The two weeks following their arrival and the urgent briefing with Guildmaster Borin unfolded in a bizarre paradox of time. Long stretches felt like agonizingly slow-motion waiting, trapped in a state of suspended animation where every tick of an unseen clock amplified the tension. Then, news would ripple through the Guildhall, or a sudden drill would be called, and moments would blur into frantic preparation, all under the suffocating weight of an impending, inevitable storm. Aver City, despite the determined bustle of its markets and the hurried footsteps clattering on its cobblestones, felt like it was holding its collective breath. William, lodged in a small but clean room within the Guild's upper floors, found himself caught in this strange rhythm. Acutely aware of the need for action but frustratingly unassigned, lacking the skills or context to directly contribute to the immediate defence preparations. “It’s like being benched during the most critical project deployment of your career,” he mused one afternoon, staring out at the wary city from his window. “Stuck in the architectural review phase while the servers are actively on fire. And the Wi-Fi in this existential waiting room is terrible.”
News from the Oakenfall front trickled in via Guild messengers and discreet military communiques discussed in hushed tones in the strategy room downstairs. Each fragment painted a progressively grimmer picture. Goran had indeed reached the besieged town, along with the promised S-rank assets. William learned their names were Aiden “Brightshield” and Jessica “Ice Maiden”. “Creative call signs,” William noted dryly. “Presumably Brightshield generates high-energy defensive barriers, and Ice Maiden specializes in rapid thermal energy reduction. Useful skillsets against… well, almost anything, I imagine.” Reports confirmed they, alongside a desperate influx of freelance adventurers answering the Guild’s call, were bolstering Oakenfall’s meagre garrison, preparing for the main assault. The presence of Virrerk the Vile was confirmed. Goblin raiding parties, now supported by trolls and shambling undead, were testing the outer defenses daily. “They're throwing everything they have into reinforcing that node,” William analyzed, picturing the strategic map. “A high-risk, high-stakes defense. Hope the expected value calculation pans out. Too many unknown variables on the enemy side, especially Virrerk.”
Word also came regarding Edward. As ordered, he’d reached Sharwood, delivered Borin’s warning to Captain Oswald, and detached half his riders to reinforce the town’s patrols. He was now, according to the latest runner, operating somewhere in the contested lands between Sharwood and Oakenfall, presumably fulfilling the second part of his mission. Harassing the Dark Legion’s western flank, disrupting supply lines, a high-risk guerilla campaign against a numerically superior foe. “Guerilla tactics require high mobility, local knowledge, and precise execution,” William considered. “High potential payoff in disrupting enemy logistics, but extremely high risk to the operational unit. Probability of Edward becoming a goblin’s chew toy… non-zero. Let’s hope his combat efficiency metrics remain high.” A genuine flicker of concern touched him. He hoped the warrior, his one time sword teacher, stayed safe.
Lord Marshal Sir Gerald, “Quite the title,” William thought, “sounds like someone who definitely has multiple layers of executive assistants”, had apparently committed three banners of Royal Infantry to Oakenfall's defense. A significant deployment, Julia had explained, but Borin was reportedly still lobbying intensely for more, arguing it wasn’t enough against a force led by one of Neverus's Lieutenants. The King and his Marshal, however, were balancing the Oakenfall crisis against the ever-present threat to the capital itself and the ongoing drain of resources on the northern front. The gears of high command ground slowly, frustratingly so. “Bureaucratic latency impacting critical response time,” William diagnosed, recalling similar bottlenecks during corporate crises. “Seems universally applicable, regardless of dimension.” Borin’s requested audience with the King remained perpetually ‘pending’.
Julia, meanwhile, was a study in controlled tension. Officially awaiting Borin’s summons to potentially brief the King's Council, she spent nearly all her waking hours buried within the surprisingly extensive Guild library. William would often find her there, surrounded by stacks of dusty scrolls and ancient leather-bound tomes, her brow furrowed in concentration, searching for some forgotten scrap of lore, some weakness in necromancy, some historical precedent that might offer an edge. “Data mining ancient texts for exploitable vulnerabilities in primary antagonist’s operational methods,” William approved. “Solid research strategy.”
He also noticed, with relief for her sake, that there had been no overt contact from her family. It was an unsettling silence. Were the Blackcombes truly unaware she was back in the city? Unlikely, given the network she described. Were they choosing to ignore her? Or waiting for a more opportune moment? “The quiet before a market crash is often the most dangerous time,” William mused darkly. That silence was definitely abnormal. Disturbing rumours, however, did filter through the Guild grapevine, whispers of Blackcombe agents securing exclusive rights to newly reopened iron mines, of grain prices spiking suspiciously in districts where their warehouses held sway. They were consolidating power, profiting while Aver bled. “Textbook disaster capitalism leveraged for hostile market takeover,” William analysed with a grimace. “Executing flawlessly, damn them.” He saw how these whispers affected Julia, a tightening of her lips, a shadow passing through her eyes, fuelling the intensity of her research, driving her deeper into the library's relative sanctuary.
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William, lacking official duties, made himself quietly useful, or at least, present. He became a fixture in Julia’s orbit within the Guild, learning her patterns. He’d appear in the library alcove she favoured, not interrupting, but sometimes leaving a cup of hot tea (a surprisingly decent local stimulant in the absence of coffee) or one of the flaky pastries from the Guild kitchen (“Rescued this from imminent consumption by a group of boisterous mercenaries,” he’d explained once with feigned seriousness). He'd sit nearby, sometimes attempting to decipher basic Averian script from a borrowed primer, sometimes just observing the quiet intensity of her work, offering silent companionship. He saw the strain beneath her composure, the shadows that lingered. He never pressed, never asked about her family. He just… stayed. Social support protocol: Maintain non-intrusive, consistent presence. Offer low-level resource assistance (pastries). Objective: Reduce Subject Julia's perceived isolation and stress levels. Gradually, he noticed her shoulders relaxing slightly when he was near, the guardedness in her eyes softening fractionally. It was a subtle shift, but measurable. And it felt… important.
For William himself, these two weeks were a frantic crash course, a self-directed boot camp. Freed from immediate mortal peril (a status he assessed as 'temporary'), he had bandwidth to dedicate to system upgrades, namely, himself. He established a routine. Gruelling physical conditioning in the Guild’s training yard each morning (because “combat effectiveness rating starting near absolute zero requires significant baseline improvement”), followed by frustratingly clumsy sword practice, and then, whenever he could find privacy in his small room, the cautious, secret exploration of his own strange magic.
The Guild yard was an education in itself. He sparred cautiously with other low-ranked adventurers, mostly young recruits or grizzled veterans willing to humour the strangely dressed newcomer. He learned the hard way about overextending, about telegraphing moves, about the sheer, bruising reality of getting hit even with practice blades. “Combat simulation results consistently negative,” he’d often think, rubbing a fresh bruise. “User skill currently resides somewhere between ‘ineffectual’ and ‘mildly hazardous to self’.” But he wasn't just flailing. He watched. He analysed his opponents' stances, their footwork, their preferred attacks. He applied the pattern recognition skills honed on stock charts to the flow of combat, identifying tells, predicting movements, calculating optimal parry angles. He even managed, occasionally, to land a clumsy hit or execute a successful block based on Edward’s earlier lessons, tiny victories in a sea of defeats. Progress curve: Slope remains shallow, but consistently positive. More data required. Significantly more data.
The true focus of his intellectual energy, however, was the “Data System” (temporary designation, pending acquisition of less amateur hour name). In the privacy of his room, usually late at night, he’d practice. First, the Light spell, now igniting more reliably, a small, steady golden glow he could maintain for several minutes before feeling the familiar drain. Then, cautiously, he’d think a query. Visualize mana levels.
The translucent blue display would flicker into existence before him. Sometimes a gauge, like a fuel tank indicator, showing maybe 80% after the Light spell. Sometimes a simple numerical readout. Visualize ambient mana. The display might shift, showing a swirling heat map of the room, faint blues and greens, perhaps slightly brighter near the open window. He experimented with visualizing the sword forms Edward taught him, the display sometimes rendering them as skeletal wireframes, highlighting balance points and force vectors. He tried the bar chart of their journey again, it worked, draining his reserves noticeably faster this time.
He learned quickly. The interface responded to intent, but complex visualizations or data retrievals had a significant mana cost. He pushed it too far once, trying to visualize the entire Guild's mana flow, and immediately felt the warning signs, dizziness, cold sweat, the display flickering violently before he hastily shut it down. Resource management is critical. Mana cost correlates with data complexity and rendering demands. He needed monitoring, failsafes. He needed to understand the source code.
He spent hours tracing the simple runes Julia had taught him, feeling the faint response of his mana, then summoning the data display to watch the energy flow, trying to correlate the visual feedback with the physical sensation and the runic shape. It was like debugging reality itself, one glowing line at a time. “This,” he thought one night, watching a faint blue line trace the path of the Luminosity rune in his mind’s eye, “is infinitely more interesting than optimizing ad placement algorithms.” He was no longer just a lost analyst. He was an explorer on the edge of an entirely new system, holding a flickering candle and staring into the infinite complexity of magic, armed only with questions and a stubborn faith in the power of data.
