-Micah Scollon-

Glancing around to make sure no one was following me or noticed I was here, I knocked on the door of one of the apartments in Rainbow Rope’s Caketopia; after a few seconds the door opened to reveal Celeste, now a taffy twined with a sugary rope wrapped around her right leg. It was still fucking insane to think both Celeste and Levi were taffy twined now, witch-cursed! I mean it was one thing for Jean to willingly become a sweet tooth, he was obsessed with this place, but Celeste and Levi were secret spellmen, pretty non-combative ones at that. 

“Micah, glad you came through the front door this time,” commented Celeste with a smile and she glanced over to the pair of portal doors installed into the wall of the apartment’s living room. 

“Yeah well, it would be rude to meet up with my classmates unannounced and through the window,” I replied with a half-shrug, making sure to keep to the fib that our PR people told us to do: Celeste and Levi were our classmates from college and us dropping by their place here in Enigma all the times was perfectly normal. Which yeah it was all true: we were all enrolled at the satellite campus of UNLV affiliated with the Goltinium Guild and we did hang out naturally outside of spellman and delver stuff.

“That is true… anyway come inside, everyone else is already here.”

“Thanks, I will.” Looking around as I entered, I noticed that Louella and Jean were at the kitchen counter with Levi who was deftly making a snack board with his overly pale hands and sugary rope of an extra appendage. Hearing me enter, Levi looked up with a frown for a split second before sighing and commenting,

“Oh, it’s just you Micah. I thought it was another person asking for enchanted jewelry.”

“It’s not my fault that you let it slip that you’re a Teppes-Asscher,” I shot back as Celeste closed the door. I mean seriously, why would you tell an entire apartment block of delvers and mages and people to become them that you’re a part of a family famous for its bloodstone creation and enchantments. “So what’s the situation?”

“Celeste and Levi wise?” replied Louella before continuing, “All the system assistants are fully aware but aren’t going to tell people about it and the other blackzone managers know that two of the taffy twined are spellmen but aren’t going to press. Quest wise, Celeste managed to get us an oracle report.”

“The quest reward that I got was actually valuable enough that the Goltinium Guild put me as one of the heads for completing the oracle report,” followed up Celeste, giving us one of her rare signature grins as she readjusted her glasses. No surprise there: she got an artificial system slot’s connection that acted as an empowerment to a system slot’s connection to the Hybrid System of Warring Cores, not only giving access to a Hybrid-Derivative System but also having the three tags of blessed, system-forged, and reality-rifted. Probably wasn’t strong as what the alt rhi, Wesley, or the double witch-cursed, C-Anita C, got but it gave her a serious boost and some access to that weird capstone magic upperclassman were talking about on campus. Remains of the preterphysical dam and stupidly ancient relics turned generators and stabilizers of magic and reality, huh… I mused as I remembered what I heard about the source of capstone magic, the metaversal cornerstones.

“And now we know a bunch more about Robert’s quest right?” piped up Jean, already taking bits of meat and cheese from the snack board.  

“Yes we do… and while this is definitely a prelude to an epic quest of some sort, it’s not pretty…” With a wave of her and a flash of light from an eye-like sigil on it, the oracle report appeared and started to float in front of us. “Borolio of the Plagues Clouds is actually on a beeline to the Endless Strip, that and a herald known as the Starving Pillars Limos will be appearing around the same time.”

“You’re fucking kidding right?” I shouted in shock. “An end of days and herald?!”

“I’m not, plague and famine in hand and hand. Which Robert’s quest is supposed to help with.”

“Shit, this is an all hands on deck situation isn’t it?”

“That’s what it’s looking like. Yokum and Julien are already scouting a place out in the Cesire Babel, Aya, Francis, Astrid, and Esarathon are doing the same in Rainbow Rope District and Crestier, and the rest of us are doing our prep work for helping out.”

“Armin is in a real fury over planning how he can help from behind the scenes with the rest of our secret housemates,” quipped Louella with a laugh before taking a few bites from the snack board also. Of course he would, I thought to myself, already imagining our secret other half’s strategist working on pouring over books in the campus and guildhall libraries and making deals with the Goltinium Guild.

“So what are Celeste and Levi going to be doing? More public stuff that’s not broadcasting they are spellmen?” I asked as I went to sit down and process everything more fully.

“We’re going to stick to the sidelines and help the residents of Historie Pastoria Sweets,” explained Levi before conjuring up a small oval bloodstone for emphasis. “I got my enchanting and gemstone creation and she has her predictions and communications down pat.”

“Yeah our cover shouldn’t be blown even if we help you out and we shouldn’t worry about anyone getting accidentally smited by info-karmic retribution,” followed up Celeste, still manipulating the oracle report’s pages with her capstone magic. Even without Silent Reader helping out, I could tell she was being sincere about this and already thought everything out; which was perfect cause I have to convince her or Levi to pitch in more directly now that they were taffy twined. Of course now we had to plan our next step since we need help Robert and the others win ten more battles.

After a bit of deliberation and snacks, we decided that Celeste and Levi would stay in Historie Pastoria Sweets proper outside of classes and the occasional foray into one of the Enigma-super distortion’s areas with pocket dimensions from the hybrid system. As for myself, Louella, and Jean would go see how we can help Yokum and Julien in the Cesire Babel since they were prepping some sort of raid with two of the commanders of enlightened gingerbread men, C-Anita C and D-John C. It was annoying to think that we could make full use of our portfolio of mandalas while dealing with Hybrid System of Warring Cores, but at least the Goltinium Guild helped us make multi-system slots out of a synthesis between our Sins of the SteelStar system slot’s connections and Hybrid System of Warring Core one so that we could power-link one of our more used mandalas. 

They better hold up their promise for getting us easy access for a second multi-system slot using the Asset System instead of the Game System. I don’t feel like pulling a Jean, I quipped to myself as the three of us made our way to the pocket dimension that Yokum and Julien were in. I mean seriously, was Jean that obsessed with system slots and the Halo System that he had to make one so he could power-link his Alihi’a’Pounga one to his Hybrid System of Warring Cores connection? Might as well just try to be a neo-sentient or something to get the extra system slots.

“So this pocket dimension is in a private divergent distortion of some freaky bigwig in big pharma?” asked Jean as we exited the teleportation pad room in Golden Local Imports.

“Yes, Howard Hoti, you don’t hear much about him these days cause he does well to stay out of the mainstream media’s limelights,” answered Louella with a nod, obviously getting directions from her system assistant, Iris, on where to go for the easiest jump over into the pocket dimensions. “His private divergent distortion is extensive and well hidden, spanning multiple worlds including outside of the metaverse proper. Apparently it is embroiled enough in the Hybrid System of Warring Cores that it has multiple pocket dimensions, including ones beyond stage 0, and also hosts the main headquarters for an entire faction.”

“Oh wow. Wait, beyond stage 0? You mean like pocket dimensions that have alterations and monsters and stuff in them? The ones that Prof. Kinsley told us about?”

“Yeah,” I replied with an eye roll, annoyed that the masked procyon didn’t bother to pay closer attention to the seminar we all attended over the hybrid system, the seminar that actually required us to use some points of our cred with the Goltinium Guild to get into. “So Louella, do we have any good information on this guy’s divergent distortion?”

“It’s a representation of how Howard Hoti views the world as testing grounds for vaccines apparently, the name Turing’s Vaccine Testing Grounds is very on the nose about it. That and it’s connected to Medcivkil hub from the Tenebrous Web of this universe group, not that we’re likely to be dealing with any influence from the Corruption System behind the fact the Hybrid System of Warring Cores uses it in its composition,” answered the noblewoman as lightning mana crackled in her hair.

“Guess that means the prophecy was on the nose too huh, sadomasochistic hypochondriac.” 

“That Micah, is an understatement.”

“Yeah that isn’t reassuring at all,” I muttered under my breath, feeling the influence of Hybrid System of Warring Core grow stronger and stronger until we finally made the jump over to the pocket dimension side of things. Feeling the hybrid system suppressing the full use of my portfolio of mandalas to the point that it was a hassle and a pain to even though about pushing against it, I activate my system slot’s connection and its empowerment: with a metallic clang, a rifle with my To Whom underbarrel shotgun attached to it. It was definitely basic compared to my usual loadout, especially since I could make use of my spirit-wrought bullets, but at least the Rifleman and Modified Gunner (Shotgun) kits meant I could stick to my normal fight style.

Making our way to Vaccine Testing Grounds, the three of us ended up joining a small group of enlightened gingerbread urbanites and their non-enlightened counterparts making their way to the threshold of this particular pocket dimension. One jump through a swirling vortex later, we were staring at a cityscape made of weirdly organic griger-esque buildings made out of monochrome ceramics and plastics. Glancing around, I noticed Yokum with his White Tiger Arms lesser spell specialty active and Julien with his demon Lucy surrounded by another small group of gingerbread urbanites. 

Counting up the numbers, I noted there were around fifty of us in total, but only about a few short of two dozen of us actually being enlightened or at least not just normal sentients tied to a dungeon-like distortion. Welp, time to beat the crap out of the hypochondriac lunatics.