The wall closed behind them with the smooth sounds of well-oiled machinery snapping into place. John, Chemilia and Beatrice entered Scarlett’s domain. Sitting in her swivel chair, back turned towards them, she was looking up to the giant screen that she usually employed to display the map of the region.

Currently, it was instead holding a bunch of code. Now, John barely had any background in coding. Best he could show was that he had been the best in the IT class, programming some minor things with Java. As such, proficient wasn’t a word he would use to describe himself.

The code on the screen, however, even without extended knowledge, did not fit any standard programming languages. Sure, it had all the square and pointy brackets one could want, but a number of arcane symbols in the code that had no place in the English language were rather telling that something was off.

“Okay, John, listen,” Scarlett suddenly spoke up, without looking over. “This line of code,” she waved towards the screen, causing one line to be outlined with blue marker, “is supposed to create a signature scan of the phone-holder’s magical footprint that then gets sent to the database.”

“Sure?” John answered, walking towards the table. Exchanging a confused glance with Chemilia, they watched the redhead as she continued on.

“It’s supposed to,” Scarlett’s finger’s tapped steadily on the armrest of her chair, “to make sure a first signature does not get immediate access to the program. They first have to be confirmed by the magical signature of a person with moderator access. That’s what this bit does…” the marked area changed, “…so why, the fuck, does it instead just create a backup in the moderator area on the server side, all while not giving access?”

“I don’t kno-“ John tried to tell her, wanting to ask what all of this was about, but Scarlett interrupted him.

“Be quiet, rubber duck, I’m explaining the code to you.” Her red eyes glared, the magical circuitry inside them flashing numerous times. Shutting up, although he was still supremely confused, he just listened to her ramble on, marking different areas as she talked about. “So this bit makes it scan, this bit checks whether they’re already in the database and what rank they have, and this bit creates a new entry if they aren’t. This bit then assigns a descriptor to the entry, depending on whether or not a moderator confirms them, giving them either the role of confirmed member or intruder… Ah, THERE IT IS!”

Scarlett suddenly jumped out of her seat. The expression on her face made it look like she had just succeeded in finding her mortal enemy and she was now taking the greatest pleasure in tearing them limb from limb. To John, it just looked like she changed a line of code. “Found the bug?” he asked, now having an inkling about what was going on.

“Yes,” Scarlett fell back into the armchair and turned towards her two visitors, the screen shutting off the moment she took her eyes off it. “Had the wrong shortcut set for intruder, so it would give the moderator title but the shut-out commands for those that aren’t confirmed overwrite the access commands so they still couldn’t use the program.”

“Well, I am sure you know what you’re doing.” John understood what she was talking about there, at least in theory, but he had no idea what she was doing broadly. “I just have two questions.”

“No, you have a million questions, because that’s the type of person you are,” Scarlett corrected him, fidgeting with a pack of cigarettes. She opened the box, it was almost full, only to toss it back on the table. “A pain in my fucking ass with all the things you keep wanting to know.”

“Last I checked you liked it when I was a pain in your ass,” John pointed out.

“True enough,” Scarlett conceded the point, resting her head on her knuckles. “Get the questions out of your system already. We have better plans for the rest of the day.”

He was about to point out that she wasn’t doing herself any favours by bantering back at any given opportunity, but decided to get on with it himself. “So, first: rubber duck?” that question was easy enough. Of all the things he had been called in his time, and thanks to Eliza that was a big catalogue, that one was new for him.

“I used you as a stand-in for one,” Scarlett explained with a semi-bored expression. “When programmers are stuck, it’s recommended they talk to some inanimate object and explain the code in detail for what it is supposed to do. Helps find bugs or ‘unwanted features’. It’s called the rubber duck method, so there ya go.”

That was easy enough, second question though. “Didn’t know you wrote the code, much less potentially faulty one, I always assumed you just will programs into existence.” He knew that sounded a bit stupid, but he was still interested in hearing her explanation.

“Technomancy is the art of manipulating electronic input.” Scarlett rolled her eyes, again reaching for the cigarettes and again throwing them back. The Gamer guessed she was trying to reduce her consumption after she had been chain smoking these last few days. “I can’t just will code into existence. Writing it with my mind is a lot quicker than typing, is the whole thing. Also, way more prone to bugs, unless you’re good at it.” She crossed her legs. “And I happen to be the best.”

John could imagine that a number of bugs or unwanted sentences would sneak themselves into his code if he had to write stuff out with his mind. He would be in the middle of writing a command line and suddenly have twenty words describing whether he could eat steak off his girlfriend’s butt for dinner today.

‘Kudos to her mental discipline, I suppose,’ John thought. “Well, those were all of my questions, so we can start now if you want to.”

“I do,” Scarlett said, grabbing the pack of cigarettes for the third time, this time unable to resist the temptation of nicotine. Before long, she was exhaling smoke. “But there are some things we should get done first.” A part of the floor next to John opened slowly, metal lids made from numerous segments moving in unison, as a platform rose. On it lay three items, all of them of a bronze aesthetic, with shimmers of gold and deep purple.

“Yes, finally!” Chemilia exclaimed, as she walked around John to marvel at the mechanical leg. Calling it a work of art would have been an understatement. Just like the arm lying next to it, its structure was primarily comprised of Baelementium, reinforced by the rarer shadow and light infused versions of the already 4-elemental metal. The internal mechanisms and cables were hidden under numerous plates that interlocked to create a shape very close to a normal human limb. Of course, they still maintained a very mechanical appearance, particularly around the joint areas.

Chemilia inspected the whole thing closely as Scarlett’s matter-of-fact tone bragged about her creation. “Once equipped, it creates an illusion around itself that will fool even a mundane’s sense of touch. Internal mana flow is possible, so martial arts are possible, but I recommend you train carefully. I don’t care if you rupture your tendons, that’s your problem, but fixing this thing because you blow the joint up is going to make me mad as all hell. Also, both have hidden weapon slots, I just installed some blades for now. You can switch it out yourself, it’s on a standard socket.”

John, in the meanwhile, walked over to the third object. A basket ball sized sphere. The individual segments the surface was made out of were only apparent thanks to the different shimmer, gold and deep purple, that they had to them. Touching it, he couldn’t even feel the tiny gaps. “Nice to have this back,” John said, picking up the Mandala Sphere Mark 2.

The repair, or complete rebuilding rather, had taken long enough. He left the replacement sphere he had used in the meantime on the platform. If he should ever need it again, it was best somewhere safe and this was likely the most secure place in the city. Including John’s own home. Using Extension on the Mandala Sphere, he immediately slipped into the outside perspective.

The surface split, the L shaped plates parting slightly, as the sphere took its weight off John’s hands and hovered on its own accord. Having it move around for a little bit, the Gamer nodded, satisfied, and began charging the Mana Storage that Extension applied to the chosen item.

He would also have to pick the spells for it in a bit, but that could wait for after the meeting. Just like for Chemilia, actually putting on her finished leg had to wait. Sure, she could do it now, but putting it on was a tremendously painful experience, as all nerve endings flared up, connecting to their new arcano-tech continuations.

“Now, we can actually talk about this.” Scarlett turned back towards the giant screen, which flared up and immediately displayed a map of their current situation.

And well beyond their current situation. Nothing John saw was terribly surprising to him, he had polished up his knowledge about the continental situation since last time. “I see the Golden Rose borders are as unsteady as ever,” he commented on the elephant in the room first.

John had only occasionally thought about Moira Brighton, the redheaded paladin that had first explained the Abyss to him. Their chance meeting had been a pretty important early step in John’s life, purely for the information, and potential protection, she provided. That he had decided to go with Collide instead of her had shifted her importance pretty quickly into the background. He had actually expected to never really see her again.

Right up until he heard that the power vacuum he had left behind when taking out the Bloodfallen had allowed the Golden Rose to rise from their regional confinement. Since the Bloodfallen had bound the many, much weaker local guilds into a unified network, the Golden Rose had been whacking at moles, so to say. Without that coordination, they instead got to swallow them one by one.

Well, that was one reason.

John wasn’t privy to all the details, but the Golden Rose had apparently moved its English branch to America little less than ten years ago. That they would need some time to settle their affairs, consolidate their organization and get to know the local landscape all likely contributed to their formerly Springfield-centred situation. Also, and this was just as John understood it, Moira had some sort of powerful, inheritable Innate Ability. Her reaching adulthood and getting closer towards mastering her spells meant that they had a likely elite individual in their ranks. Whether Moira was more on Chemilia’s or Rave’s level remained to be seen.

‘Maybe I am just trying to rationalize away that I may have created my own biggest roadblock via ripple effect,’ John analysed his own thought process. ‘Then again, Moira seemed like a moral compass to me, and Lydia said the German branch was able to be reasoned with, so there might be the opportunity for a peaceful takeover here…’

“Of course, their borders are unsteady,” Scarlett grumbled into her cigarette. “Trying to put order on everything, control what type of magic people learn, do all of the commanding with a hammer in hand, running around like a sparkly police force.” The overly-liberal minded Technomancer snorted in contempt. “Fucking authoritarians with their rules. How am I supposed to run a business over there?”

“By doing what is lawful?” John suggested. “I mean, that can’t be too bad.”

“You just look what minimum wage has done to numerous economies in the world and tell me again that regulations can’t be too bad,” Scarlett retorted, took a deep breath to follow that up, then reined herself in and waved it off. “We can discuss cause and effect later. Just like we can worry about the Golden Rose later. They are preoccupied and so are we. Or did you have any success in communicating with them yet?”

“Just as little as I had with the Lake Alliance,” John sighed. Getting stonewalled on numerous fronts was annoying. He had put some people on getting in touch with the rest of the guilds that inhabited USA soil. Establish relationships and all of that, be they hostile or friendly. The middle of the country was, even though the Golden Rose was spreading continuously, still dominated by small fry, local guilds that had no real power aside from their numbers.

The Dust Walkers were some sort of Native American founded but nowadays entirely mixed guild. Apparently, they didn’t utilize technology all that much, mostly hanging out in canyons and doing whatever they were doing. There was contact, scarcely. The report John had gotten basically said that there was that one guy amongst them that checked their smartphone once per week and that was how they communicated with the outside.

South of them was the Catto Nation, and stupid name aside, John wanted to go there. It was one of two areas where numerous magical races, created from humanity’s fantasies but now very much real, coalesced to live their life on North America. As the, again, quite stupid name, indicated, there was apparently a catgirl majority there. Well, cat people, but the Gamer was very much biased in his perception. Why the catgirl majority area of the world was in the western USA and not Egypt, as he would have guessed, John did not know, but he certainly was happy about it.

Contact with them had also been established and was quite prolific. Hanging out with the CPDI had netted him some sort of benefit outside of amazing sex with cat-eared reporters after all. The porn/news channel was very popular over there.

Next to them was the Outer Mandate. No contact with them yet. They lacked a leader to talk to, which made things difficult. What that ‘guild’ really was was an umbrella term for all the foreign tributaries of the Mandate of Heaven, China’s super guild and one of the (currently) nine members of the Divided Gates, the strongest guilds on the globe. Depending on how rigid they were on holding onto these tributaries, John could run into some massive problems down the line.

North of that were some other small fry guilds and something called ‘The Crave’ up in Alaska. They were just sitting there, doing nothing for centuries. Very friendly fellows, despite their menacing name. At least that was what John’s diplomat on that front assured him. While the Gamer was curious about them, they were so far away, in location and importance, Scarlett didn’t even bother showing them on the map.

The Gobbo Nation was the goblin equivalent to the Catto Nation. Not much to say about them, except that they were incredibly aggressive towards Fusion’s communication attempts. They were annoyed that the Gamer had not yet appeared on their own favourite network called SSSN (Shortstack Sluts Search News). The defence John had for this was that he had not yet heard of this network and that he would be happy to talk to them.

That was a currently ongoing diplomatic affair he would happily see through personally.

The Upwest Corner was completely devoid of any information. All that John knew about them was that they existed. No communication attempts had yielded any results.

“The Lake Alliance grew a bit,” Chemilia pointed out, pulling John’s attention back to the local problems. “Seems like they gobbled up a few of their own border areas.”

“As we grew stronger, those opposed to us get closer and look for how they can keep up themselves,” John stated, nodding as he noticed the changes. “Nothing too surprising… although I hate how our borders look with the Lower Lake Guilds…”

“A complaint from a really high place you have there, after we doubled our size in the last two weeks,” Scarlett pointed out. “Although the name display would be twice as big for Fusion if we got that single area that protrudes into our space.”

“Can’t you just rewrite the code to curve around there?” John asked, only half-joking. Was it pure vanity that he wanted to see the name of his guild as big on the map as possible? Yes. Did he still want it? Absolutely yes. Map painting was about half the reason he even played grand strategy games.

“I could, but that doesn’t seem like its worth my time.” Scarlett forced out the sorry rest of her cigarette by dropping it on the floor and stepping on it. “Just work harder, then you get your bigger name.”

“Sure, sure, let me do all the work so I can give you a bigger free-trade zone,” John grumbled in a playfully offended matter.

“What else are you good for, John?” Scarlett asked, giving her lover a very tiny smile.

“A number of things,” the Gamer defended himself.

“Interruption.” Beatrice suddenly did exactly what she said. “The intent was expressed to keep this short. Stay on topic.”

Scarlett nodded towards the passive maid. “Good girl. Did you have any luck with contacting our other neighbours?”

“New Libraria refuses to answer. West Gestalt says they want to stay neutral, but also ask if we would help them against East Gestalt. East Gestalt says the same but in reverse. The Death Zone is still there, doing nothing. Florida, well,” John scratched his head, “after I had to personally decipher the riddle they had put on the Abyss Auction, just to get their email, they didn’t respond to me personally but instead wrote an email to my office and… have you read it?”

“I don’t check your office mails, so no,” Scarlett answered, giving him a questioning glance. With a wave of his hand, he told her to go ahead. A few moments later, the map on the screen was replaced by Youtube, playing the link they had, without any further context, sent him.

They watched the entire thing. It was quite amusing, but nobody laughed because none of them were sure what they were looking at or why they were looking at it. Even Scarlett was too perplexed to say anything before it ended. “So, Florida continues to be crazy…” she mumbled. “In other words, there is nothing about our current situation we can really improve right now, is there?”

“Not really, seems like we have to wait for developments,” John agreed, which wasn’t what he wanted whatsoever. “I want to organize a meeting with all the small local guilds around us, try to get them in, but as far as major developments go, we’re currently confined to waiting for someone to do something. Be it the Lake Alliance answering to my white peace suggestion, them attacking or some third party doing something.”

There was agreeing silence after that, nobody really had anything to add. “Then the strategy is… waiting,” Chemilia summarized. “Frustrating, but good for your vacation.”