“Look at her. I would die for her. I would kill for her. Either way, what bliss.” -Gomez Addams, The Addams Family-

  _____

  It would be wrong to say “and that was Oklahoma settled”, because that wasn’t even close to true. There were a hundred more skirmishes - though they were more like hunts, really, with an enemy that wasn’t strategically organized in any way - and an equal number of conversations to go with them. Though there were, importantly, no new problems. Just the same problem, repeated over and over, in slightly different situations. If it weren’t so frustrating, James would have called it the perfect opportunity to hone their deployment strategy.

  Wrap up in Oklahoma was slow and messy and would have benefitted from having a plan ahead of time. And James wasn’t going to be the kind of moron who pretended that the Order couldn’t have planned for the sort of issue they were facing; they had planned for something like it to a degree even. Knight deployment was something they practiced now after all, with regular emergency drills so that if an Underburbs ever happened again, their retaliation would be refined and sharpened from what it was the first time.

  And that had been vital in Oklahoma. At least, in terms of starting the operation.

  Knights had flowed in, supported by a part of the Order operating in noncombatant roles, and gotten to work right away. Teams assigned, command flow established within half an hour, the logistics of keeping people supplied with ammo and potions and equipment smoothed out so much it was almost invisible, and the work of scouting and combating the spread of dungeon life put into action almost as soon as the mobilization had begun. The fact that it wasn’t an emergency had just made them even more efficient, with nothing lost to rushing too fast into the unknown; the work of the scout and shield teams that had been there first laying the groundwork for what was probably the smoothest operation they could have run.

  Which was great and all, but it didn’t do much to change the fact that there wasn’t the same end condition on this one that there was with so many other disasters. There was no moment when the flood receded, or when the dungeon closed, or when the last civilian was evacuated. Hell, even once the memeplex against escape was pruned back from most people, they still didn’t really want to leave; they had homes and farms here, this was their land as far as they were concerned, and with the confidence of people who had not been stabbed by scythe rabbits, there were a lot of them who assumed they could win the war with a shotgun and good old rural grit.

  So they had a town - three towns actually, one of them more like a city, and also six campgrounds, a casino, and a tourist ranch on top of that - that were all full of civilians, surrounded by active dungeon life, and suddenly missing a lot of the economic value of their region because a huge swath of farmland was just fucked. Fields shredded but not picked clean, cows and pigs and chickens reduced in population by the thousands, and no real way to secure that much land against what was still out there. But people still wanted to try.

  It was determined, confident, defiant, and, in James’ opinion, incredibly fucking stupid.

  But it was also those other things. And the Order was in the business of keeping people safe, not forcibly migrating populations of farmers and students and their families away from danger zones.

  So the Order left Oklahoma, but it didn’t really leave Oklahoma. Instead, they found the people who had lost everything but were determined to be part of rebuilding, the people who had stepped up to join the fight to protect their neighbors and not just to fire a gun at monsters, and also just the people who were interested in building a future for themselves. And they hired those people.

  Kind of.

  What they actually did was, over the course of the initial push out from the boundaries of population centers and transit corridors, fold those people into knight teams. Give them a taste of working with the Order, and working with life that was specifically both nonhuman and also kind of ideologically radical from the perspective of the local culture. It wasn’t easy, and in many cases they were trying to speedrun the cultural integration that the Order pulled on its recruits. But they didn’t have infinite time to leave their entire supply of knights in one place forever, and they also weren’t going to leave this place undefended.

  In a week, the Order had a list of candidates. In another, they had a list of squads. Locals, loyal to their families and their homes, but on the Order’s payroll now, and backed by the magic that was harder to abuse and the rotating knight team that was going to be a permanent station in the area possibly forever. They weren’t some wild vigilantes, either; the operation was recognized first by the Wildlife Conservation department, and branching out from there by chunks of the state and city governments as well. Including, surprisingly, by the county sheriffs. Goodwell went from being a university town with no operational university, to an operational center for a new authorized department in charge of managing invasive species.

  Which sometimes included saving people from those invasive species. With swords.

  That was mostly James being snarky in his own thoughts. They mostly used rifles or shotguns, as the thinned out population of dungeon creations around the civic clusters of towns and the closest farms around them didn’t need more firepower. But the Order had shifted their budget to provide these new teams with a few other tricks as well.

  Exercise and hardening potions were easy; they could make a lot of those now. Skill orbs were pricier, but it was worth it to make sure every one of their new recruits was capable across multiple useful fields. Purples for broken bones and skin tensile strength were always being produced so they had enough for that right away. And over the next few months, as things developed, they’d all be rotated through Winter’s Climb and Pylon Motoric for internal improvements too.

  Maybe it was weird that James thought this was the ‘basic’ stuff. He didn’t know, and honestly didn’t care anymore. The Order empowered its people when they needed it, and the people here did need it. Hell, this whole area of the US was going to be a permanent shield team life-fire training ground for a while because of what had happened.

  And it grated that they still had no idea what had happened. Though James had a personal theory. To him, this looked too familiar. A dungeon expelled from its own borders, life spilling out over Earth’s spatial boundary, before the dungeon itself seemed to die? Yeah, they’d seen the first half of that before. And the puzzle piece from the Chain Breaker’s sanctum clicked neatly into the other side of the picture. This, James figured, was Blitzkrieg. Up to her bullshit again.

  It was easy to be angry at the pillar for it, but it was also possible now for him to look at this as something tragic. The woman was compelled to violence, like any unchecked pillar was compelled to their domains, but knowing what he knew now, James also saw that she was at least trying to turn that violence into something useful. She didn’t just destroy, she also made shelters for her friends and targeted dungeons that he himself had wondered about killing off. James found himself conflicted, and in the downtime that he spent with his friends and partners between sorties farther and farther out into the tamed farmlands of Oklahoma, he talked about his split thoughts.

  Alanna was with him on team fuck that asshole. She didn’t want to forgive Blitz, if it was her at all, because Alanna had watched the pillar murder two of their people at close range when she could have just left. The fight in the Sewer, she reminded James, had been one where the pillar was on the defensive. She was forcing herself to act against her nature anyway, but she still chose to shoot them. Sarah, in surprising contrast, was in favor of reaching out and trying to make contact. Not to forgive, exactly; she remembered quite vividly the sensation of having her neck snapped into pieces on contact with the dungeon floor. But to move forward, without malice. TQ just wanted to see how many camracondas they needed to stunlock a demigod, and James wasn’t sure if that was supportive of anyone in particular, or just TQ being a silly dumbass.

  While all this was going on, it wasn’t like life took a break either.

  As pressure eased and some measure of security was bought with gunfire and spellwork, the knights that had arrived as a solid force began to return to their own day to day. Delving for some, Research for others, or any of the hundred small projects and duties they had going on in the Order. What was a full time deployment for the first few days turned into split shifts, before the new wave of recruits were mixed with the veteran knights that would be making the place their usual hunting ground.

  For James, and also for basically all of the other people who’d come down, that rubber banding back to normal life included being invited to the Northern Oklahoma Proud Grandparents Adventuring Society winter potluck and family get together. Which was, in short, an absolute chaotic mess of an event. The Society deciding to just rip the bandaid off to their families in regards to the fact that the ‘adventuring’ in their name did not mean they were going on day trips to museums but actually going on dungeon delves with live combat made for a hundred awkward conversations. Conversations James avoided deftly, choosing instead to get introduced to an increasing swarm of kids and grandkids of varying ages who had equally varying levels of tact when it came to asking him if he could make them into wizards.

  James picked up a bunch of new recruits for the Order from that. Though he wasn’t really trying to network or anything, just taking on young aspirants who had a hunger for the wider and more magical world that Earth was rapidly turning into.

  Oh, and Kiki came back, too. Dropping in - literally - to give gifts that were definitely spoiling the younger kids, and grandmotherly love and advice to everyone who needed it. James noted that at least one of the gifts given was a stuffed camraconda that he was almost positive came from Clutter. He also noted that Kiki had brought with her a non-zero number of stuff animals and their foster parents, so there was no prize for guessing where she’d been for the last week.

  But eventually, the whole thing had to stabilize, somehow. There was no tipping over the edge, there was no clatter of the situation crashing down into cataclysm, there was just… normalcy.

  Knights got into something approaching routines for their hunts. The local recruits started getting used to the Order, and some of them were already thinking of themselves as Order by the time the two weeks were up. The ones that were racist - because it was Oklahoma and that was hard to just pretend wasn’t a problem - were either pruned away, or started making honest attempts to fix their bullshit. The Grandparents Society, unable to rebuild their memories, still managed to map out a little of what they’d picked up from the dungeon, and also officially cemented themselves as a permanent strategic ally to the Order.

  There was no way the job was done. The estimated number of dungeon life was still over a million creatures, and the smallest one of them was something that was capable of killing an unprepared human. And when they hunted, they also did it in packs; things that looked like modified Earth herbivores armed with magic and malice and altered into things that really did seem to enjoy gnawing on bones. But the Order just couldn’t, on a practical level, kill two million targets. The “job”, in this case, might never be done. This might just be… what this part of the world was like now. At least until more serious and large scale environmental action could be taken.

  But the bigger machines of the government were moving slowly. Or blindly. It was turning out to be a colossal chore to figure out who could know what, and at the end of the day, it sucked that it was easier to just establish themselves as the authorities in the situation.

  Apparently, the authorities - infomorph variety - appreciated this. The relative strength of the knights-in-command for the region spiked dramatically when state officials started answering to them when it came to handling dungeon life.

  James wasn’t the last one out. Again, there were people sticking around, and more people would be rotating in when they weren’t deployed with Response or delver teams. But…

  Well, it was a mess. It wasn’t complete. It wasn’t a clean win. It wasn’t over. It felt like failure, or giving up too early, or just not being good enough.

  But thousands of people who wouldn’t be alive if the Order had just let it go were still around. And for James, who measured his failure in people failed, that was a strong emotional counterweight.

  Also, they were hauling off something like a hundred and twenty thousand new orbs that were all their own problems waiting to happen, so that was cool.

  James couldn’t wait to be handed a problem he could actually solve, though.

  _____

  “I am.” James said as he sunk into the steaming warm water of the bath pool, “So. So. Very. Tired.” He leaned his head back, eyes closed and arms floating on the surface of the water ahead of him, long hair slowly expanding behind him in the pool like a restrained oil spill. Zhu’s orange glowing form coloring the water around them as the navigator sunk into the heat with just as much satisfaction, his manifested eyes screwed up in appreciation as his feathers blossomed across James’ skin.

  The bath was different than the one James had grown used to. Because this one was in Townton, and not the Lair; an old building that had been repaired and restored to life, now holding this new thing that had never really been part of the original city, instead of whatever it had been before.

  It wasn’t bad, in his opinion. It wasn’t the Lair, but it wasn’t bad! Maybe James was biased, but the baths at the Lair felt like home, in a way that made his heart beat with warmth and safety, that made him truly feel like he was going to be okay, and like he could let go of the dark thoughts he always kept close and maybe just enjoy himself for once.

  This bathhouse didn’t have a mosaic of Rufus on the wall, or quite the same color pattern in its pipes and pools. The light here was still warm, but it was shining down through more glass than brass, while the pools themselves were more in the hot spring style than the smoothed swimming pools of the Lair. The flow of water into the pools was a little more like fountains and less like waterfalls from overhead. And yet, here it was. An expression of a culture that was trying something new. Not copying from history exactly, or from a book, but making something that was truly a thing that the Order Of Endless Rooms wanted to see more of in the world.

  And for that, James loved it.

  “Are you not magically immune to being tired?” TQ asked from the wireless speaker on the side of the pool. The camraconda was wearing a single thing in his skulljack as he swam in lazy circles with twists of his blue-grey body, and it was a very waterproof Bluetooth connector. Just enough to interface with the special program loaded into his speaker so he could talk while bathing. “You should speak to a professional.” He added as he passed James, camera eye irising ever so slightly as he passed.

  ”I am the expert!” James said with a laugh that echoed slightly off the walls. That was something else that was weird here; voices carried better. He didn’t like that part, it made him feel like he was being overheard all the time. Though the fact that voices didn’t carry to him from the pools around him should have taken that concern away. “And I’m only immune when I’m in motion. And even then I still feel tired.” He breathed out, the water rippling away from the force of his exhalation.

  Alanna arrived just in time to hear James’ comment, stashing the towel wrapped around herself in one of the raised bins that hung around the outskirts of the area, and dropping in next to him with a heavy splash. “You’re tired because you never take breaks!” She challenged James. “And don’t tell me this counts.”

  ”…Is this not a break?” James asked innocently as Alanna watched him with narrow eyes. “TQ is on break.”

  ”And somehow, you are not.” TQ said with his separated voice. “You plan to speak of material and magic. That is not resting!”

  James couldn’t really dispute that. He had a whole thing he wanted to discuss about best use cases for the alternate loot drop from the bigger wild dungeon life. Also a few other small things. Minor things, he would insist, but still… “Alright,” he acquiesced to TQ’s teasing and Alanna’s dire stare. “What do you wanna talk about?”

  “I would… oh, Cheha!” TQ’s digital voice, shaped and adjusted over years at this point with the early grown program that he still used for his personal tone, audibly brightened as he noticed the ratroach approaching with the kind of motion that most humans would define as a slinking creep.

  ”Hey Cheha!” Alanna added her own greeting, forgetting to glower at James for a second. “Apparently TQ has decided you’re our topic of conversation.” Alanna said, and kind of felt bad about it as Cheha’s dewclaws rasped on the tile when the ratroach shuffled herself backward.

  Clinging her own towel close around herself, Cheha ducked her head and arrested her own retreat. An act of will to force herself to remember that the people here were friends. Especially TQ. “W-whyyyyy.” She asked, chittering a nervous laugh.

  ”Because I’m not allowed to talk about work things, and you’re the most interesting person here right now.” James told her in a relaxed voice, closing his eyes again and wondering if Zhu was going to actually drown before remembering that navigators didn’t breathe. And yet, somehow, they could eat his food. “So I guess TQ wants to talk about you?”

  ”Yes!” The camraconda said, sliding through the water like an eel before an overly forceful shove of his tail brought him up to gaze at Cheha who was starting to creep back closer to the pool’s edge. “Behold! Is she not wonderful? A burning star of beautiful intent, here to bring light and life to our time together. Majesty worked into life and walked into our humble place in this city, left dull without her presence.”

  James stopped floating idly, letting gravity pull him upright in the water and sharing a baffled, incredulous stare with Alanna, both of them looking at TQ like they had, apparently, not known something mildly important about the camraconda.

  For her part, Cheha blushed so brightly that the radioactive glow might have actually worked as a light source if they were in the dark. Her two lower arms gripping her towel as tight as possible while her other two arms crossed over each other on her face, forearms shielding her eyes from sight as she tried to spontaneously develop teleportation powers. Eventually, as TQ kept gazing up lovingly at her, Cheha squeaked out another, slightly teased, “Why?!”

  TQ just tipped his snout into the air. “It is important information.” He clarified, before flopping backward with a splash and vanishing into the pool.

  ”You never say stuff like that.” Alanna pointed out to James. “Who’d he learn that from?”

  ”Wait, you assumed TQ learned anything from me? I kind of figured he was already like this when he showed up.” James cleared his throat. “Also I could totally say stuff like that about you! I just… need a minute to think of something.”

  ”I actually think it’s kind of weird, in a cute way, that you’re willing to body block a unicorn for me, but you’re awkward about being poetic.” Alanna flicked a single finger at him, sending a few drops of water splattering across James’ head. “Also Cheha get in here! You’ll feel less anxious when you’re not standing on the side!” She ordered.

  The ratroach slowly sat, still covering her face, before sliding her paws into the pool and then rapidly finishing the dive, leaving her towel piled on the edge. “S-sorry.” She chittered out softly as she kept near the edge.

  ”I have no idea what you’re apologizing for.” James stated honestly. “Also… it’s genuinely cool that TQ sees you that way.” He smiled at her reassuringly, before turning to look at Alanna. “I know I’m a ham sometime, but yeah, that is what it’s like to love someone, isn’t it? Feeling like they’re the coolest thing in any room you’re in.” His smile turned into something more like a targeted grin as he saw that he’d gotten through Alanna’s joking emotional defense. “Also is anyone else disappointed there was only one unicorn?”

  ”What, you wanted to get stabbed a second time?” Alanna demanded with a joyous laugh.

  James shrugged, and got a disgruntled noise from Zhu as he dragged the navigator out of the warm water for even a moment. “No, I wanted more megafauna I guess.” The ‘unicorn’ in question had been one of the largest things they’d encountered in Oklahoma, and it had been a terrifying example of how dangerous a mostly normal horse could be if you just gave it a knife. James wasn’t even sure why he himself felt like he wanted more huge creatures, but maybe it was just because after literal thousands of the scythe rabbits, he needed variety.

  James wasn’t a delver because he liked routine, after all.

  ”Just be glad the dungeon didn’t have a moose in its lineup.” Alanna said. “Also you’re doing it again! We’re talking shop again!”

  James just grinned back at her, though a little sheepishly. “We have this conversation basically every time this comes up.” He said, almost mournfully. “This is just what life is like now. It’s okay. I don’t… I don’t mind, you know? Yeah, I’m kinda tired, but so what? We’re doing good work and I’m getting to see some cool stuff. I’m…” he trailed off, finding, very abruptly, that it was almost impossibly hard to say the next word.

  ”You’re?” Alanna prompted, swimming gently across the far side of their pool, seemingly oblivious to the difficulty James was having.

  Cheha wasn’t though. The ratroach, watching James with her usual alert eyes as he spoke, noticed exactly what he’d tripped up on. “H-happy.” She filled in. “You’re happy.”

  ”Yeah, that!” James’ smile at her was a little fragile, but still genuine, and Cheha returned it with a small glowing grin of her own after a moment. “Seriously though, I’m good. This is good.” And in saying it, James realized, it was true. He was good. It was a nice day at the end of his role in a large project, and he really could just enjoy the time with people he liked. “So hey, Cheha!” He started to address the small ratroach.

  As soon as he’d said her name, she let out a small eep of a sound. Though not at James. Instead, it was at TQ, who had curled around her legs under the pool’s surface; the camraconda swimming in surprisingly deft motions and with none of the issues a human would normally have with keeping their eyes open underwater. He made a single loop of her before surfacing, the bulk of his body coming up next to Cheha with a splash. “Oh, hello.” TQ said as if surprised where he had ended up. “I am glad you are here.” He told her, bringing a fresh neon green flush to her features. Though it did come along with a smile.

  James chuckled, before trying again. “So hey, Cheah!” He repeated himself with a slightly different tone of cheerfulness. “I know what everyone else has been doing lately, for obvious reasons. But what’ve you been up to? Anything fun?”

  The ratroach seemed to wilt slightly at the question, and for a moment, James had a feeling that he’d said something wrong. TQ raised his head off the water’s surface and gave her a slight hiss, as if it were a question, but Cheha just gave a slow blink and shook her angular head. “I-I… don’t know!” She said, her smile starting to come back. “I was… I will be going to school n-next year.” Cheha said the words, though the way she stumbled on them was the way most ratroaches had trouble believing that there would be a ‘next year’. “Is that w-weird?” She asked.

  ”I am a giant snake. I cannot answer that question in a meaningful way.” TQ reminded her happily.

  ”Weird how?” Alanna asked instead with clear curiosity as she propelled herself past Cheha in another loop of the pool.

  Cheha looked away. “I… I don’t know.” She said. “Am I supposed to?”

  ”Wait, what school?” James asked. “Like, Greenway? Our school?” He got a small nod in reply. “I guess… I don’t really know! It’s probably not weird though, compared to literally everything else in our world. Why are you going? Anything in particular you want to learn?”

  The ratroach stopped herself from nervously scratching at her muzzle, focusing on the answer as she wrapped her lower arms around herself. “Th-there’s a lot!” She said. “I don’t… like it when I… I don’t like feeling stupid.” She said, bitterness creeping in. “I-it feels like I’m… older? Then I should be?”

  Alanna crossed back in front of her, laying on her back as she drifted. “Oh, like, you’ve got foundational knowledge gaps, and it feels weird? I get that!” She said, satisfied to see Cheha give her a more relaxed nod. “So you’re gonna shore up your math and science skills?”

  ”A-and sp-p-peaking!” Cheha chittered. “I want… I want to talk like… like the others.” This time, her flush wasn’t about TQ’s admiration, but a less pleasant sense of shame she carried around with her. “Like you.” She said in a quiet whisper that was barely audible over the sound of water around them.

  ”Now that one, I get.” James agreed. “I was bad at words for… uh… the vast majority of my life.”

  Alanna floated directly into him, maneuvering ever so slightly so the top of her head bumped into his chest. “Now that’s bullshit! When I met you, you were already talking like you were a Robert Jordan novel desperately trying to breach containment.”

  ”Yeah, badly.” James laughed as he gently grabbed Alanna and turned her so he could give his girlfriend a light push and leave her floating away. “But yeah, that’s really cool.” He told Cheha. “But… don’t you live down here now? How’s getting to school even work for Townton? I feel like I should know this.” His eyes took on a distant stare. “Do we need to put another school down here?”

  ”Yes.” TQ said. “But also stop that.”

  ”It’s too late,” Alanna said, holding her arms into the air over herself and letting the water run down them as she stretched out, “he’s talking about civics. We can’t stop that.”

  ”Is there a bus, is all I’m asking.” James tried to defend himself.

  TQ detached himself from Cheha, who was actually starting to enjoy the moment, and propped himself up on one of the shallower parts in a similar position to James. “There is a bus.” He answered. “There are three buses! One is our local bus, which makes loops that line up with logisticor times. One is for transit to and from other logisticor sites. The other is for Greenway students, and leaves the Lair’s transit point to deliver them to the academic building.”

  ”See, that’s really cool, I like that.” James nodded. “Who does the bus driver job? Like, how’s that get handled?”

  ”How do you expect I would know that?” TQ asked with an amused hiss that came from twenty feet from the voice itself.

  James waved the hand that wouldn’t drag Zhu out of the water. “I don’t know! Why do you know bus routes?!” He demanded with feigned drama, getting a tiny laugh from Cheha that was deeply satisfying. James earnestly loved it when the more skittish ratroaches, or any of the dungeon peoples really, started to relax around him.

  ”Because I am secretly wise.” TQ answered.

  If James were willing to wait for a very, very long time, he might get more of a followup to that. He wasn’t though. Turning deliberately, he looked at Cheha instead. “So how’s it been with the new umbral down here? Make any new friends?”

  The sudden eruption of laughter from the girl really did brighten the room. Before Cheha could answer, TQ gave a faux-indignant hiss of his own. “Bus assignments are part of the local service tasks.” He felt the need to say. “Most drivers enjoy the task, and do not rotate often.”

  James gave him an impish smile. “I knew you knew.” He said. “But yeah, Cheha, that was an actual question.”

  She gave him a quick nod, sinking into the water and the conversation more comfortably as she continued to relax. “Th-they aren’t… like us. Like me. S-some of them talk m-more like you.” Cheha paused, dipping her muzzle as she gave a tiny smile. “Or like A-Alanna. N-no one talks the w-way you and TQ do.” She said with clear affection put toward TQ specifically. “B-but Ink is fffriendly! S-she likes the jazz garden t-too. We might b-be friends.”

  ”We have a jazz garden?” Alanna asked. “James we need to be down here more often, I don’t know half the shit in this city.”

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  ”It’s the place the pillboar lives. I think?” James raised his eyebrows and was relieved that Cheha and TQ both nodded back. “Okay, cool, I was worried for a second we had multiple jazz gardens. After that thing with Rufus’ garden nearly breaching containment-“

  ”Please.” Alanna rolled her eyes. “There was one highlighter vine that got a little out of control.”

  ”And highlighted thirty to fifty unsuspecting people before it was stopped.” James replied flatly. He’d used some of his non-hunting time helping Rufus and Fredrick unfuck that mess. Though at least the way the ink stained the Lair’s basement brick in places looked kind of artistic. “Anyway, yeah, the big shaggy segmented guy from the Garden that… I… don’t remember how the hell we ended up with? He’s got his own little swimming pool. And apparently an audience.”

  ”Th-here are flowers there!” Cheha added, before snapping her mouth shut in anxiety at the way her volume had spiked. “S-sor-“

  ”No need to apologize.” TQ told her gently. “Of all the humans that might be upset, these are not them.” He twisted to face James. “Ink is pleasant company though, I agree. I believe she is bored, however. She steals Cheha regularly for games.”

  Alanna twisted herself upright. “Oh yeah? What kind of games are we talking about? Are you starting your own D&D group down here?” She smiled at Cheha. “Because that would be very cool.”

  ”N-no! N-not yet.” Cheha said, with the cadence of a woman who was planning to manifest an RPG group by sheer force of will alone sometime in the near future. “W-we play ch-chess.” She shook her head, antenna tapping against her ears at the most animated motion she’d made so far. “I am not good at chess. B-but Ink says if she lets me win, I won’t earn anything. I think s-she just w-wants to… I don’t know. S-something.”

  James gave a sad breath of a hum. “Ah. I might be blowing smoke, but I think Ink’s doing that thing a lot of the umbral are, where they’re sort of… throwing up a gruff facade about the fact that there’s a material point to hanging out with them sometimes? Ink especially, I get that vibe from. Like she probably thinks if she tells you that it’s ‘for’ the magic, then you’re more likely to stick around, because she’s worried that you don’t want to be around her.”

  Cheha shrunk in on herself, giving James a horrified look. “B-but…! But I do!”

  ”Fears are often not reasonable, but they are still fears.” TQ said sadly. “I do not need to be as strange as I am to know that.”

  Alanna twisted in the water, feeling the warmth flow across her skin in light currents. ”Yeah, you should just tell her you like hanging out, if you do. Being blunt solves so many personal communication problems! Look, I even romantically ensnared James, and that would have taken forever without just slamming headfirst into him.”

  ”That isn’t even close to-“

  ”Also hold up!” Alanna said, plowing over James’ protest. “You can get umbral magic from playing board games with them?”

  Cheha twisted her head in a confused tilt, one paw playing with her antenna. “Are t-they not s-supposed to?” She asked rapidly. “D-don’t be mad at Ink!” Her voice broke into a quick chittering.

  ”Hey, deep breaths.” Alanna told her, familiar with this style of panic attack from Cheha. A quick glance and a flick of her hand directed TQ to move closer to her, offering comfort and something familiar to grab onto. “No one is mad, because that’s not a problem at all. I was just curious.”

  ”I can actually answer it. Like most magic, it’s yes, but.” James told her while Cheha caught her breath and was closely and quietly reminded that everything was fine and no one was going to be punished. “They have to actually be playing to win, and it’s a very slow process. Research is trying to put numbers to the progress, because it is the nature of nerds to try to uncover the mathematical nature of any given exp system, and while I don’t think they’ve got it down yet, I think board games are measured at something like 3% efficiency?” James had a thought. “Wait, Cheha, does that mean you have shadow magic? That’s cool!”

  The way he said it, and the fact that she was making herself trust the people in the bath with her, got Cheha to nod instead of panicking again. “S-sharp Eyes, ah-and S-S-Ssssurvive Ap… Axp… Aspt…” Cheha’s eyes twitched, the sets of cleanly modified organs for just a moment looking like they belonged to a very angry predator and not the small and regularly timid ratroach. Only for a moment though, and then it was just exhaustion as she went silent, her attempt stopping entirely.

  ”Asphyxiation?” James suggested. “Wow, shit, no, that one is hard, I don’t even know if that’s the right pronunciation anymore. Lack of air, right?” Cheha nodded, still glumly silent, but at least not retreating entirely. “Yeah, like I said, very cool. Did you know you can gift the daily casts of the spells to people? That whole magic system is rad. I’m looking forward to checking out their dungeon, if it’s okay with the umbral there.”

  Alanna sent a ball of water at his head, her cupped hand splashing with pinpoint accuracy that impressed even James. “I’m going to fucking tie you to the bed if you don’t take a vacation!” She threatened him.

  “Ooh, promise?”

  ”Oh my god, James.”

  He gave her a grin so wide it hurt. “Alright, alright. But come on, we’ve got so much new stuff to play with. Charlie’s team successfully found the other Society dungeon, so that’s an option now. And there’s more Compiled Wastes, since we get to check out our demiplanes, like, tomorrow! And the HVACnids and their whole kingdom building thing, and the necroad outreach program, and the pillars are still out there. Annnnnd there’s allllways more to see in the Pylons and the Garden and Officium Mundi and the Climb and the Ceaseless Stacks and especially Clutter!” James stood up in the shallow part of the pool, standing slightly over everyone else and getting another annoyed revving squawk from Zhu. “It’s overwhelming, and I love it so much, and who wants to go with me on eighteen dungeon delves in a row and not sleep? It’ll be fun! You’ll level!”

  ”Who the fuck gave him coffee.” Zhu muttered sleepily, like he’d been napping under the water. “Also how are you not cold?”

  ”The bathhouse is heated.” James answered with a roll of his eyes. “But also yeah this is chilly. Back to the depths for me.” He said, sliding forward to enjoy the closer heat of the water again.

  ”I would say you need a hobby, but I’m starting to think the problem is you have too many hobbies, and half of them are fancy names we put on dungeons.” Alanna said with affection.

  ”We should get James a safer hobby. Perhaps jousting.” TQ suggested.

  Alanna and James both just stared over at him where he was being cuddled in the water by Cheha like the world’s most loving pool noodle. The problem, Alanna rapidly realized, was that she was staring like she wanted to know what the fuck TQ was thinking and also where he’d learned about jousting, but James was staring like he was thinking ‘boy, I sure would love to try jousting’.

  ”Hey, TQ isn’t allowed to suggest hobbies anymore.” Alanna decided.

  ”There’s a pluralist ball league starting up, right?” James asked. “Maybe we could… just sort of… insinuate some jousting into that.” He dipped lower into the water until his grin vanished below the pool’s surface and it became unclear just how much he was messing with Alanna.

  ”Oh that’s so much worse!” Alanna said. Though she said it with a boisterous laugh. “Alright, alright, fine. You love dungeons. I know. And fuck, man, I love you more than enough to think that’s cool too. But if you’re going right back to delving, could you at least pick a semi-chill one for your first big thing?”

  ”…Sooooo not the next Pylon teambuilding exercise?” James let Alanna’s gaze wash over him for a bit, before he reassured her. “No, you’re right. I was thinking Stacks anyway. It’s just so pleasant in there. Also Arrush and TQ both asked to come along, for various reasons.”

  ”I enjoy the puzzles.” TQ stated.

  ”Fine, fine, but no getting eaten by a giant book, okay?” Alanna warned him, and got a double thumbs up from James and Zhu in reply.

  Nervously, Cheha raised her own paired paws. “U-um… c-can I? Can I c-come too?”

  ”On a delve?” James’ voice softened. “I mean, of course. The Stacks are a pretty safe place for it, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen you at the self-defense courses, so… yeah. But did you actually want to be a delver?”

  ”No.” Cheha admitted slowly. “B-but I want to s-see them. The other places. A-and I… I w-want to follow t-this one.” She added, running her claws across TQ’s underbelly. “J-just a little!” She quickly tacked on as TQ looked up at her with a wide lens.

  James sighed, not quite sure if that was a good reason, a great reason, or possibly a terrible reason. But, however much this conversation had energized him, he was still mentally kind of drained. “I’ll talk to you later, yeah? I dunno if I can make a coherent choice on anything right now anyway.”

  ”Even dinner?” Alanna prodded him happily.

  ”Oh, absolutely. That’s why we’re meeting Arrush and Keeka for dinner. So it’s their problem and not mine.” James said smugly, having circumvented the rhetorical trap.

  Alanna checked the ornate mechanical iron clock high on the wall of the baths. “And speaking of. We should probably get out pretty soon, so we don’t show up to that meal naked and wet.” Without looking, she pointed a finger in TQ’s direction. “You, hush.” She said, the camraconda hissing amusement at being preemptively silenced. Which was fair, he was going to say something about that comment.

  The night continued on. Calm and companionable, despite the cold drizzle going on outside. James was tired. So, so very tired. But it was the kind of tired that came with the satisfaction of having done something, and not just from being overburdened and stressed out and depressed.

  This kind of tired, he could handle. This kind of tired, he could welcome. Because it was the kind that could be traded for real rest, instead of lingering forever. And also, because he was pretty sure he could get some kind of magic to replace sleep eventually anyway. Especially if they got lucky with any of the influx of new magic.

  _____

  “Hey Terror.” James called a greeting to the umbral as he tried to open the door to where the shadow person was hanging out without demolishing the whole structure. “You ‘home’?”

  Terror’s current favorite haunt was one of the small but cozy houses that had lined the streets of most of Townton. This one in particular was actually only a street away from what was apparently some kind of jazz appreciation society, but it was still outside the current radius of the Townton restoration zone, which meant it wasn’t in good shape.

  The aftermath of the mechanic’s attempted ascension had left a lot of scars on the city. The necroads were one, and there were still thousands of them prowling the pavement, acting with varying degrees of hostility to anyone that got too close. The chunks of the outer city that had been destroyed by fires that couldn’t be contained were another. But pretty much every structure that was still standing had some damage to it, either in the form of asphalt spikes, or the holes left over from where they’d been removed as the Order had done search and rescue.

  This house was no exception. Untouched for over two years, its yard had gone from an attempt at a garden to an explosion of weeds to ivy and mushrooms crawling the walls around the shattered windows. The damage left over from when the mechanic had tried to kill everyone inside for spare parts also left the front door on a single precarious hinge, and half the roof looking like it was sagging downward.

  Why Terror had decided to come here, James didn’t really know. He’d just asked Zhu to help him track the umbral down so he could have a conversation.

  ”Why are you here?” Terror asked as James circled into the living room, finding the umbral standing on his durable legs of overlapping and jointed shadows in the middle of the space, staring down at a decayed bookshelf. “And how did you know it was me?”

  ”I’m trying to be friendly, and also I wanted to talk to you about umbral integration stuff, so that’s two reasons for the first question.” James said, stepping gingerly over where a leak through the broken kitchen window had allowed a pool of water to form and sink part of the carpet into an urban bog. “For the second part, while you’re not the only umbral that wears clothes, you are specifically the only one who wears belts with tools and knives on them and nothing else. Also I asked Zhu to help me find you.”

  ”Hi! I think you’re distinctive.” Zhu waved.

  Terror’s main body-hand gently set something back on the bookshelf, before he turned to James, the limb that was wide enough to grab James’ entire body hanging loosely to his side instead of folding back with its partner. “I thought we agreed that we are not friends.”

  ”We had lunch that one time. That’s how friendships start.” James insisted with coy humor. “Also, and I hate to be this blunt about it, but, I do not think there’s a single person in Townton that needs a friend as much as you do.”

  Some of Terror’s color band eyes rippled like water a pebble had been tossed into. “There are ratroaches here. Chanters. More besides. Even human survivors of things.”

  ”Yeah, and most of them have friends, or support networks.” James said, looking away from Terror as he gently tested whether or not the little kitchen counter here could support his weight, or if it would crumble when he tried to lean on it. He wished the fridge weren’t over in the corner, it was the one thing here that looked untouched by the light wreckage, though it was probably more of a hazard to open than the ones in the Office by now. “We have a whole team for helping people adapt to living here from being homeless, so even our human ‘survivors of things’ have people to talk to directly. You, though? You’re not even talking to other umbral.”

  ”What is there to talk about?” Terror asked, voice an upset static buzz. “I did what they asked. I listened to you. And it got them what they wanted.”

  Zhu, ever amused with himself and with far less tact than James, decided to cut to the heart of things. “You’re also supposed to get what you want, dumbass.” He said, pointing a glowing feathered arm off of James and at Terror. “Look, if you don’t tell James why you’re sulking, he’s just gonna keep getting more and more philosophical until you crack, so just get it over with now, okay?”

  ”…Why did you bring him?” Terror asked.

  ”Hey!”

  ”He lives in my head and I’m morally opposed to charging rent.” James answered.

  ”Hey!”

  Terror’s sigh was a soothing summer breeze. It was something James found almost hilariously incongruous about the umbral; here, in a house that was leaking from the frigid December drizzle that blanketed the city, where the cold was secondary only to the sense of metaphorical loss, it was Terror’s exasperation that swept through like a warm moment of out of season peace. “You’re not going to leave me alone.” He said. Not really a question, just a sudden understanding of it.

  It was, at least, somewhat accurate. James shrugged. “I mean, you’re moping in a destroyed house, avoiding the people you were really prepared to fight to the death for, and honestly… I dunno, yeah, I’m worried about you.”

  The fingers of Terror’s extended hand, each practically the size of James’ arm, twitched as the umbral’s upper tendrils stiffened and stilled. “I am…” he sucked in cold air, the shadows of his body inflating briefly, “…I am trying.” The umbral said with bitter anger. “Everything I did, I did for them. Do you know that?”

  ”I’m generally aware.” James said steadily, wondering while he spoke if Terror wouldn’t mind him moving to the back wall to see if it would let him lean on something. He had no intention of even trying to sit on the mushroom-hosting remains of the couch.

  ”You convinced me of nothing.” Terror said, turning away, and stalking himself toward the shattered mess of a patio door that led to the overgrown backyard. “When we first came here. You said so many words, and they were all… pointless. It didn’t matter that you were telling the truth, or being honest, I did not listen.”

  James felt actually kind of hurt by that. “I kind of felt like I did some good oration there.” He said, turning it into a joke. “You didn’t come away from that thinking I’d fistfight a god for you?”

  ”Oh, no, that was clear enough.” Terror made a noise that James had never heard before. Almost a kind of burst of discharged electricity, accompanied by the coherent shadows of his main body pulsing with more inner light for a second.

  If James had to guess, that was a laugh.

  ”Okay, well good. I wouldn’t want to be misrepresented.” He said, dodging another puddle as he walked over to take up a stance on the opposite side of the room as Terror. “But?”

  ”But I didn’t believe you. I wasn’t going to stop. Why would I? Even now, I don’t know what I should be doing, or am doing.” Terror’s breezy sigh emanated again. “I think I hate you.” He said, quiet but acidic all the same. “You took away the only thing I had.”

  ”…I don’t… know how to respond to that.” James answered softly.

  Zhu made a rude revving sound. “Of course you don’t, because you’re trying to be nice to him.” He said, flaring his feathers from under James’ coat. “It’s kind of ironic! Being pissed off at people for improving your life is actually the most human thing you’ve done! It’s just that you’ve chosen to emulate the shittiest possible humans.”

  ”And you have a better suggestion?” Terror bit back sarcastically at the navigator.

  ”Literally anything is a better suggestion.” Zhu retorted, getting a smothered grin from James. “What, do you want a list? Alright! Get a hobby! Get a boyfriend! Get therapy! Get a second boyfriend! Get caught up being a good person to the extent that everyone looks to you as some kind of hero and you lose track of why you were ever so pissed off in the first place because you have more important things to do! Get-!”

  ”Zhu are you… is this my biography?” James asked, offended. “Oh my god, why. Shut up.” He tried to shove Zhu all the way into his coat and found it difficult. “He’s not wrong though. You should maybe get a hobby.” He told Terror, trying to be empathic. “This isn’t good for you.”

  Terror’s voice buzzed as his heavy hand settled on the wooden frame of the house’s sliding glass back door. “And you care about that.” He said, one eye sliding slightly to look at James. “I’m not asking, I know you do. That is the problem I am having.” The colored band pressed closed as he deflated slightly. “I said yes to your offer for my people. Because they asked me to. And it has been less than a month, and they are not my people anymore. We are the same shape, from the same place, but they don’t… want me. They don’t need me. They belong to Townton. To Saskatoon. To the outside. They belong to you.”

  ”I sure as fuck hope you mean that metaphorically.” James’ voice cracked with hard anger.

  Terror’s eyes opened as the central bulb of his body twitched toward James in surprise. “Oh.” He said. “Yes. I am angry, and I am lost, but even I know you aren’t a slaver.”

  ”Yeah, he’s got opinions on that kind of thing.” Zhu said. “The kind that end with property damage!”

  ”Lots of my opinions end with property damage.” James clarified, relaxing from his bristled response.

  Terror’s voice crackled in irritation. “And you were upset with my plan.” He said, before he made one of those glowing sounds that James was starting to recognize as a laugh. “I know the difference, do not educate me.” He said, before continuing his earlier thought. “Earlier, we… the umbral… selected our representatives for this city. Our experiential voices, you call them. Government. Legitimacy. Recognition. Everything I wanted for us.”

  ”Gooooood?” James asked. And then realized something. “Ah. They didn’t pick you.” He said, feeling stupid for picking at what was obviously an open wound for Terror.

  ”They didn’t.” Terror said. “And I know why. And I know it is right. But I still hate… so much. So many things. I can’t stop. And I think I am going to go insane with it.” His body-limb curled into a fist and thumped into the wall, causing a few shards of broken glass to dislodge and clatter to the concrete outside. “People like me are not meant to have hobbies.” He said.

  ”I’ve heard that before.” James said, stepping over the shattered glass, and approaching Terror slowly. The same way he’d approach a scared stray dog, really. “I’ve heard it from a half dozen species at this point. But you know what?”

  “Don’t patronize me.” Terror told him flatly.

  James snorted a laugh as he reached out and set a hand on the solid mass of shadows that was the umbral’s body, surprised not at the sensation, but that Terror didn’t just flinch or jerk away. “Then you do know. So I don’t have to tell you that you’re being a fucking idiot.” He said.

  ”Oh my god you’re the worst therapist.” Zhu muttered.

  “You’re not helping.” James and Terror said at the same time, before Terror filled the surprised silence after those words with a more genuine umbral laugh.

  James continued. “But seriously, actually.” He said. “My condolences on losing your election. But hey, now you have free time to take up skydiving or raccoon husbandry or something.”

  ”Neither of those are…” Terror trailed off, and then let his hand scrape down the wall before drooping to his side. “Those are both valid hobbies here, aren’t they?” He said.

  A normal human would have said that with surprise, maybe resignation. Terror said it like he was actually thinking about his options for the first time.

  ”Well, the raccoons unionized, so maybe not that one.” Zhu ruined the moment.

  James decided to ruin it further. “Also the skydiving one is more about using the Climb wing spell than parachuting. But, like… you might like that one?” He shrugged in what he hoped came across as ‘helpfully’. “Honestly all the magic in our lives opens up a lot of weird and cool new avenues for goofin’ off. Hell, join a pluralist ball team, they’d love to have you.”

  ”Because an umbral losing gives the opposition more power?” Terror’s bitter anger was tempered by exhaustion of his own now.

  ”Oh, dude, no. I was just talking to someone about this earlier, it takes so long when it comes to games and stuff. People can reasonably expect one or two advancements, and that’s kinda it. That’s gonna happen over time anyway. I mean, and this is a genuine question, what happens when there’s a general council election down here and some umbral run and lose? Does that count? If you can’t even participate in civics without being paranoid… nah, fuck that.”

  Zhu clacked two of his talons together. “Besides, what do you lose, actually? Your opponents will want to win, at a game where the point is winning? Devastating.”

  ”Okay I mean it has a little more nuance than that…” James tried to backpedal.

  Terror’s upper tendrils flicked to the side like seaweed in a current. “That is perhaps the most open someone has ever been about it.” He said suddenly. “With me, at least. So many words to say there will be no exploitation, but I do not know if I have heard the stranger truth that it… it isn’t my problem, is it?”

  ”I mean… meh?” James shrugged. “It’s probably not a bad idea to be alert on a civics level for exploitation that might happen, either on purpose or by accident, so we can plan around and remove it. But oh! Wait, actually, I did have a question for an umbral, and you’re the first one that I’ve met today, so you get to answer for me!”

  Terror’s shuffle back from James was abrupt and suspicious. “What do you want now.” He said.

  James just reached out a hand, offering it in the air between them like he was waiting for Terror to shake on a deal. “I know that you can’t get your own magic like everyone else can.” He said. “But, we’ve been poking around with how the whole flow of it works, and we know now that someone with shadow spells can ‘gift’ them to someone else.” He said, raising his eyebrows and extending his hand a half inch further. “So…”

  ”…so can you gift them to… us?” Terror looked down at the hand like it was a trap. “So we’ll be more useful to you.”

  James took way too long to think about that, his extended hand dipping as he spoke through his thought process. “I mean, on a functional level, it’s sort of true that adding to your own abilities adds to the collective ability of Townton, and later any other city or society we form.” He mused. “Though the sharing is for limited uses, and can’t stack beyond the caster’s own daily allocation, so it’s possible you could look at it as a way to keep a leash on your people. But you could also look at it as a way to ‘pay back’ magic earned from an umbral? Like, if your ‘job’ is playing soccer to get people over their first couple advancements, and each of those people then pays you back a month worth of those spells, you can accumulate a reasonable amount of ability that way. Assuming it’s useful, obviously. Somehow, I don’t think that Jubilance’s single daily cast of Extra Sauce is going to change an industry or something.” He waved his hand to the side, dismissing that train of thought. “Anyway. If the intent is to maximize utility, then sure, I guess. But even if that were the only reason, it still relies on umbral collectively being in a position of social trust and good faith interaction? So I don’t know why this would be a problem. But I also get that it’s an emotional problem to be told you’re only getting magic to be more useful, which is something I kinda have to deal with myself when I get the paladin packages. Honestly, I just kind of hoped to test it out, and worry about the civics impact afterward. But at the very least, I guess it can act as a kind of bonus umbral economy? If that was a concern for you.”

  ”You did this.” Zhu accused Terror. “You said the trigger words, and James is talking about civics again now. This is your fault.”

  ”I’m willing to admit I made a mistake.” Terror replied to the navigator, tendrils pushed back over his body like he’d just been physically blasted by James’ words. But then, he sighed, and raised his own heavy hand out between them. “As long as I am making poor choices…” He said, oval eyes watching James with resignation.

  James rolled his eyes and took Terror’s hand, his own limb being entirely engulfed by the shadow’s oddly solid flesh. “I’m giving you a single use of a spell to fix some pants, don’t make this a big deal.” He said, focusing on his daily allotment of Patch Garment, and on the process of handing it off to someone else.

  There was the briefest moment where James knew how to cast a spell. Not just that he could trigger it, but the pure underlying mechanism of how to make his brainwaves fall into the proper patterns so that he could force the universe to comply with his hyperspecific demand to remove the hole from a shirt.

  Just for a moment though.

  Then it was Terror’s existential problem to deal with.

  “Oh.” The umbral said, almost shocked that it had worked at all. “What… now?”

  ”No idea. Just wanted to see if that would work.” James smiled, and then grimaced as a splattering of brackish water finally broke through a gap in the ceiling and splashed off his face. “Oh that’s… oh fuck it’s in my nose.” He spat out, jerking back and ruining the still moment between the two of them.

  Zhu flicked some of the water off his feathers, at least keeping half of James a little dry. “Yeah, can we get out of here before the roof collapses? I don’t want that to be how I find out that I can get broken bones.”

  ”You do not have bones.” Terror paused. “I don’t have bones either.” He said.

  ”Now that’s just not true.” James said as he wiped his face with part of his shirt he’d pulled out of his coat. “I’ve seen the umbral medical reports, you’ve got thicker support struts of whatever you’re made of in there. The purple orbs for fixing broken bones even give you a parallel for your own… non…bones…” He cleared his throat. “But yes, as the one with the most bones to break… do you want to maybe come out and see a little more of Townton? Find something you actually want to try doing for fun?”

  Terror let his hand reflexively fold back with its pair, forming the thicker central body again with its wide appearance of dust dancing in nonexistent sunbeams. “No.” Terror said quietly. “Not… yet. I would like some time alone.”

  ”…Sure.” James said with clear concern. “Can I at least ask why you’re wandering around in Townton’s yellow zone?” The term was for where the wandering necroads were mostly passive or curious, but not entirely.

  ”I wanted to see what it would have looked like if I hadn’t listened to Ash and Ink. If I had… said no.” Terror said, his colored eyes sweeping the creeping fungus and broken glass and sodden upholstery. “It wouldn’t look like this. Not really. But it would be the same, wouldn’t it?”

  James felt like something tight had wrapped his heart. “Yeah.” He said.

  ”And I still cannot stop being so… angry.” Terror hissed out the word. “We always thought the single-forms were the mutations. But maybe not. Maybe I’m the broken one.”

  Acting on a quick impulse, James stepped closer and leaned into Terror, wrapping his arms around the umbral in a wide hug. He had to duck one of the tendrils that slapped at him as he did so, but it seemed worth the cost. ”Maybe you just need some time.” James offered.

  ”Let go of me, human.” Terror said with dulled and tired annoyance.

  ”In a minute.” James said. “Listen. You didn’t do this, and you didn’t repeat it anywhere else. Don’t beat yourself up for what you didn’t do. You’re a brand new person, Terror. You have your whole life to do anything else.”

  Terror shuddered underneath James’ hug, before giving another breeze of a sigh, his tendrils tugging a pair of his belts back into proper place. “I still want to be alone.” He said eventually.

  ”For now.” James agreed.

  ”Oh yeah,” Zhu added as James let go and started navigating the puddles to get back out the listing front door, “that doesn’t sound ominous at all! Next thing you’ll be recruiting him to be a delver by calling that a hobby too.”

  ”Was that a choice?” Terror asked, seeming actually curious.

  James turned back from the little hallway that connected the house’s main rooms to its garage and front foyer. He wanted to say yes, just to see if it would entice the umbral, but he held back for the moment. “How about you take some time, and we can talk later, okay?” He offered instead. “If you really want to be a delver… well, hell, maybe we can work something out. But I’ve got a dozen little magics to handle first.”

  He and Zhu left then, with Terror silently prowling through the old building behind them. Both of them expressed their worry to the other, but for almost opposed reasons. Zhu was afraid Terror was going to do something stupid. James was afraid he wasn’t going to do anything stupid enough. Being alive, James figured, really alive, meant being comfortable enough to make some dumb as fuck mistakes.

  And he was maybe the wrong person for this. Eternally busy, forever off on an adventure or delve, or just spending all his free time with his partners. But James felt like he got Terror, more than he got most people. That feeling of all-consuming anger, of hating the failures of the world and its people, he still felt that. He just… found alternate ways to express it, that weren’t mass arson.

  And he hoped he could bring Terror around to his way. Because, though he wouldn’t say it out loud, he really did think the umbral could be more useful. Both to the people around him, and to himself.

  James was smart enough to keep his mouth shut on that part though. For now. He’d deploy it after his friendship campaign was successful, probably as a joke to derail some kind of embarrassing conversation.

  But that was for the future. For now, he was a little early for meeting up with Keeka and Arrush and their labratoad friend Kalik, which meant he was just in time to find a dry spot to sit where he could read through eighty pages of copy ritual output reports.

  Terror might be having a bad day, but James kind of loved his life right now. And he was looking forward to inflicting that zest onto everyone around him.

  There is a discord! Come hang out with us.

  There is a wiki! It's starting to become helpful.