Tutorial's End

The New Arrival's Guide to Common Things

by Jorbon Delivas

Now that we've covered some of the basics about social expectation, I wish to discuss enforcement. In particular, enforcers. It's quite likely you will hear whispered conversation of enforcers in taverns and bars, extolled and reviled on forums, and reported on in various lights in new outlets. The details will seem muddy and confusing to the uninitiated: so allow me to initiate you!

Enforcers are, as their name implies, the mechanism by which laws and agreements are enforced*. As previously covered, the specifics of the rules and penalties vary, but it's the enforcer's job to execute penalties and verify contracts are upheld. They are, in many ways, the backbone of maintaining civilization as a whole together. Without enforcers, society would rapidly devolve into chaos - with no incentive or requirement to provide the immovable frame upon which social agreements of all kinds are built upon.

Frella

Underground Lake, Second Layer, Chimera M 63

Frella was exhausted. She found her body sagging immediately as she laid out her sleeping mat and sat atop it. To her left Hosh put his own mat down and she felt slightly better at her own lack of posture as he flopped atop it and fell asleep immediately.

Poli approached on her right and laid out his more circular pad, with its built-in hydration enchantments and other high end environmental regulation systems. He clearly needed it right now, as the Wāskan's normally purple skin was tending closer to ashy gray. A clear sign of dehydration, acute desalination, and over-exposure to ambient temperatures which his species was ill equipped to handle.

Despite his condition, Poli nodded at her and asked before laying down, "Agree with Prism's orders?"

Although she honestly wasn't sure if it was the right call, Frella had agreed to follow the other woman's orders and she wasn't about to go back on her word so quickly. So, she just nodded. Satisfied with her nonverbal reply, Poli curled his body up on itself and the pad wrapped itself around him on all sides, appearing like nothing so much as a giant slimy egg.

Glancing around, she saw most of the others were likewise preparing themselves for much needed sleep. They were setup in a small cavern which was almost entirely dominated by a small body of water. The lake, or pond, really, was crystal clear and flowed gently as it fed into a tiny passage too small even for the little pink fairy - Iris - to fit through.

The only other entrance to this place was a claustrophobic tunnel which Loivl had barely fit through. The large minotaur having had to twist and bend at unnatural and likely painful angles to get in. It was worth it, though. At least, they hoped it would be. It was well known that grubuers avoided water at all costs. They breathed through their skin, and even small amounts of liquid could cause their respiratory system to clog. Had they someone with an ability or spell for water conjuration, the monsters would have been trivial to deal with. As it was, they had to conserve the precious resource.

Once the entire party had squeezed into the room, they had done what they could to secure the entrance. Kash had used the majority of the rest of his mana to cast Passage from Sanctuary, which would conceal the tunnel from beings which wished them ill. All remaining mana had been used healing the worst of the many wounds the party was carrying.

Koll had setup several traps, the underworld gremlin's many traps and affinity with the earth a massive boon. Yet, he'd sounded uncertain about the efficacy against some of the types of monsters they'd been fighting this running battle with. In particular, the chaslim could simply have the earth swallow the traps up - if they noticed them in time.

Poli had created layers of barriers with his remaining mana, a gesture which Frella had almost chastised him for as she knew his shields had to be consciously maintained. Thus, it was a waste of both mana and willpower. Before she could get to dressing down her second, though, Phoenix had stepped up and tapped each shield in order. Frella wasn't sure what she did, exactly, except that she had somehow made them stay. Even after Poli had walked away, far beyond his ability's range allowed, they'd remained. Even now, their soft orange glow brought her a bit of comfort.

As protected as they could possibly be, the party had walked directly through the knee-high water which dominated the room. There was a very small patch of dry ground on the far side of the cavern.

Once they'd reached said patch, it was time for the party to get some much needed rest. Of course, they couldn't just trust their safety to the tunnel's traps and various defenses. They needed a watch, and they'd have one. Though, a watch comprised of only one being, and not the one Frella had expected.

Phoenix had initially appeared entirely unaffected by the forced march and alertness. Among all of them, she had maintained perfect form during every fight - any mistakes more due to lack of experience than attention. She'd retained high spirits, too, apparently unconcerned about the ceaseless assaults. The woman even seemed to enjoy it. Her tactics and movements adapting to each new composition of enemy forces with a natural ease which was frankly concerning. Even now, the short human was chattering happily with Quiz. A mischievous grin plastered on her lips as the gray human-like man stared at her with near despondency.

Yet, it wasn't the unflappable pugilist who would be keeping watch. According to System, Phoenix was as exhausted as the rest of them and was simply burning an ability constantly to remain alert. The revelation had shocked and horrified her. Such abilities weren't rare, so she understood immediately that there was likely a cost beyond just mana if she could channel it for this long uninterrupted. Oblivious to Frella's gaze, Phoenix finished antagonizing her party mate, laid out her own sleeping pad, and promptly passed out. It looked like she hadn't even finished laying down before fatigue took her, if her awkward and uncomfortable looking position was anything to go by.

Finishing her scan of the small pocket of earth at the far side of the little lake, she found two others still awake. To her slight annoyance, neither were from her own party. System and Prism were talking quietly. System appeared tired, but no where near as dead on his feet as the rest of them, minus Phoenix. Which might have proved he was the best to take watch, except he wasn't going to.

No, the last member, or perhaps first if Frella thought about it as a chain of command, would be their over watch. Prism. It was so difficult to read the empty-gazed woman that Frella wasn't sure how tired she was. She was walking as easily now as when they'd started, at least on the surface. There had been plenty of proof that she was worn though. She took longer to give orders, her deliberate movements in battle changed from economical to downright reserved. Several times, Frella had seen her wait until it was nearly too late to take a half-step, letting a claw or snapping jaw miss my micrometers. She'd taken injuries, too. Not many, but a few.

And yet she was confident she could keep watch as the rest of them slept. She'd ordered everyone to bed, stating she would keep watch and once a few of them woke, she'd take her own turn. When Frella had suggested - demanded really - that they take watch in pairs, Prism had just shaken her head and said it wouldn't matter if she ordered it or not - no one else would be able to remain awake while still.

Seeing the almost corpse-like state of the rest of the party, Frella had to admit Prism was mostly right. However, she'd still keep watch with their new leader - ordered or not. Prism could hardly force her to sleep, after all.

She'd just sit here on her bedroll for the padding, and she'd use her lumpy and uncomfortable pack as a backrest. That would ensure she had no chance of falling asleep and—

Naomi

Edge of a Pond, Second Layer, Chimera M 63

Naomi felt the moment each of her party members fell asleep, the little motes of her mana she kept circulating through their bodies to relay their emotions and physical state informing her as emotions smoothed and consciousness fell away to allow their bodies to recover.

The tiredness they all felt was present within her as well, though held at bay as she slowly burned the energy reserves she'd stolen from their opponents. At first, she'd found it quite easy to steal energy, will, and even life force from the various monsters which threw themselves against them. She did so subtly, so as not to tip her hand to Frella and her party. The elf was skittish about her party, and Naomi herself in particular, still.

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Revealing the ability to simply kill the enemies by removing whatever esoteric bit of themselves she cared to target would hardly ease that concern. Yet, that ease had eroded over the last two days. Had she not been carefully monitoring her energy levels, both physical and mental, she would have assumed it was due to some form of lethargy. She had been monitoring, though, and knew that wasn't the problem.

No, it appeared their enemies, the monsters, were adapting to her mana somehow. This was, to put it lightly, concerning. Monsters should not have the means to realize what she was doing, much less develop defenses against it. Willow hadn't been able to properly detect her mana, much less defend against it. The fact monsters could was a worry.

It indicated one of a few things. First, it could be that the monsters they were facing were becoming progressively stronger - the different waves comprised of ever more empowered members of their various species. Second, given how often the attackers retreated, it could be that they were the exact same individual creatures raiding each time and they were developing some kind of natural resistance. She found it unlikely, given none of her party had ever seemed to gain resistance, nor any of the crew on the Phoenix's nest for that matter. Perhaps monsters had a more natural capacity for adapting to unknown mana which threatened them, though.

Lastly, the monsters were working with someone or something which was able to grant them improved resistance directly. She'd subtly questioned Frella, Poli, and Loivl separately about different components of her theory. It seemed entirely possible that there was a mastermind who was either able to see through the monster's eyes, or fully understand their reports. The former seemed ever more likely, as a path that provided such a capability would likely also grant them a way to communicate the need to defend themselves against external mana which they didn't even notice.

On a positive note, the monster's slow adaptation to her mana gave her an example of how one could defend against it. This would let her help Willow with that, while also shoring up the weakness so such a defense was impossible. Teaching Willow how to resist wouldn't really help her against Naomi herself in that case, but if Naomi had mana which couldn't be easily detected then others likely did as well. It was worthwhile to shore up her weakness.

"Piper." Naomi said softly, not raising her voice. At the same time, she made the symbol Willow always used to summon her from wherever the guide went when she wasn't 'with' them.

Popping into existence on her shoulder, the little pink woman rested tiny hands on equally tiny hips and asked in an imperious and mock-serious tone, "You called, my liege?"

Turning her head only slightly, enough to properly get a look at Piper, Naomi inclined her head slightly. "I did. I'd like to request your assistance against our enemies."

The haughty posture deflated like an untied balloon. Her shoulders slumped, and she sighed deeply, "I'd love to! I just haven't figured out how to use any spells that'll really help in a fight, you know? Madrick is teaching me one, but it's way harder to learn than step back was! He said it's cuz step back is so simple even a little fool like me can do it." She pouted at the last bit and kicked gently at Naomi's shoulder.

Lifting her lips in a gentle smile and softening her eyes, Naomi tried to project comfort and understanding. "It's fine, Piper. I'm not asking for help in our battles, I just want you to find what is coordinating the monsters, if anyone is. It could be some kind of alpha monster who has taken charge, or it could be sentient beings who decided to hunt us. Willow thinks it's Madrick, but I doubt he could coordinate this directly without you catching him at it, with how long you've been on observation duty."

Piper nodded, "Madrick's not really doing much. He just kind of hangs around the edges of wherever you all are to keep an eye. He's just over there right now." She pointed up toward a shallow alcove with just enough room for one person which sat along one edge of the shallow body of water they'd crossed to get here.

"Exactly. So, let's not waste your talent for finding people. We've had to stop following the path you found toward Hama, since we don't want to get the shaman wrapped up in our troubles… But we could use a new path. One that leads us to whoever is doing this, so we can end it." She glanced around at all the silent bodies littering the ground in a somewhat haphazard manner and sighed deeply for Piper's benefit. "We can't go on like this for much longer. The raw potentia is nice, but unless we want to just constantly spend it on energy reserves it's not all that useful for keeping us going. We need a way to decisively end these raids."

"Got it, I'll go take a look!" Piper agreed, vanishing with a pair of short steps across her shoulder.

Piper

Stepped Back

Looking around at the orbs of different areas, Piper crossed her arms under her chest and fell deep in thought. There were dozens of possibilities, which was paired way down from when she'd started.

Just like when searching for Hama, there was a shocking number of possible places matching what she intended to find. Being too specific just found nothing, unfortunately. She'd tried, "Person, creature, or thing controlling or commanding the creatures attacking Willow and her party" but that had come back with no orbs at all.

At first Piper had been planning to pop back and just tell Naomi that no one was in charge of the monsters, but after thinking a bit more she started trying different variations and slowly got less specific with her intended target. After some more tries, she realized that her intentions were both more and less than she really wanted them to be. When she thought of 'person, creature, or thing' the words were super generic, but the things she was actually thinking about were specific. She only knew of a handful of beings she'd call 'persons', and her list of 'creature' was even less! She knew she meant something way more general, but apparently her intention didn't.

It was annoying, but she'd just have to be a little more generic. So she'd tried things like, 'anything wishing Willow harm' which had been a really really shockingly large number of orbs. Like, billions. Maybe… What comes after billions? Kajillions? Potillions?

Anyway, that'd been too general but had given her something to start with. Just like with Hama, she slowly added more and more criteria to her search. Now, she was looking at just a couple dozen possibilities.

Concerningly, two of them were familiar. Katha and the guy that Madrick scared nearly to death. Apparently they both still meant her mother harm. Katha, at least, should stick her to promise to at least try and get to know Willow a bit before being too judgy. At least Piper hoped she would. She didn't really think the elf, who was naked still, or again, was much of a true threat to her mother though so she moved on.

The rest weren't familiar as she examined each and moved on. It wasn't that she was disregarding any of these, but she wanted to look at each one before trying to eliminate any. Her hope was that it'd be super obvious and she'd just know when she saw.

Her hope was absolutely on the money! She found them. There was a man and a woman, the man a human and the woman another elf, sitting on what looked like makeshift thrones. They were leaning forward as if listening, as two assids and their gross not-dog things made noises at them.

Perfect! She could just give a path and… The woman's head suddenly snapped up, furious red eyes staring directly at Piper. That had never happened and she felt an odd sensation. Her belly seemed to leap up into her throat and rush down toward her bottom all at once in a jolt of unsettling motion. Before Piper could react, the orb broke!

It shattered, as if made of glass and shards went flying everywhere. One of them went directly through Piper's torso and she looked down at it in horror. It hurt! A lot! She'd never really experienced pain, per say. She'd been slapped, and burned, and splatted, and a bunch of other stuff, but it'd all been in good fun! This, though? It felt like… Like… Like there was glass in her chest!

She only cried a little as she took the couple steps necessary to appear before Naomi again. She pouted with teary eyes and pointed at the sliver of… There was nothing there. Her tears redoubled as she felt embarrassment roar to life, mocking her for acting like a baby like pointing at herself like a dumb little kid or something.

"The orb broke and a piece of it stabbed me!" She rapidly explained, before Naomi could judge or tease her. Not that Naomi had ever done either, that was more mother's thing.

A few minutes of Naomi gently asking questions helped Piper relax and relay what had happened properly. Now that she was back in reality, the pain from the shard was gone. Though, she was a bit worried about going back. A concern Naomi apparently shared, as she requested that she quickly use the spell again then immediately come back. She wanted Piper to verify whether she was still wounded in that other place she went.

Screwing up her courage, she did as asked. As soon as she found herself in the stepped back place, the pain returned in full force. A ripping, horrible sensation. Before returning, she did her best Willow impersonation, squaring her shoulders, putting on a stupid grin that didn't match the situation at all, and RIPPED the piece of glass out! It hurt even more coming out than it had going in, and her vision wobbled.

Staggering the two steps necessary, Piper managed to leave the space. This time when she appeared, she was still holding the glass. Rather, she was holding a shard of a dark material that seemed to eat at all the light around it ravenously.

Yelping, she threw the offending object away. It clanged sharply as it hit the ground, but didn't dissipate or vanish as she'd half expected.

Naomi leaned down, and Piper used her wings to remain at Naomi-shoulder level away from it. In fact, she even rose as the woman straightened back up, the tiny sliver of black-horror resting in her palm.

"Interesting." She said. "I'll keep this for now, unless you want it, Piper?"

"NO!" She yelled, "Keep that thing away from me!" She made a little cross gesture with her fingers in front of herself. Not that she knew why, the expression just seemed right.

"Okay. How did you feel after taking it out? I assume this is what stabbed you?"

"Yeah. Except, in the other place it was clear glass not… That."

Naomi nodded, then asked, "And how did you feel?"

"Like I was going to die." Piper said, entirely serious for once. She'd proclaimed her own end was coming many, many, many times. Yet she'd never actually believed it until now. Then again, she'd never really felt pain until now, either. So maybe it wasn't that bad and she just didn't have much pain tolerance?

Nodding again, Naomi ordered, "Don't go back until Willow can take a look at you. Maybe she can infuse you with some ability to heal or something."

"Ooooh, that's a good idea! I never needed that before since I'm invincible… Or… I thought I was…" Her wings faltered and she fell a bit as her body slumped. Not actually being invincible was quite an unpleasant revelation. Especially when she realized she had no idea if she'd respawn.

That weird belly sensation happened again. "I think i'm gonna go rest with mother…" She informed Naomi before floating off.

Finding Willow sprawled only half atop her mat on her back, mouth hanging open, one arm thrown up over her head while the other was trapped under her butt, Piper couldn't help but giggle a bit and the knot her innards had turned into loosened.

Alighting on Willow's belly, Piper laid down. This time, she closed her eyes and intentionally willed herself to sleep. The first time had caught her off guard, but this time she managed to enjoy a gentling sensation as her mind slipped away and her body relaxed.