It’s a puzzle

The new Town Hall of Rockbase was still under construction, but a gathering had to be held somewhere. They met in a banquet chamber in Sorostade, near Eastend road. For a change, the ever-compromising Players, forced to compromise at every step, were hosted in an interior built and decorated to accommodate anyone who was a someone.

Seelastraxx said in a cushioned chair at the top of a table long enough to accommodate thirty guests, with a glass of wine in her hand. Usually impatient, this time she was content to enjoy the luxury while it lasted. Oneiron stood at the door, likely ready to shut it in someone’s face if an uninvited head poked in. He also had someone stationed outside to ensure nobody eavesdropped on the conversation inside. Krush was absent - he was out of town, surveying the land for the aqueduct construction project, regardless of whether it was approved or not. Koori entered the room last, and laid a cloth-wrapped package on the table. He untangled the knot, revealing the object to be a heavy grimoire, but not a very thick one. Its cover was hard leather with imprinted sigils, and five metal so-called bosses protected the front: four in the corners, and one in the middle. The underside was likewise protected, and only avoided scratching the elegant, lacquered table thanks to the cloth. Koori remained standing, and paced as he gave a report of the march, the camp, the attack on the Theater of Pain, and the aftermath. Four members of the Administration, three raid leaders, and six raid members listened. At least one was bored out of her mind, despite the fact she came entirely voluntarily. She just wanted to stare at Seelastraxx; and Bittervet was there, so she had to be too.

‘And now we come to this,’ Koori gestured to the tome. ‘In total, nineteen people know about it so I do not expect this to be a secret held very long. As you can see, it is a book. Yes, you can touch it,’ he said to Esther, seeing her quizzing look. The Mage reached out and took it into her hands, brushing the hardcover with her fingertips, and winced a little from the sensation. ‘Yeah, it does that to people,’ Koori smiled. Esther nevertheless flicked through the yellowed sheets, suppressing her discomfort. ‘Why is it important, you want to ask. Simply put, we don’t know what it is. It doesn’t make sense to anyone. It’s not a weapon for a Player. It’s not a luxury or collectible item. It’s not for entertainment, in fact it makes people uncomfortable. But we can extrapolate from lack of information: if it’s none of the above, then what’s left is a quest item. A key of some sort.’

‘A bit of a speculation, isn’t it?’ Esther asked.

‘Of course it’s a speculation, but yours is as good as mine. Or ours,’ Koori gestured to the other raid participants. ‘Anyway, we went out raiding not for riches or gear, but for answers. Information. And what is a book? Information. There is text, there are some arcane drawings, and equations. So it should be important. Can you read it, Esther?’

‘Not at all.’

Then Oneiron spoke up, stepping forward from the closed door.

‘And that’s the weird thing, isn’t it? We talked about this before,’ he addressed the raiders. ‘I mean the five of us. For some reason, we came into this world understanding its language. But which language are we speaking, really? Back in real life, we lived in different countries, speaking many languages. Something made sure we can all understand each other here, and the NP…people of this world. And then suddenly, in the face of that, comes a book we can’t read? What’s up with that?’

‘It’s a puzzle,’ said Seelastraxx. Her tone said she already sensed where the mystery led, and was not happy about it.

‘Exactly,’ Koori took the lead again. ‘So we need help. And the only people with knowledge are the same people who won’t help us. The Church.’

‘Nuts,’ moaned Teec. ‘Not this shit again.’

‘Right? This keeps happening. No way this wasn’t done on purpose,’ Oneiron threw a hand forward in frustration.

‘For the record,’ a person in a gray hood raised a hand. Koori introduced him to the Administration.

‘This is Sizipha, of the Saves the Day clan.’

‘Yeah, yeah, hello. I said before that maybe the Church should not know we have it. They already look for any reason to hate us. Let’s not feed them. But I’m not telling you what to do, I’m just offering a counterpoint.’

‘I don’t care about hurting their feelings anymore,’ shrugged Seelastraxx.

‘Sorry, I’m out of the loop,’ interrupted Ripperjack. ‘I don’t hang out in the city much. What’s the beef that the Church has with us?’

Many eyes went to Seelastraxx, who ignored them all. Teec explained.

‘They’re orthodox as hell. They preach humility and putting harmony over oneself. When they heard that we chose a Priest for a leader, the Pontifex himself came with a delegation, and they were… shocked, let’s say, to see our lovely lady in her full… personality on display, and you know, the fact that she’s a woman. Secondly, some of our friends who woke up near them on day zero got quite deranged, and they in the Church remember that.’

‘A bunch of fucking patriarchal, patronising pricks, that’s what they are. I’m glad we had cleared that right out of the bat,’ Seelastraxx commented, sipping wine. ‘Anyway, this is ridiculous. We can just wipe them off the planet. I’m not putting off our return home because of the superstitious feelings of some backward dogmatic bigots. They can’t stand in our way.’

Down the table, the Rogue Sinistic tilted her head and sent a wicked smile at the fellow Rogue Ripperjack.

‘Ah yes, I see now,’ said Ripperjack quietly.

‘Whoa, whoa, hold up. Let’s not discuss any murder or any other force against the population. They’re people too,’ pleaded Tycho.

‘We don’t even have to kill everyone. Just one or two important ones and that should already be enough,’ suggested Sinistic.

‘No,’ repeated Tycho. ‘I can’t believe you’re considering this. You’re forgetting what we are! And secondly, we can’t decide the fate of a million people behind closed doors!’

‘You don’t make decisions here, Tycho,’ Seelastraxx reminded him.

‘Neither do you. You represent the consensus of our people, and I know many people, you know.’

Seelastraxx sent him an icy glare.

‘Tycho, ever the carebear,’ Nob teased his buddy sitting next to him, then addressed the room. ‘We can leave that option as a backup plan.’ Tycho gave him a disappointed look, which Nob tanked with a shrug.

Seelastraxx spoke again.

‘I would sacrifice them all to return to my life any day and I can’t be the only one to think that. Maybe it’s not me who’s forgetting something? Don’t you have a wife and two kids out there, Tycho?’ she asked, eyes squinting. ‘How much time has passed in the real world while we’re here? How do you think she feels now? How do you think she explains to your kids why you’re not home? How long until she decides she needs a new father for them?’

Tycho said nothing. Further down the table, even Sinistic felt the burn of that speech.

Bittervet raised a hand to speak.

‘Leaving ethics aside,’ he began, ‘people held at gunpoint aren’t trustworthy. They take the first opportunity to act against oppressors. They can just mistranslate the text on purpose and we would never know. Secondly, we would confirm their worst fears about us. If the book is useless or otherwise a dead end, we lose all goodwill forever. Bridges will be burned for nothing.’

Nobody spoke for a while as the impasse made itself welcome.

‘So what do we do?’ asked Koori.

Seelastraxx put her elbows on the table and began:

‘Alright, fine. That option will be off the table for now. Instead, let’s consider this: what happens to all of them, religious or not, when we all go home? This world is full of dangerous shit, and we’re the ones that stomp it down before they even get close to towns and villages. Maybe we should exploit that, remind them about it. We don’t threaten them with a beatdown. We threaten them with doing nothing.’

Two or three people nodded silently, pondering the idea.

‘That’s better but still not good,’ Teec shook his head. ‘That’s still confirming their bias against us. Instead, we would do better to inspire and impress. Conquer the hearts and minds! Then they lose all arguments against us.’

‘Much better,’ agreed Tycho.

‘So what would you do?’ asked Nob.

‘Can we, like… exterminate all monsters? Forever?’ said Esther all of the sudden.

The room became quiet again. Despite embarrassment, she continued:

‘Because, where are they coming from? Do they, uh, breed? If they do, technically we can just get rid of monsters for good. I don’t know how we would ever find every last pair of every species though, but maybe we don’t have to. Maybe it’s enough to collapse the population.’

‘We would need way more people in combat roles, that’s for sure,’ pointed out Tycho. ‘We can train people harder. Maybe we can bring Upperland’s people to help. But they would have to get guarantees from us that it’s worth it. They would need to abandon whatever lives they have there now.’

Sinistic raised a hand, and faces turned towards her.

‘If not murder, then we can just steal whatever we need,’ she proposed. ‘We can sneak into the temples and look for information.’

‘I like your style!’ clapped Nob, and Sinistic pointed finger guns at him.

‘The problem though, is that we can’t tell for shit which information, which book or which scroll, would be helpful to us. I, at least, am too stupid for that. But we can spy on them, just saying,’ she added.

‘Well, they are spying on us already,’ commented Oneiron.

The impasse persisted through and after the meeting.