Henry dropped face first into the pool of the guest home and let his fabricated body dissolve

  Maurice scuttled behind him at the edge of the water. “[I thought tips were supposed to be something valuable! Was I a bad tipper? Henry! Does this mean I’m a bad tipper?]”

  Henry sighed as water touched his limbs. He stretched his arms and swam in a quick circle, letting the light of the sun dance upon his unblemished and unmarked skin. The glowing charges from Hoard Vitals were still around, but he recently found he could hide them and not have everyone know about them.

  Better to keep them as a trump card.

  He had plenty of healing abilities at this point, but keeping one or two secrets should help when it’d come to survivability. Though at this point, he doubted anyone of his rank or even a bit above could one-shot him. Aside from A-ranks, of course. But those were something else.

  Henry came to a stop and looked up at the crab. “[What’s valuable to you isn’t to him, Maurice. I told you enough about money and economies, what made you think squid roe was valuable?]”

  The crab nodded, which in this case, was him bobbing up and down on his little legs. “[You did! You said roes were a delicacy, and it’s because it’s a creature that lives deep within the Current it’d be valuable. Because of ‘scarcity’. Your words!]”

  Henry slowed, then turned and looked up at the crab suspiciously. “[Is that true or did you just think of that excuse?]”

  It was good, Henry had to admit. The logic checked out, but Maurice was a wily little gremlin and he could just as easily come up with a convenient excuse to explain his mistake. Unfortunately, both of them were sporting mind shields, so Henry couldn’t tell if the crab was honest or full of it.

  Maurice froze for a second, then his eye-stalks tilted to the side and Henry knew he had him. Who needed Telepathic Sense when the one speaking to you was this bad at lying.

  Henry peered closer at the crab and narrowed his eyes. “[What did we say about lying, Maurice?]”

  The objection died in Maurice’s throat, and his many legs went still for a second before he started pacing with renewed vigor.

  “[I wasn’t lying! I really thought he’d like the roe… But now I know I gave Sera an awful gift while he’d been so helpful. And he didn’t even tell me my gift was bad. What should I do? How do I fix it? And why do I feel like this? It’s like… I wanna go back to the ocean and completely forget about this. It feels awful.]”

  Henry blinked, then shook his head and chuckled. “[Ah. Well, in that case, I owe you an apology. I thought… nevermind. For the feeling you’re describing, it’s called being embarrassed. It happens all the time, and it’s easy to fix. Here’s what you do; you take a nice gift, you go find Sera, you give him the gift and say you’re sorry, and then you never talk about it again. Not sure about that last part, but that’s what I do.]”

  Maurice rubbed his claws together and his eyes roamed around. “[Okay,]” he said after a second. Then, as if he’d remembered something, they focused back on Henry. “[How long are we staying, by the way?]”

  Henry continued swimming in a circle, but his eyes were fixed on the crab. “[That’s sudden. But maybe we leave after the second tournament? There’s a lot we can learn here and I think, unless things get weird, we should try getting the most out of it. Why?]”

  “[There’s a few people watching us. I think they don’t like us. Or maybe they don’t like me. They want my shell.]”

  Henry stopped swimming. Every one of his clones—the one which watched over Stormsong and the children surrounding her, the one that was still in the farming area, and the two watching around their guest home—stilled. Henry found a wood-knot near the edge of the pool and wrapped an arm around it.

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  “[Are you sure?]”

  Maurice pulled one of the squid roe out and rolled it for a second in his claws before he began munching on it. “[Yeah. They think I don’t notice them, but I do.]”

  “[Why didn’t you say anything to my clone? I was close by. I’m sure you sensed me.]”

  Maurice stared down at him from the edge of the pool, chewing, then he shrugged. “[You were busy. And I didn’t think we were in danger. Should I have?]”

  Henry slowly exhaled, then shook his head. Even though he’d warned Maurice about some of the problems they might encounter when they’d meet civilization, he couldn’t blame the crab for not raising the alarm at something as subtle as a negative thought. Coveting Maurice’s shell was alarming, but nothing had turned violent yet, so Henry wasn’t surprised Maurice wasn’t worried.

  But Henry was. It might be a false alarm and just a handful of people with ill intents, but this couldn’t be dismissed out of hand. He couldn’t rely on the A-rank’s protection at all times, and in any case, the oaths of Zerathstra and Arisia only guaranteed neither of them would try to harm Henry and his companions, directly or indirectly, but that didn’t extend to every other being in the settlement.

  “[I’ll stay closer. When you see them or sense them, point them out to me.]”

  Maurice rubbed his pincers together. “[Okay. Okay. About Sera; what’s a nice gift? Cores? Would the shells we found in the kraken’s den work? How about the perl?]”

  “[Absolutely not the pearl,]” Henry sent, alarmed. Thankfully, it was in his own storage. “[The pearl’s too valuable. Probably. But cores should be fine.]”

  Henry hadn’t actually spoken to anyone about currency, but he’d seen price tags in tokens. He only wasn’t sure how he was supposed to make the transactions. Was there some sort of bank tracking who owned what? Not all transactions could be done with cores, he was sure of that. But he’d have to ask. “[Cores are probably fine, but don’t over-pay. I think a D-rank core should cover it? I’ll ask around in a bit let you know.]”

  “[Okay!]”

  Henry watched the crab scuttle away, then switched his point of view to that of the clone stationed on top of Maurice’s head. After a couple seconds of consideration, he decided to double the Octominds watching over Maurice and Stormsong.

  Just in case. And maybe I should bring this up to Arisia. Her oath should prevent her from doing anything to make things worse, and at least I’d know how I should react to any of this.

  With his Octominds and clones watching, Henry decided it was time to allow himself a bit of rest.

  It didn’t take long for him to fall asleep.

  ***

  “We in Thalis aren’t as united as we may appear. So long as the Verdant Canopy itself isn’t threatened, and so long as its natives aren’t being severely bullied or harassed, Zerathstra does not intervene.”

  Henry, perched atop a summoned boulder in the backroom of Arisia’s shop, focused on the mana being channeled down to his arm while his trainer watched. After a couple of seconds, she flicked an arm and the mana destabilized, fizzing out of his limb and into thin air. Henry grit his beak and summoned more, while Arisia continued explaining as she reviewed her notes.

  “Which means, this will have to be your own little conflict. You are allowed to defend yourself if you’re attacked, though we have rules and eyes, so whomever this is that’s trying to start trouble, they’ll do it within the confines of our laws. You might be provoked, insulted, or egged on to accept a duel, which might be wagered upon and/or might be to the death. They might sponsor an opponent if you participate in the tournaments, and they might put a bounty on your head to see you defeated, which would make it so every champion taking part in the tournament will have you in their sights. There’s a lot that could be done, so keep an eye out and don’t fall for obvious traps, but otherwise I wouldn’t worry much. It’s just someone trying to claim your head or get some easy loot. You’ve been living in the Current for months; this should be nothing to you. It’s merely politics. Not to be underestimated, but not to lose sleep over, either.”

  Henry wrapped his will around the mana infused in his limbs and refused to let it out of his control as he listened. Arisia came to a stop, eyed his softly glowing limb, and flicked her arm once more.

  A wave of foreign mana nudged his own. The energy in his arm quivered and he felt it nearly slip out of his grasp, but it didn’t.

  Henry looked up, eyes wide, and Arisia gave him a small smile, then flicked her arm once more. Her mana slapped his own, and he watched his energy spill out into the aether, as if she’d just slapped a cup out of his hand.

  She gave him an unfazed look and pushed her glasses higher on her nose before looking down at her notes. “Again.”

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