Irrelevant Jack 3

by Prax Venter

  “I know what that is,” he mumbled as he pulled up his Character panel. And he was right, Alt had formed the walls of this physical structure out of the same black lacquer surface that made up the phantom interface windows of this game-like universe.

  “Took you long enough,” the AI chuckled.

  “No wonder it looks so odd and yet so familiar. It fits perfectly with this world.”

  “I did do a good job, didn’t I?” It wasn’t a question.

  “Game breaking,” Jack agreed.

  “On that subject, I believe what you are doing to these people is going to have an even greater effect than you realize.”

  “Oh?”

  “Jack, I would never have thought of this, and I don’t think the original crew members did either, but the way you are suddenly interacting with everything as- well, as not a game, I think it’s going to have a major impact on how the Corruption sees System Sana. I’m only going off modeled data now, a calculated guess, but if every NPC starts making this truly their world, if they take control of their own lives within the simulated universe, our enemy will be drawn in here like a moth to a flame.”

  Jack grinned. “Are you saying we’ll triumph not with a high damage stat, but with the power of love?”

  Alt laughed in his mind, and Jack had the feeling that it was uniquely genuine.

  “We’ll need both, no doubt.”

  Jack felt a pressure on his right shoulder pushing him forward and turned to see the sharp features of Farah inches from his face.

  “What about the power of love?” she said, before walking alongside him.

  Jack tried to calm his racing heart. “You’re lucky I’m not jumpy or I could have just Omni-struck your guts.”

  The tall woman put a hand over her mouth to stifle a haughty laugh.

  “I suppose you’re right, but it’s such a beautiful beginning to a beautiful day. Despite everything that has happened to my home, coming here was probably the best decision I’ve ever made.”

  Jack turned to look at her as they passed under the Watchtower.

  “What’s got you in such a good mood?”

  She shot him a twisted smile that lit up her eyes. “A big strong man, among other things…”

  Jack felt his stomach drop. Was this going to be a problem? He was counting on Farah for not only helping them reach 50 in the Tower, but for-

  His thoughts scattered when she shoved him again.

  “Not you, you dense fool. Kron.”

  “Kron?” Jack repeated, trying to understand what she was saying.

  The lithe Shadow Blade faced forward again toward the Wall as if she were a predatory animal searching for her prey.

  “After Andor made a fool of himself and started some righteous crusade, Harrak and I both needed to fill our lungs with the salty sea air blowing in fresh from beyond the sea. We chatted about recent events as we meandered around Town but ended up at the arch where he introduced me to that walking pile of rigid muscle.”

  “Kron?” Jack clarified again, trying to picture the horned-helmed man in any other light than stoic and immobile.

  “Good thing I learned to reach the top of the stony Fangs as a child. You never know when rock climbing skills will come in handy.”

  When they reached the Wall, Jack watched the mountainous Captain of the Guard walk up to meet them.

  “Greetings, Jack,” he rumbled then turned to Farah. “Back so soon?”

  “I was lying in bed trying to sleep, but I kept thinking about those moves you showed me last night.”

  Kron’s face broke into a wide smile.

  Jack held up his palm for a stop. “Okay, before you to go spar with each other, I was just passing by to see how things are going here. Also, Blackmoor needs a replacement Lumberjack. Do you have anyone to trade for that new guy I sent by earlier?”

  “Ah, Cabe,” Kron said. “He seems focused. Perhaps I can spare someone, yet I’m loath to lose a Guard.”

  “Hey,” Jack said remembering an earlier conversation he’d had with one of the Guards. “What about that kid, Milo was it? He said he wanted to be a Lumberjack.”

  Kron’s brow came down. “Milin. He’s been a serviceable lookout, but with the upgraded Wall and Defensive Turrets, it might be time to find something more suitable for him. I’ll send someone to fetch him for you.”

  “Thanks,” Jack said. “Have him meet me at the Wizard’s Athenaeum.”

  “See you at breakfast, Jack,” Farah said before she started whispering in Kron’s helmet-covered ear.

  Jack shook his head as he turned to leave but couldn’t help the grin from overtaking his face. Instead of hiking through the tall grass, Jack only needed to backtrack toward Town, and then take the new east-west road that appeared after the upgrade.

  The deep-blue letters that made up ‘Our World’ were indeed clearly visible from the entrance as if Blackmoor Cove were sending a message to the universe, and it was entirely the NPCs’ idea.

  “I think I understand your point, Alt.”

  After a few minutes of walking, lost in his own thoughts about what the word “real” meant, Jack found himself standing in front of the otherworldly seashell-shaped building, and it too had not escaped the blanket upgrades granted by the last Town Level.

  There were now four spheres orbiting overhead instead of three, and the structure itself had grown as well. Curious to see what had changed, he pulled open the door and stepped inside the Sage’s study.

  “Ah!” Thymus said, turning from a crystal-coated alcove where Haylee stood bathed in black smoke. “Jack, I’ve been expecting you any moment now. You simply must come stand in this chamber.”

  “Chamber?” he asked. “What is that?”

  Haylee stirred awake and took a step away from the smoky mystical apparatus, some of the gray mist clinging to her body. She looked dazed but otherwise okay, and the smoke faded on its own.

  “I’ve been trying to answer that very question for hours! But with this young woman’s assistance, I recently discovered it could be best described as a Hero Inspector.” Thymus reached over toward the black and purple arch of crystal chunks and then plucked out a pulsating white cube resting in a round slot. He held up the geometric shape up to his eyes and began nodding. “Mmm, yes. This removable object contains some information about her abilities and with further study… Hmm.”

  “Are you okay, Haylee?” Jack asked, noticing Haylee was leaning heavy on a table.

  “Yes,” she said, blinking a few times and then focusing on Jack with her usual intensity. “It feels nice. Relaxing.”

  “Good, good,” Thymus said, placing the cube back into the small hole. “Now, Mayor, please get in here and let’s see if this new apparatus of discovery can scrutinize some of your Irrelevant Class abilities.”

  “This could be interesting,” Alt said in his mind.

  - 11 -

  The Hero Inspector did feel nice.

  Jack hadn’t taken the equivalent of a shower in what felt like a lifetime, but the black smoke that slathered him in billions of warm, microscopic explosions wasn’t bad at all. He wondered if the rock Thymus was dissecting the other day felt the same way.

  Then it was over, and Jack’s eyes slid open.

  “What are you doing to the Mayor?” The words came from a slender young man standing too far away for as loud as his scratchy voice felt in his ears.

  “Oh my…” Thymus gasped as he pulled the strobing cube from his new toy. Jack’s eyes focused on the object and saw spurting bits of smaller cubes falling past the Sage’s robes and vanishing before they hit the ground- as if he held a glitching, underwater sparkler.

  “I don’t think I should be seeing this,” Milin said, backing toward the door.

  “Hang on,” Jack said, holding up his hand and blinking away most of the smoke clinging to his brain. “How long was I in there?”

  Haylee answered, “Not long,” as she moved closer to inspect what had to be some sort of magic
storage drive.

  Thymus turned his sleep-deprived eyes toward Haylee. “Can you access this interface?”

  “No,” she whispered. “What do you see?”

  “Too much,” Thymus said, squinting. “It’s beyond… it will take time to make anything of this.”

  Jack held a finger toward the young Guard waiting, trying to reassure him that he only intended to stay for a moment, then went to inspect the flickering cube for himself.

  It appeared to be a white void in reality neatly clasped between Thymus’s fingers. No system interfaces popped up when he willed them to appear.

  Then Alt started speaking. “I’m not sure about this, Jack. This mystical device that spawned with the building upgrade was never meant to read a- um, custom Class such as yours. I can see a little of what Thymus sees, and it’s hard to put into words…” Alt stopped speaking and tried passing the information as a telepathic thought instead. It felt like someone was trying to imagine something with his mind.

  Jack saw Thymus looking through a torn bit of fabric, a rip in reality, and peering at the very systems that lay beneath the surface of his virtual universe.

  Alt continued. “I think we just invented metaphysics. It’s possible that because these NPCs are becoming more in tune with the truth of their world, nothing they do for themselves from within can be considered interference- even abusing or manipulating the videogame physics. Then again, how the Corruption thinks or works is still mostly a mystery and NPCs poking holes such as this could cause whatever balance was stuck to destabilize.”

  “Too late now,” Jack said out loud as he watched both Haylee and Thymus practically drooling over the glitching object. “I need to run. I’ll check back with you later- oh and try not to lose your mind staring into the abyss, okay? Take breaks.”

  “Before you go,” Haylee said, pulling her attention away from the object. “I want you to look at one of these books. With your otherworldly experience, tell me if you think there is something missing. Second.” After she said that word, her large gray eyes shifted. “I would like to speak to you alone on the first Floor, Alt.”

  She knew the AI was paying attention, and she was speaking directly to him.

  “Of course,” Alt said.

  “Of course,” Jack echoed.

  She nodded and then handed him a medium-sized book with a red cloth cover. He took it and turned it around in his hands until he could see the title.

  “On the Behavior of Brown Mountain Owls?”

  Haylee only nodded. Jack shrugged and flipped open the book to about the middle. There was a hand-drawn rendition of a fairly standard owl perched on a stony outcropping in the upper right, and all around it were paragraph after paragraph getting into great detail about what would drive them to attack travelers. The whole thing seemed to be written by hand. He flipped to another section and found possible uses for feathers they could drop, and he remembered Sol sending Wyben out to collect seaweed for a new net. Were there valuable resources out in the wild they could just go pick up?

  He sighed and added reading more System Sana books to his infinite list of things to do, but he wanted to hit more places before breakfast. Now was not the time for this.

  Jack closed the book. “What am I missing here, Haylee?”

  She locked her eyes on his again. “Who wrote it?”

  Thymus waved a hand at her. “Bah, she’s been questioning the validity of my library since yesterday.”

  Jack frowned as he reopened the cover and checked for any type of front matter- but there was nothing. There was a blank page and then the information just started. He turned to the back and didn’t find anything about who wrote it or when.

  “Nice work, Haylee. That doesn’t mean that these are all wrong, but I am impressed you knew something was missing. Way to look beyond your edges.”

  He handed her back the book and felt Alt’s enthusiasm for his meeting with her in the Tower.

  “Okay, Milin,” Jack said turning to the wide-eyed young man standing patiently by the door, one hand on the knob. “Let’s see how you take to Lumberjacking.”

  “Truly?” he blurted out; his reality-bending trauma forgotten.

  They both left the Sage’s bizarre workshop behind and headed down another new path that connected to the main road. Milin walked beside him, bounding a little when he walked, and Jack wondered how this thin adolescent would replace Pan as far as wielding an axe. His current proficiency as a Guard was only 17%, so how much worse could it be? With no harm in trying, Jack switched his role.

  Milin - Townsfolk: Lumberjack | 59% Proficiency

  [Health: 5/5]

  Relationship -

  [Disposition: Grateful]

  Jack shrugged. It was far better than where he’d been.

  “Thank you so much, Mayor Jack,” he said after shaking off the momentary disorientation. “There’s something about the leaves overhead and the feel of the wood that… you know, just sings to me.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he responded, thinking of Lex’s voice when she healed his wounds.

  Before they got to the main road, they were met halfway by the very person he was looking for.

  “Meri.” Jack waved as she approached. “Since you’re in charge now, I have a new woodchopping apprentice for you. This is Milin.”

  The strong woman put her hands on her hips as she looked him over.

  “You ever swung an axe at a tree?”

  “No, but I’ve swung plenty of axes at people in The Yard. Trees don’t move around too much, Miss Meri, so I figure I’ll finally have the advantage going forward.”

  Meri smiled and held out a hand to Milin, appearing to offer a trade. The young man’s face lit up, and he tapped the empty air in front of him. A moment later, he held a simple axe in his right fist.

  “Go get started. I’ll join you in the forest shortly.”

  Milin shot Jack a lopsided grin before he sprinted full-tilt toward the trees.

  “Jack,” she said, pulling his attention. “I want to thank you again for the opportunities you’ve given me and my son. When that angry man called me out at the Inn last night, I was horrified and wanted to make myself as small as possible.” She smiled to herself. “Thankfully, it was easy to hide behind Pan, but what made me feel truly at home was when no one even reacted. No one in Town felt the need to draw more attention to my crime or my negative mark… they all continued to ignore it and greet me with warm smiles after.” Meri looked into his eyes, and Jack saw soaring happiness there. “For these people, for my home, I will make sure Blackmoor Cove is stocked with a continuous supply of logs.”

  “Great to hear,” Jack said. “And with Pan as the new Carpenter, I have a feeling we’re going to need even more than before.”

  Slapping feet on the road drew Jack’s attention, and he saw Meri’s son dashing toward them.

  “Wood’s delivered to the Farm!” he yelled as he continued right past and then angled toward the forest.

  The new lead Lumberjack watched him go with the shake of her head.

  “Too young for a role, yet he insists on helping any way he can. That dreamlike Arcade has inspired Perix to try and earn some extra coin on his own. Speaking of which, I better get back to work. Good day to you, Mayor, and climb high.”

  They parted ways, and Jack picked up his pace as he began heading to his next stop. Alt spoke in his mind as he moved.

  “Do you realize how monumental it is that Perix is filling the role of Worker on his own? The NPCs are coming up with new ideas by themselves, and the change is spreading through them like flames through a dry forest…”

  “Wait until we start sending out fliers,” Jack said, his eyes locked on the Docks. The upgrade had affected it as well as the sea-side structure now had two piers instead of one.

  After a brisk stroll down the stone slab road along the beach, Jack found Harnal standing near the end of an empty pier, staring out into the ocean. He heard Jack’s boots on the wood and turned to
greet him.

  “Mayor,” he said simply with a sharp nod.

  “Dockmaster,” Jack replied. “Everything going smoothly, especially after what Andor had said last night?”

  The serious man frowned as he considered the answer. “It could have been a lot worse, but when everyone started yelling back and chanting-” He stopped to let out a short chuckle. “Any way you box it, that unforgettable building you dumped into the middle of Blackmoor overnight banished all doubts. The captain of the Kraken’s Spine left this morning with plans to come back tomorrow bursting with passengers. He’s no fool and knows a treasure of coins when he sees it. I am looking forward to the challenge our insane Town offers an old sea trader like me.”

  “Good,” Jack said. “Did Andor leave with the ship?”

  Harnal’s face darkened. “Aye. Sullen child took one man away with him.”

  Jack shrugged. “They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”

  “Bad what?” the Dockmaster asked.

  “Never mind. Hopefully by the end of the day I’ll have a stack of messages for you to hand out to every captain that docks here. I’ll want to set up deals with them to pass these messages out in other Towns in exchange for coin.”

  Harnal frowned. “Messages? To who?”

  “To everyone in System Sana.”

  The Dockmaster was apprehensive but agreed anyway. With everything handled down in the cove, Jack jogged back along the beach and up the stairs.

  His imagination explored the possibility of other buildings by the waves and wondered how hard it would be to build a gazebo or something on the one rock that jutted out into the sea on the west side of Town. He’d yet had the chance to bring Lex there as the red sun dipped down behind the waterfall pouring out of the cliffside, and it would be fantastic to surprise her with it one night. As he passed the new Carpenter building, he heard the ex-Lumberjack sawing back and forth at a hunk of wood and turned to see him working through an open wall. It was as if Pan was standing in a huge garage. Maybe he could even provide the materials for Jack’s fancy bench idea at the sunset viewing spot. He left the Carpenter to his work and continued down the road with a grin spreading on his face.