Breaking the Rules Pt. 10

The ghost stopped to ponder that for a moment. "It seems that you are correct. However, the Gate prohibition remains beyond appeal for many days due to Home Town's special status, and the Way Station temple is closed for repairs due to an orc raid. Do you propose an alternative?"

"Yes. It is within your power, I believe, to fix the dimensional frequency of the Chosen territory to match that of the Neutral Space, such that I can pass within to the altar there."

"There remains the problem of sovereignty. It is holy ground, explicitly. I am forbidden from making any such change without the prior permission of the Faction in question, which due to Rule Eighty-Five-Point-Three, you need to confirm following our official Rules Proclamation. I'm also forbidden from blocking them in while we have this little chat for more than a few moments."

"Then I'll move over, you ask them if they will allow me to take levels here."

"That's not how it works. Any request made for official remediation must be initiated by the party claiming grievance."

"Hark! Who goes there?" a voice said from behind the invisible door.

"Nuru, who is it?"

"My name is Fatsani, I'm here to help with the wards, but... there's a white cloudy wall preventing me from seeing and walking through to where they're all at, Chibale wanted me to come take a look, said you were having trouble coming in."

"Are you willing to offer me your altar to level up on, subject to approval by whoever's authority is required?"

"Man, I don't know about that, I'm a masonworker. I'm just in charge of the entry wards."

"Can you, uh, go ask?"

"I guess I have to, since this is way over my authority."

The ghost's eyes narrowed. "I'm required to end this hearing now, as my directive not to block legitimate faction traffic has come in danger of violation. See you around... someday..."

The ghost started to fade.

"Summary judgement!" Nuru snapped. "I demand it!"

A white flash shot from the ghost's hand as its grin slipped to anger, and then it was gone. The flash hit Nuru in the chest, leaving another glowing patch that he found under his shirt with the other, tied to the prohibition on passing back into Home Town.

Here are the terms of Summary Judgment, the wisp of the ghost said in Nuru's mind. Your access is contingent on obtaining permission for access to the altar; failing that, the change will not take effect. Additionally, as faction territory is sovereign, I'll minimize the disruption by reducing the area affected. Finally, you are responsible for any damages this change may cause. Have fun collecting your levels!

He staggered over to the invisible door and stuck his hand out. Solid as rock. Maybe he needed to wait for permission.

"OK, Nuru, I'm back," Chibale said. "What's this about levelling up at our altar?"

"I just wanted to verify that I'm allowed to do that still. They did make some proclamations I wasn't present to hear about."

"Sure, I don't see why not."

Sigh. Very well.

The ground shook, and Nuru fell over, failing his saving throw to keep his balance.

"Gods below, what now!?" Nuru groaned, getting back to his feet.

"Tumelo's eyeboogers!" Chibale shrieked. "Since when do we have earthquakes here!?"

"Since your HQ dimension got frequency pinned, I wager," Nuru said softly.

"How could you possibly know that?" Chibale said.

(Can you come back and make an announcement?)

No. Explain it yourself. We're busy elsewhere. Goodbye!

"Sorry. I think I've been made the messenger. There was a Lawyer here," Nuru said.

"Wow, OK. What's the situation? Does Onyekachi need to come out to you? He's got a policy against that, but..."

"I... don't think so. Hang on."

Nuru went over and felt the doorway. Still solid. "Since when do those douchebags get to lie?" he growled.

(Are you threatening me?) Nuru thought inward, if the little wisp was still there to answer.

But there was only silence. The white dot on his chest had faded, and the wisp was gone. One of the two, anyway. The one silently dooming him if he should ever try to re-enter Home Town was still there.

"What? Who do you mean?" Chibale said.

"Nevermind. Thinking out loud," Nuru said.

He carefully examined the surface by touch. "Where are the corners? Can you stick your hand out?"

Chibale did so, showing his detached fingers in four places. He put on a quick finger-puppet show.

"I say number one, isn't it grand to be out here today?" wiggled his index finger in one corner.

"Oh yes, it's a lovely day to be out slaying monsters," his thumb replied in falsetto at another corner.

"Ah, fuck the both of you," his middle finger said at the bottom of the doorway.

"Like you've got much to complain about, mister number three big shot," his pinkie replied at the other bottom corner.

"Hey, even you get fucked every once in awhile, number five. What do I get? Nothing but forgotten!" his ring finger replied, still at the bottom corner.

"That's a *shocker*," index finger said.

"Ohhh you cheeky bastards," Nuru said, noticing that he could reach through at the bottom. "You all wanted to see me crawl. Chibale, can I trouble you to carry my pack, just inside the door at least?"

He got down on his hands and knees, and scrambled forward slowly. He made it down the hall, same as before, but could no longer crane his neck to look up at the hydra-head wall. Chibale picked up his pack and carried it like nothing was out of place.

"Ow! Shit!" Nuru stopped cold as he ran into a hard surface.

"What? What's the matter?" Chibale said.

"It's not... a straight line..." Nuru put his hand out in front of him, feeling the edges, and a headache coming on. It deviated sharply here. He followed it, now putting a hand out to make sure he could feel everything before he ran into it. It turned back, zigging and zagging at precise intervals.

"Hang on, let me go get some chalk," Chibale said.

"No no, it's fine, I have eidetic memory. I know the pattern in the stone floor where the path goes, I just need to feel out the rest."

"This isn't for you, Nuru, this is for us so that we can make sure none of us are standing in the pathway in case you stop by without me. And that we don't put anything down that obstructs it."

"That... is logical, and practical. I guess I wasn't ready to accept that this is how it's going to be from now on. But I suppose I should. I really don't understand how anything other than a straight line is minimizing disruption as they claimed to be doing. Urgh."

Chibale tied the chalk to the naked end of a broom, and began tracing Nuru's path.

"Woah, what kind of ritual is this?" asked a factioner passing by.

"A pathfinding one," Chibale said. "Long story, I'll tell you later. Confidential, see?"

"Ah, sure, OK," the man said. "Time to go fill the orc quota."

"Kill 'em all, and let Tumelo sort them out!" Chibale called after him, laughing.

The zigging and zagging changed course precisely in the middle of the room, running over to the hall towards the chamber full of skeletons. Here the invisible path forked in a couple of places, and Nuru had to explore them to discover dead ends and tight spaces he could just barely squeeze through.

"Hey. You... know what this looks like, right?" The man said, looking at the jagged back-and-forth, and the broken lines of the false paths from a distance.

"It does kind of resemble something now that you mention it," Chibale said.

Nuru looked back, feeling a little sick as he saw what they meant.

"Lightning, specifically."

He kept at it, reaching the end and clambering through warily to the room with the altar.

"Old One, I present the cursed bard, Nuru," Chibale said.

"Ooh, that is such a bummer," Onyekachi said. "Do you know, I'm not allowed to uncurse anything at a discount for you anymore? That is, there's a discount that is considered standard which everybody gets and usually applies to goods and services, but I can't do it; it's all really expensive now. I'm appealing, but they haven't budged so far. No favoritism of any kind as it pertains to official faction-related business is allowed; we can't even offer party agreements for traveling, unless at least one other faction has membership in equal proportion.

"What!?" Chibale said. "But-"

"Well, remember, we established that you can join a party with him if someone from another faction is joining at the same time."

"Yeah, but... you know that's not how I work. This means if there's any reason for Dayo or anyone else to come, that we'll need two members from each other faction that is represented in the party. And we'll need at least one other faction."

"My dear puppetmaster, you have worked long and hard to earn the privileges of rank. Still, we must at times sacrifice to achieve greater things, no?"

"I- yes."

"Do this, then, as a personal favor."

"...understood, Old One." Chibale's look was hard out of the corner of Nuru's eye, but Onyekachi waved him away.

"Nuru, have you by some chance retained any friends of another faction? There is safety in a greater number of eyes. Why, Tumelo has sixty-four of them! We must find someone of another faction to join you, Nuru, but we'd best leave Dayo out of it for now, for reasons of this technicality."

"I've got one or two friends still," he said, worming his way towards the altar.

The pathway narrowed, and he couldn't even crawl, so much as wriggle like a snake. He finally came within visible arm's reach of the altar, but the invisible path again narrowed significantly and turned, making him bend his head and arm in a very uncomfortable way. His hand folded in on itself and his questing fingers strained to reach through the narrow hole to reach the altar's surface.

There. Nuru's eyes went dark, and he held the position long enough to let the amethyst symbols and shapes appear in his vision, indicating his ability to purchase levels and unlockable skills... if only he had the EXP. He pulled back and sagged to the floor, and the vision vanished.

"All this work, and nothing to show for it," Nuru sighed.

"Nuru, I suggest this only for the purpose of saving time," Chibale said. "You know the distance we traveled to reach here, and you spent an hour finding your way through this path. If you're returning the way you came, it's going to be well after dark by the time we return. But if you're OK with it, I can drag you back through the path with a rope."

"My poor pants..." Nuru lamented.

"Better yet, get an old curtain he can lay on or something. You can just pull that," Onyekachi said.

"Oh, yeah, that's a good idea," Chibale said. "What do you think, Nuru? It's undignified, but it should be a lot faster."

"At this point, I don't care," Nuru said. "If you don't mind doing that for me, then let's continue. Not like what I was doing was terribly dignified either."

Once a suitable sheet of cloth was found, Nuru rocked back and forth to let the fabric of the curtain slide underneath him, and off they went. The curtain lifted his legs up as Chibale pulled, mashing his feet into the invisible ceiling of the low passageway, but he didn't complain, even as he rocked side to side to slip past the corners. In much faster time, they reached the entrance of HQ, and Nuru stood up and brushed himself off. The ancient skeleton mount dug itself up out of the ground and presented the hammock to him again. He gratefully climbed up into it and settled in for some rest. He hadn't thought of himself as being terribly out of shape, but crawling on all fours and shifting around on his back had strained muscles he didn't use often, and he was exhausted.

"Not to belabor the obvious, Nuru, but there's a way to end this madness," Chibale called down from his high perch. "I respect your tenacity and independence, but at some point it's just not helping you."

"Trust me, I've got it front-of-mind," Nuru groaned. "That's why I came back to you."

"Alright. So I'll get you back home and stay the night in town. We can travel tomorrow, but I can't sign a party agreement with you unless you've got someone from another faction to join, so at best I can tee up some major damage and you can land the finishing blow and take the EXP, if it all works out correctly."

"I've had that kind of arrangement before," Nuru said. "In fact, I kind of still do. You'll meet him tomorrow."

"A warlock?"

"Come again?"

"Your friend. Is he a warlock?"

"No, I caught that, but this word is new to me. What is a warlock?"

"A male witch. Ah, of course, they're hushing that stuff up these days. Don't want the kids getting ideas about Gretland so close by. Forget I said anything."

"Woah, wait. What's that all about?"

"...alright, but you didn't hear this from me. Gretland is technically under seige by House of Nyala, has been for awhile. It's neutral territory now - not claimed by any faction, but used to be. Reason being, the coven is pacted with a demon, which has staked an unrecognized claim. Next special event's probably going to be a High Faction joint effort to destroy them entirely, since the place's riddled with all kinds of wards, and they haven't made much headway recently. The thing is, those witches aren't faction-aligned - they're actually considered monsters, not even human since their induction to the coven. They can't party or quest with factioners. This demon snatched a bunch of young girls for the coven before Gretland got cut off. They turned eighteen, rolled their stats, and vanished; monsters can freely exit the gate, and we assume they just walked off in the night before the blockade went up. Warlocks have done the same, although less dramatically in most cases. I'm not sure what they're hoping for, shunning the adventurer economy. They never last too long; it's setting yourself up as a prime quest target."

"So, they just kind of quit the faction system altogether?"

"With prejudice. Monsters, as you know, cannot join a faction, ever; they're permanently exiled, no exceptions. Their offspring can sometimes join - if co-parented by a factioner, and officially accepted by some process I've never bothered looking into. Something about a travel permit to enter Home Town. That's how you get half-orcs and whatnot else every once in awhile allowed to take an adventurer class and join parties, but it's not common or easy, and they usually end up in the chaos that is Samba's Spectrum more than any other faction, so it's not so much of a free choice as you might think for a half-breed. Like it or not, once you go warlock, you never go back. It's a terrible career choice if you care about living the good life or spending any amount of time among people in general. You're automatically aligned against half the world, the adventurers, and competing with the other half, other monsters, for scarce resources."

"Yeah, not really the solution my interests are drawn to," Nuru said.

"I'm relieved to hear it. One might think you were so inclined, to hear the talk about you."

"You can't believe everything you hear," Nuru grinned, though he was masking the uncomfortable feeling in his stomach with it.

"The rumors of your death are greatly exaggerated, that's for sure."

"Oof. Really?"

"Yeah. I worried when I heard about it, we all did. Lightning, thrown off a flying mount, there's all kinds of stories going around."

"Well, let's get some levels under my belt so we can keep that from happening, shall we?"

"Right you are. Anything in particular you'd like to do or see while we do that? It'll give me some idea what I can recommend, specifically."

"Well, maybe a dungeon crawl. Something with a bit of variety, so I can see what you're talking about with the buffs as they're needed."

"Sure. What kind of buffs do you have now?"

"Reliably? Musical Trance, and Influence Emotions."

"That's it? Shit, you went straight to Level Eleven and didn't stop to pick almost anything up along the way. Forget Level Twelve, I'd buy some spells to get your Proficiency started on before anything else, especially at your MAG level. Easier said than done, though; I know our selection is a bit limited at the Chosen, if we're even allowed to trade them to you. Arcane Blast and a few others, basically. We focus more on mana-driven Faction skills, like our weapon configuration."

"You know, I've been meaning to ask about that. How is it that they just sort of puff in and out of existence? Do you have a pocket dimension for them?"

"Goodness, no. That would be ridiculously expensive. We get weapons suited to our rank - level one, you get a basic polearm; halberd, spear, scythe, whatever. Second rank get additional perks like dual-wield weapons that can link or unlink; a war hammer that can throw its head, or a staff that can split in the middle into two single-handed hammers like mine, for example. I never use the staff form, since I specialized in dual-wield skills. And of course the Soul Crystal, which I guess could be considered a pocket dimension, but only for holding souls. No, there's no regular pocket dimension as you would think of it, they're just extensions of Tumelo's will. It's kind of- shoot, how to explain this. Like, you describe to Tumelo the kind of weapon you want, and he crafts a spell to conjure it out of the base fabric of reality with his mind. It's something between an illusion and a conjuration - it's physically there for all intents and purposes, but it can vanish like an illusion being dispelled. You can't put crystals or anything in them to upgrade, you have to increase your Chosen rank instead. We just get the ability to summon and dismiss the weapon, paid for with our own mana. And of course we channel our other spells and faction abilities through them, like how Brotherhood of Masego use wands and staves. Nothing stops you from carrying your own regular weapon, but the hit to your encumbrance is significant; ours weigh nothing when they're dematerialized."

"This explains so much. It would be awful nice to be able to put this drum away when I didn't need it. OK, so what do you think we can do as far as this dungeon crawl?"

"I think we'll do best with a mob of basic fighters to start with. I'm on the way to go dig up some skeletons, and we'll conquer something a little meatier with them, how does that sound?"

"And we're going to try to let me make the final blow on all of the enemies?"

"Sure. Worst case, since we're not partied, I can reanimate them for you and you can kill them while they stand there all stupid like, but they lose a few levels every Revive so there's an awful EXP penalty. Also, without aggro you won't get a good feel for proper combat against that species, to level up your Combat Knowledge."

"Sounds good. Lead the way."

*****

They reached a shady glade where Chibale raised a number of kobold warriors who'd been buried with their weapons. All were in poor shape; some had no spear haft to speak of, and carried the spear head as a clumsy sort of dagger, and Nuru guessed the others would be the same after a hit or two. They continued on into goblin territory and wandered awhile, until they got a Random Encounter. Chibale smashed his way through the small group, scattering them, and did a heavy Arcane Blast-enhanced hit to one of the goblins, throwing him into the skeleton mob which made short work of him and held him at 1% HP. He continued with another, crippling it with crushing blows to the legs, and managed to corner a third while Nuru clumsily beat the first goblin down and finally finished it. Nuru then went over to the goblin lying on the ground and used Fire Hand to light it on fire, and then caught up to Chibale toying with the third.

"Savage," Chibale said, eying the smoking corpse of the torched goblin. "I like it!"

"It was expedient," Nuru shrugged.