house. I figured I could wait at least another day.” The waiting had nearly killed her. Thousands of rationalizations had fought against common sense, but she had beaten them back until her mother came home and made advancing impossible without revealing some of her secret activities.

“Also, I wanted you to look at this.” Dyani swung her backpack off one shoulder so she could pull out her cracked and warped interface, catching Pikawon’s full attention.

He reached out a hand and Dyani passed it to him.

***

Interfaces weren’t outrageously expensive, but they did cost enough that being handed one like it was just some rock was strange. An inherited interface was worth even more, less for its dubious usefulness and more for its rarity. Pikawon was sure a collector would pay good money for something like this, but it wasn’t like he had the freedom to walk above ground and find an interested buyer, so he set the temptation to take the item and run out of his mind.

He ran his eyes and fingers over the curious specimen. He had only the barest knowledge on how interfaces worked, but he’d seen a large number of them when he’d been escorted to a high end logomancy shop to get his own.

They differed in quality, efficiency, specialization, and even color, but every single option he’d seen was a uniform shape, a smooth oblong crystal.

This interface was nothing like that. It had hairline cracks running through it, with swirls of color and jagged facets. If his own interface hadn’t been able to identify it, he would’ve sworn it was something else entirely.

* Inherited Interface (Very Rare)

* Level: 1

* Condition: Unknown

* Description: A complex device created by a logomancer from solidified mana and anima. This interface has suffered extensive damage from the death of its user. Unable to determine the effects of binding this interface, caution is advised.

* Attributes:

* Soulbound (Mind Attribute)

“You’re sure you want to bind this?” Pikawon asked. He’d playfully offered to watch Dyani bind a cobbled together, back alley interface, but now that it was an actual possibility, he was nervous.

“I do, unless you can tell me something’s wrong with it.”

“Everything’s wrong with it.”

“Like what?” Her flippant attitude was starting to annoy him.

“It’s a mental construct ripped from someone’s soul. I might not know exactly what’ll happen if you use it, but it’ll be weird. Maybe it will make you crazy. Maybe you’ll start seeing the previous owner’s memories or start to think like them. Maybe it won’t do anything and you’ll just have wasted a valuable item.”

Dyani took an uncharacteristically long time to answer, but when she did, she had her usual level of reckless confidence.

“Let’s do it. You’ll watch over me while I’m binding it, right?” Pikawon didn’t like how confident she was that he’d help her, but he could hardly leave her to do this alone. If she died while he was ‘training’ her, he might lose his job.