I made it all the way home before opening Quest Master.
Shoes off. Jacket over the chair. Dinner in the microwave.
Then I sat at my desk and unlocked my phone.
ROLE ALIGNMENT INCREASED
CAMILA REYES
SECRETARY Alignment
0% → 2%
SECRETARY Role XP
6 / 100 → 9 / 100
Two percent.
Using my work hadn’t done it. Listening to me hadn’t done it. Even building her next move around my analysis had only advanced the Role.
This had been different.
Camila had something I didn’t—visibility, status, control of the room—and she’d voluntarily spent some of it improving my position.
Not obedience.
Not simple cooperation either.
Something more specifically tied to me.
Another notification appeared.
MASTER QUEST COMPLETE
FIRST ALIGNMENT
+25 Master XP+5 Authority
Then:
MASTER LEVEL INCREASED
QUEST MASTERLv.1 → Lv.2
Master XP: 0 / 100Authority: 26
Before I could process that, another panel opened.
HIDDEN MASTER MILESTONE COMPLETE
LEARN THE RULES
FIRST PLAYER ✓FIRST SUCCESS ✓FIRST ASCENSION ✓FIRST ALIGNMENT ✓
INITIAL MASTER INSTRUCTION COMPLETE
REWARD
Foundational Master Trait Selection
I smiled.
So I’d been right.
Level One had been a tutorial.
Register a Player. Give her a Quest. Develop her. Create Alignment.
Lesson over.
A second panel followed.
MASTER Lv.2
+1 Free Master Attribute PointMaster Milestones unlocked
Then one of my existing Skills flashed.
MASTER SKILL RANK-UP AVAILABLE
QUEST SELECTION Lv.1
Mastery: 4 / 4 Successful Standard Quests ✓Required Master Level: Lv.2 ✓
I selected it.
QUEST SELECTION Lv.1 → Lv.2
NEW FUNCTION — QUEST BIAS
Cost: 3 Authority
Bias the next generated Standard Quest set toward one eligible:
BehaviorContextReward TypeRole Tendency
Influences options. Does not guarantee a specific Quest or reward.
So leveling didn’t automatically improve my Skills.
It unlocked improvements I’d already earned.
Before, I chose from whatever hand the System dealt me.
Now I could influence the hand.
I opened the Trait selection.
PATRON I
Registered Players gain +10% Player XP and Attribute Progress from completed Quests.
ARCHITECT I
First Quest Bias per Player each reset costs 1 less Authority.
Once per reset, one generated set may contain 4 options.
PARASITE I
5% of Player XP earned from eligible Quests is copied as Master XP.
10% of earned Attribute Progress is copied to the matching Master Attribute.
Player rewards are not reduced.
Five percent sounded small until I stopped thinking about one Quest.
Or one Player.
Forty Player XP would’ve meant two Master XP. Not much once.
Do it fifty times.
Add another Player.
Then another.
Patron made my Players grow faster.
Parasite made their growth feed mine.
And they lost nothing.
The choice wasn’t particularly difficult.
FOUNDATIONAL MASTER TRAIT SELECTED
PARASITE I
I waited for that to bother me.
It didn’t.
My status opened.
EVAN COLE
QUEST MASTER — Lv.2
Master XP: 0 / 100Authority: 26Players: 1 / 1
Free Master Attribute Points: 1
INT 14 — 0 / 250PER 11 — 0 / 150CHA 8 — 0 / 100PRE 6 — 0 / 50
Presence six bothered me.
Probably had long before I had a number for it.
Fifty Progress would raise it naturally. Intelligence needed two hundred and fifty.
Spending the free point on Presence would feel better.
Saving it was smarter.
I hated that those weren’t the same thing.
I left the point unspent and opened Camila’s profile.
CAMILA REYES — Player Lv.2
XP: 50 / 150
PER 12 — 15 / 150CHA 15 — 0 / 400PRE 15 — 0 / 400
SECRETARY Role XP: 9 / 100Alignment: 2%
EXECUTIVE PRESENCE — 1 USE
Presence fifteen.
She’d started at fourteen.
At Reeves’ meeting, she hadn’t looked different. She’d simply been harder to look past.
And once, she could push that to seventeen.
Two points didn’t sound small anymore.
I returned to Authority.
AUTHORITY FUNCTIONS
Quest Reroll — 2
Quest Bias — 3
MASTER SHOP — LOCKED
Unlock Requirement: Master Lv.5
Twenty-six Authority suddenly didn’t look like a score.
It looked like something I could spend to shape outcomes.
Two new objectives waited below.
ROLE MILESTONE — FAMILIAR GROUND
Raise a registered Player to 10% Role Alignment.
REWARD
+40 Master XP+5 Authority
Unlock 1 Hidden Role Trait for that Player
Then:
MASTER QUEST — BEYOND THE OFFICE
Turn a connection outside Aurelia into a concrete opportunity that materially improves your standing inside it.
REWARD
+60 Master XP
+8 Authority
Outside Aurelia.
Vesper.
Reeves wanted something we could actually film. I could get inside. The problem was getting Aurelia a camera through the door.
Talia ran VIP operations. She knew who wanted attention, who didn’t, and who could approve something like that.
So the immediate question was simple.
How did I get her to help?
The rewards answered another one.
Forty Master XP.
Sixty.
Exactly enough for Level Three.
My eyes returned to:
Players: 1 / 1
When Camila had filled that slot, one Player had seemed impossible enough.
Now it looked restrictive.
First, survive the cut.
I was still fifteenth.
After that, if progression opened another slot, I already had options.
Talia came to mind first.
Strength fourteen. Willpower fourteen. Presence fifteen.
Things I didn’t have.
Then Isabella.
Access I didn’t have.
I remembered her laughing in college like asking her out had been the punchline.
Instead of anger, I found myself smiling.
We’ll see.
Camila’s Quest menu was empty.
Sends Available: 0 / 2Next Reset: 04:00
One Player was already stronger than she’d been four days ago.
Camila wanted the rewards.
I wanted what her progress could give me.
For now, that arrangement worked.
I looked at the rankings again.
Fifteenth.
That came first.
Survive the cut.
Tomorrow, Camila would have two Quests again.
And for the first time, I wouldn’t just be choosing from whatever Quest Master offered me.
I could start shaping what came next.