The Daily Grind - Chapter 121 (Patreon)

This one is late, and I'm sorry to say I might have to skip next week's chapter, too.  Right now, there's smoke leaking into my apartment making me sick, fire bearing down preparing to make me charcoal, and a host of add-on personal issues.  Soooooo... I may take a week off.  We'll see how things shake out!  Though I've been enjoying keeping to something resembling a schedule, so I'll do my best to keep that good feeling going.

Anyway, here's this.

_____

“It occurs to me,” James said as he leveraged his way down the hall to the elevator, a crutch under one arm to help with the cast still wrapped around his foot and ankle, “that I am probably never going to have time in my life again for video games.”

It was a sad thought.  James was a gamer, or liked to think of himself that way.  For a long part of his life, his identity had been focused around that culture, for better or worse.  And to think that the thing that was half-day-job, half-higher-calling, was now taking up so much of his time that he wasn’t going to be able to keep that part of himself? Well, it was a weird feeling.  Like he’d slowly given something up without noticing.

That thought made him realize that, not counting the mild coma, it had been weeks, or months, since he’d gotten to sit down and play D&D with his friends.

They’d traded the time they spent bonding over dice and jokes for time spent nearly dying in sewers.  And for the first time, James wasn’t sure he actually *liked* this shift.

He also didn’t like being in charge.  He really needed, James decided, to find someone to take his place.  A successor of sorts.  And it wouldn’t be *that* hard, either; while he’d been down, the Order had organized itself into a much more well-oiled structure.

The logistics slack had been picked up by Karen, who was actually far, far more competent at it than anyone had expected.  Once the issue of available funds had been largely solved, and those the Order were sheltering were more or less resettled into normalesque lives, Karen had turned out to be a lot easier to work with, too.  James hadn’t had a chance to talk with her in the two days since waking up - he actually hadn’t talked to anyone except Anesh, Alanna, Deb, and Dave - but he’d sort of come to understand that a large part of her hostility had been the early assumption that he was just *kind of an irresponsible jackass*.  And while he wanted to take offense to that, and actually did take offense to the irresponsible part, James could all too easily see how his constant joking could come across as rude, or disrespectful.  The fact that he’d followed through on his oath to help everyone was worth a lot to someone like Karen, and once she’d stopped seeing him as… well, as a standard D&D adventurer, wandering around and causing two problems for every one he solved… she’d lightened up considerably.

In a similar way, Harvey had been doing more for their security side than ever before.  Not alone, though; Nate had offered a lot of tips of the trade, until the Order’s FBI contact had shown up and sort of tried to wedge his way into everything.  He was a guy named Randall, and while, according to Harvey, he was *helpful*, he was also kind of a twit.  He had trouble with things like the camracondas, or using powers for security things.

Hesitation.  James winced as he remembered the school.  So many people could have fought back, could have saved themselves.  But the average person wasn’t tempered for combat, and of the people who were exceptional in that regard, most of *them* weren’t prepared for dungeon combat.  He thought back farther, to the first time he’d been in Officium Mundi, the very first time he’d fought a strider.

Two puncture wounds, mild blood loss, panic, and a visceral resistance to using the amount of force needed to rip a living thing in half.  He’d hesitated, too.  If it’d been a shellaxy that’d tried to gnaw on his leg, he’d be dead.  So he couldn’t blame anyone, really.  It was just sad.

Security, though.  Their building now had cameras.  The buildings around them *also* had cameras, and James had been assured by his partners that the absolutely illegal hidden cameras were very well hidden.  The building itself also had a couple new armaments and security tricks in case they ever came under direct assault, and the whole Order had also been drilling in emergency response protocols while he’d been down.  James would need to catch up on those over the next few days; he didn’t want to be the one in the way if they had to deploy to a new dungeon, or some other crisis.

They’d also apparently acquired some new office space, too.  Actual office space, with room for expanding their support staff. Though Alanna had just told James that it was “a surprise” when he asked how they were supposed to keep that secure.

When he’d limped his way into the elevator, *finally* cleared to start moving around and having woken up to no one left to stop him, James got something akin to an answer.

“God dammit, we need to start labeling these things.”  He’d spoken to himself, glaring at the elevator panel where a new button was resting.  It was unmarked, of course, though the fact that it sat well above the button for the basements and the ground floor was pretty telling.  “Also, come on Alanna.  This isn’t a surprise, this is just ‘a normal Wednesday’ around here.  The biggest surprise is that I didn’t wake up to learn that we’ve got an underground bunker and a new radio tower now.”  James said to the empty elevator as he elbowed the button for the first floor, and waited for the doors to close.

He sighed and closed his eyes, leaning back on the wall.  Two months asleep, and he was exhausted.  One short walk down the hall had left his limbs feeling like jelly, and the only thing keeping him from going back to bed was the feeling that he really didn’t want anyone *telling* him he had to be in bed.

James was fueled by whatever was in that IV bag, and also by an internal reactor that ran on spite.  But a friendly kind of spite.  Whatever the joke version of spite was.

He was still trying to come up with a better emotion when the elevator door dinged open, and confetti exploded in a wave of color into the cab.

James had spent a whole heck of a lot of time over the last year getting into life or death fights.  More time still getting into life-or-casual-maiming fights, too.  Through the forge of battle, and also through actual intentional training, and maybe a little bit of magic, he had turned his reflexes into something that kept him alive, and more importantly, something he had under control.

So when the crowd of people yelled *surprise* and fired a confetti cannon into the elevator, James managed to keep his shock to something approximating a loud squawk.

As he stumbled forward on his crutch while the shredded paper fluttered to the ground, unused to having a broken limb holding him back, he was greeted by a small crowd, colorful streamers, and a hanging sign positioned perfectly to be seen by someone stepping out of the elevator.  Anesh and Alanna grinned at him from where they headed the group of delvers, smiles both amused at their own antics, and relieved that James was finally up.

“How the hell did you set this up so fast?”  James asked with barely contained amusement of his own.  He motioned a hand at the garbage can setup that had exploded confetti at him, and mostly at the sign overhead.  “Also, why does that sign say ‘happy birthday’?”  Then he glanced behind him a the elevator floor.  “One last question; who’s gonna clean that up? Cause…”  He looked down at his leg, then back up, with a raised eyebrow.

“First of all, don’t dampen our fun with things like ‘keeping the office not a mess’.”  Alanna rolled her eyes at him.

Anesh stepped forward and gave James an awkward hug, trying in vain to find a way around the crutch and arm cast.  “We’ve had this set up for a week.  And the sign is because it was the only one we could find; all the party stores are closed.”

“And also because you missed a birthday.”  Anesh reminded her.

“Oh shit, I did, didn’t I?”  James realized.  “Shit, I’m old now.  Old and crippled.”

“You’re not even thirty, you baby.”  A voice came to James’ ears through the amused rumblings of the assembled group.  People were starting to filter away, the surprise part over, but more than a few were sticking around to say hi.  And one of those was Sarah.  The few people left, including Alanna and Anesh, parted around her as she walked stiffly forward to greet James.  She was still wearing a neck brace, still obviously hurting, but she was also still smiling happily at him.  “Also I’ll clean up the confetti.  It was mostly my idea, even if I did get Tyrone and Daniel to build the cannon for me.”

“You absolutely will not!”  Anesh protested.  “I’m gonna go find a broom.”  He stalked off with purpose.

“See, the great thing about being broken,” Sarah said, smile not even slipping a little bit, “is that I can *make people do chores*, just by suggesting that I might try!”

“I’m gonna have to remember that trick.”  James said, smiling back at her, holding back small tears in the corners of his eyes.  “I’m glad you’re okay.”  He said, feebly.

“Thanks to you.”  Sarah, elbowed him.  “Alright, I’m gonna go sit down.  Go, talk to people, catch up.  You’ve been asleep a long time.”  She shooed him away.

“Talk to… whump.”  James let out a gasp of air as something settled onto his shoulders.

Secret had never really been heavy, exactly, no matter what his actual size was.  And that size was still kinda up for debate.  It was weird to have a companion who was literally open to interpretation, James thought.  But he wouldn’t have Secret any other way.  And as the ancient sea serpent form coiled up around his torso and rested his head on James’ shoulder, James reached up to pet the infomorph that was his close friend.

“I have missed you.”  Secret bluntly stated, several of the eyes along his form pivoting up to look at James with concern.  “There have been a number of new people, but none of them could replace you.”

“Damn!”  James exclaimed.  “There goes my plan of retirement!”  He grinned at Secret.  “I’m glad to see you too.  I hear you were all heroic and shit back at the school?”

Secret *snorted*, a noise James had never heard him make before.  “I was helpless.  I did what I could, and only wish it were enough.”

“Pretty sure we call that ‘life’, my dude.”  James admonished him.  “But I get it.  I don’t feel like I did enough either.”

“You saved everyone.”  Secret whispered.

“I saved Sarah.  Barely.  She did the hard work.”  James replied, equally quiet.  “And I didn’t… save everyone.”  He swallowed the lump in his throat.  “Alright, alright!”  James tried to wave down the conversations that were popping up around him. “Everyone calm down!  I need to sit down, and I’m absolutely *positive* you all have things you need to tell me!”  That got laughs, especially from Nate, who seemed to find it hilarious.  James didn’t wait for him to recover.  “So I’m gonna hit up my office, and ya’ll can just drop in over the course of the day, okay?”

“It’s six PM.”  Deb called over to him.  She was half leaning on the wall, half leaning on Frequency-Of-Sunlight, who was braced against the wall next to her.  James glanced at them, lingered for just a second as his brain processed the fact that they totally *did* look like they were dating, and then he glanced back out the front windows.

“Okay, well, the night then.  And probably tomorrow so…”

“Also that’s not your office.”  Momo chimed in, unhelpfully.  The grin on her face was, James realized, probably how he looked when he was having fun with people in this same way.

He sighed.  “Alright.”  He said.  Then he turned, still wearing Secret like a cloak, and hobbled back into the elevator.  With only brief hesitation at the thought that this might be a trap, he leaned forward and jabbed the new button for a floor that hadn’t existed when he’d gone into his long nap.  “I assume you all know where to find me!”  He called smugly through the closing doors.  “Which is good,” he confessed to Secret when the elevator sealed and it was just the two of them, “because I have no idea where they put my office.”

“It is a *secret*!” Secret said sagely, bobbing his head.  “I will show you.”

“Thanks, buddy.”  James leaned against the wall and sighed.

_____

James hobbled out of the elevator, and blinked against the evening sunlight.  The sun hung low in the sky over the horizon, and was in the perfect position to turn the exterior plate glass windows into gleaming panes of light, casting warmth and shadows in equal measure over the floor he’d stepped out onto.

Which was good, because without that, he may well have thought that he’d somehow stepped into Officium Mundi.  Or woken up from a dream to find that he was living in a nightmare.

Fortunately, his brain caught up to reality pretty quickly.  There were a few cubicles here, but only two rows of them, in a nice, normal configuration.  Six desks with comfy looking padded chairs, topped with normal computers that weren’t trying to kill anyone.  There was a wide open space over to the right that probably took up most of the floor space, with a couple of big smooth tables in the middle of it, and more comfortable chairs lining them.  A few people had left backpacks or water bottles around it, and the whole thing reminded James more of a study group than an office space.  The clock on the wall wasn’t a memetic threat, the water cooler wasn’t going to explode, the vending machine…

Okay, the vending machine looked *incredibly* suspicious.  The bucket of three dollar bills taped to the side also confirmed James’ suspicion that it’d been wheeled in from outside.  Same with the potted plant that felt like it was eying him with suspicion.

“Hey Ferndidnan.”  James greeted it.  “Good to see you got out of that.  How’s it shaking?”  The potted plant didn’t reply except to rustle a little at him.  “Good, good.”  James turned away, and walked over to the window, pressing a hand up to shade against the glare so he could look out.

A city greeted him down below.  Purple and gold sunset light on the horizon holding sway over a skyline of towers and skyscrapers.  The light glittered off a thousand windows, showing off the cityscape below from a height James hadn’t been expecting.  Networks of roads and stretches of highway overpasses strangely empty of cars during what should have been rush hour stared up at him.

“What the hell?”  He muttered.  “Where is this?”

“Los Angeles.”  Secret told him from his shoulder, enjoying the sight of the city himself.

“Where *is* everyone?  Why’s it look so… quiet?”

Secret rippled.  “I am given to understand that most people are staying home, in an effort to curb a disease.”  He said.

“Ah.  Fuck.  Wow, that looks surreal.”  James said, lingering for a second to watch the sunset.  When he turned back to the office, he sighed.  “So, which cubicle did I end up with?”

“That one.”  Secret gestured with his snout, down to the end of the floor.  There was a short hallway at the end, with signs up that pointed toward the emergency exit stairs, and the bathrooms, but before that there were a few more doors.  Around the outside of the building were a handful of actual offices.  James wandered over and took a look at the first one, and was only mildly surprised to see it had a name plate for Karen by the door.  Logistics and Accounting.

James moved on, passing Harvey’s office, and a couple other empty ones, before coming to the end of the hall.

“You guys gave me a literal corner office?”  He asked, bemused.

“It has a lovely view.”  Secret told him, confident.

James shook his head with a grin as he pushed the door open and walked in.  His desk was here; the one he’d salvaged from a Goodwill and been using in the cramped front office of the Lair.  In fact, all his furniture was here.  Except for that one beaten up IKEA bookcase; that’d been replaced by something that looked a lot more elegant and a lot less like something that he’d ever actually pony up the cash to buy.  Of course, money just kind of… wasn’t much of a problem anymore.  Between their skills and casual looting of cash and valuables from the dungeon, they had a real actual goddamn pile of cash on their hands that James never really expected.  He still wasn’t quite used to being free from the spectre of poverty.

His office *also* had a potted plant, though this one was some kind of standing vine thing against in the corner where the two windows met, and it was either not alive, or doing a great job of faking it.  It made the whole place feel a lot more comfortable and alive.  Same with someone having upgraded his chair, and he gave that person a thankful mental nod as he sank into the seat.

There was a cup of coffee on his desk, and it looked like it was still hot.  There was also a bottle of ibuprofen, which he looked at suspiciously.  This seemed like the kind of loving support that his partners were fans of, which James still didn’t actually know how to react to.

Behind him, the elevator dinged, and he spun around awkwardly, expecting… well, nothing.  He didn’t know what to expect.  But he sure as hell probably wasn’t supposed to be here, if someone from whatever building he was in happened to stumble onto this floor.  But.. wait, maybe he was supposed to be here?  This was *their office*.  This was clearly a tower building; the Order didn’t *buy* it, unless JP had gotten a lot bolder with his cons and finance crimes.  What exactly did the building’s guide have them listed as?  Monster hunters?  Meme… people?

James felt a headache coming on.

Fortunately, when the elevator did open, it was Anesh who came walking out of it.  He took a glance out the window, but moved past it like someone who’d already taken the time to stare out at that particular sight.

“What do you think?”  He asked.

James looked around again.  At the smooth lines and fresh paint, the space of a modern business doing modern business things.

“I kinda hate it?  But also my office looks neat.”

Anesh made a fart noise with his mouth, and rolled his eyes at James.  “We’ll get rid of the cubicle walls.  They’re just there to pin stuff on anyway.”  He looked over James’ shoulder.  “You like the office?”

“I like the office.”  He said, and noted the pleased look on Anesh’s face.  “How the hell did we get this place, anyway?”  James asked, turning to lead Anesh back to the… *his*... desk, and the chair waiting for him there.

“Ah, so.”  Anesh started the sentence in a way that made James sure this was going to be amusing.  “We had, briefly, a blue power for ‘Remove Entrance’.”

“I remember that.  Reed demolished half of a building.  It was metal as fuck.”

Anesh rolled his eyes.  “Exaggeration, but sure.  Anyway.  So, a lot of businesses are having a hard time right now, and a lot of smaller startups have just outright closed.  JP got this place off a group that was making an app for dog play groups…”

“That sounds suspicious.”

“Shut up and let me finish.  We bought their lease off them to help them recoup their losses, and then set it up the way we liked it.”  Anesh cocked his arms out, hands on his hips as he gave a satisfied look at the workspace around them.  “Nice and millennial!”  He declared.

James waited a second, but then felt like he had to prompt the next part.  “Anesh… why does the elevator go here?”

“Oh!  Right!  So, Momo’s kinda been burning through blues lately, looking for something of long term value and mostly getting stuff like Condense Hydrogen.  But at one point, she got one labeled Transfer Control, which she promptly rolled her eyes at and started trying to clear out so she could slot a new one.”  Anesh sighed as James gave him an open palmed *why* expression.  “I know.  I know.  Anyway, we caught her with the last dozen charges, and started experimenting.  Turns out, you can transfer not just the controls, but the entire apparatus of something, from one physical point to another.  So, we had her move the ‘control’ for the elevator to get to this floor over to our elevator.”

“Holy shit that’s a long range.”

Anesh grinned. “Actually no!”  He said cheerfully.  “We had to fly her down here, and then back up while holding focus on it the whole way.  Twice!  Because she lost focus the first time and it snapped back!  Momo hated the experience and refuses to use the elevator now because, as she claims, ‘it knows what it did’.”

“Kay.  So, what about the stairs?”  James asked.

“The stairs are stairs, James.  Do you want us to remove the door there, too?  We can.  Though we’re mostly just keeping it locked.”

James glanced at the door to the stairwell.  “I’ll be honest, I was expecting it to be magically an extra Office dungeon entrance.  Also I kind of assumed that we were going for security through lack of doors?  Fuck, I have so many things that should be questions about the elevator, but I kinda feel like I inexplicably understand exactly how it works and it’s very frustrating.”

“Fire escape paths are important James.”  Anesh scolded him.  “Anyway.  Hi.  Welcome back.  How do you like it?”

Looking around, James felt a little left out.  Like he hadn’t been involved in putting this place together at all.  But then… he also hadn’t had to move furniture.  And this was proof of concept that the Order could operate without him around all the time.  Also the view was *amazing*.  So when he spoke, instead of voicing any of his concerns, he just said, “I love it.”  And really, he wasn’t lying.  It was quite tempting to just go watch the city and the sunset for a while.  But it was *also* tempting to plod into his new office, slump into his chair, and open the bottle of painkillers.

Which he did.

Anesh followed him in, and settled into the chair on the other side of the desk with a satisfied noise.  Whoever had been put in charge of furniture had used the budget pretty damn well.  

“So, I’ve got a few things I want to get you caught up on, and then I’m positive there’s other people who want to talk to you.”  Anesh said as James settled in, poking at some of the papers sorted neatly on his desk’s surface.  “Don’t bother with those, they’re mostly gonna be lists of things.  I can get you up to speed faster.”

“Alright, hit me.”  James nodded at his boyfriend.

“Okay.”  Anesh took a deep breath, and checked his own notes.  “So, first off, orbs.  Still not sure what the trigger is, whether it’s time in the Office or candy bars eaten, or whatever, but long term delvers are all consistently manifesting the ability to absorb more and more orbs of different colors.  There’s also absolutely something about mindset in there, too, because Dave’s growth in that regard has stalled, even though he started out with more ‘slots’, and some people, like Alex, now have four goddamn blues at a time.”

James hummed appreciatively. “That’s kinda awesome.  The powers from those are always the most unbalanced bullshit.”

“No kidding.”  Anesh agreed with a nod.  “And sometimes they combo.  The biggest limiters is the fact that they *really* do take a toll on the person using them, in some abstract way, and also their limited charges.”

Wistfully, James propped his chin on the back of his hand, elbow leaned on the desk.  “If we had a way to recharge…”

“So, we have a way to recharge.”  Anesh cut in.  “And that ties into the next thing I need to brief you on.  We’ve sorted the loot from Status Quo, and we’ve got a list.”  James didn’t even say anything, just perked up and raised his eyebrows, a clear motion for Anesh to continue.  “Okay.  Bracelet.  You know this one; binds to a gun, burst fire, reload.”  Anesh rapidly rattled off the abilities of the item.  “Here’s the thing; we found about a dozen of them in the… basement… trove, that didn’t have the reload ability.  And from what we can decode of their notes... “  He took a deep breath.  “You’ll hate this.  From what we can figure out, the items were made from life force.  And the more ‘powerful’ the life, the better the item.  So, the bracelets that we’ve found are… eh.  They’re not great?  The abilities are all at lower levels, the cooldown on binding is almost *a year*, and the lack of the reload is pretty big.”

“I am thoroughly disgusted.”  James flatly stated.

“Yeah.”  Anesh agreed.  “Anyway.  All the bracelets the agents had had the reload, which means… well, the sad obvious truth.  They were using delvers to make stuff, and the stuff that was from baseline humans they just piled up in the basement like scrap.”

“Ugggggh.”  James headbutted his desk.  “I regret not shooting more people, now.”

“Really?”

“No.  Not really.  I regret having to shoot anyone at all.  But for fuck’s sake, that’s monstrous.”  He sighed.  “What other blood magic did we get off them?”

“Okay.  Bracers.  Mostly what we know; change what it shields against, and shield.  The shield cooldown drops logarithmically, by the way, which means that as the levels go up, it becomes… let’s say ‘bloody frightening’’ and you can fill in what that means yourself.  But we did get one off the director that has a third mode, which doesn’t have a cooldown.  It actually charges off of the shield itself, and then breaks weapons that were used to charge it.  That one’s kinda cool, and also horrifying, because as near as we can tell, it counts things like ‘fists’ as a weapon?”

“Please tell me you didn’t vaporize anyone’s fists.”

“No, not yet.”  Anesh said, like the ‘yet’ wasn’t the most worrying word so far.  “Anyway.  Greave, which is *not a boot*, you should know!”  He looked like he’d had a non-zero number of arguments about this so far.  “First power is pseudo-passive, and enables very precise footwork.  Again, like with the others, the only thing that seems to scale with its level is how fast the charge cooldown goes.  Second power is an active kick.  It’s the same kick every time, but while you’re executing it, your leg can’t break, and hits with four times the force of the strongest kick you could make.  That force, by the way, doesn’t come from anywhere.  These things really hate physics.”

“I’m with them there.  Physics was never my strong subject.”  James snorted.  “It’s all just math, but without round numbers.”

“That’s… objectively untrue, but I’m not going to fight you on it.  Moving on!  Earring.  Invisibility on massive cooldown, sneak attack on a slightly lower one.  Glove, left handed, we’ve found them with up to four modes, and this is where we learned that *some* things will unlock new powers when you level up the previous ones enough.  Each power is just a strike that’s strengthened against a certain material type.  And I mean strengthened in the “your fists *can* melt steel beams” kind of way.”

James held out his good hand.  “Give me the glove.”

“Wrong hand, love.”

“Dammit!”  James snapped his fingers in frustration.  “Okay, soon!  What else do we have?”

“A handful of one-power things, none of which really stand out, though they have powers that are… more utilitarian?  There’s a hair clip that has a ‘complete paperwork’ ability that Karen is in the process of powerleveling.  Also a brooch with ‘purify food’ that Knife-In-Fangs is doing the same with.  Status Quo clearly didn’t focus on those as much as the combat ones, which is… expected, and also awful.”

“I feel like we made a mistake not killing all of them.”  James reiterated.

Anesh bit his lip as he replied.  “Yeah, Randall - the FBI contact - said largely the same thing.  He’s going to want some time from you today to berate you for not taking prisoners as ‘intelligence assets’.”

“Where in the hell would we put prisoners?  The basement?  The closest thing we have to a prison is currently housing a giant invisible god-cat.”  James almost, *almost*, slapped his desk in annoyance.  Stopping at the last second before the still-damaged hand impacted the surface.  “Wait, we still have the cat, right?”

Anesh nodded.  “We do.”  He said.  “Oh!  Right!  One of those one-ability-low-level items has something that is, for real, labeled as Inner Spirit Reignition.  And it works on blue orbs!  In fact, it works almost exclusively on blue orbs.  In addition to providing what feels like a very energetic mental boost; kind of like drinking eight shots of espresso at once.  Anyway, it ticks up slotted blue orbs by one or two charges every time it’s used.  It’s not… a lot?  And the cooldown is monstrous.  But it’s there.”

“I’ve had that much espresso before.  The coffee shop calls that drink the Black Hole.”

“Ugh.  Americans.”  Anesh rolled his eyes.

“Oh, come on!  That can’t just be us!  I’m sure plenty of places have gross coffee drinks too!”  James protested.  “Alright.  So, magic items are good.  What else do I need to know?”

“Um… we found three more books in the aftermath of the school showdown.  Still didn’t want to double up on anyone, just in case, so Alex, Simon, and Tyrone now have lessons for math, writing, and social studies, which they’re working through.  Sarah leveled her’s up - Deb and Frequency-Of-Sunlight are *absolutely* dating by the way - and chose Health as her reward.  Uh… what else…”  Anesh looked down at his notes.  “We’re building a language pack of orbs, since we might need to operate globally now.  Oh, the duplication ritual doesn’t work without the projector, by the way.  Momo wanted me to tell you we tested that; the projector is the ‘focus’, and all the ritual things need one.  She hasn’t been able to make any others, though.  It looks like the lock was a happy accident.”

“Damn, I liked that thing.”  James muttered.  “Even if I did have to let Nate smoke in my car to make it work.”

“Honestly, that’s pretty much it.”  Anesh said with a shrug.  He looked up at James, and gave a sad little frown.  “We’re… still looking for our families.  Alanna and I have been using that iLipede that maps social networks, and it’s just… it’s like a whole swath has just been carved out.  You can see the edges pretty easily, if you look.  I think those people would remember us, honestly, it’s just something more abstract.  Like the connection itself is what was attacked.”  He sighed, shrugged again.  “I wish I had better news.  It’s been…. It’s been almost three months and I don’t even know if my parents are alive.  Or yours.  And I’m sorry.”  He finished, feeling lame for not having a good answer.

James met his boyfriend’s eyes, leaning across the desk with his good hand extended in a beckoning gesture.  Anesh took his hand, holding tightly while still not quite fully meeting James’ gaze.  “Hey.”  James told him.  “It’s okay.  I mean, it’s obviously not.  But you only need to worry about you; I can live without my family, okay?  Don’t pile everything on yourself.”

“Like you do?”

“Like I do.”  James nodded sagely.  “It’s stupid and awful, don’t do it.”

“Not to… be an overbearing partner, but…”

“No, I don’t plan to take that advice.”

Anesh nodded.  “Gotchya.”  He said.  “Okay.  Secret?  Bite him every time he says anything like that.”

“I shall be effective operant conditioning.”  Secret crept up the back of the chair to pointedly stare at James with a dozen eyes, his voice somehow more menacing than normal for something that didn’t actually fit into the space it occupied.

James raised his arms over his head in a gesture of surrender.  “I’ll be good!”  He lied.

“Sounds like I walked in on bullshit.”  Alanna’s voice came into the room as she strolled through the door.  She’d cut her hair short, and despite her energy, had tired dark circles under reddened eyes.  “Catching him up?”  She pointed the question at Anesh, who flashed her a thumbs up.  “Well, I brought you a friend.”  Alanna stepped in, leaning up against the 

“Jaaaaaames!”  Sarah clearly wanted to burst into the room like some kind of human-shaped whirlwind.  She did not get to do that.  Instead, her entrance was much slower and more deliberate.  Mostly because of the brace wrapped around her neck.  “James!  You’re alive!  I knew it!”

James raised his eyebrows at her as she came in, taking the seat that Alanna had left vacant with an almost delicate motion.  “I refuse to believe you didn’t visit me at least once while I was down.”  He said.  “You must have known I was live.  Or is that what you meant?”

“Yeah.  Once I got sent home from the hospital, I used the extra sleep hours at the apartment to recharge, and dumped those into you.  Also Alanna told me you weren’t dead because she’s cool like that.”  Sarah confirmed.

“*Anyone* would be cool like that.  Who just forgets to tell someone that their friend is alive?”  Anesh demanded, shocked.  Then a thoughtful look crossed his face.  “Wait, no, I just realized how our lives are.  Nevermind.”

“Yeah, actually, about that.”  James interjected.  “You’re telling me a lot about the stuff we’ve gotten…”

“Oh!  The program emeralds!  We’ve been using those too!”  Anesh cut him off, before shutting up with a guilty look.  “Sorry, right.  You just reminded me”

“...but not about what’s *going on*.  We’re working with the FBI now?  And have there been any other crisis?”  He asked, mildly worried to hear the answers.  “For the last month… subjective time… there were nonstop problems.  Police, school dungeon, Status Quo, probably something else I’m forgetting?  Don’t tell me that it just went… quiet… while I slept.”

Alanna winced, and looked away.  “Well, we had a few...  um… small things?”

“Secret.”  James said in a dry voice.  “I’m gonna need you to bite Alanna’s toes every time she lies.”

“I shall endeavor…”

Alanna sputtered and shushed Secret, waving her hands wildly at the serpent.  “Shaddup!  And look, they weren’t that important, or dungeon-y, at all!  There was a small building fire, that we teleported a person out of.  There was a bar fight that got out of hand that we may have intervened in.  And there was a secretive plot for someone to make several million dollars off an investment fraud thing where we stopped multiple assassination attempts and may have brought ourselves to the attention of the…”

“No, stop!”  James held up his good hand. “Was that last one JP?  Was JP the villain?”

“Surprisingly, no!  Though he did turn us onto it.  Did you know he got two more ranks in different stock market related skills?  He’s… becoming a problem.”  Alanna gave a wide, wary smile, full of teeth and guilt.

“Becoming?”  Anesh muttered into his hand.

“Be nice.”  Sarah admonished him.  “But yes, we’ve had some adventures while you’ve been sleeping.  Well, they have.  I’m still…”  She trailed off.  “And yeah, we’re working with the FBI for now.  Or more like, they acknowledge we exist, make legal troubles go away, and somehow can’t wrap their heads around magic?  I don’t really understand.  Research is running experiments on Randall, and it’s *hilarious*.”

Anesh cut in.  “Also Alanna keeps fighting the police, even though they aren’t interested in us!”  He burst out.

“Anesh!”  Alanna scowled at him from her spot on the wall.

“What?!  He asked about problems, and you left out the big one!”

James took a deep breath.  “What.”  He asked, politely.  “Is the big problem?  Wait, no.  Is this some kind of revenge thing because those cops shot at us?  We can let that go.  I’m still mad, but we don’t need to fight all of the police yet.”  He gave Alanna a desperate look.  “Do we?  Please don’t tell me we’re starting another war.”

“We are not starting another war.”  She comforted him.

“Don’t think I didn’t hear the emphasis in that sentence.”  James pointed at her with a frown.

“There have been some protests.”  Anesh filled him in.  “A lot of protests.  Everywhere.  Turns out you’re not the only one who doesn’t like the way the police are operating.”

“I’m shocked.”  James deadpanned.  “What are we doing about it?  The Order, that is.”

“Nothing, so far.”  Alanna pushed herself off the wall and started pacing.  “Some people are participating.  The shield bracers are helpful frontline tools when they start shooting at the protestors, and Momo has a ‘remove vapor’ blue right now that works on the gas, so that’s cool.  We’ve mostly just been running defense, and keeping people safe while hoping the protests pressure large scale change.”

“*I’m sorry fucking what?!*”  James snapped out, eyes wide, an unconscious snarl on his face.  “Whatting at protestors?  Works on the what?”

“Shooting.  Gas.”  Sarah’s voice was quiet, and far darker than normal.  “It’s not… things are getting worse, James.”  She told him, sad eyes staring at him.

“And we’re working with the FBI, even while this is happening?”  James demanded an answer.  “Who’s side are we on, anyway?”  He was getting angry now, and feeling the limited energy he’d woken up with starting to rapidly drain away.  “Also, what the fuck happened to Madden?”  He demanded.  “I can understand that other cops being twitchy, but he was *insane*.”

“I think he just couldn’t handle it.”  Anesh sighed.  “You told me you were..flippant with him?”

“I was a little cryptic.”  James admitted.  “Because when I tried to tell him stuff, he… well, he was weird.  He kinda acknowledged that Secret was there, but he wouldn’t *accept* it.  So I tried to nudge him toward answers.  And I may have been a bit of an ass about it.”

“Yeah, well.”  Alanna looked a little annoyed.  “Normally your wiseass routine is cute, but this time, it may have been a bad idea.”

Anesh nodded, glancing at Secret as he spoke.  “To be clear, I don’t think you’re the bad guy here.  He… well, he looked into the abyss, and he flinched.”

“And then chose to shoot at me.”

“And then, yes, that.”  Alanna agreed.  “He *chose*.  He’s wrong.  But there’s a degree of responsibility to take, too.  You didn’t exactly make a strong case for him to join our side, did you?”

James didn’t have much of an argument there.  “I suppose not.”  He admitted.  “That said.  What… what is our side?”

The others in the room looked at each other, and back to him.  There was a heavy moment of quiet.  The truth was, none of them really felt like they knew what side they were on.  Other than each other’s, that is.

James took some time to think, while his friends did the same.

The Order didn’t have a stated goal.  Not really.  They had ethics guidelines, operational procedures, and a mission statement.  But they didn’t actually have actionable objectives.  Things that they could point to and say “alright, let’s tackle this problem.”  They responded to disasters, both arcane and mundane, and they saved people.  The saving people was how they’d gotten into this organizational mess in the first place, really.  But it wasn’t exactly a *goal*, was it?  What, after all, was the point of saving someone’s life, if you were just going to drop them back into the normal world where they couldn’t pay rent, couldn’t give their kids a good life, might die to a random plague, and also the police.

No, they needed something to reach for.  And again, his thoughts wandered back to his vague fantasy.  An arcology.  A designed society, a proof of concept for something bigger, though, maybe?  Or, alternately, just a refuge for the people who needed it.  But increasingly, it was looking like ‘the people who needed it’ was ‘the population of Earth’.  And systemic change wasn’t really something that they, a group of about thirty level two wizards, were capable of on a large scale.

So what?  Work with a world power?  Sell their services as unorthodox agents to global intelligence agencies?  Buy a small island and start their own nation?

Actually, that last one was basically just the arcology plan, but smaller.

And none of it actually answered the question of who’s side they were on.

Were they pulling for the country?  Not just the American government, but the culture, the nation itself?  James sure as hell didn’t feel like it.  And Anesh certainly didn’t have any motivation for patriotism; for this or his own home.  Technically, they could all become Canadian citizens at the drop of a hat, but that didn’t *solve* anything.

Most of all, he didn’t want to side with the FBI.  He didn’t want them to ever be anything like Status Quo.

“Is it,” James asked into the quiet office while the last rays of sunset dipped away through the corner window behind him, “too cliche to say that we’re on our own side?”

“How much do you like Neil Gaiman?”  Sarah asked quietly, staring out the window, the words coming a little too casually.

That one didn’t take much thought from James.  “Oh, like, a lot.”  He replied easy.

“Little cliche.”  Sarah informed him.  “Is this gonna be about the arcology thing again?”

“I think it is.”  James said.  “We need… we need to do something different.  We need to be thinking bigger, *doing* bigger.  We went from explorers, to survivors, to… protectors?  And we’re still down at ground level, staring up at blades of grass and thinking that some day maybe we can climb them.  No, we should be more.  We should be bold, and stupid.  Nothing is ever going to get done with us sitting on our asses.”  He glanced at Alanna.  “You told me once, when we started, that the only true evil was to have power and refuse to *try*.”

“I did.”  She mumbled.  “I did.”  Alanna repeated louder.  “And I still believe that.”  She straightened her shoulders, nodding at him with a sharp motion.

James bobbed his head back.  “Okay.”  He said.  “We, not just us, but the whole Order, need three things.”  Everyone watched him with attention, even Secret.  James ticked off on his fingers.  “We need a goal to reach for, even if it’s an insane one.  We need the power to achieve that goal.  And we need to stop waiting around to have that power, and start actively seeking it out when we need to fix specific problems.  We need to stop being *afraid* of what we can, or will be able, to do.”

“Are we afraid?”  Sarah asked.

“I am.”  James admitted, frankly.  “Sarah, I… I can kill people with my hands.  Or with magic.  Or with a gun.  Hell, even without having some kind of absurdly dangerous blue orb slotted, I’m already an action movie protagonist.  *Most of us are*.  Did no one else notice that the primary foot soldiers of an entire dungeon were *cannon fodder* to us?”  No one had an answer to that.  They’d noticed.  They knew.  “So let’s build something.  Fuck secrecy, and fuck nations.  Fuck sides.  Let’s build a goddamn world, on our values, our ethics.  And let’s build it sideways enough that no one can bomb us out of existence for challenging them.”

Alanna ran a hand through her hair.  “Man, I…  I wanna be with you.  But that’s…big.  Where do we even start?”

“We start by declaring it.”  James said.  “Then we allocate resources to it.  Take Research off the leash, let them start fucking around with orange orbs.  Step up our dungeon explorations.  Step up our search for new dungeons.  New magic, too.  Recruit.  Find the people that *want* this, and bring them in.  Then find the people that need this, and give them the support they need to survive until they can join us and help build a utopia.”  He took a deep breath.  But he didn’t falter.  Didn’t slow down.  “It’s time we stopped pretending that we’re not here to make an impact.”  He told them.

“What about the woman from the Akashic Sewer?  Or other groups like Status Quo?  You know there *have* to be more.  Status Quo thought that there were only a handful of dungeons, all up here.”  Alanna pointed out to him.

“Yeah.”  Sarah confirmed.  “They had bad intel.  Or were just lying.  What happens when they notice us?”

“They get out of the way.”  James said quietly.  “I don’t want to be a monster.  But if they’re like Status Quo…”  He trailed off and let the implication do the talking.

No one said anything, except to nod.  They knew.  It wasn’t a preemptive strike if your opponent threw the first punch fifty years ago, and never stopped punching since.

“And the… woman thing?”  Anesh asked.

James pushed himself to his feet, and turned to face the darkened windows and the glimmering lights of the LA city skyline.  “I think she’s like us.”  He said.  “I think she’s a delver, who’s been doing this for a long, *long* time.”  James glanced over his shoulder.  “And I think that, no matter what, she’s our enemy.  Not just an obstacle, or an opponent.  She is… fuck, man.  I’m friends with a stapler, Dave’s now some kind life-partner thing with a dragon, and my adopted son is ten miles long and fits in my office somehow.  But *her*?”  He shook his head, an angry frown on his lips.  “She’s a monster.  And we go in with that in mind.”

They stood up, then.  Anesh helping Sarah to her feet, and Alanna stepping forward. All of them looked at him, at each other.  There was something in their eyes that hadn’t been there before.

“You know?”  Sarah asked him.  “There’s a reason you’re the leader.  There’s a reason you’re good at it.”

There wasn’t much more to say, even though there were more words that would be needed in the near future.  His friends left, after extracting a promise from James to go home and go to bed before too long.  In his *actual bed* this time, too.  And he did intend to follow through on that, after he’d gone through some of the reports that had been left for him.  And after one more thing.

James waited for the elevator to shut behind them, as they rode it down twenty floors and north about a thousand miles.  He really did spend some time reading up on what had been going on.  The infomorph project was being redrawn, that was nice.  And their supply of blues was low.  No surprise there.  He made notes on short term tactical objectives.  Sent a couple emails.  Set up a notice with his bank that he’d sometimes be using his debit card from LA so he didn’t get dinged by the anti-fraud software.

After half an hour, he got up and went to the elevator himself, and hit the button for one of the basements.

The ride down didn’t seem to be as long as he would have liked to compose his thoughts.  And before he knew it, he was limping out into the hallway that led past Research, and toward the vault.

He passed through the lit domed space in front of the elevator where a pair of camracondas and one human kept watch.  There was supposed to be a security check here, but no one stopped him.  They just saluted when he walked by, doing his best to move with purpose, no matter how the knotted feeling in his heart got worse as he walked.

There were a couple of people in the Research area, too.  Though it was quieter than it should have been; the pen of shellaxies were quieter than James remembered; a couple of them were standing at the edge of the pen near where Virgil’s desk had been, like they were waiting for him to come back.  James tore his eyes away, and moved toward the vault itself, trying to ignore the hidden gazes from the programmers down here working on skulljack modifications.

The vault door was locked, as it should be.  James punched in his code and fingerprint, and was relieved to see it was still valid.

The door hissed as it opened, and he stepped inside.  The camraconda priestess had moved her temple to a more suitable space at some point while he’d been out, but there was still something of spiritual significance to him here.  Something he needed to see.

Against the right hand wall, there was a secure cabinet. The kind that stores used to keep electronics locked away, but still visible.  It wasn’t actually locked, but that didn’t make the two objects contained on its shelves any less valuable.  Any less devastating.

Two things.  Two orbs.  One a flickering emerald green, the other a blazing red.

“Cold-Wind-Friction.”  Read the small engraved metal plate under the first.  “Virgil Thomasi.”  Read the other.

James couldn’t stop the burst of sobs from somewhere in his chest.  Somehow, it hadn’t really felt real until right now.

He’d failed them.  He’d let them down.  Let them *die*.  They’d fought for him, because he’d asked.  Because they’d trusted him.  And he hadn’t been fast enough, or smart enough, or good enough, to save them.

It wasn’t clear how long he stood there, one arm leaned against the cabinet, slumped forward onto the glass.  But it wasn’t forever.

Eventually, the tears dried.  The pain retreated, even if it didn’t fade away forever.  James straightened up, wiped his eyes, and steadied himself.

“I’m sorry.”  He whispered.  It wasn’t enough.  He knew that.  It never would be enough.  But standing here forever wasn’t going to change anything either.  “Responsibility, yeah?”  He said to himself, and to what remained of his people in front of him.  “Okay.  I can handle that.”  James sighed.  Maybe that was a lie too.  Maybe he was just setting himself up to be crushed by the weight.

But he was going to try.

Two and a half months of sleep.  Time to get back to work, he decided.