THIRTY-EIGHT: Hedonistic

THIRTY-EIGHT: Hedonistic

THIRTY-EIGHT

Hedonistic

Alden was supposed to meet Bti-qwol in a specific room of a building that looked like a concrete beehive. But she met his cart on the path before it even arrived at the door and practically yanked him out of it, shouting, >

Im half an hour early, Alden protested, jogging so that she wouldnt actually be dragging him along behind her.

> she babbled. assistant instead of coming himself. I had to order a new singer. One of the professors is disappointedin the tmithans I chose for him.>>

Alden decided to keep his mouth shut. The alien personnel manager looked like she was on the edge of either tears or violence, and since he was already committed for this event, he might as well try for a smooth experience.

You have no social recommendations, and this is a difficult event.>>

Im a waiter, right? Like Ill be carrying food to people? As long as I dont drop it.

> she said, looking aghast. Avowed waiter. You are there to create an impression. There are always thirteen Avowed waiters at this event. People expect to see them at LeafSong. Its a tradition!>>

If its that important, maybe one of the others?

Bti-qwols nostrils flared. >

She whisked him into the beehive. It was a natural history museum. Colorful lanterns, tables, and sprays of green and black plant life were artfully mixed in among the exhibits. And Alden stared up in awe at an enormous, magically suspended skeleton overhead.

Alien whale? The charcoal gray bones moved silently, swimming without ever going anywhere, and the sharp spines that must have protruded from the creatures sides in life were tipped with shining points that caught the light.

They wove through a jungle of potted plants, around glass cases full of fossils and alien animal models that moved so smoothly Alden wasnt really sure they were models. Then she led him through a hidden door, and they took a large elevator down a level to the place where all the work seemed to be getting done. People were racing around with carts full of decorations and padded boxes full of museum pieces.

Bti-qwol bulled her way through the chaos, telling everyone that her business was urgent and earning quite a few withering looks from Artonans who were clearly engaged in their own urgent business. A minute later, Alden found himself in a room that looked like a hastily assembled hair salon. This chapter was first shared on the Ñøv€lß1n platform.

When it said to arrive early for a uniform, I wasnt expecting a full makeover.

Hed thought he would be taken to a closet full of spare shirts so that he could try them on. Or something similar. Of course, hed also thought that being waitstaff meant being waitstaff, and apparently that wasnt quite right.

He was stuffed into a chair by a tiny old woman with dark purple-brown skin and a lot of beaded necklaces. She gave him wevvi in a wooden bowl and started examining him through a pair of glasses with square rims.

> she said, pinching his cheek lightly. At his startled look, she stood on her tiptoes and peered deeply into his eyes. >

Thanks?

> she asked. >

Is that important? he replied after a moments hesitation.

> she muttered to herself, squeezing one of Aldens through his shirt and making a disappointed sound.

I think a four-foot tall centenarian is disappointed in my upper body strength.

The only thing keeping his feelings from being a little hurt was his confusion. She was doing his hair or something, right? Not hiring him to tend the oxen on her familys farm.

As if shed read his mind, she dug all of her fingers into his hair. > she said.

A vivid image of Stuarts half-bald, half French-braided look popped into Aldens mind, and he shuddered. He was so busy trying to think of ways to convince her not to try that particular style out on him, that it took him a while to notice the old ladys mirror was measuring him while he sat there.

A network of red lines had appeared on top of his reflection, and there were Artonan numbers out to the side. Why would anyone need to know the length of my nose?

Bti-qwol was standing by the mirror, examining one of the three inset screens. Alden couldnt see around her to the one she was looking at, but the others showed what appeared to be designs for armor and prosthetic add-ons for his face.

Alden suddenly realized that he would be wearing an elaborate costume tonight.

Unexpectedly, the idea brightened his mood a little. It was stressful to be doing a social event at all. And he was still frustrated and worried to be here at a party instead of on Moon Thegund where he was actually needed instead of some convenient piece to complete the special magic number of Avowed Bti-qwol had in mind.

But judging by the designs, it looked like his costumer was planning to put him in a set of green scale armor. That was kind of cool. A decent costume would give him a starting point for conversations at least, and

> Bti-qwol said, her tone dismissive as she swiped away whatever was on the screen shed been peering at. >

> the old woman said absently. >

> Bti-qwol argued.

>

him to be the focus of attention,>> Bti-qwol argued. >

>

> Bti-qwol said dismissively. >

The old lady made an angry noise and stomped over to her screens. Alden gave her an apologetic look in the mirror.

Bti-qwol had whipped out her tablet and now she was talking rapidly about what hed be doing. She had an annoying habit of micromanaging the assignment so that every single step of the evening became a part of the quest. Timers were popping up in front of his eyes for every little thing. There were even an alloted number of minutes for his bathroom breaks.

This is incredibly obnoxious, he thought, watching the timers minimize themselves into a string of green lights in his peripheral vision. The System here on Artona III did a good job of presenting him with information when he needed it and keeping it out of his way when he didnt, but he much preferred Joes method of giving a broad assignment and then offering advice on how to complete it rather than a bunch of official quest steps.

Alden would naturally have been polite to guests who spoke to him at the party. Being ordered to do it, complete with a reminder that would flash over peoples heads, made him want to act like a barbarian to spite Bti-qwol.

He distracted himself by shoving his hand into his pocket and swapping Joes magic ring from finger to finger. It was capable of resizing itself, but not infinitely. It was too loose on his pinkies.

Hed spent the whole of the afternoon lab session playing with its magic by subtly manipulating the bottle full of pills he had neglected to take during his emergency teleport. Joe had said the ring would make up for the lost dexterity stat from the coat, and that had led Alden to believe it would work similarly.

It was a completely different effect, though. It was like anything he held in the hand with the ring on it didnt want him to let go of it. Everything clung to his fingers for just a fraction of a second after hed dropped it. Heavy or light, the weight of object didnt seem to matter much. Alden had tried it out on some of the lab equipment after the students left, and hed almost broken a beaker trying to show Sophie how he could splay all his fingers, and it would hang for an instant, pressed against his palm like it had been glued there.

To his disappointment, the sticky effect didnt work on items he was currently preserving. If his skill was active, it was like the ring wasnt there at all. But at least it would keep him from dropping the items when they werent in the preservation state.

By the time Bti-qwol left, there were a couple of humans from the boater and a lortch present. They were getting dressed in their own costumes with help from an Artonan man. One of the boater members had arrived with her makeup already done, so they clearly knew the drill from previous years or had been prepped for it over the course of the week. She had a river of purple paint running in a line down the center of her face.

One of the lortch was in a leather costume absolutely bristling with short blades. Maybe hes a Meister of Knives? Since Alden was going to be a Ryeh-bt it seemed reasonable to assume the other Avowed would have class specific outfits.

Chris from the boater was taking an elaborate headdress covered in gears out of a box, and he was a Wright so it seemed like a good guess.

The old woman waited until Bti-qwol had been gone for a long while before she started speaking again. She was flinging makeup brushes around with a lot of force and breathing rather loudly for such a small person.

artist,>> she told Alden as she swiped away the image of the beige and brown robe and wing set Bti-qwol had approved with a wrinkled hand.

Ishes probably just really stressed out, he said placatingly.

He didnt know if the woman had a translator or not because she kept right on steaming as she started opening drawers and slapping packets and bottles onto the table beside her.

> she said in a mocking whine. favor because they called at the last minute and my grandsons team has another event!>>

Shes definitely going to shave my head, he thought, staring as she approached with a slightly larger version of the hooked razor hed been given in his care package.

You know I dont care a ton about my hair, he said. But I do like having some of it. Even if its really short that would be better than nothing. In case you were wondering.

>

She grabbed the razor.

>

While Alden froze in place, she started grabbing locks of hair and whacking at them. At least she didnt seem to want him completely bald. She was cutting off apparently random amounts from each lock, but not so much that it couldnt be repaired by a human barber.

I wonder if I get a bonus for this. It feels like the kind of thing I should get a bonus for.

In the mirror, he couldnt tell what was happening to his own appearance yet, but Chris had started covering his own arms and legs in bodypaint behind a sheet of plastic. He was a skinny guy, and the off-white paint made him look like a ghost in need of a good meal. But over the next half hour he was transformed into something quite a bit more alien. He had knee-length white robes and the headdress made of moving gears. Something attached to his back teeth made his mouth glow a poisonous green when he opened it.

He seemed to be reciting lines. >

Is there supposed to be some kind of theatrical component to this? Alden asked.

He hoped he wasnt included in it. Hed been a raccoon in an elementary school play once, and hed forgotten which piece of trash he was supposed to steal from a pile of it on the stagewhich was his one and only job. Hed frozen there, agonizing over the horrors of stealing the wrong crumpled chip bag, and had to be rescued by another raccoon.

> the old woman said while she worked slender orange wires into Aldens freshly chopped hair. untranslatable ship on untranslatable.Silly line to make drunk people laugh. Tasteless.>>

So she can understand me. She had a habit of talking to herself instead of him, so he hadnt been sure.She must have had a translator in her glasses.

What kind of ship? Alden asked.

Untranslatable ship,>> she said.

The word wasnt untranslatable. It was something like escape or evacuation. Alden knew because hed heard Joes assistants use it to describe his role in coming to pick them up on Moon Thegund.

Lunervikk couldnt have been human, since he would have died before Earth even met the Artonans. But if the gray-white paint and the eerie green mouth-light were meant to make Chris look like a member of another species, Alden couldnt pinpoint which one it was.

> she said sternly. >

She chuckled as if shed said something very funny.

Bti-qwol said I had to smile.

>

Um This lady would get along well with Sophie.

>

Didnt Bti-qwol say beige Ryeh-bts were known for their shyness? She seemed to have a vision that involved Alden blending in with the environment and being discovered by hungry partygoers before he disappeared again. Like a game of hide-and-seek with special effects appetizers for a reward.

Alden wasnt entirely opposed to it. Standing off in a corner sneaking bites of food for most of the party was easier than real mingling.

> spat the costumer. match the walls. Subtle Ryeh-bt that wont distract fromfood.>>

She was gelling Aldens wire-laced hair into a pointy halo that was probably going to be a nod to a male Ryeh-bts skull spikes. Behind her, notices kept popping up in the mirror.

Are there other people working on the costume somewhere? he asked. How else were they going to finish in time?

>

She stepped back and admired her handiwork. The wires in Aldens hair were glowing orange.

> she said enthusiastically.

Alden examined the paint bottles on the table. Not a single one of them was beige.

The old woman didnt finish Aldens costume until there was a timer blinking in his vision reminding him he had to be upstairs in a few minutes. It had far less to do with the complexity of the outfit, which had been delivered to them fully made almost an hour before, and more to do with the fact that she seemed intent on making absolutely sure Bti-qwol would be unable to alter anything about the design.

I am, he said.

>

Oh. Are those the only two places on Earth they know about? Fair enough. It was hard to learn one planets geography, and Artonan kids had all of the Triplanets to study. Plus their people had famously made first contact by setting up camp in the Tnr and asking if world leaders wanted to be teleported in for a cup of wevvi and a discussion about the future of their species.

America Earth, he said. But Ill be living on Anesidora soon.

>

Sure.

The kid brushed aside some crumbs and set a small tablet on the floor. It balanced miraculously on its narrow edge and somehow took their picture from multiple angles without moving. Aldens wings still looked fantastic.

After that kid, there were a couple more. Then more trays. Alden wanted to sneak a bite of something but he was never alone. At some point, Met-oosa had disappeared. He was worried shed been carted off to be punished, but she eventually returned arm-in-arm with the museums curator. Some mysterious negotiations had gone down while Alden was feeding people and having his picture taken, and a few of Met-oosas old theatrical pieces were being teleported in from storage at another institution so that they could be displayed during the second half of the party.

Joe finally made his way over, and after the briefest of smiles and not ten words to Alden, he left with an entire tray of tarts stuffed in his pockets.

As the night wore on, Alden started to feel ragged. The wings were making his back hurt, and the guests were getting clingy. His waiters had betrayed his trust and left him to the attentions of various drunk teenagers and even drunker professors who wanted pictures.

Isnt this an Achievement Society Gala? It sounded like it should be a stodgy event where everyone worried a lot about what impression they were making on their betters. But some of these guys were wasted. There was a hookah set up on one table, and Manon had sent out a group text telling all the humans not to go anywhere near it.

Artonans partied hard. Aldens bedtime was apparently not as regimented as hed been led to believe because it came and went, and the System didnt make so much as a peep.

Traitor, he accused it in his mind while he told what felt like the thousandth person that his costume was definitely just a Ryeh-bt. Any resemblance to a wizard was purely coincidental.

Saying this struck drunk Artonans as hysterical. Alden didnt know why, but he kept repeating it because it kept working, and he didnt have any other jokes.

He finally managed to escape from the latest group. Hed made it all the way across the museum to the edge of the party. Success! And it had only taken a full hour and a half of trying.

Now if he could just hide behind a plant or a taxidermied dinosaur and wait this thing out

> said a voice from behind the giant potted fern Alden had just been thinking of as his future protector. >

Nooo. I dont wanna!

Hed practiced smiling so much tonight that his cheeks ached. He stepped around the fern and was surprised to find a table and two chairs sandwiched between it and the wall. There was no way that had been part of the original floor plan for the party. The pair of wizards sitting there appeared to be soberwhich was probably a good thing since the woman was visibly pregnant. The man had long straight hair such a pale shade of purple that it was nearly white, and he didnt look up from the book he was reading as Alden approached.

Actual leather-bound book, Alden noted. He brought it to the party instead of just reading one in secret on a tablet.

That was refusal to socialize on an advanced level. He could admire it.

Do you need anything? Alden asked. Something to eat maybe?

> she said, smiling. >

Alden stood, wondering if she was about to take his picture. But she made no move at all to do so. She looked at him for a while and then turned to stare off into space and ignore him.

Waitam I dismissed or not?

He kept standing. Theyd tell him to go away if he was supposed to, wouldnt they?

With nothing else to do, he stared at them. Their formal clothes were a little odd. It was like theyd been based on the traditional wizards garb that Alden was currently making a mockery of, but someone had wanted to be sure they couldnt really be mistaken for the same thing. They had elbow-length sleeves instead of long ones, tighter pants, patterns of small metal studs instead of embroidery. Neither of them had a tablet or visible lens of any kind. Not even the metal rings around their iris.

Alden stood there for a very long time before the woman finally said, >

need him to do anything,>> the man said irritably, still not looking up from his book. >

>

Alden nodded. His name had been going around the party for ages, so of course shed heard it.

>

Her brother slapped his book shut, and gave her an annoyed look. >

>

>

>

Alden watched the argument devolve with wide eyes. What kind of disagreement was this?

>

want to hold his hands.>>

They didnt even sound like adults at this point. Maybe they were drunk?

>

>

Per Joes advice, Alden had done a great job of being agreeable tonight. But this was a little too much. What are you going to do to them? he asked, clasping his hands safely behind his back.

> the woman said to her brother in an appalled voice. >

> he protested, leaning back in his chair and sighing. >

Stuart? Alden hadnt seen him all night. He didnt seem to be at the party. One of these two must be his parent? Alden stared at the man. Is this the super important father that even Joe was afraid of making mad?

He was hiding in the corner behind a plant. Reading a book. With his sister. He didnt scream scary alien wizard king, which was how Alden had been picturing Stuarts father despite the lack of monarchies on the modern Triplanets.

> the sister explained. >

Gain my measure? Was this some kind of lie detector test? Oh, maybe they just want to be sure Im not going to tell on Stuart?

That was fine. He didnt plan to. Easier to go along with the request than act all cagey. He had one really serious secret to keep from the Artonans. And he highly doubted someone hed just met was going to ask him out of the blue if hed ever fed his blood to the prisoner in the Chicago consulate.

Alden stepped closer and unclasped his hands, offering them to the guy.

The Artonan studied him for a moment without taking them. >

Its a loan, Alden said sadly. Hed been playing around with it all night. Since nobody cared if he spilled drinks, he could do some neat tricks with the glasses.

>

Whatever kind of lie detection he was going to use must have been pretty weak if the ring would interfere. Alden tucked the ring into one of the pockets of his wizard outfit.

The man took his hands firmly in his own. He had callouses, Alden noted. It was kind of unexpected for a bookworm or a wizard.

The man stared up at the starry sky beyond the whale skeleton. > he asked.

No need for him to ask. It was available to him through the System. Maybe he was establishing a baseline for the lie detection? Alden. Samuel Alden Thorn.

>

Alden stared at him. Like in life? Thats kind of deep. I dont know.

>

This guy didnt really go for the softball questions, did he? My aunt. My friends. My

He hesitated. It was only for a second, and it was only because he had the thought that maybe he shouldnt say it. Because they were gone.

But in that instant of hesitation, he suddenly sensed something surprisingthe cobwebby cocoon of his own magic. It was here, all around him just like during the teleports to and from Moon Thegund. Only this time, around the cocoon of his magic there was another one, far more massive. It wasnt pushing against him, but he knew at once that if it did hed be

Not even crushed. Id just disappear. Like Id been written out of existence.

It wasnt a guess. He knew it for a fact.

Aldens heart was pounding.

The Artonan was still staring up at the fake stars. >

Yes. Lying was unthinkable.

>

No. Lying was impossible.

The man smiled faintly. >

When I was ten, I found a photograph online of the guy who was responsible for my parents dying. Of what his body looked like after hed been dealt with by an S-class Brute. I have no idea where it came from. He was on a metal table. I guess maybe the investigators took it, and it leaked. Hed seen it in real life, but his emotions had been dampened then. A few years later It didnt bother me.

>

It made me satisfied. It made me feel like the world was fairer. I looked at it every night, and I slept like a baby.

>

When it disappeared from the web, and I realized what Id been doing. That was when I was afraid.

>

He looked down and met Aldens eyes. His own were pink, like the lead assistants at the lab.

> he said, dropping Aldens hands. >

Alden clutched at his chest, gasping for air he didnt even need. Am I having a panic attack?

>

Alden could barely hear him. His ears hadnt rung this loudly in years.

untranslateable to go unused, Im afraid>> he trailed off. whole for us to avoid one another over the long run. Try to grow up well and live fully before then.>>

> the sister suggested. >

>

NoIm fine, Alden gasped. Can I just go?

> said the man. >