“Library is probably the best place to talk,” I said, “it’s the only area in here with more than one chair. Plus you’ll get to meet the librarian, he’s pretty cool.”

Rather than expand further when seeing Jen and Artemis’ confused expressions, I instead led the way down to the library. I gave the two of them a chance to marvel at the interior as I had, heading down to the center of the room to claim a seat on the front. The librarian watched on with an amused expression before turning towards me. “Seems you have gained some companions.”

“They held me up at gunpoint when I was completely drained after finishing a dungeon. I like to think that we’re good friends,” I said.

The librarian looked aghast for a moment before narrowing his gaze at me. “Ah, you’re making fun!”

“It’s not exactly incorrect,” Jen said as she moved down towards the center of the room, Artemis in tow. Both of them seemed less surprised than I would have expected. “There were some extenuating circumstances though, and I think we’re both on the same side now.” Jen glanced to me and I nodded with a smile.

The librarian straightened up then and tugged on his vest to straighten it out. “Well, very well. I wasn’t expecting a dungeon around here, though, it’s a bit early for their formations, unless-” He cut himself off and shook his head firmly. “It’s no matter, I’m sure you have a purpose for coming here besides my ramblings.”

“Well, we need to assault a fortified enemy position and rescue some civilians from the grasp of an evil tyrant,” I said, earning another sign from the librarian.

“Of course, of course you couldn’t just stay here and work on the factory.” The librarian huffed briefly. “Well, I was never a tactician, but I do still retain some of my specialization in information transfer and analysis. Alright, let’s go over the situation so that we’re all on the same page.”

Artemis went into the details about her and Jen’s time in the town, of the abuses that Chad had heaped forward, and then began going into details about the layout of the town. At that, the librarian lifted a hand up. “Open up your map if you will.”

Artemis nodded, getting a telltale distant look of someone working with the system, a moment later her eyes widened a touch and she looked up to the librarian. He nodded and then her expression returned to normal. “There we go,” the librarian said. “Now that you’ve shared the map with me, I’ll upload it to the survey chamber so that we can all access it. Actually, one moment.”

The librarian disappeared then and I blinked a couple times. “Well, that’s a first.”

“The map sharing?” Artemis asked.

“No, the disappearing. I was sure he was stuck here,” I answered.

Then the librarian popped back into appearance. He said, “There we go, I’ve hooked up the survey chamber to the displays here.” With a wave of his hand, the monitors on the desks that each of us chose lit up, displaying a map of the region. The town was present and in a lot more detail than the original scans.

I leaned in and used the monitor like a touch screen, zooming in on it. “This is real handy, excellent job, librarian.” The librarian beamed while I continued to examine the map. “Looks like there’s some heavy fortifications around the area, and I’m guessing that the non-combatants are being housed over here.” I pointed to an area on the screen with a bunch of tightly packed, cubicle-like rooms.

“Yeah,” Jen said. “Live and work there. It’s really really shitty, but the people there- they think it’s their only option.”

“And I’m assuming that they’re not particularly mobile.” I frowned as I looked at the map again. “We’d need a truck, but an all-terrain truck, something capable of getting over the bumps and cracks in the highway.” My eyes brightened suddenly. “Unless we just pave them over on the way over, then we could get by with a much more standard style of suspension.”

“Can you even build a car?” Artemis gave me a very skeptical look, but the librarian leaned forward, inspecting me further.

After he completed his inspection, the librarian nodded. “Yes, you have two skills that should synergize in the Research Lab to allow you to build a vehicle of that nature.”

“Good, I’ll start working on that as soon as this meeting is done with.” I ran my fingers through my hair briefly, considering the map once again. “It’d be easier to just go through the wall.”

“And how do you propose we do that?” Artemis asked. “Those walls are tougher than you might think, they’ve been reinforced by crafters to keep out monsters.”

“Well, then we’ll have to use some system-amplified demolition tools.” A grin flashed across my features. “I’ll add that to the list of things to tinker with in the Research Lab.” I glanced back to the screen, considering. “They know you two, they’ll trust you two, unlike me, which means that I want to stay on distraction duty.”

“Are you sure about that?” Jen looked over, concerned. “Chad is nearly level thirty.”

The librarian spat out his non-existent tea. “Level thirty! This early into the integration! Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Our estimations were off, outside of the margin of error.” He rose swiftly and turned away, almost as if gazing at a screen of his own. “If the ergon levels are this high now, then, oh dear oh dear.”

“Librarian?” I rose as well, stepping towards the holographic man. “You’re freaking me out a little.”

Finally, the librarian seemed to calm a bit, nudging up his glasses and turning to face us again. “I’m running the math and we’re mostly fine, we should be able to complete the project, we just only have thirty years instead of eighty to accomplish our goals. It’s a lot shorter, but we should be able to succeed.” The librarian straightened up further and looked me straight on. “Continue with what you are doing, you are on the right path, I can promise you that.”

I frowned a touch but returned to my desk, casting a final look of concern the librarian’s way before returning my attention to Jen and Artemis. “I, well, let’s stay focused on the immediate plan of action for now. Chad may be level thirty, but I doubt he has access to my level of weaponry.” The two glanced at each other, before Artemis reluctantly nodded. “I’ll also be doing my best to avoid a straight on fight, so I’ll need to gear up for that specifically. But, I’m not the only one who is going to need a gear upgrade. You two might run into guards and you’ll need to be able to take them out as quickly as possible while avoiding getting hurt yourselves.”

“You saw that we could handle ourselves pretty well.” Jen said with a grin as she flexed her hands into fists.

“Sure,” I acknowledged. “But why go in at half strength? I know that time is a priority, but with the facility upgrades, I will be able to make things a lot faster than I would otherwise. Fast enough that it’s worth the cost if it increases your chances of survival even a tiny amount.” I took in a deep breath then. “But in order to properly upgrade your gear, I need to know how exactly you fight and what sort of gear you need.”

“Only piece of gear I fight with is my rifle,” Artemis said. “I don’t need any armor or anything fancy.”

“Your mobility does seem pretty high,” I said. “And you seem to be relying on stealth to avoid getting in danger. Would something like camouflage help?”

Artemis let out a soft “huh” then went to look at her status screen, clearly digging into the details of some of her skills, probably even opening up some help menus from the time that she spent on it. “Okay, camouflage wouldn’t hurt.”

“And what are your priorities for your rifle?” I leaned in a little, trying to look at the weapon she kept at her side.

“Range, weight, penetrating power.” Artemis ticked off the items on her fingers. “I’d rather have something semi-automatic than bolt action, but I can make bolt action work so long as it’s still smooth. This thing has been serving me well enough, but it’s basically a lightly modified hunting rifle.”

“Does it have any system upgrades?” The librarian said, looking over the weapon itself.

“Just the scope, which has been a big help to be honest.”

The librarian nodded and nudged up his glasses. “You’ll see a large improvement in firepower with even a basic tier one weapon. It’ll resonate more strongly with your erg, which will lead to it being better able to take on other erg-enhanced beings.”

Artemis nodded slowly. “Well, I guess I’ll leave it up to you, Placid, to see that I can keep up with Jen over here.”

I nodded in return and looked over to Jen, quiet for a long moment before I finally spoke up. “You’re a Chosen.” It wasn’t a question and Jen didn’t didn’t take it as one.

“Yeah,” she said. “You’ve shown me enough about how you work here that I feel like I can tell you how my own path works. I’m a Vestige Binder.”

“A Vestige Binder!” The librarian’s expression glowed with an exuberant vibrance. “That is one of the most powerful of all Chosen paths!”

“Okay.” I looked between Jen and the librarian for a moment. “I don’t know what a Vestige is or what a Vestige Binder is, so how about we start from the beginning there.”

The librarian nodded at Jen for her to explain, before stepping back to give a bit more room again. She said, “Okay, so your librarian here, he’s actually a Vestige, well sorta. He’s more together than most Vestiges, normally they’re just a part of a person, unlike the whole thing that is the librarian.” She glanced over to the librarian who nodded for her to continue. “They’re basically fragments of a person left over from a previous iteration.”

Realization slowly dawned on me and I leaned forward again. “That must have been the spirit thing that was making things hard for me in the dungeon.”

“Yeah,” Jen said. “They come in all stripes and sizes, of varying degrees of hostility. I’ve found that I can only work with ones that are cooperative, but most of them have ways of becoming cooperative, you just have to understand what their whole deal is.”

“And you gain power from these Vestiges?”

“More like, I borrow power from them. Right now, I can have up to two Vestiges active and I call upon their perks and skills to fight with.” Jen grinned a bit then. “Learning how to shift them up is the real key for figuring out how best to fight with them.”

“So in terms of the breadth of your skills, the only thing holding you back is the Vestiges you have bound unto you?” I stared in pure astonishment.

“Yeah, basically.”

No wonder Chosen tended to float to the top of the power in any given iteration. While my own abilities weren’t especially suited for a battle, they were still extremely potent in terms of non-combatant abilities, and judging from what Jen was saying, she could do practically anything if she had the right combination of Vestiges in her service.

Shaking away my awe at this power, I said, “So, what sort of gear are you looking for?”