I ate my own pastry and followed it with water from my waterskin. We’d made decent progress so far, but I wouldn’t feel restful until we’d cleared the bounties under our name. 

Justin’s level granted him some sort of feat that allowed him to weave in and out of combat casting spells without opening himself up to additional cuts and scrapes that most mages risked when their hands and minds were on spellcasting. This was fortunate for me, as it not only took the pressure off of my acting as his shield, but also allowed me to use some of my abilities that benefit from flanking opponents. 

During a couple of the fights, I left my notes and Guidance Stat Panel open, fully opaque between myself and the ettercaps that had wandered in from the Whyld substrate. They didn’t know what to do about the floating polygons at first, and it allowed me to stab at them through the insubstantial floating plane.

Justin commented, “Oh huh, I’d have never expected that to work. The game- the world is different, and seeing how the menus work for, um, everyone is weird. Like, the game didn’t have that mechanic for [Internally Motivated]” 

“Thank you. In fairness, I didn’t know if it would work either, but it increased my [Ingenuity] skill by a point. There were old stories about a trickster that could change the colors of their Divine Guidance to hide against walls. I was just wondering if I could use them for something more simple and distracting.”

“Yeah. When you opened, er, Guidance screens in the game, the whole world would stop time. It’s weird to adjust to using them on the fly, while they consume stamina.”

“Hmm. I am surprised you haven’t leveled faster. I have a minor bonus to experience while on a team, but you seem to be leveling exceedingly slow.” 

“I, ah, have a feat that increases my rate of ability score growth but reduces the amount of experience I gain from enemies lower level than myself.”

At one point, we came across a grate door that looked both imposing and heavily locked. 

“That’s heading south. I wonder if it grants us access to Central Sumar. I know there are some broken gates that you can get into Central Sumar from South Sumar, but I’ve realized the game doesn’t render all the sewers, just the ones with, um, plot.”

“I will not impress upon you the expectation of infallibility then.”

He laughed and said, “Let’s see if I can’t get this gate open.”

“Can you open gates? Do you have the tools for it?”

“I can use minor telekinesis and my [Arcanics] skill to function for any [Nimbleness] tools I know how to use. And, uh, I learned lockpicking when I was fourteen or so. In real- er, before I was in Sanctum.”

“How could anyone have suspected you of being dangerous enough to deserve the high-security prison.”

Justin fiddled at the gate. After about two minutes, the telltale click of a large padlock opening followed. He looked back at me, a teen proud of their skills. 

“Very good. Go ahead and lock it. We need to finish these contracts, but perhaps tomorrow night, we can search for how these invaders shall infest the park.”

“Tomorrow night? But- I mean, shouldn’t we start now?”

“I’d considered it. Our constraint is that we need to finish these contracts, turn them in, and then use some of the proceeds to fund a nice outfit for you. We have dinner with the governor this evening.”

“Oh god, I forgot about that. Can we skip it?”

“It would be quite rude to your rescuer, and the governor is sure to have a lot of information about the coronation. I was surprised he made time for us at all, given his likely schedule… Is there something wrong with the governor? Does he have a role in the war and attempted coup?”

“What- Dameron? No, he’s sort of complacent at first, focusing on keeping the city under control after the… um, riots but eventually realizes that the false emperor is, in fact, false and is using everyone. He helps out in the end and turns the city guard against the turncoat royal guard.”

I didn’t want to know. I had to asked, “Are the riots you mentioned the ones that killed all the Kobolds in the city?” Did he expect me to forget that first jab, that comment that unsettled me when we’d first met?

Justin looked a little green in the darkened shadows of the sewers. “Yeah among other things, like burning down an elven consulate that was advocating for an armistice. Sorry.”

“We are working to prevent this small genocide. You do not need to apologize.”

He flinched at the word I used, but nodded. I had an inkling why.

“What is your world like, Justin, the one that created ours? Does it have the same problems we have, or are these games merely thought-experiments?” Fiction ranged the gamut, showing worlds far better than ours and some more grim. I presumed there was some parallel

“It’s… not so different in a lot of ways. We don’t have guidance screens or magic. [Mechanics] rule the world, and we’ve adapted lightning to substitute for many of the things magic can be used for, like creating illusions on flat surfaces. There are… genocides, but not recent ones where I’m from, though lots of people are dying from a virus because businesses want to open and conspiracy theories. There’s structural racism, sexism, and bigotry, which is, um, probably why it’s so prevalent here. The writers were working from what they knew. When you play the game, its all so distant, and told to you via voice lines. It doesn’t feel real, on the other side of the computer screen. Er, a flat illusion.”

“Well, I am glad.”

“You are?”

“Yes. I would be less excited if my suffering was merely the result of some pure joy experiment, rather than a reflection of reality. Creating suffering for entertainment only is… beyond acceptable.”

“Huh.”

“Let’s go hunt some ground lampreys. I want to get that one over with and - aside from a random encounter - it is most likely going to be the one we get hurt on, of the remaining tasks.”

We finished the contracts and left the undercity just before daybreak. 

“So we just turn these contracts in and then go-” he yawned, “-then go shopping again?”

“We turn these in, go to a spa, and then sleep, then go shopping. We need to get you on a regular sleeping schedule and we both need more than a wash in my apartment basin.”

“Does the spa have… heated water? Its been, god, eight years since I’ve taken a real bath. They just had a cold stream in Sanctum. It’s so not fun.”

“That is barbaric. All the more reason to turn these quickly.”

Hadassah

I felt like it would make sense that I sort of address the usual creative writing question of "What would your characters think if they knew they were fictional" head on. I know a lot of characters would err towards railing against the gods that wrought them, but I felt that pragmatism probably befit Scaleen best. She'd already accepted that a person had impossible foresight into the future and changed her whole life trajectory on the confirmation of a couple of facts, after all.

Speaking of creations and their creators, if you happen to like that sort of meta dialogue and interaction, I highly recommend the anime Re:Creators. Its a very good story about a number of Japanese media character paradigms suddenly finding themselves in the 'realmo of the gods'. Some get to meet their creators, and ultimately, it has a lot of good discussion regarding creation and how it turns back and impacts the creator.