The Daily Grind - Chapter 376 (Patreon)

“I swear I can make everything right, if I can make it in time.”  -The Protomen, Hold On (The Distance Between)-

_____

“You are telling me.”  Nate said as he stared with hollow eyes at where James was sitting with a few other people and on Anesh’s lap.  “That there are.  What?  Thirty?  Forty?  Feral boars with magic.  And they’re murking dungeon targets.”  He spoke slowly, in a clipped tone that made his displeasure clear.

”I’m telling you there’s probably five or six feral hogs, that apparently took my joke about studying the blade a little too seriously, which’ll teach me to speak out loud where the universe can hear me.”  James pointed out.  “It’s sorta weird, actually.  The Heard orbs are actually bad in a lot of ways?  If this was a pack of raccoons hitting Officium Mundi, I could understand them developing tactics and tool use.  But short of being astoundingly lucky, I don’t get how they’re improving the way they are.  Assuming we’re even understanding what’s going on properly.”  James said, finally giving up sitting on his boyfriend and sliding off onto the couch cushion next to Anesh, the smaller man giving a relieved gasp as his ability to breathe was returned to him.

Not that Anesh needed to breathe that much, but human habits were hard to break.

“Do you ever show up with good news?”  Nate asked.

James looked around at the small group of new nonhumans he and Anesh were chatting with.  “…That seems like a mean thing to say…” He started.

”I forgot my own fucking bed existed, you can handle it.”  Nate barked, before giving an exasperated snort and turning to stalk away.

Anesh cleared his throat.  “So…” the increasingly expatriated human drawled, “sometimes humans are a little temperamental…”

One of the ratlings sitting on the couches with them erupted into a snickering laugh, sliding down the cushions to pool on the floor like her body was less bone and fur and more some kind of semisolid ooze.

They were sitting in the Lair’s lobby.  Technically.  The Order had, in the process of recruiting a new wave of people earlier in the day, gone through the apparent ritual of getting each of them to test a green orb.  And one of those orbs had added a comfortable ‘conversation pit’ to the lobby that looked like it had fallen out of the mid seventies.  Sunken into the floor with a square formation of couches that they definitely needed to reupholster sometime and two small sets of steps down to it, it was thankfully not in anyone’s way and was instead located… sideways.

It was located somewhere.  In a place that James had a really hard time describing.  It was in the middle of the room, but it was also not.  But it wasn’t just attached to the side.  A superposition of seating.

They’d known green orbs could do some absurd stuff, but this one was kind of crossing a line the others hadn’t.  Or maybe it wasn’t, and this was just what was happening every time it added an alcove or extra refrigerator space, and now it was out in the open.  Visible, in how it wasn’t supposed to be visible.

Opinions in the Lair were mixed.  Though they’d probably be less mixed if anyone had tripped into the pit, but it seemed impossible to do that so far.

Which was good, because James and Anesh were sitting in it.  Along with a trio of ratlings from the first group that had come out of the Pylon, an umbral that had apparently appeared in their Saskatoon dungeon two weeks ago, a ratroach that had been in the medical basement for the last two months and was finally ready to step out of it, and a crocamaw that Simon had dropped off at the Lair and who James was pretty sure was here by coincidence and not because she was intentionally talking to them.

Also Quinn, but everyone already knew Quinn.

James watched the ratling that was curled up on the floor huffing small gasps of amusement for a moment, before casually looking back up at the others.  It was fascinating to him how, even if he didn’t know anything about their species and origins, just the way they sat said so much.

The umbral, who had named himself Aurora in a move James found suitably ironic, took up half a couch with his central body half split open, one heavy arm resting over the cushions, upper tendrils swaying like he was resting in a calm current.  He was forcing it a little, but what he was forcing was trying to look cool, not trying to keep from panicking.

The crocamaw, Ioconia, was sitting like she was expecting to be punished if she slouched, her yard-long mouth partly covering where her hands were folded politely in her lap, and was a sharp contrast to Scrap, the ratroach sitting with his digitigrade legs folded underneath himself, body curled forward, one of his arms acting as a platform for one of his tails that he appeared to be gnawing on as a kind of unconscious stress response.

The ratlings, in contrast, sat like they belonged.  Barring the one on the floor, the other two were sitting in the corner of two couches, one next to Scrap and one by Quinn, and they looked totally at home here. James had noticed this about the species since the first interaction he’d had with them outside of the dungeon, and it just kept being reinforced.  Ratlings took everything at face value, and they did so to an intellectual extreme that made them actually kind of concerning in terms of whether or not that was going to be a security risk in the future.

The couch opposite Anesh and James just had their friend on it, and James had to continually hammer himself with the reminder that he didn’t know Quinn.  Not because he was worried about being sucked into the obligate friend’s emotional trap or anything, but because he didn’t want to say something stupid and come across as an asshole to the newest member of the Order that had walked out of Winter’s Climb to find them.

“Doing alright?”  James quietly asked Scrap, the ratroach being the one who had reacted the most to Nate stalking past and had done so mostly by going silent.  James had gotten really good at reading ratroach body language, and only partly for personal reasons, so he could tell Scrap was doing his best to do the thing where he made himself small and hoped to be ignored.  But James also knew that letting that happen was a mistake; being ignored wasn’t the same thing as being made to feel safe.

Scrap nodded almost on reflex, before stilling as Aurora turned one of his thick colored eyes on the ratroach.  Stilling himself, Scrap stopped chewing on his own tail and took a breath.  “J-ust a l-lot.”  He looked in the direction Nate had stalked off.

”Yeah, I hear ya.”  James rolled his eyes in Nate’s direction.  “Would you believe that guy is probably the best person to go to if you’re ever in trouble?”  He could see the doubt in the splash of rodent eyes that dotted the right side of Scrap’s face, the ratroach having the oddest distribution he’d seen so far, with one multifaceted insectile eye on his left side and a cluster of five beady mammalian orbs on the other.  “Okay, no, that’s an exaggeration.  But Nate’s secretly a good guy.”

”Very secretly.”  Anesh added with wry humor, prompting the ratling on the floor to devolve into more snickers.

“So!”  James tried to drag them back to the conversation.  “To finish the thought Nate demolished.  We’ve been steadily exposing the surrounding area to… uh… us.  There’s not a huge amount of stuff within easy walking distance, but there’s at least a few restaurants, and they’re cool with you guys walking in.  Also, for reasons I do not fully understand, there’s basically zero police presence within a mile of here.  Still, maybe don’t go out alone, just in case.  It sucks, but… it is what it is.”  Quinn raised his hand, and James didn’t even turn his head.  “No not you.”

The friend gave an unamused smile for a second.  “No, what about Townton?”

”Townton is entirely safe for everyone.”  Anesh said slowly.  “But that’s not what you’re asking?”

”Why is Townton safer?”

James blinked.  “Quinn, how long have you been here?”  He asked suddenly.  “I just realized I don’t know because of The Circumstances.  You’re working with Myles, right?  Did he not tell you anything about our background?”

”Ben gave me the highlights.”

Hon perked up from where he was sitting nearby.  ”I’ve met Ben!”

”No you haven’t.”  James quickly pointed out, comprehending that the comment meant that Ben was nearby somewhere.  “Okay.  Uh… the Order more or less owns a small town in Tennessee.  It… had a disaster.  We moved in afterward.  Honestly at this point, with all the mold damage to the collapsed buildings and most of the useful stuff salvaged, the main value of the place is that it got erased from a lot of records, and it’s mildly isolated.  So we’ve been rebuilding it, and it’s entirely populated by our kind of people.”

Anesh patted James on the shoulder.  “Our kind of people sounds very ominous when you say it without context.”  He said pleasantly.

”My kind of people.”  James ‘clarified’.

Ioconia raised her eyes up slightly to almost meet James’ own gaze, seeming almost more afraid to speak up than Scrap was.  “May I be placed in Townton?”  She asked in a whisper.

James closed his eyes for a second and took a breath to get the spark of anger under control.  It wouldn’t do to show it around any of them; it wasn’t for these new arrivals, it was for the people who had hurt them before the Order had gotten their hands on them.  “Io,” he gave her a nickname almost on a reflex of his own, “you can go wherever you want.  If Townton sounds like a better place for you, we’ll make it happen.”

”I… I was assigned to someone.”  Ioconia said, scaled hands folding and twisting in her lap as she sat with her perfect posture.

”Ah!  No.”  James tried to approach this with a lighthearted correction.  This was a common thing for new crocamaws, but fortunately, it was something they could work past pretty quickly once they got used to a new pattern of daily life.  “You’ve got a temporary guardian.  There’s lots of volunteers on that list, and we can shuffle you through any number of them until you either feel comfortable living on your own or find someone that you click with.  Some of those people are in Townton!  If you wanna be down there and not at the Lair, we can make that happen.  It’s entirely your choice.  You’re also allowed to visit if you want, to see if you like it first?”  He offered, and saw the crocamaw’s eyes widen as she digested that information.

Aurora exhaled a summer breeze of a laugh.  “This happens a lot, doesn’t it?”  He asked.

James cocked an eyebrow.  “What?”

”Someone misunderstanding.”  The umbral said.  “A lot of the people back home did this.” Ioconia stiffened even further at the words, and Aurora splayed his fingers at her in a sudden apologetic motion.  “I don’t mean it’s your fault!”  He said quickly.  “Just that it keeps happening.  But hey!  These guys seem cool, you probably don’t have to worry about anything.”  The umbral paused, then looked back and forth between the crocamaw and the humans.  “Uh… why did you think you’d be placed somewhere?”

”That’s what I was kept for.”  Ioconia said out of the side of her mouth, her voice smooth despite the rapid flicking of her dual eyelids.

Anesh interjected softly.  “The majority of crocamaws here were kept under a mind control and imprisonment spell.”  He said.  “Which the Order doesn’t use, because…”

”Because it’s a mind control and imprisonment spell.”  James finished bluntly.

“What happened to the people who used the spell?”  Aurora asked.

Ioconoia answered with an angry snarl from one part of her mouth, and words from another.  “The one that kept me is dead.”  She bit out before flinching and bringing her hands up to clap over the parts of her maw she’d been making noise from, the different shades of green contrasting lightly.

Aurora nodded.  “So you guys have villains!  See!  This is why I wanted to be here!”

”…Hang on, I feel like now I’m the one misunderstanding something.”  James said.  “This is the ‘friendly chat about life’ zone.  Aurora, why are you here?”

”To have a friendly chat about life!”  The umbral said happily, thick fingers of living shadow drumming on the back of the couch.  When James and Anesh gave him an almost perfectly mirrored look of mild disbelief that clearly invited him to keep talking, he made a sound like discharging static, and added, “And because I want to be a knight…”

”You’ve been here for a day.”  James said with a sigh.

”Yeah, and I’ve known about you guys my whole life!”  Aurora said, as if that were a good reason coming from someone who was twelve days old.  “I’ve wanted to be a knight since I got outside!”

Tail flicking back and forth, Scrap raised one of his paws into the air slowly, mimicking a gesture he’d seen some of the medical staff do.  “I-I-I-I a-also w-w-wanted that.” He stammered.

James pressed his eyes closed, ignoring Anesh shaking with silent laughter next to him though appreciating that his boyfriend’s hand was gently rubbing at his neck in a deeply relaxing touch.  “Anyone else here - Quinn shut the hell up - anyone else here secretly wanting to join the Order and not just learn about what pizza places around here are cool with a multispecies future?”

”Oh!”  Hon shot one of his stubby arms up, hand not reaching over the ratling’s flat head, but still getting the point across.  “Yes!  Me!”

At least the other two ratlings seemed more interested in the pizza.

“Anesh.”  James sighed.  “I love you a lot, and you are forever embedded in my heart, and-“

“I’ll take the friendly chat.”  Anesh said with a smile.  It was kind of nice, he realized, that he could hear James say stuff like that to him out in the open these days, and feel not a scrap of embarrassment or shame.  He just loved his boyfriend, and was comfortable with that to a powerful degree.  Though maybe the lengths he knew his various partners would go to keep their love safe had a little to do with that.  Either way, this iteration of himself was perfectly happy to handle the calmer introduction to daily life for a few people.

James kissed Anesh on the neck, almost breaking his boyfriend’s composure. “Alright, aspirants with me, everyone else, ask Anesh questions. Oh, ask about our fancy baths!”  He said as he rose and trooped up the steps, emerging back in reality just in time to barely dodge Momo running by carrying something on fire.  “Oh good.”  James said as Aurora, Scrap, and Hon all moved with their different limbs and different ways of alertness.  “It is Wednesday.”

He realized that he hadn’t said it with much enthusiasm.  Which stung.  James loved the Lair and its weird bullshit.  He loved watching Momo be their local chaos gremlin, loved seeing the surprisingly gentle invisible cat spook the hell out of people, loved having to learn new stairwell patterns every month.  But right now, in part thanks to the fairly sizable number of red orbs he’d used in his life, he was realizing that he was defaulting to annoyance.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

On the solstice, James had realized that his idea of normal had shifted.  Into the kind of life where things were just like this.  And he loved that, but it clashed a little bit with the reminder that the world sucked, people were suffering and dying, the ruling class was content to not just let it happen but accelerate the issue, and he didn’t know what to do next.

It felt like floundering.  Like he was wasting time pushing himself to be normal, while everything fell apart.

The new thing with the Tyrannies was the biggest thing on his mind; days crawling by with a gut-churning anxiety as a group that looked suspiciously similar to the Order solidified their control over an entire empire that they’d just walked in and taken.  But it wasn’t the only thing, and as James walked into the Lair’s briefing warehouse with the other three following after, he felt more than a little bit like he was faking everything trying to act like the Order knew what they were doing.

Though seeing the ranks of knights working on delve prep, scout team work, and various training scenarios, kind of made him feel like he was faking his imposter syndrome too.  The spatially expanded warehouse almost felt organized.

Almost.

”This is so cool!”  Aurora said with obvious excitement, the big umbral twisting the colored loops of his eyes to scan the desks and forests of whiteboards.  “Is everyone here a knight?”

”Nope.” James answered with actual engagement and some enthusiasm in his voice.  “A lot of delvers are specialized for their home turf dungeons, and some of the scouts just do that job too.  The main thing that differentiates a knight is flexibility.  Being able and willing to swap to a new problem at a moment’s notice.”  He found one of the slightly demarcated clusters of desks that wasn’t in use and waved toward it, warning Aurora to duck under the strider line of paperclips overhead as he took a seat and invited the others to do the same.  “Come.  Sit, relax.  And then tell me why you want to join the Order of Endless Rooms.”

They sat, with Aurora taking the big basket seat that camracondas liked, and Hon taking the edge of one of the desks, sitting with his tail hanging off the edge as his stubby legs folded underneath him.  None of the three, even the one in the office chair, spoke up.

”Okay.”  James sighed, not having expected this, but trying to get into the flow of interviewing people anyway.  “Aurora.  Go first.”

”I told you.”  The umbral said.  “I’ve known about you guys since basically as soon as I appeared.”  His tendrils swayed, the arm he still had extended joined by the other half of his body as he repositioned himself on the chair, thin legs adjusting to the new furniture.  “They tell stories about you, you know?  Being an umbral used to mean being some rich human’s pet or prisoner or both.  Then the Order showed up, and the people doing it were gone overnight.”

James bit his upper lip, looking away as he muttered, “That’s not exactly what happened…”

Aurora’s voice crackled with excitement as he continued.  “The olds say we should stay in the towns where it’s safe, but even they know that we can walk out whenever we want now.  I hung out with some humans for a week up there, learned some more, and decided I wanted to join.”

“Just like that?”  James asked, raising the eyebrow over his eagle eye as he tilted his head ever so slightly and tried not to let Scrap know that he could see how uncomfortable the ratroach was.

The umbral’s eyes locked onto James, the dozen variously shaped tendrils on his head standing up at an alert angle.  “Yeah!”  Aurora declared.  “Because it’s cool!  Have you met Simon?  He’s an actual real world superhero!  He’s got a magic dog and whenever he shows up everything gets better!  I want that.  I want to be a hero.”  Aurora’s voice, obviously excited and maybe even overeager, crackled with something sharper than the normal umbral static as he finished his words.

James looked at the solidified form of dust and sunbeams caught in summer shadow, and softened his stare.  “Hon, how about you?”  He said, quietly moving past Aurora.

”I want to build a real car and cannot afford it on the stipend.”  The ratling informed James.

The mistake James made was thinking that sentence was going to have a continuation, and he waited slightly too long before replying.  “Uh… anything else?”

”No!  The people exploring Horizon use cars, and I can work there!  I will work hard.”  Hon added, nodding his flat face, one paw flicking across his long whiskers.

“Kay.”  James filed that away.

He’d had minimal experience with the ratlings so far, though Hon was one of the ones he’d actually talked to, but he was sort of starting to get a better picture of average ratling behavior.  The Pylon life forms were, shockingly, kind of unbothered by a lot of  things. They didn’t really feel pain or anger about their time in the Pylon, though they did understand the downsides of it on what felt like a tactical level.  Alanna said they weren’t sociopaths or anything, they felt quite a lot.  But they had a strange bundle of feelings in them when it came to machinery that nothing Alanna had ever met shared; it was wrong to say they loved it, more that it was a unique part of them that completed their thoughts.  So they gravitated toward that kind of thing.

James had a worry that this would make them exploitable, but he’d had that worry about literally everyone he’d ever met at this point.  And it hadn’t taken him nearly that long this time, and only one conversation with Zhu, to realize this was sort of just like a human with a passion they longed to have in their life.  And the Order could accommodate that.

”Scrap, how about you?”  James asked the ratroach, already kind of having figured out what he was doing with the two others.

The asymmetrical ratroach didn’t exactly twitch, but he did take a rough breath before speaking, making James remember that while Scrap was healing, he wasn’t healed, and still hadn’t gone through shaper surgery.  When he spoke, too, it was clear that he’d thought about this a lot more than the others.  “I-I-I… want to l-l-learn.”  The ratroach spoke with a stammer, but didn’t let it interfere with his meaning.  “A-a-a-annnnd help.  W-with th-th-the next time.  Th-th next d-d-dungeon, and next p-p-p-p-people from it.  Th-they need s-s-someone t-t-t-to keep them sssssafe, and I can learn to d-d-d-do that.”

The stammer, James realized, wasn’t because the ratroach was anxious or afraid.  Scrap actually met his eyes as they spoke, and obviously the months spent in the medical wing had included a lot of social contact that had shaped him.  He wasn’t totally confident, but the way he talked…

Well, Scrap didn’t have the perfect words to express it yet, but James could feel it anyway.  The vibe he got when someone would end up surprising him.  He’d had enough experience now that he could recognize it; there were people who didn’t know yet what they’d be doing, and the Order cultivated an environment where those people could meander through learning and growing and improving until…

Until they found what they were meant to be, for a while.  Until they became more than even they expected.  Until they surprised everyone, including themselves.

Aurora would probably make a decent knight eventually.  He wanted to be a hero, because he thought that was cool, but he was so new, he needed to learn a lot.  No amount of dungeon-implanted knowledge seemed to make up for experience and actual education and socialization, so he’d need time.  But wanting to be a hero because it was cool, while maybe a little childish, was still something that could set someone on the path to actually becoming a hero, so James was loath to dismiss that desire.

Hon would not make a decent knight.  Not knowing how the ratlings developed emotionally over time made it hard to say if that was a permanent condition or not, but either way that didn’t mean the ratling needed to be locked out entirely.  There was a lot someone in the Order could do without being a knight, and when a person showed up who had a specific thing they wanted to learn and work on, that was often enough.  Hon wanted to work on cars?  Route Horizon’s mechanic support team would probably love to have him.

James focused as much as he needed to in order to make his skulljack dance for him.  A minute later, he’d gotten confirmations back from two sources.  “Okay.  Aurora, let’s be real here.  You’re new.  We don’t know what we’re working with exactly, no umbral your age have joined us yet, so we’ll start you in the aspirant program.  Tomorrow at noon, local time, you can talk to Karen Ward.”  He wrote directions to the specific basement space on a notecard and handed it over.  “Do you have a place to stay?”

”I was gonna sleep on those nice couches we were just using.”  Aurora said without a hint of shame.  Or at least, no shame that James could detect; maybe umbral expressed it differently.

”Don’t.”  James told him, firing off another message in the local channel for arranging temporary accommodations.  “Okay, you can stay with Daniel and Path tonight, here’s their apartment number.” He added information to the card.  “Their kid is kind of shy, be nice.”

”I’m always nice!”  Aurora said happily.  And the weird part was, James was pretty sure that was true.

He did notice the long look that Scrap gave the umbral, though.

Shaking his head, James turned to the patiently waiting ratling.  “Hon, here’s your own directions.  Actually, wait, can you read?”

”Yes!”  The short rat goblin answered with a sincere nod of his furred head.

”Great.  I put the logisticor timetable on there, you’ll be meeting with a guy named Kirk down in Townton tomorrow.  He’ll get you started.  Okay?”  Specifically, Kirk would be hanging out with Hon for a little longer and trying to evaluate the emotional maturity the ratling was operating at.  Their species had kids, but the kids were actually a lot easier than the adults; they could just be rolled into the Order’s school program.  The adults kind of varied, due to the nature of their lives so far.  Hon would get his chance at education and engine repair, but it would help to know if he was actually up for it first.

”Okay!  Yes!”  Hon nodded more eagerly.  “What else?”

”Nothing else.  You two head out, I need to talk to Scrap for a bit.”  James motioned with his hand.  Hon hopped off the desk and scampered away without hesitation, while Aurora stood and paused, one heavy hand raised slightly like he was going to ask something before he quietly folded his limb back up and headed up with a quick ‘thank you’.

James looked across the desks at the ratroach, who had a distant stare in his cluster of eyes as he watched a strider run across a line of suspended paperclips carrying a pouch of glowing orbs.  “So.”  He said.

”Y-y-you d-don’t want m-m-m-e.”  Scrap said sadly.  He sounded resigned, like he was pretending he understood and didn’t want to fight over it.

”Actually?  Completely the opposite.”  James said, watching the ratroach’s triangular head swing down to focus on him, glowing blue saliva dripping from the corner of his muzzle as he blinked rapidly, his breathing speeding up.  “I’m trying to…” James sighed.  “Scrap, you’re not even reshaped.  Why are you pushing yourself so fast?”

”W-want to.”  The uneven ratroach insisted, one claw starting to idly but not anxiously toy with the refitted t-shirt he was wearing.  “I-I-I-I h-have t-t-t-t-to go back.  They n-n-need me.”

”The Sewer?”  James inquired softly, and got a fast nod in reply.  “This doesn’t sound abstract.  You have specific people you want to rescue?” Scrap nodded again, and James sighed.  “Scrap, why didn’t you…” he stopped himself.  The question why didn’t you tell us had an obvious answer.  Because it was hard to trust when you were traumatized and felt broken, and basically every ratroach felt that way.

Scrap spoke up as James thought.  “I-I-I-I k-k-knnnow I c-can’t t-t-talk right.  B-bu-bu-but I c-can f-f-f-fight!  I-I-I’m a-a-a… a…” he looked down at himself, curling all his arms in front of himself and splaying out his claws.  “W-weapon.”  Scrap finished in a wet rasp.  He saw the way James looked at him, and held up a paw with a creak of chitin.  “N-n-not like that!”  Scrap insisted with the most firm emotion he’d shown so far.  “I…” he clipped the word off, “I know w-w-who I am!  B-b-b-b-but I-I-I was m-m-m… had t-t-t-to use the substance on m-myself.  B-b-before.  I am d-d-d-d-d… dangerous.”

”Oh.”  James gave Scrap a sad smile, rolling his chair out from behind the desk he’d been using, and laboriously sliding himself around the large square of connected furniture until he was at the ratroach’s side.  “Yeah.  I understand.”  He said, and meant it.

Scrap also knew James actually did understand.  The ratroaches in the Sewer that used the shaper substance weren’t ones that did it by accident.  They were the ones that were being groomed to be killers and enforcers.

”N-n-need to b-b-b-be better.”  Scrap said, voice rasping out in hot anger.

“Yeah.”  James said, slowly raising a hand to ask implicit permission, before settling it on Scrap’s shoulder and then giving the ratroach a sideways hug.  “So, there’s no rush, okay?  But also, Sewer delves are starting again soon, and we can look for your friends while we’re there.  I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go back for now, though.  But if you still want to join the Order, I know we can find or make a place for you.”  He felt the ratroach sag slightly, in either relief or disappointment or maybe both.  “I just have one question.”

”Haaah?”  Scrap exhaled, head turning so his one large faceted eye was peering at James.

James phrased his inquiry carefully.  “Hon and Aurora.”  He said slowly.  “Something upset you when we were talking.”

”N-n-noooo...”

”Scrap, if you’re going to be like me you’re going to need to learn that you can’t lie anymore.”  James said with the most compassionate direct voice he had in his arsenal.  “Especially if it’s to yourself.”

The ratroach tensed up, and then pulled away from James, one of his weaker arms pushing James off with a surprisingly light touch.  “T-they d-d-don’t…” he paused, muzzle twisting into a glowing snarl.  He seemed to realize he had the expression on a second later as the softer wrinkled skin around his eyes flushed an ashamed green and he looked away from James, snapping his mouth closed.  “They… a-a-a-are…” Scrap took a breath suddenly, holding all his paws out in front of himself and tightly clenching his claws before slowly letting them loosen as he exhaled.  James almost smiled to see the ratroach using the common therapy trick, but just waited and gave Scrap some space.  “They d-d-don’t understand.  Aurora th-th-thinks th-th-th-this is a g-g-g-game and it’s n-n-nnnnnot!”

”I know.”  James said when Scrap paused in his explanation.  He stood up, brushing off his pants as he leaned back on the desk, facing out toward the rest of the briefing warehouse, taking in the view of a few people arguing over a whiteboard fifty feet away with growing animation in their gestures.  “He’s new.  He thinks it’s fun.  Hon too, kind of.”

”It’s n-n-not fffffair.”  Scrap said the phrase James had kind of been feeling since the start.

He looked down at the ratroach, who was making a conscious effort to not curl up on himself on the office chair and propel himself to safety, the patchwork chitin and fur muzzle looking back up at him, one antenna looking like it was stuck to the back of his shirt.  “Aurora especially, right?”  He asked, and Scrap gave him a slow blink before breaking eye contact.  “Because it’s too easy for them.  Hon I kind of get; he lived in the Pylon, that’s not easy.  And it’s just the way ratlings seem to be, that he… I don’t know, bounced back?  Blocked it out?  I am almost certain it’s not healthy, but whatever.”  James sighed, plucking a pencil off the desk and spinning it in his fingers.  “Aurora gets to have an entire life where it’s easy, and he never had to go through anything, and it feels cheap that he wants to do this.”

”…Yes.”  Scrap admitted.  “B-b-b-but…” he paused, then shook his head rapidly, a few bits of glowing saliva hitting the table and hissing lightly before the ratroach noticed and frantically fumbled a small towel out of a pocket to wipe away the acidic fluids.  “I d-d-d-don’t want to b-b-be angry.  And it isn’t f-f-f-fair!”

”I hear ya.”  James said with a sigh.  “Can I tell you something that sucks, but you probably need to hear?”  He asked, and Scrap looked at him with eyes that seemed to widen more with each passing second.  “Right.  People like Aurora?  They’re the goal.”  He sighed again, looking up at the scaffold-laced ceiling of the warehouse space.  “In an ideal world, no one, dungeonborn or not, has to suffer trauma before they get to the point where they want to help.  Aurora is a dumbass who maybe didn’t consider a few things, but if he does want to help?  Well.”

Scrap gave a chittering laugh that turned into a short bark of a cough.  “C-c-can I-I-I-I f-f-feel bad anyway?”  He asked.

”Oh, absolutely!”  James said with his own smile as the tension broke.  “It doesn’t have to be anyone’s fault for it to suck.  Your life should have been better.  But that doesn’t mean Aurora’s should have been worse.  Just… you know, keep the line in mind, right?”  Scrap nodded, muzzle twisting into something that was kind of a frown as he thought about that.  “If you join the Order, you’re going to make more people like that.”  James told him.

Scrap thought about it, and then nodded, eyes glistening with luminescent tears that hadn’t fully formed yet as he looked at James.  “G-g-g-g-good.”  He said.

”Good.”  James flipped the pencil he was holding up in an arc, planning to catch it and write a copy of the information he’d given Aurora on another card for Scrap.  “You’ll be in the… uh…” he paused as nothing met his hand, and turned to look for where he’d dropped the pencil, before following the ratroach’s pointing claw to a spot over his head where the yellow number two implement had simply failed to return to the ground once James had tossed it.  He stared at it with an unamused glare, but when that didn’t work, James just grabbed a different pen off the desk and wrote out the details.  “You’ll be in the introductory training courses, and then start your rotation through Order projects and departments.  And when we both have time, you’ll be shadowing me and-or my coterie.”  He paused.  “If you want.”  He added.

”…w-w-why?”  Scrap asked.  “And y-y-y-yes.

”Because I can see the future.”  James said cryptically, handing over the note card, before realizing the text on it was beginning to catch fire, smouldering the paper away.  He looked down at the pen in his hand and gently set it back on the desk.  “Does literally anything here actually write words?!”  He demanded.

It took him two more tries to get it right.  At which point Scrap told him that he had a skulljack and was on the local chat server.  Had been for a month, since it was easier to talk to people when he didn’t have to fight his own tongue for it, and he’d been cleared by even Deb’s draconian medical requirements that suggested ratroaches not get skulljacks before their main reshaping.

James managed to avoid headbutting the nearest wall in frustration.  But only because they were in the middle of the warehouse.

And because he didn’t have time after that to find a real support column to try to concuss himself on.  He had something personal to get to, after all.

_____

Momo spun in her chair in the clean and cool air of Second’s brain-room.  She’d brought El in to meet the Arcane Assisted Intelligence - a term that she liked way more than “AI’ these days - and almost immediately the two had started up a conversation about the rules of the absurd wizard sport that El’s youth group seemed to love.

El wasn’t a professional teacher, and Momo was definitely aware of the fact that her girlfriend probably shouldn’t be a teacher either.  But there was something about being a bridge between kids and adults that El thrived at.  During the summer, the youth program would be much more consistent, but even now she was kind of like a cross between a guidance counselor, a big sister, and a referee, that the kids she worked with saw at least once a week to hang out with.  It was cool.  Or at least, Momo thought it was cool.

But Momo had also heard about pluralist ball repeatedly.  And she thought it was cool!  She especially thought it was cool when it was El sleeplily muttering about it while they curled up in their bed cocoon together!  And Momo knew that other people thought it was cool, too.  She just hadn’t expected that to include Second, who had apparently created some kind of personal database of rules and their win rates, and was debating with El about the virtue of a sport that was ‘solvable’.

So Momo was spinning in a chair.

Right up until the moment that El’s voice changed tone, and addressed her, with a clearly worried vibe to it.  “Uh… hey, Momers?”  Momo cracked an eye open and saw El looking back her way, finger pointed at Second’s main display screen.  “They want you to take a look at a thing.”

She sat up, eyes quickly focusing on the words Second had displayed.  “Yeah, I wasn’t napping!  What’s… up?” Momo trailed off as she read.

I apologize for interrupting.  Second’s words read, though whether it was speaking about El’s conversation or Momo’s not-nap wasn’t clear.  I have just finished processing weather data.

Weather data was a low priority for the AAI, surprisingly.  Mostly because it was imprecise.  It was part of the increasingly complex and absurd dungeon search algorithm that Second was developing, and it had helped that it could reference existing dungeons to see if its scrying of digital bones was accurate, but the changes in weather information were only ever enough to say ‘yeah, this county probably has a dungeon in it’, and by this point Second just had better things to look at.

Because, as far as Momo could tell about the way Earth just was now, every county had a dungeon in it.  The things were everywhere.

So when she replied to the AAI, it was with a little confusion.  “You doing okay?”  Momo asked.  “Wait, is this not a dungeon thing at all?  Did you find a hurricane?”

I have located a hurricane, yes.  Second displayed.  That is not relevant.  Mundane weather monitoring authorities are aware of it.  The AAI’s one-sided rivalry with the meteorological profession was apparently still in effect.  I have located what I believe based on prior conversations and my understanding of human culture is a problem.

“That’s so ominous!”  El laughed.  “So, like, is it-“

Momo cut her girlfriend off with a sharp shake of her head.  She’d never seen Second call something ‘a problem’ before except for the Underburbs, and so she was on high alert instantly.  “Where?”  She tried to keep her voice from cracking.

North Dakota.  Not near any major human habitations or industries.  No external cause for the discrepancy.  It is my understanding that this should information be shared quickly.

”Wait, hold on.”  Momo tried to understand the satellite maps Second was pulling up on secondary screens, and while she had a ton of skill orbs for this kind of thing specifically so she could pretend to keep up with the AAI, she didn’t get one important thing.  “What discrepancy?"

There is nothing here.  Second said, highlighting a region.

El leaned over Momo’s shoulder, the two of them looking at it together.  And then El sucked air through her teeth.  “Uh oh.”  She said.

”Nope, I’m a moron.”  Momo said.  “Explain to your pet moron?”  She asked El.

”We talked about this, stop that shit.”  El flicked Momo’s ear with her finger.  “And there’s nothing there.”

Correct.  There is a region in which weather patterns exhibit causally unconnected behavior, which matches with the existence of a 5.9 kilometer diameter imperfectly circular space centered approximately here.  Second marked a point on the map.  Something is, or was, here.  I do not possess enough understanding of the arcane to estimate what has occurred.  Only enough to say that something happened fifty one days ago, and is still happening.

”…I’ll call James.”  Momo said.

”Think he’s gonna need a driver?”  El asked, tapping her chin.  “It’s been a while since I’ve been in a life or death situation.”

”Don’t tell me you’ve got the blood mists.”  Momo said, forcing a smile.

“You can come too?”  El offered with raised eyebrows.  “Oh, uh… Second, you wanna come?  Somehow?”

While I appreciate your offer, I am remaining limited in my long range connectivity until such time as I can safely verify that it will be stable for me.  Momo’s ongoing anxiety about my long term health is perhaps exaggerated beyond what is strictly required, yet I understand the source of it, and I am patient to a degree required to explore my limits with more deliberate security measures in place.

”Thanks buddy.”  Momo said as she read the familiar words from the digital life form.  “Okay, James isn’t answering, let’s go hunt his ass down.  Second, put that info in my brain. El…  Is Speaky in your head?  Get him out here and launch him like a pokemon at our prey.”

”Living with you is a fucking delight.”  El muttered as the two of them walked out of the room side by side, making an almost perfectly mirrored motion as they flicked their jackets on.

_____

Alanna ran into JP in the Lair’s lobby.  Literally.  Both of them moving rapidly and colliding in a way that left Alanna slightly off balance and JP utterly demolished.

”You good?”  Alanna asked as she hauled him to his feet and dusted him off.

”Fine, fine, I didn’t need that ego anyway.”  JP waved her off.  “Where’s your boyfriend?”  He held up a hand before Alanna could be ‘funny’ about it.  “Where’s James?”

Alanna smirked.  ”On a date.  Where’s the sun cult you’re supposed to be dealing with?”

”I’m dealing with them.  Please.  Give me some credit.”  JP rolled his eyes.  “And stop calling them a cult.  I don’t call the OM designated delvers an office cult.”  Alanna cocked an eyebrow at him, and JP shrugged.  “Mostly because I only thought of that example right now.  I will in the future, don’t worry.  Now, I need to interrupt James’ date, and quickly.”

She sighed.  “Yeah, me too.  Thank fuck my sisters are on TikTok because I never would have noticed this if they weren’t.  Did you know there’s dungeon life in the streets of-“

”North Smiths Utah?  Yes.”  JP said, taking the wind out of Alanna’s sails.  “And people are-“

”Shooting at them?  Yeah, I can play this game too.”  Alanna said with a scowl.  “We’ve got people down there.”

”And they aren’t answering their phones, so I assume they’re in trouble.”  JP nodded.  “So, date interrupting, paladin acquiring, troubleshooting.”

Alanna nodded back.  “Where we find trouble, and then shoot it.”  She verified.

Alanna and JP met each other’s eyes, nodded appreciatively, and then started stalking side by side as they went to deliver bad news.

_____

James walked briskly through one of the Lair’s basements, with a folded notecard in his pocket.  His domain’s single sense ability overlapped it just barely, the edge of his sense and the edge of the paper scraping each other like a pebble in his shoe.  Vex wasn’t able to give him a lot of direct useful information about the dungeon, which the Order was still trying to work around, but she could give him practical advice on training with his domain, and this was apparently how she’d gotten used to the extra senses herself.

But that wasn’t why he was in the basement.  Just why his pocket was loaded like it was.  He was in the basement because this particular area was apparently some kind of faraday cage, and he had two things he needed his problem solvers for.

James found his paladins in the firing range that the Lair’s basement had sort of abandoned.

The place was cold, smelled like old gunpowder, the underground hall leading to it was ominously dark, and the range was empty of everyone except them.  The whole area wasn’t even sectioned off; with orange totem expansions having taken over the role of making spaces for people to actually do their living and working, the firing range had just never been reclaimed because they didn’t need the floor for anything.  It saw some use, though surprisingly it usually wasn’t from Response or even delvers.  Instead, it was mostly Research, who had kind of become the de facto keepers and maintainers of a lot of the Order’s magic items, and they needed to make sure they were maximizing the leveler items and not wasting cooldown time.

Nearby, there was an empty bedroom.  James had passed by Cam’s old door on the way here, and realized just how grim it was that she’d said sleeping here had been ‘familiar’.  At least she’d stripped the room of the rope lights and stuffed animals when she’d left; he hadn’t seen her new place, but James kind of loved the mental image of Nate having to pass by Cam’s room and seeing it done up with a purple glow and maybe posters of boy bands on the walls.

He frowned in amusement as he walked past.  That didn’t sound right, actually.  And James realized he didn’t know Cam’s taste in music.  But she hung out with Keeka sometimes, so it was probably being influenced.

James walked in just in time to see Alex firing a grenade launcher directly at a heavily armored Simon.  Spire-Cast-Behind, face covered by a shaded lens that matched Alex’s sunglasses, watched on from ten feet behind the paladin.  “Hey, wh-“ James suddenly became exceptionally glad that he had been mutated by a purple orb to have better light tolerance, but even that didn’t really help against the sudden blast of light and sound from the flashbang that had phased cleanly through Simon’s head and hit the wall behind him before detonating.  “Maaawp!”  James announced, pressing his eyes shut and flinching back.

Spire noticed him standing there, and twisted her red, yellow, and white body to look back at the approaching paladin that was now clutching his ears.  Inclining her head his direction before nudging Alex and getting the other girl to pull her heavy earmuffs off.  “Oh hey!”  Alex waved, opening the chamber of the revolver style 40mm grenade launcher she had and making absolutely certain it couldn’t fire before setting it on the firing range’s bench and stepping back.  “You okay?  There should have been a sign up!”

”I was thinking about… nevermind.”  James blinked spots out of his eyes and flexed his jaw.  He’d been far enough away that it hadn’t actually hurt that much.  “Also holy shit, why are you trying to murder Simon?”

”I’m fine actually.”  Simon said as he approached and let himself through the wooden gate from the firing lane.  “Did that work the way we thought?”

”Quite.”  Spire-Cast-Behind told him, tipping her chin up like she did when she was reading off her skulljack.  “Shockwave is difficult to measure, we should repeat the test with a layer of sand.  The light from the grenade did pass through Simon though.  Also.”  She slithered past, using a mechanical arm to shove open a different gate and letting herself into the range, sweeping the floor with her sight for a minute before finding and retrieving a small object.  Bringing it back over, she held up a piece of warped black metal.  “Shrapnel.  Directly through what I believe is a human ‘kidney’, if that is a real thing.”

Simon looked at the chunk of metal.  “Flashbangs are supposed to be nonlethal.”  He said, looking with unhappy raised eyebrows over at the grenade launcher.

”Oh yeah?”  Alex asked with raised eyebrows.  “That’s cool.  Who said that?”

”…probably the people who sell flashbangs.”  Simon admitted.  “Anyway.  Our boss is here.”

Spire hissed in tired amusement.  “The one person who could command us, and they do not like being reminded of it.”

”Well hang on.”  James laughed stiffly, not liking what that implied at all.  “Actually, no, no time to dig into that.  I need a quick status update from all of you, because we’ve got trouble, and you know what?  I am here to command you.”  It was actually supremely convenient that all three of the paladins were here in the Lair today, but it would be less convenient if it was because they were recovering or resting and actually needed to do that.  “Alex, how’re you feeling?”

The shorter girl shrugged.  “I can move.”  She answered.  And then followed that up with a less brash and more honest assessment.  “I’m not at a hundred percent.  But I’m back on delving, and my bones are all here.”

”I am socially exhausted after the last several days, but can operate.”  Spire said.

Simon just shrugged.  “I’m fine.”

”You, dumbass, got killed so hard that a loot drop couldn’t find you!”  Alex’s raised voice was almost a shout.  “You aren’t fine!”

Simon met James’ eyes, his face so still that it was hard to tell if he was calm, or secretly dead.   ”I’m fine.”  He said, as Alex seethed behind him.

“Great.”  James said, realizing that if they were pretending they were in pristine condition that he’d have to silently judge if they were actually up for this.  But then he saw the way Alex straightened her spine and adjusted her stance like she was ready to move at a moment’s notice, the way Spire was attentive and alert even though she’d just come from starting and then concluding a minor refugee crisis, the way Simon just looked like he’d rather do anything than dwell on what had almost taken him out.  “There’s a gap where part of North Dakota got eaten, and Utah is turning into a battlefield.  Who wants what?”

Simon answered instantly.  “I’ll take Utah.  Fuck, I shouldn’t have split my focus.”  He added in a mutter.

”I’ll go too.  I still have a plan for this.”  Alex said with a menacing little snarl on her face.  

James and Spire both looked at her, the two paladins having a sudden parallel memory of Alex suggesting they solve their ongoing problem with the more hostile parts of the Mormon church with ballistic castration.  The two looked back at each other without saying anything, the camraconda’s lens irising behind the custom tinted covering she was wearing.  “Wanna come with me to North Dakota?”  He asked.

”Should one of us not be on standby for the Underburbs?”  Spire asked.  “Or anything else?”

”One of the shield teams will be ready for anything, and we’ve got other knights.  If we both go, we can solve the problem faster, and then get back here.”  James shrugged.  “But you’ve got a point.  Though that said, we have telepads.  We can designate you and Alex to break off if anything critical comes up.”  He got nods from them, and folded his hands behind his back as he took a deep breath.  “Don’t take chances.”  James told them.  “Full equipment, take backup, and use every consumable five minutes before you need it.  Got it?” 

Alex giggled, the sound turning into a snort that would have echoed if the range hadn’t been covered in sound baffling.  “You sound like you think we’ll treat this like a JPRG.”  Raising an eyebrow expertly, James stared at her until Alex bowed her head to stare at the ground.  “I’ll remember the coffee this time.“ She promised.

”See that you do.”  He returned.

”You doing okay man?”  Simon asked as he unclipped the protective gear he was wearing and started tossing pieces of armor into a cardboard box near the firing lane.  “Wait, how urgent is this?”

”For you and Alex?  Six out of ten.  No one’s shooting right now, but there’s been a pattern going on all day and there’s dungeon life getting in fights in the streets, so don’t waste time.”  James said.  “I’m annoyed because I was on a date.  Or trying to be anyway.  It’s fine.  Spire, how long to get geared and get your coterie together?  Two hours enough?”

She gave a bobbing nod, mechanical arms folding against her back after one of them carefully popped her sunglass off.  “One of them may be asleep.  He will not remain so for long.”

”…oooookay.”  James shook that off and relaxed his stance.  “I’ll meet you in the briefing warehouse.  Alex, Simon, your situation is weirder and more of a mess, so you’ll have Ben as your operator for this one.  Talk to him.  And don’t shoot anyone unless you think you have to.”

”Maybe not the best thing to tell either of us.”  Simon admitted.

Next to him, Alex nodded rapidly.  “I already think we should be shooting people!”  She exclaimed, Simon cocking a finger in her direction in a sharp motion of agreement.

James knew they were joking around.  Mostly.  But he hoped that his paladins at least had slightly more etiquette when they were actually in the field.  Still, he restrained himself from palming his face and sighing, instead just opting for a single respectful nod to all of them.  “Get moving.  We’ve got problems to fix, and I want it done before the Underburbs tries to eat Seattle or some shit.”

”So we can be there, too.”  Simon said with what was almost a grin.

Alex sighed deeply.  “I knew saying yes to the paladin thing was a horrible idea.”  She complained, already moving to grab the grenade launcher bound to the gun bangle on her wrist.  “No one better complain when I start bringing more people back.”

”No one has complained about that behavior this entire time.”  Spire called over her shoulder as she and James got moving, heading out of the firing range and toward the closest stairwell that led to the fastest path to the armory.  Spire might be a camraconda, but stairs were something she could suffer through when haste was required, and while it didn’t feel like they were frantically rushing, she was also not planning on wasting time.  Two hours was just enough time that she could get one last good bath before whatever inevitable disaster awaited her.

At her side, James let out a sigh as they got moving.  “Hey.  You know you can say no, right?”  He told her.

”Don’t coddle me.”  The camraconda hissed in amusement.  “Besides.  This will be good practice for Tyrone.  My coterier needs to learn to go on adventures without dying.”

”Jesus.”  She heard James mutter over the sound of the heavy stairwell fire door opening with a chunk of metal.  “Okay.  Let’s talk loadout so I can avoid thinking about that.  I’m thinking a search and rescue focus.  Thoughts?”

As it turned out, Spire did have a few thoughts.  But James vetoed her suggestion that they plan for military grade high explosive mortar fire.

In the end, it took them twenty minutes to gather everything they needed, because the armory had a real staff now in the form of someone who was apparently one of Nate’s old navy buddies.  James had never met the guy, but that hadn’t impeded the streamlined process of requisitioning weaponry, ammo, medical supplies, drones, potions, leveler items, blue orbs, and a couple of introductory armory packages just in case they needed to empower someone new in the field.

This left plenty of time for James to assemble his people, Spire to take a bath, and North Dakota to ominously loom in the distance, a hole in its geography that no one could explain that was about to have two paladins walk into it and try to negotiate the problem out of existence.

James actually felt weird about it.  He’d been expecting to be going to Utah, himself.  But one of the best parts of this was that he actually did trust Simon and Alex to handle it.  And also, this way, he was probably less likely to get shot at, and maybe he’d end up with a tiny amount of time where he could pretend he actually got to make up for having his attempt at a date with TQ interrupted.