Metaworld Chronicles

Chapter 541 - Taking Care of Business

Los Altos.

In her old world, north-east of Cupertino, on an unassuming street and in a humble four-bedder, the legend of a man who embodied that old Dickensian preface began.

He was the best aggregator.

He was the worst innovator.

He had a mind for profundity.

He had a penchant for narcissism.

He operated through faith and incredulity.

He gatekept technology behind simplicity.

He had a hand in every mass-market computing device.

He stifled, single-handedly, what could and should have been.

In short, the man from Cupertino was just a man like any other, a fine purveyor of fruits who then died because he believed in fruitarian diets over his physician.

As a technoptimist of the 80s and a born consumer, Gwen could not shake the curious wonder that perhaps somewhere in her world of Magic and Monsters, there was also such a man living on Crist Drive or Waverly Street.

After all, certain existences persisted across the Planes. Henry Ford, for instance, still made his mark in the United States for his creation of the Assembly Line, though his influence was vastly diminished by Jonathan Gilt of Gilt Motorworks, who was already in bed with the powers that be in New York.

In the same vein, infamous monstrosities like Sam Walton of Walmart also existed in her present world, growing so corpulent from their unscrupulous business practice that they had become a vertically integrated colossus, combining the primary produce of Tyson with elements of Cargill, dealing left hand to right.

Under the watchful eye of such robber barons, would a boy with a dream to build a personal computer even succeed? Wouldn’t it be far more reasonable to assume that Slate, a corporation that had come into prominence after the Beast Tide, would erase the young man from existence if his idea threatened the near-monopoly enjoyed by their Data Slates (™)?

Her wisdom offered some dark and unpleasant hypotheses, but Gwen had learned to trust her gut feelings.

And so, a few days after they arrived in San Fran, having roundhoused the hornet’s nest, she and her Red Dragon went for a fly around. As V-VIPs, their mana signatures were already registered on the Divi-Engines thrumming at the apex of San Fran’s Shielding Stations, especially that of Slylth, whose tolerance of the city’s mana-pulses served as living proof that Spellcraft was an incomplete Magi-tech. Thankfully, as London had communicated very carefully and meticulously with its old colony, Slylth was an exceptional existence and a rare exception to the norm. Even if Shielding Stations were limited against hyper-intelligent sorcery-wielding mythics, there was no point expending inordinate volumes of resources against singular threats.

From the rooftop of 2006 Washington, they performed a gentle high-pass of the historical Coit Tower, now operating as a Shielding Node, before they skirted the Salesforce Tower. From the angle of their ascent, she could see Union, beyond which lay the Tenderloin. Much to her relief, a police cordon was visible from her vantage point, indicating that the city was at least aware and taking action.

Thinking briefly of the hot-blooded Sergeant, she slipped past the piers, moving from Ferry to Mission.

Below the pair, the bean-green waters of San Francisco Bay glimmered against the simmering heat washing over the city. Hot air, heated by the Californian sun, brushed up against the Shielding Stations, trapping both heat and humidity, making San Fran appear like a mirage.

South of the city proper lay the mana node powering the San Francisco ISTC station, one of the largest in the country and in the world. It was here that Gwen had landed for her “official” visit. The ISTC would also be the location for the second Dyar Morkk interchange.

Beyond, as curated grids, the rolling flatland of the garden state expanded through the valley, interconnected by highways and lowways, free from the fetters of public transportation. Taking their time, the pair circled Foster City, infamous for its artificial landscapes and multi-millionaires, representative of the closed communities that carved up the coast south of the city with its exorbitant homes and mansions.

After a half-dozen such communities, Gwen and Dragon arrived over the sprawling suburbia of East Palo Alto, beyond which arterial roadways carved the once-verdant valley into neat rows and arches.

On cue, Gwen let loose her Omni Orb.

While the sphere dithered like a drunk bumblebee, she and Slylth studied the salmon-flesh rooftops of Stanford University, though she was far more impressed by its manicured lawns and ovals than Slylth, who was forever loyal to Suilven. The Red Dragon’s superiority complex made sense, though, for Morden’s Tower was the origin of the Imperial Magic System.

Gwen sighed at Slylth’s academic snobbery. Magi-tech was incredible in many ways, but its foundation was still Humanism. As a Guardian of The Accord, and as the mistress of her World Tree, AND as Vessel to Almudj, she knew more than anyone that groundbreaking Astral Theory, mana storage, data transmission and Planar manipulation were unique to Humanity’s future.

After all, Humans were terrestrial beings.

Dhànthárian, the least mystic of her Mythic Draconic peers, could perform elemental wonders with a thought, achieving tiers of Transmutation a Stanford Magister can only perform if he had the resources of an entire faculty. Dhànthárian, a Dragon the Dwarves kept at bay for thousands of years, could turn San Francisco into Dwayne Johnson’s San Andreas if he were committed to the cause, and there was nothing human civilisation could do other than exhaust every resource to contain the worst outcome.

The human paradox, Gwen supposed, lay in the ignorance inherent to men's endeavours in the Age of Magic and Monsters, ignoring certain realities while simultaneously worrying about GDP, trade deficits, human rights, succession wars, and territorial conflicts.

“Gwen.” Slylth sensed her mental meander as they stopped over coastal lairs in the form of sprawling suburbia. “Can you explain again why these corporations will cannibalise themselves? Are your Humans really that voracious? What confuses me the most is why those without simply… consume those with excess.”

Gwen smiled at the perplexed Dragon.

As pure, primordial beings, Dragons don’t put other Dragons into suburgatories.

“Humanity isn’t nearly so monolithic as the Kin,” Gwen pointed to the buildings below. “We are meek survivors who find comfort in hierarchy, and naturally seek it. Unlike the Kin, the influence of nurture far exceeds our base nature, and over aeons of conflict and complancency, our multi-faceted peoples have evolved to yearn for… the tragedy of the commons.”

In the suburb below, sedans and SUVs pulled in and out of houses with white picket fences. Nearer the horizon, set against enormous commercial centres, a plethora of people and vehicles moved cargo and bodies, looking like ants on a master planned hill.

“You must remember, Slylth, that only a handful of mortals possess the means to make tangible changes to the world as they see it. The means to shape society to suit our personal reality is a pipe dream for the average citizen, where the smallest change in circumstance can result in unfathomable upheaval. The Union is a young and hopeful country. The robber barons see themselves as no less than Elemental Princes of the Vels. Men like Jonathan Gilt, Henry Ford, Cèsar Magnusson of Salesforce, The Slate Siblings, they’re a different species to the poor sods milling about below us.”

The Red Dragon cocked his head critically. “Humans are so anarchic. So full of surprises.”

“I am also human,” Gwen noted the assumed exclusivity in Sylth's logic.

“On the surface.” Sylth’s smirk made Gwen feel burdened and uneasy. “Mother said so.”

Gwen felt a shiver tingle her spine. She hoped wise Sythinthimryr was referring to the inevitably of ageing beyond the mortal coil, when everyone and everything invariably grows distant. What would happen then? Would she, like the Elves and the Dragons, also perceive their present world with monk-like serenity, or nihilistic apathy?

Perhaps, if she were lucky, she’d already be dead by not too terrible means, gone out with a bang, perhaps, before the heroine becomes the villainess.

“To answer your earlier question, Slylth,” Gwen gladly changed the subject. “This nation, the most prosperous Humanist nation on the Prime Material, on paper, is founded on the ideals of democracy, built on a base not too dissimilar to Shalkar in the rise and fall of imperialism, colonialism and slavery. In the centuries since, however, it has grown comfortable in its skin, its industrial entrepreneurs had no natural enemies, and so saw their rivals and workers as prey and nourishment. Maybe, in a century, Shalkar will become the same.”

“Not so dissimilar to the Primordial Age, then?” The Red Dragon snickered. “When the last Temple of the Big Birds fell, there was only Kin left to consume.”

Gwen shook her head dejectedly. If Humans were like Dragons, at least things would make sense. “No. Nothing like it. Acquiring more power did not make Humans immortal, live supernatural lives, or ascend into the Unformed Land. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Men like Gilt and Ford did it because they could, because power over others gave life more meaning than it should. Because of this, our foes on the East Coast cannot help but be moved by my investments here on the West Coast. Though we may perceive them as separate corporate princedoms ruled by their respective Merchant Princes, they are linked by financial mechanisms that are inseparable. In a plutocracy, economics is a zero-sum game where all but a few individuals are punished.”

The pair drifted unchallenged over Stanford’s enormous “S” flower garden, with the central logo acting as the button of a football-shaped oval. A dozen Divination pings refracted off her vibrating Message Device, informing the Diviners below that they were not to be disturbed.

“What our Shalkar Trade Consortium is offering,” Gwen’s eyes scanned the horizon for any strangely out-of-place Tudor-style manors in the suburbs. “Is called a Credit Default Swap. It’s an insurance policy against the inability to repay loans. The benefit for corporations that decide to take us up on the offer is that they become, on paper, “debt-free” to borrow more money against their existing value from banks like Morgan Chase and the Bank of America.”

The bookish Dragon’s slitted eyes rolled back and forth. “That makes no sense. They’re still in debt, aren't they? This newfound capital, it is no HDMs, it's an instrument of the mind!”

“It's credit,” Gwen nodded. “But as Shalkar is now responsible for their prior debt, they are absolved of solvency risk to take on greater burdens.”

“This is…” The Red Dragon seemed to search for something that doesn’t exist. “Is this Faith?”

Gwen burst into laughter. “Yes, the finer instruments of Economics are another form of Faith Magic. We must all believe that the system works for it to work. In many of our cultures, the two were entwined for a very long time. The very first bank note came from the church, to ease the transfer of wealth for pilgrims.”

“Didn’t your Nazarene forbid wealth? Mother said that he whipped them out of the temple with a knotted rope. She was there.”

“And yet, our risen Saviour adorns the head of the Temple of the Golden Bull at the Wall Street Exchange, his benevolent being made into an idol. In this way, I shall be their prophet of profits. I shall be the keeper of their faith, whether they realise it or otherwise.” Gwen grinned. “The Human paradox is why Tryfan invested so heavily in the Commonwealth. I… We… HUMANITY is unpredictable in useful ways.”

“Then you’ll have your work cut out for you,” Slylth scoffed as he studied an impromptu traffic snake on 82, formed for no reason out of nothing. “Good luck in the future.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Gwen crossed her arms.

“You tell me, you’re the woman with a World Tree,” her Dragon fired back. “What are we looking for anyway?”

“Someone or something,” Gwen completed her scanning for the Tudor house. “But it’s not here.” For all she knew, the man she wanted to find might have fallen victim to SLATE. Knowing her world as she knew it, violence was a mere rung away from coercion.

Her Omni-orb promptly halted its drunken meander.

“The Yinglong must like you a lot to put a sliver of his Essence into that device,” Slylth remarked, cocking his head at the Draconic device. “Not even Mother can use divination like the One Who Heeds.”

“Well.” Gwen willed the orb to follow the threads of fate. “That part of our bargain is done and dusted. This… this is just delayed interest.”

The two descended until rows of classical 60s houses with short lawns and white garage doors came into view, dropping the pair firmly into Pleasantville. Presently, in Pleasantville, Los Altos, an unpleasant arrest appeared to be taking place.

The house in question was average-looking, with slate roofs across a single storey over a short lawn with yellow maple leaves. Several squad cars were parked in front with the LAPD logo, and a male and female officer appeared to be dragging a belligerent, average-looking bloke from a garage thrumming with gutted Magi-tech.

As they approached, her Omni-orb spinning like a top overhead, she recognised parts of a Divination Engine, three or four cannibalised Thinking Engines, and hundreds of Data Slates in various states of repair, along with a generous stockpile of crated HDMs.

“Innocent until proven guilty!” The bearded, portly bloke complained, dragging his feet. “You can’t tell it was me!”

“The Magistrate will be the judge of that,” the senior of the two constables growled. “Stop resisting arrest if you know what’s good for you.”

“What’s good for me is to stay here,” the man growled. “I am innocent.”

“We’re servicing a Warrant, Mr Wozniak," the female officer was rapidly losing patience as well. “You violated the Trans-Divination Code and have been charged by the Federal Communication Commission for hijacking Long Distance Divination communications.”

“It was an honest mistake,” the bloke by the name of Wozniak softened his rebuke of the officer. “How would I know…”

“Sir, you defrauded the SF ISTC Divination Tower by selling bundled ISTC Passes to Las Vegas…”

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Gwen froze.

Woz? THE WOZ? She knew it was a long shot, but her faith in the Omni Orb was absolute.

“It's not like I made money…”

“You told people that rolling seven on the dice at the Venetian Casino will get them free ISTC Passes. You were selling them Premium Gambling Packages with hotel and credit included.”

“Those were honoured! So who’s serving me then?” The Woz looked suddenly alarmed, perhaps realising that it was infinitely better to be in trouble with the FCC than it was with the largest gambling house in America. “The Apollo?”

The police noticed the two strange Mages approaching.

“You may remain silent, Mr Wozniak. Anything and everything you say will be used in the court of law.”

“Is this your someone or something?” Slylth’s eyes glowed golden for a split second. “A Diviner-Transmuter? Middle-tier. Woeful Affinity.”

Gwen licked her lips. She was hungry for talent.

Without his partner, was this where an alter-world dreamer had ended up? An enthusiastic hobbyist who capitalised on his personal invention to hijack Long Distance Divination receivers? There was no guarantee this alter-world “Woz” would be of any use to her, but again, the Omni Orb seemed to suggest otherwise.

“Don’t touch my stuff!” The Woz was not having it, as the rest of the officers, having taken pictures, began removing the equipment from the garage to what Gwen assumed would be the evidence room. No doubt, the crates of HDMs might go missing in transit.

The presiding officer sighed, then withdrew a shockwand. “Mister Wozniak, I am asking you politely to stop resisting and move into the back of the vehicle.”

The Woz hesitated, but his eyes grew clouded with red mist when one of the officers tugged a Thinking Unit from the wall, cables and all.

The Wand crackled. The female officer backed away. “Alright, it's your choice…”

“HALT!” Gwen’s voice echoed across the cul-de-sac. “What’s going on here?”

A senior officer, not as imposing as McKenzi but no less annoyed, walked with gravitas from his squad car, arms and hands pressed against his belt on one side and a wand on the other.

“None of your business

,” the officer looked her up and down. “Don’t come any closer. Move on.” “I wish this weren’t my business,” Gwen sighed while displaying that she had nothing in her hands, though her appearence spoke for her harmlessness . “I am Gwen Song, Magister of Cambridge, the Regent of Shalkar, and CEO of the Shalkar Trade Consortium, and that man is one of my employees.”

“You, a Magister? That’s a crock of—” Before he could rightly tell her to go off herself, the Sergeant’s Message Device lit up. His aide, who had just emerged from the squad car, was wide-eyed and alarmed and rapid-firing in silence.

The Sergeant’s complexion underwent several shades of pink as he did his best to unclench his jaw. There was no use rebuking a Mage whose spectrometer readings indicated she could eliminate the entire Police Department and still have VMI, or HDMs, to spare. “Your Magistership is a long way from San Francisco."

“About ten minutes, actually. I have an unlimited flight classification.” Gwen grinned. “Now, about Mister Wozniak. Special Employees of Corporations like mine enjoy limited diplomatic immunity, such as the right to remain in corporate, rather than state custody. May I speak to my employee? Also, leave his equipment alone. Some of it belongs to the company and, by extension, to Shalkar. You don’t want a diplomatic incident.”

The law made no common sense, but then again, the law made perfect sense in a plutocracy like her present USA. She knew this explicitly, because Tao was her employee in the same regard, that even if he busted ill rhymes in broad daylight at Caucasian women wearing pearls, he would be sent back to Washington 2006.

“Record everything, and send it up,” the Sergeant stepped aside as Gwen and Slylth passed, then questioned the direction of the Salesforce Tower. “I don’t have the time for this kind of shit.”

Like a deer caught by a Daylight spell, the Woz stared at her in confusion and paranoia.

“Gwen Song, Regent of Shalkar,” she presented herself with an outstretched hand, though her casual garb wasn’t nearly as impressive as her Gunther-like aura.

The Magi-tech engineer took her fingers and shook them with a sweaty palm.

Before the Woz could answer, a Data Slate appeared in her hand. “This is your employment contract, Mr Wozniak, one that I, in my capacity, shall backdate. As a valued contractor of the Shalkar Consortium, you will enjoy a large number of privileges, including the coverage of all your legal fees. Alternatively, you are free to go with those blue-vested gentlemen and leave your equipment to the will of the Gods. May I know your choice?”

Gwen watched the man take her slate, scan the first few lines, look longingly at the illicit materials in his garage, then imprint his thumb and mana signature at the bottom right corner.

The slate de-materialised.

Slylth made a few innocuous gestures at the garage, then the whole house became encased in an enormous Force Cage, harmlessly repelling the officers who refused to leave. This display, more than anything else, left no doubt that she was exactly who she said she was, and more.

“Welcome aboard, Mister Wozniak,” Gwen felt a little giddy as she mentally fired up a Mass Flight. “I will have someone from the Consortium lock your tools down until they can be relocated safely. In the meantime, it may be best to travel with us while someone from Elling-Gibson Dunn sort out your legal paperwork. In the meantime, let’s have a coffee at my place, where we can discuss your talents, and more detailed terms of your… specialisation.”

The Yay.

Oakland.

Gusta Mac, resident artist of the Town, was seriously regretting the sushi he had for the F. It wasn’t as though the sushi had fallen off the back of the truck, for Imani, Kayla’s cousin, catered it straight from the docklands. The others couldn’t stand the idea of raw fish, but Gusta was a cultured dude, down to try anything, and he just happened to be feelin' it.

The sushi was a rare treat. Ezy 40 had hit up that Japantown grub 'cause of a guest, a dude from somewhere off Nippon way. The homies were sketched out by him at first, thinking he was clowning or whatnot, but he showed mad potential.

Now Gusta Mac was hurling everything in his gut.

There was a hell lot more stuff inside him than he thought possible. Pink stuff. Red stuff. White stuff. All that sushi, going down the drain. He had to hit the stage and spit rhymes at the oriental kid soon, but now his arms felt weak, and his legs felt like spaghetti.

But, like, his dome was feelin' hella good, man. It was like somethin' sparked a fire at the back of his skull, and now his whole frontal lobe was straight fire with the rhymes. He was feeling it. He was smelling it.

He felt as though he had the dawg in him.

And he was hungry.

Lord, how could a brother who just ate, then vomited so much sushi, be so hungry?

BOOM BOOM BOOM—

Peaches, the King of Fruits, was sweating hard.

The room was a sauna, the music was popping off, and his voice felt possessed by a higher power.

After an hour of traffic, their limo had pulled up in the afternoon at a place called Uptown, into the basement of a venue called The Parish, which looked like an old church converted into a club.

His driver had exited the limo and spoken to some very large, imposing gentlemen, who then welcomed him upstairs into the back rooms of the venue, where a bevvy of imposing artists, both male and female, joined him.

This wasn’t the “streets” as Tao had imagined it, with hoodlums and gangsters mixing it up while listening to spontaneous music, while police sirens popped off in the background. These rapsters were too cool, too well-dressed, too trendy.

Tao didn’t feel like he’d come back to a long-lost home.

Instead, he felt like he’d been dropped off at one of Gwen’s parties, and all the suited folks with their long fluted glasses looked at him like a caged monkey in a gilded cage.

The Peach did his best to jive with the brothers and sisters of his craft, but all he received was amusement and platitudes, paid not to him, but to his driver, who obviously held sway with the “crew”. The slang here was nothing like what his friends had told him, or in the bootleg lumen-casts he acquired through Big Mac and Little Dog and his crew. He couldn’t understand what they were saying, and what he said only seemed to create laughter and ridicule.

“Aight, aight, chill on clownin' the dude. Bronco says he's hella talented, so give him a chance. See if he legit. Give him a spot tonight, Mateo, see how far he gets, fa real,” the leader, a large feller by the moniker of Ezy-40, held down the mirth with a wave of his hand. “Dat cool with chu, Peach?”

Peaches’ face was on fire, but he was “cool” with it.

He knew his time had come.

Gwen had put in so much with his family to let him come to America, and he won’t disappoint. He would give his everything, he would mix and remix until his nose bled and his ears rang.

He would allow nothing to slip.

He chose the track that Gwen had hummed to him in English, because he had no idea how his Chinese rhymes would sound through the Translation Ioun.

When he began his own bass line, the whole house shook.

When he added the kicks and snares, his listeners went wild.

He spat the ill rhymes, modified a little, about knees and spaghetti; he dropped bombs, flowing until he was lost in the rhapsody.

By the second chorus, the roof was on fire.

People were jiving with the flow, moving with his iambic beats.

People were buzzing like a kicked hive, throwing hands and bodies, men and women jamming and vibing.

A feller stumbled onto the stage, drunk with music, then howled in sync with the beat, losing himself in the music like his soul was escaping.

On the third repeat of the chorus, the man was an animal. His eyes bulged, his back was bunched with convulsions. The MC slid into place in case the impassioned listener disturbed Tao.

The two embraced.

“—This opportunity comes once in a lifetime, yo—!”

At the plosive sound of his final line, Peaches was met by an explosive jet of arterial blood as the MC’s head was brutally separated from his neck, painting the stage in the motifs of an entirely different genre of music.

The salty, sticky saline fluid cut his music short, leaving only the automatic Glyph scripts for the beat.

For several bars, Peached could only assume this was some performative cultural thing local artists did, where they really took it to the neck. This was until twin explosions of smoke beside his person revealed a pair of Gwen’s Shadow Mages, who each took him by the arm, pressing his elbow into their soft torsos.

With a BOOM, a smoky Bilby’s Hand sent the assailant flying into an already panicked crowd fighting the fire doors.

“Don’t resist, Master-Wang,” the masked Mage’s mana, cool as ice, enveloped his rigid, shell-shocked body. “By her will, you need to go. NOW.”

Pacific Heights.

Washington 2006.

Gwen sat in her impressive office overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, feeling impressed.

In the depths of the building, in their recently converted “Bunker”, a meek Woz gave an account of his craft while questioning his life choices. The self-professed Divination Magi-tech engineer, under the pressure of Lorenzo and a Dwarven Engineseer, had spilt the beans on his illicit craft.

As a dropout Magi-tech Engineer at UoC Berkley, he had made and improved upon a Divination Device he called “The Blue Box,” named for the original casing, a blue Tupperware.

The device, confessed Woz, was made to inject illicit Divination Glyph scripts into the channels used by the ISTC Station’s Divination Engines, allowing the user to send Messages that the Divination Station created and unravelled. With it, Woz was able to speak to Magus and Magisters in foreign universities. He asked questions, gave solutions, and even engaged in inter-university exchange, all under the guise that he was a Magister from one of the Bay Area’s many prestigious institutions.

With the advancement of the ISTC Divination system, however, he had to invest more and more components and HDMs to power his endeavour, which was why he turned to selling ISTC slots. By hijacking the local Divination signal, Woz was able to run a near-live timetable on his home Thinking Engine, which he used to scalp slots and gain a modest volume of HDMs.

And as the San Fran ISTC saw large volumes of traffic to and from Las Vegas, he soon saw a booming business sending folks to and from the city of sin.

This was until his packages went a little too far, and presumably, he was served after the authorities gathered enough evidence.

Woz’s device, so said her Engineseer, was “ingenious” and “unorthodox”, utilising loophole principles that should have been quashed a decade ago. Woz himself confessed that, during the short time he worked for Slate’s subsidiary, the Hewlett-Packard Company, he had attempted to sell the unit to corporate, only to have his original invention confiscated and his position terminated.

For almost a decade after that, he worked alone, albeit with “others from around the world”, to continue to develop his personal Divination Engine.

What he lacked was funding and an angel investor's faith.

The tech, as expected, was useful to Gwen’s cause.

Williams had figured out the interface and the GUI.

Men like Woz could be the basis of a new Divination Web-work embedded into the low-way nodes.

Then… she needed to acquire a computing solution, such as SLATE, to open their gated Magi-tech to inventors and innovators.

Rising from her desk, Gwen smoothed out her silken robes. The material was cool against her skin, almost like flowing water, for the priceless fabric was the product of Sanari’s hobbyist sisters, who merely spent a dozen human lifetimes perfecting the craft of manipulating Moon Moths. As the Regent, she was the supplier who had auctioned these precious pieces to Paris’ highest fashion houses, whose master craftsmen had then painstakingly used them to create exclusive items for her Trade Consortium.

To purchased Tryfan by Hermès, the buyer had to accumulate purchasing history.

Even so, products were offered, rather than requested, as a priviledge.

It this system that formed the basis of Shalkar’s ultra-luxury, premium goods department. In a country like the USA, where there was no product quite like a product without equal, where uniqueness was the point, folks begged her for the privilege of being fleeced.

Tyran x Hermès.

Deepholme x Patek.

The principal purpose of owning such a thing was akin to the ownership of fine art, to casually remark to one’s billionaire compatriots that no amount of money would net them another.

But even that was chump changed compared to infrastructure.

Presently, they lived in a world divided.

But what if, like her old world, she could unite the sentient races of this world?

For Gwen, Legion wasn’t just a matter of profit.

It was her goal as the Guardian of the Axis Mundi.

One that just also happened to be a core instrument that would banish Spectre forevermore.

Communication was certainly not the key to something as nebulous as world peace.

But having the means to communicate was a necessary step in the right direction.

Take the Dyar Morkk, blend it with Lingua Franca, then compute the flow of information with Slate’s Thinking Engines…

And something shall emerge.

Change.

Change large enough to move the Prime Material’s peoples from the brick and mortar of concrete living into a world of abstractions and ideas, commerce and exchange.

Maybe… Gwen gulped just as her Message Device began to shriek from the dresser table. Maybe that could be Humanity’s Unformed Land.