System Lost: My Own Best Friend

There's not a whole lot to do once we get settled in at the Goa estate. They give us a room in one of the guest houses on the main estate—something that seems totally excessive until I find out that we are far from the only ones staying here.

In fact, the guest houses are all pretty busy places. The Goa family is huge, and they host all sorts of friends and allies, some of which are in the city on business, some for social visits, and some that—as far as I can tell—are just professional freeloaders taking advantage of the clan's tradition of hospitality. Which, you know, I can't really blame them for. I'm doing that too.

Aside from the usual pastimes of practicing magic, teaching Evie, and training Nipper, we spend a lot of the next few days just talking to people. The guest houses have spacious and luxurious common rooms, plus we've got the run of the estate's various gardens and courtyards to hang out in. Mind you, we're also not currently allowed to leave, but Talla assures us that's just for our own safety.

Not like we've got anywhere to go, anyway.

Fa'aun are pretty sociable people, and it's good practice learning the language—not to mention learning more about the local culture.

"The church offers some general education, and the family runs a number of private schools offering tiered lessons, but most children find their path in their four apprenticeships," a friendly woman explains, lounging on a small pile of cushions across from me in the common room of our guest house.

For such a tall species, they sure like sitting on the ground.

"Everybody does four apprenticeships?" I ask.

"Just about," she confirms. "Even most clanless can find masters to take them in while they're young. A few of the most badly impoverished will start work early, but that's rare. Getting a three-star core class is quite trivial. You really don't know any of this?"

I chuckle awkwardly. "My four masters were food, water, shelter, and safety," I joke. "Not a lot of room to be picky."

"You poor thing," she sighs. "Praise the goddess that Lady Talla found you when she did."

It's sort of an open secret at this point that I'm from the convergence point. The "official" story is that Talla's team found me lost in the mountains, missing my memories. Close enough to the truth to withstand scrutiny, but without outright saying I'm dungeon-borne. It's not really hard for anybody to put two and two together there, but anybody who knows enough to do that already knows all about me anyway.

"Yeah, I owe her my life," I agree. "So how does the apprenticeship thing work?"

"Well, children and young adults will take two masters at a time, with the intention of fusing their classes together," she explains. "Tiered schooling offers students personalized programs, but otherwise your first two masters are usually your parents, while the second two are friends of the family."

I nod along, taking mental notes. "What about when leveling those last two classes to form the core class?"

"Students pick one from each pair of masters to continue training with, to further refine their focus," she says. "Traditionally, boys continue to train with their father and a master of their choice, while girls have their mothers choose for them."

I blink. That's surprising, actually. "Boys have more freedom? I sort of expected it to be the other way around."

"Girls are expected to represent the family, while boys don't have the same level of responsibility," the woman explains with a shrug. "It's fine as long as they do something productive. For a boy, the real pressure is finding a wife."

Ah, right. It's still tricky trying to get a feel for the politics around gender roles in this world. It's not exactly reversed—a lot of the things I consider feminine are still feminine here, but the way society values those things is different. I'm still constantly getting caught off-guard by things that are not quite analogous to how it works back home.

For example—a lot of a man's social capital is invested in who they marry, but much of their value as a husband is tied up in their ability to work and provide. That's similar enough to my world, but in Fa'aun culture women are the heads of the household even when the man is the primary or even sole source of income. Likewise, while both sexes are under pressure to start families, a single man is seen as a failure while a single woman is picky at worst, but usually just seen as discerning.

"Miss Maev?" one of the estate's staff members—who are very insistent about not being called servants—calls. "Lady Goa requests your presence at the front gates."

I'm still getting used to that name, but most of the people around the estate have already gotten used to calling me "Allie" since Vi and Mags aren't as social and Evie would rather pretend she doesn't exist most of the time.

"Well, gotta go," I say with an apologetic smile.

The woman I was talking to smiles and waves. "Don't let me keep you! It was nice chatting—feel free to come see me if you have other questions."

I bid farewell to the talkative guest and make my way out to the front of the estate, where I find Talla and her mom in a conversation with an unfamiliar man and—

"Draga!" I exclaim excitedly, running forward to give the ranger captain a big hug.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

He staggers back—more out of surprise than anything, since he's twice my size and built like a brick wall—then awkwardly pats my head.

"It's good to see you too, Allie," he says.

"I'm so glad you're okay!" I say, releasing him.

"Why wouldn't I be?" he asks. "I think we may have given you the wrong impression about how dire my situation is."

I blush a bit at that. Admittedly, I hadn't given it as much thought as I should have until we got here, and then started imagining all sorts of worst case scenarios.

The other man steps forward and bows politely. "Miss Maev, I apologize for not meeting you sooner. The last few days have been rather hectic."

I return the bow. With that context, and judging from how close he's standing to Tamara, I'm guessing this is Talla's dad. Oh, sugarsnaps! I don't know his name or the word for "Lord" in Fa'aun. This whole frigging time, and it never came up once?!

"Nice to meet you...uh...l-ladyman—?" Nope! Abort! I tried to guess, since Fa'aun uses a lot of compound words, but that sounds too silly in my head.

"Close!" he chuckles. "My official title is Lord, but that's typically reserved for introductions unless I am widowed—Goddess forbid."

Oh my flipping gosh, it's manlady. The literal translation is manlady. Don't laugh. Don't laugh!

"Speaking of introductions," he continues, casting a sidelong glance at Talla and ignoring my desperate attempts to keep my lips pressed firmly together.

"Right!" she says with a start. "Allie, this is my father—Lord Erik Goa Baanu."

"You may call me Sir Goa or Sir Erik if you wish to be formal, but otherwise my name is just fine," he adds. "I've been briefed on your unusual name situation, but please don't hesitate to tell me how you'd prefer to be addressed."

"Maev is fine if you don't know otherwise," I tell him. "But at the moment, I'm Allison—Allie is fine if that's hard to pronounce."

Erik nods. "Allison, then—it's not so difficult as all that, and I'd be one to talk about a hard to pronounce name!"

He chuckles at his own joke. I guess it's true that most Fa'aun names end in a vowel, but the "K" in his name is particularly tricky. It's a sort of click sound that I honestly have no idea how to reproduce.

"Is Erik alright?" I hedge. "If it's hard for Fa'aun, I don't think I stand a chance."

"That will do nicely!" he assures me. "A better attempt than my wife, at least."

Tamara smacks him on the shoulder and rolls her eyes. "Pardon his manners—Eri was originally from the Foren clan before we married. I believe you have something for our guest, dear?"

"That I do!" he exclaims, reaching into his cloak. "Here you are!"

He holds out a tiny booklet, which I accept. Inspecting it curiously, I find that the first few pages are packed with dense Fa'aun script—which I still can't read—followed by two pages each with a couple lines of looser hand-written scrawl and a different stamp.

Is this what I think it is?

"This is a..." I struggle with the words for a second. "Travel-paper?"

"A passport," Tamara confirms with a nod. "You are officially registered as a foreign resident of Stebaari."

"It's already stamped?" I note curiously.

Erik nods. "I had your entries to Sagaasi and Stebaari retroactively verified. On paper, you've been registered for weeks."

I blink. "You can do that?" I ask incredulously. "Like...legally?"

"No," he replies with a wink. "Don't tell anyone!"

I stare down at the little booklet. A legal acknowledgement of my existence. A small obstacle to anybody who might want to disappear me to be their...I don't even know. Battery? Oracle? Whatever, it's not much more than a speedbump, but it's more than nothing. I have mixed feelings about accepting it.

"I haven't accepted your offer yet," I point out.

"Consider this a show of good faith," Tamara says. "As a foreign resident, you still require a sponsor, but it doesn't have to be us. I hope you will choose us because we are your best option, not because we are your only option."

"That's a nice sentiment, and I appreciate it," I reply honestly. "But I don't have a lot of options. Almost every 'offer' I've gotten has been at gunpoint."

Jira has been the only exception, and even then she was pretty cryptic about what her help would even entail. She's nice and all, but I'm not sure I'd be able to handle living the rest of my life on a ship.

"Actually, that's part of why I'm here," Draga interjects. "It's not an offer, per se, but Lady Faarah wants to meet you. Unfortunately, she was already aware of you before I could make my report. She knows that we found you at the convergence point, and that I deputized you during the mission."

He says a lot in what he doesn't say. Namely, that I was directly responsible for Lady Kiera's death. From what I've heard, the Gaa family matriarch is already screaming bloody murder over the incident, so with any luck I can at least keep my distance from that particular landmine.

"Why does she want to meet me?" I ask.

"I don't know," Draga admits. "But I'm not in the habit of questioning her orders. I can at least guarantee your safety. She means you no harm, and there aren't many people alive who could threaten you in her presence."

"I can corroborate that," Tamara adds. "Talla refuses to appraise her for us, but our other sources estimate that her tier is in the double digits."

Talla rolls her eyes. "She'd notice the attempt instantly, and I'd lose my job without even getting the information you want. You're the one who taught me not to mess with high tier individuals."

"You see?" her mother sighs dramatically, failing to hide her smirk. "Such an ungrateful daughter. In any case, Lady Faarah is an upstanding member of the gentry, and—perhaps more saliently—a good person. You can trust both her intent and ability to keep you safe."

"Huh, you're really singing her praises," I comment. "Aren't you worried she might win me over?"

"Well, for one thing," she says, "while you are currently the center of the city's attention, you aren't that important. I like you, but I won't lose sleep if you decide to go elsewhere."

Ouch. But fair enough, I guess. We've barely met, and neither of us is even sure how much value I can even offer her.

"And secondly," she continues with a predatory smile. "If for whatever strange reason Lady Faarah decides that she wants you in her organization and makes you an offer, I'm more than confident I can outbid her."

Wow. Really not loving the idea of people bidding on me like an antique at auction, but I guess that's where we're at right now. Jira's boat is looking more appealing every day.

"Alright," I sigh, shrugging. "When does she want to see me, Draga?"

"Right away, if possible," he says.

I glance at Tamara, but she just gestures at the gate. "You have your passport now, dear. You can come and go as you like."

"Well then," I say, tucking the papers into a cloak pocket and turning back to Draga. "Let's go!"