Chapter 32: The Maximum Is the Ideal

Scarlet hated teleportation.

It was perhaps too hasty a judgment to make, considering she’d only teleported two times thus far, but she felt that, all things considered, two was a big enough sample size. The transition that had sent her into the portal world had been violent enough. This one was different. Less like being snapped between two points and more like being turned to rubber and stretched through the eye of a needle.

The patterns beneath her feet flared brighter, the dull grey room vanished into a wash of light and pressure. Scarlet kept her face impassive as the sensation dragged for anywhere between three seconds and a decade. Her senses were too busy trying to interpret what was going on to pay attention to less relevant things.

Well, at least this time was less painful than portal travel. Still painful, just less.

When the world settled again, The Historian glanced at her. His emotions were unguarded in their curiosity. “Ah. I suppose teleportation can be somewhat unpleasant for beings on the lowest tier.” He smiled. “It gets easier the higher you climb.” He promised. The fox-person himself appeared perfectly at ease, as though he’d just stepped through an ordinary doorway “Luckily, this was a local teleportation.”

While Scarlet wasn’t sure she and ‘luck’ were on speaking terms, she was at least relieved her second teleportation was, in fact, not as bad as the first.

The Historian had such a casual air of superiority to him Scarlet couldn’t find it in herself to be offended. In his defense, he was a lot more knowledgeable about, well, basically everything than she was, so it was no surprise he considered himself the adult in the room.

Scarlet couldn’t argue the point.

Then they left the teleportation room.

Scarlet’s other senses had not prepared her eyes for what she was seeing.

The space beyond the small teleportation chamber opened into a vast circular atrium that made the outside of the tower seem subdued. It wasn’t a room so much as a vertical city hollowed through stone. The tower was separated into many levels with balconies, circling upward until the upper reaches vanished into a distant brightness that looked like daylight, though Scarlet was not sure.

The scene was refined, beautiful, and obviously themed around nature and earth. Dark stone formed the bones of the place. Polished walkways curved around the central open space. Their edges bordered by that same angular script from inside the teleportation room. Perhaps some form of magic writing system?

There were planters carved directly from the floor, small trees with glossy dark leaves, creeping vines clinging to balcony supports, and lamps set into crystal fixtures that radiated a small amount of mana.

Around the layers, doors and storefront-like entrances were arranged in sections. On just the first and second floors Scarlet spotted a grocer, a seamstress, barber, apothecary, records keeper, Tower Hall, and more.

It was an absolute architectural marvel. It should have been bustling.

It was obvious the tower had been built for use. For commerce, and entertainment, and other necessities. But it was painfully quiet. The people who inhabited it – all fox people wearing similar, if less elaborate robes than The Historian, as far as she could see – all of them were far too contained.

They walked quietly, spoke quietly, shopped quietly. They were so unobtrusive that if Scarlet wasn’t watching them move and feeling them with her senses in real time, she genuinely might not have believed they were real individuals. Just automata or something the System created to populate the portal world, though she wasn’t entirely ruling out that possibility, yet.

Watching her take the tower in, The Historian’s tail flicked with amusement. Scarlet knew it was amusement because he had left his Obscuration lowered enough that she could read him. Not as deeply or as entirely as she would have liked to, but with the most emotional clarity she had ever experienced from another sapient being.

Scarlet’s expression remained placid.

The Historian swept forward with a dignified little gesture that was somehow both invitation and assumption. Of course, Scarlet followed. Her cane tapped quietly along the smoothed stone floors. Her posture was neat and her pace controlled despite the pull in her wounds. The poultice had made her functional, not whole, and every step reminded her of that.

The Historian led her along the curved stone path to a set of doors inset beneath a balcony. The entrance was elegant, though modest compared to the atrium itself.

The door opened at his approach, and Scarlet stepped into what looked, at first, like a beautiful office.

“Your office is on the first floor?” Scarlet asked, curiously.

The Historian looked around the space with unconcealed distaste, though he settled them both onto the area with couches. “Oh, no. This is more of a reception area, though admittedly we don’t get too many visitors. And by too many visitors I mean any. You are the first non-inhabitant to visit us here since the inception of the tower.

“So, if I’m not mistaken, we were just discussing your world’s integration? Depending on how this conversation goes, perhaps you may one day see my actual office.”

“That seems reasonable.”

“Quite. Despite your initial rudeness, I could no more blame you for a lacking upbringing than I could for your lacking power. You appear to be a quick learner. It’s not your fault you’re so ill-mannered.”

“Ill mannered?”

“Wasn’t your first action to pry at me with an investigative Skill? You didn’t even introduce yourself.”

In Scarlet’s defence, he hadn’t introduced himself either. However, something told her that bringing this up as a defence would only make her sound petulant and whiny. Besides, whether she knew it was rude or not, she had blasted him with her inspect skill before she’d even asked for his name.

“Perhaps mutual introductions are in order.” Scarlet folded her hands neatly over the top of her cane.

“Mutual introductions,” The Historian drew the two words out and then went silent.

It didn’t take long for Scarlet to realise that waiting the fox creature out really wasn’t an option. He was totally engaged and very happy to just sit there and study her. If her perception, barely past ten, already gave her so much information, she couldn’t really fathom just what he was picking up and processing from simple things like the fluctuation of energy around her. Not to mention any sensory Skills he might have.

That meant it was on her to break the silence.

“What might I call you?” Scarlet asked. He smiled.

“You may call me the Historian. Most people do.”

“Your name is the Historian?”

“On my world,” he said, “it is never a good idea to give your true name to just anyone.”

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Noted, Scarlet thought.

Aloud, she said, “I suppose I will call you the Historian, then.”

“And what should I call you?”

She gave him a small, polite smile. “It would be rude of me not to follow custom. I suppose, if we’re simply listing things that we are, you could call me the Novice?” Scarlet stated. The fox creature laughed.

“Touché,” he said.

“Didn’t you scan me back?” Scarlet asked. “Did you not see my name?”

He made a soft, amused sound. “The identity is one of those things most heavily guarded in sapient species. Most people who possess a shrouding Skill, whether consciously or unconsciously, have stronger defences around their identities. Whatever is shrouding you is particularly difficult to deal with.”

That was probably the Psionic Shroud in action. Scarlet filed the information away, making a mental note to write that in one of her notebooks.

“What I did see,” the Historian continued, “is that you are perilously close to Level 7, and for some reason have neglected to increase all of your stats to the Tier 0 threshold.”

Scarlet went very still.

The Historian blinked at her.

She blinked back.