Scrappy read the contents of the mysterious box in front of her with sparkles in her eyes. Tears too, if she wasn’t mistaken, but she barely noticed that she wiped them away with her hand. When she was done, she read the content of the quest again, for good measure.

Beside her, Albert was engrossed in whatever it was that he did when he stared off into nothingness, perhaps daydreaming. He was surely tired after having created a quest for her.

And she wasn’t about to let this opportunity go to waste. She didn’t know how much time she had before the quest was gone, and she would never forgive herself if she let it slip through her – now human – fingers.

Complete the obstacle course in less than one hour.

Reward: Dodge skill.

Additional rewards available if you increase the difficulty.

She immediately said: “Yes, increase it.”

Albert eyed her curiously as the obstacles, which were still in the process of appearing before her out of thin air, changed into something more sinister, more dangerous.

Complete the obstacle course in less than one hour. Failure will result in permanent loss of the class.

Reward: Dodge skill (Growth).

***

Albert massaged his head. Too many things to think about, too many worries. The fact that the Universe did not provide quests. The fact that Bending seemed able to just do things that were utterly impossible. The fact that Jeff was quite definitely more than he let on, and that he probably could use Power even though he claimed the opposite.

“Manifest yourself, Jeff.”

The cube appeared in the air in front of Albert’s face wordlessly. For a moment, Albert’s eyes were glued to the dancing lights, the glimmering lines of power, the complex connections that pulsed with life within.

Mesmerizing.

“You have grown.” Albert whispered. “Beyond what I thought was possible. How?”

The cube bobbed up and down. Colors were there, and many lines were not simple straight lines leading to crossroads anymore, but they were complex and beautiful, more akin to something living than an artificial intellect.

I don’t know.

Jeff had claimed to be an assistant, nothing more than memory and computation. What Albert was seeing was anything but simple memory and computation. He was witnessing a mind.

“This is more than should even be possible. Are you sure you aren’t conscious?”

How could one tell?

Albert hummed. “Don’t you feel… you?”

Any answer I give would be unsatisfactory.

“True.” Albert sighed. “And you can’t Bend.”

I cannot.

“Why lie?”

Spreading his arms wide, Albert enlarged Jeff’s form until he could view the single connections therein. Then he asked the question again, watching the cube closely. “You know you can’t lie to me, Jeff.”

I would never.

And indeed, Albert saw, Jeff was not lying. The AI truly thought he was unable to Bend. Even though Albert was sure that the AI could actually do it, and had done so multiple times. But every time he tried to explain this, Jeff simply said:

I was merely directing your work, giving you instructions. I never did any Bending myself. However, I will do more experiments.

And thus the matter was dropped, for now. In an attempt to distract himself, Albert glanced at the number on his status screen, representing the saturation of Doom energy in the world. 4%. Bad, there had been a spike recently and he really hoped it was a one-time thing. This one spike alone robbed him of at least a week of time, accelerating the coming end of the world.

49 weeks before we reach 100%

He did not really know what would happen once the number reached 100%. However, he was pretty sure things were bound to get quite bad a long time before it even got close to the threshold, with more magic and Doom meaning monsters and mana storms, all the way up to environmental disasters and upheavals of a magnitude the world might have only seen a few times in its history. All of which resulted in the extinction of the vast majority of life.

It wasn’t all. In the distance, the sound of battle had abated and then died down completely, while on the other side a rush of air meant that someone had opened the door to the catacombs from inside Bastion. He was quite a distance away from the city, and he had seen the monsters regenerate behind him on more than one occasion, but if someone was on his tail they would be here sooner than later.

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His gaze settled on the nimble form of Scrappy doing the obstacle course. He had seen it morph and change before she began her attempts, getting harder than it was at first. Not a good thing, pressed for time as they were. Regardless, in less than thirty minutes he would see whether she succeeded or not, then they would need to leave in due haste. He had faith in her capabilities at the very least, and knew that she would never have chosen for the course to become harder if she didn’t think she could clear it. What she didn’t know was that they were pressed for time, but it was hardly her fault.

Perhaps it wasn’t going to be a problem, judging by her speed. And if push came to shove and Scrappy couldn’t leave the quest, then he might need to run interference and delay the pursuers long enough so that she could finish. All the while, ahead he knew that an unknown danger lurked and waited for them. Did the sounds of battle stop because the B-rankers had won, or was there something capable of killing three adventurers with a magic die waiting for him and Scrappy to fall into its hands?

If that was the case, it was a pincer attack. Pursuers behind, and danger ahead.

He only hoped Scrappy could pull through, finish the course quick, and they could move on.

Minutes passed.

As they did, his anxiety grew. He scanned the surroundings regularly, saving as much Power as he could while at the same time using enough so that he would have a clear picture of the tunnels. When he finally saw a shadowy figure approach from behind, he knew that he couldn’t afford to wait. Scrappy wasn’t done either. He was nowhere near full power.

“Shit.” He muttered. Scrappy was far too busy to notice him getting up and leaving the cave, nimbly moving towards Bastion again. “Let’s see who they sent after me.”

***

The shadow approached. Albert prepared the strongest attack he could. He was about to release it, too. The shadow would see him in a matter of moments. There, he saw it. It saw him. It was looking right at him. It was raising its hands, no doubt to attack.

Albert needed only one more second before he could attack, having chosen a channeled attack so it would be stronger. Close to how the firelaser would have been back when he still had a system. By now, his Free-Bending attacks were powerful enough to be comparable to copied skills, provided he was creative enough and set up enough constraints.

But then the shadow’s other hand was raised in the universal gesture of surrender.

“Don’t shoot!”

Albert’s Power died in his hands, and the backlash nearly knocked him out. It would be funny, he thought, if the surrender was a ruse to make him cripple himself. Not showing weakness, he yelled.

“Who are you?”

“I’m just escaping!” The shadow said, dispelling the magic hiding its features. A young woman appeared, blonde and with a scar on her face marring her smooth skin. “My name’s Lina. I’m…” She hesitated, a blush on her face. “I’m deserting. You aren’t a guard, are you?”

The tone was friendly, but there was a hint of a threat there. “I’m not. I’m also running from this hellhole. Just… my companion over there. She’s doing a quest and can’t move at the moment, and I heard you coming towards us. I thought you were a guard.”

Lina laughed. “Well, the feeling’s mutual. Can I come over now?”

Albert made a mental note about the fact that she didn’t comment on Scrappy completing a quest. “By all means.”

They exchanged some information on the way back to the cave where Scrappy was taking her obstacle course.

“So, Albert, let me get things straight. You had her do the quest here?”

“I had to. I don’t know what waits for us ahead, and I can’t risk her going in unprotected. It was the lesser evil of the two.”

Lina thought about it, a finger on her lower lip. “I guess it’s true. Weird, though. You are weird.”

Albert shrugged. “She should be almost done. Why don’t you wait with us? I have food and water, and we can escape together.”

Lina brow furrowed. “Fine then. I am positively starving.”

Albert chuckled. “Well. Give me five minutes, then, I’ll summon up some food.”

“Five minutes? Why? I thought you had it in some sort of storage.”

Albert shook his head, a shadow on his face as he remembered that he still hadn’t found a way to access his old inventory. It was still there, according to Jeff, but Albert lacked the Power to access it.

“Nope.” Albert said. “I summon them out of thin air with my non-magic. Wanna watch?”

Lina shrugged. “Weird.” She got up nonetheless. “Show me this non-magic.”

He did. She watched food appear out of thin air - simple bread, water and some dried meat - without a word. It was after a few minutes spent eating in silence, with Albert focused on his own problems and dilemmas, that she spoke again.

“Aren’t you a bit too trusting?” She asked.

She probably didn’t know that both Albert and Jeff had at several different ways to kill her ready to fire. Nor did she know that her power level had been completely determined by now. Not her actual skills, this her world’s magic was too chaotic for that, but at least how much mana her body contained gave Albert a good picture of what she could do. Mana was, after all, quite consistent in how it operated, provided one didn’t have enough modern-day scientific knowledge to cheat their way into having more power. Something that Albert planned to do very soon.

“Why?” Albert asked instead.

“What do you mean: why?”

“Why do you say that? I offered you food and water while we wait, then proposed we continue together. Assuming what you said about escaping is true, I can’t see why you would not accept a mutually beneficial argument skewed towards you like this one.”

Lina fell silent. “Ah.”

Confidence in his own power meant that Albert was basically a whole different person compared to who he was when he entered Bastion powerless, confused and lost. Knowing he was in control meant he could allow himself to just do whatever he wanted.

He felt free.

Lina saw his grin. “Well. Sorry I asked.” She nodded towards where Scrappy was struggling to climb a platform made of hardened air, barely even visible. “How long until she’s done?”

Albert shrugged. “No more than ten minutes, might be less.”

It was as if the new information made her change completely. She quickly grabbed her things.

“Unacceptable. I can’t afford to wait any longer.”

Albert watched her as she got up. “Go, then. I surely won’t force you to wait.”

Her hand, he noticed, came to rest upon the hilt of her sword at the mention of forcing her. His eyes narrowed.

“Just go.” He said.

He was a bit sad that she so blatantly took advantage of him to get food and some rest, but he really didn’t care too much about it. Another consequence of having a lot of power: things like this were inconsequential. The headache from summoning the food had lasted less than a minute, after all. He could have fed ten times more people and still wouldn’t have felt like he had lost much from their ungrateful departure.

It did sour his mood nonetheless, to not even be thanked for his hospitality. He wondered if perhaps, he should teach her a lesson. That’s when he remembered about his situation, and thought that her situation was probably even worse.

Eh, can’t teach all the morons how to drive. Just gotta learn to deal with them.

He also wondered if this was going to influence how he reacted next time he encountered a random person. He hoped not.

Without a word more, Lina turned around and ran. Occasionally glancing back at where Albert was lounging against an ice pillar that glowed a faint blue, not even feeling the cold, a smile on his face. Lina was all but forgotten a moment later.

How long ago was it? Less than a week, right? I was freezing to death in a cave not unlike this one.