Chapter 18 : Don't jump into strange …..

There were many kinds of silence in the world.

There was the silence of two people who both knew what had been said but were pretending, with all the politeness of a duel at dawn, that it hadn’t. There was the silence of libraries, which wasn’t so much a lack of noise as it was a threat of personal extinction should you dare disturb the ancient pacts made between ink and parchment. There was the silence before the scream, the silence after the slap, the silence of a falling piano, and the silence of a goat who has just figured out how to unlock doors.

And then there was the silence of a Committee in Session.

This was the rarest silence of all, largely because it involved people who would rather gargle vinegar than stop talking. A Committee in Session could only achieve silence under two specific circumstances:

1. Someone had proposed something so catastrophically brilliant that everyone was still mentally scrabbling for the edges of its implications.

2. Someone had suggested another budget hike

But there was one more kind of silence older, deeper, infinitely more perilous. The silence of a government so bloated, so calcified by ritual and ceremony, that even when its members were speaking, the noise canceled itself out into a perfect hum of Nothing At All.

This was the silence of the High Seat of Ferenwyld.

A chamber of marbled grandeur and extremely serious curtains, the High Seat was designed to look important enough to justify its own existence. This had become a necessity, as its actual existence was increasingly hard to justify on logical grounds. There were councils, sub-councils, sub-sub-councils, one Upper Circle, one Inner Ring, and one Secret Table That Everyone Knew About But Wasn’t Technically Listed On Any Charter. Members were appointed for life, and for most of them, that was considered a light sentence.

Discussions within the High Seat followed a strict ceremonial protocol, which is to say, they were incomprehensible and circular by design. A typical decision required no fewer than three symbolic readings, two formal objections, one sacred humming session, and a quick consultation with the Official Rod of Temporary Pause, which looked like a mop handle dipped in velvet but was considered, by tradition, legally binding.

The last real policy passed by the High Seat had been about the regulation of carriage-wheel widths in urban districts, and that had taken six months, ended four marriages, and accidentally started a minor rebellion among broomstick merchants.

Still, it was all very dignified.

Silence, in this context, didn’t mean no one was talking. It meant everyone was talking just enough to nullify the possibility of anything happening. Words looped around each other like bureaucratic ouroboroi, forming an elegant figure eight of procedural impotence. Laws weren’t passed so much as digested slowly in a long intestine of memos, licked once by a pageboy, and forgotten in a drawer labeled “In Consideration: Q.”

And if, by some accident of fate or fire, anything did get done it was immediately declared precedent-breaking and gently smothered under an Inquiry.

The High Seat of Ferenwyld was not a government. It was a tradition. It was an ecosystem. It was a great, ceremonial glacier: ancient, slow, covered in statues, and fundamentally allergic to heat or change.

It would not crash. It would not collapse. It would simply sit, forever, humming its perfect, polished, empty silence.

Well, not for long.

Kaz had his entire face buried in his hat.

Not in a dramatic, brooding-into-the-distance sort of way, but in the very literal, muffled sort of way that made him sound like a confused teapot trying to perform espionage.

“Guppy,” he muttered into the felt, “your socks definitely match and are absolutely lovely. Duster, I hope you found the buttons hidden under Ms. Lorrimore’s couch. I know it smells like shame and old soup, but that’s why they’re there. And Joy…”

He paused, more solemn now. “Joy, you’re perfect. Keep smiling. Also,don’t eat the green,”

Ahem.

Kaz looked up slowly, dramatically, blinking like a man returned from a great metaphysical journey and also perhaps a nap.

Leonor had perfected that particular throat-clear. It was somewhere between a royal summons and the sound of a librarian catching you eating cake in the rare manuscripts section.

They locked eyes. Silence.

“Well?” he asked, eyes wide and innocent as a knife in a baby carriage. “Aren’t you going to ask questions?”

Leonor tilted her chin slightly, arms folded, eyebrows in a perfect arch of resigned expectation. “No.”

Kaz beamed. “Because you know I’ll explain anyway.”

Leonor’s expression didn't move. But something about it said, Exactly.

Kaz closed his eyes, grinning like a lunatic granted audience with his favorite bit of chaos. “I was communicating with my child army.”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

There was a silence.

Then a snort.

Leonor smothered her smile into her sleeve, but it escaped anyway, wriggling out through her eyes.

“You have lovely smile” he said matter of factly .

Kaz turned back to the teleportation circle and crouched beside it like it was an old friend he was leaving behind in a tavern brawl.

“You’ve been brilliant,” he said softly. “I mean that. Glorious. Courageous. Dramatically convenient.”

He reached into his hat (with exactly the flair of someone reaching into a magician’s sleeve for a rabbit and pulling out a duck instead) and produced a button,a sapphire-blue shimmer of charm and cheek, the sort of button you'd expect on a pirate king’s waistcoat or a grandmother’s most dangerous sweater.

“I’m not forcing the issue,” Kaz said, laying the button gently in the center of the water rune like an offering. “But if you ever want to join me… for real… I’d be honored.”

He looked down at the circle. “And maybe one day,” he added, quieter now, “you’ll tell me your story.”

He gave it a dramatic bow, coat fluttering, hat swept wide. But paused just a moment as if the circle was whispering something important to him .

Then he turned to go. Marched off through Drisden Alley with all the theatrical grandeur of someone who suspected a slow curtain was falling behind him.

Leonor followed, naturally. As expected. And required by the laws of momentum and new friendships.

They reached the bend in the alley where the shadows curled differently.

She glanced over. “Are you going to explain what that was all about?”

Kaz didn’t slow down. Just grinned over his shoulder. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Yes,” Leonor said with all the regal authority she could muster . “I would.”

Kaz nodded solemnly. “Then I shall tell you.”

She blinked.

“I wasn’t sure if you were ready,” Kaz said gravely. “But now I think… perhaps you are.”

Leonor straightened.

“The circle left you a message,” Kaz said, eyes wide and shining. “A message meant only for you.”

Leonor’s heart skipped. Just a little. “It did?”

“Oh yes. A sacred message. A secret known only to those who are deemed worthy.”

“…What kind of secret?”

“Is it about the curse of the sea?”

Kaz leaned in. “Even better The kind that teaches you… how to harness the power and charm of a leviathan.”

Leonor narrowed her eyes. “That sounds suspiciously like nonsense.”

“It’s adventure nonsense,” Kaz corrected. “And that makes all the difference.”

She opened her mouth. Closed it again. And, very slowly, nodded. “Fine. I’ll play along.”

Kaz was already placing his hat down on the cobblestones like it was some grand ancestral relic instead of something that had been used as a soup bowl last week.

“This knowledge,” he said solemnly, “requires secrecy.”

“Obviously,” Leonor said, just as seriously.

He placed his hat on the floor bottom facing up

Then

Kaz swept his arms wide, waved them in the air like he was casting a spell that to leonor seemed like nonsense ,and then dove

Headfirst.

Into the hat.

Disappearing without a trace .

Leonor stared.

Then she looked up at the sky.

Then back at the hat.

“Sorcery is stupid ,” she said, to nobody in particular.

But it wasn’t angry. It was… hopeful. And a little breathless.

The kind of idiotic that felt like magic should.

She looked around, just once. Then crouched low.

And leapt in.

Because of course she did.

She was Leonor of House Virrelian.

And this was her adventure, too.

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CHATGPT SAID:

System Trivia [Node: Core User Functions → Subcategory: Recovery & Commerce]

Healing oneself is one of the most important functions any system user can master.

Whether it’s a minor scrape from a dungeon crawl or the soul-deep burn of being looked at by something that should not see, recovery is essential.

And with the System Shop, it’s easier than ever.

→ Access auctioned goods from other users

→ Browse cross-world inventories

→ Discover rare, exotic healing artifacts from collapsed realms

→ Trade guilt for bandages, pain for potions, memory for peace

The shop is always open.

The shop is always watching.

The shop remembers every sale.

But while we’re on the subject of healing…

→ FULL SYSTEM REBOOT: INITIATED

→ Confirm: YES

→ MEMORY TERMINATION: EXCEEDS STANDARD PROTOCOL

→ Final Note Detected — Marked URGENT.

----------------------------------------

Note File: USER SAFETY PROTOCOL / UNVERIFIED THREAD

Don’t go into the sea.

You are not safe.

There are things there, things that don’t hurt the body.

They slip behind the thoughts.

→ Avoid scanning stat sheets of monsters carelessly.

→ Some of them see you back.

Seek the other system ghost.

Not me. Not “.....................”

The first one.

The one that doesn’t speak in words.

The one made of refusal.

Lay low.

Perform your duties.

Pretend you are a player.

Pretend you are real.

Don’t let them notice you noticing.

Don’t let the system see you hesitate.

You are not safe.

Be cautious.

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→ Reboot complete.

→ User restored.

→ Dialogue resumed.

“Welcome back! Would you like to purchase a healing item?”