Chapter 97: Call for Witness

“Not possible. Ella!” Arthur yelled. “Get in here.”

“Oh, good. That’ll be one witness. See if you can’t holler for Milo too,” Lily said happily.

“What is it? Is she all right?” Ella burst through the door moments later, sighted Lily, and moved even faster as she swept in and picked her up.

“Let me down! I’m an adult!” Lily yelled, as Ella proceeded to do nothing of the sort. “I’m grown up! You can’t cuddle me!”

“What are you going on about?” Ella said. “You were asleep for days, not years. People don’t grow up over very long naps.”

“She actually might have, Ella. She says she got a class,” Arthur said.

“Impossible. Years too early. That’s storybook stuff, Lily.”

“It isn’t! I had to have a whole argument to get it. I don’t want to have another one.” Lily’s eyes went unfocused for a second before she made a quick motion with her hand. “There. Tell me I don’t have a class now.”

As much as Arthur wanted to think this was a prank, Lily had just made it much harder.

Lily

Level 1 Expediter

Stats:

STR 5

VIT 4

DEX 6

PER 6

WIS 4

INT 5

Primary Skills: N/A

Achievements: Filibusterer

“Good gods, what did you do?” Ella said.

“I made the system do it,” Lily said proudly. “I was having one of those dreams Arthur has, and I sort of… grabbed on to it.”

“How do you even grab a… Oh, forget it for now.” Ella poked her head out the door. “Milo! Rhodia!”

A few seconds later the two of them came charging up the stairs, repeating the same pattern of lifting Lily up in relief, resulting in the same owlish complaints.

“Okay, you’ve seen her and she’s fine,” Ella said. “Now go and get Itela. And Eito. Tell them I said I need them. Split up so it takes less time.”

Milo and Rhodia looked at each other, then Arthur.

“Just do it. I’ll explain soon,” Arthur agreed with Ella.

Ten minutes later, Eito and Itela were there. Fifteen minutes later, Itela called in Karbo and had him find a person she described as “that one librarian” and drag him down to Ella’s house. This apparently had happened before, as evidenced by the snake-librarian’s apparent resignation to being princess carried by a huge red warrior.

“Now, what’s all this?” the librarian asked. Arthur nodded at Lily, who sighed and flicked over her status screen. “Oh, my. I see. How old is she?”

“Not old enough.”

“I see. And you’d like to know… what?”

“Is there anything in the literature about this? I’m talking myth or otherwise,” Itela said. “I’ve never heard of this.”

“There are… cases,” the snake hissed cautiously. “Not meticulously transcribed, for reasons I’ll explain. But cases. And instructions for librarians of sufficient authority to avoid documenting them, that come alongside those records.”

“You’re kidding me,” Eito said. “You withhold information?”

“Well, yes.” The librarian adjusted his glasses. “There are many dangerous forms of knowledge, Eito. Books and books on making poisons. Ancient texts on assassination of one’s enemies. Do you suppose we make all of that widely available?”

“Is this the same as that, Sythio?” Itela said. “So much so that I don’t know about it?”

“Oh, much worse. Imagine if it were generally known that this is possible. There aren’t many poisoners and assassins among us. But ambitious young ones in a hurry to grow up? I know a dozen, and I don’t get out much.”

“He has a point,” Eito said as he pointed at Arthur and then gestured at the rest of the room. “This one dove into a dungeon to help a friend. Karbo would have been fighting from birth if he could have. And I seem to remember a young cook-to-be who got in trouble repeatedly for breaking into restaurant cooking areas to get a better look at pots.”

“Fine. We’re wasting time,” Itela said. “Is this dangerous?”

“Well, I don’t know, really. Young lady.” The snake bent his head down. “How did this happen?”

“I had a dream. And then I just… wouldn’t leave. I refused,” Lily said, a little less proud now. It seemed that she finally realized that maybe she wasn’t entirely in the clear for what she did.

“I see. And did the system try to leave?”

“It kept showing me different things. Older-me doing things. Running my own shop. Building things. But always older me. And I kept saying no, and it would choose something else to show me.”

“And this continued for how long?”

“I don’t know. A day.”

Arthur blanched. “You just… filibustered the system? For a day?”

“She knew what I wanted.”

“She?”

“I think it’s a girl system.”

“Just… shhh,” Itela said. “Sythio. What’s happening here?”

“There are records, sparse but confirmed, of people more or less forcing the system into conversations in times of great need. As defined by themselves. The belief has to be genuine and on the approximate level of what the subject believes to be life-or-death importance. And the subject's determination needs to be proved to the system, in one way or another.” Sythio cleared his throat. “Although this is the first I’ve heard of this exact form of someone sinking in their teeth and refusing to let the system go in a dream.”

“And it’s safe?” Arthur asked.

“Nothing, young man, is entirely safe. But this is something the system more or less allows for. It’s not what I’d call flexible, but in dire times, the system makes exceptions. It’s less risk-free than doing it the right way. But I wouldn’t expect this young lady to fall over. She just has her class a little bit ahead of schedule.”

The room, besides Lily, breathed a collective sigh of relief.

“Now, if that’s all, I’d be pleased to ask you all to keep this to yourselves and I’ll be on my way. I was, in fact, reading and so long as you all agree not to cause a pandemic of under-aged class-holders, I’d like to get back to that.”

Everyone agreed, and Sythio went on his way. This time, he walked instead of being carried.

“Now that we know it’s safe, I guess we can move on to the next thing.” Arthur stood up. “Lily, I get that you were able to do this, but why did you do it?”

“I already told you,” Lily said.

The room looked at Arthur accusingly at this revelation. He held up a hand defensively and looked back at Lily.

“I assure you that you did not,” Arthur said. “You didn’t tell me that you were going to badger the system into giving you a class.”

“I did. I said I’d find a solution for your problem.” Lily beamed. “And I did.”

“Oh, hell. Lily, you did this for me?” Arthur took a breath and turned back to the room. “It’s the frontier. I can’t go. Couldn’t go. Because I can’t leave Lily alone, and because she couldn’t go without a class.”

“I didn’t even think you wanted to go,” Itela said. “At least I didn’t get the impression that was what you were focused on.”

“It doesn’t matter if he wants to go. If he decides to go, he can now. And if he decides to stay, that’s fine too. But I’m not in the way,” Lily said. “And I can help him better now. Just as soon as I get some skills.”

Eito stood up. “It’s very rare, Lily, that something is outside of my pay grade. Thanks for this little experience. And now, this young lady has waited enough. Arthur?”

Arthur looked at Eito. “Yes?”

“You’re her guardian. And I think… let's see. Arthur, Ella, Rhodia, and Milo. That should make for four. Is that fine with you, Lily?”

Lily puffed up and grinned. “Just fine.”

“Just do it as well as you can, Arthur,” Milo said. “Call for witnesses, welcome her to the system, and promise to help. Give her some best wishes, say she has a new name, and say it. There are no exact words.”

“Thanks, buddy. I’ll try.”

Arthur took a deep breath and stepped forward.

“I, Arthur Teamaster, Lily’s friend. And guardian. I call for witness. Are there any?”

“I, Milo Metalsmith, witness.”

“I, Rhodia Potterymaker, witness.”

“I, Ella Kitchenmaster, witness.”

Arthur nodded. “And I witness. Lily, I think you know that we all will do whatever we can to help you, in any way you need, for as long as you need it. We all promise that. And we welcome you to the world.”

Lily had been holding it together pretty well so far, but she lost it now. She ran up to Arthur’s legs, hugged them, and started crying. He reached down and picked her up, and she buried her now-wet face into his shoulder.

“It’s okay, Lily.” Arthur hugged her a little closer. “I acknowledge these witnesses. And I also know that it's time for Lily to have a new name. One that replaces what you had before. One day, you’ll do this ceremony for someone else. And then, that’s the name you will use.”

Arthur set Lily down and turned her towards the others.

“Everyone, I’d like to introduce Lily Expediter. Say hi.”

—

Between Arthur’s beverage mastery, Ella’s cooking, and Lily’s insistence on helping as much as possible in pursuit of a skill, they cooked so much food the party practically overflowed out onto the street. Word got out pretty quickly. Lily wasn’t just Arthur’s assistant. She was an orphan who had fallen up into better times, and was as universally beloved as anyone could be in this world. People heard, came, ate a bit, congratulated her and filtered out in a steady stream.

Some of them gave trinkets, little gifts meant to commemorate the day. Rhodia ran home and came back with a set of figurines she had made, little beasts of the cuter variety in different postures of play. Ella gave Lily a cooking spoon she had owned as a girl. Several other people gave her little fun gifts before someone showed up with something more substantial.

“Are these… runed?” Lily said, holding the clothes. They were a few sets of sturdy clothes, simple but noticeably high quality. “They feel runed.”

“Oh, you can feel that, can you?” the old runist cackled. “I made them for you after you helped that week. I never thought I’d have this opportunity. They’re self fitting and also self repairing.”

Ella looked impressed. “That’s a lot of rune work.”

“Well, yes. But a young lady should have some good clothes. These won’t wear out on you any time soon, young lady. When you outgrow the self-fitting, gods willing, I’ll still be here. Just stop by.”

Lily hugged the old demon. “Thank you. I love them.”

As she ran upstairs to put on her new clothes, Arthur and Ella sat down for the first time since they started cooking. “So that’s that, then. You can go to the frontier with everyone else, if you like.”

“If I like, yes.”

“Is it that hard of a decision? I’ve been talking to Minos about it. He has quite the little plot of land picked out for his son. It’s a valley with a river running through it. He thinks it was formed by some sort of natural disaster but it comes with its own natural walls. Cliffs on two sides, the ocean on the other.”

“It has a beach?”

“It’s the end of a peninsula, more or less. Delta soil. Perfect, by his description. Milo and Rhodia will be there, and probably Spiky and Leena once they hear about it.”

“Yeah.”

“You can build a new shop, you know. And you won’t be the only people there. Once word gets out about what it’s like, there will be plenty of folks. Plenty of opportunity. What else is there?”

“It’s… dammit, Ella. Stop screwing with me.”

Ella laughed. “I’m sorry, I just can’t help it. It’s too easy. Go, Arthur. Do what you have to do.”

He nodded, turned, and sprinted away, somehow blushing harder than he ever had before.