Chapter Five Hundred and Ninety-Eight – My Evil Plan to Save the World

"So, where do we begin?" Rainnewt asked as he crossed one leg over the other and smiled. It was... urgh, I hated it, but Rainnewt's smile was nice. Nice to look at. Nice and kind and caring. Nice like a nice person. If I didn't know him from prior experiences I might have been fooled. Anyone who was willing to smile and be nice was a good person in my book.

Someone who smiled and wasn't nice... well, that was somehow worse than someone who wasn't nice and showed it with a mean face.

I think, if I took a moment to ask Amaryllis, she'd tell me that it was the duplicity that bothered me. The dishonesty inherent in a smile that was hiding how someone really felt. Rainnewt had exactly that kind of smile to me, now.

"Well, Mister Rainnewt," Tristan said. "Captain Bunch and her comrades came here with certain accusations. The matter by which they came here itself is also suspect. They claim that they arrived thanks to a device of your making?"

"Ah, that may be accurate, about the device. Though I assure you, the goal wasn't to lead them here. More... it was about pointing the good captain and her cohort of little friends in the right direction."

"And that direction was...?" Guinevere asked leadingly.

He casually shrugged one shoulder. "Towards the Black Avatars, of course. Knowing Broccoli's 'talk-first policy' I was quite certain that she'd eventually find a member and have a little chat. That would be enough to guide her and her crew in the right direction."

"That's one convoluted plan," Guinevere said.

"No no, quite the opposite. It was the work of an afternoon to assemble the device and the clues, then a few minutes and some gold to have it in the right place. I merely pointed and hoped that the result would be satisfactory, but even had they ignored it entirely, I would have lost little but some time."

"It's nice to hear that your disregard for our secrecy didn't require much effort," Guinevere said dryly. "But that doesn't make your plan any less convoluted."

Rainnewt spread his hands mildly. "What can I say; a good plan speaks for itself."

"So do bad ones," Tristain noted.

There was a brief silence. Rainnewt fixed his smile in place like he was trying to figure out how to respond to that.

"So it was a trap?" I asked.

He immediately shook his head. "Nothing like that! No no, it was a way of encouraging you along a wide path. To help you keep your eyes opened."

"You could have left a note," I said.

"I did."

"A good one," I said.

He pressed his hands over his heart. "You wound me."

"Not yet, we haven't," Amaryllis muttered just loud enough that everyone heard. I reached back and gently touched her leg. I wanted to reassure her that I was there for her, and also maybe hold her back from using her talons on Rainnewt in front of others.

Tristain cleared his throat, again. "I see that we're quick to hop off target today. That's well and good, but perhaps allow me to redirect us all onto the main subject? Mister Rainnewt, based on the concerns that Captain Bunch and her allies brought forth, we do have some queries for you."

"The Black Avatars seem rather trusting of the captain and her friends," Rainnewt said. "Not that I'm questioning that. Miss Bunch and I have had... a few disagreements, and I'd say that we have a bit of professional rivalry going on, but on the whole, I do believe that she is mostly trustworthy."

"That's nice of you to say," I said.

"Don't agree with him," Calamity said. "It's probably a trap of some sort."

But he was saying nice things about me? Ah, I was getting a little confused.

"Indeed," Tristain replied to Rainnewt. "We tested the captain's character ourselves, as well as that of her companions. As best we could, within the constraints we had imposed on us by limited time."

"What does that mean?" Amaryllis asked.

The little rodent-man's mouth firmed into a line. "We learn from our mistakes," he said. "After being... perhaps a little too eager to trust recently, we decided to... I won't mince words. We spied on you. On your vessel, on your crew, and we read through all of the documentation you had onboard."

Awen gasped.

"Don't worry, love, your diary was more cute than self-incriminating," Viviane said from her perch atop one of the bookshelves. Her grin was weird. I glanced over to Awen to discover that she was red from cheeks to the roots of her blonde hair.

"How scandalous," Rainnewt said dryly.

"We will look into the matter of forgiveness later," Tristain replied. "For now, suffice to say that our findings pointed towards this group being somewhat successful mid-power adventurers whose main task seem to be travelling the whole of Dirt and doing good where they can, and reaping the benefits in reputation and personal growth along the way."

"Uh, thanks," I said. I squeezed Amaryllis a little, because I could sense that she was about to go off on a tirade. My friends didn't take kindly to being spied on. I... didn't much care? I never had much to hide in the first place. Probably an understandable one, really, but I didn't think it was a good time for it. "So, we're cleared, but what about Rainnewt?"

"I see what you mean," Tristain said. "Unfortunately, when Mister Rainnewt approached us, it was with decent evidence of a host of issues that we felt like we had to tackle. Those proved to be true enough. The dungeons of Dirt are at risk. Obviously, I don't think I need to highlight how much of a disaster it would be to lose those."

"Magically, we'd have to deal with massive, Dirt-wide irregularities. Dungeons aren't perfect mana-regulators, but they're nonetheless quite good," Mathew said.

Not too far from him, Guinevere nodded along. "There's more to it than that. Culturally, dungeons are the foundational reason for the existence of many cities. They also provide biological diversity. Several races wouldn't exist with the classes that dungeon evolutions provide." Her four tails swished behind her.

"Eh, there's the economic problem too," Vivian added. "Plenty of dungeons are exploited for this and that. If they all died overnight, or even over several years, you'd have a lot of folk without work, and a lot of goods that are dungeon-produced goods range from luxuries to local necessities. Those tend to have their own special sort of economic existence."

"Yes, yes," Rainnewt said. "All very good reasons to have me around, no? They're also the reasons I reached out to the Avatars. I knew, from reputation at least, that the Black Avatars would be able to help me in completing my World-given quest to save the world."

I wrinkled my nose up, like I'd just caught a bad smell in the air.

"You don't seem to agree, Captain?" Tristain asked.

"Huh? Oh, I guess I do, a little. The dungeons being broken and needing help, the Evil Roots and all that, it is a problem, sure. But I'm not sure if it's a problem that's so bad that I'd want to work with Rainnewt to fix it." I raised my hand, stalling any arguing before it could really start. "I get that he's the first one that showed up, and he's telling you about all of the Evil Roots and how to fight them, but I don't trust him, and I don't trust that he hasn't misled you since."

"Especially," Caprica said, picking up the slack. "Since we did discover a device in a nearby dungeon that was clearly one of yours and whose function leaves much to be desired. You won't ingratiate yourselves with us by torturing the very dungeons that you mean to save."

"Ah yes, that device," Tristain said with a slow nod. "You found that it didn't work?"

"I mean, it did as it was probably intended to," I said.

"And isn't that good enough?" Rainnewt cut in.

I gave him my best glare. "No, it's not. It was hurting the dungeon. It actively helped us remove the device. I won't let you guys save the world if it means hurting it."

"Compromise--" Tristain started.

I shook my head so hard that my ears fluttered. "Nope! 'Compromise' isn't a magic word that forces me to unquestioningly accept a bad plan. Especially when there are better plans available."

"It's just common sense--" Rainnewt began.

"'Common sense' isn't a magic word either. We don't accept compromises with meanies."

Tristain folded his hands atop the table. "Then I believe I understand the captain's objection. It isn't to the existence of Mister Rainnewt's work, but to the methods employed." He glanced towards me. "Is that accurate?"

"Pretty much," I said. "If hurting dungeons is part of the plan, then I don't think it's a very good plan." Rainnewt opened his mouth, but I pointed at him before he could start. "And don't tell me it's necessary. That's what everyone says when they're about to do something mean."

Rainnewt sighed. "Captain, your moral convictions are admirable, but they remain convictions. They are not laws of reality." He leaned back. "If another solution exists, then I have yet to discover it. Until such time, I refuse to abandon the only approach that has shown measurable success, even if you call it 'torture.'" He made finger quotes. "Remember, the alternative is dungeon death. The choice could not be clearer."

Amaryllis snorted. "The only approach? Then you haven't looked very hard. Broccoli stumbled on a better approach by accident."

Taking a deep breath, Rainnewt turned his gaze from Amaryllis to me. For a few long seconds, he studied me with a flat expression, then he fixed a patronizing smile on his face. "Well, if you have a suggestion, don't keep it to yourself. Please, enlighten me."

"Sure," I said. Raising a hand, I let Cleaning Magic roll across it like white sparkly flame. "Cleaning magic works. It takes S-Rank, but at that level, Cleaning can purge Evil Roots without hurting a dungeon core."

Caprica crossed her arms and nodded while smiling in a satisfied way. "Sylphfree has committed to training more Master Cleaners through powerleveling. We're not idiots, we do have a plan."

A few of the Black Avatars shifted in interest, but overall, they didn't react much. I guess if they'd read all of our correspondence and researched us, most of them probably already knew about this.

"This explains the report of the dungeon where the Roots were eliminated." Tristain noted. "The one in Sylphfree, associated with that knightly order."

"My thoughts as well," Guinevere agreed.

Rainnewt, on the other hand, looked completely unimpressed. "That's it?" he asked, like the simplicity of Cleaning Magic had personally offended him.

"Yep?" I agreed.

Amaryllis huffed. "With enough people with Master Cleaning, Evil Roots can be driven back. One by one, we can clear each infected dungeon until none are left and the roots are completely wiped out."

"Just like eradicating a disease!" I beamed at my sort-of-a-nemesis. "So you don't need to do any nasty dungeon torture, okay?"

Rainnewt stared at me for a long moment.

Then, as I watched, he deliberately made a gentle smile. "You really believe that will work, don't you?"

My own smile faltered by just a hair. "Er ... yes?"

He tilted his head. "You've clearly put thought into this ... or at least Sylphfree has. But it's obviously insufficient; I don't understand why you think this is a workable--"

He cut himself off. It was like a lightbulb had lit up over his head.

"Oh," he said. "I see. I thought-- right, of course you wouldn't--"

He shut up again. He glanced at the Black Avatars, who were watching him with cold, judging eyes.

Slowly, a small smile began to dawn on his face.

A prickling of cold slid down my spine, because unsettlingly, this smile looked like he was actually, genuinely, happy.

"And that's the problem," Caprica said. "You've mistaken the limits of your experience for the limits of possibility." She adjusted her glasses. "Captain Bunch has a habit of finding solutions that should not exist. It would be imprudent to dismiss that simply because it has not happened yet."

I grinned. Score one for team Bunch!

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