―Maya Angelou

"Alright, you can relax now, the drones have gathered all the data for this scan."

"How many of these are there?" John asked, lowering his arms as the half-dozen drones floating around his form were dismissed, locking themselves into place with Tricia's base station to undoubtedly upload whatever new information they had gleaned about him.

"About two-dozen; I had almost seventy-five constructed before, but after the **** on my home, I lost most of them between those injured in the fighting and the few the Cabal managed to carry off."

"No, I meant the scans," John noted. "I gave you the name of the thing, so I figured you'd be able to research something about it. Doesn't the Order have some huge library? Even Lord Brighton's study was pretty filled with books last I saw."

"The Order does not have access to the information they used to, for reasons Moira has never fully explained," Tricia sighed. "As for myself, without a way to contact the other Gorbachevs or the Opekuny directly, I have very limited resources - mostly the same as you, along with what miniscule fraction of the archives I was able to download before they cut off all contact. You could try searching the Abyssal Auction for any books that might be related; it's relatively risk-free; the Abyssal Auction holds anonymity and the ability to freely search as some of their highest priorities in order to preserve customer trust and integrity. Once your phone is finished updating, I'll start the process of adding the Abyssal Auction app to it. Much more convenient than carrying a secondary device dedicated to it."

"I mean, I agree, but… is that really the best hope?"

"It may be the widest net that we can cast," Tricia nodded. "As for the scans, that was the last one. That is why it took so long; if I have not learned something from this, then I have exhausted all my options available at this juncture."

"Interesting… well, I guess if that's settled I'll just grab my phone and be off, then?" John suggested uncertainly.

"That would be best. I will contact you when I have finished analyzing this information… or if I decide to accept your offer of hospitality."

John eagerly agreed, grabbing his smartphone off the desk and shooing away the drone that attempted to continue its scanning. In a moment he was through the door, leaving Tricia to her studies. Truthfully, he was still a little concerned about her wellbeing, especially since she had grown so unstable she'd needed to start relying on the Order's cheap imitations of her suit to simply function as something resembling a human being… but since making his offer, Tricia's rare breakthroughs of her emotional containment field seemed far more positive than they had before. Once or twice, when she was consumed with a particular device or process of her drones and she thought John wasn't looking, he saw her smiling to herself.

Particularly because of that, John felt rather optimistic as he waltzed down the hallway. Since he was more or less forbidden from taking part in the frontline activities of the Order, and with Seras doing her best to sleep away the daylight hours, John had very little that he needed to do, which left him with ironically a lot of things that he very much wanted to do. The biggest priority was training, since he was realizing more and more just how important that was, but the far more time-sensitive thing was to deal with his equipment issue. So John got directions from Order member after Order member, until he finally narrowed down Moira's location to a single room and pushed his way through the door.

"I want a proper set of armo- aaaand you're busy," John noted, glancing around the room. Etriyya along with a half-dozen other Knights were surrounding Moira in the meeting room he'd tracked her down to, all of them variously donning or removing parts of their gear.

"Fortunately for your impatience," Moira noted, "I was just finishing up the debriefing for our latest foray into Cabal territory. All of you have your orders; I'll speak with you before any further missions."

The Knights filed away, with Etriyya clasping John on the shoulder for just a moment prior to her departure. John wasn't quite certain of what the gesture meant - it seemed as if she were preparing him for something, but Moira didn't have any upset look on her face despite the lecturing she gave him on impatience. Had he walked into something he wasn't prepared for?

"Now then, John, what was it you were wanting to ask me? Make it quick please, I have a half-dozen more of these briefings and debriefings scheduled today."

“Couple things. First of all, we need to discuss my mother. Now that it seems like the Cabal are learning about me, it’s only a matter of time until they figure out my address - if they don’t already have it. All they need is a phone book. If they-”

“Do not worry, John Newman; I have already stationed several Order Knights in different positions around your neighborhood; they’re spaced apart enough that it will be difficult enough to tell exactly what they are there for, and it will make it nearly impossible to eliminate all of them before they are able to contact us. Ordinarily the Order’s presence makes it unlikely for non-magical folks to be targeted as a result of war; that typically encourages us to join one side or the other to minimize casualties. Since we are already in this war, though, I’ve made sure every precaution is taken.”

"Oh, that’s… well, thank you. But that wasn’t all - I want to see your smelter," John said as firmly as he could. "If I'm going to be confined here until Tricia finalizes her results, I want to be able to improve myself for when I am allowed to fight beside the Order again. We don't even know for sure if Tricia is going to be able to determine anything, and I don't really want to do things on my own even if you wouldn't try to stop me."

"You want to experiment with your magical abilities while you don't even know what they can do or how they might be affected by this strange object that was **** into you? I'm sorry, John, but I'm not willing to risk-"

"You aren't risking anything," John sighed, predicting and rather off-put by Moira's foreseeable hesitance. "You have forbidden me from helping directly with this war; allow me to help indirectly by making myself stronger. If you don't, I'm going to seek the components required to make my own Smelter, and that means a lot of fighting, some with higher-level enemies than I'm prepared to take on my own. Even fighting enemies several levels below myself resulted in a partial unleashing of the shard's potential, as I know Tricia informed you during her multitude of tests."

"So, either I allow you access to our facilities and you risk endangering us all or you take matters into your own hands and intentionally endanger us all?" Moira summarized, glaring at John.

"Either let me achieve my goals in a controlled manner or I take control back into my own hands… for perhaps the first time since this all began."

John met Moira's gaze with stubborn pride, aware that she was not pleased with his first attempt to really stand up to her. All the same, it was important to John, for the simple fact that it was an easy one to achieve even without her assistance. If she was not willing to concede a point she really had no control over, then it was worthless arguing with her.

"…Fine, but I will insist on being present during your forays into foolishness," Moira grumbled, leading the way to the door out of the room. "Follow me, and I will take you into the protected sections of the Manor."

John merely nodded; he was assuming that there were parts of the place he had not yet seen, either due to size or restriction. What he didn't expect was the set of double doors that Moira eventually led him to, revealing an elevator that showed a first, second, and third floor, but also several layers of basements. John attempted to count how many there were but only gazed as far as the thirteenth sub-floor before Moira stepped in front of the buttons and stared at him.

"These are normally forbidden to anyone who has not been formally sworn into the Order, unless they have official business with us and an escort… that is one of the reasons why I have been so **** to bring you here, but since you insist upon this foolishness, I will at least do my utmost to ensure you do not succumb to your affliction."

"I don't know if I'd use that word," John noted as the floors continued to zip by. "It's not like the activation made me do anything particularly awful. All I did was slaughter a Minotaur and express my feelings more openly."

John had done his best to avoid describing too much of the encounter to Tricia. He'd given the bare minimum of details to Tricia while they were discussing the incident, knowing that Moira would certainly hear of most of the things he said. He was sure Moira already suspected the relationship between Seras and himself, simply based on her intuition and John's lack of subtlety. The longer he could go without explaining his attraction and feelings for the undead woman, the better.

"Well, be that as it may, I don't want to see what happens if the shard activates further," Moira noted just as the elevator doors opened. John followed her through what most resembled a lobby, several chairs with a few books scattered across them. While Moira led the way, John dawdled only enough to glance over one of them. The title of the book, "Mental Fortitude and the Breakdown of the Human Psyche", caught John's attention entirely.

"What exactly is this… floor? Area?" John asked, uncertain how the breakdown of the mansion's underground levels worked.

"It's… what are you doing?" Moira asked, pausing in her steps. In the instant before she turned around, John made a decision in the spur of the moment, throwing the book into his inventory and pretending to inspect another book nearby with the same title. Moira turned around and immediately strode to where he was, lifting the book from his grasp and glancing over it before she spoke.

"This floor is primarily for the trade specialists of the Order: blacksmiths, carpenters, Inquisitors, and enchanters, among other specialties."

"I recognize most of those words; what exactly do the Inquisitors do?"

"They specialize in retrieving information," Moira said plainly, her voice oddly level. "They use magical and physical tools to break down mental barriers an individual may have put in place and glean what information can be obtained from captured warriors, as well as deciphering coded messages and hacking into protected systems we recover. The information that has come out of our specialists has saved many lives; I expect they will save many more in this war against the Cabal."

"Sounds like a fancy way to word ****," John thought to himself, falling in line with the Warden and opening his inventory when he was confident Moira would not turn around to inspect him again. As soon as he did, he cast Observe, hoping that things worked as well in his inventory as they did when the book was out in the open.

Do you want to learn "Mental Fortitude and the Breakdown of the Human Psyche"?

John pressed the "Yes" button and then immediately lowered his arms back into a normal walking pose, just in case the Warden was more observant than he gave her credit for. Meanwhile, his eyes glanced over the pop-up that replaced it, while his mind flooded with new information.

Learned "Mental Fortitude and the Breakdown of the Human Psyche"!
ERROR: INT too high for this level of reading; no boost acquired.
+5 CHA

Skill Unlocked: Cruciare Level 1.
Cruciare: Inflicts incredible pain on an opponent, without inflicting any physical damage. The amount of pain inflicted is based on the difference between the user and the opponent's Level, Endurance, and Charisma. The more of these the user is superior in, and the greater the degree of superiority, the greater the pain inflicted. Mana Cost: 10 / second.

"Jesus… holy fucking… by Gaia," John whispered in his mind, his brain suddenly overcome with the horrors that were contained. Inside the book were instructions on how to very carefully and intentionally push someone to their breaking point, then gently ease them over it, preserving their mental state only enough to glean the most relevant information. John was suddenly the bearer of a disturbing amount of knowledge on how to break a human being to the point that they would give up any secret, even lie or wish for **** to stop the suffering… suddenly, Lord Brighton's possession of a trinket designed to sift truth from lies seemed much more insidious.

"John? Are you alright?"

"I'm… I'm fine," John mumbled, trying to compose himself. He thought of confronting Moira on his newfound knowledge, but… in truth, she had never lied to him about such things, only neglected to inform him. Confronting her would only cause her to dig her heels in and make her trust John just that much less, and the more he saw of the outside world, the more he wondered if she had a point about the righteousness of her actions. It was a nagging part of himself he hated, but it was there.

The rationalization of **** and "enhanced interrogation" made John decidedly ill.

"I was just trying to check my menus, see if anything indicated instability," John lied, nodding along with the falsehood. "Like you said, no sense in taking unnecessary chances with this shard until we know what it really does. Looks like there's nothing odd in my character sheet, no status menus, no change in stats, and no changes to my mental state, so… let's go!"

Deception successful!

John fought the urge to wince as Moira raised an eyebrow but shrugged somewhat indifferently. It had been some time since he saw that notification, but it still pained him.

"Well, I can commend your caution. I'm glad that you aren't taking this lightly," Moira said slowly, turning back toward the hallway. She continued to lead them past several sets of closed doors, with little changing around them .The only thing that John noticed was an increase in the temperature around them, subtle at first and then rapidly rising. It seemed to match up with the fact that they were approaching the end of the hallway, where a set of double doors resided that they were slowly approaching. The darkened hallway revealed a soft glow in the crack between the doors.

When they finally reached the doorway, Moira threw both of them open, and a wave of heat like nothing John had experienced outside of combat flew forth to greet him, washing over his body like a wave. It was almost appropriate, because the first thing that John could see when the doors were finally opened were a variety of furnaces and smelters, with molten metal flowing like water. John's eyes widened as he took in the true scope of the underground facilities; if this was the Order at its weakest, John wondered what they had been like before. Suddenly, the vast array of weaponry in the room he'd had his conversation with Lord Brighton in made a lot more sense, even if most of it was barely magical.

"Welcome, John Newman, to the Order's personal refinery," Moira announced, holding out her arms. "Find whatever your abilities will confirm as a Smelter - there should be many of them - and begin your experiments.” John eagerly stepped forward, doing his best to ignore the sweltering heat. At last, it was time for John to don a proper set of armor.