The classroom was silent, safe from any intrusion and closed to the world once Ms. Uxral announced that there were no more classes today. Now she half sat on, half leaned against her desk and stared down at the four, silently intimidating her former students with the secret techniques known only by the best teachers. Sitting in the front row of small student desks made it very difficult to not fidget and squirm, either. Ironically the only person that wasn't too tall or too bulky to comfortably sit in the desks was the robot, and Tapper hadn't yet learned how to keep from sliding off chairs.

So they squirmed, and slipped, and steamed under Ms. Uxral's attention while she gently tapped her fingers against her teacher's desk. Not one of them was going to speak before the teacher finally said, "Well then. Which one of you wants to go first?"

Steffo cracked after three seconds of silence, blurting out a rapid yet meandering story about Zero finding the mall and building up his gang in secret. He described the museum in excessive detail and for a moment Ms. Uxral's mood shifted to anguished longing, until she eventually cut him off to move the story forward. But his description of the battle was spotty at best, from the mild concussion. When Steffo described Zero's plans, Ms. Uxral pulled out a tablet to type something out but otherwise didn't have any questions, just her sincere condolences for losing his brother. And simply because Steffo was sitting at one end of the row, the teacher's gaze swept to the next one in line.

Phanya gulped. Those same 'other-gut' feelings were now screaming that she must absolutely not talk about her class or special abilities to just anyone, even loved ones, or else she would endanger them. Somehow. The instincts were vague as ever, but they hadn't quieted down ever since she arrived in town. Phanya was willing to play along if it meant they would finally stop, but she never had a moment alone with Tapper to tell him that!

She tried to whisper and pantomime to him to keep quiet about the magic, but the robot just looked confused. So Phanya tried her best to leave out no detail except for anything to do with classes and levels, going so far as to make up a story about how Tapper downloaded a program that allowed him to hack the doors and carts. She was upfront about the mannequin monsters and their loot, however — no story she could make up would explain why she was dressed like this.

As soon as Phanya finished, Tapper perked up and corroborated everything. He admitted that he broke the terms of service to replace his broken treads, and still looked dejected about it. But when pressed how he managed to brew the knockout potion or make the store gate go haywire, Tapper would only answer, "That's proprietary information" like a cheesy spy thriller. Either way it worked, and Phanya silently sighed in relief.

Ricky was already sweating bullets, and his anxiety only increased when all four sets of eyes turned to him. "Well... you see... after we fought off Drillbert, everyone was talking about how much money we owed the miners. So first thing the next morning I saw Phanya leaving with the manager, and I thought she was asking him for help, and I wanted to help too, and I had talked to Mr. Belvidere while he was here, and I... kinda... asked about maybe working for them to help pay off Fableton's debt?"

Ms. Uxral's cat ears flattened against her head, her slitted pupils dilated, and for the first time Tapper heard a bestial grow rumble faintly in her throat. But she didn't say anything, and after much fidgeting Ricky continued, "It, uh, gets worse. They were onboarding me and I got distracted... again. Real bad, and by the time I came to the onboarding was over. I was already in this suit, but I don't know how to unlock it and anyone I asked just laughed and said that I should've paid attention. I didn't know who my supervisor was, I didn't recognize anyone, no one would help me unless I paid them and I didn't have any money, I couldn't even rent a room for the night so I slept on the street, and..."

Ricky paused to take a long, shaking breath before he fully broke down and continued, "And so the next morning I ran away. Walked halfway home before I found a place to hide in the dunes." The last of Ricky's emotions drained out of him, through his feet and into the floor, and his shoulders slumped. "I tried to help and jumped the gun again. I'm sorry, everyone."

The ensuing silence weighed heavily; Tapper could detect the shift in mood but not comprehend why. Helping to work off Fableton's debt made perfect logical sense, though plenty of fault could be directed at the onboarding team and general work culture of Belvidere. Why should Ricky feel shame for the mining company's conduct?

Soft thunks filled the stillness as Ms. Uxral yanked her nails out of fresh furrows in the desk. She grabbed her tablet and growled for everyone to give her a second, turning her back from the class for some privacy that was completely undone by her grumbling. "Ought to leave the bastard hanging... the absolute gall..." With a particularly hard jab on the screen Ms. Uxral finished, turned back to the class, smoothed out her hair and took a deep breath.

"The most important thing is that everyone is home again, everything else is just details." With her matronly demeanor returned, Ms. Uxral looked at Steffo with kindness in her eyes and said, "And we really are delighted to have you home again, Steffo. Come with me and we'll get a bed made up for you. And the rest of you, please try to rest up and not get into any more trouble for at least a day or two."

The door closed behind Ms. Uxral and Steffo, but no one else moved. Phanya pinned Ricky to his seat with her narrowed glare, he could only try to bore a hole through the floor with his mind while she studied him. She sucked on her teeth, just a little bit, just because it annoyed him. "What really happened, Ricky?" Screw the other-guts and their clamoring, her actual gut instincts knew better when it came to this twerp. "Even your squirrel brain wouldn't wander off after getting a damned exosuit."

Ricky stammered against the accusation, but Phanya's judgmental stare never wavered and he eventually relented. "Alright fine, I passed out right after they locked me in, alright!? No idea why or for how long, but I feel fine now! I just didn't want to worry Ms. Uxral more."

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

"Mhm. And this happened roundabout noonish the day after Drillbert?"

Now Ricky looked up at Phanya, his curiosity too much for any guilt to contain. "Yeah, actually."

Phanya stared back, but without any judgement or suspicion. All that remained was the decision. It felt like the wrong decision, but sometimes you just had to have faith in your people. "So what class did you get? I'm a Monk."

----------------------------------------

[Name: Ricky McCormick]

[Background: Blacksmith (Novice)]

[Class: None (Armaments/_)]

[Level: 1]

[XP: 2/25]

[HP: 3/3]

[Strength: 3]

[Dexterity: 3]

[Constitution: 4]

[Logic: 6]

[Awareness: 2]

[Willpower: 2]

"Honestly, I'm just amazed that you bothered to write the whole thing down. Why waste the paper if you can just see it in your eyeballs whenever you want?" Phanya flipped the page over again, treating it like some odd curiosity.

[Feat: Brimstone Home

Smells like pushing up daisies. You have a natural resistance to extreme heat, allowing you to use both your Constitution and Willpower dice for such saves. However, you are susceptible to extreme cold temperatures and make those saves without any attribute dice.]

[Perk: Bulwark

Waves shall crash against you. If an ally within melee range is to be struck by an external source of damage, you can willingly move to intercept the attack instead. You cannot dodge this attack, but any damage applied to your armor in this fashion is reduced by 25%.]

"And how'd you find a perk already? I only got one after Tapper's encounter with the shift hole." Her eyes glazed over for a second before Phanya corrected, "No wait, I have two feats. Huh."

Ricky barely heard her over the thumps of his heavy metal boots as he paced back and forth across the classroom. He wasn't alone in this mysterious system! Once they started to talk in the open every ounce of anxiety and guilt instantly melted away, replaced with the mountain of obsessive theorizing he had harbored over the last several days. At first the inexplicable yet incessant need to keep it secret was an albatross in his mind, but with that weight lifted he was twitchy with excitement. Oh, Ricky had ideas.

"Well, once I realized that some messages can't be recalled I knew I'd have to record them all, just in case. We'll have to go back to the hideout by the way, I left my stash of pages there. And then you two are going to write down everything you can access. As for the feats, I took the option for a bonus one because it gave resistance to extreme temperatures."

Ricky stopped mid-pace and looked at the other two with genuine surprise, continuing, "Oh yeah. I kinda, um, almost died from heat stroke on the walk from Belvidere before I picked the feat. Forgot about that part, sorry."

Phanya just laughed, mostly to smother her rising desire to throttle Ricky. "Now that I do believe you'd forget."

"But don't you see? It saved my life!" Ricky resumed pacing to match his mind's racing. "I was so tempted to go for the stat increase, but something told me to wait and it saved my life! So weird too, it was like a deep base instinct. Only an instinct that came from outside of my body."

"Like a library of adventurer's knowledge!" Tapper chipped in, more than happy to watch his proprietors talk about the system. While he initially felt distressed that they weren't the ones to install this program, their shared confusion was now strangely comforting. Like an odd sense of equal comradery.

"Or a gut feeling from someone else," Phanya agreed. "My own 'outside gut' or whatever told me which stats to increase, I think it helped a lot."

"Did you really? What stats did you choose? Did it feel like a straight 10% increase, or was it compounded?" Ricky finally noticed the lack of comprehension on Phanya's face and he faltered. "The, the stats normally only go from 1-10, so any single point should make a huge difference... did you read the definitions at all?"

Phanya gave Ricky a look and flatly said, "I was kinda busy being hunted by sport equipment at the time to do any digging in the system, Ry."

Ricky cringed, but quickly recovered. "Yeah, well, I've done nothing but go digging in the system for days now while you were off kicking butt," he said with a sniff of indifference.

This earned an eye roll from Phanya, but there wasn't any malice behind it. She knew Ricky just got this way when he was excited. "There was definitely a difference, but I have no idea how to quantify that for you. Speaking of, since we're all coming clean now, we left out a few things about the mall..."

Ricky was pacing again, but not to help his racing thoughts. Now he was stomping back and forth, excitement and disbelief mixing to form a frothy indignation towards Phanya and Tapper. He didn't look at either, too busy reading something in his mind's eye, but an accusatory finger kept jumping from one to the other. "You have magic? REAL magic? And you had a chance to get magic, and you DIDN'T? And the mall was a dungeon with magical loot??"

"I still think it's all just nanites and the system is being cheeky," Phanya said for the third time. She was trying to let him have his moment, but the magic fixation was starting to wear on her patience. She felt good about choosing Commander as her second class! "And the loot is definitely just stuff warped by phase energy, if I wear this getup for too long it might mutate me for all I know."

"Bah, semantics," Ricky said with a dismissive wave. "Whatever it's called, Tapper can now bend the laws of physics and neither of you seem to care all that much! And that's only at level 2!"

"Actually Mister Ricky, I am level 3 now. No additional magic, but it did give me the confidence to claim the dungeon core. For a few minutes, I technically owned the entire mall."

Ricky's jaw dropped and Phanya jumped to her feet, pointing her own finger at Ricky. "No, no, I know where this is going and no. We'll go back to the mall and you can loot it to your heart's content after we clear up the business with Belvidere. For Fairgood's sake, at least have some dinner first."

"Excellent idea, Miss Phanya! It would be my pleasure to resume my station and service the people of Fableton!" Tapper said, marching out of the classroom with confidence that his proprietors would follow the promise of a home-cooked meal.

"Hey, Phanya?"

"Yeah, Ricky?"

"Why is Tapper walking like that?"

"I have no damned idea."