SIXTY-TWO: Home, pt 1

 

Alden was glad he’d been alone through it. Some things weren’t meant to be shared.

After it was over, it still wasn’t over. But eventually, in addition to the writhing agony of his battered authority as it tried to claw its way out of its new affixation, he became aware of the world around him.

He was in a forest, lying on the ground beneath trees whose massive trunks towered above him like skyscrapers. Their bark was a brown so dark it was nearly black, and their size reminded Alden of redwoods, though he’d never seen one in person.

Normally this place must have been in shadow, but right now the sun was directly overhead. It pierced through distant branches to shine right in Alden’s eyes. He tried to lift an arm to shade his face and realized that he couldn’t. He was being held down.

By tree roots.

That gave him an idea about where he was.

“Okay,” he said, in a voice raw from screaming. “If you’re not going to pull me under, can you let me go?”

The roots weren’t tight. He thought they’d been trying to help by keeping him from thrashing around. But he had seen them eat bodies recently, so he didn’t feel comfortable with this situation.

They began to loosen. Rather slowly. Apparently even magic trees didn’t move fast.

While he waited, he turned his head from side to side to take in the forest. There was no end to it that he could see. And it was very still. It wasn’t the unsettling quiet of Moon Thegund but something more tranquil. The weather was pleasant, too. Warm but not hot.

It would be a nice day if a certain part of me would stop trying to rip itself to shreds.

He understood what she’d meant now, when she said he wouldn’t want to use the skill for a while. If someone appeared from around a tree and threw a knife at Alden, he’d take it in the gut instead of trying to activate Let Me Take Your Luggage.

The Bearer of All Burdens, he corrected himself. Similar names. Very different scope and connotations. At least it has some gravitas.

When he could, he sat up. To his own surprise he felt all right, so he stood.

Better than all right. Amazing. He walked around, stretching out his limbs and testing his muscles. He shouldn’t have been surprised. Rrorro had healed him and then some. And even if the points he’d dropped into his physicality weren’t huge, they didn’t have to be for him to notice that he felt better than ever.

Which was incongruous, since he also felt worse.

Maybe Artonans developed two streams of consciousness so that they could process their authority sense separately from the others. It’s kind of confusing.

But his human brain was managing it without exploding. So that was something.

He was so involved with his own suffering and his physical experimentation that it took him a while to notice the total lack of interference or instruction from the System. He was wandering around on Artona I with no summoner, no destination, and no purpose. That was an unusual state of affairs.

He thought his interface should be bothering him with tasks or timers. Something like an incoming teleportation notification or instructions to report to whomever was in charge of stray humans in this area. But it seemed to be leaving him to make his own decisions for now.

That was obliging of it. Alden needed some space anyway.

This is the first time in almost seven months that I haven’t been busy, in mortal danger, or both.

He realized that he didn’t even know who he was supposed to be right now.

Not the Alden who’d tried to be mature and brave and unbreakable every second to keep himself and Kibby alive. That guy had been at the end of his rope for weeks, anyway. He wouldn’t have lasted much longer.

But he also wasn’t the Alden who’d left Earth behind for his first Rabbit assignment. He could remember all of that person’s anxieties, plans, and dreams. He knew that they had been his, but they felt distant.

Not bad. Not even childish. Just…distant.

If someone assigned him an elementary school essay right now—one of those “When I Grow Up I Want to Be” ones—he’d have no clue what to write.

My “What I Did Over Summer Break” essay would be badass, though.

He took a walk. The large, blade-shaped fallen leaves were soft to his feet. He sprinted for a while. He did some push-ups. Everything really was in working order.

Finally, he accepted the fact that things actually were going to move forward at his own pace for a change, and he sat down on top of a root the height and width of a park bench to think. He stroked the auriad around his neck and tried to figure out next steps.

He gave the mental command to activate the location feature on his interface and winced as it sent a sharp needleprick through a minuscule part of his bound authority he’d never identified before. So even this much is going to sting.

It was like he was a giant exposed nerve right now.

A map appeared, and he gladly let it distract him. He was very far to the north on Artona I’s biggest continent, in the largest of a few different places on the planet marked Privately Governed Territory.

If Alden’s memory wasn’t failing him, then in culture class back at the consulate, Instructor Pa-weeq had said those were for “special communities dedicated to land preservation.” Which had made him think of them as environmentally important parks or something.

Unlike the maps he’d seen in class, though, this one was willing to enlighten him further.

Privately Governed Territory – Knight Rapport 1

“I don’t suppose I can get alternate translations for ‘Knight Rapport,’ can I?” he asked aloud. He knew what the words meant literally, but he didn’t quite understand what they were describing here.

To his surprise a small list appeared:

[Valorous Servants Community]

[Neighborhood of Honored Warriors]

[Resting Place of the Oathbound]

[Sanctum of The Ones Who Stand Guard]

 

Okay, so it’s trying to fit a lot of nuance into a few words. The “knight” concept must have been difficult to translate. Maybe that was why he had never been able to get Kibby’s description of what the Primary was down well.

Anyway, this seemed to be a forest belonging to the knights. If Alden’s sense of scale wasn’t completely off, it looked like it was almost the size of Illinois.

He was right in the middle of it, and there were no symbols to indicate cities or landmarks.

“Where are the nearest people?” he asked.

Not very close, he assumed. They would have heard him screaming.

A direction arrow appeared. Beneath it were the words “Art’h Residence – 5.68 miles.”

Alden wondered if Knight Alis-art’h had deliberately teleported him to her family’s house in the middle of what was clearly an exclusive location. Or if it was another entity’s idea. He was guessing it was the second.

“What are my options for getting back to Earth?”

The answer wasn’t what he’d expected. He had multiple choices. Including a couple of non-standard ones.

 

[Request Direct Teleport to Anesidora]

*Intensity Level 8

 

[Request Direct Teleport to Alternate Earth Destination]

*Intensity Level 10-17

 

[Walk to Art’h Residence and Request Use of Summonarium]

*Intensity Level 4

*Reward: A Gift from Mother

 

An optional quest of sorts. From her. That was…Alden didn’t know what it was. But he thought the Intensity Level warnings were letting him know that even teleporting in his present state wasn’t going to feel great.

“What kind of reward?” he asked.

The Wardrobe window opened.

In the mindspace where he’d made his affixation selections, Alden had noticed the Wardrobe had gotten an expansion. But she’d told him not to look at it then, that it was something to keep him busy during his recovery.

There were two more tabs in addition to the main window now. One was labeled For Alden and the other said Intensity 99.9.

I didn’t anticipate something like this. He’d assumed that her involvement with him was only a favor to Alis-art’h and it wouldn’t really extend to after affixation. Would the new tabs disappear when he went back to Earth, or were they here to stay?

He selected the one with his name on it. There were only two items. They showed up as presents with Christmas wrapping paper. The description on the first simply said, “A Gift.” The second was, “Reward: A Gift With Strings Attached.”

It made him smile. “I definitely want a gift.”

He had no clue what it would be, but he felt certain that he would like it or need it. She had, after all, just been inside his head.

A moment after he’d spoken, something was teleported onto the tree root beside him. It was a messenger bag, about the same size as the one he’d had back home, but this one was made of a dark blue fabric that matched the auriad, minus the iridescent quality. He picked it up curiously. The fabric was soft, and it had a round silver medallion attached to the clasp that sparkled faintly when his hand approached it.

Some kind of a lock? Or id device? he guessed.

The bag felt empty. He was about to open it anyway, when a second item teleported in. It was a book. A very old looking book with a gray leather cover and a raised design of hands using an auriad on the front. Alden stared at the logograms running in a vertical line down the center beneath the star-shaped pattern that had been made with the string.

He couldn’t read them, but he knew a magic book when he saw one. And if he could find a dictionary that included logograms for wizard-related words somehow—

 

[Whan-tel’s Art:

Conducting Power through the Hands]

 

“You’re going to translate it for me!” Alden said excitedly.

And then he realized something slightly different than the usual System translation was going on. First, he got the easy-to-read English. Then it faded, and a phonetic spelling of the Artonan words along with their literal definitions appeared beside each symbol.

Then that faded out, too, and he was left staring at just the untranslated logograms again.

Intrigued, he watched for a while. Every half a minute or so, one of the logograms would be re-translated and then fade out.

It’s not only translation, he realized. It’s flash cards.

It would force him to learn vocabulary and the writing system while he studied the book. And it would definitely keep him busy with something practical while he was in a state where he’d rather be knifed than actually use his skill.

Just as he finished appreciating the first book, a second one appeared. It looked equally antique. Where is she getting these? They don’t look like they’re fresh from a shop. Is she just snatching them off of peoples’ desks?

The new book was less exciting but still useful. It was an index that listed common object enchantments and their effects. It didn’t include instructions for how to enchant things, just references to other texts that did. Alden assumed it was to help him out when he started picking up his new category of burden with his skill, so that he might have a little more of an idea which enchantments he might be grabbing from objects.

That’s really going to be kind of cool. I could even buy stuff from the Wardrobe if I have to for experimentation purposes. It stood to reason that the stat bonuses on Rabbit gear were actually some kind of enchantment since they weren’t drawing directly on the user’s authority. He’d have noticed that kind of thing when he wore the now-deceased lab coat.

Although that would be really expensive. What is an enchantment anyway?

When no more surprises appeared, Alden opened up his new bag.

And promptly screeched when the thing that was probably some kind of id medallion jabbed at his sore authority. After he’d recovered from the shock, he stuck the books inside.

 

[Sorry.]

 

“It’s all right,” Alden replied. “I bet that would have been no big deal under normal circumstances. Thank you for the books.”

He re-opened the Wardrobe and glanced at Reward: Gift with Strings Attached briefly before he checked the Intensity 99.9 tab.

He stared at the contents of it unhappily. “You said it was a good idea for me to keep quiet and stay under the radar. That’s what I want to do. This looks like…a closet that will give me a lot of angry Artonans, danger, and unnecessary drama.”

 

[True. These are expensive. But you have to admit they look stylish.]

 

They were knight uniforms.

They included descriptions, but since they listed the magical effects by name instead of anything as simple as stats, Alden wasn’t sure what the benefits were. Knowing Artonans, though, a piece of armor that gave you something called the Halo of the Mother Planet was going to be absurdly powerful.

Notes out to the side said these pieces were only available on the Triplanets and a few other worlds. Earth was not included.

And as far as argold went, they were all completely free of charge.

Alden wasn’t surprised. He’d known she hadn’t been talking about money when she said they’d be expensive.

“Do you seriously expect me to take one home with me? It seems like that’ll be a hard thing to explain to the actual knights if they ever find out.”

 

[No. You should not. A record is created when one of these is taken. But I wanted you to know that I would let you. Consider it a vote of confidence.]

 

He left them alone.

Then, he shifted over to the other new tab with a thought.

“So…what’s the string attached to the reward gift?”

 

[Only the one you’ve already seen—socialization. If you want it, then when you’re ready to leave, go say hello and ask to use the summonarium.]

 

It wasn’t like that was a hard request. “But what are they going to think when I show up?”

 

[Not that you are what you are. They will assume, correctly, that you were re-routed here so that they would be on hand to execute you if you turned into a chaos-generating monster during your repair session.]

 

“Is that a thing that happens?” Alden asked. “Earth mentioned having to take extra precautions to prevent ‘abominations,’ too. What the heck?”

 

[It almost never happens these days. Because everyone is careful about it.]

 

“That’s good. I suppose. What’s in the present?”

 

[It’s a surprise. One far too extravagant to give you for free no matter how charming you are. Help from me doesn’t work like that.]

 

“I get it,” Alden said. “I know you’re not a genie. Thank you. After I’ve thought about it a little more, maybe.”

There was a pause.

 

[Stu-art’h is home from college for his weekly study days.]

 

Ah. He got in. And got started. Months passing changes a lot. “Did you want me to say hey to him specifically, or…?”

 

[Talk to whomever you like.]

 

Alden nodded.

 

[But he was upset you died. And you have seen the worst moment of his life. And you’re carrying around a piece of his foot.]

 

***********

 

Alden spent a lot more time after that sorting out how he wanted to handle the return to Earth. He tried to consider his options—all of them, not just the obvious ones. Because once he left this forest behind, he wasn’t going to get many chances to undo whatever choices he made.

He could really go anywhere on Earth he wanted. That was a rare opportunity, and the System wouldn’t rat him out. He could drop himself in Hawaii. He was already dressed for it after all. And he didn’t know how much money it took to go on the run for a lifetime, but he was betting it was less than he had.

He had the same amount of argold he had been in possession of before he left. Plus full payment for his work at LeafSong. Plus a pending amount that was large enough to earn the attention of even the part of his mind that couldn’t stop focusing on the abused state of his authority. Alden wondered whose pocket it was coming out of. The Triplanetary government’s? The university’s? Joe’s?

It didn’t say who it was from. Only what it was for—service in a corruption field unsuited to his rank, accidental deprivation of his rights due to loss of Contract oversight, and exceptional acts of bravery unrelated to an official summons.

Unless the currency exchange rate was very different than it had been when he’d left home, Alden now had more than twelve million dollars.

That’s too much. What does a person even do with that much money?

Although…if someone told him he had to give it all back or else return to Moon Thegund for another half year, he would gladly hand over every dime. So maybe it wasn’t that much.

On top of that, the [PRIVILEGES] button was pulsing on the interface’s main menu. When he selected it, he saw a few new things. One was a decorative design that had been awarded in addition to the extra pay for the “exceptional acts of bravery.” From now on, it could be embroidered on the shoulder of clothes he purchased from the Wardrobe if he wanted.

Like a medal, I suppose?

It had been issued by Alis-art’h several hours ago, so she must have known by now that he’d made it safely through the strange teleportation process and his second affixation.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

It didn’t have any attached benefits Alden could see. But the embroidery patterns on their outfits obviously meant something to wizards. Maybe it was just a mark that indicated people ought to be nice to him, since he was an extra awesome Rabbit.

He was also now an Authorized Witness for certain kinds of System-related actions and legal contracts. It was more of a convenience than a power. It would remove a hoop to jump through for things like the class trading process.

Finally, he had a privilege listed that was only a single word. No description of what it was or how he’d obtained it.

Not that he needed one.

It just said, “MOTHER.”

With his mind, he flicked through the interface, examining everything else.

Money. Stats. Privileges. Skill.

He even had an Anesidoran ID now, issued a few days after he must have officially gone missing. He didn’t know if it was standard protocol to give newly-minted Avowed who vanished on their first assignment the benefit of the doubt about their intent to register, or if someone had pulled strings.

It can’t be something that happens often.

Alden had never heard of it happening to anyone else.

I guess my last known location was the consulate, too. So Boe and Jeremy could’ve told people I was there to register when I got called, and it would have looked pretty legit.

He had a form letter in his inbox welcoming him to the island and instructing him on what procedures he’d have to go through when he arrived. He also had a System notification that he had thousands of text, voice, and video messages in storage on Earth. They could all be transferred over in one packet for just the standard connection fee, so he paid it.

And immediately regretted it.

His inbox turned into an emotional minefield. Connie, crying, had called him twelve times a day at first, then gradually fewer and fewer, and then the System had apparently switched him from Missing to Presumed Dead at one point, and the calls had peaked in number. Then tapered off again.

Three weeks ago, for some reason, she’d sent him a photo of Wummy sitting on top of her dresser in her bedroom. The text below the smiling wombat said, “Don’t worry. Jeremy and I didn’t put him in the attic with the rest of it.”

That was her last message.

Alden had to take a few deep breaths. And then a few dozen more.