Chapter 6

[You have entered the By His Beard And Fire Holy Dwarven Sanctuary For The Lost And Needy]

[One Time Tooltip: You have entered a Sanctuary!]

[Sanctuaries differ from Lairs in that their inhabitants are judged to be in good standing with the law and of adequate moral standing. Raiding a system designated Sanctuary is considered an illegal action, and will result in the attacker being branded a [System Criminal] for a duration proportionate to the severity of their actions.]

Ben knew right away he was in a church, even before The System explicitly told him, because the first thing he saw was a beautiful stained glass windows depicting the story of an alien religion. He made the conscious decision to ignore everyone else for a while and just stare at the windows.

It told, in all it’s bright-colored pictographic glory, the story of the Dwarven race. Their beginnings as AI, their descent into madness, and the fateful meeting with human beings. By the end of it, Ben was certain that the Dwarves did in-fact worship beer as a sacred thing.

That was one window, and the next showed Ben something so glorious, so awesome, he could scarcely believe it. It depicted human beings strongly allied with the former AI’s, who had fashioned themselves into World Ships, incredible Ark’s of humanity and all the associated animal life, as they ventured out into the universe and began seeding it with life.

The next window depicted nothing but the universe on fire. War on the cosmic scale, drawn onto glass by robotic hands. The image seemed simple at first, but the longer Ben stared, the more he saw. He felt himself being drawn into the story and looked away with a chilling realization: he could stare at that window for the rest of his life and never stop finding new details. Nothing good could come from further analysis.

Ben blinked slowly and brought himself back to reality with a long cleansing breath. The Beard Sanctuary, which is what Ben had shortened the full name to in his head, smelled of old paper, wood, and dust. The quintessential scent for churches everywhere, in Ben’s experienced, humble, pious, and correct opinion. Then, because Ben was in serious need of ADHD medication or the equivalent genetic editing treatment, he noticed the other smells and sights of the church, er, [Sanctuary].

Sweat and stink and the sounds of Humans packed together like sardines. Full humans were surrounded by little swarms of Fairies, which Ben had just [Evolved] out of, and various kinds of larger fairy creatures like Leap-rechauns, of which Ben was, and others he could easily recognize as halflings, gnomes, and other small type humanoids. Scattered among the humans in lesser but near equal numbers, were animals from Earth. Ben immediately noticed that most of them were [Evolved] in some way, but that Short Bus was the only humanoid animal in the room. He thought he was imagining it, but the animals seemed to be giving Short Bus sympathetic looks.

“Ah shove off,” Short Bus said quietly enough for everyone to hear him, and then walked off in a sulk.

“That’s new,” Ghost Ears commented, right about the same time Ben thought it.

“My understanding is that humanoid evolutions are considered something of a loss,” the hammer judge commented, resting on her mobile platform.

“Could we get your name,” Ben said somewhat abruptly, “I keep calling you hammer judge in my mind, and it seems disrespectful now that you’re going out of your way to help us and give us sanctuary.”

“Queen Urth, or Judge Urth will suffice,” she said as her platform soundlessly walked, carrying her farther into the sanctuary, “and the rest of you are free to walk around, there is no danger in here. Ben, please come with me to meet the [Sage].” Ben started to follow, and soon they had a veneer of privacy. “She should be able to fix your level system, or at a minimum, keep you from exploding and taking a chunk of the city with you. I’m by no means an expert in System Repairs, but even I know clearing a Citadel with a broken level system is one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard.”

“Yeah,” Ben said, not arguing or defending himself, “I’m not doing that again. What were you saying back there?” he asked as they entered what was clearly the ‘staff only’ portion of the church, “about Short Bus and humanoid forms?”

“My recommendation is to ask the animals about it,” she said, “but I completely understand the sentiment behind it. I could easily build myself a body you know,” without moving she seemed to gesture at herself with sheer force of verbal understanding, “but what a loss that would be. I love being a hammer in the hand of my husband’s forge-” she coughed and then spoke quickly, “apologies, we’ve been separated for a long time, and I’m looking forward to seeing him again. You have my deepest gratitude for what you did in the courthouse, and I will do everything in my power to assist you.”

“Isn’t that like a conflict of interest?”

“I have a skill that allows me to force the legal system to ignore conflicts of interest.”

“That’s handy. You know, on Earth, we try and actually determine the truth in our legal system and use that to guide our judgements.”

“That’s nice,” she said in a mocking, but not unkind way, “but you’ll need to adapt your way of thinking to how things are here.” She paused. “In Dwarven culture, we strove to structure our legal system much in the same way. It’s a rare idea in The World. We were speaking about your friend, yes? I’m assuming he used the [Evolution] ability to transition to his humanoid form, rather than a potion or a skill or enchantment.”

“That’s right. We were attacked by something massive in the ocean and he got stranded on dry land. He’d leveled enough to [Evolve], so he chose the only option that would let him live and. . . well, and let him come and find me.”

“You’ll find that. . . practically speaking, the only animals who take a humanoid form were forced to. This is their story to tell, but they do not want to become human.”

“Huh,” Ben said, and some mental puzzle pieces pieced themselves together, “shit, I didn’t know it was like that. Short Bus you fantastic shark,” Ben was shaking his head, “I’ll find a way to turn you back, I promise.” From somewhere in the distance, muffled yet loud, they could both hear Short Bus respond with ‘Thanks Ben!’

“Is he always reading your mind?” Judge Urth asked.

“He’s always reading everyone’s mind,” Ben responded, and they heard a gigantic ‘Yep!’ in the distance, followed by a bunch of animals shouting that they were also always reading everyone’s minds. “This place isn’t much for privacy is it?”

“Ah, no. Despite the dangers of Solas, many of the human refugees here still prefer to test their luck in the city.” They stopped outside a closed office, and one of the mechanical legs of Judge Urth’s platform gently knocked, “Breah? Are you busy?”

“No,” the woman who responded had a deeper voice, but still distinctly female. To Ben, it had an immediately familiar quality, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Except that it sounded like his natural enemy, for some reason.

“I’ve got someone here who really needs your services as a [Sage]. His name is Prince Ben, and he’s very important to the [Sanctuary]. Plus, I owe him a great debt. Please use all available resources to help him, and anything we don’t have, I’ll have brought to you immediately. Don’t worry about the cost, I’ll cover it.”

“Oh,” Breah, the woman behind the door, sounded pleasantly surprised, “I should level then, that’s good. Prince Ben, come in please.”

“Breah is a very talented [Sage] regardless of her level, you’re in good hands.”

“Thank you,” Ben said, and Judge Urth gave him a friendly tap with one of her platform’s mechanical legs, then left. Ben opened the door and entered the office, using a small degree of self control not to be taken aback by what he immediately saw. Breah, Ben realized, had that real ‘HR Department’ vibe to her look, in that she was rather large, had brightly colored hair and a pair of problem glasses. Ben’s sense of stereotyping immediately activated, and was subsequently suppressed as he looked around the office.

It was extremely clean and. . . stark. Ben blinked several times as he took in the sheer sense of utilitarian desolation that radiated from everything.

“It’s nice to meet you Prince Ben,” Breah said, getting up from her desk and giving Ben a standard handshake, “Before we begin, have you claimed your royal class?”

“Yeah,” Ben said.

“What a headache, right? There’s a closet over there with second stage fae evolution sized monarch gear. Standard crown, cloak and scepter. . . plus some regular clothing to wear under it.” She was gigantic, and no that wasn’t a fat joke. She was fully human, evolved back to normal, and thus much larger than Ben. She noticed him hesitating. “Please, you don’t even know how uncomfortable you are right now. Royal classes are absolutely brutal on their users.”

“Sorry,” Ben said, realizing he was staring, “and thank you, I’ll just. . . yeah,” Ben quickly went into the indicated closet and saw that it was full of fantasy adventuring outfits. Green leather armor, complete with bow and arrows. Hardened black material with sneaky looking boots and stealthy knives. Blue robes with comically large pointy hats covered in stars and magical looking staves. Chainmail and plate, swords and shields, clubs and maces and helmets.

By far the biggest section was dedicated to ostentatiously displayed outfits fit for royals. In glass cases, lit up by magical lights, each individual outfit was different, but also exactly the same as all the others. A golden crown set with some kind of jewels, a brightly colored cape with some kind of fancy trim, and a scepter of precious metal, also set with jewels.

“I’ve got to give it to her,” Ben said, rubbing his chin and staring at the royal gear with more interest than he felt was natural, “Breah knows her shit.” Then, without further thought or comment, Ben selected a royal outfit themed with red and rubies. Red cloak with white trim, rubies in the crown, and rubies in the scepter. Only those three things were strictly necessary, but the gear came with a nice matching outfit and it was with great surprise that Ben found himself staring at the clothes, rather than actually wearing it.

“Are you ok in there?” Breah asked after what must have been several minutes of silence.

“I’m good, I’m good!” Ben shouted, his volume socially appropriate for the distance. He then heard a knock, not on his door, but on the door he’d originally gone through to get into Breah’s office.

“He’s not good,” Short Bus said, his voice muffled by two doors, and yet still completely understandable, “he’s freaked out by wearing clothes again.”

“No I’m not!” Ben yelled, his volume no longer socially appropriate for the distance, “and go away!”

“I’m reading your mind Ben, you’re freaking out! You know,” Short Bus said, clearly talking to Breah, “For as long as I’ve known him, Ben has had a vendetta against pants. He destroys every pair he comes across within a day.”

“I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be hearing all this,” Breah began, but Ben started shouting again.

“I’m going to put on the fucking pants, go away!”

“Atta boy Ben!” Short Bus crowed. There was silence for a while as Ben continued to stare at the pants. Then, surprising himself, Ben started punching the wall and silently shouting ‘fuck’ over and over again. It wasn’t the pants, it was everything else that had happened to him. He’d nearly died multiple times a day, every single day since he’d gotten to The World, and now he was safe. His emotions, which had been so well behaved and repressed, let their outrage, rampage. Ben took deep breaths, one after another. He filled his lungs to bursting and held it there, squeezing till he got a head rush and then a little bit past that, before he exhaled, slumping down on the ground.

It was the fucking clothes thing that really got to him. He should, by all rights, be over the moon about having something to wear. Clothes were good! They covered his penis so nobody could comment on either its size, or appearance, both of which were, like Ben himself, just slightly above average. Clothes also, Ben admitted, kept him warm, protected his skin from scrapes, and made him look better.

'This really shouldn't bother me so much,' Ben thought to himself. One of the skills he'd picked up back on Earth, the regular kind of skill where you just figure shit out and don't get a message about it, was self-awareness. Ben had probably learned it later in life than he should have, but had also learned it sooner than most people did. So, when he thought 'This really shouldn't bother me so much,' he immediately dove into, 'No, it really shouldn't. Why does it?'

The answer, as answers often do when one asks the right questions, came immediately, and in the form of a memory.

While working for The City, which didn't exist anymore, Ben had gotten promoted to being the guy who put up stop signs and who put white and yellow paint on the road. A simplification of his job, but not an inaccurate one. Putting up signs was usually a one man gig, but painting the road required the whole crew and a half million dollar striper truck.

It was a cold late summer morning, the kind of morning that was like Fall tapping their watch and saying 'This Summer shit's getting old, time to drop leaves and make it cold.' They’d just been shooting the shit over their headsets, fending off boredom.

They were all on the truck, when they pass by a homeless guy at a bus stop- Stop feeling bad for the guy, he wasn't that kind of homeless. This guy was high out of his mind, about thirty-five, and didn't have any shoes on. He was standing upright in his dirty brown and brown-green outfit, energetically talking to the cars as they passed him by. On closer inspection, they had all noticed he was wearing women's underwear like some sort of strange, pseudo-sandals, pulled between his exposed toes.

There had been silence for a moment, and then someone said, “I'm really grateful for my life,” and then they said all the normal shit people say; he had a good job, a good family, a house (the motherfucker), and his problems weren't that bad. Then, someone else had said something, Ben couldn't remember what, and he'd responded with this:

“Everybody's got a set of problems in their life. . . and some problems are a lot better than others.”

His co-worker, who had admittedly been a bit of a negative person, paused and then said:

“You know, that's an extremely optimistic way of looking at the world.”

The conversation had stuck in Ben's mind, and nagged at him the entire day. It was later, when he was talking on the phone with his Dad, which was basically him bragging about his successes and minimizing his failures, when he really started to untangle the idea.

In Jungian psychology, there's an idea that the mind needs a religious structure of some kind, a moral cosmology, an answer to all the 'why' questions. The idea follows that if the mind does not have a moral cosmology/religion, or if its moral cosmology/religion is destroyed, the mind will find something to put in its place. The theory then posited, to Ben’s understanding at least, that if the mind can't find a new 'moral liver', it'll just start making shit up to fill the void. It would be like replacing an organ with a handful of random junk from an antique store and calling it good.

Ben, while talking with his dad about problems, came to the realization that problems were probably just about the same way. He figured that a person’s brain, on average, had about ten problem slots. Some people had more, some people had less, but everybody had them the same way everybody had skin. They weren’t a bug, they were a feature. The problems were like the poles holding the whole circus tent up, and the clowns were always trying to saw them to pieces.

Solve a problem? Great! Now the brain needs to find a new problem to take its place. No matter how many problems a person solved, they would never be done, because the brain needed to have problems in order to function.

The 'Problem Kidneys' to the 'Moral Liver', as it were. The absolute comedy of it was that people spent their entire lives trying to solve problems, and then felt miserable when they actually succeeded. Their brain got really, really comfortable with a set of problems the longer it'd been holding onto them, and soon, it was about managing problems, not actually solving them.

And if, by some terrible accident, their oldest problems were solved? Misery! Depression! Chaos! Their minds would throw a fucking fit, and then desperately look for some random shit, or just start making shit up, manufacturing a problem to slot into the vacancy.

He had, in that moment, felt like he'd cracked the entire code of human misery, and understood the human condition better than anyone who had ever come before him.

He'd been wrong, obviously, but he was certainly onto something. So, from that point on, at least until he'd sort of forgot about it the way people are prone to do with mind-blowing revelations, Ben had been strategic about his problems. He tried to figure out what issues he was working on, and solve them. Then, when he'd solved something, he'd actively look for something new to go after, rather than just let random chance decided what his brain was going to be doing with its calories.

“Damn,” Ben said, looking at his clothes, “I must have really liked that problem.” He cracked a smile. “Humans are so fucking stupid, it hurts,” he said, clutching his head in his hands and chuckling, while also feeling the painful truth of his statement. He nodded to himself and got dressed. When he was done, he looked like a real prince, albeit a very short one, and the pressure from his broken class had completely vanished. “Huh,” Ben said, then walked out of the closet.

“Ben that was awesome!” Short Bus yelled from the hallway, trying ineffectually to get into the sage’s office by jiggling the door handle, “You had an existential crisis triggered by putting on a pair of pants! I’m totally using that ‘problem kidney’ thing for my new TV show, ‘Psychology Shark’. Ok Breah, he’s ready, he’s all yours. Little buddy, I’m going to be roaming around for a bit. Be nice to the sage, she’s a good person.”

Breah looked from the door, to Ben, then back to the door. Ben was about to speak, when she held up a finger to stop him. She took a deep, calming, professional breath, and then moved on from everything that had just happened. She pointed at the clothes. “Your class requirements should now be completely satisfied. Better, right?” Breah asked with a look of satisfied sympathy on her face.

“Yeah. You know, I had a full set of gear a little while back, but this is way better. Why is that?”

“A full set, but it wasn’t set gear. The World is a really weird mismash of a bunch of different game mechanics from a bunch of different genres. It’s weird that so much of what we find here had an echo in our world.”

“For real. You were a gamer?”

“I was familiar with games, yes, but it was more of an academic study rather than actual enjoyment. The World treats equipment sets the same way as the Diablo franchise.”

“Oh yeah that makes sense,” Ben had played all the Diablo games, “so it’s like ‘there are five pieces of equipment in this set, and for each additional piece you get, you get bonus stats’ or something like that, right?”

“Right. Lucky for you and all the other royals out there, sets are only slightly less common than regular gear. Most classes can mix and match equipment freely as long as it’s in their class, but royals need to coordinate their outfits, as in, they need to be wearing actual equipment sets in order to fully satisfy [Royal Requirements].”

“Huh, that sucks. I want to move on from this topic, but what set am I wearing right now?” Ben asked, and her eyes immediately came into sharp focus, in a visible and obviously supernatural way.

“You are in the [Humble Street King] set. Pretty low level all things considered, but it does grant a bonus to hp when the system classifies you as homeless.” Before Ben could ask if The System considered him homeless, Breah spoke. “It looks like the bonus is active now, so good for you. Bad news, you’re about to explode. Um, so let’s focus on that. Did you by any chance make any manual adjustments to your skills or racial passive abilities?”

“Yeah,” Ben said, “is it obvious?”

“About as obvious as an ax wound with the ax still inside it. The good news is that I’m going to be able to keep you from blowing up, but the bad news is that if I actually want to fix you, it’s going to be really expensive. Right now, your level system is completely broken. It’s totaled,” she said, and her eyes flashed again, “see, you manually activated your [Evolution] ability, but the way you did it was like using the jaws of life to change the sparkplugs of your vehicle. Pretty much all the machinery is mangled to bits, and worse, you have a bunch of volatile experience just floating around raw in the wreck. Your level system can’t process the experience and the unprocessed experience is causing more damage to the level system in a really simple, but destructive cycle. Plus, it looks like you cleared a Citadel, absorbed a Citadel Core, defeated several boss monsters, toppled a monster kingdom, busted up an illegal Gremlin Summoning Cabal, all with a completely broken system. . . what the fuck dude?” she looked away from the invisible list of Ben’s amazing accomplishments and stared at him.

“It’s been a really long week,” Ben said, slumping into his chair. “So what do we need to do?”

“First thing?” she said, then pulled out a gigantic sci-fi syringe covered in scary looking spikes, “We’ve got to extract all that experience out of you so you don’t explode. You might want to close your eyes for this one, it’s going to hurt.”

Ben was then willingly strapped down to his chair and consented to have his experience drained by the licensed and skilled [Sage] Breah.

She had not lied. It. Hurt.