“I know that’s love. They didn’t know what I’d be or who I’d be, but they loved me.” -Pioneer Nine, 20200-

_____

The Lair didn’t really have a good gym. There’d used to be one, but then it got turned into a Response office, and then the walls around that spot got knocked down to expand the dining area, and the different gym that had been getting going in a basement got turned into a different Response office. And while there were parts of the basement that were gym-adjacent, rooms or open spaces used for yoga or kendo classes or other activities, there wasn’t really a good gym. A few people were working on fixing that, but because they were only a few people, and a weird percentage of the Order’s human population just had mundane gym memberships, the current gym was kinda small and still a work in progress.

Alanna stood over a younger woman who was lying on her back on one of the three hard benches that populated the Lair’s small gym. Short blond hair, a flat nose, and eyes that were practically a carbon copy of her own marked her weight training buddy as her younger sister. A relationship that Alanna was very happy to have back in her life, and one that in no way stopped her from doing her best to motivate the girl to push her body to its limit.

”Come on!” Alanna cried, a shark like grin on her face as she watched Erin’s struggle. “You’re almost there! Last one, you can do it!”

Her sister didn’t reply out loud, though her almost frenzied look and teeth grit so hard that Alanna worried they might explode told a story of mild frustration. Perhaps directed at Alanna.

Alanna fed on that irritation, her smile going strong as she resisted the urge to clap her hands. “Just another inch! And I lied, one more! One more! There ya go! Fucking knew you could do it!” She cheered her younger sibling on as the girl forced the barbell onto the resting hook, her own hands holding it in place as Erin dropped her arms down like limp noodles.

After catching her breath, a process that required more than a couple minutes of red faced panting, Erin allowed Alanna to help her up and took the offered water bottle. Sipping as she’d been ordered, not gulping like she wanted, further stalled her verbal counterattack. “I’m… going to… kill you…” she said eventually, still breathing heavily.

”Oh, sure, there’s probably a club for that you can join.” Alanna nodded in agreement. And that might even literally be true. She would, naturally, blame James for this, but Alanna had left a trail of destruction upon a lot of people who had gotten in their way, and she wasn’t intending to stop now.

So she wasn’t offended. It was actually getting harder and harder for her to get offended without direct intent from someone, and that never worked well on her anyway. As her Empathy grew, and her ability to feel other people, though? Alanna was finding that almost every human masked a lot of complicated and strong emotions that they just didn’t know if they were allowed to express.

Like triumph, and satisfaction, and pride. The things radiating off of Erin like she was an open reactor. Alanna had found a lot of luck helping a few people as a physical trainer, and her sister was no exception, because she knew exactly how far they could be pushed. Better than they knew themselves, sometimes. And the burst of catharsis when Erin actually hit her goal, even when she didn’t think she could a moment before? Perfect. Alanna wouldn’t trade having her sisters back in her life for anything, and this was just icing on the cake.

“-not even close to you though.” Erin was saying as Alanna blinked the thought out of her mind and paid better attention. Spacing out was for her myriad boyfriends, not her.

”What? Sorry, spaced out there. What about me?” She passed Erin a hand towel, and knelt next to her bag to find the vial of exercise potion she had on her.

Erin sighed as she wiped sweat off her neck. “I said it’s not as good as you!” She said, a hot burst of frustration and shame splashing against Alanna’s senses. “I can’t do what you do, okay?”

“Wasn’t making fun of you, dumbass.” Alanna poked a finger into her sister’s head. “Course you can’t lift as much as me. I’m literally magic at picking things up. Also I’ve been doing this for more than a decade more than you the hard way, and you’ve been trying to put on muscle for a month. And we haven’t even gotten to the easy way yet.” Her sister snorted at her, a copy of Alanna’s favorite derisive little sound, and Alanna smirked. “Also, first rule for working out? Don’t worry about what anyone else is doing. Worry about what you’re doing.”

”Uh, yeah, it’s pretty easy to worry when you keep making it harder.” Erin shot back. “Also what the hell, there’s an easy way and you’ve been having me do this instead?! This is bullying!”

Alanna clapped her on the shoulder, carefully modulating the motion to make sure she didn’t in some way harm her second favorite sister with one of her militarized body modifications. “Bullying would be if I’d made you do this. I doubt you’ve forgotten that you asked me for-“

”Alright alright fine I’m sorry.” Erin looked away sharply, voice empty.

It wasn’t an empty sentence to Alanna though. A wash of anxiety, bordering on fear, came off the younger version of herself. Repressed and hated, yeah, but still there. A childhood growing up with an abusive parent wasn’t something you got to just shake off in a month. It was the kind of thing that made it easy for Alanna to understand why Erin and Rae both had easily picked up ratroach friends that they felt got them. Because they probably did.

Alanna actually felt weird around teenagers these days. She wasn’t so old she didn’t remember the experience, but they flung emotions around with a lot of force, and her Empathy made it impossible to ignore the obvious ways they were experiencing things for the first time, or without support, or just for dumb reasons.

So she could have let her sister look away and recover at her own pace, but Alanna had learned a lot about both how to get people to open up, and how she wanted the world to work. Which meant she was always going to speak up and not let the conversation die off there. “I dunno if that apology was sarcasm, but you don’t need it either way.” Alanna said quietly. “I’ve been having you do this the hard way so you know how to do it on your own. And you’ve been improving already, and you’re fucking impressive, Erin.” She shifted to settle in next to the girl on the bench, bumping her shoulder into her sister’s. “Also cause Deb originally yelled at me and it took a while to make sure this would be safe for you.” She held out the flask to Erin.

The teenager looked back and her eyes went from the thick glass over to Alanna’s eyes, face showing the kind of scrunched up confusion that people got when they didn’t actually know what something meant. “Is this drugs?” She asked. “I just wanted to be a little tougher, I don’t need… wait are you doing drugs? Is that why you’re so ripped?”

Alanna chuckled, exhaling amusement as she shook her head. “I’m not giving you steroids or some shit Er. This is the exercise potion that we use for physical conditioning for responders and knights. It… okay, how do your arms feel?”

”Like I want to die?” Erin rolled her eyes. “Like I can’t even make my fingers work?”

”Right. And how’re you gonna feel tomorrow?”

”Sore?” Her sister rolled her eyes again, shaking her head back at her. Alanna didn’t feel bad about it; she was glad just to have her sister here, and also to have someone else that was actually at eye level with her. “Do you need me to explain how exercise works?”

Alanna shoulder checked her again, getting a yelp of sore pain from Erin. ”I’m doing this Socratic method thing where I ask you questions and then you have the answers in your head when they come up in a second!” Alanna explained a little more aggressively than needed. “After the noodle arms and the sore muscles and the everything else, what then?”

Erin paused. ”Then… I mean, that’s how you get stronger, right? Your body makes more muscles… somehow? After a week or something?”

”Technically correct, the best kind of correct.” Alanna nodded as she stole a line from at least one of her lovers. “And close enough. This,” she shook the vial of pale red liquid, “in addition to tasting absolutely foul, will make your pathetic noodle arms do all that work, all that regrowing and improving, in about… half an hour.” Alanna let out a steady breath, looking at the potion she was holding. “This is three doses worth. So if you want, you can take a bit of this, and get right back to bench pressing with an extra two pounds on the bar, and then do it again.”

Her sister’s eyes widened as she stared at Alanna’s offering. For at least a couple years now, her body had been everything she didn’t want it to be. Strength training, conditioning, it wasn’t really what she even wanted. It was just something to do with her sister, and it was something that was already making her feel less like a lanky and awkward mess. So maybe she did want it.

But what she wanted more than that, more than even feeling comfortable in her own skin, was magic. The Order and the Lair were jam packed with magic and arcana, and some of it was casually part of daily life. But a lot of it was… reserved. Held back. Not maliciously, but Erin wasn’t allowed to just spend all day every day breaking orbs, and she wanted to. As an Order dependent, she got a stipend, and she was saving up to get something from what was available, but it wasn’t the same as her sister just casually handing her a magical potion that would make her stronger.

”You’re joking, right?” She said instead of taking the perfect gift.

”I mean, I could just be trying to get you to drink a blended melange of deodorant and wood shavings. Which would be funny!” Alanna jostled her sister again, and took one of her hands to place the vial in it. “But I’m not kidding. I can’t say you can have as much as you want, cause we do use the special potion goo for a lot of stuff. But we’re making a ton of it now, so, like, we can probably swing a little bit every week or so.”

Erin took the vial, holding it up to her eyes and swirling the liquid inside. It looked like it had flakes in it, and the pale red color was… kinda lame. “Wait, what makes it red if it’s… what you said?”

”Food coloring.” Alanna answered with a respectful nod at the good question. “It’s a long and complicated story about iterative testing, but the short answer is food coloring.”

”So it looks like a health potion?” Erin nodded slowly. “I guess it is-“

”No.” Alanna replied almost instantly, voice firm. “It isn’t. Er, I’m gonna trust you with this stuff, but you need to know. You cannot drink this if you’re hurt. It makes it worse. It doesn’t matter that it’s magic, it’s not a health potion.”

Her younger sister nodded quickly, face flickering through fear that she shoved away from her actual mood as quickly as it appeared. Alanna maybe should have been softer about telling her, but this was one thing that it was important to be very direct about. “Sorry. I won’t!” She was quick to promise.

”Erin.” Alanna ruffled her hair as she sighed. “Stop apologizing. Everything’s fine. Drink your potion.”

The joy of a new magic overrode basically everything that wasn’t excitement for a moment, and Erin gleefully uncapped it, asked for and got a reminder about how much to drink and how much a ‘normal dose’ was, and then took a swallow. And then nearly threw up. “Oh, god! Oh urkh-“ she gagged, feeling like she might throw up until Alanna hastily grabbed the water bottle and passed it over, this time with Erin gulping down every drop in the hope of purging the flavor. “Why do you make it that way?!” She demanded.

”Well hey now, I don’t make it. I… I mean, I guess I could pick up some shifts in the potion zone, or whatever we’ve decided to name that part of the basement. Some word that starts with R probably, since that seems to be our thing thanks to Momo. Reagent, maybe? Whatever.” Alanna stood, not having answered the question in any way, but feeling good about herself as she stretched her arms and twisted her torso, the tank top she was wearing clinging to her muscled frame. “Hey! Wanna grab Rae and get some lunch? I wanna ask you two a million questions about stuff and make sure you’re doing okay cause I’m your older sister and I love you and shit.”

”…How in the fuck did you get multiple boyfriends when you say it that way?” Erin demanded.

”Would you believe I stole that from one of my many boyfriends?” Alanna grinned back, clicking her tongue conspiratorially.

Erin let her shoulders sag as she sighed herself. “I’m tired though. I can’t even stand uuuuup.”

”Oh, really?” Alanna asked, nudging her off the bench with the threat of ticking her sister’s sides.

A moment later Erin was on her feet, spinning around and ready to murder her older sister. And then her face lit up. “Oh, shit, that worked fast! That’s so cooooool. Can I have more?!”

”We’ll see.” Alanna said. “I’ll clean up and put stuff away, you get your other sister. I’ll meet you two upstairs! I wanna eat camraconda fruit salad.”

”…How is that different than normal fruit salad?”

”A camraconda made it.” Alanna didn’t mention that she was magically better at tasting fruit, too, and that ‘a kiwi’ was kind of the best thing in the world now.

Erin looked like she wanted to ask a million questions of her own, mostly about how that actually changed anything. Or if camracondas were exceptional chefs, maybe. They weren’t! Alanna was acutely aware of how even the most proficient camraconda who worked in the kitchen, Knife-In-Fangs, was a better knight than he was a prep cook. But he was so excited about everything that it was hard to not let him work and learn on the job.

Alanna watched her sister leave, her gait straightening out as the potion did its work and the burning in her muscles was replaced rapidly by the quiet rush of strength that came from proper exercise. Well. The word proper was in big old air quotes there. It was cheating to use the exercise potions like this. Alanna was constantly tempted to say ‘just’ for this, but it was, actually, literally what they were for. Making humans stronger, faster.

A lot of her favorite magic came down to stuff that saved time. And since every day around here she ended up finding something new that she wanted to do, time was at a premium. Alanna wasn’t much of a maximizer, in terms of personality, but she liked being active and she didn’t want to miss stuff. She wasn’t gonna do that thing that a few of the on-staff wizards were doing and make use of the extra fifteen minutes a day that the Lair added on for anyone studying just to slot in the ability to make a bad towel.

Actually thinking about it, maybe she should do that. It’d be handy for cleaning off gym equipment at least. But then she’d be adding yet another thing to do that wasn’t what she wanted.

Alanna wanted to do so much, but she was starting to feel stretched thin with all the people in her life. James might be taking a few days away, but she still wanted to go on adventures with the guy. Anesh was always around, and it was dramatically unfair to him to not spend some time with at least one of his iterations. Sarah was a ray of pure sunshine in the world that Alanna wanted to be around more and more these days for a variety of reasons. Smoke-And-Ember was someone she enjoyed teaching to and learning from in turn, and also the guy was a fun part of a D&D game that included TQ and Cheha who were also people she wanted to spend time with in that casual social context. All of that was on top of Response, and delving, and training, and different briefings or classes, learning how to make blue imbued items, being part of the weird avatar practice sessions, and a dozen other things on top of that. And of course, her sisters.

God, her sisters. They were legally Alanna’s problem now, or at least, Rae was. Their mom hadn’t put up a legal fight at all, which was fine. Fuck that narcissistic bitch. Alanna didn’t typically sit around hoping people fell into pit traps, but she made an exception for their shared mother. If for no other reason than the fact that her Empathy went fucking haywire when presented with an actual narcissist.

But now she had to figure out how to take care of a pair of teenagers and…

What was she even doing?

Alanna was spending hours of every day at the apartment the girls were set up in. Getting them settled, helping with chores, helping them get used to things, just… trying to make sure they were okay. And it didn’t feel like enough. She wasn’t a parent, not really. She didn’t know what a fourteen year old needed. She knew what she’d needed as a teenager, and it was space and someone to catch her when she fucked up, but she had needed to fight for every inch of space from her mother and the only people who ever helped were James and apparently Sarah. And she loved James, but James wasn’t that fucking competent as a high schooler.

So how did she do better? How could she be better? How did she let her dumbass kid sisters know that she loved them, that she didn’t blame them for anything, that she was glad they were getting the chance to build a real life, that she was there for them if they needed her?

“Maybe I should just tell them.” She muttered.

The grey and blue banded camraconda that she presently shared the gym space with looked up from where they were doing some kind of resistance training with their whole body, hissing a questioning sound in Alanna’s direction.

”No, not you, sorry.” Alanna shook her thoughts loose. “I’m headin’ out. You need anything? Before I go?” She asked, and got a negative hiss in reply. The camraconda seemed like they were doing fine, and the thing Alanna had never considered - the question of if camracondas could build muscle mass with their biology - would occupy her brain until she got upstairs to the dining area and found her sisters.

They had a good lunch. Talked a lot about magic, and also about Rae going back to school when the summer ended. She tried to gently steer Erin away from being too voracious for magic just for the sake of having magic, and maybe succeeded . She also tried to make jokes that just got unimpressed stares from her siblings, but Alanna still laughed to her own humor, undeterred. And by the end of it, Alanna still didn’t know what her place in their lives was, or what she was doing.

But she was fucking trying, and she wasn’t planning to stop.

_____

Marlea hadn’t really planned to form a cult.

Legally speaking, she still hadn’t. Practically speaking she also hadn’t, she just looked kinda culty to some people. Some of those people were even people in the Order, but out of everyone on the fucking planet, they were the ones that should know better. And that showed up too, in the casual way that everyone from their chief paladin to the random guy who worked in Research kinda just took her existence at face value and didn’t even think to hate her for it.

What Marlea had done was, back when she was two different people, decided that she’d rather not be either of those people anymore. The transition to permanent hive mind was… not suicide exactly. Not suicide at all, in truth. But it was a way for both of them to escape being themselves. To get away from the anxiety, the trauma, the uncontrollable emotional outbursts, the loneliness, all of it.

One of the first jokes Marlea had made when she’d become her true form was that she was in the ultimate codependent relationship with herself. But so far, she hadn’t let herself down, and every part of her life felt better this way.

She learned faster, she thought cleaner, she dreamed bigger. She was both less, and more, than the sum of her parts. If both of her first two bodies had been determined and focused, then the two girls could have together matched or outperformed Marlea at individual things, but Marlea could outdo either of them at anything on their own, no matter how good they got.

As individuals, she was a little more limited. As a whole, she was more. And she loved herself for it. Who she was and what she was becoming.

The scariest part of her new existence had been when someone had actually believed her. Seen what she was going for, understood her dream for the future, and said “yes, I want that too”.

And now she had three forms.

She kept the name Marlea though. For now. She was thinking of changing it, the thoughts shifting between different physical minds as she examined it from different angles. Whatever she settled on, she was sure that most of the people in her life would be okay with it. She lived at the Lair, for fuck’s sake, so of course name changes were just a thing that happened sometimes to most of these people.

Marlea had felt her life be upended a few times before. Both when she was lonely - deaths in the family, breakups, evictions, sexual assault - and when she was as she was now - mostly good stuff, but still a lot of moving around as the geometry of home changed, and seeing what new bullshit the dungeons could pull. She wasn’t used to it, but…

Things changed. And she wasn’t blind to how for everyone else around her, the damage of those changes - even the good ones - was mitigated by their community. She was part of that community. But she was also her own community, kinda, and so changes had really stopped being something she was afraid of.

This was the lie she told herself, anyway. It was really hard to lie to yourself as a group mind. But Marlea still tried as she lingered around the entrance to a cafe, waiting for the person she was meeting.

It was a ways away from the Lair, technically one city over though this whole place was just one big metro area. Marlea had a set of memories of moving through a rural area as a kid, after one of her grandparents died, and it felt a lot easier to call somewhere a ‘different city’ when you had to go through at least ten miles of nothing to get to it. Here, there was just a line between a Burger King and a Chevron, and you’d gone somewhere else. A line that she’d crossed for her meeting today, without even considering it, and that she was now thinking of way too hard as she tried to distract herself.

Distracting herself was also harder when multiple minds could think different thoughts.

Fortunately, her need for a distraction was cut off by the arrival of her… interview subject? Date? Marlea had written academic essays on being a group mind, and she still fumbled over terminology sometimes.

”Hey! You made it!” Slipping into a friendly greeting let her throw all the trepidation into the trash. She’d sort it out later.

The woman approaching was younger than some of Marlea, a short black girl with her hair up in a poofy eruption that looked simultaneously cute and businesslike. Her name was Rhoda, and she’d been with the Order for long enough to have accrued her own trauma, but she still stopped with her mouth hanging open as she tried to figure out what part of Marlea to reply to. “Yeeeeah,” she eventually settled on with a shrug, “I almost expected you to already have our drinks.”

Marlea rolled her eyes, nodded, laughed, huffed, and said “I’m not psychic, I don’t know how much pumpkin spice you want in your latte.”

”It’s June.”

”I’m not psychic, I don’t know when they serve pumpkin spice.” Marlea replied in an identical tone.

Rhoda pursed her lips, gnawing on the inside of her mouth with narrowed eyes, before she broke into a grin that made her angry eyes suddenly look alive. “So, wanna get drinks and find a place to sit?”

”Sounds good!” The two of them moved all four bodies into the cafe, going through the awkward process of waiting in line and waiting for drinks while trying to make small talk but not really wanting to get too into anything. Soon enough, though, they had a table. Marlea once again experiencing a brand new problem, where her bodies were a bit like arms during a cuddle session; too many and too in the way. She settled on a small square table with one body on each side, which sorta felt like she was surrounding Rhoda, but there wasn’t much to be done about it. “So!” She said, blowing on her matcha. “I have no idea how to do this!”

”Bullshit. Impossible.” Rhoda laughed as she stirred her coffee. “I mean, I read your blog thing. You had a whole explanation of adding someone. Which would be…” she stretched the word out, eyes narrowing as she swept over the three parts of Marlea. “Thhhhhhat one?”

”Nah, it’s ‘me’.” One of Marlea spoke up before she moved back to a voice that wasn’t occupied drinking. “But yeah, fair. That was kind of a weird situation though.” She didn’t explain further, and let her multiple perspectives keep the memory from hurting too much, which was perfect. “Anyway.” She shrugged. “You… want to join my cult?”

Rhoda nodded, a thin smile on her lips as she assumed Marlea was joking about the term. “Kinda. I’ve got questions, and it’s probably not something I wanna dive into today, but…” she shrugged.

Marlea nodded. “I’ve got questions too.” She said. “A bunch of personality stuff, for obvious reasons. But also… why. Why me, why this, why this instead of anything else, just the big Why. So, you wanna ask first, and get back to that later?” She swapped voices as she noticed Rhoda’s hesitation from one of her angles.

The other woman nodded, eager for the lifeline. “Okay. What’s it like? I mean, like I said, I read your stuff, but it’s kinda technical, and not… how does it feel?”

”Exactly like it used to, weirdly.” Marlea laughed as she spoke. “I dunno where you are on the delver track, but, do you have any orbs or spells or whatever?” Rhoda gave a tilt of a nod as she sipped on her coffee. “Well, it’s sorta just like that. I’ve got some party tricks, and I’m different, but I still just feel like me.”

”Yeah, but come on. Your day to day has to be pretty different, right?” Rhoda pressed.

Marlea gave a trio of shrugs. “Sure, I guess. I mean, thinking is easier. None of me ever really felt smart, you know? So I don’t feel smart. But I can tell that thinking about stuff is a lot smoother. Drawing conclusions, keeping information in my heads, that sorta thing. It makes me look a lot smarter from the outside, but it doesn’t feel like it to me. Same thing with the therapy side of things! It’s easier to get perspective on my damage, it’s easier to remember without screaming, but it all feels the same. Just easier.”

”So you’re a one-woman force multiplier for yourself?” Rhoda gave a huff of air, setting her coffee down and tipping the rim of the cup with an outstretched finger.

Marlea quirked an eyebrow on the body that could actually do that. One of her sets of eyes watched a group of older men pass by their table, heading to join some friends for cards farther into the cafe, while another part of her considered the question. “Weird way to put it maybe. But sure. I can do anything I used to, but all of me can do it, so I can help myself do it better.”

“Do you ever regret it?” Rhoda asked. “I mean, if that’s not super rude. I actually have no idea what is rude for a hive mind.”

Marlea smiled at the attempt. “Nah, it’s whatever. I don’t, either. On a technical level, every part of me has to disconnect when we’re bathing cause the braids aren’t waterproof enough yet. Now that I’ve got three people in me, the collective mind never has to break fully, but the point is, it means that every part of me has a choice every day to come back or not. At the risk of sounding like something stupid, I’m not like the other hive minds.” She intoned the last line with a saccharine tone from one of her other voices, before turning a question back on Rhoda. “So, your turn. Why?”

”…it’s sorta personal.” Rhoda looked down at her drink, already mostly gone.

”You’re kinda asking to be inside me.” Marlea said, one of her bodies waggling its eyebrows at the mid-twenties guy walking by who had stumbled as he heard that line. “Vulnerability isn’t just a requirement, it’s an absolute with me. May as well get started.” She shrugged again, like it was easy, because she was a lot better at lying to other people than herself.

Rhoda took a breath, and then tipped the cup back to drain the rest of her coffee before thunking the hard cardboard edge back on the wood of the table. “I nearly died last month.” She said bluntly. “You know what I do at the Order?”

”Nope.”

”Shield team.” Rhoda pulled one of her short sleeves back, revealing a starburst white scar easily visible on her skin. “It was that, or… well, it was the best option. And I don’t regret it!” She defiantly glared at Marlea as if challenging her to say otherwise. “I don’t. I really don’t. I… I’m thinking of moving to Townton, to be around the chanters more. They didn’t deserve any of what happened to them, and I’m glad we did something, and I’m glad I was more of a hero than I ever would have been otherwise in my life.” Rhoda’s voice took on a tight tension as she continued. “But I got shot doing it. Coulda been worse, coulda died, but it’s… all I can think about.” She turned, leaning her cheek on a balled fist as she watched the baristas bantering with customers and steaming milk. “I need it to stop. I don’t wanna die, but from the way you write about being you…” Rhoda sucked in air, turning back to Marlea. “Anyway, that’s me. Too much information?”

”Nah, you’re good. And I get it.” Marlea replied with a sad smile. “So you think I’ll fix all your problems?”

”I think I wake up sometimes wishing I were someone else. And you might literally let me do that.” Rhoda tried to make it a joke, but it came out sharp and harsh.

Marlea leaned two different arms on the table as she asked more questions. “You’ve got options, if you wanna be someone else. You could get an assignment to mess with your memories, or donate your body with the weird table that swaps people around and go live as someone else for a while, or… something else I bet. There’s gotta be other options.”

”Sure. And if you say no, I’ll find one of them.” Rhoda said honestly. “You’re my first choice, not my last. Hell, last choice isn’t even that bad, it’s just quitting the Order and spending all my time getting blitzed out of my mind so I forget my problems.”

”That’s kinda bad, girl.”

“Wait, are you a puritanical hive mind? I finally live somewhere weed is legal, you can’t make me stop now.”

Marlea chuckled, as the question was the first one that seemed actually personal. “Nah, fuck that. You should know that pot doesn’t work quite the same with me, though.” She leaned back in unison, all three bodies pulling away, even as it felt like she was actually getting closer to the other girl. “Alright. Rapid fire round. Favorite food.”

“Does that matter?” The response was paired with cocked eyebrows.

“Sorta! The more favorite foods I have, the more stuff I enjoy in general, and the feeling of liking new things suddenly is the most dungeon-y thing about me.”

Rhoda nodded, leaning back as she stared up at the cafe ceiling. “That’s pretty cool. So I’ll like pumpkin spice, huh?”

“Sort of! It’s complicated! Next question, are you afraid of snakes or spiders?”

“...No? Why would that matter?”

“I’m thinking of dating a camraconda, for one thing.”

That brought a sudden halt to Rhoda’s participation in the friendly banter. “Ooooh. Huh. I hadn’t really thought about how romance would work. That’s… that’s weird, isn’t it? Is that weird? Actually is it weird? Not just thinking out loud, but actually asking you.”

Marlea laughed from two bodies. “Of course it’s weird. But it’s also really, really simple too. Because I’m just me, and you would be too. No scheduling issues, no second guessing someone else, just yourself.” She muttered the last part from a second mouth. “Also this is related, and you kinda answered one of these already, when you mentioned the chanters, but I gotta make sure; you’re not some weird racist are you?”

”Hope not. Are you?” Rhoda paused in her idle destruction of her cardboard coffee cup, looking up at one of Marlea’s faces. “Wait, actually are you? So far all your bodies are white chicks. Is that a thing?”

”Well, one of me is Navajo. Which… shit, I never knew how tribal laws worked anyway, does that mean I’m legally…? I’m gonna look that up.” One of her bodies pulled out a phone and got to work googling while Marlea kept talking. “But no, I… I mean I don’t know how I’d feel about adding a guy to me, but no one’s asked yet. It’d probably be weird, but this is all weird. And I’d be cool with a camraconda or ratroach, so compared to that, ‘human but a different hue’ is nothing.”

”Yeah, but there’s cultural differences in ethnicities sometimes, right?” Rhoda shrugged. “Not saying that’s bad, but you’re deep Order, you know? You’ve probably got more in common with any camraconda than you do with nine out of ten other humans.”

”…That’s… a weird way to look at that. But kinda cool.” Marlea said. “Also,” one of her bodies added, “it turns out joining a hive mind might have removed my ability to call myself Navajo. So that’s fucking weird.” She sighed. “This is why I don’t want you to be a weird racist. Everyone makes it fucking weird. You know what I offer? Complete equality, because there’s no option for misunderstandings or biases about myself. Except for, like, the normal imposter syndrome stuff.”

Rhoda barked out a laugh. “That’s not normal.” She insisted. “Why do so many people in the Order think that’s normal?”

”Not enough hive minds.” Marlea decided simply. “Also I’m barely ‘deep Order’, whatever that means. I’m, like… normal Order.” She shrugged with all three bodies. “Anyway. Yeah. That’s my answer. Yes.”

”Yes what?”

”Yes you can come join me.” Marlea said with a smile. “If you want, I mean. Like, no pressure.”

”Just like that? You don’t care what I have to offer or something? There isn’t some kind of thing to make arrangements, or some weird ceremony?”

Marlea threw her head back, offended. “Who do you think I am, James? Nah, I’m easier to work with, cause I’m just one person. And if you do join up, then like I said with the dating bit, it’s really easy to keep track of schedules and stuff. So ‘we’ would make arrangements and stuff. Oh, do you have family? Not a problem if you do, it’s just not something I’m dealing with right now, so that’ll be different.”

”Yeah, I’ve got parents. And brothers. Which is gonna be weird.” Rhoda scratched at her face as she thought about it. “Or hilarious? Or both.”

That was something Marlea could easily empathize with. “Welcome to my life.” She said with a laugh. “Literally, maybe!”

“Uh… I do send money to them for my brother’s school stuff. That was kinda why…” she made a hand motion that Marlea perfectly decyphered as saying this is the reason I thought being shot at was okay.

“No problem. You know how the… actually you might not know this, shield teams work different don’t they? Uh. For most of the Order, you get paid based on what you do. Minimum income for living, and then bonuses for jobs you pick up. Three bodies? Three… well, I’m not gonna lie, I’m kinda lazy sometimes. But more than one job. Look stop staring at me! I’m trying to explain how it’s easy and we can take care of it!” Most of Marlea was blushing at this point, the kind of casual social embarrassment from stumbling over your words that she had thought she was going to leave behind forever.

Rhoda just took it in stride though, which was impressive for someone who was kinda on the Order’s outskirts. “I guess… I guess it sounds good.” She said, far away in her thoughts even though her voice was loudly present. “So, when can we start? If I say yes?”

It wasn’t like she was planning to take this girl back to her apartment and rewire her brain right now. But Marlea had a good feeling about this. This had been a fun little chat, and the obvious interest, and parallel need that Rhoda had to give up part of herself without giving in to annihilation, that was something Marlea desperately understood and sought validation for.

So they kept talking. Small talk coming easier now, as both of them got comfortable with each other. And maybe later, maybe soon later, Rhoda would take a break from being herself for a while, and Marlea would be a little more than she was now, and things could get a little better.

Marlea was glad she’d said yes to this coffee date. Even if it was kind of just the world’s weirdest job interview, and she was pretty sure there was a group of college students on their laptops behind them that were paying more attention to her conversation than their own work.

_____

Two Anesh watched as a camraconda went through a series of fitness tests. One of him was wearing a lab coat, because there was exactly one lab coat in Research and whoever got to it first got to wear it that day. This wasn’t something that was done on purpose, it was just that they didn’t want to order lab coats for a place where they just didn’t need them, and only one had ever shown up. Anesh was the only persons who knew where it had come from, too; it was James. His boyfriend had just left it there one day when no one was watching, and when Anesh asked why, had replied by kissing him on the cheek and whispering “Chaos.”

Part of what they were testing was if the lab coat was magic. It didn’t seem to be. Most of what they were doing was keeping a record of authority growth, lined up to subject interviews and as many trackable metrics as they could for if someone was ‘doing their job’. There were a few other things to mess around with today, but that was the main one.

Frequency-Of-Sunlight would have been a terrible test subject if they were trying to get a baseline reading for something. The yellow and red corded girl had a Sewer lesson that she had up to the fourth class, having picked Solidity I and Malleability II and seeing no issues in the two things contradicting slightly. She also had about twenty purple orbs, being one of the first camracondas to help with extensive testing of those on her species, and while a lot of them were small, she did have reflexes about fifty percent faster than any other camraconda, and the ability to digest lead. Malleability seemed to let purples work with more strength than they did for anyone else, too.

She was already a camraconda, so it wasn’t like there was a ‘standard’ anyway. But Sunny made it more complex than even that, was the point. So it was good that they were measuring her against herself and not using her as a statistic.

”Okay. Not bad.” Anesh nodded in unison as he marked off the result of her ‘lift’ strength. “Any change in authority behavior? Have you noticed influence on you, or more active attempts at conversation or development from them?”

Sunny flicked the tip of her tail as she set down the weight she was carrying, her mouth being full not stopping her from speaking with her digital tone. “Nope!” She tried to hiss on reflex and found herself blocked until she dropped the testing barbell. “Simon says they’re like dogs, but I’ve only met three or four dogs so far, and all of them are more energetic. Mostly they just do what I say and make me fashionable.”

”…They, the dogs?”

”They the authority!” Frequency-Of-Sunlight arched her neck to give both Anesh a haughty look. “You are supposed to be the smart one!”

Anesh laughed it off, because while she was right, and he was the smart one, he also wasn’t linguistics smart. Unless you counted French, but even then, only barely. “Last thing left is a pierce test, if you think you’re game for it this time.” He headed over to the counter where the sterile low gauge needle was waiting, and made to pick it up. This one was of a special design, with a pressure sensor built in for exactly this one test.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Frequency-Of-Sunlight was, in fact, not up for it. “Needles are evil!” She proclaimed, whipping away from Anesh to use the treadmill she’d been slithering on as cover. “You’re evil! And I can prove it!”

Anesh glanced at himself, the two of him waiting patiently. ”…Alright?” He eventually asked.

The camraconda narrowed her lens at him. “Alright what?”

”I mean, if you’ve got proof, you can present it?” Anesh said with a shrug as he split off from himself to go double check the testing list and file the report for the day. “We don’t need to stab you, it’s just the easiest way to see if your authority is making you tougher.”

”Oh.” Frequency-Of-Sunlight spoke the word with her artificial voice while relaxing a little bit. “Well I don’t wanna be stabbed. But Deb would be mad at me if I said no, even if she wouldn’t say anything. So I guess you can stab me.” She let out a despairing hiss that stretched on for long enough that Anesh started to first wonder when she was going to run out of breath, and then started to silently chuckle as it just kept going until eventually Sunny sputtered to a stop and gasped in a breath.

”Okay. Unfocused first, then focused if we need it.” Anesh said, rolling a wheeled stool over and sitting in it as his counterpart got Sunny to sit still. “Ready?” He asked.

”No and I changed my mind and I hate this again!” Frequency-Of-Sunlight declared.

Anesh sighed and rolled back. “Sunny, if you don’t want to do the test, just say so. We don’t need to do this every time.”

”…Deb is nicer when she stabs me…” Sunny hadn’t exactly figured out mumbling with her digital speech, but she could mimic the effect well enough with volume control and by turning to face away from her conversational opposition. Unfortunately that just left her facing a different Anesh, who was also folding his arms at her. “Fine, I’ll stop. Do the thing. But then I’ll complain after.”

With an exasperated sigh, Anesh rolled back forward, his extra set of hands helping to keep part of Sunny’s cables in place as he started the test device recording and slowly began to press it against one of her cords, just like if he were drawing blood. A thing that he knew how to do now, which was strange to consider, since he’d never set foot in any kind of medical school.

The needle did not want to go in, and Anesh had to apply progressively more force until Frequency-Of-Sunlight let out a pained hiss that escalated to a chiming scream at the moment the needle punched through her outer layer. She tried to stay still, but her body still writhed enough that Anesh rapidly plucked back the testing tool, and let her calm down, before placing a bandage over the puncture wound to keep it sterile.

”Okay. Good news.” He said as one of him entered the result in the test log. “And bad news. Which one do you want first?”

”If the bad news is that you’re going to stab me again, I’m going to eat one of you as an example to the others.” Sunny declared.

Anesh looked at her with a slow blink, his brain trying to sort out the sentence he’d never encountered before but felt like something that he’d definitely heard from James at some point. “No?” He settled on. “Don’t do that. Also the good news is we don’t need to do the secondary test. The bad news is that it’s because the majority of your metrics are steady. You’re still above where you were at the start, but as far as the authority boost goes, it seems like it’s starting to taper off.”

”Aaw.” Sunny hissed as she raised herself up to talk, and let the pale green scarf that was her authority’s manifestation float in nonexistent wind as it trailed off both sides of her neck. “Complaining would be dumb, but I wanna do it anyway. What a stupid emotion.”

”I know exactly what you mean.” Anesh confided in her. “But it makes sense. You’re still filling your role as a knight, and the increases we can track from when you started being consistently on shift are still there, but you’re not doing anything new, right? Or… you probably are doing new stuff, but your position is the same. And the Order itself hasn’t seen any rise in organizational power. So your authority is doing their best, but they’re gated on advancement for now.”

”Poor Oreo.” Sunny shook her head, the scarf fluttering behind her. “This isn’t bad for her, is it?” The camraconda asked.

”Oh, absolutely not.” Anesh held up a hand to cut that thought off. “She… Oreo?”

”Oreo! Like the cookie! I wanted to call her Hydrox but Deb said no one would get that.”

”I don’t get it now.”

”Well an Oreo is a snack cookie with two wafers around a kind of cream that-“

Anesh buried both his faces in his hands. ”I’m really starting to get why James says talking to camracondas is like having a light conversation in an active minefield.”

”Thank you!” Sunny preened, knowing full well what she was doing.

”Well anyhow.” Anesh desperately tried to salvage the conversation and end the test session. “Oreo is going to be fine, and so are you. As far as we know, authorities stabilize over time, so if you’re a knight for a decade or two, then when you move on you might need to pass her off to someone else because she won’t be able to grow with you. But there’s no health problems. And even if your ‘rank’ stays the same, if the Order gets a little lift overall, Oreo will feel it.”

”Oh! So not a problem then?” Frequency-Of-Sunlight nodded, tilting her head to let the scarf flutter against her head. “A decade. Hah!” It was always fun when camracondas pronounced laughs as words. “You mean forever. That’s so many years, no one has time to worry about that.”

Anesh didn’t want to give a camraconda an existential crisis today. He got enough of that with James. And with fifty percent of the trauma he was dating away for a work vacation, and Keeka much less interested in being gloomy about the future, Anesh was having an excellent time also not worrying about things a decade away. “And now you don’t have to worry about it at all.” He told his test subject. “Now get out of here. I know you have things to do, and so do I. Thanks for the check in, and sorry the needle hurt so much.”

”Why did it hurt so much?” She asked as she left.

”Oh.” Anesh’s mouth curved up in a small grin. “You’re a lot harder to stab than you should be. So you might not get pierced, but your nerves still feel it.”

”Cool!” Frequency-Of-Sunlight gave a camraconda grin. “That’s so neat! Bodies are neat. I’m glad I have one. Anyway bye!” She tugged the sliding door of the exam room open and slithered away. From down the hall, Anesh could hear a cheerful “Hey Deb! You’re cute in the doctor outfit!” Before he slid the door closed.

”Alright.” He said to himself. “That was the last authority test today, right?”

”Just so. And now we can get back to… what?”

Anesh packed up everything they’d been using, including properly disposing of the needles while saving the incredibly expensive pressure sensor part of the device. ”Well, whatever we want. We’re free agents today. Space elevator?”

”The thing about the space elevator…”

”…is that they’ve got it in hand well enough, but there’s no plan for after?”

”Exactly, you get me.”

Anesh nodded to himself. The two of him had been having their thoughts as a conversation all day, and it was… refreshing. It was so easy, but also so useful for sorting things out and giving himself a sense of perspective. And since he was waiting on better Lesson identification so he could actually get one that gave Perspective, this was a pretty good alternative for now.

In a way, it was scary. He and himself hadn’t plugged their brains together for a few days now, even though both of him were wearing skulljacks right now and could do it at any time. But it was also just… so relaxing. Freeing. He didn’t need to be a single entity. Didn’t need to stress about being the ‘right’ Anesh. He just needed to live his life, and he had some people around who were perfect for helping him do that, for the same reason he was perfect for helping them.

He’d still share his other selves’ minds for important stuff though. And there was nothing wrong with syncing up when they felt like it. Also some things were just fun to do as a shared entity. Like Keeka.

Anesh hadn’t really realized quite where he fell on the bisexuality chart before. He still didn’t really know, but he probably should have started thinking about it when he first started dating James, not now after he started dating yet another boy. But whatever he was, it turned out, it was gayer than he’d thought of himself as. And it turned out he kinda liked it.

He also really, really liked Keeka. The lithe black furred ratroach was so earnestly eager about everything; he’d been forced to live a life of horror and pain for so long, but instead of letting that destroy him, he’d decided to embrace the potential of a new world without any of that bollocks. It was hard to be too serious around him. It was also, Anesh had found, impossible to escape from one particular thing Keeka was passionately earnest about, which was having a lot of sex. Which Anesh often did as two or three of himself, to the delight of his boyfriend.

”Sorry, did you say something?” He asked himself, looking down from the medical room’s ceiling and shaking his head.

His other version did the same thing. “No, sorry, what were we talking about?”

”…Keeka.” Anesh said.

”Well, we weren’t talking about that. But…” he nodded knowingly at himself, the two Anesh sharing a moment between themselves that was a bizarre emotional blend of socially guarded and perfectly intimate. “So no space elevator.”

“We could look into the weird beans? I still want to know what happens if you plant one in one of the cactus pots.” Anesh saw himself open his mouth and sighed preemptively. “Succulent pots. Bloody hell I’m pedantic.”

”You sure are.” He told himself as the two of them made their way into the well lit hallway, nodding politely to the medical staff who were hard at work at the main hub as they left the branch of the Lair. “Also I just checked on the server while you were correcting yourself. The beans grow through the pot. And also a larger pot John blue infused that was supposed to grow a bigger version of the thing, though no one remembered planting them there.”

”Those things seem… dangerous.” A polite way of saying that they seemed like if the end of the world didn’t arrive on schedule, then the Order could always kickstart it with an ecological collapse that would make any other apocalypse jealous.

”We’ve hired two botanists, a farmer, and have contact with an invasive species expert.” Anesh both raised their eyebrows as one of him read off the ongoing status of that project. “Huh. I mean, I know the beans seem dangerous…”

”But we did both eat that burrito, and it didn’t murder anyone.”

Anesh scratched at his cheek and the stubble of a beard growing in that he needed to either take care of or commit to. “Well, James’ stomach didn’t survive.”

”I don’t understand why he eats hot sauce, ever.”

”He is painfully Caucasian sometimes.” Anesh agreed with himself. “Still love him.”

Anesh smiled casually, relaxed around himself because he knew there was exactly no judgment even possible in the conversation. “We really do.” He said. “What about poking around with the maybe-magic from the Climb? We are sort of the safest people to play with Breath.”

”I like that plan.” Anesh nodded, the two of them diverting course to head toward storage and check out what they’d need. “Wait.” He said, both Anesh sighing with exasperation as they simultaneously checked the local network.

There was already someone working on it. In fact, a familiar someone.

”Well, at least we won’t have to argue about anything with ourself.” Anesh settled on.

”You want me to find something else to occupy myself? I know I can clutter up a room.”

”Feh. Imagine me saying that.” Anesh told himself, realizing how stupid it was to be that kind of self sacrificing for no actual reason, even as his other copy said it. “Come on. Maybe we actually break one of the things and find out the Climb drops blue orbs too.”

Anesh let out a long breath as they went to find their third counterpart. “Have we not suffered enough confusion around here?”

”No.” The two of them said at the same time, though for slightly different reasons.

_____

Sarah’s job at the Order was the kind of thing that would make her an absolutely terrible candidate for an authority, but an excellent example of the ideal citizen of James’ hypothetical utopia. Or maybe she would be perfect for an authority, if her particular style of activity ever got assigned a title in the same way that ‘knight’ did.

On paper, Sarah had a few part time jobs. She was one of the Attic caretakers, she ran a few support groups for a few reasons, and she was the hostess of a podcast. Simple stuff, if you stopped there. Sarah, of course, was never going to be the kind of person who stopped there. Sarah had an endless well of energy for other people, and found personal delight in exploring both friendships and magic in equal measure.

So yes, she was one of the people who watched over Clutter Ascent. She was, in fact, one of four people, alongside a therapist, a teacher, and a child psychologist, who specialized in trying to learn how to provide a healthy environment for a new dungeon to grow up in. Her name was on the Order’s academic reports on dungeon development, on the biology of Clutter Ascent life, and on the exploration reports every time the dungeon grew. And she spent a significant portion of her life helping to raise the first full ‘generation’ of stuff animals as they grew into their sophancy.

And yes, she hosted some support groups. Two different ones were originally for survivors of Officium Mundi, which were dwindling these days as many of those people felt ready to move on. Those groups had shifted over time to include survivors of other dungeon events, and she’d added one specific different group for the young people who’d lived through the Akashic Sewer. One for victims of sexual assault, which was actually unaffiliated with the Order in particular, and which Sarah had just sort of fallen into taking responsiblity for. And two other groups for the nonhuman members of the Order, focused on working to support them as they learned about the world. Most of them weren’t weekly, or she’d never have had time for anything else.

And sure, she ran the first podcast the Order had started making. Not by herself; these days she had two really smart girls helping her out with audio processing and production. And a team of three other people who helped collate news, and arrange interviews. But Sarah still did a lot of her own research for it, and she was proud of how many people found it useful. She didn’t actually care that a lot of them downloaded impressions of it from other people through the skulljacks. That was actually super cool. She had just never expected to be the first major source of meta-culture the Order produced.

The thing was, on paper, Sarah did those things. And that paper didn’t account for just how present she was in the Order’s community. She tried to know everyone, even if only a little. She made herself available to bring problems to, she had a nice room in the space where there was a fractal door that led to all the therapist’s offices, she did favors freely and worked with Recovery and met almost every new survivor stolen from a dungeon that came through.

People knew who Sarah was. And not just because they heard her voice in their headphones talking about new discoveries and developments. They knew because she was woven into so many lives, and she showed up for everything she could.

And, thanks to some magic in her apartment, she wasn’t even tired that often! Also thanks to some magic in her. She’d progressed both of her Sewer Lessons this month, though it would be a while before either leveled again thanks to the way that dungeon punished stacking its magic. Her two Lessons - sex ed, and art - now gave her three levels of Health, and one level of Survivability. Art had been a weird spread of choices when she’d progressed that for the first time, but Sarah didn’t actually think she’d need either Strength, or Desire. She had plenty of both, especially when Alanna was around.

Health didn’t actually make her not have to sleep. Neither did Survivability. But both of them did sort of let her not sleep enough, and then suffer no consequences except feeling like a listless heap for a couple hours.

“Hey solnyshko.” A voice prodded Sarah’s brain into motion, her eyes sliding open with an easy transition as she pulled her head off her arm. Melody, her production assistant and good friend, stood over the recording desk alongside another woman, looking down at her without any real worry. “You look like a listless heap. Should we take a break?”

”I’m awake! I’m alive! I’m indefatigable!” Sarah declared, smoothly bringing herself upright and off her desk. Today’s job, which Sarah was absolutely awake for, was recording one of those episodes to keep people informed about the goings on around here, and it really was her favorite thing to do. Not that everything else wasn’t her favorite thing, but if she had to pick one, just for fun… it would be this. Though it would probably make her an even worse authority candidate.

”I swear chica, you hear your boyfriend say words and then I have to hear them for the next month.” Melody shook her head, her growing habit of pulling small affectations from the half dozen languages she was filling her head with as she pursued her own side project making Sarah smile.

Sarah’s smile was still in place as she cracked her spine and every joint in her fingers. “James isn’t my boyfriend, he’s my… I dunno, eternal life partner? What’s the term for when two people are always there for each other and connected by a bond that not even a memory-eating dungeon could truly destroy?”

”…boyfriend.” Melody stared at her incredulously. “Or, like, husband? Are you two married?”

”Oh, no no no! That wouldn’t be fair.” Sarah shook her head, punching her fists into the air over her head. “Look, I’m fine! I’m bantering! Let’s get set up and start recording before Bea gets bored!” She neatly clipped off the conversation as she motioned to the inhabitor who had been silently observing the conversation with a blank face, only the slightest hint of curiosity showing through the cracks.

Bea didn’t bother to insist that she couldn’t get bored. Instead she sat patiently with Sarah while they got everything ready for the day’s recording session, listening with silent focus as Sarah outlined what they’d be going over.

By the time they started the show, Sarah wasn’t waking up or shaking off the fuzz in her brain. She was in one of her many elements, and happy to participate.

”…And today, we have with us, Bea!” Sarah’s casual cheer after she’d gone through the show’s intro and opening outline for the audience seeped into her words and her guest as she waved a hand across the desk. “Say hello Bea!”

”Hello.” Bea said before falling silent, the inhabitor solemnly refusing to accept the bait and say her own name.

”Now some of you may remember Bea from the last time she was on the show with Rho, and we talked a bit about the inhabitor life experience. But Bea, go ahead and remind everyone who you are just in case!”

The inhabitor leaned forward with a stiff motion toward her microphone. “My name remains Bea. I am an alchemical life form occupying the body of a human young adult, or an inhabitor which is easier to say.” Her voice was, even now, mostly emotionless. But inhabitors weren’t unemotional, they were just new to the experience, and there was no pressure for them to rush it. “Recently I have been working with the Research projects for both alchemical production, and blue orb infusion. The latter is what I am here to speak about today.”

”Nice! And today you’re here to talk… wait you stole my introduction!” Sarah gave an unoffended giggle.

”Mine was more efficient.” Bea informed her. “I could begin stealing other points on the episode agenda if it would help.”

Sarah let out a contemplative hum. “Maybe.” She mused. “But then Melody wouldn’t have anything to do when I go off on tangents! If anyone needs that special skill of yours, it’s Davis and John on the Research technical podcast.”

”I am aware.” Bea said, the tiniest hint of annoyance speaking volumes about how she really felt. “But. My schedule isn’t open for a new task of that size.”

”We will mourn what could have been a lovely cohost partnership.” Sarah promised. “But as for what your schedule is filled with, yes! We’re here today to talk about the creation process for magic items! Specifically, the philosophy and mindset that goes into making something, in your personal experience. So, how about we get started with that big question then! How, Ms. Bea, do you make a magic item?”

The inhabitor gave a quick nod that was more like a sharp jolt of her head as she started to answer right away. “The technical method is simple. Apply a mixture of blue and yellow orbs from Officium Mundi to a mundane object, and tell it what to do. Though the yellow orbs can come from the Ceaseless Stacks, that part is unimportant.”

”Ooh, didn’t know that!” Sarah raised her eyebrows. “Though I was thinking more about the details of the ‘tell it what to do’ part. Care to elaborate?”

”Of course.” Bea sat still as she answered, having found the proper posture for the mic. “My own method is to focus on establishing a specific thing that the new dungeontech object will not or can not do.” She paused briefly. “I know that my… circumstances and view of life make my ability to create dungeontech inflexible. But it is not a one sided exchange. My approach provides consistent results, and I am usually faster than most other imbuers.”

Sarah followed most of that, but she chose to focus on some parts to elaborate for anyone listening. “Now, when you say ‘will not do’, I know you don’t mean you’re giving things like shirts and pens an anxiety complex, but what are you doing?”

”A basic example would be an object that does not break, or does not run out.” Bea answered. “These are simple rules, which are simple to conceptualize during the process. And the blue orbs enjoy saying no.”

”Oooh! Elaborate on that!” Sarah lit up.

Bea’s chin tipped up ever so slightly in acknowledgement. “An unbreaking item would be something like a pencil that reforms itself when damaged, or paper that does not rip. This form of-“

”No no… well, yes, those too in a second, but what do you mean the orbs enjoy saying no? That sounds fascinating!”

Something about Sarah’s unbridled enthusiasm resonated with Bea, and the inhabitor found herself in a small way excited to answer the person who was actively interested in what she had to say. “Both of the two primary philosophies of blue imbuement focus on the idea that the blue orbs either enjoy, or are inclined toward, denial in some way. I do not think they experience emotion, this is linguist abbreviation for a tendency toward a process. While others focus on the aspect of this that generates frustration, my own approach instead sees it as a form of creation through exclusion. Cutting away options, to produce something new.”

Sarah nodded eagerly as she listened. “Okay, so, you’re not trying to make dungeontech that actively does something new, you’re trying to create effects through… oh how to say it… through turning off certain interactions with the world?”

”That is an apt way to describe the process.” Bea said, a thread of lively engagement coloring her voice. “I’m ineffective at the more creative parts of the process. But I find there is a good deal of use for selective ignorance of physics in various materials.”

”You could go far with that, right? We’ve seen dungeon-made items that float or even fly. I know Momers has an entire back to school special worth of pencils that float around her head all the time. But if you start applying things like antigravity to specific stuff…?”

”Yes.” Bea nodded, now fully invested in the conversation. “Gravity is one of my preferred mediums. The engineering team was interested in using my work for the construction of an orbital platform. That was not a good idea, though, as blue imbued objects do still suffer from what Reed calls the ‘single hit point rule’. And ignoring that rule is typically the extent of what an item can do, if that is the path you take.”

Sarah mouthed words as she tried to sort that out to translate for anyone in the audience who hadn’t gotten it. “So… if you make something that won’t break, that’s… all it does?”

”Yes.”

”Still useful! We could do so much with that! Eliminating waste by making clothing or furniture that never goes to a landfill? Preservation of art or other historical relics? And I’m sure you’ve got ideas on top of what I’m pulling out here.”

Bea’s mouth twitched into a nearly sad flicker of a grin. ”No.” She said. “I don’t. That is a problem I have. I… extrapolate. I am very good at extrapolating. But I struggle to consider consequences in the way you just did. That form of thinking requires masking, which I have ceased entirely.”

Masking was the term that inhabitors used to describe tapping into their victim’s memories and personality. Putting on the mask of the person they had killed to be created. It wasn’t something they could do halfway, which meant that the creations, who all felt guilt and shame for their existence in the first place, had almost completely forsworn it in favor of forcing their personal development the hard way.

Sarah didn’t dwell on that, instead deflecting into a theme that she enjoyed echoing on her show in subtle ways. “Well that’s one of the benefits of working with everyone else, right? We can fill in each other’s gaps. I know I can’t get blue imbuement to work at all. So I’ll be the idea girl and you can build me a bookshelf I’ll never need to replace!”

”That makes sense. You are very additive.” Bea said simply.

”I… do not know…” Sarah pursed her lips and looked over at where Melody was at the recording desk headbutting the surface as she tried to keep her laughter in. “I think that’s good. I choose to believe that is good!” She let out a warm laugh. “So, tell us about the two competing theories a bit!”

Bea titled her head by a single degree, a deliberate blink indicating disapproval of Sarah’s missing the point. “Our philosophies are not in contest. They are different ways of seeing the same thing, and different approaches that work better for different people.” She established quickly.

”Oh, I apologize! I was sort of joking, but I should have made that more clear, and also I guess I don’t want to make it sound like there’s some kind of Research rivalry going on!” Sarah was a big fan of openly apologizing on the show. She felt it set a good precedent for everyone who listened. Let them know it was okay. “How about ‘how do the approaches contrast’?”

”A better phrasing.” Bea accepted the apology without saying it directly, to save time. “As I said, my own process is one of exclusion. Removing an option. The other method is to create imbued items through frustration.”

”Ooooof… the person making the item?”

”No, that is a byproduct.” Bea’s lips tipped upward in the smallest smile as she intentionally made her first joke on air. And Sarah absolutely noticed, beaming back at her with a radiant grin as Bea continued. “The frustration is for the end user. Additional effects, changes to the world that are active and additive, they are easiest to create when the process is driven by a mental image that includes a variety of if-then statements. Ones that add conditional restrictions and complications are best.”

Sarah tapped her nose as she made an understanding hum. “James told me about this a while back. He said the blues wanted people to think like a dungeon master.”

”I am familiar with the sentiment.” Bea replied. “The difference between approaches is less a difference and more a matter of style. Someone could do both, with proper planning. I simply prefer my way. Keeping a series of contrary and obtuse rules in my thoughts as I attempt to focus is challenging and unpleasant.”

”You should come to board game night sometime.” Sarah offered casually.

”Will I be required to keep a series of contrary and obtuse rules in my thoughts?” Bea asked, suspecting she knew the answer.

Sarah tapped her fingertips together in a light clap. “That depends on who picks the game!” She said. “So, before we wrap the interview up and I let you go, let me ask! Anything big in the works? No need for the deeper technical part, I know you’ll be on with John and Davis on their side to talk about the hard science of it, but I’m curious if there’s anything fun coming out of the basements in the near future!”

”Several things. Momo has managed to recreate her personal defense pencil effect on a kitchen knife, with a series of conditional statements, and those will be put into use perhaps even later tonight. I have created a shirt that reacts negatively to kinetic energy, and while the effect makes compressing it challenging, we will be making several copies for use as delver and responder armor. Testing has so far failed on imbuing a Sewer book, but we are not discouraged. And there is, of course, an ongoing debate on whether or not to attempt to imbue the leveler crown, which will be settled by vote in one week’s time.”

”Oh I wanna continue the interview so bad now!” Sarah laughed. “What do you think would happen if you imbued a Lesson book?” She asked.

Bea tapped one finger on the desk, the impacts oddly hard and sharp. “Predicting that is something I have trouble with. I never would have assumed that we could imbue dungeontech items, since the blue orbs do not compound on their own. But after the leveler items accepted the process in their own way… I would guess that the effect on an Akashic Sewer book would depend on your approach.”

”If you’re being exclusionary, then you’d get a book that… what, wouldn’t dissolve? And if you’re being additive, you get a book that maybe adds extra options?” Sarah mused.

”All potentials, yes.” Bea said. “Though I would request of Melody that everything you just said be censored in the final edit to prevent idea contamination. It has been an ongoing problem.”

At the recording desk, Melody shot Bea a thumbs up and a long, satisfied nod. “Wait, no!” Sarah started to protest. “My ideas!”

”And now I must leave.” Bea announced. “As I am busy, and have a social engagement to observe a snake. This concludes our interview. Thank you to Sarah for this opportunity to share.”

”Everyone in this building is trying to steal my jooooooob!” Sarah bemoaned as Bea gave her a small pat on the head, before leaving with her mostly emotionless efficiency. This was, partly, why she wasn’t a good authority candidate. Because she actually did enjoy it when people stole her job, and people did it all the time. Sarah moved from role to role, leaving a trail in her wake of people who she had made a little place for and left them with.

After that, there was still more to do. The news, the community updates, the important bits of shared culture and developing mini government, the new information about the chanters, all of it stuff that Sarah delighted in sharing. From new camracondas picking their names to old survivors hosting barbecues, she just loved sharing this world with these people.

And afterward, she was absolutely going to head down to Research to see what the boop they were doing with making flying knives. That seemed like the sort of thing she should maybe intervene on before it got out of hand.

_____

“Are we ready for our guest?” Karen asked Smoke as she and Texture-Of-Barkdust moved off the elevator and into the Order’s Los Angeles office.

Cathy looked up from where she was leaning over Smoke’s desk and trying to help the purple furred ratroach girl with something on her computer. The plump woman showing a degree of flexibility and smooth motion that she’d only recently reacquired, and was still reveling in. “Good afternoon you two.” She said with a heavy smile.

”You have the meeting room.” Smoke whispered. She could speak now. She didn’t even hate it. But she was still getting used to everything about having a working voice, and she still had to fight the instinct that making too much noise would get her hurt. “And… and we told everyone to hide.” She added, still in a hushed wisp of a voice that nonetheless was gratifying for the others to hear her use without pain or problem.

Cathy pressed her lips together to hold back a small laugh. “No dear, we told everyone to be professional today.”

”We are ever professional in this office.” Texture-Of-Barkdust stated with a small inclination of her head.

Karen said nothing, because Texture-Of-Barkdust had a warped view of what counted as professional, tainted by the fact that many people in the Order showed up to budget meetings or security briefings in graphic tee shirts and shorts. Camracondas actually had a significant edge over humans, not having the social background that required specific fashion. Texture-Of-Barkdust could have walked into a meeting ‘nude’ and no one would question it.

Though she didn’t. She was wearing a slate grey cloak-like wrap at the moment, which Karen had helped her put on before they’d come in for their meeting. It made her look stern, with her mostly blue and green cables showing underneath in a way that accentuated her differences from a human. Karen herself had gone for one of her more colorful outfits, which meant a dark red blouse and a black jacket with matching pants. It didn’t make her look stern; she didn’t need help from her wardrobe for that.

The two women moved to the conference room that the Order mostly used for interviews these days. The space wasn’t exactly dedicated to it, but it was open often enough, and the people who worked in this part of the spatial anomaly that was the Lair tended to not need it for their own meetings.

It was also an excellent place for an interview. A nice big window with lots of natural light, a high view of a winding freeway and the surrounding skyline, a table that was large enough to be comfortable for several people without feeling like it isolated anyone on the other side of the room. Right now, the table had a camraconda basket seat near it already set up, as well as two small stacks of printed pages on it. One was some documentation for reference, the other was a contract, both of them were for the man they were going to interview because Karen and Texture-Of-Barkdust had the files loaded in their skulljack already.

The skulljacks didn’t actually provide a lot of conveniences on their own, but with the help of programs loaded into the braids that were more properly made to be interfaced with by a mind and not a mouse, the Order had gotten them to work for a few specific things. And being able to read .pdfs was one of those. To the two women waiting for their interview subject to arrive, it was arguable the most important thing. Karen knew that real time vision sharing and tactical communications were vitally important for knights when it came to life or death situations yes. But she’d really come around on the vision of a perfect future when it had been pointed out that mass adoption of skulljacks would mean no one would ever have to battle with copier settings again.

“Are you prepared yourself?” Texture-Of-Barkdust asked Karen as they stood by their seats, waiting for their guest and not wanting to sit now just to get up in a moment. “This is… larger.”

”Is it?” Karen asked, arching her eyebrows as she double checked their printouts, thumbing through pages with an idle precision. “Larger than becoming the primary supplier of platinum for an entire continent? Larger than a nonhuman woman making business deals?” She glanced over at Texture-Of-Barkdust, who was currently watching the skyline through the wall of windows. “I suppose it is. But do you know what has me nervous?”

Texture-Of-Barkdust hissed lightly at her, turning to slither a line back and forth across the window in her own version of pacing. ”Yes. Because we spoke about it.” She said. “You are concerned for your daughter’s future. Because Elizebeth’s potential schooling change is more personal than altering the nature of global civil existence.”

Karen smiled sadly. “You know, when I was with my husband…” she paused. “Ex-husband, now, presumably. I could talk for an hour about what was bothering me, and by the next day, he’d be confused if I brought it up. Not maliciously, but…” she shook her head, sighing lightly as she watched Texture-Of-Barkdust. “And you casually remember conversations that we had three nights ago.”

”Yes. I am very powerful.” Texture-Of-Barkdust said as she continued her back and forth path. “And Elizebeth is important.”

”She is.” Karen exhaled until her lungs ached. “She’s all I have left.” She said in a quiet voice that she wasn’t intending to be heard.

”Untrue.” Texture-Of-Barkdust answered anyway, the camraconda making use of a recent purple orb that greatly extended her hearing range. Now that it was known that they were safe for her people, she’d been happy to test several copies for records of camraconda differences. “You have your place within the Order. And even without that, you have me.”

It was said so casually that Karen’s mind almost skipped over the words like they were just part of a casual conversation. Texture-Of-Barkdust’s voice was the same as it always was; polite, crisp, with no hint of nervous energy that Karen knew could show through even the digital voice profiles most camracondas used. But what she had said wasn’t… impersonal. Wasn’t some abstract gesture of community.

And Karen suddenly wasn’t sure what to say. For the first time in a very long time, she felt lost in a conversation, for several reasons, though not least of which was that she had no idea what Texture-Of-Barkdust meant by that. If nothing else, camracondas tended toward a coy sense of humor, and Karen didn’t know if there was a world that existed where she’d be prepared to deal with the sudden flutter in her chest if it weren’t a joke.

She was saved and interrupted in equal measure as Cathy pushed the glass door of the conference room open, stepping through and holding it for the gentleman following her. “Right through here. Can I get you anything to drink?” She asked the newcomer.

”Thank you, no.” He said in slightly stiff English, looking a little lost himself. A common reaction for newcomers when they had to get past Smoke’s desk and were confronted with the implications of a world deeper than they’d ever known. Inoue Shohei was a grey haired Japanese man, with lines on his cheeks from decades of late nights and stress that almost made him look like an aging cat. He was only just over forty years old, but Karen got a sense of someone who felt much older.

Cathy nodded to Karen and Texture-Of-Barkdust, before quietly slipping out and leaving them alone with their potential hire. Karen made the first move, stepping forward as Texture-Of-Barkdust left her spot by the window and approached at her side. Forgoing offering a handshake, Karen instead gave a short bow, which Texture-Of-Barkdust mimicked next to her with less precise posture. “Good afternoon Mr. Inoue.” She spoke in Japanese. “If it’s more comfortable for you, we can use this instead of English.”

”I would appreciate it, thank you.” He said, returning the bow to her, but looking with slight confusion at Texture-Of-Barkdust, like he was uncertain if he was having a practical joke played on him. “May I ask…”

Karen nodded, looking down at her partner. ”My name is Karen Ward, this is my associate, Texture-Of-Barkdust.”

”A pleasure to meet you.” Texture-Of-Barkdust spoke up, her digital voice containing no indication that she was offended. “If you would like, we can get the basics out of the way preemptively.” The green-blue camraconda didn’t wait for him to accept before she started to answer. “I am a living creature, I am roughly as intelligent as a human being - though I believe we all know that could mean a wide range of things - I am from Earth though perhaps not in a way you would be familiar with, and the proper form of address would be my full name, or Ms. Barkdust if you wish to shorten it.”

Shohei nodded slowly as he carefully filed away each piece of information. Then he offered her the same short bow that he had to Karen. “Thank you, Ms. Barkdust.” He said simply. “I apologize for any offense.”

”We - and by we I mean our organization, not my species - tend toward the belief that no one should be punished for lacking information. You are, so far, the most polite human to learn about my existence and quickly react.” Texture-Of-Barkdust nodded in satisfaction, before turning toward the table. “Shall we sit, and we can begin our interview?”

The three of them took seats, with Texture-Of-Barkdust somehow managing to make pulling her heavy form up onto a basket seat look professionally elegant. “Your Japanese is quite good. Have you spent time in my country?” Shohei asked the both of them as he took his own seat on the other side of the table.

Karen shook her head. “We haven’t, though thank you. We have an accelerated way of learning languages that is quite effective.” The man across from her looked like he desperately wanted to know about that, but Karen just gave him a small smile as she folded her hands in front of her. “Now, Mr. Inoue, I’m sure you have questions about our offer.”

”Several.” He said as she gave him pause to speak. “The salary you offer was impressive enough to get me here, but the specifics were thin.”

Texture-Of-Barkdust hissed softly, which got a small flinch from the man who didn’t know the mannerism. ”Well. We would like you to take the role of global operations manager for a new form of transport company.”

”A new form of transport?” He zeroed in on the specific word instantly.

Karen nodded as she flipped through her reference documents, finding the ones she needed and pulling them out to spread on the table in front of the man. “Since someone needs to be direct here, I suppose it’s my job. Our organization has access to teleportation technology, which we plan to use to supplant most global shipping.” She looked up at Shohei as the man’s face went ashen. “Our timeline is currently long enough that I don’t think it would be considered insider trading for you to divest yourself of your current employer’s stock at this time.” She added.

”Of course, the technology is not enough to be successful.” Texture-Of-Barkdust picked up where Karen left off, only getting a short glance from the man who was now running his eyes across each page as he took in the numbers, dimensions, testing results, and safety specs. He was adapting quickly, but being told teleporters were real was a harsh wall to get over. “We need professionals, and more importantly, professionals with industry contacts, to help us smoothly begin operations.”

”Why me.” He croaked out as Karen added a series of neatly printed sheets detailing their operational goals. “Why… with this, you could go to any government on the planet, and name your terms. Assuming this is real.” He said the last part with a wince.

“We have a demonstration set up for afterward, yes.” Karen said politely. “Which we can show you before you sign on, obviously. As for avoiding government support… they would want to use it as governments. Similar to if we sold to another company. National interest, profit, that’s not what we aim for Mr. Inoue. Our goal is to make things better.” She glanced at Texture-Of-Barkdust, who took over.

”Twenty two years as a senior global logistics manager at Akamoto Shipping. Studied at Cambridge, where you were respected. Many of your classmates remember you, though you haven’t kept in touch.” She ignored the puzzled look the man gave her. “No family to speak of, which is a statistically prevalent trend in our membership for some reason, but that is neither here nor there. Three years with a Tokyo branch of the Yakuza which you separated yourself from on moderate terms as soon as you had earned enough to pay for your studies. Your companions who remember you also speak well of you.”

”How?!”

Karen and Texture-Of-Barkdust ignored the outburst and the man shoving himself back from the table to bolt to his feet. “Sit down please Mr. Inoue.” Karen spoke sternly, frowning at the man. “Why you? Because you are in a position you do not enjoy, with skills that are useful. Do you enjoy your job?”

He stared at her in silence for almost two whole minutes before slowly lowering himself back into his chair and answering. “No, I do not. But very few people who earn as much as I do enjoy their work.”

”Hm. You are wasted.” Texture-Of-Barkdust said flatly. “You are an expert, and an adaptive problem solver, who is in a position that requires neither of those traits simply because it is ‘important’. Your actual tasks could be done by someone with half your experience. But it isn’t, because money is at risk.”

”Of course. Seniority has its rewards, though if I make a mistake, it also means that who to blame is clearly known.” Inoue said slowly. “But you are correct that my duties are not especially complicated. Large in scope, yes, but my staff often go weeks without needing my approval.”

”And wouldn’t you rather do something more? Reach a little farther? Solve a problem so novel that no one has ever touched it before?” Karen asked, suddenly unsure if she was asking him, or herself. “You say why you, but you aren’t our first interview, and if you say no, you won’t be our last. You aren’t a chosen one; we don’t do that around here.”

”Well.” Texture-Of-Barkdust started to interrupt, an unprofessional comment slipping past. “Your daughter-

Karen set a hand on the warm metal of the camraconda’s head and silenced her. “You are a perfect candidate because you fit the role, have the skills, and you are dissatisfied where you are now. I cannot, obviously, promise you fewer long nights, but I can promise you Mr. Inoue that you won’t feel like you are wasted.”

The man set the papers down in a neat pile, meeting Karen’s eyes and Texture-Of-Barkdust’s lens in turn as he stared at them. “And my past?”

”Be better than you were.” Texture-Of-Barkdust said with a dry tone to her artificial voice. “Though you should know that offering second chances to people who have hurt others is something we do here.” It was unclear if she was speaking about his life as a criminal, or as a salaryman, or if she saw a distinction between the two at all.

“Also this is less relevant to the interview process.” Karen checked her internal notes. “I am confident that, on paper, you are someone we wish to hire for this. However I do have some questions for you, if you are still interested.”

”I… yes. Yes, I am. Please, continue.” The man was making a clear attempt to not fidget, keeping his hands carefully still and folded on the table.

Karen gave a professional smile to put him at ease. “Now. Our stage one goal is the replacement of traditional Atlantic shipping. You’ve seen the basic reports on how our technology functions. Tell me how you’d begin with that.”

What followed was a more professional back and forth of questioning as Karen and Texture-Of-Barkdust evaluated not just the man’s ability to provide answers, but the culture and mindset those answers indicated in him.

He wasn’t perfect. He had a somewhat limited view of how he measured his own value as a person, and that was through his salary and corporate position. And while he outwardly was polite to Texture-Of-Barkdust whenever he spoke to her directly, he did default to speaking to Karen instead if there was any choice. He also fundamentally disagreed with their overall plan to use control of global shipping as a method to redistribute wealth. It wasn’t a specific ideological conflict, but he had a default assumption that if they had technology that could replace human labor, then the people previously providing that labor should simply be shifted out of the picture.

These were fixable problems though. Ironically, fixable through his own worldview. Because Karen and Texture-Of-Barkdust could simply use his own desire for prestige and wealth to pay him… exactly what his labor was worth, which was also ironic… and he would happily adapt to what they asked of him. Mercenary to the core, though he wouldn’t think of it that way, and at least this time, they were the ones with the wealth to take advantage of the mindset.

He also had his own questions, many of which revolved around security, and national interactions. This would be a level of actual power that world governments typically never allowed to be concentrated into a single company. It was revolutionary, even with the limitations, and it was also a threat to a lot of people with very deep pockets. If they were given time to establish themselves, or if they were willing to invest a significant amount of money with no immediate return, then they could move quickly enough to be seen as a normalized change by a large part of the world in a way that would have them ‘established’. But it was very likely there would be attempts to seize their assets, shut them down, make their methods illegal, or to simply force them to take actions they might not like.

At least, he admitted, they didn’t have military applications, given the limits. That would have been a disaster.

He said yes. Eventually. Officially, he would work for a regularly assembled committee of the Order of Endless Rooms that would confirm his decisions and budget and decide on a general direction. Which meant, in practice, he had access to a lot of freedom in how he wanted to approach the project. Texture-Of-Barkdust told him that he should try to move quickly, though within all reasonable safety parameters, and begin his own hiring for local management of the logistical centers that they would be setting up. Karen told him that he didn’t need to move that fast, but that there were options for accelerating certain aspects of construction and training.

He’d said yes almost immediately after the demonstration; a short teleport from the parking lot of the Lair to their recently cleared location in Yamhill. Karen had needed to explain that the elevator going several hundred miles was not the teleportation they could use commercially. She had, legitimately, forgotten.

”That,” Texture-Of-Barkdust said after they had seen Mr. Inoue off, “was exhausting. And yet somehow easier than any of the other interviews.”

”Indeed it was.” Karen sighed as she looked at the signed contract on the table. “He will be interesting to work with. Though I wonder if perhaps it would have been better to find someone…”

”More like us?” Texture-Of-Barkdust asked with an amused hiss.

Karen shook her head. “No, no. Well. Yes. There’s something James said to me some time ago, about how we structure our government. The idea that authority should grant qualification, which is something we can actually do now. Skulljack files and skill orbs and I’m sure something else besides. Perhaps we should have picked the best personality, and let him train them, instead of hoping his personality fits well enough.”

”I think he might surprise us.” Texture-Of-Barkdust offered. “Now. Our day is just beginning, and I need to look over the Response expense accounts.” She began to glide out of the conference room and toward her own neatly kept custom desk up here in their office floor. “I will see you at home later.”

And suddenly Karen’s trepidation was less about whether they’d hired the right highly experienced expert was replaced, by trepidation about what exactly Texture-Of-Barkdust was to her.

There were two things she had on her mind today. And suddenly, working on the details of their plan to use magical artifacts that swapped bubbles of space to become an economic force of nature was the easier one for her to process emotionally.

Karen wasn’t sure how to feel about that either. It felt like she had, perhaps, become too much integrated into the Order of Endless Rooms. More than she’d ever expected, she found her life was exactly the same kind of confusing mess that young people like James dealt with on a daily basis.

At least, she consoled herself, James was probably having a harder time with whatever he was doing.

That thought kept her going as she glared at the material requisitions for the space elevator that the engineering team was dedicated to like it was their new religion, and in the back of her mind, looked forward to getting home.