Willow
Recruitment Square, Farcem City, Motrendi
The big man’s expression turned confused, “Lawyer?”
“Yeah, lawyer.”
The silence quickly grew uncomfortable, so Willow pressed forward with an exaggerated frown, “You know, attorney? Personal representation? Expert in all things law who works for the person they’re advising? Someone who is specifically incentivized to NOT screw me over with a bad contract?”
Continued bafflement, “I don’t think we have that…”
Uncertainty somehow seemed out of place when coming from such a deep voice. Willow almost felt bad for him. She shrugged, “No problem, then I just won’t be signing anything is all. Can you point me to someone who can explain things a bit?” She’d ask him to explain things, but it looked like asking for a lawyer had short circuited something and was worried he might need some time to reboot.
While the big man, I should probably ask his name next, after he answers my last question, processed her query she looked around. As she had noticed upon materializing, there was a crowd here. A large one. She’d guess in the range of thousands. Even so, only about half of the large open area was occupied.
It appeared she was in some kind of plaza, with an odd hodgepodge of buildings surrounding it. Actually, now that she really looked… Yeah, this is weird. All of the buildings appeared to be placed to face the plaza. Not that the plaza had been planned with the buildings in mind, no, it was like the buildings had been plopped in and then rotated to face the “correct” direction.
For example, a squat building that she would guess was a house sat with its door facing inward toward the plaza. The problem with that was the door wasn’t meant to be seen from the street. Had the house been positioned in a normal neighborhood, the door would have been inset into a little privacy hall, where the designer had placed a wall of stucko on the outside so the door wasn’t visible from the street. A visitor would have to approach, pass the wall, then turn left, and enter a small corridor between the privacy wall and the house’s exterior wall to get to the door.
The design had obviously meant to hide the doorway, maybe there was even some artwork painted on the street facing side of the stucko, she’d seen stuff like that before. Here, though, the hallway was facing the street. The house was literally facing sideways. The oddity caused a very strange feeling, almost like deja-vu, but the opposite. That’s a thing right? What’s it called, like jamais vu or something? What she was looking at was so ridiculous it couldn’t be real.
“Miss?” The deep voice broke through her spiraling thoughts.
“What was that? Sorry, got uh… Is that house… Nevermind, what was your name again?”
A moment’s hesitation, then, “Baav.”
“Nice to meet you Baav. Did you ask me something while I was spacing out?”
She thought Baav might have blinked, but it was more of an impression than a certainty. Seriously, what was up with this guy. Why couldn’t she focus on any details? She squinted at his eyes. He cleared his throat and replied after a moment of being squinted at, “Yes. In order to talk to our guide, you’ll need to sign the contract first.”
The blue window full of text popped back into her vision. She declined it again.
“I see, thanks Baav, I’ll go find someone who’s able to help out without that then. Have a good…” She looked around, realizing she wasn’t sure what time it was. The level of light would indicate day, it was nice and bright. However, she didn’t see the sun in the sky. Deciding to just roll with it for now she finished lamely, “uh, day. Have a nice day.”
As she made to step past Baav toward the area of the plaza where people seemed to be heading after talking to other people that seemed oddly indistinct like Baav, she was halted in place by his huge hand falling toward her left shoulder. She instinctively winced, waiting for the sharp pain that always came when anything touched her left side. Instead, she was shocked to just feel the pressure of a huge hand. She turned her head and stared, completely bewildered.
Baav apparently read her expression to mean she was shocked he would touch her, as he quickly withdrew. “Apologies. I forget sometimes that hu… Some people are sensitive to physical contact.”
Willow shook her head slightly. Not too much though, as part of her worried if she took her eyes off of her completely normal shoulder it would go back to how it had been before. She answered in a daze, “It’s fine. It’s just that my shoulder… It was completely ruined before. It hurt just to move it, much less to have someone put their hand on it…”
After another moment of silence she wrenched her eyes away and back toward Baav. Shaking her head, she made to move past him again. This time instead of using a hand, he took a side step to interpose himself in front of her.
Willow narrowed her eyes up at him, trying and failing to find his eyes so she could properly glare into them, “Are you trying to detain me here? Against my will?” She made sure to inject a bit of threat into her tone. She wasn’t sure it worked, she wasn’t used to threatening people - despite being a fighter. Her style was more to smile sweetly and punch in an assailant’s teeth while they weren’t expecting it. That didn’t seem like a great idea when she didn’t know the rules of… Wherever she was.
He seemed frustrated and at a loss for how to handle her, “No. You may leave once you have signed a contract. You do not need to accept mine.” He waved a big hand, “Others, from other groups, factions, have their own offers.”
“Are they all going to be unreasonably long, and full of legal jargon?”
“Yes.”
“Right, then I need a lawyer before I’m agreeing to anything. In the meantime, I need you to please step aside so I can go figure things out.” She did her best to channel her ma’ma’s ‘please’ - it was the kind of please that said, “I’m being polite, but this is an order.”
Either her version wasn’t very good, or Baav was immune to the power of the not-really-please. It was probably the former. He just stared at her. Willow was nearly at her breaking point, she really wasn’t good with people trying to force her into things.
Before she could start getting serious, Baav said, “I don’t know what a lawyer is, but you will have to read for yourself here.” He stared down at her, not blinking. Probably. He’s probably not blinking, hard to be sure.
The absolute audacity. The flat way he said that left it up to her to interpret what he meant, and she was waffling between him insinuating she was lazy, incompetent, illiterate, or stupid. She was having a hard time finding a more charitable way of interpreting the statement.
“You want to try that again?” This time Willow’s voice was bright. Very very bright. Way too cheerful. Anyone with a lick of sense would have caught on that it was too much, that something was wrong.
Apparently Baav had not even a single lick, as he nodded, “Good, so you understand now.”
“Oh,” Willow spoke in her most disgustingly sweet tone, as she leaned toward him, “I think I understand you perfectly now. But now, I think I need to help you understand me.” She put heavy emphasis on ‘you’ and ‘me’, her southern twang coming out in full force.
Before the big man could say another thing, she fell into her focus. The sounds and sights around faded, only what was relevant remaining. She claimed her moment.
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Madrick
Recruitment Square, Farcem City, Motrendi
Madrick watched the recruitment from above. He stood in the air, feeling bored. He’d agreed to babysit today, as every recruitment had to have a rank ten or higher oversee. The scheduled administrator had an emergency and Madrick owed him a favor. These things happened. Frankly, watching an Earth recruitment was almost nostalgic. He remembered his own fondly.
Unlike these sheep, he’d arrived with the spirit of battle still upon him. He’d attacked the first idiot who had tried to tell him to sign what, at that time, he saw as ‘some weird scroll scrawls.’ Sometimes he missed the simplicity of being a barbarian who knew nothing more than blood and war.
Before Madrick could fully begin indulging in nostalgia by mentally revisiting memories of glorious battles on earth, in his tutorial, something caught his attention. Given he was, “keeping an eye” for potential issues, this shouldn’t have been hard. In reality, he didn’t care if some of these pathetic little recruiters had a bit of trouble swindling the pathetic little arrivals.
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The form of the interruption wasn’t any of the “normal” issues he had been told to look out for: recruiters from different factions targeting the same arrivals, displays of power by recruiters above what earthlings would expect, arrivals who became hysterical and might cause mass panic, and so on. No. It was something much more interesting. He felt part of his domain vanish.
Given his path of True Domination, his domain was akin to ownership. Anywhere Madrick went, he became the owner of everything within his area of influence. Although he didn’t primarily specialize in conceptual powers, as a rank twelve his influence was considerable. The entire recruitment area, along with few dozen kilometers in every direction were his, just by dent of his presence.
Except, a very small chunk of that domain had been removed. Another domain might have contested his own if someone else rank ten or above approached, but that’s not what had happened. The piece that had vanished from his awareness wasn’t at the edge of his domain, where a contest might have taken place, it was near the middle. In the recruitment area below.
Sending mana to his Eyes of Conquest, Madrick watched as an arrival attacked a recruiter. The beast kin being attacked felt like maybe a rank four or five. Given the extra benefits recruiters got, it was likely he had one or more over ranked skills too. All of that did him no good.
The arrival had somehow accessed her mana. Not only that, she was applying her Will. Common wisdom dictated that an application of Will required an Insight. Gaining Insight was nearly impossible within the tutorial. Some highly talented individuals learned how to manipulate mana, he himself had been one such. It had been several thousand years since he left his own tutorial, and yet he’d never heard of any new arrival with an Insight.
He watched with mounting interest as the girl moved. From her perspective it was likely fast, but at his level of power it was like watching a snail wake up.
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Willow
Recruitment Square, Farcem City, Motrendi
Willow claimed her moment.
As time slowed nearly to a stop, thoughts quickly flashed through her mind. She didn’t have to use her moment to attack. But, what else could she do? It wasn’t so much that Willow wanted to attack some random person, it was more that she didn't see any other option. She wasn’t letting someone force her into signing anything. She wasn’t sure what the legal system here was like, but surely it wasn’t legal to physically restrain a stranger and tell them they had to sign some shady contract. Even the shady voodoo men in gram gram’s stories wouldn’t try something so crude!
Having completely justified her actions with absolutely no faults in her logic, Willow took a fast step forward. Her body felt incredible. Powerful. She felt like her normal focus had been boosted by a thousand. She thought Baav’s eyes were still looking at where she had begun, even as she stepped forward. While she was fast, and her focus let her make the most of her speed, she wasn’t faster than the human eye. That being said, Baav’s weird blurry eyes might have been tracking her, but she felt like they weren’t.
Another step and she was centimeters from Baav, she was a bit in front and to his right. She didn’t even try to strike or kick. This guy was clearly too big for her to have any confidence in that having much of an impact. Instead, she continued forward, her right foot planted in front and between both of his feet as she threw an elbow hard at his back even as she pulled her planted foot forward without taking it off the ground. She felt like the ground itself was moving underneath her, aiding her stability. Good ground.
Baav fell hard. His face slammed into the ground, his arms not even coming up to catch himself. Willow just stared in shock for a moment, Why didn’t he at least try to catch himself?. He still wasn’t moving. What was going on? She looked around, and realized that while she could make out shapes moving outside of her area of focus, everything inside of it was completely frozen. This was like an extreme version of how she always visualized her zone of focus. She always pretended everything but her was frozen, but it had always just been pretend.
Before she could figure anything out, she felt her moment coming to an end. While the effects might have been amplified, the duration was clearly still limited. She released her moment, but maintained her focus. She heard the “thump” that should have come when Baav hit the ground, along with a bestial sound somewhere between a growl and groan. She decided that he’d learned his lesson, and that he’d be fine. Not that I was worried he wouldn’t be okay. That take down wasn’t that bad… Other than landing directly on his face…
While part of her wanted to stay and ask the flurry of questions bouncing around her head, Willow decided not to waste the opportunity to extricate herself. She quickly spun on her heel and started walking toward the booths situated within a huge awning covered area. Her eyes flicked between booths until she found one with two women who both looked fully real. Most importantly, one of the real looking women appeared to know what she was doing.
Willow caught up to the pair as the one who looked like she knew what was going on told the man sitting behind the desk, “Hi Ray, Naomi here just signed on to work in the economics department. Think you can help explain things to her?” Willow stepped up beside them and did her best to act like she belonged there.
It didn’t seem to work, as the woman who was speaking turned to her as soon as she had stopped and gave her a polite smile, “I’m sorry, I don’t think I’ve met you yet. Can I help you? Are you also looking for employment like Ms. Naomi here?”
Wracking her brains, Willow tried to sound confident as she replied, “Ah no, I actually already have a contract and all that. I was just directed over here to get the rundown on things.”
The woman stared at her blankly for a moment, before her attention seemed to sharpen in some way and she shook her head, “I’m sorry miss, your recruiter surely would have brought you over here, can you point them out? Maybe they got caught in the crowd, I can help get you reacquainted and…”
“His name was Baav, he was a little intimidating so I kind of ran off once he pointed to where we were going.” Her words came out in a rush. It was the best she could think of on the spot. Miraculously, the lady seemed to buy it.
She rolled her eyes in an exaggerated manner, “Of course it would have to be Baav.” She sighed in as if horribly put-upon, “Well, let me finish up what he started then. My name is Sherry. You said you already signed the contract?”
Willow’s bobbed her head in the affirmative, “Yep, popped up with about a bajillion lines of text so I hit accept to get it to go away!” She dipped hard into her southern accent, leaning more toward her paw pa’s drawl rather than her ma’ma’s sharp creole. People tended to assume folks with a drawl were slow and innocent.
Sherry nodded distractedly, “Alright then, miss, in that case why don’t you get setup for orientation with Naomi here?”
Willow nodded, distractedly noticing her that her hair was unbound for the first time as it bounced and brushed her ears and hit her shoulders, “Sounds great!”
She stuck out her hand toward the woman introduced as Naomi, “Willow, pleasure to meet yuh.”
Noami seemed to be in a state somewhere between shock and denial. She had that thousand-yard-stare as she mechanically accepted the hand shake. “Naomi,” she muttered woodenly.
“Well good, that’s settled then. I’ll let Ray help you both out.” She nodded at the man behind the desk, who was also blessedly clearly defined. As she turned to leave, it seemed like her eyes went out of focus and her movements became slightly more mechanical as she continued on toward a door marked, ‘Employees Only.’
Turning to the man behind the counter, Ahhh, what was his name again? Randy? Yeah Randy sounds right… Willow gave her best smile, going for a good first impression, “Hey Randy. If you don’t mind me asking the first question… Why are so many of the people here… Fuzzy?”
Randy looked taken aback at the question, then a little nervous, “Well…” After a pause, he leaned forward and lowered his voice, “It’s because they aren’t actually humans. They’re using magic of one sort or another to look human but most of them aren’t very good at it.”
Both Willow and Noami had leaned towards him to hear the answer, Noami doing so seemingly out of reflex while Willow was truly interested. Noami didn’t react at all, her eyes remaining semi-glassy. Willow stared hard at Randy, wondering if he was pulling her leg, “Magic?”
He nodded eagerly, “Yep! I’m pretty new, finished my tutorial what… Ten years ago? I didn’t come from Earth like you two. I came from Calledeon. It’s a tutorial world where magic is prevalent but very little technology. When I died they were just starting to build ‘magitech’ which automated some stuff like making paper. From what I understand you all have had that in the ‘Earth’ tutorial for a really long time but don’t have much access to magic.”
After a second Willow decided he was probably telling the truth, he seemed earnest. Besides, she wanted to believe him! Who wouldn’t want to have magic as part of their afterlife? Though there was one weird thing…
“So you’re saying magic is real…” He nodded eagerly, “Then why all the… Bureaucracy?”
“Ah… Well…” He wilted a bit at the question, “Unlike on my world there’s quite a lot of… Order. The tutorial arrival area has been setup and streamlined to allow various factions to pick up new blood with enough regularity to avoid too much stagnation. The powers that be need us little guys to get the minutia done so they can shape reality, after all!”
“Randy…”
“Ray.”
“Wait, really?”
“Yes.”
“Rayyyndy… That’s such a crock of crap. Are you saying there are people out there who can literally shape reality with magic and you’re stuck here working a day job?”
Ray continued his wilt, now looking like a daisy that hadn’t been watered in a week, “Well, yeah. It’s just temporary, though. The universal law of debt release only allows terms up to seven thousand years. After that, no contract is enforceable and is automatically nulled.”
Willow looked at Naomi in shock, looking for an ally in her disbelief. It looked like this nonsense was finally enough to break through whatever funk she had been in, though not in a positive way. She started hyperventilating as she gasped, “The… contract… I… Signed… Wasn’t….”
Pity crossed Ray’s face as he nodded slowly, “Yeah, it looks like a full term. I don’t know anyone named ‘Sherry’, so it was probably actually Luzzi. She’s one of the ‘better’ recruiters… Good illusions, great at mimicking human emotions and mannerisms, and ruthless. She’s the one who got me, too.”
He sighed deeply, then shot Willow a wan smile, “You came from Baav though? He’s a bit softer, probably not a full term, let me see…”
He righted himself in his chair, sitting up straight and squinted at her, then cocked his head and seemed to try and look harder. After almost a full ten count Willow cleared her throat, “Ya’ll right there?”
Blinking, he nodded, “Yeah it’s just nothing’s coming up. The you-see should let me view your contract as long as it’s for our faction. Baav’s one of ours so it definitely should be…” He continued to stare at her, though with less intensity and more puzzlement.
“Ah, well… What’d you say about a ‘you see?’ is that the name of the pop-ups?” Internally she scrambled, Crap, crap, crap. He should be able to see my contract. How do I get out of this thing?!
Answering her question, Ray seemed oblivious to her internal panic, “Yeah. It’s actually the U-I-C-I. It stands for ‘Universal inner connection interface’ Most of us just say UICI though. It’s pretty much an extremely advanced piece of magitech which enables the multiverse to be run more or less smoothly. Without it we wouldn’t be able to see our stats, achievements, energy attunements, insights, all that stuff.”
Noticing that Willow’s eyes had gone blank, and Naomi was quickly muttering and sobbing, Ray seemed to realize things were spiraling out of control, “Ah, how about I just give you guys the introductory spiel and give you the map to get to the full orientation?”
Willow nodded, Naomi continued to not be okay, Ray chuckled nervously.