Tristan

Congratulations! You have formed a Permanent Party with Sophira Adrielle.

Tristan reread the first line of the long, scrolling notification he'd just gotten, and it actually made him smile. Of course, all the information that followed made that smile even bigger.

You have gained access to private messaging with all members of your Permanent Party.

While in this party, you gain [Shared Bond]. As [Shared Bond] grows, you will receive boons based on the other members of your Permanent Party. Rate of boon acquisition decreases as Permanent Party size grows.

Applicable experience is shared with all members of your Permanent Party, regardless of distance, though it is diminished as that distance increases.

Penalties for breaking a Permanent Party:

You will be locked out of forming another Permanent Party for a period of 5 years.

You will be given the title {Bondbreaker}, which you will be unable to unequip for 1 year.

You will take a severe, scaling penalty to future experience earned, for a length of time dependant upon duration of the Permanent Party before it was broken.

Admittedly, it was a lot for Tristan to take in. He appreciated that it began with all the benefits, each of which felt impressive in their own right. Some of the penalties for breaking a Permanent Party, though, seemed intense.

He figured they wouldn't matter, though. He wasn't going to break the Permanent Party with Sophie.

She'd been with him for a long while now, even back before he'd known how much she had to offer. He'd quite literally defended her before he'd realized how smart and educated she was, how capable she was with her Class, and how wealthy she was. She'd always seemed to treat him well, too. As an equal. It was just like she treated all her astrals. She had become one of his best friends.

When he'd needed her most, she'd been there. She'd gotten him on the Ark, which had been a huge boost for his Path. She even taught him to dance! If anyone could put up with that many bruised toes, he figured it would be worth trying to fix whatever other bruises might come up between them.

Besides, his friends liked her.

And her astrals clearly liked him, especially Poof, who was currently meeping quite excitedly and seemed to be trying to jump out of Sophie's arms and into his.

Sophie, still holding Poof tightly, said, "Yes, obviously I'll tell him." Then she looked up and, with a smile said, "She says this makes you her big brother now and that you'd better live up to it."

A sudden warmth filled Tristan's chest, and he felt really good about his decision. "I'll do my best," he said to both of them. "I promise."

When the next notification came in only a few moments later, he was even more pleased:

Skills Gained:

[Shared Bond] Your Permanent Party with Sophira Adrielle grants the following boons: - Shared magical storage.

"Oh. Oh no!" he heard Sophie say, and there was no mistaking the distress in her voice. "Hey, Tristan...?"

"Huh?" he replied, only partially listening as he immediately opened up his magical storage bag, burning with curiosity for how exactly their new, shared system might work.

To call the experience 'odd' was an understatement. When he opened his bag, he was essentially able to see and reach into what felt like two different and distinct places. Or non-places? Tristan wasn't sure how to even classify magical storage, especially with how it was now working.

But that wasn't even what floored him. He'd known that his newly-endless bag was really amazing, but it was also basically empty. That was not the case for what now seemed to exist right beside his space.

Just by thinking about it, he was able to peer into this other, less massive, magical storage space. Even though it had a limit, it didn't really matter much. The space was easily fifty times what he'd had before his upgrade, and it contained enough stuff that it would have overfilled Tristan's original bag too many times to count. Yet despite the huge quantity it contained, it all felt carefully organized.

"Tristan," Sophie repeated more firmly, but also clearly even more worried. "You remember when I said I had a lot of money, right?"

Tristan was trying to be respectful of her privacy, but he couldn't help looking at least over what all she seemed to have stored in their now-shared space. "Yeah," he replied, deciding not to open any of the letters, especially those still folded neatly within envelopes, or any of the books labeled 'Journal,' and he definitely stayed away from the section that contained portraits and paintings of people that just seemed to scream 'family' to him.

But that brought him to something he hadn't expected to find: rows of separated and neatly stacked coins. The smallest by far were the stacks of copper coins, which looked tiny beside both the silver and especially the gold pieces. But those couldn't hold a candle to the towering stacks of platinum, and...

"Wait. What are trillium pieces?" He looked up at Sophie, who was now visibly squirming and not even petting Poof, just squeezing the little astral tightly.

"They're, uh, the equivalent of 100 platinum. Each."

Tristan's focus shifted briefly back into the bag, where he initially began to count them, but quickly stopped when an overlay popped up and showed him a number, a quantity. "I've never even heard of that, and... Wait--if it's 100 gold to a platinum, and apparently 100 platinum for each trillium... How in the names of all the gods do you have over 200 of them?!"

He turned his attention back to the astralist.

"Well, I did tell you that you really didn't have to pay me back for things..."

Tristan just stopped and stared, making sure that his mouth didn't hang open like a fool. No wonder she was always able to drop a few gold pieces here and there. I bet she has enough wealth here to rival the Longblooms' whole estate! He blinked and took a few steadying breaths. But that doesn't change anything about us and how we'll operate.

"I'm still going to," he finally replied, "but I can clearly see now that there's no rush."

Sophie actually laughed at that answer, which clearly seemed to help her relax a bit. "Hey, if that's what you really want to do, then I respect it," she said.

"And don't worry about all your other private stuff. I won't go through any of it. I promise."

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Sophie shook her head. "Yeah, I wasn't worried about that. Not with you. I do appreciate the consideration and openness though."

Tristan smiled at her. "Hey, we're in a Permanent Party now. It would be absolutely idiotic to do something so thoughtless and screw that up on the very first day!"

Sophie nodded, pulling out her own little coin purse--which Tristan now realized had always been far more full than he'd ever imagined. "Huh, you really don't have much besides gear and smithing supplies, do you?"

"Well, I didn't really have much space originally," Tristan admitted. "For the longest time, I only had my [Crafting Materials Bag], so I still just keep all my smithing and enchanting mats in there by habit."

"Yeah, I see that. Though even that's starting to look a little sparse, wouldn't you say?"

Tristan shrugged. "I don't think so. It's not like I have a project in mind currently, even if that new Tier 3 [Demonsteel Ingot] is tempting me."

Sophie whistled. "It does look pretty cool, I have to admit. It's also one I haven't heard of before. As for the rest, well, maybe I can help you anyway. I still feel bad about the pants thing--" She cut him off before he could insist that she didn't need to. "--I know what you said, but I still do, so hear me out."

Tristan nodded silently.

"I figured that since my wealth is kind of 'out there' now, and we clearly can't use it to buy you new gear, what if we used some of it to buy you more materials so you could make yourself new gear?"

He thought through her proposal carefully and scratched the back of his head. "As long as you don't go too overboard on it, I think we could do it this time." He caught and held her eyes with his. "I don't ever want to rely on your wealth to solve my problems. My Path and Core are both pretty clear that I need to make things for myself, and I feel that should include making my own way."

Sophie inclined her head. "I wouldn't ever want to stand in the way of that. But you're okay with it, just this once?"

Tristan agreed. "Just this once."

With the sudden prospect of lots of fresh new materials to work with, Tristan's mind began to churn. He'd told the truth when he said that he really hadn't considered what to make next. He'd been so focused on his raid loot and trying to make the new pants work, almost to the exclusion of everything else. Now, though, he needed to figure out what his next projects would be. He wasn't going to let Sophie just buy him a ton of generic materials without any goals in mind.

He ran his fingers through his shaggy hair again. "But rather than go and do more shopping now, can we put that on a checklist for the near future? I'd like to figure out what I'm going to make first."

"Sure, that makes sense to me," she replied.

As they started walking away from Cinderbark's memorial, Tristan began cataloguing his gear and what he might want his next big project to be. Now that he was on the brink of Tier 3, it actually made this a bit difficult, as anything he made might be hugely outshone by a version he could make after tiering up. Clearly pants were a large area for improvement, but all the same reasons he hadn't made new ones before were still true. That's why he'd really hoped the oil would have made Cam'ron's pants usable.

No, he couldn't keep going around that circle. He needed to consider his other gear slots. He decided to start with listing the gear he knew he didn't want to replace yet.

While he eagerly wanted to make another sword, he definitely would not be making one until he'd gotten all the perks from tiering up. The potential for growth was simply too great in that area. The next item he felt was safe, at least for now, was his [Bracers of Discernment]. He wasn't about to spend resources replacing them when they gave all that extra information to his [Identify]. At least not until he knew he could get an upgrade that would keep or better it all.

His chestpiece, [Armorsmith's Legacy], was still amazing, so that was certainly safe. There was no way he could replace that rare armor until Tier 3. It honestly might be his single best piece of gear overall.

The last item he thought might be great as-is was his [Eager Belt], which lowered all his cooldowns by 5%. The effect was fine for tier 2, and it scaled well enough it would probably be good enough for early tier 3, too.

His [Pendant of Lesser Targeting] only gave 5% critical strike chance. Admittedly, that was nice, but it could easily be up for replacement. Both of his rings were rather simple, though [The 1s Ring] did give a nice, even spread of stats. He supposed that as he approached Tier 3, that just wouldn't be enough. His other ring was literally still a [Simple Ring] with the [Sturdy] property, giving him max health. Opie's comments about his absurdly high HP during the raid still echoed in Tristan's mind, and he wondered if that wouldn't be the best place to start.

But it's more jewelry, he thought dismissively. Along the same line as the [Sturdy Ring] were his [Sturdy Sabatons], which also only added max health. They were definitely due for an upgrade.

There didn't seem to be any other items that were safe, which meant it was time to address the glaring holes in his equipment. After his pants, obviously, there was one final slot that needed addressing: he still was not wearing anything on his head.

Thanks to the raid, he'd seen several types of items that were still definitely classified as "head items" that didn't actually cover the face or limit visibility. The scarf Xanax had gotten and the cape that went to Laura had both showed him new ways to utilise that gear slot that he hadn't considered before.

What if I tried my hand at something like one of those next? It obviously wouldn't be working with metal--or primarily at least. I could try weaving metal in, or reinforcing whatever I ended up making with metal.

It wasn't much, but at least it was a start, and for the first time since before his Awakening, he was actually excited to work on a piece of headgear.

It was alarming how much choosing a future project improved his attitude. He found that he was much happier now than when he'd entered the Protector's Memorial, when he was still hopeful for the outcome of his pants experiment. The now-epic [Emblazoned Shadowhide Leggings] were back in his magical storage. He knew that the sting of their 'failure' was just a temporary thing. He might not have had a plan for them yet, but he had faith that he would figure something out eventually.

For the short term, well, now he had something else to aim toward. And for literally the first time in his life, he was beginning to actually worry about his appearance.

Just what kind of scarf or cape do I even want?

He'd need to decide that before he began putting together a shopping list for materials.

Someone he'd known back in Woodsedge--though he couldn't quite recall who--had been really fond of saying that appearances mattered. Maybe it was time Tristan took that more into consideration. He was planning to head into the Tier 3 Tournament as soon as he could, after all, and he would absolutely need to make sure he represented Jamal well.

Oh man, I should go back and see Jamal, he realized. It's been a while.

A hand found and squeezed his forearm, stopping him. It was Sophie, who had completely stopped and was looking ahead at something Tristan, having been away in his own mental space, hadn't really seen yet.

Three official-looking figures, all in very starched white uniforms and matching masks, stood on a small stage in the middle of a pavilion. Beside them, a handcuffed prisoner with a black bag over his head.

"Look. Tier Guards," Sophie hissed with much more malice than Tristan understood. "And it looks like they're making a spectacle of whatever that person has done."

"You don't like the Tier Guard?" he whispered back.

She gave him a very wary, measuring glance, and then for some reason her reply came not aloud but in their new Permanent Party chat.

Sophie: I am a fan of what the Tier Guard are supposed to be, certainly. What I am not a fan of is the way they have been operating lately. They are meant to protect all low tiers from those stronger than them, regardless of circumstance and means. But for quite a few years now it has felt less and less like that and more like they protect those who can pay them for the privilege. Sophie: While my family is very established in that upper echelon, that doesn't mean I approve of how they and others abuse the power that comes from such wealth.

She sighed away from the pavilion and spit disgustedly to the side.

Sophie: Honestly, Tristan, the way the wealthiest folks have been corrupting the Tier Guard lately may be one of the largest unpunished crimes of the last decade.

Tristan nodded, knowing that he didn't yet appreciate all of what she meant, but he hoped that with time she'd fill in the gaps.

Tristan: You think there's something else to this... whatever this is?

Sophie glanced back one time, and only briefly.

Sophie: Looks like a public execution to me. Tristan: Huh. Makes me wonder what that person did. Must have been pretty bad. Sophie: I wish I shared your faith. Let's go a different way, please. I think I'm ready to get out of Perpetua. Tristan: Sure, I've got nothing holding me here. I think I want to head back to Jamal's anyway. It's been a productive couple of months, and I can't wait to show him how much I've grown. Tristan: I've also got quite a bit of training still to do with him before tiering up. I want to be as prepared as I can be when I hit level 20. We've got plans...

He left the sentence hanging, hoping Sophie would be intrigued enough to ask for more details. He thought it might be an easy topic shift. But the astralist didn't bite.

"Come on," Sophie said aloud, already walking quickly ahead in the opposite direction of the pavilion.

Just as they turned a corner to head down a side street, Tristan thought he heard a huge cheer rise up from the crowd assembled in the pavilion.

For the first time, it didn't fill him with confidence.

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