Derek woke to the sound of a groan coming out of his own mouth. His vision was bleary as he blinked away the remnants of sleep crusted along the corners of his eyes. Most of his headache had passed, but there was still enough of it lingering that it made him wince as he began to move his torso.

His movement also set off a flurry of emerald motes of light around his face that dazzled him for a split second. In his slightly stunned state, his immediate instinct was that he was under attack. Then Derek realized that the lights were just the moss spirits that had been dutifully following him around since he had evolved his Class and condensed a Fate. With a grin, he whispered, “Thanks guys, you’ve been healing me right? I appreciate it…”

The moss spirits swarmed together and hovered about Derek’s head for a second. To his surprise, he could sense a hint of reproach emanating from the spirits, as though they were scolding him for overexerting his mental energies so much in the first place.

To that attitude, Derek felt nothing but depression. After all, he would gladly have avoided the brutalizing crash course in images he had yesterday if he had understood what he was getting himself into. Hell, this was the first time in about a month that he slept a full six hours; his body just rarely needed that sort of rest in the post-System world. It was a testament to the brutal training regimen of the Order Ducis applicants that a single day resulted in Derek staggering home to collapse in bed.

After getting a new Class and a Fate, Derek had begun to understand that unlike what Nathan had insisted earlier, the reaction from the moss spirits was anything but ordinary. So much so that Naffur Suite himself had come down to investigate what was going on in Nathan’s office.

When he heard the story, he immediately brightened and praised the compatibility of Derek’s images to Kharon. Then he offered, almost casually, to arrange a specialist to help Derek determine the limits of his new Class. Finding those as soon as possible would, Naffur had added, likely result in a huge boost of the power of Derek’s image. And because of the Ghosthound’s birthday, several individuals who weren’t usually free were present and able to help Derek do exactly that.

Feeling rather bemused, Derek had agreed to the offer. Which was how he had been introduced to Helen.

She carried a spear and looked Derek up and down when he had arrived in the training hall. Then she had attacked him. The ‘training session’ that was supposed to test the limits of his image was abruptly paused after fifty-two seconds when Helen knocked Derek out cold. She had, Derek later heard from Naffur, then waited about ten minutes for Derek to recover after striking him down.

Then she woke him back up and attacked him again. Derek lasted longer this time but earned himself even more grievous wounds in this round that required a longer period of time to heal. But that second time Derek awoke to someone pouring a Health potion down his throat. He spluttered and knocked it away, but when he got up to complain, Helen was already attacking him.

It had been an extremely long day.

Groaning, Derek sat up in his bed and stretched. Then he stood with emerald motes of light hovering protectively around him and began to pull on his clothes. His body creaked dangerously around him as it struggled to catch up with the sudden increase in physical activity that Derek had experienced the prior day.

“What’s terrible about the whole training thing,” Derek grumbled to himself. “Is that I can’t even tell if this Class is more powerful than my last one. The Skills seemed powerful, but their effects compared to Helen…”

Derek shivered. He hoped there weren’t many trainers like Helen in the Order Ducis.

After dressing, Derek snuck out into the hallway of the tiny apartment the Order Ducis had provided and peaked into the room in which Tim was sleeping. He rolled his eyes when a veritable swarm of moss spirits lifted up from Tim’s body and flew over to politely greet the spirits that followed Derek in a confusing tangle of light.

He was a little bit disturbed how obsessed with Tim the spirits had become, but he had only experienced positive results from interacting with his own moss spirits. Besides, they had only been here for a few days, and already…

Derek chuckled dryly to himself when he checked his mailbox and found a scroll waiting for him there. The Order Ducis had said that they would probably have some work for him to help with today, due to the upcoming birthday, but it still impressed him how efficiently the organization operated. It helped that there were only a few people at the top, but still. From everything Derek had been able to gather over his frantic few days on Kharon, Tatiana was a genuine miracle worker by keeping the mechanisms of this city functioning cohesively.

While deftly peeling a banana with his one hand, Derek unrolled the scroll with his right on the kitchen table. He began reading rather casually, but very quickly his eyebrows shot sharply upward.

For whatever reason, Derek Moss had been named the “Official Liaison between the Order Ducis and Affiliated Defense Forces for the Birthday of Randidly Ghosthound.” Whatever that meant.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

The rest of the scroll detailed that today would be a day where he would attend a series of pre-scheduled meetings with the three main groups that would be assisting in the defense to familiarize himself with whom he would be working in the coming days. On the other hand, tomorrow would involve extensive meetings with the leadership of Kharon and Order the Ducis so he could understand his specific responsibilities and coordinate the defense forces.

“Errr…” Derek rather blankly looked down at the scroll. Then he laughed awkwardly. His mind drifted idly back to how interested Naffur had been when Derek mentioned that he had experience with military command structure. “I guess I take everything back that I thought about the organization here being well run…”

Well, Derek supposed that it was inevitable that a hastily made moving city like Kharon would have some cracks in the leadership. They needed capable people, and Derek understood that his experience in Zone 1 and his help during the terrorist attack on the stadium made him the least offensive of a bunch of bad choices. In fact, Derek had been relying on that to get into the Order Ducis for Tim.

Still rather bemused at the sudden and official-sounding title he had received, Derek flipped to the back of the scroll on the off chances that there were more substantive instructions there. There was not, but there was a handwritten note written in a neat line that filled Derek with a sense of dread.

Of course, I can understand if you feel unqualified for this position. If you choose not to accept, please return to the training field and continue with your potential testing with Helen.

Sincerely, Tatiana

“Hah…” Derek released a loud breath as he finished his banana. His thoughts about Kharon changed immediately. It wasn’t that they were desperate, just that they were busy and he was a convenient tool that had come to their attention. They likely wanted someone with battlefield experience and who appeared competent, and Derek had spent quite a lot of time learning to do exactly that.

And with the delicately implied threat of more time under Helen’s tutelage goading him forward, he definitely didn’t plan on shirking the duties associated with his newfound title. He planned to rise to the challenge like the opportunity it was. If he impressed them here, he had no doubt his other activities would grow easier.

Still, he took his time to carefully examine the note and could only conclude it was truly handwritten. He wondered how involved in the details of Kharon’s operation Tatiana really was.

So Derek washed his face and then proceeded to ask the superintendent of his apartment building where to find the locations that his instructions informed him where he would be expected. The man was friendly, so much so that he chatted with Derek so long that Derek was forced to run across Kharon in order to arrive at his first meeting on time.

The first meeting was with the leaders of various Orders that had offered assistance with the birthday extravaganza and the Order Ducis had seen fit to accept. Basically, every Order that wished to provide a token force for the security, aside from the Order Valorem, was accepted. And considering how big of a political event this was going to be, it came as no surprise to Derek that basically every Order was accounted for.

The meeting went surprisingly smoothly. They met in a reserved room at the back of a swanky restaurant where the waitstaff were all wearing tuxedos. Derek arrived five minutes early and every one of the Orders that was supposed to be there had already shown up to wait for him. He shook several hands, memorized faces and names, and then took down the general details of the forces each Order had brought.

They seemed willing to give Derek more information about their capabilities, but Derek quickly settled into the role of an… honorary member of the Order Ducis in the face of their obvious respect. So he waved his hand casually and simply replied, “That’s all for later. We will arrange for a specialist to test your people soon. For now, let’s just get to know one another…”

Honestly, he felt something like a mafia don. And Derek had always loved mafia movies growing up.

Eventually, Derek announced that he had other meetings to attend, and left the swanky restaurant. After taking some time to make some notes about what he had learned about each Order’s representatives, he proceeded to meet with the second group: the ogre contingent.

Derek had obviously seen ogres before while he had been waiting in the merchant’s line to get into Kharon, but he hadn’t had any close contact with them. Still, he figured that he would be able to interface with their leader and establish a rapport easily enough. However, he realized that he had perhaps overestimated himself as he walked into the park that would host the meeting and found himself facing a hundred stone-faced, three-meter tall ogres wrapped in enough steel that each suit of armor could comfortably function as an ostentatious coffin for Derek.

As he made his best attempt to shake the hand of their captain, whose palm completely engulfed his fist, Derek winced. Note to self, physical variation amongst the ogres are even greater than similar things amongst humans…

Perhaps due to their regimented ranks and the fact they stood in formation as Derek arrived, he had pictured them as hardasses. But when they began to speak, it became immediately clear that the ogres had been given orders to defer to Derek and were perfectly willing to do so. From his time serving in the armed forces of Zone 1, Derek quickly fell into old habits and found common ground with the group.

After an hour of familiarizing themselves and making arrangements to meet tomorrow after Derek had received his own orders, he left the ogres and headed to meet the third and final group on his agenda for today.

Derek squinted at the scroll when he read then name, then shrugged. He had never heard of the group labeled “Riders of the Ghosthound” but Derek didn’t really care either way. After how pleasant the first two meetings turned out being, much of his confusion and hesitation in regard to his sudden position had dispersed.

The only problem was how far away the meeting place was; Derek needed to leave Kharon and head to the forest to the West in order to meet them.

Whistling a tune at how good the day was going, Derek quickly hurried to the West.