QuestWright BK2 C76: Scaling Issues (Patreon)

Howdy folks,

I hope you're all enjoying the weekend- the long weekend for some of us. The next two chapters are more reveals, but I'm doing a few different things with them, and after this weekend, we're going to be diving into a new arc. These revelations were all planned out during the writing of book 1 and the early-on planning of book 2. They're a lot of fun to write, and very, very, cathartic. Enjoy and let me know if I screwed anything up.

Also, of course, a ReaderQuest.

Quest ID: JDM-0006-T-EA

[Tier 1 Training Quest]

Assignment: Eyes Up Here

Your eyes have been wandering again. Only this time, it’s probably to your phone.

Your Task

Leave home and complete one entire outing without looking at your phone.

From the moment you walk out the door until the moment you return, your phone stays in your pocket, purse, bag, or vehicle.

No checking notifications, scrolling while waiting, or looking something up because you’re bored.

You also can’t check your time or location at any point.

Rules

You may carry your phone.

You may use it for a genuine emergency.

If you need directions, figure them out before you leave.

The outing must include at least one destination away from home. If you want a ballpark time allotment, give it at least two hours.

If you look at your phone out of habit, the outing doesn't count. Try again.

Completion Condition

Leave home, visit at least one destination, and return without looking at your phone.

Timeframe: One Week

Reward: 5 XP (This is something that’s good for you)

Sometimes you need to stop looking down to notice what's around you.

—

J D Mullenary Sr
The Original QuestWright

Chapter 76: Scaling Issues

Following the potential reveal that Liberty’s book was the last corruption, Cass ran through several possibilities.

I put my hand on that book; it wasn’t red. It wasn’t corrupted. If it were, a notification would’ve told me right away as soon as I got close. The System accepted my transfer from Liora to Liberty; there’s no question about that.

So what’s really going on here? Can the Liberty Book of Callings change forms? Can corruption hide itself?

Is it corruption in the first place, or something new?

While Cass was struggling with everything he thought he understood, Alan and William had continued to talk. The Private gave more details about what to expect from the monsters, and Cass was forced to tune back in when Alan said something that couldn’t be ignored.

“My source was right; that portal is definitely going to upgrade soon. The only time you see Dungeon monsters at those numbers is when a birther is soon to come.”

“Can you tell us a little about birthers?” Adya asked, moving closer from the door.

Alan sighed. “I can tell you a lot, but it takes something out of me. Please forgive me if I just give you the CliffsNotes, not that you know what those are.” He leaned back from his usual elbow-to-knee style. “I told you before that just about every monster you meet is female. Birthers are males, and it’s better to think of them as Kings. When the Dungeon reaches a certain level of energy, it starts to transform its Guardian, changing its sex while giving it new abilities.”

“What kind of abilities?” Cass asked.

“Hard to put a real answer to that, but I can tell you they’re normally of the kind that takes out cities, like it was with the Reshaping. Four dungeons opened beneath the streets of Los Angeles, and in the chaos of the apocalypse, nobody had a chance to close them. I owned a painting business in the Southside. We didn’t make great money, but we got by.” He smirked to himself, then it faded away.

“When the streets shook, we took it to mean LA was just going through its normal amount of tiny earthquakes. Tremors, really. But they kept happening more and more, until one day the streets opened up, and chaos reigned. It happened everywhere at once. A coordinated attack that I was lucky to survive, unlike a lot of others.”

Alan stared off somewhere, looking just as traumatized as the man sitting across from him. Gently, Adya asked, “So how do you know there are four dungeons down there?”

The old Scout shook his head as the memory faded. “North, south, east, west. Los Angeles had zones with different monster types that changed based on where you stood. Aside from Greybeards and a few others you probably haven’t met, monsters are regional based on the birther’s original species. It’s why I was confused to find that Caliope up there. Should be in the north.”

“What about where you’re from?” The giant across from him asked.

“My old home is a pile of rubble surrounded by monsters of a size that’s hard to fathom without seeing them, Atherby. Big, heaping piles of rage and shit, smashing my stomping grounds to bits. I’m not going to let that happen to yours.”

Alan stood up. “William, I thank you for the information you’ve provided today, and I’m sorry for what they did to you and your brothers. We’re going to move you to another location just in case the bastards are lookin’, but I think you’ll be safe from here on out.”

William stood up with him. “You’re going to try to close that Dungeon, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Cass answered for him. “We can’t allow it to continue existing beneath the city. We don’t know why the Guildtower is letting it grow, but we can’t take the chance that there’ll be an incursion. There are too many innocent people who could get hurt.”

“Or worse,” Adya added.

“I want to fight,” William said, an unknown quality entering his eyes. “They killed my brothers, and I think tearing down that portal will hurt them, so I want in.” He looked at Alan. “You said you were building an Army; you’re going to need some Privates.”

Alan shook his head. “You’re an unknown to me, and if Vale is right about that book being corrupted, there could be something worse going on. Can’t take the chance that you’re compromised by whatever they’ve done to you. I’m sorry, son, but there’s no chance.”

Just then, Cass had an idea. He asked Alan to wait a moment, then stepped over to the stairs again as Adya joined him.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

“That I have a reward from the System which hasn’t been used. Maybe I can use it on something like this.” Cass shrugged. “I was planning on saving it for a rainy day, but here we are, and the storms are coming. I just hope the Source can help us out.”

Cass moved to a dark corner of the room, then shifted the pen back to a Quill. Holding it up, he activated the tutorial.

The Quill’s light darkened, but nothing else happened.

Shaking it in the air, he was confused when Adya said, “Little performance anxiety? Happens to all men, I hear.”

He stopped to look at her. “I’m gonna tell you what I told Pellin the last time I saw him. Quit spending so much time with Orla.”

“You just defended her to Alan for an hour.”

“That’s different than being ignorant of her dirty ways.” He shook it again, clicking the tutorial at the same time. “Something else is going on here.”

After informing Alan that they’d return quickly, Adya and Cass stepped up the stairs and into the sun. They were immediately met by a woman in her underwear sunning on the ground, a blissful look on her face. Adya glared at Cass when she caught him looking.

“What? I have eyes.”

“Just stop using them so much.”

“I can hear you,” the woman said, eyes still closed. “Is Alan done interrogating the prisoner?”

“I’d say he’s less of a prisoner than a co-conspirator at this moment,” Cass replied.

“Well, whatever he is, he’s under my charge. You’d better not have tortured anything out of him. Seems like a sweet kid stuck in a bad situation.”

Adya tilted her head. “I don’t think you can call him a kid when he’s killed hundreds of monsters.”

“Meh, I see that as a point in his favor, rather than against.” She turned her head and looked at them. Cass noticed the heavy amount of shiny gray in her hair as the sun hit it. “What are you doing here then? I’m assuming the Scout is going to be taking you back to the city with him.”

“About that.” Cass waved the softly glowing Quill, its radiance further diminished by the sun’s rays. “Do you mind heading back down? There’s something going on with my Quill, and I can’t put my finger on what it is, so I’m isolating all possibilities.”

A long, drawn-out sigh was her response as she slipped on the black suit folded beside her, then walked down the stairs. Cass and Adya’s enhanced hearing picked up her grumbles.

“...never get a chance. Expect me to sneak around in the dark all the time, but every time I get a little moment to relax, some kid gives me orders. Damn near twenty years…”

When he thought she was a healthy distance away, Cass hit the tutorial again, and this time the words appeared in the air like normal.

Step 9: Create a true Conditional Quest using if/then parameters.

Adya quickly read the message. “You didn’t tell me about Conditional Quests.”

“Hasn’t come up,” Cass replied.

I presume, if you’re speaking to me now after several days of silence, that you’re ready to discuss your reward.

Adya looked around, trying to spot who Cass was talking to as he replied, “In a moment. Why didn’t the tutorial start when I activated it?”

Unfamiliar location. There was a blind spot near you. The Scout and Shadow who see too much.

Take your pick.

Cass nodded. That makes sense. I wonder if it can tell that William is here.

He considered his words carefully as he asked, “Can I take that response to mean that you sense corruption near me?”

“Where is it?” Adya whispered, squinting as she looked around.

“Shh.”

I can sense something near you, though it is small. Like an extension of something greater. It creates blindness for the System and, in turn, for Sources like myself. It’s rather odd to be found there. Can you tell me about it?

“There’s a man nearby named William, and there’s something weird about him.”

Weird how?

“He says that he’s a Private for Liberty and was inducted into that group through a red Book of Callings. That mean anything to you?”

Red, you say?

Cass didn’t hold back. If he was going to get the Source on his side, it needed to know the whole truth.

“What would it mean to the System if I discovered a corrupted Book of Callings? One that has presumably granted Callings to several hundred people.”

That caused a pause, as Adya and Cass looked at one another while the Source took its time. When it came back, there was an undercurrent to its tone that put something up Cass’s back. He’d never thought to hear the Source of the System sound angry.

That would mean quite… a lot, Cassio. Tell me what you know right now.

Cass told the Source everything. From what Alan had said about the disappearances, to William’s story and the red book. He made sure to take his time, answering the increasingly angry voice of the System as it tried to find a hole in the story. Adya helped him with a few things he almost got wrong, but the result was the same.

This is wrong. I cannot sense anything from Liberty that would explain this.

Liberty’s Book of Callings is fully functioning and connected to the System. I checked on it the moment you presented your findings. There is no corruption to be found.

Cass repeated the Source’s statement to Adya so she’d be clued in. Then, she offered a thought of her own with a frown.

“Who says they have only one?”

The Source and Cass went silent as that thought drifted in the wind. Cass played back the moment he stepped out on the Uncalled Way when first arriving yet again. The System he knew had recognized it. Accepted his transfer. Whatever William had touched, it wasn’t the same Book that Cass had.

“That does make a lot of sense. I think she’s right.”

Give me a moment.

The Source left again, but this time for much longer. Cass and Adya entertained themselves by trading theories about what all of this meant for the citizens of Liberty. None of it sounded good for the people, and it sounded even worse for the Privates, duped into joining an organization that grew through cannibalizing its members.

“Liberty is just corrupt as all hell,” Adya said, shaking her head. “Money grubbers everywhere, corrupted objects, trees, and people. It’s a total shitshow. Being here is making me more thankful than I can say to have been born in Liora.”

“Makes you miss it, you know?” Cass replied, taking her hand and rubbing his thumb over the back of it.

“Yeah. Maybe when this is over, we can go back.”

“We’ve talked about this.”

“I know, Cass. But I miss my father. He’s always had me to lean on, so I worry.”

“Have you written him?”

“Yeah, but it’s not the same.”

He kissed her then. “We’ll find a way to reunite you two; I just don’t know if it’ll be in Liora. I’m pretty sure our old home is putting itself together just fine without us.”

“Well, I’m not bringing my father here; I can tell you that much.”

Cass tilted his head, “It makes me think. Maybe Pellin’s idea of starting our own Guild isn’t as crazy as it sounded when we first talked about it. We wouldn’t be connected to the Central Guild, but at this point I see that purely as a positive. Shit be fucked.”

“Shit be fucked?” Adya laughed. “I wholly didn’t expect you to say that. It came completely out of nowhere.”

Cass smiled. “I have a way with words.”

Adya smiled back, and they shared a quick kiss, then she pulled away quickly as a thought came to her. “Wait, if we’re not connected to the Central Guild and start our own, wouldn’t that make us a Dark Guild?”

That stumped him. “You know…I think it might?”

Before they could dive further into that, the Source returned. This time, there was no hesitation in Cass’s thoughts about whether it was angry or not. 

It clearly was.

I have discovered the reason I could not find your hypothetical second Book of Callings.

Cass stood up, Adya doing the same. “And?”

The Pylon you purified was doing more than simply obscuring the area from my sight. It was altering what the System perceived. At a glance, everything within Liberty seems to be normal. But with great effort, I managed to remove a portion of the veil for a moment.

“What did you find?”

Callings, each presenting to the System as legitimate. 

They are not!