Chapter 57: System Restraints (Patreon)

“So basically, it boils down to how long you were there, what your stats were when you got summoned, what your stats are now, how long you were stuck on Earth after your first summon, and a lot of constants that you don’t need to memorize. Then you factor in your clearance and Worth, and voila, you’ve got your resummon window.” Ursula finishes with a wave at a mass of text and hand-scribbled additions on the screens. “If you barely change at all, you can narrow it down to a few hours. You’ll probably be able to narrow it down to a season if you gain five more clearance levels when you go back.”

I pop a gummy snake coated in sour sugar into my mouth and nod. Her explanation was… really in-depth and damn overcomplicated, but somehow it actually managed to stick. That first long equation she’d brought up was simplified and simplified until it was just a few variables long. Pearl fell asleep almost an hour ago, and honestly, I don’t blame her. If I didn’t have my candy to keep me awake I would’ve been lights out.

Or doing something else completely like Noland and March are. Playing some card game with a bunch of different decks in different coloured sleeves piled up next to each of them. I didn’t expect Noland to be as into it as he is, but he’s giving March a pretty damn good run for her money.

Ursula follows my eyes, then nods at the pair. “You can go play with them if you want. Thanks for listening to my long-ass explanation; it feels good to actually explain my research to someone.”

“Your research? You did all this work yourself?” I ask in disbelief. “How many people did you poll?”

She leans back in her chair and crosses her hands over her stomach. “I think it’s almost four thousand now. Everyone gives up the info willingly when they reappear in the resort so they don’t have to worry about when they’re going to be called, if you’re worried I’m blackmailing it outta them. Believe it or not, nobody likes shitting the bed because they don’t know if they’re going to wake up somewhere different from where they fell asleep.”

I nod in agreement; that’s a feeling I know all too well. Even if it’s only in hindsight. “So how do you get summoned back? Does another post pop up, or does it just steal you away in the night?”

“Depends on when it happens. There’s usually a pillar that you have to swipe your Class Card through, and then you get a series of options. One; go right back without a fight. Two; pay some Worth and stay on Earth a little while longer. And three; delay your entry until someone else gets called back. But once you do the third option, both you and that person don’t get a choice to delay it again.”

“Who’d ever choose to stay on Earth? Especially if it means you’re losing Worth to do it.” I shake my head. “I’d go back there right now if I could. There’s still so much more to do and see that I barely dipped my toes in.”

“That we agree on.” Ursula says with a grin. “Noland and March, too. But it’s definitely not the common sentiment. Hell, just saying that near a member of the Preservation would set them the hell off.”

“Because they’re so obsessed with taking Earth back from the apocalypse.”

“Bingo.”

I’ve never really thought about it, but it makes perfect sense. Why would you put your life on the line for Earth if you’re just looking forward to the timer ticking down to put you back on the other world? Hell, that explains why they’d think someone like me is dangerous. I got back, killed a dragonjet, repurposed all the materials that were some company’s property, and ran the hell away.

Because they would’ve killed, imprisoned, or tortured me.

“How do they find new recruits, anyway?” I ask. “If they kill everyone with enough power to be a threat, then how do they end up with recruits?”

Ursula shakes her head. “They don’t kill everyone with power. Just people who won’t use that power for them. If you’d waited for them to show up and then helped them take down the dragonjet, they probably would’ve hired you on the spot. Maybe even promoted you a few times up the rung.”

“Yeah, after the dragonjet destroyed a city block and murdered a few stray civilians.” I chuckle humorlessly. “There was a woman in a crop-top hoodie in the street. She looked scared out of her mind, and if I wasn’t there, the dragonjet would’ve obliterated her. Hell, if I’d just run like I was planning to, it would’ve killed her. Maybe the preservation could try being on time if they don’t want someone taking their kills.”

“And that right there is the attitude they hate.” Ursula reaches for her bag of pretzels and pops it open with a grunt. “The ‘I can do it on my own’ competence. It scares the hell out of them, since they know what powerful individuals can do if they want something to happen. So yeah, you made the right choice. Not sure how you managed to do it with your clearance, but I’m not going to question it. I’ve seen weirder things.”

She holds out the bag to me with a raise of her eyebrow. I shake my head, and she shrugs before pulling the bag close to her chest. There’s no way I’m telling them the parts about Pearl’s or my influence helping out with the kill, but there’s no harm spinning the rest of the truth.

“Coinbound spells. And a lot of ‘em.” I say with a flourish of my fingers. A coin appears between them, its markings extremely familiar against my skin. “Someone said something about diminishing returns, right? How severe is it?”

“It’s a non-linear exponential decay. For your first few extra Worth, you get almost full value out of it. After three, you start seeing dropoffs. After five, you’re only getting a half Worth of extra value per Worth you put in. And it keeps dropping off after that.” Ursula explains. “Of course, that’s only for a spell that can be cast with one Worth. If it has a higher floor, just multiply those numbers by the lowest amount of Worth you can put in the spell.”

I open my Class Card and go to record that information. “That’s good info to have. If I have a spell that can have one or more Worth in it, where’s the sweet spot?”

“Ten.” Ursula says confidently. “The tenth Worth you put into it is worth a quarter, but the eleventh is only worth a tenth. And a twelfth is worth a twenty-fifth. So just multiply your lowest you can put in by ten and you’ve got your effective ceiling.”

More good info. Info I’m surprised the system hasn’t tried to censor from me. Maybe it’s because Ursula did all the research on her own. Or maybe it doesn’t see it as important enough to worry about. Eh, it’s my win, so I’ll take it without thinking too deeply. I quickly scribble 10x next to the other info and push my screen to the side.

I wonder how my skill interacts with that. Would it double the strength of a 10 Worth spell, or would it make it as strong as a twenty-Worth spell, diminishing returns and all? Does it matter if I put the spell in the coin before I double it, or does it all end up the same in the end?

Questions I’ve got a lot of time to answer. Way too much, if Ursula’s calculations are right.

“Four to six months.” I mutter to myself and lean back to stare at the ceiling. “And it’ll only get longer and longer the stronger I get. How do you stand all this waiting?”

She shrugs. “There are skills and system upgrades that mess with the equation. I’d recommend taking them if you ever see one. But for now, yeah, you just have to grin and bear it. Take in some sights, kill some apocalypse touched monsters, and work on your skills as best as you can. Oh, and if you decide you want to, you can join us on some jobs.”

“Not sure if I’ll ever want that, but thanks for the offer.”

“You’ll get bored. We all do.”

I don’t doubt that one bit. But there’s got to be a lot in the resort that I can busy myself with. There were some people on jet skis last night, a huge bonfire on the beach with a lot of music, and more than a few shops that looked pretty interesting. Just because I can’t progress any quests, doesn’t mean I’m going to get bored out of my skull.

“I’ve got more questions if you’re still in an answering mood.”

Ursula gestures for me to go ahead.

“Alright. Why’s the system sending us back here at all? It sent the apocalypse here and took a bunch of people at the same time. We couldn’t really fight back until the first generation came back, which was way longer than two weeks, if I’m not wrong.” I take a handful of gummy worms and shove them into my mouth. “So why does everyone else get sent for a few weeks? Why take a bunch of people for a longer time right when the apocalypse got here? And if it’s trying to protect us, why not drop coins here like a year before the apocalypse happened?”

“Damned if I know.” Ursula laughs. “Those are questions I’ve been asking since the day I saw my commanding officer put a coin in a pillar and disappear. Asshole left all of us to die. And I keep asking myself; how was that first batch of people chosen? Because it wasn’t the best. It wasn’t the smartest. And it sure as hell wasn’t the strongest. Which left me with one terrifying option; it was completely random.”

She leans in and pops the lid off her milkshake, then takes a big drink directly from the cup, completely ignoring the straw that tries to poke her in the eye. With a sigh of contentment, she sets the half-full glass back down and taps herself on the chest.

“Now add that randomness to everything else, and it starts to make sense. Horrible sense, but sense nonetheless. My leading theory is that the system didn’t choose Earth; the apocalypse did, and the system just trailed behind it like a vulture waiting for scraps. ‘Course, that doesn’t explain why we haven’t found a single trace of an apocalypse on the other world. Our best clue is whatever happened to the shellraisers, but they’re as much a myth as they are real things.”

I nod in agreement at her misunderstanding. “So you think the system is… what, a cosmic janitor for the mess the apocalypse leaves in its wake?”

“That’s one way of looking at it, yeah. Or you could look at it the other way around; the system brought coins and magic to Earth, and since we weren’t magical at all, it somehow caused the apocalypse. Then there’s the system savior theory, the cosmic bullshit theory, the prophecy theory, and a whole bunch more that you could easily find on the internet.”

“Wow. Seems like it’s pretty important.”

“You’re damn right it’s important. We’re putting our lives in the hands of something completely unknown–and only us Worth classes know how it can play favorites. Gil saw the first dregs of it and we’re dealing with full-blown hatred.” Ursula shakes her head and sighs in frustration. “We can’t try to guess what the system’s thinking since we don’t even know if it can think. It could be acting out some ancient programming, or it could be a sentient thing bound to a bunch of rules for some reason we can’t even start to imagine.”

She gestures at the screens. Countless lines of text begin to cascade from the top like a waterfall, flowing down to the bottom where they collect in a mass of digital waste. I can’t make much of anything out in the slew, but there’s definitely more than one language there.

“Truth is we don’t know shit. The system keeps all its secrets locked up tight, and uses Mind to keep us from learning anything it doesn’t want us to. It’s bullshit, but there’s nothing we can do about it except keep increasing our stats and hope that it eventually lets us learn the real secrets. All we know is that it does everything it does for a constant reason. A reason we haven’t cracked yet, but a reason nonetheless.”

Exhaustion and curiosity tint Ursula’s words. Both in almost equal parts, but for now, the curiosity slightly outdoes the exhaustion. Though with how frustrated she seems to be with her own lack of progress, that balance could easily shift in the blink of an eye. Which means it's time to change the subject.

“You… said there were jobs I could be part of. What kind of jobs?”

I grimace at my own poor choice of subject, but wash it from my face before Ursula can notice. Not a good look to say I don’t want to do something, then ask about it a few minutes later.

“Lots of stuff. Some shit the preservation won’t go within a hundred miles of, and some stuff that steps on their toes so much we’re basically dancing. Noland organizes most of that, so ask him about it later if you’re actually interested. Then there’s the whole ‘safe coin exchange’ thing we run, but that’s contingent on people actually selling coins. Which means people have to find coins, which means the system usually has to create a new batch.”

“Is that on a timer too?”

“Nope. No way to tell when it wants to do it; we just watch the webpage for people posting their coins, and when there's a bunch of them all at once, we know the system sent out a new batch. Last time was almost a year and a half ago now, so we’re overdue for one. Not that it means anything.”

“Well, if that happens, I’ve got something I want to try out.”

I mime flicking a coin into the air to get my point across. Ursula raises an eyebrow, but seems to understand what I’m getting at after a second. All the exhaustion leaves her in one breath until only curiosity remains.

“I’ll make sure we buy one of them for our own use. Just to see what happens.” She says with a small but insistent smile. “You’ve got to have a bunch more questions, but it’s getting close-ish to pizza time. Let’s put in an order, then we’ll see what we can do to get you better equipped to survive these next up-to-six months on Earth.”