The Daily Grind - Chapter 386 (Patreon)

"Tolkien does really love the theme that evil is self defeating.  And ultimately I think he's right.  Often I wish it would... defeat itself faster, but we'll get there eventually."  -Jay, part 3 - recapping lord of the rings but i add the lore the movies skipped-

____

Four things were in competition for James’ attention.

Well, four big things.  Four things that weren’t the ongoing overlapping tasks of helping dungeon people integrate into Townton, or training with the delver or shield teams, or working on new Climb wands, or doing the work needed to make the Order’s projects kick. Four things that weren’t just him greedily drinking down more magical upgrades.  He really wanted to learn more about his demiplane, for example.  But that was… well, it was the kind of thing that could save his life or help him sidestep a crisis.  It was just that investigating it, poking everything and making comparative notes, and waiting for one of the diagnostic iLipedes to chew over whatever it was placed on, that all too time.  Time James didn’t have.

So he opened one of his slips, let a pair of Researchers and their young intern in, showed them where the exits were, and let them do it.  After telling them not to use any green orbs, because James’ tattoo didn’t need more extra brands on it.

This was actually a service that Research had been providing a lot lately, to the point that there was a signup list a mile long.  James got to skip it, as one of the few real privileges of rank, though.  So he could expect a report in a couple days.  What was really interesting was that they weren’t just providing this to the Order; it was also something that got offered to local delver groups in Saskatoon.  Free of charge too, if you didn’t count the wait.

It wasn’t just a gesture of goodwill, either.  Though the Order had already started to snag recruits from that city, finding the people who went deeper than a few floors just to build an unstealable safety net for themselves and offering them more adventure, that wasn’t really the point.  The big perk of it was, they did kind of charge something.

They just charged in samples.

Lots of demiplanes, it turned out, made stuff.  Sometimes it was just straight up dungeontech, like with Terror’s I will kill one building guaranteed fireball.  Sometimes it was just mundane, like how Jubilance’s demiplane would take coffee beans in any state, and roast, grind, and brew them into something nice.  And sometimes, it was component materials.  Restocking supplies of everything from cut lumber to cut steaks, screws made of odd metals and fabrics made of odd fibers, all of it strange in some way.

Strange, but never bad.  At least not if you used it right.  And so the Order team got paid in samples, and those samples got tested for practical applications, and if things went well, a delver got a really generous offer to be a consistent material supply line.

This was all secondary to what James was hoping, which was that this would mean someone would want to vacuum up all the sand in his demiplane so he could stop tracking sand all over the place.

Regardless, that was a thing that wasn’t vying for James’ time.  Instead, he had real problems.  And a lot of them were shaped like large scale governments.  The Tyrannies were first.  Somehow, somehow, JP had gotten a meeting.  It was supposed to be a simple little thing, just a few minutes to shake hands and say hi, but that itself was baffling.  Just that simple fact kind of made James wonder if he should care at all.  Because the thing was…

Well, the sort of people that arranged for diplomatic meetings with foreign agencies, and who worked that into a full day’s nation-running schedule, didn’t actually feel like they were dangerous.  Or rather, not dangerous in a feral or uncontrolled way.  Dangerous in the way a ruler of a country was dangerous; because they could steer something with a tremendous bulk, not because they were capable of ripping a man in half.

But the Tyrannies had murdered a king.  On live TV, even.  And then declared themselves owners of all of Europe, which was ambitious, to be polite.  That kind of behavior didn’t precipitate a period of calm, which was what had made the last few weeks so fucking tense.  And James wasn’t sure if the meeting that JP had decided he had to go to - holy shit he hated his friend so much sometimes - was going to be a state luncheon, or an assassination attempt.

Hell, he wasn’t sure if he should make it an assassination attempt.  Normally when he needed a sanity check, he told Nate he was planning to do something stupid, and Nate stared at him, then told him he was being fucking stupid.  But this time, Nate had been away - his status had him on a ‘hunting trip’ with Cam which James did not fucking believe wasn’t code for something for even a second - and when he’d tried with Karen, she’d just told him to ‘do what he thought was right’.

Which made this a special kind of nightmare.  But he was still going to the meeting with JP, and also Jake Redding and Paper-And-Words, who had been told they were now part of the Order’s diplomatic team and had been scrambling for the last few days to find every piece of legal information and spare etiquette orbs they could.

The second thing was the Coalition, and that one was both more frightening and also simpler.  Frightening because there was no way to know what the hell they were up against, or even if they were against anything at all.  And simpler, because there was one single lead to work; one soldier in the basement James could talk to.

Of course, plenty of people had been talking to Duke before James got to him, and there wasn’t a whole lot of actual interrogating to be done.  The guy was… it was hard to describe.  He’d told them everything without holding back, and the conditioning he’d been subjected to made it hard for him to not be following orders.  But when he was on his own time, it was almost like he was a teenager.  Which he sort of was.  He hadn’t lived the last several years of his own life, he hadn’t grown or matured, and now he had to deal with feeling like he was playing catch-up to himself.

So James had mostly just given him the ‘welcome to the Order’ speech that he was honing to a razor sharp edge, and then got permission for Zhu to carve through where Duke’s body had traveled to see if he could dig anything up.  The process, apparently, itched.  And would also take a while.  So James gave them both some space, leaving Duke with a selection of dungeon delve recordings that the guy had asked for, because he both didn’t really believe in the dungeons, and because if he was going to believe in them, then he wanted to see what they were like early.

Edited delve recordings, though.  No hints as to the locations.  Duke Miller was a lot of things, and while none of them seemed to be ‘a security risk’, there was no reason to be careless.

The entire thing with their Coalition prisoner-slash-rescue, however, led into the third thing James was concerned about.  The United States federal government.

The US had not taken the Tyranny thing well.  That they had taken it at all was fascinating, but then, memeplexes had proven in the past to not be infallible.  And while a memory block or attention diverter could work wonders on something like the reaction to individual camracondas roaming around a small city, it didn’t seem like it extended to a nuclear armed nation changing hands.

What had started as chatter from senators being interviewed on the news had ramped up rapidly to a full executive order without any conditions attached to it.  The full removal of any work permits or visas or even permanent resident status for anyone from Europe.  Oh, and also anywhere else, too, for good measure.  President Hamdone having apparently decided that the stroke of a pen was sufficient to slam the doors of the US shut and lock them, with anyone inside after a few weeks subject to arrest and deportation.

Which was insane.  James had been prepared for a lot of bullshit when it was actually time to talk to his home nation’s government, but he hadn’t been prepared for this.  It was one thing to hear the president go on TV and say ‘Europeans should return home while we settle this’ and another to hear him go full mask-off and say ‘we are going to exile all foreigners’.  The only saving grace was that an executive order didn’t magically make something happen, but it was an exceptional tool for enabling a near fanatical level of state-sanctioned violence.

And it brought up a lot of tension in the Order.  The Order of Endless Rooms wasn’t… well, they weren’t really an American organization, despite having started there.  The majority of their members at this point were from other countries or other planes of existence.  They owed no allegiance to the people who had just released a statement that sure made it sound like they considered anyone from a dungeon to be on the same list as anyone from another nation.

But it was still hard to take the last step into open confrontation.

So there was a planning session later for stealth resistance options.  Ways to disrupt attempts to actually enact that authoritarian executive order.  And a longer term look at how the Order could either break away from the US entirely, or co-opt its government structure in a small way by getting some people elected.

They had a lot of money to throw around at this point.  They could buy an election.  That was a cultural tradition, after all.

But all of that was difficult to act on now.  There wasn’t an exceptional amount for a paladin to do about the situation that wasn’t going to individual senators and judges and political staffers and having pointed conversations about what the fuck they were doing.  No, this was a bigger picture problem where their opponent had a much tighter control on how the conflict was perceived, and that was an issue, because the Order was still relatively small.  Having millions of people pissed at them might not translate directly to all of those people taking military action against Townton or something, but it could lead to disruptions aimed back their way.  Lack of access to resources, cut lines of communication, and, of course, the old classic of stochastic terrorism.

So James got to sit in on planning meetings and contribute his surprisingly robust knowledge of political systems and individual pressure points they could find a toehold in.  Which… well, that was a use of his paladin powers, wasn’t it?  James had a lot of random skill orbs, but more than just that magic, he spent all his time improving himself in a variety of ways.  And one of those ways was stacking reading speed bonuses for an hour a day at the Lair so that he could ingest political science and economics texts.

It was like how part of his routine was using exercise potion to keep his body in a refined state.  Honed to a combat edge, so that it could be used when needed.  Well, he was doing the same thing with his ability to articulate why fascism was bad, and, more importantly, how to strangle it in the dark before it got to be too bad.

So maybe those planning meetings didn’t feel too bad.  He was actually putting magic to use.  Just in a slightly different way from how they were using the social mapping iLipedes or strategic casts of Informal Pagoda.

And then, finally, there was Utah.

James had taken one look at Alex’s last message about Utah and decided he liked this problem best, because it was where he personally thrived.

Utah was an absolute clusterfuck.

Calling it a war was an overstatement and conveyed a gravitas that didn’t belong there.  Alex and Simon had, so far, identified four different groups of people, some of them quite large groups, who were all at each other’s throats and often willing to fire automatic weapons into buildings in the middle of the night to get at each other.  If this was a war, it was a gang war, and it was getting more heated as each side started feeling like things were slipping.

If the Order were interested in picking a side, then that would be one thing.  But the factions that the paladins had identified were mostly familiar, and were predominantly just elements within the Mormon church that were taking schism-based escalation personally.  Mostly.  There were also civilians - North Smiths was still a little populated after all, and it also wasn’t the only place this fight was spreading to - and life from both dungeons there were stirring up more chaos.

In short, this was the kind of environment James’ whole career with the Order was based on.  It was also where he was most likely to get shot again, but at least this time they had an orb that could regrow eyes.

James had taken that, before leaving.  Along with a few other things.

[Shell Upgraded : Organ regeneration - ocular - 3% absolute / day]

[Shell Upgraded : Organ regeneration - ocular - 1.2% absolute / day]

[Shell Upgraded : -3 Minor abrasions / week - Hands]

[Shell Upgraded : -1 Minor abrasions / week - Hands]

[Shell Upgraded : Hearing range - low volume - +8.1m]

[Shell Upgraded : Hearing range - low volume - +3.4m]

[+1 Skill Rank : Driving - Motorcycle - Yamaha]

[+1 Skill Rank : Language - Japanese - Professional]

[+.3 Skill Ranks : Firearms - Rifles - Automatic]

[+.6 Skill Ranks : Firearms - Rifles - Automatic]

[+1 Emotional Resonance Rank : Sympathy]

Just a curated selection James had picked up in case he needed it.  Mostly he’d gone for the eye orb, knowing it existed now, and then grabbed some other stuff while he was there.  It was kind of ironic to him that, due to how the orbs gave diminishing returns, he got more of a skill rank from his second copy of the rifle orb than the first one, just because it was ‘filling in’ his extant knowledge.

He was also learning that some purple orbs dropped off a lot faster than others.  Tino said it was because anything with a range was filling in geometrically more space as it got farther away from him, but James was pretty sure that just wasn’t how sound worked, and the guy was making something up that sounded like it made sense if you didn’t think too hard about it.

Aside from that brief batch of upgrades, though, it was just a matter of updating his status within the Order about where he’d be, reassuring everyone he’d definitely be alive and not bleeding for the important international incident later in the week, collecting the people coming with him, and… going.

Oh, there were a million things James would have rather done, honestly.  Even just spending a day reading Venture spellbooks would have been nice.  But at the end of the day, he had carved out a role for himself.  And it wasn’t to sit idle when people needed his help.

His coterie was limited for this one; they had their own lives beyond just being his backup.  But that was fine.  James still had a couple people he was used to, and, just for flavor, one aspirant who he needed to learn to trust more.

James said his own goodbye to the Lair, and to everyone keeping the lights on in his home, and dove into the next situation in his life without taking any kind of real break.

He felt pretty okay about it.  But he was secretly hoping he wasn’t going to find out that he was overtaxing his Endurance at a dramatically critical moment.

_____

A group of people arrived in Utah with a soft pop of displaced air.

Some of them were here to assist the rogue operations, some of them were with Recovery and were on site to help unfuck people’s lives, and the whole group had brought in fresh supplies.  There was no polite affectation this time; they had called ahead, double verified the site they were arriving to, and teleported directly into the dim interior of a closed down library.

James was unclear on the timeline of when, exactly, this place had stopped being open to the public.  Sometime in the last month, he guessed.  As more and more locals either moved away, or went into the Pylon to wait out their idea of the apocalypse, there was naturally a reduction in available staff.  And no one had bothered to replace people.  Or maybe, whoever was supposed to was also in the dungeon in stasis.  Or just someone who hated libraries.

The building was notable for the fact that it was boarded up and sealed off, lines of police tape laced between the supports of the long awning that led up to the front door, sheets of plywood nailed into place around windows and doors, and everything locked down.  It made it feel like this place was a derelict structure slated for demolition, and not just a perfectly fine library that no one was working at right now.

As soon as the telepad resolved, James and Arrush pushed away from each other, stepping forward and scanning the room.  The last time the two of them had teleported anywhere in this stupid fucking city, they’d been complacent, assuming that teleporting was the magic solution to every issue.  Not this time.  Not again.  But the library around them held nothing except for people that knew they were coming and weren’t hostile, so he relaxed quickly.  Behind them, Morgan just stood with the other passengers, arms at his sides like he wasn’t actually sure if he was supposed to have done something.

While the others moved off to meet up with their own people, James stepped forward away from Arrush to give Alex a fist bump, both of them far too awkward to do something so normal as shake hands.  “Yo.”  He said, looking around the library’s information desk area.  “I hear there’s some dumb bullshit going on, and I’m magnetically drawn to that.”  The look Alex gave him was certainly trying to be amused, but James couldn’t help but notice that she looked exhausted.  “Hi.”  He turned to the woman next to Alex.  “I’m James.”

”Oh yeah, I’ve heard-!”

Alex cut her off.  “Don’t let her flirt with you.”  She said, and her voice gave away even further just how tired she was.  “This is Three Oh Six.”

”We’ve met.”  James said, a little surprised.  “I mean, I think we’ve met.  You look a little different.”  He told the shapeshifter.

”I got new pants.  Like ‘em?”  She extended a leg to show off the pleated slacks she was wearing.

James blinked and looked back to Alex.  ”Is she trying to flirt with me?”  He asked, his newly enhanced hearing letting him pick up on Arrush choking back a chitter of laughter behind him much clearer than before.  “Why?”

”Hey now, I’m better than just trying!”

Alex sighed.  “She does this to everyone.  I think it’s a power play thing.  Welcome to Utah.”  She told James with a dull attempt at humor.  “How heavily armed are you?”

James blinked at the sudden question.  “That is… a concerning thing to be asked!  I didn’t bring my mortar or anything, but I’ve got my usual kit on me.  Why?”

”Come on.”  Alex walked past him back through the open space they’d just teleported into, waving over her shoulder before turning the motion into an unexpected high five with Arrush.  “Let’s get somewhere that you won’t be observed, and I’ll tell you what looks like it’s going to try to kill you today.”

”Observed?”  James asked, face scrunching up as he turned after her, until an arm jutted over his shoulder and 306 pointed his line of sight up to the library’s second floor where a railing was currently doing a great job of keeping a couple dozen faces from tumbling over the edge as they all stared down at him and the other new arrivals.  It was mostly crocamaws, and ratlings from the two nearest dungeons, but he saw young humans in there too, as well something that looked like an armored plated canine face covered in some kind of rich brown material, and also a chalky burst of bright colors moving behind the cluster of people watching him.  “Ah.  Observed!”  He gave a reassuring smile and a wave to the balcony, noting that some of the people there scrambled away while others kept their eyes on him like he was a predator about to strike.  “That is… a lot of people, Alex.  What’s going on here?”

”Come on.”  She said, sighing again, the shirt she was wearing shifting unnaturally against her form into something that might have been more comfortable.  “Also hey Morgan.  You… you uh… you know this isn’t a delve, right?”

Morgan opened his mouth, and then interrupted his own impulsive response with an intake of breath and a quick nod.  “Yeah.  I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me.”

”That’s… not gonna happen!”  Alex said with faux cheer.  “James he’s gonna get shot.”  She stage whispered to the other paladin.

As Morgan tried to hold back an angry comment, literally biting his tongue, James nodded and leaned in to whisper back.  “It’s a part of our heritage.”  He told Alex.

”Isn’t that the fucking truth.”  She grumbled as she led them back around to a side door into what looked like one of those open conference rooms libraries often had available to the public.  

As they circled desks still laden with computers and shelves still full of books, James realized that this was the same library he’d been in before, when he’d found Lincon.  Well, run into Lincon.  It looked so different, with the January cold seeping in, the windows boarded up, half the lights off, and no visitors.  Well, some visitors.  But not the normal ones.

James followed Alex with his partner and aspirant in tow and one oilslick trying to flirt with both of them apparently, mentally prodding at Zhu to see if the navigator was awake yet, but getting nothing in reply before Alex led them through to some kind of back area where a long table was dominated by a series of unrolled maps and open laptops, and the seats around that table were dominated by familiar people.  A few humans, an umbral, two camracondas with one of them massively larger than the other, an assignment, and a crocamaw.

James did a double take on the crocamaw that was standing by the door as they turned to fix Alex with a relieved smile.  Partly because of the genuine affection that the dungeon life showed to James’ paladin, taking a half step to the side to reach out and run a bumpy hand over Alex’s neck as she entered.  And partly because the crocamaw was almost eight feet tall.

”Hello everyone I already know, and also hello… uh…” James waved at Simon and Spire and their coterie members as he raised his eyebrows in the crocamaw’s direction.  “Hi.”  He aimed at the crocamaw, who looked up from Alex like he’d just interrupted an intimate moment here in this obviously populated command center.  “We haven’t met!  I’m James.”

”Liette.”  The crocamaw’s voice was steady and smooth, her words coming out with a richly textured accent that didn’t really belong anywhere.  “Welcome to our battlefield.  And I offer you gratitude for it.”

”Of course.” James straightened up, taking the conversation seriously as the crocamaw addressed him with a far more complete command of English than any of the younger ones had.  “If you don’t mind my asking, you’re older, aren’t you?”

”I am.  The fanatics have, until now, exclusively targeted our children for their abductions.  I understand you are one of those to thank for the liberation of several of them.”  She blinked slowly, tipping her massive head and the hand that wasn’t on Alex’s shoulder downward in a small crocamaw bow.

James pursed his lips as he shook his own head.  “I know it’s important, but I don’t think I should be thanked for doing the bare minimum to stop what is basically a genocide.”  He cleared his throat and tried to redirect to something less grim.  “So, followup question.  You and Alex areeee…?”

”I will throw you out of one of these windows.”  Alex threatened him, despite her face being bright red.

”I’m just saying, as your friend and not your commanding paladin, that I believe I have identified that you have a type.”  James poked fun at the paladin who had at some point had a crush on his notably tall and buff girlfriend.  He’d dig into that more later, though; for the moment, James gave Alex a reprieve as Liette gave her a full body smile, and instead turned to the rest of the group.  “Hey Drak.  Fancy seeing you here in a country where I know you’re not legally allowed.”

”Oh, now you care about the law.”  Silverson rolled his eyes at James as he responded with quick wit.  “Not when you were using illegal automatic weapons in my house.  Which you still owe me for the remodel of, by the by.”

”We really don’t.” Simon said dryly, eyes closed and one finger on his hand twitching on buried reflex as he scrolled through footage with his skulljack.  “Welcome to Utah.”  He told James, mirroring Alex’s comment.  “How well armed are you?”  The question was a little more disturbing coming from a guy who was wearing body armor and had a wide bandage on his cheek.

James took a long breath through his nose.  “I was concerned before, I’m worried now.  I’m upgrading it to worried.”  He stated as he stepped around the others and started looking at their maps.  “What the hell did I teleport into?  And, importantly, why are there a ton of random kids upstairs if two paladins asked me how many guns I have?”

Spire-Cast-Behind gave an irate hiss.  “Because this accursed city is bounded by a series of interdiction spells.”  She said, one arm adjusting a map of the county toward James so he could see a number of red lines drawn around the outside in a way that almost looked like some kind of trench warfare diagram.  Rings behind rings of problems.  “Our opposition was not satisfied marking individuals for imprisonment.  Now we have geography that stops teleporting as well.  Among other things.”

”Other things being cars, navigation systems, and in a couple cases bikes.”  Simon filled in.  “Bike bikes, not motorcycles.”  He clarified.  “It doesn’t just keep people from leaving, but whatever this spell is, it does screw with the sense of direction, so people end up diverting into one of the gaps.”

James frowned as he followed the logic.  “Which are, naturally, where there are people waiting.”  He was partially asking, and got confirmation from Simon and Spire.  “Does it stop communication?  I’m noticing that the Order, while we absolutely have been getting updates from you guys, did not inform me about this before I was sent down here.  Similarly, I was not told about Three Oh Six here,” he jerked his thumb over his shoulder to where he assumed the oilslick was still lurking, “or that there were a bunch of various kids, or that apparently I should have brought some kind of anti-armor weaponry.  Do you guys want me to go back and get the bazooka Nate bought?  I’m pretty sure I can just run in a straight line and they can’t stop me.”

“No something else is doing that.”  Spire told him.  “It is frustrating.  However it is not enough to truly slow us down.”  She looked from James up to the clock hanging on the wall over the door, then back to him.  “We do not have time for you to retrieve anti-armor weaponry.  I apologize.”

Three Oh Six leaned over James’ shoulder.  “You have a bazooka?”  They asked excitedly as James tried to surreptitiously slide away to maintain his bubble of personal space.

“I have a lot of things.”  He said, biting back a smile as Arrush gently stepped into the space he’d made between himself and the shapeshifter, leaning on James and pretending Three Oh Six wasn’t there.  “So who wants to tell me about the kids upstairs?”

The umbral that was standing in the corner using a cell phone in what had to be the most awkward way possible hung up their call and stepped back toward the table, tossing the smartphone from a tendril down to one of their unfurled hands before gently setting it onto a stack of manilla folders.  “I can do that.”  Mark said, his voice recognizable to James partly by the low vibration that accented his words, and partly just by context.  “The majority of the crocamaws and ratlings-“

”Goblins!”  Three Oh Six interjected.

Morgan gave her a purposefully confused look that James knew, knew, was deliberately sculpted to take advantage of his younger age to inflict the most awkwardness possible.  “I thought you guys were called goblins?”  He asked.

”…Why would I be a goblin?”  Three Oh Six asked him, puzzled and not yet realizing that Morgan was fucking with her.

”Oh.  Uh… sorry, I thought it was obvious.  Nevermind.”  He looked away and started saying something else to Alex while Three Oh Six gave a disgruntled hey! and tried to get his attention back.

”Thanks Morgan.”  James muttered almost silently, offering gratitude for the intercept.  “Mark, you were saying?”

The umbral’s blue oval loops turned back to James.  “Yes.  Right.  Well the majority of the dungeon life came to us courtesy of our main opposition.  Garden casters, predominantly young men but not exclusively, using Bell By Midnight to capture and employ dungeon life as weapons.”

Simon didn’t look up.  ”Yeah, they expanded to Pylon life too.”

”We’ve found more than a few places where they ‘store’ dungeon life for future use.”  Mark continued.  “And our paladins here have begun to make a habit out of removing the walls and fences at those sites.” He waited for commentary, but got none in reply.  “Yes.  Well.  Our human children are sourced from… oh, all over.  Orphans, child soldiers, kidnapping victims…”

”He’s being dramatic.”  Drak said with a snort unbecoming of the man who was even now dressed like he was going to a chamber of commerce meeting and not a brawl.  “A lot of them are scared kids running away from home because they were already on the fence about what their parents were telling them to do, and now they’re watching their parents tell them to learn to throw fireballs so they can fight in a holy war, and they’re thinking ‘hey, nuts to that!’  And now they’re here, where we tell them it’s okay to study magic for fun and validate their teenage opinion that holy wars are stupid.”

”Holy wars are stupid.”  Ink-And-Key provided.  “Ah.  I am sorry.  That was rude.  I am sure many of your kind believe otherwise.  Killing each other over mythology may be your historical heritage.  Apologies, even if I am right.  I will return to hiding.”  He ducked back down over the edge of the wide table.

”No no, I’m on your side here.”  James said.  “So, what’s up with the other new things I saw?  Some kind of clay… golem?  And one of the chalk things?”

”Ah.”  Mark’s tendrils swayed back over his form as a finger the size of James’ forearm tapped at the table by his phone.  “The canisugi.”

”The… wait, no, I got it.  They break and heal, don’t they?  And they’re dog shaped.  Canid kintsugi.  Okay.  Sorry, go ahead.”

Liette leaned her towering maw around Alex, part of it cracking open to speak in her thick tone.  “You told me your paladin liked words and language.  I do not think I quite understood the mind behind it, until just now.”

”To be fair I’m just filled with useless trivia.  Also I just learned more Japanese. Anyway, Mark?”

The umbral gave a breezing chuckle.  ”Well you’re not wrong.  They’re Garden creatures, smart, though half children themselves.  We’re starting to get a picture of the Garden as having been making life for quite some time, and much of it takes a decade to mature.” He waved his heavy hand at Liette, who smiled back in four places.  “The canisugi are orphans, and we promised to care for them.  Think of them as around five or six year olds with slightly more armor plating.  The chalk scribble followed us out of a pursuit delve at one point.  That one’s just a playful animal.”

”A pursuit delve?”  James asked with a raised eyebrow.

Alex’s reply was as tired as she looked.  “A group of kidnappers went in to find more ammo.”  She told James.  And then when he raised his other eyebrow at her, she added.  “They didn’t succeed?”

”Sure.  So Mark you said the majority and I kind of want…”

Mark sighed, static crackling along his shadowy form as he adjusted his legs to manage the chair he’d claimed.  Umbral weren’t great for chairs, just by how their bodies were laid out, but they were close enough to get a good slump going.  “The faction trying to immanentize the eschaton has a lot to do with the rest of them.”

”Okay, I don’t want to be rude, but the last time I heard someone say that, it was because they were accusing me of being An Satan for trying to create a utopia…”  James said slowly, remembering a particularly shitty person he’d met in Oklahoma who had been less than grateful about… well, anything really.  “I am assuming you don’t mean that the people here are trying to build a utopia?”

”They’re trying to end the fucking world.”  Alex bit out.

”Why?”  Arrush asked.  “No, why?  We like the world!”  He looked at James with confused eyes.

James set a hand on Arrush’s flank, pulling the ratroach against him in a sideways hug.  “They’re fanatics?”  Alex and Spire nodded, while everyone else just gave him a variety of grim frowns.  Liette’s especially was impressive, all teeth and malice.  “And they’re… actually, no.  Start from the beginning.  Who are we fighting?”

He’d read their reports.  He’d seen their messages.  And right now, James was pretty sure, they were wrong.  The information wasn’t getting through properly.

The Order knew a lot about memeplexes and infovores and other memetic hazards, but they didn’t have a good plan for this kind of asymmetrical battlefield information.  They’d spent too long with the majority of their members tackling the same thing at once; one crisis, then the next, then the next, together.  And now when they’d split up, they’d ended up with this situation where some of the people had what was clearly a much bigger problem, but that knowledge wasn’t properly getting back to the core group so that they could react to it fully.

And as the group explained the players on the board here, that fact really came into focus.  James had assumed they were looking at similar people to when he’d been here.  The Mormon Church as a general whole, using Garden magic to create worryingly devoted young believers and also to keep them in line.  A subset of the same, secretly collecting people to ride out the end of the world in a kind of ‘ark’ inside Pylon Motoric.  And an infiltrating faction from the Motoric made up of the oilslick shapeshifters that was partly responsible for the ark project to ‘feed’ their home dungeon, and partly actual converts into true believers, however they contextualized that belief.  Oh, but it didn’t stop there, did it?  Because those child soldiers the Mormons were making were, actually, true believers too, and they took that belief and drive to act and put it to work forming what looked like a resistance cell but was actually more like a devoted prayer group that happened to be dungeon delvers.  And was opposed by their own church leadership.

That was the picture James had in his head, and had figured was mostly still accurate.

That picture was also stupidly wrong.

As Simon left to coordinate something with the rogue team, and Liette and Ink-And-Key similarly vacated the room to check in on the horde of low-maturity-high-energy life forms prowling the otherwise unused library, the rest of them filled James in.

The first thing he had to understand was that the term ‘the Mormon Church’ didn’t work here anymore.  There were currently three different groups in the area that would all like to claim the title of the Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints, and all of them were to some extent trying to kill each other.

One of them were the ones that were trying to weaponize the dungeons at high speed, turning magic into an advantage they could use to bully, threaten, or break their opponents.  What had started out as a simple disagreement over whether or not magic was okay in the eyes of their God had, over the months, escalated into attacking people’s homes, vehicles, and even places of worship.

Another was best described as ‘purity-focused’.  James would have, if they had more time to get rolling, called them a Status Quo.  Magic was evil, nonhumans were evil, anyone who disagreed with them was evil, and their rhetoric had turned very fire and brimstone very quickly.  They hadn’t gone so far as burning anyone alive yet, but Simon informed James that they had legitimately tried to lynch someone by this point, and they were just as willing to shoot first and ask questions never.

The third group were convinced that, if it wasn’t the end times yet, then it should be, and they were determined to make that happen.  Their current method was unleashing dungeon life in large quantities out into the local area, herding large groups with sound and sometimes gunfire toward the dungeon entrances and letting them spill out to roam the streets.  A lot of them were apparently from the ark project group, and they were sometimes spotted recruiting even more people for that dungeon stasis.

Those three groups were the majority of people around here, and while they all had their supporters, each of them kind of capped out at around a thousand actual combatants.  Which was still such a wild outnumbering of the Order that it was insane.  If they actually found the Order’s safehouses, they could just bury them in bodies and guns.

Then there were the Pylon oilslicks, standing as their own faction.  They were out, now.  Out in the world, fucking around and doing their own thing.  Working toward their own goals semi-openly.  Three Oh Six was apparently with them, but wanted it made clear that their species wasn’t a monolith and wasn’t under dungeon control.  Some of her people were aligned with other interests, it was just that most of them were aligned with the Pylon as its own polity.

Smaller factions, sometimes nested inside the others, also existed.  The police were supposedly keeping neutral but that mostly meant they were just treating every single skirmish like a crime scene of gang violence and telling the local news affiliates that it was ‘concerning’ and ‘being looked into’.  The kids that were trying to break away from the control placed on them were a thin network of runaways and occasional wildcards.  The city government was just gone, city hall empty, everyone missing, none of the work that normally kept daily life going being done at all; which actually made it odd that this library was not only closed but actively shuttered.

And there were hints there were even more players on the board too.  Simon was convinced there was a group fighting for nonhuman liberation, but he couldn’t find them.

And past all of that, the city of North Smiths still had legitimate civilians in it.  People who had no fucking idea what was going on, who were just watching the streets get emptier, watching businesses close down, and hearing gunfire in the distance every day.  Sometimes seeing it up close, and with things they would think were monsters mixed into the fighting.  The fact that this wasn’t some isolated place made it worse, too.  Truck routes went through here, people took commutes or vacations on the highways that passed the city’s edges, there was a small airport even.  And as the Order had seen in Oklahoma, feral dungeon life gave zero shits about city limits or official boundaries.

The only upside was that there was no sign of Aku.  In fact, the pillar was almost ominous in his absence.  The Necessary Evil had absolutely been active here, and Simon and Spire-Cast-Behind had put together a profile on his presence and knew he’d been here up until a few weeks ago.  Just before Alex and Simon arrived, actually.  But as of now, he was gone, off to cause problems somewhere else, even if no one knew what had made him leave.

Though Alex suspected it was the convenience store and pharmacy someone had blown up and burned to the ground.  Possibly with Aku inside.  Not that something like that would keep a pillar down, but it might have annoyed him out of town.

“I have two questions.”  James said as the breakdown came to a close.  “Well, no, actually I have a lot more questions.  But two relevant ones.”

”Go for it.”  Alex said, flicking a pencil across the back of her hand in lazy spins.

”First off, do we have an end goal here?”

Mark answered before Alex could.  “End the exploitation of my cousins.”  The umbral stated.

“Attack and dethrone god.”  Alex added sarcastically.

James felt a headache coming on.  “Spire, help.”

The camraconda hissed as she looked up from her work.  “Our operational objective is rooted in the dismantling of the assets and social structures used for obvious violence.  Targeted removal of leadership, disruption of communications, destruction or confiscation of resources.  Our goal is to reduce our opposition to a level at which they cannot continue to operate.”

”You’re assassinating people?”  James asked, his voice coming out quieter and sadder than he really meant.  “I mean… I knew it was getting bad, but…”

“We have not gone that far yet.”  Spire hissed in forced amusement.  “No, our current tactics are information campaigns, and exposing the already extant crimes of many of the people we are in conflict with.  It will not shock you to learn that several of the same people who are comfortable kidnapping and weaponizing dungeon-made children are comfortable doing similar things to human-made ones.”

”Well that’s disgusting.  How’s the tactic working?“ James asked with a grimace.

”Poorly.”  Spire told him.  “So I have been petitioning for assassination.  However despite several open fights, our kill count is quite low.  Some of the older humans we are fighting are ex-military, but the majority of them are not emotionally prepared for combat.  Their participation can be effectively cut off through disarmament and removal from the region.”

Alex spun the pencil she was playing with in the air, caught it, and started tapping it on the table. “We’re exiling people.”  She clarified for Morgan, who looked lost.  “Because the dungeon memeplex here makes it hard to come back if you don’t have a way around it.”

There was a pause where James looked at the two paladins left in the room.  Actually looked at their faces, and the emotions that were showing through even on Spire’s relatively less expressive camraconda visage.  “…You guys seem tired.”  He said.

”Well.”  Alex grunted in pain as she sat forward, one hand going up to rub her shoulder.  “There’s a lot of these idiots.  Kinda why I’m glad you’re here!  You can come with me on our next raid in… uh…” she checked the clock, “twenty minutes?”

“What are we raiding?”  James began incorporating himself into the group automatically.  “And how many of these raids are you doing?”

”As many as we can find.”  Silverson spoke up from the end of the table, cutting off his side conversation with Mark.  “And they aren’t easy to find, despite being all over the place.  Lots of people are dipping into the collective bank accounts.  They aren’t hiding out in derelict warehouses and empty basements, oh no.  We have professionals here.”

Alex rolled her eyes again.  “The rogues are helping.  It’s a big part of why they’re here.  Myles is annoyed that we dragged him back by the way, so watch out for hearing about that when you run into him.”

“Noted.”

”Anyway, this one’s a clinic.”  Alex continued.

James didn’t like that word one bit.  “As in, a hospital?”

Shaking her head, Alex looked like she was torn between wanting to stand up and wanting to fall asleep exactly where she was.  ”Deb’s domain is bigger than this.  I mean it’s a private practice that was a neurological imagining facility for a while, and now it’s where a bunch of people rotate through to equip spells.” She made a weird motion toward her arm.  “Long equips.  Beds, book… holdy… things, IV drips, they’re for people to sit for a day or more at a time.”

”What’s the strategic point of hitting it?”  James asked.  Oh, he was on board with fighting here, but he didn’t want to just be picking a fight with every random person who got in the crosshairs.  If they were going to be staging an assault on a building, he wanted there to be a point.  And next to him, Arrush gave a steady nod, agreeing with that sentiment as James voiced it.

And either fortunately or not, Alex provided that point for them.  “Myles is pretty sure that he got their records on spellbooks last week.  They do have a way to copy them, even if we have no idea what, but we know the groups that have Bell casters lost access to it, and it was unreliable anyway.  So we know a rough count of Bell By Midnight books that are in circulation.”

”And this clinic has one.”

”This clinic has eight.”  Alex snarled, getting a wide-eyed intake of breath from James, who just wasn’t used to seeing her angry.  “But it’s not just that.”  She tried to keep talking, and found her throat tighter than she wanted.

Spire added her voice where Alex faltered.  “There are captives there.” She said flatly, digital voice carrying none of her normal life.  “Seven currently, though we are waiting for the eighth to be delivered before our strike.”

”…because there are eight books there.  And eight casters equipping them.”  Arrush worked out, eyes narrowing.  He was, in many ways, familiar with this kind of casual cruelty.  The use of other living things as tools, as expendable ammunition, as spare parts.  But it had been so long, so much time and distance and healing between himself and when he’d lived that nightmare, that he felt like he was too slow to understand that this wasn’t a mistake.  This was something of his home, here, in the wrong world.  “I will go get our swords.”  He told James, turning to walk back to the lobby of the strangely in-use library, passing between Morgan and Three Oh Six without a word, just a quiet determination that they were going to do something.

James took a long breath.  “How many are left out there?”  He asked.  “I mean, we know they can find more in the Garden, but what’s the estimate on how many they had stockpiled?”

”Forty, split between the three Mormon groups.”

”Wait, all of them?  Even the anti-magic ones?”  James asked with furrowed brow.

Spire-Cast-Behind gave him a look that was pointed enough to freeze James anyway even if she wasn’t using her innate magic on it.  “James.  Please.  They are hypocrites.”  The camraconda told him wearily.

”Right, sorry.  Forgot for a second.”  James tried to laugh, but every new thing he was learning was making this feel worse and worse.  “Eight is still a good twenty percent of the things though.  If they’re split evenly, that could probably ruin one of the groups entirely.  If they rely on it, obviously.  So yeah, good reason.  I’m in, of course.  Arrush and I are at your command.”  He told Alex with a nod, and she just returned it with tired gratitude.  Not that it had really been a question that he’d help, but James was trying to make it a habit to establish which paladin was operationally calling the shots when they worked together.  “Okay.  Second question.”

”Make it fast.”  Alex said.  “Because we’re moving soon.”

James just jerked his head back over his shoulder.  “Why’s Three Oh Six here?”

”She’s helping us.”  Spire told him, giving the shapeshifter a glance.  “Did you not listen to the explanation of the Pylon groups operating in the city?”

”No, yeah, I mean, I did.  And I’m sure you’re very helpful,” James said with pointed politeness to the oilslick that gave him a slightly fluid waggle of her eyebrows, “but I am asking why you’re here, now.  Because we have met before, and I don’t think you were in a hurry to join the Order, were you?”

Three Oh Six grinned, a wide smile that split back farther than a human’s should, leaving a black gash on her face as some bits of her skin shifted back to the natural pooling oil form for a moment.  “I’ve been waiting for you, actually!”  She said happily.

”Stop flirting with-“ Alex sounded so done with the pylon shapeshifter.

Three Oh Six laughed.  “You know, anyone else, they would have asked first?  You guys just let me walk in because I helped out a couple times.”  She didn’t react as Morgan shifted away from her, the young human on guard already and giving her a suspicious look, but still waiting for James’ signal if he was supposed to act.  “Oh, don’t get me wrong!  I’m against the whole child soldier thing!  You guys seem cool!  But yeah, your paladin is right, I’m not here to help.”

The complete lack of reaction from anyone else in the room was almost deafening in itself.  The fact that Drak took the opportunity to casually answer a phone call and meander off to a corner to talk, while Spire went back to double checking street maps and assault plans, brought a lot of confusion to the oilslick.  It also tried to bring a grin to James’ face, but he stoically refused to let that out.  “Sure.  Anything else?” He told Three Oh Six.

”…No one here is worried that I’ve been spying on you guys and waiting for your boss?”  She asked.

Alex looked up from her phone where she wasn’t even doing real work, just playing sudoku.  “Rogues had you under watch since two hours before you made contact with us.”  She said, before turning her head back down.  “Sorry if you wanted to be dramatic.  That’s not your job though.”

”…Aw…” Three Oh Six looked legitimately disappointed.  “I wanted to deliver a cryptic message and then escape through a window though.”

”The windows that’re boarded up?”  James asked with sympathetic earnestness.  Then he corrected himself.  “Actually you can probably turn into a puddle, nevermind.  Anyway don’t compromise our operational security or this will stop being funny very fast.”  He said with a firm tone that was such a sharp contrast that Three Oh Six jerked back, her liquid smile slipping.  “So I gather you want to talk to me.  Great.  Save it for later.  I’ve got work to do.”  He said as Alex pointed at the clock on the wall.

”Well what am I supposed to do, just wait around here because you asked nicely?”  Three Oh Six asked impishly.

”Yes.”  Spire said.  “Or I will replace your clandestine watcher with Ink-And-Key, and you will be subjected to a psalm of his apologies as you are held in place.”

”I’ll be good.”  The oilslick promised very quickly as the camraconda slithered out of the room past her.

James followed Spire, gathering around where Simon had brought out a series of duffel bags full of their more dangerous gear that he had retrieved from somewhere.  James made the connection quickly that this library wasn’t just a safehouse for them, it was primarily serving as a point of refuge for a bunch of very young and potentially very curious life forms.  The fact that at least a few of them were humans between the ages of ten and fifteen did nothing to soothe James’ sudden worries about one of them rifling through a bag full of guns, baffler totems, and probably at least one thing that would simply explode if touched wrong.

But Simon had brought their gear out to the front counter to start strapping on armor and equipment, already joined by Arrush as James and the others got there to begin their own process.  The counter which still had personal effects and pet photos behind the computers, still had a couple carts of returns to reshelve waiting.  It made this feel like a place preserved in dim amber; flash frozen at a moment in time, with the Order just casually intruding on something that could be back in operation tomorrow if it wanted.

James fell into a rhythm with the others.  This wasn’t something he’d done in the field in a very, very long time.  And back then, it had been… frantic.  Half the preparation was mostly just convincing themselves it needed to be done at all.

He’d had some practice since then.  Real, honest, actual training on tactical situations and the protocols and procedures he’d helped create for them.  The checklist of armor, weaponry, available magic catalogued and shared over their local net, role assignments and chain of command set up, it all came together like a drill.  Because that was the point of having done this a hundred times in dry runs.  The point was that right now, James’ hands didn’t shake as he double checked the battle rifle and its non-bracelet-replenishable ammo.  The point was that he knew exactly what he could trust the Order’s entire compliment of paladins and their backup to do.

Simon’s coterie wasn’t joining them, nor was Spire’s, though hers wasn’t actually here as far as James had noticed.  Ink-And-Key and Arrush were the two that James knew were close to them, and on top of that they had two more rogues as well.  Myles and Rho, the canid inhabitor getting help firmly securing one of the heavy braced arm packs rated for automatic support fire.  And also, Liette, who had Order-style armor and a half dozen shield bracers affixed over her clothing, but no full body protection, which didn’t stop her from looking almost peaceful as she slotted bright red shells into a bandolier.

The lack of talking felt almost surreal as they got ready.  Alex had essentially declared that they were going to go get in a fight where they might need to shoot someone, and everyone understood that they were going to do that, because it would be a far worse sin to do nothing.

And then, a complication.

“What about me?”  Morgan asked, stepping up next to James as the paladin finished loading his alchemy mask with full vials of aerosolizable potion.

James had been looking at the younger human as he’d approached, and didn’t need Alanna’s Empathy power to be aware of the righteous anger that Morgan was holding onto.  But he already knew he wasn’t taking Morgan into this kind of combat.  Not now.  “I have a job for you.”  He said.

The still-teenage human gave James an angry frown, that morphed almost supernaturally fast into a thin line on his face, before he broke eye contact and sighed. ”You want me to stay here because you don’t want me hurt.  And you’re going to tell me you trust me to watch the kids so I don’t feel left out.  But I think I’d rather you were just honest?”

”Okay, that Judgment stat is really pulling its weight.”  James said after an unprepared snort of laughter.  When Morgan grinned, even if it was kind of awkward, he felt the tension ease.  “Yeah.  Well, kinda.  I actually do have a job for you.”   He said, one hand handing Morgan a piece of folded paper while he kept talking.  “I do want you keeping an eye on things here, just cause you’re probably more experienced in things going horribly wrong in a dangerous way than most of the Recovery folks that’re helping out.  But more specifically, I know you’re good talking with the crocamaws.  So, if you could just be yourself for a bit, I am almost certain someone will tell you something relevant to the situation that they haven’t shared with the ‘adults’ in the room.”

Morgan gave him a suspicious look, though he didn’t look down at whatever he’d been handed, instead just tucking the paper into his pocket while keeping it concealed in his hand.  “What, you think they’re hiding something?”

”Hah.  No.”  James shook his head with a smile.  “I think they’re probably all having a hell of a confusing week, and some of them probably know things they don’t even know are important.  And I seriously don’t want you to interrogate anyone, I just… I mean, you make friends with people easier than I ever fucking did, you know?  So do that, while being a backup line of defense.  And use your best Judgement on if you hear relevant tactical information.”

”Uggggh.”  Morgan rolled his eyes at James, the moment where he felt like he was actually appreciated breaking back into normal reality.  “I knew you’d be one of the people who used Lesson bonuses like regular words.”  He complained.  And then, after going silent for a little too long that it felt natural, he added, “Good luck.  Please don’t die, I don’t want… I mean, don’t die.”

James smiled back.  “I’m on it.”  He said.  “Besides, Zhu won’t let me get killed.  Assuming he ever wakes up.”

”I’m fucking up!  Stop stabbing me with your thoughts and words!”  The navigator yelled from inside James’ armor.

With a sigh, James shook his head at Morgan with too much melodramatic flair, and then went back to getting ready to go make a militarized raid on a building full of enemy spellcasters.

Morgan, meanwhile, went to the bathroom.  And only when he was in a place with no one in it did he check what James had actually asked of him.

Keep an eye on 306, read the note.

Morgan looked at it for a moment before flushing it down the toilet, filing away for later the information that the building still had running water apparently.  His initial thought was, why?  Why did James, famously someone who was way too trusting of anyone and everyone, often to his improbable benefit, suddenly decide to be paranoid now?

His followup thoughts, boosted by both his Lesson, his ongoing education in critical thinking and problem solving, and probably a few skill ranks in some esoteric etiquette branch, were put toward answering that question.  Because it wasn’t enough to just have questions, you had to do something about them.

The foundation of his question was the fact that Three Oh Six didn’t seem hostile at all.  In fact, when James had asked her why she was here, she’d just told him.  But then… that was the problem, wasn’t it?  She hadn’t introduced herself, and hadn’t told anyone else.  She’d lied.  By omission, sure, but Morgan wasn’t a moron.  He had personally tried that gambit once with his romantic partners and he was pretty sure if he was stupid enough to do it again Liz would find a way to launch him into the ocean.  It was still lying, and the oilslick had been doing it for long enough to get into the Order’s local safehouse.

Once that clicked, everything came into focus through that lens.  If she lied about being here to meet James, then she might still be lying when she ‘explained’ things to him.  And if she was lying about why she was actually here, then she could be a treat in multiple ways.  Hell, all she had to do was walk into the nearest Mormon temple and overshare, and it would be a serious problem.  Especially since teleporting out wasn’t on the table.

Morgan didn’t like that teleporting out wasn’t on the table, incidentally.  He’d shadowed almost a hundred Response deployments at this point, and the ability to just leave somewhere was so powerful, he’d started to forget what life felt like without it.  And now he was being reminded, and he did not like it!

It felt like the Mormons - any faction of their church schism, he didn’t care - had way too many things that blocked, predicted, or redirected teleports.  Which was more than zero, in Morgan’s opinion.

It meant that even being here, as a backup for a backup, was riskier than it should be.  It also meant that, in light of James’ request, Morgan was already on edge and worried about something happening, though he knew he had to suppress any indication of that when he went back out to the library.

“Right.”  He said, taking a deep breath as he washed his hands and stared at himself in the mirror.  “Maybe it’s nothing.”  He reminded himself.  Because that was an option.  Maybe it was nothing.  Maybe the dungeon born shapeshifter that had been lying to three paladins and their support staff this whole time didn’t mean anything.  Maybe the fact that the majority of localized combat power would be absent in five minutes wasn’t a problem.

But just in case, Morgan double checked his own notes on his prepared spell list.

He wasn’t a paladin.  He wasn’t even officially a knight, not really.  But as he watched the others slip out the side entrance and head for the nearby semi-concealed vehicles they’d be using, Morgan knew that didn’t matter.  The words had stopped mattering a while back.  All that mattered was that someone was ready for anything.  Because there were people that deserved the best he could do.  And if his best wasn’t good enough, he’d need to improvise.

Morgan gave James a semi-joking salute as the paladin’s boyfriend chittered a laugh next to him, and then turned to go deal with his task for the day.  Part of his brain, the part that was still an endlessly irate kid, did tell him that James was just humoring him.  But the worst case scenario there was that he hung up with a bunch of crocamaws, got to learn what was up with the little armored dog guys, and probably got to have lunch.

The paladins probably had a way more dangerous worst case, anyway.  So Morgan just silently wished them luck again, and headed up the incredibly loud wooden steps to the second floor.

And outside, James and the rest of them headed out to start a fight.