It didn't take Cassie and Terra long to figure out just the sort of exciting place they could go in the hopes of seeing a little bit of chaos. High Trukaron had its share of a downtown, though it was known here as "Trukaron Underground", largely because that was literally where the downtown was located. Vertical trains ran through the core of the living tree city down into thin, hanging roots that had penetrated a massive cavern. The hanging roots had translucent skin that allowed the train cars to look out over the cavern as they descended.

The Underground was like a dark reflection of the city above. The roots descended to stations on the cavern floor around an underground river that had carved the space over eons. Rising up all around those stations were massive, bioluminescent mushrooms that served as host to the buildings and life of the downtown much as the trees had done for the uptown. The river itself was dotted with houseboats and glass gondolas.

As they descended into the underground part of the city, Terra felt the tickle of a system over her mind without actually being touched. As if a system had started to reach out for her and been stopped. She frowned slightly and glanced from the corner of her eye at Sly to see if he had sensed it as well.

Her familiar was squinting into the air, the fur along his spine standing slightly on end. He caught her looking at him though and turned to roughly lick down the unease in his fur.

Well, if he wasn't going to say anything about it on his own, she wasn't going to bother asking. She knew by now that Sly wasn't shy about saying what he wanted to say and was nearly impossible to cajole into giving away anything he didn't want to.

Cassie clearly hadn't felt anything. She was watching the view as they travelled, pointing out interesting spots that they might want to go see. "Is that an amusement park? Who'd have thought they'd have one of those down here!"

"The whole city is unreal, so... why not?" Terra said, wondering about the system of this world that had dedicated so much potential into influencing nature in such an unnatural and whimsical direction. Had it been the system's choice, or had its champion been the one that wanted to live in a fairy tale land? 'Do you have any insight on the matter?' She asked Sly in her thoughts, aware he had probably been following her inner dialogue.

[It was the champion, obviously. Why would a system care about that sort of thing?]

'So you don't want a city of skyscraper cat towers and catnip gardens?' She teased.

[No.] Sly said, his synthesized voice devoid of any inflection, even though his eyes were narrowed to thin slits.

'And if I wanted to build everything in caves where we'd never see sunlight?' Terra pressed.

Rather than answer her, Sly went over to Cassie and rubbed against her leg. Terra didn't hear him say anything, but she felt him expend a bit of potential in order to reach out to the other woman's mind.

Cassie laughed and nudged him away carefully with her foot. "No, I want a nicer seed than you. You two need to stop bickering all the time."

"Where would the fun in that be?" Terra asked while Sly sniffed dramatically and leapt onto her shoulders. He nipped the back of her ear as the train car finally began to slow.

They got directions to the amusement park at the station window. Neither was sure how long the Captain was going to let them wander, so Terra was eager to take her first real friend to the place she had showed interest in first thing. The fastest way to reach the park was to take the river gondolas.

It cost twenty credits to get a trip on one of the gondolas which was manned by a sleepy looking man who handled the exchange from Cassie with a smile and polite nod. He remained completely professional throughout the ride, despite the way his eyes lingering on Cassie screamed his attraction. Terra watched her friend obliviously missing it with a stifled smile.

Only after they hopped off at the amusement park's boardwalk entrance, did she lean in towards Cass and whisper: "You've got an admirer."

A bright blush lifted in Cassie's cheeks, matching her skin to her hair as she looked back at the boatman who was still watching them. When their eyes met, Cassie tucked a strand of hair back behind her ear and ducked her head. "Why didn't you say something before we got off the boat?" Cassie hissed at Terra.

"Revenge." Terra said simply, waving the man off with a bright smile. She had a good feeling he'd be hanging around this dock again when they came back.

There was a substantial line at the entrance gate to the park proper on the end of the boardwalk. Terra didn't expect a screening to enter a park, but kept herself ready for one when they paid, just in case. The exchange of credits was uneventful and without a screening as she had expected.

When she passed under the arch though, she felt that same restrained brush of influence against the edge of her being as she had felt when they first emerged into the cavern. This time, the sensation was much stronger, and gave her the distinct impression that the force behind it was frustrated at not being able to touch her.

On her shoulders, Sly had gone very tense.

'Okay, what is going on down here, Sly?' Terra asked him, impatient with the inexplicable brushes against her conscious.

[Something... unusual.] Sly explained reluctantly. [There used to be a subsystem for this amusement park. Maybe for the whole underground.]

'What do you mean there "used to be" one? I thought subsystems were as permanent as the parent system?'

In all honesty, Terra didn't know much about subsystems. Her father and his father, and all their fathers before them, hadn't believed in using subsystems on B15-Terra.

A subsystem was a special type of system seed that was bonded to the parent system, rather than to a person, in order to create a self-sufficient and less abstracted system interface in a specific location, typically for a specific reason. The most common type Terra had learned about were academic institutions and major VR centers.

[It is... but this one seems to have been corrupted and secured.] Sly explained.

A chill crawled down Terra's spine at that. Corruption was another matter she didn't know a lot about, except that it was bad. 'What exactly happens when a seed or system is corrupted?' She asked her familiar while Cassie was tugging them into line for a spinning saucer ride.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

[They become a conduit that attempts to spread the corruption. A virus.] There was a hiss of disdain in Sly's voice. [The corruption itself is a sort of power sink. A hunger for potential for potential's sake. It can be spread to us like a disease from another source of corruption, or develop on its own when too much potential is stored without being expended in influence.]

'Is hoarding potential actually harmful though?' Terra asked, never having heard of such a thing as too much potential. 'Doesn't every seed hoard potential in order to seed a planet?'

[There's a difference between storing potential with an intention for future use and gathering it for the sake of keeping it. Potential is shaped by will to create influence, so when the will is for it to remain potential... it becomes unstable and unpredictable. Potential isn't meant to remain as potential forever. Even gathering it without a specific intent is fine since its presence should eventually induce a being that holds it to express it in some way, typically as a talent.]

'Like when my mind converted the potential your parent system left within me into my reality sense? I probably used it unconsciously to expel some of that potential, which would explain why I had the Hacking skill already.' Terra mused, a few pieces of things he had told her before finally clicking together.

[Exactly.] Sly agreed. He sunk his claws gently into her shoulder over and over, kneading nervously while they shuffled slowly through the ride's line. [If you had instead told that potential to remain, it would have burned you up. A system cannot burn out from potential though. So the energy that's had its nature warped attempts to be both potential and a potential gathering influence at the same time. The exact way that manifests is different in every case, but it's never good. The ultimate fate of an unchecked virus is to become a blackhole.]

'You said this one is secured? Does that mean its been neutralized?'

[No, it has merely been contained by its parent system. Locked down so that it cannot touch the minds of mortal beings. Without the ability to connect to mortal beings, it cannot gather new potential, which has stopped it from growing stronger or spreading its corruption.]

'That sounds like a temporary solution.' Terra thought.

[It is.] Sly agreed. [The proper solution is to force the virus to expend all its potential and then destroy it. Doing that is much easier said than done though.]

Cassie gently shook Terra's shoulder, ripping her attention back to her friend.

"Are you alright? You've been frowning and staring off into space for a while now." Cassie said, sounding concerned.

"Yeah, I'm just talking with Sly about something. Don't worry about it." Terra reassured her friend, forcing a smile onto her face. At the same time, she asked Sly silently: 'Is it safe for us to be here?'

[It should be fine. Unless you intend to try breaking the world-system's security measures.]

'Absolutely not.' Terra assured him, really relaxing then and resolving herself to put it out of her mind and just enjoy her time on the planet. It didn't have anything to do with her after all.

After the spinning saucers, they rode a roller coaster, then a Ferris wheel. While high in the wheel- the first ride Sly had chosen to ride with them, rather than waiting for them at the exit- Cassie pointed to a haunted house and expressed an interest in making it their last stop since they were both expecting a radio call from their Captain anytime now.

Sly seemed uneasy about the haunted house when they approached it.

Terra laughed at him and asked: "Are you a scaredy cat now?

[No. I'll just wait by the exit. Do not touch any influence in there.] He warned her.

That made Terra sober up. 'Is the virus in there?'

Sly didn't answer her right away, he just stared at the building as they made their way through the slow drifting line. By the time he did answer her, she had given up expecting an answer. [The virus's reach diffuses the whole park, but it feels as if this is where it was seeded specifically.]

Terra supposed that made sense. Entertainment districts were the most common domain of subsystems according to the examples she knew of. A haunted house that could personally interact with and engage guests would have been wildly profitable to the city as a whole. 'Causing fear would be an easy way for the workers to generate potential for the subsystem, wouldn't it?' She asked.

[Exactly.] Sly agreed.

'Well I won't do anything but scream. Promise.' She reassured him.

[Good.]

When they reached the front of the line, Sly hopped down from her shoulders and hurried off towards the door laughing guests and a couple sobbing children were coming back out of.

"Are you ready to suffer?" Terra asked Cassie with an exaggerated, haunting tone.

Cassie giggled nervously as the line-keeper waved them in.

The effects within the haunted house weren't anything special. Most of them were done practically, with lots of flashing lights, smoke machines, and actors done up in grotesque costumes popping out of shadows or chasing after them. Cassie kept shrieking and laughing every time, but Terra found it mostly cheesy. Had the subsystem been functional, there would have been augmented reality aspects to the experience, and she couldn't help noticing each place where they had been intended and were now shoddily filled in with out of place or overused props.

One such place was a large room set up to look like a mad scientist's lab. There were flickering, "smashed" computer screens and steaming beakers, but the big empty spaces would have been perfectly suited to host AR monstrosities that were depicted in the crazy chalk diagrams on the skewed blackboards. As it was, the space felt underused and empty.

Terra was looking around the space and considering if a bouncy house in the shape of a monster in the empty place might have been a good break for kids or if it would have looked too goofy, when she heard Cassie open a fake "secret" panel with an "oooh" of appreciation. She turned to see what her friend had found and saw Cassie staring into a monitor that didn't have a broken screen.

A tap.

"Cassie, wait!" Terra called to her friend as she felt the woman reach out to the tap with her influence.

The moment Cassie interacted with the tap, Terra felt that restrained influence that had been trying to reach her since she had arrived take root in her friend.

"Oh..." Cassie said softly, wincing and putting her hand to her head. "I don't feel... Ugh..."

'Sly! What happens when a virus infects a person?' Terra called frantically to her familiar with her mind.

[What have you done?]

'What happens?!' Terra didn't have time to answer his questions as Cassie staggered into her side, shaking and breathing heavily.

[They become a potential hoarding puppet of the virus until they burn out.]

"Terra, what's... happening?" Cassie gasped.

If Terra hadn't known it from Sly, she would have just thought the woman leaning against her was scared by the haunted house. How many times had this virus pulled this trick? Who would have known what to watch for in those leaving the attraction?

'How do I stop it?' Terra asked, frantic for a way to help her friend.

[Don't try to be a hero, Terra. If it has gotten someone, it can't do much damage to anyone but them. But if it got ahold of you I don't know what would happen.]

'It has Cassie.'

Sly went quiet in Terra's mind.

Terra helped Cassie move far from the tap, unreasonably wanting to get her away from the source of corruption even if it was already inside of her friend.

[I have an idea. Wait a moment...] Sly finally said, then went quiet again.

"It's alright Cassie. Just keep moving with me, alright?" Terra said to her friend while she waited for whatever it was Sly was doing. She felt helpless as her friend's expression grew more confused and frantic.

When a system reached out for Terra's mind, she grabbed its influence with her will and was about to try draining it, before she realized it wasn't the same touch she had felt earlier. It wasn't the virus, but rather, the world-system of X9-Jorbal. What its influence was offering was a screen.

She opened it.

New Objective! ⛝

■ Remove the Trukaron Underground virus