What is Plague? What is Rot? Evidence says it is not necrotonic in orientation. Therefore, how is it lethal? My thesis is bolder than the sum of its parts. I sense within this Negativity a holy radiance misplaced... --62.3 Seconds Post-Integration.
"The Crevice you used has closed, yes," SIMP said. "But I have detected many pathways leading to the pod in the wake of the primary crevice closing. I have some findings to share with you in light of your concerns. Please hold off on zonking out for another few minutes."
"Okay. Lay it on me," Clark asked, sitting up in his bed, flicking the lights back on; a courtesy he extended to SIMP as a sign he was paying attention.
"My findings: I have detected an unusually high density of passageways leading to and from the dwarven artifice. This behavior is seldom seen in crevices leading to the dungeon interior. Typically, passages lead to plague rot infection sites. Different infection pops up regularly because the tower's leylines cleanse (most) if not all of the plague rot. Surviving rot, thusly, is forced to find purchase at a new site."
"I think I follow," Clark replied, more yawn than man. "Once this pustule has grown fierce enough, it then does... what?"
"It grows, Clark. The pustule grows. Once it was matured, it forces open a crevice to expand its influence; it must compete with nearby pustules for the magic they leech from the leylines if they are to survive the cleansing magical flows once the tower leans of their existence. As such, the pustules spread is at random. As some sites heal, others fester; though many are centered in the same vicinity, it is rare for them to continuously pop up in the same location. The dwarven pod's effects on the local tower ecosystem is mystifying, but I think I have a guess."
"Oh? What's you thinking?" he asked, feeling like he was back in the Betterment class. "That the dwarf pod is causing the infections?"
"That could be! We never know how Dwarven technology will interact with the Tower, since the tower is a forerunner creation. My belief is that the pod's been attempting to stymie plague rot growth by attracting Rot particulate, those 'strays' I was telling you about. Beyond that, I have no idea. And it is only a theory based on limited information."
"Fair enough--" he yawned again. This one the loudest yet. "What have you found otherwise?"
"Precious little, unfortunately. I am only a quarter of the way through cracking the pod's firewall. I thought it would be much easier than it has been proving since the entryway opened for you, and I have some residual life-force from your System Link. Even with your life-force imprinted onto my magics, however, the pod is reluctant to give me access. I was actually a little nervous to go to you with so little having been accomplished. You, meanwhile, have remained productive during these last few days. I felt inadequate by comparison."
"I might have been busy, but it has resulted in much progress... aside from my inevitable drafting into some secret police. I will have made real progress when I am not struggling to pay the bills. And when I can read one of those books on my desk without feeling like an atrium collapsed on me."
"Still, Clark. A real man knows when he's made progress. 'Progress over perfection.' Perfection is impossible, Clark. Remember that."
Not wanting to argue with a Spiritual Consciousness that was also part A.I., he told SIMP he would "Remember it, promise," then turned out the lights. Sleep found him before he it. Soon, time's relentless passage rendered the distinction moot. Outside the Tower, the sun crested. And with the sun's movement, came the sound of his alarm waking him from a peaceful slumber.
He silenced the alarm. Showered dressed and sent voice messages to his Work Detail mates chronicling the events of yesterday. He had already sent them brief messages the day before, but those messages had only given the absolute amount of information they needed to know so as to prevent their imaginations making up outlandish stories about why he wasn't at work. In response to those messages, he had received the basic acknowledgement replies. "Thanks for letting us know; can't wait to chat about it in person!" was the standard reply. Now, he told them the full story.
At work that day, they chatted about the incident while walking the breadcrumb trail at a leisurely pace.
"I can't believe the store has secret departments!" Whisper-talked Theo, though Clark wished he would stifle his tone a step further.
"I can believe it," Hera joined. "Between stealing your peoples' relics and sealing up the religious truth of the tower itself, I fully expect them to have secret departments. Up their alley, frankly."
"Yeah, guess so," Theo admitted. "It's like... I do like working for Augustford, their policies are great. But the truth is, I can't like working here when I know my employer is causing all this trouble. Not just for me but you guys too. Secret departments are just the symptom, in my extraordinarily humble opinion!"
The group was silent for a moment. Theo's words cut a cord in Clark. Because he felt the same way.
When he had first thought about working at Augustford, he knew what he was getting into, and as such, he was excited to earn the chance to support his community. But after hearing, seeing firsthand, how the store had treated Theo and Hera's legacies, it was hard to have anything but contempt but for them, 'them' being corporate.
Hera was the first to break the silence: "Humble opinions rarely have the word 'extraordinary' in them, Theo," she laughed, a chuckle like a fresh cut slice of apple pie cooling by the window. "That said, I agree whole heatedly with your take. Augustford certainly makes it hard to like them as an employer. Alas, I know many similar companies who conduct themselves in the same way. My heart goes out to your SIMP friend, Clark -- No. I should say our SIMP friend. We are by your side, Mister Clar just as you are by SIMP's. I think we should find this missing Dungeon Core together!"
"Wait!" Theo raised his voice. Not in anger, but in confusion. "I thought that was what we were already doing!"
Although everybody laughed, he said to his team, "Actually, I figured this Work Detail stuff was just a work-thing. It would've been a lot to ask of someone to expect them to subordinate their cause to mine. I know both of you are here for quite different reasons than me. If you want to give me a higher helper hand, though, I won't say no. I don't exactly have allies lining up at my back to help me with my goals."
"Yeah. Here and I are here for different reasons. But really, how different? And, frankly, I was only able to 'acquire' that super-special stone back there because of you, buddy. I have a strong suspicion if I continue to hang out with you, I will come across more sigil stones. If a decade goes by, though, and I don't even have whiff of one, then maybe we can revisit this conversation. Until then, I think it makes sense to work together." Theo crossed his arms. It seemed to be his way of laying down his position and showing he meant it.
"I have similar thoughts, Clark." Hera said, crossing her arms in a similar fashion. Much quieter than they had been talking, she said, "it is only because of your aid that I and my church were able to prove the company's complicitly in religious erasure, a battle that is ongoing, mind you. It doesn't take a magi-weaver to see the odd bends of fate which define your existential contours."
Now it was his turn to speak: "What?"
Hera laughed. "Part of my religion. Magi-weavers can -- supposedly -- see how fate interacts with a person. I don't know much of their practice but there are many in my church who revere such people."
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"Well, they sound rad as heck!"
With the team having conversed for some time, they all knew they needed to crank up their productivity. "Okay, let's get at it so we're all on the same floor, yeah?" Clark whipped his team into action. Theo and Hera helped him with any work that needed to be done so he could catch up to their position; officially, they were on the fifty-first floor: technically, they were volunteering their time on his fiftieth floor as 'general assistance.' His encounter with Adam only lasted one shift, and though one floor was all that was between he and his work detail, it felt like several, which was saying a lot due to the objective slowness of the day. To get the most out of his Work Detail, all of them needed to be on the same floor in order to earn team experience. If he wanted to gain team experience separated by a floor or more, he would need to level the rank. Which he could only do if they were together!
By lunchtime, he crossed to the fifty-first floor.
[Accomplishment Unlocked: 'Floor Climber: Experienced:' Description: 'You've climbed fifty floors. You've got at least fifty to go, right?']
[Bonus Experience Earned!]
A slew of additional Accomplishments unlocked, all of which, he later checked, related to teamwork and how they split department duties.
One Accomplishment which took his eye was the 'Follower' Accomplishment. A unique unlock which involved him, as team lead, needing the help of his Detail to regain his position with the team. It didn't say much by itself, except that the System kept track of everything, including when he fell behind his mates.
[Congratulations! Your Work Detail Rank Has Leveled Up!]
He checked where his Work Detail rank was now. [Bronze: Eighth Class].
And then, the notification he was shocked to see, but unfolded anyway --
[Congratulations! You've Reached Imbued Level 20!]
That was it! That was the level he needed to meet the eligibility requirements for the anti-monster league... well, that and the couple more months he needed as a regular Augustford employee.
For the time, he was more excited for the Work Detail leveling up. As were Hera and Theo.
"With the Rank higher, does that mean we can be on separate floors?" Hera asked.
He looked at the information screen after asking SIMP to take him to the relevant intranet webpage. "No. Looks like that doesn't kick in for a while. At the eighth class, we make a bit more team experience."
"Bummer," Theo interjected. "It's something, though. I mean, when you think about it, we haven't even been on this Work Detail for very long and we've already gotten another rank. When we're together, we should focus wholly on the job, not just the bare minimum to make the day less arduous."
"I agree." Clark shared Theo's sentiment. There was a time and a place for slacking off -- like when one was by their selves and overwhelmed with too much work for one person. In that scenario, slacking off was the appropriate response to unreasonable demands -- within reason itself, of course.
With his team oriented, the remaining half of the day sped by. They didn't earn anything more by way of Accomplishments or Level Ups, but they put in a good effort, nonetheless.
He was about to bide farewell to his team for the night when he got an idea. "Team. I want to let you two know that I deeply appreciate your willingness to help me. Not just with my work as an Augustford employee but my Dungeon Champion responsibilities as well. I thought I was going to have to take this on by myself. With you guys as backup, I am feeling a lot better about my prospects. Which got me thinking -- if we're going to be working closely, we should come up with a basic schedule to keep. We already share the same work schedule, so we ought to share the same off schedule as well."
"That's fine by me, Mister Clark. I will need, from time-to-time, some personal time, however. To sort my own affairs and to decompress, you understand?" Hera looked at him like he asked them to surrender all of their autonomy to him.
He corrected Hera's assumption: "Worry not! We will still have personal time for our own needs. I don't intend to try and make you two keels over and serve my every whim. I'm only saying we should have an idea of when those bits of personal time are in relation to group check-ins, that sort of thing."
"Ah! I like that a lot!" Theo was enthusiastic about the added structure. He bounced around like a puppy with too much energy.
"Very well. What do you propose?" Hera awaited his explanation.
"I think, basically, it should be like this: we join together for work, do our labors, then once our shared shift is done -- we will discuss whether we want overtime or not -- we clock out for a bit of personal time. Then, we join in one of our dorms to discuss strategy and what we should focus on relating to finding the Dungeon Core. Whether that relates to the dwarven pod somehow or a crevice, that meeting can be where we orient for the part of our day not tied to Augustford. Provided, this schedule will change. I have a Betterment class at night, for example. So, until that class is over, my evenings are typically busy." Clark explained his basic idea.
His team took his words patiently, Hera in particular calmed by his proposal. "I like that. How about we enact it right away? Some personal time and then we can gather. For how long should our personal time be?"
"How about two hours? Enough time to shower, get something in our bellies, and change into our non-work clothes, that sort of thing?"
His team accepted his proposal. A smile crested his face. Clark never thought of himself as a leader before. Seeing how Theo and Hera talked with him about his proposal and then accepted its provisions, filled him with a sense of accomplishment impossible from work. It was a feeling like how his father must've felt upon seeing him do the household chores all by himself when he was a younger boy.
Clark's personal time flew by all too quickly. He cleaned himself, eat while he cleaned himself, then had to clean himself once more after he spilled food on himself while cleaning himself. This was one of his weaknesses, he admitted. Trying to do too much, too quickly.
They met for the first time in his dorm. Where they met was irrelevant to him, so his dorm made the most sense since he was already here.
"Okay. I have my Betterment class tonight. So that is where I am going. SIMP is still working her way into the dwarf pod's insides, so I guess tonight's meeting is a formality. Unless you two would like to start reading on some of the books I borrowed from the library?" Clark started speaking seconds after his team entered his dorm. He didn't want to waste any time when their days were already so filled with unavoidable tedium.
Hera looked through the books he and Theo found. "I would be fine with taking on one of the harder books. It will take a bit before you can read material like this," Hera said of a book titled The Sociopolitical Idea of Dwarf Power.
"Yeah. I will take the 'History of the Dwarven People' by Augustford. That looks like the second easiest. You should have the easiest book, Clark, since you are the farthest behind." Per the norm, Theo was blunt. But he spoke the truth.
The book he meant was the easiest, then, was the book titled Dwarves and You: A Basic Social Guide. He flipped through the books once more before he left for his class to make sure his friends weren't telling fibs. Obviously, they weren't. Even their titles were harder than his book's own title.
The team meet ended. He downed some tea before he left to give him some energy then hopped out the door ready to tackle his course material.
His class was slow but expected. The instructor initiated class with a lecture, which was just their previous lecture but tossed up with homework examples. By the time everyone's issues with the passages concluded, it was break time. The second half of the class was much the same as it had been in previous sessions. His group and he read through passages and timed their efforts. Once again, he received the slowest time in his group.
Class ended, which meant he could again check his notifications. Hera and Theo, both sent him voice messages. Each message gave him a rundown of how the rest of their session went and what they discovered. Which, with it being so early in their research, wasn't much. Both only had the time to read the first chapter of their respective books. In their defense, the material was hard, and Clark was surprised they had the intellectual power to do so in under two hours. He sure as heck-a-rooni did not!
With class ended and his teammates dismissed for the rest of the evening, Clark returned to his dorm. He intended to finish out the night out with his favorite activity -- banking!
Right on cue, he received notice of this direct deposit.
Over the last few days, bordering a week, Clark's activities sometimes required him to buy items. Placed with necessities for living, such as food, and the unavoidable of taxes, his account read: seventy-three Standard Credits. "I would've had more," he bemoaned. "If I didn't have to buy potions and snacks. Guess I can't avoid that... oh well..."
It was time.
He had been avoiding it. Procrastinating upon it.
He needed to do it. And so, it was time.
Time for him to pay out his first land grant payment! Huzzah!
He brought up his banking up and opened the sub-menu for his payment information. He created a new payment, credited it to the appropriate Augustford account in turn, and held his breath. Here it was, a milestone he had been waiting for since he started working at the tower. Paying off his first month of the land grant, showing everyone back home that they were in good hands, for Clark, kept his word to report to Augustford tower, and has since been working diligently. It felt good knowing he could protect so many people just by being here.
He looked at the payment. Fifty Standard Credits. 200/250
"Submit payment."
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