Chapter 36: THE INNKEEPER

Every visible eye on the creature had turned toward Sio, yet the sphere inside the crater continued spinning as though it had no interest in the attention suddenly surrounding him. Now that it was separated from the others, its dark surface looked less solid than it had from a distance. Slow movements travelled underneath it without ever breaking through, and Sio found himself studying those movements while the sensible part of his mind kept repeating the same warning: Don’t touch it. It was excellent advice, probably some of the best he’d given himself recently, which naturally meant he started walking toward the sphere anyway.

He kept his pace slow and watched the creature from the corner of his eye. It didn’t move at first. Only its eyes followed him, hundreds of them adjusting as he crossed the damaged street, and Sio somehow found that worse than an immediate attack. Maybe the sphere isn’t dangerous, he thought before looking at the crater, then at the thing large enough to crush several buildings without trying. No. That’s stupid. Everything connected to this thing is probably dangerous. I just don’t know if it’s dangerous to me. That distinction felt useful enough to continue pretending he had a plan.

The moment his foot reached the edge of the crater, the creature reacted. Several tentacles snapped through the ruined structures toward him so quickly that Sio barely managed to raise his arms before the first arrived. He expected the impact to throw him across the street, but a thin transparent layer flashed around his body instead, almost invisible until the tentacle struck it and pale ripples travelled across its surface. Another attack came from his left, followed by two from above, and within seconds loose pieces of stone were bouncing around the crater while Sio remained untouched inside the barrier.

Three notifications appeared in his vision while the attacks continued.

〈 CLAIM ATTEMPTING TO BREACH CONTRACT 〉

〈 SAFETY BARRIER ACTIVATED 〉

〈 HOST PROTECTED FROM CLAIM 〉

Sio read them twice before looking through the barrier toward the creature. "So you actually can’t kill me." A tentacle immediately slammed against the transparent surface close enough to his face that he leaned backward on instinct, then frowned at himself for doing it. "You can apparently spend a lot of effort wishing you could, though." The creature continued attacking without slowing, but the barrier moved with Sio and showed no sign of weakening.

That should have made him feel safer, yet Sio’s thoughts immediately wandered toward the part he didn’t understand. If the Claim contract could stop the creature from hurting him, then the agreement was doing far more than simply giving him access to an ability. If there are rules protecting me from it, what rules am I supposed to follow? Responsibility had appeared in Claim information before, but he still didn’t know what something like this expected from him.

Wonderful. Found the safety feature before finding the instruction manual.

Another impact shook the ground beneath his feet, drawing his attention back toward the sphere. The creature hadn’t reacted this violently until he moved closer to it, which made one thing obvious even if everything else remained confusing: whatever the sphere was, the creature cared about it. The cautious part of Sio’s mind suggested that was an excellent reason to stay away, while the curious part immediately argued that it was an even better reason to find out why.

Sio sighed at himself and stepped down into the crater. The attacks became faster around him, and he glanced toward the creature with tired annoyance. "Yeah, I understood the first twenty times." The sphere floated slightly above the damaged ground, large enough that he couldn’t simply close his hands around it, while the subtle movement beneath its surface seemed to strengthen whenever his fingers drew closer.

He stopped with his palm hovering a few inches away. Mira would tell him not to touch it. Arch would probably spend three hours examining everything around it before allowing anyone close. Angle would say something annoyingly reasonable, then look at Sio afterward with that expression people used when they had warned him and been proven right.

All three of them agreeing might actually be the biggest warning here.

Sio stared at the sphere for another second, then placed his palm against it anyway.

Pain ripped through his hand before he had time to regret the decision properly. His fingers twisted sharply against the surface, bending farther than they should while something seemed to tighten around them, and Sio immediately tried jerking his arm back. The sphere refused to release him. "Ah—no, that’s mine," he hissed, planting both feet and pulling harder, only for his wrist to twist farther and send pain climbing toward his elbow.

He finally stopped fighting and breathed through clenched teeth while the creature continued battering the barrier behind him.

Brilliant, Sio. You looked at the obviously dangerous floating thing, spent several minutes deciding it was dangerous, and then touched it anyway.

Mira would never let him forget this if she heard about it, assuming he returned with all five fingers.

Sio tried pulling once more and noticed the pressure became worse whenever he resisted. That made him pause. He looked at the dark surface wrapped around his hand and forced himself to stop thinking about escaping long enough to pay attention to what was actually happening. Something beneath the sphere seemed to push against his fingers, not quite crushing them and not quite trying to absorb them either.

He had come back into this place because he was tired of learning about his own Claim from other people. A bounty hunter had read reports for a day or two and already learned how to anticipate Sio’s favorite move. Whatever had controlled him during the fight with Vise had taken the same ability and used it with a level of skill Sio hadn’t even known was possible.

And what have I been doing with an ability that folds distance? Punching through holes.

The thought annoyed him enough that he stopped pulling his hand away and pressed his palm harder against the sphere instead.

The pain sharpened immediately, making his shoulders tense, but this time Sio focused on the sensation rather than fighting it. "You can keep doing whatever weird thing this is," he muttered through his teeth, "but you’re not keeping the hand." For several seconds nothing changed, and Sio began wondering whether he’d simply upgraded a bad idea into a more committed version of the same bad idea.

Then the pressure around his fingers started weakening. Sio didn’t move immediately. He waited until his wrist stopped twisting, flexed one finger cautiously and then another, and neither was forced back. The strange movement beneath his palm slowed along with him, while the creature’s attacks became less frantic and the gaps between impacts gradually widened.

Sio exhaled and rolled his aching wrist without removing his hand. "See? We could’ve done that without trying to rearrange my fingers." He had barely finished speaking when the transparent barrier around him changed. Its pale surface tightened from every direction, folding inward until the crater and the creature distorted beyond it, and Sio instinctively tried pulling away from the sphere.

Wait. Did I do that?

The thought barely formed before the sensation became similar to being dragged through one of his own portals without actually moving anywhere. The barrier compressed, the crater disappeared behind it and Sio felt his awareness pulled sharply away from the city.

◇ ───────────── ◇

When his eyes opened again, Sio was staring at the wooden ceiling of the inn. His right hand immediately closed into a fist, then opened again as he counted his fingers and moved each one individually. All five remained attached, his wrist hurt but still worked, and Sio allowed himself a small breath of relief.

Five. Good. Mum doesn’t need to learn I nearly came back with four.

Something shifted inside his palm, and Sio slowly turned his hand over to find the sphere resting there. It had changed size somewhere between the impossible city and the inn, shrinking from something nearly as large as his body to an object that now fit comfortably between his fingers. The same faint movement travelled beneath its dark surface, though, and Sio sat upright beneath the blanket while examining it more closely. "You were almost bigger than me in there. At least this version fits in a pocket."

The familiar Claim display appeared before his eyes.

〔 CLAIM I — UNKNOWN ENTITY 〕

〔 INTEGRATION INCREASED 〕

Sio’s fingers stopped turning the sphere. He had seen Integration listed before, but until now it had been little more than another category attached to something he didn’t understand. This was the first time he had watched himself do something and then immediately seen Integration change afterward, which made the small sphere far more interesting than it had been a moment earlier.

His thoughts returned to the many spheres circling the creature. He hadn’t counted them properly, but there had been far more than one, moving along paths that crossed and twisted without ever colliding.

So what are you? Part of it? Part of the Claim?

Sio rolled the sphere slowly between both palms while a theory began forming despite his better judgment.

The moving portal technique had disturbed one sphere. Touching that sphere had increased Integration. Maybe learning something the creature could do allowed Sio to integrate more of it, and maybe the other spheres represented parts of the Claim he couldn’t access yet. The idea made his pulse quicken until another thought immediately pushed back.

One sphere, Sio. You have one. Don’t invent an entire progression system because one weird ball followed you home.

That sounded suspiciously like Arch, and Sio disliked how reasonable imaginary Arch could be.

Another possibility was simpler: he’d stolen something from the creature and the System was using a polite word for theft. Somehow that isn’t more comforting. Sio looked down at the sphere again, half expecting it to react to the accusation, when more notifications appeared in front of him.

〔 HOST CAPACITY INCREASED 〕

〔 RECENT DATA RECALCULATED 〕

〔 DATA ANALYSIS COMPLETE 〕

〔 SIGNIFICANT INTEGRATION AND HOST CAPACITY INCREASE DETECTED 〕

〔 PRIMARY CAUSE: RECENT COMBAT EXPERIENCE 〕

Sio read the final line twice while turning the sphere slowly. Recent combat covered far too much of the last few days, but the fight with Vise stood out immediately. That had been the only time his body continued fighting after Sio was no longer properly controlling it, and it was also where he’d first seen the portal used in the way he had just managed inside the Claim.

Did surviving that increase my capacity? Or did whatever took control force the Claim farther than I normally can? Neither possibility had enough evidence behind it, but both felt more plausible than coincidence. Maybe his body had adapted because it had no choice. Maybe that was why moving the portal exit had become possible now even though Sio hadn’t considered trying it before. He eventually sighed at the sphere and muttered, "You really aren’t going to make any of this easy."

"Do you always talk to things when you think nobody is listening?"

Sio’s entire body jerked hard enough that the sphere almost slipped free. He caught it against his stomach and looked across the room to find Angle sitting against the opposite wall with one leg stretched across the mattress. Judging by his posture and the expression on his face, he’d been awake long enough to witness far more than Sio would’ve preferred.

His first instinct was to hide the sphere beneath the blanket, and his hand actually moved halfway there before he caught himself.

He already saw it, idiot.

Sio slowly brought it back into view and tried to make the movement look intentional. "How long have you been awake?"

Angle’s gaze moved from Sio’s face to the sphere and back again. "Long enough to know you weren’t holding that before you stopped breathing."

Heat crept up the back of Sio’s neck before he could stop it. He looked down at the sphere and rubbed his thumb across its surface simply because doing something with his hands felt easier than looking at Angle. "You make that sound worse than it was."

Angle leaned forward and rested his forearms across one raised knee. The irritation in his face was obvious, but now that Sio looked properly, something underneath it made the joke he’d been preparing disappear. One of Angle’s hands still held the edge of the blanket more tightly than necessary. "You weren’t breathing long enough that I got up twice to check whether you were still alive. I was about to wake Arch."

That landed much harder than Sio expected. He could deal with Angle calling the idea stupid because he could argue with that, but realizing Angle had actually climbed out of bed twice because he thought Sio might not wake up made something uncomfortable settle in his chest. Sio looked away and muttered, "I knew what I was doing."

Angle stared at him, and Sio could feel the stare without looking.

That sounded terrible.

He lasted another second before adding, "Mostly," then immediately regretted it.

Worse. Much worse.

When Sio finally glanced up, Angle’s expression made him defensive. "Don’t look at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you’re deciding whether I’m an idiot."

"I decided that before tonight."

Normally Sio would’ve enjoyed that answer enough to keep the argument going, but Angle wasn’t smiling, which killed most of Sio’s response before it reached his mouth. He shifted against the wall and looked back at the sphere. Explaining everything would mean admitting that he’d deliberately held his breath until he passed out because he hoped his awareness would enter the Claim. Absolutely not. He doesn’t need the full version.

Sio lifted the sphere slightly. "It worked. That’s the important part."

Angle’s eyes followed it briefly before returning to Sio. "You stopped breathing until you passed out."

"That was part of the process."

Angle closed his eyes for a second and rubbed two fingers against the bridge of his nose, looking so much like Arch in that moment that Sio nearly laughed. The laugh died when Angle looked back and the worry was still there beneath the irritation. "I told you to understand your Claim better. I didn’t tell you to test whether your brain still works without oxygen."

Sio opened his mouth to explain, then stopped. I needed to be unconscious while keeping my mind focused on the Claim. He imagined saying it aloud, then imagined Angle’s face afterward and quietly decided against it. "There’s context."

"I’m sure there is."

Sio frowned at him. "You’re very annoying when you’re worried."

Angle froze for half a second, and Sio realized what he’d said almost immediately. Why did I say that out loud? The change in Angle’s expression was tiny, but Sio caught it and immediately looked down at the sphere again. Brilliant. Now make it worse. That’s usually what you do.

He cleared his throat and tried recovering whatever dignity remained. "Anyway, I survived."

Angle watched him long enough that Sio became even more aware of the warmth around his ears. Eventually he relaxed his grip on the blanket and leaned back. "Next time unconsciousness becomes part of your brilliant plan, tell someone first."

"If I tell you first, you’ll stop me."

"Yes."

Sio finally looked up again. "Then you understand the problem."

The corner of Angle’s mouth moved despite himself, and some of the pressure in the room finally eased. Sio looked back at the sphere and pretended the conversation hadn’t embarrassed him nearly as much as it had. I’ll warn him next time. He considered that promise for another second before quietly amending it to, Maybe.

Arch remained asleep in the chair across the room, and the longer Sio watched him, the stranger it became. Arch normally slept lightly enough that small unfamiliar noises could wake him, yet he’d apparently slept through Sio losing consciousness, Angle checking him twice and their entire conversation. Even his posture looked wrong. His arms rested loosely instead of remaining near his belongings, while the bag he usually kept close enough to grab immediately had been left farther away.

Angle followed Sio’s gaze. When Sio asked whether he’d slept at all, Angle claimed he wasn’t tired, but the dark circles beneath his eyes made the lie poor enough that Sio almost laughed. "You’re terrible at lying."

"I learned from Arch."

The answer sounded casual, but Angle’s eyes remained on his father. Sio noticed and decided not to push.

Look at me, respecting boundaries. That might actually be personal growth.

He was about to show Angle the Integration message when movement outside the window caught his attention.

Sio shifted closer without pressing himself directly against the glass and recognized the innkeeper walking quickly through the dark street with several thin files tucked beneath one arm. Carrying paperwork wasn’t suspicious by itself, but most nearby houses had already gone dark, the road was almost empty and the innkeeper wasn’t moving like someone taking a casual late-night walk. "What’s he doing out now?" Sio asked, lowering the sphere into his lap.

Angle moved beside him immediately, and both stayed slightly behind the window frame while watching the innkeeper continue deeper into town. His pace remained quick enough that the files shifted beneath his arm every few steps, and eventually one slipped free, sending several sheets scattering across the road.

The innkeeper stopped and crouched beneath the nearest lamp, gathering them before the wind could carry anything farther. Sio watched without expecting to recognize a single thing from that distance until one page turned face-up while the man reached for another, and something near the bottom caught his attention.

Sio leaned closer. Wait.

The handwriting looked familiar, but not the words covering the page. It was the signature near the bottom. He had watched that same hand form the same slanted first stroke only hours earlier before Arch handed the document back without properly reading it.

Angle moved beside him and became noticeably still, his attention fixed on exactly the same sheet. The innkeeper snatched the page from the road and shoved it back into the folder almost immediately, but neither of them needed a second look.

Sio glanced toward Arch sleeping peacefully in the chair and then back toward the street. Whatever the innkeeper was carrying wasn’t merely another document with Arch’s name written somewhere inside it. It was the same paper Arch had signed upstairs, and the signature at the bottom belonged to him.