The Daily Grind - Chapter 137 (Patreon)

Long chapter this week.  Short chapter next week, so my fingers can recover!

_____

“Okay friends.  Let’s do this.  Let’s kill god.”  -Wyatt Mason, Blaseball-

The second deployment went about as smoothly as the first.  There shouldn’t have needed to be a third, but just as James and Anesh were returning for the second time, Dave’s group had teleported almost directly on top of a group of paper pushers, and needed help.

So James and Anesh, drained and sore, had slammed back the offered cups of reflex coffee, fired off a fresh telepad, and tipped a fight in the Order’s favor.  This had happened in the loading bay of a grocery store.  There had been mild collateral damage, in the form of a gutted semi truck engine, and the slippery loss of sixty very large bottles of extra virgin olive oil.

When they’d teleported back, they’d found a place to slump against the wall together, sitting on the floor of the dining area in a post-adrenaline blur.  Holding hands, and discussing how they should get a shower installed in the Lair somewhere.  Meanwhile, Dave and Ann were getting bandaged up from where they’d been either dragged across asphalt, or cut with the shards of several very large bottles of extra virgin olive oil.  Which, James was given to understand, was not a sterile substance.

“You know, people are gonna want us to go into Officium Mundi tomorrow.”  James muttered, rolling his head to the side to face Anesh as the two of them let their heart rates come down.  They were, he noticed, being watched.  By a half dozen people eating lunch here, most of them new hires.

“Pass.”  Anesh said.  “My legs hurt.”

“You did get grabbed by one of them.”  James pointed out, glancing down as Anesh stiffly rolled up a pant leg to reveal a roughly handprint-shaped bruise covering his calf.  “Ouch.  Um… I don’t have an easy fix for that.”

Anesh slumped back again, not bothering to readjust his slacks.  “Is it weird that we don’t have a lot of RPG staples in our lives?”

“Is this gonna be about the bag of holding thing again?”  James inquired, tired, but getting invested in the conversation.

A hand flopped against his coat as Anesh halfheartedly tried to knock him over. “Yes.  But no.  We have the wallet now.  But kind of?  Think of all the things that you’d expect to find in a dungeon.  How many do we actually have?”

“Well, we haven’t fought a slime, yet…” James started.

Anesh groaned.  “Oh, bollocks.  Can you imagine a slime made of printer ink?”

James matched the noise, thumping his head lightly on the wall.  “Yes.  Great.  Cool.  I’m sure that’s a thing we’ll see shortly.  Anyway.  Um… health potions? Treasure chests, I guess.  Do the briefcases count?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, so, we’re mostly talking about storage space and magical healing, huh?”  James inquired.

“Mostly.  Also no rings of protection or immovable rods.”

“Oh my god I didn’t even think about how much I want an immovable rod.”  James gushed. “Oh, we could just *ruin* someone in a high speed chase!”

“How often do we get in high speed chases?”  Anesh asked, less concerned than he was bemused.

James wondered how he’d ever started dating someone with so little lust for the finer things in life.  “Never.”  He told Anesh.  “Because we don’t own any immovable rods.  Obviously.”

Anesh rolled his eyes, but didn’t say anything.  Instead, he started rifling through James’ coat pockets before pulling out one of the green orbs.  “So, what do we do with these?  Use them now?”  He asked.

“Hell no.  You finally got all those fancy boxes set up for the copier; we spend tomorrow running off duplicates of all of these, and then we figure out which ones get us one step closer to a utopia.  And then we make a lot more.”

“Do you ever miss the days when we didn’t have to be responsible?”  Anesh asked.

“Nah.”  James said.  “I used to.  I used to worry a lot that life wasn’t fun anymore.  But, like, dude.  I feel pretty good maximizing our output, you know?  It’s kind of like getting a working automation set up in a game.  Except here, the output isn’t ‘I don’t need to farm skeletons anymore’ and instead is ‘if we line this up right we can end world hunger’.  And I’m kinda okay with that.”

“It’s just a bit high stakes.”  Anesh sighed.  “And I’m not saying our lives aren’t a ton of fun - and that reminds me, I need to meet up with myself later tonight to resync and learn about what’s going on in *bloody NASA* - it’s just that we’re using less of our magic on ourselves, and it stings sometimes.”

James shrugged, and instantly regretted it, his shoulder aching from the recoil of the rifle he’d been firing off repeatedly.  It also caused Anesh, who was half leaning against him, to shift slightly into a much less comfortable spot.  “The stakes are honestly kind of low.”  James said.  “Because we’re not really responsible for anything yet.  We’re just trying to make sure that we can do it right, when we are.  Also you work at NASA, I don’t think you’re allowed to complain that you don’t get to use every orb right away.”

“Bah!”  Anesh said.  “I don’t have any memories of it yet!  But… I’m sure it’s very cool.”  He glanced away, and James noticed the skin of his neck and cheeks was darkened more than normal.

“Aw, you’re blushing!  Are you proud of yourself for building spaceships? Yes you are!”  He pressed himself into Anesh’s side, snuggling against his partner, who made protesting noises and tried to push him back in retribution.  “But seriously.”  James said, straightening up and starting to haul himself to his feet.  “You’re really cool for doing that, even if it’s a clone of you so it’s not much of a time sacrifice.  But also I’m going to let the new people use the orbs tomorrow when we test them, so I wanted to butter you up a bit first before telling you that you don’t get to pick up another five levels in math I don’t understand.”

“Wanker!”  Anesh exclaimed, half lunging forward limply as James hopped away from their sitting spot, laughing madly.  “Get back here!”  He yelled after his infuriating boyfriend.

“You’re gonna break your aura of mystery with the new kids, if you keep doing that.”  Momo’s voice came from overhead where Anesh had half-sprawled on the floor, finding the position strangely comfortable and not really worth getting up from right away.

“James has the mystery, I’m just here for moral support.”  Anesh told her.  But still, he did feel a strange flustered knot in his chest at the thought that the group of new potential members sitting a few tables away might think less of him.  Then he rolled onto his side and looked up, and any sense that Momo had the high ground in this argument went away.  “Wait, you’re wearing a bathrobe.  You don’t get to lecture me on decorum.”

“I’ve been busy, don’t judge me.”  Momo flipped the side of her hair that was still long back over her shoulder, turning her nose up at Anesh.

“You were on one of the interception teams!”  He exclaimed.  “You… couldn’t have had time to change… could you? No.  No!  You wore a bathrobe into combat!”  The words were accusatory, even if Anesh was clearly amused by the whole thing.

Momo let out a noise that was best described as a defiant squeak.  “I was busy!”  She repeated.  “I didn’t have time to change, I got caught in the middle of working on a totem when this happened.”

“Oh, what for?”  Anesh shifted to curious professionalism, turning the conversational tone on a dime.

“Well, you remember the cat?”

“Ah, our fourth biggest mistake so far.”

“Fourth?”  Momo paused, and then silently ticked off events on her fingers.  “Yeah, okay.  Well, I figured we should try to find it, so I was working on getting a red totem that can tell you how many large cats are within a certain radius.  But then this happened, I had to rush the end, and I don’t think it’s giving accurate information.”

“That’s strange.  I didn’t think they could do that.”  Anesh held up an arm, signaling that he’d like some help standing, and Momo obliged him.   “The totems always give accurate reports, even if the things they’re reporting on are… well…” He shrugged, putting a lot of synonyms for the word ‘dumb’ into the motion.

“Well, this one is telling me that there’s thirteen large cats within its radius.  And that’s just not possible.”

Anesh paused, then slowly opened his mouth to ask, “How large is ‘large’?”

“Over thirty pounds, specifically.  It was the best qualifier I could reliably produce.”  Momo said, as if her ability to instinctively derive totem formula wasn’t already insanely impressive.

“Bloody hell.”  Anesh muttered.  “Do you think the displacer cat… multiplied?”

Momo rolled her eyes in that way that recovering teenage sarcasm addicts did.  “That’d be stupid.  How would it find a cat to mate with? The thing was…”

“I meant asexually, but sure.”  Anesh waved away her train of thought.  “Hm.  Let’s crowdsource this.” He decided, and turned to address the dozen or so people in the dining room.  “Hey!  Does anyone know why there might be a dozen big cats nearby?”

There was a brief pause.  The experienced members of the Order, many of whom had just been deployed to combat situations, groaned lightly and started standing up, expecting another problem to solve.  The new people looked at each other, and at Anesh, in confusion; was this a test, of some kind?  The camracondas started asking people what cats were.

One kid, with scruffy black hair and a rock band shirt on, actually raised his hand.  Anesh emulated Momo’s eye roll and pointed at him.  “Yeah, what’s up?”

“Um…” Morgan looked around like he felt like he was walking into a trap.  “The zoo is nearby?”

There was a collective blink.  Anesh raised his eyebrows.  The Order’s knights sat back down.  Momo started belting out peals of laughter.

“Yes, thank you.  You’re hired.”  Anesh flatly declared.  “I need to go… somewhere else.  Momo.  Good luck with all that.”  He turned and walked out of the room with what he hoped appeared to be a professional stride.

“Hired for what?”  Morgan whispered to Color-Of-Dawn

“Should ask.”  The camraconda bobbed a sympathetic nod.  “What is a cat?”  It asked back.

_____

“Sarah? You up here?”  James called as he ascended the staircase to the attic.  ‘The attic’, the dungeon in the attic, the one that Sarah had started called Clutter Ascent.  He liked the name, but it felt a little weird to use that kind of gravitas on… an attic.  “Candy delivery!”  James called out into the still air.

The attic had changed over the last couple months.

James had visited, so most of it wasn’t a surprise.  But still, the distance it had come from being simply a slightly-too-large storage space was pretty impressive.

Overhead, above the entrance landing, a column of open space expanded upward.  Like a massive wooden smokestack, occasionally showing signs of its abnormal construction as insulation and shingles overlapped each other.  Every twenty feet or so, spiraling around the outside, was a little alcove.  James knew, without being able to see inside most of them, that each of those alcoves held within it a misaligned bench, and a window overlooking a beautiful sunset.  What he *could* see was the beams of light from those sunsets, rays of gold and orange, purple and red, bold and somber tones of a day’s end, painting the tower in beautiful shades.

The light cascaded down to where James was standing, too.  Here in a landing in the middle of more space than there should have been.  It was a clear area, of dusty unvarnished wooden floorboards.  And all around… clutter.  Things.  Stuff.  Walls and mountains of it, sometimes forming into pathways through the labyrinth that the attic was slowly growing.  Where before, it had been like a normal attic, albeit one that needed a good cleaning, now the things were more clearly artificial.  Down one of the little hallways, James could see a part where it became a tunnel; an amour and a tall dresser on either side, with a dozen rakes lain on top of them to create a shaded passage.  There was a portion where a workbench stretched for several meters, the hole punched wall hung with a dozen different rusted and useless tools.  Everything had become just a little more, a little less normal.

The entire place was bathed in evening light.  Despite the fact that it was seven PM in late December, and James felt like he hadn’t seen the sun for months.  Clutter Ascent didn’t care; it liked its sunsets.  And spaced around the growing dungeon, high set circular windows let in visions of a hundred sunsets.  Some summer, some fall.  Some clear evenings, some lighting up thick clouds, some being actively rained on.  But all of them small moments of creation that the dungeon had saved.

James smiled at the atmosphere of the place.  Gone, entirely, was the fear aura that the nascent dungeon had used to protect itself.  It entirely relied now on the Order, on trust and compassion.  The house below that tethered it to reality was now occupied by a half dozen tennents; victims of Officium Mundi who had been so erased from existence that they had nowhere else to go, now caretakers and guardians of the existence overhead.  And every day, people came to visit, to explore, to share their time with Clutter Ascent.  Not as delvers, but as friends.  And so, to, the place had taken on a feeling of quiet excitement.  Small joys and little triumphs and carefree fun.  Dust dancing in sunbeams, the smell of ancient furniture, and tiny secrets waiting around every corner.

He looked around himself, and found a hand drawn cardboard sign propped up on a sheet-covered armchair.  It had a smattering of stars drawn on it, and the words “Secret Fort, This Way”, with an arrow pointing down one of the halls in the clutter.  James grinned, and shook his head as he moved to follow the sign’s direction.

He passed through stacks of worn cardboard boxes and abandoned tool boxes.  Fishing tackle crates and half rusted bicycles.  As he turned one corner, he moved into a space where, all of a sudden, the sunlight from any of the windows didn’t reach, and it suddenly struck James just how *dark* these simple shadows could get.

It was while moving past a teetering tower of stacked jumbo sized flower pots in this darkened patch of floor that James heard a sound that was new to the attic.  A low, guttural hiss that flooded out of the cracks of deeper darkness around him and set his blood running cold in an instant.  James froze, eyes snapping around and trying to find the source, but he had underestimated exactly how dark it really was here.  Only a few beams of light mapped out rough splotches of the way forward; an outline, not clear vision.

“Hello?”  James softly asked as the hiss faded and a worried silence took its place.

“Hello?”  An airy voice drawled the word back at him.

James shifted his feet into a fighting stance, just in case.  “Friend or foe?”  He tried to sound casual as he continued to scan the darkness of the clutter around him, suddenly aware of just how many rough edges there were here.

“Friend?”  The darkness asked back.  “Or foe?”  The voice hissed laughter like spring rain, as a shadow pooly physically from the stack of flower pots, dripping darkness down in large dollops that splattered to the floor a few feet away from James.

He watched with caution, as the shadows pulled themselves together, forming up into a knee-high shape with fuzzy edges, that *looked* at him, as it opened a pair of electric blue gemstone eyes.  The small points of light glimmered in the darkness, watching, and waiting, with a strange heavy patience.

James met those eyes, and even in the darkness where he couldn’t make out what the creature was, he got the sense of the feeling of the shape of a housecat.  Or a rat.  Or perhaps something halfway between the two.  With the impression that the thing had more limbs than was healthy for anything challenging it.  There was a stretched silence while the two potential combatants sized each other up, neither breaking eye contact.

And then James cleared his throat.  “Ah, sorry.  Just passing through.  Would you like a granola bar?  It’s got almonds.”

“Yesssssssss!”  The excited reply came back, a bounce in the wispy voice.  James grinned, and dug in his back pocket for one of the snack bars he’d liberated from the Office (Scenic Gran Canyon) and handed it over.  “Pass, pass.”  The thing whispered at him, the shadows turning liquid again and taking the creature, and its new snack, with them.

And then James was alone again.  The darkness around him feeling much more spooky than he remembered.  But, somehow, perfectly fitting for those dark spots of an attic that he hadn’t been in that often.

“This is Sarah’s fault somehow, I’m sure.”  He muttered, starting to move again, but now with the alert posture and slightly uncomfortable nervous edge that had been developed across a few dozen active dungeon delves.

Four left turns later, the labyrinth of a hallway through the clutter ended, and his destination opened up before him.  Sure, James had spotted glimpses of it through the stacks, and it wouldn’t really have been too hard to bulldoze the stuff aside, or just climb over it in certain places, to reach where he was going.  But he was a firm believer that sometimes, the journey mattered.  And he was loath to teach this growing dungeon otherwise.

The place he was going was the secluded little blanket fort that he’d joined Sarah in what felt like a lifetime but was actually only a few weeks ago.  And it wasn’t like he hadn’t visited a few times, so he wasn’t *entirely* surprised by how it had changed.  Because it had changed.  And James didn’t waste energy pretending he wasn’t surprised, or delighted, by it.

The walls were *ramparts*.  Thick down comforters that seemed to go on forever, draped across overhead pipes or propped up against mothballed furniture that stood like spires.  Lit around the outside by strings of Christmas lights that James could see trailed into the interior, lighting the entire thing with a golden glow.  It was a tent, almost; like a circus bigtop.  And yet, no matter how huge an impression it gave, at the end of the day, it was still a humble little blanket fort with a cozy interior full of pillow lounges and snack stashes.

It had potted plants around it.  Real, living ones.  Green leafy patches that seemed to be thriving in the false sunsets.

It reminded James of when his family had moved, when he was still in elementary school.  He and his sister had taken all the cardboard boxes, and turned them into a castle in the basement.  What felt then like an endless maze of twists and turns to crawl through and play in.  This was that, but brought to brilliant life in large scale.

James was grinning as he pushed aside the entry blanket, passing a cardboard sign reading ‘Secret Base’ in big bold marker letters.

“Sarah!  You around? I brought backup candy!”  James called out into the palace of pillows.

Sarah rolled into view, flopping sideways from behind a curtain wall and onto a plush leather couch cushion.  “The fortress accepts your tribute!”  She gleefully called back at him.

“Fortress?”  James shot a friendly smirk at her as he kicked his shoes off by the door and crawled farther in, where the ceilings were lower and the strings of lights more perilously at head height.  “I thought it was a secret base.”

“A fortress can be a secret base.”  Sarah informed him matter of factly.  “Anyway, I hear you got me candy?”  James laughed at her excited mood, and unzipped his backpack, thunking the base of it onto the floor nearby.

“Only the best extradimensional sweets.”  He told her.  “Look!  Baby Things!  You have no idea how much I’ve missed these.”

Sarah bobbed him on the nose with a single slender outstretched finger.  “I absolutely do.”  She said, transferring a single minute of rest to James with the touch to add a spark of meaning to the tap.  “You complain!  Always!”

“Oh!  Speaking of complaining!”  James said as Sarah examined, and then tore into, a package of gumdrops labeled Jelly Ladies, “I met something on the way here.  Some kind of shadow… rat?”  He quirked an eyebrow and looked at Sarah’s face for any sign of a reaction.  “Cat? Gecko?  No?”

Sarah stared at him in open mouthed horror, before cracking into laughter and dropping the short lived act. “So he said hi!”  She exclaimed.  “Was he polite?”

“He robbed me!”  James protested.  “Also what is it.”

“*He* is something new.”  Sarah said, glancing upward.  Despite the fact that the dungeon was all around them, there was a very human tendency to look *up* for things like this.  Or at least, there was for her.  “Ascent made him while we were out one night.  He’s *very* proper, in his own way.  Oh!  And he has the cutest eyes!”  She grinned at James.  “I haven’t gotten to talk much to him, but he does talk.  And he liked the name I gave him.”

“I am terrified to ask…” James started, pressing his eyes closed and taking a preemptive sigh.

“Fredrick Umbra Armillary the First!”  Sarah exclaimed.

James finished the sigh, opened his eyes, and looked at his once and future best friend with a thinly contained smile.  “You just cannot help yourself, can you?”

“You name things as puns!”  Sarah protested.  “Remember the tumblefeed?  Or the mongausse?  Which, I just realized, might seem kind of offensive to our surprisingly large snake-based population…” She trailed off.

“I’ll come up with a better species name.”  James promised her.  “But you’re sure that… Fredrick… is safe?”

“I’m sure we’ll keep him safe.”  Sarah nodded.

“Not even close to what I asked.”

“Yes, he’s safe!  Probably!  As safe as you are, anyway.  Or maybe as safe as… Dave.  Yes!  As safe as Dave.”

“Reassuring.”  James huffed out a chuckle.  “Alright, alright.  I’ll trust you.  And trust Ascent, too.”  He gave his own upward glance.  “Thanks for making something new.”  James spoke the words he’d been turning over in his mind solemnly, almost like the cadence of a prayer.

Sarah nodded.  “It’s a good creation.”  She added.  “Now, I’m sure you didn’t come here just to bring me candy.”  Sarah popped another one of the gumdrops into her mouth and spoke around the gooey treat.  “You’re *busy* all the time now.  Too busy to hang out and build pillow forts with your old pal.”

“Yup.  I’ve been eaten by adulthood.”  James morosely confirmed.  “It’s just work work work, all the time.  No place for… actually, this is kinda hitting closer to home than I intended.  Can we change topics?”

“Gladly.”  Sarah sighed.

“So, I hear you have something-“

“Oh, that reminds me!”  Sarah cut James off abruptly, bouncing to her knees on the cushion she was lounging on and lunging forward to reach behind the curtain that they were hanging around.  “Here!”  She held out a small open cardboard box to James, and he glanced into it to see that it contained a series of engraved wooden sticks.  All of them a little longer than your average pencil, and, he knew, mostly indestructible unless pulled on by two people.  They were the objects from this dungeon’s idea of treasure chests, and when used, they formed a bond between the people that used them.  A bond that could then be filled with an important moment, and used as a metaphysical shipping route to move traits and concepts between the two people.

“Wow, this is… a lot of these.  Is Clutter really okay with us having them?”  James asked, worried.  And his worry, while uncertain, wasn’t out of nowhere.  None of them had ever raised a dungeon before; they didn’t know what was okay and what wasn’t.

“I think it’s fine.”  Sarah said.  “We still can’t really communicate directly that much.  But I asked Fredrick, and he seemed to think it was good for us to find them.”  She looked a bit guilty.  “I mean, I’m not sure he understood the question? But I did ask a couple ways.  So I’m pretty sure!”

“That’s just the opposite of reassuring.”  James said.  “I should try to talk to him on the way out.  Anyway, that’s both cool and worrying, and I bet we can make a lot of really weird stuff work with these.  But I’m actually here to talk about… and I can’t believe I get to use this combination of words… your *pet raincloud*?”

Sarah’s eyes lit up.  “Oh!  May!”  She said.  “Of course!”

“...May what?”

“The raincloud is named May, silly.”  Sarah stuck the tip of her tongue between her lips, staring at James like she was waiting for him to react to that.

James waited for the rest of the name.  Then he realized what was happening, and decided that he wasn’t going to rise to the bait.  “Okay, May it is.”  He said, watching Sarah pout a bit as he didn’t get dramatic.  “How… what is… *how*... is… that?  Going? Why is there a raincloud and how is it doing and just start answering questions and I tell you when to stop.”  James lost control of his sentence entirely.

“Okay!”  Sarah clapped her hands.  “Come with me!”  She stood, kicking socked feet out as she ducked around a pillow alcove and farther into the back of this massive lounge.  “So, the thing to understand, is that this place doesn’t really understand ‘outside’ that well, okay?”

“That’s fine, I don’t either.”  James admitted.  “That’s why I play video games.”  He ducked a throw pillow Sarah casually flung back over her shoulder.

She led him farther back than he thought the place should have been able to go before the wall.  It was, continually, a weird experience.  Even knowing, as James did, that space was mostly just a suggestion, it still gave him mild chills every time.  “Anyway, when Clutter Ascent was building itself more ‘windows’, it wanted some of them to have rainy nights.  But it didn’t know how to make rain.  So, instead of learning how weather patterns worked, or maybe *after* it learned how weather patterns worked, it decided it could just figure something out, and spun up… well, May.”

James followed Sarah as she reached what amounted to a back room, a place where actual shelving units, a half full bookshelf, a mini fridge, and some bags of potting soil and watering cans for the plants around here.  And, he noticed, a cord hanging from the ceiling.

He looked up as Sarah hopped up to grab it and pull it down.  The ceiling here wasn’t blankets, but instead a more normal looking wooden ceiling.  Like you’d find in any room of a normal house.  Which was, actually, weird, because it wasn’t what you should find in an *attic*.  And when Sarah pulled the cord and from a crack in the paint a set of steps descended, James raised his eyebrows and flicked his eyes around in a sudden alert motion.

“So,” Sarah continued like this was normal as she led James up to *another attic inside this attic*, “May - and this was before I was calling her anything - worked pretty well.  At first.  She rained, and that was good enough.  But the dungeon found a better way to do things, and May wasn’t really doing very well on her own.”  Sarah’s voice went soft, her cheerful self still there, but subdued as she talked.  “She was dying.  And, you know, as near as we can tell, this is just something dungeons do.  Monsters get replaced, or obsoleted, right?”

“I remember fighting a bunch of old-model staplers in the office.”  James said quietly as they surmounted the stairs and Sarah groped around for a light switch.

“Exactly.”  She said, finding the light, and with a ratcheting set of clicks, bathing the room in white light.  “But…”

There were a series of fish tanks and terrariums, dozens of them, making up a wall of glass in the middle of the small room.  Each of them held some plants, sometimes some bugs, but *mostly* they all had a miniature swirling dark cloud near their top.  James saw some of them had heaters or humidifiers in them, no two looked to be the same.

“This is… May.”  Sarah said sadly.  “Her version of life support, I guess.  Or the best we can do.”

“What… are all the different parts communicating with each other?  Is she split?”  James asked.

“She isn’t intelligent.”  Sarah shook her head.  “Not sophont, I guess you’d say.  She’s basically at cow levels of brainpower.  Smart enough to gravitate toward survival, but not smart enough to move beyond that in any real way.”

“So this is… trying to find an environment that works for her?”

“Kind of, yeah.”  Sarah said, nodding, a grim frown on her face.  “Also just kind of trying to keep her comfortable.  Here’s the thing; May is *very* good at what she does.  And what she does under the right conditions is grow, and produce rain.  We could easily save her life, if we just let her go outside.  But…”

“But then she’d grow.  And produce rain.”  James said.  “Out of nothing?  Violation of conservation of matter?”

“Yeah.”  Sarah whispered.  “So, this is the most ethical experiment I could think of.  Well, I mean, Nick thought of it - he’s one of the guys living downstairs now - but I put it into action.  We’re trying to find an environment where May is *stable*.”

“You started to say something earlier.”  James prompted.  “Exactly, but…?”

“But we’re raising a dungeon to be compassionate.”  Sarah told him.  “And it didn’t want to let a raincloud wither away and die.”  She stepped forward, placing a hand on one of the terrarium walls, and James watched as a solid looking cloud tendril reached out to press against where her hand rested, thick drops of rain beginning to pour from several of the cloud fragments.

“I had been,” James admitted, “going to ask if this could be an effective irrigation solution.  Both for arcology life, and just in general.”

“She could be, some day.”  Sarah smiled softly at the bank of clouds.  “But I think it’ll take more than just me working on it to figure that out.  And I want her to be happy.”

“I’ll task you some interns.”  James vowed.  “And we’ll make you the happiest goddamn cloud in the world.”

_____

“This was supposed to be…!”  Anesh’s voice was equal parts loud and hoarse as he yelled at James, his words cut off as he dropped his shoulder to the hard office carpet and slid through a gap in the twisted cubicle walls, narrowly avoiding losing a few inches of hair to the jagged edge of a hexapedal limb scything past.

“I know!”  James yelled back, kicking off a bisected maul cart lying on the floor and using his enhanced coordination to plant a second step as precisely as he could on the leg of the maimframe trying to kill Anesh.

“...a simple…!”  Anesh rolled to the side, bringing up a three ring binder they’d found that converted kinetic impacts into paperwork, absorbing most of the downstroke of the clawed leg and adding about six pounds of paper to the now-bulging binder.

“*I know*!”  James bellowed, using the last of his absorbed blue orb charge to Repossess his gun from where he’d just caught sight of it, coiled in an anemone looking bundle of cords sprouting from one of the maimframe’s upgrade ports.  The solid metal grip dropped into his palm perfectly just as he lost forward momentum when the leg he was running across shifted, an he dropped to the floor, keeping the gun held tight and not trying to fire while tumbling.  He was bold, not stupid.

“...*nonviolent*...!” Was the word Anesh was yelling as James crashed through a cracked and crumbling cubicle wall, finding himself half balanced over a blackened chasm in the floor that he couldn’t see the bottom of, even though there were points of light from warped exposed cubicles jutting out from its walls all the way down.

James twisted just in time to see the maimframe, wounded, leaking coolant, and *furious*, charging at him.  Operating on reflex, and a little magic, he lined up his pistol from his curled position on the floor, and fired off the last six rounds he had.  Two of them deflected off a flickering plasma shield, one just missed, and the other three hit the joints in the legs that James had been aiming at.  His eyes went wide as his slapped together plan actually worked, and James kicked his legs wildly to shove himself sideways out of the way of the maimframe’s bulk as its momentum carried it forward.  The chunky machine crumpled forward on its wounded legs, and then half tumbled, once, before it just *barely* clipped James in the shoulder before sliding over the edge.  It spun lightly as it descended out of sight, the only noise a few weak error tones dinged out into the open air.

James, off the momentum of that tiny hit from the massive machine creature, found himself with no feeling in his left arm, and now sliding uncontrollably over the edge of the floor that was suddenly crumbling beneath him.  He lurched forward, dropping his weapon to grab for *anything* that could save him, and his gloved hands met another set just like them, as Anesh caught him and hauled him back to his feet.

The two of them stood the, stepping back to a safer vantage point, panting and coughing in exhausted relief.  A minute and a half later, they heard the distant metallic screech as the maimframe hit the bottom of the abyss.

“Haaaaaah…” James gasped out.  “Okay.  Okay.”  He breathed in through his nose, deeply, taking his time with the motion, and then out through his mouth, before turning to face Anesh.  “I know.”  He said.

“You okay?”  Anesh asked, when he caught his breath.

“Yeah.  Thanks for the save.”  James let out another relieved whoosh of air.  “Aw, my gun!”  He suddenly exclaimed, looking back out to where the floor ended and his weapon of choice had fallen to its doom.

Anesh patted him on the shoulder.  “We’ll get you a new one.  Odds are good Nate has a new one ready for you already.”

“That one was bonded to the bracelet, though!”  James protested.  “It’ll take almost a year before this thing is useful for anything again!”  He shook the mystical treasure looted from Status Quo currently adorning his wrist.

“Well, I’ve got good news for you.”  Anesh pointed over the chasm, where a buzzing green insect shape was struggling to haul a firearm twice his own weight into the air.

James plucked the struggling drone out of the air when he got close enough, and holstered the gun with a smooth motion.  “Ganesh, you’re my favorite.”  He said, giving the buggy drone a light pat before sliding him over to Anesh’s shoulder.

“I just saved your life!”  Anesh protested.

“Okay, second favorite.”  James conceded with a smile.  “Oof.  Man.  Wish we hadn’t lost the green from that big guy though.”  He said, leaning over the canyon in the floor with his hands on his knees.  “How far down do you think that is? Wanna go check?”

As far as James knew, Ganesh didn’t have ‘eyes’, exactly.  But it felt like the little drone was rolling them as he launched into the air again, and descended to the crash site.

“Okay, he’s my favorite again.”  James told Anesh.  “Also, we should head back after this.  Research can find their own damn totem.”

“I’m sure they already have.”  Anesh groaned, twisting back and forth while trying to pop his neck.  “And we’re out here for nothing.  Except to make my feet hurt.”

“I admit, this was a lot farther than I thought we’d go.”  James said.  “I’m sorry.  I actually am.  You wanted a quiet night, and I took us on a bike tour of the dungeon’s interpretation of the Grand Canyon.”

“Ah, it was fun.”  Anesh waved it off.  “Besides, this is a different body from yesterday, so I’m not *actually* tired.  It’s just easy to forget that sometimes, and feel mentally drained in a way that doesn’t match how many bruises I have.”

“I need you to understand how *absurdly* jealous of your clone power I am.”  James had a gleam in his eye as he spoke.  While they talked, he checked cubicles until coming back to the one where they’d stashed their cart about ten doorways away, and started unloading orbs from pouches on his armor into it.  “Like, I want it so much.  Not quite permanent-hive-mind-connection much, but *close*.”

“That’s a lot of jealousy.”  Anesh nodded sympathetically.  “Hey, I thought poly people didn’t get jealous?”

James blinked, and then wrapped his boyfriend in an armored hug as he started laughing.  When he let go, settling Anesh back on his feet and patting his own armored soldiers, he shook his head.  “Oh man, I love you, and that jealousy thing is not even close to true.  But I can try to maintain the mystique.”  He added, as Ganesh buzzed back to them and added another fist sized green orb to the pile.  “So, head back?”

“Head back.  And then copy our compliment of greens.  And then… hey, I wanna make dinner tonight.  I’m thinking stir fry, you want stir fry?”

Anesh found himself wearing a grin without even thinking about it, a warm feeling in his chest that had nothing to do with the exercise of pitched combat they’d just been through.  “I would love some stir fry.”  He said.

“Great!  It can be my preemptive apology for giving all the orbs to the new kids to use!”  James stated as he picked up the handle of the cart and started hauling it back to their rally point.

Anesh rolled his eyes, the gooey lovey feeling vanishing rapidly as he jogged after his boyfriend.

Overhead, twenty foot high spires of crumbling cubicle wall cast long shadows over the breach in the floor, the miles long canyon receding into the distance behind James and Anesh as the two of them headed back toward the door.

They had mapped out a half dozen possible crossings, found an equal number of small treasures, made friends with a roving shellaxy herd, learned amature bicycle repair when James had been ambushed by a less friendly stapler pack, and thoroughly exhausted themselves doing all of it.

Now, they coasted down the open hallways they’d already carefully cleared of traps and enemies, making good time back.  There were still three hours of safe delve time, and James knew a lot of the Order would be taking advantage of that.  But for the two of them, the night was mostly over.  All that was left now, was three miles of beige walls and grey carpet, and staying alert enough to be safe on the journey.

_____

“A long time ago…” James started to speak to the assembled people in the briefing room of the Order of Endless Rooms, before trailing off, and looking at the group before him.

They’d hired a bunch of new people.  Well, provisionally, anyway.  No one here had actually been dropped into a dungeon yet, despite the delve two nights ago.  It wasn’t that the Order didn’t trust them, though they were all new, and trust and respect was something to be built over time.  Mostly, it was a logistical problem; they’d brought almost twenty people onboard, and while eventually some of them would undoubtedly not work out, all of them would probably get a turn just at least *seeing* the inside of Officium Mundi.  Making sure those people were kept safe, and kept from doing anything stupid, kind of required them to not bring them in as one big group.

James had a flashback to evacuating over fifty people in one disorganized mob, and shuddered.

Now, they sat in rows behind folding tables in the cool air of the warehouse space, while James stood in front of them, to try to explain the Order’s ethics.  There were four software engineers, three construction workers, a therapist, a nanny, three high school interns, an EMT, a part-time-chef-part-time-firefighter, a barista, a sociologist, two ‘administrative assistants’, and two people who had the right attitude and could figure out what skill they wanted to define them later.

“...Okay, so, it was maybe half a year ago.  But it feels like a long time.”  James cleared his throat.  “There was a conversation here, where we considered whether it was in the best interest of humanity to pick a few trusted people, and make them gods.”  He looked at the group of people, who had gone from muttered conversations when he’d walked in, to complete silence when he’d started talking.  “I’m going to ask you the question we should have asked ourselves, then.  Why wouldn’t that work?”

James paced a few times while the assembled people exchanged looks.  Eventually, he pointed out a bronze skinned lanky man in the back row with his hand up, their erstwhile firefighter and-or cook.  “Is it because… playing god is just a bad idea in general?”

“You know, I’ve heard that a lot?”  James smiled at them, doing his best to put on the aura of his favorite high school English teacher.  “And yet, so far, playing god has been working out mostly positive for us so far.”  He pointed over at one of the high school students, who had his hand barely up and was looking like he was super uncomfortable with the number of adults he’d been dropped into a room with.  “How ‘bout you?”

“Uh… well, you made us write about this already, so… is it because it doesn’t do enough?”

“Close.”  James nodded.  “Closer, anyway.  It doesn’t do enough, fast enough.  It’s also just fundamentally unfair.  The individual is important, critically so, but we have yet to find anything that would let one person enact as much good as a well constructed organization.  A well designed *system*.  And it’s easier for everyone to live when the tools to help are available widely.  A good society doesn’t need gods.  Or if it does, what it needs is for that spark of something greater to be spread out among as many people as possible.”  He glanced around, and cleared his throat lightly.  “I should mention, since I see a few of you looking nervous, that when I say ‘gods’ I’m using that colloquially as a stand in for ‘people with an enormous amount of personal power, often focused through specific abilities or resources.’ Not, like, ‘religions’.”

He smiled as a few people relaxed a bit.

“Welcome to the Order of Endless Rooms.”  James said, glancing down at the piece of paper he’d taken the time to write an introduction on, and then ignored.  “This is your collective onboarding.  I’m gonna ramble for a little bit about the ethics of our organization, the different magics we’re aware of, and then open it up for questions, with a small demonstration at the end.  If anyone needs to use the bathroom, now’s the time, because *oh man* do I like the sound of my own voice.”

None of them moved, so James nodded, and moved on.  “You’ve all been here for a little while now.  And we’ve mostly been giving you the week to get used to how the culture of the Order works, how the Lair feels to hang around.  I hope you’ve all been getting to know a few people around here, getting acclimated to non-human life, that sort of thing.  Let’s start there, shall we?  Humanity isn’t alone.”

James took a breath, and faced the group.  If they were paying attention before, they were *rapt* now.  “From sophont life forms like the camracondas, to more animalistic life like the shellaxies.  There’s creatures out there that most people have no idea exist.  And some of them are super hostile!”  James winced, thinking of the ratroaches in the Akashic Sewer.  “So here’s our version of the prime directive, for you Trek fans.  Every life has value, and has a right to live.”  He cracked his knuckles, getting into a good pacing rhythm.  “Self defense is a real thing, don’t get me wrong.  But our core belief is that there, if *anything* in the universe matters, it is *people*.  So keep that in mind, as context for everything else.”

Some of the listeners nodded.  James almost grinned as he noticed every one of the tech people in the more vigorous end of the nodding group.  “Now, you may think that the Order was formed to deal with nonhuman life.  Nope!  That’s a side effect.  A cool one, wild beyond belief, don’t get me wrong, but still a side effect.”

“What do you *do*, then?”  A raven haired girl with a nose like an arrowhead asked, breaking James’ streak of uninterrupted dialogue.

“I’m so glad you asked!”  He grinned at her.  “We help people.”  He paused, then decided to elaborate.  “We’re still working on the specifics.”  James admitted with a smile that was only *slightly* sheepish.  “But here’s the framework; we have access to worlds and powers that most of mankind is unaware of.  We have a chance, a tiny, *tiny* chance, to leverage that into things that could improve life for thousands, millions, billions of people.  So, we’re going to keep exploring, keep experimenting, and keep trying to do that.  Our Order exists to help organize and connect people with the tools they need to break out of whatever obstacles hold them back, and start working to make the world better for everyone.  One step at a time.  We already know that you’re the kind of people who want to do good.  We’re just here to help you do it.  In your own ways, and in some new ones that you’ll discover along with us.”

James grinned at them in full now.  “Any questions?”

Sixteen hands went up.  He called on the closest person, one of the contractors who lowered their roughly calloused hand.  “Is this a communist thing?”  The man asked.

“It is not.”  James wanted to laugh, but held it back.  “Communism is more a system of government than an ideology.  We’re not a government, and if we ever rule the world, we’ll probably be something other than communism.”

“Marxist, then?”  The man continued, narrowing his eyes in a way where James couldn’t tell if this was meant to be in good humor or not.

“Nnnno.  Uh… no.  I’ve read a lot of Marx lately, actually, and… like, I know I joke about Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism a lot, but that model really isn’t rooted in Marxist ideology the way the name implies.”  James cleared his throat.  “Also I mostly use that term because it’s just fun to say ‘Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism’.”

“Is it some sort of…”

James cut the guy off, politely.  “The political alignment of our organization is best described as ‘under construction’.”  He said.  “We’re building a lot of things here, and we’re trying to do it by taking the best ideas that we can make work, and using those.  Communism has some ideas that work; we’ll steal those.  Collective investment in our communities is a good idea, for example - I see the person with a sociology degree nodding, that’s good, that means I’m not completely wrong.  Same as from every other political structure, global culture, and published philosopher we can wrap our brains around.  But calling it communism wouldn’t be accurate; our main guiding principle is to do good.  That’s all.  Everything else is details, no matter what label those details resemble.”

“So… um, can I ask a question?”  The middle aged woman who James had hired to assist in being a caretaker for Clutter Ascent, asked.

“Go right ahead!  We’ve got time for a few questions before I have to go.  Though you should all know, basically everyone here will make time to help you out if you need to know something.”

“Thank you.”  She nodded.  “What do you want from us?”

“Two things.”  James answered, ticking them off on his fingers.  “First, we want more people, who mesh with our mindset to a reasonable degree, to help us explore the magical side of the world.  We’re already sure that most of you are ‘good people’, like I said; at the risk of shooting myself in the foot, I would assume that everyone here sees human suffering as a problem to be solved.  Basically, we want you to take that attitude, and help us learn to be better wizards.”  He tapped the second finger.  “The other thing is that we want you to do what you’re good at.  For some of you, we’ve got our growing Response program, which is basically just crisis resolution with teleporters.  For others, help building a magical city, or designing cybernetic security measures.  There’s a million things around here that need doing.  But if nothing strikes your fancy, we expect you to find something.  Identify a problem, mundane or arcane, and start solving it.  We’ll dump money and orbs into it.”

“Orbs?”  The kid with a clip on tie sitting over with the other engineers asked, eyebrows raised and face scrunched up in a worried expression.

“Ah, that reminds me!”  James said.  “I have…” He turned around the warehouse, looking for something.  “...Where did my partner put them… ah!”  He took long steps away from the area they’d set up for this, and over to one the salvaged desks that people used when they were working back here.  From half underneath this one, he pulled out a cardboard shipping box, which had been filled with twenty small black pouches.  “I have a gift for all of you.”

“What are these?”  Someone asked as James started placing the bags in front of each person.

“Is this a cult thing?”  One girl asked.  “I don’t really want to join a cult.”

“I’d be into a cult.”  An intern admitted, blushing as James cocked an eyebrow at him.

The engineers were not convinced.  “I’m not going to drink anything that’s in this.”  The young woman among their number said, poking at the bag.

James rolled his eyes.  “It’s not a cult thing.  It’s your welcome package.”  He said.  “Our organization requires only one thing of you, fundamentally, which is for you to be your best.  But a lot of what we do is dangerous.  So, this is our Armory.”  He unfolded his hands in front of himself.  “If you choose now to stay with us - and bear in mind this is not a permanent commitment - then this is how we help keep you safe.”  He motioned for the first person to open their bag, and they did so, barely catching the contents as a collection of glimmering yellow orbs spilled across the table.  “So, let’s talk magic.”

“Those are bath beads.” The girl who’d made the cult comment chimed in.

“Those are fragments of souls.”  James replied quietly.  “And if you’ve talked to a camraconda at all, then you probably have a general idea of where they came from.  These ones are a curated selection, which we’ve put together to help jump start people into competence in a few important areas.”  James glanced down at his notes, flipping through to the last page.  “Yellows, skills.  Purple is for your body.  Green for a place.  Those are the only ones we’ve included here, for now.  You probably already know the rest if you read the manual.”  James waved a hand.  “Two athletics skills, two self defense, one first aid, on vehicle operation.  We haven’t found any other first aid, sadly.  The two purple orbs will improve your short term memory and immune system by about a factor of five.  You’ll notice that there’s a wooden dowel in there, too; break that with someone you’re getting to know here, either in this room or otherwise.  I can’t explain more about that one.  And the last thing, which is probably stuck in the bag you have there, is a shield bracer.  These things come out without the actual ‘shield’ part of the power, but it’ll grow into it in time.  Get used to wearing it.  Use it.  That’s how it gets better.”

“What’s this one?”  The kid in the front asked, holding up the green orb that James hadn’t explained.

“Ah!  Good news.”  James said.  “Every green orb here is something we need to test.  I figured we could start with those, so you could all see how we play fast and loose with things like ‘zoning permits’ and ‘the laws of physics’ around here.”  He motioned to the high school student, who suddenly looked a little nervous about the object in his hand.   “Go ahead.  Pop that.  And then, write down what it tells you.  Sometimes it’s not obvious to an outside observer.”

The kid nodded, swallowed nervously, and with one last look at James giving him a reassuring nod, crushed the orb in his hand.

“Uh…” He said, a second later.  “Woah.  Wooooah, that’s so cooool!”

“Isn’t it just?”  James’ voice held a warm note of laughter.  “So, what did you change?”

“Uh, it added twenty two minutes of time for organization every day?  Also I know how to design crossword puzzles now.”  The kid looked around at the other potentials who were all looking at him curiously.  “What does that mean?”  He asked.

James shrugged.  “We see those sometimes.  It probably means shelving stuff or moving storage around.  So now there’s extra time in the day here to do that.  Unless you meant the crossword thing, in which case...”

“What the fuck.”  One of the engineers said.  “What the *fuck*!?”  Four other people echoed.

“Yeah, welcome to the Order.”  James gave them a toothy smile, the feeling of excitement he never *really* got rid of burning in his blood like lightning.  “Now.  Everyone try out your first bit of magic, if you feel ready for it.  And just so everyone knows; there’s no withdrawal symptoms or side effects from this.  We’ve been abusing these for over a year now, and it just… works.  They work.  And yes, that is weird.  If you want to delve into that question, Research will take anyone with a pulse and a sense of curiosity.”  He shrugged.  “But for me, well.  This is how we’re going to do it, you know?  We’re going to make the world better.  And you’re welcome to do it with us.”

James met their eyes.  A few of them looked skeptical.  A few of them gave him nods of acknowledgement.  A few of them were trying to untie the nightmarish knots that Anesh had put on these things and get to the orbs as soon as they could.  That last group was mostly the engineering recruits.

“Now.  Greens first, one by one.  I need to write those down, and then I have to go.  Then, you’re free for the day to poke around the Lair.  But this time, if you don’t disagree with the ethics I laid out here, and you want to stick around, do it with an eye for what you want to be part of.  Not just us as a group.  But what you want to *do*.”  He grinned as he noticed a few people, especially the younger ones, shifting in their seats.  “Told you I liked to hear myself talk.  Alright, alright, do the magic.”  He conceded, unfolding his laptop and opening a notepad file.

[Local Area Shift : +8 Shelves]

[Local Area Shift : +2 M^3 Fridge Space]

[Local Area Shift : +3 Needed Nutrients / Prepared Meal]

[Local Area Shift : -8.33 lbs Trash / Day]
[Local Area Shift : -5% Fear]
[Local Area Shift : Production Time - Coffee - -164 second]
[Local Area Shift : +1 Closet]
[Local Area Shift : Delivered Mail - Lost Parcels - -3/week]
[Local Area Shift : Value - Stairwell - +$4,111]
[Local Area Shift : Furniture - Operational Life - +1.6 Years]
[Local Area Shift : +23 Minutes Allocated to Learning / Day]
[Local Area Shift : -1 Accounting Error / Year]
[Local Area Shift : -7 kW-h Required]

[Local Area Shift : -$1,255 Rent / Month]
[Local Area Shift : +20 kg/M^3 Insulation Density]
[Local Area Shift : +1 Tree]
[Local Area Shift : +8% Solar Panel Efficiency]
[Local Area Shift : Fabrication Time - Printing - -38 Seconds]

It was as James was noting down the last one, and already getting *very* excited about the prospects for mass duplication for some of these, that he was approached by one of the class.  Most of them had fallen on the orbs like candy - oh man, he should have put dungeon candy in there, he’d do that next time - and were now excitedly talking to each other.  He’d let them all know that they were welcome to explore the Lair, and that there were certainly other Knights here to talk to them if they had questions, but that he was on a time limit, so he wasn’t going to do much more chatting.

The man who approached him placed the bag on the table James was using for his laptop, the knot tied back into something much more elegant than what Anesh had originally done with it.  He was a burly dude, probably in his late forties, but with muscled arms poking out of his coat.  The man had facial hair like he was locked in a divine struggle with destiny itself over whether he should have a beard, and today, he’d barely come out on top.

“Ah, that’s why we’re only up to nineteen.”  James said.  “It’s Rick, right?  What’s up?”  He asked, pushing back his chair and facing the man.

“I don’t think this place is for me.”  The man, Rick, spoke.

James frowned in concern.  “Oh?”  He prompted.  “I mean, I understand that the magic thing is a little weird, and to be fair, we don’t *really* have a good intro to that, but… wait, is that it?”

“No, no.  It’s not that.”  Rick shifted his feet, linking his hands behind his back as he talked.  “I don’t think I’d fit in here.  Oldest guy in the room, you know?  And maybe I’m wrong, but I just don’t think you can help everyone.”

“Heh.”  James flickered a smile, glancing down at the table before raising his head and making eye contact.  “Yeah, maybe.”  He said.  “And I get it, a lot of us probably look pretty young.  Maybe a little too idealistic, right?”

Rick tipped his head.  “More or less.”

“Yeah.  Well, you know how it goes.  Idealism is what you have before you learn how powerless you are, right?”

The sudden tensing of his shoulders and the momentary gritting of his teeth in surprise told James that comment had landed.  “How did you…”

“I’m idealistic.”  James said.  “That doesn’t mean we didn’t do some alarmingly thorough background checks.  You worked in a half dozen political campaigns, two charities, and actually served a tour with the Peace Corp before you...  well, I won’t say ‘gave up’, but I feel like you’re maybe not living your best life doing siding and roofing.”  He stood up, and rolled his shoulder in a casual motion.  “So here’s the deal.  I’m not going to say that we can help everybody.”  James looked down at the armory bag on the table, tapping it with one finger.  “But we can at least help somebody.  Anybody.”

“It’ll never work.”  The older man looked down at James and shook his head.

“But it might.”  James grinned back.  “Want to find out how far we can get?”

“I…”

“If not, I understand.”  No grin this time, just quite words, and deeply personal ones.  “I’ve lost people following this path.  And it’ll probably happen again.  I don’t think anyone should choose that lightly.  But I genuinely believe we can make a *difference*.”

Rick breathed heavily through his nose, running a clenching hand across his chin and neck.  “How can you be sure?”  He asked.  “I want to, but… I need to know why you’re so certain.”

James cackled.  “If they thought I wasn’t going to change things, they wouldn’t have tried to kill me.”  He said with a toothy smile.  “Now.  You’ve got plenty of time to think about it, but even if you decide not to stay around, try out your orbs.  If anyone’s earned it... “  He trailed off, shrugging.  “Also Anesh is gonna want to know what that last green is.”

“...Alright.”  It was one word.  But it was spoken with a tight lipped conviction that James was starting to recognize more and more in the people around him.  Rick undid his own knot on the bag, and pulled out the emerald sphere that had been left in there for him earlier.  “So, just crush them?  Why?”

“No idea.”  James laughed.  “So many things we don’t know!  But it’s not that hard, I did it by accident the first time.”  Shrugging burly shoulders, the other man smashed the orb into his palm.  And James felt the ground ripple under his feet.  “Oh.”  James said, looking down, suddenly alarmed.  “Oh no.”

“It said… uh…”  Rick furrowed his brow, wrinkles on his forehead standing out against a receding hairline.  “That’s so weird.  The skill part, it’s like I know… oh, right.  It said that it added…”

“It said it added a basement.”  James finished for him.  “Yeah.  Thanks.  Okay.  Welcome to the Order, you’re gonna see me make this face a lot.  I have to go.  Everyone have a good night!”

He hustled out of the room, and as soon as he was out of sight of most of the new people, sprinted to the elevator.

_____

“James.”

James didn’t move.  If he stayed perfectly still, in the spacious alcove under his desk, then Anesh would leave, not ask him questions, and everything would be fine.

“James, I can see the chair spinning, I know you’re in here.”  Anesh’s voice even sounded like he was rubbing at his forehead.  “I’m not mad about the basement, I’m just here to drop off your lunch.”

Cautiously, James poked his head over the edge of the desk to see Anesh standing in the doorway holding a paper sack.  “Did you get me a gyro from that place in LA you like to go to?”

“No, I did not.  The lunch was a clever ruse.”  Anesh stated.  “I am mad about the basement.”

“I knew it!”  James exclaimed, leaping up and slamming his hands onto the wooden surface of his desk.  “It wasn’t even my fault this time!  I just took the notes!”  He abruptly lapsed back into a much calmer but also very rapid speech pattern.  “Also we sort of lack the ability to make meaningful decisions when it comes to the green orbs which has led to logistical problems like this one.  Even though I would actually classify an extra basement as a huge boon to the problem of lack of space we were already experiencing.  I’m thinking of turning it into a camraconda temple, what do you think?”

“Okay, pause for breath.”  Anesh told him, smirking.  “Also I double lied.  I got you a chicken gyro; you like garlic right?”

“Yes.”

“Good.  Because this thing is mostly garlic.”  Anesh slid the paper bag across the desk to his boyfriend.  He didn’t sit, though; he had places to go and no time for a super long chat.  “Anyway.  The basement is actually the closest to what our building probably *should* have, which is nice.  Big stonkin industrial space, concrete floor, flood lights, overhead HVAC pipes that don’t appear connected to anything, that sorta thing.  One single room, the rough dimensions of our building.  So I vote we put Research down there, and use their space for something else.  Maybe personal projects.”

James shuffled back into his chair, unwrapping his food and noting that Anesh had, specifically, gotten him lunch with a lot of *very spicy* sauce.  His nose was burning and he was a couple feet away from the meal still.  This, James decided, was probably how Anesh took revenge.  “I dunno if Research will like the change in environment.”  He said.

“We can always put up dividers and get better lighting.”  Anesh shrugged.  “In fact, I kind of assumed they’d do it in the background if we left them alone long enough.  Reed is shockingly efficient at running things, for someone who’s barely twenty and looks like he’s constantly just rolled out of bed.”

“Yeah, what’s with all the relentlessly impressive kids working for us?”  James muttered, trying to figure out what part of the overflowing wrap he was supposed to bite into first.  “It makes me feel old.”

“Well, all the unimpressive ones left.”  Anesh told him with a snort.  “Except Ethan, who is *still* hanging in there.”

“Is he getting better?”  James asked, genuinely empathetic for the younger man.  “He wasn’t doing okay after the Status Quo assault.”

Anesh sighed lightly.  “I think so.  Lua recommended him to a therapist, and I think he’s got a sleeping medication that helps him out.  I… I know we joke sometimes, but…”

“No, I know.”  James said firmly, setting his lunch back down.  “It’s pretty telling that our *least* impressive knight is someone who was still willing to risk his life to protect other people.  And I need to stop making light of that.”

Anesh smiled at his boyfriend.  “As long as you know.”  He said quietly.  “We’re all in this together, right?”

“Right.”  James muttered.  Then he perked up, and added, “Oh!  Karen said she was gonna email me something later about maybe another lead on Alanna.”  He gave Anesh an excited eyebrow waggle.  “Wanna come with me to check it out?”  He asked, before seeing that Anesh had slumped slightly.  “What’s up, you okay?”

“I just…”  Anesh looked away, leaning against the door frame.  “It’s been months.  And every possibility has been a dud.  Not even dead ends, just nothing.”  He worried at his lower lip, before saying what he’d been afraid of this whole time.  “I don’t… it doesn’t feel… every time, you get so excited, and then exactly the opposite when it doesn’t work.  And I don’t want to say that I think Alanna is… gone…”

“Then don’t say that.”  It came as a surprise to both of them, how sharp James’ voice sounded.

“But it’s been months.  At the very least, she doesn’t want to come back.”  Anesh said.  “I don’t know *why*, but…”  He trailed off, just generally hurt and confused.

James pushed his gyro away from himself, and sat back, looking over to the wall of his office and the woefully disorganized bookshelf he kept there.  Anything to distract himself, for a moment, from the unexpected hurt.  When he finally spoke, it was as composed as he could make himself.  “Maybe she doesn’t.”  He told Anesh.  “But maybe she’s just lost.  Maybe we can do something.  Maybe… there’s a lot of mabeys.  I’m not ready to give up yet.”

He met Anesh’s eyes, and his partner looked back at him, before nodding.  “Yeah.  Okay.  Not yet.”  Anesh sighed, and checked his phone, noting that he had a dozen messages waiting.  “Alright, I need to go.  I’ll see you later tonight, and we can check that out.  And *no more basements*.”

The parting statement was exactly the kind of levity James needed to actually taste his food.  He appreciated Anesh so much, sometimes.  And as he suffered through food spicy enough to melt human bones, he considered that he should really just say that out loud more often.

_____

“Property damage, unlawful use of firearms, possession of explosives, and public endangerment.”  The police captain read out the briefing to the assembled room of officers.  “Currently, we have two suspects from security footage, both male, mid to late twenties, one caucasian, one appearing aribic.  They arrived on foot, almost immediately before the incident, and then vanished.”  He clicked a button and the displayed screen ran a copy of the footage.

“Where did they come from?”  One officer asked.

“It’s unclear from the camera angle.”  The department’s IT guy admitted.  “This was the only one, and the building across the street hasn’t given us any footage yet...”

The captain nodded sagely.  “Rogers, you and Moyer go down there today and ask again.  Threaten them with a warrant if they don’t want to be nice about it.”  He glanced back at the frozen frame on the projection.  “These two shot up cars, and set *something* on fire, but didn’t hit anyone.  What were they doing there?”  He looked back at the briefing room and the half-awake police officers filling it.  “Suggestions?”

“Vandalism?”  Officer Waters unhelpfully drawled, helping himself to another stale doughnut.

“Those rifles aren’t the kind of things you break out for casually egging someone’s car.”  Another officer rolled his eyes.  “They were there for something.  Robbery?”

“Nah.”  Sergeant Barker’s voice was both tired and bitter at the same time.  “Two college age kids in bad cosplay like that?  Political bullshit.  Maybe just intimidation.  Could be linked to the protests downtown, actually.”

“The intimidation angle sounds reasonable.”  The captain hummed in a low voice.  “Run the plates on the damaged vehicles.  Contact the owners.  Take Waters with you.”

The man sat forward in his chair, straightening his back.  “Yes sir.  But… four people?  For this?”

“You have something better to be doing?”

“No sir.”  The officer said.  “It’s just a lot for random vandalism, even if it is assault.”

The captain shook his head.  “These two are heavily armed, and apparently on a hair trigger.  I want them found, yesterday.  And if any of you encounter them while on patrol, remember.  They are *armed* and *dangerous*.  So don’t take any chances.  Understand?”

The officers in the room didn’t look at each other, didn’t make eye contact or give knowing nods.  But they understood.

“Good.”  The captain said.  “Get to work.  It’s another day on the job.”