The World Which Is

“Well?” Brandon motions to the building behind the booths filling the square.

“It’s…nice?” I’m not entirely sure what he’s expecting. I figure that’s the library, and it is in surprisingly good condition, considering the buildings I’ve seen getting here. This is the ‘better’ part of Detroit, according to Brandon. The good part of the city is much further. And there is a marked improvement in the construction, but yes, none of them matches this one. With its clean stone work. I can tell what’s been replaced because they went with a grayer and thicker stone, but they’re cut in the same rectangle as the others, taking the exact place of the one replaced.

“That’s it? How many buildings like this are there in this town of yours?”

“None. But I walked through Toronto. I saw abandoned towns. Fought in a dungeon. I’m impressed with how good the building looks, considering what’s around, but it’s still just a building.”

“That houses more books than you’ll be able to read in your life.”

I roll my eyes. “Those are going to be in the building’s inventory.”

He smiles. “Ah. So that’s the problem. Come on.” He guides me through the booths and merchants yell at us to buy what they’re selling. There a sense of permanent temporariness to the structure. Unlike those in permanent market places, these are mostly fabric, which would be so they can be easily taken down to moved to another location, but a lot of the visible wear is along the wooden posts holding them up, like they haven’t been removed in so long the sun bleached that more than the rest.

“We aren’t going in the front?” I ask when he heads for the side of the building.

He snorts. “They’d never let either ones of us in that way.”

“So we’re going in the back door?” He gives me a surprised look, then a smirk, and I realize what I said and my ears burn.

“Side door, actually.”

I see the guard just as Brandon says, “Wait here.”

I’m tempted to say I won’t get in his way, but I figure he doesn’t want his contact to have a chance to see my face. Then, as the conversation turns visibly tense, I know why he probably didn’t want me there. I’m tempted to go stop him. I’m really tempted. My willpower bar flashes and I lose some of it. That’s how badly I want to stop him.

When he motions me over, the guard looks greenish. The ‘I think I might throw up’ kind, not the ‘I have non-human in my species’ one.

“Did you really have to threaten him?” I demand, and Brandon looks offended.

“I didn’t threaten him, did I, Jimmy?”

The shake of the head is so fast the helmet can’t keep up.

“Look,” I tell him. “I’m sorry. Can I do something to make it up to you?”

“Dennis,” Brandon grumbles.

“No, no. It’s really good.” He speaks so fast even I can tell it isn’t true. “Brandon just had to remind me of the situation he…pulled me out of.”

I open my mouth, then close it and settle for glaring at Brandon. “We’re going to talk about this.”

The shrug he gives me is pure ‘I don’t care’. I lose a bit more willpower not reacting to it.

“You’re okay to go in,” the guard says. And there goes a bit more willpower not telling Brandon we’re leaving. If I didn’t have Xander after me. If I didn’t need information about the Nox to both teach him a lesson and make sure he gets off my back, we would be leaving.

Brandon doesn’t help his case when he smiles and raises an eyebrow at me.

“Just fucking open it.”

He smirks and motions me inside.

I get a sense of space before the light from the door vanishes and the contrast of so much I think I’m in total darkness for the few seconds it takes for my eyes to adjust. Then I’m looking at shelves after shelves until they lose themselves in the darkness. The only light is at the end of the shelves on each side.

To be honest, I don’t know what I was expecting. But it wasn’t this.

I take a step forward and I’m yanked back.

“How about you don’t fall?” Brandon’s voice sounds off, and I can’t tell why. I look ahead of me, instead of in the distance, and there’s a hip high railing then it’s open space going down a fair bit. The shelves are going down just as deep. I count twelve lights along one until there’s a floor. I can make out the spines of books on every shelf.

I have trouble expressing myself.

“There is it,” Brandon says, and even with how…muffled. That’s how it’s different. Even with how muffled his voice sounds, I hear the amusement.

“What is all this?” I frown. “What’s with my voice? And yours?”

He sweeps his arm across the expanse of shelves. “This, is the Detroit library. And all these books make is so sound doesn’t bounce around. Don’t ask me why, but it changes how we sound to ourselves, too.”

I file that as less important. “But why all the books? I mean, are they the actual books or just some sort of decorations?”

“They’re the books.”

“Then why? There is an inventory system here, right? That’s standard in anything this big, isn’t it?”

He smiles. “Because if they were in inventory, no one would react the way you did. Quite literally everything in those books can be found within the system if you know the right question to ask. Now, the only people who bother with a book are those reading stories, or those who feel it’s important to get your information directly from them.” He sweeps his arm again. “This goes a long way toward making that feel important.”

“How am I going to find the book I want among all that? I don’t even know what it’ll be called.”

“There is still search screens. And you don’t have to go and get the book. This is still part of the system. It’s just a different kind of inventory. One that lets everyone see just how much has gone into filling the shelves.”

We walk along the wall, and the closest bookcase obscures my view of the rest. It’s well out of reach and has to have a hundred shelves each filled with books. Thing and thick, tall and short.

“And every book available is displayed on those shelves?”

“No idea. Never did a check. But new books do come in all the time. And there is work going on digging a new floor.” We take stairs down three floors, then he leads me to a corner that’s more like a balcony with six tables. “We shouldn’t be disturbed here. Most people prefer the bottom floor.”

Each table has an orb floating above it, providing comfortable light to read by. I join Brandon as he sits and a message appears.

Please enter your search parameters

“So I just tell it what I want?”

He nods. His eyes already scanning the air. “If a book has a line through it, it’s already in someone’s hands. You can have the system notify you when it’s returned. It’s considered polite to return a book as soon as you’re done with it.”

I dismiss the window. “Brandon, we need to talk.” He nods, his eyes still scanning. “Without distractions. Please.” I make the word harsh and that gets him to pull his attention from his screen. He waves at hand it, probably so I know he’s dismissed it.

“You have my undivided attention.”

That smile is not helping my mood. Which is fine. “You can’t do that.” He raises an eyebrow like he doesn’t know what I’m talking about. “You can’t just threaten someone into giving you what you want. And don’t give me that ‘I’m not a nice person, bullshit,’ I don’t care how evil you are. I’m not going to tolerate that kind of behavior.”

“So, you’d rather we didn’t come?”

“You said you had someone who could let you in.”

“I lied, Dennis. Come on, it’s been three years since I’ve been in Detroit. You think anyone I’d know who’s involved with the library would still be guarding a door? That isn’t a job anyone wants.”

“That doesn’t mean you can just go around threatening people. There are other ways to get what you need.”

He snorts. “No, Dennis, there aren’t. Not for a guy like me. There are three currencies in this world. Favors, money, and power. Favors die with whoever owes you, so you can’t count on them. I’ll never have the money to do anything with it, beyond paying for a decent bed when I can’t convince someone to share theirs with me. So that leaves me power. And that, I have. Not enough to just waltz in where ever I want, but for a city like Detroit, it will get me into pretty much anywhere I need to, on this side of the line. I get it, Dennis. You want the world to be a better place. And maybe in another city, you’ll be able to ask nicely and they’ll give you what you need. Not in Detroit. Here you need currency. And trust me. You don’t have the money to get in. If how we got in isn’t something you can stand, fine, we’ll leave.”

I so wish he’d smirk. He knows I need to look through this place and hope I find something. A smirk would get me angry enough to not care about Xander and the Nox, or the price on my head. Instead, his expression is serious; not one hint of amusement at me being cornered.

“You didn’t even try,” I snap.

“Because there was no point in it. A guy like that knows exactly what he’s worth. We aren’t the first ones he’s let in. We aren’t going to be the last.”

“He might have—”

“No, Dennis. He wouldn’t whatever you’re thinking. We needed in, that was the only way we were going to do it. I’m sorry you aren’t okay with it, but you have to accept that and move on.”

“Fine.” I bring up the selection screen and brood for longer than I’m happy with. Eventually I look at the box, waiting for my input. I enter ‘The Nox’ not expecting anything and I get…

The are no books containing ‘The Nox’ within the title. Do you want a list of the books in which the words are present? Y/N

…not exactly what I was expecting.

Yes.

A listing of Ruins

A treatise on the dubious existence of specific ruins

Are there any evidence these places exist?

“Brandon?” There’s annoyance when he glances my way that he pushed back. “There’s three books about the Nox in here. How come Xander’s after the journal if someone’s already written about it?”

He shrugs. “No idea. Pick one, I’ll take another. Hopefully, this is going to come down to Poop being an idiot, and we can get moving in a few hours.”

I pick the second one because I fully expect the first to just be pages and pages of ruin names without information. The book that materializes before me is thicker than I expect and has a lot of writing in it. The front of it seems to be about why explorers would make false claims about ruins, but fortunately for me, there’s also a list, on the first pages, of the ruins talked about in the book, and where to find them within it.

I turn to the section about The Nox, and it’s only two pages long.

The Nox is a ruin whose discovery is claimed by Aaron Sentino, a well known explorer with an extensive list of explored ruins, as well as the discovery of the Mall of America, And Disney. Unlike The Nox, Aaron provided the location of those two ruins upon reaching an Explorer’s club and they have been explored by others since.

The only information that is recorded as to the location of The Nox is ‘somewhere south of Indianapolis, north of Nashville, and east of St-Louis.’ The lack of specificity makes the claim of the ruin’s existence dubious.

As proof of have explored the ruin, Aaron provided a vault door, which he claims to have taken from the center of the ruin, after defeating its guardian.

Having traveled to the club where the door is displayed and studied it, I can state that it is remarkably similar to three other such doors found in three different ruins. Without having brought something unique to the ruin in question, further doubt has to be put on the claim of its existence.

I have attempted multiple correspondences with Aaron, directly, through the clubs, as well as through his family, but I was turned away, then never received replies to my questions about the ruin.

When one asks why an explorer with Aaron’s Sentino’s reputation would lower himself to making a false claim, it is important to remember that the Disney discovery was considered one of the most important ruin at the time, and that the Mall of America was a close second until the discovery of The Haunted City of the Texas Republic. While I could not find evidence Aaron Sentino lives of those discovery, everything points to him still being actively exploring the continent, it cannot be denied that many of his expeditions were funded on the strength of him having discovered two important ruins, and that in the years leading up to his claim of discovering The Nox, Aaron Sentino had been relegated to doing most of his exploring either alone, or with small teams.

Therefore, it isn’t much of a stretch to consider that Aaron Sentino needed a new important discovery to regain the importance he would have felt he had lost over the decades after his previous discoveries.

It is not my intent to attribute ill-intent to a man of reputed integrity, but simply to point to the lack of evidence supporting the claim. And as a further indication, I also point to the lack of support Aaron received after making the claim. As of this writing, the largest team I can document Aaron putting together is eight people, each of whom are known friends and associates of the explorer.

It seems that even Aaron’s peers did not take his claim seriously.

Well, that’s not useful.

“System are some people idiots,” Brandon mutters, then slams his book shut. What I make out of the spine reads ‘evidence’ so I know what book he checked.

“Nothing useful?”

He snorts. “This thing was written by some scared little man who probably never stepped outside the block he grew up in.” He considers something. “Or maybe Poop himself. This isn’t about if some ruins are real or not, but how explorers are just desperate attention seekers who’d claim anything just to one up each other. How about yours?”

“It sounds better thought out, but it’s mostly the writer explaining why he doesn’t think The Nox is real and what might have made Aaron lie about it.”

Brandon shakes his head. “I never met him, but I’ve heard the name floating around. Anyone saying the name does so with respect.”

“So you don’t think that wanting to feel important might have made him make it up?”

“Anything’s possible, but if Poop thinks it’s real, I’m inclined to think it is, too. Poop is a lot of things, idiot chief among them, but he doesn’t do wild goose chases. My guess is he got Aaron to tell him something that sealed the deal.”

“The only information about where it might be is that it’s south of Indianapolis, East of St-Louis, and North of Nashville.”

“Not sure where Nashville is. Is it on one of the maps in the journal?”

I open it and unfold the map of what used to the be the United States. “There here. With a few other names. Nothing called The Nox. Not on other maps, either. I checked for it.” I look thought for the one focusing on the east side. St-Louis isn’t on it, but Indianapolis and Nashville are. There are more names on this one, but again, that one isn’t there. “If names aren’t on a route, what does it mean?”

“Probably one of the town or cities that didn’t survive the system’s arrival.”

“Can they be ruins?”

“Some might. Others might just be dead. I don’t think anyone’s worked out if something specific is needed for a place to have become a ruin, instead of just dying. The big ones, those everyone still talks about, even if they’ve never been there, tend to have ‘something’ to make them memorable, but most ruins are just a bunch of buildings, a few caches and a guardian or two. There’s probably something to those places too, but like I said, no one’s worked it out yet, as far as I know.”

“So you’re heard of Disney?”

He grins. “Oh, you have got to make it there at some point. If you can time it, you can get decent stuff, but even without that, it is a fun place. Used to be some sort of amusement park before the system and dealing with those is interesting, but it’s the guardians that will drive you bonkers.”

“What are they?”

“Oh no. I am not the one who’s going to ruin the surprise.”

“It’s not like I’m going to go, you know.”

“Then you don’t need to know, do you? But if you change you mind about being an explorer, give that place a go.”

“Any idea how to proceed from here?”

“Well, we have a general area, and we know that the Nox used to be an actual place.”

“But that’s not coming up in any other searches.”

“It probably wasn’t called that, then. Maybe Aaron called it that because he didn’t know the name of the place and had to knock a lot of stuff down.”

“Considering the number of names on the maps, I get the sense that if Aaron went someplace, he knew its name.”

“Then maybe he never got the chance to write it down.”

“He was able to talk about it, the guy who wrote this had the time to seek him out, message his family about it. Xander learned details. That seems like enough time to write down on his map.” Something occurs to me. “If that’s what he wanted.”

“Sounds like you have an idea.”

“I’m pretty sure Aaron had Aether Travel. The one that lets you travel between ruins. What if he made that ruin like, his base of operation or something?”

“Two problems I can see. First one is that living in a ruin is a death sentence. Creatures just manifest in them. No rhyme or reasons to them. Not even a theme like dungeons have. Second. Why even talk about it then?”

“I don’t know about the first, but the second, what if he knew that one day he’d have to pass the baton along? I mean, he was going to die once of these days, even without being killed. Maybe he knew he wouldn’t be able to tell the person to take over his legacy—”

“You.”

“—where it is. And he didn’t pick me, I just stumbled over his body.”

“And got his class, along with his journal. If that doesn’t say ‘here is my legacy’ I’m not sure what does. But to stay with your thought, if that’s true, the answers is somewhere in that journal.”

“Which I can’t unlock until I’ve done the quest. Maybe we should make getting to Kansas City the priority, then. After that, we’ll have the location and we can go right there.”

Brandon thinks something over. “But doesn’t that risk Poop figuring out where it is before then and robbing you of your chance to show him how wrong he was to take you on?”

“Well, yeah, but it’s not like we have anything to go on ourselves.”

“We have this library, your brains, and the better understanding of who Aaron might have been and why he might have done this. I say we give ourselves a change to work it out. A few days, at least. If we don’t get anything from it, we head to Kansas City and work off the information in the journal.”

“Yeah, that works.”