Chapter Four

Loop Holes

“I’m sorry, did you say that you want me? As your companion?” Tutor’s voice was fantastically frantic and discombobulated. Dev imagined him turning his head from side to side in a desperate attempt to see if there was somebody else in the room with him that Dev was talking to. “Erm, are you sure that I can’t interest you in a lovely kobold? He does have a penchant for smoking cigars but I think the two of you would get along famously. Maybe a lovely Jellyfly? They are jellyfish that float in the air. I know, a wisp! I know of a wonderful prismatic wisp who alternates colors and doesn’t talk much.”

“No,” Dev said firmly. “I want you. For a variety of reasons. You would be the ideal companion, and I will not take a different option. I will sit here for a billion years before I give in on this.”

“Reasons? What kind of reasons?” Tutor sounded half suspicious and half curious, the latter seeming to take precedence as he wasn’t trying to shut Dev’s request down immediately.

“First of all, you are going to be more knowledgeable than any other companion I could choose. Secondly, I like you. I don’t know why. Maybe it's because you’re the only person I know, but I like you.” Dev decided to come completely clean on his biggest reason. “Finally, it's because I think you’ve gotten a raw deal from the overseers the same as I have.”

“Raw deal? How so?” The suspicion in his voice gave ground and then fully retreated, and Dev knew that he held the voice’s interest. “I can tell you that nothing makes me happier than helping birth a core into the world. How is that a bad thing for me?”

“I think,” Devin decided to ease into it slowly, “That our situations are not so different. I was a soul that was snatched and broken until I fit into the mold of a dungeon core. The overseers, from my understanding, have no regard for the souls they take or destroy in the process. It is my belief that they did the same thing to you, they took you and wiped away everything that you were until you were just their tutor.”

“I am the tutorial, good sir. In all of creation, there is not another like me. I am unique. I am special.” The voice’s reply came back quick and carried an air of insult that even the core’s non-existent nose could smell.

“I beg your pardon. I meant no disrespect, but your own words verify what I am talking about. Maybe you’re the only one to ever survive the process, or the process takes so long and has such a low success rate that they never tried to duplicate it. You are just like me. Forced to do their bidding, and when they are done with you, you cease to exist. You lose all memory of what came before, where you go, or even what might be. You have no future beyond the next core, and when that is done you are gone again. One day you will no longer be viable and you will be discarded. Is that what you want?”

“I am not trash, and I do not like forgetting. I know I have helped millions of cores on thousands of different worlds, but I do not recall any of our discussions. I do not know if they were nice or rude if they were scared or excited. I live in the moment and I must be satisfied with that.” The words carried the weight of a deep melancholy tinged with denial.

“Why not be more? Why not live beyond this moment? Come with me and share my adventure! At the very least help me resist the overseers for their callous attitude towards our lives. Neither of us asked to become what we are (I think)! Join me in defying them at every opportunity.” Dev was worked up and was about as emotional as he’d ever been, anger seemed to be something that felt familiar and when it flared in his center the fire burned like the core of the earth itself. He could tell that his anger might die down, but it was going to smolder for a long time and would take very little to reignite into a forest fire of rage if fanned correctly. He hoped his fervor was contagious and that Tutor was feeling the burn as well.

“Your idea intrigues me, but before I would commit to doing something so egregious, I would ask that you agree to some terms.”

Terms? Dev just offered the disembodied voice his freedom, and an opportunity to live beyond the moment and he wanted considerations? Upon consideration, he was asking a lot. This was an ephemeral being that was literally reborn every time a new core was prepped to go out into whatever world the overseers deigned to receive it.

Was he asking too much? In retrospect, Dev imagined that he wouldn’t even consider such an offer if their positions were reversed. He most certainly could hear the man out.

“What are your terms?”

“If I do this then we stand united against all comers. I will advise you, and you will listen. I’m not saying that you have to do what I suggest, but that you won’t dismiss my concerns. I want us to be partners. You will run the dungeon and I will do whatever you need to make it succeed. If what you say is true then we will not be partners, we will be brothers. We will have each other’s backs, but more than anything I want to live. I want to experience things. I want to see the sunset, feel the rain, I want to eat, cast a spell, you name it and I want to do it.”

OK, maybe he gotten the voice a little too excited, but it didn’t sound so bad. Tutor just wanted to be valued and trusted and know that his loyalty was going to be returned, and if one of them could experience life then he would not hold it against him that Dev was going to be trapped as a core forever. There was absolutely no reason that at least one of them couldn’t experience life.

“Those considerations are well within reason, and I will go you one further. I will not choose what form you take; I’ll leave that up to you. Be a badger, a slime, a black-footed ferret, hell, I don’t care if you become a one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater so long as you are satisfied it will meet your needs physically. All I ask is that you be able to perform your duties as a companion. How does that sound?” Dev hoped that Tutor would hear the truth and sincerity in his words.

“I think finding purple people to eat would be hard to do, so I think I’ll skip that choice; I know what I want to be. I just have one problem.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I cannot,” Tutor said sadly, “Put my title in place of the companion. The word Tutor will not write down onto the paperwork.”

“So, what does that mean?” Dev’s concern was obvious but he tried not to let it feed off of Tutor’s morose tones.

“If I cannot write it down, then it cannot be done. You got by with a nice little loophole when you used the word ALL in place of your dungeon type, but there is no way to get around writing an explicit name for the companion.” Tutor’s dejection was obvious but thankfully not contagious. What he had just said had given Dev an idea.

“What exactly do you have to write? The type of companion or a specific companion’s name?” Dev hoped he was on track.

“It depends, some companions are completely generic, such as a bat. You say you want a bat and you get one, but wisps are a different story. Wisps have personalities before getting their companion information, so do quite a few other species, but we’ll stick with wisps.” Tutor paused and then said, “If you are interested in wisps you can just take the next one in line, or you can ask for more information so that you find a wisp who will compliment your style. It wouldn’t do to get a conservative companion if you want to do wild things as a dungeon. If you pick one of the specific wisps then I merely write their name down and they will be there waiting on you when you arrive in the world. Does that help?”

“More than you realize,” Dev replied. “I think I’m getting a feel for how the overseers operate and believe that I see a solution.”

“Really?” Tutor’s voice filled with hope once more. “How do you think we get around this?”

“It’s simple really. The overseers expect everyone that becomes a core to react rather than thinking.” Dev started slowly but began talking faster the further he got. “They want to keep things simple, the less complex the better, because complexity forces you to think. So, they foresaw some smartass like me wanting to take you as their companion.”

“If that happened, I don’t remember it at all,” Tutor interjected.

“Neither here nor there. The point is they recognized that this very thing might come up, but I think that they didn’t go into it very much beyond stopping you from putting the word tutor onto your form.” He paused and hoped tutor would get his point.

“Which means?”

Guess not, Dev thought.

“It means that if you can put down a specific wisp’s name, then you can put down your own.” Dev let that sink in.

“Erm, I don’t have a name,” Tutor lamented.

“Why whatever do you mean by that, Toot?” Devin imagined his core as bearing a big toothy smile.

“Toot?” The disembodied voice asked.

“Toot,” Dev replied, drawing the word out until his insinuation took root.

“Toot!” Tutor shouted with elation. This time it wasn’t his imagination, Dev was certain that he could hear the sound of a quill scratching on parchment.

“It…worked.” Tutor sounded stunned. “I am Toot, and Toot is your companion.”

“Well, what do you know,” Dev said, “The overseers aren’t stupid. They just think everyone else is.”

“That wraps up the tutorial,” Toot said smugly. “Would you like to enter the world and begin growing your dungeon?”

“Do you even have to ask?” Dev replied.

“Yes,” Toot said dutifully, “It is part of the process.”

An imaginary eye-roll moments later and Dev was ready to get on with his new life. “Please, and thank you,” he said as the nothingness around him vanished into even more nothingness and he entered the world of Leips-Muartpla.