Book 2: Chapter 49 (Patreon)

Daniel’s eyes flickered to his friends before he answered. “I think the idea you are pitching is noble. I’m not sold that the people of this world really need an Administrator, though. What’s to keep them from turning out like the old guard? We have a saying from my world. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. I can think of a handful of people I’ve met in my life that I would trust with that kind of power.”

“You are putting the horse before the cart,” Arandir said, waving his hand. “We can discuss the people best suited for the job and safeguards to protect from abuse if we can even succeed. I am not even sure how we could unlock more powers for you. In my predecessor’s time, an Administrator could unlock points, not entirely unlock ability points, to use in a special Store in the System. Administrator only powers. These points could be earned from helping a certain number of people discover their best class or giving out a certain number of completed Quests a year. Every Administrator had their own unique threshold and no patterns were ever established. Unfortunately, my great-grandfather was never able to earn another point after the Calamity. My grandfather and father, as well as myself, have a bastardized selection of powers but none of us were able to gain any points, either. We are talking about years of work to figure this out.”

“We don’t have years,” Madi interjected. “We need to stop Odrana and get back to Dey. We have more to do than be subjects for you to study.”

“Then I will need to ask questions. What sort of skills do you control?”

Orrin frowned. He didn’t have any Administrator powers that he controlled. Sometimes things just happened.

Daniel’s thoughts were taking the same track. “What do you mean? I don’t have any powers, sometimes things just happen.”

“Like what?”

Daniel tapped his foot in frustration. Orrin could see he wanted to answer but didn’t know how far to go. He saved his friend.

“Sometimes when he’s in danger, he’ll tell us he has a new Quest.”

Madi nodded. “Once, during a fight that we thought we would lose, he was able to take away someone’s constitution points.”

Daniel nodded with each sentence. “Once he— I was able to change the Quest rewards.”

“But you have no control over these things, correct? That is how it was for my great-grandfather. His System unlocked skills once he had enough points to spend but he did not know the full extent of what was possible to unlock before his death.”

Daniel raised an eyebrow at Madi and Orrin. Do we tell him we’ve unlocked the Admin Store?

Orrin moved his head no with the smallest movement he could muster.

Madi shrugged.

“You know something,” the elf’s eyes were old but still sharp. “You have unlocked Administrator Points.”

“Why—” Daniel fidgeted. One small movement of his foot.

“Please do not lie. There is no need. You do not need to tell me the specifics.” Arandir rubbed at his eye. “Just to know that a way forward exists…”

When he trailed off, silence took over the small room. Madi took spoke to break the silence. “Arandir, we don’t know for sure that we can unlock more of these points or what good they would even do. You said it yourself. Administrators can only affect their own race.”

The elder elf blinked. “Lady Catanzano, Daniel is not from this world. A [Hero] may look human but he is most assuredly not the same as you. It is one of the reasons they are so powerful. They absorb ambient mana in a way that baffled the greatest minds of our people. Besides, an Administrator can give Quests to any race. It is only class selection and stat edits that are locked to race. If we can recreate the circumstances that led Daniel to gain those points, we might be able to unlock skills that only an Administrator would have.”

Orrin rolled his eyes at his friends. They kept giving the elf everything he wanted. The more information the man had, the more trapped he was feeling. Am I being paranoid in wanting to keep the information from him or are they just being too trusting?

“Maybe we should discuss that another time,” Orrin suggested. “You gave us a lot of new information to digest. Maybe Daniel should share his Quest and we can meet again for dinner?”

Madi almost said something but Daniel grasped her knee with his hand. “Yeah. I think that’s a good idea, O.”

Aranidr’s lips pulled into a tight line but he nodded. “Acceptable. I apologize if I overstepped. You are the best chance my family has ever had to reclaim our station and right a wrong we should never have allowed. I will have Leanthun bring you back to your rooms. Let him know if you want to speak with me or need anything. I will have the council send their selected team to you for the Quest.”

He bid them farewell.

The elevator ride back down was just as quick and Leanthun was silent on the walk back to their prison home. Only, this time nobody locked the doors. Once Daniel was sure they were alone, he turned to Orrin.

“Why did you want out? He seemed like he wanted to help.”

Orrin couldn’t explain it. Whenever Arandir spoke, he didn’t feel bad so much as slightly off. Orrin had run a gambit of spells during their conversation. [Calm Mind] did nothing. The tea wasn’t poisoned. As far as he could tell, there were no spells or skills coming off the old elf. Orrin simply felt uncomfortable around him but that wasn’t a good enough reason to tell Daniel and Madi.

“I can’t explain it,” he muttered. He was letting them down again, holding back the party because he had some weird issue with trusting people.

“Orrin,” Madi stepped in and wrapped her arms around him. “It’s alright. You don’t have to explain it. If you don’t want to trust Arandir, we can give the elves the Quest and leave. We can figure things out on our own.”

Orrin hugged her back and then disengaged. The room was still too small for all three of them and he sat on the stairs leading up to the second story. “I don’t think that’s the best course of action. He knows more than he’s telling. Does he not give either of you a weird feeling?”

Both his friends shook their heads.

“It started small in the council’s room but once we were in his house… I got this sense of something being off. Like when you are going down the stairs and miss a step. Not even that bad, to be honest. I can’t put it into words.”

“You don’t like him,” Daniel said with a shrug. He was re-strapping Gertrude to his back. “That’s fine. The question is should we use him to get into more dungeons or leave the forest? I personally think the guy is alright but I’m not a big fan of that council.”

Orrin shook his head. “No, I like him. That’s what is so weird. At first, it was nothing but an itch but the longer we spent time with him, the more I felt something was wrong. This is so annoying.” Orrin punched the banister. “I can’t even figure out what my problem is with him. He did nothing wrong. The tea wasn’t poisoned and he wasn’t using any skills on us, I’m almost certain. Why don’t I trust him?”

Madi knelt close to him. “Orrin, it’s fine. We trust you even if you can’t say why. We’ll leave.”

“No.” Orrin stood suddenly. “No. We should use his help. We can play it smart and stay close to each other. That way, I can [Teleport] us out if I need to. Maybe he can get us access to another dungeon. Maybe he’ll let us read through those books that he’s been pruning from the world. If nothing else, I want to learn more about what is on the other side of the Pass.”

Madi frowned. “That is the part I’m not sure I believe. If there is an entire civilized world on the other side of Dey, my life… my father’s life has been a lie. I wanted to ask him more about that.”

“If a [Hero] really did send everybody who didn’t like the demons to one part of the world, it would be impossible to hide that sort of thing.”

Madi nodded at Orrin, grabbing his words like a lifeline. “Exactly. If the elves were somehow trading with the demons over the mountains, we would have caught them at some point. The dwarves barely trade with Dey and do so grudgingly when they have to. I can’t imagine them doing anything with demons. They attack us regularly. They’ve killed hundreds of people in the last decade alone. His story doesn’t make any sense.”

“We can make a list of things we want him to talk about,” Orrin took her hand and pulled her to her feet. “What should we ask him?”

Over the next hour, they hammered out the specifics. They only stopped when Leanthun knocked on the door. Daniel met the selected elves and shared the Quest.

“I think we made a good start but the real question is do we tell him about the dungeon cores?” Madi tapped her pencil on the paper.

“It depends on if he’ll answer more about what his powers are and if he could get Admin Points himself,” Orrin responded, biting into an apple. He’d already restored all their weapons in his [Dimensional Hole], including the Citrandish bow they’d never gotten around to turning over. “I don’t think giving him a way to increase his own power is a smart move.”

Madi quirked an eyebrow. “You can learn. Good job.”

Orrin flicked her off. Daniel chuckled in the corner.

“I’m going to ask Leanthun if we can head back over. It’s time.”

Orrin nodded at his friend. Daniel pushed off the wall and opened the door.

“Hey, Leanthun. Can we chat with your uncle some more?”

The elf sighed. “If you just needed a break, he could have stepped out again. This back and forth is exhausting.”

Orrin pulled the elven bow out of his storage and held it up. “We could give him this as an apology.”

Leanthun rolled his eyes. “He doesn’t need that kind of leverage but do what you will. Are you ready?”

Leverage? Orrin pondered Leanthun’s words as they made their way back. Why would a bow give Arandir leverage?

“Can I ask a question?” Orrin jogged to catch up with Leanthun.

“You just did.”

“Another one. Where do Citrandish bows come from?”

Leanthun pointed at the large tree in the center of the forest. “The Matriarch tree sheds a branch every dozen years or so. If we are lucky, the wood is not rotted and we can create bows from her wood.”

“And they’re good bows?”

The elf didn’t deign to answer.

“I guess you really value your bows then?”

“This is more than one question.” Leanthun gave Orrin a look that let him know the elf knew what he was doing. “Our bows are bonded to us, individually. Each bow belongs to one elf for life. I could use another’s but it would never feel right… be right. To return a lost bow to our people is like bringing home the body of a fallen elf. I’m glad you didn’t hand it over to the council. They would have taken it without giving you anything. You could give it to my uncle, but that would have complications. Better to find the family it belongs to and ask for compensation. They’ll pay well.”

Madi and Daniel were close enough to hear Leanthun’s explanation. Orrin didn’t hesitate and pushed the bow into the elf’s hands. “Can you find out who it belonged to?”

Leanthun kept walking, holding the bow as if it were fragile. “I can. Would you like me to set up a meeting with the family later?”

Orrin smiled. “Nah. Tell them the [Hero] sent it and wishes it finds its way back into the hands of who it belonged to. If that’s not possible… send his condolences.”

Leanthun turned and looked at Orrin, drawing to a complete stop. “You want to give it to them? No cost?”

“What good would it do us? It’ll be like a homecoming for the guy who lost it right?”

“Or give a family closure if he or she is dead,” Leanthun said quietly. He turned to Daniel “Are you fine with this?”

“Seems like the right thing to do,” Daniel said nonchalantly.

Leanthun studied them for a moment longer before quickly stowing the bow on his back, joining his own Citrandish bow. “I’ll see to it.”

Reaching Arandir’s tree, Madi hesitated before stepping on the elevator.

“It’ll be fine,” Daniel pulled her on. “Let’s go talk about demons.”