The World Which Is, CH 95

Xander’s clearly reading something.

“Did you give him a pop-up?” Brandon asks.

“You said that ruins have them when an explorer steps in,” Dardanus replies, “so yes.”

“Just him?”

“The woman to his left is also an explorer, so she got it too.”

“That’s Rowana. She often works with him. Wait, how did you know she’s an explorer?”

“I can see what classes the people inside me are.”

“That’s convenient,” Brandon says, studying the image.

“It’s needed to properly run a military compound,” the core replies.

“He’s got Maximilian, Greg, and Luciane. I don’t recognize the other three.”

“Who are they?” Dardanus asks. “I don’t get names, just classes.”

“Max is the magic guy, Greg’s the orc, some fighting class.”

“Wall Breaker,” Dardanus provides. “Makes him really strong, bonuses against inanimate objects and resistant to blunt attacks.”

“Yeah, that fits. Luciane’s his rogue.”

“Shadow Stalker.”

“Whatever. She sneaks and plants stuff in your back when you don’t expect it. Nasty woman.”

“The woman with the green hair is a Forest Tender.”

“That’s a druid kind of class,” Silver says.

“Mostly abilities to heal based on the surrounding vegetation, but the class also has a branch that lets her command animals. The blond’s a Brawler.”

“Standard fighting class,” Brandon says, “it makes her potentially tougher than I am, but she looks young. I’m probably higher level. Unless you see that?”

“No, just classes. The last one is a Berserker.”

“Poop’s insane,” Brandon curses. “Those guys are just as likely to decimate their side as their opponents if they lose control, and they aren’t built to keep control.”

“Can they transform into bears the way some stories go?” Silver asks.

“The class does have a branch that lets them take on characteristics from a ‘chosen animal,’ which culminates with taking that form,” Dardanus says. “But that’s the last ability of that branch, with five prerequisites. Since each needs to be level five to count, he needs to be, at a minimum, level twenty-six to pick it.”

“Double treen,” Brandon grumbles.

“Is that important?” Dardanus asks.

“Treen are thresholds,” Dennis said. “Each one adds a small increase just for reaching it. But that’s with skills or abilities, or spells, I guess.”

“But hitting a new ability on one makes it stronger,” Brandon said.

“That’s nothing more than superstitions,” Helen replies. “There are no documented cases of an ability being stronger just because it was chosen on a treen.”

“And how much research is happening on that?” Brandon countered. “I know a few people who built their class to make it happen, and those are people I don’t pick fights with.”

“How long does it take someone to reach level twenty-six?” Silver asks.

“With fighting centric classes like his, nowhere near long enough,” Brandon replies.

“He looks kind of old,” I say. His face is wrinkled, his long beard streaked with gray.

Xander talks with the other explorer.

“Can you give us sound?” I ask, and, as Brandon stares at me, the tail end of Xander’s words sound.

“—don’t like it.”

“You don’t like anything that doesn’t fit your expectations, Alexander,” the woman replies. “The world isn’t a set of items that fit neatly into your boxes of expectations. It’s messy. It’s what makes it fun.”

“There are rules to the world,” Xander replies in a ‘you know that already,’ tone. “The system sees to that.”

“But you certainly don’t understand the depth of its complexity,” The magic user says in a tone that reminds me of Helen at times. “So it might as well be chaos to you.”

“Let’s get on with this,” Xander replies. “We clear every building, you find a cache, you tell Luciane, and she clears it.”

“We know how you want this done, Xander,” the berserker growls. “It’s not the first ruin we’ve helped you clear.”

Brandon curses. “If they’re used to working together, they’re going to get through everything fast.”

“Good,” Dardanus says.

“Not good,” he replies.

“They reach my heart, then they leave,” the core counters. “That’s what explorers do.”

“It’s what amateurs do. Me? Poop, and real explorers, we have to clear the entire thing for it to count. But that doesn’t matter, because I give you two hours until Poop figures out you aren’t a ruin.”

“What happens then?” I ask.

“Then he starts wondering what’s so special about this place that Aaron made sure it remained hidden. All the potential reasons we talked about before were based on this being a ruin and what we, explorers, get when we explore one completely. If Aaron didn’t get a Travel Marker out of it, Poop’s going to tear it apart to work out what he hid. And he’s not going to buy it’s a vault of gold. Believe it or not, even someone like Poop isn’t motivated by money when it comes to exploring.”

They exit buildings, shaking their head and move on to for those further along the road.

“He’s going to end up here, Dardanus. In this building. Unless you drop a bunch of those big ass automatons on them and kill them, you aren’t preventing that from happening.”

“You can’t seriously be telling him to murder them in cold blood,” I tell him.

“I’m telling him that unless he does something drastic, Poop will be here, and he’s not going to look at this and go; ‘oh, that’s pretty, let’s move on.’ He is going to try to figure you out, Dardanus. When he can’t, he’d going to pay for people who can. Dennis said that if someone with a military class touches you, they can control you. It won’t be on purpose unless someone can tell him what you are, but it is going to happen.”

“I won’t just kill them.”

“Then we need to get out of here before Poop finds us. There is no way he buys we don’t know what you are, and with these people, getting one of us to tell him is only a question of time, base on how much pain you can endure. Max’s magic can get really painful.”

“I’m not leaving Dardanus unprotected,” I tell him.

“What the fuck are you going to do?”

“Guys?” Silver nods to the image.

On the way to the next set of buildings, a group of automatons rounds the corner. At least a treen of them.

“What level are they?” Brandon asks, as the berserker lets out a ‘whoop’ and runs at them before Xander says anything.

“Five. I increased the numbers because of their apparent levels.”

By the lack of reactions on the others. They expected him to do that.

“Get ready to be shown what you’re in for,” Brandon says.

We don’t need an explanation.

The berserker is already among them. He’s like…well, berserk. He strikes, grabs and uses the automatons as bludgeons to take down more of them.

The fight can’t last more than a minute, but we all watch in silence for five more before Xander steps forward.

“You safe to be around, Steven?”

The grin, when the berserker faces him, is savage. “Come closer and find out.”

“It’s safe,” he calls to the other and I can hear him rolling his eyes. Then he and the others loot the remains.

“Got a map to something,” the blond calls out.

Xander hasn’t moved from the automaton he searched.

“Okay,” Rowana says, looking at a handful of gears. “Something’s off about this place. The houses were creepy enough, but this? A ‘handful of automaton entrails’? What the fuck is this, Alexander?”

He stands. “I don’t know, but it’s not a ruin.” He looks around and whispers, “Just what did you find, Aaron? And why work so hard at keeping me away.” He looks at the others. “Okay, doesn’t matter what this is. We proceed as usual. We clear everything.”

The blond hands him the map and he glances at it before handing it back.

“Fuck,” Brandon mutters. “Forgot about that. He’s unlocked the auto-map.”

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“Just that my idea of trying to convince Dardanus to turn the town into a maze so Poop can’t reach him isn’t going to work. With the auto-map, he’s going to be able to tell where he’s been, and navigate through. Even if you arrange it so there are no passages leading here. With that Wall Breaker orc, he’s going to make his own path. Dardanus, you have to—”

“I will not murder them.”

Brandon looks at me.

“I’m not abandoning him.”

“What the fuck do you think you can do against Poop and his group, Dennis?”

“I don’t know. But I’m not leaving Dardanus without protection.”

“He doesn’t need protection! He’s the fucking town. If he can swallow his fucking pride and do what’s needed, he can survive this!”

Dardanus snorts. “That’s exactly what the people who ran this place said, before turning on me and Adrian. ‘Why can’t you just see the situation we’re in? Now isn’t the time for morales. It’s the time for hard decisions. It’s us or them, and if you aren’t going to be with us, we’re going to treat you the same we’re going to treat them.’ Adrian didn’t back down even as he was dying, Brandon. I will not kill them. I will not be a murderer just because it’s the convenient thing to do so I’ll remain hidden. You go Dennis, I thank you for wanting to protect me, but Brandon’s right. You can’t make a difference here. I’ll deal with what comes when Xander finds me.”

“Please tell me you didn’t just say that,” Brandon implores.

“I’m not leaving,” I say.

“Of course you aren’t,” he mutters. “You are an idiot. Are you looking to get yourself killed?”

“Xander can’t kill me, he want’s the—”

“He has a rogue with him. All he needs is your corpse.”

I swallow. “I’m staying.”

“Me too,” Silver says.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.” He looks at Helen and closes his mouth at the speculative look on her face.

Her smile is the brightest one I’ve ever seen on her. “I never got to pit myself against another sorcerer,” she says. “Not outside of tests and play match. I think it’s going to be fun actually letting loose without caring about the destruction I bring.”

“You’re supposed to be the sensible one on this team!” Brandon yells.

“Oh, don’t give me that, Bran. There is no way you can convince me you aren’t looking forward to pitting yourself against one of them.”

“I am not suicidal,” he says, carefully enunciating each work.

“I understand,” I tell him. “I’m sure you’ll be able to leave without being noticed.”

“Are you fucking insane? I’m not leaving you alone to face them. You’re going to walk up to Poop and ask if you can’t just talk this out like adults!”

“No, I won’t. I already know that of the two of us, he isn’t the adult.”

He faces the image. “You’re going to have to split them up. They’re used to working together and we stand zero chances going up against them as a group.”

“Forcing them apart will be easy,” Dardanus replies. “I take it you are all staying to help?”

Brandon glares at me. “It’s not like I have a choice.”

“Then, I think I should equip you.”