“Sir, the data you requested is almost ready.”

Why did it take so long?

“It appears that magic, at C-rank, enhanced the adventurers’ brain physiology beyond what I had expected. It took a while to scan them.”

It’s fine. Send the information as soon as you have it.

“Will do, sir.”

Also, send me the non-tower related tasks you have set up for me.

“On it, sir. However, may I remind you that you need to keep stabilizing Axiom if you want to ensure that the portal doesn’t fail.”

Later. Send me the tasks.

Acquire Plagiarism Tensor (Hume Manifold Resonator)

0/1

Hume generation +500H/hour

Advanced Human Battery program

0% (0/150MH)

Extract the exact amount of Humes per hour from subjects. (works only on newly acquired subjects)

Power estimate

0% (0/122kH)

Gain the ability to estimate the power of a target in Humes per hour upon successful scan

Hume infused nanites mk2

0% (0/1MH)

Nanites upgrade. Improve overall performance and Hume conductivity.

Rudimentary memory protocol

0% (0/100kH)

Gain partial access to some of the sealed memories.

Thank you.

Edmund closed his eyes, and became motionless. Beside him Vytryat was looking around, observing the small room in the same way a bored kid would stare at a white wall before eventually growing even more bored with it, and sometimes glanced at the campfire in the middle. It didn’t produce heat, smoke or sound. This deep in the earth it would have been a problem if it did.

Edmund had transported both himself and the bonfire, along with Vyt, deep underground below where they were initially in the sea of grass. They were now entombed, surrounded by dirt and small rocks, and the air smelled of wetness and soil. It didn’t smell of decay, the elf noticed, confirming his hunch that it was all dead here, deep inside the field of deadly grass.

He fiddled with the tabled Edmund had given him, attempting to stifle the onset of the growing boredom as much as he could. He would have to pass two days like this, with the limited access to the Tower systems and database the only thing he could do, since he was unable to leave this hole. The space was barely tall enough to stand, and he couldn’t walk without bumping into the sitting figure of Edmund. No doubt that would wake him up.

He was, as he told Vytryat, gathering enough Humes to proceed with the plan. Vyt didn’t know what the plan actually was, but he knew that Edmund was determined to save his two companions. His worry was that he was taking too long, and by the time they got to Lisa and Toora, they would find them dead, or worse. Edmund didn’t seem bothered by such prospects.

Maybe he knew? Perhaps it had to do with the weapons he gave to them. Perhaps he could use those weapons to check if the girls were still alive and well. He felt like asking now would be too dangerous. He fiddled with the tablet. Everything he wanted to do he had to run it through Praetor first, via a text interface.

He shrugged. Fuck it, he thought.

>Are Toora and Lisa alive?

>YES

Good to know, he thought with a sigh. For some reason, he had found himself quite invested in their wellbeing, despite barely knowing them. They seemed different than the people he had met in this new world, and if Edmund had taken a liking to them, then Vyt definitely wanted to get to know them. Or, perhaps, he knew that if they were to die then… Edmund wouldn’t take it well for sure.

How different he was, he thought with a small tint of sadness, than the Vyt he was back in the time before the cataclysm. To think that he would actually come to care about things, about nature and people… and of all the ways he could come to be like this, it was so strange that it was the pain he suffered that made him shed his hard shell and allowed him to open himself to more positive feelings.

But alas.

>Are they in danger?

>NOT IN IMMEDIATE DANGER

>How do you know?

>NANITES HIDDEN IN THEIR BODIES

>Their former weapons?

>YES. THE WEAPONS WERE HIDDEN AS SCATTERED NANITES IN THEIR BLOODSTREAM.

>Why?

>TO PROTECT THEM.

Vytryat wondered. Protect what? The weapons, or the girls? He tried to remember how it went down, when Edmund pulled his disappearing act. He was quite sure that as soon as Edmund disappeared, amidst the chaos that ensued, the girls suddenly found themselves weaponless. They had tried to call their arms forth using their mind, but were not successful. He wondered though: what was the point of that? Perhaps because with weapons, they would have gotten themselves killed. Or, maybe, to avoid that the weapons themselves would fall into the wrong hands.

He tried to ask the tablet, but got no answer to his questions.

***

“I have the data.”

Edmund woke up from his motionless state as soon as he received the data package. He began to examine the data in his mind, humming every now and then. When he was done reading through the report he turned to Vyt, who was staring inquisitively.

“They appear to be separated. Turns out it was me they wanted, not them. When your dickhead teammates found themselves with just Toora and Lisa, they knew the deal was not going to go through. So they tried to cover their losses. They sold Lisa to a sort of sect, I’m not sure about it… because not even Shiningstars had the slightest idea of who those people were. Well, despite that they were more than happy to sell a person to them. Toora is… being held somewhere. Some nobles approached your former team and nicely asked to take her away, and paid in gold. Gold. From what I gather, that’s 1000 silver or a million copper. A whole damn billion of iron coins. This economy makes no sense. Whatever. With this said, I think Lisa will be comparatively easy to rescue, while Toora will be a pain in the ass. I don’t even know where she is yet. We start with Lisa, and work from there.”

“I see. Do you think Toora will be fine?” Vytryat asked.

“She is fine, for now. Mostly fine.” Edmund said, looking away. “She will have to resist a bit longer. I need to find a way to discover or divine her location, and rescuing her from the nobles might be harder than storming a sect.”

“Do you have enough power?” the elf asked.

“That remains to be seen. Perhaps after the sect, which is also why I want to go there first.”

Vyt nodded.

“Also,” Edmund said, but suddenly he clutched his head with his hands and fell to his knees. “Fucking bitch!”

Seeing that Edmund was yelling, Vyt instinctively took a step back. He saw that Edmund was looking at him, wiping the sweat that had built up on his forehead, panting.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

Edmund struggled to get up. “Yeah,” he shook his head. “We need to take a detour, come.”

Full of Humes as he was, Edmund could easily teleport. He had two days’ worth of accumulated power, resulting in more than 200 thousand Humes to spend. Vytryat found himself staring at the gates of Torchback, having appeared there without any fanfare or discharge of energy. Edmund was already walking with heavy steps towards the guild, and he struggled to follow.

He barged through the door. Vyt saw some of the guests and fellow adventurers give them a look of disapproval, first at Edmund then at him, before going back to staring at their drinks. They were all C-ranks here, in this side of the guild. The B-ranks would be on a different building altogether, visible from the window, across the sandy dunes. In the dark of the evening hours, the bright lights of the magical lamps inside illuminated the dunes, and faint laughter and clanging noises could be heard all the way from here. In comparison, despite being much more crowded, the C-rank tavern was quiet, and darker. The good lights were reserved for the actual defenders of the city, not for the rubble.

One of the dozen B-ranks present in Torchback was worth more than all the C-rankers present here combined. The single A-ranker in the whole city… well, she was on a whole other level. She was not going to remain in the city for long, Vyt had heard, and it made him feel better to know that such a monster would roam the streets for just a few more days and then leave.

The girl at the counter, a new one Vyt had never seen before, made a gesture with her hand as soon as she saw Edmund enter the guild. Edmund skipped the queue, ignoring the protests of the adventurers, and approached her.

An image appeared above his hand like one of the holograms they used to have before the end of civilization.

“Do you still have this?” Edmund asked.

She adjusted her glasses. “The plagiarism tensor? No, I’m sorry.” She said sweetly.

“When did you sell it?”

She smiled. “Very recently. That’s all I can say.”

“It went for several gold coins…” Edmund sucked on his lips. “Fuck,” he muttered.

“Is anything the matter?” the girl asked.

“No,” he forced a smile. “You have been very helpful, thank you.”

He left as quickly as he came, until he was well away from the guild but still in the rocky area the surrounded it. Here, in the darkness, he sat on a rock and sighed. Above him the firmament shone like a set of gemstones embedded in the darkening blue of the night. The city was like a mirage all around, and the desert felt more real than anything else, despite being only a few hundred meters across.

Vyt tried to recall the image Edmund showed at the guild in as much detail as he could.

“What was that thing?” he asked.

“An item I need to acquire.”

The elf hummed. “And what does it have to do with…”

Edmund mouth twitched. “I saw a flash of an image. A woman, holding that fucking thing. She looked an awful lot like Janet, you know?” he laughed. “She gave the Hume Manifold Resonator, which they call the plagiarism whatever here, to somebody. She said she has no more use for it now, and he could have it.”

“Is this… bad?”

Edmund’s face went from a smile to a frown and back to a smile.

“Awfully so.”

“May I ask why?”

“The Resonator. It can do… things. Basically it acts as a reality bending machine that can copy another item, or an aspect of an object. This means that you can get it to do all sorts of things that would usually have very strict conditions to them. Or copy the power of something that can’t be moved. All sorts of things. Combine that with the fact that somebody stole a lot of Humes from me a few days ago, and you get a really fucking bad combination of things.”

He got up and walked in a circle. Every step he took after the first complete revolution fell exactly on his old footprints.

“Well this fucking sucks.” He said. “At least I know where Lisa is.”