It had only been a few days since the team had conquered the abandoned lab. Sunshine was sporadic in the cloudy sky, but that only mattered if you were outside. Lightforge was not; he was in his store, absorbed in his work. The windows were covered in scribbled notes and hasty sketches that were just barely recognizable to anyone besides their author.
The gadgeteer was standing over a pile of parts on his work table, carefully connecting one of them to a screen with lengths of wire he'd scrounged for. An equally large pile of discarded components was on the floor beside the table, and he was starting to get concerned about just how many failures he was accumulating this morning. He had been convinced that this would be a simple task, but he was starting to question that assumption.
He was making the final connections when the doorbell rang. He spared a single glance up and turned back to his work when he recognized the billowing gray cloak.
"Hey there, Gray. Good timing, could you wait there for just one sec?"
The cloaked healer obliged, and Lightforge turned on the power to this most recent attempt. The screen and circuitry began warming up and he turned the part to face his guest. It was just a scanner, so it shouldn't do anything dangerous. That done, he watched the screen as he spoke.
"How can I help you?"
"Um, well, I was hoping you could craft something for me, actually."
"Oh yeah? Well, you'll have to get in line. Sunbird's already got me working on– DAMMIT!"
Gray Guardian jumped as the shopkeeper took hold of the scanner on the table and hurled it into a wall. Since it was still connected to the screen, that followed close behind. Both items smashed into the concrete wall and shattered into scrap. Both people stared at it, one in fear and the other with a mix of regret and horror.
Lightforge punched himself in the head and collapsed to the floor. As frustrating as it was to fail over and over again, he'd just wasted valuable materials that were probably useful elsewhere. Components that he had in limited supply. He hung his head in shame as he heard Gray Guardian come walking over.
The healer crouched beside Lightforge and looked him up and down. They sighed and said, "Uh, are you alright? That looked like it had been building for a while."
"Yeah, I'm fine. I've been trying to make a scanner for Sunbird, and it should be simple. Just show the name and level of whoever its pointing at. The game UI used to do that for us, so how hard could it be?"
"I honestly don't know. I hadn't really thought about it."
"Yeah, well, I figured that it would take about ten minutes. But then all this happened."
He indicated to the pile of discarded components and sighed. He stared off into space as he explained the problem.
"It should be as simple as slapping a scanner onto a screen to output the results. But none of them will give me the data that I'm looking for. I swear I can get everything else; obstacles around me, weather data, tracking moving objects, things like that. But the closest that I've come is getting a scanner that shows if people are hostile or not."
"That sounds useful. Or at least it sounds like a start."
"You'd think so, right? But no. I've tried upgrading scanners like that, but no luck. Seems like they're more like targeting computers than anything else."
"Huh. So you just don't have the right scanner?"
"I guess so. But I don't know how to find the right kind. So I'm stuck. And this was supposed to be easy!"
"Have you tried your scanner?"
"What are you talking about? None of them work."
"Not even the one from the dungeon?"
"Which one from the…"
He trailed off as he realized what the healer was talking about. Lightforge smacked himself in the face and rubbed his face as he groaned. He didn't speak as he pulled himself to his feet and opened his inventory. The oversized tablet dropped out of thin air and into his waiting hands. The component scanner. One of the rewards for completing the mission the other day. Somehow, he'd already forgotten about it.
He navigated the screens of the scanner, finally familiarizing himself with the controls. It was able to scan the area for items and, sure enough, he was able to control what type of item it found. Under the "Components" section, there was a setting just for finding scanners.
With a single tap he began the scan. The tablet in his hands pinged once and the screen filled with glowing dots showing different scanners all around him. He recognized the general shape of his piles of scanners both on the table and on the floor. It even had a red dot marking the scanner that he'd thrown into a wall. Did that mean that it was repairable? He'd have to find out later.
He flashed a sheepish grin towards Gray Guardian.
"It works. Unfortunately it only has a range of 10m. That's like 30 feet, right?"
"I think so. It's probably close enough."
"Great. So now I get to wander all over town, just hoping that this thing goes off. Do you want to come with me?"
"Come with you? I guess so. I still haven't told you what I was hoping for you to make."
"Oh, yeah, that's right. Cool. Let's go."
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They didn’t have any particular destination in mind, so the pair found themselves wandering the streets aimlessly. Lightforge spent most of his time staring down at the tablet in front of it. Thanks to a few tests, he knew that it would ring as soon as it detected anything, but he kept staring anyway. All because he’d come to a terrible realization.
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He’d never been alone with Gray Guardian before, and it felt so awkward that he wanted to find a hole to hide in. How was he supposed to connect with someone when he couldn’t even see a single inch of them? He didn’t know anything about the healer, and he’d always been terrible at small talk.
Of course, the longer he thought about the awkwardness, the worse it got. His mind scrambled, trying desperately to find anything to fill the silence between them. He mentally reviewed every interaction they’d had, which took a distressingly small amount of time. But then he remembered, and he was blurting it out before he could give it a second thought.
“Oh yeah! You wanted me to make something, right? I almost forgot.”
Gray Guardian shrugged dismissively and said, “That’s true, but it can wait. Judging by this experience, I’m not even sure it’s possible.”
“Really? Why not go ahead and tell me? At least that way you’ll know for sure.”
“Fair enough. So it started when we were in the dungeon. It occurred to me that we didn’t really introduce ourselves very much in the beginning. We sort of just let our powers speak for themselves. But then we were fighting and talking and fighting some more, and I got to thinking.
“I realized that I had no idea what everyone’s levels were. That seemed like a really basic thing to just forget, so I thought about asking everyone. But that just felt a little rude, so I tried to just figure it out from the context.”
Lightforge was shocked by the sudden torrent of words that was coming from the small cloaked figure. Well, he wasn’t actually sure if they were short; his hero body was so large that he was terrible at judging these things. He just knew that the healer was a lot shorter than he was, and they had never spoken so much to him before. The voice was still soft and calm, which made the overall effect a little bit creepy.
“Anyway, I realized that I think I was under leveled for that dungeon. It sounds like all of you were level 5 or 6, but I was still level 3. Even now I’m only level 4.”
“Wait, seriously? How long have you been here?”
“I was in the group before you. But I can’t win a fight on my own, even against the weakest enemies. I could catch and hold criminals, but that didn’t work very well. Other people kept coming around and breaking through my barriers to go for the knockout. Before I met all of you, I had a really hard time leveling. My only shot was to find fights in progress and give buffs to whichever side I thought was going to win. And even then, power set XP is really bad.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. But why not just join a group? Everyone needs a healer around.”
“I tried that, but it was… less than successful. My first group wound up in a fight that was out of our league. We weren’t completely outclassed, but we definitely weren’t going to win. My team threw me to the wolves as a distraction while they ran away. That was the second time that I’d died, so I decided to just stick to the shadows and stay hidden. It’s better that way. But then you and the others brought me along and didn’t do that, so I think I’m warming to the idea again.”
“Wow. That’s… a lot. I’m sorry that happened to you. But, hold on a second. What does all this have to do with what you wanted me to make for you?”
“Right! I was getting to that. Basically, all of that stuff made me realize that I’m just going to keep lagging behind if I can’t find a way to catch up. Being able to participate in fights alongside the rest of you is awesome, but I want a way to level up on my own, you know? So I was wondering if, maybe, you might be able to build something that makes me gain more XP from using my powers. Any chance that might be possible?”
"I don't know. I honestly hadn't thought about it. After all, XP boosters weren't really a thing in the game. I don't know if the system would allow something like that."
"Maybe not, but you never know. After all, isn't that the point of using an AI crafting system? To make things that the game never had before?"
"That's true. Ok, I'll look into it. Besides, it would help me out too if I can figure it out."
As they chatted and walked, they were drawing looks from the passersby. Lightforge couldn't imagine why; heroes and villains were all over the place. Maybe it was because they were just out for a walk? Not really patrolling but rather out on a pleasant stroll.
They passed a pair of young men loitering on the street, and Lightforge barely noticed them. That changed when one of them whistled. A wolf whistle, to be specific. And it had been directed towards them.
Lightforge looked back just in time to see which of the boys had whistled. The boy was staring at Gray Guardian, and started shouting at them.
"Damn, girl. Let me see what's under those covers! You just know she's covering something good with a getup like that, right?"
The last part was said to his friend, who rolled his eyes. The second young man punched the first lightly and said, "Yeah, right. That's obviously a dude. So keep going, he's just your type."
The pair began arguing and shoving one another as Lightforge and Gray Guardian walked away in silence. Either might have gotten a few XP from stopping the fight, but neither one wanted to be around the two young men for a moment longer than they had to be.
The encounter brought back the awkward tension between the two as they walked. From the corner of his eye, Lightforge looked the healer up and down. The cloak and mask were just as inscrutable as ever, giving away not one single detail of their form. He hadn't really given much thought to the gender that was underneath. It had never seemed important so far. But now he couldn't stop wondering.
They'd gone a couple of blocks when Gray Guardian sighed heavily and said, "I know you're wondering. Everyone does. Go ahead and ask."
"I'm sorry. I really don't want to be rude or anything like that. But what is your gender? I can't tell anything with your cloak and mask."
"That was the point. I didn't start with this mask; the computers in our bases can modify our costumes to a certain extent. I didn't want anyone to see my features."
"But why not? Don't you want people to see you? To know the real you?"
"That's the thing. You asked my gender, and I'm non-binary. But my features are… fairly distinctive. Even more so since I came to this world. Everyone was making assumptions, and there was never time to explain. But so long as I look like this, I keep everyone guessing. More open to getting to know me by who I am, rather than how I look."
"Oh. I get that. Well, I'll remember that."
"Thank you, I appreciate it."
"It's the least I could do. You've saved my life more than once, after all."
Just like that, the unease loosened and dissipated as they continued to walk. They took a few more turns before something started beeping at them. Lightforge's scanner had found something. They were walking in front of an abandoned shop with boards over the windows. Something was inside and had the thing that they were looking for.
Lightforge took a quick look around the building and found a back door that wasn't boarded up. But it did have a few rough looking people sitting conspicuously right in front of it. They weren't standing at attention or anything like that; they were squatting on the ground and playing some kind of dice game.
But as soon as the pair of neutral characters turned the corner, every set of eyes flicked up in their direction for a moment before they returned to their game. Even after that, at least one of the group had an eye out at any given time. Appearances could be deceiving, but this group were almost certainly guards.
Lightforge and Gray Guardian backed away from the group and left. As soon as they turned a corner, it was time to decide on their next course of action.
"Well, of course it would be tough. I guess I'm looking for something rare, so it's only natural that it would be protected by thugs."
"Too bad. Should we keep going?" Find the next spot?"
"No way! It took us over an hour to find this one."
"I suppose that's fair. I'll call the others and see if they can help."
"Don't be like that. We can handle this. They aren't even robots or anything Just common thugs. Let's do this."
"That's a bad idea. Truly terrible."
That's what they said, but they moved back towards the guarded door.
"Alright, I guess let's do this."