That Which Will Not Bend

Chapter 72

Law was sitting at his desk, doing his best to be busy. A task made difficult by the relative lack of work at the moment. Most of his job was system bug hunting. Something that would likely be down for a day or two since a new patch was inbound. His side work being a bit on the sparse side wasn't helping matters.

When Law wasn't doing systems work, he was giving omens or summoning heroes. It sounded cooler than it was because his part was just the tail end of a longer process. First, he ran a few checks to ensure the talent scouts and related deities had filled everything out correctly. If they didn't, he sent them back for correction. If they did, he okayed them.

Though he wouldn't ever admit it, Law envied Good quite a bit. They actually interacted with summoned heroes. Of course, it was more work, but at least it was interesting.

Thinking of Good, Law glanced over at his coworker briefly. Usually, they'd have made small talk or taken a break together at some point. Instead, Law was trying very hard not to draw Good's attention, which was unusual in the extreme.

Good was someone everybody loved and wanted to be close to. Everyone but Evil, but that was a diametric opposition. It couldn't be helped. Despite that, Law was pretty sure Evil liked good too, even if they couldn't admit it. Or at least he had been until recent events.

Good had poisoned someone and threw their former coworker Neutrality to the wolves in the process. That the poisoned someone in question was Evil made it almost seem sensible. Almost.

It hadn't been so long ago Good wouldn't have even considered doing such a thing. To act in a way that couldn't hold up to the cold light of day. Law tried to remember when exactly they'd start to change. He couldn't honestly pick a particular moment, it had come on gradually, or he'd outright missed the signs.

"Law, could you help me? I'm having trouble figuring something out," Good asked sweetly. Law hesitated but, like usual, couldn't say no in the end. So he grabbed an apple and some water and headed over.

"What's got you flummoxed?" Law asked, pretending to be calm. They hadn't talked about the incident, not really. Good had just giddily informed him they succeeded at the Order they'd both received. When he'd asked how, that was when they casually explained how they'd created the distractions that let them get into the other office unnoticed.

"Well, I think I've finally traced the issue I was talking about. You know, the one where fate lines were disappearing out of the divine domains. The trouble is that it's linked to a dungeon," Good explained as they pointed to the offending item on their screen. It was a dungeon core's profile, the font of the interface red on a field of black that felt like it was dripping the longer Law looked at it.

"This is an evil account," Law observed aloud. Though for whose benefit, he wasn't sure. Clearly, Good couldn't have missed that they were working on an account that didn't belong to them, let alone an evil one.

"Hm? Oh, yeah, after I managed to get that USB into their system, I gained access," Good replied calmly. Law nodded numbly just to have something to do. He'd had no idea what the end result would be, but there was no way someone could have legitimately ordered it for that kind of goal. Admins weren't supposed to trespass into each other's domains. Just getting to Evil’s desk had required going through Neutrality.

"How could a dungeon affect a fate line?" Law asked. He knew the lines were essentially the most likely path a life would take. Technically all beings had them, but the gods didn't typically bother with those not linked to heroes or the priesthood. Even then, they usually filtered them so only the upper tiers ever got their attention.

Magic, divine or secular, could destabilize a fate line, but it didn't happen often. Even then, it just became unreadable rather than moving totally out of the divine system. Law hadn't been able to figure out what caused several to seemingly vanish despite the associated beings still being alive. That a dungeon was responsible made no sense.

"I'm not sure, but I put trackers on lines of interest. Four of them disappeared when they came in contact with a dungeon. So it has to be the cause," Good said, looking satisfied with their logic. Law tilted his head, not so easily convinced.

"Did the other ones?" Law asked.

"I wasn't tracking those. All of the data disappeared when they did," Good said dismissively. Law sighed, it was sloppy reasoning. Not that it was exactly unusual in and of itself. Good had always been a little too gung-ho when they thought they were right. The fact that one instance proved nothing probably not even occurring to them.

Law felt like shit as he did it, but started mentally cataloging all of the rules Good was breaking. He was going to have to file a report to the higher-ups. This kind of thing couldn't be ignored.

"Are you sure they disappeared? It would look the same if they were reassigned," Law asked, wanting to draw things out. Unfortunately, he would have to work on the report once he returned to his desk. A reassignment was the only relevant alternative to Good's assumption that the fate lines were outright gone.

"As if. It was a party of heroes under Stromholt. I doubt they had a sudden crisis of faith. He's an excellent deity. The dungeon must have done something," Good said dismissively. Law flinched at the deity's name, unable to think of but aware of a similar one. Stromholt was Good and Law aligned last he checked. Those kinds of deities did tend to draw loyal followers.

"If you say so. I honestly don't know much about dungeons, possibly less than you. What did you need a hand with?" Law asked, wanting to keep the discussion moving. He needed to know what Good was trying to do for the report.

"That's just the thing. It's more of a systems issue. I can find the dungeon’s profile and the physical location on the local map, but I can't locate it on the server," Good explained.

"Then it's probably on a sub server, but that's not Evil's style," Law said, swallowing involuntarily at the end.

"Ooh, I should have thought of that. You're right though, that's not how Evil normally does things," Good cooed. Law nodded, but his mind was on other things. Like Good had ultimately done, Law had recently tried to plant a USB into Evil's system. He'd used harassing Neutrality with paperwork as a cover.

However, Law had to admit to himself he had wanted to bother Neutrality as a kind of petty retribution. Neutrality had ignored Good trying to befriend them and transferred offices, which meant all of his work had fallen on Law. It was petty, but between his crush on Good and general distaste for Neutrality, it had been easy to give in.

Not that Neutrality had really done anything. Though in some ways that had been as much a part of the problem as anything. Neutrality just kind of took up space most of the time and barely spoke. Not that it was particularly riveting when they did deign to speak.

Law really had no idea how someone could think their tropical fish would be an entertaining topic to anyone but themselves. He sighed, just remembering those stories was painful. Almost as bad as when one of the managers cornered him with baby photos or golf tall tales.

"This Evil's pretty different from the old one," Law offered. He'd wanted to give Neutrality a hard time, but he hadn't actually been happy about tampering with Evil's system. Of course, it was an Order, so he couldn't refuse it, but that didn't make it right.

There were also far more straightforward ways of achieving the same result. Law was pretty sure he'd seen a post-it with an evil intern's login stuck to a screen in passing. He could have just snagged it if he knew that was what their manager was after.

"Not in any way that matters, and they're dead by now anyway," Good said dismissively. That gave Law pause. The last time he'd seen Evil, he'd been riveted on ruby lips dripping venom as he was driven back. His personal space invaded, his conduct torn apart, and not a single rule was broken even as it shook him to the core. This Evil was a rules adept punk-rock nightmare that was best left to its own self-destructive vices.

The old Evil had been slick and corporate. Always a glib deflection on their tongue and lying like they breathed. Law and Good had spent more than one afternoon groaning about some bullshit they'd gotten up to that rolled downhill and screwed them over too. Good had actually run to a vending machine, bought crappy cupcakes, and made party hats out of printer paper the day they heard that asshole was dead.

Law felt sick to his stomach as he thought of that. Of the Good he used to know and the fun they'd had once upon a time. If he were honest with himself, the one sitting in the chair next to him felt like a stranger.

"What are you doing?" Law asked. He hadn't been paying much attention to what Good was up to. He sat his drink and snack down to lean over and get a better look.

"I found the dungeon, it was moved to a sandbox. It looks like Evil was having some fun," Good chirped.

"Okay, but what did you do?" Law asked. There was an unlabeled loading bar on the screen.

"Oh, well, I'm going to overwrite it and purge all the memory data," Good explained. Law was struck utterly dumb by the revelation. They didn't access each other's systems, and they sure as Order didn't tamper with agents of different alignments. Really he wasn't even sure how Good was able to use Evil’s log in at all. Looking at it was giving him a headache. Touching it would have been agony.

"Good-" Law started only to be cut off by a sudden hiss. Good had picked up his drink and taken a sip only for it to burn their lip. Aqua Vita was a product of the same world that produced the ambrosia apples Good had poisoned Evil with. To Good, it should have been nothing more than a pleasantly cool cup of water.

"Oh fuck," Law said flatly as the meaning of what he was seeing sunk in.