> “The Archons’ system is ingenious-- you can measure the value of anybody, how much they’ve achieved, on a one to fifty point scale.”

* Scholar Karlson, right before getting beaten in chess by a student ten levels lower than him

Garston woke up the next day to a familiar world, of being waited on and attended to by various servants, his every little wish and desire accounted for and pacified. Despite his lack of meaningful activity (besides doing some stamping and signing and moving around of various paperwork in regards to the minutiae of his estate, which rarely took up more than an hour of his time each day), a great weariness had settled in his blood and bones.

He was Garston, a noble man of low rank and middling importance, with few significant deeds to his name. It was said that each time a man leveled, a flash of verve and renewed youthfulness rushed through him, like adrenaline but stronger, and lingered for days, weeks even, making one feel like they were a bright-eyed youth of twenty years, no matter how advanced their age.

Garston missed that feeling. He missed the feeling of a new Talent, a new power to be wielded for the betterment of his lands and his people, in service of his king. He missed the thrill of ever-growing power, of feeling like he could do anything. In his quiet moments, often, he felt like a waste, a shell of a man, never again to feel the comforting, fantastic fire of his limits expanding.

He sulked for days on end, without Serge to stir him from his dark moods. A week passed him by, his state barely changing.

Another week passed, and another. The month came to a close, and still no change.

A month after Garston’s birthday, the King, Drevvin, ordered a great feast to be held at the palace.

Garston attended, pulling from deep within his old snakewood wardrobe a suit of dark silk, and dressing himself in the finery of another age. He strode into the king’s palace, the weight of two score years bearing down on him ever more with each passing hour, the faces of numinous strangers or almost-strangers all around him seeming blurred, their voices distant, their smiles glassy and fragile enough to shatter like sugar glass.

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A man, balding, in his late forties or early fifties, short and squat, with a narrow grin and small eyes, approached from the crowd sipping from a tall thin glass of some old vintage. “Greetings, Lord Garston. Surerend, Duke of Grariad. I’m pleased to know you recently celebrated your fortieth birthday, yes?”

Garston put on his most friendly, subservient expression. “A pleasure to meet you in the flesh, Your Magnificence. Yes, I have indeed recently turned forty, though I have to say I haven’t quite gotten over it, ha ha.” His speech was so stilted he had literally said ‘ha ha.’ What was happening to him?

Hugh Garston-- Garston Hughes-- Hugh Garston-- yes, Hugh Garston broke away from the conversation with the Duke to flag down a passing manservant, who turned to him, fervent rage barely contained behind the younger man’s dark eyes.

Garston did a double take. “Serge? How’re you here?”

Serge looked ready to spit in the ’s face, but refrained, instead tightly saying: “What need have you of my services, your lordship? Perhaps something to drink, or an appetizer before the feast properly begins?”

“Come on, Serge, I know I handled the situation terribly, but I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry, and I would’ve said it then and there, if only I wasn’t so in my own head about everything then.”

Serge twitched. “I assume your hunger is sated and your thirst quenched, my lord?” He asked primly, a muscle in his neck trembling with undistilled anger.

“This is absurd.” Garston sighed hugely, striding off deeper into the crowd.

At the center of the hubbub of lights and chatter and fancy clothes and jewels was the king himself, walking among the common people, or rather limping, his elderly form kept mobile with a cane and a leg brace set with heavily enchanted arcgems.

As Garston drew closer, he caught through the crowd the sight of a man in deep blue robes lined with plush white fur wearing a circlet of silver and rubies batting at the king and snarling while being held back by royal guards. “You bastards! Let me go! You-- you idiot! He’ll destabilize-- they will-- think! Think about what you’re doing, what you’re stopping me from doing! Just kill them-- KILL THEM ALL!”

“Get him out of my sight. I never want to see him again.” The king said, waving his hand in arrogant dismissal. The robed and circleted ranting man was dragged away without further ado, additional guards pushing the way through the crowd to make a path toward the double door entrance.