Chapter 70: All These Worlds…

  ADMINISTRATOR POV

  The Perception Filter had updated while we were in the temporary afterlife, leaving Orpheus looking a bit less professional now.

  She still looked sharp and competent, despite my discovery that she was in a disorganized panic. Her purple hair – a constant that gave me the feeling it had something to do with her true form – now held springy ringlet curls, and she was slightly shorter than before. She had a blouse and vest, the blouse’s wrists and collar ruffled in a quasi-Victorian look, with a skirt to match.

  In all, it looked pretty cute, but didn’t show nearly as much skin as her original appearance. I took that to mean I was viewing her more as a partner of sorts. Maybe.

  “This may surprise you, but you’ve broken our ranking system and are now equivalent to a Rank 7,” Orpheus muttered. She still had glasses, and she pushed them up her nose as she spoke to me. I didn’t see any sign of her clipboard, which made me wonder if it had really been her interface. “The normal ranking should reassert itself if you reach Rank 8, but that is a much more difficult trial.”

  I frowned. Really frowned, this time. With Tastka’s death, I was no longer bound to her shape, and was now mostly human. The elf tail had lingered, and my ears were slightly pointed, but I was otherwise a human male for now. Now my gestures were humanlike, though every once in a while I felt the impulse to express myself like an elf.

  “Diamon was Rank 11… that seems like a fast climb.” I was speaking cautiously, not sure if I should try to ask more.

  Orpheus shook her head. “Past Rank 7 it becomes increasingly difficult to rank up. It is unusual for anyone to expand past Rank 9 without creating a second universe.” She must have guessed my next question, because she added, “We will get to that in time. This is not restricted knowledge, but it is not really needed right now, and I have already been here too long. The local frame drift is starting to become a nuisance.”

  That just raised more questions, but she was right. They weren’t questions that needed answered in the moment.

  “So tell me truthfully… what are my chances?”

  The now-petite woman paused at my question, and once again adjusted her glasses, staring at me. “That… is difficult to say. Anyone else of your experience, and I would say you will almost certainly meet a painful end. What you propose is full of risks, and the result of failure is… unfortunate for both of us.”

  She turned to the wall and gestured, putting up the image of my world. The full image, so zoomed out it was hard to see what was going on, but I got the message. This was just to make a point. I already knew what was going on.

  The elves had begun encountering other settlements and tribes more frequently. Conflicts had started, though over what I wasn’t sure. Their wars and battles were not very bloody, it seemed, but they happened. I couldn’t do much about that… they were more peaceful than humans, but not without their differences between one another.

  The dwarves were still unknown to the elves, but I knew that would change soon. The dwarves had started to splinter off, forming their own subcultures. Some were peeking out to the surface, but elven explorers rarely went that far. Both species were expanding toward one another, though. It would happen someday.

  The core-eaters of downside were in the midst of some massive schism. A lot of conflict there, and I wasn’t sure what was going on. I’d have to check it out if they kept the violence level so high.

  At the end of the world, the insects were forming their own society. I wasn’t sure what they were up to, but they were generating energy somehow. Nothing like the mythic levels the elves were making now, but something was going on.

  My fungus-people were quiet for now. They served a purpose, and that purpose was not energy generation, so I was fine with this. I was surprised the dwarves hadn’t run into them yet, but that was likely just a matter of time.

  In other words, nothing major needed my attention at the moment.

  “Some worlds have tried something like what you suggest.” Orpheus broke into my thoughts as she stared at the image of my world. “It usually causes a short-term rise in energy generation, followed by a plateau and long-term stagnation until the danger has passed. It does work, but dampens growth.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  She glanced at me with an eyebrow lifted. “Are you certain you want to try it? Your System may make it easier, but nothing about the incursion you will fight is easy.”

  I shrugged. “You already said you can’t protect me forever. Why waste the energy if you can’t? Keep me safe long enough to get this set up, and then use the energy elsewhere.”

  With a quick look at my world again, I sighed and turned to face her fully. “A great human general once said: ‘The clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy’s will to be imposed on him.’” My mouth twisted into a wry smile. “So if we have to fight them eventually… we invite them in to where we are prepared. You said it was more like a game of strategy, but on Earth games of chess are played to prepare for war. And that’s what this is... a war.”

  My smile slipped away. “A war you are losing, and have been for some time. You need to change the way the game is played. And I’ll need your support. I’m sure you and other Administrators have fought off incursions before… I’ll need your advice to win the battle, but it looks like you need me to fight the war.”

  Orpheus sighed, but she didn’t argue. She turned to look at me, and the image of my world vanished. “Diamon agrees with you… reluctantly. As does Ember, another Administrator from your world. You will meet her eventually, she’s still stuck on Rank 3, but we’ve started offering her support. As an experiment. I am confident she will make it to Rank 4.”

  Thaaaat was interesting. I fought off the urge to ask about Ember, because I knew if she was in Rank 3 she’d not be able to meet me for a while anyway. I could pick Orpheus’s brain-equivalent later.

  “Before I leave, I do need to speak to you about your Sub-Terminals.” Orpheus peered at me over the top of her glasses with a worried expression.

  I froze and my tail flicked nervously. “I thought you said there’d be no problem with the idea?”

  A grumble from deep in Orpheus’s throat sounded a little off, but she took a moment to consider her words.

  “It isn’t that there is a problem… exactly…” she finally replied. “Your idea is a little novel, but it is close enough to things others have tried that we know the risks. Bonding souls to Sub-Terminals isn’t done lightly, but it’s been done more than once. Your consideration of limits and restrictions was better than most, as well. In that respect, everything is within acceptable parameters.”

  My stomach – or what passed for one – sank as I felt a pretty big ‘but’ coming on.

  Orpheus gestured toward the wall despite the image no longer being there. “Your unique connection with the living beings of your world is causing some… unexpected flow of belief energy.” She frowned as she looked me over. “As I said before, you reached Rank 7 without passing through the usual gates.”

  “Is that a bad thing?” My tail flicked again, betraying my sudden worry about weird cosmic diseases or something. That’s all I needed, considering I already broke my own System.

  “Hmm. I’m not actually sure.” The High Administrator peered at me again. “Most Administrators… well, their consciousness is separate from their world. It is their body and existence but it doesn’t really affect them. You’ve had quite a bit of leakage, and while this is giving your soul more power, it isn’t necessarily something your mind has caught up to. I worry it may have strange effects.”

  That sounded ominous. I scratched behind one ear, thinking it over. Was anything happening to me considered normal though? My time in the Sanctuary was still relatively short… even though I’d just lived for almost two centuries as an elf girl in a Stone Age world.

  What was normal, now?

  “I’ll keep an eye out for anything strange.” I smiled to Orpheus as she started to turn away, then remembered something. “Any chance you could preserve memories of new Administrators? Or maybe get me mine back?”

  Orpheus was already walking for the door, but she stopped and turned around, fidgeting with her glasses now. “No… not for you or your world, at least.”

  She glanced to the door, hesitated, then sighed heavily. “Since we are being more honest, I should tell you. Old Pleiades, as I called them, is not just the creator of your universe. They are the proper High Administrator of this cluster, as well. We… only have partial control over your universe.”

  A gesture toward the door, and Orpheus muttered, “I apologize for misleading you on that. Your universe is net negative right now, but as part of their body, I have no control over when it will collapse. It has been running on automatic functions for a long time, now. I was hoping that some of the High Administrator’s talent would be present in your universe.”

  Now my tail swayed again. “And was it?”

  She closed her eyes for a moment. “Two successes out of… much more than two. You’re the most successful. So… perhaps a spark is there. Perhaps coincidence. We will see how your experiment goes.”

  I nodded. “I… see. Um… thanks for telling me.” I couldn’t even be mad that it had taken this long. I could immediately see why she hadn’t done so right away. Telling a new Administrator that their universe was on autopilot and nobody knew how to hit the brakes or steer? Even Orpheus must have known that would be brutal.

  As I watched her step through the door, entering the inky blackness of her own Sanctuary, I slumped onto the recliner. Evil? Incompetent? I was pretty sure now she was neither of those things. Just someone trying to do her best – or its best, I suppose – in a bad situation.

  “What do you think, Duck?” I sighed, looking to the rubber duck that was my confidant now. At least that was a constant. I kicked up the footrest and leaned back in the recliner, staring at the ceiling now. “It’s a lot, I know. I have to manage the world, prepare the trap for an incursion, and navigate this whole mess of cosmic politics. Think I can do it?”

  “Quack!”

  Oh boy.

  FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS – END

  A Day in the Sanctuary

  Second Coming

  December 19th and follow a M-W-F release schedule!