I was about to reach the World Seed when I realized that I could feel my Mark of Replacement on the Thardos children, even though they were on the other side of the city. Nosy’s pet status allowed me to cast Abilities through him, and apparently it worked for my mark-sense too. Normally the implications of that would have made me at least a little bit excited, but in the wake of recent events I really didn’t want to think about Abilities for a while.

After we escaped York’s base, Stanley flew off to do his own thing and I walked all the way back home with Nosy—then slept for about a day. I probably would have stayed in bed longer if the Thardos children hadn’t woken me up as they chased Nosy around the house in an attempt to pet him. The elemental cat wore the cloud-like fluffy fur he had adopted during our fight with Roach, and I had to admit that it looked really pettable.

So now I was up and awake, unsure what exactly I wanted to do as I entered the wide square of the World Seed. All I knew was that I had to do something; I wouldn’t get anywhere by wallowing in self-pity about the man I had become. I’d need my trusty partner for this, I decided, then drew Soul Eater from my belt and tossed it to the ground. I imagined Nosy teleporting to the dagger, and the cat appeared with one paw on the handle—then jumped in fright at the sudden transition.

“Hey, it’s me,” I said, leaning down to the confused cat. “Sorry about the magic trickery, but I figured you’d enjoy some break from the children.”

Nosy turned this way and that, then his coal-black eyes landed on the World Seed.

“People say that it gets uncomfortable to stay in the Seed’s proximity for too long,” I said. “It emits mana, as I’m sure you can tell. All I sense is a tugging sensation at my collar, but I imagine it feels quite different to you.”

Nosy kept staring at the large hemisphere, too transfixed to even move.

“Come on, let’s go in,” I said, picking Nosy up. “I hope you can enter with me; this feeling will stop once we’re inside.”

I felt slightly concerned about Nosy as he hung limp between my arms, basking in the torrent of mana that the World Seed was producing. Thankfully, he wasn’t locked out as I passed through the barrier; Nosy’s Pet status granted him the privilege to get the same treatment as me. The fluffy cat perked up as soon as we entered, then wiggled out of my grasp.

> You have 1952 unclaimed items.

The message greeted me immediately, but I ignored it for the moment in order to take a look around. The smoke-like dome around me was still the same as before, but … even with the green glow shining from above, the entire thing reminded me of Roach’s smoke. I had once found the inside of the World Seed visually impressive, but now that I had seen the same visual effect reused with Roach’s smoke, this place felt a bit less special.

I tore my gaze off the dome and looked at Nosy as he stalked across the utterly black floor toward the 1952 floating coins in the middle.

“Alright, Seedy,” I said. “Please open my Allowance screen.”

Lights flickered as the requested screen flew to me immediately, showing me my savings.

> 90527 credits available

Even as I glanced at the screen, it changed by adding another hundred or so credits to my balance. I had kind of expected this already, but it still surprised me how much my little adventure at Yorg’s base increased the rate at which I received my income. At this point it was just flat out taunting me by shoving more money into my pockets than I could possibly spend.

“We’re back to business, Seedy,” I said. “Whenever I snap my fingers, withdraw one gold from my balance.”

I began to pace around the middle of the room, the Allowance screen floating after me as I snapped my fingers over and over. Wisps of smoke broke free of the ceiling and turned into floating coins wherever I went. I left them in the air, watching Nosy instead; he found the shining coins utterly amazing and did his best to hunt them all down. Every coin that he touched stopped levitating and hit the floor with a dull ping, rolling away and creating a mess. Dropped coins were still considered unclaimed items however, so I let Nosy play around and wreak havoc.

> You have 2017 unclaimed items.

“Good job, Seedy,” I said. “Don’t hesitate to admit defeat if you can’t handle them all. Now then, please open my Messaging screen too. Start composing a letter to Player Devi, but send the message only upon my confirmation.”

Snapping my fingers idly, I stared at the blank screen that had appeared in front of me.

When I arrived back home yesterday, I had quickly realized that Devi was gone—just as I told her to. Although she had left most of her belongings in the room, her most important possessions – her sword, her armor, her travel bag – were missing. I stared at the blank screen some more, pondering what to write.

I liked to think that here in Nerilia, I was the one who understood Devi the most—and perhaps I was a bit full of myself, but I thought that she wouldn’t leave me without a word. So why was I so afraid that she won’t be back?

I kept wondering whether she was mad at me, whether she expected me to apologize first—but I cut off that line of thought quickly. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake as with Sarah, apologizing just to calm her down even though I didn’t actually feel sorry. I was the one who had been wronged here, wasn’t I? Devi had been spying on my dreams. If anyone had to say sorry here, it would be her … except I didn’t really care whether she apologized to me or not.

The worst part was that I knew I would forgive her for betraying my trust and invading my privacy. Sarah had done worse for worse reasons, and I had always forgiven her too. Wasn’t I supposed to learn from my mistakes and be a better person? Not that a grudging, resentful person would be all that much better…

In the end I decided to send Devi something short and to the point.

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> Randel: hi

> Randel: we need to talk

There, done. It wasn’t the most eloquent message I had ever written, but at the moment that was the best I could manage. I closed my Messaging screen, then stopped snapping my fingers because they were getting too tired.

> You have 2823 unclaimed items.

“We’re going to have a pool of coins to swim in,” I told Nosy, who had gotten bored with catching the coins already. He was sitting at the edge of the dome, poking a paw in and out to watch the wall ripple.

“Seedy, open my inventory,” I said. Swirling lights rushed to my aid, depicting the contents of my Storage with simple 3D illustrations. I selected my favorite folding chair and sat down on it as soon as it materialized. Nosy ambled closer to me at the sight of the glowing images, his tail swishing behind him as he watched the holograms with pure curiosity.

“So many glowing things, hmm?” I asked. “Oh, look at this! Last time I deposited my lunch to see whether it spoils.”

I selected the grilled chicken-like animal, and it materialized in my hand just as it had been when I stored it; slightly warm and dripping with grease. I tossed it down to Nosy, who jumped out of its way and looked at me reproachfully.

“What?” I asked. “You thought I will test it whether it’s edible?”

When I took some handkerchiefs out of the Storage and to wipe the grease off my fingers, Nosy finally stopped glaring at me and took a cautious bite out of the fallen food. I turned back to my Storage, browsing through the various gadgets I had stuffed in there. I took out a shining crystal ball that I had bought on the market and a pair of small bells that a street vendor had talked me into buying, then tossed both of them down for Nosy to play with. I wished I had a laser pointer. I could teleport myself over vast distances and transform my spoon into a sword, but I didn’t have a laser pointer. How sad was that? I pulled out a few more forgotten stuff from the depths of my Storage to strew them across the coin-covered floor, then switched over to the History screen.

“Hey Seedy, what day is it today?” I asked, scrolling down on the list of lore books. I got no reply to my question, which was a shame; I had no idea how many workdays I had missed recently. Although I had decided to skip work today, tomorrow I’d definitely have to go back to the bountyhouse. Knowing Erika, she wouldn’t take getting kidnapped by Yorg’s gang as an excuse for my absence.

“Show me a book about elemental panthers,” I said, having given up on scrolling through the list. I waited a few moments, but nothing happened.

“You’re useless, Seedy. But fear not! I may yet make you smarter.”

I opened up the Shop screen and browsed through the interface options for sale. I bought a couple of filter options for the history books, spending credits that could have fed a small village for a year. Not for the first time I wondered whether Players would be able to collapse the Terran Empire’s economy if they just stopped buying overpriced stuff from the Shop and spent it on real-world goods instead.

I browsed the Shop some more, looking for something that would turn the World Seed into my personal assistant. Although I found no such offer, I didn’t believe for a moment that this option didn’t exist. It was probably locked behind some kind of Quest or Dungeon reward.

I got back to the History window, using my new filters to search within the vast collection. A librarian would have face-palmed really hard at seeing me browse the history section for books about animals … but hey, only Nosy could see me at the moment and Nosy didn’t judge. There weren’t any categories beside History, so my options were limited anyway. In the end I searched for an book that mentioned elemental panthers and found myself reading a biography of a Player called Kana, who actually rode her horse-sized cat into battle. I glanced down at Nosy, trying to imagine the little fluffball growing larger than me.

“You better not shed any hair,” I told him as he played with my shoelace, disregarding all the toys I had given to him. “You leave giant cat hair all over my bed, and you’ll find yourself in the basement with all of the children.”

Nosy purred, which I decided to take as his acknowledgement. I returned to the biography, skimming over it to get to the interesting parts. Kana had been a Player who lived about 150 years ago, though that didn’t tell me much because I was still unsure how long a year on Nerilia was. Kana had other pets too, but the elemental panther was her favorite—not just because she traveled on its back all the time, but also because the cat outlived all of her other pets. The panther’s elemental forms adapted to any situation; earth-form if it wanted to run fast, wood-form to climb, water-form to swim, metal-form to face enemies head-on. If I guessed right, air was for stealth and fire for general destruction, though I suspected that there were some nuances to these elemental forms. It seemed possible that the quality of the element that the cat attuned itself with mattered.

Kana’s story ended abruptly during a large-scale monster invasion at one of the Seed-cities. She died defending the city, and her cat went feral and attacked everyone on sight. It had to be hunted down by a group of Players days after the battle.

“I really shouldn’t have read that last part,” I mumbled, closing the book with a pang of sadness. What else had I expected? I had been reading about a Player.

There were lots of biographies about Players. To distract myself a little bit, I decided to search for books about people I knew. I found nothing about myself, and the same went for Devi too. The search results about Imaya, Teva’ryn, and Tamara were all about Players who lived long ago, but I found a biography for Simon and Pell each.

“Good job, Randel,” I said, closing my eyes for a moment. “Distract yourself with more death.”

I shook my head, then opened Pell’s biography to scroll through it, getting to its end quickly—way too quickly. I read the very last paragraph with a sick feeling in my stomach.

> When the Sylven Players clashed with the shade, he and Tamara ran away—to no avail, because the shade managed to catch up to them. With a heroic last stand Pell bought enough time for Tamara to escape, but the shade beheaded him.

We sprang up from the folding chair, feeling excited. This was an opportunity! This was a—what? The strange feeling faded, leaving me confused. Why had I felt excited? The biography was horrible. How could it end like that, with a single sentence about how Pell died? As if it was only the facts that mattered. As if Players were nothing more than bits of data in a vast system—and perhaps to the Inspectors, we were indeed nothing more than that. And yet, and yet … it felt almost inspiring. Motivating to prove them wrong.

“Come on Nosy, we’re leaving,” I said, heading for the exit with grim determination. I had buried my head in the sand for way too long. I was a murderer; a serial killer with multiple personality disorder. I was a monster with orange blood in his veins. I was a walking misery, a burden on Earth and a burden on Nerilia. But whatever we had done, whatever we had become, we knew that it was never too late to change.

I stepped through the veil of the World Seed, and the world outside assaulted me with a cacophony of shouts, alarm bells, and—music.

“You took your sweet time,” I heard Stanley’s voice on my right.

I turned to see him sitting on the edge of a rooftop with a lute in his hands, wearing a motley garb of mostly orange, green, and sky-blue colors. He had cleaned himself up nicely since the last time I saw him; his blonde hair was short and he had fashioned his shaggy beard into a neatly trimmed goatee. The somber tune he played, however? It sounded all too foreboding with the alarm bells as its backdrop. Stanley floated down to me slowly, landing on the ground just as the final notes of his music died.

“What’s happening?” I asked, noticing the missing goleton guards on the square.

“Giant swellers have surrounded the city,” Stanley said, spreading his arms wide. “It’s going to be a bitter battle between monster and man—and it’s going to be epic.”

> Quest received: The siege of Fortram