5.4

Rhofhir

Arriving at his Grand Tapestry, the first thing Rhofhir beheld were the bulges of his Weave pushed out of place, tangled and twisted to mimic the passive pattern collectors. Furious at first at the breach in the integrity of his first (working) world, Rhofhir's temper cooled down to seriously unhappy as he examined just where these weakened Weaves bulged toward. The sapients of his Grand Tapestry were building active pattern collectors. They had also (probably by luck) stumbled upon the means of reading passive mana signatures based on their effect on other types of radiant energy.

He decided that he would need to study the current state of his Tapestry before starting in on the routine maintenance. At the worst, he was sure he could just re-seed a new Tapestry from the mana regulators. They were also the pattern repositories, and therefore the most hardened against the various types of radiant energy interference.

*~*~*

Dibbs

"You want to do what again?" Dibbs asked, positive he hadn't heard right.

The Design Lead, this time time projecting the images of Brad and two humans along with herself, leaned back in her projected chair. "We need to fix the dungeons that have lost their cores. That's got political repercussions, so we want to give the people of Rhofhir a chance to nominate the people who will be in charge of protecting the dungeons against further acts of sabotage."

Dibbs rubbed his forehead and glanced toward Feltz. For his part, the Archmage was finally taking the power of the Design Lead seriously and showing her a similar respect that he gave to any other political leader. Seeing no help there, Dibbs sighed and shook his head. "That's going to kick start the Unraveling like nothing else will. Any attempt to control the dungeons has ended with catastrophic consequences."

"How have others attempted to control dungeons?" the woman introduced as Candice Sterling asked.

With a gesture to his mentor, Dibbs said, "That's more Feltz's speciality than mine, but slaving the dungeon cores just leads to the dungeons imploding. That was how Karth became East and New Karth."

Feltz cleared his throat. "Variations on that theme, mostly. Dungeon cores aren't sapient, and there seems to be a significant amount of unknowns they regulate on their own. However, once someone leashes them, they do only what they are instructed. That makes the cores of the smaller dungeons quite valuable for the creation of magical artifacts, but not one of the people with the power to wrest a dungeon core from even a mid-tier dungeon is insane enough to try that. The Adventurer Guilds have had the most success with simply seeding and careful management of the harvesting of the dungeons."

Brad fluffed his feathers and looked to Lena. "How are you managing your cores?"

The Design Lead shrugged. "I designate their purpose when I spawn them, assign them the permissions they need to fulfill their purpose, and keep an eye out for things going funky."

"You assign them permissions? What does that mean?" Feltz asked.

Sterling snapped her fingers. "Arbiter! How many of the people taking control of the cores have been Zone Arbiters?"

Dibbs just blinked at the woman in confusion.

Feltz, however, shrugged. "If anyone knows how to be become this Zone Arbiter, they're not talking. I've found a record of maybe three ever existing."

The man with the Design Lead's group raised his hand and said something that was not projected into the meeting room on the [Prison] level. Their images immediately blurred and stayed that way for maybe a minute. When the projections came back into focus, the Design Lead said, "Okay, we've got another research topic for the pile. Next point: what do you guys know about something related to Unravelings called the 'Summoning Protocol'?"

Dibbs drew in a sharp, worried breath. He saw Feltz sucking in his lower lip while he searched his memories. "I don't know what it does, but it was mentioned in a few tomes from the Sixth Age. There was a suggestion that it has something to do with a point of no return in the Unravelings, where the concern should shift from prevention to survival. Why do you ask?"

"Well, sugar on a stick," the Design Lead said. "Candy found a reference to it being triggered if things get wonky with the in- and out- take of mana through the Tapestry. The intake side is handled by dungeons, and the mess in Karth may have already triggered the protocol depending how much of the mana intake is overseen by the dungeons that have had their cores stolen."

Dibbs and Feltz looked to each other. Feltz sighed, looking old all of a sudden. "Your pardon, Design Lead, but at this point I must inform the Arcane Asylum of the potential danger."

"Great. Tell them to send representatives along. I'm hosting, of course."

*~*~*

*** *** ***

The Zone Arbiter of the Dungeon Zone [Studio of Capricious Dreams], Design Lead Lena Marie Weston, invites all who desire to attend a World Council on the future of Dungeon Management. Temporary portals to the [Studio of Capricious Dreams] will open five days from now, several kilometers distant from each Tapestry-recognized Aware population center. Entrance through the temporary portals will require agreement to a limited contract of non hostility.

*** *** ***

*~*~*

Lena

«Sugar berries, honey, ice and tea! I can't do this!» Panic like Lena hadn't ever experienced made her feel like she was choking despite her lack of lungs or throat.

«Yes, you can!» Candy said, even if her voice shook a little.

Something else slipped in through the G.C., calm pushed like a bow wave before Dibbs' words. «If this helps, then that's probably just something like the dragons' [Fear Aura]. You did a beautiful job of providing them an aerie, by the way. They'll settle down once they see the dwarves have to abide by their non hostility contracts as much as they do.»

Brad and Larry returned from their last stage check. "We're ready, milady," Brad said.

Lena's toon bit her lip. "You're still pissed with me," she said.

"Damn skippy, but now is not the time to focus on that. We've got bigger fish to fry. It's time to start this World Council and decide what we're going to do from here on out."

Lena forced herself to separate more from her toon. She did not want her toon to give away her feelings. She wanted Jason here, too, but not the Jason of the last month, the one who had an increasing inability to accept Lena being responsible for herself, the one who wouldn't listen to what she was asking for his help on. The Jason who thought he knew what she needed and damn what she knew had become more of a strain on her patience than a friend.

That wasn't helping. That thought loop needed to stop.

Mentally bracing herself, Lena presented the opening statement.

She knew this was a seat-of-the-pants affair, and probably a political snub to nearly every nation on Rhofhir, but the urgency she felt to fix the directionless dungeons was driving her to *decide* and to *act*. She could feel that hounding pressure like the first nips of insanity. The choices she could see were craptacular, she wasn't the only one affected by what she did, and maybe someone here had a better idea. That and the constant making needed to get this meeting going had been all that kept her from integrating every dungeon on Rhofhir into her own.

She was working very hard on not thinking about the bloodshed that had occurred outside so many of her temporary portals as various factions fought to control who could and could not participate in this meeting. All she could do was prevent anyone from committing intentional acts of harm within her dungeon.

To further limit the possibility for her dungeon turning into a war zone, each temporary portal was linked to a contained area on the reworked and vastly expanded [Prison] level, now known as the [Dungeon] level. The creation of the temporary space to house what turned out to be a quarter million Aware sapients had required expanding the mana crystal density of her dungeon by two thirds, and leaving it to the people coming to see to their own comforts. It just wasn't safe to try creating individualized creature comforts for her guests, seeing as she had no idea what some of them even considered comfortable. She did have her sub-cores analyze without absorbing the things her guests brought, and made sure there were polite places for them to see to their toilet.

In each of those contained areas, they had set up two stages. The larger produced a holographic display of the current speaker while the smaller was for each contingent's speaker to stand and await their chance to weigh in on the council. The smaller stages also had a dashboard with two large buttons. One button was embossed with a circle, the other with an X. Brad and Larry had just finished the remote checks for the stages. Dibbs had already confirmed that his translation spells were properly rune-etched into the stages, ensuring that everyone would be able to understand what was being said.

Currently projected on to each of the display stages, the recording of Lena's avatar welcomed the participants to this first ever world wide meeting and explained how things would run. Her name and title as recorded within the Grand Tapestry displayed over her avatar, along with a symbol that apparently was related to her [Champion of Order] design.

Lena's avatar was saying, "Those who wish to speak should stand upon the Speaking Stages. Initially, the order of those who wish to speak will be determined by the weighted average of their accolades as recognized by the Grand Tapestry. Every Speaking Stage has two buttons. The X," (here an image of the X button showed in front of Lena's avatar), "is a symbol of disagreement. The circle," (and now the X button became the circle button), "is a symbol of agreement." The image of the button faded out, and Lena's avatar gestured above her head. "The bar underneath the name of the current speaker will fill from the left as more of the X buttons are pressed, and will fill from the right as more of the circle buttons are pressed. Each button press will register on the bar for a count of ten. A speaker will have three minutes," (an image of a sand timer flashed beside Lena's avatar), "to state their opinions. Speakers who received this much agreement," (a line about a tenth of the way in from right flashed then faded into the background), "will gain more time. Every speaker will have at least three minutes. Speakers may end their statements early by stepping off the Speaking Stages."

Lena's avatar paused, her gaze sweeping out as if attempting to meet each participant's gaze. "I reserve the right to cut off any speaker who appears to be wasting the time of this gathering. I have invited you here solely to hear your opinions and your counter proposals for ways to prevent dungeons whose cores have been stolen or damaged from becoming threats to the general peace. At this time the Grand Tapestry informs me I am the only living sapient Zone Arbiter, and thus the only individual in a position to take over the regulation of the dungeons.

"I have already added the dungeon of [Priesley's Folly] to my [Studio of Capricious Dreams]. Unless a better proposal is put forth at this council, I will do so with any dungeon whose core is removed or damaged to the point that the dungeon is effectively unmanaged. I am willing to assign overseers for particular areas, but how those overseers are assigned will either be at my whim, or by a method that meets with the agreement of 55% of this council. Each portal gets one vote, and a refusal to vote is a vote of disagreement."

The bar over Lena's avatar shot from the left to nearly touching the other side. Yeah, not too many people had liked that idea.

Lena added to her avatar's script. "I suggest you come to an agreement then."

The fear redoubled, and Lena really wished she had some way to be anywhere but here.

Candy hadn't left off her [Tapestry Synchronization] for a while now, and she had flat out told Lena that she was using that to keep an eye on Lena's mental health. "Hey, worst to worst, we're stuck running a DnD dungeon across the entire world. You know we can do that."

"With real lives on the line?" Lena asked.

Candy shrugged. "It's what they were doing before we got here. We can at least find ways to mitigate the dangers. You can't step down as a Zone Arbiter, can you?"

Lena's toon shook her head. "No. I would have to pass it on, and then whatever the next guy does is on my shoulders, without any way for me to make it right."

Brad shook his head, clearly disagreeing with her. "And you thought Jason was a codependent arse."

Lena held back a growl. "Jason's entire sense of worth is wrapped up with how useful he is. I don't have to be useful; I just won't shirk the responsibilities that land on my shoulders. It's a big fruiting difference! Besides, Jason isn't an ass; don't put those words in my mouth!"

*~*~*

Aaron

Aaron quickly found himself ignoring what the speakers were saying in favor of studying the speakers themselves. The Aware races were not just limited to humanoids, though humanoid was a predominant theme. The draconic variants held a breadth of diversity he hadn't expected, ranging from hive-mind based colonies of dainty 10 cm long burrowing dragons called memmeirs to the massive Ancestral Dragons that would have fit into a DnD campaign.

He wasn't sure if he should group all the avian Aware into a super group, like dragons and humanoids, nor was he happy with his tentatively named insectoids. They had the exoskeletal structure that resembled chitin, but they had to have more advanced internal organs just based on their sizes.

Then there were the water dwelling Aware. Aaron had always been more interested in the biology that would help him as a Game Warden, so he was fuzzy on how to type some of the Aware creatures of the deeps. Piscine, cephalopods, crustaceans, and corals, in addition to the human and draconic chimeras, those he could identify, but he didn't know what to call the one that looked like some cthulhian nightmare of tentacles, razor teeth, and thorns. Perhaps it was a chimera of the deeps?

Despite not paying attention to what the speakers said, Aaron picked up that their proposals fell along the same lines:

• Place unrestricted control of dungeons in the hands of the cities closest to them.

• Place unrestricted control in the hands of the nations claiming territory around them.

• Place unrestricted control in the hands of NGOs like the Adventurers / Mages / Merchants guilds and associations.

• Close them all down and save the world from the evils of chimeras / monsters / magic / (insert personal bane).

A taurgonaut lion and lizard man mix was putting forth an idea to have a new Dungeon Masters guild formed when he was forcefully ejected from the Studio.

The toon Lena was using to address the gathering faded onto the display stage. "For those groups who have not witnessed such ejections, please review the non-hostility portions of the contracts you agreed to upon entering these meeting grounds. Note the section regarding conspiracies to take harmful actions against another attendee, and carefully consider your intentions when acting. I have no desire to police your thoughts, your feelings, your emotions, or what have you, but your actions will not be allowed to disrupt this gathering."

Then her toon faded out and another speaker, a purple-grey elf, appeared on the display stage.

Aaron turned to Candy. "I thought the contract barred them from taking deliberately harmful actions against others."

Candy shrugged. "Penalty clause. They get ejected from the Studio and the [Contract Breaker] design gets applied to them. They have to keep their contracts for the next three years to get that removed."

According to their calculations, it would take something like six days for every group to have one person among them have their say. This was the third day.

"So, how many have been kicked out for that?" Aaron asked.

Candy stuck her tongue out at him. "Look for yourself. I'm not a librarian. You have the same access I have and I'm busy."

Aaron frowned. "Well, sorry I've offended you," he said.

Candy's face scrunched up with obvious frustration, but she said nothing for several moments.

Aaron had already sent out his query to the master contract core, and the numbers made him blink. Eleven percent of participants had been expelled on the first day for intended harms, and another three percent the day before. Six entire groups of delegates had been expelled, only one of which had been replaced. That was over 30,000 people kicked out over the desire to fight.

"Do you like it when Rob treats you like a child?"

The non sequitur threw Aaron off. "Excuse me?" he asked.

Candy repeated her question.

"Of course not!" Aaron said, not liking where this was going.

Candy said, "Even I can see that's your hot button. Mine is being treated like a junior assistant. I will not pussy foot around your ego, and I don't expect you to pussy foot around mine. I do not understand how to pussy foot around egos, and, frankly, there are a lot more interesting things in this world to discover than diplomacy. Take me as I am, or don't."

"Are you trying to shake me?" Aaron asked.

"Mamaw Ruthy taught us that getting to a fast 'no' is better than drawing out a long 'maybe'. This is who I am. If you do not want to be around me as I am, it's better for you to figure that out now instead of a year or three down the road. This isn't about me trying to make you walk away or whatever. This is me making sure you're seeing *me*, without any filters, as I am with the people who are close to me."

"Is that what Lena was doing with Jason, then?" Aaron used the distraction to give himself some time to consider what Candy was saying.

She shook her head. "Nope. I don't think so, at least. Lena's got a hyper responsibility problem, and she's head butted a lot with the sub contractors her family pulled in during their remodels. Especially the last couple of years, where her parents were handing over more decisions to her, to justify her earning the money to pick up her own house. Partners either trust each other, or they aren't partners. I don't know if Lena gets that her hyper responsibility sometimes comes off as not trusting us to be capable of handling ourselves. I don't know enough about Jason to know what's went on with his side of things."

"So, what, she has to be the boss?" Aaron asked, disturbed by that thought.

Candy pursed her lips. "I don't know that it's that bad, but she is right that there are some decisions that have to be made right then and there, and cannot wait for a discussion in committee."

"Oh, so, not letting us near Feltz was a then-and-there decision?" Aaron asked, not bothering to hide his sarcasm.

Candy sighed and leaned into Aaron's shoulder. "That whole thing is a cluster fuck. Feltz scares her, and I mean, deep down terrifies her because of what he could do to us. Hyper responsible, remember? And Jason wasn't giving her enough time to calm down and think about anything but protecting us from him."

Aaron frowned. "For someone who doesn't know how to pussy foot around egos, you seem to understand them a lot better lately."

"I'm using [Tapestry Fusion] to emulate the [Empathy] skills. It's not something I can do in the moment. Not yet, at least. But it's great for post debacle analysis."