Our Just Rewards
-.
-.
/"I'm baaack!"/ Monika chirped happily as she emerged out of the other projector cube. /"Negotiations have been completed to satisfaction!"/
Then she paused to stare oddly at the scene and asked, /"… what is happening here?"/
"So… long! So… thick!" Charlotte panted, her face dripping with sweat and her face red with pleasure. "So… complete!"
"Okay. Stop. Just… stop." I sighed. "This is why I had two sets of books printed out. You have all the time to… examine… the anatomy texts later."
Then I raised my face out of my palms. "Wait, what was that just now? Monika, what have you done?!"
She put a fist to the side of her head like some sort of clumsy anime girl and let out a mischievous /"Tee-hee!"/
Sue stared at the moaning mage, who was still rubbing the spine of the book against her cheeks and the side of her mouth. Dang it, Charlotte! It's a good thing Sue was still too young to realize what this display was doing to me.
"Umm… Miss Charlotte… why are you rubbing the book on your face?"
/"I think it's like how a cat rubs their cheeks against things to mark it with their scent,"/ Monika offered.
"That sounds legit," said the little girl, nodding reluctantly.
Charlotte eep'ed again, blinking back into sanity. She put the book down and blushed. "I'm sorry! I was… behaving improperly again, wasn't I?"
Monika stared at her some more. /"Were you? Somehow I feel that the way you act is proper somewhere else. Don't you know someone who acts like that?"/
Charlotte looked away. "I… guess it is said that /'new things must be embraced with all your heart'/ and /'true love does not need reciprocation'/," she admitted. She spoke about how her own teachers behaved the same way to new knowledge. I guessed long-lived Fey had to put their all ardor into things, better to love intensely and insanely than to surrender to dreadful ennui.
That reminded me – "Monika, what do you mean by negotiations? We already discussed our fees for tutoring?"
/"I'm sorry, Player, but I can't tell you that. It's supposed to be a surprise."/
"Monika, a healthy relationship is built on good communication."
/"Player, just because I love you with all my being doesn't mean I can't troll you. Just trust me on this one. It's all for your best interests, and your face when you realize it will be hilarious."/
"… fair enough."
-.
-.
Now that Sue's first tutoring session was finished, it was time to get our own just rewards from Charlotte.
Alan's [Portal] ability created what looked very much like a [Dark] [Summoning] magic circle. It was practically [Self-Summoning]. He could lay down two [Portal] circles. He could tag one place, move far away, and open another magic circle that would allow him to teleport to the first marker.
He could then return to the second marker, and that would refresh his ability allowing him to lay down another pair of summoning circles. But this was not as big an advantage as simply having two active connected points.
If he goes A - B - A - B, the circles would vanish. AB AB.
But if he goes A - B - A, and then manually walks back to Point B, he could return to A from there as many times as he wanted. AB A BA BA BA.
He could also cast [Portal] again, which would wipe the and reapply Portal B allowing him to GTFO from somewhere else. Portal A wouldn't vanish until he actually enters Portal B from Portal A's location. Something about tensioned energies completing the loop.
Alan demonstrated by teleporting downstairs into the main hall and then having to run all the way back upstairs to the library.
"… that's a [Town Portal], isn't it?" I mused. Diablo's Town Portal.(1)
/"It has its limitations, but I can see its uses,"/ Monika added charitably.
"Most forms of teleportation are personal, or limited by distance or weight," Charlotte explained. "But Alan can carry objects, bring along someone else with him, and the [Portal] doesn't seem to be affected by any distance whatsoever."
/"I can see how that would be absurdly useful,"/ Monika added. That explained why he might have been chosen as her bodyguard in Mismede. He was the ultimate in emergency evac planning. Very useful for protecting the Royal Family, but the sheer distances involved means a unique advantage for ambassadors and agents far more useful than just standing around the palace.
She stared at him intently, and the sallow-faced man met her gaze with a bored, possibly faintly inebriated stare of his own.
/"Interesting. I'm going to need some time to think over how to [Decompile] this."/ Monika stepped back and opened a door into the expansive landscape that was her desktop background. She vanished into it, closing it seamlessly behind her.
And then Charlotte was all up in my face. "And now it is for OUR JUST REWARDS!" she announced with a manic grin.
Alan sighed heavily and reached for an untranslated tome of Ancient writings. He opened one and shoved it over to me.
I looked at the letters that reminded me faintly of cuneiform and, yes, they were all gibberish to me. "Monikaa…?"
The Aug Reality translation program automatically popped up and overlaid the translations on transparent text boxes over my vision. All right then.
"By taking a Deaugment, which lacks any meaningful arts to access the Origin Magic, and introducing that to the nature of the Soma Arts method of blasting magic in order to introduce a change in the Edos…" Yeeeah I have no idea what any of this means.
But "Yes! Ah! Yeeeeeesssss!" Charlotte screamed out in (almost?) orgiastic delight. "You can do it! Oh!"
"Whoa, so you really can read it," Alan had to speak up. "I didn't really believe that was possible." Then to Charlotte, "Calm down, woman! I know you've been studying this for the longest time, I understand your feelings in this matter, but control yourself!"
There was a child in the room, after all!
"Is it really such a big deal?" I asked.
Charlotte let out one last full-body shiver and opened her eyes. "That is exactly right! We've all been struggling to piece it all together, one word at a time, taking months or even years just to progress, and all our efforts always riddled with problems like mistranslation or even not knowing the sounds of the words we manage to decipher, much less the concepts they mean to convey…!"
She lunged at me and grabbed at my shoulders, her fingernails painfully digging into skin through the layers of armor cloth. "PLEASE! I beg you, assist us with translating these scripts for the sake of our research!"
I nodded slowly, unsure if she wanted to french kiss me or rip out my jugular with her teeth. "That… was the deal, yes. As long as you also cooperate with my research."
"WELL BARGAINED AND DONE!" Charlotte pressed her forehead to mine, and then pulled away. She put another sheet of paper in front of my face. "How about this?! Can you read this? This is something that is often found in documents related to the Ancient Partheno Civilization!"
"Partheno?" I blinked. Like what, Crystal Spires and Togas? (2) Eh, sure why not.
I began to read. "NOTICE. This material is protected by Originating Source Rights and is copied solely for the educational purposes under license. You may not sell, alter or further reproduce or distribute any part of this material to any other person. Where provided to you in MagiScript format with a School Key, you may only make physical records from it for your own private study and research. Failure to comply with the terms of this warning may expose you to legal action for copyright infringement and/or disciplinary action. Penalties may include fines, magical drain, public humiliation, and up to imprisonment or permanent magical devolution. System distributor signature [Babylon]."
I looked up. "… Charlotte, this is Ancient Civilization DRM (3), what the hell."
Then I began to look through the other materials. "This part started with notes on magical research then two paragraphs over it becomes regulations about on divorce law. Then it turns into notes on history. All probably insightful to the culture and norms of the ancient civilization, but these scripts are all over the place. No one book is a coherent set of information."
"This still helps so much!" Charlotte squealed. "Every scrap of information is precious!"
"Do you have blank sheets of paper I can burn the translations into? Monika, I need the laser printer, please."
There was no response.
"Monika?"
A section of the desktop flipped around to display a [IN CLOSED CONTEMPLATION. DO NOT DISTURB.] sign.
Crap. I'm going to have to read all this aloud for them to transcribe. Before I could do that, I raised my palm up and asked "Huh. That reminds me... it still takes extra effort for me to do this, even if we agreed to assist each other. How much do you think is fair for my time in translating per page?"
"I don't know. One gold?"
Alan and I stared at the pile of books. I giggled and he sneered. Then he screamed at Charlotte "NO! OF COURSE NOT."
"But… we have to respect Sir Zah's skills and offer no insult or else we might not get any more translation help…" she whimpered.
"This is why we work things into a time-managed contract instead of per item, woman! Do you think I'd still be here if I could charge you for whatever shite you force me to do? PROBABLY. But I'd be insanely rich at it too!" Then he looked past me to waggle his finger at my snickering. "You should be thanking me that you're not getting the brunt of this, one day you will be alone with her and I will be laughing. Safe and far far away."
-.
-.
We haggled to a silver per page. I was just checking if I could hustle some more dough from them. Maybe I shouldn't be getting the [Generosity] medal after all. From a great distance I could just feel Elze gritting her teeth again in economic frustration.
And so, after some time to gather writing material, we did so. Because it was much faster to speak than to take notes, I could actually look at two documents at once and then alternate sentences while one was writing. It was as confusing and prone to mistakes as it sounds.
Until suddenly with a cry of pain, Alan raised up his cramping right hand. Then he grabbed the inkwell with his left hand, guzzled it down, and fell backwards on the floor. He spasmed for a few seconds, and then lay deathly still.
"The ink isn't poisonous, Alan," Charlotte said dryly. "We checked."
Shite. Now I wouldn't even get away with playing dead too.
"Let's pause it for now," I said, my voice already weak and hoarse. "This weekend is supposed to be Sue's study time, after all..."
Sue peered out from behind the edge of book. "I'm okay!" She was not bored at all. She returned to the comfort of its pages, back into fun and high adventure, and protected from whatever other lurid exclamations Charlotte might make.
Because as a reward for her studies we also laser-printed the Slayers light novels. Lina Inverse was not a very good role model, but she was every sheltered young lady's inspiration.
Surely nothing could go wrong from this.
-.
-.
Charlotte and Alan finally left at just before dinnertime. We managed to finish only thirty pages in four hours, and by then Alan's hand was swelling with ̷a̷n̷ ̷a̷w̷e̷s̷o̷m̷e̷ ̷p̷o̷w̷e̷r̷ tremendous pain. Its ̷burning grip was telling him to defeat me. Fortunately Charlotte showed she was also a pretty good healer, but he didn't thank her at all. It only meant he could continue working, after all.
Monika was still hiding away for some reason.
I tried to ask the Duke just what she was negotiating for as part of our dinner conversation, but he too just grinned and said it was something I'd really like. It was just what I deserved.
Ominous.
The Ducal Family still looked so happy that they could all eat together at the same table. For five years, because of her blindness, Duchess Ellen needed help to just to eat. Being spoon-fed like a baby was somewhat humiliating. Now she could once again easily use spoon, forks, and knives.
"I could be content with this," she whispered. "The only reason I would want to have normal sight again is to see the faces of my family."
"Don't worry, Mother," Sue said with the fullest confidence. "Sir Zah and I will make that happen!"
It was only when we were alone in a guest room that Monika finally decided to emerge. Although she still looked pristine, she touched her brows as if wiping away sweat. /"Whew, that took a lot more mental effort than I expected…"/
I nodded. Even though it took a month to go from not having any magic at all and then suddenly human powered flight, I was also constantly practicing Wind Magic in little things. "Are you okay? Do you feel any pain?"
Unfortunately [Light] magic didn't work on Monika any, as a being made of nonliving material, and we had no idea what counted as painkiller medication for a digital life-form.
/"I'm fine. So!"/ She raised a finger in sassy achievement, /"I figured out THREE possible ways to [Recompile] the [Null] magic. But at this point we can only use one and the process of [Compiling] will consume the deconstructed spell in my memory, so you will have to decide.
/"The first is the [BOOM TUBE]. Yes, it is exactly what you are thinking of. This will create a tunnel linking two places. The benefit is that its size is adjustable, and it will last as long as you want it to remain active. We can open it to anywhere we have visited before or can properly visualize, no limitations on distance. You can march ARMIES through it if you really wanted to, no problem.
/The downside is that Boom Tube is not just a name. It will create a loud flashy boom on activation, and push air away from the center of the opening wormhole. It's bright, it's loud, it is completely unsubtle – there is no way you would be able to use it in stealth or maybe even inside a town, Player. You would be super annoying to your neighbors."/
"You're forgetting another positive, Monika," I mused. "Having our teleport be a [Boom Tube] will allow me to call you a Mother Box(4) . Much earlier before a time that I could make that a literally true statement." Eyebrow waggle.
/"N-not the time, Player! Pay attention!"/ she scolded with a blush. /"N-next one is a refinement of [PORTAL], to exactly how you would see it from the Portal games. Blue and orange, enter and exit portals, that can be laid onto any flat surface. This has massive tactical advantages for mobility and throwing enemy spells back into their faces. You've played Portal, you know there is no end of shenanigans you could do with the Portal Gun."/
"Downsides?"
/"It works only on line of sight. And by this, I mean what your biological eyes can perceive with clarity, though I can assist with optical and digital zoom. You need to be able to define the area you are putting the portal onto, so none of Portal 2's 'I can see the moon… therefore I can shoot at the Moon and put a portal there!' shenanigans."/
"If I could put [Portals] into open air, it would be a no-brainer. Being able to zot from place to place and redirect enemy weapons fire would be something I could structure my whole battle strategy around. But as it is, while useful I'm not sure it's worth not having long-distance teleportation. Maybe if we chain portals, it could still serve to shorten travel time, but I'm tabling it for now. The last?"
/"Modified [TOWN PORTAL]. Now it would actually look like Diablo's town portal, a vertical oblong shape swirling with a soothing blue and white glow."/
"That sounds… underwhelming. We already know the advantages and disadvantages to this, what makes it compare to the other options?"
/"It's a Town Portal, which means you can use it with Town Portal SCROLLS. It's not a spell. It's something I can scribe onto parchment, and then be activated by you or others."/
I sat up sharply. "That's useful! Is it limited to only one portal…? No, wait, because it comes in scrolls, obviously each scroll would be its own set of Town Portals. So if we had two scrolls…"
/"Exactly. We could indefinitely travel between two places without making the portals collapse."/
"This could revolutionize everything, Monika!"
She giggled and shook her head. /"Unfortunately, no. I'm sorry to dash your hopes, but since the Town Portals are not powered directly by personal magic or tied to any magic ley lines, they will collapse on their own after five minutes or so. Also, unlike a [Boom Tube] it has no built-in protections allowing only your allies to pass through. In addition, each set of Town Portal scrolls can only tie to a specific town, towards a specific magic circle I will have to burn into a stone or metal plate."/
/"This means we can sell MORE Town Portals, whole sets of them, and then charge for Town Portal anchors! Holy crap, Monika! We are Transport Tycoon now!"/
Monika giggled again. /"I had a feeling you would like it. So have you decided?"/
I licked my lips and lay back down on the bed. /"… when may we have the others if I decide on one unique [Teleport] magic now?"/
Monika shrugged. /"I don't know. The next [Teleport] [Null] magic I see will have to be significantly different to how [Portal] operates… which means the new spells gained from [Decompiling] it would also be significantly different. Maybe never?"/
"I'm really going to have to think about this."
-.
-.
[Boom Tube] was noisy, but it was a pure long distance travel solution and the closest to true teleportation for us. Because it can be set anywhere in three-dimensional space, there were also some strategic and tactical options. Just opening the [Boom Tube] in the middle of the enemy formation, for example, could disorient them. There was also the whole "[Boom Tube] to the ocean floor" idea to drown the enemy in the desert with salt water that they can't use.
[Portal] was tactically useful, and I could evade enemy attacks easily playing whack-a-mole, dipping down and emerging somewhere else. Using pairs of shields, I could throw enemy attacks back into each other. We even could all wear long capes so that I could always put a [Portal] at our backs, and use each other as teleport points during combat.
[Town Portal] required me to visit a place before I could go there. It was more or less just a quick evac solution. Nothing flashy, but ugh! The money! So much money! The socioeconomic gains I couldn't even begin to predict.
/"Just go to sleep, Player. You have to mind your lesson plan for teaching Sue tomorrow."/
Ugh. It was a familiar feeling. So exhausted, and yet just can't sleep. This was the most common and most annoying form of insomnia that afflicts many people. So you try to play a game or troll around the internet or something to force you brain to relax and then suddenly it's daytime and you have to go to school or to work. Dang it! We just never learn. It never works.
"… I might need some help getting to sleep."
/"In the Duke of Ortlinde's own home?! You are shameless, Player!" /
Eheheh. That… wasn't a no.
-.
-.
Sue's morning lessons reviewed the functions of the Circulatory System as we discussed yesterday, and then we began to talk about the Nervous System. This included the brain and sensory organs as the eyes and ears, so she was so terribly interested.
Sue even looked somewhat annoyed when Charlotte arrived and interrupted her lessons. Alan accompanied her only long enough to put down a Magic Circle into the library floor and then [Portal] away through it.
Charlotte surprisingly managed to restrain herself and limited her questions to the end of the lecture. "Astounding. What sort of place has managed to decipher the human body to such an extent? How did your people even acquire such knowledge? You said before that this was something your people learned for themselves, not taken as scraps of old knowledge from the Ancient Civilization."
Sue stared up at me, and then a look of horror passed across her face.
Oh. Oh! Right. I talked about /vivisection/ to Sue. Woops.
I coughed onto my gloved fists. "Centuries of research. And there is a particular device that can view the insides of the human body via echoes of sound, and another that uses minute electrical fields. That's how our spell [Diagnosis] works."
"That's another unique spell that can't be learned, isn't it?" Charlotte huffed, and flicked at the trails of her long green hair. "How sad."
"Before any other spell, if I figure out how to make it possible for someone else to cast, that's the one Sue will have to figure out from me. Knowledge saves lives."
"That is so true."
Charlotte's legs twitched uncontrollably. She fidgeted in her seat. Then she stood up and complained angrily, "It is time! He should be here by now!"
Then after a little while longer, there was a bright flash of purple light - Alan's [Portal] activated. Another walking pile of books appeared, towering so high it the stack almost reached the ceiling.
"Alan!" Charlotte hissed. "What kept you? We were waiting for so long! You're wasting Sir Zah's valuable time!"
Alan tried to step forward, and then slipped on the tile floor. With a creaking sound Alan and his book tower toppled over backwards. "Oof! Gurk! Igh! Gleek!" Alan grunted in pain and tried to cover his soft tissues from the falling books.
"Uh… dude? Are you okay?" I asked. "Do you need healing?"
"Sir Zah of Chara, you are my sworn enemy!" he screamed out painfully from under the book pile. "Today you have made an enemy for life!"
I looked towards the buried form, then up at Charlotte's eagerly expectant face. "Just how many texts do you expect me to translate anyway?"
Charlotte kept on blithely ignoring Alan's pain. Alan was actually her brother-in-law, and by reports from her own sister and his own colleagues at the Royal Guards, he was willing to say anything to skivv off work. Thus everyone just kept forcing him to do things paying no attention how he has already repeatedly refused.
"There are countless important texts to decipher! You are the only one that can do this!"
My face twitched. "… all right. New plan." I picked up a pair of books from the pile. "Give me two random books and I'll translate it in my spare time and give you results every weekend."
Charlotte looked down at the pile, then back up at me. "But… but we would be wasting valuable learning hours during the weekend! Please! You don't know how much this means to me! Knowledge must be set free!" she exclaimed with sultry bedroom eyes and a bare-toothed battlefield grin.
If I ever got into the habit, Alan's fate would be mine as well. Nope to that!
I took one step back. She took one step forward, her shoulders lowering as if readying to pounce.
I stared at the smooth creamy exposed flesh of Charlotte's heaving bosoms, and then shouted "Monika! INITIATE GTFO PROTOCOLS!"
Monika cackled again. /"GTFO Engaged."/
A [Boom Tube] opened up behind me, and the bang of its opening threw out all books and caused Sue to shriek in alarm. The noise attracted the attention of the house guards, and soon one of them rushed to open the door, followed by the Duke himself.
Duke Alfred first looked for his daughter, and Sue was safe enough still seated by the study desk. Her long corn-yellow hair only looked a little bit frizzled. Then towards the large glowing hole in space inside his library. Then to the mess at my feet. Then back to looking all around his library, noting how he had already removed all breakable items as soon as I visited.
"Sorry, but I'll be leaving for now, my lord!" I said to him. Then to Sue "I left worksheets! Fill out your homework early, I'll check them on my return!"
"Wait!" Charlotte wailed, "Why are you leaving?!"
"I'll be back," I replied in a deep Austrian drawl, and leaped backwards. The [Boom Tube] sucked me in with a strong flying vacuum, and with closed with another loud bang.
There was a ripping noise and Duke Alfred howled, "My carpet!"
-.
-.
Boom.
Whump.
With a kicked-up cloud of dust, I landed on my back onto the fenced back yard of the Silver Moon Inn. The impact drove the breath right out of me, and landing flat with a flared helmet hurt my neck.
"What in gods' name?!" Micah rushed out to the back door, carrying a mop like it was a spear. "Oh. It's you." She looked at the overturned tables and benches and distressed bushes and sighed. "I suppose I should welcome you back, Mister Playa."
"Hi honey, I'm hooome."
Micah just huffed and rubbed at forehead. "Is this going to be a thing? I should start charging you nuisance fees."
I nodded, still lying down on the ground. Inappropriate laughter threatened to bubble out from inside me, but I had a strong feeling she would make me pay more for that. "Fair enough."
Ahahaha. Knowledge must be set free, and so – I have escaped!
-.
-.
Much later, it was while was dining with the girls that I suddenly realized, "Wait a second! I didn't get paid!"
I evac-ed out before the Duke could give me my tutoring fee. I should have asked to be paid in advance.
"You shouldn't look too pleased by that!" Elze shot back.
Elze please, make up your mind. Do you want me to make money or not?
-.
-.
AN:
(1)(ʰᵗᵗᵖ:/ᵈᶦᵃᵇˡᵒ.ʷᶦᵏᶦᵃ.ᶜᵒᵐ/ʷᶦᵏᶦ/ᵀᵒʷⁿ_ᴾᵒʳᵗᵃˡ)
(2)(ʰᵗᵗᵖˢ:/ᵗᵛᵗʳᵒᵖᵉˢ.ᵒʳᵍ/ᵖᵐʷᶦᵏᶦ/ᵖᵐʷᶦᵏᶦ.ᵖʰᵖ/ᴹᵃᶦⁿ/ᶜʳʸˢᵗᵃˡˢᵖᶦʳᵉˢᴬⁿᵈᵀᵒᵍᵃˢ)
(3) (ʰᵗᵗᵖˢ:/ᵉⁿ.ʷᶦᵏᶦᵖᵉᵈᶦᵃ.ᵒʳᵍ/ʷᶦᵏᶦ/ᴰᶦᵍᶦᵗᵃˡ_ʳᶦᵍʰᵗˢ_ᵐᵃⁿᵃᵍᵉᵐᵉⁿᵗ)
Actually more like licensing terms, but it's the integrated anti-copying magic that's the magic DRM.
(4)(ʰᵗᵗᵖ:/ᵈᶜ.ʷᶦᵏᶦᵃ.ᶜᵒᵐ/ʷᶦᵏᶦ/ᴹᵒᵗʰᵉʳ_ᴮᵒˣ)