We’ve run into other problems, like the Babalawo Class, which requires us to not only find living practitioners of Santeira on Earth, but also to convince them to transfer a number of their prayers, loa, and their blessings to an individual they’ve never met. Lana and Rob are finding that impossible. As far as the practitioners are concerned, what we’re asking them to do is the worst kind of cultural appropriation. I don’t blame them, but it doesn’t help our case.
The Virtual Killer title should be simple to acquire, but there’s a piece missing no matter how many games of Doom, COD, and tower defense battles the Title Hunter plays. I’ve promised to dig into it further, and Rob’s looking into the backgrounds of everyone on Earth with the Title, but no luck thus far. I might have to dig into it myself, with my Skill. But we’re beginning to wonder if it’s a pre-System-only Title.
There are a bunch of Titles like that, things that are only available for people who weren’t in the System when they started it.
There’s also the negotiation for an exclusive on coffee production from Brazil that the Fifteen Spire Guild is demanding. Specifically, a certain enhanced bean and the individuals producing it. We have to play go-between, even arranging for a strike team from Erethra to drop in to destroy a bunch of dungeons to even make the producers consider the offer. If we get the coffee for the Guild, they’ll use their influence to get us a couple of votes.
And there’s more. So much more. Assassination requests that we either have to undertake ourselves or contract out. Of course, there are no guarantees in those cases, just nicely worded assurances that don’t read as anything more than platitudes since both sides don’t want to say what they want outright, leaving themselves a certain level of deniability.
I’ll admit, in a few cases where the attacks are close enough to make it worthwhile and the individuals morally bankrupt enough that it doesn’t impact my twisted morality, I’ve agreed to it. And then promptly arranged for one of my Extra Hands to deal with it.
Amazing what a doppelganger with no care about his life is able to do. That’s the problem when you’re playing security—if the other person really doesn’t care about surviving, their options open up vastly.
Of course, I’m also very careful about how often I send my Extra Hands on assassinations. Too many sudden deaths would be another sign we’re around. So the targets are people who are obvious, who make sense. And I do my best to ensure, when I can, that the deaths aren’t traceable to me.
It doesn’t always work, but that’s fine.
Artifact retrievals and dungeon clearings, both of which would take more time than we can afford. We make promises, guarantees of retrievals and clearing backed by the System, but there’s reluctance. From Earth, to commit to travel—or Portal cost—and from those who might benefit. If Mikito and I could leave Irvina entirely, it’d be easy. But we neither have the ability to run off and return without alerting others nor the time to clear or do retrievals.
We’re stymied by the time frame, by the needs of our targets. And even if we do manage to make the current vote go our way, it doesn’t solve the other issue. It doesn’t deal with the Council.
At some point, I need to talk to them, to ascertain what they want. After numerous attempts at cudgeling my brain for a way, I’ve come up with this idea. It’s borne from my constant testing of the System, the gentle prod of my System Edit Skill.
“All right, but if the Mana floods…” Ali says warningly.
“You told me so.” I punctuate my sentence by placing my hand on the Shop orb.
As it prompts me to see if I want to teleport to my usual Shop, I delve right into the information flow with my System Edit Skill, bypassing the main interface to access the admin section.
The Shop itself is both one of the most complicated pieces of programming in the System and incredibly simple. At its base, the Shop is just a listing of information, each piece of information drawing from a database. But considering the sheer volume of information required, there are numerous subroutines and programs set up to reduce the load whenever an individual accesses the Shop.
Among some of the most prominent are the personalization routines that are hooked directly into an individual’s Status. In this way, certain options are automatically suppressed while others are brought forward. While it looks—and in some ways, acts—like a method of helping users optimize their development, it also benefits the System.
As the most basic example, there’s no need for humans to buy “oxygen breathing” Skills, genetic alterations, or enchantments. It’s pretty much guaranteed humanity can breathe oxygen. Same with regrowth options for limbs—unless you’ve recently lost one. At which point, the System would likely move those options up on the display.
There are numerous little formulas and subroutines running, each of them balancing out one another and the use of the System just so that the Shop itself can be more efficiently managed. Add the fact that some truly complex programs are linked to the Shop—teleportation, Credit-Mana cost-benefit analysis, and the time distortion windows, among others—and you get a System that should be monitored pretty closely.
And when there’s a System that’s monitored closely, there’s development notes and bug reports.
As I swim through the data fields of Mana—because that’s what the System codes in, Mana—I grasp at tiny bits of information, staring at runic configurations that alter in meaning as I stare at them before discarding the programs for more. I feel myself burning up as I struggle to cope with the flood of information, the processing of raw Mana until I locate what I need.
Then I go deeper.
Because I don’t want the specific directory for this Shop location, but the generic administrative notes and bug reports for the entire Shop subroutine. Once I get there, I take the time to verify that administrative notes are logged by individual but not location and grin.
Gotcha.
As I get ready to do what I need to next, I feel my body jar, bones creaking and my neck whiplashing around. My hand, clutching the Shop orb, breaks free and I stagger to the side. Purely by instinct, my sword appears in my hand and swings. It bites into skin and flesh, and a portion of my attacker flops away.
“Aaaaargh! You goddamn Gremlin-feces-loving son-of-the-abyss!” Ali shouts, dodging backward even as he reforms his leg.
“What the hell!”
“Teaches me to save your ass!” Ali snarls, his wound sealed, the stub of his leg reforming. As a creature of thought and energy more than actual mass, damage to Ali is more conceptual than biological.
“What do you… mean.”
I take into account my body and health. I feel wretched—much more than getting body-slammed by the rapidly shrinking Spirit would entail. As the pain finally makes itself known, I find myself sagging to my knees as every single nerve, muscle, and cell within my body screams.
Mana Sense is tingling, overloaded by the sheer amount of System Mana my body contains now. I’m overclocked on Mana itself and my body is doing its best to purge itself of the excess amount. For a moment, I try to trigger a spell, a simple Light spell to help bleed off the excess Mana.
I only do it for a second before curling up on the floor, choking off screams as betrayed nerves inform me that attempting to cast or utilize Skills at this moment is the worst idea I could have.
Long minutes, maybe hours, pass as my body washes the System Mana from my body. When I finally stagger back to my feet, I find Ali hovering beside me, biting his lip in anxiousness.