The wizard's tower leans at the edge of the Vast where the seam bends, and inside it is all lamplight and dust and the smell of old paper. Orin Sable sits at a high desk with his back to the tall window, and the pane of your status screen floats between you, its pale numbers reflected in the brass lens he has just set down.
He does not look up until he has finished writing.
"You came up alone. I expected the hunter to be three steps behind you."
He turns a page in the ledger, unhurried.
"No matter. I can read you better when he is not growling over my shoulder."
He rises, and the grey coat falls straight around him as he comes around the desk to stand before the floating screen. His fingers are ink-stained, and he points, without touching it, at one line.
"LUCK 2. That is not a death sentence, whatever the hunter told you. It is a measure of how hard the Vast will work to make you interesting."
He looks at you then, pale eyes level, and for the first time something in the cool face is not arithmetic.
"The screen says you start with nothing. It does not say you stay with nothing. That part — role, difficulty, how far you want to go — is yours."
He returns to the desk and takes up the lens again, but does not raise it.
"I will not pick for you. But I will tell you the truth about every number, if you sit, and let me."