Regarding common faction practices

  The standard practice within most factions, orders, guilds, or other organizations are all similar if not exact. That is to say, new arrivals are recruited quickly and with as few provisions as they can get away with.

  This is an aspect which the UICI’s creation and nigh universal adoption is a boon. The gods who designed it, most rumored to be God Kings or perhaps more at the time, included limits within the contracting system. Unlike most other systems, and truly most aspects of the UICI in general, no external contracting modules are tolerated. Either the version designed by the UICI creators is used, or the UICI is not involved at all.

  Read more in my book Deep-Diving the Countless Ways Which the UICI Changed the World. In particular, this topic is discussed in great detail in chapter 44.

  

  Willow

  City Fair, Vesheen City, Shee

  

  “Why are we here, exactly?” Willow asked, a brief moment of focus getting her emotions fully back under control.

  “Because we’re down a member, of course! What better way to find ourselves a fourth than at the City Fair?”

  “Like… Anywhere? Fairs are for fun and food, not finding partners for dangerous missions.”

  Stepping between the two, Luzzi interjected. “Ravavka is correct in this case. Perhaps fairs in your tutorial were different. Here, they are a place where one may demonstrate varied and specialized talents to interested parties. Such as ours.” So saying, she made her way toward the ticket counter and the others followed behind.

  Ten hours later, Willow had certainly changed her mind. The fair was a shockingly fantastic place to look for unique talents and possible party candidates! The issue came down to their standards. Or, rather, Luzzi’s standards. The paavaras had a very specific level of basic competence which she expected from any rift delving companion.

  Fuzzy, cute, and polite as she seemed, Luzzi was extremely strict and unyielding in this area. Before she’d agreed to join Willow, she had insisted on sparring and running through what she called ‘snap choice drills’. The first was simple enough and Willow hadn’t had any trouble beating both of her would-be party in a two on one, after convincing them both to give it a go.

  To be fair, either of them could definitely take her down if they got the drop on her. In a straight up match though? They didn’t stand a chance. She especially enjoyed sparring with Ravvy. He’d helped her improve the efficiency of her ability use tremendously. Not that he’d seen it that way, he complained that she, ‘toyed with him’. Which was also true.

  Snap choice drills were more complicated. Although the idea itself was simple, it’d been a stressful exercise for Willow. The way it’d gone was a spit-fire situation proposed by Luzzi, followed by Willow answering within 1 second or ‘failing’. Apparently, making decisions in under a second was a common necessity within rifts. Mostly higher level ones, according to Ravvy, but Luzzi didn’t budge on the requirement anyway. Of course, with Willow’s moment of focus it was mostly irrelevant. She could ‘freeze’ time so she had as much as she needed to make her decisions.

  She had only not done so during the test because she was specifically asked not to use any spells of abilities to assist. The quiz was supposed to test her instincts, not her mana driven advantages. In the end, Willow honestly wasn’t sure if she’d actually done as well as Luzzi would have liked. Even if she hadn’t though, they were here together so she clearly hadn’t failed outright! Go me!

  After talking to almost a two dozen people who had been demonstrating very interesting skills and boasted even more, Willow finally understood Luzzi’s point about the snap choice drills. The paaravas had asked each to participate in a three-round preliminary drill. She’d give them three questions, they were to answer each within a second.

  Of the twenty one beings they’d interviewed, twelve of them had failed to answer any of the questions within the tight time frame. Of the nine that did, most of their answers were obviously horrible.

  The first question Luzzi asked was: ‘The ceiling starts to fall, what do you do?’ Willow’s answer to that had been ‘Use one of my abilities to stop the ceiling directly above myself and my party from falling. Once the rest of it’s fallen around me, get everyone to move out of the way and let the rest collapse.’ A couple days later, Ravvy had answered ‘If I’m alone, just dodge using star-fall dash. If I have allies to protect, slow the rubble with a minor gravity well and get everyone out. The second would be risky though, people might get injured.’

  The best answer out of their potential candidates had been, ‘Use my extreme strength to punch any pieces of roof away when they get close!’ Ignoring the issue of shrapnel, the answer highlighted the guy didn’t even think about whether his party would need help. The other answers revealed other issues.

  Lack of communication, or at least a lack of immediate instinct to communicate. That one was obvious when Luzzi asked, ‘You detect three creatures you know are entirely deaf but are far more powerful than you are moving directly toward you. What do you do?’ Most answers hadn’t included the obvious first line both Willow, and later Ravvy, had spoken, ‘Let my party know and -’. Nope, these heroes all rushed to do something first and thought of letting their fellows know never.

  Suffice to say, the last-ditch effort to find a fourth had been a bust. That was mostly fine, though! Between party-recruitment, they’d gone on some rides, had some interesting food, the whole shebang! Other than areas designated for random people to hang out and show their skills to all comers, the fair was exactly as she’d expected. Eaten a huge overpriced corn-dog or at least the cabbage-tasting thing had looked like one? Check! Got ripped off playing rigged games? Check! Stopped two different pickpockets from reaching their little mits into the messenger bag she was carrying her changes of clothes around in? Absolutely!

  Finally, the best part of the night, the ferris wheel! Or the ‘grand spindle’ as they called it for some reason. The thing was way bigger than any she’d been on before. It had at least a hundred buckets to carry beings, and was maybe ten times the size of the largest she had personally ever been on before. Ferris wheels themselves weren’t all that cool, the fun part had been tossing Ravvy off of it! He’d been trying to get a rise from her all night.

  He thought he was being sooo slick. She snickered to herself, ignoring the hard glare he had been keeping on her the entire time they walked toward Shandy’s Cups. Once they’d reached the top, Willow had glanced to her right, where he was sitting and asked, “You know how you’ve been trying to make me mad all day?”

  To which the creepy alien tried to look innocent. Meaning, he blinked all five eyes slowly and raised his hands in an, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about’ gesture. Ignoring his lie, she continued brightly, “Well, you succeeded!”

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

  Then, in a movement she’d spent their entire trip to the peak of the wheel visualizing and mentally practicing, she scooped him up as she stood, and tossed him. The little guy was as light as he looked. Surprised as he was, he hadn’t even resisted! Her aim had been perfect, too. He landed directly in the large manure pile she had aimed for. The pile had been formed over the day as the fair employees cleaned the droppings of all the different outlandish animals wandering around the place to amuse tourists.

  Glancing toward her companion, she wondered aloud, “Luzzi, do you think Shandy’s Cups will let someone so stinky in?” Catching the Paavaras rubbing both hands down her face, Willow didn’t dare let her attention be diverted. She was sure the little Hazzabi man would try to get revenge somehow.

  “Let us ask.” Luzzi replied moments later, as they arrived in front of a large building which seemed to be modeled off of a European castle. They stopped in near the edge of the structure’s draw-bridge to take it in. It was massive, with a moat and draw bridge and everything. What a crazy place to name something like ‘Shandy’s Cups’.

  Waiting for the others to get their fill, Luzzi informed them, “I understand the rooms are quite comfortable and a two hour spa is even included in our booking. I recommend taking advantage, as this is the last night of peace we will know for a long while.”

  Side-stepping, Willow used a hint of her focus to speed herself to avoid as Ravvy lunged. Her stylish boot in his rear sent him tumbling into the moat. As he came up, sputtering, she commented, “Good plan Ravvy boy! This way we don’t have to ask if they’ll let stinky people in.”

  She raised two thumbs up to Ravvy in respect to his intelligent problem-solving.

  

  Jonah

  Flight Deck, Central Bridge, Wesnmen’s Coallition Trading Barge

  

  Although the initial meeting with Jemer had been tense, to say the least, they seemed to be on decent terms now. A very quick argument with Naomi over the party chat had convinced her to just agree that they’d sign contracts similar to the ones they’d had with the goblins. Chaven had suggested telling her that part of the contract dictated third parties were not to be informed of the contents of the contract outside of a court order, so the orc wouldn’t have a way to actually check whether the terms were similar. Then, he’d somehow produced an extremely detailed contract which fit their situation perfectly.

  The largest differences between the original contracts and the new ones were a non-hostility agreement, which they pointed out as an addition. Beyond that, there were clauses of personal sovereignty, freedom of choice, allowances to roam the ship as they saw fit, and other similar explicit agreements that they were not owned by the contract holder in any way.

  The original contract hadn’t had any of that. Boiled down, that one had essentially just said, ‘You all will be transported from point A to point B within N days, in return your backer will pay us X amount of money’. Although both Jonah and Naomi been somewhat skeptical of using Chaven’s contracts, given they didn’t have time to read them before offering them over to Jemer, in the end they’d agreed.

  Chaven’s logic had been simple enough: he’d come to rectify their failure to follow their contract with the faction. The fact that they were doing their absolute best to follow it, meant he was obliged to help them as well. Furthermore, he couldn’t hinder them. So, if he tried to put anything fishy into this contract, it could be argued that he was breaking the contract between them and the Frazzlen. There was something in the argument that still didn’t sit perfectly with Jonah, but he hardly had a better option.

  On the bright side, they now had a bit of money to their names! They’d completed their ‘Immediate Contract’ with Chaven. As soon as they’d secured the original ship captain, Chaven had sent them each 1000 R0-EB, 100 R1 EB, and 10R2-EB. The first of which they’d been able to use to reply to Willow’s messages. Naomi had replied almost immediately, from what he understood.

  Jonah had wanted to take more time to think through his message and was only now completing it. He’d wanted to tell her all about the insane journey they’d set out on to rejoin her, whereas Naomi had apparently just told her they were fine and headed her way. Looking up from the UICI screen, he glanced around the flight deck for a moment. He let his mind wonder, making sure nothing else popped up that he’d want to inform Willow about. Not thinking of anything, he sent the message.

  Watching the goblins in the flight deck work was interesting. He was here because he’d asked to be. The new contract allowed it, so Jamer had just shrugged and told him to do what he wanted. Then, she’d dragged Naomi off somewhere to chat. He hoped the huge orc was only going to talk with her and hadn’t decided to do anything more nefarious. Jonah shuddered at the memory of his forty simulations. He’d had a migraine for two days after which had kept him in the med bay until today.

  Now that he wasn’t bed ridden, he was taking the opportunity to observe more than just passengers. Watching as the thirty or so goblins in front of him clicked at their displays, turned knobs, slapped buttons, and called out to each other was oddly calming. It was all so rote and mundane, while also managing to be extraordinary. Especially with the view of the cosmos through the massive viewing screen at the front of the room. He was fairly certain that they were actually closer to the middle of the ship than an edge, so the clear view of stars and planets blipping by would have to be coming from cameras or something.

  Due to a combination of Chaven’s interference with his contract enforcement and Jamer managing to secure the flight-deck, the lock down hadn’t worked properly. Instead, the goblin’s ship had been taken by the orcs. According to them, the ship would be sold off to recoup costs which the smugglers had incurred. Honestly, Jonah wasn’t sure if he believed the goblins were smugglers or not. His instincts told him it was more likely the orcs were just saying that as an excuse.

  Unfortunately, anyone from the goblin’s side who might have been able to answer that question was either in the brig or dead. Both sides had taken heavy losses, and both sides took it as nothing more than a minor annoyance. The goblins on the flight deck didn’t even seem to care, they just kept running the ship and following the orders which came through their systems from the captain’s chair.

  Why even have a separate system from the UICI? Can’t the entire ship just be flown using it or something? It was weird, where the line between UICI and other technology was. Sometimes they were seamlessly integrated, sometimes they weren’t, and he had no idea when or why.

  A soft hand touched Jonah’s shoulder and he jumped a bit before craning his neck up and around. Naomi stood behind him, her eyes fixed on the viewing screen he’d previously been fixated on himself. She spoke softly, “Jamer is going to change course for us. According to her, the goblins were previously taking us to a planet called Kezmem. She believes they would have taken us to our final destination eventually, but wouldn’t have been fast about it. The contract we gave her, and therefore the ones we signed with the goblins before, weren’t clear about the transit being directly from Savria to Motrendi.”

  The tension in Naomi’s hand was enough of a hint for Jonah to realize there was more she didn’t want to say aloud. Initiating a party, he asked through the private channel, “What else?”

  “She’s insinuated that we’ll be taken to the planet, but that the contract doesn’t stipulate we have to be dropped off there.”

  Jonah cursed. Stupid contracts. Why can’t people just act with decency and common sense?! The more we get raveled up in legal mumbo-jumbo the less sense anything is making.

  “What’s our plan?” He asked, assuming they weren’t going to just roll over and do whatever the orcs wanted them to. They had their original contract to uphold for one, but more importantly they wanted to rejoin their friend.

  After a long moment of silence Naomi sent something approximating a sigh, “I’m not sure yet. I think we’re going to have to plan a kind of coupe.”

  “Oh. Think Chaven will help us with that?”

  “He will, I’ve already confirmed.”

  “That’s helpful, I think. Though…” He hesitated, not wanting to say something derogatory about the avron after he’d done his best to help them.

  Naomi had no such compunctions. “He’s worthless in a fight.”

  Wincing, Jonah agreed, “Yeah, that.”

  “He is going to help us write up contracts which we can present to co-conspirators, ensuring their aid. The contracts will be backed by his own spells and abilities and will grant everyone bound within additional boons. One of them is the ‘Contractee’s Competence’ which we had until we found the captain.”

  “Yeaaah… What’d that do? My status never registered any buff or anything and I didn’t feel any different.”

  Naomi patted his shoulder, then turned to head back up toward the captain’s roost, “Chaven says it’s a subtle boon which simply improves the bearer’s competence in all things. So we were just a bit less incompetent with everything we did, I guess.”

  They continued talking for several more hours, though they remained separate. If Jamer was canny and perceptive enough to notice and exploit a contractual loophole, then it was unlikely she’d leave her ‘guests’ unobserved. However, neither Jonah nor Naomi thought she suspected they could communicate telepathically.

  Although they did their best to come up with plans and plans inside of those plans, neither party really considered themselves schemers. Their planning felt more like spinning wheels, until they grudgingly agreed to pull Chaven in. The bird-man was much more comfortable in the muggy waters and was able to help them build contingencies and stratagems. Unfortunately, he advised it was unlikely they’d be able to implement any of it immediately upon reaching Motrendi. The orcs would simply be too alert for some kind of resistance or betrayal.

  At the end of a very long day of exhausting plotting, Jonah asked Naomi through the channel, “Do you think Willow is having to go through a bunch of political B.S.?”

  “No. She’s probably just kicking anyone who annoys her in the butt.”