A few days later, Brin found himself at Coster’s Club for Gentlemen playing Frenaria’s version of tennis with Sion, played with a hard ball and clubs rather than rackets and with metal gongs that could give an extra point. Apparently, Sion had spent most of his week here, playing cards and Jagosi, exercising in their excellent facilities, and chumming it up with Steamshield’s up and comers. He’d also eaten every meal at their dining hall, and he’d spent a good deal of the morning complaining about the overly rich and complicated meals.Apparently, the city’s corporate overlords had closed ranks to stonewall him from expanding his family’s business in Steamshield, so his goal was to hang out and form networks with their idle, layabout sons. Brin was pleased to hear that Hogg had already contacted Sion to integrate him into some of his business ventures, and Hogg had even been responsible for getting him into the club. Apparently, he’d gone so far as to alter the vote of the three members who’d tried to blackall Sion.Sion served and batted the ball straight into Brin’s gong. It was embarrassing how many times he was able to do that. Normally that was something you could only do after a bit of lead up, but Sion had been diligently levelling his [Running] Skill to something truly remarkable, and Brin was still suffering from his Vitality weakness.“So what did you do?”“Well, you couldn’t blame me if I’d gained something of a fascination with Bia’s thighs, since she’s one of the only girls at the school who regularly wears the type of clothing to show them off. And let me tell you, it was everything I ever dreamed of. When she told me to–”Sion ruthlessly slammed the ball into the gong again. “I don’t want to hear about Bia’s thighs. What did you do about your bones?”Marksi pounced on the ball and then rolled it back to Sion. He was pretty good at catching, but he couldn’t really throw.“Oh, yeah, well, she came back (...)