A cold spike stabbed Tanya's gut. No Class. That meant everything she knew about survival and power didn't apply. Her hands trembled slightly. He was planning on travelling for hours on foot—that would be suicide. She'd never seen one of her tattoos from before the apocalypse awaken. How many had died?

Adder's contorted face filled her mind. It's the closest she'd come to seeing what happened when a tattoo was more powerful than a body could hold, and that was the best-case scenario. The portal had killed her multiple times over.

Tanya worked very hard to control her facial expression.

She imagined what his life must have been like: watching the news, hearing people dying outside, maybe boarding up his windows until almost all of the natural light was gone.

Tanya wondered how much that mirrored her Mum and Brother's lives.

Did Tommy ever get through to Mum about using powers—

"Is that a problem?" Ian asked.

"Oh—no," Tanya said. "Actually, I don't know," she admitted. "Can you give me a sec?"

He nodded.

Tanya could have checked her Interface and talked to The System right there, but there was something very strange about the idea of this guy staring at her whilst she stared into space. The Interface didn't even make her blink nowadays because it was this new universal experience—except it wasn't. This man had never had it.

With a polite smile, Tanya walked into the back of the parlour and pulled the curtains across the back section. Just her, the tattoo chair, the cupboard around the Monster Core, and a lot of Polaroids. The curtain hooked around the other side of the archway, and she let her facade fall away. She started pacing, hand on her chin like she always did. Assistant copied her pose in the air, and they crisscrossed the room, meeting in the middle.

From the absolute aura of confusion radiating off of Assistant, they were in the dark together.

Before she was even sure where to start, she heard a familiar whistle from outside the back.

Tanya swung the door open, ushering Olena inside with hushed whispers and frantic hand gestures from Assistant. "Olena!"

"What?!" Olena yelled back.

"SHHHH!" Tanya hissed. She ushered faster.

"What going on? Is gang? Is evil ex-boyfriend? Cannon arm reliable now. I kill whoever you want and—best part—" she flexed her fingers and her grin grew. "Cannon arm is metal, so no fingerprints when bury the body."

"I—" Tanya paused, Olena's words completely knocking all sense out of her. "I don't even know what to say to that."

Olena sighed and shook her head. "It's never yes." She walked around and flopped onto the tattoo chair. "What do you need my services?" She gasped. "Is cute boy in there? I am great wing woman." She wiggled her eyebrows.

"Olena," Tanya warned.

Olena's lifted her hand to her forehead and lowered it across her face. "Serious Olena."

"I have a customer," Tanya said, shoving Olena's legs off the tattoo stool so she could sit next to her.

"And?"

"He doesn't have a Class."

"What?! How?!" Olena shot upright so fast she nearly flipped the tattoo chair backwards, arms flailing.

"Shhhh!" Tanya hissed again.

Assistant held a finger up to Olena's lips, but she pushed past it, leaping to the curtain and peering around it. From her reaction, the customer immediately looked at her. "Sorry, we be one more minute!" she said with a sickening smile.

Tanya clenched her fists, the tension spreading through her shoulders. She was more embarrassed than angry.

"But he look so normal?" Olena whispered. Her whisper was more like a stage whisper than a real one, but it was better than the yelling so Tanya let it slide.

"Please don't freak out my customer," Tanya said.

"Is he even your customer, though. Can you do tattoo on non Worthy or would System get all BoOOoooo about it," Olena waved her arms around her face wildly with a ghostly expression.

"That's a… good question," Tanya said. "System, am I okay usin' me powers on people who you haven't given a Class to?"

It is within your right to give any resources you have to anyone you wish. Anything outside of the allowed scope will not be an option.

Tanya remembered when Ishita was unable to hear the higher levelling information, and she nodded.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

However, the gifts I give to the Worthy increase their resilience and survivability to both positive and negative stimuli.

Tanya paused a moment, waiting for more information. None came.

Assistant landed on Tanya's shoulder. The aura of confusion had lessened but was still there, same as how Tanya felt.

"So he die from tattoo then?" Olena said, matter-of-factly.

Tanya furrowed her brow. "Might die." It felt worth clarifying, but hearing the words leave her mouth made it feel preposterous to consider at all.

Olena clicked her fingers and winked. "Eyy, I like how you think."

She rolled her eyes. "I'll go tell him," Tanya said.

With a deep breath, Tanya walked back into the main area.

Ian's eyes were just wandering around the place when she came in, but locked onto her as soon as she appeared.

"So?" he asked.

Tanya sat down opposite him. "It's bad news, I'm afraid. I could give you a tattoo but with you bein' someone without a Class, it's very risky."

"How do we lower the risk to acceptable parameters?" Ian asked. His tone had changed to something more formal.

She'd braced for rejection. For anger. Maybe even tears.

But not this.

"Parameters?" Tanya echoed, as if the word came from someone else's conversation.

Ian scratched the back of his neck. "Sorry, work speak. I was in quality control for forty years before this."

"No, we can talk it out some more," Tanya said, curiosity getting the better of her. Until Marcy or another customer was here, she had time. "How do you determine acceptable parameters?"

Ian shifted in his seat. "Mostly, we looked for failure thresholds. How much heat, how much stress a circuit could take before it degraded or shorted."

Tanya raised an eyebrow. "And you want me to treat your skin like a circuit board?"

"No, I'm saying—" He hesitated, then leaned in, elbows on the table. "I'm saying we always had variables. You can't eliminate risk. But you can define it, isolate it, prepare for it. That's what I'm asking."

"So if I tell you there's an unknown percent chance it kills you outright?"

He shrugged. "Then we talk mitigation. Simplify the design. Increase trace spacing. Add insulation layers—whatever that means for this."

Tanya blinked. The man sounded like he was planning a load test, not gambling with his own life.

"You really want to get back to her, don't you?" Tanya said softly.

"My wife's in San Francisco for a work trip," Ian said. His voice shook slightly. "I have no way of knowing if she's okay but…" he took a second to compose himself.

Tanya could almost see him pushing down any thoughts of his wife so he wouldn't fall apart. She knew that feeling well.

"But our daughter is in Epping. It only took me an hour to drop her off. I've plotted it. It's a 6-hour hike, but maybe less if I could get something from you or get a car working." He shook his head. "6 hours. I could do that in a day."

"But that's ignoring any monsters or people who don't want you going through their territory," Tanya said.

He deflated slightly. "Well, yes."

Tanya didn't need to question if she wanted to help Ian, just how she could.

She'd either need to find a process of giving tattoos to someone more fragile, or help him get a Class. She wasn't sure if that was possible or something The System would even let them do. It was basically gaming the system.

There was a sinking feeling in her stomach. She had a feeling The System wouldn't reward her for either of these plans.

System, is levelling determined just by the skill of actions, or also by whether it continues their development of being Worthy?

She already knew the answer.

The latter.

Would helping someone become Worthy be counted under their development?

Someone Worthy could easily orchestrate an event to make someone Worthy, as they have already proven themself to be. That proves nothing of this new sapient.

Tanya had never really heard The System talk about those without Classes before. The way it said 'sapient' may as well have been a discussion about a single-cell organism in a lab.

They really were just cannon fodder to it.

She wasn't sure how to process the reality of that.

Ian was staring at Tanya with his big, desperate eyes. When she looked at him, he leant backwards. "Sorry, I don't want to get in the way of your—" he indicated to her generally. "Class things?"

Tanya could hear the curiosity in his statement, but didn't even know where to start explaining that this new overlord didn't value his existence any more than he mourned or noticed stepping on an ant. She wasn't sure what The System would let her say either.

"I'm talking to the being that gave me my Class to see what I can do," Tanya settled on.

Ian blinked. "So you're like a Cleric? I assumed you'd be more Bard-like"

She stared at him blankly, distractedly analysing the fact that The System let him hear that.

"You know? D&D?"

She could see it now—the thick-framed glasses, and the open plaid overshirt. Ian was a hipster type underneath the grown-out hair and sweat stains.

Not that stereotypes are a good way of classifyin' people, but sometimes they save time…

"More Warlock than Cleric, I'd say," Tanya said. She could remember her talk with The System like it was yesterday, having gone over and over it until it was burned in her memory. The idea of The System making a pact to give them their Restricted Questions even in death had stuck with her. The entire thing seemed like a web of promises, from The System to everyone it chose.

"I can create things," Tanya said, "that's true, but all of us with Classes are in a pact with this…"

"God," Ian finished.

Tanya didn't have a better word to correct him with.

"So you need to make sure it's okay with them before you help me? I'm not religious if that helps."

Everything that Ian was saying was perfectly reasonable, but she couldn't help but view them as ludicrous. It was all so obvious to her why he was wrong, but she had no idea how to explain any of it.

"It doesn't work like that," Tanya said, her frustration growing, but mostly with herself.

If I say more, I'm goin' to start helpin' him get a Class. Am I okay with that? Would it even help, or would his doing it on purpose harm his chances?

"Sorry, I don't want to anger your god," Ian said, standing awkwardly and looking towards the door.

"No. Sit," Tanya said. She rubbed her temples.

He looked around warily, as if he could just see some tendril of 'Tanya's god' just floating there if he looked hard enough.

Tanya smiled despite herself.

This whole thing is fuckin' ludicrous.

What do I do?

Mrs Eceer had drilled it into her at every chance she got:

'You can't pour from an empty jug.'

'A drowning man will drag you down with him.'

'Charity starts at home, but hunger doesn't care.'

She rattled them off at lightning speed in her head in Mrs Eceer's voice.

She could spend hours or days helping this man and receive no progress for it—even giving him a tattoo could give her no experience. This was uncharted territory.

He'd already promised his flat, but without a specific large stash of food or useful tools, it was only a trade for the tattoo itself, really. It wasn't like he had a Class that could help with the Wards—

"Wait," Tanya said. "Did you say your job was in Circuitry?"

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