The Daily Grind - Chapter 393 (Patreon)

“I said it before, and I'll say it again. Sluts just heal quicker.” -Sophia Petrillo, The Golden Girls-

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Some days, Deb felt like she was the most normal person in the Order, in over her head and swimming in a sea of nonsense.

Other days - days like today - she felt like she had developed a very specific superpower.  Specifically the power to know, know, when someone was doing something stupid in the Lair’s medical floor.

Deb would have preferred some kind of objective magic.  Healing powers would be nice.  Or the ability to have some kind of provable certification of her abilities.  One thing that never showed up in the post-apocalypse fiction she’d been enjoying was the fact that someone couldn’t actually know what a doctor’s real skill level was until it was, perhaps, a little too late.  And Deb found that to be a hilarious oversight given how often she had to prove herself to people who wanted a piece of paper more than they wanted actual knowledge.

Sarah had been annoyingly right.  Most of Deb’s medical education coming from skill orbs was a problem.  Not in the Order itself, but anytime she needed to deal with a real world hospital or some kind of research conference or something, she was fighting an uphill battle that almost always ended with resignedly asking Planner or Mercy to… insinuate her name into the proper documentation.

And it was a shame that instead of being able to instantly project her real ability into people’s minds, she got the power that was mostly just a sense of impending dread sometimes.  It wasn’t actually supernatural, there was something that triggered it, she just often didn’t quite know what.  Noises that were a little out of place, maybe, or a glimpse around a corner of a shadow in a shape that wasn’t quite normal for her medical wing.  Something.

“Excuse me for a moment.”  Deb said quietly through her mask to the barely conscious crow-wasp she was checking on, her more grim mental power of compartmentalization kicking in as she stepped out of the room and softly slid the door closed behind herself.  The girl behind her was not doing well, and while Deb and her team were going to give her the best odds of survival they could, they were still odds and not certainty.

And that was something that happened sometimes.  It was horrible, and painful, and Deb absolutely couldn’t let it make her worse at her job or else the odds got worse for more people.

So she didn’t think about it while she strode quickly down the spatially warped hall, taking advantage of the ‘slide’ supplemental orange totem that let her cross the distance back to the front area about fifty percent faster than normal.  That time advantage was probably why Deb rounded the corner of the main intake area just in time to see a familiar person about to escape through a hip-deep wave of ratlings and… some kind of golem things.

Deb almost got sidetracked by that alone.  They looked sort of like canine, but their bodies and limbs were either covered in or made up of hardened clay plates.  Like flower pots that had been broken into shards and reassembled in creatures, glittering lines showing at the joints and cracks.  Deb wouldn’t have called their faces dog-like, either; they were too sharp, muzzles too boxy.  They were more like hyenas, really.  Though looking at how they were moving and shifting, she was also pretty sure they weren’t fully quadruped.

She’d heard of this species before, but hadn’t seen a canisugi yet, mostly because the ones that had come in hadn’t needed urgent medical attention.  Which begged a new question, of why were there ten of them here in her hospital?

Fortunately Deb had a way to figure that out, and all it would take would be a quick interception.  Putting on her best I am very disappointed voice, she called over the heads of the pile of people that the Order’s medical team had just had dropped in their laps.  “Oh, Alex?  Could I see you in my office for a moment?”

Her friend froze mid step, almost to the exit.  Deb couldn’t see Alex’s face clearly, but the body language looked like someone who had just undergone a magnitude four wince.  The slow deliberate movement as she put her foot back down and started to turn was almost enough to make Deb bust out in laughter, which would ruin the moment, so she was already turning herself and heading down one of the halls to where space that she was pretty sure overlapped an elevator shaft had been turned into administration.  Deb left the door to her office open behind her, walking in and taking a seat so that she was in position when Alex slunk in after her a minute later.

”So… uh…” Alex started to say.

”Close the door.”  Deb told her, motioning with one finger from the hands she had folded over her mouth.

Alex winced again and did so.  “If you murder me Mercy will be pissed at you.”  She challenged Deb.

The two of them just stared at each other for a moment, until Deb’s shoulders started shaking.  Her hands dropped to the desk and she ducked her head, letting amusement take over from anything else and just silently laughing until Alex joined in, and for a little while, they were just two friends drowning in the absurd.

”Okay.”  Deb eventually said, wiping a knuckle at the corner of her eye as she shook her head and composed herself.  “Okay.  Hey Alex.  Girl.  What the fuck?”  She asked.

Alex straightened up, brushed down the front of her shirt, and let out a long whooooo as she caught her breath and cut off her own laughter.  “Uh… so I’m sorry about this in advance?”

”Way too late for that.”  Deb told her.

”Sorry in… fuck what’s the word for… posthumously?”

Deb rolled her eyes as Alex sat down.  “That would mean you were dead.”

”I feel dead.”  Alex whined.

”You don’t look dead.”  Deb pointed out.

Alex groaned again. “I look weird.  I look like… like…” she trailed off, before grinning a little.  “You look weird too, by the way!  Who dyes their hair black?  Go for a normal color!”

Deb didn’t rise to the bait.  “Come on, what have you been doing?  We’re both a long ways from the early days, but I feel like I haven’t seen you in months and now you’re sneaking crowds into my hospital.”

Alex really did look apologetic about it.  “Spire and me’re busy messing up what feels like half of Utah.  And a house fell over earlier, so I figured I’d better make sure everyone there got checked out just in case.”  She cleared her throat.  “Becuase you’re such a good doctor?”

”I’m sure the house just fell over on its own.”  Deb’s sarcasm was thick enough to choke a horse.  “Next time call, okay?  You have a pho- your phone exploded, didn’t it?”

”I threw it at a guy.”  Alex admitted with a coy grin, leaning her head over the back of the chair and staring at the ceiling tiles.  “It was one of my cooler moments and no one will ever know!”

”Make a .mem, I’ll take a look for… posterity.”  Deb lied in at least one way.  “Also to validate your insane life choices.  Damn, you really are just a version of James, aren’t you?  No wonder you said yes when he asked you to be a superhero.”

Alex’s surprised laugh came out high pitched as she tried to crane her head back even farther to hide her blush.  “I am not!”  She protested in a squeak of a voice.  “I’m just helping.”  She said quieter, before pulling herself forward to look at Deb.  “Seriously though, I know I’m making a mess, but I think some of them have injuries and none of them really trust me yet.  You guys have… a whole process.  You’re official.”

”Official.”  Deb huffed.  And then looked around her office where she reviewed patient records and took her lunches, and quirked a small smile.  “That snuck up on me.”  She admitted.

”You think that’s bad, I’m supposed to be a superhero.”  Alex was right back to complaining.  “I fought a dragon, Deb!  A whole dragon!  On a boat!  You can handle a few ratlings!”

”Thirty ratlings, I can count.”  Deb’s desk was too wide, it made it difficult to prod her friend.  And throwing pens at people was a workplace safety violation in this building.  “What about you?”

”Me?”

Deb rolled her eyes at her nominal best friend.  ”Girl you said a building fell down.  Passive voice or not that’s not good for a person.  Are you going to stay for a checkup?”

”Oh.  No, I’ve got too much to do and there’s no serious damage.  I’m unbruisable, remember?  Though… fuck, Deb, I know this is bad but I really wish we could use that power crystal more.  I get it, I get why James doesn’t want us… I dunno, falling into a moral event horizon or whatever.  But…”

”But they’re not getting any more dead, whereas you, paladin that you are, can get more dead?”  Deb asked.

”Yeah.”  Alex groaned.  “But I still get it.  I just… I dunno.  Wish this were easier.”

”I’ll talk to James.”  Deb said.  “Hell, I’ve got a real administrative staff and ethics board down here somewhere now.  I don’t have to do anything, I’ll just offload this onto them and get them to draft regulations for when we’re allowed to use loot drops, then we can send that to a vote.”  Deb herself didn’t really like the all or nothing way they approached the issue.  Like Alex, she understood there were perverse incentives for using the skill or power crystals - or any loot drop actually - but she found it hard to believe that the Order would end up murdering people for their magic without something happening that had already compromised every ethical behavior they had anyway.

Alex looked like she was deeply uncomfortable with the idea of her own discomfort causing the Order to change a deliberate policy, which Deb kind of assumed was a requirement for being a paladin if the examples she knew personally were any indication.  Before Alex could say anything though, the door to the office rattled before being unceremoniously shoved open, a lens attached to a boxy head shoved through before Frequency-Of-Sunlight followed through on her intrusion and slithered in.  “Hey Sunny.”  Alex greeted her.

”Alex!  You are ruining my perfectly serviceable plan to seduce Deb in her office on her lunch break!”  The camraconda happily challenged the paladin.

”I… wow, really?”  Alex shot Deb the traditional respectful look of raised eyebrows.  “I mean yeah, get it girl.  I’ve gotta get back to Utah anyway, so I can just…” she started to stand up before Deb glared her back into her chair.

”Sunny I’m not on lunch, and also you know there’s nowhere in this room to… no, I’m not going to finish that thought.”  Deb rolled her eyes again as her girlfriend circled the desk to share a quick kiss.  “Alex is just apologizing for making a large amount of work for us today.”

”Oh yeah, the crocamaw that needs stitches?”  The camraconda asked.  “Hope they’re okay!”

”…What?”  Alex’s eyes widened.  “I didn’t think… who?”

”Dunno, but something smells like a coconut exploded out there, so someone is having a bad day.”  Sunny said, sucking in a hiss of breath.  “Don’t panic!  Mercy and… uh… the new guy?  They’re already on it!”

”His name is Abuado but he told everyone to call him Bruce and I can’t tell if that’s just trying to fit into the dominant culture, or if he actually wants to be called Bruce.”  Deb said, letting herself settle back down.  For now.  “He’s one of the test group to see how fast we can make someone into a medical professional.”

Alex made a curious noise.  “And?”

”And what?”

”And how long does it take?  I mean, I should probably be a doctor or something, right?  It keeps coming up!”  She said it like it was a joke, but Alex was clearly still worried about whoever had been hurt.  This batch of dungeon life she’d teleported into the Lair weren’t any people she’d spent time around; most of them had been rescued approximately twenty minutes ago after all.  But that didn’t change the fact that she felt like she should be able to do more than just evacuate a person.

Deb gave her a confused look, narrow eyes evaluating if Alex was serious or not.  “A day?”  She said eventually.  “Hang on.”  She opened one of her desk’s secret drawers and pulled out a rectangular case that had once been used for glasses.  “Here.”  She slid it over to Alex.  “Mems and orbs to get you up to speed.  This is my own… blend?”  Deb realized she sounded like her old weed dealer from what felt like two lifetimes ago in saying that.  “It’ll get you to what you want.”

”We just have this?”  Alex demanded.  “Hang on, why isn’t this in the paladin kit?!”

”It is.  Did you skip your upgrade last month?”  Deb glared at her, putting all of her disappointed parent energy into the look.  It didn’t always work, but it was exceptionally potent against Alex.  Especially when Alex actually had done something wrong.  Also Deb definitely liked using the look more when it was for something real as opposed to when she was stressed out about tech support calls back when the two of them had worked together.  “You did.  You did!”  She pointed at her friend accusingly.  “Check your locker before you leave again!”  Deb ordered.

Alex sputtered, before ducking her head in shame.  “Yeah, okay.  In my defense I was memetically trapped in Utah?”

”I’m sure you were.”  Deb pursed her lips while Frequency-Of-Sunlight hissed out her own amusement behind the desk.

”Also hey!  How come I’m somehow the irresponsible one in this conversation when you’re hooking up with your hot snake girlfriend in your office?!”  Alex demanded.

”Ooh, she has a point.”  Frequency-Of-Sunlight arched her body to look up at Deb from where she had coiled herself next to her partner’s chair.  “That was what I was here for!  It’s technically testing now!  Oh.  No, wait, there’s no orbs to miss for that yet, so I don’t think it counts.  Sorry Alex you’re still the silly one.”

”That wasn’t-“

Alex snapped her fingers in a dramatic flourish across her chest.  ”Damn.  No, that’s a good counter.”  She told Sunny.  “Alright, I really am sorry about all the maybe injured dungeon people, and it will happen again, so… maybe stock up on purples for that?  I don’t know what you do exactly.”  She gave Deb another apologetic grimace as she pocketed the box she’d been given.  “And I actually have to get back before Liette starts reenacting Predator trying to track me down.  You two have fun!”  She said, briefly gaining the upper hand on Deb as she slid backward to the door.

”That’s not what’s happening!”  Deb called after her, shaking her head.  “You know,” she told Sunny as Alex swung the office door shut behind herself, “if you keep doing this someone is actually going to believe you.”

The camraconda narrowed her lens up at Deb.  “I’m hoping it’ll be you!”  The other girl told her cheerfully.

Deb smiled, and then shook her head with a sigh.  “One day.  But not today.”  She said, standing up.  “I need to get back to C-four’s evaluation.”

”…Hey, so, you know you’re a doctor and not an ordinance specialist?”  Sunny asked her.  “Unless you’ve got even more secrets that I want to know about!  What are you hiding?  Is it a whole hidden scandalous life of plotting revenge for wrongs done to you in a dark conspiracy?”

They had watched an adaptation of the Count of Monte Cristo last night, which Deb was pretty sure she would be hearing about for the next month, at least.  “Why would you… oh!”  She slapped a palm onto her cheek.  “C-four is the designation for one of the new crow-wasps.  She hasn’t picked a name, but there’s more than one of them, so…” Deb’s voice slipped a little.  “If she makes it, then… she can… if…” she trailed off, staring at the far wall of her office until she felt a soft pressure on her side and looked down to see Sunny pressing into her.

”Go.  Doctor.”  The camraconda told her, the jokes and teasing absent now.  “I’ll bring you lunch later.”

”Thanks Sunny.”  Deb exhaled.  “Did you actually need something in my office, before I leave?”

”No, just you.”  The camraconda said.  “But I’ll survive without!”  Her enthusiasm picked back up.  “Maybe I’ll go bug Bea.  She’s got the bear generator working better so that could be cool!  Anyway, good luck.  I love you!”  The camraconda called back as she deftly opened the door with the spidery mechanical arms on her back and started to leave.

”Love you… the what generator?!”  Deb yelled after her girlfriend, too late to catch her but just in time to hear the hissing laugh flow back to her.  She stood in her office for another minute, staring out into the sterile white hall with a smile on her face, before she took a breath, sighed, and slipped back into her professional self.

Someone still needed her at her best, after all.  Someone always did.  And if there wasn’t anyone right now, the Order would happily find someone for her.

_____

“How was… the other place?”  Keeka was the first to ask James a question as the paladin sunk into the communal bath pool that the ratroach was sharing with Anesh and Arrush.  Keeka was, as far as human standard went, pretty smart and getting better at the various nuances of geopolitical naming conventions.  By ratroach standards he was a genius.  But he still struggled with the specific differences between Europe, the UK, Great Britain, Regular Britain, London, and England.

James, taking the opportunity to press himself against Anesh’s back and enjoying the warm sensation of skin to skin contact as he grappled a lightly struggling iteration of his boyfriend, groaned.  Peeking over Anesh’s shoulder at where Keeka was floating by, antennae drifting around his head, he asked a very important question.  “Keeka would you let me mind control you?”

Keeka’s blush was so radiant it seemed to light up the black fur of his face like it had glowing fiberoptic cables woven through it. “Y-yes!”  He said, rolling in the water with a splash and paddling over toward James and Anesh with all four of his arms whirling under the water.  “That would… yes!”

”No.” Arrush clicking laugh sounded a little like he’d inhaled some of the water from the spout he was standing under.  Reaching out with one of his longer arms, he caught one of Keeka’s tails with an eep from the smaller ratroach, pulling his partner back toward him through the water with a glowing grin.  “He isn’t offering.  Yeeeeet.”  He stretched the last word out, myriad eyes fixing on James.

”You’ll have to talk to Alanna for that.”  Anesh offered unhelpfully.

”Oh.”  Keeka sagged back into the warm water.  “Then why?  Or do you mean, if it were someone else and not you?”

James was learning a lot of things in a short span of time, and it was doing wonders for his mood.  But he struggled through smothering a chuckle to answer Keeka.  “Yeah, I mean… like if someone you didn’t know and couldn’t see did it.”

”Hmmmmm.”  Keeka’s long consideration had the ratroach’s gentle clicking underneath it, the organic noise coming from deep in his chest as he slipped free from Arrush and went back to circling the pool in a lazy drift.  “That depends!”  He settled on.

“I’m going to love hearing this.”  Anesh said, though his heart wasn’t in it today.  ”Depends on what?”  He asked before James could.

”On if it’s good?”  Keeka sounded more confused than unsure.  “If… if someone mind controlled me to not murder anyone, isn’t that… okay?  I wouldn’t notice, but if I did notice, it would stop me doing a bad thing!”  He swished his arms through the water like some kind of butterfly.  “As long as it doesn’t hurt.”  The slim ratroach added quietly.

James let go of Anesh as his partner pushed back on him, giving the other human some space and noticing the way the answer upset his boyfriend.  “So, here’s the thing.”  He started.

”Oh no!”  Keeka’s arm came up to cover some of his eyes.  “I know what this means!”

“I’m not gonna argue with you that murder is generally bad.”  James said.  “But, what about fighting back in self defense?  And, okay, let’s say you perfectly map the mind control to the laws.  Who writes the laws?  What happens if something in the legal code changes into a thing that isn’t just a clear good?  What if breaking a law is important?”

”Right!”  Keeka agreed with a quick chitter.  “That’s why I said if it was good I wouldn’t mind!”

Anesh actually laughed at that, a surprised little giggle of a noise that made James smile in turn.  “I believe James is asking about things on a bit of a larger scale.”  He told his newer boyfriend.

Keeka rolled again in the water to face Anesh, arms stretching up into the air and showing off the fur and chitin of his body.  ”Oooh.”  Keeka swiped a paw over his muzzle.  “No, it seems like this is a trap.”  He said with a determined gaze.

”Oh?”  Anesh asked.

”Every time James asks something where the answer would be yes, if it were just me, the secret trap answer is no because there’s too many people and we have to make sure the rules don’t let anyone hurt anyone else.”  Keeka explained.  “Every time!  All of them!  He asked about motorcycles once and it was the same!”

Arrush hid a laugh behind dunking himself into the deeper part of the pool, shampoo echoing in his wake as his fur was purified.  When he popped up a few seconds later nearer to the group, he helpfully informed Anesh “Keeka wanted a motorcycle for the Horizon.”

”I’m not really a delver and I know that’s playing with fire.”  Anesh gave Keeka a concerned look.

”I know now!”  Keeka chittered back.  “Also you are a delver!  You’re strong and adventurey and things!”  He challenged Anesh, who writhed under the sudden praise.

”He’s right.”  James told his boyfriend with an assured nod while he let himself float.  “Also hey!  Not everything is a trap!” He protested.  But all he got in reply was silent looks from the other three, until he started to wonder if hiding on the bottom of the pool was something he could get away with.  “Alright, fine, it was a bit of a trap.  Look, I’m just… I’m upset, okay?  It feels like we’re treating the Tyrannical Trio as if we can’t do anything about them, because they’re… too strong?  Too big?”  The burst of a good mood left him, even if his Energy kept him from actually feeling too exhausted.  “I’m sick of it.  I’m tired of being the underdog.  We are absurdly well positioned to change the world, and I still can’t… I can’t… they just…” James shoved balled up fists into the sides of his face as he groaned out his frustration.

“And allow me assure you,” Anesh said with a very casual kind of anger, “it doesn’t feel very good for me either!”  He’d talked about it before, but as he started talking, he found that he couldn’t stop.  The words pouring forth as he sank through the water to land on one of the bench spots.  “My family is fine.  Everyone is fine.  I can call and tell them I’m worried and they say Oh little Neneh, it is okay.”  He affected a tone that was the closest James might get to talking to Anesh’s mom.  “Oh, things are changing, things are different, but do not worry about us!  Enjoy your studies and your job!  Come home when you can, so you can see!  Come home.  Home.  To that.”  Anesh’s voice cracked.  “And I’d say I might not have a choice, because if I’m outside alone for too long anywhere but Townton or wherever is currently on fire, the gestapo might show up and arrest me for being the wrong nationality, or wrong color no matter what that orb lets me chameleon into.  But apparently even that won’t send me home!  Since even the Tyrants don’t know why the US is doing that, and they don’t know where the people being arrested are going!  And we’re supposed to…to…” he choked on the words, face twisting as he looked away.

James and Keeka caught him from different sides.  The two of them not exactly landing in unison, but both of them swimming over and taking spots by Anesh to try to comfort him, Arrush floating farther away and looking like he had absolutely no idea where to put himself.

The fact that Anesh had been struggling with this had been growing, day by day, as the Order tried to figure out what to do.  But he’d known.  Correct or not, he’d felt like he’d known from the start that this was an upheaval that wasn’t going to have a solution.

And then things had started to feel pitifully normal, despite everything.  He woke up, and ate food with people he loved, and he went to the Lair and worked on magic, and he called his family and lied about how many boys he was dating, and he did TA work to pay back old favors where students gossiped about politics with all the conviction of people who weren’t in the line of fire, and he felt the world calcify around him like a tomb.

And now he was crying.  Openly weeping while he felt chitin and skin press against him in a way that could have been delightfully erotic if he hadn’t been falling apart.  And Anesh wondered if he was ever going to feel okay again.

”Sometimes,” he gasped out, sniffing wetly and wiping away at his eyes with the back of his hand that was already wet from the baths to the point that he didn’t know if he was doing anything useful, “sometimes I wonder if… no, too grim.”  He shook his head in a jerk that almost cracked his skull into James’ chin.

“I want to hear.”  Keeka whispered, voice almost swallowed by the flow of water into a dozen pools.

Anesh sighed, trying not to meet James’ concerned eyes.  “Sometimes I wonder if… if there’s some kind of curse on us.  That everyone in this Order is destined to end up as the kind of person the Order is supposed to save.”  He stared down at the rippling surface of the pool, until he realized he had incidentally fixed his sight on Arrush’s swaying tails.  “Maybe if someone isn’t broken when they show up, it ends up happening eventually so they fit in.”  He whispered.

”Everyone you meet should be counted as the walking wounded.”  James intoned softly, in the voice he used to quote things even if he’d forgotten the exact words.  “We have never seen a fully sane human.”

”Oh, I know.”  Arrush agreed with that before realizing that it might not mean what he thought it meant.

Anesh found that immensely funny, though his laughter lacked vigor.  “You know what I mean.”  He told James.

”Yeah, I do.”  James said firmly.  “And I’m not kidding either.  I know this example is gonna feel small in comparison to… everything… but Anesh, how long could we have been dating for before we actually did if you weren’t… you know…”

”Raised to be straight?”  Anesh asked, seeing where James was going.

Keeka gave a small gasp, clinging tighter to his human boyfriend.  “No!”  He exclaimed hotly.

”That doesn’t make me… ah, to hell with it.  You could be right.”  Anesh sighed and admitted.  “But it doesn’t change now.  I know we can’t do anything about it.  You said they showed up as level twenty?  I’ve been thinking of the measurements we’ve been taking for Sewer stats, and I’m pretty sure that level twenty in a Lesson would make someone immortal, or a siege weapon, or a physicist capable of imagining non-spherical objects.”

“…I feel like this is a joke I’m not getting…” James admitted.

”We should have had a relationstick open!”  Arrush added.  “We could fill it now.  Because I also feel that!”  The ratroach leaned forward slowly, so far it looked like he was about to topple over, like he was waiting for Anesh to explain the joke.

Anesh did not explain the joke.  “Twenty is too much.”  He continued with the ghost of a grin on his lips.  “At this point I’m just… I’m glad you’re back, and alive.  I’m glad they don’t want to kill us all.  Because we’d lose.”

”We might not.” James said, but his heart wasn’t in it.

”Then we’d lose people.”  Anesh looked at his partner and shook his head.  “There’s a thing you say, a thing I always thought was a bit silly, but you say it to people we help a lot.”  He paused, but no one interrupted him, so he took a short unneeded breath and tried to smile at James.  “You tell them, it’s going to be okay, but it’s going to be different.  And… I think I’d like to hear that, maybe?”

James hugged him tighter before separating and getting his knees up on the mostly smoothed stone of the bench that ran around most of the outside edge of the pool.  “Not this time.”  He told Anesh, who gave him a shocked look.  “No.  Because you’re right.  This isn’t okay.  It’s insane.  It’d be one thing if everyone agreed to it, but this is…” he set a hand on Anesh’s shoulder, and felt Keeka’s paw wrap over top of his fingers.  “It’s going to be okay.”  He said seriously.  “Not right away.  But at some point, I am going to fix this.”

”Hopefully before the bombs start falling.”  Anesh said, and regretted it instantly as he saw the hurt look in James’ eyes.  “Not that…” he floundered.

”No, you’re right.”  James said, shaking himself.  “Can’t keep saying eventually, can we?  Maybe… maybe we just bribe them.”

”With… magic?”  Arrush asked with open concern.  Maybe, he thought, James had hit his head when he’d slipped underwater.  Maybe he wasn’t feeling well.  “They have too much magic.”

James appreciated the concern.  ”Sort of but no!  With clean energy.  With teleport logistics.  The things we’ve already been setting up, so that we can bribe nations.  I keep telling people we aren’t just teleporting assassins for a reason, and it’s because I think we can get a huge amount more momentum by proving that we can outcompete the assholes that act like tyrants, you know?  So… we’ve got diplomatic contact now, of a sort.  And that means we have a crack we can wedge something stupid into.  Tell them to drop the mind control, or we’ll give their enemies the fun toys but not them, you know?”

”Will that work?”  Arrush asked.  “Y-you lived for a long time without teleporting.”

”Yes but I hated it.”  James shook his head solemnly.  “Can you imagine how screwed we’d be without it right now?  With air travel apparently just not happening on a commercial level?  How would we do anything?”

Arrush swam closer, floating with his offset limbs splayed out around himself like a strange underwater tree. ”You’d figure something out.”  He said with complete confidence.

”I hate to be optimistic right now, but he’s right.”  Anesh said with a shake of his head, dark hair getting in Keeka’s snout and eliciting a sneeze from the smaller ratroach trying to cuddle him in the warm water of the baths.  “You have a habit of it, at this point.”

”I get lucky.”  James downplayed everything he’d ever done.  “You’re much better at deliberate things than I am.  Oh, speaking of, how’s the Climb imbuement going?  I hear Nik’s gone back to his old life strategy of insane bad ideas and is trying to imbue a person?”

”Himself, yes.”  Anesh said.  “And it’s… a work in progress.  Let me tell you…”

He let the flow of conversation take him somewhere that was, if not comforting, at least a little farther from where the constant painful reminder of his semi-lost home was.  The swirling reflected lights of the baths, dancing off of water and copper piping, covered the ceiling and the bodies of the people with him as he tried to relax.  The smell of soaps and shampoos helping, even if he have to cool his bare skin getting out of the pool to grab one of the purification brooches.  And for a little while, Anesh felt like maybe he wouldn’t need James to commit to some kind of heroic chaos to make everything okay.

This Anesh, anyway.  He really did need to talk to himself, and share this moment very directly.

It felt far too important to relegate to a simple cycle of memory refreshing.

_____

“I have established that the hoar tree cannot level up!”  Momo’s voice briefly filled the Research chaosium.  The name had been more or less officially adopted since whenever the last time James had said it out loud, the ‘main lobby’ of Research fitting the description pretty well.  An open area with a ring of desks surrounding the pen they kept all the shellaxies in - two rings now, actually, desks being assembled like layered curtain walls - where people often did the kind of work they could do while lightly socializing.  It was perfect for the sort of Researcher that had a deep seated need to know why someone nearby was swearing at a spreadsheet.

It was also where Nik was, which was unfortunate for Momo.  “Why are you being so mean to the tree?”  He yelled from the other side of the room.

The yelling was unneeded, Momo could hear him just fine with the regular acoustics, even before accounting for the fact that she had her brain plugged into all the same sensory devices Second used so that she could… well she didn’t know why she’d done that but she was doing that.  

“Nik what the fuck are you talking about?”  Momo didn’t get to be on this side of the publicly expressive exasperation very often, so she savored it.  But she also didn’t want to let Nik sidetrack her denouement, so she raced to keep talking before he could explain himself.  “No, don’t bother!  You know what the tree spell is called!  Penalty point to Nik for wasting time!”  Pale Hoar Lurker was hardly the strangest spell name, but Momo wasn’t interested in hearing the same joke over and over, so she intercepted it early.

”Hey!”  Nik protested, but Halo was already updating the board.

They actually had a board for this, next to the big board for who was testing what imbuements today.  It didn’t really mean anything, there was no prize, except for the prize of being recognized as someone who didn’t interrupt monologues.

And Research was the place to go if you loved giving monologues.  You had to earn it, but it was better than Response.  Momo had tried being a Responder, but those guys had a really low tolerance for goofing off, so it had been a bad fit.

“C-can I hear about the tree?”  A human Momo hadn’t seen around asked.  Actually, Momo was pretty sure that she wasn’t human; that way that her throat moved after speaking was a thing that happened a lot with ratroaches that were inhabiting human bodies for whatever reason.

Momo ran through her mental list of people in the Body Experimentation club, grabbed the name of the single ratroach who sometimes worked in Research that she knew, and nodded back.  “Sure thing Peerah!”  She said, and mentally fist pumped as the body swapped ratroach’s human eyes widened at her in surprise over being identified.  Momo loved doing stuff like this; it kept up her mystique, and let her feel like she was earning her wizard robe.  “I hauled an ice tree through the Pylon a couple dozen times.  It doesn’t get AP at all, as far as I can tell.  No leveling up, which hoses at least two plans to get the things Garden links.”

A younger red haired human that was actually probably a human raised her hand from across the room, new enough that she didn’t know how Research’s central area worked when it came to stuff like this.  “Why are you carrying around a tree?”

”Profit seeking behavior, mostly.”  Momo answered.  “Any other questions!”

“No seriously!”

Momo sighed, arcing her whole body backward.  “Because I am a genius, we have a way to give the tree that Pale Hoar Lurker makes Garden spells.  It’s not great cause they kinda eat the spell coins when they despawn, but whatever!  If we pay the upkeep cost, we can keep using them as factories for any spell.  And I wanted one to get skill ranks so that we could do some truly bizarre shit!  But no!  The universe hates me!”

Davis, who had strolled in sipping at a travel mug of something rich that Momo could smell from twenty feet away, pointed at her with a single finger off the chrome mug as he passed by.  “The universe gave you a spell factory.”  The gracefully aging gentleman told her, not looking up from the clipboard he was reading.

”I did that myself!”  Momo protested as Davis kept walking.  “I feel like no one is sufficiently thrilled with my work!  James liked my work!”  She kept talking, rapidly ruining her own point, “I mean, okay, it’s a little erratic in casting, so it doesn’t exactly work as a sentry turret like we wanted unless you need some kind of prolonged fireball-based area denial.  And it’s useless for any spell you need to control after casting.  And it can’t aim.  And… look the point is that I can make… infinite free towels…”  Momo’s shoulders slumped, all the enthusiasm draining out of her as she started to feel the incoming symptoms of a depressive episode, and really would rather not feel that at all.

“I like towels?”  Peerah tried to console her.

She sighed, and waved a hand as she started to sit back down at the open-use desk she’d been using as a kind of command hub for her most recent project.  “Watever.  Halo, take Nik’s point away, fuck it, who cares.  I’ll… figure something out later with-“

A binder labeled as a ‘spellbook’ in a way that was not nearly mystical enough with its twenty four point times new roman font was dropped onto Momo’s desk, the papers inside open to one specific entry.  She hadn’t noticed Nik approach, and the sudden thwack startled her, but she tried not to show it as she glared up at him.  “Granted Eyes.”  Nik said simply, tapping the binder.

”What?”  Momo kept glaring.

”You need the tree to be able to see to aim a fireball.  Granted Eyes is the spell you want.  If the tree is… you know, capable of being a target… you can give it your sight, and then it can aim.” Nik said.  Then he cleared his throat, one of his hands tugging at the growing moustache he was trying to encourage.  “Sorry, wasn’t trying to be a dick.”

Momo sighed and slid the record of all their Garden spells closer.  “You’re fine.”  She admitted.  “I’m being a baby.”

Nik shrugged back at her.  “Nah it’s fine.  I get the same kind of thing a lot.  Anyway, good luck.”  He walked off, leaving the binder with all their known Garden spells on the desk Momo was using.

She wanted to protest that her version of this was definitely different from his.  That everyone still thought she was a reckless idiot even though reining in her recklessness when it came to magic was exactly why she hadn’t thought to swap her eyes with an artificial ice tree.  That Momo had maybe nearly killed herself fucking around with totems while all Nik had done was try out shaper substance and poke an authority for the first time.  That no one thought he was one step away from blowing up the whole basement.

Then Momo realized she’d probably thought that herself at one point.

”Fuck.”  She said with sharp sudden clarity.  “I need to… what, stop fucking everything up?”  No, that was too vague.  Momo had tools for this.  If everyone was bullying her into therapy the least she could do would be to actually get something out of it.  “Okay.  Plan.  I need to apologize to Nik.  And then go give a tree eyes.  And then-“

”Yes?”  A voice next to her head sounded, a pen gently performing calligraphy with the spoken word.

Momo’s brief screech drew a little attention and spooked half the shellaxies, before everyone saw that it was Planner up their normal surprise routine.  “Plan!  Why?!”

”You spoke my name.”  Planner seemed honestly confused.

”I was making a plan!”  Momo retorted.  “Jesus Christ, therapy never prepared me for you.”

”I have been called an out of context problem, yes.”  Planner’s coiling eye-dotted limb wrapped around Momo’s desk in a geometric encirclement.  “Regardless.  Did you need something?”

Momo thought for a second, and then nodded defiantly.  “Yeah, can you rearrange my brain so I don’t get too deep into this spell-tree thing and forget to eat today?”

”…You are consenting to my scheduling?”  Planner sounded apprehensive, almost confused.  “You were adamant that you did not want this.  Are you well?”

”That was a year ago, I was freaked out, and I’ve been coasting on momentum without rethinking things properly.  Besides, you’re probably the most trustworthy person in this basement, I fuck up my own life constantly, and if I’m gonna have a reputation for being reckless then I should at least do something with it, right?”  Momo shrugged.  “Just don’t take up the space Speaky uses, okay?”

Planner’s eyes softened as they circled Momo, a look of sympathy and understanding basking her from all sides.  “I see.”  They said gently.  “You know that my help is only help.  I cannot - will not - puppet your life for you.”

”Yeah but at least I’ll be on time for making stupid mistakes!”  Momo replied with a smile that became less forced as the seconds went on.  “Anyway, I gotta go find a spellbook.”

”Yes, I have allocated one hundred and fourteen minutes to your project.  Please inform me if you wish to rescind your consent.  Also your mind is a mess.  Do consider some guided meditation.”  Planner said, before their manifested tentacle folded its way back to wherever the assignment was when they weren’t harassing Momo.

Momo tried to flip them off, but wasn’t fast enough.  Then she realized she was going to have to sit still for almost two hours and wondered if maybe she could offload her project to a more patient Researcher.

But no, that would be giving up, and that would suck.  And she wanted to bring this whole thing together, before someone discovered a new Garden spell and nullified all her work, which would probably happen later anyway.  But that would be fine.  Maybe she could do it to herself, even!  Momo kind of loved outdoing herself.

Okay.  Spellbook first.  Maybe she’d go screw around with the Body Experimentation Club later, now that she was reminded of it.  Maybe drag El with her, and watch her girlfriend - Momo still wasn’t tired of thinking of El as a girlfriend - get all flustered by how horny everyone in that club was.  And then later, if she was really lucky with the whole tree thing, she could earn herself another wizard star for her bathrobe.

_____

On a normal late January day in the regrowing city of Townton, everything was generally quiet.  Or as quiet as Townton ever got.  The city wasn’t exactly some mecca of nightlife yet, but it was going from a place that relied on the Order as a lifeline and imported everything it needed, to a place that was more alive as a city.

Yes, they had social spaces and entertainment venues in various permutations.  But that wasn’t enough to make a city, just a large camp of determined survivors.  What started to bring Townton to life was that they were, in a few ways, starting to produce things.

The dungeon delving was part of it.  Route Horizon, in some ways, was like a giant open air mine.  Tricky to get into, but it held a surprising pair of ‘natural’ resources that they were working on figuring out the logistics of making full use of.  One was a kind of rich volcanic soil that the dungeon had used for the mesas and clifftops that sometimes lined the highways.  Very hard to actually get in volume, but operational testing was happening over time to figure out how to fix that.  Farming in the dungeon was a big no, though, because the Horizon tended to move stuff around and reset its terrain while unobserved, and no one wanted to risk a whole crop, or the people watching it, to a shift.  The other resource was quartz sand.  Not massively valuable on its own, but as with many dungeon chunks, it was, apparently, renewable, and that could mean a lot.

The other stuff that came out of the dungeon - navigator seeds, carcane devices, potion gas, map scraps and Velocity gears - were less resources in the same way.  They weren’t potential industries.  And they were also things collected by delvers, not by people who were wondering if there was a day job through the threshold of arched highway signage.

But Route Horizon wasn’t easy to scale up.  What was, though, was agriculture.  The apocalypse beans were also from the Horizon, and the Order’s dedicated delver team was hard at work risking their lives to find something like them again.  And as far as crops went, they were both the world’s biggest problem, and a generally excellent food source.

No one was sure if they were named for being something to cause the apocalypse, or help everyone survive it.  And unlike most of the things the Order kept exceptionally good records on, there was no indication of who had named them or why.  So it was hotly debated by the people that worked their fields.

The beans would grow in basically anything.  Literally, actually, anything.  Whatever their initial seed was planted in, or even just gently on, the plant’s roots would dig in and take what it wanted to flourish.  They grew fast, produced a lot regardless of petty concerns like soil nutrients or weather conditions, and, importantly, the magic seemed to carry over to future generations.  Though mercifully after a few generations, the beans seemed to thoroughly adapt to their conditions, losing the ability to take on new homes.

Which was good because anything meant anything.  The initial beans pilfered from Route Horizon had grown into, in no particular order, dirt, water, concrete, a 1982 VW bus, a bucket of blue paint, treated wood planks, a cup of coffee, a bowl full of cubes of diamond, someone’s laptop, a shipping container, and, of course, asphalt.  One of, if not the only thing they wouldn’t grow in was the magic succulent pot.  Maybe the two magics just canceled each other out.

It was probably true that the vast majority of people living in Townton, human or otherwise, never considered that they would ever be farmers.  But despite the basic income that every resident got from the Order, a lot of people got restless.  And tending to and harvesting the beans was a simple job that created actual real world value.  So there were a surprising number of farmers anyway.

The chanters who were dipping their armored toes into the world of productive labor were especially welcome in the ‘fields’ that dotted the current outer edge of the reclaimed city.  Even if many of them were still physically recovering, and may never have the strength or stamina to work more than a couple hours at a time, their auras accelerated the growth of the beans sometimes to the point that a full harvest was happening every two or three days, no matter what the season was.  But there was no species quota to be met, and the fields were regularly staffed by a variety of different shapes and sizes of resident, including just normal humans that found a few hours of work every couple days to be quite bearable.

And for some, it was a distraction.  Perhaps not a pleasant one, exactly.  Perhaps a little too social, certainly.  But something to occupy restless limbs and, for a little while, make it more of a challenge to dwell on unpleasant things.

Which was a roundabout way of saying that this was how Terror found himself waking through Townton after work.  Not tired, the umbral wasn’t given enough to do to actually tire himself out, especially not with the modifications to his body that his personal smallworld produced.  But feeling a little bit emptied out, at least.

It wasn’t nice.  But it was less horrible than his life had felt for a long time.

He avoided the park on his route back to the apartment he had been assigned, though.  The chanters were generally people that Terror was prepared to kill for if it ever came up, their history of exploitation by humanity resonated strongly with him, but that didn’t mean he wanted to feel anything from them too strongly today.  The high chant that blanketed the city was unavoidable, but it was like hearing soft music in the background.  Not so, Terror figured, for being too close and getting caught in one of the close chants, and having his own feelings swept up in it.

The chanters always felt like they were forgetting what they’d been through.  Forgetting what had happened, what had been done to them.  From the first time Terror had stepped into Townton, they’d been a constant source of optimism and free joy made far too powerful by the fact that it was possible to tell that it was amplified by the constant realization that they didn’t need to be afraid to feel or speak anymore.

Terror hated it.

Not that they felt that way, but that they could make him feel that way.  The clinical explanation made it clear the chant wasn’t mind control or emotion control, that it was just a form of communication.  But he wasn’t so sure.

When he heard their close chants, it made something in him scream.  A silent cry that he clamped down on with barbed claws to keep from ever voicing it.  It wasn’t that it hurt, it was simply that the chant offered him everything he had ever wanted.  Freedom.  Hope.  Clarity.  Love.

And Terror knew he was too far gone to accept it.

It wasn’t something he assigned himself maliciously.  It was just a concept that was in the fore of his thoughts as he walked across the long road a safe distance from his problem.  He had done what he thought was best, and it had ended up being wrong.  Maybe not wrong at the time, but wrong in a way that had cost him something vital in the long term.  Terror had a hard time even being near most humans, let alone talking to them.  And here, in this place, there were too many opportunities to make an error when it came to who was or wasn’t human.  But he didn’t know how to change that, even if he had wanted to.  And he knew it was wrong to not want to; but clinging to his anger felt like it was the only thing that kept him from just sitting down and… stopping.

It wasn’t that he wanted to die.  It was more that he didn’t think he was supposed to live in this world.  This world where new umbral, umbral that formed after the oppression and violence had stopped, came to Townton not as refugees but as excited new voices seeking to add themselves to the Order just to explore.  This world was for them.  And Terror was glad for it, too.  He wasn’t an idiot, not really.  Everything he had done he had done for them, and if it all ended here… well, then it worked, didn’t it?

He passed by people as he walked, his pace slow despite the natural scuttle that umbral legs moved with.  Despite being inside the perimeter that kept the more hostile necroads from randomly assaulting people, this street was still lined with ruins.  Buildings that hadn’t been repaired yet, or empty shells that had been hollowed out and weren’t yet filled again.  Sometimes, a structure was just a pile, rubble that was slowly being ablated by some strange magic, but until then, a blot of past calamity on the roadside.  And yet there were still people here.  You couldn’t fit two thousand people into thirty square blocks and expect things to be lonely, after all.  And yet they gave Terror space, many of them already familiar with umbral body language and seeing that he didn’t want to be disturbed.

The ratlings were a new addition, and they were far too curious for Terror’s liking.  The little dungeon creatures being one of the species that had children, and those children were all too willing to approach him with questions or requests to use his form as a playground.  But there weren’t any of their number on the weed-cracked street that he took through the city.  Just others that looked vaguely like him, and humans that he gave a wide arc of space to.

Terror didn’t pay them that much mind anymore.  He just walked, letting his upper tendrils drift behind him in the cool air, body sealed closed as he tried to decide what to do next.

That was often what got him.  He was free to do anything, and had nothing to fight.  There was no all-consuming quest that demanded everything of him, there was just… a somewhat useful task, and then a walk home.  He could go to the bar, but someone might try to talk to him.  He could go get food, but someone might try to talk to him.  He could go linger near the basketball courts, but someone might make the dire mistake of inviting him to join.  So what did he do with his time, except to walk, and wish he were someone else, until he eventually ended up at his own doorstep regardless.

What was annoying was that someone was sitting on the short set of steps up to his apartment.  His magically modified building was slightly elevated from the sidewalk, and had its own interior walkway of concrete paths that someone had been busy lining with local greenery that was far too healthy, but that also meant that unless you were parking a car there - a thing no one in this city ever really did - then the main way in was through some concrete stairs.  Three steps, then a flat landing with short lamps on it, then three more, and that was it.  Nothing much of a burden, and if someone happened to be a giant snake, they could take the ramp.

But it was also a place that had benches near it, so it was annoying to see a human sitting in the middle of the top step, directly in a thick shadow so that their face was entirely obscured where they were leaning forward over their phone.

If Terror had been anyone else, he would have just moved around.  There was a perfectly nice ramp, right there.  But he wasn’t.  “Move, human.”  He said, just as the living shadow realized that there was no possible way for the glowing lamps on the sides of the steps to be casting a real shadow anywhere near this person.

And then the thing that wasn’t sitting in a shadow and wasn’t a human at all raised its head, a face of fluid black sludge adjusting with ripples as it looked at him and rapidly shoved the phone it was holding into the pockets of the now out-of-place jeans it was wearing.  “Oh hey!”  It spoke through a missized gap of a mouth.  “Are you Terror?  Someone said I should talk to you.”

“No.”  Terror said, the wide bands of his eyes giving him a good look at the… woman’s?… liquid face.  Her hands appeared human, though.  As did her body shape.  “What do you want?”  He asked.

”Oh, sorry.”  She said, her face sliding and rippling in a way where every small fold of the black liquid left behind something that looked more human.  Skin and features like eyes emerging from the pool, a figure Terror had never seen before.  “I kinda just wanted to talk, if you have some time.  I’m looking for a second opinion.”

He stared at her, his tendrils swaying before he pointed at her with one of his sharper thin limbs.  “Your other face looks better.”  Terror said bluntly, pivoting to slide past her.  “Fine.  Come on.”  He kept walking, hearing scraping on the concrete as she scrambled to follow after him while he made his way to a front door that had been politely resized to fit him more easily.

“Sure, yeah!”  It was interesting that Terror could hear her voice change as her face did.  It was thicker in her natural form, like she was struggling to be precise.  “So, hey, I’m Three Oh Six.  I was… oh damn, that’s cool.”  She muttered as Terror split his body to use one of his heavy arms to open his door.  “That’s gotta be someone’s thing.”

”I wouldn’t know.”  Terror lied.  He was unfortunately up to date on the state of interspecies romance as it involved his kind.  “If your shoes are real leave them by the door.”  He ordered her as he walked in and left the door open behind himself.

Apparently they were, as the thing followed him in socks, the door being shut politely.  “Right, yeah.  Well, it’s cool.  Kinda hot.  Reminds me of, like, a person-shaped wellerbeast.”  Three Oh Six said.  “Which I am just now realizing might be a wildly rude and inappropriate thing to say to a person, if they knew what that meant!  Oh damn, I can get away with so much out here, huh?”

”Telling me undercuts it slightly.”  Terror paused in his living room and turned to face her.  “What did you want?”

Three Oh Six leaned on the wall that separated that room from the kitchen.  “Well, I… uh… did you just move in?”  She asked, looking around the apartment.  Terror didn’t reply, just stilling his tendrils and staring at her.  “I mean, do you have, like, a couch or something?  Maybe a chair?  No?”

”No.”

”Oooookay.”  It was strange to see a face that should just be a blank puddle clearly display emotion.  Terror assumed it was regret.  “Anyway, yeah, I had some questions.  Some people said I should take them to you.”

Terror felt the beginning of a throbbing ache around his eyes.  “Were any of those people paladins.”

”Oh hell no.”  Three Oh Six laughed, which was a good sign.  “A couple people who looked sorta like you.  Ash and Ink, I think?  I’m bad at non-spot names.”

”Names that aren’t numbers?”  Terror asked, allowing a little curiosity.

”Spawn points.”  Three Oh Six said, shifting like she was trying to find a way to cross her arms that made her look casual, while still leaning as much weight as possible on the dividing wall.  “Spot 306 Floor 120 Tower Trevistet, at your service.”  She shifted forward into some kind of bow-like movement at the declaration.  And got silence back from the umbral.  “Okay, now you say your name, and then…”

”Terror.”

”I’m getting that, yeah.”  Three Oh Six somehow looked like she was flattening her eyes despite not really having them.  “Look, I’m trying to be…”

”Nice.”  Terror settled into a seated position in the middle of the floor, pulling his heavy arm back as he got comfortable on the carpet.  He was almost having fun with this.

Three Oh Six stared at him with her rippling inky face.  “Yeah!  This is not how this is supposed to go!”

”Really.”  Okay, he would admit, he could have some fun.

”Is this flirting?”  Three Oh Six demanded, derailing Terror’s smug thoughts.  “Is this what I’ve been doing to people?  Fuck it, whatever!  I’m here on a mission from my homeworld and I need to know things, so you get to get interrogated!”

Terror didn’t think that sounded like an especially covetable position to be in.  But it did mean that he had an easy way out of this.  “So if I tell you what you need to know to infiltrate the Order, you will leave this building?”

”I’m not infiltrating, they gave me a guest place one building over.” The shapeshifter told him.

Well that was disappointing.  Terror let some of his tendrils flatten in a sigh.  “No one is perfect.”

”Right!  That!  That’s what I want!”  Her renewed energy was strange.  It ruined the mood of his apartment.  “What’s wrong with the Order?”  She pressed.

Terror hadn’t been expecting that question to come out of anyone in such a thrilled tone.  Like she was, in some way, looking for the problems, the cracks in the facade.  And to accomplish that, she had come to… him.

That felt strange.  And not in a pleasant way.  Though, if Terror were being fair, not much ever really did.  “The Order of Endless Rooms is… a lot of things.”  He spoke slowly, his voice laced with the static that filled his motions.  “But, despite everything, I… cannot tell you anything broken about the organization.”

And that was largely true.  Maybe it was because of just how much of the Order was nonhuman at this point, but Terror found them to be, as a group, effective, communicative, and accommodating.  His problems with all of that were personal, and his broken state didn’t stop him from seeing that it was his fault and not theirs.

”Oh.”  Three Oh Six looked almost disappointed.  “No… secret blood rituals?  Or institutional racism?  Or, like… just general dickishness?”  She asked, and got a flat gaze in return.  “Damn.  I am so sure that James is fucking with me, and-“

”Oh, no, the paladin is irritating.”  Terror interjected.  “I am making an effort.”  He made the word into a static symphony of sarcasm.  “The others are… what they are.  But James annoys me.”

Three Oh Six straightened up and clapped her hands, speaking while Terror wondered why she kept those as human limbs too, and what her natural form actually looked like.  “Okay great!  This is what I was looking for!”  She pointed at him energetically.  “What’s the dirt on that guy?  Is he some kind of secret vampire?  Mind eating slaver?  Some worse third option?”

”Absolutely not.”  Terror would accept only completely accurate accusations toward his nemesis.  “He is a naive, soft hearted, reckless, idiot.  And that is enough.  But he believes that he can fix everything, and does not seem to care for any of those caught in the wake of his actions.”

”Okay, okay, that’s… that’s useful actually.”  She nodded, tapping at her phone with one hand.  Terror couldn’t tell if she was looking at him or not, which was novel, and almost amusing as it was a common thing that was said about umbral.  He never had a problem with his own people, but being on this side of that gap was almost funny.  “So he’s reckless?”

”He will stop fighting if he believes he can talk someone out of fighting.”  Terror answered.  “Even if they are going to kill him.”

Three Oh Six nodded slowly, her face shifting.  ”Now see, you say that like it’s a bad thing, buuuuut…”

”I threw him out of a window because of it.”  Terror reminisced to himself.  “It is… heroic enough, but it is infuriating.  And I know it has caused his allies problems as well.  His choices have backlash, whether he sees them or not.”  He thought of a colorful ratroach, panicking to herself alone about one of those choices, an unseen reaction to something that the paladin had likely done without even thinking of her.  He twitched some of his front tendrils.  “Nevermind.  You are asking.  Why?  Are you planning to join the Order?”

The shapeshifter shrugged.  “Me?  Nah, I wasn’t really… invited.”  She sounded rather bitter about that.  “My home was though.”

”That makes very little sense.”  Terror gave a breezing sigh.  “Unless you mean that the paladin has invited an entire hidden world to… of course he did.  Yes.  Obviously.”  He split his body open, the fingers on one of his heavy hands flicking outward in an exasperated gesture.  He ignored Three Oh Six tracking his motions with interest as he stood and began pacing, gesturing while he spoke.  “That is exactly what he would do.  Because everyone is welcome!  And he means it!  It is infuriating!  I am trying, I swear to you I am trying, to think like they do, to see the world in a way that is even slightly hopeful, and every time I think… I think…”

He trailed off, a hand rubbing at the membrane of solidified shadow over one of his longer eyes.

”You doing okay?”  Three Oh Six asked, keeping her distance.

”I am not.”  Terror exhaled another sigh from his whole body.  “You are trying to ask if he means it.  If he is sincere.  I regret to inform you that the answer is yes.  The paladin is entirely, perfectly, stupidly, serious.”  He considered her words, and then added, “He also probably thought you would infer that you were invited too.  Ask directly.”

Three Oh Six tipped her rippling head sideways at him.  “You’re really saying a lot of nice stuff for being ‘the guy that hates the Order’ that everyone pointed me to.”  She said, implying a question underneath the words.  A silently inquired so what’s up with that? waiting to be answered.

”It isn’t-“

Terror cut himself off, before he said the one thing that he was trying very, very hard to not ever say out loud.  But she just kept staring at him, raising a hand like she was considering offering some kind of comfort, and when she saw the band of the eye facing her thin at the motion, the shapeshifter even made a clear effort to ripple her body away from human skin and into the flowing shaped oil that he found more appealing.  It was such a small thing, but it was also a reminder that this was someone new; a near complete outsider.

Terror sighed, and finished his thought.  “It isn’t the Order that I hate.”  He said, his heavy limbs drooping like withered plants as he dropped back down to a seated position.  “It doesn’t matter.  I hope… I hope your home and your people and you find what you are seeking in their ranks.”  He told her, turning himself so his eyes faced out the high window of his apartment, the view partly blocked by some plants and the other apartments, but with a sliver of the sightline able to see the stars overhead.

It was a nice view.  It also distracted him enough that he didn’t realize Three Oh Six didn’t leave.  Instead, the woman - or whatever she happened to be - flopped down on the floor next to him almost out of nowhere.  “Thanks man.”  She said, like that was just a normal continuation of a normal conversation.  “Feels like it’s something weird, you know?”

”I… I do know.”  Terror replied.  Then, as he took a deep breath, a thought struck him.  “You say ‘home’, and I know you mean… well, dungeon is what we call them now.  But does that mean you can speak to it?”

What would it be like, he wondered?  To be able to ask where he’d come from what it was thinking.  Why it had made him, what it wanted, what it was planning.  Why life had been so harsh, even if it was possible to build something anyway.  So many questions he would have for the world itself, the first world he’d ever known.

But she didn’t have a good answer for him.  “Nah.”  The shapeshifter rolled, laying her back on his carpet and hopefully not getting oil stains on everything.  “I’m one of the prophets, so I get some dreams, and stronger feelings, but nothing super direct.  No back and forth.”

”Oh.”  Terror sighed again.  “A shame.”

”Yeah, I guess.  In a way it’s kind of a relief.  I mean…” she paused, and then looked up at him with her pooled face.  “What if homeworld was an asshole, you know?”

Terror stared back at her with the bright red loop of an eye on that side of his body.  And then he started to laugh; a summer breeze flowing through him and across the room, rustling the pile of takeout napkins he’d been accruing on the kitchen counter, making a soft song from the wind chime hanging in the hallway that was his single personal acquisition down here, and taking with it something fragmented and painful out of his body.

He laughed until he ran out of air.  And then when he found that the sensation had left in the brief pause while he gasped for breath, he simply flicked his tendril in agreement.  “That,” he told her, “would be awful.”

”No kidding.”  Three Oh Six said, recovering from her own laughter.  “So what’s your place like?  Or… are you an outer?”

”We are going to need to exchange vocabulary terms in advance, if you are going to harass me with more questions.”  Terror told her.

“I’m cool with that, I’ve got a few days anyway.  You need a couch though."  Three Oh Six griped from the floor.  "Oh!  And so far, you’re the only one down here who’s flirted back!”

”I assure you,” Terror replied with the most confidence he’d ever had of any statement in his life, “that is not true.”