The threshold for the Gatekeeper’s realm on the third floor is a two-meter-wide archway inscribed with some sort of figures in motion, an explosion of abstract art that is completely lost on me. It’s tall enough that Amber passes through it without any trouble, and about two seconds later I’m following her, stepping through the rippling, liquid blackness.

It’s grass underfoot, bright and sunny in a way I’ve never before seen in person. I blink for a few moments, doing my best to scan the surroundings; Amber is making some sort of hand gesture, but awkwardly I have no idea what it means, so she has to hiss “Stand down” at me out loud before I get her point.

I dismiss the mix of Motes and smart-orbs that I started forming upon walking through the gate. We’re not looking at a fight. We’re looking at something much worse.

A party.

Nobody’s looking our way just at the moment, and there’s a sort of demarcation in the grass in a circle, radius maybe five meters from the freestanding threshold arch. And it’s glorious grass, useless grass, grass like I hadn’t seen in more than thirty years. It’s not true that Worldships don’t have enough space or enough resources to have parks, and it’s especially not true that we don’t expend resources on anything that is frivolous. I mean, I guess if you define the enrichment of children and tending to the emotional need for open spaces and greenery as a non-frivolous need, but the grounders and the statics say a lot of things about the Worldships and most days it felt like all of it was vicious, vile lies.

Funny how the true things are the ones nobody knew to spread stories about.

I lose my bearings for a bit, lost in reverie. Amber gives me time, hand at the small of my back, a physical and emotional comfort and reassurance. I need it, because this place, this room, is something out of a story for me or anyone I knew, or something out of an Aug rig. I was born on a static, and I guess technically Earth was a static just like every grounder’s technically living on a static, but the memory of the memory of a habitable Earth died with either Martinez or Stravka, depending on how you count it, and I wasn’t alive at the time.

I know grass, or knew it, and I once walked, torn between terror and wonder, under an atmosphere with nothing above me but gas until you rise into the Void, but nobody’s smelled cherry blossoms in the flesh for almost five hundred years.

There are people here, too, and I’m deliberately focusing on everything other than them in self-defense, or maybe procrastination and avoidance. But there’s only so long that I can stare at trees and grass, no matter how amazing and significant they are, and eventually my eyes track back around to the pavilion, the people, the orchestra.

“Adam?” Amber’s voice is quiet. “Is this… unexpected?”

“I… I guess.” I try to keep the panic out of my voice, in the hopes that keeping the panic out of my voice will help keep the panic out of my mind. “I’d rather the puzzles, or a fight, really. I’m not much for…” I wave a hand vaguely at the pavilion.

We’re still being ignored, thank the stars in their multitudes. The tableau isn’t exactly static, but there’s a repeating pattern in it, one obvious enough that even I can see it. It’s on hold, I think to myself in disbelief. In a holding pattern until we join it.

“A puzzle and a fight on your first two floors does mean a social challenge on the third. Everyone -” Amber cuts herself off, then pats me on the shoulder twice. “Everyone who has studied Temples knows this. I’m surprised you didn’t...”

“Right.” Even I can pick up what she’s putting down; this is just another case of me missing basic knowledge about the world. “Look, Amber. I know I sometimes seem like I have my shit together, but I really don’t, and I don’t understand why people think I do.” I’m not looking at her, can’t look at her. “I don’t know anything about this world. I haven’t figured out more or less anything about this world, I just figured out a couple of tricks that were close enough to my old life that I could exploit them, and that barely got me as far as meeting you. I was about to die!” I’m talking too loud, too fast. I make myself stop, make myself breathe deeply at least once before I keep talking. “Look.

“You should stop assuming I know anything.” She’s about to argue, and I shake my head, talking over whatever she was about to say. “Oh, I know runes, a little bit, and I know forms of mathematics that even most jump-navs can’t do without some kind of Coder and a stack to run it on, but I…” I take a breath, then let it out, noticing how fast my heart is beating. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m yelling and I’m sorry. I need to sit down.”

Amber’s quiet. She stands by me as I sit on the grass, and I’m leaning my head on her leg as I think about what she said, about the mix of challenges. It makes sense; a variety of challenges is a lot harder to prepare for, a lot harder to specialize in, and there’s been at least one puzzle in every room-set I’ve seen. At least one puzzle, at least one trap room, at least one fight. You can’t solve a row of swinging axes through social means, though I guess you could bring along someone who can, and I’m probably not going to solve this by blasting it. Unless… “I don’t suppose,” I say with a hopeful tone, spinning an orb on my fingertip, “that this can be solved with -”

“No.” Amber’s tone is quelling enough that my jaw snaps shut. “The people here are as real as I, as real as Mathilda and Johannes. We call them imprints, but it’s their soul and mind that are imprinted; we will not murder our way through here unprovoked, my lord, any more than we would murder our way through such an event in Cador proper.”

The logic isn’t exactly compelling, since presumably the imprints can come back from death in a way that people generally can’t, but I take one look at the bunched muscles in her jaw and nod. She mutters something under her breath, something like and I will not let my lord develop that habit, and I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to ignore that she said it, so I do.

Never let it be said I’m completely lacking in social graces, I guess. Just mostly.

“How long do we have before we have to … join the party?” I try not to let the distaste show in my voice, but I don’t try very hard, because I’m aware of how bad at lying I am.

“Not long. Some few moments.” She nods downwards, and I look at the grass. The demarcation has shifted towards us, the circle of what I’m guessing was the sort of antechamber to the… encounter. It’s approaching Amber’s feet now, and I think she’s moved to stay in the circle. “You took the time you needed, as is proper.”

“Thanks.” I’m about to add I think, but I don’t, just in case she’s not being sarcastic. “Talk to me. What do I need to know? What’s the plan?”

“Something will happen.” Amber steps over to my side. The circle’s moved, for all I didn’t see it move. “Some calamity, when we have been at the party for some few hours, well before the night is to end. It falls to us to resolve it, if we may; to survive it, if not.”

“What kinds of calamity?”

She shrugs. “Invasion, where a true resolution might involve solidarity, stemming panic, or brokering a peace. A murder, and the investigation of it. An accident, a natural disaster, the manifestation of an Avatar of the Forsaken, the manifestation of Avatars of feuding Gods -”

“Wait, no, go back one.” I lever myself to my feet, ignoring her hand in favor of digging my fingertips into the soil momentarily. “What’s the Forsaken? What are Avatars? Wait, no, I know what an avatar is, so I can guess what an Avatar is.”

“The Forsaken is… was a God.” I’m staring at my fingers, watching the dirt slough off and fade from sight. Goblin cleansing charms are still working. Eyes aside, I’m still listening to Amber. “She was cast out from the Pantheon millenia ago, for… heresy.”

“That sounds like a long story.” Heresy. “How does a God commit - we don’t have time for this, do we.”

“No, Adam.” She grins at me, and I grin back.

“Fine. You can tell me about Gods and how they can commit heresy later.” I stretch, feeling the tension in some of my muscles subside. I can do this, I tell myself. “Let’s go to a party.”