Kiresula was spent as she left the dungeon. She wanted nothing more than a good night’s sleep, or a good day’s sleep, as might be more appropriate given the fact that the sun was out already. As soon as she reached the carriage, she fell asleep. She woke up after the carriage had reached the building. Again, she was dragged through the building and then brought to a room with nothing but a bed and a hole for excretion. Kiresula immediately fell onto the bed and asleep.
As she woke up in the morning, she checked has notifications first:
Class Achievement: Complete Clear: You found all secrets in a dungeon. This provides experience in your Seferian Mage class.
She then checked her status:
Name: Kiresula
Species: Emergent Glitchling
Highest Class Rank: Emergent
Highest Class Level: 7
Classes: Seferian Mage (Rank: emergent, Level 7), Elemental-Somatic Mage (Rank: emergent, Level 3)
Power: 513
Might: 115 (+10)
Fortitude: 341
Willpower: 47
Speed: 424
Agility: 140 (+10)
Mental acuity: 146
Perception: 138 (+10)
Magic: 573
Magical force: 202 (+10)
Magical control: 223 (+10)
Magical defence: 178 (+10)
Social: 133
Charisma: 50
Empathy: 70
Cunning: 13 (+5)
Health: 411/411
Magic: 540/540
Skills: Improved casting, Seferian Fortitude, Control of the Pioneer, Immediate Escape (only for: Dungeon of the Bridge), Enhanced Synthic Restoration, Elemental Awareness, Botanical Awareness, Glitched Recovery
Learned Spells: Illuminate, Sunlight, Freedom of Movement, Travelling Light, Nightly Sojourn, Waterproof Object, Icy Terrain, Foggy Terrain, Spherical Vision, Enhance Ability, Grains of Time, Northern Star, Preserve Commestibles, Bite of the Elemental Beetle (Rank 3), Wind Step, Fire Strike, Evaluate Plant, Move Soil, Synthic Magnetism
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She checked the new skill and was amazed: Glitched Recovery allowed her to reach across the aisle so to say and recover her magic reserves using conventional magic, but at a ridiculously bad conversion rate: 100 magic points for one Seren. She tried the skill and she could feel Serenity working and not reaching into the void, but the recovery was insanely slow. But this didn’t matter: She would now have an ability to restore magic even in areas without synthic magic, though at a glacially slow pace, but the fact that it was possible at all was already amazing.
Only then, she realised that they, predictably, had taken the toy that the dungeon awarded her.
She had no window to see the time, but she was able to cast [Grains of Time]. It was about noon. She had slept a few hours and was reasonably awake, but now that she had woken up and used the hole, she had nothing to do. She didn’t need to use Serenity but still did so until she restored the one Seren of magic that she lost casting [Grains of Time]. Afterwards, she sat on the bed, stretched and listened. There was no window, so she couldn’t really do anything but spend time with her thoughts and hope that Mayana was doing well.
After a time that felt long to Kiresula, a [Holy Guard] opened the door and demanded she come with her. Kiresula followed the female [Holy Guard] and the rest of the group through the labyrinthine house into another interrogation room. [Cleric] Haina was already there, a tray of food on his lap. Smelling this, Kiresula became hungry and licked her lips. She nodded at the [Cleric].
[Cleric] Haina asked a [Holy Cleric] to close the door, he looked at Kiresula and quietly spoke: “You’re hungry, right?”
She nodded quietly.
The [cleric] responded: “I am sure that your ”stomach wants the food, but my mind wants your cooperation, and I am sure that if it gets what it needs, your stomach can too.“
Kiresula looked at him, and raised an eyebrow. “I need to get out of here to meet up with some folk. Please don’t try to hold me here for a long time. You have seen now that I was able to do what I said I could do to the dungeon.”
Haina nodded: “I understand that, but I also know that there are two paths: one that is the official one: We try to get the Holy Order to change their way around glitchlings, which can take years, might now be successful and you have to stay in this facility the entire time. Alternatively, you help me clear out areas from synthic magic, I get the glory, you get the chance to, I don’t know, glitch-level up? Jokes aside, you get relative freedom: Yeah, we are going to travel a lot, but if you want to visit your folk inbetween, that’s no problem. I just need you to be around and discrete.”
Kiresula breathed in, thought about things and mumbled to herself. After a while, she asked: “Can you free Mayana and Kju as well?”
He nodded slowly: “I can try so, but I will need assurance of secrecy. And I doubt that she can work in this area. This seems to be something that only glitchlings can do.”
Kiresula almost blurted out something, but then responded: “Don’t worry about that. Mayana is capable of dungeon work. Ask her about the Forbidden Dungeon.”
He nodded: “Is Kju as well?”
“Absolutely! He’s the one with…” she stopped herself again, “...the best delving skills.”
Haina raised an eyebrow: “It seems that you found a way to quantify this kind of activity.”
Kiresula had a feeling of stepping into the sheer air as she spoke: “You handle the Holy Order and the allegiance of the [Holy Guard]s here, we handle our levels and skills.”
Haina nodded. “Yeah, I am pretty sure that even knowing part of the stuff you do will get me into hot water with the Order. I mean, you try hard not to tell anything of substance, but, seriously, never play card games, you give everything away by your facial expressions and even your posture.”
Kiresula smiled awkwardly: “That is indeed how I was caught by the Holy Order. I am not a person who disguises who I feel.”
He nodded: “I noticed. Anyways, I feel that the situation around Kedsel needs solving. The Holy Order won’t let a glitchling harming a [Holy Guard] go unpunished. But I am sure that if we can get Kedsel back and maybe make it seem like a misunderstanding, they will let all of you off with a warning.”
“So, how do we get Kedsel back? She could be halfway across the country by now.” Kiresula asked.
The [Cleric] smiles: “That’s where you come in. The [Holy Order] used to have excellent scrying infrastructure. Before it became inaccessible by broken magic. The spire in the centre of Mabetshehir used to be the scrying infrastructure of the Holy Order of the continent, but a flare of broken magic deactivated it. If we can get it to work again, we can find Kedsel. If we can find Kedsel, we can solve her status issue.”
Kiresula was shocked: “The spire is broken?”
The [Cleric] nodded: “The Holy Order doesn’t like to tell it, but a lot of infrastructure is in various stages of disrepair due to broken magic. That’s why I no longer care about the bureaucracy of the duarchy. We’re metaphorically on a sinking ship and they are repainting the deck and making sure the bill of lading is correct. That is why I am doing this: Violating my oath, violating my system provided class and violating what I thought for decades had to be done.”
Kiresula understood: “You have been very honest with me, so I am going to be honest with you: Our journey never was to visit relatives.” She paused.
Haina nodded: “You were chased by… us, I know.”
Kiresula shook her head: “It is to meet the glitchlings of Ilkshehir and teach them some of the things we did. Our glitch-classes, glitch-levels, glitch-skills and glitch-spells.”
Haina gulped: “Is it true? Glitch-magic exists?”
Kiresula cast [Sunlight] behind herself: “It does.”