The Succubus

2

Everyone in here was an acquaintance he grew up with in the orphanage, no one who could turn back time. He had been with them since the mass rift breakout five years ago that destroyed half the city and orphaned so many kids like himself. As his gaze wandered, all the people he knew so well appeared alien to him.

They all looked so…happy.

A dozen feet away, Roxanne stood at a recruiter’s desk for Victor’s Elementals, a mage-focused guild that was the husband guild to Estor’s Escalators, a physically oriented guild that acted to round out delve compositions so the parties were balanced.

Every word that came out of the recruiter’s mouth made Roxanne smile more. The paperwork placed in front of her was quickly signed. She’d dreamed of being a mage since their Introduction to Magic class all those years ago.

Matt wanted to feel happy for her, but nausea clawed at his stomach. He looked over to Gavle’s Good Guilders, a respectable Tier 10 guild based on Ilstor, a neighboring Tier 12 planet. As he approached their booth, the head recruiter, Miles, stared at Matt with alarm.

“Ascender’s balls, Matt! What’s going on? I just got a notification saying your Talent isn’t up to recruitment standards.” Miles’s head swiveled around, and he whispered, “Get over here.” He reached out and snagged Matt’s arm and pulled him into a vacant conference room behind the recruiting stands.

“What happened? I can't see the exact details, but your application was just booted back by our AI with…”

Miles held up the pad currently displaying Matt's conditional contract into GGG. He scrolled all the way down to show a flashing red box with the words ‘applicant does not meet minimum requirements.’

“Is it really that bad?”

Matt debated what to tell Miles. He was a good guy who tried to get as many of the orphans into the fairly prestigious guild as he could. With Matt's knowledge and skill with a blade, Miles easily arranged a conditional contract for Matt with extremely good terms that only lasted ten years instead of the standard fifteen.

His percent-based mana regeneration could have been useful, if not for his pitiful Maximum Mana. So, he revealed the worst of it and ignored the solely useless parts.

“Completely unable to cultivate mana,” Matt whispered. Venturing a glance over at Miles, the man had abruptly stopped pacing on the other side of the table.

“Fuck.

“Fuck.

“Fuck.”

Miles pressed his hands together in front of his face and started pacing again. Clearly deep in thought, he said, “There's not much I can do without getting both of us into trouble. If I show too much favoritism, other guilds might think I'm trying to create a spy to infiltrate another guild for us.”

Matt waited and silently hoped Miles could think of a way for this not to be the end of his career as a delver.

Was he finished before he even started?

The nausea resurfaced even stronger than before, gnawing at him as the contents of his stomach fought to escape by any route necessary. With a deep breath and an effort of will, he forced his stomach to settle.

“I know that sounds like an excuse, but it’s happened before. It would end in you getting blacklisted from any guild on this planet, and probably the neighboring ones, too. Even some of the city governments wouldn't allow you anywhere near them.”

The next pause idled for what seemed like an eternity. “All right. The way I see it, you have two options. Well, only one viable option really. The other is a long shot at best.

“Best-case scenario, you somehow find a sponsor for The Path of Ascension. That would come with admission to the PlayPen Island. It's an Empire-run training facility only the best of the best get into.”

Of course, Matt knew of The Path. It was literally legendary; the place where legends were forged, racing through the Tiers to become the heroes of the Empire.

As Matt opened his mouth to state he no longer fit that category, if he ever had, Miles held up a finger. “But there is a second way into the PlayPen. Most city adjuncts get a couple of slots per year to send promising youths. Getting one of those slots is even harder than usual in this city. The adjunct has been using them as political favors for the last ten years or so.

“That’s the ideal case, but 99% of people never even sniff a PlayPen’s air. More realistically, you need to buy a slot in a public Tier 1 rift. It’s what freelance delvers do if there’s too much competition for local rifts of their Tier.”

He pulled his pad out and started tapping on it. “Ah. Here, in Glesie, two cities up the coast. They have a kobold Tier 1 rift, the going price is…”

Miles’s eyes flicked around, scanning as he sucked in a breath. “Ten thousand credits. That’s more than usual, but the price seems to have jumped in the last few years. That's the problem with a Tier 4 planet. At Tier 5, the planet would have far more Tier 1 rifts.”

Miles spun the pad to show the listing that further confirmed his doom.

I’m fucked. It will take years to get that many credits. I’d be so far behind everyone else it would be terrible.

Matt forced himself to drop the self-pity and think about the situation more.

No, I don’t care if I’m older than everyone at my Tier. I’ll still become a delver and stop the rifts from overflowing again.

Earning ten thousand credits wouldn't be easy. That would take at least three years of work at any job willing to hire a thirteen-year-old. Let alone someone without a useful Tier 1 Talent and no job skills besides beginner delver training.

“Is there any chance I could join a lesser guild? Not that I don’t want to join Gavle’s, but it has to be easier to join a guild and get access to their rift than to get ten thousand credits, right?” Matt hoped for it to be true.

Miles's face hardened at Matt’s question. He stared Matt right in the eyes and forcefully said, “Matt, with a Talent rating as bad as yours, it doesn’t matter if your Tier 3 might fix the problem. No one here is going to willingly risk the resources to train you without a near illegal…” he grimaced, “or an actually illegal lifelong contract you’d never get out of. They’d take all your earnings or use some other nefarious deal to suck you dry.”

Matt sputtered for a response, but Miles held up his hand and continued, “This planet is just too new and too poor. Just the teleportation to neighboring planets is too expensive for wasteful transits. Every inch of space is worth its weight in mana stones. A good 80% of the recruits we pick up today are never even going to leave this planet in the next five years. If they don't have clear potential, the Guild isn't going to shoulder that cost.

“Go ahead and try, but don’t sign anything without reading the contract. Every single word. All recruitment contracts have to be in plain text that is easy to understand.”

Miles reached into a cabinet along the wall and grabbed some cards. He held his hand out for Matt to shake and handed the cards over in his off-hand. “These are PlanetNet vouchers. Each card is good for an hour of uptime, and these five should get you through the next few years. The CityNet mostly just has general info, but the PlanetNet will let you check Glesie’s rift status from time to time.”

Miles looked drained all of the sudden. “Good luck, kid. And when you solo delve, play it safe and don’t get injured. Healing will put you into crippling debt faster than anything else. Slow and methodical. Careful. Just be careful.”

With that, Miles turned and trudged out of the room, and Matt took it as the dismissal it was.

He tried to help me, and his advice about the contracts is good to know. Without that warning, I might have jumped on the first offer without looking into it.

For the next hour, Matt traveled from stall to stall seeing if any guilds, corporations, or crafter associations would take a chance on him. But Miles had been right. Few were willing to even talk to him after seeing the detrimental rating for his Tier 1 Talent. Those who were still willing presented him with predatory lifelong contracts, all containing inescapable clauses where at least 50% of all his earnings were owed to the guild, even if he left the guild at some later point.

One particularly heinous contract had a line stating he forfeited ownership of his own body. Matt shuddered to think what people who accepted that contract ended up doing. Illegal prostitution would be the most preferable outcome, if the look the recruiter had given him was any indication.