Magical Engineering

Chapter 93: First Annual Performance Reviews: Old Melodies & Lost Knowledge

“So, what exactly do you all want to know about me?” Connie asked the moment she was through the door before Pryte even had a chance to return to his seat. Truth be told, I wasn’t entirely sure how much more we needed to know about her either after the previous night’s talk.“We’re doing this with everyone. I know we covered a lot of your details last night, but I want to go over some of them a little more. Specifically, let’s start with your motivations. What made you set out on your own anyway? I assume Trelione has a pretty comfortable retirement going,” Pryte asked as he took his seat.

“How much of this information is being filed in the paperwork with the Arena?” Connie asked her own question, with no sign of answering Pryte’s. It didn’t come off as standoffish so much as that there were things she didn’t want officially recorded.

“I only plan to submit the needed documentation, which covers: name, class, rank in the faction, those types of things. Everything beyond that is for our ears only,” Pryte answered, not sounding in any way bothered that she hadn’t answered.

“Alright, well, may as well let the cat out of the bag then. Gramps is planning a new performance. He’s thinking sometime in the next decade or so but wants me to scout out what’s happening in the wider Spiral,” She said, smiling.

“Oh, that could be very interesting,” Pryte responded, sounding intrigued.

“Yep, and with you guys having Sanquar, I got a feeling there will be no stopping him once he learns about that. In the meantime, I figure I’ll just do what I can to Arena climb with your faction and see about working on my path,” She continued, still beaming.

“Speaking of your path. Is that your whole class, or just a pathway in it? Sorry, this is all still pretty new to me,” I said, apologizing following my question after seeing her give me an odd look.

“The Path of the Stellar Opera is a potential pathway within any performance-based class, assuming you have someone capable of guiding you in the first steps,” she answered. The way classes worked still hadn’t fully clicked in my brain. Was it possible to build a class into anything with the right tutor? I added classes and their functions to a list of topics I wanted books on as soon as possible.

“And just what is that actual class? We do need that for the records,” Pryte followed up with another question.

“Pop Princess,” She replied. I held my own laughter in check, assuming that was just the best way the translation layer could make me understand. She was the daughter of an apparently legendary musician, so that made her a princess. At least, that was how I rationalized how absurd the idea of the pop princess being a real class was. Neither Pryte or Mel said anything, the first just making a note of it like it was a perfectly normal class.

“I suppose we can skip the future you want here as well, as I assume that is completely up in the air?” Pryte phrased the statement as a question. The man was impressive at these interviews, better than any HR person I had ever talked with.

“Yeah. I can promise I’ll stick with you until Gramps makes his own calls, and depending on how this all plays out, I may continue here as well, but I can’t make any promises there. Plus, you can’t even really promise me you will exist in a decade,” she replied.

“No, we can’t. I think that means that was all we had for you. Thanks for doing this,” I said. Pryte nodded next to me. Mel didn’t. He was staring at her.

“What made ya decide to help the kid?” Mel asked.

Her face scrunched into a scowl as she responded. “He was a kid in a situation well over his head and needed help. I know all you big tough faction guys would have left him, but, and do not pardon my language here, fuck that. My grandfather taught me better than that.” The anger of her words was directed straight at Mel.

“Good. Ain’t got any more questions either,” Mel said after her very targeted outburst. The anger on her face cleared, likely from the realization Mel had liked her answer and, without any other words, left the room.

“I’ll grab Elody unless we have something more to discuss here. But that seemed straightforward enough to me,” Pryte said; no one spoke up to stop him as he also left the room, returning almost immediately with Elody. She must have been right outside. that contains what little records survive, not that anyone is allowed to touch it, assuming they even wanted to,” Pryte answered.

“A trillion souls ignite in unison. Flames call to the great darkness. Hunger answers,” Elody said.

“What the hell does that mean?” Mel asked, the confused fear in his voice growing.

“I don’t know. It’s a small surviving fragment of a poem my mentor found on a cast-off world. One he was sure had been part of the Old Spiral,” she answered.

Personal Diary of Ronald Tammen