Gregor shakes his head, “Most people think about how to cajole the System into giving them favors. This isn’t even a bad idea as it can work. While the System isn’t affected by emotions or similar, it does understand that rewarding people for doing its will allows for greater control. There are entire guilds based around teasing out whatever the System is currently annoyed with and using any means necessary to fix things.”

Jason’s eyes go wide, “Well that sounds important. Last time I checked I don’t have the best relationship with the System. Will I have a bunch of crazed System lackeys coming down on my head?”

Gregor laughs, “Luckily you don’t have to worry about that. The kind of things they manage to figure out are at a much larger scale. After all, they aren’t System worshipers, they’re mercenaries who believe they are working for the biggest wallet. If the things they found to do could be accomplished by a smaller group of people, they wouldn’t have formed multiple guilds.

“No, what they deal with isn’t on the individual scale, ever. I will be honest that I don’t know the most about them. We run a pretty tight ship in this region of the world. In fact, most places do. From what I’ve heard most of the guilds like that are on the edges of civilization. Most of the jobs they end up figuring out involve things like rogue kingdoms, liches who have gone too far by building empires of undead, and new monster varieties that break the rules in a way that the System isn’t allowed to mess with but would very much prefer to not exist.”

Jason raises an eyebrow, “Yeah, any job that requires a guild would involve their guild. What if when individuals found out something they can take care of on their own we don’t find out about it? After all, people kill monsters, locals, and players all the time. I doubt the System rains money from the heavens on them.”

Gregor pauses, “Good point. I still doubt it will be much of a problem for you. After all, you aren’t actually breaking the rules. Sapients have a lot more leeway on what they can do on a personal scale and you travellers go above and beyond that. Take my lich example. The System doesn’t hate necromancers. Most nations do but you won’t ever see the System discriminating against them.

“It is only when they go too far that the System cares. After a certain point, they just ruin entire ecosystems and that would require fixing once they’re gone. If a lich could be satisfied with a kingdom, they would be fine. And there are some that are like that, though mostly the rare non-evil ones. Too bad they aren’t the most stable.

“Most liches end up evil not because they intend to be evil but because they lose any interest beyond self interest. You know the story, some super powerful being that feels they are beyond mortal concerns. I’ve heard travellers refer to it as blue and orange morality. Something so far beyond mortal understanding that we just can’t relate.

“Our answer to that is to laugh of course. We don’t have some set morality system here and things will vary from place to place but that doesn’t mean you get to claim your own unique morality. If you do things I consider evil, you aren’t beyond comprehension, you're evil. Anyway, was there anything else you wanted to talk about?”

Jason shakes his head, “I’m going to hang out with the others when they get back. We might be hanging out tomorrow but that will be more of a sightseeing thing.”

Gregor laughs, “I know how that is. Peter would occasionally drag me to one place or another. They were, of course, lovely places. But I would have preferred to just spend the time with him. I think he has figured that out after being told a few hundred times. Now he just brings some interesting trinkets home and tells me about his trip.”

Conversation finished Jason goes back to the den and settles in to wait for the others. It doesn’t take long, though. While they did have some things to do, they had been mostly ready to begin. In fact, most of what Rosha wanted to do involved bringing Lily around the place to get as much rabbit time in as possible before they had to separate.

Jason didn’t mind it too much, but as the time to leave got closer the time he spent with Lily had decreased at a sharp pace. It was even to the extent that if he didn’t specifically ask for her back, Rosha would have her “sleep over”. Much to the annoyance of Jason, Lily, and even Courtney. Still, they put up with it.

While it would be hard to describe Rosha as neglected, her family background isn’t exactly the easiest to deal with. Even Lily could tell something wasn’t right and so put up with her. Not that Lily didn’t enjoy her company. But she definitely enjoyed sitting with Jason while he cultivated as it pushed away all the other powers in the air. Like a breath of fresh air, it allowed her to relax before bed. Not that she fully understood what was going on, but the difference was obvious enough.

Though now that Lily can see Jason sitting down by the firepit, she takes the chance to jump out of Rosha’s arms. Rosha frowns but Courtney is the one to speak up. “You’re back a bit early? Did everything go alright?”

Jason shrugs, “Just subverting the System’s control over me. A few other things happened and my stats are overall higher but I basically can’t get stat bonuses from equipment anymore. Any equipment bonus needs to be silly high to work for me.”

Rosha rolls her eyes, “Like, you’re still wearing your beginner gear.”

Jason laughs, “You don’t look to be doing much better. I might not be the best judge of quality but you’re still in the patchwork special.”

Akhier

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