System Lost: My Own Best Friend

"So are you ever going to explain what just happened?" Violet asks testily.

I roll my eyes while I start sorting out the candles they brought. They're mostly identical, but now that I know what to look for, each one is a little bit different. Not physically, of course, they just have different amounts of energy.

"Wasn't planning to," I sigh. "You probably won't get it anyway."

"Try me."

Since she's obviously not going to shut up any time soon, I guess it can't hurt to entertain her.

"Allison went looking for magic, and she found it," I explain. "She looked past the flimsy facade of reality and saw the source of it all."

"The [World Engine]?" Vi asks.

I scoff. "Doubt it," I say. "Whatever that mechanism is, it's artificial—created. What we saw was something more fundamental."

"How come I didn't see anything?"

"Because we didn't see it with our eyes, doofus." I hold up a candle, twirling it slowly between my fingers. "What do you think 'Awareness' means, hm? It's way more than just sharper senses."

"How would you know?" She asks. "You've only been here for a few minutes."

"I still remember everything you two were getting up to before I came along, though. Even the parts you morons took for granted."

"What do you mean?"

I rub my face and groan. It's exhausting trying to explain things that are so obvious.

"Exhibit A," I begin. "How do you know the difference between 'world engine' and [World Engine]?"

"How did you do that?"

"Exhibit B," I continue, ignoring her question. "Allison didn't see the ledge you warned her away from, but you still knew it was there."

"No, hold on, go back," Vi insists. "How were you able to say those words without...you know?"

"By referring to the words instead of the [thing]."

There's a brief pause while I assume Violet is reading.

[thing]

The [World Engine].

"That doesn't explain anything about Awareness," she sighs. "You're just showing off."

"No, I'm teaching you," I correct her. "You're just too dumb to get it. [Awareness] is how you can sense those links at all. It's how we feel the world around us—and beyond."

"And you know all this...how?"

"How do you not?!" I counter. "It's obvious."

"If you say so," Violet huffs. "So Allie saw this...source of the world or whatever—what does that have to do with you?"

"Okay, how do I put this?" I muse. "Looking at the source of everything is like trying to cram the entire cosmos into the shell of a peanut, and our skull is the peanut in this analogy."

"What?"

"It hurts, dumbass!" I clarify. "And Allison's biggest defining trait after being an insufferable motormouth is that she's a total wimp. So here I am to suffer in her place, just like you."

"That's not what I—"

I hold up a hand and shake my head. "Didn't ask—don't care! I'm glad she dug me up out of the depths of her psyche because aside from being indescribably painful, it was also indescribably beautiful, and I have every intention of seeing more. There's so much to learn there."

"You what?!" Violet shrieks. "Absolutely not! It nearly killed us the first time."

I put my hands on my hips and roll my eyes. "Yeah, because you two screwed up our attributes. That much Awareness without the Will to back it up is just asking for trouble."

Vi groans in frustration. "Again, how do you know that?!"

"Because I have more than two brain cells, Violet. Now let's work out a solution."

I finish sorting the candles in order of strength and stand up to stretch. Oof, those girls really did a number on this body.

"Yes, okay, that's the most reasonable thing you've said so far," Violet sighs. "We're stuck together whether we like it or not, so it's best if we learn to cooperate. What sort of solution did you have in mind...um...what do I call you?"

I shrug. I don't really care what they call me, but I'm sure as hell not going to let Miss "Vi for Violence" name me. I am pretty interested in the possibilities that magic has in store though, so...

"You can call me Maggie," I offer.

"Really?" she asks. "As in—?"

"As in short for Magdalena," I add, not willing to give her the satisfaction of guessing my intentions.

"Right..." she drawls. "So about that solution?"

"Well, somehow Allie managed to punt her silly candle thing over to me, but I completed it in the meantime. So that leaves us with two empty slots to fill once sleeping beauty deigns to join us."

"What do you propose?" Vi asks.

"Simple," I say. "We've got two completed Awareness classes already. Allie and I will take classes that focus on Power and Will respectively, merge those into the others, then complete the resulting classes and merge those. That will leave us with a grade 3 class boosting Power, Will, and double Awareness."

"That...sounds terrible," Violet groans. "All that effort and we'd be stuck with a grade 3 class that only one of us can use."

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"Only if you're a lazy sack of shit the whole time," I retort. "You just need to finish [Defender] and [Medic], merge those together, complete that and merge it with [Unified Wanderers]. From there, we're well on our way to a grade 4 shared class."

Violet is silent while she thinks about it, and I take the chance to look over some of my potential classes.

[Tier 0 Pyromaniac]*

A lover of all that burns.

Skill - Loved by the Flame: Increased Resilience and Ego when interacting with fire.

Attribute Bonus: Ego.

Advancement: Watch things burn.

Fun! I can see the potential here, especially with all these candles around.

[Tier 0 Scientist]*

A seeker of truth, trying to understand the world around them.

Skill - Mental Note: Save thoughts that can be perfectly recalled later.

Attribute Bonus: Awareness.

Advancement: Discover new things.

Huh, weirdly similar to [Student], but with a different core attribute and without the reliance on a teacher. Don't need more Awareness yet, but it's something to keep in mind for later.

[Tier 0 Organizer]*

A place for everything, and everything in its place.

Skill - Quick Sort: Always arrange a set of objects correctly according to the desired order.

Attribute Bonus: Will.

Advancement: Keep things tidy.

Hah! Because I was playing with the candles. It's got the right attribute, but it's a little weak. Although, I wonder if I can abuse that skill to glean information that I wouldn't normally have access to. Could I sort a bunch of mushrooms in order of how poisonous they are without actually knowing?

[Tier 0 Teacher]*

One who spreads knowledge. Passing what they know on to others.

Skill - Efficient Training: Faster advancement for pupils studying under your tutelage.

Attribute Bonus: Ego.

Advancement: Spread knowledge.

Hell no! It was already tedious enough trying to explain basic concepts to a meathead like Vi, and I don't even want to imagine trying to get through to the ditzy one. Next!

Before I can go on, Violet finishes her ruminations.

"I think I can see what you're going for," she says. "The plan is all over the place, but it does lead to a very balanced arrangement of attributes, which gives all of us a strong foundation to build on."

"Yeah, duh. I'm not stupid."

"But it's too narrow-minded," she continues, ignoring me. "It's a very long-term plan, and the only thing you're considering is maximizing our total attributes."

"We're going to need as many attributes as we can get," I explain. "We barely grazed the surface of magic and it almost broke us."

"That's just what you want," Vi lectures. "There are other things to consider. Like, oh, I don't know, surviving?"

I pinch the bridge of my nose. Why doesn't she get it?!

"Did you listen to a word I said earlier, Vi?" I ask. "Magic is the source of everything. The stuff of raw creation! If we can learn to harness it, we can do anything!"

"Infinite potential is worthless if we die before we get the chance to realize it!"

She doesn't understand at all. Violet didn't see it, and I have no way of showing her. I'll have to demonstrate it another way. I'm not sure I can actually do this with my attributes so low, but I know it's possible and I didn't sort these candles for nothing.

"Just watch," I say.

I pick up the weakest candle. I don't really know what I'm doing, but I can feel the power inside of it, like a microcosm of the infinite expanse of pure power that constantly surrounds us. Hopefully small enough not to vaporize me the second I touch it—that would be very embarrassing.

My head throbs painfully as I try to grasp at the power within the candle with my mind. I'm pretty much just winging it, but I can feel it shifting and fluctuating. The candle flame flickers slightly, but I need more than that. I keep pulling until a chunk of...something breaks away.

Suddenly I'm left holding a tiny concentration of the candle's essence within my mind, and it occurs to me that this is a terrible place for fire to be.

Without thinking, I point at the useless remains of the laser gecko's eyeball, and with an effort of will, the power escapes me and manifests within our world. The eye ignites instantly, smoking and bubbling for a moment before the fire sputters out.

My ears are ringing, and I feel a bit dizzy, but I stand proudly over the slightly charred lump of cartilage.

"S-see?" I slur, tasting copper. "Magic!"

The world decides to turn sideways, and next thing I know I'm on the floor. I cough up a small mouthful of blood and wipe my bleeding nose.

"H-how did you do that?" I ask.

"Duh, magic," Maggie answers unhelpfully.

I push myself up into a sitting position and clutch my aching head.

"Please never do that again," I groan. "I get that it was magic, but I'm asking how you performed it. A new skill?"

"No skill, just magic," she claims. "I'm pretty sure that skills are just an interface with the mechanism, doing what I just did without exposing us to the source."

There she goes again, jumping to crazy conclusions with no logical basis.

"Being exposed to the source seems like a pretty bad thing," I comment, spitting out another mouthful of blood.

"It's not great for our health," Maggie admits. "But I made fire! Or, well, I pulled fire out of the candle. Once we're strong enough to survive it, I'll be able to do a lot more."

I shake my head in disbelief. She's completely insane.

"No," I declare. "We're not doing that. We've got enough things trying to kill us without adding ourselves to the list."

"Yeah, I wasn't asking your permission, Vi," Maggie sneers. "You can either help, or I can work around you. But we'll be a lot more likely to survive if you're not a total bitch about it."

"I'm the—oh, you have got to be kidding me!" I waver as a dizzy spell hits me. I think my nose is still bleeding. "If you think you can hold our safety hostage just for your selfish—"

"Wait," Allison interrupts. "Please, you two, stop fighting."

"Allie! You're awake!" I cry, a wave of relief washing over me.

"Yaaaay," Maggie deadpans sarcastically.

Allie sighs. "Vi, we were already planning to balance out our attributes. There's no harm in following Mag's plan."

"Hah!" Maggie laughs. "Looks like you're outnumbered, bitch!"

I clench my teeth, but Allison interjects before I can respond.

"Maggie, be nice!" she demands. "And could you not swear so much? Vi would be a lot more willing to cooperate with you if you didn't keep insulting her."

"I'll say what I want, when I want, and to whomever I want," Maggie retorts. "Neither of you get to tell me what to do."

"I'm not. I'm just saying, you'll catch more flies with honey," Allie says. "And Vi is right too. Magic is dangerous. I saw the same thing you did, Mag, and I know it will destroy us if we approach it carelessly. I'm not going to ask you to stop—there's too much potential—but you do need to slow down before you get us killed."

"I...I guess," Maggie mutters. "But she wasn't listening!"

"You weren't actually explaining anything," I counter. "You just lectured me about a bunch of nonsense, called me stupid, and then almost popped our head like a balloon to make the world's saddest fireball!"

"Violet, calm down," Allie says in the kind of slow and measured tone you use with an angry toddler. "If there's one thing we can all agree on, it's that we'll only survive if we all work together."

I take a deep breath, then let it out slowly. Allison is right, of course. I can't lose my cool here. If I can't stop Maggie from experimenting with this new power she's discovered, then working with her to mitigate the risks is the next best thing.

"Alright," I concede. "If we're going to be stuck together from now on, then it's important that we get along. Maggie, I'm sorry—I think we got off on the wrong foot. If it's alright with you, I'd like it if we could start over, as friends."

"Hard pass," she drawls. "But I guess in the interest of not dying, I'll try to play ball."

I close my eyes and purse my lips. Don't let her get to you, Vi. You've only known her for ten minutes. I bury my face in my palms and groan. Ten minutes, and I'm going to have to put up with this for the rest of my life.

And I thought Allison would be disappointed.