An Unbound Soul

I woke up, sunlight streaming in through my window, and took a few seconds to recall why I felt like someone had clubbed me over the head with a baseball bat.

Right. Yesterday had been eventful as all heck, and now I needed to unwind and relax. Which made the fact that Cluma was still not home even more annoying than it might otherwise have been.

Or perhaps 'worrying' would be a better choice of word than 'annoying'. It was possible she'd simply decided to stay with her parents given that I'd vanished, but if that were the case, she would have left a note, and I couldn't think anywhere else she'd realistically be.

I popped out anyway, wandering the streets of Dawnhold and spying inside buildings with [Mana Sight]. I saw no sign of her, even at her parents' house, where asking confirmed they hadn't seen her either. Where else would she have gone?

It didn't take long with [Timeless World] to scan Dawnhold in its entirety, searching every house a far simpler option than trying to work out which households Cluma was on good enough terms with for an impromptu sleepover. Alas, there was still no sign of her. It had been an invasion of privacy, but at this point, I was too worried to care.

Even the bit at the back of my mind that worried about if I was good enough for her was silent; if she'd decided to leave me, she wouldn't vanish from the entire town.

Or perhaps she would, thanks to [Non-detection]. [Soul Perception] didn't have the range to scan Dawnhold in its entirety, but even if she was invisible, I should have spotted hints. Extra beds, or something. And again, she would have left me a note, or told Camus and Clana where she was going.

Where else would she be? The dungeon? It was a possibility if she wanted to blow off steam, but again, she'd have left a note, and asking the guard confirmed she hadn't entered.

What about the institute? I'd gone there, but been interrupted on my way back, so if she was looking for me, it would have been where she'd have started. It didn't explain why she hadn't come back, though; it wasn't as if she'd have been called away to deal with a bombing run on the System.

Unless Maximilian had done something... I hadn't been back to tell Harry's group about our second altercation, so there was a chance he'd been there in person during the gap when I was fixing up the System. But attacking Cluma to get to me wouldn't match his MO. At both of our encounters, he'd seemed genuinely surprised that I wasn't fully supportive of him, so using Cluma to get to me wouldn't be something he considered necessary.

Either way, asking the Earth group if they'd seen her seemed the next logical step, so I made my way to their workshop, keeping [Mana Sight] active but still seeing nothing.

The group was... ungrouped. Cara and Abigail were standing in a corner, looking angry about something. Harry was sitting at his desk, poring over hand-written notes, but given how long he was taking over each line, it was obvious his attention was elsewhere. Calvin was grouped up with Russel, hanging around their complete-looking portal apparatus, and if I needed to guess their emotions, I'd say they were frightened. Dominic wasn't even in the room.

"Had an argument about something?" I guessed.

Through [Mana Sight], which I'd still left active, I watched the heart rate of every one of them leap the moment they realised I was in the room. Calvin was the worst by far, paling to the extent he looked about to faint.

That got filed under 'deeply suspicious'. Why the heck were they suddenly scared of me? Coupled with Cluma's disappearance, some sort of accident? Could she have fallen through the portal generator somehow? But it wasn't supposed to be active yet!

"Well?" I tried, staring around the room when no-one seemed inclined to speak.

Harry made a big showing of carefully tidying and stacking his paperwork, which didn't require [Mana Sight] to identify as superfluous. It was obvious that he was simply using it as an excuse to not respond to me immediately.

"Not really. Just a polite disagreement on how to proceed from here to where we want to be," he finally answered.

Given Cara's fist was clenched tightly enough to draw blood, Calvin was in a near panic and Russel kept twitching and glancing down at his gun, I filed that under 'probably a lie'.

"I don't suppose you've made any further progress on the Law?" he continued, ignoring the others.

"Seriously? That's where you're going first? You're not going to ask about yesterday's global connection lost message, or own up to why everyone is being so weird?"

"They are closely related, are they not? Earth made their attack, you have apparently repaired the damage, but I imagine you're now fairly desperate to disarm Earth before they make a second attempt. I can only think of two options; reattach everyone to the System and expose them to the Law, or employ more explosive toilets. I happen to know Grover hasn't handed over any new devices yet, so you apparently chose the first option."

I made a rather stupid 'huh' noise, but in hindsight, his logic was perfectly sound. He would have had a connection restored message, cluing him in that we'd fixed the System, and obviously we would be desperate to prevent a repeat. He had no way of knowing the System had randomly granted me administrator privileges, rendering most of our problems moot.

"Not at all, actually. The damage suffered by the System caused it to go into a fail-safe mode, in which it appointed new administrators. I have full, if collective, control over it now, as part of which we've set up a barrier around the planet to prevent extra-dimensional portals. Nor are newly born Earth kids getting automatically attached any more. As of yesterday, Earth is a solved problem. Hopefully. I suppose they could pull a stunt like opening portals into space and flying their way here, but that would be a problem for a fully healed Erryn to deal with."

"Dammit. I told you we should wait," hissed Calvin.

I couldn't help but suspect I was being a bit slow on the uptake. "What did you do, and where is Cluma?" I demanded, finally clued in that her vanishing act was no accident.

"Somewhere safe," answered Harry, and I needed to try very hard not to pull a weapon from [Inventory] and decapitate him.

Instead, I tossed a decay grenade at their almost-finished portal generator. With the System guarding the world, we didn't need their research, and inviting contact from extra worlds was exactly what we didn't want right now. Especially if they were inhabited by people like Maximilian.

Also, I was pissed.

Calvin and Russel stared at the grenade for longer than they should have, not having any clue what it was, but the moment it started eating the platform, they both dived for safety. All members of the Earth team stood agape as their hard work was consumed, the complex electronics turned into nothing more than metal dust, before even that was eaten away.

"Would you like to try answering that again?" I suggested sweetly. "But this time, bear in mind the fact that you are no longer needed."

She couldn't be far; these people didn't have the means to travel long distance. Unless they pulled a Maximilian and abused the Law to sweet-talk their way through a portal... It would be a departure from their prior behaviour, but no way in hell had they kidnapped Cluma without abusing the Law to some extent. They must have talked her into going with them willingly, or at the least, done something she wasn't allowed to comprehend, leaving her dazed and easily transportable. Who knew how far they'd taken it?

I could check with the people manning the portal easily enough. Damn; why hadn't I gone looking for Cluma last night? Now I'd given them hours to spirit her away somewhere. If Dominic had her, and had just started walking in a random direction away from Dawnhold, even the range of [Mana Sight] wouldn't be sufficient for a search.

My first step would be to travel back to the ark. If I could pick out a location from the regular shard information dump, I wouldn't even need the cooperation of Krana and Serlv. Telling Serlv at this point had a significant chance of ending in the deaths of the Earth group, and while I was royally pissed, I didn't want all of them dead; this turn of events had obviously left the rest of them deeply uncomfortable.

Albeit not uncomfortable enough to stop Harry kidnapping my innocent girlfriend.

"No, I think my first answer was accurate," replied Harry calmly.

His confidence seemed massively misplaced to me; I couldn't see any way in which this could end well for him. He wanted to blackmail me into not Lawifying Earth, but I wasn't doing that in the first place. All I had left was protecting him from the Law, which again, up until he kidnapped Cluma, I was planning on doing anyway. Now I was having second thoughts, and unless he hid Cluma away forever, which was itself a rather impractical proposition, there would be nothing stopping me backstabbing him the moment I got her back.

Maybe literally; a dagger in the back would take effect far more quickly than the Law, and wouldn't give him a chance to do anything else while he was bleeding to death.

"Well? Aren't you going to make your demands for her safe return?" I snapped.

"Obviously, but it should be equally obvious that our original plans need some tweaking," he replied, still calm.

"Don't you dare say 'our'," snapped back Calvin, still very much not calm.

"You agreed it was necessary," he replied, "and I think our demands can be straight-forward enough. Once the six of us are free of the chains of Law, and you are not, we can safely return Cluma."

My jaw practically hit the floor, my catkin parts no longer required for displaying my overflowing emotions. He was demanding that I Lawify myself. Yes, that would neatly solve his issue with me backstabbing him the moment Cluma was safe, but how was he expecting it to work when he knew I had administrative access to the System?

For that matter, how could he confirm it? [Eye of Judgement] showed he'd not only unlocked the skill store, but had a mid-levelled [Soul Sense]. Not enough to see the chains clearly, but sufficient to tell they were there if you already knew about them. Damn.

Apparently, when infecting adults, the System didn't wait the full year before unlocking the skill shop, and if he'd been using [Soul Sense] for the purpose of Law investigation, his [Revolutionary] trait would have boosted its level quickly. He was still a [Commoner], though, so both his soul point supply and available skill selection were heavily limited.

So he had a means of confirming I'd followed through on his demands, and he wasn't stupid. He didn't know I had administrative access to the System going into this plot, so he can't have been expecting me to respond instantly. Were they expecting to keep Cluma captive for years, while I worked on the problem? Or maybe he just wanted to delay me long enough for Earth to launch a second, more permanent, strike.

His confidence wasn't entirely a front, either. Yes, my ability to spy on his internals with [Mana Sight] gave away his nervousness, but conversely, it let me know that he was easily the least nervous of everyone in the room. A set of people that included me. After all, I couldn't discount the possibility that he'd give orders to kill Cluma the moment I moved, now that it was clear circumstances had changed and that he'd mucked up.

Whether I acquiesced to his demands or not, I'd need to visit the ark. He'd have no way of knowing what I was doing there. This was an insane plot, and there was no way it ended well for anyone. So I might as well go all in. I'd had the idea of stuffing Maximilian into [Inventory] and depositing him somewhere safe, but with these people, I could actually do it without preparation. Unlike Maximilian, they had no means of fighting beyond one gun, and even if they could exploit the Law, I just needed to drop them far away from other people.

"You seem to have come to a decision. I just hope it's the correct one," said Harry, alerting me to the fact that my puffed up tail had finally relaxed.

"So do I," I muttered, activating [Far Step] to close the distance between us instantly, followed by [Inventory].

With the same muted pop I was used to from teleporting Cluma, Harry vanished.