Bending the Rules Pt. 07: Overcast

"You know, I'm fairly certain that Mesi could snare any man you wanted for something like that. But you chose me, and I am honored. I will be there," Nuru said.

"Th-thank you," Dayo said, choking up a little.

Mesi got up and sat next to Dayo on the log, giving a nice long hug. "You see! Birthdays are a great thing! And it's OK to ask for what you want."

"It's hard though."

"Some of the best things in life are!" Nuru quipped.

Mesi looked over with a shocked, almost indignant look on her face, but Dayo giggled and Mesi's face softened quickly.

"We've got bean paste in peppers, and mixed-grain bread to dip in it if you like," Mesi said.

"That sounds great," Nuru said, grabbing a roasted pepper that had the top chopped off and filled with gooey, savory spiced beans.

"This bread is amazing," Dayo said around mouthfuls.

"Baako's secret recipe," Mesi agreed.

They told jokes and stories throughout the day and into the evening. Nuru drummed while Mesi danced.

"You know what you should do," Mesi said, "if you want to really add to my dance you need to follow my lead. If the beat isn't right you're going to throw off my steps. I need to be able to make my moves with confidence that the beat is going to support me."

"So what do you suggest?"

"Well, you need to be consistent with it first of all, and not jump between different rhythms unexpectedly; I'm out here doing my own dance, you have to be following me not the other way around. But if you want to keep it fresh, you can try to keep the basic pattern the same and embellish with the little notes around them."

They practiced this for a little while; Mesi had several missteps and he made several mistakes along the way, but they started getting in sync after awhile. Nuru got out the bottle of wine he'd scored from Baako earlier, and they passed it around. Darkness started to fall and they found a particular rhythm that worked for Mesi to dance to, and Dayo even started humming and singing wordlessly along with it. Everyone was smiling by the time Nuru got up, stretched, and gathered himself up to leave.

"My friends, this has been a wonderful evening. I'm going to take off before I wear out my welcome," he said.

"Nuru, this was fantastic! We've got to do this again sometime," Mesi agreed.

"Two weeks, Nuru. Don't forget," Dayo said, giving him a quick hug as well.

"Absolutely not. Assuming I'm still uncooked," Nuru said.

"It's gonna be fine," Mesi said, hugging him again.

"Thank you," he said. "Goodnight!"

*****

Nuru stretched and yawned.

(It's a big world), he thought. (What will I do when I get there?)

Most people learned it from their faction quests, he supposed. But he wasn't going to have any of those. He went back to the library instead.

"Excuse me, miss," he said to the librarian.

"Yes? What can I do for you?" the kindly older woman said. She had her gray hair up in a bun, and was carefully rebinding stacks of damaged books.

"Where's the fun section?" Nuru said.

"Cooking is right up the stairs on that second floor."

"Well, I-"

"And arts and crafts is on the other side, along that whole wall."

"That's not really what I meant."

"Oh! Of course! The children's section is right here."

"No, no," Nuru said. "Sorry, maybe I should have been more clear. What about... sex cults?"

"Lore is up on the fourth floor."

"I was hoping for something a little more recent than a century ago. Is there a book on... uh... matchmaking?"

"Didn't you read 'It's Party Time: Collaborative Enterprises in Daily Questing' in school?"

"I... yes. I'm looking for more of a 'Fifty Places to See Before You Die' kind of book."

"I'm not sure how to help you I'm afraid. If it isn't old, it hasn't been written down yet - it's all out there, still happening, probably."

"Where are all the adventurous librarians I keep hearing about?" Nuru muttered.

"Hmph. You'll be wanting Multiversal Travel Services then, I suppose. That Level One+ gate at the other end of the hall. Don't thank me."

She pointed, looking down her nose at him, disapprovingly.

Nuru started to say "thank you" automatically, then caught himself.

"Good day," he said instead.

He shivered as he walked through the gate; the was a brief moment of the air closing in on him, and then he was through.

"Well, well," the woman with the attractive bob cut behind the desk said, standing up and putting her book aside. She had a tight halter top and a skirt that was slit up the side to show off tantalizing hints of toned leg.

"A customer are we, she said mysteriously."

Nuru blinked. "You said that out loud."

Her smile slipped as quickly as it had grown. "Everybody's a critic. Third person is the best narrative style."

"He's curious what this place is about," Nuru said.

She smirked. "Alright mister, this is Multiversal Travel Services. We offer shortcuts to the biggest destinations around. But I'm sure you knew that."

"I mean... travel services is pretty self explanatory. Except it isn't."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, clearly you offer a method of travel. But do you also have a list of exciting places to go?"

"I certainly do. Every one of our destinations is exciting. Including the one you're standing in."

"Is that so?"

"You can find excitement everywhere. Well, I can."

"Do tell."

"I'm in a stuffy old library, and I'm having fun. Case closed," she said, emphasizing her words by slamming her hands together as if shutting a book.

"Something to do with that book, no doubt. What are you reading?"

"A girl's got to have her secrets! Can I interest you in a destination?"

"That simple? Anywhere but here."

"Easy! I just need a bit of money, a signed waiver, and..." she looked him up and down, "...about six more levels out of you."

"Eh, what?"

"Look, you don't think you can just punch a hole in reality and get around the Level Eleven+ gate, do you? It doesn't work that way. Hard stop, and the faster you're going the more it hurts."

Nuru frowned, staring at the etching of the bottle that had its opening in the middle of the bottom, a stem the went through the body and looped back on itself to the main chamber. "Multiversal... does that mean you can go to alternate realities?"

"Oh no, we're a practical travel agency, not a theoretical one. You want the 'fiction' section out there in the library proper for that."

"What does that mean, 'practical'?"

"We go from A to B, in the shortest time and distance possible. Unless you want to take your time."

"And that's a multiverse?"

"Indeed. While there may be the illusion of continuity, you may notice a great number of areas are all connected only at very specific places. There are gates, or other entrances; and while it may appear that you can reach one place from another aside from that because you can see it, you hit an invisible wall when you're not 'meant' to travel there. Like those lonely places at the edge of the world, if you can be bothered to walk that far, beyond which there is just emptiness you can't reach."

"Oh, so, when an Expansion happens..."

"You're a sharp one. Yes, a new little universe is stitched in with everything else, kind of like a quilt. It's a bit more obvious once you get a flying mount and you can literally see the lines."

"So you rent out flying mounts?"

"Oh no, we have a more direct approach. We have little universes rented from successful adventurers that we attach to open spaces in some of the most popular destinations - where it's allowed of course - and for the most part they have a much more party-shoe-friendly walking distance. Hop, skip, and a jump and you can be dozens of different places."

"But somehow I can't get out to those Level Eleven+ places - which is almost all of them..."

"Nope. Look at it this way. You see this bottle here?" She pulled out a glass bottle matching the symbol etched in the desk.

"Yeah."

"It's called a Klein Bottle. I think there was someone named that who discovered the place; there's an actual universe shaped like this I can show you for a modest fee. But if you could see in twelve dimensions, this is kind of how the multiverse looks. There's the surface we can normally see, but it all kind of twists and turns a bit outside of our view. And in some ways, I mean it gets a bit technical here and I could never be bothered to learn the math - but, long story short, spaces can occupy the same space, if that makes sense. So what we have is a path that goes right through another space, without getting in the way of that other space, and making it a lot shorter, usually. But some restrictions still apply."

"Kind of like a smoke portal?"

The woman crinkled her nose dramatically. "Cheap tricks for amateurs, or people in too much of a hurry. There is such a thing as traveling too quickly."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, it can be terribly disorienting. If you don't set your exit just right, you come out at an angle. I've heard all kinds of stories about people getting dizzy or nauseous, falling and hurting themselves, and so on. Our way gives you a clear visible transition to sooth your senses, and it's much more of a pleasant experience. They're really kind of the same thing truth be told, but smoke portals are essentially two-dimensional spaces tacked onto a three-dimensional universe and they're so low-powered that they can only sustain a connection for a very short amount of time before they collapse entirely. I will leave the implications of being incompletely through the portal as an exercise for your imagination. We've taken the same principle and applied it in three dimensions, sustainably, and made it far safer. Gods help you if you take a smoke portal that intersects the Level Eleven+ restriction zone; you'd be killed instantly from what I hear."

"And you own all of these passageways?"

"A few of the big ones are owned by our founders. But these spaces, even small ones, are expensive to maintain. We have quite a few partnerships with wealthy adventurers who own their own pocket dimensions, who let us borrow a small bit of their space in exchange for a profit-sharing arrangement and a bit of reduced cost on their own access."

"So this Klein universe... what happens in there?"

"People get sick, mostly. Our brains just aren't meant to handle these kinds of shapes. Do you have Eidetic Memory by chance?"

"I do."

"Oh! Surprising at your level. Well, I strongly recommend against going to Klein Alley - I have many reports of acute symptoms associated with geospatial dysphoria from those kinds of places, not just losing your lunch."

"Yeah... the museum is kind of hard for me to visit."

"Exactly! That's the kind of thing I mean. Visibly straight paths are for you, my friend. Fortunately, most of our routes fit this description. I recommend the longer Eidetic-friendly routes as well so as not to disagree with the World Map. You look like you're traveling at terrifying speed if you're watching the marker."

"Any of them I can travel to at my level?"

"Just the novelties I'm afraid - like the Klein Alley, and the Moebius Causeway, a few others. Interesting in their own way, but they don't go anywhere else."

"Why is there even an agency if nobody here can use it?"

"Merchants and family reunions, mostly. We're guaranteed 100% bandit-free, or your money back on every trip you've ever taken with us. At other locations of course, we're even more essential."

"So, you have travel services. Do you do consulting as well?"

"How do you mean?"

"Well, if I'm looking for somewhere exciting to go..."

"Most of our clients already know where they want to go, from the lore they've heard. But I can help with a quest itinerary perhaps; I do have all the exit points memorized."

"Do you also have weather reports?"

"Well, yes."

"Including riots and zombie outbreaks?"

"Naturally. Satisfaction guaranteed," she winked.

"Is it now? Intriguing. And it makes me wonder what you need with such a large desk."

"For the travel books, of course."

"Travel... books?"

"There's a few reasons we're set up in a library. Let me show you."

She led him to a gallery with some impressively large tomes on individual pedestals, with some smaller booklets stacked to the side.

"Some of these are retired or being renegotiated," she said, waving at a few pedestals with cloth covering the books. "But the rest are fully available to view."

"View. Not the word I usually hear relating to books."

"Well then, allow me to demonstrate!"

She flipped open one of the nearby tomes, and light-emitting crystals on the walls dimmed as a shape sprang up over the pedestal.

The world map came into view, with two glowing dots appearing in different locations.

"Those are the exit points?"

"You got it."

She waved her hand to turn the page, and the map pushed off to the side, collapsing into itself at the edge of an invisible cone. In its place, another pair of glowing dots connected by a line appeared over another shape.

"A dimensional map?" Nuru asked.

"This is the view of the route that you can take through the pocket dimension, yes. It's all over on the one side as you can see. The rest of the dimension is off limits, owner's use only."

"Why doesn't someone just make one dimension where all the endpoints connect to?"

"A man once had the same idea, a partner of ours. He traveled all over the world map, creating endpoints. In the end, he discovered it was too difficult securing his personal space from thieves who had so many different entrances and exits to choose from, and ended up losing his fortune and ultimately, the whole dimension. So that is a challenge, not insurmountable, but the real problem is that the dimensions all need maintenance from time to time, and those spells require the use of your True Name. The more endpoints you have, the more frequent the maintenance is and the more often you either have to be personally involved or the more you have to trust someone to use your True Name safely and not have it compromised by ransomers or demons. We don't want to depend on just one plucky fellow to keep our whole business afloat. His life would be a ransom target, too."

"Can't he just change his True Name?"

"No. You lose control of the whole pocket dimension and have to start over once you do, like that man I was telling you about just now. I mean, not completely start over, but you can only maintain it using the old True Name - you can't substantially change or add anything."

"What if someone else takes the old True Name for themselves?"

"Who would ever do that? For one thing, it's against The Rules to do intentionally. For another, they would open themselves to all manner of curses, fraud, mistaken identity, traps set for the previous True Name owner - to say nothing of understanding any pitfalls of how the dimension was set up. Sure, it could be done, but there's not enough money in the world to make it worth it for most people, even for a short time."

"I don't suppose you can get me a pocket dimension."

She laughed.

"Gods above, no. I don't know how it's done, and even if I did, that knowledge is restricted and I'm quite sure I couldn't share it with a Level Four. Not to mention you haven't got the resources."

Nuru sighed. "I was afraid of that. So why is the gate only Level One if I can't do anything while I'm here?"

"You can read. I think they just wanted to keep any youngsters from getting any potential spoilers. But there hasn't been anything even close to that in the literature for ages."

"Wait. Read?"

She flipped the book shut, then opened back to the first page. The lights came back up, and the map disappeared.

"I skipped ahead to the exciting part, but you can strain your eyes at the introductory verbiage if you like."

Nuru took one look at the scribblings on the page and shook his head. "Nah. I'd rather just talk to you. Much easier on my eyes."

"Thought as much," she said, smirking.

"She was right, though. I won't thank her. Can't do a thing here."

"Who, that poor old woman out there fixing books all day?"

"Yeah. Why did she get so cold all of a sudden?"

"She's my mother. Can't stand it that I get to go out and see the world and meet all kinds of interesting people, and don't hardly work a day in my life. Hates especially to send young, good-looking men my way. Feels guilty about throwing them to the wolf, I think."

"You a shapeshifter then?"

"Hah, no! Maybe I could be, if I traveled by our service to take my shift every day, but - just a hundred percent merciless tease."

"You don't seem so bad to me."

"Oh, I'm so glad I've held it in long enough. My counselor will be proud. You'd better go though; I think I'm starting to like you too much."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"Oh, I fear you might find me a little too... well-traveled... for your taste."

"I doubt that very much. I think I might like you too, actually."

"Aren't you sweet. But you really have no idea-"

"And you don't either. You claim you're well-traveled, but have you ever spoken to a Rules Lawyer? I have."

"Don't joke about that," she snapped.

"I wasn't. Actually."

She gave him a hard stare. "You... know the risks of talking about anything they mentioned? I want no part of that."

"I took an oath, yes, and I've heard about the... consequences. I won't involve you. I just want you to understand who you're talking to here."

"I thought you looked like someone I heard about. Now I know why."

"And from the sound of things, you have ways of traveling to Low Faction places. Cursed Ones, and such. Color me intrigued. In fact - hypothetically speaking - Gretland. Could I go there?"

She frowned, consulted her World Map.

"That's a neutral space. Technically it's not level-restricted, but we have no endpoints there and the only exit goes to the Level Eleven+ area. You'd have to consult the mathematician about whether you wouldn't intersect the level restriction zone; like I said, you can't pass through it even in another space."

"And yet I have, in fact, been there."

"Well, well, you're not at all what I expected from this sleepy little town. Let's say I believe you," she said, turning her head and giving him a smoky side-eye look. "In exchange for... keeping me company, I will offer you a place to hide in case anyone comes looking for you with ill intent."

"In a Klein universe? I'd have to really be desperate."

"Oh, no. There's a pocket dimension right under this desk. Bring a raincoat, if you can," she winked.

"Talk about taking the low road," Nuru smirked. "I'll bear that in mind. Say, just what kind of burden of proof do you need to provide me with this sanctuary?"

"Just say 'they're after me!' and I'll see what I can do. Be prepared to follow through though; I hate it when a client can't hold up his end of a good show."

"I'll be sure to make it worth your while," Nuru said, grinning.

"Well, you'd better go scare up some trouble real quick, then," she said. "If you say it right now I'll know it's false."

"I'll be back!"

"Let's see how well you do in front first, shall we?" she giggled. "Once you level, tell me what you're looking for and I'll see what I can do, too."

"Indeed. Good day, madam! Oh, that reminds me, what's your name?"

"Furaha," she said with a little shake of her head with every syllable.

"Yes, you certainly are, aren't you?"

"What does that mean?"

"Your name means 'delight.' "

"I bet you tell that to all the girls."

"But with you, it's true! Nevermind. You've not seen the last of me, that's _my_ satisfaction guarantee."

The light clicked on in her head, and she flushed a little. She curled her fingers to wave at him as he walked away, then sat and turned back to her book. She held it with only one hand; where the other was, Nuru could not see, except in his imagination, but he felt her eyes following him until he turned the corner.