Chapter 12: Priority Boarding for the Metaphysically Destitute

  The city of Lumina got vertical fast.

  To get to the Northern Nexus, I had to climb. Not physically, thank god, my ribs were still filing a complaint. The lower levels of the city were the roots: crowded, loud, and smelling of wet earth. The upper levels, the "Branches," were where the elite lived. The air there was crisper, and smelled of expensive stuff.

  I navigated the spiraling walkways, my Guise of the Traveler doing the heavy lifting. I learned quickly that the best way to blend in was to look bored. Tourists looked around in wonder. Locals looked at the ground and walked fast. I looked at my shoes and power-walked as though I were late to a meeting.

  Finally, I reached the summit.

  There was no giant glowing sign showing "INTERDIMENSIONAL EXIT HERE." To the locals, the Northern Spire was just a government building, the High Gardener's Sanctum, a place of administration and law. The Wayline was a secret river running through the attic. Nobody could see it except myself.

  I was on the verge of a city-square crowded with glittering bureaucrats carrying glowing slates.. I activated my Kensho.

  The world changed. The physical spire faded slightly, revealing the metaphysical truth underneath. A massive, roaring torrent of turquoise light erupted from the apex of the building, punching a hole through the sky.

  It was otherworldly . And nobody else could see it.

  But I wasn't the only one looking.

  I scanned the plaza. Amidst the hundreds of obsidian-skinned natives, my Kensho picked out three distinct anomalies. They looked like locals, perfect disguises, perfect mannerisms, but to my eyes, they had a faint, sheen.

  Wayfarers.

  One was leaning against a fountain, "reading" a slate. Another was haggling with a fruit vendor. The third was just sitting on a bench, eyes closed. They were all ignoring each other perfectly.

  Voice of Elara echoed in my memory, a fragment from the hidden layer of her log: "In a Structured World, you are a virus in a healthy body. The natives are the white blood cells. Other Wayfarers are merely other infections. Do not engage with each other. If you cluster, the immune system notices the fever."

  So we played the game. We wore our Veils and pretended we weren't aliens waiting for the bus.

  I needed to get into that building. But the entrance was guarded by two of those Magnitude: Unstable Wardens and a quartz archway which whined like a dying mosquito with scanning magic.

  I observed the local bureaucrats tapping their hands on the scanner to get in.

  Ping. Authorized.

  It was a whitelist system. Unless you were in the database, the door remained closed. And this scanner seemed advanced, unlike the ones from lower gates of the city. Most probably it was scanning bio-signatures.

  I hid behind an ornamental hedge. My Guise of the Traveler would be a bio-scan failure. I needed a key.

  I stood and looked at the Wayfarer by the fountain. He stood up, stretched himself and went over to the side of the plaza and disappeared in a small maintenance alley.

  "The service entrance," I whispered. "Classic."

  I waited a minute, then followed.

  The alley was dark, smelling of compost and dirt. The Wayfarer was standing in front of a little, padlocked service door. He was a long, spindly kind of humanoid in disguise, and now he was creeping through the door, which closed behind him.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  "Friendly," I muttered to the empty alley. "Wayfarer solidarity is alive and well."

  I approached the door. It was locked tight. A magical seal was covering the handle and was glowing with a soft and complex geometric pattern.

  "Alright," I said, cracking my knuckles. "I'm a Wayfarer. I have cosmic powers. I have Kinetic Grasp. I can pick a lock with my mind."

  I paid attention to the tumblers within the mechanism. I poured a tiny bit of Lumen into my mind-hand and pushed.

  ZZZ-CRACK!

  Flash of white lightning arced out of the keyhole and struck my finger.

  "Ow! Son of a—" I bit my tongue to stifle the curse, shaking my numbed hand.

  The seal of the door glowed an angry red a moment. A computerized murmur voice emerged out of the wood. 'Unauthorized personnel identified. Introduce maintenance credentials or be liquidated."

  'Liquidation', I said, slowly moving away. "Right. A bit harsh for a door, isn't it?"

  So, brute force was out. The lock was smarter than me. It was an advanced work of magical engineering that was meant to exclude unauthorized interference.

  But the door...

  I looked at the frame. It was living wood, grown directly from the tree to form the jamb.

  The lock was new tech. The door was the old operating system.

  I reached into my pocket and touched the White Leaf of Silence.

  The Shepherd had given me this. The Shepherd was a root-level entity. This city, this entire civilization was built on top of the forest.

  "Legacy code," I whispered again. "Override the patch."

  I did not feel the lock this time. I pushed the Leaf against the alive wood of the door frame.

  It wasn't instant. When I thrust my will into the Leaf I found it resisting. The wood was stubborn. The magic of the city had told it to remain inflexible, to be a wall. I was forced to get beyond that, to the deeper, slumbering memory of the tree itself.

  I am not a carpenter, I projected, sweat forming on my forehead as my Lumen drained. I am the Voice of the Grove. And I say being a door is optional.

  [Lumen: 8/9 -> 6/9]

  The wood groaned. It moved. The fibers of the door frame untwisted, and wound round the lock, like wet dough. It was a struggle, the wood fighting my command every inch of the way, vibrating under my hand.

  "Come on," gritting my teeth. I hissed "Bend."

  The wood at last gave way with a snapping celery sound. There was a hole, big enough to squeeze through, in the middle of the door, and the lock was by-passed altogether.

  "Admin access... forced," I gasped, leaning against the wall.

  I slipped through. Behind me, the wood snapped back into place with a satisfying thud, the lock still glowing red, blissfully unaware that the door around it had just momentarily ceased to exist.

  I was in.

  The interior was a maze of amber-lit corridors. II was led along by the tug of the Wayline, and my Kensho steered me up. I did not go in the great halls, but used the service vents and maintenance shafts which passed through the 'trunk' of the spire.

  At last I arrived on the upper platform.

  It was a vast, open-air deck near the top of the spire. The wind whipped at my coat. Above me, the turquoise beam of the Wayline roared into the sky, invisible to the naked eye but it was deafening to my heart.

  There were no guards here. This was the roof.

  I saw the other Wayfarer; the stony one from the alley, standing near the edge, preparing to jump. He saw me emerge from a vent, his eyes widening in surprise beneath his disguise.

  I gave him a little two-finger salute, nursing my zapped hand. "Door was sticky."

  He stared at me for a long second. Then let out a sound that might have been a laugh or a cough. He turned, stepped off the ledge, and was drawn up the beam of light.

  It was my turn.

  I walked to the edge. The city of Lumina spread out below me, a glittering jewel in the twilight forest. I could see the dark patch to the south where the Grove lay, healed and silent.

  I’d survived. I’d eaten a bug. I’d fixed a god. I’d hacked a door.

  Then, I pulled up the record of Elara's log in my mind. The Echo died, and reiterated her last warning to flee.

  I looked at the shimmering rune floating in my interface. She was a pro, but her info was outdated. The fever was treatable.

  I couldn't leave it like that. If another Wayfarer found her message in the Stream, they'd think the forest was a lost cause.

  I gathered a small amount of Lumen; barely a drop and crafted a Transient Echo, just the way astrolabe instructed me with its instincts. I tapped it gently against the memory of Elara's rune, linking them like two notes in a chord.

  [Linked Echo Attached]

  [Message: Patch Applied. System Stable. Mind the moss.]

  "Update installed," I murmured, dismissing the screen.

  "Not bad for a Tuesday," I said.

  I checked my stats one last time.

  Horizon: 7.

  Lumen: 6/9.

  Kensho: 10.

  Egress: 12.

  I took a deep breath, gripped the straps of my pack, and stepped off the edge.

  The gravity vanished. The turquoise fire consumed me.

  [Entering Wayline...]

  [Destination: Unknown]

  [Path Integrity: Stable]

  I was gone.