The Daily Grind - Chapter 372 (Patreon)

"No retractable claws, no opposable toes, no prehensile tail, no compound eyes, no fangs, no wings...Sigh..." -Calvin, Calvin and Hobbes-

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The Lair was less full when James returned to it.  Or at least, less people upstairs.  A lot of the people who had been here did live in the basements, after all.

James hadn’t been gone long enough for his partners to even finish dinner, mostly because they were taking their time at it.  Which was why Alanna met him in the lobby, having left the others when she’d gotten a similar alert to him.

”You know when I agreed to be in your paladin coterie…” she started to say.

James cut his girlfriend off.  “Now hang the fuck on!”  He glowered up at her as he protested.  “You put yourself on the list!  I didn’t even get a chance to agree!”

”Executive decision.”  Alanna said, like that explained things.  “Come on, let’s get this over with and then if we don’t die you can come eat.”

”I don’t like eating while everyone else isn’t.”  James reminded her.

”Good thing Sarah and Keeka showed up then!”  Alanna jabbed at his flank with a finger.  “Hey, Zhu, you in there?”

Orange light spilled out of James’ shoulder and arm, dusty illumination that filled a space and then stopped expanding, becoming more and more solid as Zhu manifested.  The navigator came into being as a coating of feathers, and a second arm that mirrored James’ own, sometimes sinking through his host’s limb, sometimes operating fully independently, but always ending with a dexterous clawed talon.  The tail was next, thick and inflexible, flatly feathered, it had grown since Zhu had started his true recovery from his Underburbs illness; almost enough now for James to support himself on it if he wanted to.  And last came his eyes.  Four of them, one almost eight inches across that opened amid the feathers on James’ shoulder, three more dotting the rest of the human’s side.

”Yo.”  Zhu’s voice was like a friendly engine in the distance.  “I was in the middle of planning a hike, what’s up?”

”Well that’s hardly fair.”  James said as he pushed open the briefing warehouse door, revealing an interior that was still in council meeting formation.  Only a small chunk of space on the side reclaimed where Nate and Cam were taking reports from rogues, and glaring at everyone within line of sight.  “You don’t have legs.  If you plan a hike you’re using me as a car!”

Zhu made a noise like crunching gravel under tires.  “I could borrow Alanna.  Alanna likes walking.”

”Do not commodify me.”  Alanna ordered.  “But yeah I could go on a hike, that sounds cool.  You know we’ve got all that open forest up by Kiki’s cabin in the woods, if you want.”

”That place is cursed.  Possibly by Kiki.”  Zhu griped.

“There’s gotta be some forest around Townton.”

Zhu revved out exasperation.  “Less of the US is forest than people think.  It’s got trees, but no woodlands.  At least not in our zone of control.”

”We could just teleport somewhere and… hm…” Alanna looked like she was putting a lot of thought into this.

Breaking off that line of thought, Zhu smoothed o ut his feathers.  “But yeah, we’ll talk.  Hey Cam!  Wanna go on a nature hike?”  The navigator asked as James brought the trio up to the table.

“Paladin.”  Cam ignored Zhu, though it wasn’t out of spite or anything.  She just had her crisis mode mood worn like a high-vis vest.  “We have an issue.”

Obviously.  Otherwise James wouldn’t be here already.  The possible list of issues was long, the question was what they were going to tell him next.

There were actually a few jokes that James had on the tip of his tongue when he realized that Nate and Ben looked pissed where they were standing behind Cam and glaring at the same computer screen.  Hell, even Planner, tentacles and bits of shell glowing a pale green-blue as they wrapped around the tables and desks and the various members of the Order in attendance, looked angry somehow.

So James shut up.

Nate noticed, and gave a single jerk of his head in acknowledgment.  Hefty tattooed arms folded over themselves as he spoke, the man looking like he’d just come from the kitchen he’d rather be in and not an intelligence gathering operation.  “Big problem.”  He said.

”Okay, I’m gonna guess.”  James said sullenly.  “Do the Tyrannies - also Alanna think of a rude name for these guys for me just in case we need it - do they have some kind of mind control over the entire EU?”

”Yes.”  Ben said.  Then James’ friend held up a hand, and coughed lightly.  “Okay no.  Spoke too soon.  But they do seem like they can give must-obey orders to anyone British within the UK’s borders.  Rough estimate.  And a weaker version farther out, again for locals only.”

”Shit, that’s bad.”  Alanna hissed out.  “Wait, only within the area?”

”Yeah, we know it doesn’t work on people outside, because the command to return isn’t a compulsion.”  Ben spoke in quick and precise terms.  “We also know they can do it over TV or radio, but there’s probably commands in place that we haven’t heard.  They’re set up in Buckingham Palace like they own the place, and the flow of visitors hasn’t stopped.”

”We’re surveilling them?”  James asked, surprised.

”Most CCTVs in the world.”  Nate said.  “And we can grow programs that ignore digital security.”

Alanna shuddered.  ”Terrifying.”

The snort Ben gave diverted from his professionalism a little.  “Hey, your species built the fucking panopticon.”

”Yeah, and my species sucks.”  Alanna reminded him.  “So if non-citizens aren’t affected by the mind control, we can get people out, right?”

”Yes, but.”  Nate hadn’t stopped frowning the whole time.  “Cam?”

The girl twitched the wings that were folded up at her sides, leaning over the desk to pull a different map in their direction.  “The Tyranny situation isn’t the current problem.”

”I was gone for an hour.”  James exclaimed.

Cam’s eye twitched.  She was keenly aware, apparently, that the last fourteen hours had been one of the most absurd days that the Order had participated in.  That the pile of new problems had begun growing and hadn’t really stopped.  And that she was about to contribute to that, too.  At least, as far as James’ point of view was concerned.

The knight didn’t sigh though.  That wasn’t who she was.  Instead, she just calmly delivered devastating news to the last person who wanted to hear it.  “The Underburbs has been located.”

”Right.”  James said blandly.

”Neat.”  Zhu added in a similar voice.

Ben looked up from whatever information he was trying to absorb off the screen.  “You two are taking this well…” he said with open suspicion.

”Fuck!”  Alanna yelled, as she figured out on a slight delay what word she felt was most appropriate.  James and Zhu both pointed at her in agreement, the human nodding solemnly with his eyes closed while the navigator just flattened his feathers back.

James tried to give a smile that came out less reassuring and more pitiful.  “She’s got the emotional side covered.”  He lied.  “So.  Details.  Now.  Is it active?  What’s our move here?  Oh, and where’d it show up?”  He pointed at the others, sweeping his hand around to catch the random members of the Order - mostly rogues - that were within range of the briefing but weren’t the ones delivering him bad news yet.  “No one say London.  I will scream.”

“That would be kinda funny.”  Alanna admitted.  “But yeah, where?  Do we need to grab specific niche language orbs?  And should we be getting armored up?”

”Redmond.”  Nate said.

”…Redmond… Washington?”  James asked with raised eyebrows.

Zhu huffed at him.  “You don’t know any other Redmonds and you know it.”

”How many… no don’t answer this.  Okay.  That’s unlikely.  There’s so much planet to cover, the odds it hit the US twice in a row is… slim.  Unless we’re misunderstanding something.”  James cupped his non-feathered hand around his mouth, humming in thought.  “How’d you find it anyway?”

”We didn’t.”  Ben said, not even looking away from the rogue that was talking to him, apparently capable of holding two conversations at once.  Or maybe this was Planner messing with reality.  Convenient, either way.  “Second did.”

Zhu made a respectful exclamation of surprise.  “Wow.  Go Second!  I couldn’t find any trace of it, though I guess I was kind of looking out of spite, so maybe that hurt my chances.”

”It might actually.” James considered.

Planner redirected Ben’s attention to his actual conversation, and continued answering the earlier question.  “As we have learned, all dungeons create disruptions in the physical world.  Weather alterations or variances in ground penetrating radar when their entrances are open, changes in local demographics, data of that nature.”  Their tentacles twisted around, forming patterns in the air as the assignment refocused onto James.  “Pinpointing entrances is next to impossible.  However, verifying methods with known dungeons has shown that we can get within ten miles if an area has proper record keeping.”

”So we know where the Underburbs is, within ten miles, and those ten miles are in Redmond.”  James concluded.  “Still doesn’t explain why it’s there, but…”

Planner cut him off.  ”No.  The Stratified Underburbs is unique among known dungeons.  Its entrance is always active, and incredibly large in scale relative to other dungeon thresholds.  Because of this, and because we have begun the process of acquiring reports from seismology research stations-“

Alanna snorted.  “You make that sound extra illegal.”

”-we have a clear idea of where the entrance is located, within point one miles.  Though not, yet, the size of the Underburbs itself.”  Planner finished without pausing for the interruption.

“It’s not killing people.”  Nate clarified with his more grumbly voice.  “Yet.  We just know where it is now.  Or at least, one of the places.  Since we know it can split.”

James took a breath, eyeing the other people in the room, and realizing that they were all definitely more tense than even he was.  How many of them had been at the last Underburbs assault?  How many of them had known one of the people who’d died there?

”Nate, important question.”  James said softly.

“Shoot.”

“Can I steal a nuclear weapon yet?”

Nate ignored him, which probably meant no.  “So here’s the question you get to answer, since you’re the closest paladin.”  And boy did James hate the way this sentence was starting.  He’d elevated other people to this rank so that he could avoid making strategic decisions.  “If we tackle the Underburbs, that’s another full deployment.  Every knight we can pull, every favor or mercenary we have to call in.”  That meant Harlan.  James was aware that meant Harlan.  James did not like that it meant Harlan.   “And then days of quarantine after.”

”Yeah, but what are we supposed to do?  Let it sit?”  James asked.

”Well, it’s the Underburbs, or the Tyrants.  Your pick.”  Nate laid out bluntly.

Zhu extended his talon in a questioning motion, grabbing their attention with a flash of orange light.  ”So… you want us to decide if we let the ambiguously evil Neo British Empire get a head start, or if we stop the worst dungeon ever from killing seventy thousand people in about a day with a variety of monsters and plagues?”

”Yeah.”  Nate said.

”Underburbs.”  James, Zhu, and Alanna answered at the same time, their voices twining around each other.  Alanna looked a little surprised, but looked to James for his clarification.  He shrugged.  “The ambiguously evil Neo British Empire can wait.  Or maybe it can’t, and Europe can handle itself.  We aren’t the only magical group out there, remember.”

”The other groups often aren’t allies.”  Cam pointed out.   “And those that are, aren’t combat ready in the same way we are.”

Nate grunted.  “Pillars.”  He offered.  “Whatever Status Quo exists, though we’d probably hope they’d lose a fight.  Other delver teams.”

“Correct.”  Cam almost rolled her eyes.  “It is the other delver teams that are a problem.  As one of those teams appears to have just magically annexed at least one nation by decapitating a monarchy and assuming direct control of parliament.”

The main eye Zhu had open turned up to look at James’ face.  “Can I monologue?”  He asked.

”I’m so proud of you.”  James muttered.  “Also no.”  He said in a louder voice.  “Keep it brief for now, monologue later.”

”Right.  I don’t care about a human government changing hands?  Is that… does that make me a bad person?”

Across the desk the group was using, Ben threw up his arms, almost startling the rogue he was talking to as he twisted in his seat.  “Thank you!”  He burst out.  “One less king?!  Oh no!”

”Ben shut up.”  Nate ordered his non-subordinate.

”Oh I’m sorry, were you personal friends with the king of England?”  Ben demanded hotly.

”I’m personal friends with some people who just got mind controlled via national border magic.”  Nate snapped back.  “So shut the fuck up.”

It was actually kind of terrifying to see Nate angry.  Nate, as far as James knew, existed in a constant state of low level ire.  He was eternally annoyed, put out, and huffy.  But he was never angry.

He also never talked about his social life.  That he had friends at all kind of shocked James, which felt bad to acknowledge.  He must have known people; he’d gotten his magical sword of Camille slaying from ‘a favor from a guy he knew’ after all.  But friends?

”You have friends?”  Alanna asked, more surprised than actually poking fun at Nate.

”Once.”  Nate replied, still scowling.  “I’m just telling you what you need to know.  Real people are going to be fucked by this.  A brand new government with no experience?  They can’t do this bloodlessly.  And I won’t let us throw people away half-assing one of these.”

James shook his head slowly, leaning on one of the few clear parts of the desk.  How had they already piled this many maps on a surface that had been clear just an hour ago?  It didn’t really matter, but he did reaffirm that they needed a better place for group meetings so they could stop fucking up the briefing warehouse. ”…Yeah.”  He sighed.  “We agreed to recruit and train knights on purpose, but that was earlier today, and I don’t believe that anyone got started yet.”

”I could get started, I know a guy.”  Ben said.

Cam and Nate both slowly turned around to stare at him.  Alanna and James were already doing the staring, not having to turn at all.  Ben just ignored them all.

”You understand the point.  We don’t have the manpower.”  Cam said as she stopped peering over the edge of her wing.

”Humanpower.”  Alanna corrected.  “Wait, no.”

”Personpower?”  James offered.  “That kinda sounds clunky.”

”Forget it.”  Nate ordered.  “You’ve gotta pick.  Cut back on delves, or Response ops.  Pause shield team training.  Something.  Or do you think you can reinstate a national government in a day all by yourself?”

”…Zhu would help.”  James defended himself.  At his side, his girlfriend gave him a flat stare, and when that went unnoticed, she jabbed a fist into his arm hard enough to launch most objects into orbit.  “Alanna would help!”  He added cheerfully.  “But no, Nate, I’m serious.  I stand by my ethical stance that we shouldn’t just kill people and take their stuff to solve problems, which is why I feel minimal pity for a British monarch.  Unless the Tyrannical Trio are ordering mass suicides or mobilizing for war or something, I would rather repel the Underburbs and then worry about them.  And when I say worry about them…”

”Oh hell.”  Alanna groaned.  “You want to talk to them.”

”Probably in their house, that I teleport into, as a power move!”  James said happily.  “But like a polite talk.  Also, on a practical level, we need to know what their crystal magic is doing before we start any confrontation.”

Alanna leaned on James’ shoulder, though not with enough weight to crush him.  “Yeah, gotta get some copies made.  Which I assume is where JP is?”  She paused, and then slowly looked over to where Ben and Planner were back to pretending to ignore the conversation as they worked.  “Hey wasn’t Ben in a foreign country?”  She asked slowly.

”And now I’m here and JP gets to talk to people.  You’re welcome.  Everyone gets what they want.”  Ben said with confident light sarcasm.

”Ben, you can’t…” James’ mouth morphed into a half frown, before he stopped himself.  Ben actually did kind of hate being around people.  Especially new people.  The obligate friend’s aura was a source of constant discomfort for Ben, and if James hadn’t needed to go fight monsters in a derelict warehouse earlier in the day, he would have teleported to Oslo instead of sending Ben.  “You know what, good job.  But also didn’t someone try to shoot JP earlier?  Also where did he leave the magic crystal?”

”Basement.  And yes.  In opposite order of questions.”  Cam answered.  “This is all a fascinating look at how your various minds function under pressure.  But I think we have our answer.”

”We could put it to a vote?”  James asked, before wincing and shaking his head as he retracted that.  ”No, nevermind.  We don’t vote on combat situations.  And this is… fuck, Nate’s right.”  He was mostly talking to himself now, and didn’t even give notice to the sarcastic raised eyebrows Nate gave him at the ‘admission’.  “This would be another war.  Small by historic standards, but… for us?  It’s another day of all-or-nothing.”  James was immune to the prohibition on monologuing.  “It’s the Underburbs though.  It has to be.  We can start evacuating people away from the Tyrannies, but… Cam how long do we have before the dungeon tries to eat another suburb?”

The girl looked at him like he had just grown another head.  “Why do you believe I know that?”

”Fair point.  Planner?”

”And how would I know more than Cam?”  The infomorph asked.

James felt like he was being mocked, though more by his own brain than by his companions.  Except Alanna.  Alanna was snickering at him and trying to cover it up.  “Okay so anywhere between three hours and two months.”  He was guessing based off the last time when they’d ‘spotted’ the dungeon in advance of its murder of part of Springfield.  “Actually shit, maybe that’s why it’s in the US.  We know it can kind of go all over the world, but if it’s actively attacking suburbs… a lot of places around the world don’t have that style of development.  Limited targets.”  He waved a hand to brush away the supposition.  “Something tells me we caught it early, so… we have a little time to prepare.  What do we do with that time?”

“Prep everyone?”  Alanna asked as she worked through the situation in her head.  “Get everyone into fighting shape, so… shit, we should slow down on delves, huh?  Or do we designate some delvers as uninvolved, and let them go ham trying to find a new wizard gun for us?”

“Don’t hate that.”  Nate grunted.  “What about Pylon levels?  Still want to do that?”

”That’s the least likely source of injuries.”  James laughed.  “So yeah, let’s get started on that.  Also let’s make sure our deployment roster is solid, and that everyone starts studying maps of Redmond now.  Knowing where we’re going to be makes this so much easier, doesn’t it?”  He got a nod from the others at the revelation.  “What else?  Authorities are already kind of optimized, so maybe hazmat training?  Oh!  We need a triage facility ready to swap in!”

”Bill is already on it, but I’ll speed him up.  Man has too many hobbies.”  When Nate said ‘hobbies’, he actually meant ‘full time jobs’.  If Bill had been anyone with more ambition, he could have owned his own island nation by now.  Instead he seemed to like the vibe of being an overworked contractor.

“Right.  Also.  Last time, there was that issue with weird magic messing with teamwork, so let’s make sure we have knight squads planned out in advance this time.”  James added.

The noise Planner made was a haughty flick of a quill over parchment.  “I have already begun arrangements.”

”Good.”  James nodded.  “In the meantime…” he glanced at Alanna.  “If we’re not instantly teleporting overseas, and we have a week before we need to fight more intentionally unsettling mannequins, then there’s a tiny window for picking up more potentially useful magic.”

“You have an addiction.”  Alanna told him jokingly.  “I love it.  I’m in.”

Zhu’s feathers flared out along James’ arm.  ”Same, but also I don’t think it’s an addiction!  It’s like the paranoia thing; it doesn’t count as a disorder if people really are trying to shoot him all the time and more force fields would be a good idea!”

Wow did James ever not like how that was phrased.  Even if it was true.  He met Nate’s eyes, both of them sharing the same thought, before James added one last thing.  “I’ll try to make sure our paladins are ready and available too.  Which reminds me.  You two have a new roommate, courtesy of Spire.”

Cam and Nate both stiffened, before Cam slowly and deliberately asked for clarification.  “What exactly does that mean?”

“That you have too many sisters.”  James answered.

”Motherfucker.”  Nate swore, a heavy hand sweeping back over the smooth surface of his head as he tried to decide if burning his apartment down now was easier than dealing with this again.  “I’m not a fucking halfway house for wayward superweapons!”

Cam, slowly and oddly gently, reached out and tentatively set a hand on his shoulder.  “I have bad news.”  She said.

James made his escape with the other two gremlins in his party before any of them started laughing at the guy who looked like he was having the most frustrating day of his life.

_____

The Order of Endless Rooms had sort of fallen into a lot of its important definitions.  Like, for example, the title of knight.

What did it mean to be a knight of the Order?  At first, it had kind of been a joking term passed around among the people that had been dumb enough to survive one dungeon, and then step up to fight another one before they’d even gotten their lives back together.  Then that term had stuck, and they’d started using it on purpose for the people who kept volunteering for the dangerous stuff.

That was kind of the important line.  If you were a member of the Order, there was a pretty sizable pile of options for work to take on that wasn’t dangerous.  Or where the risk was formed out of lab safety checks and strange dungeontech.  But there were some things that meant you’d be fighting things like dungeon life or sometimes more human-shaped monsters.  Putting yourself at risk of not just an accident on a job site, but of actual violence from something that wanted you dead.

A good chunk of Response were knights, though not all of them.  A lot of delvers were too, though again, perhaps surprisingly, not everyone.  And in a reverse surprise, some people who didn’t make being an action movie protagonist into their day job were on the list of knights; showing up for the escalating training sessions and honing themselves for when they were needed.

So once the Order had realized that knights were their primary combat force, they had needed to not just use the definition, but actually put weight behind it.  You couldn’t just call someone a hero and expect them to survive the worst day of their life a dozen times in a row.

Training was part of it, but ‘training’ was a limited term that didn’t quite explain exactly what the Order was doing.  Physical conditioning for knights was amplified by the use of exercise potion; condensing a week worth of strength training and cardio into a few hours.  A few hours which could then be repeated.  If someone had the mental discipline, they could go through a month of conditioning in a day, and unless you were physically injured, there was no drawback to doing that over and over until a person was at a high level of human performance.

Or whatever species type of performance.  Not every knight was human.

Training did also include tactical situations, weapons practice, crisis management, and even things like public speaking and deescalation tactics.  If a knight stopped a fight nonviolently, that was still a win.  But all of that practice was amplified and altered by the various forms of magical skill boosts the Order had.

Skill orbs from Officium Mundi meant that a lot of practice was integrating implanted ability into a person’s reflexes.  Shell orbs from that same dungeon meant that a knight could do more, and more importantly, survive more, than almost anyone else.  Learning orbs from the Stacks mixed with special training gear let knights practice and improve slightly faster.  Through the use of skulljacks and .mem files, more diverse and complex skills could be shared around, and through practice with the skulljacks, knight teams learned how to share their perceptions, tactical situations, and plans, all on the fly without speaking a word.  Sometimes while using those same skulljacks to compromise local digital security with just their own mental focus.

Most knights also got a Lesson from the Akashic Sewer.  The bonuses from those weren’t exactly uniform, so each knight had to adapt to whatever boost they were focusing on, but what was lost in legibility was more than made up for by the fact that three ranks in a single Lesson stat started to give people an edge in whatever they picked that was far beyond the peak ability of a natural person.  And those boosts got even better when a person actually practiced at making use of them.

Almost every knight also had an infomorph companion.  The sophont ones, assignments or navigators, were usually knights in their own right too.  And a trained duo could do more than either of them could on their own.  A combination with a navigator turned into the ultimate search-and-rescue team, while a pair that had an assignment was closer to a localized disaster for any hostile force they met.  Authorities, with their animalistic intelligence but much more bluntly physical capability, just made the knights that used them into even harder to stop threats that could also go toe-to-toe with esoteric enemies.

On top of all of that, there was the projected magic.  Spells from the Climb or Horizon, limited by their special mana pools and so not great for prolonged engagements, still let a knight take on a wide range of different challenges that weren’t specifically combat.  And everyone had almost every Horizon spell, since they were so easy to copy.  Absorbed blue and red orbs from the Office gave even more options, with a mechanically different but practically similar ammunition load.

So the ‘average’ knight was capable of finishing a marathon, surviving being hit by a truck, winning a fight with one of a half dozen different styles of weapon, locating survivors of a disaster, performing advanced first aid, and just for good measure, breathing fire.

Sequentially.

The average knight could start that list, and go through the whole thing.  And add more to it depending on their specializations, Lessons, specific spells, and team composition.

And a lot of knights didn’t stop at average.

After establishing this baseline for capability for the people that the Order would often call on to fight dungeon incursions and wizard fascists, there was one more step in the process.  Well, technically, there was one step, and then an ongoing never ending process of continuing to practice scenarios and hone skills and acquire more dungeon magic.  But the step was an important one.

A knight wasn’t really a knight without the armor and lance.

The Order’s standard armor was mostly just repurposed anti-riot style body armor.  Kevlar lining and hard plastic shell that covered the chest and limbs in a series of plate guards.  So far, the Order only had two methods of enchanting things; one that hadn’t been made to work on any of the armor yet, and one that made it disintegrate if it took even the slightest damage.  So the armor was mundane.  Mundane, but actually still shockingly useful, and the information they got from some of their iLipedes on individual suits of the stuff made it clear that they were responsible for preventing not just a lot of injuries, but sometimes lethal ones.

Added to that were shield bracers, the leveler items constantly getting better over time as they were used to block incoming attacks.  Greaves were less defensive, but also leveled up as they adjusted a knight’s stance to prevent destabilization, and sometimes let them launch themselves at high speed when needed.  More on the defensive note were the protective charms that Kiki had made for them.  The woman, embodying her iconic name of Kill ‘Em With Kindness, was capable of crunching weaponry down into small silver and bronze charms that would shatter - temporarially - when their wearer would have taken serious damage, keeping them safe instead.  It was, surprisingly, not the most powerful tool the Order had, but it was still a game changer.

For armament, knights each carried a melee weapon, and a gun.  It turned out, guns were useful.  A fact that annoyed James to no end.  But mixed with the other leveler item of the bracelets that could reload, burst fire, or prevent friendly fire, guns suddenly became a much more precise tool.  The fact that those bracelets worked on grenade launchers was even better, though the massive cooldown time to bind a new weapon was a problem.

Melee weapons were often obsoleted by guns, but they had a few advantages.  No ammo cost, for one.  And they worked with other magic.  Sometimes, they just were magic.  The knives that could cut wi-fi signals were a big one of those, summonable by a different spell and then sticking around forever.  Most knights would never need to stab anything up close, but if they did, they would.  They’d be armed and prepared, and though there was no statistic on this, it would probably be concerning to anyone who heard the true number just how many knights would have been willing to stand in the way of a threat with nothing but a staff and a hope if it meant keeping the people behind them safe for slightly longer.

Added to all of that was utility.  Magical notepads for teleporting, mundane drones for scouting, a variety of other dungeontech from special glasses to wands that could store multiple casts of the Climb spells.

Humans made good knights.  They were flexible and durable, even if they had no innate magic.  Camracondas made good knights.  Their gaze made them a nightmare for any single mobile problem, and when working in a team their lack of organic limbs was mitigated.  Ratroaches made good knights.  Their natural semi-ambidexterity and extra limbs and eyes gave them a lot of options.  Navigators made good knights.  Their manifestations were hard to permanently damage, and their innate pathfinding magic was a critical addition to a lot of teams, plus they could give anyone they were attached to a cool feather layer.

One day, maybe one day soon, there would be good umbral knights.  Good chanter knights.  Good ratling knights.  Good crocamaw knights.  Maybe even good necroad knights.

The Order of Endless Rooms took the people who wanted to help others, and were willing to risk everything for it, and gave them the power to do it.  And so far, they had made a lot of good knights.

Paladins were a little different.  In many ways, they were the same as knights when it came to the options available.  The only change was the scale.  A paladin wasn’t on call for the next crisis, a paladin was always up to something.  Working on something.  Fighting something.  Not that they didn’t get breaks, but it was only a little hyperbole to say that a knight’s hardest deployment was a paladin’s day job.

And on the other side of the scale, paladins had a lot of magic invested in them.

If a knight got a skill orb, one of the Order’s paladins got five.  If a resource had limited uses, some of them were always earmarked for the paladins. If a new dungeon was discovered, paladins were among the first into it.  It wasn’t always structured, they were often forerunners into the unknown reaches of magic, and so none of the four paladins had what could be called ‘intentional builds’.  In many ways, the knights that came after them were going to be stronger and more powerful; they were streamlined.

But when it came to sheer volume of tricks, experience, spells, bullshit, and attitude, paladins were at the top of the rankings.

And James, knowing that there was something big coming up, was determined to make sure that he stacked his character sheet with as many things to tip the odds as possible.

_____

“Panning a build for you is a nightmare!”  James’ best friend in the world told him with the kind of cheerful refusal to bow to despair that she attacked basically every problem in her life with.

Sarah was sitting with James in the Lair’s dining hall… thing.  Calling it a cafeteria wasn’t right, but it also wasn’t wrong.  It was a big communal eating place with cool furniture and imperfectly made art on the walls that had been created by people who lived here and loved this place, and it also served a variety of stuff that was eclectic enough that no one would ever call it a specific kind of restaurant.

She loved it.  Because of course she did.  There was very little in the world that Sarah didn’t love.  And most of the things on the list were actively malicious, like the Akashic Sewer, or petroleum executives.  And even then, she had a lot of pity for the Sewer, and a lot of hope for it to change some day.

“It’s not that bad.”  James told her.  Like a liar.

”It is that bad.  We’ve done this before.  You’ve sorrrrrrta ruined things.”  Sarah replied with a smile that brightened the conversation and made it clear she wasn’t actually being mean.

James rolled his eyes at her, putting off a similar mood, but with much less power than Sarah had.  If he didn’t know better, he’d say she was doing something magic, but it seemed like this was just who Sarah was.  “You’ve been doing this for people professionally, I just figured I’d ask before I do anything… uh…”

”The simple fact that you need to buy time to think of an adjective there tells me that you know you ruined things.”  Sarah poked her pencil at him.  “But that’s the price you pay for being first to everything!”

”To be fair, Nik was the first to the authority thing.”

”Great, get an authority then!”  Sarah instructed him.

James made a wavering motion with his hand, an orange glow just barely starting to bleed feathers out of his skin as Zhu took his time manifesting.  “Zhu’s got a whole concern about having a pet.”  He said, and the navigator stilled and then sunk back into him as the concern was voiced without his intervention.  “Also I don’t feel like I’d be a good fit.  I don’t have a structural job, even like the other three.”

”Okay.”  Sarah slashed her pencil onto the notebook she had flipped to a new James-based page for this for, crossing off another option.  “So let’s recap!”

”…Must we?”  James winced.

”Already picked all nine Climb spells you have and don’t have weeks to spend delving to try to get more.”

James nodded.  “I like most of my spells.  Shoulda taken Altitude Adept though.”

”Three Sewer Lessons, which means two mistakes.”

”In my defense I don’t really play basketball that much, except when Anesh and I have free time and aren’t tired.  Which is more often these days, but…”

”Already made a Route Horizon spell choice-“

”Oh that’s one of those ‘first in’ things.  I mean, I kind of chose, but I was also helping to test.”

”Already have an orange absorb.”  Sarah looked up, waiting for James to contend with that, but he just shrugged at her.  That one was totally correct.  “And you’ve already spent thirty two Pylon Points, which means you’ll be needing to discover whole new milestones to get more out of that, and you’re doing your first-in thing to test links before anyone else!”

”That all sounds about right.”  James nodded as he scrounged up some of the crumbs of deep fried onion off his plate to pop into his mouth, wiping his fingers on his pants in the closest act he’d ever get to true barbarism.

Sarah gave him a look halfway between puzzled and perplexed.  “Why did you ask for my help planning out your magic development?”  She asked.  “I mean… I can help with some things I guess?  Just not planning.  Like we’ve got practice later tonight for avatar testing!  Or I caaaaaan… no that’s it!  So why?”

”I can’t just want to hang out with my friend?”  James asked with a winning smile.

That was incredibly suspicious to Sarah, who peered at her roommate with a gaze that looked like it was trying to analyze individual molecular bonds.  “You never take breaks… we only ever hang out when we’re crossing paths working on projects, or when you make dinner at home, or when I try to go to bed and walk in on you and Alanna-“

”Now who’s acting weird?”  James said, parrying the mild embarrassment with his own humor.  “Actually though, I’m kinda serious here.  I was hoping that you’d help me figure out if there was anything I was missing.  Magic I wasn’t making full use of, you know?  Since you seem to know what’s on my character sheet already anyway…”  He did kind of wonder how Sarah had filled out that notebook page so fast.

”Oh!”  Sarah leaned her elbows onto the table, running a finger around her ear while her other digits drummed on the tabletop.  “Well, you could ask the umbral if any of them want to try sparring with you?  Or, even better, play basketball.  How close are you to another level in that?”

”…thirty nine hundred points.”

Sarah took that information in stride.  “Okay!  Not that!  But maybe that?  I bet they’d like to have some kind of sport they could share, and you’re good at being up front about the magic side.  You’re probably on your way to a second spell anyway just because you ruined a lot of people’s time at the solstice obstacle course.”

”That counts, you think?”  James raised his eyebrows.

”That counts I know!  There’s a whole bunch of impractical first level spells out there now!”  Sarah had a list.  Some of them were truly silly.  Like the kid human who had gotten a daily cast of Age Cheese.  Something he wouldn’t appreciate for years to come probably, but which was worth trading for more fun magic from the chefs in the population.  But the magic that came from the umbral was capable of being silly or serious at any time, and a lot of people had picked up Weaken Disease, Resist Cold, and Survive Blunt Force Trauma.  Sarah understood why, too.  The world was scary sometimes.  “So you could always check.  Or go rack up more progress by enduring Terror’s whole tsundere thing toward you!”

”His what?”

”Don’t worry about it!”  Sarah tapped her nose, suppressing a giggle at her friend’s blank stare.  “Well.  What about shaper surgery?”  She asked, changing topics.

”I already did that.”  James arched his arm around to bring a single finger up to point at his eye that he’d stolen the design of from an eagle.  “I’m a real transhumanist now.  Look!”

Sarah rolled her entirely human eyes at James’ mismatched pair.  “You don’t want to be something else?”  She asked, her voice quiet, but still audible over the background chatter of the fifty other people in the room.  “Build yourself a body that you actually want?”

”I…” James suddenly realized his throat felt tight.  “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”  He said, looking away from his friend.  His arms crossed on the table as he hunched forward.  “Besides, I don’t actually hate my body.”  He lied as he pulled his thoughts together.  “I just don’t think I know what I want to be enough.”

A soft hand fell over James’ forearm.  ”You aren’t really joking when you make those comments about being a mothgirl, are you?”  Sarah asked with quiet compassion.

”Not really.  But also, kinda!  It’s one of those things where it’s funny but not really a ‘joke’.”  James laughed, finding Sarah’s presence and casual reassurance made this a lot easier.  “I think I’d probably enjoy that for a little bit, and then want to change again.  I think I’m into the idea of being something else more than whatever the else is.”  He shrugged. “And that’s a liability.”

”James.”  Sarah quirked a frown at him.

”No, look, it is.”  He looked back at her, pressing his point.  “In a perfect world, I’d get to screw around as much as I want with my body.  But here?  I’m going to get hurt again eventually.”  He said it easily, but having now been hurt seriously enough to mutilate his body, it wasn’t exactly fun to admit.  “The shaper substance has a finite number of changes it can make.  I can’t waste mine having fun.  Not yet anyway.  Not when I might need it to regrow an arm or something.  And besides!  The ratroaches need it way more.  The crocamaws and camracondas too!”

”Someday it won’t be limited.”  Sarah threatened him.  “And crocamaws?”

”The capsaicin thing.”  James clarified.  “It’s a small change, and it’s important, because it’s an insane risk.  One wrong bite of food and they might die.”  Sarah had never really been a spicy food person before Anesh entered their lives, but the thought of having to give it up now stung.  So she nodded along with the explanation as soon as she got it.  “Anyway.”  James said.  “Odds are good that we’ll find some kind of magical transformation magic I can use before we have a surplus of shaper substance.  Or I can just body swap with a ratroach for a while for fun?”  He shrugged, still not dislodging Sarah’s hand on his arm.  “The bigger point is that I’m trying to figure out how to become stronger, and learning a new body is a massive setback.”

Having heard similar news from her girlfriend, Sarah understood.  Apparently Alanna and James, despite being comfortable trading bodies with each other sometimes, found each other’s forms to be ‘clunky’.  The fact that the two used the same word for it, in completely different conversations, had set Sarah’s laughter off when she’d heard it, but it also made sense.  People didn’t just get dropped into a form with more muscles and suddenly know how to use that strength.

She was still committed to trying to help James with his current problem though.  The problem that didn’t involve turning into a unique species.  “Well.  The easiest thing I can think of, at least for you, is more Pylon Motoric delving.  Since you insist on being first to bad ideas, you could tell us what the spellcasting levels do!”  The fact that the Pylon let people level up in magic from other dungeons was bizarre and Sarah was looking forward to seeing how it chained with the Garden magic’s links.

”I could get some time in there when everyone else is doing their intro delves.”  James mused.  “Which we’re starting… tomorrow.”

”Cool!  And then you can take a nap!”

”Oh, James, you have to eat dinner.  Oh, James, you have to sleep.  Oh, James, stop getting thrown out of windows.  Ugh.  Everyone is so needy.”  James complained.

Sarah’s grip on his arm tightened, and she slowly applied pressure until James went along with her prompting and let her lift his arm off the table.  And then she hit him in the head with his own limp hand.  “Dummy.”  She grumbled at him.  But she did it while feeding James about ten minutes of her own rest through the Attic bond they shared.  It wasn’t as useful in a fight as his ability to swap physical strength back and forth with Alanna, but Sarah still found their little personal power really handy.

The problem was what James needed magic for.  Which was surviving and winning fights.

So Sarah mentally flipped through her internal directory of names and faces and biographies that she had of everyone in the Order.  Friends and acquaintances and companions she hadn’t met fully yet.  People who had their own various magics that might be sharable, looking for something that could help her friend.  The chanters could give magic, but only if they died, so that was out.  There were a few leftover forms of orphaned magic from other dungeons, but Azalea couldn’t share her action enhancements, and Katie’s birthday magic was similarly bound to her permanently, so that was out.  In theory they might be able to put people into medical comas to trigger their loot drops, but Sarah was pretty sure only a couple of the old Horizonist cult would even consider agreeing to that, and it was a terrible idea anyway.

’You were only technically dead’ was also a sentence Sarah didn’t want to say to anyone.  Especially having heard it herself, once or twice.  No, magic based on friendship was much better than magic based on possibly unethical medical tests.  The problem was there were really only two sources of friendship magic.  Any interaction with Verdigris Venture life had a chance to create more spell coins, but James didn’t need more spell slots, unless they were the elusive level four coins.  And also befriending stuff animals gave a small damage shield, but befriending the little guys just for that was evil and both Sarah and James rejected the idea of that kind of manipulation.

Unfortunately, while James made friends with a lot of random people, most of them didn’t have their own dungeons that they could… share…

”I have an idea.”  Sarah said, already sending a message through the Order’s network, and getting a reply from the person on the other end a lot faster than she expected.

James raised his eyebrows at her, and waited.  When Sarah wasn’t forthcoming with any information, he kept waiting, but eventually broke first.  “Do I get to know what the idea is?”  He asked.  Sarah just held up a finger like she was shushing him, her smile staying in place as she bobbed her head from side to side, hoping she wasn’t misjudging the timing.  “…Sarah?  You alive?”  James asked.

Two seconds after he spoke, a woman in a leather jacket covered in patches and punk iconography that had seen at least a few rounds of battle damage and amateur repairs slid into the seat next to James.  He didn’t jump, he’d started learning how to keep a closer eye on his surroundings even when - perhaps especially when - talking to his friends.  But he did wonder why she was here.

”Yo.”  Vex said, scratching the back of her head as she settled in.  “You called?”

”James requires the power of friendship!”  Sarah declared.

Vex tilted her head to glance at James, who glanced back at her with an apologetic pursed lip look.  “Un-yo.”  Vex said, moving to stand up.

“No wait!”  Sarah said, laughing as she reached out to stop Vex through sheer force of will.  “What I mean is,” she clarified before the other delver could get out of her seat, “James needs to be even more magical before the next terrible thing happens in a couple weeks or something, can you help?”

That made more sense.  Vex gave a single protracted nod of understanding.  “You want our dungeon?”  She asked, using the Order’s terminology pretty easily after almost a month of being with them.

”I had actually forgotten, but yeah, now that Sarah brings it up, that would be cool.”  James said with his own nod.  “Obviously I’m not gonna force you.  But the Underburbs has been spotted and we know there’s a limited window before the-“

Vex cut him off instantly at the mention of the Underburbs.  ”Gotchya.  I’ll get Astra, we’ll need to re-figure out how we breach in with a new person again, since sometimes we randomly forget details.  Or maybe that’s just me.  Can we bring one of those APCs the road dungeon guys use?”

”…I’m regretting this already.  Vex I never actually asked, what the fuck is your dungeon like?”

”Oh, it’s got one of those memeplex things over it, so I can’t tell you here.  You’ll probably love it though.” She jerked a thumb at James.

”Alright, that’s-“

”Because you’re insane.”

“-cool.  Cool.”  James sighed, regretting this for a different reason.  “Can I bring my coterie, or is this some kind of thing where only three people can go in at once?”

”Honestly, no idea, but I guess we’ll find out.”  Vex shrugged.  “Anyway, full moon starts tomorrow, so we can just go if you want.  No promises we can get in, but we can fuckin’ try, and also I can hit up Canes while were there.  If the place survived.”  Vex had kind of hated the city she’d lived in, but she still had a really good reason to do anything it took to stab the Underburbs in the throat.  Two reasons if you counted the possible death of the fried chicken place she’d met Mags at.  “Oh, I’m supposed to be doing some kind of Pylon thing though.”

James hummed, wondering if Planner was listening in.  ”Actually that works perfectly.  I’m planning on something similar in the morning, then if we’re not dead, we can go in the evening?  I assume ‘full moon’ means it has to be at night.” Vex started to talk, then glared at the open air, and slammed her mouth shut, shrugging aggressively.  “Cool.  Love that.”  James sighed.  “Alright.  I’ll meet you tomorrow after the Pylon.”  He told Vex.  “And thanks.”

”Yeah no problem.  Especially if you’re starting a war with that fucking thing again.”  She said, actually standing up this time.  “Anything else?”

”Nah.  You?”

”…what the fuck is a coterie?”  Vex asked him.

”A group of coteriers.”

”I have such a fucking love-hate relationship with everything and everyone in this building.”  Vex swatted the edge of her jacket back into place as she pivoted and stomped off.

Sarah followed up on the line of thinking though.  “Do you even have a coterie that isn’t just our girlfriend looking all menacing and looming behind you while you monologue?”

”First of all, stop being way too accurate.”  James challenged his friend, checking over his shoulder to make sure Alanna was currently looming at him.  “Also Zhu counts.  And Arrush!  And… actually I need to talk to TQ, too.  A lot.”

”You know, Spire’s coterie is just people who’d go to the ends of multiple worlds for her.”  Sarah said as she glanced toward the kitchen, wondering if the smell of fresh pastries meant that the bakery that somehow existed ‘upstairs’ was about to restock the snack bar with something she’d be happy to ravenously assault.  “And Simon’s coterie is all failed politicians!”

”So you’re saying that I finally got the best magic out of all the paladins.”  James concluded with a smug nod, pushing off the table and standing up.  “I agree.  Now.  Do we abuse our soft power by stealing scones before anyone else gets a chance?  Because I’ve still got to go track down a camraconda before I head home and collapse in a pile for a little while.”

”I refuse to believe you aren’t overworking yourself.”  Sarah told her friend as she started plotting out their escape route.