by Tao Wong
When we take the sixth twisting corridor, I’m absolutely certain of the tail. Cocking my head, I note that neither Bolo or Ali look particularly worried. As for Mikito…
“Kill or subdue?” Her question is asked in a flat, matter-of-fact tone.
“Let’s maybe ask our local guide first. Don’t want to step on any local toes…”
“Since when?” Bolo says. “My feet are still hurting from our encounter.”
“I worry about those who matter,” I snark back. “Now, you going to explain who is following us?”
Bolo doesn’t look away from the notification window, though he shifts his hammer on his shoulder, far enough that he can protect himself with its head or swing away as necessary. He’s silent for the space of half a corridor before he speaks. “Not one of my creditors.”
At the next side corridor that comes along, I turn into it. Unlike any superhero TV show might show you, there’s no convenient fire escape or dumpster to hide behind. It’s a station alleyway, so it’s all smooth metal, cramped corridors, and numbered doorways. Occasionally, very occasionally, those doorways have System-enabled notification messages indicating what lies behind them. More commonly, when there is a notice, it’s a digital notification, piped directly to our neural links or otherwise tech-adapted viewing apparatus. System messages are considered the classy and sophisticated option, since they automatically translate to any language. That includes some of the strangest ones that involve scents, echolocation, or other, weirder senses.
The alley offers no way for me to hide from view, at least not mundanely. Good thing I’ve got an Invisibility spell. By the time our tails arrive, half the team—the uncaring half—is down the alleyway. Our tails take a dozen steps into the cramped, tight alleyway before they realize something is wrong. Mikito’s not-so-subtle rap of the hilt of her naginata on the metal floor catches their attention, and they spin about to spot us.
“Gentlemen.” I start out polite. Wasn’t it Churchill who said there’s no reason not to be polite when you have to kill a man? “Why exactly are you following us?”
“I told you we should have been farther back,” the twisted, four-legged creature I’d seen sniffing at our trail twists one head to focus on us while the other head barks at his teammate.
His teammate looks less than impressed by being told off, the stalks of its head swaying in non-existent wind. I’ve run into the twig warden race before, which is why I’m amused to see one of their kind on the station. Most twig wardens run around with the Biosphere Class, starting from a basic Garden Biosphere and advancing to a full-on Continental Biosphere. At those Levels, they’re kind of like Swamp Thing—nearly impossible to kill without firebombing the entire continent. Leave even a single root alive, and, well, you’re going to find out what poison ivy feels like on the inside.
“The Reaper of those Who Reaps seeks an answer,” Kyle the twig warden says.
No, its name is not Kyle. But I don’t speak leaf. The twig’s body turns, the entire sapling moving as it shifts to focus on me, ignoring Bolo and Ali, who have stopped and are watching from farther up the alleyway. Bolo’s even taken things seriously enough to pull his hammer off his shoulder. Though the show continues to play.
“We are to ensure no further saplings are stricken from the forest,” Kyle adds.
“I’m not an insane murder hobo, you know.”
“I am not in a position to ascertain sanity of non-sapling individuals,” Kyle intones, his voice like the whistling of the wind through the leaves of a shivering aspen. “But your recent actions are of concern to station owners.”
“That was Oi’s fault!”
“Yet your actions made it possible,” Benji—four legs—growls out, twisting his heads around and flashing Bolo and me a wide, toothy grin with separate heads. Where his tongue should be is a circular, teeth-filled, flexible tube. “And we’re here to stop you.”
“Ali?”
“Neither are Masters. But woofie’s a Pack Master, so figure he’s got friends on call. And bioboy runs the entire atmospheric exchange on this station. You don’t want to piss off the tree that controls your oxygen.”
I eye Kyle more warily, then shake my head. “Why the hell am I worrying about that… Look, I’m not here to kill anyone. I’m off to see the Questor branch.”
“This is not the way to their location,” Benji says.
“Well, I wanted to know who was tailing us. And doing a bad job of it.” Frowning, I point upward at where my implant has already located the “hidden” cameras. “Why aren’t you just watching us that way?”
Benji looks at Kyle, who is as inscrutable as only a tree can be. Even the Galactic downloads on body language—and four years of running around killing and talking to them—offer no help. Certain creatures are so alien, reading their body language is impossible for me.
“Example,” Mikito offers as answer, looking over the pair that block our way. “Disposable dummies?”
“You know, you’ve gotten a lot ruder,” I say, eyeing the little Japanese woman.
She flashes me a tight smile, but never takes her eyes off the pair. Benji bristles, but I’m more interested to see if Kyle will decide to speak again.
“So. What now?” I ask.
Long seconds pass, broken only by the crunch and chewing sounds that emanate from Bolo as he returns to eating caramel popcorn, having decided that a fight isn’t happening.
When the silence is broken, it’s by the tree. “The radiant sun informs me that you should continue your journey. Without concern about us.”
Fun.
I say that out loud then turn around and stomp away, followed by my friends. Take over one station and kill a few bad guys and you get stuck with a reputation as a troublemaker. Where is the fairness there, I ask you?
***
The Questor’s Branch office is situated behind what can only be called over-fortified blast doors. I watch as three blast doors separate before I’m allowed in, and that’s only because I’m able to flash my Title and Quest information. Bolo gets relegated to watching his movies in a nearby café, while Mikito takes off to find the nearest hotel. And, knowing her, a training hall.
Sometimes I wonder how far she’d go without me. Unlike me and my quixotic quest, Mikito is focused on being the hardest, nastiest, and deadliest fighter there can be. The few times I’ve brought up the topic of her incessant training, Mikito pointed out that she doesn’t have a “cheat” like me, nor does she have the years of experience that many other Master Classers have gained. Hard work is all she can use to substitute for experience, Credits, and cheat perks. That at times it is not enough is perhaps the greatest unfairness of all.
I’ll admit, I feel a little guilty about how often I drag Mikito into fights. And how little help I am. But I never wanted to be a killer. Never wanted to be a fighter. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy it. I crave the clarity of a fight, the moments free of worry and self-doubt, of second-guessing and the press of responsibility. For all that, the act of killing itself, of murdering those in my way, seems wrong. Is wrong.
Once, a long time ago, I nearly killed a man for making me think he’d done something bad. That act was nearly the breaking point for me, when I tried to reconcile my own anger and disgust with the System with what I’d become. I struggled with what we’d been taught was right—the rule of law, the presumption of innocence, the separation between judge, jury, and executioner that we, as a society, had built over years of trial and error—and the needs of a System civilization. I’d struggled, and human civilization, our mores back then, won. I didn’t kill Minion because it was the right thing to do.
Since then, I’ve been exposed to a lot more options, a wider variety of cultures and their own rules of law. Many of those societies have been warped by the System, rules and morality changed to trust and use the System as part judge, part jury, part executioner. Classes that could read the “truth,” whether by reading the person or the System recorded informat
ion. Skills that gave a glimpse of the past—from reconstructed flow of molecules and energy to tapping into a System record. Even my own Paladin Class Skills allow me to guesstimate truth, providing a level of assurance when passing judgment.
Judgment. And death. Because I’ve dealt a lot of that too, especially in the last few years. Oh, killing monsters is one thing—it’s easy. They’re monsters. Semi-sentient beings at times, but still monsters. Insane aggression, lack of morality or ability to bargain. Fighting monsters is easy, without moral or ethical implications. They want to eat you; you kill them and sometimes eat them. Might makes right.
But then you fight sentients and the rules change. The balance of right and wrong changes. Some of the people we fight and kill are just guards, working people making it through the day one paycheck at a time. You can, if you want, say that they’ve made their decisions, chosen to work for scumbags. Easy excuses, easy explanations for why you’re allowed to hurt, maim, and kill them in the pursuit of your own objectives. Easy.
If you’re willing to ignore context. Of the way Galactic Society sets up entire races, entire classes of individuals so that they have little choice. Where those who are unlucky enough to be born without connections, opportunity, or Credits are ground under, turned into slaves in all but name. A choice made under duress isn’t much of a choice, and most of Galactic Society is under duress of some form or another.
Yet I don’t necessarily have a better option. In a universe where a Legendary Class can take on entire planets by themselves, strength is the ultimate arbiter. Entire empires and regional powers are created for the sole purpose of making themselves a credible threat to a Legendary Class.
Other groups have gone deep, Sects forming with the goal of training and focusing all their resources on a gifted few in the hopes of creating powerful Heroics and Legendary Classes. Gaining safety under the shelter of a single individual. The rise of a single high-level Heroic has seen the rise and destruction of sects and kingdoms as the new threat challenges the existing order.
Arguments abound as to which is better. Each kind of strategy is a hard counter for the other. After all, what use is having a Sect leader who’s a Legendary Class when your entire Sect has been destroyed by the swarms of lower-Class soldiers of an Empire? What use is an Empire if it cannot protect its citizens?
And round and round the Galactic power games go. Dungeon Worlds become powerful sources of growth. Forbidden World expeditions are the last hope for some to become powerful or relevant. To find the justice that they cannot find through normal means.
Might makes right. It’s the truth of Galactic Society, but a part of me rebels against it. Even as I indulge in the benefits it provides, I reject the truth. If might makes right, then there is no justice, no hope of salvation for those forced by society, by the System, to stand at the lowest rung.
And that’s not a Galaxy I want to live in.
“Not another absent-minded scholar,” a droll voice in a thick Glaswegian accent cut across my thoughts.
I frown as I stare at the speaker, the realization that he’s speaking English surprising me. The starving-thin, grey, and wrinkly man flashes me a half-smile, one that sends shivers down my spine. Almost as creepy is the fact that he’s in a charcoal grey suit with a thin black tie, extra long fingers steepled in front of his chest.
“Human, right?”
I ask, “How—”
“Librarian’s Helper.” A hand waves down the body. “It makes me look and sound like a proper aide when I greet others in the library.”
I twitch, eyeing the grey man. One of the things about perception-altering Skills like this is that while they might get some aspects right—like Style, language, looks—others can be a complete miss. Higher Levels of such Skills do better, but right now, he’s making #creepylibrarian a trending tag in my brain.
“What can I do for you, Questor? New books? Movies? A data download?”
“Download?” I frowned. “I thought that was anathema to the Quest completion.”
“That’s what headquarters says.” A slight pause before the librarian’s body ripples in what I realize is meant to be a shrug, but it starts from his hips and moves up. “Results of those who have purchased such downloads have been inconclusive in our view. Known barriers to improvement at the 27, 39, 46, and 51 percentile Quest completion stages. It is believed that the download of information on the System is contraindicated by the Quest itself. Current theories… well. Are numerous.”
“Go on.” I wave, fascinated.
“Current prevailing theories fall into two main sections. Firstly, that downloaded data is not owned knowledge. It explains why individuals who learn the same facts do not necessarily gain the same level of accomplishment. Detractors point out that such completion rates require the System to read our minds and thoughts, which is, thus far, one of the things that is commonly believed to be System-impossible. Barring, of course, the usual System-enforced connections via Skills or equipment.” The librarian holds up a single, long and clawed finger. I note how the nail is black and slightly curved as he raises a second finger to join the first. “Next. The very act of downloading the data is contraindicated. As such, while completion rates can occur, especially when one is new to the Quest, those completion rates are discounted. Completing portions of the System Quest is a common use of funds by Nobles and the affluent looking for a simple experience gain. Of course, detractors point out that if the act itself was contraindicated, no one would gain any experience and completion rates.
“Thirdly.” Another pale finger. “The act of acquiring the knowledge is the important aspect of the quest completion. It is required that a Questor actually gain such knowledge himself, no matter if that gain is not in the most optimal manner. Those who hold to such a belief also often hold the belief that the ultimate answer to the Quest will be an act, an exploration of the System, rather than a dry academic treatise.”
“And what do you believe?” I ask.
“You stand in the Heretics Branch.” The librarian’s hands come apart to encompass the bare hall we stand in. “We believe that the answer to the System Quest is not found in dry treatises or within the System itself. That the answer lies outside of the System or through it, the same way a fish cannot see the pond it lies within. Only by stepping outside of the System may we understand it.”
“And that’s why you’re the heretics?”
“In a nutshell.” The librarian did that weird shrug thing again, making me wince. “It is, shall we say, a point of long contention.”
“But you’re not actually rejected or kicked out.”
“No.”
“Just living in a pirate station.”
“There are certain research topics that are more easily conducted among those already considered rebels. Fewer questions, fewer concerns.”
“Interesting.” I drop the topic since I’m not entirely sure I want to know what kind of research they can do here that they couldn’t in regular Galactic Society, considering how lax Galactic Society was—at least in certain things. “Well, I came here for a reason and I’m just burning daylight jawing right now.”
“Daylight? How quaint.”
A notification appears before me—a long list of research categories that are all too familiar. A second of focus brings details to the forefront.
“So. A download or more mundane information services?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Let’s go mundane.”
“Disappointing. And which are we purchasing today?”
My eyes track over the titles, locating a few categories that I haven’t seen before. In short order, I make my selection and highlight them, sending over the details. “These.”
Almost as fast as I sent the request, my shopping list is returned to me with a list of the Credit cost for each title. I wince, seeing the total amount, but this information isn’t available anywhere but here and the Shop. And compared to the Shop, these prices are more than reasonabl
e. A quick confirmation and I see a flash on my data port as the books and studies are downloaded, ready for me to read.
Title Gained: Corrupt System Questor
Not content to gain knowledge via time-tested and well-worn tracks, the title holder has delved into forbidden knowledge and societies. This title is both a gift and a warning. Be wary, for those who stand in the way of this Questor and his answers might find themselves as part of their forbidden experiments.
Effect: +20 Luck for System Quest related events
“What the hell?” My jaw nearly drops.
“Is there a problem?”
“This Title,” I snarl and point at the notification window he can’t see.
Ali helpfully makes it opaque, though the librarian does not even glance at it before he answers.
“Ah, that old thing. You must be new.” When my glare does not diminish, the librarian shrugs. “I had expected that all Questors who found us would have acquired it already. My apologies. I did not check.”
“What the hell is with the Title?”
“Just a warning, boy-o,” Ali says, yawning slightly. “Give it a rest. It’s the Galactic Council’s way of exerting their influence. Not a major thing.”
“Not a major thing!” I growl. “It’s calling me corrupt.”
“Corrupt. Sullied. Focused.” The librarian does that weird shrug of his again. “Language is such an imperfect thing. You have decided to learn something they have forbidden. Did you expect your actions to have no consequences?”
“Well, yes.” I look around the sparse location before adding, “It wasn’t as if you guys haven’t been emphasizing that you’re still active Questors.”
“But considered heretics.”
I draw a deep breath and pull out some chocolate, this one from a newly functioning chocolatier in the Swiss Alps. The Chocolatier has managed to elevate the entire art form, and the chocolates he makes can even provide boosts in attributes while tasting like heaven in your mouth. I savor the bitter tartness, the way it melts on my tongue slowly, then focus on the librarian, calmer. “How do I get rid of this?”