2.22 - Small Talk

"The three main factors are the quantity and quality of monster cores," Sofia said, "which floors you're delving, and finally, the number of weekly outings."

The third surprised Natalie. "How often you're delving?" It didn't line up with Tenet's modus operandi—always reward merit, not effort.

"Tenet wants to encourage hard work in some way, I suppose. Have rewards to those pushing the hardest, even if they're not the most adept." She shrugged. "If I had to guess, it's not the biggest factor. But Instructor Lauer mentioned it, so."

"And how do they track all that?"

"Without people cheating?"

"Seems like they could buy cores and lie about it."

"Tenet's able to detect how recently a core's been gathered."

"How?"

"Devices." Another shrug.

"And why can't someone pay a higher rank to collect them? Then pass it off, so it's recent?"

"You slept through the whole class, didn't you?"

"Jay doesn't let me sleep," Natalie said sourly. "She forces me to suffer." But she did zone out, regardless of her friend's efforts to keep her conscious. Even when she wasn't zoned out, the information went in one ear and out the other.

"Well, like I said, in modern days, they use various tech to handle most of it," Sofia said. "Before, to my knowledge, they kept profiles of students and compared expected results. Aberrant cases, those who deviated too far, were inspected, and most incidents of cheating were unearthed through … whatever methods they used. And when cheaters were caught, they leveled sufficiently devastating consequences to persuade most opportunists to not even try. Tenet's been playing this game for a long time. They know their way around keeping students in line."

A long time. Yeah. Millennia. Sometimes it was hard to contextualize just how old this institution was. Sure, back in those days, Tenet didn't look anything like this—that is, modern—but the academy had been formed shortly after Aradon's first settlers. The world had always needed delvers dragging up valuables from the dungeon.

"Tech," Natalie repeated. "What kind? How does it work?"

"We'll be getting them next week, right before the dungeon opens. Devices that fix under your delver's badge and track your movement, and the quantity of essence expelled near you. Along with Tenet's original measures, cheating's become, I assume, close to impossible." She shrugged. "Though only close. I'm sure appropriately enterprising individuals can—and do—manage it. The question is why, really. High risk, high effort, low reward. Because even in the best case, you have to keep your results reasonable to your performance in class."

So if you weren't much of a delver, and that was clear in daily life, then you couldn't cheat much, either. The only situation she imagined the effort being worth it was someone incompetent cheating to scrape by a 'passing' grade for the prestige that came with being a Tenet graduate.

"Huh," Natalie said thoughtfully. She'd known there would by systems in place, but hearing the details was interesting.

"Why do you ask?"

"Just wondering."

Ahead, the fight was wrapping up. Natalie, and likewise Sofia, had been keeping a passive eye on the combatants. Not just because knowing her classmates' skill sets was useful, but because there was plenty to learn from each of them. One of the most crucial skills needed to be a successful delver was adaptability, because no two encounters were the same. Similar to how classes and skills had few to no limits in how they might manifest, the monsters, traps, and layouts of the dungeon resulted in similarly infinite variance.

So, breaking down how elements interacted: how two of her classmates applied or took advantage of their skills, their teammates', and their enemies', was a close approximation of how a person might analyze a dungeon encounter. Natalie found her brain churning passively, even while talking with Sofia. She might not be able to pay attention in class, but combat? Breaking down fighting styles? She could do that all day.

"You pick your extracurricular, yet?" Natalie asked.

Sofia turned to her, raising an eyebrow. "Small talk? With me?"

Natalie paused, realizing the world had ended. She grimaced. "It's dark times we live in."

Sofia laughed. Natalie thought it outrageously unfair how cute the noise was. She also pointedly ignored that she'd had the thought.

"We should spar after class," Sofia said. "We need to get a handle on how our styles have changed. Jordan, too. If we want to be a team, we're going to have to know each other, inside and out."

Was it Natalie, or were accidental innuendos coming more frequently, these days?

Also.

That thought, combined with Sofia. 'Knowing her inside and out'.

Uh.

Her mind went briefly white.

From horror.

Not …

Definitely horror.

"Sure," Natalie said, her brain failing, briefly, to structure more reasonable thoughts, and saying whatever came to mind. In this case, agreeing to Sofia's offer for spars. "What time?"

Sofia seemed surprised she'd agreed so easily. "Whenever. We'll ask Jordan when she's done."

They watched the fight wrap up, and she caught Sofia eying her. It was … a fair reaction. That exchange of theirs had been surprisingly easygoing. Very unlike them.

Natalie wasn't sure why it had been so. Sofia's presence was still distinctly inflaming, but not as much as back home. She guessed with so many other things going on, Sofia just wasn't … well, the biggest thing in Natalie's world, recently.

She meant that in a bad way. The biggest roadblock. Her rival. Sofia wasn't—

Anyway, she hadn't been sitting in Natalie's thoughts, aggravating her. And they weren't each other's rivals in the way they'd been back home. The two big fish in a tiny pond, desperately struggling to pull ahead of each other.

But in these new circumstances, Sofia as a teammate, with everyone else their rivals. It was far from ideal. Natalie would never like the irritating woman, but maybe she could grow on her. Some sort of horrible lichen, but ultimately tolerable.

Even that, though. Sofia growing on her. What had the world come to?