“Keep honking, I’m crying and jerking off to Title Fight’s ‘Trace Me Onto You (2015)’” -Unattributed bumper sticker-

  _____

  A calm and quiet afternoon was shaping into a calm and quiet night. In an overly magicked apartment, various people relaxed in various ways. A cat made of snow and ice hung out with a fluffy white dog, one of them a good bit smarter than normal, and the other one laying on a towel in case they melted. A navigator practiced using a touchscreen without a shape that electronics registered. A living stapler that felt too smart for his own good tried to learn how to play Mario Kart from a living drone that was exactly as smart as he felt like he could enjoy being. And a few humans tried to get chores and other basic stuff done before other guests showed up at their home.

  Mostly.

  “Hey!” Alanna called down the hall of the apartment she shared with her partners, aiming her voice over the unignorable white noise of the dryer in use and toward the kitchen where James was currently prepping some kind of snack spread for everyone who was going to be hanging out in an hour or so. “Jaaaames!”

  An orange lance of light bounced off the midpoint of the hall, and then up into the air where it took a crisp ninety degree turn before impacting Alanna’s shoulder and resolving like a splash of feathers into Zhu’s form. ”James’ busy and can’t hear over white noise.” The navigator announced. “What’cha need?”

  ”He left his magic paper here. Can you ask him if he wants me to go drop this off at Research or something?” Alanna tapped Zhu’s body lightly with the rolled up blank blueprint.

  ”Oooh, shit, yeah, that’s kind of an important one.” Zhu spread his feathers, preparing to take off again. “How’d that get forgotten?”

  ”Well, we were distracting him.” Anesh said as one of him emerged from the attached bathroom, one of his other selves rolling off the bed and accepting a deft hand up for balance from himself as he traded out who was monopolizing their hot water. Neither of those Anesh chose to comment on the fact that James was capable of forgetting any magical object in their shared bedroom; there was still a size two yellow orb being used as a softly glowing nightlight. “You, especially, were distracting him.”

  Alanna’s face split into a wide grin, her chin tipped up in smug pride. “Yeah, I’m an excellent distraction.” She said, one hand on her hip, arm cocked out in a pose that showed off her very distracting body. The way Anesh blushed, even after all their time together, just made her feel better about it. “Anyway yeah, Zhu if you’re done ogling us, go tell James that I’m blinking to the Lair for a hot minute.”

  ”I’m not ogling!” The navigator’s voice was a sputtering engine. “You’re ogling!”

  ”Buddy, you live in James’ brain. You’re with us constantly. You know we connect together at least once a week. I super already know how you feel, and it’s okay.” Alanna tried to be reassuring, but Zhu had already shot off, bouncing off the walls like a rubber ball as he returned to James. “That’s not mean, right?” Alanna asked Anesh.

  Her boyfriend, mostly dried off and pulling on pants, gave a shrug that used most of his body. “I’ve lost perspective.” He admitted. “I don’t think so. I think Zhu’s just a lot like James.”

  ”Oh! Yeah that checks out.” Alanna laughed. “Also hey, you know topography-“

  ”Why do you assume that?”

  Alanna continued unabated with her correct assumption “-do you have any idea how we could… fold? Roll? Bundle? Whatever, how to scrunch this thing up without creasing it so it fits in the copier.”

  It was with a sigh that Anesh was willing to admit he might know how to do that. “I can work on that. But why not just ask James? He knows origami to a worrying level.”

  ”I think you’ll find,” Alanna said smoothly, “that origami is almost entirely creasing.” She laughed as one Anesh pulled out his phone and started looking that up. “Okay, fine, fact check me later. I’ll be right back. I’m sure there’s at least one incredibly detailed discussion about this thing that misses a critical detail or accidentally institutes a dystopia, so Research is probably waiting on it.”

  ”That only happened once, and you apologized.” Anesh said, smiling up at her from the bed, before his smile became a little worried. “Are you… going to put pants on before you teleport?”

  ”Oh!” Alanna tossed the telepad onto the bed before tearing it. “That’s a great idea. I knew I kept you boys around for a reason.”

  Anesh folded his arms, tipping his head up in his own prideful gesture. ”We’re very astute.” He claimed dramatically, before Alanna caught him in a quick kiss and vanished. “I feel like she must have skill ranks in getting dressed instantly.” He muttered to himself and himself. Both of him finished dressing. “So, which of us gets to get flopped on by Keeka tonight?” He asked, offering the traditional game of rock paper scissors that he somehow never matched himself on. “This seems unfair to myself, though.” Anesh both looked at the bathroom door where the shower was still running, before looking back at himself. “Our loss I suppose!”

  He lost that game of rock paper scissors. But he also won, so it wasn’t the worst possible outcome. And the rest of their night, all the Anesh and everyone else as well, passed with comfort and joy.

  _____

  The night for the Order’s collection of researchers, testers, logistics experts, explorers, and arcane test subjects, was just getting started.

  _____

  “Alright. I’ve got a thing to go over with you.” Mike said immediately upon arriving at the oddly placed and exposed break room outside the basement three’s alchemy lab.

  The Researcher was carrying two things that were relevant to the conversation, and about eight things that weren’t. The important items were a hard black case, pebbled plastic safely holding the relevant dungeontech, and a printout of the study he was currently working on.

  ”I have covered the consent form.” Ink-And-Key stated, the camraconda’s tail sticking off the end of the soft cushion he was sitting on while he waited, a tablet sitting on the low table in front of him, glowing screen showing a review of the current roster of knights that were still out due to injury, illness, trauma, or some yet further Underburbs-related horror. “I am aware that this may not work. It does not… it does bother me. I should not lie. It scares me. But.”

  Mike nodded as he sat down at the low table, already talking as he did so. “Sure. But it’s still a good idea! And we’ve learned a little from the study so far that might change your mind. Since this isn’t a double-blind or anything, it seems polite to, you know, tell you.”

  ”…acknowledge my trepidation and I will listen to your summary.”

  The blunt force honesty actually got Mike to pause for a second. He’d gotten too used to working with Chevoy, where pauses for anxiety were a sign of inefficiency, and Mars, where there was always a quiet terror lurking under the surface but you weren’t supposed to acknowledge it. ”I’m sure your exceptional bravery will be… uh… appreciated? Or at least a cool story?”

  Ink-And-Key’s lens closed and his head tilted back, a long hiss coming from the white cabled camraconda as he felt the fear get replaced by mild irritation at the human he reminded himself he was going to need to work with again in a professional capacity, and so he couldn’t just eat. “Thank you. Continue with your explanation.”

  ”So!” Mike spun the case on the table and unlatched it, revealing a pair of identical and slightly water damaged paperback books. “You’re the third person today to agree to try this out, and so I can tell you some fun Sewer facts.” Ink-And-Key assumed the human was lying. There were no fun Akashic Sewer facts. “First off, you absolutely can take two copies of the same lesson. They will both work. It does stack up the debuff that makes them both cost more to upgrade. And everything you learn counts for both.”

  ”This seems… unfair.” Ink-And-Key looked at the objects in the case. “I did agree to this. I will do it. But the Sewer cannot like this.”

  ”Oh, it doesn’t.” Mike confirmed. “Yeah, the ‘teacher’ thing apparently gets real mad about it. But it can’t do anything, as usual.” He shrugged it off, which did not reassure Ink-And-Key of anything. The Researcher continued talking quickly, words flowing with the pace that the whole floor had started to adopt as they got used to using skulljack connections to reference information. “So we mostly know that it works. You’re still welcome to participate in the test, having another data point would be helpful, and we do still need to test to see if picking the same stat twice actually stacks.”

  Ink-And-Key turned his gaze up to the human. “I do not know if I can commit to that.” He said honestly. “I am… I may need to be effective, not just a test subject.”

  ”No pressure.” Mike shrugged. “But before you do this, are you sure you don’t want to just take a singular book? It would level faster.”

  ”I have seen the charts.” Ink-And-Key said. “The increased learning required does not outpace the increase in advancement, does it?”

  That was technically correct, and Mike admitted it. ”I mean… no. But it does if you ever take another Lesson.”

  ”I do not need another Lesson.” Ink-And-Key bent slightly in a dismissive motion. “I will be, I hope, alive for a long time. Mastering one subject will be enough for me. If I find that the paths are not… viable… then I will test taking the same option twice. And I will record any other quirks for the study.”

  Mike gave another small shrug. “Alright. I’ve got a list of stuff we’re tracking and looking for that you can take with you, but anything else you notice is valuable too. I’m not trying to talk you out of it or anything, just reminding you that it’s an option, you know?”

  Ink-And-Key hissed nervously. “I am aware. Now what?”

  “Well, now you drink this reading potion, wait two minutes, then open both books and go from there. We don’t know what this lesson is, so I don’t have orbs or .mems or anything ready for you. But we probably have something at this point!”

  One detestable and vile flavored potion was choked down through a straw, two books were flipped open by brass fangs, and in short order, Ink-And-Key became the third test subject for a new method of maximizing Sewer rewards. He also became the first member of the Order to have chemistry as a lesson, which was unfortunately exciting. Ink-And-Key was many things, but a fan of excitement wasn’t among them. It also would have been nice to be able to pre-plan for whatever upgrades might be offered.

  But with the potion - so far the only meta-effect that worked on the Sewer books - he didn’t need to do that much study before he’d find out. And with a quick word, Ink-And-Key reviewed the ‘syllabus’ that the Sewer almost certainly wished it didn’t have to offer.

  [Lesson Continues : Chemistry I (0/60)

  Lesson Continues : Chemistry I (0/150)

  Merits : 0, Credits : 0, Accolades : 0]

  Ink-And-Key had never been in the Akashic Sewer, definitely didn’t plan on ever changing that, and was more than happy to consider that whatever he was doing somehow annoyed the place.

  ”I am going to go learn how to make potions now.” The camraconda told Mike. “I will be in touch when that teaches me enough chemistry that I can update our collective spreadsheet.”

  ”I… I don’t think that the potions are… uh…” Mike stopped talking and clasped a hand over his chin, one finger tapping at his cheek. “Is the potion making chemistry? What is chemistry? Maybe we should both google this before you commit to a new job and I write anything down.”

  Ink-And-Key nodded in agreement, a slow weighty motion of his body. “I do not miss where I came from.” He said, as close to an idle comment as anything he ever said got. “But I often find myself wanting to slither back under the bed when days pile up like this.”

  ”Yeah, I hear you on th-“ Mike stopped abruptly. “Sorry, under the bed?”

  ”Paper-And-Words prefers the softness of the mattress, I prefer the confines of having it overhead.” Ink-And-Key stated. “This makes sharing space simple.”

  ”This conversation has gotten really far away from me.” Mike sighed. “I’ll talk to you later. Are you still working on the arm pack designs with Chevoy?”

  ”No, she has moved on to gyroscopes.” Ink-And-Key gave a tired exhalation. “For reasons I did not inquire about. I am worried about her. You have been friends longer, perhaps you could speak to her? About taking a break? Or perhaps seeking medication assistance for her focus issues and self-destructive mindset?”

  Mike grimaced. “We were hired together, but we aren’t really friends. It might be better coming from you, man.”

  ”Oh good.” The camraconda shivered. “A new thing I am afraid of. I can expand the list! Life in the Order continues as expected.”

  _____

  Bea was hard at work.

  That was her default state. On a practical level, there was always work to be done around the Lair, and since she lived here, she might as well be one of the people doing things. Also, she was especially good at certain patterns of blue orb imbuement, which meant she had a personal task list for things to work on at any given time. Though she wasn’t uniquely capable, since she and Emm had managed to teach some of the other species how they got their results, so she had been freed up to do other things.

  Her time had value. That was hard to fully internalize, as a concept. Like the other surviving inhabitors, Bea has almost completely stopped wearing the mask of her body’s previous owner, which was both mentally and ethically liberating. But it also came with some downsides, like having difficulty processing emotions.

  Not difficulty feeling emotions, importantly. Inhabitors felt everything their stolen forms could, and sometimes possibly more. They were just, despite being fully capable of intelligent thought, very new to the world, and very uncertain how to navigate the complex nature of emotional thought. An easy way out was to simply pretend that nothing got to her. A tactic that many inhabitors used; if you simply lied about your emotions, then you could sometimes fool even yourself into thinking everything was fine.

  Which was why there had been a bit of an adjustment phase for Bea to fully come to terms with the fact that her time, her expertise, and her life itself were all things valued for their own reasons. She was important to the Order, and not just because she could enchant the tables in the dining room to be self-repairing. Important to other people, and not just because she was a difficult-to-damage potion test subject. Important to herself, regardless of what she was.

  It was all quite a lot. And so she was hard at work, because work was a series of easily managed tasks that occupied her time and made her feel satisfaction, which was a sustainable emotion to work with.

  So far today, she had accomplished three things.

  First, she had completed a basic and entirely intended test earlier with the Cloud Prowler spell and a number of Officium Mundi orbs. Her snow cat, an order of magnitude more energetic and flirtatious than she was, had cracked several dozen orbs, before his duration had expired and so too had his mortal form. Which was how Bea had been able to confirm that, while skill and emotion ranks appeared to carry over from iteration to iteration of the cat, most purple orbs did not.

  Most. Not all, however. The variation irritated her. They were shell upgrades. It made perfect sense that they were bound to the shell. But here, there was at least mild confirmation that the shell could be exchanged for a new one, and at least one purple orb would carry over. That was not a shell upgrade. Bea did not believe in souls, because it would be incredibly inconvenient for her if they were real, but if the dungeon was going to make soulbound upgrades, she would appreciate it if it would use clearer language.

  Second, less an accomplishment, she had participated in a productive conversation with Follower-Of-Horizons and Sanji about the frustration of the Order’s possession of over a hundred Underburbs skill crystals that were currently not in use. The three of them understood, or at least acknowledged, that there was a perfectly valid reason for the restraint, but using the skill crystals didn’t consume them like with other loot drops. If souls - no, Bea still hated that word - were real, then surely there was difference between breaking one for points, and purchasing a skill from one of them?

  The unplanned meeting had taken place when they had all been dropping off reports in Reed’s office, and they had stolen his chairs while they spoke since he wasn’t there at the moment. The conversation shifted, over time, from sharing frustration, to developing a plan to convince the others of their viewpoint. Bea had forgotten that was an option, and Sanji had never truly believed it. But Follower-Of-Horizons seemed optimistic about their chances, especially if they weren’t going to do anything as foolish as try to use other magic to reshape a crystal. They began drafting a proposal, and Bea let the feeling of connection seep into her stolen heart.

  It felt especially good to be acknowledged as someone who might like to use the crystals, as well. Bea didn’t want to hurt anyone with the magic, especially not something as volatile and crude as the Underburbs. But she had fought hard to earn the two hundred and six skill points she had acquired, and she wanted more to show for it than the fifteen quickly healing puncture wounds through her chest and torso.

  The third thing was to dispose of a number of shirts.

  It was unimpressive, and it was also a mark of failure. As it turned out, shirts that resisted kinetic energy were… undesirable. As shirts.

  As armor, the imbued items Bea had produced were exceptional. Though it would be more accurate to say that they were fantastic barricades, specifically. As garments, they left something to be desired, and that something was the ability to move. Because while Bea had left a little leeway in their enchantment, they still performed their magical task perfectly, and resisted kinetic energy. It made certain things like walking, running, or diving for cover, slightly inconvenient.

  So the shirts got to be on fire, and the orbs retrieved for future work. Or they would have been if someone hadn’t frantically stopped her and confiscated her shirts, yelling about the world’s best weighted blankets before disappearing into the halls of Research.

  Which left Bea once again hard at work. Because she certainly hadn’t dragged her heels on torching her creation while she had other projects lined up.

  The current project involved a lot of detail work with her hands. There were actually four other people self-assigned to this, but two of them were recovering from injuries, one of them was participating in a community league indoor soccer game in a neighboring city, and one of them had the flu. Fortunately, they had stocked the materials that Bea needed, so while she was alone in the lab, she didn’t strictly need anyone else.

  At present, she was building a totem.

  The process was different than how Momo had tried to teach her to make red totems. Or at least, Office red totems. For one thing, they had instructions for this. Though there was no indication what the outcome would be, the tablet from the Ceaseless Stacks was coherent enough in what was required.

  The main difference was that specific material didn’t matter so much as the density did. So the totem, slowly coming together into the shape of an inverted hourglass, was made partly of a steel shell, and mostly of different layers of carefully carved pieces of wood, shaped to fit into the metal pyramids and ‘conduct’ the orb with proper density. Bea didn’t fully understand why any of the magic cared, and her attempt to ask Momo had been forestalled by the witch’s girlfriend for now, but the Order cared about practical applications first and deeper patterns later.

  So she finished placing the last of the wooden panes, and then secured them with copper pins before flipping the assembly upside down and shaking it to make sure she hadn’t erred. When nothing shook loose, Bea then began the process of affixing it, her bestowed qualifications as a proficient welder put to use fusing the two different pyramids together with thin rods connecting their edges. It was careful work, because it required a precision not normally associated with the noble tool of the arc welder, but Bea was nothing if not precise.

  The time to complete the last steps of the crafting for the totem assembly was about three hours, with all the carving and welding. It would have been faster if she’d had help, but Bea was deliberately using work as an excuse to avoid speaking to one of the teenagers currently living in the Lair that had been friends with her victim before Bea had stolen this body, so she didn’t particularly mind the extra time.

  It was with that in mind that she made what could be considered a poorly considered emotional decision. With the intent of spending more time sequestered in the lab, Bea took one of the Ceaseless Stacks size one yellow orbs that had been clearly labeled and stored with the rest of their totem creation material, and slid it without hesitation into the assembly.

  Totems, Bea felt, should glow when they were active. They should do something. It was offensive that the orbs didn’t even float; this one just sat in the shaped depression scooped out of one of the wooden puzzle pieces. If a totem was active, you didn’t actually know unless there was an observable effect, and while they were often quite obvious, Bea liked more information in her experimentation.

  But while the orb didn’t float in the center of the foot and a half tall assembly, and the construct didn’t glow or hum ominously, there was a quick and easy way to tell that the totem had begun working.

  A siamese cat, cream-white with black tips on its ears and nose, had appeared sitting unperturbed on the table near the totem. It didn’t glow either, but Bea was already documenting the process and added notes that it was slightly transparent. It was also aware. Regarding her with the kind of body language and behavior that her Cloud Prowler also showed when she summoned it; leaning forward, head rotating as it assessed her status. That same snow cat was still active, and suddenly very interested in the presence of another feline in the room.

  Bea had a solid twenty seconds to calmly take notes before the new magically summoned cat discovered the previous magically summoned cat, and the two of them began chasing each other around the metal table fixed in the middle of the testing lab’s floor, a blur of motion that the inhabitor watched mostly to see if either of the constructs even could get tired.

  It took half an hour before she decided that it was likely that the answer was no.

  Some people might call that a waste of time. But Bea’s time wasn’t valuable because she did materially valuable things with it. It was, at the end of it all, valuable because it was hers. And she chose to use it watching cats play-or-possibly-battle for ownership of this little chunk of the Lair’s basement. Which didn’t feel like a waste at all.

  Also the Ceaseless Stacks yellow totems summoned things. And that was useful information too, she supposed.

  She was an hour into observing, recording, and also welding another copy of the totem together when a second cat spawned.

  _____

  Reed curled in on himself on his couch, working on building a spreadsheet through a new program in his skulljack braid and distracting himself while he waited for the painkillers to kick in.

  Skulljacks were a lot harder to use than new Order inductees assumed. Reed had been inflicted with his for longer than almost anyone else, and being in a different body now didn’t change his level of proficiency, but there was a big gulf between even something as simple as being able to alt-tab on a PC, and being able to do it with your brain.

  Emerald-grown programs helped, but they were inflexible, and often had shit UIX. So Reed tried to rise about the need for them, and often paid the price in terms of actually getting stuff done. But he didn’t care, he had hands… paws… whatever… for when he needed to move faster. Right now, he was just kind of messing around.

  Today, he didn’t need to do anything. He wasn’t in a hurry, Kiki was on some kind of pillar-quest, half his Researchers were still dealing with Underburbs fallout, the other half were on vacation, and the third half were mostly just new people and problems that could be addressed later. So he was just laying in his living room, trying to not have some kind of emotional crisis about his body, and eating a lot of granola bars.

  Granola bars tasted almost painfully good to the ratroach senses he was… borrowing? Using? Had?

  Reed failed to not have an emotional crisis. The mostly unmodified ratroach body further scarring his left side couch cushion as he found caustic tears spilling down his muzzle. It was stupid, and felt petty, in a way. He was crying for no particular reason. It wasn’t because of the pain, or any lingering regret, or anything that meant something. He was, as far as he could tell with his thoughts being pulled apart like silly putty, crying because he felt like he was fine with this.

  Reed had hated how he looked, and how his body felt. And now he didn’t. Well, it wasn’t perfect, but half the problems were fixable with purple orbs and the rest with narcotics. Or potions, which was probably healthier. But for some reason he felt guilty and stupid and confused all the time, and he wasn’t even sure if that was his fault or because the body itself just did that.

  It was also unclear if it was helping that, since one of his two roommates had moved out, he and John had let Kyoo move in with them. The ratroach… which might not even be the correct designation anymore… whatever Kyoo was, she needed help learning to navigate living in the modern world. And also living in Reed’s body, which was probably just her body now, and it was just kind of an enormous mess. But at least people had stopped asking her hyper-specific questions about Research projects without realizing they were talking to the wrong individual, mostly. Reed still wished that Virgil had finished his skulljack nametag system before he’d died. Hell, he wished Virgil hadn’t died, but he wished that about basically everyone.

  The current shape of things was this: Reed had lost about two hundred pounds, sixteen inches of height, lactose intolerance, and the ability to have a hairstyle. In exchange, he had gained an incredibly sensitive bifurcated tail, two eyes, one and a half bonus arms, possibly a new gender, and some chitin. A lot of chitin.

  It was all fine. He’d talked to Lua about it in his last therapy session, and he felt fine. But every now and then, it was also just overwhelming.

  Which was why he was trying to slam his thoughts into making a spreadsheet instead of weeping into the cushion and acid-carving a hole in his couch. Because it was his couch, and one of the last remnants of his old life, and while it was probably poetic or something that his new form was destroying his old identity, he actually liked this couch.

  He had actually considered getting the pen that made things more durable and marking up the undersides of his cushions. But the thing was, like most dungeontech, secretly very sarcastic. And when it made things harder to damage, it also made them a lot more rigid, which was not exactly what he was going for with his living room aesthetic. At least Reed knew about that problem before ruining half his furniture; his dingus of a roommate had gotten excited when he’d found the pen in testing, and marked his own skin with it, which was apparently very uncomfortable until it washed off enough.

  His focus was somewhere else, though. Or at least that was what he was trying for. Reed was one of the people who had started to get used to the magic. It was still super cool, and very useful when it wasn’t blowing up parts of you, but it was also just not something to get exceptionally excited over. The Pylon, and the Venture? They changed that for him. The double dungeon was like mental candy to Reed. He was considering specializing in the minutiae of it, and passing off other jobs to different people, even.

  On the surface, both sides were simple. In the Venture, completing challenges could get you coins and books. The coins opened up spell slots, the books filled them with single use spells. Neat enough, one of those weird two-part spell systems some dungeons used presumably to annoy him specifically. In the Pylon, when you left the dungeon, it checked to see if you’d accomplished one of a number of specific achievements, and then rewarded you for one of them. The reward was points that were expended quickly and unwillingly to level up… seeming any verb, really. Physical verbs at least.

  Both sides were neat. Both sides had so much more going on that Reed was excited enough about that he wanted to try delving at least one himself. And both sides had one more unique thing.

  They were overlapping. How that happened, no one knew. And studying the phenomena was difficult with limited access, and even more limited people right now. They clearly weren’t the same dungeon; delvers who could sort of feel or taste magic had all said that the places felt distinct. But through the dungeons, there were points where one bled into the other; breaches without thresholds that were more like nebulous blobs that physically shifted one space into the next and back again.

  That was where the cool magic was. Because the dungeon’s systems were interlaced as well. Five levels in something from the Pylon opened up a slot that was filled when you next studied a spellbook, and it gave some kind of paired boost to studying that Venture spell. Crossing inside the dungeons counted for the Pylon’s achievements, and seemed to then also make leaving the Venture later count as well. Life that crossed from the Pylon to the Venture gave loot drops just like native life. It was all a messy web of specifics and details.

  And Reed loved it. It was enough to distract him from any amount of pain. And when he wasn’t in pain, it was also enough to get his thoughts wandering away from even the most important conversations. He just wanted to spend months, years, digging his new claws into learning why the spellbooks were sometimes in the form of audiobooks or e-readers. He wanted to see the places and interview the sapients living there. He wanted to set up a tent and… okay, no. That was not true. Reed wanted to visit, and then return to a place with running water and a bed. But he considered it.

  The spreadsheet was his attempt to decide what Verdigris Venture spell he was going to focus on next. He was comparing a number of variables, from how much time it took staring at the books to who else wanted the things for more tactical reasons to what level they were. Reed had a loose outline of a theory that the lower level spells were actually some of the better ones, which felt weird to say.

  The thing was, each spell took some amount of time to ‘study’ just to get a single use. But if you kept going, and did that time again, the spell got slightly better. Again, something cool, and also definitely how the Mormon kids were pulling stuff like the horrifying dome, or the sword that cut defensive magic that Lincon had casually given Arrush.

  But some spells didn’t just get better. Each little plus symbol seemed to be a quantitative increase. For some things, they could literally measure it, like the towels got a higher thread count or the blink spell got an extra twenty feet of distance. Others were probably technically measurable but they didn’t know what to measure yet. And some spells, if you accumulated enough upgrades, went up in level as well. A process that changed something beyond just the numbers, and made them work just ever so slightly differently, while also shifting upward into a different and higher ranked spell slot.

  Which was, it turned out, hugely inconvenient. Yes, Altercation Imp Ward going from accident protection up to non-direct violence protection was very cool. Incredibly good for responders or shield team members that might have to deal with… grenades? Reed had lost track of what reality was like, and the spike of agony where the chitin bit into his abdomen didn’t help. Whatever. The point was that they didn’t have higher spell levels to play around with. They had one level three coin, and it was bad.

  So Reed had already sorted out a lot of those spells from his list. Also sorted out were any spells that modified his own mind or body, which was pretty much just the one that they had a million copies of and would have been the easiest to justify. There was an undercurrent of passionate debate going on in general in the Order right now, about whether Mindful Reverberation was a useful tool, and Reed was staying out of it. But he also felt like he was not in any state to screw with his thoughts right now. He’d also had to cross out Bell By Midnight, because while he was deeply curious, that one was already being actively researched by someone who wasn’t just curious, and who also had the ability to stare at a book for sixteen hours straight.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Watcher-Under-Stone had a very weird resume.

  The thing was… lots of people were interested in this magic. Even though it was time consuming, and expendable, so what? Absorbed blue orbs were expendable, and this didn’t cause organ damage. Route spells were time consuming, and this didn’t require you to find a highway without speed traps on it. A lot of people across the Order wanted time - sometimes a lot of time - with these spellbooks. And while Reed knew they were delving for more, and also possibly getting a few extra from the kids in therapy that were slowly breaking out of their conditioning and distrust, that still left a lot of the books in constant use.

  And Reed wasn’t really looking to experiment in the directed and sustained way that Research did normally. He wanted a hobby. He wanted to know what happened if he upgraded Jubilant Crossing fifty times; would he be able to totally override this body’s sense of pain? Or, more nightmarishly, inflict it on someone else? He’d need a willing test subject for that, which was one of the secret perks of having John as a roommate. He wanted to know if Breathe Quartz ever worked on something other than trash, and what it meant by trash. He wanted to know why all the magic from the Venture felt similar, like it was connected by something fundamental and more than just the visual effect of grey fire and geometric thorns. He wanted to know what the hell the drink Amber Icon made tasted like because he was just curious.

  That last one might be his target. The book wasn’t in use or scheduled, it was level two and only had an eighteen minute timer, and he could probably get someone to take pity on him and deliver it to his apartment. If nothing else, he’d figure out pretty quickly how many upgrades it took to force its level up.

  Reed pressed his muzzle into the gap between the couch cushions, realizing that the painkillers had started working and he was mostly feeling better, his distraction having worked. But his distraction was actually what he wanted to do anyway, so now he could just focus better, once he shifted into a position where the chitin band of his chin wasn’t being bent by the pressure of his own soft weight.

  There was so much to learn. So much just in this one dungeon to explore. As feeling returned to his footpaws, Reed considered if maybe he could round up some people to sneak into the Pylon just to figure out if the boosts that the links gave were actually related to the skills they were paired with, or if it was just coincidence. And maybe while he was doing that, he could learn how to jog in this body too, which was actually an option for him now.

  Or, he thought, as he rolled slightly too far and bent one of his tails in a way that felt like a grinding crunch, maybe he could shove his head back into the couch and whine pitifully until he could focus on the magic again.

  ”My life is so fucking weird.” Reed groaned out.

  “You might actually be the one at the top of the leaderboard right now.” The sound of John’s voice shocked him as his roommate spoke up from the kitchen, where he’d been standing for who-even-knew how long. “You doing okay?” The other Researcher asked nervously.

  Reed kept his face shoved into the cushions. “I’m dying. Leave me to my fate. Or bring me a spellbook to read.”

  ”Yeah, sure. The Icon one right? Also you have your kinda frantic looking and badly formatted spreadsheet shared with, like, six people. You know that, right?” John’s words were accompanied by the sound of the sink running and a glass being set down on the granite counter.

  Reed just whined again. “Settings are hard.” He managed to get out.

  At least he was right. He was pitiable enough to get free spellbook delivery.

  _____

  Momo woke up and felt like shit.

  This, on its own, was not a new state of affairs. Momo woke up and felt like shit as a function of daily life. She was medically depressed, sleep deprived, probably wasn’t eating right, and she lived in a basement. If she ever woke up and felt good, she’d be suspicious, which would feel bad, and therefore correct things to their natural state.

  Part of why she felt like shit today was that she was hurting. Her left forearm and calf were both aching and itching in equal measure, the stitches from where she’d been mauled by an Underburbs fucker pulling at her flesh as skin and muscle knitted itself back together in the miracle of organic healing. Organic slow healing, almost entirely mundane, which was really fucking irritating.

  So Momo shoved the stuffed animal that had gotten its artificial fur in her mouth off her face, sat up in bed, still half asleep, cold, hurting, hungry, and irritated. Then she looked to her side and saw El. Her partner was rolled over and facing away from Momo, blankets pulled up around her shoulders like she was building a cocoon, and snoring. And when Momo saw her, she suddenly couldn’t feel anything except the molten explosion in her chest as her heart sped up and her soul threatened to detonate.

  It wasn’t the normal relationship feeling. At least, not any of the relationships Momo had been in before being kidnapped and used as a biological router. It was more sudden, more overwhelming, more all consuming.

  And also it made her feel pretty okay about waking up, which was also radically different than anything else she’d ever experienced before.

  Momo considered waking El up. Either affectionately, sexually, or comically. But she discarded the idea as she listened to El’s continued snoring. At least one of them should actually sleep enough to feel rested.

  Slipping out of bed and covering her wounded and unhealthy goblin body with her wizard robe - she’d sewn stars and runes into it, so it counted now - Momo stood silently on one of the fluffy circular rugs that covered the freezing concrete of their shared room, and took stock of the morning.

  She probably needed to eat at some point, but didn’t want to actually get dressed and go upstairs. Eating in the room was possible, but El would get mad if Momo’s breakfast and lunch consisted of ‘half a box of Triscuits and nothing else’. Which was almost enough motivation to get her to go grab something for breakfast. Nate was back at work, and Nate made things with bacon that were beyond mortal capability, so that was also a motivator.

  Momo also needed a bath, but she could pester El about that when her girlfriend woke up. That way she wouldn’t feel weird about going alone. In the meantime…

  Momo found herself sitting at her omni-desk. The piece of furniture was one of those fancy ones with lots of drawers and cabinets, and it had taken over a whole corner of the room, and then expanded via a slightly questionable orange totem that she kept underneath the desk along with her PC case. The whole thing was in contrast to El's desk, which was so painfully well organized that it conflicted with everything Momo knew about El's personality. El should have been as messy as her, but instead, she had paints and pens sorted by color, sketchbooks that were labeled by topic, and seemed almost religious in keeping pencil shavings and eraser bits off the surface. The kind of person Momo was, she had about thirty different things she was working on, which meant she actually had twenty five abandoned projects and five projects she was working up the mental energy to also abandon. But sometimes, bursts of motivation showed up, and right now…

  Well, she didn’t want to make too much noise, so pulling any of the drawers or baskets out was off limits. El was going to be allowed to sleep. That was non-negotiable. Even if Momo did feel like she had an idea for the totem-deployed-drone that she’d been tinkering with. Skill ranks for mechanics were great, but inspiration on motor assemblies that came to you in a dream were where the real good stuff laid.

  Also anything that involved motors was off the table, because… motors. They tended to whir, even if they were well maintained. And also they were literally off the table, because she’d swept a lot of stuff into one of the baskets to make room for a different idea.

  The majority of stuff on the desk right now was… Momo didn’t want to say junk, exactly… but was kinda just random crap. Specifically uncurated random crap, that she’d gotten by spending a couple hundred bucks of the Order’s money at the closest thrift store. A lot of clothing including a few belts, some tools, a couple pieces of audio equipment, half a set of pool balls. The usual.

  The rest of what was on her desk were storm orbs.

  Winter’s Climb magic items dropped the things like Officium Mundi magic items dropped blues. Though the Climb made things with a lot more durability, which was nice of it. Momo was aware, due to her work, that they were great for filling up your Breath supply and enabling some super self-destructive behavior with that kind of spellcasting. But they were also, maybe, usable in reverse, to make new magic items.

  And she wanted that. Bad. Because the Climb items were fucking weird, in a way that was unique to that dungeon so far.

  They were wands.

  Not literally, but… also sort of literally. They stored spells, and altered those spells, and if she could figure out how to make one? She’d be proving herself by doing it. And she really badly wanted-

  Momo stopped thinking, shutting down that line of self-depreciation before it could take root again. Grinding her teeth together so hard that she felt like something was going to crack, Momo battered her shittier mental tendencies with the reminder that they were fucking stupid, and tried to figure out how the Climb made it’s dungeontech.

  She was good at making stuff. Not useful stuff, most of the time, but Momo had discovered a lot of secret arcane knowledge through brute trial and error and possibly brain damage. And one thing that she’d learned was that magic was weird when it got flexible.

  A ton of dungeontech was hyper-specific, and rigid. Like the Office had that one pair of glasses that let you see a heatmap of how much time you’d waste going certain places; that was cool, and seemed abstract, but it actually had a very defined line for what it thought ‘wasted’ was. Or all the leveler items with their precise cooldowns and geometric level progression. That was hard magic. Even her own red totems were like that; Momo had to get into a certain mindset to suss out new permutations and arrangements of material, but she was speaking a language, and the magic was responding; more programming than linguistics, it was a call and response to a kind of fixed power.

  Making dungeontech, at least with Office blues, was soft magic. You had to get creative, and the magic responded to that creativity, but more importantly, it responded to mindset. Emotions weren’t exactly things with defined numbers attached, but the Office orbs needed an emotional component to absorb, from yellows all the way to oranges. How you thought changed your outcome, and not just as a work-or-didn’t-work kind of thing. You could really fuck up imbuement and get a low-powered effect from even the biggest orbs if you weren’t thinking right.

  So sitting there with a pile of storm orbs and an equal pile of stuff, Momo opened her experimentation by shifting herself through different mindsets while doing the standard minimal-pressure thing that she used for shoving blues into things.

  The Office wanted magic items that were obtuse and sarcastic. It wanted rules that were arbitrary and annoying. She knew that. She also knew that didn’t work for the Climb.

  So what did Winter’s Climb want?

  Her first attempt was to make something murderous. It was probably wrong - none of the wands actually did hurt the user - but Momo felt like the Mountain dungeon was a big enough bully that it might appreciate the attempt. She’d chosen a hammer for the attempt, because while she planned to try this on everything, hammer wand was funny. And also maybe properly violent? The mindset mattered, after all.

  It didn’t work. She’d sort of worked out a general idea for what she wanted, and the murderous version was ‘what if this gave the spell recoil’. Something simple, but kinetic, and possibly dangerous to the user. Momo adjusted her thought process gradually, still keeping the storm orb in contact with that hammer as she did so, conceptualizing things as harder, heavier, more dangerous, but eventually she had to admit that it wasn’t working.

  So she switched to hostile, not lethal. Maybe something more natural, or more primal would work. The dungeon seemed to like its harsh outdoorsmanship vibe. So Momo constructed a new idea; a wand that empowered the spell put into it with things from nearby. The life force of anyone in the area didn’t work, neither did the caster’s, and she figured maybe ‘life force’ was too nebulous, so she switched to blood, then bone marrow just for completeness when that didn’t work. Keeping her thoughts on the sensation of the living world, she considered the main motivator for nature, and decided to try hunger. Maybe a wand that could change how Breath worked in that way.

  It didn’t pan out either. And Momo ended up pushing a little too hard and breaking one of the storm orbs in the process.

  [+22 Breath]

  Simple and to the point. At least she had copies, and it had only made a little bit of the sound like howling wind.

  She continued, shifting through other ideas. Maybe it was about the tool being imbued, maybe it was about the final effect, maybe there was no controlling the effect and it was just about making the wand. Maybe wand was the wrong word. Wand was almost certainly the wrong word, but Momo sometimes took joy in pushing back on the way dungeons ‘thought’ things should work.

  What kind of decisions did a piece of Climb dungeontech need to make? Office dungeontech had to work with physics, but here, the list of things was just very specific spells. Actually, maybe that was it.

  Maybe, Momo thought with a determined grin, that was the mindset she needed. The Climb, no matter that it looked like a snowy mountain or a buried college or anything else, gave them spells. It had dragons. It built fairy rings of traffic lights and made cryptic art out of coins. The Climb, if it liked anything, liked magic. Not just the process of casting spells to get a result, but the vibe of the magical and mystical. The tantalizingly unknown.

  So she tried - after breaking another orb by accident - a new mindset. Her mindset. The mindset of someone who liked playing with magic.

  Because the Climb items didn’t actually do anything on their own, did they? They only interacted with Climb spells. So they saw the world through that lens. Not the lens of the dungeon’s attitude, but just through the perspective of needing to mess with magic itself, and the limitless number of incredibly stupid cornercases that would arise as a result of something even as simple as saying ‘cast this spell twice’.

  It didn’t quite work. Momo let out a breath she’d been holding while she focused, and considered methodically smashing every orb with the hammer. Maybe this was a stupid waste of time. Maybe the dungeon didn’t care, and problem solving was just a dispassionate concession that clashed with the creative expression of the effect itself.

  The orb sank into the hammer.

  There was a shrill howl. Wind lashing against rocks that had weathered worse and would survive this too. The scattershot impact of ice crystals upon stone stripped bare. The merciless final expression of a storm before the door slammed shut, and all that was left was a wand.

  ”Wha’n fuk’r you doing.” El’s voice gained clarity and strength as she rolled over, her blanket fortress tangling around her as she stared in Momo’s direction. “Why are you screaming at three AM.” She questioned, or maybe accused, her partner.

  ”Nah, it’s, like, normal morning.” Momo defended herself. “And I wasn’t screaming. Look! I made a thing!” She held up the hammer.

  El stared at the object being brandished, then back at Momo, blinking sleep out of her eyes. “Is it for wood?”

  ”What? No. It’s for magic.” Momo considered trying to cast a Climb spell through the hammer, but she didn’t actually know what effect she’d put into it, and while it was definitely magic now and she could tenuously feel the empty space inside it for spell-aligned Breath, it was a good idea not to just fire of random stuff in your bedroom.

  Not again, anyway.

  El swung her feet over the edge of the bed, the taller girl giving Momo a glower. “There’s something wrong with either your idea of magic, or just you in general.” She said.

  The words were the kind of banter the two of them liked to play with. Momo and El had a thing of trading quips and barbs, things that other people often thought were mean but they had come to see as a sign of intimate affection. But right now, something was different. Momo had thought she’d actually done something worth bragging about, and while she hadn’t meant to wake her girlfriend up with the howling scream of a tempest, she had also spent the last hour stealing glances at this person that she loved with what felt like more heart than she actually had.

  So El’s words… kind of caught her off guard. And not in a good way.

  ”I… yeah.” Momo said, her voice losing all energy, the words falling out like cold debris. “Probably. I mean… there’s a lot wrong with…”

  “Woah, hey.” El pulled half the blankets with her as she hurriedly got up and approached Momo. “I’m not mad or anything. Shit, are you okay? You don’t look okay.”

  Momo took a shaking breath. “Nah.” She said as El closed in on her and wrapped her in a desperately tight hug. “But you knew that about me going in, so it’s not my fault.”

  ”Hey, shut up.” El told her, pinning Momo’s face to her chest as she wrapped her arms around her. “Cut that shit out.”

  ”I… yeah. I know. I’m sorry.” Momo slumped against El, while the remaining motivation she had mostly went toward trying to flail her arm in the right way to toss the hammer back onto the desk before she accidentally hit someone with it. “I don’t think I’m doing okay today!” She said, managing an incongruously bright tone as she spoke.

  El snorted. ”No shit. Have you eaten?”

  ”I was waiting for you to get up.”

  ”…Had water? Showered? Moved more than ten feet?”

  ”…I was waiting-“

  El leaned back and grabbed Momo by the shoulders. “Just wake me up you fucking dumbass.” She stated.

  ”…You’re not gonna tell me I should just get food myself?” Momo asked in a small voice.

  Waving a hand at the desk, El looked with sudden dismay at the presence of two boxes of crackers and not much else. “We need a minifridge in here for you. Also no, I’m gonna tell you to wake me up! Cause I love you, you fucking moron.”

  Momo froze, staring at El with wide eyes that were half terrified, half something else. “You… love me?” She asked. “I mean… wait, no, I should say something about…” she trailed off. “You love me?” Momo repeated herself.

  El seemed like she only just realized what she’d said. And then, internally, shrugged, said ‘fuck it’, and committed. “Yeah.” She said out loud. “For some reason. Now put pants on and let’s get breakfast before you pass out.” She dragged Momo to her feet, the other girl not resisting being puppeted around. “If I’m gonna be emotionally vulnerable or some shit, then you’ve gotta be awake for it.”

  ”Thanks.” Momo’s voice was muffled as she threw herself against El and pressed into the blankets surrounding her. “Sorry I’m such a fuckup.”

  ”I mean, you made a magic wand, so you can’t be doing too bad. You just did it… you know… in our bedroom. Next to me. At full volume.”

  ”Oh! I bet I could make it a lot louder!” Momo sniffed, wiping her running nose and eyes on the blanket before she bounced back with a laugh.

  She pulled away from El, getting actually dressed while her girlfriend did the same. “Hey. You actually okay to go out?” El asked. “I mean seriously. I know you’ve been having Underburbs nightmares, but also the anxiety thing too, right? If you want, I can bring you some eggs or something?”

  ”I… thanks.” Momo smiled at the person who was being way too tolerant of her. “I got this. I’m not going out anyway, it’s the Lair, right? It’s fine!” She waved an arm and then winced as her stitches pulled painfully.

  ”Alright.” El didn’t look like she really believed her. “Just be careful, dumbass. If I’m gonna be telling you I love you, then you can’t recklessly get yourself hurt, okay?” She was looking at Momo when the other girl turned with a cheshire grin, looking like she was about to say something snarky. “Please?” El said suddenly, evaporating the smile as Momo realized she was serious. “I like this. I like you. I don’t wanna lose you now.”

  Momo paused by their door as she waited for El to pull slippers on. “Yeah. Okay.” She said with a long breath. “I guess I can do that. Probably ought to be better about the anxiety meds too, in that case. Maybe reschedule some of the delves? Get off the fostering list?”

  ”You can’t go in a dungeon now you fuckin’… the what?” El froze in the doorway, before chasing after Momo. “Hey! The what?”

  ”I mean, I didn’t commit to anything yet!” Momo defended herself. “But, you know! There’s always new kids, right?”

  There were. Human or otherwise. The Order had some kind of plan in place about creating stable group foster families, which was cool. And they’d absorbed the crocamaws as well as all the Mormons that they’d collected more or less without an issue of needing more people. But there were always more people who needed rescuing, and who needed helping. Maybe it’d be some kid who lost his parents, or maybe it’d be a ratroach who needed a place to crash while they learned how to socialize. Momo didn’t know. But she wanted to help.

  El flicked her on the forehead, a glint of blue light peeling off her finger as Speaker started to manifest while they walked. “Figure out how to eat a real meal before you put us on the list!” She chastised Momo.

  ”Yeah!” Speaker added as the assignment finished pulling himself into the physical world. His manifestation was more boba than kiki today, which meant male, as far as El or Momo could tell about the infomorph’s developing identity. “But also, I’m adopted and it’s been fine? So maybe Momo’s right!”

  ”You just wanted to be part of the conversation?” Momo asked, smiling as she twirled around to take them past the secret bathroom down here that she needed to use before they went up to eat.

  ”It’s nominative determinism.” Speaky agreed, fins and fangs undulating in a nod.

  El motioned to the fish spinning around her head. “This is what happens when he hangs out with Zhu.” She sighed. “I have to google a new term every single time.”

  ”See, you’re already halfway to being a parent!” Momo grinned. “I’m just saying. If Daniel can do it, I bet we could.”

  ”At least move into a real apartment first.” El rapidly moved through the stages of grief to get to bargaining. “I’ll do this with you. I’m in. Sure. Fuck it. But we’ve gotta get something better than the secret bathroom if we’re gonna have a biological kid.”

  ”Not what that means!” Momo called back through the secret bathroom’s door. “But I’ll see what I can do!”

  It was good enough. El would take it.

  She did have to wait for way too long, since Momo got distracted trying to cast enough Breath worth of Reaching Frost into her hammer to figure out what it did. And then put a small divot in the wall of the secret bathroom figuring out that it cast the spell for less than the normal cost, but only wherever you hit something hard enough.

  It was cool, and left her feeling satisfied and almost confident as she let El drag her upstairs.

  And she managed to get halfway through breakfast with her girlfriend before someone read the note Momo had left on the server, and half the Research nerds descended on them like fucking locusts. Except hungry for wand knowledge instead of grain.

  _____

  “I,” Nik declared to the main room of Research, “have enchanted mechanical pencil graphite!”

  Silence greeted him, which was odd in and of itself. Even the shellaxies seem confused. The stepshells didn’t though, they just kept doing their thing.

  “…why?” Someone called out.

  “No, actually, how?” Another voice spoke up before the speaker pivoted. “Wait no! With what?”

  “No I actually wanna know why, too…” another passing researcher seemed apprehensive, as if Nik had made something explosive by accident again.

  He sighed, sad no one appreciated his genius since the lamp was out of charge and Reed wasn’t here to hear him gloat. “In no particular order: I’m good at some things, they lessen strong odors, and because they’re tiny.” He paused; he’d been asked the same thing twice. “And because they’re tiny.”

  “And that’s… good?”

  “It’ll drop a blue orb.” Nik explained, wondering how no one got it yet. “And they’re very small. Small enough to fit in the copier.” That got their attention. “After a few runs, we’re going from eighty blue orbs at maximum, to sixteen hundred.” That really got everyone’s attention. “You’re welcome. Applaud me now.”

  Nik raised his arms over his head as he got the respect for his genius that he had been hoping for, basking in it for a moment before everyone started trying to brainstorm smaller things to imbue so they could beat his new record.

  ____

  “Deb. Mercy. Please, come in.” Karen held the door of her office open just as their doctor arrived.

  ”Hey, thanks.” Deb entered, the pink and blue aurora of Mercy’s partial manifestation following in her wake. She took a seat as Karen circled around to the other side of her desk, adjusting the blinds to let the appropriate amount of California sun in while they spoke. “So. Bad news, or bad news?”

  ”Is there any good news?” Karen was resigned to the answer she expected, but asked anyway.

  Deb shrugged. “Maybe? It’s kind of a mess. Sorry, I don’t actually have notes for this meeting, I got caught up in a lot of other problems.”

  Karen sighed. She appreciated that Deb was a skilled doctor. Appreciated it even more knowing what the equivalent mundane investment to make a doctor like Deb would take. But the woman had come up through the Order, not through the professional structured world of hospitals and clinics, and even then she was an outlier within the Order itself. So her idea of meetings somewhat conflicted with Karen’s.

  ”Let’s start with the bad news.” Karen prompted, shifting her computer monitor so that the file she had open on the Order’s medical expenditures was visible but not distracting.

  “Forty six camracondas have the flu.” Deb said bluntly, Mercy’s ghostly form swirling softly around her elbow. “They’re not the only ones; it’s going around. A chunk of our humans have it too. I suspect that some ratroaches have it, but their bodies don’t produce the right antigens to test for, and they sort of… ignore the pain. Which is bad. We need coherent medical education for people. I know we’re avoiding mandatory .mems, but at least let me put out something about basic public health statistics.”

  ”No one said you couldn’t.” Karen raised her eyebrows. “Or did they? They shouldn’t have. You’re already on the approved list for adding to our memory file registry.” That was in her document too. It was a good way to make more doctors, and two people had already taken and were processing several of the knowledge clusters that Deb had created for them.

  ”I want one that I can fire from a crossbow into-“

  ”Deborah, please.” Karen found that Deb’s full name was a good way to get her attention. “I know Texture-Of-Barkdust’s initial encounter with the flu was… not good.” Not good at all. But also not nearly as lethal as the camraconda had feared. “What do we need to be on the lookout for?”

  ”It’s mostly a personnel issue. We need more bodies in medical if we’re going to be more than just a first aid station. And we are. We’re the go-to clinic for a lot of knights and their families now,” Deb knew it was more than just knights, but the word was easier to use, “as well as being the leading and only research center into nonhuman biology. And there’s… not enough of us? I don’t even know how many.”

  ”Twelve humans, three camracondas, one assignment.” Karen provided the numbers.

  ”And one ratroach.” Deb added. “River’s been working with us a lot. I think he wants to be a doctor. And… well hell, like I said. We could use it.” She glanced at the thin wisp of Mercy gliding around her. “Mercy likes him.” She added.

  ”And this isn’t enough.” Karen watched as Deb rapped her knuckles on the desk, the younger woman restless at the way Karen made it a statement and not a question. Of course it wasn’t enough, though; the Order, counting the chanters, was approaching the point where they could start saying per capita and meaning it. Their ratio of physicians was well below what developed nations tended to have, and the only safety net was the fact that the weren’t a nation, and could in many cases rely on other hospitals and unaffiliated professionals. Many cases, but not all cases. “We need to double your full time staff. Would you prefer internal or external?”

  Deb froze for a second, before closing her eyes and quietly exhaling a breath of bitter amusement, shaking her head as she did so. “I forgot for a second.” She admitted. “I thought this was going to be about being over budget.”

  ”A week ago, we destroyed tens of millions of dollars worth of exercise potion, among other things.” Karen sounded disappointed, but not broken up about it. “Our budget is still more than we spend, and letting it sit idle is a mistake. I’ve already spoken to several people about opening up project ideas, and our own health is one of the important ones. You are, after all, the primary doctor for many of our members, as well as doing your own research. So, where would you like to draw staff from?”

  ”Whooof…” Deb leaned back. “Tough to answer, but I think external? Getting people culturally adapted and up to speed on magic takes a little while every time it happens, but if we do it in batches, we can maybe keep ahead of the curve. And mostly, I’m thinking that… well, if we can get specialists who are willing to make .mems, then we can get infinite specialists.”

  Karen narrowed her eyes. “You know some people will have issues with that.” She warned. “I won’t tell you not to try, but we can’t rely on it.”

  ”Yeah, well, I have issues with lots of things myself.” Deb griped. “Did you know the orange totems can’t copy X-rays correctly? They look close, but the internals are too complex.”

  ”Hm. I thought that technology was something that our replicated spaces could handle.” Karen was going to have to talk to Mark and Bill about this. Assuming they hadn’t made good on their threat to replace themselves.

  Deb shook her head. ”Oh, they can! Or, they can do lightbulbs and intercoms. They just can’t do X-rays or ultrasounds. Not that we can’t afford it, but it’s annoying.” She held up a hand and ticked off other annoyances on her fingers. “The improvement ritual doesn’t actually improve most magic, and won’t work on compressed stuff, so I can’t get a ‘better’ MRI. The spell that makes blood only works when making blood in someone so I can’t stockpile or ship free blood. The wisdom coffee makes the development of traumatic memories sharper so it’s a bad choice for crisis situations unless you’re me and aware of it. And all of this isn’t the end of the world, but little things like this add up when it feels like it’s all my job.”

  ”You need an administrative specialist. Or department, even.” Karen tapped a pen on her pursed lips. Most people resisted her attempts to streamline systems with paperwork. So she had to be careful pitching this to Deb. “Someone to manage the logistical side, while you manage the practical side.”

  ”I don’t hate that.” Deb nodded. “If this were anywhere else…” she let out a low noise of contention. If this were anywhere else she would bitterly resist a new layer of bureaucracy. But the Order built bureaucracies a little different, and they also didn’t really have that many so far. The absence of it was noticeable, even for Deb, who hadn’t spent that long working a nurse internship before her life upended. “Our other option is more healing magic.”

  Karen made a sensible chuckle. “I’ll add it to the wishlist.” She promised with a small smile, the motion showing off the wrinkles on her cheeks in a way she’d used to avoid, but had been increasingly unconcerned with lately.

  “No, I’m serious!” Deb challenged, leaning forward, her voice insistent but not angry or anything. “Look, we’ve got multiple things that’re… god, how to say this. In development?” Deb struggled to find the right words.

  ”Are you thinking of the ongoing improvements to shaper therapy?” Karen tried to guide the floundering woman.

  Deb waggled a hand. ”No, no.” She said, shaking her head. “I mean… okay, we can make magic items, right?”

  There was a moment where Karen almost began explaining the statistical details of that, but she held back. The technicalities were numerous, and niche, and didn’t really matter. Blue imbuement was different than the summoning of a Verdigris object or the production of a potion. Everything had different specifics and costs. All of it seemed to actively resist easy categorization, which Karen took a little personally.

  ”Yes.” She said instead of any of that.

  “Right, well, there!” Deb spread her hands, the edges of her palms resting on Karen’s desk. “Why aren’t we making things that can be used around medical?”

  Karen had heard this from numerous people, especially delvers. “The health potion complaint has come up before.” She reminded Deb. “But I don’t think-“

  ”I’m not talking about health potions!” Deb cut her off. “I know, I know, the potion thing is random and half of them are toxic anyway.” Were they? Karen would look into that, and hopefully not learn something she would regret. “I’m not even talking about healing directly, which the Office seems to sneer at. I mean why aren’t we making tools? Diagnostic aides or detectors, something that can generate patient charts for us, hell, a magic doodad that gets rid of fungus would be so useful for… a variety of reasons.” She didn’t explain further. Karen wouldn’t want to know. “We already have a notepad that records people’s weight. Can someone make us that, but for height and blood type?”

  ”I… don’t know.” Karen hummed. The concept of using magic not as a replacement for their doctors but as a supplement for their already extant skills was something she hadn’t considered yet. “I’ll ask Planner to…” she paused, trying not to wince. “I’ll ask Texture-Of-Barkdust to set up a group meeting between medical and our imbuement specialists. What time works for you?”

  ”…I am always busy.” Deb said, a bone-weary exhaustion threatening to creep in.

  ”During an Officium Mundi delve then.” Karen said adroitly. “And I’ll make sure there’s a bed there so you can nap afterward.”

  ”But also if you can get me a healing potion I’d appreciate it.” Deb commented. “Actually, what’s our copier budget like?”

  Karen frowned and shook her head. “Stressed.” She admitted. “If we were to found a nation, right now, then copier time would be what backed our currency. And by that metric, we are not doing well at all. Demand far outstrips supply, and will for some time.” She began listing her own grievances. “The special coffee for it can only be diluted so far, and we have found the exact numbers for many things, so cost cutting there is impossible. It won’t grow in the magical pots, duplicating it is impossible, the only route we have to acquiring it is through delving. And so, in order to increase that amount, good people need to risk their lives farther and farther into the dungeon.”

  Some people said ‘the dungeon’ with a fondness, or a familiarity. These days, a lot of the Order didn’t even say it, they said names. Officium Mundi, Route Horizon, Pylon Motoric, Clutter Ascent, places that were becoming theirs in a personal way. Even the Sewer, wretched as it was, wasn’t just ‘the dungeon’.

  When Karen said ‘the dungeon’, what she meant was ‘the place that destroyed my life’.

  She tried not to be bitter about it. She still had her precious daughter. She had a new life here in the Order, with a new purpose. She had met Texture-Of-Barkdust through this terrible ordeal of a life thrown to pieces. There was good to come out of it all.

  But Officium Mundi was only ever going to be labeled in official reports. In private, and even in the meetings like this one, Karen didn’t have anything nice to say. So it was the dungeon. And when she said it, she didn’t mean it was a place to delve into for treasure and danger. She meant it was a place where she had been held prisoner and tortured.

  The dungeon was useful. Logistically game changing. An enabler for all the Order’s dumbest and most ambitious ideas. And one day, Karen would find a way to make it obsolete, and burn it down.

  “So… we’re not gonna be close to on my schedule to inoculate the whole Order against cancer?” Deb asked. She figured it couldn’t hurt to check.

  Karen blinked, and then shook her head. “I’m afraid that while we have quite a budget for dollars, the number of orbs to spare is lower. If we weren’t reliant on specific blue orbs for knights, then we might have more room, and I know that purple orbs for health are some of our best tools…” she paused as she looked at the budgetary report for Deb’s domain. “It would be easier to hire twenty new people.” She admitted. “The anti-cancer orbs we do make go to people who need them.”

  ”There’s a part of me that wants to say that we need them.” Deb said quietly. “You know, I’m not a real doctor, right? I never took the Hippocratic oath.”

  ”Concerning.” Karen let the single word come out in a dull tone.

  Deb’s mouth slammed shut for a second as she held back a sudden laugh. “Okay, I get why Barkdust likes you.” She said with more amusement, her words making Karen’s cheeks flush slightly under her foundation. “So, we can’t get more duplications.”

  ”We could.” Karen conceded. “We had a massive influx of copier-based wealth during the dungeon’s long delve, because a larger expedition working full time can simply outperform individual teams. No matter how good they are. If we made that the standard…”

  Deb hummed herself. “But we’d need to not have all our delvers keep getting hurt every time there’s a crisis. And if they do get hurt, we need them to get better fast.”

  ”Everything is connected.” The corner of Karen’s mouth tilted upward. “And now you’re ready to become an accountant.”

  ”I’d rather stick to something simple, like brain surgery.” Deb shuddered. “Alright, sorry, I got us sidetracked. What’s next on the agenda?”

  Karen appreciated that someone else was also willing to keep them on track. It was harder with some people, since Planner was still injured and recovering. “The matter of medical support for Townton.” She said. “Now that you’ve made a functioning hospital here for the Lair, how would you like to do it again?”

  Deb slowly turned and eyed the door, wondering if escape was an option.

  But she didn’t run. Instead, she just sighed and started talking numbers with Karen. Schedules, time per patient, throughput, skill availability. What it would take to actually learn about necroad and chanter physiology. The link between health care and child rearing. The developmental health for the new chanters, the very new chanters.

  There was a lot to go over. But both Deb and Karen were invested in a shared vision of the future.

  Not the exact same vision. Not the exact same future. They didn’t agree on everything. But neither of them were petulant children; they agreed on the only important thing. That the future should be better for everyone, and that they could make that happen.

  Deb did wish they could make it happen with healing potions though.

  But progress was progress.

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