When Isaac woke up the next morning, the sky was marginally less drab, and the air crisp with subdued potential. He felt sore in ways he hadn’t before. His bed was cold and drenched in sweat like after an arctic nightmare. Memories of yesterday were hazy, but when he stretched his back and peeled himself from the covers, he felt it, that little change that harkened bigger ones to come.
Isaac was Tier 1.
He flexed his hand.
I wonder how much better this makes me at playing Pok-ball?
He blinked.
I was in space yesterday.
He was right, there was something weird about the skillshop, and now he knew. A quick investigation with his trusty brick revealed that Torwig was what many people called a marionette-man. Born from a rift that was a bizarre nightmare of a factory with multiple floors for logistics, processing, and fabrication, they were one of the odder species of the Immortal Empire, and one of the more specialized. Their body parts were entirely interchangeable and heavily modifiable and their minds grew slowly. Often a marionette would choose to serve years or even decades as a slightly odd kitchen appliance or a washing machine before feeling comfortable enough to upgrade to a humanoid frame.
So, Torwig was a marionette, magical robot, which made his colleague a marionette in the final stages of self actualization. One mystery down, but that did not explain the door that led to impossibly faraway places, to a… a logistic center in space.
I wonder where exactly it is, and how Torwig got the teleportation to work so smoothly. It’s always portrayed as a pain to set up, but maybe he has a boon. Wait, do marionettes even have boons and banes like us?
He needed to ask Zach. A part of him wanted to show Sophia and Zach what he’d found, and another part wanted to never tell anyone so he could dangle it in front of their faces for all eternity.
Space. The great sea of the sky. He’d been so far up that if he had chosen to jump off that odd island-house, he’d have frozen to death before hitting the ground. Isaac shivered.
Oh, new fear unlocked.
But it was too much to think about right away, and by the grumbling in Isaac’s belly, tiering up made him very hungry.
Breakfast was had for the early risers.
“Coffee, Isaac?” Claire mumbled as she slurped from her much-abused shark-cup.
“Mhm.”
“I’ll have a ‘drink’ as well,” Ortho’Wuur said with two jam-filled toasts in his mouth. “I have to admit I am taking advantage of hospitality quite shamelessly. It is normally hard to enjoy the fruits of beverage-business when surrounded by so much water, hah!”
Isaac quirked a tired eyebrow. “Is that all you’re here for?”
“I must confess, I am <
Isaac just smiled and sipped his coffee.
The merman didn’t look like he was leaving anytime soon. He was just here to take advantage of Claire’s hospitality. Sure, his fish was an ass, but whatever his motivations, they didn’t concern Isaac. Claire would handle it, and in the meantime, Isaac could ignore him out of spite.
I can make decisions based on spite. Yep, healthy and in control, that’s me.
Once dinner was done, the little ones corralled into the school-slash-library, and the essay Claire had assigned half finished, Isaac and Zach decided to combine a break with a mundane chore. Isaac because he wanted to take the mind off of things, and Zach because he needed to get back into Claire’s good graces after spraying a handful of whipped cream on their guest’s sleeping hand.
They traveled down to the communal post office box, where Isaac languidly began sorting through their weekly mail. He went through seven newsletters, a marine magazine for Sophia, a box order for Hammond and a smaller one for Zach, some official-looking ones that would go straight to Claire, and a note that looked like it had been made by cutting out letters from different magazines and pasting them together in a collage.
“Seagull island to the islanders. High tiers, back to space.” He turned it around “Huh. Haven’t had one of these in a while.”
“I think it’s because Claire answered all the previous ones with hand-written letters,” Zach said. “She even included our yearly group photo. Makes it hard to hate us when we’re more than a headline, even if those headlines do attract crazy people. Hey, this letter is for you. From ‘Pirthside University’. Did you apply for a scholarship before getting your boon—”
“Yes.” Isaac said and practically tore the letter out of his hands. The envelope was quickly torn to shreds, and Isaac read the letter once, then again.
No.
He gave it to Zack, and looked for a nearby rock to kick.
“Preamble, polite phrases, clinical prose,” Zach muttered. ‘We regret to inform you that your provisional scholarship has been denied on the grounds of funding issues in our department’. Well that’s clearly horseshit, since the five preceding paragraphs are treating you with the same careful-pitying attitude as if you lost an arm.”
“There’s more,” Isaac hissed.
“‘However, if you are still looking to be part of our junior team, we can offer you a position as Walleye, our mascot that ‘packs a wallop’. Your remuneration would follow standard minimum wage…’ are they seriously expecting you to go to Pirth twice a week for seven gups an hour?”
“Is this some sort of joke?” Isaac yelled. “Are you real, Maerdon, and you think you’re being funny?”
“It blows my mind that they’re this frank about it. But if you aren’t worth their time, then they aren’t worth yours.” Zach adjusted his glasses just in time to watch Isaac come hobbling back. “I see you’re taking things well.”
“You know what, Zach? You’re right.” He rubbed his foot and scowled out at the ocean’s mocking waves. “Want to see something else that will blow your mind?”
“Depends. Is it another piece of coral that looks like our last governor’s face?”
“Better. But when I show you, you aren’t allowed to be mad.”
+++
“Holy shit.” The canoe almost tipped as Zach leaned over its side. “Holy shit.”
“You’re allowed to be mad now.”
“I am. You didn’t tell me it was a flipping rift in our backyard.” He snapped a photo with Isaac’s brick, somehow knowing exactly how to navigate its menus. “I haven’t seen one in… can you get us closer?”
“Absolutely not.”
The canoe they’d taken from the storage was already donking and scraping against the upper reef. Any closer and they’d have to swim to shore. Maybe Isaac shouldn’t have kept downplaying it on the way here. Zach looked like he practically wanted to leap at the warbling gray tear in reality.
“We cannot tell Sophia,” Zach said.
Isaac frowned. It felt wrong to say it out loud. They did everything together, but if they wanted secrecy, Sophia was indeed the last person they’d rely on not ratting them out.
Zach took a paddle, poked the rift, and watched the wood disappear into it before pulling it back out. “Gotta say, it looks really weird even for a rift.”
“Think it’s tier 2?”
“I doubt it. Remember the incident with the rift on Maledora?”
“I do.” It was an experiment on the largest rift of some far-off planet. It used to just be called ‘the hole’ before the incident. “They called it ‘the canyon’ after it tiered up, right?”
Zach nodded. “Not all rifts get that large, but the tendency is the same. Now, what does that tell you about this beauty?”
Isaac squinted at it. “It’s small. And the color is very thin, almost translucent.”
“I’d have to confirm it back in the library but… could you please get us closer?”
“Why? So you can have a look inside?” Isaac had meant it as a joke. One look at Zach’s expression and he started backpedaling. “Oh no, absolutely not. We’re leaving, now.”
+++
The house was almost empty when they snuck back in like a pair of burglars. Claire was taking her mid-day nap to escape the summer heat, Ortho’Wuur was nowhere to be seen, and the youngest orphans were crafting entire sagas surrounding their communal city of building blocks. Class was out until mid-winter, and no one would be missing a few books from the library.
They took them and some snacks, then snuck out to the old castle where they could scheme in peace.
Isaac took a plate of leftover fishcakes, cracked open a book, and immersed himself in comfort food. The fishcakes help distract him from the dozen thoughts bouncing around his head for once while Zach did the real intellectual legwork.
“It’s Tier 0, I’m sure of it.”
Isaac looked up from his book. He was regretting having shared this information more and more. It wasn’t like he didn’t expect Zach to try to get inside of the rift, or gods forbid, complete a full run of it. It was because now he was thinking about it too, and reading about it. The more he did the more reasons he would come up with to make the whole idea sound less impossible.
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It had moved up in Isaac’s estimation from a suicidal to merely a stupid idea. This was how they all happened, Zach the brain, Isaac the lack of impulse control. Except this time, whatever happened, it really would be on him, not Zach.
“So what?” he said. “The rift is super low tier, practically non-magical. That means it’s not a problem for now, and we’re not in danger.”
“You’re right, as long as it’s focused on growing. It’ll keep sucking mana and essence from the air before reorganizing its insides as an echo of its habitat, like some deranged filter feeder with a god complex.” Zach was chewing on a pen, eyes so laser-focused he was about to burn a hole in the book balanced on his knee. “I’d estimate that we have maybe a month before it becomes Tier 1, and then we’re screwed.”
“If we want to go in at all,” Isaac added, but Zach was already immersed in the literature.
“If it isn’t growing, the worst we can look forward to is a minor infestation of hoghamsters, or something similarly mundane. It’s Tier 0, Isaac, zero. All rifts want to kill us, but as far as they go, this one is practically harmless.”
“Rifts are never harmless.”
Zach must have read or heard about the same horror stories Isaac did, of people thinking they’d struck gold, but never bothering to notify the authorities about unknown or suspiciously undelved rifts. If left for too long, a rift would disgorge whatever life was alive inside of it, and rift life was always violent. That was why people called them monsters, and why so much focus was put on surveillance of existing and newly spawned rifts.
“Don’t put your faith in comics, even if they have great one-liners,” Zach muttered.
Isaac took another bite of some energy bar. “I’ll have you know, Stories of the Hollow World is based on true stories. There is a world with a surface made of hellfire, and the inside is a hollow world of ice and toboggans. They even have their own artificial star inside there, and guess what they named it? Theodore.”
There was silence, only interrupted by the whisper of turning pages.
“Are you content with your lot in life, Isaac?”
Isaac blinked at Zach, then slowly finished his fishcake. “I like helping Claire, going on trips with Hammond, and chasing the little ones around the house. And my bane is carpcrap-supreme, but it's not the end of the world, I’d hope. Claire would for sure hire me as a helper until I can find some half-decent place that would take me.”
She would definitely hire him out of pity if he asked. Maybe he could even be useful and finally let her and Hammond go on a vacation.
“Being that cooped up would make you happy?”
He Isaac threw up his arms. “If it gets you off my case then yes! I’d rather spend my life on our island and reach Tier 4 at the ripe age of sixty than throw anyone else’s life away for my own chance at mediocrity.” Isaac threw his hands in the air, before deflating some more.
It would get lonely without Zach or Sophia though. And if they made it big, big enough to pay for getting carried through rifts, they too would live long enough to see him die first. That was his only regret in this whole scheme he’d cooked up over the past minute.
“What if you could become Tier 4 in a year? Go on delves, rise through the ranks. You could do it, if you just got a head start somehow, and this is your somehow.” Zach held a hand to forestall any protest. “I don’t plan on staying on this island forever. My boon is pretty useless at low Tier, so if I want to get anywhere, a quick Tier 2 is just what I need. I could really use your help.”
“And if I don’t want to?”
“I’ll do it alone if I have to.”
“Counterpoint: I tell Claire, and with her help we delve the rift safely and securely.”
“Not gonna work. The rifts are playing the risk-reward-game as much as we are. If someone too strong even goes near one, they’ll clam up, literally, which means we need to do it alone. If you think Claire is going to let us do that, you’re more of an idiot than I thought.” Zach made a note before looking at Isaac over the rim of his glasses. “Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want to explore the inside, a place where no person has set foot before.”
“...it’s dangerous.”
Zach made a dismissive snort. “I need the essence, you need the money, and the rift is practically dangling both in front of us. Except, we’re not just stupid apes looking for a quick meal. We’re smart. We can plan ahead.” He rolled his eyes as he undug a leather sheath from under a loose plank.
“What is that?”
“It’s a sword. Duh. More of a long-dagger, actually.” It didn’t make a shink sound as it left the scabbard. And why should it? Movies were inaccurate like that, and this was the real thing: a weapon meant to kill.
“I know that, I’m asking why you have a dagger?”
“My old man left me more than just pocket change that I can’t access outside of educational purposes. He left me this, and a few helpful instruction manuals.”
Isaac blinked. He had thought it odd that Zach always had answers to questions Isaac would never have thought of asking, especially when it came to stuff like this. The empire, stars, adventurers, the unknown.
The dagger had a hilt made of red leather and looked dangerously sharp. A tingle ran up his fingers as Zach handed it to him hilt-first.
“Feels like it weighs nothing.”
“‘Cause it’s an ultralight Tier 2 carbon-steel alloy,” Zach said. He tossed an old magazine at it and they both watched as it bisected itself on the blade. “Ultra-sharp too. Cool, isn’t it?” He was all grins and bouncing eyebrows.
After feeling the flat of the blade under his fingers for a few moments, Isaac gave it back, face pulled in a frown and biting his lips.
“If I can’t stop you from doing this, I have two conditions: One, we prepare and we train, actually train for this.”
“Obviously.”
“Two, we do it while either Hammond or Claire are on the island.”
That way, if something went wrong, one of them could leave the rift and call for help.
“Deal. But we’re not telling either of them about any of this.”
Isaac nodded. “Obviously.”
But I will tell Sophia after our first run.
“And Isaac? You’re not convincing anyone with this reluctant act of yours, you’re the first to jump into any stupid shit I come up with. If you really didn’t want this, you would never have come to me.”
+++
The training part of preparation was simple. Classes were out for another two weeks, so after waking up early and going through the daily routines, Isaac and Zach would disappear into the forest and try and spar with whatever they had at hand, mostly sticks and pok-ball bats. It felt jarring going from ‘hitting people with this gives a penalty’ to actively trying to beat each other black and blue, not because it was such a big mental change, but because transferring bat-locks and parries was easy.
I think I understand where people are coming from when they say pok-ball is a proto-violent sport. It’s practically made to train people how to fight.
Afterwards, when they could barely stand from exertion, they headed to Torwig’s to buy as many issues of Delver’s weekly, A Guide to Danger, and Adventure beyond the Stars as their pocket money would allow. Isaac couldn’t exactly order books from the mainland without Claire knowing, and the actual delver’s guides quickly got caught up in the uninteresting specifics, such as where and when to buy rift slots cheapest, how to take out loans for gear, what to do when a party member is indisposed or deceased, et cetera.
What they needed were the basics of the basics, both common knowledge and common sense. After nearly two weeks of searching for — as Zach demanded — information that had multiple sources, they had a pretty nice pile of it.
One handy tidbit they confirmed was that yes, you could leave a rift at any point in time, assuming you could fight your way back out. On the flipside, anyone outside could also follow you back in, which was why rift entrances were always monitored, with cameras for low tier, and a security officer for higher tiers.
Imagine sitting all day with your back to a rift that could spew out monsters at any time.
Most of the rifts favored throwing monsters at intruders over using traps or oppressive conditions, and early rifts were so poor in magic they didn’t have the budget for more than one, maybe two tricks. The essence inside a rift was exceptionally pure and rich, meaning if they defeated a few monsters, they’d get the equivalent progress of ten years of cultivating natural essence, without the downside of building a foundation on sand.
Natural essence was free though, and rift slots were expensive.
“Here,” Zach said. “‘An adequate weapon for any rift is a weapon of at least the same tier as the rift. A weapon of lower tier materials might break, or fail to penetrate the natural toughness of rift monsters.’ My dagger should make short work of whatever’s inside then.”
“It is a whole two tiers higher,” Isaac said.
He didn’t admit that he was getting excited. The whole idea was taking shape, and day after day he could feel himself growing more nervous. They had no armor, but they could use some protective pok-ball gear for the arms, legs, and head. Claire was going about life as usual, so no threat from her side. The rift was the same every day they checked on it. Everything was going to plan, and the more it did, the more Isaac was certain that it shouldn’t be this easy, that they had to be overlooking something.
“You should definitely take the longest bat into the rift,” Zach gasped as he lay on his back. “It’s basically a cudgel, and together with your arms you’ll have a huge reach.”
“I can’t swing it forever though.” His arms were shaking like leaves from just twenty minutes of practice. “How long do you think a Tier 0 rift lasts?”
Zach shrugged. “A few rooms, maybe? Can’t take longer than half an hour. If we’re lucky, we’ll be in and out in under fifteen minutes.”
They were reading in their dusty hideout under the old castle when a voice made them jump.
“Hey buddy-bros! You in there?” Sophia’s head popped through a hole in the wall instead of the rusted door. “Of course you are.”
Isaac gulped as she slowly panned her gaze across the many magazines and cutouts littering the hideout. Zach was flipping through as casually as if he was reading an enthralling comic.
C’mon, lose your cool at least a little.
He sighed and with a pounding heart, wetted a finger and turned a page before looking up at her with a face doused in innocence. “What do you need?”
Sophia blinked. “I… uh, I found a really cool watersnake. Definitely a Cullicis Madanguis. Thought you’d want to see.”
“We’re kind of busy?”
“Oh come on, don’t tell me you’re not interested in seeing a magical rainbow snake?” She brushed a strand of brown hair out of her face. “I think this one likes me. I might keep it if I can convince it to stay.”
“You do know you can’t legally keep intelligent magical beasts as pets?”
“Did you feed it bread?”
“Obviously I can’t keep-keep it. And I fed it kibble, the same we give to the fish in the tank whenever Hammond has a good day out fishing.” She squeezed in past roots and dirt. “So. What’s keeping you so busy?”
“Finishing,” Isaac stammered. “We were just done, getting to the end of, oh, well, you know…”
She picked up a magazine and he snatched it out of her hand.
“Holes and You?”
“It’s, uh, actually about ice-fishing—”
“We’re doing some job-hunting for Isaac here,” Zach commented without raising his gaze. “Says he wants to be a delver. I’m trying to tell him one hundred reasons why that’s a stupid idea.”
“...I’m very stupid.”
That got Zach to finally look up. It was fine by Isaac, because that meant they could exchange a look saying how full of shit Zach was. They were going to have to keep this stupid story straight for weeks now, assuming she didn’t call them out on what was an obvious lie.
“Yeah, you are.” She punched his upper arm affectionately. “You nerds are all cooped up in this dank place all day while Claire is making pike soup.”
“Aw, hell yeah!” Zach got up, sweeping their stuff to the side with just the importance that random magazines deserved.
“Thank Maerdon.” Isaac followed after.
Sophia quirked an eyebrow. “Since when are you such a pious pea?”
Since either chance or the deep ones dropped an ideal rift on my head. “Religion’s cool if your gods are real.”
“Yeah, Isaac is going to become a priest and a delver.”
Sophia snorted. “You’re friggin’ weirdos, both of you. By the way, Claire is leaving on a business trip with that merman, and she wanted to ask—”
Zach swiveled around and practically grabbed her by the shoulders. “What? When? How long?”
“Tomorrow morning.”