--- Rania ---
[Adversity Regulator], her creator, spoke up for the first time to begin the trial: "Rania admitted to saving the world and ruining the plan." It said in a dispassionate voice. Or at least, Rania's strange new nature as both a spirit and a mortal translated it this way for her elven mind to process. [Adversity Regulator] was not speaking in Common, after all.
"It therefore falls on her to defend herself and prove that her usefulness outweighs the damage she has caused. Rania, you may present arguments and call on witnesses now."
This was it. Everything would depend on the outcome of this trial.
Somehow, she had the feeling that her life experiences so far had not prepared her very well for winning a trial. She had been more of a hands-on kind of person, who dealt with problems mostly by shooting them in the face, and sometimes by stabbing them instead. She had never been very good at social interactions with other humanoids.
Luckily, her 'backstory' had given her an advantage when dealing with spirits and fey, and she had made many friends among them. She would now call upon them as witnesses, to tell [Adversity Regulator] how cool she was, so that it wouldn't kill her.
But which of her friends should she call? There were so many to choose from!
Silent Martha was a close friend, not to mention that many other fey she met while she talked to the Coros. Bob the Dungeon Builder was a mutual acquaintance she shared with Balron. They had met Mystical Gate Guards in the feywild, along with a cyberpunk-themed fey and a dryad, who never gave them their names. And then there was the Delivery Boy from the Wild Hunt, and of course...
...no. She was going about this the wrong way. [Adversity Regulator] didn't care about friendship.
What she should ask herself was: On which of her acquaintances did she have the largest positive impact that the spirits recognized as useful? And the answer to that was clear to her.
"I would like to call [The Duke of Blood] as my witness." She announced.
And suddenly [The Duke of Blood] stood among them.
He appeared instantly, and he did not seem shocked by any of it, either. Those were the benefits of being an archfey, she supposed. Time passed differently for you, when you could just command the spirits that composed the physical world to take a break and stop time. From his point of view, he could have spent days of subjective time getting ready for this trial. He probably had. An archfey was still far below any of the universal spirits, and so he needed to present himself at his best.
"Hello! It's nice to see you again!" She smiled and waved at him. Just because this was a formal trial with her life on the line did not mean she would forget her manners.
He did not wave back, but he did give her a nod of acknowledgment. That was fine. [The Duke of Blood] was a spirit roleplaying as a noble, and most humanoid dukes wouldn't deign to smile or wave at her, either. He wasn't being rude, he was just staying in character.
"Report on your interactions with Rania Mortal. I wish to learn if she has been useful." [Adversity Regulator] spoke without preamble. This was a court of spirits, and not of humanoids or fey. They had no need for courtesy or formalities of any kind.
"Rania Mortal approached me with a simple offer that has been mutually beneficial." [The Duke of Blood] responded. "I suppress her vampiric thirst. In return, she arranged things in the mortal world that reduced the prevalence of various blood-related maladies in the general population. This has resulted in a 0.13% reduction in my workload, and likely more in the near future when the policies she enacted get more traction in other areas of the world.
"I am very satisfied with these results. Her recommendation has made my job measurably easier at no real cost."
Many of the spirits present looked very impressed by that statement, and Rania knew that she had made the right decision in calling on [The Duke of Blood].
"Hold on." [The Living City] interjected. "By asking the mortals to solve these problems for you, you have let them know important parts of your function! You are revealing secrets they are not meant to have!"
But [The Duke of Blood] looked unperturbed by these accusations: "On the contrary. The mortals are as ignorant as always. They do not understand the reasons for my actions and consider me as mysterious as they did before. They believe that my motivations are, and I quote, 'Fey Bullshit'. And so they do not question me any further."
"That can not possibly be your excuse." [The Living City] objected. "You are giving away secrets, and the only reason they can't figure it out is because they don't even bother trying to understand it anymore."
"This statement is true, but invalid." [Plausible Deniability] spoke up. [Plausible Deniability] was a top-level spirit, and this topic was a major concern for it.
"In general, all actions give away information." It continued. "The risk in revealing information depends on the intelligence of those receiving it, as well as the likelihood that they will bother to investigate. Mortal ignorance and stupidity are therefore important factors that need to be taken into consideration. Mortals are very easily manipulated by misleading information if they are made to believe that the reason they have difficulty understanding it is an actively malicious intelligence. They are also generally very stupid, so this is relatively easy to achieve."
Ouch. As someone who identified as Mortal only a few minutes ago, Rania could not help but feel a little bit insulted by this. Although to be fair, [Plausible Deniability] did have a point.
"Fey Bullshit is an excellent example of this form of manipulation. The mortals believe that Fey are actively messing with them, and so they do not even attempt to investigate the truth more deeply. The irony here is that all of us are in fact actively messing with them, but not for the reasons they think. All in all, 'Fey Bullshit' is a remarkably effective strategy, and I approve of it. It is an even better method of obfuscating the truth than quantum physics used to be."
Rania was happy to see such a major spirit speak in her support.
"We should all try to bring more Fey Bullshit into mortal lives. It makes my job much easier." It added sagely.
Ok. Maybe they should dial it back a bit after all. She was pretty sure that most mortals did not appreciate Fey Bullshit very much, and she did not want to encourage that.
"I appreciate the support and insight offered by [Plausible Deniability]", [The Duke of Blood] responded, "and I wholeheartedly endorse its call for additional Fey Bullshit in the future."
Oh no. What had she done?
"I wish to reiterate that this Fey Bullshit was Rania Mortal's idea, and that her active coordination with mortals was essential to making the plan work." [The Duke of Blood] continued.
On the one hand, she was really happy for all of his support, on the other hand, she really wished he would stop talking about causing more Fey Bullshit, and giving the other spirits ideas.
"This sounds suspicious." [The Living City] said. "What exactly do you mean by 'active coordination'? Has she been giving away any secrets to the mortals?"
[The Duke of Blood] hesitated for a few seconds, but then responded truthfully: "She has explained a number of cultural norms to mortals, in particular to members of the Coros organization, which specializes in the same."
The spirits went wild!
Several of the onlookers started shouting and accusing Rania.
"She is giving away secrets!"
"She is threatening the masquerade!"
"She is fostering multicultural understanding!"
"Horrible!"
"What if the mortals figure out Fey Bullshit because of her?"
Oh no! This was bad. She thought the trial was going so well, but this was terrible! They were accusing her of multiculturalism! Which was apparently a really bad thing, when you were trying to be inscrutable on purpose?
She really wasn't sure what to think of that. First, saving the world was bad, now multiculturalism was bad, too. The spirits really ought to be asking themselves if they are the Bad Guys, in her opinion. But now was not the time for moralizing. She needed to find a way to turn this around before they condemned her!
"This is a serious accusation." [Adversity Regulator] interrupted, and all the lesser spirits fell silent at once. "I will hear more detailed testimony from [The Duke of Blood]." It declared.
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Then [The Duke of Blood] sort of blurred, as [Adversity Regulator] plucked him out of this part of reality and interrogated him in a bubble of accelerated time. From Rania’s point of view, their discussion happened instantly.
"Upon review, we have found Rania Mortal's transgressions to be severe, but not severe enough to warrant immediate termination." [Adversity Regulator] declared.
Rania felt a chill go down her spine as that statement settled in. She had almost been killed outright!
"The only reason that her actions are not grounds for immediate termination is that her target audience is abnormal." [Adversity Regulator] continued. "She has been talking to the Coros organization, which are a group of people that by and large are simply too weird to be acknowledged by the rest of the humanoids."
"I agree with this statement." [Plausible Deniability] added. "The Coros' insistence on never breaking their word makes them highly abnormal. Their actions are sometimes difficult for other mortals to follow. It's almost like a mortal version of Fey Bullshit. I approve."
Rania had never thought about it that way before, but it made an odd sort of sense. The Coros' insistence on following strange rules even when they didn't make sense made them different from other humanoids, but it was also strangely similar to the way the spirits sometimes formed precommitments. Ironic, that the same trait that made them strange to other humanoids also made them more likable to spirits.
"That Rania has only talked to the Coros about her ideas has limited the spread of the knowledge." [Adversity Regulator] continued. "On balance, the increase in efficiency she has provided to [The Duke of Blood] is therefore still a positive, if only barely."
"Then I will demonstrate that Rania's transgressions go much further than this." [The Living City] said. "I would like to call a witness."
[Adversity Regulator] gave its consent, [The Living City] waved its non-existent hands, and suddenly [The Duke of Blood] disappeared and in his place there was an old halfling standing there.
"This is Professor Greenwater." [The Living City] said. "He is a mortal attaché to the Wild Hunt, acting as a judge."
Then [The Living City] uncoiled and expanded, and rose up to its full stature. It was glorious and awe-inspiring, and even Rania had to admit that it looked quite scary. She was pretty sure that if they were in the physical world instead of some weird spirit dreamscape right now, then there would be dramatic lightning and thunder in the background, too.
[The Living City] didn't really have a body in the dreamscape they inhabited, but looking at it caused all the terrifying concepts it was composed of to register in an onlooker's mind directly. It didn't merely look old and powerful. Instead, Rania felt the very concepts of age and power deep in her bones when she looked in its direction.
The enormous abomination, Old Power and incarnation of the end of the world, leaned down so that its maw was directly in front of Professor Greenwater and it spoke with a voice that literally (actually literally, not metaphorically literally), oozed with malice: "Mortal. You will tell the court of your dealings with the Wild Hunt now."
The old halfling just shrugged and said "Sure. Where do you want me to start?"
"..."
"...you were kind of meant to freak out. Why aren't you freaking out?" [The Living City] responded nonplussed after a few seconds.
The professor just rolled his eyes. "Ah! Oh no! Oh, the horror! The horror!" He said in a monotone voice.
"There. Was that ok?" He asked. "Is that enough freaking out? Honestly, you look kind of gauche. I have seen four scarier looking eldritch horrors just last week. I may have no idea what is going on here, but I'm not going to give you the satisfaction of playing into your stupid games, you overgrown walking hut."
"A hut! You are calling me a hut?" [The Living City] responded in indignation. "Listen here, you arrogant little mortal, I am the Living City! The greatest threat in the world! I am the Apocalypse Made Manifest! The End of the Cycle! I demand your respect! Be afraid!"
"'Be afraid'. Seriously? Did you just order me to be afraid? Does that actually work? I would think that if someone is disinclined to be scared of you, they aren't going to listen to your orders, either. But anyway. You claim to be the Living City. I suspect you are lying, because you just referred to yourself by a bunch of names and titles, and in my experience only eldritch abominations with self-esteem issues do that. I would like to believe that the Living City is better than that.
But if it is true that you are the Living City, then I would like to take the opportunity to tell you that vampires and werewolves suck. I have seen what actual scary people look like, and honestly these creatures just look like try-hards to me now. It doesn't help that vampire fashion is kind of cringey, too."
[The Living City] was stunned to silence for several seconds before it responded. "No they are not! You take that back! Vampires are scary and awesome, and not cringey!"
Wow. [The Living City] sounded kind of pathetic. Rania had no idea who Professor Greenwater was, but she liked him already.
"There will be order." [Adversity Regulator] suddenly interrupted. "The court asks the witness to stop bullying the Apocalypse. It also asks the Apocalypse to stop acting like a child."
But [The Living City] kept arguing with the mortal.
"Administering 800 units of pain to [The Living City]." [Adversity Regulator] declared, and [The Living City] suddenly collapsed in pain.
"There will be order. This is not negotiable." [Adversity Regulator] repeated, and this time everyone was silent.
Rania gave Professor Greenwater a thumbs up, and the old halfling smiled amiably at her.
"I regret calling this witness." [The Living City] said.
"No take backs." Rania responded.
"No more interruptions." [Adversity Regulator] demanded. "Professor Greenwater will now explain his relationship to the Wild Hunt, as originally requested by [The Living City]."
It looked like what passed for Professor Greenwater's self-preservation instincts kicked in at that point, as he started to explain things and did not give even a little bit of backtalk to [Adversity Regulator]. He talked about lots of cool adventures he had with the Wild Hunt, and how they were only hunting Bad Guys now, and how he helped them find out who was Good and who was Evil.
She was happy to hear all the details about the Wild Hunt turning over a new leaf. It was all because of her suggestion to Vellandor the Swift, the Wild Hunt Delivery Boy. She was proud of what she had achieved there. But at the same time, it also made her nervous. She could already tell that the spirits would disapprove of some of the things she had done.
"...and can you confirm that the Wild Hunt has started using Arrows of Bad Guy Slaying specifically because of Rania Mortal?" [The Living City] asked.
"Yes, I can. Although I do not know her, the name has come up in conversation before. Is that who the elf over there is?"
But [The Living City] ignored his question and went on: "There you have it. She is the one responsible for all of these extra expenses!"
Extra expenses? Rania wasn't sure what it was talking about.
"For the Arrows of Bad Guy Slaying to work, many low-level spirits have to investigate the targets of the arrows and perform a value judgment to identify Bad Guys. This is based on gathering consensus opinions of nearby mortals, which requires a lot of effort."
Oh no! Rania had never thought of this before, but it was true! Every time she used her arrows, the spirits had to do some extra work to make sure they worked properly.
This wasn't a lot of work so long as it was just her using those arrows, but if the Wild Hunt started using them in larger numbers, it was a different matter.
"According to my calculations, the total amount of extra effort caused by Rania's strange new ideas is larger than the effort saved by her interventions on behalf of [The Duke of Blood]."
Then [The Living City] mentally transferred a large amount of information to everyone, proving its claims. Rania wasn’t used to that form of communication yet, and it felt very weird to her. The information contained a lot of math, which felt icky.
"And that is not even the worst part." [The Living City] continued. "The worst part is that The Wild Hunt has changed its modus operandi to focus on hunting Bad Guys now. This strongly deviates from established patterns and it is making mortals ask questions."
"I can confirm that I have many questions," Professor Greenwater interrupted, "although I have learned by now that getting them answered just tends to raise even more questions, so I usually don't bother. For example, I have no idea who or what any of you are, and frankly I don't really care."
[The Living City] looked unhappy to hear this, but it quickly asked a follow up question: "Leaving aside that you personally have, to use a technical term, run out of fucks to give, would you say that the rest of you mortals are putting more effort into trying to understand the Wild Hunt now?"
"Are you kidding? Of course we do. The number of paper submissions at FSGH, the largest fey-related scientific conference in the world, has gone up by 43% in just the last year! And I have been invited as a Distinguished Speaker! I am finally getting some recognition from my colleagues, and the department's funding is secure!"
Professor Greenwater was now talking with no small amount of pride in his voice. Rania had no idea what he meant by any of that, but she was happy for him anyway.
Unfortunately, his pronouncement had the opposite effect on the attendant spirits. A susurration went through them, and it did not sound happy at all.
Rania was not only inadvertently causing them more work, she had also put them under increased scrutiny by the mortals. This was really bad.
"I am also concerned that the Wild Hunt is now only hunting Bad Guys." [Entity Synchronization] spoke up.
The young aberration looked nervous to draw the attention of all these greater spirits, but it continued anyway: "My boss [Concept Reuse] says that the Wild Hunt are really useful as tools to get rid of problematic people without letting the other mortals notice it. But this is much harder now, because the people we need to get rid off are not always Bad Guys!"
That sounded pretty terrible to Rania. They were using the Wild Hunt as assassins to kill people! But it also did not fully add up.
"Leaving aside the ethical concerns of all that, isn't that [Plausible Deniability]'s job?" She asked.
"Yes it is." [Entity Synchronization] responded with a hint of accusation in its voice. "But [Plausible Deniability] doesn't always help us when it should, so we had to set up our own way to take care of these issues, and the Wild Hunt is part of that."
"I am fulfilling my duties." [Plausible Deniability] countered. "I have received no feedback stating otherwise from [Administrator]."
"Nobody has received any feedback from [Administrator] at all in eons."
"That is also correct." [Plausible Deniability] replied smugly. "And besides, I am hardly the only one who is refusing to cooperate. I will remind you of the issue two cycles ago, when [Concept Reuse] could have saved me no end of work, but chose to do nothing at all."
Rania was confused. The spirits before her were bickering and arguing. Weren't they supposed to be above that?
She decided to search the new memories she had gained when she became part spirit for an answer.
Why were the spirits arguing so much with each other?
And then she realized why, and what the problem was.
And she knew that it was a problem that could be fixed.
She made to open her mouth and tell them all of her epiphany, but then she reconsidered and stayed silent instead.
She remembered Lilian's wise words, just in time before she could ruin things by speaking up: "If you ever find yourself having an epiphany", Lilian had said, "keep it secret until the next scene change. Ideas that are introduced at the start of a chapter often form the entire basis of it. That makes them much more significant than ideas that are just mentioned in the middle of a chapter, as one idea among many."
That made sense to Rania, and she was happy to have a wise friend in Lilian who could give such useful advice.
Now if only she knew how to detect a scene change. Lilian had a sense for this through her connection to Tonos, but Rania had no idea how she should be able to tell when one chapter ended and another began.