“Boulder rolling! Now there’s a sport!” -Chip Valvano, Super Monday Night Combat-

_____

When James got back from grocery shopping for his shared apartment, he walked in with his head down. Focused on the struggle of kicking off his shoes while balancing a couple paper bags in his arms, before he could shift his way over to the counter and drop one of his payloads off. It wasn’t especially heavy; a lot of it was granola bars, honestly. But it was unwieldy, and James had just climbed stairs with it.

He wasn’t completely blind; experience in being alert, a couple dungeon modifications, and just his own habit of scanning his apartment when he came in had all let him know that something had changed about the living room. But as he gave a puff of exhalation and turned to see what his partners were doing, he wasn’t actually expecting anything that serious.

So it was a slight surprise to see Alanna reclining topless on an ornate white and gold chaise lounge, watching James with a placidly content grin as she was fanned by all four equally shirtless Anesh standing around her holding comically large palm leaves that James had to assume were props. His girlfriend was eating grapes, presumably to complete the look. They hadn’t even had grapes in the apartment when he’d left on his walk, which meant that they’d teleported away to get grapes to set this up.

“Well that’s a new fetish, thanks.” James opened with as he watched Anesh try to synchronize with himself. “What’s… uh… you know… up with all this? Also where’d our couch go?”

”Well, I got a blue absorb for [Redesign Seating], and I needed to use it up because I don’t see that one being useful.” Alanna said with a shrug, brushing her hair back off one shoulder. “And Anesh was amicable to my suggestion.”

”That is our couch, is what she’s telling you.” Anesh said, one of him pointing down at the lounge that Alanna was reclining on. “But yes, it seemed funny.” All of him smiled with laughter dancing in his eyes.

James smiled back, taking a moment to actually just appreciate how much he liked these people; clothed or otherwise, they were some of his favorite individuals on the planet. It had been a while since there’d been any silly antics going on. Everything was all constant pushing for advantages, dealing with chaotic danger, and meetings or important conversations. The moments like this were rare, and he made the choice to savor it.

A grape hit him on the nose. “Ow, hey!”

”You’re ogling!” Alanna said, covering herself with one arm as she lined up another grape.

”I… wait, hang on!” James laughed at her mock indignity. He caught the next grape in his teeth. “You absolute dork.” He said as he caught a third projectile while closing the gap between the counter and the couch. Alanna’s royal guard of Anesh did absolutely nothing to stop him from tackling her, and successfully disarming her of fruit. “I declare your reign of terror ended!” James announced.

Anesh abandoned his palm leaves. “Oh, that’s good!” One of him said. “Because my arms were getting exhausted.” The other hims nodded in agreement. “How was the shop, by the way?”

”Busy. Not bad though. Got some stuff for the road.” James rolled to look up at Anesh as Alanna struggled with muffled yells of protest underneath him. “You sure you two don’t wanna come along?”

With a gasp of air, Alanna physically hoisted James off her and over the edge of the lounge, ignoring his surprised yelp as he slammed into their carpet. “I’m busy with Response stuff. We’ve got our first actual structured civilian review coming up. So you’re on your own. I mean, you’re on your own whenever Zhu is sleeping. I trust you not to die though!” The fact that she said it like she was serious actually meant a lot to James.

”I’d also appreciate you not dying.” Anesh nodded as the four of him found seats around the room. “At least you get to go somewhere cool. I’m tied up in a bunch of different projects. But if you need either of us, just call, yeah?”

“I’m not gonna be alone.” James reminded them. “Also… yeah, it’s pretty hot out. And I don’t think Utah is gonna be better.”

”You could join us in partial nudity!” Alanna offered.

”I’ve actually got a few last minute things to check on before I’m out. Also I don’t think any of the other people who live here would appreciate that.” James laughed. “Actually, where is Auberdeen anyway?”

”College.” Anesh and Alanna chorused, before Anesh continued. “It’s actually hard to tell how ‘smart’ she actually is. She’s obviously smarter than an average dog.” He ignored Alanna’s Yogi Bear impression from her throne as he said that. “But we don’t have any way to compare. Is she human level? Is she just good at a few things? She’s not even taking veterinary or biology classes anymore for summer term! She’s doing media studies and literature! What does that mean?!”

”…that she’s happy?” James asked tentatively. “I mean, if her body bothered her, we’d give her the tools to fix it. But it seems like she’s just into something that’s more fun to her, right?” He stopped as a thought occurred. “Hey, are we paying for her school?” He asked.

Alanna leaned over to look down at him where he was still laying on the floor. “Yeah. That okay?”

”Oh, sure. I mean, money is so weird now.” He sighed. “I should make a point to check on her when I get back. Keep an eye on her, please? I’m worried now.”

”Sorry.” Anesh didn’t sound too apologetic. “So how long will you be away?”

”Dunno.” James sighed as he lay on the floor and enjoyed the cool contrast of the apartment’s air conditioning after his walk in the late June sun. “My target is within two weeks, just because there is other shit going on that I might be needed for. Teleporters are great, but splitting attention isn’t as useful as focusing. For me, at least. So I’ll be there until either things quiet down, or we find the dungeon and sort out the mess.”

”We’ll miss you!” Alanna said. “But also, we’re absolutely gonna take the opportunity to sleep with other people!”

Anesh nodded. “Literally. You hog too much of the bed.”

”It’s my bed.” James tried to protest, but broke out into a laugh before he could get too upset. “But yeah, have fun. Oh! And put the couch back! That’s Auberdeen’s bed, she needs that!” He stood up wiping a hand over his sweaty forehead. “And hey. Just so you know, I love you both. If I don’t see you again before I’m out, just remember that.”

”Psh. Hard to forget.” Alanna said, rolling to her feet to wrap James in a hug that the various Anesh completed, trapping him in the center of a pile of bodies. “Get going, we’ll be here when you’re done with your paladin stuff. And make sure to check in with Arrush before you go!”

”I know, I know! I’ve got a million things to check.” James groaned. “Gotta pack first. I’m annoyed they won’t let me bring the crown.”

”Well, it is irreplaceable, incredibly cool, and you do have a habit of getting the piss kicked out of you on missions like this.” Anesh reminded him.

James kissed his boyfriend in a sequence of four loving motions, glaring at all of them as he did so, before he finally extricated himself and wordlessly escaped.

They could banter all day if he let it happen. And he did want to let it happen. Some days, all he wanted to do was anything with these people he loved, forgetting the outside world and sinking into their own little realm where their humor and love and lust and creativity was all that mattered or was. Some days, they’d have the chance, he knew. And he’d cherish those days when they came. But right now, he had a job to do, and it was a fairly important one.

First was preparation. There was already a group in Utah that was investigating, so he wasn’t going to be completely alone or without support. But James still wanted to bring his own gear. And also snacks. So before leaving the apartment, he put together his own travel bag.

It was a bit weird to him to have such a normal pre-trip ritual of packing clothes and a toothbrush, but altered to his new life as he included his shield bracers, emergency orb supply, a few dungeontech items, and potion thermoses. James had more tricks that he was comfortable making use of these days, and he did intend to use them if he needed to.

When he got to the Lair, he had a few more things to do to prepare before he finished off his checklist and left the state. Refreshing his absorbed blue orbs, for one thing; having an appropriate supply of [Manipulate Asphalt], [Move Person], and [Separate Alloy] on hand put James in position to handle a surprising number of dangerous situations in the mundane world. He considered swapping one out for one of the newly discovered [Repair Glass] or [Sublimate Brick] orbs, both for utility and nostalgia respectively, but ultimately kept to what he’d been training with just for consistency.

He also spent about an hour cycling through refilling his Velocity, and then using the weird leveler crown that compressed it down, before refilling it again. Making one of his only direct attack spells more powerful, even if the process was a little finicky, and left him composing poetry in his head about the Lair’s basement garden on the way out. James liked the crown. He liked how it did so many random things, including some he was certain he’d forgotten. After that, he also took a little bit to restock his Utah spell slots with the spell that summoned a towel. He didn’t think he’d need that, honestly, but being able to conjure anything was always a good option for a distraction.

And then he felt ready. Ready for adventure, ready to take on the world and win. Which meant it was the perfect time to not do that, but instead finish his last run of checks on stuff before he headed south.

A lot of what had been his job had been streamlined into good reporting and data archive practices by the Order, which James really appreciated. But there were still a few things that he needed to do in person. A lot of them were from medical, where personal information wasn’t public, so that was his first stop.

Banana had done excellently with her transformation, a piece of information that was a massive relief to James, and that he shared with Alanna instantly. She was still recovering, and would be unconscious for a day or two longer, probably. But she’d be fine.

Similarly in regards to Sewer victims, all the people who they’d brought out a week ago were doing more or less okay. The hospital was starting to fill up with ratroaches that were kept under quarantine and observation as their infections were treated and they could be gotten more personal help by Recovery. The frog dog that James had hit with the Utah transformation spell was doing good too, which he’d been curious about; the magic wasn’t permanent, turned out, and his chart indicated that his frog parts were incredibly venomous, which was why part of his treatment was keeping him transformed for as much time as possible to alleviate suffering. He was non-verbal, but clearly intelligent and grateful, even if he was just as terrified as any new ratroach was and had a tendency to lash out.

From another dungeon, the vent spider that had been brought back from a delve… a month ago? Time was weird to James these days. A while back. The vent spider was fine. Less medical and more engineering, but Deb and her cohort of dungeon life doctors seemed devoted to merging the disciplines. They’d moved down to Townton for recovery and social integration into the Order, which they’d indicated a desire to be part of. They were working on a name.

After that uplifting set of pieces of excellent news, James tracked down Nate and got the closest thing he could to straight answers about a different problem. Yes, Camille was still on indoor duty until the situation was under control, yes, the rogues were looking for her sister that was in the area, and yes, Nate was both aware of everything, and working on it.

He told James that he’d call if he couldn’t handle it. But that he could handle it. James absolutely didn’t believe him, but the whole point of the Order recruiting people was that James wasn't the only one who could solve problems.

James also did a few quick check ins with different survivors of things that the Order was taking care of right now. Most of these were handled by Recovery, but James was always happy to help field harder questions or suspicions when he had time. Today’s was less fun, because it was mostly him meeting with the two youngest prisoners they’d rescued from the last Status Quo, so he could tell them that the Order had hit another dead end locating their families. And then suspicion and guilt warring in his chest afterward, as James tried to figure out if they and their shapeshifter companions were sad or relieved at the news. He needed to have a much longer conversation with all of them in the near future. But not today.

Today he had to make sure all the Status Quo kill command infomorphs had been eliminated - they had - and that their more dangerous stuff had all made it to the danger vault properly - it also had, though inventory took him a few minutes.

The last official business thing was to check in with Karen on the Order’s current financial state. The answer was ‘fine’. They were fine. The constant hiring of new people, and using their funds for both large projects and supporting victims or dependants, was draining. They had a lot of money, but were limited in varied and robust income streams, and Karen once again pointed out that most people did not make the Order money. Not as a negative, just as a thing to remember when planning for the future.

And James was reminded that their lead accountant was something of a pessimist in every season. Since, under scrutiny, she did admit that they were on track to bring in almost half a billion dollars from their duplicated platinum sales this year. So James had just stared at her until she’d given up and also admitted that even with their funding of both more recruiting and also an utterly pointless space elevator program, they were in the black,

After that, there was just one more thing to do.

“Hey!” James said as he found Arrush outside the kitchen, taking a break as he ate his own lunch on a wooden bench that looked out over the Lair’s back parking lot. The not-so-distant roaring of car engines from just atop the nearby slope reminding them both that they weren’t so isolated from the thousands of normal humans going about their normal lives nearby. “You’re fun to track down.”

Arrush grinned back at him in a glowing blue line as he cracked his muzzle and showed off his fangs openly. “I am a challenge.” He said slyly. “Very-“ the ratroach cut off, one of his ancillary claws buried in his bowl of chips as he sniffed the air. “Very… ah…”

”You okay?” James asked with open concern as Arrush’s eyes widened, every bare patch of hide on his face flushed a wild neon green, and his whole body seemed to shiver. “Arrush?” Alarm entered James’ voice as he stepped forward and took the plate out of his boyfriend’s claw to set to the side before he dropped it. “Hey. Talk to me.”

”…you smell good…” Arrush said in a breathy rasp, staring at James with all of his eyes wide and muzzle hanging open, before he realized he was unconsciously leaning closer, and jerked backward, a few drops of corrosive saliva scarring the wood of the old bench. “Sorry!” He hissed rapidly.

James took a relieved breath, trying to steady his heart rate. “Oh! Fuck, I was worried there!” Arrush’s words caught up to him, and realized his mistake. “Oh shit, I’m sorry. I was using the crown earlier, I absolutely forgot that it did this.”

”I don’t mind!” Arrush’s answer was instant and maybe a little guilty as some of his paws clasped at his limbs through the fabric of his light clothing. “Ah… hello. I am sorry, it feels like I made things… weird.”

With a snort, James shut that attitude down as fast as he could. ”Arrush, you’re a seven foot tall half rodent half beetle thing from another dimension. You’re also the first person I’ve dated where we’re taking our time on being intimate. Everything about this is weird. The world’s most obtuse magic item isn’t going to make it weird.” He sat down on the bench, downwind in the summer breeze for all the good that would do. “Lucky for both of us, I actually just like weird.”

Arrush’s blush took on a different mood as he looked away, his spined antenna waving on the back of his head. “I do too.” He said quietly. “Thank you. I will try not to sniff you.”

”I… don’t know how to reply to that!” James laughed, not exactly bothered either way. “Don’t worry about it, seriously. I just wanted to drop by and say hi before I left.”

”…oh.” Arrush looked back at him, before looking away again. “That’s today.” He took a deep breath, and then flushed as a powerful shiver ran through his body and an unconscious whine escaped his muzzle. “Agh, that is distracting.” He rasped out, joining James in a light laugh that was more of a wet clicking sound from him, even if the meaning was the same. “I wish I were going with you. I will miss you, and be worried.” Arrush confided in his new partner.

James opened his mouth to say that everything would be okay. That he’d be fine, and be back before anyone missed him. But he stopped, because he was making a focused effort in his life to be more adaptable in his plans. “Hey.” He said, setting a hand between them and enticing Arrush to lay one his heavy paws in it. “Want to come with me?” He asked.

The big ratroach’s triangular head snapped around so fast James was worried he’d hurt his own neck. “What?” He almost whispered.

”Yeah, why not?” James shrugged, part of his brain realizing that he was sitting in direct June sunlight and already starting to overheat. He needed one of those temperature regulation orbs Alanna had gotten. “I mean, it might be weird, because there’ll be a bunch of strangers and ‘normal humans’ and stuff. But if you’re uncomfortable you can just hang out at the hotel, and we can spend time together between whatever investigating I get up to.”

”I… I would need to tell Keeka.” Arrush said, and James recognized the tone of someone who kinda wanted to do a thing, but was terrified by a break in routine and was looking for excuses. “And I have a job.”

”First off, I bet money Keeka would be fine with it, especially since it’ll let him spend some time with Anesh. I mean, if he can catch one of him while Anesh isn’t busy. But you know what I mean. And as for your job, we can absolutely rearrange the schedule. That’s the whole point of having more people available than work that needs doing, man.” James smiled and wove his fingers effortlessly through Arrush’s capped claws. “It’ll be fun. But only if you really want to. If you go talk to your lovely little boyfriend, I can get someone to cover your shifts. I’m probably telepading out in an hour, though. Short notice, I know.”

Arrush had mostly stopped listening to James halfway through the speech. “Okay.” He said, making a decision. “Yes. Yes. I want… I want to join you.” He stood up, shaking out his claw as he freed himself from James’ grasp. His chest expanded as he took a deep and steadying breath, before he remembered that James was present and very difficult to ignore. So Arrush took several steps away. “I will go do that. I need to find Keeka. And…” He declared his intent, before freezing and trailing off. “Do I bring… things?”

”Some extra clothes, usually. I’m bringing snacks, even though it’s not a ‘road trip’ exactly.” James was a little sad about that, but the last time he’d gone on a road trip, something had exploded. “Also, it’s not… specifically… a combat operation. But I’ve still got a bunch of shield bracers and dungeon gear. Wanna meet me in the lobby when you’re ready?” Arrush nodded vigorously at him, before bursting into motion and vacating the little break area, taking what remained of his lunch with him.

James shook his head, a wide smile stuck on his face as he watched his boyfriend go. It wasn’t exactly what he’d expected. And it really wouldn’t be what anyone in Utah who wasn’t Order would expect. But it felt comfortable, and fun, and what was the point of trying to be a hero if you couldn’t have a little fun along the way?

He talked to the pair of women who were running the kitchen today, and got someone filling in for Arrush for a bit. And then decided to wait outside in the summer afternoon, when he realized that lingering in the lobby full of ratroaches while the crown’s effect was still causing him to emit apparently very strong pheromones was a terrible idea.

And an hour later, James and Arrush linked hands, and vanished. Leaving the Order to fend for itself for a little bit.

But James was sure it would be fine. After all, how much trouble could really happen when he wasn’t watching?

_____

A thousand miles away, Spire-Cast-Behind was observing an odd quirk in the life cycle of a human settlement. Specifically, she was learning that human cities didn’t need the influence of a mad wizard or angry dungeon to end up in ruin. Though even the word ‘city’ implied a lot that wasn’t going on here.

Opheim, Montana, was an example of civic atrophy. According to all her historical research, it had never really been a thriving place, but it had been a calm and pleasant little town for a long time. It had been part of a transport system, and later a military system, which had kept money and therefore life, flowing through the area. But both of those were gone now, and what was left was a slowly crumbling skeleton that just so happened to play host to the lives of under a hundred people.

Spire-Cast-Behind had set out into the world and quickly learned two things. In many cases, the Order of Endless Rooms was tiny. They were outnumbered by most high schools. Their ranks weren’t enough to do much of anything at a large scale. But also, they were both populous and dense when compared to some specific places. And this dying town was one of them.

The thing that struck her about it as tragic was that it was very, very easy to look at this academically. Regions required an amount of resources in order to sustain a relative amount of people and activities. If resources were not produced in a region, the region needed to provide value in other ways; often this was done through maximizing advantageous locations, or converting the land itself into a form of resource, which could be exchanged for more useful things. In simple - and cold - terms, Opheim generated neither resources nor value, and so it was vestigial to the greater civic body of human habitation.

In real terms, though, the place felt like a graveyard. Actually Spire had only been in one graveyard so far, and only by accident, but it had felt a lot more cheerful than this place. The majority of the city was a six by three block zone, where cookie cutter houses stood one dusty empty lot away from unused silos or empty bars and a movie theater that closed a long time ago. There was a school. She’d never been to school, not like humans meant when they talked about it, but there was something grim about the small empty building. Half the houses were empty too. Practically the only functional businesses were a grocery store, and a single bar that was de facto the best bar in town. There wasn’t even a gas station when she arrived, even though the maps had said there would be.

It almost reminded her of parts of Officium Mundi that she’d never really seen when she was awake. Distant, very distant chunks of the dungeon where the entropy was turned up and things had begun to fall apart. Where dust suppressed even the emotions of her puppet self. Spire had a deep memory, a memory from before she began remembering, of moving through a place like that after being created. Or maybe it was all just a half-imagined dream. It was hard to tell.

And the way the sky here looked like a dream itself didn’t help. Grey and orange in the early evening, like a roiling ocean of clouds that were so disinterested in the affairs of mortals as they crashed overhead. It was a pure natural beauty that didn’t look right over the old town. The mix of building styles that seemed out of step with each other, and the sunlit cloudscape, made Spire feel like she was already in a dungeon, just one she didn’t understand.

Maybe that’s all Earth was.

Right now, she was four miles northwest of the town itself. There was no road here, even the highway that ran through the dying patch of buildings was out of sight. But Spire was trying to be thorough in her search.

”So, are you looking for your spaceship or something?” The human that had followed her asked, jogging to keep up with her as she slithered over dirt that was at odds with where she was staying with how alive it was. Shoots of green and brown life were constant, and Spire tried to avoid crushing too many of the small plants, though it was hard.

The human’s name was Karl, named for his father, Karl. He had told Spire that his family had a ‘proud history’ here, but he’d said it in that human way where he was lying. Spire-Cast-Behind was well aware of sarcasm, and in the same way that she was aware of uranium, she refused to touch it.

Karl was one of the locals who was… not helpful, exactly. He wasn’t helping her so much as he was just desperate for a distraction. But he wasn’t hostile. She’d been admittedly surprised how no one had been overtly hostile after the first night. Her plan to completely abandon subtlety was working, and she wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

Well, working was a stretch. She’d arrived here a couple days ago following the trail of one of the Status Quo reports, and had announced her presence at the only place that was open at night. After starting, surviving, and winning the ensuing bar fight after one of the older human men had tried to stick his fingers into her cords, Spire had been granted a victory drink and an honorary citizenship. Now the remaining residents were more comfortable with her than with the two humans that were her backup on this errancy.

Or something like that. It was unclear what the people here were actually thinking; they seemed divided into two camps, either long time residents who figured they’d just wait out their own lifespans here, or a handful of individuals who felt trapped in this place and desperately wanted to leave.

Karl was in the latter camp. Which was why he’d been following her all day after seeing her going door to door and asking questions about the Status Quo presence in town twelve years ago.

”If I tell you, again, that I am not from space, will you stop asking annoying questions?” Spire asked him as she checked the map in her skulljack against her current position.

”Probably not. My mom says asking stupid questions is my divine birthright.”

Spire irised her eye closed, enjoying the soothing void of seeing nothing for a moment. “Really.” She was coming around on the sarcasm front really quickly.

”I’m not really sure why she says it that way.” Karl admitted with a shrug of his scrawny shoulders. He was struggling to keep up with her, and trying to hide that he was practically panting. So Spire-Cast-Behind quietly slowed her pace, just for a little. “So if you’re not from space, are you from another dimension?”

”Yes.”

”Okay, well if you’re- oh.” Karl sounded almost disappointed. “Wait, really?”

”That depends.” Spire-Cast-Behind admitted. “We use the term dimension or world when discussing the place that I am from, but it is unclear how, in actual physics terms, it interacts with this universe. It is entirely possible that I am simply ‘from Earth’.” She looked over at the boy, seeing him staring at her with wide eyes. “I would say you could visit sometime, but we are trying not to bring children into dangerous places.”

”Montana’s already dangerous.” He argued. “Also I’m not a kid!”

Spire didn’t argue, because whether it was a human, camraconda, ratroach, or stuff animal, there was no possible way to convince a child they were a child, and so she simply performed a conversational endrun around the problem. “Montana is not actively trying to kill you.”

”Oh! You haven’t met a moose!”

”…I… have not… no.” Spire kind of wanted to meet a moose now. “Is there anything out here?” She asked him suddenly, swiveling her head around to look at the empty plain around them. It wasn’t devoid of all things; there was plenty of dry grass and a few burrows and anthills. But it was just… nowhere.

And yet.

Spire-Cast-Behind exhaled, her inhuman internals pressing the air out of her mouth as she tapped into her Breath. The evening was already cooling down, but her stylish camraconda coat kept her warm as she fired off Call To Blood paying the small cost for the tracking magic as she focused on the Status Quo agent that she was following.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

This was it. This was the next prior place he’d been injured, in the chain that she’d been tracing backward through time and distance.

”Mom says there used to be some kind of army base, but they left a long time ago.” Karl told her. Spire was aware of the US military history, and she’d already checked out the site they had used. When they’d left, they had left, taking almost everything with them. If they’d done the same here, it would explain why there was nothing, but…

”How quickly does grass grow?” Spire asked. “Was there ever anything here?”

”I dunno.” The boy shrugged again in her periphery. “Want some fresh potato bread?” He offered her a piece of baked good that, Spire would freely admit, smelled pretty good.

”Where did you get potato bread?” She asked, her mouth already full of potato bread that she had nabbed with a motion that would make an Earth viper proud.

Karl looked down at his suddenly empty hand like he was only just realizing that Spire-Cast-Behind was actually a very large and very dangerous creature. “Uh… Mr. Dahl makes it. The bakery is kinda the only place here.”

”You have a bar.”

”I’m nineteen.”

Spire hissed to herself. She was very bad at judging human ages. ”Something tells me that none of your neighbors would say anything if you simply entered and declared you were to be served. They seem… like that.”

She took a moment to scan the mountains in the distance. There was nothing here. Nothing but a sweeping grassland, far off hills, and a road that she couldn’t even see anymore. What had happened here? Why had this been the site of a… battle? Spire couldn’t even definitively say a fight had occurred here; a man might have simply slipped with his nail clippers, or gotten a nosebleed looking at pornography on his phone. Both completely normal human things to do four miles away from the nearest sign of human habitation.

”I have a strange suspicion that I am not going to find what I need here.” Spire said to herself, realizing that she’d missed Karl’s response.

She caught sight of the human teenager staring off toward the town. “…you’re leaving.” He said. Not asking, just resigned to it.

”I don’t know. No one here has information that can help. There is nothing that requires my attention, except… well. I do not know how to revive a dying civic cell. My training did not cover that. There is no challenge here for me to meet.” The camraconda was uncomfortable talking about Ophiem like that. But she didn’t know what else to say about it. What was she supposed to do? The people… didn’t like it here. But this was their home.

Spire had talked to many of them, in her small investigation. A significant percentage of the town’s population of sixty eight people. A lot of these humans didn’t want to leave, for reasons that were often rooted in simple stubbornness, or exhaustion. Things she couldn’t fix, not really. Others wanted the place to be better, but didn’t want to leave it, but she didn’t have a way to make that happen. There were no resources here to leverage. Spire could dump her entire campaign purse into the town, and it would only serve to buy it time.

“So you’re leaving.” Karl said again.

”I am.”

”Take me with you.” His voice had a different accent than the humans Spire was used to, a mix of an old far away tradition, and the more contemporary voice of Montana. It was interesting, but not hard to understand or read the emotion in. More than accents or languages, Spire-Cast-Behind knew the sound of desperation. “You’re the only thing that’s happened here, my whole life, that wasn’t someone dying. Please. Please. Take me with you. Get me out of here.”

Spire let out a long hiss, and stared up at the sky overhead, the lingering taste of the flatbread on her forked tongue. She knew nothing about this human, except that he saw her as an opportunity. A novelty. And that made her feel… somehow lesser than she’d expected. It had been in the back of her mind for days that she very well might recruit her own cadre along this journey. But this hadn’t been how she’d imagined it going. James had found his people by rescuing them, not rescued people by making them his, after all.

The sun dipped slightly lower, and abruptly, the camraconda realized there was something on the field with them. “Karl.” She said slowly, lowering her head at a measured pace, unfolding her mechanical arms as softly as she could. “Look behind me. Do not scream or make loud noises. Tell me if we are surrounded.”

”…uh… no? What… what are…” The kid moved too quickly. He was going to startle whatever the things made of orange light and black smoke were. And Spire got the distinct impression that they were not here to make friends, possibly because they were holding mundane cleavers and axes that were all too physical.

”When I begin to move, run for the road.” Spire said as quietly as she could. “Find Tyrone or Riho. I may require help, or medical attention. If we both survive, I will take you with us when we leave, but I may not be leaving for some time. Are you ready?”

“Y-y-yeah!” His voice skipped and cracked, shooting up an octave.

”Good. Begin.” Spire spoke at the moment one of the humanoid figures began to rush her.

This was not what she’d been expecting. But, strangely, she felt far more comfortable with open combat than with trying to talk to more strange humans who she couldn’t help. So for now, she enjoyed the simplicity of battle.

Three targets. One approaching on her flank. Spire kept her camraconda ability in reserve, to surprise them when they got near. They were made of light and smoke, humanoid but not human. She shot one with a hand crossbow, running the routine on her arm to reload it without having to focus, and the bolt passed straight through.

They were on her already. But focusing on her, not the human. That was good. He could not run four miles before this fight was over; she was nominally on her own. Though Spire felt she had it in coil.

The cleaver the fastest one was wielding came down at her head, and she shot that one too. It flinched, even as the bolt streaked away into the Montana twilight with a string of light following it, and Spire used that distraction to twist herself to the side and out of the strike. Her coil flipped the legs out from under the one that had been flanking, and she found it strangely solid when she made contact.

That was bad. She didn’t want to have to bite them. Spire-Cast-Behind was tired of tasting blood. Or… whatever they had. Ichor, probably.

What these things were, and how they were even here, were secondary concerns as Spire flung herself into the dirt and rolled sideways, a writing column of snake evading a hit from a rusty old wood axe and a chipped combat knife as she twisted and brought herself up behind the two that were on their ‘feet’. “Authority.” She hissed, infusing the hiss with the word instead of speaking English that her enemies might understand. “Make that one solid.”

The cute little ribbon she wore around her neck unfurled into the ghostly green entity that drew strength from her organizational position. As a new paladin, Spire didn’t have a lot of that strength, and her authority had been struggling after her change in job title from administrative assistant. But it did offer a spike in flexibility, if not intelligence, and the green ribbon did an excellent job of coiling around the wrist holding the knife, and yanking it up into the air.

Then Spire shot it with both her hand crossbows, the reload automatic at this point, and watched as the bolts punched into it and the orange light burst away like it had been freed. The next one that silently charged her she stopped in its tracks with her eye, before sighing and resorting to lashing her body forward and sinking bronze fangs into it. It was solid, and it did taste like ichor. She fucking knew it. But either way, its light blitzed away in small fragments, and that left only one left.

The fight didn’t last long.

But afterward, Spire was left with three corpses of semi physical smoke, and no answers. When her teammates arrived at high speed in the old pickup truck they were using to get around, Spire realized that she was going to have to stay here a little longer. And also figure out what to do with a teenage human.

“What.” She asked the open air, her allies, the shadow chunks being loaded into the pickup truck, and the long dead agent she was tracking. “Was happening here?”

_____

Chevoy and the men and women who kept treating her like a project leader watched the replay footage of their creation falling from the sky. It didn’t burn up on reentry, and they’d attached a tracking beacon so finding it had been pretty easy, but it was still disheartening to see over and over again.

”Material strength is fine. That easily should have survived the forces at play, even at that height.” Shivan said, folding his arms over his belly as he leaned back in his seat. “We can’t go up to carbon nanotubes. We can’t make it, and no one will make it for us. Doesn’t matter how much money the bosses want to throw around, you can’t just say ‘we might be building something orbital’ and get help with it without a lot of questions.”

”It’s not like we’re putting weapons up there.” Richter challenged the other engineer. The two of them had been bickering about what constituted an orbital weapon for as long as they’d been here, and Chevoy mostly just ignored them.

”Mars.” She said, tapping a finger on her arm. “What height was that at?”

”Uh… three hundred kilometers. Yeah. Three hundred and two point two. Why?”

”So edge of the ionosphere?” Chevoy frowned. “Why?”

Mars and the others looked at each other, then back at her. “That… that is our job to figure out, yeah.” He told her. Mars was the only one who’d banter with her; usually Chevoy liked it, but today, she just wanted to know why their space elevator didn’t go past a certain point.

”Okay.” She declared. “We need to actually launch something into orbit.”

Shivan raised his eyebrows. “Yes. We know. That’s why you pay all of us to work on modular extendable space elevator designs.”

”No, you dumbass. I mean we need to… I don’t know, buy time with someone else’s space shuttle or something. However people put communications satellites up. We need to do that. Because we need to send up other magics, and see what does and doesn’t fail outside of the ionosphere. It’s obviously a soft line, I want to know how soft, and how line.”

Richter glanced up from where he was flicking a finger across his phone screen. ”I feel like I hate that working here has led to me understanding you. Also who do we even talk to about that? NASA? Can we just talk to NASA?”

”They might take our calls. ISRO might too. Shivan-“

”If you ask me if I can talk to the Indian government, just because I’m Indian, I’m going to find a way to sue you even though you’re invisible to lawyers.”

Chevoy scowled at him ”…I was going to tell you to start working on tests. Richter, Mars, if it is a hard line, figure out how we can still make use of what we’ve got so far anyway. None of us are going to talk to anyone in a government. That’s what Redding and his suits are for.” She looked up as the door opened, and Frequency-Of-Sunlight slithered in. “Hey Sunny. What’cha need?”

The brightly colored camraconda stretched her neck in a loop as she set a couple packages on one of the tables cluttered with models and welding gear. “Just dropping off your mail! You’ve got A, weird stuff that doesn’t carry well, and B, some kind of package that’s valuable enough that logistics was weird about it.”

”Ooh, my chips!” Shivan grunted as he sat upright and started rolling his chair across the smooth floor of the design lab.

”Sure.” Sunny looked at the projector screen where the footage of the failed test was playing from multiple angles on loop. “I don’t get this, but I’m glad you guys are having fun!” She told them cheerfully.

Chevoy chuckled. “It’s a value thing. If we can successfully lift payloads out of the atmosphere, it opens up space travel in an unprecedented way. Colonization, mining, exploration, all sorts of stuff is suddenly a fraction of the cost and risk.” She pointed at the screen where their elevator prototype tipped sideways and dropped, right on cue. “We just need that to stop happening.”

”…Wait, that can lift stuff?” Sunny asked.

”That’s sorta the point, yeah.” Richter was new enough that he was still getting used to the camracondas, but he could at least answer that simple of a question.

Frequency-Of-Sunlight gave him a slow, bobbing nod. “So, would it work for the shipping network thing that we’re building?”

Mars shook his head sadly. “The paperweights are too bulky for copying them to be ‘worth it’ for that, especially when cranes exist and are cheaper. Their only real value comes from actually getting us to orbit. But… uh…”

”But uh things fall from the sky.” Sunny got it. “Weird how they keep falling.” She said, slithering for the door. “Well have fun with your mail! Don’t make me send someone to remind you all to take breaks and eat food!”

She was gone for six seconds before the entire room full of engineers, both those who were watching and bantering, and those who were fine tuning other parts of the project, made collective eye contact, and then a mad scramble erupted.

Why did it keep falling?

_____

“Hello everyone!” Marlea smacked her palms together as she greeted the five newish people in the Lair’s lobby. It was exciting; for the first time, she wasn’t the new person anymore. She belonged here, and now it was her turn to get someone else acquainted with the Order. Though she wished that it wasn’t so easy to recognize which four of the five had never been in a real fight; that was experience she could have left. “Welcome in!” She continued as one of her minds mused poetic. “I’m Marlea, I’ll be showing you around today. Mostly this is an incomplete tour slash orientation, but we’ve found that dunking you all into the deep end is the best way to figure out where we need to focus for you personally. Any questions before we get started?”

One girl in the back raised her hand. “Why do you have bodyguards?”

Marlea hadn’t actually heard that one yet. “Hi. I’m also Marlea.” Both her other bodies said, raising their hands to wave, not exactly in unison, but close to it. “I am one person, made up of these three people, and I can do this because of magic and our exceptional wifi in the Lair. If you’re interested, I’ve got some writings on it I can share after, but it’s more personal, and I’m not the most interesting thing here. Any other questions?”

”This won’t take long, right? Like, how big is the building?”

Marlea’s smile was a little mean. She threw them in the deep end, and took them to one of the basements first.

”This is the heart of Research. Be on your guard!” Marlea said, two of her presenting the Research chaosium to the new people as if it were a panorama framed by her arms. “A lot of the mechanical and digital development is done in the different side labs at this point, and we do the dangerous spatial testing in the middle of nowhere. But a bunch of people still keep desks here, as a place to meet up and workshop ideas.”

Three of the new people were laser focused on the group of shellaxies in the pen in the middle of the floor. But two of them were looking around at the note-covered whiteboards, stacks of items both magical and expensively mundane just left lying around, and also at John who was in the process of testing pencils, sighing deeply, and breaking them into blue orbs one by one.

”This feels like…” one of them started to say.

”…an intentional attempt to generate…” another one continued

”…interdisciplinary communication and comradery, through a shared experience.” A third stopped looking at the shellaxies and finished.

Marlea nodded. “Correct! Also don’t use up the lamp charge! We need that for the thing you all just thought of!” She clapped her hands again. “Now, let’s go check out the alchemy section, and I can point out all the doors you absolutely shouldn’t go in without knowing what’s in them.”

The Research tour didn’t take as long as she’d expected, especially after she told them to hold their questions for the end.

”This elevator goes to all the basements.” She narrated as they rode the lift down so she could introduce them to the park and apartments. “Please do not link it to anything else, we already do an endless battery of safety checks every week and I don’t want to add to it.”

They liked the apartments. Or at least, they stared with wide eyes and looked like they all wanted to break the commandment about saving questions. So Marlea relented, and let them ask, and she explained the variety of effects that let the Order build their own housing complex here in a single basement room. It wasn’t really that many, but it felt good to know.

She took them to the baths, pointing stuff out on the way. “Down that hall is the shooting range, which is mostly for testing and not for accuracy training, just cause it’d get too noisy. If you go that way and take the little hall on the left, you can find where Cam stays. Don’t bother her, unless you’re being threatened, in which case bother her immediately. Down that hall is the easiest stair route to get back to the Research side; just go down, then go through the adjacent door, and back up, and you’re there. Oh, that gets you to Rufus’s garden, which sounds like a hookah bar, but is actually just a cool place to look at weird plants. Down that hall…” Marlea paused. “Don’t go down that hall. Not for any ominous reason, I think it’s just under renovation right now.”

They had some questions about the baths, when they got there. There was actually a second bath being worked on, but this one had been expanded a bit. The murals on the wall were cool, Marlea liked how they made the place feel a little bit cheesy. A little amateur. It was authentic, in a way one of her past lives had struggled with.

She fielded the inquiries about public nudity, awkward social behavior, and where the towels went, before she took them back upstairs.

”This is the dining… thing. Cafeteria? It’s not really a cafeteria, but it’s not really a restaurant either. There’s five meal services a day, because we’ve got some people on weird hours, and also cause ratroaches and Researchers don’t sleep like normal humans. You can always get food here. I’ve got a note to be explicit about this; this food is here, for you, for free.”

Two of the people tried to hold back or hide tears, respectively, and Marlea decided she didn’t want to deal with that, so she moved them on quickly.

”This is the logistics desk.”

”Hi.” The chubby Hawaiian guy crouched behind the counter and enthusiastically digging through boxes waved at them, one arm poking over the edge. “You caught us at a weird moment. You’ll only ever catch us at weird moments!” Tino laughed from where his search continued unpaused.

Marlea mostly ignored that. ”Everyone has a magic stipend, which is balanced against what we actually get from the dungeons. You get more depending on what tasks you pick up and how complicated they are, and the prices change based on supply, but they sorta trend downward except when we hire new people for a bit. You can check yours on the server, which you’ll get access to tomorrow, or just ask Midnight here, which is what I do.”

The camraconda whipped his head around like a video game security camera locking onto a target. “You have several brains, every one of them capable of remembering numbers. Why do you insist on bothering-“

”Midnight knows lots of stuff. Moving on!”

Marlea led them into the operations center, making sure to move them out of the way as she kept talking. “Oh, also don’t use green orbs in the Lair without checking first. You can, you just have to check and record it, like with your intro packages. Anyway, this is where we plan delves and stuff. It looks like Research, but it’s more fun. This is where I work, when I’m not actively delving. Is anyone here in on the delver route?”

Two of them were, one of whom spoke up. “I think I’m supposed to be going to an attic later?”

”Ah, Clutter Ascent!” Marlea nodded, providing thoughtful backup hums for herself. “Good place to start. Less delver-y than the others though. Oh, pro tip, don’t go into the Sewer without one of those air freshener spray cans. It won’t help, but it hates that, which makes it worth it.”

She walked them out the back and into the late June evening. “This is our parking lot. Most people don’t drive, so the back lot is kind of a free for all right now. They were using it as a training course, but now I think Nik’s making a go-kart track.” She pointed at the twenty foot wide patch of barkdust and fir trees that separated them from the next property “We are directly adjacent to a state government building. It’s not like they’re cops or anything, but we’re trying to be polite, so don’t fuck with stuff over there, and definitely don’t mess with the trees.”

One of them asked why, and Marlea felt weird for having to explain that trees were an important part of the local ecosystem. She felt like this was one of those thoughts that only one of her brains had, before she started saying it, but it seemed important to her.

She kept showing them around a bit more, going up and down stairs to point out the place new camracondas were socialized, the well decorated rooms they had set aside for therapist sessions, how to spot the giant invisible cat before it ambushed you with licks and demanded treats, and where you could find Response.

”We’re not going to Response,” she told them as they stood in a loose semicircle in the lobby, near the stairway door that led to Response’s floor. “Because they’re serious business, and busy. Oh, but here’s Harvey! Harvey is kinda stealthy, even if you work in Response. He’s like our local cryptid, only he does scheduling and sometimes he runs into burning buildings to save babies.”

”I’m good at prioritizing” Harvey said by way of explanation in his soothing bassy voice. “Also you never see me because you’re not at the civilian oversight meetings. Now get your squad of newbies out of my way, I’m headed to one of those meetings that aren’t for you.”

”If you take a photo of him, it’ll come out blurry.” Marlea lied as they stopped blocking the door.

Harvey didn’t rise to the bait. He’d heard worse from better jokers. He just chuckled, a rich note adding to a confident smile sent toward the new people, before he headed back to work.

”Alright!” Marlea clapped again. “That’s… a lot of it. Not everything, but the highlights. Now, who has questions!”

They all did. She let one of her bodies sigh, and enjoyed the light catharsis. They were going to be here for a while; she might need to let her delve team know she’d be a little late to their Climb route planning tonight.

_____

Morgan felt weird going to therapy.

The office was nice. Lots of little plants, nice couch, especially now that someone had a spell that fixed couches and there were no more little acid marks from the previous ratroach patients, sunlight coming through the blinds. The whole ‘being underground’ thing didn’t stop the sunlight, which Morgan thought was cool.

Recently, Morgan had decided it was okay for things to be cool. Another change that he felt weird about. But it was working out so far.

Therapy was working less. He wasn’t really sure what he was supposed to do. James just sort of insisted on it. And the worst part was, Morgan couldn’t even call him a hypocrite on it, since James had his own weekly sessions and he wasn’t exactly hiding it.

It didn’t help that Connie, his therapist, was a little too understanding. “Sounds like you’ve had a rough week.” She told him sympathetically.

Morgan started to shrug, before remembering that he was supposed to try to redirect that reflex into consciously thinking on his answers. He wished he felt comfortable enough to lay down on the couch, that’d at least be more comfortable. “It’s… whatever.” He said. “I mean, it’s not great. But things are good. Uh… like, in the real world, things are going good. And everyone else has things worse, right?”

”Morgan.” Connie had this thing she did that he kind of hated, where she didn’t say his name like she was admonishing him. Instead, she just sort of intoned it like she was demanding he not lie to himself. Which was, somehow, worse. “Let’s try this again. It sounds like you’ve had a rough week.”

”…Yeah.” He said. “I did. I… it’s.” He took a deep breath, a little annoyed that the ways he’d been learning to work through his emotions worked. Deciding that he didn’t care about looking silly, he titled sideways and let his head slam into one of the pillows on the side of the couch. “My mom’s been gone for another year.” He said. “It was… it was always sort of possible before, you know? That she’d just come back. But not this time.” He felt like he couldn’t properly get his arms to move, which was annoying. “And I still miss her.” His voice cracked as he said it.

Connie watched him steadily, neither judging nor soothing. “Of course you do.” She said instead. “She was important to you. Missing someone that mattered is perfectly healthy.” The woman adjusted her wide circular frame glasses and sighed sharply. “It’s unfortunate that healthy doesn’t mean painless. Did you do anything to remember your mother? Small things can become comforting rituals over time.”

Morgan nodded. “I went to visit her grave, since… you know. She’s buried now. Liz and Dawn went with me.” And had gotten to see him cry a lot, which actually wasn’t as bad as he’d thought.

“Supportive friends are a rare find.” Connie said in her steady neutral tone. Morgan was almost certain she knew they weren’t just friends, even though he’d never told his therapist otherwise. But she never made him feel like he had to share what he didn’t want to. “So you’re feeling overwhelmed?”

”Sorta. I guess. I mean, everything’s normal. I’m doing most of the normal stuff. But with the paladin ceremony, and… and mom being gone…” Morgan took advantage of Connie’s promise to never rush him, taking a moment to breathe and let himself not have to rush through conversation. “It was weird seeing Simon on stage.” Morgan laughed a little. “He said he was fine mentoring me for a while, but… well, he’s gone now.”

”You want to be a paladin too?” Connie asked.

“Who wouldn’t?” Morgan knew that there were lots of people who wouldn’t. But that was fine. He wanted it. “I mean, yeah. I do. Not just cause of, like, James or anything. But I’ve been here for over a year now, right? And all the time, there’s people who need help. Bad. And that’s what I wanna do.” He felt a little embarrassed by it; just at the age when he was starting to outgrow the childhood dream of being a superhero, but suddenly presented with the real world option of it anyway.

Connie smiled at him peacefully. “Goals are good to have, especially a big one like that. It might be a while though. Are you planning to take up the offer of college?”

”I’m applying. Liz helped me get my GED.” And boy was he proud of that. He wasn’t some dumbass high school dropout anymore. He was an educated high school dropout, and that felt good, even if it meant he probably wouldn’t be participating in the Order’s trial run of some weird new form of schooling. “Might do a trade school. But… I might just stay here. Wait for Simon to come back, learn things the Order way. I don’t think I’ll ever have a degree, but I don’t need one around here.”

”Mmm.” Connie’s mild disproval was kept well contained. “Don’t stop yourself just because you don’t need something. I’m no guidance counselor, but the college experience can be valuable. If you’re trading it for something else, make sure you’re doing it on purpose. And always know that having a backup plan is useful. Like with Simon… if you aren’t certain when he’ll be back, it makes sense to have a fallback, just in case.”

Rolling back to a sitting position, Morgan swept his hair out of his face as he nodded, trying to prove that he was taking this seriously. “Oh, yeah, like I said. I applied to some places.” The same places Liz had, by coincidence. “Simon’s… I dunno, doing something in Uruguay. I know he didn’t just ditch me.” Morgan was pretty sure, anyway.

The Order was different than the rest of his life had been. People didn’t abandon you here.

”If you’re worried, you could get in touch with him. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind a text or email, just to show that you’re still interested.” Connie gave him a small lopsided smile as she tucked a strand of her own curly hair behind her ear. “Everyone needs some validation sometimes, Morgan. Simon might not understand that you’re serious about what you want, or might not know that you think highly of him. Communication-“

”-solves most problems before they start.” Morgan finished, making direct eye contact with a very serious expression, until the two of them both laughed together. “I know, I know. I just… have… a good excuse.” Connie cocked a single eyebrow at him, a feat that Morgan felt like too many people in this building were capable of. “I’ll think of a good excuse!” He said.

She shook her head. “I know you’re joking, but it’s important to be honest with yourself. If you’re not comfortable doing it, then it would help to vocalize why, so you can either decide to do it or not, and avoid making more stress for yourself.”

”I knowwwwww.” Morgan groaned. “I am uncomfortable. But it’s stupid, and I know that. So I’ll just do it tonight.” He nodded firmly, once. “It’s also dumb that it feels good to, like, have that as a plan.”

”Plans are helpful, because it lets your brain stop stressing.” Connie told him. “Speaking of, last time you had said that you were thinking of spending all those stipend points you’ve been sitting on. Have you thought more about that?”

Morgan grinned. “I thought you weren’t a guidance counselor.”

”Ah, but you were second guessing yourself, and I am here to listen.” Connie grinned back at him, in a way that made Morgan feel like he was actually being listened to, and she wasn’t just saying empty words.

He leaned forward on the couch, much more comfortable and interested in talking about this part. “I’ve got enough saved up to get a Sewer book.” He said. “And… they seem good? No matter what it ends up being, it seems like such a good place to start, right?”

”Well.” Connie said, trying to conceal her reservations and remain a neutral helper. “That is your choice, ultimately. I think the biggest question you need to ask yourself, Morgan, is what you want. Do you want this? Because no matter what, a Lesson changes you.”

”I hope so, that’s the point.”

She pursed her lips in a thin line at him, though not a judgmental one. “No, Morgan, it changes your incentives.” Connie explained. “Once you have a Lesson, whatever topic it is in, you are pushed into. It’s not like selecting a major, or even applying to university, where your ultimate decision is flexible and you can switch anytime. You’re going to be motivated into that subject for the rest of your life.”

”Yeah.” Morgan took a deep breath. “Yeah, it’ll change me. But… that’s okay, right? El kept telling me that everyone changes, and it’s just up to us to not change into someone shitty. But she also said that between swearing at another car, so…”

Connie tried not to laugh. “El is… not… wrong. But I’d rather ask you this. Do you want that kind of responsibility?”

”Responsibility?”

Connie nodded while Morgan looked at the sunlight streaming through the blinds that shouldn’t have a real window behind them. “All power is responsibility. The more you ignore that, the more damage you do to those around you. This has always been true, but right now, with the way the Order has actual magic and the way the word ‘power’ means a lot more, it’s much more important to confront it directly before you make a choice like this.”

“I hadn’t thought about that.” Morgan admitted. “But it would be cool. And it’s kind of a goal, too, the way the Lessons work, even if it does pick the goal for me. And goals are useful like you said. I guess it would be something to work toward while I figure everything else out, right? And then, when I… when I need it, it’ll always be there. Is that a bad way to think of it?”

She set the pad of paper and pen she was taking notes with down on her side table. “You’re taking the eternally complex question of what to do with your entire life, and you’re finding a foothold to begin answering it in your own way.” Connie folded her hands in her lap, watching Morgan from her chair across the room. “I don’t think that’s bad at all. I think you do know what you want, and I think you’re looking for ways to get there. That seems like the kind of thing a young man does when he’s thinking ahead.”

Morgan nodded, failing to keep his cheeks from turning hot at the praise. He was getting better at processing a lot of his emotions, but not this one. People didn’t just compliment him, it was weird. “Alright.” He said, trying to cover it up. “I’m gonna go for it. I think… I think it’ll be useful, no matter what I decide. Maybe I’ll get one in gardening.”

”Maybe.” Connie just felt happy that he’d come to a conclusion for himself. “Now. We’re about done for the day. Is there anything you’d like me to make a note for, for next time?”

”Thanks.” Morgan said. “Nothing really. But… thanks. You know, for helping.”

Connie kept the smile, but shook her head slightly. ”Always happy to have a conversation with you, Morgan. Just remember that you’re helping yourself more than I am. You’re doing a good job. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

He left feeling lighter than when he’d entered. Not like anything had changed, exactly. Just that he was a little more in tune with his own thoughts. Like he wasn’t fighting himself quite as much.

The day felt like it was pleasant. Like for once, there wasn’t trouble happening just out of Morgan’s line of sight.

He wondered if James ever felt that way. Probably. James seemed like he always knew everything going on in the Order though. So if there was trouble, he’d know.

Right now, Morgan headed upstairs to buy a book. Content in the feeling that everything was going smoothly, at least for today.