By morning, it was everywhere. The news had spread across the city like a wildire.
The Arena match had a System log: partial, glitched, the anomaly entries multiplying every time the recording engine tried to categorize what it had witnessed and failed.
But the two hundred witnesses were human and unglitched, and they talked the way people talked after they'd seen something that broke their model of how the world worked.
The Classless beat a Level 27 without dealing damage. That was the version that spread fastest because it was the most incomprehensible. It moved through the guild district first; fighters and tacticians who understood combat well enough to realize exactly how impossible the numbers were.
Then it drifted to the merchant quarter, where it became a cautionary tale about unknown quantities and the danger of undervaluing things that looked like nothing.
Finally, it hit the Players' forums, where three separate threads opened simultaneously and ran to hundreds of replies by midday.
Varek read two of the threads over Cael's shoulder at breakfast. She'd pulled them up without being asked, sliding her glowing System interface sideways so he could see the screen over his porridge.
The top reply in the most active thread: He's not playing The System. He's playing something the System doesn't have rules for. That's either a bug or it's terrifying.
"Bug," said the second reply.
"Terrifying," said the third.
"Both," said every reply after that.
Varek pushed the interface back toward Cael and kept eating.
"You wanted this," she said. It wasn't a question.
"I wanted the arena match to happen," he said, his voice level. "The conversation that follows is a side effect."
"A useful one."
"All side effects are useful if you planned for them."
She looked at him with the expression she'd been wearing more frequently; the one that sat somewhere between frustration and a name she wasn't ready to give it yet. "You're going to tell me you had this mapped out from the moment the lobby incident started."
"Herath was always going to come back," Varek said. "People with his particular relationship to their own pride always do. I just needed him to choose the arena when he did."
"Why the arena specifically?"
"Because the lobby had twenty-three witnesses and no System log. The arena had two hundred witnesses and a log that The Index will have received by now." He drank his tea, the steam fogging his vision for a second. "I needed them to see it on the official record."
Cael was quiet for a moment, her fingers tapping a rhythm on the table. Then: "You're not fighting Herath. You're fighting whoever sent him that file."
Varek looked at her.
Something in her expression shifted; a small, private flash of satisfaction at having arrived at the conclusion. She was sharp. He'd known that from the first night he'd felt her presence at his window. It was becoming clear that sharp was a significant understatement.
"Yes exactly," he said.
She nodded slowly and turned back to her food. "Then you should know that three people have been watching this inn since dawn. Separate positions. They're not guild. Their markers are civilian class, but their positioning is professional. High-tier scout habits."
He looked at her, truly looking this time.
"I noticed when I came back last night," she said simply. "I didn't want to interrupt your planning."
Varek set his cup down with a deliberate click.
Three observers. Professional placement. Not guild which meant they were either high-end freelancers or Index-affiliated. Given the timing, the probability distribution on that was not ambiguous.
"Do they know you've made them?" he asked.
"No. I used the laundry exit and doubled back through the roofline. They're watching the front and the side alley."
"That was smart. Leave them there."
She raised an eyebrow. "You want to be watched?"
"I want them to report exactly what I do today," he said. "Which means I need to choose today's activity with a great deal of care."
He stood, left the copper coins on the table, and pulled his coat on, settling the collar.
"Where are we going?" Cael asked, standing with him.
"We? What do you mean we. Varek asked. "I have a meeting with a Saint."
She stopped mid-reach for her own coat. "What?"
"The Kingdom's Saint is in Ardenmoor. She's been here for three weeks on a divine assessment; checking the System's integrity in the regional nodes. She's been finding inconsistencies she can't explain."
He buttoned his coat. "I know what's causing them."
"The Drain Echo."
"Correct."
"You're going to walk up and tell a Saint that you are the source of the System anomalies?"
"I'm going to tell her the truth," he said.
"Which is something she hasn't heard from anyone in a very long time."
He walked toward the door.
Cael stared at his back for two seconds, a look of pure disbelief crossing her face.
Then she grabbed her coat and followed him out into the morning light.