Chapter 124: Five Signatures

"Yeah." Darius glanced down. "I did."

Alvian hadn’t expected him to agree. Usually Darius would have started shouting about Magnus blood. Now he looked as though he hadn’t slept in a month.

"During the Calamity Rift," Darius said, "I put up magma barriers while the younger students ran. I thought if I kept fighting, I could prove I was still worth something. Then the Obsidian Colossus came through. I couldn’t even slow it down." He pressed a hand against his bandaged chest. "You killed it. And afterward, when I heard what my father had done, I kept wondering whether I would’ve helped him if he’d asked me."

"Would you?"

Darius took too long to answer. "Before the Rift? I don’t know. I hate that I don’t know."

That was the first answer Alvian believed without question.

Two students passed carrying salvaged circuitry. One stopped. Her right hand, recently healed by the array, was still pale.

"You could’ve kept the barrier up longer," she said to him. "Merrick was right behind me."

Darius faced her. "I know. I’m sorry."

"Sorry doesn’t bring him back."

"I know that too."

She looked ready to say more, but her friend gently took her arm. They carried the crate away. Darius watched them go without trying to defend himself.

"I don’t expect you to forgive me," he told Alvian. "I don’t deserve it. But I want you to know I understand what I did, and I’m going to spend my life making it mean something. I just don’t know where to start."

Alvian looked at the scar above Darius’s collar. ’He could spend ten years begging everyone to like him again. That would fix absolutely nothing.’

A familiar chime sounded inside his head.

[Ding!]

[Host interaction detected: Darius Magnus]

[Hostile action: None]

[Experience reward: None]

[The System recommends against attacking people who are already having a terrible morning]

’For once, we’re in agreement.’

"The Healer’s Assembly is looking for people willing to learn new methods," Alvian said. "Their training program needs hands. You still have a Magma Talent. You can heat materials, shape parts, work on equipment. If you want to make it mean something, start there."

Darius blinked. "The healers?"

"Yes. The people repairing injuries instead of causing them. It’s a fairly promising line of work."

"Would they even take a Magnus?"

"Ask them. Don’t ask me to make the decision for them. And don’t expect your name to open the door."

Darius nodded once. He looked toward the medical wing, where a team of healers was pushing a new treatment bed inside. "I can do that."

"Good."

Alvian turned to leave, but Darius spoke again. "Vance. I really am sorry."

Alvian didn’t look back. "Then show them."

At the medical wing, Elder Morrain Ashby was arguing with a clerk. The clerk read Darius’s application and pushed it back.

"We don’t need trouble here."

Ashby caught the paper before it hit the floor. He read the name, studied the pale boy standing in front of him, then pointed toward a cart loaded with cracked Essence regulators.

"You know how to control heat?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Those seals need loosening. Don’t melt the casings, and don’t call me sir every five seconds."

Darius stared at the cart. "That’s it?"

"No," Ashby said. "After that, you clean the workshop. Move."

┌──────[ Profile]──────┐\

│ [Host]: Alvian Vance\

│ [Level]: 70\

│ [Talent]: Clearwater/Dissolution/Reformation [Unique]\

│ [Skills]: Genesis Forge [S-RANK]\

│ Abyssal Dissolution Domain [S-RANK]\

│ Void Step: Annihilation [S-RANK]\

│ Severing Void Edge [S-RANK]\

│ Dissolution of Form [CONCEPTUAL]\

│ Clearwater Palm [D-Rank, Enhanced]\

│ [Weapon Mastery]: Short-Sword [MAXIMUM, evolved]\

│ [STR]: 530 | [AGI]: 290 | [VIT]: 855\

│ [INT]: 215 | [Essence]: 287\

│ [Karma Points]: 53\

│ [EXP Bank]: \~4,737,100\

│ [World Will]: Monitoring (creation-tolerant)\

│ [System Version]: 3.0 → 4.0 (1/2 conditions met)\

│ [HP]: 1,710/1,710\

│ [Genesis Forge]: Apprentice\

│ [Patients Healed]: 231\

│ [Creation EXP]: \~849,100\

│ [Array Status]: SELF-SUSTAINING\

│ [Alliance Status]: 3 GUILDS ALIGNED, REFORMING\

│ [Bounty Status]: FORMALLY VOIDED\

│ [Criminal Charges]: DISMISSED\

│ [Crown Posture]: WATCHING, WAITING\

│ [Dimensional Connectivity]: 7 LAYERS RESTORED\

│ [System Classification]: RESTORATION PROTOCOL\

│ [System Origin]: RESTRICTED\

│ [Version 4.0 Condition 2]: IN PROGRESS\

│ [Next Priority]: PRE-CATACLYSM ARCHIVE INVESTIGATION\

└─────────────────┘

—-

Four weeks after the healing array first switched on, someone tried to put a table in front of it.

"Move that thing!" Pell Ossuary shouted. "That’s a treatment lane, not your bloody meeting room!"

Two Guild attendants lifted the table and hurried sideways. A patient on a wheeled bed rolled past them, his leg sealed inside a cracked Essence brace. The healing array hummed above him, pale blue light moving between its pylons.

"Why hold a signing here?" Pell complained to Serah. "The Guildhall has chairs. Lots of them. Beautiful chairs that nobody bleeds on."

"Because the Guildhall doesn’t have this," Serah said, pointing to the array.

Pell looked at the patient, then at the growing crowd. "Fine. But if a Guildmaster blocks my next stretcher, I’m using him as a footrest."

At the back of the medical wing, Hendricks Cole was counting communication crystals. Tobias Finch stood beside him in a clean jacket Leo had insisted he wear. Tobias kept tugging at the collar.

"You look respectable," Hendricks said.

"That’s what worries me."

The documents on the signing desk carried five spaces. Three belonged to the Delver’s Consortium, Artificer’s Circle, and Healer’s Assembly. The other two carried names that had never appeared on a major Guild treaty before: the Undercity’s block council, represented by Tobias, and its independent communication network, represented by Hendricks.

The network members had voted to keep their own signature rather than hand control of their crystals to the council. Eighteen Undercity blocks had approved the arrangement. Tobias still looked as though he’d rather wrestle an Ironjaw Rat than sign anything.

Alvian found his least favorite sight waiting for him: a room full of people expecting him to settle an argument.

Elara Thorn was already arguing with three senior delvers. A broad man called Brant Heller slapped the draft accord onto the table.

"Non-aggression? You’re joking. The Crown sent killers after us, seized our people, and backed a corrupt tribunal. Now we’re promising not to fight back?"

"We’re promising not to start a war," Thorn answered.

"That’s what people say when they’re scared."

Thorn put both hands on the table. "Say that again, Heller. Slower. I’d like everyone to hear what you think of me."

Corrin Vex stepped between them before it became a challenge to combat. "Can we finish reading the agreement before somebody breaks my table?"

"It’s your table?" Tobias asked.

"I paid for it."

"Then take it away from the treatment lane," Pell shouted across the room.

Heller ignored them. "We should have a clause authorizing strikes against Crown facilities. Their courts are rotten. Their treasury helped fund the bounties. Give me fifty delvers and I’ll show them what consequences look like."

Several delvers nodded. Others looked toward the Academy guards at the doors. Serah quietly turned off the broadcasting crystal until the argument settled.

Alvian walked over. "Which facility do you attack first?"

Heller turned. "Excuse me?"

"The palace? A tax station? A barracks? Pick one."

"That’s a military decision."

"Then tell me what happens after you hit it. The four Crown-loyal Guilds haven’t joined us. You attack a royal post, they get told to choose between helping us or defending the Crown. What do you think they’ll do?"

Heller’s face tightened. "They’ll see who’s winning."

"They’ll see a reason to fight us. And while you’re busy with that, who’s watching the Undercity? Who’s protecting the patients waiting for another array?"

"You think the Crown will leave us alone because we sign a piece of paper?"

"No," Alvian said. "That’s why the first clause is mutual defense. If they attack one of us, the others respond. But we’re not giving them an excuse to call us rebels."

Thorn looked at the other delvers. "The council voted for a defensive alliance. It didn’t vote for Heller’s private war. We follow the council. That’s the reform you all agreed to."

Heller pushed his chair back. For a moment, his fists glowed with Essence. Helen Croft, standing near the entrance, rested one hand on her sword.

"Put that away," Thorn said.

Heller killed the glow. "Fine. But I’m recording my objection."

"Vex will publish it," Tobias said. "He’s rather fond of publishing things now."

Vex lifted his pen. "Very fond."

With the argument settled, the signing began. Morrain Ashby took the first turn at the reading desk, but Pell interrupted him to move another patient past the crowd. Ashby waited without complaint. When the bed reached the array, its central focus flashed and a damaged leg began reforming beneath the treatment light.

"That’s why we’re here," Ashby said. "Our Guild will train the operators. Vex’s people will build the pylons and the parts. Alvian will supply the Genesis Forge central focuses until we can find a way to reproduce them. Nobody gets to lock this treatment behind a noble family’s gate."

"And nobody gets to claim I can produce a hundred focuses tomorrow," Alvian added. "Put the supply schedule in writing."

Vex amended the page. Serah leaned over and corrected a technical term before the fresh ink dried.