“Jack, I need to know where you stand. Are you part of this troupe or not?”

  The Director looked Zack straight in the eye.

  Zack already knew the answer to this question.

  He was ready.

  The last time he had been ready was when he signed up for the Army, and that had lasted all of boot camp before the NSA got him.

  But he was ready to try again.

  Vlad, Ronaldo, Fyodor, Jim, Roxy, Millie, Sandra, Emily, and everyone else…

  They considered him a friend, and he considered them his friends.

  “Yeah, I am.” Zack met the Director’s gaze directly, with a serene heart.

  It felt good.

  But the Director narrowed his eyes.

  “Then it’s time to come clean, Jack.”

  He paused, and Zack raised an eyebrow. “Come clean about what, exactly?”

  “Why was the Trelawney Foreign Diplomatic Service expecting me to pass you along to them?”

  Zack’s eyebrow came back down. “The what now?”

  The Director leaned back in his chair. “The night you arrived,” he began, “you were running from someone. But you wouldn’t say who. So I did some digging.”

  Zack narrowed his eyes and the Director did it right back.

  “Hey, of course I did. I’m responsible for this troupe, and you smelled like trouble. Don’t give me that look.”

  Zack sighed and nodded. “Fair enough.”

  “So I did some digging: nothing criminal, nothing with the families, nothing with the Guilds, not even anything with the sailors down at the docks. And then on the second day, the merchants showed up.”

  “I thought you said it was the Trelawney Foreign Diplomatic Service.”

  “Yeah, the merchants.” The Director looked at Zack suspiciously. “They said they were expecting a foreign man with black hair and black eyes who had come here seeking shelter, and that he would have given the password.”

  “And, what did you tell them?” Zack leaned heavily on his [Calm Down] skill.

  “That nobody showed up with the password, of course. You didn’t use it. And you seemed serious about getting training here, not running away to the Republic. So they left and never came back.”

  Zack was silent, processing this, and the Director leaned forward.

  “Now, Jack, if you’re really going to be part of this troupe, it’s time to come clean. What’s going on?”

  Zack was ready.

  “The night I came to the Rose Theater, there had been a poisoning attempt on my life in the Royal Castle.”

  Zack paused and the Director gestured for him to continue.

  “I happened to already have a spy in the Castle in my debt, and that spy helped me escape and sent me here with the password. That spy said you would grant me refuge.”

  The Director frowned. “Quit being cagey. Just tell me the story from the beginning.”

  And so he did.

  At least, as far as being summoned alongside the [Hero].

  Why confuse matters by bringing the divine into this?

  From his summoning alongside the [Hero], to his tentative inclusion in the [Party], to his [Training] and the [Priestess’] enmity, and finally to the poisoned sweetroll and his last-second detection of the poison.

  “...and then I arrived here.”

  The Director leaned back and gazed at the ceiling for a time, stunned.

  “By the Goddess” he muttered. “A [Hero] Summoning, in our time…”

  His head remained thrown back, but his eyes flicked down to look at Zack. “And a [Unique]...”

  Zack waited a minute to let him process, then spoke. “I’m curious, there was really nobody looking for me? Other than the Trelawney people. I would have thought there would be people after me, considering how I left.”

  “Nothing.” The Director frowned. “At least nothing public, nothing announced.”

  He sighed heavily and sat up, and for once, his poise slipped. It was as though he had aged a decade in a minute.

  “Goddess above, Jack! I thought you were just some defecting Trelawney republican!”

  It was a testament to the Director’s skills that he could shout and keep his voice down at the same time. Such a feat would have been impossible back on Earth.

  “But nobody from the Church has been around, right?”

  The Director rubbed his face with his hands and when they came down, he was again in control of himself.

  He glared at Zack. “No, at least, nobody asking after you. We do have a few deacons and priests who come by, but just for the entertainment. Most of the clergy go to the bigger, fancier theaters in town if they do at all.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  His glare intensified. “Jack, you make sure you go out [Disguised] at all times, got it? And keep quiet about the [Hero] being summoned. Neither the Church nor the Kingdom have announced anything yet.”

  “Yes, Director.”

  “Wait here.”

  The Director hopped out of his chair, squeezed around his desk, and left the room. A minute later, he returned with…

  Ronaldo, bearing a look of confusion on his face.

  The door closed, and the Director walked to his desk but not around it. Instead, he leaned against the front edge.

  “What is it, Will? The show’s about to start.”

  “This is urgent, but I don’t want to overly distract you. For now, introductions. Jack here is from a foreign land, as you might have guessed."

  Ronaldo and Zack shared a look.

  “I didn’t want to assume,” Ronaldo said by way of explanation.

  “Ronaldo, Jack’s trouble was with the Church, and also the Kingdom. He’s not from around here, and it seems like there’s no heat, but we can’t be sure.”

  Ronaldo simply nodded.

  “Jack, if you have questions about how things work around here in Fortinium, you ask Ronaldo. Best to keep things tight, you understand me?”

  “Okay,” Zack answered.

  “But save it for after the shows tonight.”

  “You got it.”

  Ronaldo raised a hand, palm out, towards Zack, to stop him speaking further.

  “I have the show to get to, as the Director said. We’ll talk after.”

  Zack nodded. Ronaldo smiled.

  “Although, I do have one question for you, Jack.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “How much do you know about the Southern Empire?”

  Zack paused a moment.

  “I’ve never heard of it before.”

  “So you’re not from the south?”

  “That’s correct.”

  A hint of tension lifted from Ronaldo’s shoulders, and his smile widened.

  “Okay, good. I’m from the Hoxichtl tribe, and came here as a child.”

  Emily’s voice echoed through the door.

  “Ronaldo! It’s almost curtain call!”

  The Director nodded sharply. “Go.”

  Ronaldo nodded to the Director and smiled one last time at Zack. “We’ll talk later, Jack.”

  And then he left, shutting the door behind himself.

  The Director sighed once more.

  “So, do I still need to keep using this alias?” Zack asked.

  “Absolutely.” The Director’s response was immediate. “With the Church after you? There can be no slipups. I don’t want anyone here even knowing the name you went by in the Castle. It’s for their protection, not just you.”

  It bothered Zack, a little, to be keeping a secret from the rest of the troupe. But he understood.

  “Now… Goddess, this changes a lot. Where are you at, exactly, on your [Skills]?”

  “[Memorize] is doing pretty good; it’s getting easier and faster. [Sewing] is also good, but I’ve yet to really pick up [Makeup] or [Disguise]; Millie and Roxy helped me with those. Oh, and I picked up [Intimidate], and [Tame].”

  The Director gave him a look. “Your [Unique] is about learning, yeah?”

  Zack nodded. “Yes, 100% increased skill experience up to level 1.”

  “Then you need to lean into that more. You need to be disguised at all times, even if you think the heat’s died down. You never know when you’ll run into some knight or priest who remembers you from the Castle.”

  Zack had already assumed that, but he nodded all the same.

  “Once you have all the foundational skills, we can actually get you [Acting] and Ronaldo can give you pointers on acting like a native Fortinian.”

  He threw his head back and muttered at the ceiling again. “Goddess above…”

  It made Zack feel awkward. “Er, Director, sorry about…”

  “What?” The Director’s voice was sharp as a knife.

  “About, you know, bringing this trouble to the troupe…”

  “Jack,” the director’s tone was firm, “everyone’s got some kind of trouble or other. You’re part of the troupe. Don’t go apologizing for who you are. Nobody chooses that. Even if you think you did choose it, you can’t change your past. Nobody can. If you get all mopey about yours, everyone else is going to get mopey about theirs, and it’ll mess up the performances.”

  “Well,” Zack said, “we certainly can’t have that.”

  The younger man and the older man shared a grin.

  “Damn right!” the Director half-shouted. “Now get out of my office, sit yourself down at makeup table four, and hurry up and get that [Skill]. I want you to have [Disguise] by matinee curtain call tomorrow, got it?”

  Zack blanched. That was more than double the pace of training so far.

  “Eh? Snake got your tongue?”

  “...yes, Director,” Zack managed to reply.

  “Go on, git.”

  The Director pushed off his desk and shooed Zack from his office, slipping past him with surprising grace to go oversee another day’s shows.

  “Mopey, huh?” Zack smiled wryly, then as instructed, hurried to the makeup table.

  Table four was the spare, used mainly before performances as during performances, makeup changes usually happened on the first three tables. First, he removed the makeup and false scar, then did his best to replicate the foundation layer Millie and Roxy had applied earlier that day. [Memorize] made it easy to recall exactly how they had done so, and how it had looked in the mirror when they said it was done, but his hands were unused to the movements, and the powder could be finicky.

  The first try was a mess. As scene one came to an end, he washed it off and tried again.

  He hoped the powders weren’t expensive…

  But he dismissed the thought from his mind.

  The powders probably were expensive.

  But the Director had told him to do this, and he would know better than Zack the value of the cosmetics compared to the value of keeping Zack hidden from pursuers.

  He tried again.

  It still wasn’t quite right. The foundation was thin in some places, too thick in others.

  Again.

  And again.

  And then, at the end of Act one…

  *ding!* The skill [Makeup] has been acquired!

  Zack smiled and inspected the foundation layer.

  Still not perfect.

  But he now had the skill at level one.

  Level one skills weren’t very useful, in the grand scheme of things.

  But they were the first step.

  He once more removed the foundation, and then reapplied it. It was much easier now, and his hands moved more skillfully, producing the effect he visualized in his mind on his face in reality.

  The problems of the [Hero’s Party] moved further and further to the back of his mind as he looked to the future.

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