"The need to be observed and understood was once satisfied by God. Now we can implement the same functionality with data-mining algorithms." -Morpheus, Deus Ex-
_____
“Where are we at, even.” James sighed as he looked over their list of leads that had been slowly crossed off as the day had passed. “Like… why is ‘dungeon things’ checked off here? Alice?”
The woman looked up from her phone. “Oh, that. Yeah, we got most of the bizarre emerald programs running-“
”Despite their best efforts!” Dance cut in, the camraconda expressing her frustration with the esoteric UI that the dungeon-generated code tended to have as she lay on the scratchy carpet of the living room floor watching Netflix upside down.
Alice shot the young camraconda an unseen smile. “-and we can confirm there is a dungeon somewhere within twenty miles. Or, at least the programs generally agree that it’s likely, and when Mike briefed us on them he had a really long thing about how much they’d tested on the dungeons we knew about, so… probably? Probably a dungeon within twenty miles.” Alice’s smile turned a little too wide as she let slip a defensive giggle. “I mean, it’s something?”
”…Clearly I should have been reading the documentation on these things.” James admitted. “I thought they were a little more… uh…”
”Precise? Nah dude.” Dance flicked her tail, not turning away from her show. “You’re thinking of the old AI that did this for us I think.”
James winced, leaning on the edge of the couch. ”Ah.” He said simply. That had been… not a great mark on the Order’s record, if he was being honest. Oopsing into creating sentient life wasn’t exactly new for them, and it was mostly fine. But they had massively dropped the ball in terms of leaving all the responsibility for the new creation on just Momo, a person who deeply cared, and wasn’t equipped to manage a computer child at all. It was, James was absolutely certain, not Momo’s fault how things had turned out; it wasn’t really anyone’s fault. But they could have done better. “Okay. Well. Dungeon exists. Good to know I guess. Can we narrow it down at all?”
”It’s probably a door?” Alice offered with a shrug that she held for a while, scrunching her face up. “Uh… yeah, that’s it. Probably a door. Most dungeon entrances are doors.”
”That’s… not true?” James pursed his lips and looked down at the floor. “Is it? Office, Sewer, Stacks, technically Attic, they’re doors. Route is… like… technically an archway. Climb makes its own door. Underburbs we don’t even know…”
”Four and a half to two. Most of them are doors.” Alice concluded with a nod. “Anyway, you know how many doors are within twenty miles of here?”
James didn’t, and he didn’t want to do the math either. “Too many.” He settled on, getting the point. “We could just start removing doors. I think Reed still has that blue power, we can make him use the crown over and over and come down here and eliminate all doors.”
That got a laugh from Alice. ”For someone who’s supposed to be our champion, you sure say a lot of stuff that makes me think you don’t know how magic works.” She teased him.
It was actually really deeply funny to James that he lived in a world where someone could say with authority that they ‘knew how magic really worked’, and actually be correct. Or at least, more correct than normal.
Part of him wanted to correct her. He did know how blue absorb powers worked; Reed had once knocked himself out taking out a single set of double doors, asking him to get rid of every wooden square between hallways and bedrooms in the city would just outright kill him. And probably not work anyway. Blue ‘spells’ were actually some of the most dangerous the Order had, right up there with Climb magic, because they could and would cause organ failure, internal bleeding, or probably death if you overused them.
James hated it, cause he really wanted to spend most of his time flinging around magic, and the fact that it was gated both by charges - and blue spells were expensive in comparison to other magic, since copies were taking up slots that could have been used for choice purples - and also by his untimely demise.
Once, long ago, he’d seen some asshole cult leader surfing on a mobile speed bump down the middle of the street at high speed. And holy shit, James wanted to do that, so bad. But it was perpetually out of his reach, unless he wanted to have his brain leak out of his nose.
“So where’s Charlie?” James asked instead of commenting. “I thought-“
The sound of the front door opening announced the man’s return, everyone turning to watch the hallway from the foyer as Charlie strode in with the same kind of almost detached alertness that he usually had. The door shut after he’d already entered, and the reason why made herself known a second later as Yin stalked in, and stole the right to talk first. “Good news! I found a wizard!” She announced.
”…That’s a statistically unlikely coincidence.” Charlie said, not exactly frowning, but sparing a glance to Yin as he circled around the furniture and into the room. “Here, Dance. I got you a gift.” He set a book on the floor near the camraconda girl, who turned over and arched herself upward to look at it.
”Chronicles of Narnia? This looks old.” She swung her head around in a long arc to face Charlie. “Is this you trying to trick me into reading more?”
”This is me giving you something to read.” He said flatly. “I was at the library, and it seemed like I should check something out. The other thing I got was this.” He set a heavy book that looked like it was bound in wide reddish leaves onto the table. “Which I did not check out, as it was not in the system. It was filed in a mostly unused shelf, but it specifically did not have dust on it.”
James reached out to flip it open, giving an expectant look to the man before getting a nod. When he turned to the first page, James was greeted with the sight of intricately drawn loops and shapes, things that might have been runes or writing or nonsense. “This is a spellbook.” He commented. And then, in a much more confused tone as he realized what he’d said, added, “This is a spellbook?”
”Dammit, I wanted to get my own bullshit in first.” Yin grumbled, dropping into the adjacent loveseat and occupying the entire thing herself. “I visited a therapist today. A few actually, but one in particular. Talked for a bit about a sociological study of the area, youth development, mental health trends, that kinda thing. Anyway, when one of them was out of the room for a bit, I searched the office. You know what I found?”
”A spellbook.” James answered idly.
”A sp- oh fuck you.” Yin defiantly refused to let him steal her moment. “I didn’t steal it, like Charlie apparently is cool with. Didn’t know blatant theft was on the table. But she had it! Took a chance and studied it until the spell slotted; three minutes, it’s called Jester’s Sip, and it lets me drink something from about a yard away. Got an extra copy of it up here.” She tapped her head.
James rolled his head back to look at the ceiling. “Holy shit, I don’t think we should be stealing magic from people who aren’t evil, but wow I want that one.” He groaned out.
”Uh… Why?” Dance asked, splitting her focus between him and the first page of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. “How come you’re all boring and you want boring magic, and not fireballs?”
”Fireballs are infeasible, maybe not real, and way too destructive anyway.” James answered, justifying how he’d given up on that, alongside health potions and actually leveling up. “No, this would be cool cause we have potions.” He said the words and got appreciative nods and hums from the others. “Okay. So, what’s this one do?” He tapped the book on the table.
Charlie shrugged. “No idea. I grabbed it and brought it back. Really, I found it by accident. I have no proof, but I think it was put there… on purpose.”
”Like… uh… like it’s a dead drop?” Yin asked, rolling the language around. “Where better to hide a book in plain sight?”
James nodded along “Either that, or it actually is public? Maybe an open secret, maybe a very open secret, but that could be a place where people go for a public spell.” He sat down on the floor next to the table, opposite from Dance, and pulled it over. “We need to know what it is, at least. I’ll be listening, but don’t mind me.” He took a long breath, already frustrated with this magic, and started to focus on the vectors of the lines on the page.
”We have, again, no proof either way.” Charlie’s mouth quirked upward. “Insufficient data, in every way that matters. But it was there.” He moved into the kitchen on the hunt for something to drink. “Is Myles up yet?” He asked.
”James kicked him out of bed hours ago.” Yin called over. “He’s pissed off, and following a guy who’s not a cop.”
James looked up from the book, breaking his focus instantly. “Sorry, what?”
”Yeah, he’s been texting on the rogue channel about it. The guy was impersonating the police captain.” Yin nodded. “No idea why. But Myles says he’s awake now and he hates you and he hates this city.”
”Cool.” James massaged his forehead. “Cool. Great. Awesome. That escalated way faster than I thought it would. Also I was gonna ask Myles for help stalking some kids tonight, dammit.”
”…do you ever think about what you say before you open your mouth?” Alice asked him with a worried look. “Cause… wow.”
”Yeah my guy, not a good look.” Dance hissed a camraconda giggle at him.
James rolled his eyes and explained in detail. “Zhu’s got a few kids tagged who reacted like they might be delvers, or ‘in the know’. Which… actually that level of awareness might tie into why there’s a spellbook in a public library. Actually, Charlie, public library? Or something else?” Charlie gave a thumbs up as he tilted a can of soda into his mouth, and James just nodded. “Public library. Right. Anyway, our orange feathered friend is napping now, which works out, cause I want to talk to them later when there’s fewer people around, preferably in a private place.”
”Wow you really don’t think before you speak do you.” Alice gave him a stare, eyebrows raised so far they vanished into her bangs.
“I’m going to, in a non-creepy way, go out later to isolate and interrogate a bunch of teenagers.” James clarified, before sighing and looking back to the book, starting over and figuring he’d wait for Myles to get back to ask about the police captain.
”Christ that made it so much worse.” Alice muttered to herself. “Yin, get me out of this. What’ve you got?”
”…Aside from telling you that a random therapist had a spellbook in her office?” Yin asked slowly.
”Yup.”
”Actually kind of a lot, in a hearsay sorta way. According to basically everyone I was talking to today, there’s a weirdly high rate of people getting into fights around here. They wouldn’t break patient confidentiality, which, fuck I guess good for them really. But talking ‘bout statistics is okay, and almost every one of them had something to say about helping people deal with stress responses and PTSD.” She lounged back on the cushions, thin arms holding a throw pillow up in the air over her head. “But not soldiers or anything. Like, housewives and trivia club students and shit. Normal people, with no signs of abuse, needing help like they’d been in active combat.” She threw the pillow, catching it with her feet before flipping it back to her hands with an athletic motion. “I think there’s a dungeon here, absolutely. And I think everyone knows. And if Charlie says ‘insufficient data’ or whatever his vulcan ass is planning, I’m gonna-”
”We did more or less confirm a dungeon, before you got back.” Alice told her.
”Also that’s pretty compelling evidence.” Charlie added.
”Also you’re a jerk!” Dance threw in, just to participate. “Just cause Charlie only has one catchphrase doesn’t mean you can be a jerk to him!”
Charlie set his soda down on the edge of the kitchen table. ”Thanks, Dance. I appreciate that. Technically.”
”Ooh, technically can be your other catchphrase!” The camraconda girl excitedly offered.
“Moving on from my thorough and well researched humiliation.” Charlie said evenly, his steady voice only showing a hint of amusement. “Did you and Arrush… where is Arrush?”
”Taking a shower.” James answered, giving up on his spell study until this conversation was over. “Turns out oils cause serious irritation when they get into ratroach fur, so…”
“What did you do?” Dance asked in a teasing voice, hissing in mildly rude joy like she was expecting James to be embarrassed by the situation.
James just raised his eyebrows at her. “Bought him onion rings.” He answered without a speck of remorse. “Anyway, Charlie, no. Aside from turning up one suspicious police impersonator - and I’m just realizing I can’t even be that mad at the guy considering I walked into his stolen office pretending to be a federal agent - and the stalking thing for later after Zhu wakes up… nothing.” He shifted his legs under him, trying and failing to get comfortable on the floor. With a glance toward the empty hall that led to the front door, James wondered if Myles was having any more luck. “Is this how this goes?” He asked. “Because I feel pretty useless here, not gonna lie.”
”The fuck are you talking about? This is the most productive spy fiesta that we’ve ever had.” Yin flung her throw pillow into the back of his head, catching it on the rebound as James nearly headbutted the coffee table from the impact.
Alice gave him an understanding nod. “She’s right, normally we know an area has a dungeon somewhere, and then we find nothing, and then we go home and regroup. I dunno if rogue stuff is the same, but even with the Underburbs where we absolutely know it is there, our team has never once found any of the things we get leads on.” She reached one of her socked feet out and wiggled it on Dance’s back. “It’s fine, really. We get time to get good at working together, and it’s all good practice I guess. But yeah, our success rate is a big old nothing.”
”Rogues have it a lot easier than scouts.” Yin admitted, though her tone didn’t change from being abrasively snarky. “Something you learn as a rogue? You don’t always get answers. You dig, and find nothing, because you’re either digging in the wrong place or things have been hidden successfully, and you’ll never know which. And the only real way to deal with it is to keep digging.” She didn’t stop spinning the pillow in her hands as she spoke, staring at it like it was a magical focus. “Sometimes you learn something cool. Sometimes it’s useful. Sometimes you’re just confirming there’s nothing going on. Today we learned there’s a lot of wizards in this fucking city. That’s good shit right there.”
Dance tipped her head up in an indignant pose, sharp tongue flicking out over brass fangs. “How come she gets to swear and I don’t? I’m gonna swear!”
”Don’t even think about it young lady!” Alice shoved her foot up into Dance’s face, sliding off the couch and tackling her ward.
James gave a huff of almost-laughter as he watched them. “I guess I’m just used to everything happening all at once. We’ve never really had a problem with our enemies being passive, you know? And now we don’t even know if whatever’s going on here is ‘enemies’ at all.”
”Could be new friends!” Dance called out, even as her physical voice let loose a shrill shriek as she failed to escape Alice’s pin.
”Yeah, maybe less bug-like friends this time.” Yin said.
Charlie didn’t even look up from the map he was updating as he replied. ”Well that’s just mean.”
”What? No, I mean, are the chanters not bugs?” Yin looked confused for a second, rolling onto her shoulder as she faced the group. “Wait shit ratroaches. Okay, that was bitchy of me, my bad.”
Standing up with a grunt, James carefully closed the leaf bound spellbook and picked it up, cradling the solid spine in the palm of his hand. “Okay.” He said. “I’m gonna go upstairs and do this with less non-bug distractions. I’ll let you all know what it is when I’m done so you can pick it up too. I’m assuming everyone here has spell slots for obvious reasons.” He got a series of nods and thumbs up. “Great. I’m gonna return this before the library closes tonight, too. Yin, can you get me one of those tracker tags you guys have? Also great. Cool.”
He left the room with two overlapping conversations still going on, passing an exhausted looking Myles coming in the front door as he did. The young rogue nodded at James and looked like he wanted to complain about something, but saved it for later after a really quick update to confirm that, yeah, the guy James had talked to just wasn’t the actual Captain Mecham. Which begged the question of why not a single other officer in the building had said anything.
James filed that under ‘problems for tomorrow’, and went to check out the spellbook.
Sitting up against the headboard of the bed, he let his mind relax, focusing just on the loops and lines of the spell, smiling softly at the sound of Arrush humming to himself in the shower and the cascade of water through the door. It took longer than he’d expected, long enough that Arrush had come back into their room with still-damp fur, awkwardly hiding behind a closet door as he dried himself off and got dressed. Long enough that Zhu had woken up and started to slowly bring his manifestation to life around James. Long enough that James felt like he should have eaten more than onion rings for lunch.
But eventually, he got a piece of alien information splashed across his conscious thoughts.
|1 : 3 Slots Empty
1: 1 Charm River Transmutation +++
1: 2 Saint’s Wrap ++
2 : -1 Slots Empty
2 : Altercation Imp Ward|
James promptly fell off the bed as his vision swam and his balance failed, a spike of nauseous pain going through his throat and stomach simultaneously as the magic experienced a failure state. The Order had higher level spell coins, he’d just never used any because they hadn’t had the books for it. And it was only right now, in this moment of gasping for air on the bedroom floor of a rented house, that he realized that may have been a slight oversight.
At least he got a mostly naked Arrush cradling him. “This part is okay. I’m fine with this. You’re cute from this angle.” James croaked out as his ratroach boyfriend stared down at him with his array of eyes flicking in panic that slowly faded to a neon embarrassment. “I’m fine.” He lied. “Ow. Okay, ow. I’m… probably fine.” He checked his spell list again, seeing that the failed entry was already gone from it. “Ugh. Okay, well, we’ll have to slap a warning on that one. But hey. You’re clean, Zhu’s waking up, and I’m not tired anymore. Seems like a great time to…”
”To rest. Like a responsible person.” Arrush told him with a rasping growl and a subconscious switch to Spanish.
”…Or…” James offered, struggling to stand. “Or we could take our minds off this by going out and making the progress I’ve been so craving?”
”…You are very unkind to yourself.” Arrush told him, looking displeased, but still helping James stand up with a pair of claws. “Are… are you hurt?”
”Nah, it just hurt for a moment, I think I’m legit fine.” James wasn’t sure how much of that was his Endurance and Energy bringing him back to full capability, and how much was that it was just a momentary flash of agony without any damage associated with it. But either way, he did feel ready to go. “Alright, come on.” He said as he passed Arrush one of his hoodies. “Let’s go see if we can solve every problem tonight so we can be back home in time for the Stacks delve tonight.”
Arrush leaned down to carefully tap his chitinous forehead onto the top of James’ own head, mindful to not tangle his spined antenna in his boyfriend’s long hair. “Th-that will not happen.” He said confidently. “You can’t go… into a dungeon… tired.”
”I’m not tired! I’m…” James yawned. “…shut up.” Now it was his turn to blush as Arrush chittered an actual giggle at him. He didn’t mind so much; he didn’t get to see Arrush laugh that often, and it made him feel a deep happiness to know that his companion was getting this comfortable. “Zhu, you up?”
”I figured I’d stay quiet until the flirting was done.” Zhu informed them. “Or until it would be really funny.”
James nodded. ”Zhu’s up. Alright. Let’s go, and I can distract myself from thinking about all the fun stuff happening without me.”
_____
When Alex was told to go somewhere random for her errancy, she more or less took that to heart. It wasn’t like she threw a dart at a map, but she did ask people who were more online than her to ask their various discord servers and gaming groups if anyone needed help with anything. Then she picked one of the comments, and went.
Which was how she’d ended up in Cairo for a bit. Only for a few days, but that was enough time to get a glimpse of the city that seemed like it was being dragged in two directions by time itself. Ancient mosques and libraries and tombs, meticulously preserved historic architecture so wondrous and heavy with time that it drew tourism in all on its own, and it abutted against apartments and shops that could have been built a week ago. Being guided on foot through clean and well-trodden paths between stone buildings like they were spies slipping through alleys, while a thousand feet away a highway overpass experienced the daily traffic jam, and one street over, a hundred people camped out on those same cramped streets, unable to afford housing.
Alex had been told there was, out there somewhere in the city, a Burger King that had a panoramic view of the pyramids. That sounded fake, but then, she lived in a world of things that sounded made up, so who was she to talk?
The newly minted diet paladin had stuck around for three days, with a growing concern in the back of her mind as what was supposed to be a simple favor escalated into exposing a corrupt landlord, preventing a kidnapping, navigating the city’s esoteric property laws, and eventually establishing something that, legally, was not a renter’s union. But was a renter’s union. In the building that was technically now a protected cultural site, but since that didn’t actually mean much in Cairo these days, was more realistically Alex’s building, that she just so happened to not participate in the upkeep of, content to leave that to her ‘tenants’. It wasn’t a drop in the bucket against the city’s housing crisis, but it was what she’d done anyway.
”This feels like cheating.” She had muttered to herself, sitting on the rooftop and looking out at the acacia trees and domed roofs of the city. She’d then been poked by the friend of a friend, and reminded to stop defaulting to English and practice her Arabic. The girl, who went by Mahi, was pretty much the only one comfortable with Alex’s habit of throwing magic around or using her growing authority to shrug off being repeatedly hit in the head, so she’d been the one to actually be Alex’s guide and point of contact for a lot of the other residents.
The city was wrong. Alex could feel it, gnawing at the defenses her authority put up. The others weren’t awkward about her magic, they were blind to it, in a way that was abjectly different than back home.
She’d filed a report about the geographical factor in the field effect, before she’d been caught up doing a different favor for a different friend, filling in as a driver for an NGO that did deliveries of food and sanitary products to places where it wasn’t profitable to ship normally. She’d flown out on a wobbling tin can of an aircraft the next day, and ended up driving a truck as part of a convoy in Sudan.
Twice, she’d fixed bad road conditions on the down low with her magic. Once, she’d far more overtly diverted a small landslide. But overall, it was pretty easy, with the exception of how much driving there was and how bad the road conditions were.
Which, like… okay yeah. She got that. It seemed like this place was having a hard time, and while Alex didn’t know much of anything about the history of the region, she could easily see that the conditions were hurting people now.
She put in her time, drove steady, and helped where she could. One night, she had nightmares that felt so vivid that Alex’s training kicked in and she started lucidly pushing back on them. She’d parted ways with the NGO at the next stop and stuck around for a couple days in the area, camping out and getting to know the sounds of the local wildlife while she tried to pin down if there was a dungeon around.
Alex couldn’t prove it, but she was pretty sure there was. Her laptop was running a couple emerald chip programs to try to find the things, but out here, in the middle of nowhere in a country that didn’t keep as detailed records already, it wasn’t likely they’d turn up anything. So all she had was a feeling.
A feeling, and nightmares that got worse each night she got closer on her hike back to the problem spot.
One of the things James had emphasized to the three of them, when they were talking as paladins before they’d set out, was that they needed to learn that they couldn’t fix everything right away. They were meant to be impressive, but a paladin wasn’t an unstoppable force of nature. And out here, by herself by her own choice, Alex felt very stoppable right now.
So she’d called it in. The scout groups were busy right now, because they were never not going to be busy it seemed, but Alex spent some of her precious saved internet connection to let the Order know the coordinates and situation. And then she’d gotten the fuck out of there.
Her next stop was back in the States, and the sudden contrast of feeling like she was on ‘home turf’ instantly made Alex self-conscious about the fact that she found other places ‘weird’. She found the US shitty a lot of the time, but at least she knew the texture of its negativity. But now, all she was thinking was that she just didn’t have a wide enough range of experiences, and here she was poking around a college admissions office on the word of one guy who might just be a scorned boyfriend that was lying to her.
At least the nightmares stopped though. For a bit. It came back a day later when Alex realized that - lying or not - the guy’s girlfriend had vanished on him. Along with at least a few other people. And for some reason, the college seemed to have absolutely no idea it was happening.
Now this was the kind of problem that she was good at. Unfortunately.
Alex ran her thumb over the dull green collar she was wearing. Feeling the solidity of the authority she was bound with; she’d started to get used to it, and felt like the manifest friend was a good reminder of what she was supposed to be working for.
”What do you think, mon ami?” She asked the creation that never really spoke back. “You gonna keep me safe if we run into another different style of mind fuckery?”
The authority vibrated slightly against her skin. It didn’t understand the question exactly, but it knew it was being asked to be capable, and it knew that its bearer was operating well within her role. So it told her it would rise to the occasion.
Alex nodded, giving her collar a pat. ”Alright. Let’s go get into some trouble.”
_____
“Alright team.” Reed didn’t look up from his notes at the team, because he didn’t want to see two people and one pet standing at attention in a line, and one person apathetically not joining their antics. “We’ve got a list of volunteers set up, somehow, so today’s testing day. John, do you have the package?”
”Yes boss!” The young man saluted, intentionally hitting himself in the face with the briefcase he was holding.
”…Okay. Amy, I know you reassured me several times, but Rom isn’t going to eat anyone is he?” Reed’s voice strained slightly.
The veterinarian nudged the invisible cat standing next to her, miming a partial salute a few times before it remembered the trick it had been taught and made a similar gesture of raising a paw to its forehead. The motion only visible through the small projected illusion of a black cat on the floor, and mirrored in Amy as she saluted more properly. “No boss!” She declared.
“Great. Good. This is a good idea.” Reed sighed. “Bea, you… actually Bea why are you here?”
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
”I did not enjoy what I was doing.” The inhabitor said in her inhumanly flat voice, her face that on most people would have been called softly beautiful set into a stiffly stoic mask of apathy.
Reed waited for an explanation before realizing that was a losing game. “What were you doing?” He prompted.
”Nothing.” Bea answered.
”And so you just walked to the first group you saw and decided to help?” John asked with a teasing tone, lowering the briefcase from his face. “Or… well that is sorta what people do here?”
With a sigh born of having done this routine a dozen times, Reed raised a hand between himself and the group. “I don’t care.” He said. “Sometimes I would care. Today I do not care, an extra set of eyes could help, and we’re short on people because we have too many projects going on. Welcome aboard. We’re testing green orbs.”
Not, as another team was feverishly at work on, making green orb totems. Nor on making green orb life, which was something that sounded like a terrible idea in general. Certainly not on absorbing a green orb. Those latter two were both potential vectors for the dungeon to directly control a person, and since no one was interested in being a test subject for “can you be mind controlled”, they’d opted to just… not touch that for now.
No, they were doing good old fashioned controlled variable tests just to see how much green orbs changed between the locations they were used at.
Partly it was an extension of the attempt to map out all the ‘problems’ that blue orbs could solve. Those things were pretty finckey, but they were at least consistent about it. And if the problem they’d normally fix wasn’t available, they’d default to the same thing every time. Which had sort of allowed Research, through perhaps excessive use of the copier ritual, to make a flowchart for some orbs. And those charts overlapped sometimes, which meant it was quite possibly all one big shared map.
And they would love to know if green orb copies worked the same way. If they did, it would open the door to a whole new set of options for identifying the things before they had to make any duplicates at all.
The Order already knew a lot about how green orbs functioned. Or at least, about the end effects. They knew that they were one of the magic types that was species-agnostic, even though the effects were very often human centric. They knew that the more physical space an orb changed, the weaker its effect got. They knew that you couldn’t ever get them to work on vehicles, even big ones, though Nik still wanted to test it on an aircraft carrier and everyone else wanted Nik to stop wanting that. And they knew that the things had a pattern to what they looked for to modify, as many Office magics did.
Building if there was one, room or division within the building if it was too large for a weaker orb to hit the whole thing. If there was no structure, then property lines were often used, followed by municipal qualities like roads or parks, followed by civic boundaries like city or county limits. Though often times orbs would run out of power well before getting that far, and just hit a smaller and more arbitrary zone.
Today, they had eight copies of the same green orb, donated by a real asshole of a tumblefeed, and Reed had a list of places to test it to see what different effects it bestowed between properties. This was the first of this particular style of test, but it wouldn’t be the last. Now that the Order was doing longer Office expeditions every month, the number of copy rituals available had gone way up, so this was something that was doable even with the larger orb sizes of most greens.
Someone - one of the new recruits from the last round of hiring, probably - had already cracked one of them at the Lair, so Reed knew what it did here as the world’s least pure baseline.
[Local Area Shift : -6% Effort - Food Production]
It came with four skill ranks in repairing water pumps, which was neat, and meant there were going to be more people who could do maintenance work on the baths, but wasn’t super relevant to the testing. Reed had already confirmed with the kitchen staff that this rare percentage based effect did not make them lazier, but instead seemed to just slightly reduce the effort it took to cut vegetables or lift heavy pans into the oven.
”Okay.” Reed nodded at his group. “We probably won’t need to be doing any hunting for changes, but I appreciate you two coming along. Let’s get moving, we’ve got a bunch of places to hit.” He already had a telepad itinerary laid out.
The first place was the office that surrounded Officium Mundi’s entrance. Since the Order owned it, it seemed like a good spot for an early test, and it instantly proved Reed wrong as John cracked the first orb.
[Local Area Shift : +2 Vending Machines]
”Why.” Reed said bluntly.
”Because this strain of magical object produces changes in line with western culture.” Bea answered in a way that was technically correct, but not really what he wanted to hear. “Do we need to find the alterations?”
”Yes, please.” Reed nodded, at least grateful for the directness. “Amy, you and Bea take the upper floors, John, you’re with me, let’s go check the loading dock and basement thing.” It took them about half an hour of asking the Recovery staff in the building to make sure they’d found the right ones, but eventually they did locate the two new machines. They were stocked with perfectly ordinary food. Reed bought some chips and proclaimed them ‘technically edible’.
Their second stop was the family home of a Response member who’d offered up her house as a test site. She got to crack the orb herself, saying it would at least be her fault if she blew up her sister’s sewing room.
[Local Area Shift : -9% Effort - Food Production]
A good result, same as before but a higher value. Reed noted down that it was evidence confirming the theory that smaller spaces got more focused magic, though the small increase compared to the difference in size made it seem like it was one of those things where each point increase cost exponentially more than the last.
The next spot was an apartment. A normal one, not the Lair’s apartments. Just a place that a couple humans, a camraconda, and a ratroach all lived; tethered to the Order in a way, but independent of all the activities and none of them delvers or anything.
[Local Area Shift : -4% Effort - Food Production]
”Well that’s just insulting.” John said as he used the orb. “The building is smaller, why…”
“No it isn’t.” Bea cut in. “This structure is much larger than the house.”
Reed looked between them. ”…Does anyone want to go ask the neighbors if we can test their kitchens?” He asked.
It took Amy three tries before she found someone who would help them check, on the condition that they could pet the cat. They were only a little bothered by the fact that the cat didn’t fit through the door, and was an unseen predator.
The next two spots were public parks, both of which got the same result as Amy took her turn to use the orbs and become too good at practical hydraulic engineering.
[Local Area Shift : -4 Meal Interruptions / Week]
Impossible to test, much like the orb in effect at the Lair that prevented one lethal accident a year. How were you supposed to know if something didn’t happen? Reed still noted each of the uses, and that the size of the park didn’t seem to make a change even though one was a lot bigger than the other.
The last three were weird, because they were neither public space, nor affiliated with the Order at all. And Reed… was glad he’d brought Amy and John, actually. Because talking to random people wasn’t what he was good at anyway, much less when you were telling those people you were going to do magic to their building. Assuming they believed in magic.
One was a bakery, where Amy made small talk with the owner while the others tried to find what they’d added.
[Local Area Shift : Production Capacity +1.2 M^3]
It had been the oven. Bigger on the inside than it should be, and a change that had made the proprietor irate until she’d had time to test it on a set of pastries and determined that despite the shift in volume, the evenness of heat distribution remained the same.
”But how does it…” she’d tried to ask.
”It really is magic.” Amy had told her in a conciliatory tone. “Thanks for helping us try this out though? Do you… do you wanna pet a cat?”
The next place was a pizzeria, where the owner definitely did not know what was going on, but Reed decided to take the hit to his ethical karma and use the orb anyway when the staff said it was okay. Two of them had previously had experiences with Response, and they were overtly willing to let Reed and his group do whatever the fuck they wanted to the building, up to and including dismantling it. Actually that might have been what they were hoping for; they seemed disappointed at the end change.
[Local Area Shift : -6% Effort - Food Production]
”I have a complaint.” John said as they moved outside to teleport to the last place. “How come this place, which has a giant oven for making food, doesn’t get more oven space like the bakery?”
”A theory.” Bea said, staring off at the horizon. “The orb line wants scones.”
John frowned, trying to keep up his professional mood. ”…That… no…?”
”Did you just make a joke?” Amy asked the other girl with a small smile.
”No.”
”Oh.” She deflated a little, leaning on Rom’s invisible frame. “Okay. Well, it’s magic, so maybe it does want scones? Or it could be something about… like… the production of food? That’s what it says, right boss?”
”I’m begging you, just call me Reed.” Reed said, checking his notes. “And yes, food production. Except when it’s not.”
”Okay! So the kitchen at the Lair and the pizza place make food for people directly. But the bakery makes, like, batches. Maybe that’s what it wants? I mean, want is a bad word. Do the orbs want things?”
”I think they want to give us headaches, insofar as they desire anything.” Reed opined. “Alright, last place, which will actually help with this exact conversation.”
The last place was a food processing facility that made, packaged, and shipped boxes of granola bars. It was a bizarre clash between the OSHA compliant factory machinery and the laissez faire, almost hippy-like personality of the guy in charge. He had agreed because his cousin was in Response and he thought this was some kind of Wiccan ritual, because his cousin had failed to explain what he meant by actual literal magic.
Reed had been willing to take an ethical hit earlier, but with someone right here and actively misunderstanding, he took the time to explain exactly what they were doing and get real informed consent. The guy didn’t really seem to be paying attention, but he still listened and nodded along, before shrugging and telling Reed that it couldn’t hurt to try.
So Bea had cracked the last orb, adding one more person to the list of people who could work on water features around the Lair, and gotten something that felt like what the orb did actually want the whole time.
[Local Area Shift : Food Production - Machinery, +2160 Safe Iterations / Day]
”Holy shit.” Reed and John said at the same time, with different levels of frustration in their inflection.
”It does want scones, oh my god, Bea was right!” Amy offered the inhabitor a high five, which Bea just stared at long enough that Amy dropped her hand and let Rom paw at it as it sat by her side. “But this is… this is nuts, right? This is exactly what we wanted to know!”
It was. Sort of. Reed was already in the process of making more work for Karen and Texture-Of-Barkdust’s department, asking them to crunch the numbers on what would be better for a place like this, the upgrade they got or a percentage buff. He was also updating the rest of Research that had their own channel for green theories.
Because this did feel like they’d hit on something. Like they’d been rewarded for finding what the orb did want. Less generic, and maybe more powerful as a result. As if all the other upgrades were the magic pushing uphill against what it was ‘supposed’ to do.
It felt like an important discovery. It also felt like they were going to waste a lot more copy runs on green orbs just to learn a little more about this.
Reed stopped composing a message on his skulljack mid-line, though, because he had to help Amy and the others get Rom’s head out of an industrial canister of oat clusters.
_____
Cheha stuck very, very close to TQ as they waited for the teleport to Townton. Her closest friend in the world was currently trying to learn how to hum, which was not going well, because camracondas just couldn’t really do that. But it wasn’t stopping him from making a series of grating chirps and trills.
The distant city was the farthest she would ever be going from home, discounting when she went with TQ to the home of the people who had saved her life, to pretend to be someone else and roll dice to tell a story. That was fun, but it was also probably a shorter distance when she thought about it, because they used a telepad to get there, which was faster than this larger teleport bubble.
She just didn’t like being away from home. Didn’t like feeling exposed, feeling lost, feeling afraid. Cheha was afraid almost all the time. She’d been told that most ratroaches were, that it wasn’t wrong and she shouldn’t ever feel guilty for being scared. And that changed precisely nothing, because it was something she should feel guilt for. Every day proved, again and again, that no one in the Order was going to hurt her. Proved that her fear was just an echo of the cruelty that had been done to her. Proved that she didn’t need it, and that it was holding her back.
Cheha laid two trembling paws on TQ’s head as he bobbed back and forth, and the camraconda stilled to let her do so. They had an arrangement; when she started panicking, she could use him as a stabilizer. Cheha had a problem with clawing at herself when she had anxiety attacks, which was half the reason she’d removed the sharper claws when she’d remade her body, but she had less trouble holding herself back from scratching anyone else. So this forced her to consider what she was doing, and let her calm down without needing to pick at her chitin.
When the Order had begun to make a habit of collecting and researching shaper substance, she’d been… well, nothing. It had been in the dark times, when every day was painful even if it was less painful, when she’d been more afraid, and had lashed out regularly. Knowing her newest owners had slightly more power didn’t matter to her.
Of course, then they’d shared it. Openly, willingly. They’d given to her so freely, brought her up to their level, asked for nothing in return. People had worked hard to be her friend, even when they shouldn’t have, and other people had taught her things she needed to know in order to make her body even better.
Cheha had still been afraid, though. So when it came time to fix herself, she’d been… restrained. Straighten the limbs, fortify the organs, smooth the chitin and skin, take away the pain. But that was all she did. She didn’t even change her coloration like Smoke had, not trusting that she could do so without causing her fur to burn her when it grew out. So she was still a tortoiseshell pattern of black and tan. Her trio of eyes were still lopsided, with the dual optics on her left side making the world wobble slightly whenever she blinked, though her mind had gotten used to it so fast she never noticed anymore.
She was still small, still fragile. Weaker than even most ratroaches, which meant almost any human could kill her if they wanted to. She didn’t hate it - didn’t even really think of it as something to hate - but it did leave her nervous most of the time. Except around Alanna, oddly. The human was… she had once gently lifted Cheha up using her arm as a platform that the ratroach could stand on, and it hadn’t even seemed to be that tiring to her. Alanna was dangerous to other humans. And yet all that strength was packed into the most confidently and direct kind person Cheha had met, even within the Order. Alanna had greeted her by promising not to use that strength against her.
Cheha licked at her sharply angled muzzle, leaving a light coating of luminescent saliva on her lips as she tried to compose herself. “Is it the teleporting that bothers you?” TQ asked, leaning his corded head into her paws.
She shook her head in a flurry of motion. “Being outside.” Cheha strained to make herself speak, and then as she found her voice, the words poured out. “There’s people and it’s open and everyone can see me and I’ve never been here and… and… and…” she broke off as a few of the others on the teleport platform started to look their way with worried glances. “Sorry.” The ratroach finished with a small nervous noise.
”Oh. Okay.” TQ nodded under her touch. “That is harder to solve. I was going to tell you the teleport finished while you were worrying if it was that.”
The joke got a sharp squeak of laughter out of her, the surprise of her friend’s humor tearing apart some of the anxiety. Cheha looked around and realized that they were already where they were going, people were already shifting cargo on and off the platform, and she’d spent so long with her eyes pressed closed and her thoughts racing that the teleport had begun and ended without her seeing it. She had actually wanted to see it. She’d have to force herself to be better on the way back.
“I’m okay.” She told the camraconda. “What now?”
”Now we procure dinner!” TQ wove back and forth, both to punctuate his words and to shift his armature pack into a more comfortable spot. “And then we eat dinner, while enjoying the sunset. And then we find a different what then, when we run out of dinner.”
They had no long term plan for the day, in other words.
TQ just insisted that she not spend all of her time inside. And Cheha knew he was trying to be nice to her, but she liked being inside, because inside she could shut all the doors and make sure there was no one nearby, and the Lair even had a thing where you could have food brought to your apartment. Being outside was often a strict downgrade.
But the camraconda seemed so sure that it wasn’t good for her, and so Cheha was here in Townton, getting out of the way of the restored vehicles that were being driven onto the teleport platform, feeling the different road through the sandals on her curved feet as she followed TQ through the plaza.
”This used to be outside our used space.” TQ said as they moved, twisting his boxy camera head around to look at the scattered low buildings and wide street around them. “Away from where people lived. Now people want to live around it.”
”…why?” Cheha asked, watching a group of humans and ratroaches working together with tools and magic to repair a building foundation into something stable and usable. The sound of a table saw made her flinch again, her whole body vibrating in momentary panic despite being able to see the source of the noise. “It’s so loud…”
”It won’t always be loud like this.” TQ said simply, as if that explained everything. “We will fix the places to live and work and play. Then the noise will be people living and working and playing, not…” he irised his lens shut for a moment as the table saw made itself known again, “…that.”
Cheha looked around at the people who were in the area, trying to sort it out on her own. All this space around where the teleport was placed. Maybe it was as simple as that; people wanted to get from the teleport to inside quicker. She would want that. And there was some kind of garage with several disassembled cars out front, too. Maybe they wanted to do their work and send it off without having to go farther, or without navigating a cluttered street. That made sense.
“Everyone wants to be inside.” She whispered, nodding as she figured it out. TQ gave her a tilt of his head, but didn’t counter her statement, so Cheha decided she must be right.
Except that probably wasn’t true, since there were lots of people who all seemed fine outside. Mostly human, but there were others like her, and also a lot of the chanters. The chanters seemed to almost only want to be outside, which Cheha assumed was something wrong with their species in the same way that corrosive bodily secretions and an inability to be vegetarian was a defect with hers.
There weren’t many of them outside of the green swath that the more occupied buildings surrounded, but Cheha caught sight of a few clusters of them moving around across the open road. Their park was dotted with thick canvas tents that were all in the process of being overgrown by plant life, and there were so many tents spread out among the trees and lines of growth that it was now impossible to find a vantage point where you could see all of them that didn’t involve getting on the roof of a building.
She stayed very close to TQ as they got past the security posts and into the more populated city. The camraconda said it wasn’t really a city anymore, but it was more people than Cheha had ever seen in one place. Dozens of humans and camracondas, hundreds of chanters, and a fair number of her own species too. The flicker of infomorphs either off on their own business or layered around the bodies of the people going about their business; navigators were common here where half the people that lived here were dedicated Route Horizon delvers. Even a couple necroads, though they were keeping a cautious distance from everyone else, and as far as Cheha knew, they didn’t talk to anyone yet. There was ample shoulder room as they walked, there was no sense of overcrowding, but even with just thirty or forty people going about the daily tasks of getting food, running deliveries, or waiting at their posts at medical and aid tents in case a chanter needed something, it felt like there was an overwhelming amount of motion and noise.
She kept her eyes closed for several steps at a time, and it was only after the third time she opened them to stay tethered to TQ that she realized he was leading them across the middle of a street intersection and past the pair of asphalt creations that were standing there and being given a circle of space by the other foot traffic. “There is,” he was telling Cheha though she was having a hard time focusing as her heart rate increased, “someone here who makes poutine. I do not know what that is, but James references it repeatedly, and I want to do research before… oh, pardon us.” The camraconda spoke to the necroads like they weren’t nothing but floating black rock claws, asphalt wrapped around ritual bone with no apparent sense organs or ways to communicate. Cheha fully expected one of them to attack them as they moved too close. But then… the raised claw just spread its talons outward, splayed fingers held up to them as they passed unharmed. “…before the next time he says anything. So I can commit an ambush. Would you like to try?” TQ continued like nothing was wrong.
Cheha was only half listening. She had lagged behind, watching the creature that had waved at her. Slowly, she raised her bifurcated right arm, and waved back. When it dropped its floating claw back to a resting position, it was so fast that it made her flinch, but she thought it looked a little happier somehow. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She told TQ. “But I can eat anything.”
”That is technically correct, but not exactly correct. And I am talking about being silly, but in a way that surprises the humans in my life, who do not expect me to know specific things.”
”Oh.” Cheha thought about it. “Yes. I don’t… I don’t have the humans. But I will help you eat something?”
TQ’s tail slid effortlessly across the pavement as he hissed to accompany his modulated digital voice. ”Excellent. I believe gravy is involved.”
Cheah was still distracted by the sharp asphalt creatures they had passed, but even through that, she had the presence of mind to give TQ a level look. “You… you are confusing on purpose?” She realized. “Because… you want to be?”
”Why yes, thank you for noticing!” The camraconda answered cheerfully.
They continued along, following the curve of the park and passing by a cluster of tables near a few food stands. Between the food, a kind of improvised market had begun to grow here. There were a few dedicated buildings that handled actual supplies, like stores that didn’t take money, and that was where the Order warehoused daily necessities like toiletries. But out here, a few people had claimed small patches of street to set up stalls that held more esoteric goods. Salvaged material from the destroyed homes and buildings of the rest of the city that they were in the middle of the corpse of, mechanical or electrical components that were useful for many of the ongoing projects, and a few other things besides. There were still groups that went out into the destroyed city of Townton to clean up what they could, and part of that involved bringing back stuff that people might still want to be refurbished and put back to use, and while the Order didn’t really use money for it, this was where a lot of that stuff got put on display for the residents.
Cheha was pretty sure she’d spotted the tent that they would be getting food at, because she could smell the gravy from a block away, and she wanted it so badly suddenly that she felt her mouth filling with glowing drool at the sudden promise of food. But as TQ kept up a healthy pace, taking them on a path that would take them past the central structure that the leadership worked out of, she also spotted something else that was definitely on an intercept course for them.
She was doing a very good job of not panicking at the passing humans and ratroaches, even the ones that had run past from behind, clearly wanting to get where they were going faster. Cheha was getting better at knowing in her heart and not just her brain that people weren’t coming after her personally. But the heavily injured human girl with wings that still gave her a ten foot wide profile even while they were folded was definitely striding directly at them.
TQ also noticed, and brought part of his body upright, slowing his rapid slither a little as he faced her. “Oh hello Camille. How are you?” He asked, ignoring the riot of bruises across her exposed face and arms.
”I am well. I’m sorry, I don’t… know who you are.” Camille told TQ with a small twitch of one of her eyes. “Recognizing camraconda coloration is a new skill I am learning.”
”Oh, we have not met.” TQ pitched his boxy head up to face her, tongue flicking over his fangs with amusement. “This is Cheha, I am TQ. I have heard about you from James. Usually with a mixture of concern and profanity.”
Cheha felt all conscious thought leave her as he said that. They were faced by something she could feel some kind of resonant and powerful threat from, and the small ratroach knew that this person could kill them both if she wanted to. And her dinner partner was antagonizing it. Why. “Why?!” She heard someone say with a clicking squeak, and realized it was actually her.
”Likely because James is aware of me.” Camille answered her directly, seeming unoffended. “Concern and profanity also seems to be how he approaches more situations than I think it is useful for, but I cannot gainsay his results.” TQ nodded along with her, the two of them musing over the paladin like they were old friends. “Regardless.” Camille turned her piercing eyes onto Cheha, and the ratroach froze. “Are you alright?” She asked.
That was a confusing thing to be asked. ”…no.” Cheha settled on answering.
”Oh.” Camille frowned, and then took a step back, shifting her shoulders to force her wings down toward the ground. “I apologize, I make many of your people nervous. That was not my intent.”
”I… I will…” Cheha didn’t even know where to begin responding. Her gaze was fixed firmly on the ground, and she felt pointless panicked tears starting to form in her mammalian eyes. “I’m sorry, I…”
”No, you misunderstand. I am not offended. I sound like this all the time.” Camille’s stern voice cut her off as a group of chanters skittered by on their spiked legs, a group of shells splitting into two groups and spilling around where they were having their conversation. “I am asking if you are alright, because the necroads reacted to you, and while I am here, I am attempting to ensure that everyone is safe.” In a much quieter mumble, she added, “It keeps me busy.”
Cheha understood the sentence, but there was still a riot of anxiety spinning around in her chest that made her answer come out as a stammer. “I-I-I… w-waved at th-them…” she said, still staring at the ground.
”I saw. They didn’t threaten you?”
”Nnnnno.”
”That is good then. I apologize for upsetting you, I will take my leave now.” Camille started to turn, pausing as she was facing over the low hedge of huckleberry bushes that lined the park here. She took a moment, seeming to chew over what she wanted to say. “I am sorry. Really.” The words came out as a quiet murmur that was still easily heard against the backdrop of voices and buzzing insects. “I have been scaring too many people down here today.”
Something about it made Cheha deeply sorrowful. Talking still being a challenge she wasn’t up to, she ran her smooth digits across TQ’s head as Camille finished turning and made to leave. Getting the camracdona’s attention and rapidly shaking her head at him, trying to enlist help in saying what she needed to.
”Oh!” TQ turned and called after the girl with the scaled wings. “My friend wants to say it isn’t your fault! She is nervous about being outside! Cheha is thankful you care about her.” He looked over at her for confirmation, and she gave him a quiet nod of thanks.
Camille looked back over her shoulder, raising her eyebrows at him before seeing the ratroach trying her best to maintain eye contact. “Regardless.” She said with a sigh. “Well. If you have time later, please come by the command station. The necroads are not so openly friendly to everyone, and we are trying to find ways to communicate with them.”
”Is that why you’re down here? I had thought you were meant to be staying in the basement at the Lair.” TQ asked. No animosity or veiled mockery in the words, just honest curiosity.
The woman turned away with a small bark of laughter that sounded like it was unfamiliar to her. “I was. No, I am here to monitor my… to keep watch on another of my own kind, and make sure she does not escape when she wakes up.”
”Terrifying!” TQ happily said. “We are here for poutine.”
If Camille knew how to continue the conversation after that, she didn’t try to do it. Instead, it seemed like she was as desperate to escape casual socialization and small talk as Cheha would have been, and she made a brisk exit before the camraconda could continue.
Cheha didn’t have anything to say, simply focusing on breathing and centering herself like she’d been taught by the kind human woman who was her therapist. By the time she felt like she was actually participating in the world again, she was seated at a sanded park bench on the other side of TQ, who had taken up the entire board of his side for himself, with a cardboard basket of french fries in front of her.
”I do not know what I expected.” TQ admitted as one of his mechanical limbs carefully navigated a fork into his lunch. “This appears to be correct though.”
The smell of it was what had made Cheha snap back to paying attention to reality. She didn’t bother with her fork, instead using her newly dexterous hands to scoop the heavy meat sauce up with the potato things, and taking bites that looked like they threatened to consume her fingers along with the food.
It was, she was forced to admit, nice. For a few minutes, she wasn’t exposed and vulnerable and scared. She was just outside, with a friend, eating gravy. And other things, yes, but mostly gravy.
”Sometimes I don’t feel like I should have this.” She told TQ when there was a lull in their conversation. They’d been talking about hobbies, the camraconda asking amused questions about her growing video game habit. So the shift in tone was abrupt, but it felt like something she needed to say.
”Why not?” TQ asked directly, tilting his head as he looked up from trying to winnow away the last of his meal with flicks of his tongue.
Cheha looked down at her own eaten meal, the pleasant sensation starting to dull in her chest. “I’m not useful.” She settled on. “I don’t help. You give me food, and fun things to do, and clothes and stuff. And I don’t help.”
”Oh.” The camraconda shifted, trying to turn on the picnic table’s bench and nearly falling off. This thing wasn’t built for his shape in any way. “Are you supposed to?” He asked her.
”Oth-er people do.”
”That was not my question.” TQ hissed at her as he spoke. “How old are you, Cheha?”
She crossed all her arms at him. “Th-that’s a bad thing for you to ask.” She proclaimed.
TQ’s hiss turned from annoyed to surprised humor as he rolled his tongue out of his mouth and straightened his body up. And promptly did fall off the bench. As Cheha and a few other people eating lunch around them scrambled to their collective feet to make sure he was okay, his voice sounded from the ground, utterly unperturbed. “Very good!” TQ told her as he rolled himself so his belly was against the ground, and rose up with an arch of his body. “Oof.” He vocalized before continuing. “Cheha,” camraconda digital voices couldn’t pronounce her name properly, but she didn’t mind, “you are new.”
”Th-that doesn’t mean I’m not useless.” She told him, realizing that TQ was slithering away and stopping herself from sitting back down to follow after him as he headed for the park itself and the rampant growth that filled it. “I don’t want everyone to think-!”
”Ah.” He cut her off. “Yes. That.” The camraconda slithered up onto the dry grass, not heading directly for any of the chanters, but certainly getting the attention of some of them as he led the way to a dogwood tree that stood surrounded by a few tents and a collection of some kind of pepper plant. “What others think.”
”Yes?” She was confused. “If they don’t want me…” It was a fairly obvious line of logic.
TQ shook his head at her as the two of them took a slow stroll across the vital heart of the growing new city. “Then they will still take care of you. We will take care of you.” He didn’t look back at her as he spoke. “Myself, I evaluate my worth by how much value I provide for others. Many people tell me this is unhealthy. James tells me this is unhealthy, which is a good joke, because I can tell he does the same thing.” TQ hissed another laugh as they circled under the tree, his camera head tilted upward to look into its branches for nothing in particular. “But do you know what would happen if my value was zero?”
Cheha didn’t, and she shook her head slowly. “N-nothing good…” she ventured.
”Nothing good. Nor anything bad.” TQ told her. “Once the Order of Endless Rooms begins helping you, you may draw on that help for your entire life. Not unconditionally, but I have yet to find what the counter contiditions are, though I have not been trying very hard.” He paused to examine a green bulb of something that might be a fruit that was growing from a thick stalk of fuzzy green. It almost looked like he was planning to consume it with one wide chomp, but he stopped short and moved on. “What do you think your value is?” He asked her.
”I don’t…”
”Incorrect.” TQ told her bluntly. “You have value in being someone that others enjoy the company of. You improve our games. That is value.”
”Not enough though.” She spat back, starting to get annoyed that he didn’t understand.
Her annoyance wasn’t missed, but he continued unabated. “And again, you are new. We are all new. But you more than many others, including me, yes. You have your whole life to learn what you wish to do to contribute. And we are all here to help you have the longest, fullest life you can.”
”What if I never find anything?” She asked with a terrified chitter. “What if I waste… everything?”
”Then that will happen.” TQ couldn’t shrug, but he understood why humans liked the gesture so much. He considered unfolding his mechanical arms just to try, but it was a waste of battery life on the limited old pack he was wearing. “But I suspect you will find something you want. Even I have found things I want, and I am very tired, all the time.”
Cheha slumped slightly, tension easing out of her. “‘M tired too.” She admitted, staring at one of her paws before quietly and surreptitiously licking leftover gravy off it.
”Perhaps we can invent a new way of napping.” TQ offered. “But there is no pressure. Except the pressure of exhaustion, I suppose.” He hissed a laugh. “I have been saying ‘I suppose’ constantly. It makes people believe you have done strenuous research. This is a secret you can borrow.”
Cheha couldn’t stop herself from smiling with a glowing gap showing off her teeth. She didn’t feel like she fully believed him. But TQ was somebody. He worked somewhere in the Order’s hierarchy, and if he said that she was allowed to just… figure things out? Maybe he wasn’t lying.
No one had lied to her so far, as near as she could tell. It would have been so easy for them to do so, too. Cheha had been waiting for it for a while. But every day, she was learning a bit more that made her hope that she was wrong. That her waiting would never pay off.
Maybe she could wait to know what she should be doing, or what she wanted to be doing, instead. She didn’t know what it was, or even if she wanted to do anything at all. Certainly not a delver, probably nothing with people. Maybe there really was nothing for her to help with at all.
Maybe she didn’t need to know right now, and that was okay.
She realized she’d fallen behind, and scampered to catch up to TQ, who was trying to have a conversation with a lone chanter that had crossed his path. Maybe her role could be keeping her friend out of trouble.
That one seemed less likely than just getting by playing video games all day, though.