Luke looked down at his list of questions. The first one might be inelegant, particularly since he was asking this of his girlfriend, but he had it written down and wanted to know the answer anyway. “So, Vanessa, why did you apply to work for Monster Jaeger Inc?”

  “You mean besides the fact that you are offering a salary three times what I currently make as a paramedic?” She asked brightly.

  “Yes, besides that,” Luke said with a smile.

  “All the reasons, I guess? I’ve always wanted magic, I want a more active job, I would love to use my HEMA skills in real life. Pick your favorite. I think I would be a good choice because this is what I’ve wanted forever.”

  Luke made a few notes and turned to Allen for the next question. He asked the typical strengths and weaknesses question and she responded with her melee fighting skills, her medic skills, and said her weakness was caring too much. Typical bullshit, almost a ritual for interviews.

  Shepard went off script and asked, “In your job as a paramedic, have you ever had to choose between saving a patient and protecting a coworker? If so, what did you do?”

  Luke grimaced but Sandwich nodded along like that wasn’t a weird question.

  “I’ve run into that a few times, yeah. Not often, we have procedures to keep everyone safe. But the one time I can think of was a few years back. We got a call about an overdose at an apartment in Mountain View Heights. It’s a shitty part of town but I wasn’t worried. Usually, you dose them with naloxone if you can save them and that’s it. We found this giant lying motionless on the stoop and rushed over to help him. But this guy wasn’t on opioids, he was on meth. As soon as Jeff touched him he jumped up and tried to stab him with a needle. I tried to stop him peacefully, but when that didn't work, I kneed him in the groin. Saving Jeff meant that he could help me save the patient after we had him subdued.”

  Sandwich and Shepard nodded along. They both liked that answer. Sandwich looked down at the list of questions and ignored them as well. He said, “This job can be stressful, every other day we risk our lives fighting literal monsters. Tell us a little about your support system that can help you deal with these stresses.”

  “Well, I have a boyfriend that knows exactly what it’s like,” Vanessa said with a smirk. Luke’s heart beat faster. That was probably the first time she had used that word out loud. “I also have good long term friends. My BFF is a paramedic too, then there is my HEMA and larping friends. I always have someone I can talk to.”

  Luke noticed that she didn’t mention family. It had been a taboo topic on their dates, even when he shared his own story. He thought that mentioning what his mother had done would help her open up, but she hadn’t said a word about her family. At least she seemed to have a good network of friends.

  Shepard and Sandwich turned to Luke and gave him a downward nod. The corner of his mouth twitched up. “Thank you, Ms. Staggers. If you want to hang out until the interviews are done, we will be making our decisions right away.”

  She shook everyone’s hand and walked to the other side of the pavilion where the snacks were. They asked similar questions to the remaining ten candidates, trying to keep things moving quickly so no one wasted their time.

  Two of the candidates turned out to be obvious psychopaths, they just wanted to kill things and see blood fly. It was easy to cut them. The remaining nine candidates were all pretty good though. They had a hard time narrowing it down to six. Shepard made a suggestion on how to proceed.

  “Why don’t we offer all of them the job, dependent on them passing the security clearance? I know Elwood Services always had a problem with people not getting their clearance. We’d be lucky to get six of these nine to be approved.”

  “Ok, let’s do that,” Luke said.

  He offered the nine good candidates, including Vanessa, a job providing they were able to get their security clearance. They spent another half hour answering general questions and arranging the first day of work for eight days from now. He promised them a signing bonus after their first day of work.

  ???

  Thursday started as normal, with Jinx’s butt in his face. Luke shoved her off and said, “Damn, girl are you getting bigger?”

  To his surprise, she was. She was at least four inches longer and several pounds heavier. Thinking back, she had been a bit bigger yesterday too. Her new magic class was clearly to blame. Her prosthetic legs were an inch shorter than her forelegs. He could easily correct that today, but if she got much bigger, he would need to rebuild them from scratch.

  He would have to ask the Seer about it today when he had breakfast with him. Lunch for Luke since that would be several hours from now. He fed Jinx and himself and drove to the Norfolk Complex. It was earlier than normal, but he found himself missing the buff that came with piloting a mech. Particularly since he hit level six and the buff had increased.

  When he got to the Norfolk Complex, it was still early in the morning. Jinx’s 6AM wake up meant that he was the only one in the warehouse. Jinx had ghosted through the car door and was wandering around the complex. He trusted that he could get her to come back since he had a can of her favorite food. It made him nervous to have her out there on her own, but there literally wasn’t anything he could do about it.

  Instead, he decided to throw himself into a new crafting project. He climbed into his Mark II mech for the class buff and thought about what he should make. There were enough materials to make more suits of power armor, and since he had just hired several more people, that had to be his first priority.

  Vanessa would probably be the first one to join their team since she had already submitted her security clearance request. Luke would make a suit tailored to her. She had mentioned a few things she would have liked to change the night he snuck her on base to shoot ice bolts.

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  He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about her working for them. His insecurities were telling him that she was only dating him so she could get to Kalibutan. That she was just using him. His heart and brain told him that was wrong, she actually liked him as much as he liked her. The two forces warred within him until he told himself to shut up and he focused on crafting.

  The torso came together in record time. He didn’t have specific measurements, but he knew Vanessa’s body intimately so it was easy to build her something that would fit her well. The padded pilot suits were adjustable, so he only had to get close for a comfortable fit.

  Next, he worked on the legs, making them almost as long as his own. She had mentioned that she didn’t like how loud the suit was as it clanked about, so he made the feet wider and included softer shock absorbers. He also decided to use up the last of the Stone Beetle parts. It was only enough for her pauldrons and chest plate, so he made a mental note to hunt more of the super tough monsters and upgrade her suit later.

  Allen joined him then, and got to work on the normal sets of power armor. Their runes required regular maintenance since they were exposed to the elements. His experience repairing power loaders made the work on the mechs easy. Luke made a mental note to eventually switch them all to his own design where the runes were protected.

  Just before 11AM, Shepard and the rest of the crew arrived. Luke had just finished Vanessa’s suit, surprising himself. That was the fastest he had ever put together a mech suit. He hadn’t installed spell rifles yet, but still. He had put it together from scratch in a single morning. The strength and buffs from his mech suit made the work fly by. Plus, he had to admit to himself he was pretty talented with runes.

  Everyone climbed into their favorite set of power armor and Luke threw a Machine Soul into his newest magic drone. They were walking towards the building when he got a call on his cell phone. He used Machine Bond to answer the phone and put it through the speakers.

  “Hey Luke, glad I caught you. Can you come back to the warehouse real quick?” Allen said.

  “Sure, you forget something?”

  “Sort of. Come on back, it won’t take long.”

  Luke explained the situation to the others and jogged back to the edge of the Norfolk Complex. He chuckled as he passed a car and the driver gave him a double take. The complex was large enough that walking from one end to the other took a while, unless you were running around in a mech that made you twice as tall.

  He walked up to the loading door in the back and someone stepped out as he arrived.

  “Surprise!” Vanessa yelled and threw her hands up in the air.

  “What are you doing here? Did you sneak in?”

  “No, silly. My security clearance came through this morning. I’m official and everything. I asked Allen to call you back because I want to come with today. Can I please?” Vanessa said and leaned forward, blinking wide eyes.

  Luke laughed at her antics and said, “You’re in luck. I just finished your suit this morning. It’s the only one left, right over there. You can come with today, but you can’t fight. We agreed that employees have to do some training before we let them out in the field. But I know you can’t wait to travel to Kalibutan, so you can shadow me as I talk to people in town. Allen’s got padded pilot suits by that table and you can use the bathroom up front to change.”

  Vanessa jumped up and clapped her hands once. “Yay!” She ran off to get dressed.

  Allen wandered over and said, “I have no idea what she sees in you. I've had bowel movements more attractive than you.”

  Luke barked out a laugh. “Been saving that one for a while? I’ll have you know she’s with me for my brains.”

  “Nah, that ain’t it. If zombies tried eating your brains, they'd starve.”

  “Shit man, you are on a roll. That sharp tongue will take you far one day. And I hope you stay there.”

  Allen chuckled. “Seriously though. Stay safe out there. Don’t try and show off for your lady friend.”

  “I wasn’t going to, but now that you brought it up...”

  Allen rolled his eyes. “Hey, lemme ask you a different question. Am I on the list for a suit of my own? I get it if you don’t want to make one for me, but like I wanted to know what to expect.”

  Luke turned to look at his friend. Allen was weirdly nervous now. “Dude. I can make you a mech. I thought you didn’t want to visit Kalibutan.”

  “Of course I want to visit a literal magic world, you moron. I just didn’t want to fight monsters. I’m a lover not a fighter.”

  “Ah, yes. The type of lover that never gets a girlfriend. That kind of lover.”

  Allen flipped him off. “You know I’ve had more girlfriends than you have. It’s just been a dry spell lately.”

  Luke chuckled. “Whatever. I’ll make you a suit when I can. Feel free to draw up some plans today and I promise to ignore them and make whatever I want.”

  Allen swore at him and laughed. Vanessa came back wearing the padded pilot suit and Luke helped her into the Mark III mech. She loved it and Luke mentioned that he had made it for her. She gave him a hug as thanks, which felt weird even with Machine Bond.

  This was only Vanessa’s second time piloting a mech, but she took to it quickly. Her earlier practice and the fact that the power armor was literally made for her meant that she was walking and running within thirty seconds.

  The two of them caught up with the rest of the crew and they walked into the concrete block of a building that housed the portal. Luke used his final portal pass to get her through security. It reminded him that they couldn’t send more than seven people through the portal at once, even when they had more mechs and people to pilot them.

  Vanessa paused right before the portal’s shimmering purple film. The others kept walking but she stood stock still and clenched and unclenched her hands.

  Luke leaned forward and put his gauntlet on her right pauldron. He whispered, “You can do it, you don’t feel anything. It’s like walking from one room to another.”

  She turned and nodded at him, and then took a determined step forward. She passed through the semi transparent film in the fifteen foot gateway between worlds. The two of them walked through the corridor of stars and out into a beautiful morning in Kalibutan.

  Vanessa stepped off to the side and then stood stock still, taking it all in. Luke joined her, seeing everything for the first time again. The tall stone plateau the portal was on, the massive trees with grasping branches, strange looking bushes, and magic weapons the guards held. It was all new again, seeing it through her eyes. Orcs and dwarves hurried about, either guarding the portal or working in the markets along the road.

  She stood there for a while, long enough that Luke knew the rest of the squad was probably getting antsy. He didn’t hurry her along though, she had probably been dreaming about this moment for years.

  Eventually, she started moving again, heading towards the tall stairs leading off of the plateau. Just as she got to the edge, she jerked back and said, “What the hell is an assessment period?”

  Luke blinked. He knew exactly what that was. She had a little blue box pop up in her vision that meant the System of the World was watching her. Vanessa was going to get a class in a few days.

  That also meant that the System of the World thought she was going to have an interesting next few days. When he had his own assessment period he invented an all new way to scribe runes, built a new kind of mech, and killed a Spectral Spider Queen. What was going to happen during her assessment period?

  Today’s chapter title comes from The King's Speech (2010)

  If you want to see what adventures Vanessa gets up to and what class she chooses, come join us on