Vex had known it was bad.

He'd known it was something that scared him; there had been enough spillover, enough intrinsic understanding from the Patcher's attacks that he could grasp that bare essence of it.

But this?

This... he didn't know how to fix this. He didn't know if they could! He didn't even know how to begin—

"Vex," Derivan said gently, and Vex heard the note of worry in the armor's voice. Derivan's presence helped, and he tried to calm himself.

The purpose and intent of the Patchers laid bare in front of him, resonating in his mind.

They were here to fix a problem. That problem was the fact that the bonus room hadn't activated properly, all the way back when Noram had activated it; the partial activation meant that the system had created a shallow, not-quite-there shadow of the real Teque, if there was a real Teque. Vex still wasn't exactly sure what the system drew from. And the system was still trying to fix that error — only 'fixing' the problem meant, in this case, that the bonus room had to be fully activated.

And the resources it had to do so were limited.

There was another reason, too, he sensed, but his mind was more occupied with an understanding that left him feeling slightly sick.

"Misa," Vex said. He tried to control the anxious dread creeping through him. "You know how you said maybe Fendal is the bonus room, but we don't have the full picture?"

"Yes," Misa said, cautiously. From the look on her face, she knew she wasn't going to like whatever Vex was about to tell her.

"Most bonus rooms aren't like your village," Vex said. "I've read about how adventurers have tried to talk to the people in bonus rooms, and they give... canned responses. They're shadows of the real thing; a simulation by the system. But our bonus rooms are different."

"Right."

"The people in our bonus rooms are... well, they're people." Vex hesitated. He was stating the obvious; avoiding the truth. "But a lot of people in Fendal were kind of like the shadows I'm talking about. You noticed how the guards reacted to us, right? And the way Gensen behaved."

"Noram felt real," Derivan pointed out. "Anyati... Well. We did not interact much with her. But she did not feel as Gensen did."

"Yeah," Vex said. He tried to steady himself; felt the panic creeping into his voice again as he spoke, and looked to Derivan for comfort. One hand found the armor's own, and Derivan squeezed his hand gently, as if to reassure him. Vex wasn't even sure it was a good idea to say what he was about to say out loud, but...

It didn't seem right to keep it a secret, either.

"You were kinda right," Vex said to Misa; his gaze flickered to Noram and Helg and Anton and Unea, and he felt that unease in his heart growing. "But it's... not that simple. Fendal is becoming a bonus room — the regular kind, the one where the people just have to follow a script — while Teque is becoming more like J'rokksur was, where everyone here is real and whole. The system doesn't have enough juice, or whatever it is it uses to make things real, and it's stealing it from Fendal and putting it here, and the Patchers are what's doing it, and I don't— I don't know—"

Vex's voice cracked a little. He felt Derivan pulling him into his arms, and he leaned into that touch, unable to find the words to complete his thought.

The implications terrified him. Because he understood what was happening, now, and it was worse than he found himself able to express. He understood what the raids were, exactly — the idea that there were mistranslated residents of Teque harassing the people of Fendal had been badly wrong.

There were residents of Teque in Fendal. That explained the greater population of magical species there. Teque was much larger than Fendal in population, and so the system had diverted some of them towards the small town — those deemed not necessary for the bonus room's objectives were effectively piloted into Fendal, so they could be harvested like the rest.

And the raids, then, weren't raids at all.

They were perceived as such, because Fendal was a town that was near-constantly paranoid of the monsters swarming near them, and whatever the Patchers were taking from them required a weakness to exploit. A crack in the psyche of those it stole from. It manifested in their memories as a small point of irritation against something they held close; too much noise outside an inn, or precious flowers being chewed on. Guard patrols being disrupted by goblins, ruining the clockwork order in the city.

Every 'raid' was a Patcher, stealing something precious and copying it for Teque. Anyati-the-shopkeeper and Noram-the-otter — those were almost certainly not their original names, maybe not even their original selves. How long had the otter version of Noram here been named Noram? Had his name been something else before the Patchers had come along?

And how could they fix this? Destroying the Patchers wasn't enough; the system might send more, or if it didn't, then half of Fendal and half of Teque would be stuck halfway between complete and incomplete. Unacceptable. As was sacrificing the people of either town to allow the other to function, complete and whole. He couldn't help but search for a solution, trying to find something that would fix this; a way to let both the people of Teque and Fendal live fully—

"Vex."

Vex startled at the sound of his name; he glanced up, and realized that Misa was staring at him, a worried look on her face. Derivan was still holding him gently, but even the armor seemed worried; the glow in his eyes was dim, and he held him like he was worried he would break.

"I'm okay," he said, even though he wasn't.

"No you're fucking not," Misa snorted. Something like anger passed over her face, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared; it didn't seem to be anger at him, in any case. It was replaced quickly by sorrow, and then a pained sort of acceptance. "But it's fine. You're allowed to be not okay."

Vex didn't want to talk about it. He looked around instead; Noram and Helg had vanished; only Anton and Unea stood around still, somewhat awkwardly. "Where..."

"You were muttering to yourself the whole time," Derivan told him gently. "They went to talk to the other mages. To try to find a fix."

"I don't think they can find one," Vex said quietly, numbly. "I don't... I'm not sure there are any good answers here."

"Maybe not," Sev finally spoke up. He'd been quiet for a while, contemplating, and now he finally spoke. There was a shadow over his face, too — no one here was happy, really. "But we'll decide after we know everything. We still don't know why the Patchers were raiding for mana crystals and slivers; those actually went missing, in both Fendal and Teque. We checked. Do you know why they're gone?"

Vex was silent for a moment. The information was there. He'd forgotten about it in the flood of everything else, and now he took a breath, trying to steady himself, in case what he found was even worse. "I think so," he said.

Derivan hummed a comforting tune next to him, squeezing his hand, and Vex gave him a grateful smile before turning his mind to the task.

Mana crystals and mana slivers. What did the Patchers want with them?

The information on what mana crystals and mana slivers actually were was locked away from him — too far away from what the Patchers were doing. He'd have to run the spell on one of the slivers himself, and he had the feeling that his glyph wouldn't be nearly as effective at deciphering what they did; he needed to spend some time understanding the real limitations of the spell.

But it was still enough for him to understand why the Patchers were stealing the crystals and the slivers. The crystals were easy: They needed more crystals. The usual mechanism of having them be spent on maintaining a connection to the system wasn't enough, especially now that those in Fendal were cut off from it. Why the system needed those crystals, when it was the one that awarded them to begin with... that was a little more up in the air.

The mana slivers, on the other hand, were complicated. As far as Vex could tell, the Patchers thought that the slivers could be useful for something to the system; they had a protocol they had to follow for items like that. They would have stolen more at a time, even, but for whatever reason it was difficult for them to transport the slivers. That was the other reason this bonus room had priority: the system recognized something useful in it.

"It needs the crystals for something," Vex said. "The system, I mean. And it thinks it can use the slivers somehow. But I don't think that... helps us."

Sev looked down; Misa clenched her fists, then unclenched them when she saw that Vex was watching her. Derivan simply stayed close, and Vex found that he was grateful for it; he just wished...

Now wasn't the time.

"Can you tell us a little more?" Anton asked; he sounded worried, as he had every right to be. He sounded like he'd been holding back that question for a while, and was only speaking now that it was silent and he couldn't stand that silence any longer. "Helg and Noram believed you. But I do not understand. What do you mean, what makes a person? Why would there be anything we need to fuel us to be real?"

"I wish we could answer that question." Sev spoke up when he saw that Vex didn't seem to want to reply; he was busy resting, staring at the glyph he'd drawn as it slowly dissipated into motes of light green in the air. "You know what the system is?"

"It is some sort of globe-spanning spell network, as I understand it," Anton said. "One that grants power and the ability to cast spells within it."

"Not a spell," Sev said, shaking his head. "But close enough. It's been there as long as we can remember."

"Which is only a few hundred years," Vex added, though his words were mumbled. Anton caught on anyway, and his eyes narrowed, making the same connection they had.

"About since the mana began shepherding us underground," Anton said.

"That's what we think," Sev said with a sigh. "The system's been known to... I dunno, it's going to sound ridiculous. It handles many of the basic facets of reality."

"The skills it gives us let us do things that mana wouldn't let us do," Vex offered quietly.

"The two forces are opposed?" Anton suggested.

"Mana doesn't seem to like it when we use spells through the system," Vex said with a sigh. "I can imagine why, after seeing the magic here. It's all so much more... alive. There's so much meaning when you cast spells."

"Your spells aren't like that," Anton said, and Vex shook his head.

"No," he said. "They're empty. They... I don't think it kills the mana, exactly, but it takes something out of mana. Makes it something lesser."

Anton nodded, looking troubled; Unea, beside him, remained silent. She still hadn't said a word.

"Your explanation makes sense," Anton finally said. "I do not want to believe it, but... it explains all those months of me seeing everyone act so strangely. Like I was in a dream."

"Why're you able to remember that?" Unea asked suddenly. She looked at him, stepping back for a moment. "I don't. I don't remember nothin'. I remember the Roads dying off a week ago, not months."

Anton frowned. He paused for a moment, like he hadn't really thought about it until now, and Vex watched him; there was a nagging feeling in the back of his mind, like maybe the answer to this question was important.

"...Now that you mention it," Anton said, and then he looked at the table, where the mana slivers Vex had been rewarded were still glowing. "I believe it may be because of those."