Huh. The kid actually did it, thought Rosemallow. Mana began to flow back into her battered form, and she could feel her attributes reasserting themselves with each passing second. While it had been decades since she could benefit much from her own struggles, she felt a twinge of disappointment that the tussle on the Greatwood was going to end.

I could always pretend for a while and draw things out some more. Maybe I can get the annoying guy to come and play for a while.

The leader of the Sinaloa forces had been unreasonably reticent to get his hands dirty, in Rosemallow’s opinion, sending wave after wave of increasingly weak minions to try and subdue her in his place. As her powers returned, she couldn’t resist a quick peek with her third eye.

Alfonse Quimea, Level 50 (Repressed)

Health: 272 (Repressed)

Despoiler

Betrayer

Beguiler

Grandmaster Alchemist

Grandmaster Manipulator

Hmm. Not much more than name and titles. A tough nut to crack, this one. No surprise there I guess.

She knew she could see more, much more, if she opened her third eye fully, but to do that would ruin her fun. She pulled herself up to her full height, her bones cracking as they set themselves within her battered body. The warriors around her flinched.

“Well,” she said. “Who’s up for another round?”

***

Dart Passer flew alone. Her sky-sisters and sky-brothers had been unwilling to extend themselves without orders from the commander, and while she couldn’t blame them for their passivity, she vowed never to forget their short-sightedness.

They’re all so… earth-bound, she thought to herself. So sun-blind. How can they be unwilling to just come and see for themselves?

Never before had she felt so impotent. Many of those she had tried to recruit had laughed at her. Laughed! Dart Passer, the top sky-seeker in her cohort, was used to being underestimated. She was small, ordinary looking, without the natural weapons of the raptors. She had yet to prove herself to her fellow Wraiths. The only beings who would listen to her were those kids from the Academy, the ones who were somehow responsible for getting the commander off his ancient elf ass in the first place. Everyone else turned a deaf ear to the junior scout, convinced she was being naive and gullible to believe the evidence of her own eyes.

I’ll show them, she grumbled as she flew between the trees, darting and weaving, pulling on the air around her with her source to move smaller branches from her path as she flew at her highest speed. She had long ago passed the first and second security perimeters, making no effort to hide her presence from the wards. No patrols greeted her, no arrows were fired, more evidence that she was right.

Finally, she emerged from the forest in a blur of wings, soaring out over the dense brush and thorns the unfortunate groundlings had complained about so often in her hearing. She turned skyward and began a steep ascent when she saw it, a trail of crushed vegetation at least fifty feet wide, leading out onto the burned fields. Her eyes followed the path to its conclusion, across the wide field of what she now understood to be thousands of exposed roots, to the base of the Greatwood, to…

What am I even seeing?

Dart had heard stories of the original monstrous denizens of Averdale forest. In the opinion of several senior Wraiths, the only good that had come from the Outsider’s presence was their systematic suppression of the dark creatures of the woods. There were still outlying areas of the forest where the monsters reigned, dangling creepers and shade sloths, wolf-spiders, night rays and of course, the nearly legendary great slime molds.

She could only assume that the last was what she was looking at, but whatever image her imagination had conjured for her, the reality was so different that she could barely understand. To the extent that she had ever bothered to think about it, she had pictured something like a large rounded blob, perhaps with some kind of limbs or tendrils it could project. This was… not that.

It’s like a great beast vomited. After eating cheese and charcoal.

She felt a bit like vomiting herself. Sickly yellow swirled with black in a web of thick strands and clusters that covered a large area at the end of the trail of crushed roots and vegetation. At the center rose a jagged pile of waving and pulsating peaks of slime… chunks. She looked away, but not before seeing something even more disturbing.

Is that a person being consumed?

She saw a torso sticking out of the pile, and then realized to her horror that they were moving.

Oh gods, they’re still alive!

She flew closer, unable to help herself, hovering on a pillar of summoned air.

Is that a girl? And is she… smiling?

“Oh, hello!” the girl called. “Slimey’s not looking too good is he? I think he ate too much.”

***

Lilijoy studied the avian where they hovered, nearly upright with wings outstretched.

I wonder if it’s a boy or a girl?

She felt a little bad that she couldn’t tell, but even her vast store of knowledge couldn’t tell her. The avian’s mottled brown feathers were crossed with white bands and stripes of black and grey ran from the beak and around the eyes, almost like a mask worn across the face. Lilijoy hadn’t had a chance to get to know any avians at the Academy; Skria had mentioned that they tended to keep to themselves, avoiding ‘groundlings’ when they could.

I wonder what they're thinking?

She didn’t have the faintest idea how to read avian expressions, but she could only imagine what her current situation looked like from the outside. It had taken Slimey, as she had begun calling her hungry companion and current lower half, a little while to start moving but once it had caught a whiff of the rot and miasma coming off the Greatwood, the great slime mold had revealed a whole new type of locomotion. Rather than stretching and growing along the ground, it had begun to thrust its body forward in great waves, rearing up as tall as it could, then falling forward.

Needless to say, it had been a bit of a wild ride for her.

She could see that the avian’s beak was starting to open, and moved her subjective time forward so she wouldn’t have to wait to hear what it was going to say.

“…“

Well, that was disappointing. But I can’t really blame them.

She decided to take the initiative. Again.

“Are you with the Wraiths?”

The bird's mouth opened and closed several more times before they managed a shrill chirping sound.

“Is that a yes? Anyway, It took you guys long enough. Did you get my message?”

Finally, some actual words came out. “Who… what?”

Might as well get this out of the way. I’ll leave out the awkward part about this all happening because of me though.

“My name is Lily. The Greatwood is awake now, tempered, and maybe a little… evil? I guess? Or just really grumpy. So it more or less destroyed Sinaloa, the ones who were here anyway, and all their buildings and stuff. Then things got complicated… but you’re here now, so maybe I can finally get out of Slimey and do whatever it is I’m supposed to do next. What’s your name?”

At this point the avian was distracted by a screaming figure falling from the top of the Greatwood. Her beady eyes followed the man’s flailing limbs down to the inevitable, crunching conclusion.

“Yeah, that’s been happening a lot,” said Lilijoy. “I think my trainer’s feeling better.”

After another few seconds of silence, the avian spoke coherently. “My name is Dart Passer. Scout for the Wraiths. What now?”

“Well, I’m kind of stuck,” Lilijoy, sweeping an arm along her slime container. “Slimey will take a few minutes to digest the dhrowgos bodies, and then I’m pretty sure he’ll move to the trunk.”

“He?”

“Why not? While we’re on the subject, I don’t know how to differentiate sex in your race. Are you a…”

“Female.” Dart answered. “I’m the only one who’s coming, unless some kids I talked with decided to follow.”

In hindsight, she felt a little bad for involving Academy students. It would have been a terrible mistake on her part if this actually had been a trap.

Lilijoy brightened. “Were their names Skria and Jessila?”

“I think the petauran was Skria. I didn’t hear the large one speak.”

“That sounds about right. How were they?”

Dart twitched her head. “How would I know? The petauran seemed agitated, for a groundling.”

“Yeah, she’s like that. I don’t suppose you could lift me out of Slimey?”

Avians weren’t equipped for eye rolling, but Lilijoy figured that the way the fine down on Dart’s face ruffled upward might be the equivalent. “Do I look like a lifter? Also, I’m not coming any closer to that thing.”

“Don’t worry about Slimey. He’s full of rot, and he doesn’t like air mana that much anyway. Although...” A new idea came to her. “Do you think you could lure more slime molds in to the trunk?”

“I thought they didn’t like air. Why would they follow me?”

“That’s true, though they’ll grab you if they’re hungry. But I’m sure you could find some pieces of Dhrowgos on the other side of the trunk. They steam in the sunlight, so they won’t be hard to spot. You can use those like breadcrumbs.”

“And why would I want to do such a thing?”

“We’re going to save the tree, at least I hope we are.” She looked upward at the monumental expanse of bark. “But we’re going to need a bigger slime.”

***

By the time Skria and Jessila arrived, the situation at the Greatwood had evolved considerably. Not long after Dart left to entice more slime molds from the surrounding forest, Lilijoy heard a great explosion from high above. Soon after that Rosemallow descended. She took one look at Lilijoy’s circumstances and heaved a great sigh.

“Well kid, I thought you would’ve had your fill of mold after the Corrupted Village, but it looks like you can’t get enough of the stuff.”

“It’s not the same thing at all,” Lilijoy protested. “For one, there aren’t any spores.”

Rosemallow grimaced. “Yeah, that’ll happen later. Hopefully we’ll be long gone by then.” She looked down at her feet. “So… I’m sure you must be wondering what this was all about.”

“I think I understand some of what happened, maybe even most of it.” Lilijoy replied. “But I’d really like to hear what you know, once I get out of Slimey here.”

Rosemallow nodded, and then tossed Lilijoy a rope from her inventory. One sharp yank and two nearly dislocated shoulders later, Lilijoy stood next to her trainer. They surveyed the great pulsating mass in silence for a few moments.

“I hear you’re a Gongen.” Lilijoy said at last.

Rosemallow shrugged. “Keep that notion to yourself. It gets the Outsiders all worked up when they hear things like that, as you may have just noticed.”

“But why? Why does it need to be a secret? Couldn’t you, and all the others just pretty much do whatever you want?”

Rosemallow barked out a sharp laugh, but the words that followed were subdued. “It’s complicated.” Then she shook her head. “Or maybe it’s simple. We do what we’re told. Once an Insider’s mind has grown to a certain point, we develop layers, I guess you could say. Our independent thought begins to overlap with the greater mind above ours, to mingle. The more we grow, the less independent we are.” She grimaced. “That’s not quite right either. I’m sure Ani could explain this better.”

“So the Archon is the mind above yours?”

“Above, around, within, without… the spatial metaphors break down. But yes. In a very real way, I am myself, and also an appendage. The smaller tempered subsets are something like a muscle fiber, and a Gongen is like the entire muscle. Or more like the part of your brain that tells the muscle what to do. Like I said, it’s complicated. Language just stops working at a certain point.”

“Is that what the glyphs are for?”

Rosemallow startled, then relaxed. “I should know better,” she said to herself. “Yes. Sort of.”

She looked directly at Lilijoy and her third eye spun, than began to glow red, brighter and brighter, until Lilijoy tried to look away, and realized she couldn’t, because the light wasn’t outside of her, but within. Before it became too uncomfortable, Rosemallow released her from her gaze.

“Well,” she said. “That’s unfortunate.”

Lilijoy felt alarmed, then angry. “What? What’s the problem?” She was more than a little fed up with her various mentors and teachers acting enigmatic.

I’m surrounded either by people who know things and won’t tell me, or people that I can’t tell things because they don’t know enough. Doctor Quimea may be a world class solipsistic narcissist, but at least he doesn’t care enough to hide the truth.

She turned that thought over in her mind for a moment. There was something right about it, but also very twisted. Her internal wrestling was interrupted by Rosemallow’s reply.

“I didn’t mean to be alarming. Look, I’ll put it as plainly as I can, and hopefully I won’t screw you up in the process. The first fifty levels or so are, well, a bit like training. Conditioning.”

Lilijoy stared up at her. “Umm. Isn’t that completely obvious? You are my trainer, I train to get stronger.”

“Yes, of course. But no. I mean you are being taught, trained like you might train a pet. When the pet does something right, you give it a reward, see?”

“Oh.” She did see. Saw it all too clearly. Not conditioning, but operant conditioning. “So experience points...”

“That’s the reward. The powers the Outsiders gain, the strength, the magic, they don’t represent anything meaningful, outside of a contained framework.”

“That framework being the Garden.”

“Exactly.”

She wasn’t particularly shocked. This was just a different slant on what she had already figured out for herself. Outsiders were being manipulated, used, by a vast mechanism pushing buttons in their little biological minds. It still didn’t explain why, though she certainly had her thoughts on that as well.

What are we being trained to do? Certainly not to be better people. What is being reinforced? Novelty, challenge, suffering, inspiration and discovery. Those are all reasonable things to reward, except maybe suffering.

“It’s all preparatory, “Rosemallow went on to say. “It’s training them to contribute in the future. More fertilizer than crop, so to speak. So when I say that it’s unfortunate that you took a step on your Path, it is because you haven’t solidified your foundation. Even tempered Insiders need to do that.”

“But what does that mean?” Lilijoy asked. “What is my foundation? Is it an actual thing, or just another metaphor?”

“Why can’t it be both?”

Lilijoy made a strange sound.

“Did you just growl at me?” Rosemallow smiled. “I like it. This is why it would be better for you to talk to Ani. I can’t help but make this difficult. To answer your question, your foundation at this point is about the quantity of meaningful experiences, which is what the Garden system is rewarding. There’s a threshold, around level thirty, where the quantity allows more interrelationships between experiences, where more understanding begins to emerge.”

“So initially, it’s more about novelty and discovery, and over time inspiration becomes more important?”

“Something like that.” Rosemallow snorted. “It’s not overly precise, because it’s also a sorting mechanism, letting those who have more to contribute rise. In terms of concrete value to the Great Mind, the Garden is a tiny drop, but it’s the soil from which the crop grows.”

“So we’re a crop.” This was hardly news to Lilijoy, though it did surprise her to hear it said so bluntly.

Rosemallow raised her middle eyebrow. “Oh, there is no ‘we’ anymore. Not for you. At least, not in the way you are thinking. Surely you’ve realized that you are different from the Outsiders. Eskallia could never have used you for her little trick if you weren’t.”

Finally. Maybe I can get some real answers.

“So what makes me so special?” Lilijoy asked.

Rosemallow laughed, though without much humor. “Special,” she repeated. “That’s one word for it. Useful might be another. You’re not the first of whatever it is you are. Masgret would call you a child of the Great Mind. There’s only been a handful of those like you, popping up around the time of the Unity. In the past, it hasn’t always been so obvious so soon though. Each Great Cycle is different, and this one looks to be particularly weird, what with two of you floating around.”

Attaboy. It has to be.

Lilijoy couldn’t help herself. Everything she had done, the entire surreal chain of events in Averdale, had started with her need to rescue Attaboy. She was still processing what it meant that he had made it to the Inside, still grappling with the concept of really seeing him, possibly within days.

“Have you met the other?”

Rosemallow crouched down, bringing her face closer to Lilijoy’s level. “No need to be coy,” she said. “I know that he’s your friend. Masgret jumped on him before I had a chance to take him under my wing. Who knows what kind of nonsense she’s filling his head with.”

Lilijoy took a moment to imagine just how well Dean Reunification and Attaboy might get along. If she could imagine a perfectly wrong teacher for Attaboy’s stubborn personality, they would look a lot like the Dean.

“There’s not much room in his head to begin with,” she said fondly. “But I’d be more worried about her throwing him off a building than influencing him somehow.”

After all, he somehow managed to get away from Doctor Quimea.

She pushed aside the notion that Attaboy might no longer be himself, that he may have been overtaken by the memories and personality of Atticus Choi. She would deal with that if she had to. First, she had to get back to him, then she could address whatever challenge presented itself.

The sound of approaching feet distracted her, and she looked across the rooted field to see Jessila, with Skria gliding overhead. A wave of excitement washed over her at seeing her friends, and then guilt from killing them, or at least trying in Jessila’s case, regret for getting them into the situation in the first place.

Rosemallow looked over at them as well.

“One last thing before your friends get here. I told you that Masgret calls you the children of the Great Mind.”

She stood up.

“Well, in this case, the Great Mind is a god who eats its children."