Book 3, chapter 29

29. Diapers and Paperwork

I was reading a number of reports and holding my baby brother, Rain, with my free hand.  It had been a week since the string of battles, and I was still exhausted.  Exhausted, but victorious, and finally the joy of winning was starting to eat through the malaise that had plagued me in the immediate aftermath.

Being around Mother and my new brother helped.  Although I didn’t do diapers.  Rain said that while he couldmake the task less unpleasant than it was on earth, he refused to cheapen the experience for his caretakers.

I alone was seemingly able to commune with him, or with the spirit of my grandfather that was inhabiting him, and I kept silent on that detail.  Aside from answering the occasional question about my abilities that I would not have expected anyone but him or one of the administrators to know, there was no benefit except for the sense of peace that came with knowing about the continuity of Grandfather’s spirit.

Mostly, however, unless I had a specific question or problem that he could help me with, Rain just squalled and acted like an infant a few weeks old.  It got tiresome, but it was to be expected.

Keithan arrived in Zhesa with my captives of war, with their trials to begin in short order.  Most were pleading guilty under the terms of the surrender, in which they would not be executed for banditry.  Very few were choosing to contest their arrest, with those few often being recent or forced inductees who hadn’t had time to rack up many crimes against their soul.

As for Trenac, she was working with Daemon, Sellamander, and another Traveler whom I had never met but who, on earth, was a forensic accountant.  They claimed to have figured out the method by which Arkan had embezzled millions of gold, but were unable to access much of it without his cooperation, which was proving difficult.  Apparently he didn’t like me for some reason.

Honestly, I didn’t actually need the gold, so I’d told Trenac to proceed with his trial for corruption.  That had changed Arkan’s tune considerably, as while he had surrendered with the bandits, his life wasn’t actually protected by the terms of the surrender.  A fact which Trenac was happy to inform him.  She was just as happy to inform me, although I was less enthused to hear it.  I had no real malice towards the former steward, but I had known when I wrote the letter to the inquisition that this would be the likely outcome.

His trial for corruption would take a week or more.  His execution would be delayed until the throne was occupied once more, as it was his right to receive a chance at clemency from the crown.  If anyone other than Storm ascended, then likely their first act would be to pass on the opportunity.

I could have stood in judgment myself, weeks ago, when I had first arrived and the weight of Arkan’s corruption was first made known to me.  Instead I had passed the burden on to the system above me and washed my hands of the affair.  Or I could have challenged Arkan to a duel to the death, but Voss’s death was too fresh for me to consider that option for anyone other than a Traveler.

The rumors of my actions during the final Battle of North Shire were growing out of proportion.  While I only ran rampant ‘through midfield’ for about ten minutes while trying to push through to the Temple of Thedum, I had left behind a lot of salty players who were complaining about how unbalanced I was on the forums.

I have three methods of marking my Traveler opponents.  There is [Mark of Karmic Balance], which some may mistake as a boon.  It provides the same stat and experience boosts as [Mark of Karma], but it comes with one very nasty tagalong effect.  A permanent Reputation nerf to any faction allied with me.

I’ve only recently gotten this ability, and the Battle for North Shire was the first time I had used it.  Many on the forums were complaining about it, while others were simply telling them to move to Caeloria, Wynthorne, Zenitha, Kordock, or some other nation in which the negative effect wouldn’t impede them.  The only method I knew of to remove this effect was for me to personally rescind it, but so far nobody had petitioned me to do so.  I was content with the idea that applying this bane would drive Travelers away from Yuikon, even at the expense of giving them bonus experience and stats.

The other method of marking my opponents, which is the oldest, was my ability to put [Brand of Sin] on a Traveler while hitting them with [Holy Weapon], or with one of my Lightning spells while [Holy Weapon] is active.  I hadn’t actually known how this feature had worked before, but many had emerged from midfield suddenly branded after having confronted me.  They weren’t serious candidates for <Branded Exiles> or other endgame guilds which were recruiting Travelers with such Banes, as they were either too low leveled or, like Jess, dedicated to the level 40 pvp metagame.

Thus, most of the Travelers I had branded on this recent encounter were getting cleansed.  Many in <Branded Exiles> were complaining that the mechanisms weren’t working like they had thought they would, although they reported that they had managed to find some inroads with the factions that were traditionally unavailable.  Such information was exclusive, however, but they could brag that it existed apparently.

The final method, and the one which was generating perhaps the most attention, was my ability to inflict [Reaper’s Embrace] and [Through the Valley of the Shadow] by touching someone with my left hand.  It had been automatically applied every time I cast [Draining Touch].  I had only just started making [Draining Touch] part of my repertoire after it had saved my life during my duel with Voss.  During the battleground, I had leveled it to level thirteen, and it was a powerful attack in its own right.  Combining my existing combat style with the drain and the support of my allies had sustained me through an otherwise impossible situation.

The complaining about [Reaper’s Embrace] was the largest, as few Travelers saw the point in getting bonus experience when that bonus experience was automatically multiplied and applied to their death penalty.  I actually wrote a personal message on the forums about that one, on how they could rid themselves of the condition, and Corinth’s method of using the bane/boon combination for a high-risk gamble.

I neglected to mention that I had an even stronger version of the curse than they, and instead simply watched the flame war erupt.

Surprisingly, the largest result was a petition for me to apply the various abilities.  There were seven lists.  Three for the individual abilities.  Three for a combination of two abilities together, but not the third.  And a final list for travelers who wanted ‘to unlock the ultra super secret death mode of Gates of TirNiki”by gaining all three abilities together.

I was hesitant, but many of the Travelers were offering remuneration.  However, with the recovering finances of North Shire, and my ongoing income stream from selling my remaining vanity pets, I didn’t need any more gold than I currently had, even after I’d paid to upgrade the simple teleportation reception beacon in North Shire to a portal platform capable of sending and receiving, instead of being a target destination only.

In all, it was a good week.  I got to play with a baby, I got to spend time with mom, and I got to hear mostly good news as it came streaming in from guild chat or my various other communication feeds that I now paid more attention to.  I had gotten almost everything that I had wanted out of the recursion.

Until Leonard finally arrived from The Divergence, full of piss and vinegar, ready to chew me out in the three languages he spoke until he saw me holding a report in one hand and my baby brother in the other.  He softened his voice then, but not his expression, and so I handed the infant off to one of his goblin caretakers.

When we were alone, I turned to face the man I had promoted to oversee my vineyards previously.  I hadn’t been surprised when he hadn’t been the first to recurse into The Recent Past, but I had heard that he was very unhappy with the situation.  He had been making noise about staying in The Divergence instead.

“Leo,” I said, trying to diffuse the situation.  “I’m glad to see that you made the decision to take the plunge.  I’m certain --”

“Shut up,” he said, and to my surprise, I did exactly that.  “Do you have any idea what you’ve cost me?  What I’d gotten half built, only to have it taken away from me by your bullshit?  Splitting the game in two?  For what?  Why?  The admin won’t give me a straight answer, but without you in The Divergence, my claim over the vineyards you gave me goes out the window, and everything else tumbles like a stack of cards.  Don’t you know what was at stake?”

I was stunned, and I didn’t know what to say.  “No,” I said at last.  “I’m sorry, Leonard, but we seem to be talking about two very different things.  I know you had plans for what you would do after I made you the overseer of my vineyards, but I don’t see how reverting into The Recent Past would have changed any of that.  After all, you didn’t explain to me what exactly you needed a vineyard for in the first place.”

This time, it was Leonard’s turn to look shocked at my words, and he paused to reflect.  “No, I never did explain it to you, did I?  I just figured that you would know non-contextually like all of the other natives.  Was that what the admin was trying to ram into my head?  Not only do you not operate on non-contextual information, you don’t have access to it at all?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I informed him.

“Yeah, well, that takes most of the joy out of screaming at you for a few hours, then,” Leonard said, collapsing into one of the couches in my room.  He pulled from his inventory a bottle of thornberry wine and began drinking straight from it.  He sighed.  “Can I still have the same job?  I’ll have to start over, but not from scratch by the looks of things.  Everything is pretty good to go on the Earth side of things.”

“Perhaps, if you actually explain to me what in the seven hells that was all about,” I said, growing angry.  “People don’t just barge into my office and yell at me, Leonard.  I--”

“Well, maybe they should,” Leonard said, interrupting me.  “It’s good for you to have someone knock you off your game once in a while.  That’s what happened to me when I found out I was going blind, and it really put the rest of my life in perspective.”

I was silenced again by the reminder of Leonard’s physical ailment.  Through whatever magic the Travelers used to send their minds into my world, he was able to see here perfectly.  But on Earth, he said he had what measured out to be a ninety-percent reduction in vision.

“Yeah, see, you shouldn’t do that.  When someone mentions their handicap, you don’t just stop and let them soak in it.  You move the conversation along.  Unless it seems like they want to talk about it.  If you’re planning to be a part of my retreat at all, you’ll have to figure out a way to deal with people who are disabled IRL.  Because that’s what I need those vineyards for, Hail.  I was planning on turning them into therapy retreats for people like me, or the recently injured, or a dozen other situations in which virtual reality therapy is recommended.”

“Oh,” I said, and the piece fell into focus.  “That’s why you’re angry.  Reverting has undone all of your work.”

He sighed.  “No, not really.  A lot of it, but if I’m being honest most of that is bullshit work anyway.  The important parts were the things I had to do on Earth.  I had some new buildings built to accommodate a bunch of guests, but since I went full fire sale before reverting I have the funds saved up to build them here in this version of the game pretty quickly.  I was just … pissed off for a little while that things didn’t go perfectly my way.  Sorry I took it out on you.”

“I forgive you,” I said.  Then I examined him for a minute.  “So, this thing.  Explain it to me.”

“Well, having the goblin starting zone was the first monkey wrench in the plan,” he scoffed.  “This was supposed to be a low-competition zone, after all.  But the fact that all of their quests are confined to their caves, and after that they move to the other zones, meant that in the long run my plans weren’t really affected.  And that new portal building you built is really nice, it will save me a lot of time and effort in the long run.  But anyway, the basic set up is ...”