Good News?

Chapter 22

I felt nervous as I left my chamber of machinations and headed toward the bone brigade’s breakroom. I really should rename it something like the necropolis, but I shook the thought off, knowing I was just trying to distract myself. They would have questions and I only had a couple answers. That felt less than ideal but putting off the meeting would only make things harder.

The hounds joined me on the way, Blackmoor jumping up on me and tackling me to the floor. She licked my face with excited yaps. Stalin was more composed until I held up my free hand and joined in, wanting a good scratch.

“You smell weeeeird!” Blackmore howled, licking me all the more furiously.

“What-“ I said and caught a mouth full of hound tongue. I was used to having one but not to remembering that it needed to be closed at certain times.

“Oh, wow! Ugh!” I sputtered, put off by the bitter taste like ashes that filled my mouth. Blackmore pulled back in surprise then started laughing.

“Your teeth look very sharp,” Stalin said approvingly. I laughed, pushing the hounds off and rising up again.

“Come one, everyone’s waiting,” I said, and we made our way to the upper level. I hesitated for a moment at the mirror entry, but only briefly. When I entered, I found every glowing vision crystal looking toward me. Silence hung in the air for a long moment before a patchwork banner dropped from the ceiling.

1st Raid Win

It read and I looked at it flabbergasted while the room erupted into cheering and music. The questions I’d been dreading having to answer came, but not as pointed demands. They wanted to know what had happened and were concerned for my wellbeing, but that was it. When I didn’t elaborate on something, they let it go and I realized a little late that unless I told them, they wouldn’t know that there was more to know. They were happy with a couple questions and a party to celebrate the win as much as welcome me back.

“Okay, hang on, let me just-” I said, trying to get everyone’s attention. Unlike before where they’d have fallen silent immediately the room remained loud with their chatter. Putting my tongue to the back of my teeth it took a couple tries but I managed a shrill whistle that finally got their attention. Watching them turn toward me and the conversation die down slowly I realized that refusing to rest them had done something more than leave things as they were. I couldn’t be sure how much, but they didn’t seem to be as bound to me as before.

“Okay! So, there was a system error of sorts that lead to me ending up at my… I’m going with my supervisor’s office. He said he’s looking into it, but I don’t know if it will be resolved anytime soon or if something might happen again,” I said, lying by omission more than anything else. I got nods and murmurs as the skeletons talked among themselves. Seeing the fairly uniform style I realized I needed to start putting some effort into buying other races. I’d only encountered humans so far though, so I’d need to consult with Elim about what was common among adventurers and locals.

“As for the surviving adventurers, I’m inclined to let them live but it’s going to be subject to how negotiations go,” I continued and got a few subdued cheers and some golf clapping. The laid-back response wasn’t what I’d been expecting, and I felt a little relieved. If they had started calling for them to be released outright the conversation would have gotten awkward.

“Any questions or concerns?” I asked, my voice coming out more confident than I felt.

“Can you lock the mirror or make it, so it only lets out certain groups?” Dawn called from the back.

“Uhm… I’ll check,” I was looking into the object as I responded. It didn’t have that feature, but it was eligible for an upgrade. Bumping it up once its features increased and after two more enhancements, the ability to set specific raid settings did appear.

“I can, but why do you want that?” I asked. It went along with my desire to set specific settings for the boss rooms, but I wasn’t sure about Dawn’s motive.

“I think we all appreciate why it happened, but it was really annoying when Henry jumped in. We weren’t going to ignore what that asshole did to that poor girl,” Dawn said, and I was silent for several seconds as the other members of that raid gave some unenthusiastic yeahs in agreement with her.

“I’m with Dawn. I wanted to jump in too, buts it’s not fair to the combat team,” Christopher chimed in from my right, causing me to jump in surprise since I hadn’t noticed him. Score one for the rogue, as the room filled with suppressed chuckles. More subdued agreement ensued.

“M-m me to-o,” Henry added to my surprise. The team from the raid all looked over at him and he bowed apologetically.

“Y-you would would h-have d-d done th-the r-right thing thing,” He said and they all nodded and muttered acceptance of his apology.

“Okay, honestly I wanted to set restrictions like that in the first place. However, it’s not possible with all of the boss rooms right now. So, you’d be the only ones restricted like that,” I said, not having to think about fairness before since I hadn’t realized I could set that restriction at the time.

“Is everyone okay with that?” I asked and was treated to nods and shouts of ‘aye’. I had to wonder if it wasn’t the influence of the raid league at work. They had grown accustomed to the rules they had made for themselves while playing and it seemed they wanted that to carry over.

With the more serious business done the mood lightened and the party for the first win in a real raid started back up. I stuck around for a while but slipped away when I felt like it was a good moment. I still needed to see to the girls in the safe zone and attend to my regular work.

It took half a day and Mina nearly dying to get Andria to give her a potion. At that point, I opened a passageway between a guest room I’d created and the safe zone.

They were both in a relatively fragile mental state and I was careful about not pushing them to do anything. It was better if they took their time and decided to do things on their own with as little meddling from me as possible. They needed space to decompress and grieve. Something I hadn’t anticipated them needing at first.

If anything, I’d had the impression Andria and Mina would be delighted but that hadn’t panned out. They’d actually gone back for Reiner and Lillian’s bodies which I’d thankfully only taken some of the equipment from. Dragging them into the safe zone they’d held an impromptu funeral and said some things that seemed rather too nice under the circumstance.

Feeling uncomfortable I busied myself with examining the equipment I’d pilfered. A holy text and vial of opalescent powder from Lillian, and Reiner’s sword. All of the objects were interesting, but the sword had my attention. It was a low-grade sword but heavily enchanted. The list of enchantments made me feel sick.

Amplify

The blade works as a spell reinforcing device attuned to a specific spell or set of spells. Amplifies “Detect” and “Binding”. This function requires a regular supply of manna and is effective over a short distance.

Bond

The blade is bonded with accessory items, Lilly Pendant’s (4). The amplification range is increased.

Binding

The blade limits the wielder's thoughts and actions so long as they are in contact with the blade. The limitations imposed are set at the time of creation. The longer the wielder is exposed the more deeply the limitations are integrated into there behavior.

I’d thought that the group's behavior was a little strange when I watched the raid, but I hadn’t caught on to how serious it was. Now that I knew something had been wrong, I replayed the footage. With more informed, I could see where he and the girls had fought against the control being exerted over them. Mina becoming suspicious only to forget. Andria trying to edge away from Reiner only to be drawn back. Reiner trying and failing to refuse to interact with his sword as it compelled him to feed it mana.

The entire thing played out like a horror movie with the monsters and skeletons being the least awful part. None of it was obvious, but it was there once I knew what I was looking for. Even so, I still felt like something was off. That I hadn’t figured out what had been bothering me the first time. Able to examine Reiner more closely now I started looking at his stats and class and found more strangeness.

He had three levels in Magic Archer and two in Swordsman. I didn’t know much about actual combat, but that combination set my nerves jangling. It didn’t make sense to my tabletop RPG sensibilities. I needed better-informed minds to help me out with this one. Taking a moment, I requested a pair of skeletons to join me and transported them when they agreed.

“Okay, so does any of this look normal to you?” I asked my screen in share mode and eschewing basic manners in my hurry to find out. I didn’t even give them time to recover from the transport, though it didn’t seem like they need it.

“Uhm…Wait, what?” Andre Carlos Femur, Swordsman skeleton, looked at the display and fell silent for a while.

“This is a really shit level split… Jack, back me up on this,” Andre said and Jack Timothy Ulnar, Archer skeleton, nodded after taking some time to look it over.

“I could see this working if he just wanted to shore up his melee for emergencies. It’s not a terrible idea for a sniper, but he fought as if he’d never touched a bow. He ignored the majority of his abilities,” Jack said, both of them still staring at the display like it was some form of hypnotic horror. Their assessment only reinforced my feeling that I was right about something else being fucked up with how they had fought.

“Okay, now watch this,” I said and cued up some footage that had stood out on the first pass and originally bothered me.

They watched several sections of footage, swearing quietly as they did. According to them, the hero party had fought like they’d had a very specific set of tactics beaten into them. One that didn’t have any regard for class sensibilities. Reiner was treated like a banner, in front but protect which had limited the party considerably.

“None of that made sense,” Jack said, fidgeting with agitation.

“He should be tanking, not just on point,” Andre said, shaking his head as the final clip stopped.

“What did you think his class was?” I asked, I’d checked during the raid but hadn’t paid enough attention at the time. The quick stat readout on his icon had only indicated the total level and primary class.

“Light Swordsman or straight fighter without a specialization, maybe? We only saw him at the end, and it was crowded in the mirror,” Andre said with a shrug. Unlike with the league games I’d opted to work in the quiet of my chamber of machinations. I regretted the decision in hindsight if they’d been watching they could have clued me into the problem sooner. Or I might have noticed myself if I’d investigated the party more closely.

“Any idea why they would fight like that?” I asked though I had an idea.

“No,” Andre said with a firm shake of his head. Jack stayed quiet for a minute and we both let him think in peace.

“It’s too unnatural, someone must have intentionally trained them that way. No idea why though,” Jack said, and I nodded. He was half right.

“I found compulsion items after the fact,” I admitted, and Jack nodded unhappily.

“Please don’t tell Dawn, she’d feel bad about it. Getting to go first and winning means a lot to her,” Andre said and I nodded.

“I’ll put off telling her for until after the partying dies off, but I’m going to tell her and the team before too long…” I said. My reasoning contradicted my earlier decision not to tell them about the attempted assassination. Hiding things from them didn’t seem like a good idea, especially when it would potentially affect future procedures. Not telling them about the danger I was in tried to hide under sparing them but with some effort, I pinned down the feeling. I was scared and I didn’t want to admit that something was going on that I had no control over. Fun stuff.

“But…” Andre started unhappily. Jack punched him in the shoulder which filled the chamber with the dry click of bone’s colliding.

“She’d hate it a lot more if she found out she was lied to,” Jack said. Andre raised his fist to sock Jack back, only to lower it.

“Yeah,” Andre conceded.

“Sorry Mistress, I shouldn’t have…” Andre started, and I put a hand on his shoulder and shook my head.

“You care about her, that makes you want to protect her. Just try to think about how you’d feel if someone did that to you,” I said, and Andre nodded. I wondered if this was how parents felt when they had to advise a child on the right way to do things despite their own fuck-ups.

“I’ll send you back. Leave telling the others up to me for now,” I tried to smile. I wasn’t sure if it was visible or not.

The pairs assements had agreed with Henry's. Reiners build had been a mess since he'd focused on swordmans ship in combat. He was a sniper acting like a light swordsman in the tanks position. He was a lopsided mess.

The review of the rest of the part wasn't as bad. Mina and Lillian only had one class and had been separated from Reiner. That made it possible for them to fight more normally.

Testing level of control vs. time?

I scrawled into the wall along with my other notes as I ruminated on what I had learned. I needed more information before I could even start to scratch the surface of what the fuck was going on in Stromholt. Information I needed Mira to get since my understanding of magic was flavor text and effects listed in the store. Not a solid foundation for scholarly research.

“Fuuuck!” I muttered, scrubbing my face with my hands. I regretted saying Mira could call on me instead of setting up a date to revisit her. Even so, I had, and I was doing my best to honor that. They had been prepared to leave their former friends behind to escape but that didn’t mean they were fully prepared for the reality of it either. They needed time, more than I wanted to give, but not more than I had.

If anything, I was getting off track for what I was supposed to be doing. Namely developing my dungeon and dealing with Blue Vein. Elim not being ready had spared me from confronting the fact that I wasn’t certain about how to approach the problem. My more modern sensibilities made me think of changing hygiene practices first, but it wasn’t a practical solution.

Getting people to reliably wash their hands in a lifetime would be a monumental task in and of itself. Establishing a sanitation infostructure would be the task of generations. My ability to generate materials with only a mana cost was handy but not infinite and restricted to my physical location and that of anyone working with me with a shared item box.

That made it a hell of a lot more useable, but not ideal. I could very easily see people trying to exploit my agents if the ability became known. It also didn’t speed things up as much. I was working with a one-year time limit. Thinking about it more wasn’t yielding new results since I didn’t have new information which only increased my frustration.

“K.I.S.S” I muttered to myself. I had the stupid part down pat, now I just needed to simplify.