Chapter Three-Hundred Forty-Nine

I didn’t expect gravity to blow Teemo’s mind like that.  I mean, I know it’s capital F Fundamental, but he’s been taking to a lot of big concepts without much problem.  I take a closer look at his status while he’s respawning, but clues are pretty sparse.  I wonder if there was a bit of a feedback loop between him being my Voice and also my Herald?  Not only did he get gravity affinity, but I got it as a domain.

Error

That’s probably not good.  Unspecified errors are the sort of things that get thrown when you really break a program.  I’d like to not break reality that hard, please.  Or at all, really.  I wasn’t even trying!  I glance at the information I have, but I don’t touch anything else just yet.  I don’t want to make this whole system go bluescreen on me.  Maybe if I don’t touch anything, it’ll sort itself out?

Error

Uh…

Can we talk, like you did with the Shield?

Uh-oh.  I think I’m getting called to the principal’s office.  I briefly consider refusing, but I don’t entertain that thought for long.  Order didn’t sound mad with his popup there, so it’s probably fine.  If he’s worried, I should definitely try to help him.  If I really did screw something up, I should try to help screw it back down, too.

Now, how did I… right, follow the connection with my followers.  I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to even having followers, but it is comforting to be able to feel their trust and faith in me.  Much as I might be tempted to bask in that warmth, I fight the urge and instead slip sideways into that odd void-like place that I was able to talk with the Shield in.

Instead of the Shield, I see a strange shape that feels oddly familiar.  I follow the lines for a few moments before realizing there are too many right angles, and then I make the connection.

“So that’s what a tesseract looks like.”

Somehow, the shape seems to smile, though I can’t see any actual movement from it.  “I see what the Shield meant when it called you a nebula, too.  Hello Thedeim.  I’m Order.”

I feel a bit awkward, despite his friendly tone.  “Uh… sorry about breaking your System.  I didn’t mean to.”

The tesseract turns in an approximation of shaking its head.  “I don’t know if that’s relieving or terrifying.  And it’s not my System.  I just made the interface.”  

“You didn’t make it?  But you’re the guy in charge of it, aren’t you?”

Order bobs in the void, making me think he’s smirking at me.  “Do most fighters forge their own swords?”

I take a few moments to chew on that before answering.  “...Fair enough.  But if you didn’t make it, who did?”

His smirk only seems to widen, despite him clearly having no mouth.  “I think you might have a better answer to that than I do.  I’d almost accuse you of making it, if not for the fact you and it behave completely differently.  The System is a perfect working of Order and Law.  And you… well, not to be rude, but you are neither perfect, particularly orderly, nor especially lawful.”

I shrug.  “None taken.  But then why would you think I could make something like that in the first place?”

“Because the energies of it and you are in harmony.  Wherever the System truly came from, you came from the same place.”

I tilt my head in confusion at that.  “That… doesn’t make much sense.  There’s some pale imitations, but I bet that System is way more complex and stable than what I’m thinking about.  And a System like you have here… it doesn’t exist there.”

Order pitches and rotates slowly as he considers that.  “Perhaps it does, but you lack an interface.  The menus, alerts, even quests are all things I added to get feedback from the System.  At first, there was no active feedback for anyone.  People would get stronger, discover new abilities, explore affinities, and more, all through fumbling blindly.  I made the interface to try to make sense of what the System was doing.”

“It’s a black box,” I mutter.  “Input, output, with no hint to why or how.”

Order bobs in a nod.  “Exactly.  I did my fair share of fumbling as well, to learn what was happening, but I was able to start organizing everything, linking cause and effect, and informing the mortals so they could better Order their lives.”

I give an impressed whistle.  “That must have taken a lot of work.”  I wince at myself before continuing.  “Which I kinda… keep breaking…”

Order laughs and nods once more.  “That you do.  But with you exposing weaknesses, I can strengthen it.”  His jovial mood drains as he continues.  “And it makes me worry you’re not the first one to start breaking things, just the one that’s being obvious about it.”

“What do you mean?”

Order sighs, letting himself rotate on four axes as he explains.  “That’s complicated.  As I said, the interface wasn’t always there, but the System was.  I believe you’ve heard the kobold legend of the beginning?”

I nod.  “It started with everything still and unmoving, even the mana, before something disturbed it.  Eventually, the ripples coalesced into the first dungeon.  Then it started playing with the mana, made life, discovered a lot of affinities, made more dungeons…”

“Indeed.  The kobold legends are perhaps the best record of the time.  But did you notice anything about how the first dungeon operated, compared to how you do?”

I slowly nod once more.  “Yeah… the legend didn’t mention spawners at all.  All sorts of stuff getting created, but nothing about spawners.”

“Correct.  I imposed the need for spawners after the Betrayer.”

“Betrayer?” I ask, concerned.  That doesn’t sound like something nice.  In fact, it sounds like the literal reason I can’t have nice things.

“You should ask your High Priestess for the legend.  Suffice to say, a dungeon turned on the others and tried to destroy them.  Not only the other dungeons, it tried to destroy everything.  It took the intervention of all the gods to occupy it while I forged my interface.  Dungeons have a natural, innate understanding of mana, so the only thing I could think of to stop the Betrayer was to attack its ability to freely manipulate it.”

“So you imposed things like spawners, costs to expand territory, and a bunch of balance things… like the signs.  Why restrict communication so much?”

Order chuckles at that.  “You, of all beings, should understand the potency of sharing concepts.  In the proper hands, it leads to prosperity.  In improper hands… it leads to the Betrayer.”

I’d like to argue with him, but it’s difficult to debate the point when he has an apocalypse to point at for his proof.  That doesn’t mean I have to like it, though, so I try to steer us away from philosophy and freedom of information, and back to the reason he wanted to talk to me.  “So how do we fix your System?  Er, interface?”

“I’ve already fixed your specific error.  It was a unique edge case involving you as a god having a new domain, but you as a dungeon not having access to the affinity of that domain.  On top of that, the Voice and Herald titles were interfering with each other.  Both relatively simple fixes.”

Hey, I guessed right.  I smile at my intuition, though it soon fades to confusion.  “If it was a simple fix, why talk to me?”

“I can’t talk to the one who’s pantheon I may someday join?”  He laughs at my reaction to that before continuing.  “I wanted your help with something else.  I’ve finished analyzing the Harbinger.”  Seeing he has my full and undivided attention, he continues.  “Something has managed to sneak through my interface and impose its own twisted Order.  I had thought it fully sealed away, but I can think of no other source than the Betrayer.  Somehow, it managed to sneak through the shackles I’ve placed upon it, letting me think it was still secured while it worked.”  He turns and spins on a corner like a top in frustration.  “Even now, I don’t know how it’s doing it.”

I frown and fold my arms, not liking the sound of the situation.  “You’ve been hacked, but you don’t know how to fix it.  It’s not like the thing is going to give you a bug report on the exploit it’s using.”

Order slows to a stop and gives a relieved nod.  “So you understand.”

I grimace.  “Kinda, but I don’t know how to fix it.”

“Fixing it will be my job.  Your job will be to break it and make sure I know what you did.  A… ‘bug report’, you called it?”

I absently nod as I consider his offer.  Whatever that Betrayer is, it sounds like bad news.  I’ll definitely want to have Teemo ask Aranya about it once he respawns.  For now… I don’t see any reason to refuse to help him.  In fact, if that Betrayer can make Harbingers, I have a pretty good reason to actively help.

“It probably has something to do with that corrupted type it had…”

Order bobs in a nod.  “It does.  Unfortunately, without knowing how it introduced that new type, I can’t figure out a way to restrict it.”

“So you want me to try to make my own new type?”

The tesseract manages to smirk again as I get a popup.

Quest: Create a new type of creature.

Reward: New creature type.

“I’m confident the god of Change can come up with something.”