...F***

Chp 52

After the general meeting was done I took my time heading back to my chamber of machinations. I played with walking instead of hovering, which ate a bit of it up. The way the groups had broken up after the meeting, I understood their discussions weren’t over. They were likely still chatting in their crypts and other places in the dungeon or in the town where they liked to relax.

Hammer and Tongs, the dwarven bar, was probably packed with folks pretending to drink as I procrastinated. I had projects I could be working on, expansions to implement, a labyrinthe to build, and a somewhat unreliable interface to study. All things I was ignoring.

My desire to go back to my core had subsided in the late afternoon. That was the only reason why the meeting had been held today. Trying to face a crowd at less than baseline had been too daunting for me to hold one sooner. A decision I felt was sounder now that I was done than before the meeting.

What was troubling me wasn’t my lackluster public speaking. Though I wasn’t suffering for want of it anymore, there was still a slight pull toward my core. It was like the strange feeling some people who were afraid of heights mentioned. The instinct that the fastest way down is forward when facing a drop.

Dawdling on my way to my chamber didn’t do anything to exorcise it from my mind. Even so, I felt a kind of dread at the thought of stillness. It was silly, I didn’t have to work there, but I thought it all the same. As if the moment I stepped into that intimate space, I’d become stuck again. Trapped between the system’s desire for me to become an actual hermit and my core.

I hadn’t lied to Chris, I wasn’t going to give in. There was nothing to that experience that made me want to return. Even so, I doubted I’d ever be completely free of the feeling.

When I arrived at my chamber of machinations, Henry was already waiting in the antechamber. I could remember questioning his choice of class not so long ago. Thinking that a shy skeleton with a stutter seemed ill-suited to the spirit of the chevalier.

“42,” He acknowledged, looking frustrated and sad. Before the meeting I’d outright ditched him so I couldn’t blame him for being less than happy to see me. My thoughts still wondered as I compared the man standing before me with the one I’d first met in my mind.

Henry still stuttered but I didn’t question his class choice anymore. Many of the skeletons had gone over to him or milled around him during the meeting. Their eyes looked to him as they talked about what they’d learned. I was glad I hadn’t tried to talk him into a different class. He wasn’t boisterously charismatic, but he was a leader in his own right.

“I didn’t mean to keep all of that to myself, for the most part. It just sort of added up,” I said finally. Henry had known more than most, but I’d kept things from him. Pretending that how I’d ditched him was the only thing he had to be upset about was pointless.

Henry shook his head, looking flustered. He started to say something, then stopped a second time. A moment later, he pulled his jacket off to reveal a sleeveless undershirt with a mandarin collar. I was speechless, unaccustomed to seeing him without gloves on, let alone a full article of clothing.

“I do believe I’m getting the vap-” My southern belle accent was cut off abruptly as he gave me a hug. Feeling his arms around me, I realized why he’d stripped. I could feel the illusion of his body, but not his clothes. He’d remembered.

I didn’t hug him back so much as buckle against him. Dawn’s hug had been reassuring. Henry’s I melted into and felt relieved. I wasn’t sure how long the hug lasted and didn’t care.

When I pulled back, we didn’t move entirely away, just opened a gap.

“I didn’t r-realize how much you were g-going th-through,” Henry said finally. I almost laughed, I’d taken his earlier expression for one of reproach. Much like how I’d assumed Dawn was glaring at me when her ire was for Jaccob.

“Because I didn’t tell you… I think I wanted to avoid thinking about most of it. It wasn’t because I didn’t feel like you would listen,” I explained. That much was true, but there was more to it. Knowing someone would listen wasn’t the same as being confident they wouldn’t see you differently after.

Even without that, telling someone else would mean they’d be thinking about it, even if I wanted to avoid it. Lots of paranoid catch twenty-two’s reared up when you weren’t ready to process something.

That didn’t include the things I hadn’t realized were bothering me until I sat down to plan out what I’d say. A couple I’d only realized when I started talking. It was easy to bury things or not notice them as long as you kept yourself busy.

With everything going on, that had more than enough things to keep me distracted. Now I had a pile of issues I’d let fester and was finally having to deal with. The perils of an unexamined life, as it were.

Henry started, only to stop as his tongue tied up on him. Frustrated, he paused, then began again.

“Do what makes you- you comfortable,” He said. The sentence took far longer than usual but came out clear as he took pains with each word.

“Okay,” I said. I felt touched but didn’t know how to articulate the depth of it.

“Want to come in?” I asked. Henry nodded in reply, looking a little abashed after what he’d said. The atmosphere between us was a bit awkward but not unpleasant.

I didn’t know what to say, but after a few minutes, he got out an embroidery piece. Going with the flow, I settled next to him and started on one of my own projects. The awkwardness dissipated, and soon we were both working comfortably.

Even though we weren’t talking, I found being next to Henry soothing. It let me focus better than I had in awhile. His presence didn’t magically banish all of my worries, but they did feel more manageable.

The first order of business was to catch up on some expansion work for the interior of the dungeon and the area behind the mountains. I’d given the latter the working title of the backyard. Uninspired to be sure, but it worked for me.

The area wasn’t covered on any maps that Elim had been able to find. I’d half expected that since the desert wasn’t commonly traveled. Likewise, Felix hadn’t been able to offer any insight on this part of the range. The catkin had traveled extensively, but not to every place.

Depending on what ended up being on the other side, my tunnel across might end up a trade gold mine. The potential consequences of that were something I’d need to think about carefully once I did some scouting.

I wasn’t particularly worried though, it would be easy enough to block it off with a ‘cave in’ should the need arise. The only thing that was really troubling me for the moment was a very minor side project I’d been neglecting. I had a lot of them, and they usually fell off the to-do after a couple days if they didn’t bear any fruit. This one though, kept nagging at me.

“Wh-what are you w-working on?” Henry asked, after finishing a section of the intricate border he was working on. I had my interface open in share mode so he could see something was happening as I worked, rather than just me staring into space. It was a habit born of Chris dropping in and trying in vain to look over my shoulder.

I made a point of not doing that when I was working with personal information. Things like updating Elim’s class and stats being the most recent example. Some things shouldn’t be public information.

“I’m breaking down one of the compulsion necklaces in the magic interface, but something about them keeps bothering me,” I admitted. I’d taken all the ones I had out and was comparing them visually in my art interface.

An art interface I needed to come up with a new term for. It had far more applications than just aesthetic manipulations. Sensible names for things, the lowest of priority to-dos.

“So you made copies?” Henry asked as he looked at what I was doing.

“No, these are all separate ones,” I said. Henry nodded amiably, interested in the project.

“They must have molded them then, the shapes are remarkably similar,” Henry said. I was about to nod but stopped. Small batch production was possible with local technology. Even so, the pendants really were a little bit too alike. Particularly since what little I knew of magic item production suggested they were only made as single items by hand.

A bead of ice rolled down my back. I decided to magnify them, looking for other defects and signs of wear. It didn’t take me long to spot a problem. The hand-mixed pigment for the inlay had produced some color variation but not just in one.

It almost looked like they’d been made with what should have been a flaw, purposely replicated. Something possible, but unlikely and too challenging to do without a good reason. Noticing that, I started finding other telltale signs.

There were matching scratches, pigment issues, a host of little mistakes that shouldn’t have been so similar. Not in something handmade. The clincher was a line of engraving too small to be created by common tools. S.P. 1/200 was repeated on three of the pendants. The fourth one was S.P. 2/200.

Series markings weren’t a standard custom in the first place. Even molded products were made in small quantities. The most a local craftsman would have used was a maker’s mark.

“Oh fuck,” I muttered as the bead of ice became a river. Even if they did use a series mark, they wouldn’t have fucked up and labeled three of them as 1/200. Not even the drunkest of apprentices. That was a replication error.

“W-whats wrong?” Henry asked.

“I… These are dungeon made,” I said flatly. I didn’t want it to be true, but there were too many technical issues, like the engraving, for it to be locally produced. Henry looked at me in surprise, eyes round and mouth slightly agape.

“I think Stromholt is working with a dungeon,” I explained.