"What am I missing?” I stared up at the ceiling covered in carved gold stars.

“A giant hole in the Astral?” Delta jabbed me in the side.

“Oi,” I glared at her.

“I think that a giant hole is sucking experience out,” she said. “It’s a perfectly legitimate explanation that makes sense. The fault, a hole in reality left after the destruction of Tricameron is drawing experience and magic into it like a giant funnel.”

“That doesn’t explain why Andadria’s magic isn’t fading,” I said. “The forest her dragonfire struck still hasn’t recovered.”

“That’s because it’s super high level magic,” Delta said. “It’s like pesky sand that gets stuck to the bottom of the bath that came off from my feet and won’t go down the drain.”

“An artsy explanation at best,” I muttered.

“I can’t help it, I am an artist,” my twin sister rolled her eyes. “You’re the math guru here. Go on, explain what’s happening with math!”

I sighed.

“Face it, Slava,” Delta brushed a hand through her silver-white mane. “Nobody can get through the LV 20 barrier in Skyisle. If we want to make a difference in this god-ruled world we have to run away from home.”

“I’m not running away,” I said. “I’m not abandoning everyone here.”

“I don’t want to abandon our parents or the people of Skyisle either, but we might not have another option,” Delta pointed out. “There’s just nothing we can do here. Tricameron citadel is still extremely irradiated, right?”

“It is,” I sighed. “I tried to fly my Infoscope there, but it simply crashes instantly from excessive magical radia as soon as I head down into the valley.”

“What a pair of useless Alanian Sentinels we are,” Delta huffed. “We’re waaaaay ahead of our level zero peers in our levels and yet... it’s not good enough if we’re just going to be stuck at LV 20 spells.”

“I’m starting to consider the validity of stealing an Overseer’s skyship,” I muttered.

“I’m starting to consider that you’re crazier than I am,” Delta smirked at me. “Mom’s making you extra-special dinner tonight.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re her extra special butterfly and I’m her angry flying spider,” my twin explained.

“If you didn’t snap at her all the time you’d be less of a spider in her books,” I commented.

“She started it, I swear,” Delta shot back. “I’m just existing in her unfriendly territory. Uhm. What was I saying? Right. We’re twelve and Spivuss 1st is tomorrow.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, our parents are dragging us to church tomorrow to learn math so that we can unlock our System and be productive members of society instead of layabouts that we’re currently perceived as.”

“Oh,” I muttered. “It’s that time already, huh?”

“Yes, it is,” Delta nodded. "You've been so busy screwing around with the house Ward you forgot."

I frowned.

“I already know more mathematics than the entirety of Skyisle,” I said. "And I'm not screwing around. I'm studying how the Ward works so that I can understand how to make better spells. You think that science takes a week to do or something? I had an entire team of researchers in USSR working under me at Aralsk-7."

“Look at me, I’m Slava and I know everything about everything,” Delta strutted around the bed. “I’m so important and wise, yet I can’t break through LV 20 with my spells.”

I sent her another glare.

“The Overseer of Skyisle is in the church,” Delta pointed out. “Skyships dock there too.”

I looked at her.

“If we go to math classes we get assigned to the Ward of the church as novitiates. If we’re assigned to the Ward, you might be able to spy on the skyship and the Overseer with your Infoscope,” Delta pointed out.

“Right,” I mulled.

“If we can’t outright steal the skyship of Goddess Equality followers, you can at least scan theirs and maybe figure out how to build me a glider?” Delta wiggled her eyebrows at me.

I pursed my lips.

“My kingdom for a glider, Slava!” Delta pleaded.

“Fine,” I said. “If it gets you off my back, you pest. You do know that I'm only level fourteen now, right? I'm not an Alanian archmage, so I might not be able to actually build a..."

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee,” Delta squeed, ignoring my words. “Thank you, thank you, thank you times infinity!”

[Kliss Eliza Cessna - Equality Acolyte, the 9th Overseer of Skyisle]

  For the past week, I’ve been the new Overseer of Skyisle village and I already started to hate this place with a burning passion. It seemed that the previous Overseer did a poor job of accounting and keeping track of things.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I tiredly rubbed my temples, hating myself and contemplated why I even took this stupid job in the middle of nowhere.

It was money… a half-decent salary for someone my age, the kind of money that could buy me quality artifacts like the Imperial magitek [Armacus 88] tool currently on my wrist. Such a device would definitely substitute for missing out on four years of leveling up when I got back to Cessna.

It was passion. I wanted to serve the Empire, to educate the misled, to help people, to find new servants for the Empire of Equality, to uplift humanity to greater heights.

I thought back of the walled town with its beautiful, wide avenues, lovely cafes, decadent parties, palatial buildings covered in Imperial banners and white, sky-piercing hex-beacon towers. I had forsaken it all for being an Overseer of this dump.

Skyisle was located next to a major fault in the mountains known as the magogenic zone 18 according to the academy maps. It was a tiny-ass village in a mountain valley.

After a week of being here I simply couldn't understand why the people living here didn’t just move somewhere else. Anywhere else! You’d have to be an absolute idiot to live in a place where you couldn't move past Level 20.

If it was up to me I’d force all of these idiots to relocate to Agamemnon, but alas the Imperial Administration wanted to keep a presence in this blighted land, near zone 18.

It took me the entire morning going through all of the papers to figure out why the Empire even bothered to keep this place. It seemed that all of Skyisle functioned only for one purpose - to take care of my needs.

I was the most important person in the village and as Overseer I had the right to execute anyone who disobeyed me. My job was to enforce the Laws of Equality in the village and also to observe zone 18 as best as I could, keeping track of any changes. Apparently the fault was growing, but very incrementally and slowly. The Empire wanted to make sure it didn't spillover to a big, important trade-route city like Agamemnon. The previous Overseer did a horrible job of it, barely keeping entries in the logbook. Apparently he got so bored and annoyed with the locals, that he quit after three years, not even finishing his term!

The people of Skyisle didn’t respect Equality. The Imperial presence was fairly new to this village. The locals still believed that they were living under the Nation of Ishikaria, constantly praising their barbaric goddess Ishira. I’ve listened to the villagers talk using my [Long Ear] skill. Even after over a decade of our rule, it was still “Ishira watch over you” and “Ishira bless you”.

I’ve angrily flipped through the book of records, trying to check if the information matched the copy that my predecessors kept. Thankfully I didn’t have to look through the book manually, as the armacus on my wrist had the [documents-comparison] spell. It was one of the many obscure runespell tools used by Overseers for administrative work. Without it I would have frankly fallen asleep, since I had to check seven years of records, not trusting the diligence of my predecessors.

As I flipped through the pages tapping at it with the armacus, the ring suddenly pinged, a spark falling on a word. I glanced at the line in the Overseer's copy and then at the line that was filled in by the local midwife.

The Overseer’s log read:

Longwoods Road:

Spivuss 6th: Record of conception. New soul identified by the Ward of 117 Longwoods Road.Identification confirmation preformed by Midwife Tamara Agatha Skyisle.

[_________ Alana Skyisle - girl]