Chapter 1247 (2/2)

Congratulations! Your Skill Architecture of the Primordial Ways (M) has grown to Level 252!

Obviously, Randidly had created Kharon with a lot of functions in mind for the moss spirits beyond just sometimes condensing a physical body to assist in its defense. But he had been hard-pressed to find the time to work on that functionality before he had to face his Judgement and be dragged away from Earth. Although in this case, the delay ended up being a fruitful one, because the growth amongst the moss spirits as Kharon flourished did a lot to assuage his worries.

One by one, the others that Randidly had sent away to arrange for the experiments trickled back. As they gathered more volunteers and materials, the rest of the team assigned to Randidly stopped and looked in shock at the engineer that was treating her cement platform like a racecar. With a few whispered orders, she streaked past the space where the crowd was slowly gathering, banked into a tight curve, and then effortlessly landed on the ground. She took a step off with a smug look on her face.

Of course, all the real work was done by the moss spirits, Randidly thought with a twist of his mouth, but he didn’t interrupt the engineer’s moment of glory. There honestly was some danger in the attempt, although Randidly would have saved her if the bottom had dropped out from under her.

After the group had calmed down and started to get excited about the economic possibilities, Randidly stepped in and started giving them things to test. He stressed that they treat the moss spirits as intelligent, and recommended that they very quickly try and lay out an arrangement of reinforced bribes with the moss spirits.

Essentially, Randidly wanted them to find something that the moss spirits liked, like the engineer's whistling, and then repeat it as they slowly upped the requests for the moss spirits. Randidly suspected that long term, these sorts of payments would be enough to keep the moss spirits involved. But he had no real proof other than his intuition as their creator.

While the group began to experiment more systematically with the moss spirits, Randidly wandered off in search of Vye. She had asked for approval to have her independent mission be a mapping of the Wildlands and Randidly believed that it would be a good chance to see how moss spirits fared when they were away from Kharon for long periods of time. Because Randidly didn’t even know if the moss spirits could leave Kharon.

After traveling halfway back across Kharon, Randidly located Vye. He hesitated as he neared the building that he sensed her image in because she was clearly in her apartment. Randidly hesitated even more because he was almost uncomfortably aware of how sharp a picture Grim Intuition gave him of the interior of the apartment.

And inside, Vye was having an argument.

“Why are you acting like this is a surprise?” Vye gritted her teeth. “Did you think what I wanted changed? That you just waltzed into my life and changed me?”

“No, I-” The man rubbed his hand across his forehead. “I am just surprised that you are going to come home after a night of patrols, sit down for breakfast, and now tell me, ‘I’m leaving tomorrow, so maybe we should break up’. What the hell am I supposed to say to that? Am I supposed to say anything?”

“Well if you have nothing to say, then there’s nothing to say.” Vye sat down at the table and began to enthusiastically cut off a large chunk of fried ham.

“That’s not what I’m saying! I wish you would have…” But the man just sighed.

Vye’s hands tightened on her metal knife. “What, Todd? Do you wish I would have asked you? As though I need your permission before I follow my dream-”

“What the hell are you saying, V?” Todd turned away from the window where he had been standing. “YOU are the one who stomped in here ready to start a fight. You clearly don’t need my permission to go on this mission for the Order. But you know what pisses me off? That you didn’t even talk to me about it. That you didn’t ask me to come with you.”

“You’re Level 12, you wouldn’t be safe coming with me,” Vye cut across sharply. Todd’s face went red, then white, and then he bit his lip.

The two’s gazes locked. Todd stood at the window and looked toward Vye, who had a piece of ham skewered on a fork. Neither moved.

After about twenty seconds, Vye set down her fork. “You know what? I’m just going to grab something from a stand on Banner Street for breakfast today.”

“Just gonna walk out, huh? Good, good,” Todd said softly, turning away as Vye grabbed her stuff and left the apartment.

Standing out front, Randidly scratched his chin awkwardly. His first instinct was to back slowly away and talk to Vye later, but he also knew that part of leadership was advising on matters other than just combat and images.

That is, assuming of course, that she will want my advice… Randidly thought to himself. He tried to marshal his face into an expression that was more like ‘I’m very knowledgeable and therefore can guess what happened to you,’ than ‘I’ve been creepily eavesdropping on your personal conversations,’ as a teary-eyed Vye pushed her way out of the apartment building.

When she saw Randidly, she skidded to a stop and furiously wiped away her tears. “Ah… h-hey.”

“Hey,” Randidly responded simply. As he saw the genuine pain in her face, a lot of his own nervousness about the situation started to feel a little bit selfish and petty. He jerked his head down the street and tried his best to seem both convincing and soothing. “Let me buy you a coffee. Looks like you need it.”