34 Networking

"Before we begin," Said the blonde tower worker. "My name is Nata and I'll just need to confirm a few things before the pairing process starts." She walked into the small room and grabbed a clipboard off a hook on the wall.

The room was all stone and windowless. The only light provided was a glowing blue stream of light that fed through the opening of the floor and up into the ceiling like a pillar. It looked and acted like a giant mana tether, constructed to attach to Karmic plates instead of souls.

Galahad nodded at her procedure and hoped the questions they asked were exactly how he remembered them from when he first got a crystal plate set up years ago. They'd ask a few minor survey questions to obtain customer information, it may be a citywide project, but the communication towers were still owned and run by a company.

Sure enough, the questions were just like he remembered. They asked where and how he obtained the crystal plates. His reason for purchasing a new one. Then how many cities he had gone to and paired a crystal with.

The company that owned the towers was always looking at ways to invest into cities that higher counts of plate activity to earn potentially bigger sums of money. When someone monopolizes the entire kingdoms ability to communicate, they tend to earn quite a bit.

After ten minutes of questioning, the exact question he hoped was finally asked.

"Are you currently on any prescribed medication or potions that may cause your body's mana flow to change in anyway?" Nata read from the clipboard.

Galahad nodded. "Extract from Fruta flowers for my bandages disinfectant, and various amounts of sedatives from my time in the medical center."

"Huh, you must have been quite a scuffle then." She said while writing that on the question sheet. "Very well, please understand any drugs in your system may cause an inaccurate reading of your class attribute scores. Any status values provided may not be absolute and cannot be condoned by the tower as safely accurate. Will you still attempt to connect to the resonance tower?"

Galahad agreed as he handed the crystal over to Nata. They both walked over to the tether, watching the energy move between the floors.

"So how often do you do this?" He asked, stopping at a farther distance than her.

Mana follow a few properties of electricity. The main characteristic was big enough charges of mana could jump across air and through a person's body. If that happened, the person's body would experience extreme pain and melting skin from the extreme intensity.

"Ehh, about two or three times a week." Nata dropped the robotic tone that came with repeating the same questions everytime someone came in. "The tower closest to the roads that stretch out to the other cities are always filled with outsiders pairing their plates, I'm just happier for the less hectic work environment."

"I see, I can't imagine too much goes on around this tower then."

"You'd be right. Not everyone can handle the glamorous life and death of going into the dungeon. I prefer the monsters in this form instead." She pointed her pen at the blue light as it raced closer to the plate in her hand.

"This'll just be a minute." She tapped a few things on the Karmic Plate and grabbed a long pair of clamps from her overalls.

Nata placed the plate in the clamp ends and slowly brought it towards the tether. The mana running up the pillar sought out Galahad's plate as it got closer, almost as if it was alive. Once Nata brought it close enough, a stream of blue mana lightning moved away from the main body of light and ran through the crystal.

After a few seconds, Nata pulled it away and check everything across Galahad's plate.

"Yeesh, your body really is putting off some odd numbers. It even says your level eight." She handed back the crystal with a little bit of confusion.

Galahad attempted to play her confusion off the best he could. "Oh yeah, I did experience a bit of a level reset after my 'scuffle' as you called it. So I figured the numbers would seem kinda strange."

As soon as Galahad's fingers touched the surface of the crystal plate, he stopped talking and everything went fuzzy for a moment. His vision was plunged into white, he was standing in a colorless void that housed nothing but him. It all happened so quickly that he didn't even have time to react.

Galahad was stunned and stood there for a moment. He looked down at the Karmic plate and saw it was completely blank. A solid second of no noise or sight was causing Galahad to tense up, then a text window popped up in black letters against the white.

[ Connect to Resonance Tower? ] [ Yes ] [ No ]

In hope that the connection would fix his broken view, he quickly confirmed the option to pair. His new plate sent out a ripple of mana waves that Galahad could easily see against the white space. They were very thin purple lights that moved like a ripple across the surface of water. The waves seemed to hit little invisible objects that Galahad couldn't see. It went off like a chain reaction, letting off more and more waves.

It was a vibrant show of the clustering of purple waves, hitting one another at random and they seemed to hang in the air for a moment before they faded away and color started flooding back into Galahad's vision. He was relieved that he could finally see before Nata noticed.

He hadn't moved an inch from the spot he took the plate from her hand. The technician was still giving the basic rundown of the pair process. She was completely unaware that Galahad went blind for the first half of her explanation.

[ Identification Unlocked ]

Galahad pretended the best he could to seem like he was listening the whole time, but then his vision was foggy for a moment once more. When his eyes cleared up, a text window popped up again. Only this window was different, it wasn't in the center of his view, it was directly over Nata's head instead.

[ Nata Corningham ] lvl. 27

Creation Class: Architect

He couldn't stop looking at the name listed above her head. It seemed to bobble and move with Nata's small motions as she talked. He didn't snap out of the trance of watching her information float above her head until she asked for him to sign documents on liability and confirmed services.

The two of them walked out of the door to be reunited with Galahad's family.

Once he saw them, more little windows popped up above their heads this time too.

[ Derock Mystroff ] lvl. 34

Creation Class: Forger

[ Sora Mystroff ] lvl. 33

Magician Class: Enchanter

'At this point, I shouldn't even be surprised. Pairing my brain with the crystal has now let me see everyone else's, fucking brilliant!' He internally exclaimed.

The three of them walked back outside and separated from there, his parents would return to work around the shop, during Galahad's meeting. He promised to scry them about the whole thing right after. It took them an quite a bit of willpower to let him go on his own.

He had an easier time putting on a facade of happy recovery while still thinking about the results of the tower, so he didn't bring their mood down any further than before. It seemed now that he had unlocked more strange abilities, he couldn't wait to figure them out with more time to come.

Before separating, Galahad collected contact runes from his parents before they left, together they all shared almost all the same contact runes. They passed them over to Galahad just by pulling up someone else's contact rune and tapping the two crystals together to share them. The only ones he was missing was his friend's runes, Mydia's rune, and Mr. Thorne's rune.

He hadn't spoken to either Thorne or Mydia since before the tragedy. He wasn't sure if Mydia thought it was his fault that her boyfriend was gone, but he had no intention of finding out. Then Galahad wasn't even sure Mr. Thorne knew about what had happened.

'Thorne's probably still out on the project the Count has sent him on. I doubt anyone would have sent a messenger just to tell him a bunch of his old students were killed in a massacre.'

*****

As Galahad walked through the streets and passed a few people on the way. Each person he walked by had a little information square above there heads when he got close enough to see them.

He had no idea who these people were, but he was having the time of his life watching and reading them go by. His walk eventually ended at a red brick office building with a large metal plate on the front wall.

'Governing Office of Teramore

Established in 3042 AC'

Galahad walked inside to see a dozen or so people queued in the lounge. Waiting to speak with the Count about each one of their own affairs with the city.

He ignored them walked up to male secretary at the desk with the invitation in hand. He was hoping he wouldn't spend his a whole lot of time standing around the lobby. Luck seemed to favor him because he didn't even need to talk with the desk before his meeting begun.

"I hope my request for your presence is not disturbing you shortly after returning home Mr. Mystroff." Said a familiar voice from the corridor on the side.

The last time Galahad heard the Count speak was just a week ago at the memorial for his friends. He always had a tone of trying to sound personable, but was far too work focused to sound truly enthralled to talk with someone casually.

Galahad watched as a lengthy man with a quick step in his feet, and no motion in his shoulders. The posture of his walk always reminded Galahad of a scarecrow stance. He wasn't exactly one to comment his body structure, his family and friend nicknames were Gally, Beanstalk, and lamppost.

"No, not at all Sir. I'm the one who should be apologizing for making you wait nearly four days after receiving your invitation." Galahad shook his hand as he approached.

The Count waved his hand at the apology. "No need, healing is never an easy process. Especially your whole life changes in just a single moment. Shall we?"

He directed Galahad to follow him to his office. Galahad could practically feel the burning hatred hitting him from the eyes of all the others waiting to speak with the Count.