His parents were there, Hannah strapped to his mother’s chest wearing the tiniest little hat Ryan ever saw, a few old classmates from Westhill, Sol, and friends or the friends of friends everyone else had invited.
A few parents also still hung around to supervise until late this afternoon, but they would leave eventually … hopefully. They better, or whoever’s parents they were would be ostracized.
Ryan didn’t know most of the people, but that was the good thing about celebrating on New Year’s. After calling out the surprise the others had bullied them into doing, most of the people left the ‘birthday group’ to its own devices and went back to their games, snacks, and conversations around the room.
Someone had brought a guitar and was warming up in the corner with a two-person audience. Well, three including Ryan. Either that or she could only play those few notes.
A handful of outgoing people came up to shake his hand and introduce themselves, saying things like, “How old are you now?”, “There will be cake, right?” and,“Is your birthday really today or is this a delayed party?”
An over-enthusiastic girl shook his hand hard enough to move his entire arm. She was tiny but had a giant smile. “Hey, I’m Cory. Lang invited me? I have no idea who you are, but I’m wishing you a happy birthday.”
She reminded him a little of that girl Micah sometimes hung out with. Stephanie, but younger. Lang invited her? He glanced over at him, but he stood too far away. No, you’re not her.
The next girl made more sense when Lang stuck with her. Brunette, hair tied into a ponytail, and she wore a deep blue tank top with a jacket thrown over despite the cold.
“Jana,” she introduced herself. Her handshake was almost formal. “Also with Lang, here. I do know you. You spoke during the opening ceremony?”
Ryan panicked. She went to his school? Was he supposed to know her? “Oh, you uh—”
“Switched out,” she said.
“Huh?”
“After the changes? Because it looked like the city was going to ban students for the foreseeable future. I was too impatient to wait and see what happens. You’re not allowed in the Tower right now, right?”
He shook his head. “Only for two exams this school year, and during the summer break.”
She had left months ago. He relaxed a little. There was no way she expected him to remember her, then.
“So you don’t have any practical Tower Studies lessons?” It sounded a little like she was trying to win an argument where there was none, but Ryan gave her the benefit of the doubt. Had other people maybe given her a hard time for that?
“No, the school split it up,” he explained. “They took two hours from theory and one from practical Tower Studies and turned them into ‘Contemporary Studies’ where we discuss the reports coming out from the Tower. They took the rest of practicals and turned them into gym classes and-or combat training.”
Her eyebrows shot up, a little more interested. “Oh? Actual combat training? Like, for an arena?”
Ryan gave some ground with a loose smile. “We’re getting there.” There still had their safety gloves on.
“Ah. Well, I was never really in it for the Tower Studies. The monsters, loot, and all that. I just wanted the extra practical lessons for the sheer athletics of it all, you know?” She looked athletic. He did know. “Pushing the human body and mind to its limits. I want to get [Greater Fitness] someday.”
His own eyebrows shot up. “Greater?” Fitness was strength and stamina. ‘Greater’ was punching through walls or being punched through walls without any problems. It was a lofty goal.
“No more, no less.”
“Not that there is much more.” Ryan glanced around with an awkward smile, but none of his so-called ‘friends’ were ready to jump into the conversation. A few were distracted by their own. Lang watched from where he stood right next to her with an expectant look on his face.
If he had put an arm around her waist just then, Ryan wouldn’t have been surprised. He tried to bring the conversation back to him. “You’re the heart-scrawler, then?”
“The what?”
“Heart-scrawler? Red marker? Hearts that look like buzzing flies?”
“Oh, yeah—”
“She likes to draw on other people’s property,” Lang commented.
She glanced back at him with a smile. “Hey, at least I don’t draw male genitalia on everything like you people do.”
“Us people?”
“So you sit near each other, then?”
“Same homeroom,” she said. “We sit next to each other. Well, across from each other. The tables are a sort of horseshoe shape with rows in the middle?” She mimed the shape in the air.
“He’s told me all about you,” she added.
“Has he?” Ryan looked at his friend. You ask me if I’ve met anyone new and forget to mention it yourself?
He could already imagine the counter-argument: You didn’t ask. He shouldn’t have to.
“Jana!” Micah called. “I remember you. We had Grammar together?”
“I remember you, too, Micah. How’s your leg?”
He beamed. “Better.”
“Then I’m glad.”
At least, she had Micah’s sign of approval. His cousin had been suspiciously silent throughout the conversation.
But yeah, no, that was the last straw. Lang’s Path, Finn’s Classes, and now Lang finally had a possible crush on someone and Ryan was only finding out about it now? He should have run across the city to tell him right away.
The two of them weren’t getting anything out of him in the future without telling him something first.
“So how’s Lang in school?” Ryan asked to get as much embarrassment out of this situation as he could. Finally, revenge. “He was always a bit of a goofball in classroom, liked to shout around, and fell asleep, and—”
“I never fell asleep,” Lang interrupted him. “That was Micah.”
“I was thinking.”
Ryan smiled.
“Oh, he’s hanging in there,” she said.
“He fell from the ceiling a while ago,” Cory offered.
“He what?”
“On a mat,” Lang explained. “That’s why we have mats.”
“That still doesn’t explain how you got up on the ceiling,” Finn called over.
“Rings. I swung up too high and tried to do something and— Well, my grip slipped and I fell.”
“He’s ambitious,” Jana said. “We’re going to make a proper athlete out of him yet. He wants to get the [Worker] Class to make his mom happy, did you know? He should get the [Athletics Path] to make us happy.”
Ryan kept his mouth shut and tried not to let anything show. The moment he could, though, he gave his friend a look, She doesn’t know?
Lang said nothing.
Thankfully, Finn called out a distraction, “Isn’t it about time we got to the presents and all that?”
His parents overhead and jumped on the idea. Then, the ‘birthday group’ gathered to shower him with presents on one side of the room, near the barstools. They got it out of the way early so everyone could focus on the evening later.
Ryan preferred it that way.
Lang and Finn dragged something out from behind the counter together with their backs bent in squats. They groaned, took breaks, wiped the non-existent sweat off their foreheads, and breathed deeply until they got it before him. Ryan took a few steps back to make them work for it. It was wrapped in paper in the perfect silhouette of a giant spiked morningstar.
Finn leaned it against the counter and smiled. “We pooled all our funds for that bad boy.” He pointed at Lang and Sol. She sat on a barstool, holding a glass with one hand and raised the other to wave. “It was ridiculously expensive, but we figured you could use a good weapon.”
“You do know how to use a morning star, right?” she asked, sounding completely serious.
Ryan silently moved his head into a nod.
His dad gave him a slap on the shoulder that made him stumble forward and said, “Go on, unwrap it.”
He did as he was told, starting from the top, and found a broomstick wrapped in paper as the handle. He pulled it out, rolling his eyes in relief while everyone laughed, and set it aside to unravel the rest.
All those theatrics had been just that—theatrics. If they had actually bought him a freaking morningstar …
He shook his head.
The spikes were cones made of paper, cut and folded. His head was filled with silly little images of Lang and Finn sitting in either of their rooms and tinkering it all together like children.
They probably made a few messes before they got done or … or hired someone to do it.
The actual present was the ball-shaped ‘head’ of the morning star underneath: an alleyball. It looked and smelled new and had an unblemished sheen to it. How the entire thing had stood still was a mystery to him.
“Your parents said your old one was ready for the dump,” Finn explained, “and you are going to throw out a bunch of stuff when you move houses anyway, right? So we figured we could get you a new one to play with all your new friends up there. But really, we just want it to remind you of us.”
“Aww,” his mom said. “That’s so sweet. Isn’t it, Hannah? Isn’t it?” She bobbed around a little.
If it hadn’t been for that shout a while ago, Ryan would have thought his little sister was sleeping. Her eyes were half-closed and she looked at the world with a thousand-yard stare.
He was glad for the distraction. How in the hell were those two more sentimental than him?
“It’s the same type our school uses for official district tournaments,” Lang said, “we ordered it from them.”
Ryan flipped the ball up and thanked them. “And you, too, Sol.”
“I bet you’re spending all your time up there twiddling your thumbs, right?” she said. “Now that you can’t go into the Tower? So challenge some people, beat their butts, maybe get my brother’s Class.”
“A fourth one? Nothing against you,” he said, glancing at Lang’s group. A guy stood behind them who looked like he was tagging along, but hadn’t introduced himself. “But no, thank you. I’m sticking with these three—”
Lang shoved him. “No, you’re not.”
His parents were there. Ryan tried extra hard to ignore that comment and move on without a blush. “I might do those other things, though. It would be fun to see how good the others are at the game.” He glanced at Micah as he finished speaking, passing the thought on to him.
“I bet Kyle’s secretly really good at it,” he jumped on the chance, “and Jason, too, but he’d be really humble. Brent could play middle field with his knife throwing skills. Oh, and Alex could guard the goal, eh? Eh?”
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He waggled his eyebrows, but Ryan was the only one with enough context to smile for him.
“Was that a [Guard] joke?” his dad asked.
Micah nodded.
“I’d really like to play and see how bad they are,” Ryan mused, spinning the ball in his hand, “and I really want to play against Lisa, Garen, and Mave. But first, how about we break it in with you guys. Maybe later?”
He stopped spinning and passed the question on with an open look.
“Yes!” Sol said and practically jumped off her seat. “Something to do other than card games.”
“You don’t like card games?” Micah asked her.
“They suck.”
“She’s bad,” Lang commented.
“Am not. They’re just boring.”
“We can find a nice mix of stuff to do,” Ryan assured them. “We have tons of options.”
“As long as nothing gets out of hand,” his dad reminded them. A woman standing near him nodded wisely and gave a kid across the room a pointed look. Against all odds, he noticed her and quickly looked away.
“Uh, yeah,” Ryan said.
“Yes, sir,” Micah added.
The others avoided saying much. They were biding their time until the adults left. Not that there was much to hide. They were probably among the oldest here, and the age spread was young enough that the party was mostly kid-friendly, but it would probably be their last which was.
“My turn,” Micah said and jumped to grab something from around the counter. He glanced back before he showed it to them and said, “Hold your hands out flat.”
“Like this?” Ryan asked and held them out as if to accept a coat.
“Exactly.”
He slapped a book down. Or rather, a tome. A Hundred and One Dawns, the cover read, framed by colorful scrollwork and with a background mosaic that featured many small scenes. They meant little to him without context, unfortunately.
“Happy birthday!”
Ryan felt that same mix of confusing emotions he had all day at the sight and weight in his hands.
Foremost, happiness and gratitude because he recognized the thought behind the gift. Right after came worry: the cover looked a little … young. Child-like. Ryan had gotten into reading more of the embellished expedition reports and novels lately, not … well, middle-grade stories.
What if he didn’t like it and Micah had wasted his money or worse: felt bad about the gift?
“I checked to make sure you didn’t have this one yet,” he explained, “or that you don’t have many of the stories inside. It’s a collection of as many first generation stories that the editors could find.”
He looked up. “Huh?”
“Yeah, look!” he urged him. “Open it up.”
He leafed through the smooth paper until he found the first chapter. There were pictures. Or rather, illustrations. Not all, and some chapters apparently had two depending on their length. But the quality … It came really damn close to the impossible artwork in his head.
Some features were even better. Ryan wished he could draw like that, that he had any kind of true knowledge about artwork himself. The best he could do were shitty outlines for reports.
But the stories were all about—allegedly—real people’s adventures in and around the Towers during the very first generation, the very first few years after all the refugees from three different worlds had been brought here to start a new life together. At least, that was the myth.
Back then, it was said, things had been like they were in stories with people reaching level seventy in just a few years and going on all sorts of quests, and facing challenges and riddles on the highest floors to bring back relics that could build cities in days.
Or just … to enjoy themselves for a change, after having gone through whatever had made them refugees in the first place.
A few of the pages were marked with study cards—Micah had apparently been reading already—and one showed a young woman in battle armor surrounded by a maelstrom of wicked colors. They bled from titanic beasts in a thick jungle around her. It was hard to make out.
She drew all the different colors into a tiny ball like an unholy sun in her hand. The other held a blade. Her own body and clothes glowed in comparison to the darkness like luminescence. Her hair floated with an unnatural lime green light that stood out in contrast to the rest.
In white and rigid script, it read [Essence Reaver] above her head. A few Skills were listed to the sides in the same writing, as if the color had been scratched away to reveal it underneath.
“That’s totally going to be me someday,” Micah said, tapping the page. “[Essence Reaver].”
Ryan blinked at the connection. You found hints to what you wanted to be in the strangest places. That this one had come from a story of all places— “Definitely,” he told him with a smile. “I can’t wait.”
“Do you like it?”
“I do. It’s awesome. The illustrations alone—” He shook his head and snapped the book shut, keeping up the mostly-real smile. The illustrations were awesome, meaning the book had been all the more expensive for them.
“I’ll read it later,” he promised and turned to his parents. “Can you take this with you when you leave? Keep it safe?”
He had a feeling something might happen to it if he left it here, with all the people in this room. The fireworks, food, and drinks.
“Of course,” his mom assured him.
“Alright, my turn,” his dad said in an excited voice.
“Our turn.”
“Oh. Right. Our turn.” He leaned sideways over the counter with one arm to whisk something out from under it and held it up with both hands.
It was a jacket. A very broad jacket. The sides reached pretty far toward the elbows and the collar and upper chest were lined with wool on the inside. Its colors were all earthy browns and greens, the former vibrant and the latter tan. It looked cool, and expensive, and very …
“I know that look,” his dad said, still smiling. “You’re apprehensive.”
“No, no, it’s awesome,” Ryan immediately said.
“You haven’t even tried it on yet,” his mom said and nudged his dad closer. “Go on, try it.”
He held the sleeves up to let Ryan slip inside. He had to pass the ball onto Lang, who propped it against his hip. The jacket was a size or so too large, but Ryan had always used to like buying his clothes that way. Surprisingly, it felt heavy without seeming like too much of a burden.
It was a nice jacket. It was just …
“A jacket for the nudist?” Finn asked.
Yeah. Warm.
“Nudist?” someone asked.
“We know,” his mom said, “so we asked around for something that can go both ways. It’s breathy when open and can keep warm. Some people even wear jackets like those in the summer.”
Ryan sincerely doubted that, but he would be happy to be proven wrong. He liked the feel of it.
“We figured it needed to be something cool enough that you would want to wear it anyway,” his dad said.
That he could agree with more easily.
“And?” he asked. “Is it?”
“Uhh …” Ryan held his arms up to consider it and … it didn’t look bad on him, either. It reminded him a little of his latest set of armor, but the colors seemed warmer. He turned to the counter.
Sol whistled with a fake leer. He got similar looks and thumbs-up from the rest of the jury.
He grinned and turned to his parents. “Yeah?”
“Then we’re glad.”
His mom fixed his collar a little and gave him a gentle hug, Hannah stuck between them. She looked up at him. “It looks good on you. Just promise us you’ll keep warm when we’re gone, okay? Even if and when you get drunk and feel uncomfortable so you turn your Skill off.”
She leaned back and looked him in the eyes.
Ryan needed a moment to push past the awkwardness to find his words. “I wouldn’t do that,” he said.
She grinned. “And that’s how I know you’ve never been drunk before. I don’t know if that should come as a relief or not.” She turned to the others. “What do you people get up to when you leave the house?”
“With Ryan?” Lang asked. “Study cards, picking up trash, helping old ladies with their shopping—”
“Screw you.”
“You need to be more of a bad influence on him,” his mom said. “But not too much, okay?”
“Yeah,” his dad said. “Or we will have to change that ourselves.” When Ryan gave him a surprised look, he added. “Someday. Though, we still have a few surprises for you in store for today.”
“Yeah,” Finn agreed, sounding hesitant.
“Well, this is awkward,” Lang added. “You there in your awesome new jacket and us here …”
“Huh?” Ryan asked. Was he jealous? He propped his jacket up a little and pushed down [Hot Skin].
Micah grinned. “You’ll find out later.”
“Our best friend Micah made something for us,” Lang said and slung an arm around his shoulders.
Something alchemical? Ryan briefly remembered the dark ages, when those two had ganged up on him in classroom. And they had done an awful lot of conniving lately, planning around this party …
He caught himself on that thought and suppressed a smile, but he couldn’t let the statement stand.
With a fake look of annoyance, he said, “I’m your best friend.”
Lang leaned forward, dragging Micah with him. “Aww, are you jealous?”
Not really, no. Ryan was glad if they got along. He had been especially glad if they had gotten along back then, when they had annoyed him together, but it didn’t matter in the same way anymore.
What mattered was that they were friends. Micah and he. And Micah and the others, even if Ryan got the feeling Finn and Lang could get annoyed by him sometimes. Not because he was annoying, but because they were even more overprotective than he was, and because Micah was younger, and maybe because he was still an outsider in their heads.
That would change with time and some good memories, which he could make more of today.
“No. Just stating facts,” he said.
“How do you know I’m not his best friend?” Finn asked. “Now that you’re so busy at school?”
“You are,” Lang said. “You can have more than one.”
“Family is your best friend,” Sol claimed and couldn’t keep it up for a second before she cracked.
His parents gave her a worried look.
“Hey, no, Lang just said that I’m his best friend.” Micah pointed at him. “No take backs.”
“Hear that?”
Ryan gave them a warning look.
Finn chuckled and patted him on the shoulder. “Now, you know how we feel.”
He jerked his shoulder and looked affronted. Brushing it off, he said, “Watch the jacket. It’s new.”
Finn aimed for the headlock.
They quieted down eventually. With the presents out of the way, the parents took a step back and let them mingle under supervision—which was basically acting on a surface level only for a while. They distracted themselves with games. Their group played darts in the corner.
Others kept on asking after the cake, but there would only be cake after food, and there would only be food after the parade—courtesy of their overpresent parents. Some still waited for late-showers, but after, they filed out of the building half an hour early to get good places in the crowd.
Ryan wanted to get a headstart before the rest of the group, but the others dragged him back before they locked the door. “Hold up, nudist,” Lang said. It was only because of the comment that he realized he wasn’t wearing a jacket.
Lang, who couldn’t spend five seconds with his hands out of his pockets before he rubbed them for warmth.
Finn wasn’t, either, and Sol—
Micah stepped out with a small wooden crate in hand—also without one. It was large enough for four bottles that glowed orange. He passed them out and the four of them shook them vigorously.
“Hold on, what’s that?” a woman asked. A few others were also looking. Some had run off.
“It’s alright,” his dad of all people assured her. “They got them proofed at a proper alchemist’s.”
There were seals on the bottles which they broke when they opened and downed them in one go. Their mischievous expressions turned to grimaces, except for Micah, and they forced the rest down.
“Gah! That’s disgusting,” Finn said. “Couldn’t you have added some flavor, Micah? Worse than medicine.”
“I had to make the recipe myself,” he said. “Not about to throw stuff in just to make it taste better.”
“Alchemicals?” Jana asked.
Ryan knew which ones. None of them were huddling for warmth anymore, despite their lack of coverage.
Micah grinned. “[Hot Skin]. I did promise, right?”
Sol ran up to him and shoved her hand in his neck with a broad smile. “Now, we’re just like you.”
He had to dodge back out of surprise.
Finn shook himself. “Do you always feel like this, man? Hah. Huwah. Hee—” He kept on making weird noises.
“Probably not,” Ryan said, trying his best to hold back the laughter. “I can control the temperature. Can you?”
He squinted and his expression slowly began to look more and more constipated where he stood.
“No,” Micah provided the answer. “But I might be able to get the temperature down recipe-wise, next time.”
“Hey, no,” Sol called. “This is awesome.” She ran off after her friends to bother them next.
Lang was bumping sideways into Jana, hands held together. She kept down a smile.
“I’m taking it they worked?” his dad asked.
“Yep.”
“Awesome. But you’re not going outside without your jackets on once we get back, alright? All of you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, Mr. Payne,” Lang called.
“Huh?” Finn looked up from where he was crouched with his hand in a patch of snow, probably trying to see if he could melt it.
One stupid Skill and they were all acting like idiots. Ryan was glad he had never been like that.
“Micah?” his dad asked.
“Oh, right.” He collected the bottles from the ground and put them back inside, then they locked up and followed the rest of the group toward the festival street. Ryan kept an eye out for his friends’ antics and another for the other people they would be celebrating today with, trying to remember some of their names.
He wondered if the warm-up girl could play any proper songs later, who they could get together for a proper match outside—he spotted Billy with another group of friends and marked one down—and if the fourth member of Lang’s group would ever introduce himself or not.
He spotted one guy standing still and looking around as they headed toward the festival grounds. He looked lost. Had he just arrived or was he not a part of their group? Ryan almost walked past him, too, when he did a double-take and stopped dead in his tracks.
Someone bumped into him and complained. Ryan didn’t really hear it.
Was that fucking Kyle?
He’d gotten a haircut, though the rattail was still there. His clothes didn’t have holes in them for once. He wasn’t wearing boots for once. His outfit actually looked somewhat expensive—a tight shirt and jeans, and a new jacket. But it was all different shades of black for some reason.
Had he bought it with his share of the loot?
Ryan knew the exact moment Micah spotted him, too, because he threw his arms up and shouted, “Kyle! You came!”
The guy scratched his nose, still wearing that old glove of his, and mumbled, “There was, uh … supposed to be a party?”
Ohh … Now, Ryan understood. He was overdressed. For a proper party and not … whatever the hell this was, halfway between kid’s party and something else, something still on the fence one last time.
For some reason, that just made him double over and laugh.