Chapter 85: Formality and Pretense

Aliyah’s crystal drawing board was covered in scrawling script, figures, and equations, smudged and marked from imperfect erasures. Books were bookmarked with various tabs, papers turned into abstract artwork with highlighting markings.

The Academics of the team (Nara, John, Aliyah, and debatably Eufemia, with a guest presence of Lawrence) were gathered in Aliyah’s research room to discuss astral magic.

“While I’ve looked into it, I just don’t know how we can create an artifact to communicate across the dimensional boundary,” Aliyah said, “The main issue is that anything we send past the boundary that is physical is annihilated by the astral.”

“Well, we know what survives the astral: Magic, souls, astral beings, and anything with the ability to protect itself in the astral.”

“Like you,” John said.

“Yeah, like me. Can we create an artifact like that?”

“While it’s possible, that’s likely diamond rank magic,” Aliyah said. Her eyes flickered as if she was scanning information in her mind’s eye. She didn’t have an ability like that, much to her dismay. She had a better memory from most thanks to dedicated practice and routine research, but not a magically enhanced memory. (Lawerence did, and Aliyah was bitterly envious of it.)

“Not possible for us then.”

“So, not option three. Option two?”

“Souls? How would that help us?”

“I read this book on monster souls once. Monsters don’t have souls, they have motive spirits. But at higher rank they can be complex, capable of intelligence and even emotion. It feels like a monster’s motive spirit is software, while the body is the hardware. What separates a motive spirit from a soul is that motive spirits degrade, while souls don’t.”

“It’s the reason our outworlder bodies stay together,” John said, “Our soul keeps the constructed magic from degrading.”

“So, extrapolating further, what if we can use a motive spirit as a program? It’s all theoretical, of course, I have no idea how to program a motive spirit.”

“Slow down a moment,” Eufemia said, waving her hand as if to disintegrate Nara’s train of words, “Care to tell us lesser-learned what hardware is? Software? Or are you just going to do this all on your own?”

“Yes Eufemia, I need your expertise in particular.”

“Are you going to explain or not?”

“Give me a moment…A-ha! You know how summons work, like the ones Aliyah has?”

-------

Ability: [Arcane Construct]

Essence: Master

Awakening Stone: Creation

Summoning (ritual)

Cost: Very high mana

Cooldown: 6 hours

Effect (Iron): Summon 3 magical construct. At base, the magical construct is a flying orb that fires disruptive force bolts. Use an additional magical modification ritual to change the shape of a construct with certain limitations.

-------

“I know enough. They have a type of motive spirit like monsters, but they’re bound to your commands. They can function on their own…sort of, and follow simple commands.”

“That’s the gist of it. Now, let’s say in my world we call the motive spirit ‘software’ and the constructed body ‘hardware’.”

“I thought your world didn’t have magic?”

“We don’t, but It’s way too much to explain what we’re really talking about. For now, just keep that in mind. Now, in my world, we can alter the software to function differently.”

“Alter it how?”

“In any number of ways. But let’s say you have a simple golem that can only move boxes from point A to point B,” Nara said, getting up to erase a bit of the writing on the crystal board for her own diagram. Aliyah looked on forlornly at her messed up equations. “Now, with programming—or rewriting—we have the golem instead move boxes from point A to B, then move boxes from point B to C.”

“That seems utterly pointless,” Eufemia said, “Just move the boxes from A to C in the first place.”

“I think you’d be surprised how useful automation of something like this is. Sometimes, objects needs to be in a specific place in a specific order.”

Eufemia conceded that Nara had a point.

“I understand so far. What is it you propose?” Aliyah said.

“Well, what if we have a motive spirit, ‘posses’ an object, then ‘execute’ magic?”

“Isn’t that, uh, complicated, like an AI? Thousands of lines of code is needed for AI. Less for simplistic programs. But this is astral magic. Surely it can’t be simple?”

“Don’t you see John?” Nara began excitedly. “This is even less complicated than what motive spirits are already capable of. Motive spirits move monsters who have their own ecology, habits, and instincts based on their bodies. At higher rank, monsters even have unique personalities and can name themselves, form hierarchical structures, and make complex plans. All I’m saying we need to do is create a motive spirit that can move an object from point A to point B. Then, from point B to point A.”

They had learned as much from their monster ecology classes at the Academy. Nara hadn’t expected it to come in handy here.

“I understand conceptually what you are suggesting.”

“You do?” muttered Eufemia.

“There is but one important problem that we must solve before this theory can manifest into reality.”

“Yeah, I know,” groaned Nara resignedly, “We don’t know how to create motive spirits. I was hoping the books we got had some literature on it, but there’s a lot to work through. Even reading one book at this level of magic theory is a lot of work.”

The creation of motive spirits… It was adjacently related to the manifestation of monsters. Outside of summons, monsters were the only source of motive spirits, and they couldn’t be harvested like grain with a sickle. Aliyah would say it was the realm of gods, or beyond the realm of gods—they governed the intersection of reality and magic—she just didn’t know. It was, perhaps, the realm of the Great Astral Beings. And yet, if she could summon such beings, then it may still of be the realm of man.

The four of them—Nara, Eufemia, John, and Aliyah had been meeting to review books on magic, as sort of an astral magic book club; Lawrence too. At first, he mostly kept silent, keeping to his assigned task. Recently, he’s been participating in discussion more and more, and he, as a priest of knowledge, had much to contribute to the discussion. There was a lot he couldn’t say (Knowledge provided to him by his goddess could not be said without specific permission), but he helped the rest form an understanding of the advanced books they were reading through, and his own intelligence and understanding was a welcome contribution.

Eufemia was getting her formal training in ritual magic, but she knew all sorts of ritual magic hacks that Aliyah found useful, so the two were teaching each other. John was there in solidarity with Nara (he still felt guilty for giving up during the trial), who was the only one close to pulling herself over the cliff’s edge of knowledge. Her unintended indefinite vacation in the astral offered her some insight into its forces.

“It’s progress, at least.” Aliyah sighed, leaning back in her chair to stretch her back and arms. “I’ll run through the books from the library and see what I can find on motive spirits.”

“I have but one more idea,” Nara said, “I might be able to make a motive spirit.”

“Really now?” Aliyah said, curious but doubtful.

“Let me say: I haven’t tried. But my Astral Domain lets me create anything I want, sort of. Whether I can take it out and have it maintain stability in reality is the issue. For it to stay stable, I have to create it in a way that matches what it would be like in reality. I need to understand its structure. But, if I only need to create something very simple…I might be able to make it work. Still, for an actual artifact, it’d be better if we could make it without utilizing a cheat outworlder power.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“So you’re self-aware it’s cheating.”

“If you think a proof of concept is cheating… Maybe it’s better that it’s not a reproducible invention.”

Eufemia could pick up but the fringes of Nara’s swirling emotions. Nara’s vastly higher aura strength and aura control usually blocked her heightened senses, but murmurs of hesitation, fear, and anxiety slipped through like voices past a cracked door.

Eufemia never relied on aura alone. She had all her life picked up on physical emotional cues.

Eyes turned to Lawrence. Sensing their gazes on him, he looked up.

“What?”

“Is your god going to do the thing if we invent something again?”

“My goddess says not every invention warrants a gift.”

“Would a device capable of sending messages past dimensional boundaries at iron rank warrant a gift?”

“…No.”

“I don’t like your hesitation there.”

“…miss Edea here will not receive another ‘gift’ in that manner.”

“The others though?”

Lawrence’s expression twisted. There was something there—concealed offense…and jealously?

“The gift of the gods is a gift, not some sort of action to be scorned, avoided, and shamed.”

“Yeah, but nobody likes unwanted gifts. It’s like getting a dick pic from an unwanted number who thinks his package is ‘all that’.”

Lawrence was silent for a moment as his face transformed through a myriad of expressions, from indignity to disgust to horror, “Miss Edea, my goddess does not appreciate her favor being compared to a ‘dick pic’.”

“Yeah well, I don’t like getting them either.”

“My goddess says you haven’t received any dick pics.”

She’d know, wouldn’t she?

“But that tells me she’s seen dick pics.”

Lawrence’s face further contorted into pain.

*****

The team had successfully delivered the two bandits, and received their rewards for their contract. For unexpected performance (since it was a body retrieval contract, not a bandit extermination contract), they received additional bonuses. Usually, going above and beyond would result in a gift of awakening stones, compliments of the society. Since they didn’t need any (unless they had plants to gift them to relatives (like Encio’s family had)—the team was still young that it was a far off prospect), they received other materials instead, such as the materials needed to resummon their familiars. It was generally a good idea to keep a second set on hand in case a familiar was destroyed. Day to day monster contracts wouldn’t result in familiar destruction unless someone was acting spectacularly idiotic (or spectacularly inventive—“pushing-the-boundary” according to Sen. Sure, Sen. Whatever you say.)

The two bandits, Chester and Graff, were sentenced to execution. Erras cared little for bandits with nothing to offer (and with the crime of killing adventurers. The Adventure Society wasn’t quite like the notorious America police union, but killing an Adventurer was a quick way to end up with a life-ending bounty). Frankly, killing them all would have saved the Adventure Society paperwork. Some local functionaries thought the team had brought Graff back alive just to boast of their bronze rank capture.

That wasn’t their intention, but it was the norm of this world. Why capture what will ultimately be killed? Essence users could get away with a lot. Monster fighting, criminal investigations, and essence user combat wasn’t a clean venture. Breaking and entering wasn’t something the Adventure Society cared to punish if it was for a good purpose—the end justifies the means. They’d get in trouble in a hunch didn’t “pan out”, but soft crime to solve larger crime was accepted, as long as it wasn’t abused. In many ways, there was a lot less red tape that made investigations and action considerably easier.

They just had to be careful what house you broke into. Metaphorically.

(The Moonlighters were long-time masters of determining which ‘soft crimes’ they could get away with, which locations weren’t particularly protected, and if those locations were risky, exactly how much they’d charge for it. Needless to say, Eufemia had a pretty good idea what Adventurers could get away with for a good reason, especially since they acted in a official capacity.

Encio was too.

He knew exactly what minor crimes he could get away with (as a grandson of a diamond ranker), which crimes the team as a whole could get away with, which ones Nara could get away with and potentially bailed out by a church (since she had some leverage there), which crimes Encio could sweep under the skimmer with his name for someone else, and he had detailed a list with specific circumstances for each member of the team including who to contact, and what they might need to offer.

Nara didn’t know if she should be reassured that she could probably get away with murder. Not that she should. Not that she wanted too.

“What about theft?” she had asked.

“Theft?” Encio had looked at her like she was missing brain cells (she was, technically. Missing all of them). “What can’t you afford? Just pay them off.”

Eufemia was incensed that Encio somehow knew better than she did.

“It’s just politics,” he had said, insufferably smug.)

The bodies of the dead adventurers were fixed up by the church of death, and then identified. Relatives of those that lived in Sanshi were summoned to the Adventure Society and an Adventurer’s funeral was held for those adventurers. The other dead adventurers were sent out in caskets back to their families for them to handle their own proceedings at their local branches.

Adventurer burials were simple. The bodies were cremated, a tradition from the past to prevent reanimation and necromancy. A massive, two-story bonfire was lit, smoke spiraling into the air like a path to the underworld. Those that knew the adventurer spoke a bit about them—poignant eulogies of their heroics, their dreams, or of their day-to-day personality. The bonfire crackled on throughout the night, the sound muting muffled sobs.

Their adventurer badges would be placed in the Memorial Hall where the badges of all dead adventurers were stored, a memorial for their efforts, whether large or small. It was a tall pavilion, like a pagoda tower, built in a peaceful garden next to a small artificial lake. All Memorial Halls were built in scenic locations, a solace to those in grief.

The team was invited to the burial for the adventurers. They watched at a distance, but they didn’t have anything to say. Nara was morbidly curious. It was the funeral culture of another, magical world, after all. She wanted to see it at least once.

It just didn’t feel right to record it, so she did not.

Sen stood with stoic respect as was expected of one of the foundational families of the area. Encio participated too, but his expression was dark. The burial recalled memories he’d rather not remember, but wallowed in them nonetheless. He stared into the bonfire, his thoughts privy to no one but Knowledge.

*****

The team was called into the Adventure Society after matters had been settled. Once again, they sat across from Oswald Willard, the branch leader of the Sanshi’s Adventure Society.

“You’re exceeded our expectations with the Body Retrieval Investigation contract, so the Adventure Society is promoting all of you to two star adventurers, for those of you that are not two star adventurers. Your badges, please.”

They each handed over their badges. Oswald removed a small device that resembled a hole puncher, except that it revealed a second star with light, like it was light curing their badges.

As he did, he continued his explanation. “Additionally, the adventure society would like to extend an invitation to your team to participate in the Stone Forest Astral Space Expedition.”

“Stone Forest Expedition? What’s that?”

“Thrice annually, the Adventure Society organizes a small expedition to this astral space in order to gather materials. The astral space generates rare materials that can’t be found elsewhere, so adventurers are tasked with protecting craftsmen and gatherers for the expedition. The contract is lucrative for iron rank adventurers. We offer the option as a reward.”

“And the real reason?” Eufemia said, rolling her eyes.

“There is no other reason, miss Teresina.”

“You know…” Eufemia dragged out, “I’m thinking it’s because we have two looting powers on the team. The contract is lucrative, sure, but its long time. I think word’s gotten out that we’ve garnered a lot of money to a lot of iron rank adventurers during the Celestial Book trials, and now some other adventurers are making a bit of a fuss that they’ve missed out. How many other adventurers did you invite with looting powers? All of them?”

“Miss Teresina, inviting looters to contracts with a large volume of monsters is standard practice.”

“So I’m right?”

“Would you allow me formality and pretense, miss Teresina?” Oswald said, face stoic but voice pained.

She snorted and leaned back in her chair, satisfied.

“We’ll go,” Sen said.

“We will?” asked Nara.

“The expedition is well known among locals. The branch leader isn’t suggesting anything untoward. It is a good opportunity to work with other local teams in a more regulated situation, where in the trial we had to organize ourselves. Moreover, with our two loot abilities, it true it will be wildly lucrative—for us and anyone nearby.”

“You’re not going to ask to split us up?”

“Why do you have such a poor opinion of me?” Oswald said with a sigh.

Why indeed? He hadn’t been particularly criminal in his position of power. Perhaps negligent, at worst, but part of it was difference of culture or opinion on training. Too forceful and too prodding with his questions, but without the finesse Encio had, or Sen’s gravitas. He really shouldn’t bother.

“It’s his job, Nara. He really should.”

“I don’t have more gravitas than an Adventure Society branch leader.”

“Yes. Yes, you do.”

Somehow, teenager Sen Arlang really did.

He thought he hid it well, but almost everyone could tell Oswald Willard was madly kicking below the waters.

“Poor man…”

“Aliyah, it’s worse if you pity him…”)

“You’ll stay together and benefit whatever party is fortunate enough to be in your combined group. Following Sen’s advice, we’ve prepared a manual for the expedition.”

At least he’s learning.

Oswald removed some manuals from a dimension bag and handed them to the team.

“The expedition isn’t a widespread draw like the trial is, its mainly a local event, but the manual may ease the process of the expedition.”

“Putting a bunch of iron rankers together usually has issues.”

“There’s always friction with the young ones. Competitive spirit, pride getting in the way of competence. Adventurers don’t quite hammer out straight until bronze or silver.”

With that, they were dismissed from the meeting.

“One month until the expedition,” Nara mused, “I wonder what we’ll see?”

“Shit.” Eufemia groaned. “Did you have to say that out loud?”

“What?”

“When has anything you’ve gotten involved in ever gone to plan?”

“What? The trial wasn’t that bad. And that’s not my fault.”

“Aren’t you the one that talks about ‘raising flags’?” Aliyah unhelpfully supplied. “This would be a flag, wouldn’t it?”

“You sure have a good memory for someone who complains about wanting a better one,” Nara complained back.

“You wrote a song and ended up marked by the gods,” Encio said. The traitor.

“Not my fault.”

“Most people write songs, and nothing happens. Clearly, the problem is you.”

“Blackmailed a goddess into intervening on your behalf over a pushy branch leader.”

“It wasn’t blackmail!”

“Relax. I’m pro-crime.”

“Ingenious negotiation, really,” Encio agreed with approval.

“Fuck, Encio, it doesn’t sound better if you agree with it.”

“John nearly died to a black hole.”

“How’s that my fault, I wasn’t even there!”

“Exactly. You fucked off and the rest of us almost died!”

“Sage said that trap wasn’t deadly anyway!”

“We didn’t know that at the time!”

“We are supposed to stay together,” Sen added stoically. “We’re a team.”

“Stop trying to guilt me Sen with the “We’re a team!” thing. It won’t work every time.”

“Did it work this time?”

“Nearly died to a mimic.”

“How do you know I nearly died? I didn’t nearly die. And it was for a good cause, right John?”

John looked aggrieved. “As a healer, I can’t agree. As a husband and father…”

“You big sap,” Eufemia accused.

“It’s not a bad thing,” John defended. “I’m a good sap.”

“You definitely did almost die. You got a racial ability evolution.”

“Racial ability evolution doesn’t need an NDE.”

“That’s true,” Aliyah agreed. “But I don’t think that was the case there.”

“Took the guardian of a centuries old trial as your familiar.”

“It was the morally right thing to do!”

“…Maybe we shouldn’t go?” offered Sen.