While the others were working to get everyone settled David found Charlie, who along with Sarah and Carl represented the core of a rapid response force based near the gates.

  “Charlie, I need you for a bit.”

  “Sure dude. What is it?”

  “We’re going to be going into the safe zone and visiting the Obelisk, and I think we need to pick up at least one of our big rewards to make this place viable. I need your eyes on the options to make this work.”

  “Cool, have you been browsing the things you can access at the max for your title like the Herald suggested.”

  David managed to look at least little embarrassed.

  “Uh, no I actually only just finished getting the title up and haven’t even looked to see what it lets me see, I might have been focusing on other things with my XP until then...”

  “Dude, you lecture me about not spending smart then ignore the one thing that actually knows all about this crap. Update my permissions and let me take a look.”

  David closed his eyes and focused on his link to the Obelisk before pushing the permissions to Charlie. Then he started to browse himself.

  It became apparent as he was still working to sift through the long list of possible rewards that Charlie had done something clever.

  “Oh, Holy Crap! You gotta see this. Now I know why the Herald suggested you wait. This is like a total game changer.”

  David was still navigating the list of options, having not checked at all since boosting the title from level one. There were a lot of new entries with the list literally exploding in complexity.

  “What, I’m still sifting through the list.”

  “Did you sort it by required access level?”

  “No? You can do that? Of course you can do that…”

  Charlie spoke reverently. I just went straight to the bottom of the sorted list and dude. If I’m getting this right, we can make magical items. Like for real magical items. Like, Dude…”

  Charlie almost seemed to be at a loss for words. David finally sorted what had been a list that had no apparent order to it by required access level and like Charlie scanned to the bottom. The list was now sorted alphabetically in each category. Squire level ten was a lot…

  “Alchemical Cauldron… Does that do what I think?”

  “Yep, it improves potion creation. It’s the first one I looked up now I know its name.”

  “There are a lot of these, all unlocked at level ten”

  “Yep, at a guess they all help people with certain non-combat skills work much more effectively.”

  “Do we have any idea how to get those skills?” David didn’t recall seeing anything about non-combat skills. It made sense though – skills were just a way of doing things with your system after all. It couldn’t all be about hitting stuff.

  “Nope, but let me… Gah! Stupid system.”

  “Let me guess. Patronage?”

  “Yep! There are apparently ‘no better options than contacting your patron’.”

  “Well, it sounds like you and I need to speak to the closest thing we have to a Patron.”

  The two of them appeared in the same white space David was becoming familiar with. The seraphic figure of the Herald with its three eyes was already waiting for them.

  Greetings Squire David Murphy, congratulations on your progress through the ranks of the system. You will be pleased to know you are currently the highest ranked human on Earth in the eyes of the System. You requested a meeting with me as a representative of the System for you and your servant. How can I help?

  As always, the Heralds words simply appeared in his mind with no sense of sound having been used at all.

  Before David could speak Charlie responded.

  “Hey, I’m not anyone’s servant, so don’t be a buzzkill!”

  I am sorry, should I exclude you? You are only here through the authority granted to you by the Squire to help him with a task. In what way are you not a servant?

  That stumped Charlie for a moment. Seeing that this would go nowhere good David intervened.

  “Herald, our culture on Earth is diverse. In America we place strong emphasis on individuality and take pride in our independence and equal status under the law. Working for someone is often referred to as working with them as we place greater value on the shared goal than the hierarchy. Other cultures do things differently.”

  Thank you for the clarification squire, I see in the records I have access to that many of your species view service as somehow marking you as less. This runs contrary to reality as service requires greater commitment than mastery and the full strength of any collective rests on the commitment to service even when the master typically holds the greatest individual power.

  There was a lot to unpackage there. While David found it fascinating and was sorely tempted to debate philosophy with the alien, because well who wouldn’t want to do that, he needed to focus on survival. He could poke at a literal alien to see what could be learned later…

  “Herald, when we last discussed the rewards we had earned you advised me to wait until I had improved my title Squire of the System before making any choices. First, thank you for the advice. I now see many options which were hidden from me before. Second, I wanted to ask you about the various choices available.”

  Of course, Squire. What do you need to know?

  Here Charlie half-raised his hand and David nodded to him.

  “Uh, Mr. Herald we can see that as a level ten Squire David can access information about safe zone upgrades not visible to others. Can people, with his permission, purchase those rewards with upgrades they have earned even if they lack the Squire title?”

  Yes.

  “OK, could they have acquired them if they somehow knew what they were without his permission?”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  No.

  “We need to expand the safe zone in a way that improves the quality of the land claimed, how do we do that?”

  David nodded, that was a good question.

  That information is currently forbidden, further questions in this direction will result in sanctions.

  Charlie tried a different question, conflating two of their current issues.

  “We need to grow food for system users and have access to contaminated land, what is the best way to use that land to safely grow food?”

  That information is forbidden, repeated questions about forbidden topics will result in sanctions.

  That was not the response either of them had been expecting and after sharing a look with David making a cutting off gesture to end that line of inquiry Charlie resumed sounding nervous.

  “Right, message received sir! Now on a completely unrelated topic, so please don’t sanction me without warning… There are a lot of options at that top level that seem to require specific skills to use properly. How do we access those skills?”

  The Lords and Ladies typically grant access to the skills needed for this tier of rewards, as with all tools it is possible to use them without skills and even to develop new skills which use any given tool that differ from those already registered under the system.

  Charlie kept probing, trying variations of his question to get the Herald to divulge something he could use for his searches. The alien kept repeating variations of you MUST ask the Lords and Ladies. As the young man got clearly more frustrated with his inability to finesse an answer out of the Herald, which at least wasn’t threatening him to shut him up, David intervened and tried something different.

  “Herald, I want to speak with you about the choices available and ensure that we use these rewards to maximize the chances of the System surviving and prospering.”

  He waited, the approach he had taken was a little different this time, but he thought it might get the Herald volunteering at least some information. The Herald paused, then responded, shifting into a more formal tone.

  Very well. For the System.

  As the ranking System user on your planet certain obligations fall to you in the absence of full System integration.

  Then David received a System notification, the notice glared an angry red indicating its urgency and mandatory nature.

  Even as he blinked the new quest away, shaking his head at the abrupt way the Herald had just dumped that on him, a glance at Charlie showed he hadn’t experienced anything.

  “What was that? What even are mana-charged materials?”

  You evoked the Systems needs as the highest ranked human, so they were shared with you. This is a multi-part quest built to take you through the steps in being able to meaningfully contribute to addressing the greatest problem the System is currently facing.

  The Herald paused, then continued very deliberately, making David feel that it was, yet again, hinting at some exploit he could use.

  The actions required after the initial stage of this quest series will require information normally imparted only at the direction of and by the authority of the Lords and Ladies. Certain restrictions are relaxed as a result. The System must survive.

  The Herald then stopped. Clearly expecting something.

  David and Charlie shared a glance and then David spoke tentatively, probing for what he hoped the creature wanted him to explore.

  “In order to succeed in meeting the needs of the System my servant,” here he paused to shoot a glare at Charlie causing the young man to swallow his protest, “and I will need additional information.”

  Understood. I will provide as much context as possible to ensure that you can meet the needs of the System.

  First, you need to understand why certain rewards are capped and restrictions have been placed.

  Specifically low tier safe zone upgrades simply direct free system resources to the location with the greatest participation. Higher tier safe zone upgrades require dedicated physical hardware. Each upgrade requires the sacrifice of a portion of the physical structure of the Obelisk to provide a permanent specialized tool.

  Positioning these tools is important. As long as they remain close to their original Obelisk they act as repeater stations for the Obelisk extending the area covered by core Obelisk protections, the safe zone as you term it. This increases the strain on the resources of the local system in the short term and can cause issues with system functions when resources are constrained.

  However, resource accumulation over time benefits from a larger base area IF pressure is not applied by external forces.

  The requirement for physical frameworks means that certain tools cannot ever be provided as rewards unless Obelisks accumulate additional materials suitable for mana crafting. These are materials that have either naturally or artificially accumulated sufficient mana to allow their use to form new tools.

  The simplest tools, requiring the lowest mana levels, are consumed upon use and often help a single system user, for example with resource recovery. More advanced and durable tools require higher mana concentrations.

  There are now insufficient tools on Earth to reestablish the connection with the wider System quickly. Construction of new tools by System users could change this.

  David and Charlie shared a glance then both of them opened their mouths to ask follow up questions.

  Charlie got there first.

  “Will materials occur naturally as mana is absorbed into the planet?”

  Yes, initial mana absorption by living things means they will acquire the required density first. Minerals and even abstractions will emerge over time.

  “How much time?”

  It will be years a Earth measures time before these things become widespread, decades before they become universal. Rare, isolated examples of all of them should have emerged by now.

  “So we can experiment with these crafting tools but don’t get the skills or recipes and need to rely on rare, isolated examples of stuff for supplies?”

  Charlie sounded disappointed.

  No.

  The pieces fell into place for David at that moment. He was almost sure what the Herald was doing so he asked the critical question.

  “Are there any accessible safe zone upgrades which will allow us to produce materials usable to address the system integration quest?”

  The Herald seemed to almost quiver with excitement as David asked the question. For some reason he got the sense that this was how a proud parent reacted when their toddler picked up a new toy hammer by the handle and didn’t immediately shove it in their mouth.

  The response did nothing to dispel that idea.

  Excellent question Squire. There are several ways that you can use the rewards you have accumulated to accelerate the acquisition of resources.

  First, there is the option of acquiring an infusion table. This will allow infusion of ANY system recognized resource into ANY object placed on the table improving its quality in a controlled manner.

  Second, a concentration array can be obtained. This tool will allow all the Mana infused into multiple similar objects to be concentrated into one of them, increasing the quality of that object while ruining the others with minimal losses.

  Finally, a growth array can be obtained. This array requires space to operate and can be a drain on local system resources. These arrays function by focusing ambient mana to improve the environment for non-sentient plant or animal species. This can accelerate growth, purify the environment and accelerate the achievement of useful mana densities.

  David grinned, the Herald had managed to work what he suspected was a forbidden answer into advice on how he could complete his mandatory quest.

  Charlie also got it and grinned at David before jumping in with a question.

  “So, to fulfill this important quest that David has. How do we measure whether something has a useful amount of mana in it, especially when we are away from the safe zone.”

  The Squire already has the skill to see that qualitatively. There is also an Identify skill that will assess that quantitatively.

  Charlie nodded. The two of them started asking more questions, some of which the Herald answered and others got them stonewalled. Still, they were able to extract what they needed to extend the safe zone and confirmation that their plans were viable.

  The last thing the Herald said as it ended the conference revealed how much they had poked at forbidden things.

  The accumulating restrictions and sanctions from continuing this conversation are becoming unacceptable. I will end by stating that completing the quest is of high priority for the System and information on how to proceed with the next logical step in enhancing the tools available to the System will be provided as a part of the reward, all to further the Systems goal.

  The last part of the cryptic statement seemed to have been tacked on but before they could question the white space around them dissolved and they found themselves back in the real world.