"You really need a better Specialist name, Bergman," Kali said as he effortlessly lifted the last of the black stone pylons and started for the far corner of the room. "Something that isn't just your last name."

"B-Bergman is fine."

"Quartermaster, maybe? Or perhaps Banker-

"I d-don't-

"That's it! Rich Bookworm," Kali taunted.

"I remember him being more… taciturn," Nessa remarked. She was seated cross-legged on the stone floor, next to Alarion's piled equipment, watching the men work with keen interest."Or, you remember him that way. Mothers, I hate how blurred that line is."

"He was," Alarion agreed, his arms crossed as he leaned on the wall next to her. "I am not sure if they are friends now, or if this is how he always acts when not on a mission."

"Or if he just enjoys toying with Bergman."

"Or that," he conceded.

It was… strange. Strange like the warmth of a fire after days in the cold. He'd grown accustomed to silence on the march, to tension in the camps, and to the cold civility of men who expected obedience rather than competence. Most of the superiors he'd served under had been little more than placeholders—too vain, too arrogant, or too apathetic to form bonds with the troops under their command.

But just as with the fire, Alarion remained wary; more distant than he should be. He'd been burned too many times before.

"So, what is this?" Alarion asked.

"This," Kali said, adjusting the device as he spoke, "is a dueling array. The kind every half-competent army uses to train its Awakened recruits."

Alarion tilted his head slightly. "I've never seen one."

"And that is my point! Vitrians hate them for a host of reasons, so we never see them."

"Then where did you… ah. Rich Bookworm."

"Exactly!" Kali stepped back and looked from one pylon to the next, making sure they were as straight as possible before he started plodding back to their group. "The specialist was kind enough to give-"

"Lend," said Bergman.

"-us one, out of the goodness of his heart."

Alarion seemed skeptical. "Why do the Vitrians hate them?"

"They believe in teaching by doing," ZEKE explained, his holographic image perched atop Alarion's mace, happy as ever to opine on a topic he knew well. "A dueling array mutes the pain response, weakens sympathetic growth with equipment and doesn't properly simulate all skills. They are more likely to train with a healer on hand for emergencies, as you experience."

"T-that and they don't trust the m-manufacturer," Bergman added. "Dueling Arrays all come through the Bizarre, and they're t-tamper-proof, making it hard to copy them. Some knock-offs are f-floating around, but nothing even approaches the real thing."

"Why does trust matter?" Alarion frowned. "Are they dangerous?"

"N-no, nothing like that. The issue is that you have to r-register your skills. A representative comes by once a year and p-pulls your records while installing the most up-to-date listings."

"Mm," Alarion nodded, seeing the problem in a heartbeat. "Should I even-"

"You have to manually register everything," Kali reassured him. "It only knows what you tell it."

Bergman retrieved a bulky black device from inside his bag and held it out to Alarion. The smooth obsidian mirror was smudged with fingerprints, and smaller than those Alarion remembered, but just the sight of it brought back memories. He'd seen hundreds of objects just like it during his time in the hidden city, the place that Lamesh had called the Protectorate of the Three Together.

"Where did you get this?" Alarion asked.

"Hmm? It is the c-controller for the array," Bergman explained. "It c-came with the system."

Alarion studied the blank controller for several seconds before Bergman reached over it and tapped twice on the mirror. It sprang instantly to life with an almost blinding array of colors and icons, before fading into white text on a dark background.

New location detected! Would you like to set a boundary?

"Oh, r-right," Bergman snatched the device back from Alarion and expertly navigated its menus while grumbling to himself. "S-sorry, I forgot that it needs to be set up after you move it."

"No rush," Kali said. "When he is done, you can enter your details. Be as accurate as you can, but leave out anything you don't want the Raven to know."

"Not just through the Bizarre, then, but sold by the man himself."

The sergeant shrugged. "No one knows, but they call him the Middle-Man for a reason. Trade, magic, information—he takes a cut of everything that flows through the Bizarre. He might own the entire enterprise, he might not, but I am sure he has access to their records either way."

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"T-there," Bergman said at last, shoving the controller back into Alarion's hands. "It s-should be self-explanatory, but ask if you h-have questions."

Alarion looked down at the screen and saw a request glowing up at him:

Please tell us your name:

"Alarion." He paused for a moment, waiting for acknowledgement. When nothing happened, he tried again. "Alarion."

"W-what are you-" Bergman's question ended with an abrupt snort of laughter. The young man blushed deeply and quickly covered his face, but it was too late. The snicker grew into a chuckle, then into outright laughter that undercut his words. "I'm sorry… I'm not trying to…"

Kali made the connection a second after Bergman, and he escalated far more quickly, despite, or perhaps because of the scathing look on Alarion's face. But it was Nessa's quiet chuckle that truly got under his skin.

"You do not even know what I did wrong!" he snapped at her. The words earned him a glare from Nessa and a bout of uproarious laughter from his comrades. Even ZEKE had joined in the merriment with a few chuckles of his own.

Alarion paced away from the three in frustration and took another look at the device. The same question glowed up at him, but this time he tapped the screen as he'd seen Bergman do previously. It shifted beneath his finger, a small alphabet appearing on the bottom third.

It was obvious in retrospect, but he wouldn't give them the satisfaction of seeing him blush.

Alarion tapped out his name, then his age. His height came next, followed by his weight and several other invasive questions for which he could only give his best guess. Eventually, the inquiries moved on to his System information, his attributes, his HP, MP, and Stamina totals, and Regen. That last by itself was curious, for he'd always thought the formula for such things was fixed, but perhaps not?

He lied when asked about his Aptitude, claiming 138 rather than 238. Alarion doubted it would hold up to scrutiny; his attributes were much too high for it to be true, but for all they knew, he was lying about those instead.

Question after question came at him as the laughter died down to barely restrained chuckles, like a wildfire waiting for just the right wind to start anew. He ignored them and focused on the work, entering his classes as best he could. Unsurprisingly, the device did not recognize Orphan or Stubborn Swordsman, forcing him to enter both classes and many of the associated skills manually.

There were thousands of skills available in the archive, and the device did its best to match his descriptions to existing skills. [Pig-Headed Resilience] became [Unbreakable], while [The Best Offense is a Good Offense] became [Retaliate]. His Unraveller skills fared better, but he ran into an issue with [Fatebound Curse].

"This skill is giving me an error," Alarion said after several attempts at entering it.

"L-let me see," Bergman said, brushing the last of the tears from his eyes. He took the controller and quickly scanned the information before shaking his head. "Sympathetic skills are forbidden. The array can't properly duplicate them without creating a true sympathetic bond, which is much too dangerous."

"Ah," Alarion reclaimed the tablet and quickly sped through the last of the options. He tapped 'Finalize,' and a new wall of text appeared:

These General Terms of Use ("General Terms"), along with any applicable Product Specific Terms (see section 1.2 (Product Specific Terms) below) (collectively, the "Terms") govern your use of and access to our systems, control applications, customer support, correspondance or other interactive areas or services, and services such as Annual Updates (collectively, the "Services") and your installation and use of any upgrades that we include as part of the Services, including, without limitation, Sample Combat Data, Class and Skill Data (defined below), scripts, instruction sets, and related documentation (collectively, the "Information"). If you have agreed to the Subscription and Cancellation Terms (See Appendix 4), then such terms are also considered part of the Terms. If you are using and accessing the Services and Software through Erivella's Value Incentive Plan ("VIP") program, then the Subscription and Cancellation Terms do not apply to you, but the remainder of the Terms will govern your use of and access to the Services and Information. If you have entered into another agreement with us concerning specific Services and Information, then the terms of that agreement control where it conflicts with the Terms.

By using the Services or the Information, you affirm that you are of legal age to enter into the terms, or, if you are not, that you have obtained parental or guardian consent to enter into the terms.

You must be 13 or older to register for an individual Erivella ID. Academies that participate in the education named user offering may issue a child under 13 an enterprise-level Erivella ID, consistent with the Additional Terms for Student Data.

If you-

"Oh, n-no," Bergman swatted his hand several times over the screen, sending text spiralling past. "No one ever r-reads that."

"I feel like I should."

"The sooner you f-finish, the sooner you get to punch him."

Alarion looked at the screen and scrolled all the way to the bottom, hitting the 'Accept' button before handing it over to Kali.

"O-okay. One last step," Bergman told him as he led him toward the nearest pylon. "You'll need to register your gear."

The merchant scion tapped something on the side of the pylon, and a small panel slid open on its front. Inside sat a rough metal orb, about the size of his palm. Through his [Unraveller's Sight], it pulsed with mana—strong in void and enchantment affinities, mixed with weaker traces.

"I am not sure it is safe for me to touch that," Alarion said, after observing it briefly. "Mana siphons do not mix well with my flaw."

"It… hmm," Bergman scowled. The array was rank III, powerful enough to hurt Alarion if it siphoned too much, but just as likely to damage its fine internal mechanisms in the process. "You m-make everything difficult, you k-know that?"

"Sorry," Alarion winced.

"It's fine. Hold still."

Bergman's hand felt soft as it clasped Alarion's. The hand of a well-kept child, of someone who'd never worked a day in his life. Alarion knew the accusations were faulty; the last time he'd seen those very hands, they had been wrenching open a diseased heart, but it was hard not to feel bitterness at the disconnect.

The flow of mana, and something else, pulled Alarion from his jealous thoughts. Curious, he activated [Unraveller's Sight] and watched as Bergman wrapped Alarion's mana in bands of sympathy and pulled it into his own body.

It was a strange sensation, in part because the sensation was not his own. He could feel the inner workings of Bergman's mana conduits as easily as his own. Rather than destroy or absorb his mana, as the body usually did with foreign intrusion, Bergman's shield allowed Alarion's energy to move freely along one arm, into the torso, and out into the other.

"T-this will still sting," Bergman told him as he touched the orb.

Alarion's involuntary spasm was the only thing that prevented him from breaking the connection, his hand squeezing Bergman's like a vice as the mage flickered his mana gates open and closed, feeding the pylon information about Alarion's mana, and through it the items to which he was attuned, in safely digestible chunks.

The whole process took seconds, but when it was finished, Alarion dropped to one knee, gasping for air.

"Yeah, p-probably a good thing you didn't touch it."

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