Chaotic Craftsman Worships The Cube

After dinner Karly and Glob went up first, Karly to hide some of the emotions welling up from getting a taste of home after so long, and Glob just needing to recover more from the vicious beatdown he received.

Ben and Thera quickly followed, heading to their own rooms, but Ben faced a problem. Thera had seemed a bit out of sorts since the meal started.

“Everything okay Thera? Did your training go well?”

“Yeah it was fine. No progress yet but that’s not shocking.”

“Okay, how did you like the meal?”

“It was alright I guess.”

“Just alright? Too bad, I’ll have to try a bit harder to impress you next time.”

That at least got a little smile from her. “Maybe it just wasn’t to my taste. Mind if I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Oh that? Just that we both miss our homes and feel kind of screwed over to have been brought back to life just to fight and die. You know, the light and fun stuff I’m sure plenty of other summoned are dealing with.”

“Oh is that it,” She seemed strangely relieved and he ventured to make a joke.

“You don’t need to worry about losing your husband to another woman, I’ve only got my eyes on you princess.” He said it with a laugh, hoping to show he was just teasing, but when he looked over to her her face was flushed and she wouldn't look at him.

“Don’t be stupid, and enough with the princess nonsense. I need to get some sleep so I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Sounds good, sleep well.”

Maybe that was a little too much?

She seemed pretty uncomfortable from that and he felt bad, he just meant to have some fun. She was probably feeling a bit conscious of the issue of their engagement, at least Ben knew he was. Joking about it was going to be one of the ways he processed it, but he needed to make sure he didn’t do it too much to bother Thera, or at the very least gauge her reaction. Next time there would be no princess comment at least, maybe doing both was a bit over the top.

With Thera asleep though it was time to take on a whole other issue and he ignored the door to his room, looping around to get back to Globs and knocking on his door.

“I’m asleep! No low-worlders allowed!”

“Open the door Glob or I’m coming in anyway.”

“Good luck! It’s actually locked this time.”

“Oh no, a flimsy deadbolt, whatever will I do?” Ben reached into his pocket and prepared two small tools he’d grabbed in advance in case the grey decided to be difficult. A wedge and a pocket hammer.

He might not know how to pick a lock, but there were plenty of ways to beat one, and he slid the wedge to the same height the bolt in his room between the door and its frame and gave it a quick and powerful blow with his hammer, breaking the bolt and letting himself in before anyone could peek out to see what had happened.

The moment the door was closed though, Glob had him trapped, A barrier completely encasing him like a mime in a box.

“Alright, looks like you got in. Now what do you want?”

“I’m assuming you haven’t spoken to your little grey friend since you woke up?”

“What? No, are you an idiot? Nevermind, of course you are. I told you they sometimes sneak out to hang out, it’s not like they're constantly around.”

“Come on Globolgork buddy, I’m not falling for that again. Giving it some thought, the idea that a summoned hero could sneak off to another country for a few days without causing some sort of panic is ridiculous, I bet there’d probably be concerns about countries stealing each other's heroes too. Besides, you know I got you out of the trial right? How did you think that happened?”

“Who cares? I’m alive and don’t get me wrong, I even appreciate it, but get the hell out.”

“I was led Glob." He told him, ignoring his fellow otherworlder. "By another grey.”

“I have no clue what you’re talking about.” Ben wasn’t sure what a grey’s body language was meant to convey, but worldspeak+ must have had an effect on tone because he was sure if the little alien could he’d be sweating.

“Then let me spell it out for you. I know you’re still in contact with your world.”

As the words left his mouth another grey appeared. “That’s enough Globolgork, we were hoping to get the chance to talk to you about what happened before anything came of it, but it looks like there’s no such luck. So human,” It said as it turned to address Ben. “What matters is what you plan to do with this information.”

“Nothing much, you guys have a means to get information this world presumably can’t access, and as far as I can see you aren’t bothering to share any of it. I’m just hoping you’d be willing to start helping out the world a bit.”

The alien stared silently at him for a moment, examining him before asking his question.

“Why? After stumbling upon us before we did the bare amount of looking into you. You were completely forgotten by the people and gods of this world. Why do you want to help them?”

“Well plenty of people also gave me their assistance too, not to mention as one of the suckers who has to live here now I’m rather invested in ensuring the planet survives.”

“Understandable I suppose, but that's still no reason to help you.”

Ben had expected resistance since he’d planned the encounter, but he’d come prepared with a few ideas in mind of what to do about it. “I could tell people about you. I’m pretty sure if we all survive this people would be pretty up in arms at the idea that you all just stood off on the sidelines and ate popcorn while people died. Maybe enough to act.”

“What would that matter? There’s nothing any of you could do about it anyway.” The mystery grey said, filled with indifference.

“Maybe not us, but the gods could for sure. They’ve already shown they can grab souls from across realities, I doubt I need to explain any of the horrific implications of this."

“And what makes you think we aren’t more powerful. The gods and rulers of our reality in our own right that could fight back?”

“Call it a hunch. For some reason, you all seem to be invested in the greys that came here enough to keep in touch. At this point I don’t know why you aren’t doing more already. Besides, if you had the sort of power to do more than peek into other worlds, it seems like the sort of thing you’d have already done.”

Ben couldn’t understand why, but the grey seemed faintly amused by his argument. Did I get something wrong? It couldn’t matter. He had to put on a strong front here.

“Your argument isn’t built on the most stable of foundations, but very well, final question. What makes you think I can’t just have Glob kill you? Either hide the body from there or claim he was scared when you broke in and it was an accident from self-defense?”

A threat, the main thing he was waiting for. Something that could show these aliens weren’t necessarily benevolent or peaceful. “Let me answer you with my own question. You’re familiar with the function of the cards we all got when we came to the world right? Maybe also with different figures with any degree of power in this world?” Ben asked him, pulling his own card out and hiding all but a single detail on it.

“I am.”

At his response Ben’s smile broke through and he slapped his card against Glob's barrier for the other alien to see.

“I’m the apostle of Myriad, and my god’s been watching the entire time.”

For the first time in their conversation, Be felt the new grey was genuinely surprised, but still managed to quickly make up its mind.

“Fine then, but I have one condition human. One day I may ask for your help. When the time comes I want you to hear out my request.”

“Wait that’s all, just hear you out?" This had gone far easier than expected, he still had other ways he wanted to argue and other threats to make. It was actually a little disappointing.

“That is all.”

He gave it a little thought, before breaking into a smile. “Sure, but since I’m already blackmailing you, how about I take just a little bit for myself?”

“You know, it’s a poor negotiator who tries adding extra conditions when a deal’s done.”

“We’ll just call it the ‘Threatening to kill me tax’. It's really nothing much, just come visit me once a month to answer some questions for me.”

“Surprisingly reasonable and not too much additional work compared to making the world aware of us and giving our aid, but why?”

“I’m a craftsman. You know how many things I want to try and make that I have incomplete knowledge on? I just want someone who can try to fill in the gaps so I can have some fun.”

The small alien almost seemed taken aback by the selfishness of the request, but quickly recovered. “Very well human, my name is Quilith. I can’t promise things will work the same between realities, but if you prepare a list of questions for me each month I’ll have the answers for you by the next if possible.”

“Sounds good Quilith, I look forward to working with you.”

“Why didn’t you refuse him?” Glob asked once Ben had left the room. “Wasn’t the plan for us to keep a lower profile for longer? Get a better idea of the situation?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Quilith said. “Two more of our attempts failed, with a few others showing poor results so far. The final solution is looking more and more likely, we don’t have the time to gauge the races of this world if we’re going to survive.”

“And you think he could help?”

“Of all the summoned and native persons of interest we’ve been monitoring, he’s one we believe has potential. Low potential mind you, it will all depend on if he can keep his growth rate constant, but for now at least it wouldn’t do us any harm to have a person who’s soft in heart enough to try and help this world's chances to feel he owes us for our help. Besides, with the way everything’s going, the sooner we accept it as a race and try to assist in this world's survival, the better our own chances will be. The real issue is that whoever was in charge of monitoring him seemed to ignore everything but the skills he’d developed as well as the speed he’d been growing them. Things could be inconvenient if the gods decided from our conversation that we’re a threat to them.”

He felt pain pulse through his central nerve bundle. If the gods of this reality decided they were a threat, that could throw their whole future in jeopardy. Not to mention that he’d need to alert the others that it was time to finally present themselves to this world, and make contact with the leader of this nation in particular. He could only hope he would be well compensated for all the work that was about to begin.

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