Double-Blind: A Modern LITRPG

Quest: A Steady Hand

Primary Objective — Ensure Region 14’s Survival

Secondary Objective I — Establish Short-Term Defenses

Secondary Objective II — Establish Trade and Alliances with other Regions

Secondary Objective III — Uncover the Region Luminaries (1 of 4)

Secondary Objective IV — Discover the Secret of the Wraithwood

Secondary Objective V — ???

Personal Objective — Remain unidentified by other Users.

Threat Level: ???

EXP GAIN (L)

Time Limit: Before the Transposition Event

Reward: Class Specific Boon.

The rest of the day passed quickly. But there were some growing pains. At first, the construction crew was clearly irritated, both by having to redo sections of the region barrier and by Iris’s presence. Like the rest of my family, Iris wasn’t used to mincing words. If there was a problem, she’d comment on it immediately. She was clear and up front about what she wanted, and that rankled them.

After the initial negotiation, tension climbed so high there were multiple times I thought I’d need to intervene, doctor’s warning be damned.

Thankfully, that was unnecessary.

Because Iris’s personal debut left an impact.

Iris spent a lot of time on a sketch for the barriers. Made sure there were supports in the correct places along with other functionality thanks to Gideon Fenberry, an NPC architect who lived in our building.

“It’s not very pretty,” Iris said, studying her drawing. She seemed to be growing more comfortable speaking aloud. There was a pencil smudge on her chin, and her hair had grown frizzy with the heat.

“Doesn’t have to be.” I replied nonchalantly, still studying the details of the most recent quest I’d received. The secondary luminary objective caught my eye.

“Normally, I’d loathe the apathy towards creativity,” Gideon said, shooting me a curious side eye. “But considering the scale of this project, your brother is correct.”

He was a bit shorter than average, maybe a half-inch shorter than me if I were to guess, and a bit stuffy. His blue office shirt was wrinkled, but still tucked into his chinos. Large-glasses framed his round face, and I had a feeling they were prescription. The only noteworthy element of his apparel were the vibrant magenta, yellow, and cyan vertically segmented suspenders.

Iris placed her hand on a nearby felled tree and muttered under her breath.

“Looky there. Our mascot’s communing with nature again.” One of the many men in orange vests milling around snickered.

“That helps, thanks.” Iris patted the tree in appreciation and picked up her pencil, then began to draw excitedly.

I glanced over her shoulder. No one had managed to recreate Iris’s ability to communicate with the trees. My guess was that it had something to do with her class, and that her connection to the materials themselves were heightened.

”Can you—“ Iris started to sign, then stopped and spoke aloud to the man who had just cracked a joke. “Can you help gather leaves?”

“For… what?” The man looked at her like she was losing her mind.

I was worried. Iris didn’t deal with conflict well. With this degree of hostility and pushback, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she shrank into herself. But whether it was due to the urgency of the situation, or just plain determination on Iris’s part, she didn’t back down.

“For materials,” Iris said. “They dampen magic. Magic users—along with artillery spells—are the biggest threat to us, according to Users I’ve talked to.”

And by Users, she was referring primarily to me.

Iris continued, “If we integrate the leaves into the wood itself, it should go a long way towards protecting us.”

“And if one of those wizards can fly?” The man challenged. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there are people just flitting around up there.”

Iris glanced at me.

”We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” I mouthed. There weren’t many fliers. Only a half-dozen or so in the sky at any given time. It came without saying that we’d need other defenses. This was barebones. A foundation for everything that would come after. I didn’t like that the regions were all walling themselves off.

Iris’s smile dampened. She pointed to the eternal darkness of Region 13, now less than a block away. “Do you see anyone flying over there?”

The man’s expression soured. “Well, no.”

“Then let’s just worry about getting the walls up, and we’ll deal with the fringe issues later.”

“Hey Martinez. Didn’t you have a landscaping thing? Half-pint wants help gathering leaves.”

“It was a rental company, you cretin.” Martinez said. He was laying in the back of the truck, hat pulled down over his eyes.

“Yeah yeah.”

“The more people help, the faster this will go,” Iris said, probably missing some crosstalk.

Unsurprisingly, the man’s lip curled. He crossed his arms and set his feet, unmoving. His companions were less direct in their misgivings, but still made no effort to start gathering leaves.

I sighed and grabbed a nearby bag. “How many do you need?”

Iris glanced at me, then the forest that had cropped up behind us. “A thousand, give or take.”

“Total?” I asked, surprised by the number.

“Per section. More or less depending on the length.” Iris said, clearly concerned for my well-being. “But Matt, you should rest.”

“Nah.” I coughed, deep and painful, then turned to the side and spit blood and phlegm onto the ground. I could feel the workers watching uneasily as I thoroughly ignored them. “So, what? I just pick them off the ground?”

“No, they wouldn’t like that. The Wraithwoods. Just ask them. They’ll understand, even if they can’t talk to you directly. It’s up to each tree how much they’d like to contribute, if anything.” Iris said hesitantly. I could tell she was about to try to talk me out of it, so I immediately turned and wheeled myself to the nearest tree. The obliterated road was littered with roots and detritus, and I probably made a pitiful sight, maneuvering my wheelchair across the treacherous terrain.

Doing my best to hide how silly I felt, I reached out and knocked on the trunk. “I need leaves for the wall.”

A single gray-blue leaf detached itself from the tree and drifted slowly towards me. Remembering how my mother cut her finger against a leaf’s edge, I quickly withdrew one of the sturdier bags I’d used to hold lux during the trial and held it open. Without prompting, a dozen more leaves detached themselves and drifted into the bag.

With well over a hundred leaves in hand, I moved on to the next tree. And the next. Before long, I saw Gideon standing nearby, holding up a leather satchel. He gave me an encouraging nod.

“Careful!” I heard Iris shout. She wasn’t talking to me. Rather, one of the construction crew. The one with the attitude was still standing back, but several of them had followed my lead, unwilling to let the boy in the wheelchair show them up.

Before long, we had more than enough for the first section and many more after that. Iris knelt in front of the materials, a bead of sweat on her forehead. She looked back at me and I nodded, gesturing for her to go for it.

White light emitted from Iris’s palms. Someone gasped.

The wall wasn’t constructed piece by piece, the way you’d assume. Rather, a thin gray veneer of wood stretched up skyward, until it stopped, around three stories tall. Then, it thickened. Support beams extended from the wood itself, in a near perfect copy of what Iris had sketched. Small sliding sections that hid a portcullis assembled themselves. Slowly, the leaves rose from their various bags. They were oval naturally, and shed their stems as they drifted towards the wall. Iris arranged them layer by layer on top of each other, until the entire section of wall was covered. With the way they were arranged, the wall looked almost scaled in nature.

I reached up and tried to pry a leaf loose. It was like attempting to pull a metal pole out of concrete. When I tried again, I noticed the other leaves seemed to compress, locking the one I was tugging in place.

That was a minor relief. No one would be stripping the metaphorical copper out of our walls.

Iris stood slowly, surveying her work with a distant smile.

I ruffled her hair. “Good job, kiddo.”

That was all it took to throw the construction crew into action. With the first section in place, they seemed to recognize how much time Iris could save them and intended to capitalize on the advantage.

By evening's end, the district was completely enclosed, with gated entrances on all four sides. I would have preferred having a few towers in place, but Iris was asleep on my lap, dead to the world. She’d gone nearly all day, only pausing for a nap halfway through when her mana was low.

I shrugged. There were nearby buildings we could use as lookouts in the interim. And considering how quickly the construction had gone, this was more than a win already.

“She is very talented,” Gideon said. He’d offered to push my wheelchair, and despite my previous feelings of weirdness about that, I was too tired to say no.

Iris stirred against my chest, curling up tighter. I patted her head. “She’s always been clever.” They both are. Unbidden, my thoughts turned to Ellison.

“More than just clever.” Gideon said enthusiastically. “Generally, in my profession, people tend to lean one of two ways. Artistic or Pragmatic. Both are necessary, in varying degrees. But most skew one way or another. Your sister seems to understand the balance. Even when she was experimenting. Another good sign. If even half of my students were so gifted.” He shook his head.

“You were a teacher?”

“Part-time at Columbia, when wasn’t overloaded with work.” Gideon affirmed.

“Hell of a commute.”

“Not really. I had a summer home there.” His expression clouded. “Though I suppose my days of teaching are behind me.”

I glanced down at my sister. “Everything is changing. We have plenty of existing infrastructure that’s obsolete.”

“Yes.” Gideon’s mouth pulled downward. “I have ideas. Ways to rectify and salvage what we have, improve it. But the city council seems more interested in sitting on its hands and bracing for whatever comes next than rebuilding.”

I wondered, absentmindedly, if I was being baited. Then dismissed the notion. Gideon was smart, not above getting his hands dirty, and most importantly—patient with Iris. If he’d been more like Miles, I’d be far more suspicious and hesitant to bite. But he seemed too socially awkward to be manipulating me intentionally. And even if he was, he clearly knew what he was talking about.

I sighed. “You affiliated?”

He blinked. “I’m accredited.”

“Do you have a guild?”

“Oh. No.”

Before I could talk myself out of it, I pulled up Kinsley’s contact card and sent it to Gideon. “Reach out to her. Message, not voice. She’s swamped right now. Tell her Matt recommended you for membership, and explain what you can offer.”

“And what… is it that I’m offering?” Gideon asked, his eyebrow furrowed. “You know I’m not a User.”

“Here’s what I’m thinking. You’ve seen what Iris can do. Take on my sister as an apprentice. Teach her at a college level.” Before he could argue, I held up a hand. “She’s not stupid. Anything foundational you can think of, she’s probably already learned. Keep in mind you likely won’t be her only teacher, and manage the workload accordingly. In return, she helps with improvements you want to make around the region, as long as Kinsley green lights whatever it is you have in mind.”

“Quick point of order.” Gideon cleared his throat. “This is the Kinsley, is it not?”

“Yes. Unless there’s another Guild Leader by that name I’m not aware of.

“Is there any contract?” Gideon asked, his eyes narrowing.

Ah. He’d been to the open forum, or at least had interactions with a guild like the Local Relief Effort. Explained why he still hadn’t joined up with anyone.

“No contract. I’ll leave pay negotiations to you and her.” I waved him off. There were too many irons in the fire to try to manage things at a micro level. I’d trust Kinsley to handle the recruitment. And more importantly, to get one of her mercenaries to investigate Gideon.

Even if he seemed well-meaning and wasn’t triggering any red flags, there was no world where I trusted my sister to an outsider without due diligence.

/////

By the time I returned to my penthouse, I was spent. Between the physical exhaustion that came with being injured and the hell of drinking the recovery potions, it was hard to keep my eyes open. Sae was nowhere to be seen. Her guest room door was locked shut, no light emitting from beneath the doorframe. Probably asleep. She’d be just as exhausted as me, if not more so.

And she wasn’t the only one.

Mom was passed out on the couch. Ellison had kicked open a recliner and fallen asleep watching a movie with the volume muted. He opened one eye to look at me as I came in.

I gave him a half-wave and the eye closed, as if he’d only woken to confirm that nothing was amiss.

Gently, I placed Iris down on the loveseat perpendicular to the couch my mother was sleeping on, and pulled a plush blanket from the hallway closet to drape over her. She didn’t stir at all, further confirming my suspicion that she’d pushed herself too hard.

When I thought about it, I found that my reticence to live here had diminished. Iris’s walls likely had something to do with it. I made a mental note to talk to the building super in the morning. From what Kinsley said, there were plenty of available rooms and the building owner seemed ecstatic to dole them out to us. I’d need to talk to them, whoever they were, sooner rather than later.

We’d lived cramped together in an apartment for too long already.

Now that we had options, they deserved their space. Iris would probably still live with mom. That was the best case for both of them. My sister would be able to keep an eye on mom, and tell me if her issues started becoming problems again. And she wouldn’t be alone.

Ellison was a different story. I wanted him completely separate, on a different floor. I’d thought about it comprehensively. The elevator required a keycard, which meant it’d be easy to track his comings and goings. He’d still have access to us, but we’d know he was coming—whether he wanted us to or not. I’d need to be careful how I spun it when I told him. He was more keyed in to how I thought than most people, so I wanted to at least take the night to come up with a plan. With that in mind, I sent him a message.

Either he’d be there or he wouldn’t. Hopefully, our relationship wasn’t that far gone.

Sae—well, I wasn’t sure what to do with Sae. Eventually, I wanted the penthouse to myself. It would be easier to handle everything—as both Matt and Myrddin—without anyone else tracking my comings and goings. But I wasn’t going to put that over her well-being. She’d been through hell. As long as she was in hiding, her social interaction was limited to me, Kinsley, and my family. Other than our initial discussion, I had no idea where she was at, in terms of headspace. And as Kinsley had so recently reminded me, isolation could be a hell of its own.

I crawled onto the hospital bed in my room, feeling profoundly on the back foot. From the moment I woke up, it felt like I’d been managing people and delegating, which wasn’t my forte. Hopefully, Kinsley would be able to take more of a leading role as time went on and everything settled. With that in mind, I finished what was left of the recovery potion, gagging at the taste.

Idly, I pulled up my character sheet. There hadn’t been any changes. I still wouldn’t know how much the augmented stats altered my abilities until I could let loose.

One down, one to go.

Speaking of which. I had two levels to distribute. I’d yet to bother with them, considering everything else that was going on. Now that there wasn’t an immediately impending crisis, there was no reason not to take my time and consider my options carefully. I read through the Ordinator feats first, noting anything that looked promising, then through the Page feats. There was an improved version of that looked promising, along with some general purpose feats that would help in the short term.

I navigated to the dropdown—and stopped.

It suddenly clicked. I was offered a class for completing the receptacle in Region 14. I’d assumed that offer would simply be null, due to the nature of my subterfuge. But there it was. I focused on the carrot, and text began to scroll.