Questions and Answers

“Uh, the short version is that Frank sucker punched me from behind and tried to gang up on me with some of his buddies, but I goaded him into a one-on-one fight which I won. Then I tried to intimidate him into leaving me alone so I wouldn’t have to do it more than once.”

John paused briefly before continuing, “That leaves out a lot of stuff though. I figure the part you care most about is that, yes, I did use magic in the fight. Specifically, I enhanced my physical, uh, competence would be the word I think?” He had realized halfway through the sentence that ‘physical stats’ probably wouldn’t mean anything to the senior paladin. “In any case, it should be unnoticeable to mundanes. A quirk of my ability means that losing, or just resigning myself to take the beating, would most likely have killed me. So the moment I was cornered, it was basically win or die…”

Lord Brighton just sat there, continuing to look at him with that piercing gaze, while the silence grew awkward. Awkward enough for John to end up just continuing with more context, which he had a sneaking suspicion was the point, “I was tempted to hurt him badly, instead of just pointing out that I could have… I… he has been beating me up once or twice a month and extorting money weekly for years, because I called him out for being a bully in middle school. A-and I didn’t actually do it in the end.”

“Hmm.” Lord Brighton scratched his beard. “And what about avoiding the confrontation, or making an escape? When it comes to that and mundanes, barriers are a powerful tool.”

“... I didn’t really think of that in the moment. Using barriers for it, I mean. But I don’t think it would have helped anyway. Basically from the sucker punch onwards, all eyes were on me, so as far as I understand, the Veil would’ve killed any magic as overt as ‘suddenly vanishing’. Even if it did, or if I had predicted the ‘ambush’, I can’t go through the whole school day in a barrier. And while some classes are ‘safe’, PE definitely isn’t. Conroy is more likely to help them beat me up than stop them.”

“I see. The Veil is considerably more forgiving with regards to entering barriers than it is for other overt magic. A momentary distraction or briefly blurring or breaking line of sight for most of the crowd would have sufficed. I take it Miss Groenn neglected to mention this.” The paladin lord raised a quizzical brow.

“No, it, uh, it isn’t Marisa’s fault. It was someone else who told me about the Veil…” John really didn’t want to divulge Qhila’s identity, seeing as he was fairly certain she wouldn’t want that. He wasn’t sure if withholding information was considered lying as far as the Stick of Truth was concerned though. The stick did feel slightly warmer, but the difference was small enough that John wasn’t sure if it was just his mind playing tricks on him.

“Very well. You will need to elaborate on how your ability **** a ‘win or die’ scenario, and since we will need to cover your ability in general as well, feel free to combine the two.”

Marisa had recommended to keep some details about that hidden, and she had said nothing about making an exception for the Order. Which had to mean that either the Stick of Truth was something she hadn’t expected, or she believed that he could safely omit information. ’Guess it’s time to test if the stick feeling warmer before was all in my head or not’

“So, the basic gist of it is, it makes me akin to a video game character. Specifically an RPG character, if that means anything to you. I have Hit Points, a character sheet where magical things I’ve learned are listed as Skills, I have an Inventory, I earn actual Experience Points from practicing things and overcoming challenges which cause me to Level Up, and so on.”

John paused for a moment before continuing, “The HP is what made for a do or die situation. As long as I still have any, I regenerate very quickly. If I run out, whatever cost me the last one leaves me fatally wounded. Obviously, I haven’t tested this, but I believe I could potentially die from a stubbed toe if my HP was low enough at the time.”

Lord Brighton scratched his beard again. “And you know this how? Considering the clear difficulty of testing it.”

“The ability itself. I have tooltips on pretty much every aspect of it, some of them are kinda vague, but the one on my HP clearly states that whatever reduces me to 0 will leave me fatally wounded. Unless I receive medical attention.”

“These tooltips sound quite convenient. What does an ‘Inventory’ mean in this context?”

“It’s, uh…” John had almost referenced the item description for Lord Brighton’s armor before catching himself. Observe wasn’t something he intended to hide, but if he had read between the lines of Marisa’s advice right, keeping something in reserve he didn’t mind sharing was recommended for if someone started probing. Instead, the senior paladin got the explanation John had given Qhila, “Well it’s kinda like having a bunch of storage boxes that I can put things in or take them out of, except that they don’t weigh anything or take up space, even when something is inside. Earlier, Moira stuck her arm inside the back of her shield in a way that shouldn’t have fit, in order to get a flier. I figure it probably works more or less like that, except attached directly to me instead of an object.”

Lord Brighton nodded, sitting back slightly. “And what does the ‘and so on’ you ended your overview with cover?”

“Uh, there’s a lot of finicky details and stuff. If we were to cover every tooltip and every bit I’ve done to figure out what vague tooltips mean, we’re going to be at it for hours…”

The Lord Protector’s eyebrows knit into a stern frown that made the Gamer feel like an almost physical pressure bore down upon him. Hurriedly, he added, “T-there are a few more important things though. I-it sometimes creates items.”

“Show me.”

That had blurted out quicker than he had intended, and gotten closer to the whole echoes deal that Marisa had been very clear about him keeping under wraps. But maybe if he went with the right item, he could pivot to something unfarmable like achievements. That was still better, right?

The first item of that kind that came to mind was the Alchemfist, but since he got that from the fight with Frank, it seemed an unwise choice. The second one was the hat. When John handed it over to Lord Brighton and the paladin’s attention shifted, the pressure John felt abated. After a minute or so, the Lord Protector glanced at Moira who had observed quietly so far, then he looked at the ceiling. Well, more in the direction of the ceiling really, as John got the feeling that his thoughts were focused on something somewhere beyond it.

The silence stretched on for another subjective eternity, and while it didn’t feel like it might be on purpose this time, John still felt an awkward need to fill it. “I got the hat from, well, from not getting pancaked by a rat ogre, basically…”

The mention of the rat ogre brought Lord Brighton’s attention back to the here and now, with a brief flash of a frustrated expression similar to what Brenda would look like when talking about something going wrong at work. The expression vanished quickly, and it took the frown with it. When William returned his gaze to John, there was no sense of pressure and the sternness had mostly given way to the otherwise ever-present scrutiny. “What else?”

“Uh, I’ve been told that when I Level Up, I transmute myself into a slightly better version of myself, and that this is kinda a big deal.” John was briefly interrupted by Moira coughing, but when she didn’t say anything, he continued, “Also, my ability parses some things into game-like stuff. I get damage numbers when I hit something, for instance, and if I understood Marisa right, assensing is usually vague feelings and impressions and sensations that need to be interpreted. My assensing Skill gives me a bit of text and some numbers. And color coding.”

As John was describing Observe, Lord Brighton leaned forward enough to put his elbows on the mahogany desk between them. It seemed that had caught his interest. “Please elaborate on that.”

“Right. For people, I passively get a ‘Level’ which measures how competent and powerful someone is, more or less, and a Class that hints at what someone is competent at. If I focus on someone, I get a guild affiliation, a little about their character, relationships and skills, and a number indicating how much they like or dislike me. I’m pretty sure it’s possible to fool it though.”

The knight-lord nodded. “There are several ways to mislead typical assensing, so it stands to reason that there is in this case as well. What does the skill say about me?”

That felt a bit awkward to have to answer, but he didn’t really have a way around it. “Uh, it says that you’re Level 126. For comparison, your butler or whatever his title is is Level 96 and I’m, uh, Level 10… Anyway, it also says that you’re well liked and respected by your men, that you’re a master swordsman that also uses holy magic, whatever that means exactly, and that your opinion of me is ‘15’. Which is mildly positive.”

It was only now that John realized that he had been so focused on Lord Brighton himself that he hadn’t paid attention to his nameplate and how his RS changed during the conversation. But it increasing by 10 points, despite the paladin more or less catching him in being cagey with information, felt like a good sign.

“Interesting. What does it say about the Scarlet Witch, Ms. Wentworth?”

“Uh… not much. Most of the passive text is garbled, her Level is a skull symbol instead of a number and she somehow blocked the focused readout. Which is when she told me to stay out of her way.” John scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.

Meanwhile, Lord Brighton frowned, though John got the feeling that it wasn’t directed at him. Then he glanced at the wall behind John for a moment before reaching into a drawer. “Next, there is the matter of your citizenship status. I would like to offer you a Contract of Allegiance, which would make you an affiliate with the Order. In addition to protection as long as you live within Order territory, you would have access to training facilities and certain services and be given regular work befitting your talents for which you will be compensated justly. The work would initially consist of supervised combat training, possibly training in other skills for which you demonstrate aptitude, and using your unique assensing method in concert with our investigators and diviners. The details of facilities, services and compensation are outlined in the contract.”

The paladin placed said contract on the desk in front of John, but before picking it up to read, he had a question, “Would the work involve being sent to war against the Emerald Order, or anything similar?”

“I would be greatly surprised if you were ready for combat duty at the moment, but once your training officer declares you ready, that is a possibility, yes. Whether the Emerald Order still exists by then is uncertain, but even if not, the fight against evil has made us rich in enemies.” Lord Brighton sounded proud of that last part. John wasn’t sure what he should think of that pride, though, so he set about reading the contract instead.

The contract fit Marisa’s description perfectly, both in terms of clearly being written to be easy to understand and in terms of content. He’d need approval to join or co-found other Abyssal organizations, they could call upon him for unscheduled work whenever, they decided what the work would be and so on.

The benefits weren’t very detailed in the contract itself, instead referring to a booklet that was supplied alongside the near-useless booklet of pre-approved guilds to join. On flipping through it quickly, he found that the training facilities, while mostly combat and physically oriented, were quite extensive and looked nice, though less nice than his Training Room barrier option promised to be. The protections offered looked pretty good as well, to the extent he was able to judge that, but the thing that really made him go bug eyed for a moment was the pay scale.

$70/hour starting wage for participating in training and using Observe felt absurd, being more than 3 times what his mom made. On top of which, the bonuses for short notice changes, no-notice changes, and work outside of regular office hours were similarly big. It took him a moment to remember two moderating factors. One was the prices he had seen on the Abyss Auction. The other one was what he had gotten doing Arena grinding. The lowest tier of that had gotten him around $120 in an hour, not counting Achievement and First Kill Bonus rewards.

Other than the protection that was presumably also in the Writ of Protection that Marisa had mentioned, the real benefit here seemed to be in the service to launder some of his wages into the mundane economy at no cost other than mundane income tax. Doing so would let him use some of his newfound income to help his mom with living expenses, even if convincing Brenda to accept it would be something of a challenge in its own right. Additionally, there was the unofficial signing bonus provided by his Main Quest option, Finding a Home.

“Signing up to go to war is a bigger decision than I can make here and now. Marisa mentioned that you also have a basic citizen thingy called a Writ of Protection, and that going from there to this-” he gestured at the Contract of Allegiance, “-is possible. Could we go with that while I think about the decision to enlist?”

“That is an option, yes.” While Lord Brighton’s expression betrayed nothing, his RS dropped 5 points as he took out another, shorter, contract from his desk drawer and handed it to John. As expected, the stipulations about working for the Order were almost nonexistent here, as were the restrictions related to that and to joining guilds.

They could requisition him to work only in an emergency that threatened his home, pay in those situations was case-by-case. It provided no access to training facilities, but the protection for both himself and for any dependants was the same. All restrictions, including on joining other guilds, just referred to the laws common to the Springfield Accord and a law addendum for the GRO territory.

As far as citizenship deals/social contracts went, this looked reasonable. Unless there was something insane in the law code, that was, but Marisa had sounded like that wasn’t the case. Not to mention, it wasn’t like the mundane one didn’t have a few bits he considered less than stellar anyway. So without any hesitation or fanfare, he signed the Writ and handed it back along with the Stick of Truth.

While Lord Brighton signed the Writ as well, John turned towards Moira. “By the way, do you happen to have a copy of the law or the GRO addendum somewhere that I can take with me? Or at least the stuff that applies to individuals? Marisa said it was mostly obvious and logical stuff, but I would still prefer to take a look at it myself.”

“That is a reasonable request, and can be arranged.” As Moira then went to the door to relay it to someone, possibly Reginald, John noted her RS and realized that he hadn’t been paying attention to it otherwise today. This particular request, though, saw it climb from 0 to 3, so that was something.

Looking back to her father, his had gone to 12 now, while opting for the Writ to start with had taken it down to 10. John’s attention was drawn from that by the now fully signed contract starting to glow softly white, then multiplying into two copies. Realizing the opportunity, he quickly tossed an Observe at it, putting him at a single phenomenon short of completing that Skill Quest objective. The effect itself was a largely uninteresting utility spell that copied documents, so he just dismissed the window and accepted the copy that was handed back to him.

“Lastly, I would like to borrow this for an examination.” The veteran knight put his hand on the Hat of Close Calls.

That put a light grimace on John’s face. “It’s a pretty good safety net, and I’d really rather have it on hand in case I run into another rat ogre or something…”

“What if I assigned someone to function as a bodyguard until it is returned? I expect it to be no more than a day or two.”

’Strange that he would divert manpower for that during wartime. Maybe he is hoping to replicate the enchantment for GRO gear?’ John thought about it for a moment, then realized that there might be potential for something else here. “Would it be possible to put the guard on my grandparents or their home instead? Someone broke in last night and the whole thing seems fishy. I already told Moira about it, and filed a report, if you want the details.”

“That can certainly be arranged.” Making the request had increased Lord Brighton’s RS to 14, and it climbed by another point when John agreed to lend him the hat under those terms.

Then the British warrior glanced at the wall behind John again, looked thoughtful for a moment and spoke “Thank you for your time, Mr. Newman. Moira, please walk him to the door, or help him find Miss Rhosewen if he has any questions about the Abyss in general.”

“Yes, Father.” Moira’s answer was prompt before she turned towards the door. “Follow me, John.”

On his way out, John overheard the Lord Protector speak to Reginald, “Please inform Sir Krieg that Moira and I will rendezvous with him a bit later than originally planned, then ask Cornelius and Lady Varnik to come here if their current work permits.