Heart of Dorkness

I wake up with sunlight splashing across my face, bright and cheery and warm enough to melt away the last vestiges of sleep that I’m still clinging onto.

Yawning, I stretch my legs out under the blankets, then prepare myself to kick some of my friends off the bed. But there’s no heavy weight across my torso and legs, and I can’t hear the familiar rumble of some of my more experimental friends I’ve made.

My eyes snap open and I take in a room that’s unfamiliar, at least until my memories kick in. I’m in the inn. Next to me, Felix is rolled up in a small ball, a few blankets over her as she sleeps.

I stifle a second yawn and slide my legs off the side, then shiver as my feet meet the cold floor. By the time I stumble out of the washroom, all dressed up and far more awake, Felix is sitting by the table, still in her new blouse and skirt, with some juice from the fruit she’s eating running down her chin.

“Hey there,” I say.

“Good morning,” Felix replied. She smiles at me. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yeah, well enough. It feels a bit strange not being at home. This place is a lot noisier at night.”

“Is it?”

I nod. “Yeah. Home is pretty quiet. There’s a lot of wind and such, but not much else. Most of the Mon--people around our castle are very discreet, and Mom likes it when things are nice and silent and peaceful. My quarters tend to be a bit noisier, but that’s mostly because I have a lot of, uh, pets.”

“Pets? Like those?” Felix points to a corner of the room where I know one of my smaller friends is hiding. It’s one of those spider-looking ones, with nine little limbs. They’re very cute little guys. I tried to make something that was a cross between a spider and a scorpion. The stinger can inject poison, but it can also fire lines of webbing that allow the little guys to zip around.

“Yeah, like those,” I say. A twist of my magic, and the nearest spider friend scuttles over to me and leaps up into my hand. “They’re very nice. Do you want to touch him?”

“It feels like a spider,” Felix says. “Aren’t those dangerous?”

“Only some of them,” I say. “This one included, but I can control him to a limited degree. He won’t sting you.”

Felix hesitates a bit, but she gives in to the allure of petting something so tiny and adorable, and soon she’s rubbing the top of my spider-friend’s head with two fingers. “Soft,” she says.

“Yeah, it took a lot of experimenting to find a way to make it so that my friends who have exoskeletons feel soft on the outside while also remaining fairly tough.”

“Make?” Felix asks.

She’s still smiling at me, even as I feel myself tensing up. I think I might have goofed up a bit. Mom always did tell me to act more like I belong to my station, but she never seems to mind when I get excited and start talking about my friends, or my experiments, or... anything else, really.

Felix though, well, she’s not Mom. She’s... well, I guess she’s a friend. Not a monster-friend—those are friends that I can trust absolutely because I made them, and Mom told them to behave—but a human friend.

It feels a little strange to have one of those after so long.

“That’s what my class does,” I explain. Telling her this much isn’t too bad, I figure. It’s not like knowing that much would really help someone fight me, not if they already know about my little friends.

“What’s your class?” Felix asks.

“You never looked?” I reply.

“I can’t look very well in general,” Felix says.

I snort a giggle, but cut myself off with a cough, even if Felix seems proud that her joke landed. “I’m sorry,” I say.

“It’s okay.”

“Now, there should be a way for you to see what my class is, regardless of your inability to, well, see. The system seems very accommodating for that kind of thing, even if it is inherently unbalanced.” I frown in thought. I can’t recall any mentions in any of the books I read of experiments run on people who were blind and how they interacted with their system, which is a shameful oversight. “You can sense me, right? I think if you focus on that, and concentrate on wanting to see what my class is, through the system, then you’ll be able to see it.”

Felix frowns, but she stares more or less where I’m standing and I can almost feel her focusing on me. No, I can definitely feel her focus, the air around me growing just a bit thicker, as if I’m being pushed by a wind that’s coming from all directions at once.

“Oh,” Felix says.

“Did it work?” I ask.

“I think so? Valeria Malvada, and you’re a... Novice Bookworm?”

I flush a bit. That’s the false class that I’m displaying. It’s a little embarrassing, but, well, Mom said that it fit me, and I do have a few class options that are pretty similar, so I can’t even deny that. “Yup, that’s me,” I say.

“Thank you!” Felix cheers. “I think this might be useful.”

“You’ll want to learn how to do it without the wind focus thing, it’s rather obvious. But I’m sure with some practice you’ll manage!”

Felix nods. “You only have one class, right?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I have a few others I could pick, of course, but none of them are quite right.”

“I picked one that would help me see,” Felix says. She scowls a little. “That was my second class. I had another before that, but a noble saw me begging, and then the guard took me and I lost it. But they did give me some bread.”

“Ah, yeah,” I say. “It’s... well, it’s a matter of position, I think.”

“No one ever explained it,” Felix says. “They did let me choose which one to lose.”

“The common belief is that when you die, your soul is reborn in a dark pond. You return as a monster, the more powerful you are, the more powerful the monster.”

“Is it real?”

I nod, then answer aloud. “Essentially, yeah,” I say. “It’s why a lot of places have laws in place that limit the number of classes someone can have, regardless of how useful having more might be. I guess it means weaker monsters. Nobles are allowed to have more classes. Some people can buy them too, and some jobs allow you to have more. You’ll see lots of lesser nobles with three, and anyone with four or more classes is probably important. Or a big-time criminal.”

Felix doesn’t seem bothered by the unfairness of that at all. I guess she’s lived so far from fairness, for such a long time, that it’s not really much of a concern to her anymore.

“I think... yeah, we could definitely do a bit of training together. I’m really close to getting a second class that’s actually worth taking, and with my guidance I’m sure we can find one for you too.”

“But I’m not a noble,” Felix says.

“We’ll figure that out too. Anyway! Do you want breakfast? We’ve been chatting about this and that for a while.”

“I had an apple, and a pear,” Felix says. The fruit bowl is noticeably empty. Did she sneak some fruit away at night?

“That’s fine, but it’s not a real breakfast. I want sausages, and a bit of ham, maybe. Oh, and eggs.”

Felix’ eyes are wide, but she nods along. “I only ate meat once before.”

“Really?”

She nods. “Yesterday.”

“Oh,” I say.

With monsters all around the city, there’s not much room for farming, and things like cattle take up a lot of room that could otherwise be used for crops. I’d read that meat was supposed to be a noble’s delicacy, but I didn’t think that it was basically impossible for anyone like Felix to afford.

Was I a bit too sheltered?

Well, whatever. “Let me introduce you to the glories of a good breakfast then,” I say.

Felix jumps to her feet. “Yes, please.”

“And then, we need to plot.”

“Plot?” Felix asks.

“Oh yes. Plot. The Church of the Hero has a lot to answer for, but I’m not the one that’s responsible for all that. At least, not yet. But I am responsible for that shipment of books, so we need to figure out where it went and, more importantly, how to get it back.”

“That sounds dangerous,” Felix says. “I bet it’s guarded in the important parts of the city.”

I shake my head. “Don’t worry, Felix, I’m sure I can come up with an excellent plan!”

I gathered up most of my friends, leaving only one of the smarter ones behind to keep an eye on our room, just in case someone tried something fishy. Then it was off to the inn’s dining room, where a waiter was already serving some of the inn’s other clients, who all seemed like very respectable, if boring, people.

A perfect place to have a snack and talk about our plans for book conquest.