World Filter

“Next viewer, please! Keep the line moving.”

Davis’s boomed out across the tent. After Mark had gotten back from the warehouse he had arrived to see Jonathan going on shift at the spire. It turned out that Sam had already set her plan in motion. Having a large tarp set up over the entrance and since it was made public there had not been a moment of downtime. Crowds of people interested in taking a closer look at the gate had been coming from all over. Mark had thought she would keep it to just their faction but by the looks of she had made it a free-for-all.

Sam did nothing in half measures.

Now the next morning it was Mark’s turn to relieve Jonathan, the guy had been here all night, and even with incredible endurance, he must want a break. From the boredom if nothing else.

Moving past the line Mark was proved right when he saw Jonathan leaning with his back against the spire and a look of complete apathy on his face.

That changed the moment he spotted Mark, his shoulders straightened and he looked like a beast ready to flee the place. For a guy that loves to fight this must have honestly been his hell. Mark wouldn’t be surprised if he went directly to the pit from here.

Jonathan nodded toward Mark and stepped away from the wall. The moment he did Davis called a halt to the line.

Mark spotted a camping chair off to the side and pushed it up to the spire, plopping down into it and pressing his back to the metal. The prompt for the ‘unbound’ popped up and Mark began leafing through the documents he’d brought.

Jonathan was already missing from the tent and Mark snorted, unable to even get through one line of text before the guy made his exit. Mark had intended to ask how his body was doing, but he’d have to catch up to him later

Before coming here Mark had checked in on Willow and found her and Carl getting along like a house on fire, with emphasis on the fire. The two worked together but each had their own methods about how things should be done. Mark had asked them to put something they could both agree on and bring it to him. He didn’t need fighting on top of everything else.

Mark also found that Carl’s Corruption recovery was beginning to accelerate in levels. It would seem that as other people used his skill, he could still learn something from this, so his [Corruption recovery] was already at rank 6.

Mark was excited to see how that changed when it reached 10, but for now, a few other healers had managed to copy Carl's method.

A couple of Lisa’s people had come to try and learn the required skills, but it was going to take some time to find a long-term solution.

Mark had finally selected a new location for the clinic, and now he was waiting for the final plans to start building, but was hopeful things would be up and running again soon.

The morning burned away and Mark was just going through Ethel's most recent candidates for Chloe's replacement when there was a problem further down the line.

Up until now, everything had been smooth sailing, as having one of their pillars here was meant to act as a deterrent. Or at least that's what they wanted people to think.

Davis and his men seemed to be arguing with another group of people. Then against Mark's expectations, one of their numbers struck out at Mark's people. The attack was pathetic in many ways, merely an open-palm slap that Davis dodged. But that was enough to have Mark on his feet and striding through the crowds. A short powerful whistle from him had their fighters halting the whole line as Mark moved towards the group. People parted when they saw him coming.

As Mark got nearer he recognized one of the men here and immediately had a sour taste in his mouth right away.

The group was only around half a dozen strong. It was led by a young woman with a short pixie cut and doe eyes. Right beside her was Rupert Daning.

It just had to be the Inscriptionist guild, Mark had an idea of why they were here but he wasn’t a fan of how they operated. The last time Mark had seen these people, they had been reinforcing the wall needed to block a catastrophic explosion.

Mark arrived nearby and stopped directly in front of them, crossing his arms, the young woman turned to look at him with wide eyes. She had been staring at Rupert in shock, clearly not expecting the man to strike out like he did.

Mark laced his voice with Mana and spoke, invisible power rushing from his body like a fog.

“Right, you attacked one of my own, you have ten seconds to convince me not to blacklist your entire faction and throw you out on your asses.”

The young woman looked at Mark and raised her hands in a placating gesture, but before she could speak Rupert decided to intervene.

“Tsk, don’t act as though you own this place. You and I both know what you are doing here is completely unacceptable. This whole structure is free for the city, the fact that you are limiting people's access is shameful.”

Mark wasn’t surprised by the comment, but nor did he react to the man's words, keeping his voice level.

“You are standing in our territory, the spire may not be our property, but you better believe that access through our home is. You have four seconds remaining.”

Rupert ground his jaw.

“We demand access to the gate so that we may study it-”

The young woman next the Rupert seemed to finally realize what was about to happen so she cut him off.

“Thank you, Rupert, I'll take it from here… I apologize for my colleague's outburst. It was never our intention to cause you problems, but seeing as we have, I’d like to offer you a gift.”

Rupert seemed to splutter at being cut off but Mark's full attention was now on the woman. She looked back to one of the Aura users in their party and the man took out a small box.

Rupert saw this and couldn’t help himself.

“Jessica do not be daft, that inscription is to trade.”

Finally, it looked like Jessica had lost her patience with the man.

“Rupert, you need to be quiet! I’m going to have a long talk with my dad when we get back, now stop talking!”

Rupert looked like he had just been told to swallow a football, the anger on his face was evident. He still had more to say and probably would have, but the same Aura user reached forward and placed a firm hand on his shoulder, silencing him.

Jessica turned back to Mark, clicking the latch in the box and opening it towards him.

“Again, Mr. Young. We are so sorry about the mix-up. Please take this as a gift. If you let us stay just a minute longer we’ll say our piece and be out your hair.”

The object looked like a rectangle of metal with runes inscribed on it, and while the system recognized it as an item, but didn’t seem to give further explanation.

Luckily Jessica did.

“We’re calling this product an ‘upgrade stone’, any area you place it on will be able to slowly repair itself given enough time. It also resists outside influences that manipulate its material. There is a maximum size for what it can handle, but we’d be honored if you’d accept this prototype.”

Mark looked up at Jessica, this was the very same inscription they were famous for. The difference was that it was portable, he could apply it wherever he wanted to.

Interested Mark reached down and sent it into his inventory.

“Apologies accepted, but make sure this man does not come here again. If he'd succeeded in striking one of us, we would be having a very different conversation. What is it you want to talk about?”

Jessica seemed to nod hesitantly as Mark called them back towards the area he’d been working.

The moment he had his back against the spire, Davis got the lines moving again.

“Right… the simplest version of this is that we wish to study the spire’s second gate. In exchange, we are willing to sell you some of our more exclusive products.”

Mark had inferred as much from their previous exchange, and he was not against the idea of buying from them, but he had a feeling their study of the entrance would take a decent amount of time. These people had never seemed to care who they inconvenienced before, so why start now?

Mark nodded.

“Hmm with a clean slate, I will say this. We have opened the tower to the public and have no intention of turning away people. If you wanted to study the gate, it would have to be in the downtime, perhaps early hours of the morning.”

Rupert didn’t seem able to help himself and tried to shrug off the Aura user.

“What!? Jessica, we should just leave. How can you expect us to do our sensitive work under the scrutiny of the public, we should just go back to the loyalists, at least they treat us with the right respect”

Jessica did look conflicted, unable to hide the worry in her eyes.

“We can make it worth your while, even just a couple of days would be enough for us to finish our work.”

Mark heard what she was saying and honestly –Rupert notwithstanding– her group seemed genuine, but Mark was not about to compromise Sam’s plan for an unknown benefit.

Explaining that he’d already offered all he could, Mark heard Rupert muttering to himself.

“Dammit first the loyalists and now them, can no one see the benefit of keeping the gates private for a while.”

Mark took the news in stride, but the fact that the Loyalists were opening the gate was interesting. They had assumed they would keep it cordoned off for a long while still to study it.

Mark wasn’t sure but he could only assume the two gates were nearly identical. Whether that was the case, they would have to find out.

Seeing that he wouldn’t change his mind Jessica decided that they had overstayed their welcome and headed out with her people, she said they'd return with better terms but Mark wasn't holding his breath.

It was around this time that Mark spotted another face he recognized and knew it was going to be one of those days.

Shelby along with his group of followers had made their way into the tent. The moment he spotted Mark, a smile and a knowing gaze entered his eyes.

Feeling the sour mood deepen, Mark turned back to his work.

Intermittently glancing up to watch them slowly make their way through the queue. Neither Shelby nor his men tried anything, content to make their way through the line at a crawl. However, on his second or third glace up, Mark noted that more and more people with the spire's symbol were showing up.

In fact, Mark noted that since they had begun making their way in, they had taken up most of the line.

Eventually, it was hard to find a person in the tent without their symbol, Mark had only seen a small group with Shelby last time, but now, if Mark had to guess he was looking at a couple hundred in the tent alone.

Mark resolved himself to ignore them and hoped they didn’t break out into worship of the spire. Fortunately, that never happened, they kept the line moving and their people exited the tent, only for more to enter.

This was when Mark felt a small buzz from the spire.

Unbound 2/30

Head whipping up Mark felt a sinking feeling in his stomach.

Shelby stood at the front of the line with both his hands pressed firmly to the spire’s door. He was just lifting his forehead from the cold metal to look up at the structure. His look of peace was interrupted, as his eyes unfocused on what Mark could only assume was the prompt from the spire.

Standing from his chair Mark cursed under his breath.

“You have to be kidding me, him?!”