After a brief moment of silence, I shook my head, trying to refocus my attention. “How long has it been since the guild was formed?”
The two exchanged a glance. We had stopped on an intersection not far from the palace, relatively close to the building I had taken a break in during my first walk through the city.
“It should be around six hundred years or so, I think,” Cecily offered, although I didn’t miss the way she looked at Lucy.
“Uhm, yeah,” the other woman agreed with a nod after a moment, her tone suddenly sounding more assured. “So, according to, uh, the history books, the guild was founded six hundred and twelve years ago by an enigmatic aristocrat who got tired of the endless complaints she received from her people about most inane and irrelevant things. To save herself the nerve, and the money, she apparently decided to fund an organisation that would take care of the most common troubles. It started as a place where people could put in requests for odd jobs and eventually evolved into an organisation that span first the entire continent, and later on, apparently branched out even further. These days adventurers, as the freelancing members of the guild are often called, serve as a pillar of society, assisting the people with menial tasks, and keeping the more perilous regions safe from beasts.”
There was no doubt in my mind that this was Tizanta’s handiwork. That backstory seemed like exactly the sort of overly dramatic, almost sarcastic depiction of nobility that she liked to engage in. I couldn’t stop myself from rolling my eyes inwardly.
That said, that wasn’t what drew my attention, though. I narrowed my eyes at Lucy as she spoke, not missing the way her eyes moved as if she was reading something. Given that she didn’t seem to have any books on her person, it must’ve been a spell of some kind.
I also found the information she did give me quite… strange. It was helpful, no doubt, but the way she said it… It was almost as if she was reading out some sort of summary or primer meant for people who didn’t know what the guild was about. Which… Given their reaction to my not knowing, and the fact that the guild was apparently over six hundred years old–something I would definitely have to think about later–struck me as odd.
Why would you need a primer for an organisation that was apparently well known across the continent, maybe even the globe?
I decided not to poke at it for now. Interested as I was in the weirdness, I had other things on my mind. Not to mention that I was pretty strange myself, so I couldn’t begrudge Lucy her own weirdness.
“Thanks…” I muttered, then shook my head. “That is… a lot to take in. And that means that a lot more time has passed than I thought.”
I only realised after I finished how strange that sentence could be taken, although, to my relief, it seemed neither of the two interpreted it as such.
I shook my head again with a sigh. “Anyway, uhm… Wanna go see if we can’t find a place for you to stay? As I said, you’re welcome to join me in the palace. There are a few rooms that should be intact enough to be comfortable.”
Again the two exchanged a glance. It was clear to me that Cecily was unsure about the idea, likely worried about their safety near me.
Lucy, though… She tried to keep herself quiet and stick to Cecily, but it was pretty clear that my guess about her energetic personality was proven to be correct. She was positively beaming with excitement, glancing between Cecily and the palace like a puppy on a sugar rush.
“Let us see the rooms first, before we decide,” Cecily reluctantly agreed eventually, nodding at me. “Lead the way.”
I gave her a nod in reply and began to lead them towards the palace once again, quietly amused at the way the catgirl had perked up at that.
Unsurprisingly, Lucy was almost shivering with suppressed energy as we approached the building. To her credit, she did keep close and tried to remain quiet, but that self control eroded more the closer we got, until she eventually just shot past the both of us and into the palace.
Cecily called out after her, then just sighed with a resigned shake of her head when the other woman didn’t respond. I couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight.
“Don’t worry, the place is safe. Mostly, anyway. I haven’t fully checked out everything yet, but so far the building seems to be the least damaged of the lot.”
The swordswoman didn’t react to my statement, probably not convinced by my words.
We continued deeper into the palace, while Lucy ran around, inspecting this thing and that, sometimes squatting down to get a closer look at some rubble, sometimes staring up at whatever remnants of statues or whatnot were still around. It felt like she wanted to look at everything all at once, yet somehow she still managed to keep up with us.
“This place is amazing!” She exclaimed eventually, as we arrived at the end of the main hallway and at the doors to the Throne room. “There’s so much history here that I hadn’t ever heard about! Apparently it’s some long lost kingdom, although the system is light on details. Which is kind of strange, since it typically isn’t that cagey with details, but I also don’t think that it’s because it doesn’t know. The way it formulates things makes it pretty clear that it knows more, but is testy about telling me. Probably means it wants me to dive deeper into it!”
She was speaking so quickly that I had to take a step back–blinking in confusion–and mentally replay what she had just said. Of course, the woman didn’t stop speaking even then, but I interrupted her by holding up a hand. Something she said had caught my attention, and I wasn’t sure if I misheard or not.
“Wait, hold on,” I said, turning to her, eyes narrowing. “Did you just say ‘System’?”
That brought her short, and she blushed deeply, obviously embarrassed. “Oh, uhm, yeah, uhm…” She scratched the back of her neck. “It’s like this thing that I have that helps me gather information and-”
“I know what a system is,” I cut her off, surprising them both. That much I had kind of expected, but I just couldn’t stop myself. “I’m more wondering how the hell you have access to one. Satien doesn’t–shouldn’t–have a system. Or the means to create one.”
“Oh, uhm, yeah…” Lucy stopped, still blushing fiercely and glancing over at Cecily as if asking for permission.
The swordswoman was eyeing me closely, something that was very apparent even with her mask obscuring her face. She didn’t react to Lucy’s questioning glance, though, which made me sigh.
“Look, I’m not going to do anything to you or hold you hostage or kill you or whatever. I’m just very confused by this because I’m pretty sure there shouldn’t be a system to begin with. I only know of one world in the multiverse which has one and–” I stopped myself, blinking.
I had experimented with a system in a world adjacent to Satien. Not as in another planet in the same universe, but a universe that was indirectly connected to this one through Ramnis. Ramnis was another version of Rin, just like Vuthe, reborn on Calon. And Calon did have a game like system.
It was, in fact, the only world I ever came up with that had one. Okay, the only one if you didn’t count the Hexclaw Contingency, but the system there is more of an artificially created Interface made to help the Hexclaws evolve and retain their humanity, rather than some all powerful thing that steers the world or something, but I digress.
Systems were the sort of thing I could get behind when reading, and if done right I even enjoyed them. But writing one I found extremely confusing and annoying, so the idea never went anywhere. The more I thought about Ramnis’ story, the more I found myself looking for excuses to avoid or ignore the system, which doesn’t strike me as the sort of thing you should find yourself doing if you want to write a story with a system in the first place.
Regardless, that was the only world I knew of that had a system. Even though the system itself wasn’t really required for anything. Due to my plans on keeping Calon compatible with the rest of the multiverse, it still uses the same rules for magic and the like that every other universe used, with the system just being something layered on top to sort of quantify everything based on magical density and intent.
Really, the main reason I even experimented with the idea was because I was trying to find a way to quantify how powerful Vuthe was, in an attempt to be more consistent with it. Something I struggled gravely with in the original story. But it kind of fell apart.
To hear that Lucy had access to one…
“You seem to know quite a lot about this,” Cecily said eventually, her tone even. I couldn’t find much in the way of hostility or caution, although there might be a bit of suspicion perhaps.
I shrugged, “Kind of? I’m familiar with the basic concept of how it works, but as I said, I only know of one world which has access to one, and it isn’t one I personally visited. Really, I know very little about Calon, apart from a few names.”
“You know Calon?!”
Any attempts at conversation with Cecily were rendered completely impossible when Lucy more or less teleported in front of me–she didn’t, she just moved very fast, but it certainly felt like it–with wide eyes and an expression of wonder and curiosity bordering on obsession.
“Do you know how I can get back there?!”
The implied confirmation of the statement didn’t surprise me nearly as much as the mention of a system had in the first place.
I did have to take a moment to think about how to answer that, since I had nearly blurted out a far less helpful answer. “Sorry, I’m not that well versed in realm travel.”
That deflated her immediately, her borderline obsessive excitement turning to disappointment. “Oh…”
I couldn’t help myself. I patted her head. Something that she didn’t seem to mind at all.
“Sorry…”
I had so many things I wanted to say and ask, but I couldn’t. Primarily because I didn’t even know where to start or how to formulate any of the million questions and statements in my mind. But also because I was quickly getting distracted again by the implication of this development.
And how terribly convenient it felt.
If there was one thing that the system on Calon was good for, then it was information gathering. Something I could very much use at the moment. So how convenient that the first person I run into is someone who just happened to come from the one realm that had access to the system, and who just so happened to need my help at the time.
I remembered an old quote that more or less boiled down to ‘There are no coincidences’, and right now it felt very fitting.
There was absolutely no way in hell and heaven that this meeting wasn’t engineered by Abyss for some reason. I was pretty sure it hadn’t been a month yet since I last saw her, but at the same time, given how inconsistently I had kept time, it might’ve been.
I shook my head, dismissing those thoughts and focused back on the situation at hand. Cecily was still watching me, although it was hard to tell what she thought thanks to the mask.
“So, uhm…” I began after a moment, taking a step away from Lucy. “Mind if I ask some questions?”
“Sure?” She replied, her gaze locking onto me again. “Depends on what it is, anyway.”
I gestured around, giving her a smile. “Mostly I just want to know what you can tell me about what happened here. Although, before that…” My smile slowly faded. “What did the system tell you about me?”
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