Edge Cases

104 - Book 2: Chapter 41: Entrenched Systems

There was at least one good thing that might come out of whatever was going on with the Guild building, Derivan thought, once they found a spot within the Guild's grounds where they could leave the caravan. A small magical barrier flickered into place, automatically activated by their badges once they left.

He'd been needing a target to test Patch on for a while, now he couldn't use it on himself or any of his friends without risking breaking all the complex mechanisms that went into maintaining it, and they hadn't encountered any monsters along the way to Elyra for him to practice on.

As such, he hadn't really been able to work on training the new stat at all. He could use it to observe things, certainly, but that evidently didn't count as training it, considering it remained at a steady '1'.

But now there was something clearly happening with the Elyran branch of the Guild, and whatever that something was, it was related to the system in some way. Derivan had not forgotten what Xothok and the others had said, that they had tried to get help here, and had been rejected. Internal corruption had seemed like a likely possibility at the time, despite the Guildmaster's attempts to circumvent it.

The presence of the strange system-structure over the entire building seemed to discount that possibility.

The Guild cathedral towered over all of them, spires of gold and white rising into the sky. Without Patch without Vex to tell them that it had changed Derivan wasn't sure he would have noticed anything wrong with it at all. But the claw of the system hovering above it had been clear the moment he had looked.

He had never seen anything so complex.

"Any ideas, yet?" Sev asked beside him, and Derivan shook his head.

"It is connected to the system, as I said," he said. "But I do not yet have the ability to examine its interface. Perhaps if we knew someone who could [Identify] it..."

"You'd think someone would've done that already." Misa stared up at the building. "You can't tell me this fucking thing popped up overnight and no one tried to check it out."

"It would be unusual to try to [Identify] a building," Derivan noted.

"And maybe someone did," Vex said quietly. He shook his head after a moment followed closely by a full-body shake, like a wiggle to force himself to focus. "We won't know more until we go in. Derivan, can you make sure nothing happens to us with the system? I'll keep an eye out on the magic side."

"I'm still here, you know," Misa grumbled. "I can block these things."

"Please stay prepared for anything we can't see, Misa." Vex's eyes were still locked on the front doors of the building; for whatever reason, the lizardkin seemed to have decided to take charge here. Maybe it was because Elyra was so close to him, personally, or maybe it was because this was where he'd first joined the Guild at all, and the place that had given him the opportunity to leave.

Derivan, Sev, and Misa all stood behind Vex, in silent support of that decision, and the lizardkin pushed open the doors.

There was no reaction from the building, as far as Derivan could tell. The system still hovered there, far too present for Derivan's liking and here, from the inside, he could see the problem was worse than he had realized.

For most people, the system was simply something that attached itself to them, stemming from the closest reality anchor and creating a complex metaphysical cage that seemed to interact with their souls and substance. In here, it looked like that cage had... metastasized. Derivan might not have understood precisely how the system worked, as yet, but the mishmash of broken gears reminded him of the mess that his own connection to the system was, and made him feel distinctly uncomfortable.

"Hello!" someone from the front desk called a broad orcish man that was just a hair taller than Misa, just enough that it looked like he fit rather uncomfortably in the small space behind the desk. The wall behind him was covered in scratches. He was some sort of warrior archetype, judging by the bewilderingly large, two-sided blade strapped to his back. Except he was... a receptionist? "Shit, is that you, Vex?"

"Rekka?" Vex blinked at him. "I thought receptionist duty was punishment duty. You're still here?"

"I decided I liked being a receptionist," Rekka said, puffing his chest out proudly, a statement that struck Derivan as very at odds with the weapon on his back. "What're you doing back here, man? I thought you were gonna go out and... you know, you didn't tell me what you were gonna do. But you said it'd take a while! Years!"

"It's been a year and a half," Vex pointed out.

"But not two years, man!" Rekka leaned forward, and flashed a bright smile. "You look a lot better than you did before. And you found a team! I was worried you weren't going to look for one."

"I didn't," Vex admitted. "They sort of found me."

"Vex is the team mascot," Sev said dryly.

"Hey!"

"We did sort of adopt him." Misa chuckled.

"You gonna introduce me to your friends?" Rekka said, grinning. Vex huffed, folding his arms together obstinately for a moment, and Derivan chuckled fondly.

"Fine," the lizardkin said, sticking his tongue out. He gestured to the rest of the team. "This is Sev; he's the party leader, most of the time. This is Misa. And this is Derivan."

"Hello," Derivan said. Misa just waved, relaxed.

"Pleasure to meet you all!" Rekka said, boisterous as ever. "I'm guessing you're here for a room? Registering... What are you all doing in Elyra, anyway?"

"We're the diplomatic envoy that the Guildmaster sent," Vex said, a slight frown entering his expression. "You didn't get word?"

"I'm... not sure." A flicker of uncertainty and something else, dancing across Rekka's face almost too quick for Derivan to catch. The armor traced both the lines of magic in the air and the system-structures he could feel with Patch as carefully as he could, to watch for anything strange...

Nothing that he could see. But the resolution of his vision wasn't perfect, as yet, and he stayed cautious.

"But let me check my records," Rekka added cheerfully, and started flipping through a number of binders he kept behind his desk. Vex watched him, and Sev glanced carefully at Derivan the cleric seemed like he was worried, too. Misa pretended to be relaxed, but one hand rested just near her hip, where she kept her mace...

Everyone was still cautious, and no one was letting their guard down. Good.

Nothing happened, fortunately. Rekka simply looked up from his books with a small frown. "Found it," he said. "I'm not sure how I missed this. It says we sent out a message to the guards to let you in, too. Did you get any trouble?"

"A little," Vex said. "Nothing I couldn't handle."

"Ah, nobility." Rekka wrinkled his nose a bit, then leaned in. "We might get that chance too, you know. Shh. It's a secret."

"What do you mean?" Vex blinked at him, but Rekka had already straightened, and was pretending he hadn't said anything at all. "Rekka?"

"I didn't tell you anything," Rekka said with a wink. "I've got a room for you guys, and if you've parked your caravan outside, I can get people to start unloading and delivering the food to the nobles so they can distribute it."

"Um," Vex said, and then glanced at the others for a moment; he visibly steeled himself, and shook his head. "Don't do that yet, please."

"No?" Rekka frowned at him. "Why not?"

"We want to deliver it ourselves," he lied.

Rekka stared at him for a moment, then shrugged. "Suit yourself," he said. "Want me to get the documentation ready for dungeon entry? I see the Guildmaster sent some correspondence about that. High-priority, dungeon entry... It might still take a couple weeks to get everything in order."

"You had a couple of weeks," Sev objected, his brows furrowing.

"We sent in the request as soon as we could." Rekka shrugged. "There's a long queue. Sorry, man."

"It's pretty important," Vex said. "Please? We need to get in there. People might... people might be hurt if we don't do it fast."

Rekka glanced down at Vex, and he softened slightly. "Aw, you know I can't say no to you, buddy," he said. "I can try, but there really is a long queue. It might help if I can use your name to speed things along..."

"Go ahead," Vex said. "If you need to. Please."

"Really?" Rekka looked surprised. "You didn't want to leverage being a noble before... Alright, man, if you say so."

"I still don't," Vex said. "But this is important, and I don't know if it can wait."

"I getcha," Rekka said. He plucked four keys deftly from the drawer, and then tossed them to Vex, who caught them all without flinching; Derivan saw Rekka's eyes widen slightly, impressed. "Whew. Wasn't expecting you to catch 'em all. Got your agility up?"

"We're all Silver now," Vex said.

"Whoa," Rekka said. "Fast! Shit, I thought you could only level that quick with noble support, or something. The Guild help you out with that? Cause if they have programs like that I'm going to have some words, lemme tell you."

"No, we just, uh... got into some dangerous situations," Vex said, shifting a bit uncomfortably. "Nothing you'd want to get involved with, trust me."

"If you say so," Rekka said, crossing his arms and looking just a little bit disbelieving. His expression relaxed a bit in a second, though. "Glad you're doing alright, little man. Anything else I can help you with?"

"No?" Vex said, sounding out the word as a question. He glanced around at the relatively-empty Guild hall, and then sighed. "Rekka, I thought you didn't... care about being a noble? Do you want to be one now?"

"Oh, come on now, that's a bit of a personal question to ask in front of your friends," the orc grumbled.

"It's important," Vex said. "I can ask them to go away if you want."

"Nah, nah, it's whatever," Rekka said, waving a hand. He leaned back, the overwhelmingly large sword on his back scratching into the wall with a thunk, and Derivan realized exactly why the wall behind him had so many scratches. "I dunno. I've been rotated in and out of Elyra a few times, right? And it's just annoying getting in without being a noble. So it'd be cool if I was? Then I wouldn't have to deal with all that bureaucracy."

"Isn't nobility supposed to be a status applied to families?" Sev asked.

"Yup!" Rekka said. "That's the big deal about all this. They're thinking about granting the status to the Guild as a whole, but it's very hush-hush. I'm not actually supposed to tell anyone anything, but Vex is cool, and his friends are cool by proxy, so."

Misa and Sev exchanged glances, and Derivan frowned slightly, the lights in his eyes shifting visibly. Vex seemed uncomfortable.

"But you've seen what the nobility here does," Vex said.

"We can do better."

"But you didn't." Vex suddenly seemed to straighten, a little bit more fire in his eyes. "We fought off some bandits when we were on our way here, and if it was almost anyone besides us that had fought them, either the bandits would be dead, or they would be. They told us they tried to join the Guild before resorting to banditry. You're supposed to accept anyone that applies, as long as they don't fail a basic standard"

Vex trembled, then took a breath; he turned his eyes to Rekka, who suddenly looked uncomfortable. "Did they fail some standard?" he asked. "Were they terrible people? I only know their side of the story, so maybe I'm missing something. What happened?"

"...if the Guild is to gain noble status..." Rekka began, and then he lapsed into silence. He sounded a little sullen, and then suddenly angry. "FUCK. I didn't think I was at the meeting when we discussed accepting them. I didn't vote. But you can't blame"

He cut himself off before continuing that sentence, half-growling under his breath. Vex waited, and Rekka calmed himself down, slowly. Derivan watched the mechanism of the system ticking away behind him, and his eyes narrowed, when he saw something click and fall; the system tried to push it back and fix it, but a flex of Patch solved that, breaking the mechanical arm that tried to slot it back into place and leaving the shard on the ground.

No diminishing of Patch with that action. Interesting.

"...I'm making excuses, aren't I," Rekka said, slumping just a bit.

"Their actions aren't your direct responsibility," Vex said. "But the Guild chose to take responsibility this is what we do. We're supposed to give people a path. You did it for me."

"You were nobility," Rekka said. "Are. You would have been accepted anyway."

"My parents didn't want me to be, and you could have denied me for that reason." Vex tried to soften his voice, but the lizardkin was wound up.

Rekka was silent for a solid minute that felt like it stretched for too long.

"It didn't seem like much at the time," he muttered to himself, and then he shook his head; when he looked up again, his eyes were bright. "I'm going to talk to the Guildmaster. We've been in talks for ages. I'm seeing shit, I'm seeing what they might be doing now. I'm not sure. It just looked harmless but they didn't want us to tell the Guildmaster and maybe that should've made it fucking obvious "

Rekka interrupted himself with a half-snarl. "I'm gonna find out," he said. "It shouldn't have taken you guys coming in to make that obvious. Something happened there and I don't fucking like it."

"We'll help," Vex said.

"You need to focus on getting into the dungeon," Rekka said. "And knowing you, you want to look at the crop thing too, right? We have some documentation on that. I'll hand it off to you."

"Thank you," Vex said, blinking.

"I need some time to think," Rekka said. "You guys go up I'll talk to you again later. We need some eyes on this that aren't us. Fucking... fuck. Okay. Sorry. Just... give me some time."

"Of course." Vex had softened a little, seeing the orc's clear anger. "We'll, uh, come back down later. Or when you call us."

"I'll call you later," Rekka confirmed, and pulled out what was probably the largest binder Derivan had ever seen; it slammed onto the desk, and he began flipping through it fervently.

As they left to go up to their room, Derivan surreptitiously used Patch to pick up the little shard he'd seen break off from the system, holding it in metaphorical hands.

"This better not be another mystery to solve," Misa grumbled. "I'm tired of not knowing shit. Rekka didn't even tell us why they were going to get noble status."

"No mystery," Derivan said with a shake of his head. "I believe he will tell us, when he is less angry at himself. But also... I believe I understand the gist of it."

Using Patch, he picked up the little shard he had observed, invisible to everyone else.

It was a small fraction of a system window.