"The closest thing you have to a healer is a necromancer who needs to kill the patient before she can bring them back to life at full health. Not sure where that falls in all this." -Tactical Breach Wizards, Steam store page; mature content warning-

  _____

  The Order’s form of democracy was maybe weird, and maybe exactly what democracy was supposed to be. They had a very flat hierarchical structure, overall.

  The people who were called in to make decisions on specific things, through planning meetings for Townton or dungeon exploration or even paladin operations, those people were selected from the Order’s pool of experts on the subject. Not voted for, just picked from a rotating list based on availability and the need for their particular skills, with planning often having different groups from week to week as people were rotated in to get that valuable experience. In a way, it was ineffective. They had people who had all sorts of specialist knowledge, but no one who specifically had constant practical experience with their own bureaucracy.

  Which was actually what they voted on. The Order’s elected officials were less leaders, though they were that too in many ways, and more managers. Getting voted in was more like getting hired. Suddenly in charge of a specific project, in the sense that it was now your job to make that project operate smoothly.

  The most important traits that someone seeking ‘election’ could have was being trustworthy and easy to work with. After all, there was no good reason to not do it that way, when the actual knowledge was likely ready to go in yellow orb or .mem form. Maybe not a perfect understanding, maybe not anything superhuman, but enough to make anyone competent, and more importantly, able to have a starting point to pick up the rest that they might need over time.

  Planning teams met publicly, took input for their sessions, and set the broad strategies and objectives, putting big decisions to Order public vote. Elected leaders took that mandate, and the people and resources available, and saw how far they could get, adjusting expectations in whatever direction was needed.

  It worked. For them. There were some people who claimed it wouldn’t work on a larger scale, but James suspected that the truth was that it wouldn’t work under capitalism. The Order’s habit of both giving people everything they needed, while also helping people to understand themselves well enough on a more philosophical level to not scramble to attain wealth and power for no fucking reason, did a lot of work when it came to creating a culture that could handle this kind of process. In a world where failure didn’t mean poverty, death, or even just shame, it was a lot easier for someone to do their actual best at a job with pride.

  It also helped that their main source of population right now was rescues who owed the Order everything, and outside hires that either also owed the Order everything, or who were already ideologically inclined toward their general vibe.

  It was wild to James that they had a long term plan. There were projections for population growth in Townton, there were strategies for how to rework some of their projects in five years after getting long term observational data, plans to develop their resource allocation procedures in ten years when a single group of motivated accountants weren’t enough anymore.

  The world was ending. Or something like that. And here they were, preparing to live anyway.

  One of the ways they were doing that, there was a vote about today. And because of that vote, while James had been hanging out in his office actually doing some work arranging a few things via email like a normal adult, he’d been interrupted by a small group of people awkwardly knocking on the door he’d left open.

  He hated being in a closed office. It felt stuffy. And this encouraged people to interrupt him anyway.

  James didn’t look up from finishing his typing, but did smile at the interruption. Well, partly at the interruption, partly at the irate look Rufus was giving him where the strider’s own work was being disrupted. ”Hey Morgan. And also hey small army Morgan has brought along to attempt to overthrow my dark reign. What’s up, and will this duel upon the high peak ending with my ruin be taking long? Because I have an appointment with an Ugandan government official in twenty minutes.”

  ”If we were actually here to fight you for being a demon king or something, you super wouldn’t be here.” Morgan challenged him. When James tapped the ‘send’ key on his email with theatrical flair and looked up at him, he added, “Because you would have to clean up your office and you’d complain the whole time.”

  ”That is worryingly accurate. Come on in.” James turned in his chair, briefly brainstorming some kind of rotatable desk so that he could maneuver Rufus’s own jury-rigged workstation to a different position.

  Four young humans, counting Morgan, a camraconda that wasn’t Color-Of-Dawn, and a crocamaw that seemed confused how he’d ended up here, all filed into James and Rufus’s office, finding various forms of seating as Morgan just leaned on the wall by the door in a way that James found bizarrely uncanny for some reason.

  ”Brian doesn’t know how to look stuff up on the voting stuff.” Morgan started, not meeting James’ eyes.

  “I do not!” The taller human boy, presumably Brian, retorted. James had seem him around the Lair a lot, but never really interacted with him beyond some early chats. He was a survivor of the Akashic Sewer’s assault, and he was quite possibly the most normal teenage boy in the entire Lair. Which was to say, he was still working out who he was, and was easily riled up. “I mean, I do! Whatever one means Morgan is wrong!”

  Lincon, who was more familiar to James, shifted closer to the anxious crocamaw that had nervously followed the group in. “Stop yelling man.” He said, with the kind of hesitation that came from someone who was unsure about asserting themself.

  ”We are all bad at things.” The camraconda spoke up, ignoring all of them. “Except for Rudy, not voting, and Ravini, also not voting.” The crocamaw looked up at their name, before dipping their body-length mouth back down onto the beanbag they were settling into like a nest. “Explain praxis.” They demanded of James.

  Morgan cleared his throat. ”Uh… I think ‘Splend means, can you tell us what the heck we’re actually voting on with the thing today about the brooches? Normally the stuff that gets sent out to everyone has links and explanations, but this one doesn’t, and no one else is around right now to tell us what ‘infusion following praxis’ is, or why it’s important.”

  ”Wait, what?” James opened the tab he had on his computer and saw Morgan was correct. “Well shit. Gonna just message Melody real quick, get that fixed. Might postpone that then. Why did no one say anything?”

  ”I mean, it’s kind of easy to tell the main point. We’re just sort of curious about the details?” Morgan pointed at their camraconda. “Also Resplendent-Pine-Smoke refuses to vote on things without context, and we’re having a group argument.”

  ”Not an argument.” The camraconda put forward in his digital voice. “I am smarter than them.”

  ”Hey!” Brian’s voice rose before Morgan and Lincon folded their arms and glared at him. “…hey…” he said in a much softer voice that was almost a whisper.

  James and Rufus shared a look. Being the designated adults in this situation felt weird for both of them, but James got the impression from Rufus’s widened central eye and looping pen leg motion that he was meant to be speeding this along. Chuckling at his friend, he looked back to the group of younger - or at least less adult - individuals. “So, the initiative ballot today is about distribution of the purification brooches. Because they count a very large amount of water as ‘food’ for the ‘purify food’ power, even just one of them could provide clean water for a pretty good number of people in parts of the world where there just isn’t infrastructure for that kind of thing.” He explained.

  ”Right. Like Africa.” Brian nodded.

  James opened his mouth, but paused to wince before actually answering. “Sssssure, parts of it. But remember that ‘Africa’ includes, like, Lagos and Nairobi. There’s places everywhere that could use better water though. There’s just a few issues. Wanna guess what they are?” He posed a test for the group.

  Lincon answered almost instantly. “People don’t believe in magic.” The young man had changed a lot in the short time since moving to the Lair permanently, but he hadn’t quite shaken the anger that had fueled him for the part of his life that had involved surviving on the run from the Mormon delver program. Nor, James guessed, did he want to lose that part of himself.

  ”That’s one hurdle, yeah, but not one we can do much about. Any others?” James looked around his office expectantly.

  Morgan and Brian started talking at the same time, before Morgan magnanimously let his friend go first. “Uh…” Brain seemed to have stumbled on the second attempt, but collected himself fast enough. “Is it because, like, if it is a place in the US, or any city I guess, then people are too spread out? There’s no way to make enough for everyone to have one, is there?”

  ”That’s a really good answer for a specific logistical problem, yes.” James nodded. “Actually a big part of somewhere like, say, Flint Michigan, is that it’s not the water exactly, but the pipes. So centralizing the water purification doesn’t do shit to solve the problem. And yeah, people’s houses aren’t equipped to make maximum use of a brooch. But that’s not the big issue. Morgan?” James questioned the knight in development with a smile, knowing Morgan had already seen the bigger issue.

  The young man wasn’t comfortable being put on the spot, but he still had the right answer. “They level up.” He said. “And purifying food is safe, but something else might not be. Right?”

  ”Right.” James nodded. “So then the question becomes, how much of a buffer do we need?” He was already pulling up a different document on the Order’s secure server, checking the daily report on a certain piece of dungeontech.

  [Inner Spirit Ignition - 5 - 311 / 2710 - 3:3:00 (0)

  Infusion Following Praxis - 2 - 59/410 - 1:20:00 (2)]

  There were followup notes on top of the item’s own formatting to add that the non-current cooldown for the crown was 3:45 and 3:52 respectively. Which was nice.

  ”A lot?” Rudy questioned, speaking up for the first time. He, James knew, wasn’t happy to be here with the Order at all. So he was glad the Mormon kid had found some friends that weren’t part of the authority figures imposing restrictions on him about his delving and self-brainwashing activities.

  ”A lot is right.” James agreed with him seriously. “So the thing about the crown is, it lets us accelerate the other items. By a huge amount actually. Twelve times as fast as normal, and that’s not counting us using dungeon time dilation to add another point to that multiplier. So, with that in mind, what can we do?”

  ”…I mean…” Morgan glanced at his group before shrugging, “don’t you just use it on a single brooch then? See if the next ability is a bad one?”

  ”Pretty much. So far, we know that the brooch gets something called ‘bind processor’, which is… minimally useful… and then some other stuff with the imbued blue effect, and that’s not important because we wouldn’t ship those anyway.” James did some quick math. “So far, because we’ve been focusing it already, we’ve got a single brooch a little over two years ahead of the others.”

  ”So… if we did send out others…” Brian said slowly, putting it all together, “…then for at least two years, you know it’s safe? But what if you do find a murder spell in there later?”

  ”Then we have however long the buffer is to retrieve all of them.” James said. “Or to find another way to make them safe. And that’s the vote today. That’s why the ballot is in two parts; first is ‘is a time buffer an acceptable risk’ which I am almost certain is going to pass, and second is ‘how long?’. Personally, I’m saying five years. Which we can achieve using the crown within a few months, because the twelve-x bonus basically means a month is a year.”

  ”Why don’t they teach us that in math class?” Brian asked.

  Rufus pivoted aside from where he was very slowly entering information on his modified laptop, tapping and waving his front pen legs in rapid irate motions.

  ”I do pay attention!” Brian defended himself.

  Resplendent-Pine-Smoke hissed slowly and steadily. “Easily distracted.” He labeled his friend, before turning to James. “Good explanation. Thank you.” The camraconda said before slithering toward the door.

  ”Yeah, thanks.” Morgan said. “That did help, though…”

  James grimaced. ”I know. That should really just be in the voting document. In multiple media forms. Big fuckup actually, I’ll get on fixing that for the future.”

  ”…that’s weird, you know that right?” Morgan asked him slowly as the others left ahead of him, Lincon having to slightly drag Ravini away from the window that the crocamaw was raptly watching out while James explained to the others. “That you do that thing?”

  ”Admitting I, or the Order, screwed up? Or fixing the system?” James asked.

  Morgan shrugged. “Both, I guess. No one else does that.”

  “Yeah.” James said with blunt agreement. “And everyone’s systems suck.”

  ”Oh. Right.” Morgan grinned with the satisfaction of a teenager, even one that was legally an adult now, that had just been vindicated by an actual adult in his life.

  _____

  The last two times the Order had gotten in some kind of duel to the death with a Status Quo, they’d come out of it with two things. Casualties, and loot.

  This time, they were short on both. Which was actually a trade most of the Order would prefer, all things considered. But they did still have some loot. It was just weird.

  ”So we put it on a doorframe.” Nik explained to the group he was briefing. “And people stop thinking about the room it’s in. Or at least that door to it.”

  Nate stared at the flat diamond of dark metal, already annoyed that it existed. “What if you put someone in the room?” He asked.

  ”Doesn’t work on people inside. Also can’t make someone think there’s no exits to the building they’re in.” Nik confirmed, quickly running down a list of tests he’d run on himself just to see how terrifying this new antimeme was. “Doesn’t stop someone outside from finding the room if they follow someone in. Does give special exemption to whoever places it. Doesn’t work on anything that’s over a certain limit of porousness…”

  ”What.” Nate knew what the word meant, he just wanted a better explanation.

  Nik obliged. “Waist high picket fences can’t handle it, head height yard fences with no gaps can.” He clarified. “It works on everything, too. Like, we tested this with dungeon life, rats, bugs, whatever. It’s effective pest control if you need to keep ants out of a storeroom or something.”

  That was actually potentially very useful, and Nate’s brain abandoned trying to find tactical advantages for the device, to just thinking about how great it would be if his kitchen never had ants in it again.

  He didn’t really get back into the kitchen much these days, but he was looking to change that. He definitely wasn’t in charge anymore, but the people who ran the Lair’s dining hall now could use some training from an expert. Whether they expected it, or wanted it, or not.

  While thinking about deflecting pests, he had another thought. ”How’d the kid get through it? Navigator’s see through the thing?” He asked.

  ”No, James wasn’t the one that found it. Alanna and Spire did; authorities can give a layer of resistance to antimemes, but according to Alanna, it almost wasn’t enough.” Nik took the piece of metal back and set it in the containment case they had, which was not a room, and didn’t drop out of their perception. “Why?”

  ”I’m just thinking we’re still looking for ways to keep the logisticors maximally secure for public use.” Nate grunted. “But if anyone can get through, that’s not a good defense.” The man shrugged wide shoulders in a dismissive motion.

  Nik had a counterpoint. “Well hang on. Anyone with an authority could, but that’s gotta be a smaller pool of people. It stops a lot of interference, right?”

  That was fair enough. Nate just shrugged again. He was pretty sure Karen and her minions would have already heard about this, but he’d talk to them later anyway. Since ‘civilian use’ of the logisticors was rushing up on them as soon as a few weeks from now, and Nate was not-so-secretly dreading the attention it was going to bring.

  ”So only the person who places it can see the room?” He thought out loud. “That’s-“

  Nik interrupted. ”No. Whoever places it can’t either.” He balked a little under the sharp stare from Nate. “I know what I said earlier! Whoever places it remembers placing it, and the thing itself is immune to itself, so you can follow it back into the room that you don’t know about. It’s… actually you don’t care do you? It’s the same either way, nevermind. We think there’s supposed to be a key component, but we haven’t found any. So if we’re going to use it, we have to account for immunity somehow.”

  ”Fine. What else?”

  ”Well that’s kind of it.” Nik told him.

  Nate eyed the scrawny younger man. “The fuck do you mean that’s it?”

  With a thin smile, Nik gave his own shrug. “Shield three found one other gatekeeper safehouse.” Nik told Nate what he already knew, hopping backward onto one of the stools he kept in the part-lab-part-office he shared with a couple other Researches and used to bring people up to speed on things. “We have all their guns and shield bracers. But that’s it.”

  ”Status Quo was making a lot of other magic.” Nate challenged him. “Not just bracers. Not even a fucking gun bangle? I’m not asking for another crown here, but that can’t be everything.”

  Nik winced as he answered. ”They didn’t even have files.” He told Nate grimly. “No records, no connections, no one in their phone contacts. Just bracers and guns. Guns which James likes by the way.”

  ”…Of course he fucking does.” Nate had thoughts about that. Well, one thought. It was mostly a thought that started and ended with I cannot believe the second most dangerous person in this organization likes the knockoff MP-5s. “Do we even know where they came from?” He’d seen the initial questioning logs, and he could just go ask the gatekeeper prisoners that had survived encountering the paladin team. But unlike the other Status Quos, this one seemed devoid of the same kind of ideological signifiers, and their lack of a personal history sort of made Nate think they were less Status Quo, more deniable Status Quo asset.

  ”We know they probably intersected the same dungeon the first Squo made use of.” Nik said quietly.

  That got Nate’s attention. “What?” He quickly barked out.

  ”The bracers. Our shield bracers that we copy come out clean. Level one, easy round numbers, right?” Nik didn’t wait for Nate to agree with him. “Theirs aren’t. I’ve got a list here,” Nik spun on his stool to snag a clipboard next to a stack of cardboard banker’s boxes full of the bracers in question. “All different level up requirements, all pretty high level, they’re probably a good addition to our armory I guess, because they’re ready to go, but we’re gonna get copies up to level eight before any of these advance again at all.”

  Nate impatiently tapped his foot on the smooth floor. ”There a point to this?”

  ”They’re made with the blood magic.” Nik got to the requested point. “So. Same dungeon. Or they were a spinoff group from before we wiped out the first Squo.”

  ”Hm.” Nate had no reply to that, so he just made a sound. “How long were they doing this?” He asked. Not asked Nik, just asked the room, as if fate would answer him.

  Nik didn’t know that though, and didn’t have an answer anyway.

  Working in Research was important to him. It meant that people brought him questions, and he created answers. It was… stabilizing. The world was fucked up and falling apart, and even without magic, propaganda did the job of antimemes just fine. But Nik, at least, could produce objective truth about the function of dungeontech. If he hadn’t already used the shaper substance to fix his body, a close second choice for its use would have been to turn himself into a factory that manufactured correct answers.

  Mysteries weren’t fun to him. Problems were fun, because problems had solutions. Mysteries like this? They required rogues and strike teams and information harvesters, and all of that required leaving the safe confines of the Research basement.

  So Nik was glad that when Nate left, abandoning him to his work, the big man took the mystery with him. Even if Nik really wanted to know where the bracers came from too.

  But that mystery was too big and too far ranging for him to handle. So he settled for doing what he’d planned for the day; prying apart the truth from the mystery of a Climb wand, a handful of purple Office orbs, and a habitat of unnervingly content rats.

  _____

  James flicked his wrist, a throwing knife leaving it and sinking a half inch into his plywood target.

  He made a note on his spreadsheet.

  It wasn’t something he had a skill for, so about seventy percent of his knives bounced off. As it turned out, throwing knives around was difficult. Or more accurately, throwing knives accurately was difficult. He could fling them just fine, it was kind of tricky to make them hit properly.

  Which was awkward, because while he couldn’t throw them well, he could throw them hard. Very hard. Blades intentionally leaving James’ hand moved with force that he hadn’t imparted in them, the gain seeming to come the instant they were totally separated from him.

  A single power rank turned him into someone who could stab at a distance. The only problem was hitting the target. Well, and the fact that even his strongest throws, enhanced by all his purple orbs that mattered, were still kind of less effective than the old standby of ‘shoot with gun’.

  The really annoying thing about this process, aside from feeling like he was wasting the 50-to-80% boost in force for this kind of attack, was that James kept fucking missing. His Aim stat gave him the supernatural ability to gauge trajectories and targets and shit, but it didn’t actually do anything for his manual inputs. Basketball or butchery, he still had to move his arms in the correct pattern.

  ”I am going to go mad.” James declared as another of his knives deflected off the distant sheet of plywood, skittering off the concrete floor of the Lair’s basement. “There’s no orb, there’s no .mem, there’s not even advice from anyone. I’m gonna hire a circus performer. Wait, actually that’s a great idea.” He looked back behind him to make sure no one was listening in on his monologue, or watching him miss repeatedly, and took another throw.

  This one hit. Not the bullseye, but the corner of the wood, the whole blade slicing through the wood.

  James knew that the rules existed for a reason, but he was really curious what would happen if he burned some of his hundreds of remaining Underburbs skill points for another rank of this particular power. Though he also knew that a lot of people disagreed with this specific interpretation of the rules.

  The fact that Underburbs crystals weren’t consumed when used seemed to trick people into misidentifying where the perverse incentives lay. James knew though. And he knew that saying ‘well we already have it so…’ was a slippery slope he wanted no part of.

  Besides, it’d be better to just get good at this and make use of the magic he had.

  His phone beeped at him after fifteen more throws and one more hit, and he sighed. Downing the mostly empty bottle of juice he’d brought and collecting his knives, James stacked the plywood target to the side of the shooting range, and got out of there. His break was over, and he had places to be.

  _____

  “And this is the delver operation zone.” Ben said as he opened the back door to the briefing warehouse, walking the group he was leading through the Lair. He had been back for less than twelve hours, and already he’d been given a completely different job than what he’d been working on, which would have been annoying, if it didn’t meant that someone in the Order didn’t care that he was their friend.

  Ben shouldn’t have felt so reassured by that. It hurt, in a way that was strangely peaceful, but it still hurt. And yet it made him feel more like a person and less like a tool whenever someone with an authority or a natural immunity shrugged off his effect.

  ”This is a concrete box.” The big guy who was following him said, looking around the place.

  Ben smirked. Of the people JP had told him to give a walkthrough to, the seven foot tall Ukrainian was his favorite. Probably because how he expressed friendship was by glaring at people. “It’s a concrete box with stuff inside.” He told the thief. “Specifically the stuff we use to plan operations. Also sometimes we use it for gatherings and large scale presentations.” He admitted, jerking a thumb to where the stage setup could roll out into its full form.

  The people JP had brought into the Lair were criminals. A thing that Ben respected; after all, he was also breaking laws constantly. His respect for the law of the land was largely fictitious. If the government wanted him to respect it, then it should treat people like him like people. But as they’d begun to learn, while the citizens, and especially the retail workers, might on an individual level be cool with camracondas or ratroaches hanging out, that tolerance ended instantly when someone tried to get a bank account or driver’s license.

  Ben had fought in Springfield. Not as much on the front lines as a lot of the Order, but he’d been there when the local militia had joked about friendly fire on Ishah, or when the police had tried to figure out if they had the authority to arrest him and Nate afterward for the high crime of being better at their jobs than they were. Or maybe for owning sniper rifles. Whatever.

  He had no respect for their human laws. The only humans he respected were here. Their laws, he would hew to. Life was precious, autonomy was important, the defense of the self and others who couldn’t protect themselves was critical, public property should serve the public good. Those were ideals he would protect, because James didn’t just say they mattered, James did them. James had applied them to Ben as easily as he applied them to everyone else.

  So when JP sheepishly told him that the new guys were bank robbers, Ben had been confused as to why he should give a shit. The only reason he hadn’t robbed a bank himself was that it was significantly less useful to the communal good than just doing his normal job.

  And right now his job was showing these guys what they’d be doing. Mostly.

  ”So. Have you been caught up on dungeons?” Ben asked them.

  ”I hate you.” The girl in the bank robber group told him bluntly, lying with every word. “My life was great before this. Now everything is weird and fucked up and gay and shit.”

  ”That’s means yes.” The Ukrainian translated for Ben.

  Ben’s face might have been unhappy, but it didn’t really matter for most of them. “Okay. So this space is separated by dungeon. This is the Climb area, which is mostly about route planning and survival strategies. You won’t be here often. This is Ethan, say hi Ethan.”

  ”Hey guys! Oh, new friends!” Ethan perked up from where he was forlornly holding a blue orb and a pile of dust. “Hey, if you need any help, just let me know. I’m always around, and teamwork is a big thing here!”

  ”Moving on.” Ben kept walking before anyone could challenge that, Ethan waving energetically behind them. “Venture and Pylon is here, if you’re ever asked for help from these guys it’ll be in breaking in. Anyone here have any qualms about upsetting Mormons?”

  The guy who wasn’t actually on the thieves team cleared his throat and looked around like that was a trick question, pushing the circular glasses on a thin frame up his nose as he did so. “Personally, or the whole church?”

  ”Either.”

  “I guess it doesn’t really matter…” he shrugged.

  Ben sighed. “Why did you ask then?”

  ”I guess I kinda want to know if I’m making an enemy of a few people who get easily offended, or of an entire organized religion. I feel like a religion is more likely to try to have me killed?”

  ”Correct. Good instinct.“ Ben complimented him, happy that someone had gotten that so quickly. “Anyway, moving on, watch out for the paperclip line here.” He ducked the strider road that didn’t have any high points to hang on, and so was draped over the path that led between the desks. Pointing to the other side of the room, Ben continued. “Over there is rogue operations, don’t worry about that right now. This place is Office and Stacks. And… new Office I guess. God dammit.” He muttered that last part. They were running out of nouns. “This is where most of you will be working.”

  The area had expanded in scope over the course of dozens, maybe hundreds of delves. Whiteboards with fields of notes on them, printouts of maps along with people’s hand drawn notes all unfolded and tacked up next to team rosters and weekly objectives, desks littered with unidentified items right next to personal notebooks and orb pouches. Labels stuck off of laser pointers that interacted with maps and routes in different ways, or the glasses that let you see drawn maps from an on the ground perspective. And a whole hand cart full of mundane coffee grounds sat as a barricade to anyone trying to get in, though Ben figured that was accidental. Probably.

  ”This is… something.” One of the thieves said, stepping over the cart and looking at one of the maps. Her eyes scanned it, and then compared the marks to the unified legend that was tacked up on the cubicle wall next to it. Ben wasn’t sure if that was stolen from the Office, or just here to pin things to and totally mundane. “What’s a spiral hall?” She asked with arched eyebrows, turning curious eyes to Ben with pursed bright red lips.

  ”Orange totem effect. You don’t notice you’re walking sideways or upside down until you get to the terminus or try to step off, and then gravity fucks you. Gotta watch out for those, they’re real bad for anyone on a bike.” He stepped back, ushering the two other criminals in with a small bow. “Familiarize yourselves, please. Cam will be by later to talk about delver capabilities. Don’t freak out when she gets here, you’ll embarrass us.”

  ”Why would we do that?” The tall man asked with a distant tone as he picked up a laser pointer and turned it in his hands, before pointing it at one of the maps and marveling at the red light three dimensional model of those cubicle halls and caverns that lingered in the air for a moment after.

  ”You’ll see.” Ben told them. “Alright. I’ve got other shit to do. You already know where the kitchens and bathrooms are, you’re big kids, you can handle yourselves.” Ben was a little worried Nate was wearing off on him too much. But the thieves were engrossed in the artifacts and operational documents of the Office, and honestly, that was kind of what they were here for. So he could handle them not really listening to him.

  They’d do their job well, Ben figured. All of them were smart, and planning out more complex or dangerous operations was what they were here for.

  ”What about me?” The other guy with the golden wire hoop glasses asked, suddenly realizing that he was one of two people left following Ben. “Wait, did-“

  ”Well, you broke into our home base.” Ben said, keeping up his brisk walking pace as he headed for the rogue operation station where a half dozen miscreants all looked up at him from where they were lounging and failing to do work as he approached. Most people would have looked sheepish at that. These idiots looked like a cadre of sharks that had just seen an opportunity for mischief. One of them caught the stress ball she’d been lobbing into the air, spinning it on one finger as the rogues in the Lair today all watched Ben with wide expectant smiles. “So there’s an unfortunate consequence of that.” Ben sighed as the kid took a step back like he was preparing to bolt.

  Yin’s hands clapped onto his shoulders as she teleported behind him with Move Person or something close enough to it. “Sorry kid.” The rogue said with sadistic glee. “You get hired for that kind of trick.”

  The abrupt scream of terror from the new rogue cut off as he processed her words. “W-wait, hired?” He stammered out. “For what?!”

  ”Breaking into places like this mostly.” Ben said, exhausted. “These are some of your new teammates. Your benefits package and onboarding paperwork is waiting for you on your apartment’s kitchen table, because Myles thinks he’s funny and lacks a sense of personal boundaries. But also it’s a bit of revenge for sneaking past our security. Also you need to tell us how you did that. Though seriously, you want to be a spy with magic powers that works to enable utopia?” Ben hesitated, and then clarified, “Non-racist utopia.”

  This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  ”…yes?”

  ”Good answer. Have fun. I have something else to do.” Ben said, leaving the new guy to his fate. He should probably ask people their names at some point, but that felt like it might invite too many opportunities for people to try to befriend him.

  Ben started walking again. Away from the rogues, away from the delvers planning their next adventure, away from that whole part of the Lair. One person followed him, trailing after at the command of a single waved hand, while Ben walked through the busy lobby full of laughter and chatter that didn’t quite touch him, and out the front doors.

  He kept walking, silently, with someone silently tailing after him. Out away from the Lair, out to the sidewalk along the disgustingly busy road that seemed to only have a sidewalk as a form of mockery for anyone who had to be a pedestrian here. Away from home, away from everyone that knew him or thought they knew him, away from distractions and responsibilities.

  Toward a pizza place.

  As far as Ben knew, the Order were the only people who ever ate here. The restaurant, The Midnight Pizza Zone, was neither open until midnight nor easily accessible. Though they did have pizza, he’d give them that. And they probably qualified as a zone, too. And every time he’d ever come here, there had been no one except for whoever else from the Lair wanted a slice that day.

  Who else would eat here? It was hidden from view from both roads that passed by, and far enough from the UPS distribution center and the paper recycling depot that anyone there who wanted lunch would need to drive to get here so as to not burn their whole break time. Which meant they’d probably just go somewhere else anyway.

  ”Hey guys!” The person behind the country that Ben had never seen before gave them a pleasant wave and a smile as he entered with his follower in tow. “Haven’t seen either of you in a while. What’ll it be?”

  Ben ordered for both of them, got their pizza slices on thin metal plates, left the other person to fill up their drink cups, and sat in a booth in the shadows of a painted wall, waiting for his silent companion to join him.

  ”So listen.” Ben said as whoever he was talking to took a casual bite of pizza. “You need to understand a few things.”

  They looked at him with a blank look. Not yet understanding. But Ben knew it would come some enough. Understanding, and also, no small amount of fear.

  He continued. “You have an open invitation to join the Order of Endless Rooms, if you want to.” Ben said calmly, not touching his own food. “Or, if you don’t feel like taking on that responsibility, you have an open invitation to live in Townton or the Lair as… I mean, as a citizen of whatever we are.” He snorted a laugh; they hadn’t solidified the terminology yet.

  Their one sided conversation partner took another silent bite of pizza, still watching Ben with an uncomprehending expression.

  ”What you need to know is that everyone already knows.” Ben said. And then he saw it. The flash of fear. The revelation of discovery. And the small moment of hope, that maybe this was just a bluff and no one actually knew. “Our auras don’t work on each other,” Ben said calmly, keeping a relaxed posture on his side of the booth, “so you wouldn’t actually know unless I told you. Or someone else told you. But you don’t have anyone else, and I do. So yeah, I know what you are, and where you’re from. Which is why I opened with the invitation part of this conversation.”

  The friend sitting across from Ben opened their mouth, and this time, not just for pizza. “What are you?”

  ”I’m you.” Ben said easily. “But older.”

  ”How did you get here? Why? What do you… what are you doing?”

  ”I took an international flight, it wasn’t hard. No watchlist can contain me.” Ben grimaced internally as he said that; maybe James was the one who was rubbing off on him. That was too much humor for him. “I don’t know why, just felt like I should be hunting. I feel it less these days, but it’s still there. Easy enough to ignore though.”

  The friend tilted their head. “But why?” They reiterated.

  Ben leaned forward, lowering his voice. ”Do you want to know what I can never tell the others?” He said, and got a slow nod in reply. “Winter’s Climb made us. Out of nothing, it called us up, made us so convincing that we feel like people, and then it sent us out to play its game.” Ben hissed the words, a hot anger in his throat. “Our origin doesn’t give a shit about us. Never talked to us, never asked or bribed or threatened. The fucking Sewer treats its victims more like people than the Climb treats us.” He balled a hand into a fist, nails biting into his skin. “It took two days at the Order to find something to do, to infiltrate and work my way into their ranks. Weeks of sneaking around, looking for the right moment to strike, to give in to that need to be a hunter. You know what the truth was though?”

  ”…they knew.” The other friend surmised quickly. “How long?”

  ”The whole time.” Ben whispered sharply. “More than a few of them are either immune to us, or can work around the effect. And they still treated me like a person. Like I was there for my own reasons. They never asked, not really, they just accepted me.” Ben opened his hand up, fingers curved like talons that he stared down at. “Let me come to them when I was ready. Treated me like a person.” He whispered. “They don’t need to know how much it means. They just need to know they can count on me, no matter what. Because unlike the fucking Climb, they earned it.”

  There was a long moment of quiet as he lapsed in his screed, before the other friend looked up from their half eaten pizza. ”Are we people?” They asked, like the question had only just occurred to them.

  ”There are two possible answers.” Ben said in his normal voice, leaning back again. “But only one of them matters, and the Order will treat us that way regardless. And so will I.” Because of them, because they'd done it to him first, and also, because his therapist had words for him when he didn't.

  The friend shifted the metal disc of a plate sideways, then back again, fingers sliding it across the sticky surface of the table as they thought. “What am I supposed to do?” They asked, looking up at Ben’s face.

  ”Whatever you want.” Ben said with a thin smile. “Join us, go your own way, head back to the dungeon, it’s all up to you. There’s a new market gap for bank robbery and you’d probably be good at that if you wanted.” The smile slipped, but somehow gained a little bit of actual warmth. “But if you ask me what I think you should do? I think you should stay with us. I think the hunter urge gets easier to ignore every day. And I think you’ll like it here better.”

  They nodded slowly, ceasing the fidgeting with their food. “What happens now?”

  ”Now we finish our food, figure out what you’re into and what unsuspecting department to fling you into first, and get you set up with an ID for our organizational system. Oh, and a skulljack if you want, but that’s more of a commitment.” Ben shrugged as he took a bite of his still mostly warm pizza, nodding in appreciation of the tang of the almost sweet pepperoni on it. “And then… you’ll see. You’ll understand soon enough.”

  The friend nodded back. “My name is… I think my name is Quinn.” They said. “And… but… when will I stop being afraid?”

  ”I don’t know.” Ben replied as he chewed his pizza. “Hasn’t happened to me yet, no matter how many times everyone proves the feeling wrong. But I’ll let you know when I get there.” Tossing the crust onto his place and wiping his fingers aggressively on one of the ubiquitous brown paper napkins, Ben extended a hand over the table. “Nice to meet you Quinn.” He said. “Welcome to the Order.”

  The grip he got back was uncertain, unfamiliar, and from someone who maybe didn’t instantly trust him.

  It was the most reassuring thing Ben had ever felt.

  _____

  The pocket mirror was scuffed and scratched. A battered plastic case that looked like it had been buried in a snowdrift for a year or two before having a collapsing rotten wood desk fall on it.

  Sarah figured that was what it looked like because that was what had happened to it.

  The Climb wand was a weird one. All the recovered ones were a little weird. A few people in the Order had learned how to make more, but the ones they could make were either one-off flukes, like James and Zhu’s bizarre and cryptic traffic light, or they were very basic.

  Most of what the Order had learned to make so far were just Breath storage devices with activation conditions. Momo had actually gotten chewed out by Bill when he’d realized she’d turned half the tools the Lair’s maintenance team used into wands, and no one wanted to use a hammer that might cause arms to grow out of the wall if you hit something with it hard enough.

  Those were, though, kind of the best sort of wand. Sarah’s ideology when it came to magic was that magic was cool, and anything that let them share magic was good. More people should enjoy the cool stuff, that was just basic common sense for giving rise to a utopia!

  The storm orbs didn’t work on natural stuff, only things that were shaped by people. Not just human people either, which was cool too! Sarah had tested it by getting different species of her friends around the Lair to carve patterns into a bunch of sticks she’d picked up, each species going through the process of putting metal caps and other small flourishes and decorations on the soon-to-be-wands as they processed them down from branches into dowels. And they all worked too, though again, basically only as spell storage and not metamagic.

  Though it did mean they had a stock of literal actual wands now. Two foot long carved fantasy novel looking wands, some of them capable of holding up to twenty Breath worth of spells.

  Sarah wanted one that could add to a caster’s own Breath, so it could make the wing spell safer to use. They needed more people with wings! Especially camracondas with wings; the cabled snake people tended to get really flexible wings when they did cast the spell, often in quartets. And while it made slithering a bit complicated for them, some of them had wings with little claws at the end like bats that were better at being hands than the mechanical arm packs were.

  But until then, they were stuck with just the wands that could hold multiple casts of Mesa Oasis, Frost Vector, or Sarah’s personal favorite, Cloud Prowler.

  Oh no, went Sarah’s thought process, all we have is the ability to cure alcoholism and give people a special personal cat! Tragedy!

  It was a bit tragedy though, if only because they could do more. Which was part of why she and Alanna were playing with the new wands that had been brought back from the Climb delve they’d both missed.

  ”Okay.” Alanna said, finished draping a heavy throw rug over her shoulders and turning away from Sarah, closing her eyes as she talked. “Hit me!”

  ”I just want you to know that I hate this.” Sarah reminded her girlfriend cheerfully as she opened the compact mirror anyway, the plastic latch on the disc of plastic clicking as it sprung open. She looked at her own reflection for a couple seconds, before the spell that was stored in the mirror crept its way out. A thin wisp of cold fog forming around Sarah’s fingers as she directed the magic toward Alanna.

  Nothing happened. Not even a little damage to the rug.

  ”Well?” Alanna asked.

  ”Well that was it!” Sarah said. “Are you okay? Did it cut you under everything? Take your shirt off, let me make sure you’re not bleeding.”

  ”Oh, yeah, that’s why you want me to take my shirt off.” Alanna gave Sarah a leering grin before both of them broke into shy smiles, laughing as Sarah shouldered her girlfriend without enough force to even budge the mountain that was Alanna. “So it doesn’t do anything, huh? I think we seriously should test it without the padding.”

  ”…fine.” Sarah agreed. “But if you die I’m gonna be mad!”

  ”The full spell can’t hurt me that much.” Alanna reminded her, taking the mirror from her partner and recharging it with a bit of Breath that carried the Winter Wroth spell. “Okay. Try it now.” She turned away, this time without the heavy padding on.

  Sarah did so, but this time, Alanna twitched when the spell connected. “Are you okay?!” She asked, already preparing to be alarmed.

  ”Relax bubbles.” Alanna ruffled Sarah’s hair. “It poked me. Firm, sure, but I don’t think that would have cut me even if I weren’t special.”

  ”Bah!” Sarah protested even as she leaned into Alanna’s hand like a cat. “I can’t believe you even took that spell. We’re bound to find more books any day now, you know!”

  ”I know.” Alanna said with careful neutrality. “It’s just a good option to have. And I bet we can take an expedition even higher next time, if we plan for it.”

  What she didn’t say, didn’t really need to say, was that she was worried. Worried about the future, and the danger it promised. Worried about what the world was going to look like as more dungeons and their delvers made themselves known.

  Winter Wroth required her to be at least a little bit unnoticed, or even just dismissed. Which was hard for a woman like Alanna, admittedly. And it wasn’t exactly pretending to be a nonlethal option either; a full strength hit could carve a foot long gash into a person. It was a weapon she could always have on her, a holdout for if or when things started to get really bad.

  It also apparently turned into a light poke through the mirror wand.

  ”So, what next on the list?” Sarah asked, infusing some light and levity back into Alanna’s gloomy thoughts. “Anything fun?”

  There wasn’t. They’d tested all the fun ones already. And since they were currently hanging out in Clutter Ascent’s pillow castle, it wasn’t an easy task to track down people with the less fun ones to charge the wand. So they were kind of out of things to experiment with.

  The wand itself was both simple to explain, and deeply confusing in execution. The little folding mirror had exactly a single point of Breath storage, the smallest of any wand they had. And what it did was cast any spell that was infused into it. At one Breath.

  Not the whole spell, either. A hypothetical version of the spell, if its cost was a single point of the Climb’s designated mana source.

  Cloud Prowler turned from a whole snow cat into a brief puff of freezing mist shaped like a cat. Frost Vector went from nullifying friction between an object and a surface to simply making a small patch of a surface slippery. Harvest Echo just dropped the ability to make living plant parts and shrunk the ice model it created. Flare Calculation turned into a single use calculator that couldn’t do much more than long division.

  “Well, Watcher-Under-Stone is hanging around in the rainbow marsh.” Alanna started to suggest. “We could find out if Altitude Adept gives us really tiny wings or something? I’d say we could hunt down one of the guys charging up the Cathedral Sanctum traffic light of Damocles, but I think Bill’s off doing electricity… things…” Alanna trailed off. “So no?” She gave the answer apologetically. “No. Nothing fun left.”

  ”Boop.” Sarah uttered. “I want to love the Winter’s Climb. But it’s hard when it’s freezing up there, and all it’s magic is freezing too! I’m meant to be warrrrrm!”

  Alanna folded her arms around her latest partner, dragging Sarah backward with an eep of surprise as she dropped into one of the beanbags that had made it up to the bonus second attic inside Clutter Ascent that had become something of Sarah’s private refuge. A private where refuge she often hosted stuff animal storytime, and also had a living cloud on life support in. “I’ll keep you warm you dumbass.” Alanna told her affectionately. “Also that’s why you don’t like the Climb? I thought you were the only one immune to that.” She poked Sarah’s cheek. “Also there’s no the.”

  ”You just called it the Climb!”

  ”Yeah, it’s the Climb, or Winter’s Climb.” Alanna retorted. “James is really particular on this. You know him.”

  Sarah nodded as she wiggled back against Alanna’s embrace. ”Has he told you his thing about the final shape of the perfect language yet?” She asked. “Or did he abandon that while I was dead for a bit?”

  “…Hey…”

  ”Sorry.” Sarah stilled. “I’m trying to make it funny. And maybe it’ll be funny one day.”

  Alanna hugged her tighter, feeling the roil of dulled pain and determined optimism that Sarah was blasting like an emotional megaphone. “Or you could stop trying to make it funny.” She said, leaning backward and taking Sarah with her. “And one day you’ll realize it became funny when you weren’t looking. But hey, you don’t have to do fuckin’ anything except take care of yourself, you know that.”

  ”I know that, but I also like taking care of other people too.” Sarah said with more of her usual energy. “Being sad all the time is inconvenient!”

  ”Jesus Christ you seriously are just a version of James with different anatomy.” Alanna playfully shoved the back of Sarah’s head.

  ”You’d know!” Sarah joked with seeming ease, though Alanna could still feel the explosion of awkward embarrassment as her girlfriend worried about overstepping even now. “Well, if we’re not playing with the mirror more, unless you want to help me choreograph some kind of performative dance with the mist cats…?”

  Alanna curved her body forward to look Sarah in the eyes, if a little bit upside down. “Are you nuts? Have you seen me? I can’t dance.”

  ”You know four different martial arts!”

  ”That’s not dancing.”

  ”One of them is literally capoeira!”

  ”That’s… okay that one is dancing. But if I think about it that way I fuck up and kick someone too hard so I don’t think about it that way.” Alanna looked away, trying to figure out what facial expression she could make that was the most disgruntled without seeming like she was pouting. It was important to her self-image that she didn’t pout to her girlfriend. “But yeah, this thing is cool. Gonna talk about it on the news?” She asked, trying to change the subject and toying with the mirror wand she’d taken from an unsuspecting Sarah.

  Sarah rolled off of the beanbag, her light frame barely noticeable as she trampled over Alanna’s leg. “Maybe? I’ve been talking to some people lately.”

  ”Uh oh.”

  ”Uh oh?!” Sarah put on a look of mock shock.

  Alanna nodded firmly, concern on her pursed lips. ”Uh oh.” She confirmed. “You and James are the same. You both say that when you have a new thing in mind.”

  ”Well… I do!” Sarah said as she stood up and started pacing back and forth in front of the wall of connected glass tanks that May, her raincloud patient, was stored in. A lucky break in finding the right moisture level and micro-ecosystems for May to irrigate had kept her alive way past what Sarah had predicted, and might actually be stable. She looked at the drifting curling raincloud as she spoke to Alanna. “I think we need actual news.”

  Shifting to a cross legged position, Alanna pointed at Sarah’s back. ”You are the news.”

  ”That’s a problem!” Sarah beamed as she spun on her heel. “I’m a silly radio show! A podcast, at best! We need something that’s accessible and searchable, a bridge between Research writing reports-“

  ”And us writing reports.” Alanna muttered.

  ”-and me interviewing people I think are interesting!” That was kind of fair, but also, Sarah thought everyone was interesting, so on a long enough timeline, anyone could end up on her show. “But you know what I mean, right? I… I joke about this, but people share .mem files of listening to my podcast for a reason. And I know why.”

  ”Have you ever used one of those, actually?” Alanna asked.

  ”I don’t use the skulljack.” Sarah said quickly, waving a hand. “Anyway! It’s time! Even if episodes are only twenty or thirty minutes, when does someone fit that in? We don’t drive to work! You really can’t do it on a delve! And Melody and Aniskha put a lot of work in on the editing side but it’s not like you can search the whole conversation!”

  ”So… you propose we abandon the future, and… print zines again? Are zines making a comeback? James just ran into someone doing that.” Alanna desperately wanted to go off on a tangent about the underground cryptid fandom that apparently existed in Saskatoon, but restrained herself. For now. “Or a real newspaper maybe?” As soon as she said it, something about the idea sparked an ancient nostalgia in her chest.

  ”Maybe?” Sarah shrugged. “But we need options! And records! I know there’s an emerald program for making transcripts, but everyone says it’s a giant pain in the patootie to use, and I… don’t anyway.” She rubbed the back of her neck.

  Alanna knew that program, and she nodded in understanding as she waved her arms to leverage herself upward without touching anything. “Yeah, that’s fair.” She caught a wisp of a feeling from Sarah as her girlfriend turned to study the glass tanks setup here in her dungeon domain. “Do you want to?” Alanna asked without hesitating. Or thinking.

  ”Want to what?” Sarah spun again, smile bright and alive.

  ”The skulljack. Do you want to learn to use it sometime?” Alanna asked. And then cleared her throat, flicking her eyes to the side. “With me. I mean.”

  Sarah’s smile turned confused, then hesitant as she watched Alanna. Looking for something she didn’t really know the shape of. Maybe she was trying to see if it was a joke, or some kind of pity. Despite not having an Empathy enhancement, Sarah’s ability to read people was refined and strong, and she didn’t see anything hostile in Alanna’s offer at all.

  Just her girlfriend - and wasn’t that a miracle on its own - offering her support. If she needed it. Or wanted it.

  ”I dunno.” Sarah said, scuffing a sock clad toe on the smooth floor of her hideout. “Maybe? Ask me again in a couple days.”

  ”Sure.” Alanna felt a sweeping relief that she hadn’t just fucked up the one big boundary Sarah had. “Anyway! Wanna tell me more about newspapers?”

  ”Yes! But also I’m supposed to be doing another recording today to talk about the umbral!” She paused. “Want to come along? You’d be great to talk to for actually having met them.”

  ”I got in two fights with them. James did all the talking.” Alanna protested.

  ”James is in… uh… who even knows.” Sarah rolled her eyes. “A complete refusal to take a break.”

  ”Says the girl who went from delve to wand experimentation to podcast.” Alanna prodded Sarah. “Also whatever title you get for working with Kiki. Pillar wrangler?”

  ”Kiki won’t be here until later tonight when the kids downstairs are in bed!” Sarah protested. “Come on, it’ll be fun.” She raised herself onto her toes to playfully kiss Alanna’s cheek. And then more of Alanna’s face as she was caught.

  It probably would be fun. So Alanna agreed, and allowed herself to get immersed in talk of the upcoming trials that would come along with printing their own periodical. The balance of communicating what was useful and explaining new understandings about the world in deep detail. The power and limits of .mem files for those that used them.

  Little things like that.

  It was a fun date. Even the part where she got asked interview questions that too many people would listen to.

  _____

  “Earl. Buddy. Mark. Good to see all you guys again.” James nodded at the men as he approached the newest major work zone in Townton. He walked with purposeful strides, extending a hand to shake for the two men that were new to the Order. Mark just gave him a masculine grunt, the electrician hyperfocused on the work he was doing nearby, and not actually part of the conversation. James may as well have greeted the truck, for all the social progress it made. “How’re you settling in?”

  ”Well enough.” Earl said, the Priority Earth leader giving a relative guess at how well he and his people were doing compared to an average human. “Not every day… well, you know.”

  ”We take in a lot of refugees, so yeah, I know.” James gave him an easy smile.

  It wasn’t every day you learned you weren’t the only species on your planet. Wasn’t every day you found people who cared enough to extend a helping hand the size of the one the Order offered. Wasn’t every day you felt like you could feel something again, participate in the world again, live again.

  But it was today.

  The Priority Earth camp had been brought down to Townton entirely intact. Eight buildings and nineteen people, the Wolfpack mercenaries conspicuously absent, had been miniaturized by the blueprint that mapped out their positions and transported easily to their new home. And that new home was the current point of development for Townton’s construction team.

  Located about a fifth of a mile east of their current center, the camp was isolated for two reasons. Firstly, because the Priority Earth members that had come along weren’t going to stay as Priority Earth. And they didn’t need their camp as a place to stay because of that. It had taken them some time to discuss amongst themselves, and then to work something out with the Order’s negotiation team, but the end result was that they were hanging up their old banner in favor of taking up the Order’s flag.

  James wondered if they had a flag. He hadn’t seen any designs, but surely someone had some ideas. He’d look into it later.

  The reason for the camp being here at all, and also the geographic separation, was that it carried with it a very specific magical effect that the Order wanted to preserve.

  Anyone invited in, if the blueprint of the area was set to the right frequency, had their emotions suppressed. Well, most of their emotions. Light fun from activities still worked, as did wonder at the majesty of nature. But anger? Fear? Desire? Even boredom? They all got reduced as far as you were willing to turn the dial.

  It was a dangerous tool, and putting it close enough to Townton to be built around and have the security zone extended to was a calculated risk. But it was a tool that served two very powerful causes, at least as the Order wanted to wield it.

  For one thing, they had proven that the time to process events it gave people under its blanket caused a massive improvement in how humans handled memories that would otherwise definitely cause crippling PTSD. Studying the field for use in therapy was a high priority. But it was also a priority that was outdone by a higher priority.

  When you stripped away all the emotions that drove violent action, it made it a lot easier to contain prisoners. Especially prisoners with unknown spellcasting abilities. Like, for example, a group of Status Quo survivors.

  ”Welp.” Earl cracked his neck as he looked at the place that had been his home for longer than he actually knew. “Got everything out of there for you guys. Just taking one last look at the place.”

  ”Before you turn it into a prison camp.” Buddy pointed out, a little sharply.

  James bit his cheek, shaking his head. “Sort of.” He said. “Containment, yes, but that’s not all. These guys… I don’t hate them. I refuse to hate them; they can’t make me do it. They need help. And like we saw with you…” He waved a hand at where a pair of ratroaches were rearranging the chain link fence around the camp, helping a human take measurements for if they needed to add to it to cover the space.

  ”Therapy through first principles.” Buddy said tightly. Understanding more than anyone who glanced at him would assume from the scruffy man.

  ”Make ‘em grow up.” Earl added with a nod. “I like it. Probably slow though. How long can you keep someone like that contained?”

  Like ‘that’ as in, like James. Like any combat-focused magic user. Magic did a ton of different things, and while James had been delighted to find that the majority of it was tilted toward peaceful applications, it didn’t take much to make someone more dangerous than a person probably should be.

  “As long as it takes for them to understand.” James said. “And hopefully that’ll be enough.”

  ”Welp. Your funeral.” Buddy said, folding his arms and looking back at the part of Townton that was more active. “So. This where you’ve been using the copies of the blueprint we gave you?”

  James let out a low groan, expressing his frustration in an obviously overblown way. “You know, I’d be willing to bet that you two already know what kind of problems we’ve been running into with those fucking things.”

  ”Didja fold it too much?” Earl asked. “They hate that.”

  ”They’re paper, they don’t have opinions.” Buddy slapped his friend on the back of the head. “But don’t fold ‘em.”

  ”We folded it a minimal amount to fit it in the copy magic.” James said, grinning at the interaction. “But no, they don’t work on existing buildings. And hey, guess what we’re doing here in the city full of existing buildings?”

  Buddy turned and looked around. Relative to the road, their old camp had been placed down at the end of a looping residential road. The Order had found a space that was mostly empty lots, but they’d had to clear out a construction site on one of them, and they’d also needed to finish demolishing an old eight unit apartment building to one side, and a single family home on the other, just to make room for the ‘correct’ pattern of buildings.

  The local area had already been modified with copies of the green orbs that ate trash, but building debris was heavy. A few pounds a day would barely even keep up with basic human food waste for ten people living in the area, much less significantly chunk away at the pile of splintered wood, crumpled siding, and tarp-covered insulation. They were working on cleaning it up, but it was an ongoing process.

  Buddy turned back to James. “I think you’re fucking un-existing the buildings.” He said.

  ”Touche.” James huffed a small laugh. “But no, they just don’t register if you copy over a blueprint for a building, even if you’re modifying the building. And we haven’t started building anything new yet.”

  ”We’ll get there, keep your fucking pants on!” Mark yelled from where he was making notes on the side of a surprisingly intact wooden power pole. A lot of the grid in Townton had been shredded during its destruction, but there were parts that were still operational to the point that the Order liked making use of them.

  ”I really don’t know how he can hear me from over there.” James muttered, turning back to the two Priority Earth leaders. “Anyway. I just wanted to drop by and say hi, and thank you, and… I guess just that.”

  ”What, no welcome party?” Earl laughed.

  James gave him a satisfied smile. “Oh, there absolutely is. Everyone else from your group is already there. Don’t tell them I ruined the surprise.” Technically, he’d been asked to make sure these two were okay by their companions. Which was why he was here in the first place, not just to check up on the situation with the camp perimeter and preparation.

  Priority Earth weren’t a monolith in terms of their opinions on what was a good state for the planet, or what action should be taken to get there. But they were actually a close group, and despite having spent a lot of their time together not feeling anything, and despite having lived through a nightmare of mental violation together before that, both the survivors and new recruits cared about each other in a way that was a lot more compassionate than many people would be open about.

  James walked back with Buddy and Earl, though not before checking in with Mark and letting the man know there was probably going to be someone else with the same name around Townton in the near future. This time hopefully not one he’d worry was his secret clone or ghost or something.

  While they walked, James talked about long term plans, and asked opinions from the environmentalists. Nothing serious or deep, just enough to get them talking. Help them settle in, to a world where their neighbors were going to be very different than they were used to, and their future was going to need to accommodate a lot more weirdness than they ever could have expected.

  And also to get them to the point that, when they got to the little sort-of bar that was operational in Townton, they’d mostly forgotten that their companions were all waiting for them. Which meant they got to be mildly surprised anyway, and James got to enjoy the moment from the sidelines before he headed back to the Lair.

  It wasn’t very often that people got to watch a new chapter of their life start, to actually see the page turning. James almost never noticed when it happened to him. So it was nice to give that gift to someone else.

  _____

  “Okay big guy!” Bill patted Arrush on his back with a thump of his thick hand, the human’s own shaggy coat of fur close in density to Arrush’s own. “Ready to set this thing off?”

  The two of them had been working steadily on finishing a project that one of Arrush’s boyfriends had started before vanishing to Canada. It wasn’t one that included the usual flock of contractors that Bill managed, either; though despite not being something that called for physical labor, it was draining.

  For Arrush, use of Breath was something that acted as a direct measure of his own changes. From a discarded and broken weapon, to a patchwork survivor, and finally to his current form of something - someone - who could inhale without pain and talk without gasping. Arrush still hated that his choice for his body had been stolen from him, hated the arrogance of the human fanatics that had deprived him of being something like Keeka. But he couldn’t deny that, when he didn’t think about the circumstances, he’d never felt better.

  And when he used his Breath, he could feel that satisfaction in its pure form. His first stumbling foray into choosing something for himself had led to him having the Thermodynamic Tunnel spell, because he had decided after excess exposure to James that he wanted to make something. But those early castings had nearly killed him, left him choking and panting in pain. Now, though?

  Now, filtering ten, even twenty Breath a day into the wand that he and Bill were slowly filling with a single use of Cathedral Sanctum, didn’t hurt.

  And of course Arrush had added that spell to his list. He would never fail to fight when he was called upon to protect his new home, but he’d only spent more time around James since those early days. And more time around an invigorated Keeka, too. And others; Alanna, Bill and his wife Marcy, Kalik and his own chanter friends. An array of names and faces, all of whom gave Arrush even more reasons to want to build things.

  He and Bill had, for the last week, been dumping Breath into the looted traffic light that James had turned into a wand. And now, it was ready. The green glow lighting up the trailer they were working in out in the Order’s property in Yamhill. Waiting for someone to step in front of it, and let the spell be cast.

  ”I should wait outside.” Arrush said, stepping back and sliding past Bill.

  ”You don’t want to turn it on?” Bill asked him. “You put more in than I did, you earned it!”

  ”It might explode.” Arrush pointed out, his tails twitching against each other.

  This was a conversation they’d had at least as many times as they’d had sessions with the device. And again, when they were transporting it out here from the Lair for it’s final bit of charging. It was a small amount of fun that Bill seemed amused by, though Arrush realized it had different connotations here and now, when actually casting the spell was at hand.

  ”Oh, so you’ll leave my fat ass to get blown up?” Bill asked with a small stomp on the floor of the trailer. “Fine, but you get to tell my wife and kids that I went up in a fireball.”

  Arrush had a moment of actual doubt. ”…If it actually explodes, maybe we shouldn’t…” he started to say.

  Bill just clapped him on the back again with his weird booming laugh, sending him reeling. Arrush was big, but he wasn’t that heavy compared to the human, and Bill lacked fine control for his friendly thumps. “I’m fucking with you! What’s the worst that could happen?” He asked, and started to step around the crate they’d secured the wand on top of.

  For a moment when he saw the green glow of the wand begin to play over Bill’s body, Arrush’s traumatized memories screamed to him that there was a threat. That he needed to throw himself forward and tackle the human out of the way before something went wrong. That something was bad about this situation.

  He crushed that feeling. Especially as Bill grinned at the flow of cold Breath through the air and around his arm, directing it like a conductor as the wand let him cast a spell that would have flatlined anyone in the Order that tried, even with the oxygenation potion. It wasn’t a useful feeling, it was just a ghost of a life that was over.

  In this life, Arrush watched as a soft mist crept out from Bill, coating the floor and then the walls and ceiling of the trailer. Magic extending into the world and cleanly encompassing the civilized barrier of the temporary workspace that was one of five they’d dropped in the open fields out here.

  It seemed to make things vibrant. Not glowing, not a source of light exactly, but the building and furnishings and even Bill in a way all looked for a moment like they were polished. Cleaned up and stable enough to last a thousand years, perfect iterations of whatever they were.

  Then the mist moved in a direction Arrush couldn’t follow, and Bill vanished. The trailer was still and cold again, Arrush only realizing that it had been warming up when he was abruptly feeling the cold sting of an Oregon November again. “…h-hello?” His voice came out as a clicking rasp, uncertainty filling him as he looked at where the traffic light had reverted back to a red glow to indicate it was empty, and where Bill was no longer standing. “Hello?!” Arrush stumbled forward, shouting.

  ”Hey! You there kid?!” He heard Bill’s voice from… somewhere.

  ”Where are you?” Arrush asked, before realizing Bill might not be able to hear him, and raising his voice to repeat the question in a yell, his triangular head whipping around the trailer.

  ”Where am I? Where the fuck are you?! I didn’t move!” Bill yelled back.

  And when he focused on the words, Arrush realized where he was hearing Bill from. The door. Well, the door, and also one of the thin windows. He kept calm, pointedly not dropping to run on more limbs as he scurried out the door and down the set of wooden steps into the freezing rain and the field outside. “Where?” He hissed, whipping around looking for the adult human.

  ”Right here big guy.” Bill said, stepping out of the trailer behind him with heavy thuds as he tromped down the steps. “What the hell was that about, you think?” He turned to cross his arms at the building they’d both just stepped out of, trying to pretend he wasn’t freezing himself with his flannel shirt rolled up to his elbows. He was completely unprepared for Arrush to slam into his flank, multiple arms wrapping around him in a frantic hug. Unprepared emotionally anyway; Bill barely moved from the impact, but he did run through a litany of facial expressions before sheepishly rubbing the back of his head. “Hey, come on kid, I’m fine.”

  ”You vanished.” Arrush told him, slowly loosening his grip on the human when he was sure Bill wasn’t going to do it again.

  ”You vanished, I didn’t move.” Bill shoved off one of Arrush’s paws and stepped back up the stairs, waking into the trailer.

  Arrush watched as he did so, and saw instantly that something was wrong. It was like there was a soap bubble the size of a person, Bill’s position sliding across a curved surface as he walked through the threshold. And then just popped out of sight. “You’re gone again.” He called to Bill.

  The man stuck his head out the door, that same bubble effect making him visible as he approached the door, but distorted until he passed through it. “How bout now?”

  ”Now I can see you.”

  ”Hm.” Bill walked out, and pointed at Arrush. “Okay, you go in, then I’ll go in.” He ordered.

  Arrush followed the instructions, watching Bill follow after him, but again, the bubble around the door had Bill’s form sliding away. A direction Arrush couldn’t follow, as he went… somewhere else. “Are you inside?” Arrush called loudly, realizing that what he was hearing when they yelled to each other was their voices carrying out the door, then back in the other door.

  ”Yeah, yeah, you got any ideas?”

  The ratroach sniffed, and then looked up to the corner of the trailer near the ceiling. There was a spider here, a large one working diligently at their intricate web. “Do you have the spider?” He yelled to Bill, voice stronger now that he had a clever thought and less fear.

  It took a little back and forth to confirm that Bill did not. In fact, there were no bugs at all on his side, nor could they get any in there. Including Arrush, though after pilfering a few of the Researchers working on totem things one field over, they confirmed it wasn’t a bug thing.

  Cathedral Sanctum made a shadow copy of a place. One that admitted exactly one living person; the caster.

  ”This is gonna give me a headache.” Bill said as he and Arrush toyed with trying to approach the door at the same time, watching shadow versions of each other on the soap bubble threshold and how they slid past each other’s forms so they never collided. “This is already giving me a headache.”

  ”You know what else will give you a headache?” Arrush asked, a glowing crescent on his muzzle as he began to realize just how cool the spell was.

  ”Oh fuck me.” Bill grumbled.

  ”Doing it again!” Arrush informed him needlessly.

  They got another ten aspected Breath into the wand before Bill demanded they stop for the day, pleading that he was old, dying, and pitiful. And also that he wanted to be sure to not be late to one of his daughter’s band performance that night.

  Arrush accepted the excuse. And then had a two hour long panic across the Lair as Bill invited him along, claiming that his kid liked Arrush and Keeka anyway and they were basically always allowed to come to these sorts of things.

  Neither of them knew when their lives had changed. But whenever it was, it was far too late to go back now.

  _____

  Life continued. Messier, but with momentum.

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