Chapter 81: The single most unreliable thing
Encrid had never told anyone at the Crooked Lantern where his quarters were, but apparently, it had not taken the Blue Moon much effort to find out.
That did not worry him as much as it probably should have.
Probably because he knew that was the speciality of the Blue Moon.
And even if the Blue Moon had wanted to frighten him, they could have left something considerably worse than a note about wine.
The fact that they had chosen the note instead was, in its own way, a courtesy.
He placed the pillow on the shelf above his cot, where it looked exactly as ridiculous as it had in the Vault, and then went to find his coat.
The Shambles at that hour was a warm noise in the middle of the cold.
Off-duty men moved through the narrow lanes in grey tides. Cookshops had their shutters up and their fires burning, sending the smell of meat and smoke into the streets.
Encrid walked with his hands tucked into his sleeves, and his hood pulled low.
He had made it about halfway down the stair road when the world lit up in front of his eyes.
It did not happen once.
It happened four times in succession, one message appearing over another, stacking together like plates placed on a table too quickly.
[ Connection registered: Lord Commander of the Wall - Ulrich Vance ]
[ Narrative Relevance: 1.78% → 1.94% ]
[ Divine Relic obtained: Pillow of the Sleeping God ]
[ Your existence has been strengthened. ]
[ Narrative Relevance: 1.94% → 2.21% ]
Encrid stopped in the middle of the road.
A levy man walking behind him swore at his back, stepped around him, and continued on without looking twice.
Encrid barely noticed.
He had been in the Commander’s chambers hours ago.
He had also walked out of the Vault with the pillow under his arm after coming out of the commander’s room.
The System had said nothing about either event when they happened.
And now, while he was on his way to a tavern, it had decided to inform him of both at once.
’You are the single most unreliable thing I have ever had to depend on.’
The System, as always, did not answer.
Encrid stepped out of the middle of the road and into the mouth of an alley. He leaned against the wall and forced himself to go through the four messages properly instead of simply being annoyed by them.
The first one, he understood.
The System had used the same word when he encountered the Reaper.
’Connection.’
Whatever the System was actually measuring when it used that word, the Lord Commander of the Wall now counted as one.
And apparently, that connection was worth a little less than two-tenths of a percent.
The second message was considerably more interesting.
The pillow had been worth more than the Commander.
It had been worth more than the collapse of House Maren too - which is a matter that had taken him five days and had cost a noble family its influence, reputation, and future.
It had been worth more than everything he had done in the Third Office since arriving at the Wall.
He could arrive at a conclusion using all this.
The System did not measure importance.
It measured deviation.
How much the story bent when he touched it.
A duke’s fourth son destroying a minor noble house was something the world could absorb without particularly noticing.
But a duke’s fourth son walking out of a forgotten vault carrying an artifact that, according to the original story, belonged in the hands of one of the Seven Sins?
That was different.
The third message was the one Encrid could not understand.
’Your existence has been strengthened.’
He had seen that phrase once before, back in the study at the estate, when he completed the emergency quest - it had said: [ Your existence grows marginally stronger. ]
At the time, he had assumed it was simply another strange way for the System to describe what had happened.
He was no longer certain.
Something was keeping score.
He remained in the alley for another few seconds before the blue-glass lantern above the Crooked Lantern caught his attention.
Its ordinary light spilled across the snow.
Encrid straightened his coat.
Whatever the System meant could wait.
He had other matters to deal with.
He pushed the four messages into the back of his mind and continued down the road.
✧ ✧ ✧
The tavern, as always, was full and loud and smelled of mutton fat.
Odd stood behind the counter with a towel draped over one shoulder. He looked up when Encrid entered, wearing the same expression he gave every other customer, which was to say, no expression at all.
"My lord."
"I’m told the good wine has come in."
"It has."
Odd wiped the counter in front of him without hurrying.
"There’s a cask in the back that might do. Would my lord care to judge it himself?"
The passage behind the kitchen was warmer than the rest of the tavern.
The storeroom at the end still smelled of hops and tallow.
The plain wooden door was already unlocked this time.
Odd handed Encrid the lamp instead of leading him this time.
He took the lamp and went down the stairs alone.
The room beneath the tavern had changed since the last time he had been there, although it took him a moment to understand how.
There were more message tubes lining the racks along the wall.
Three chairs now stood around the table instead of one.
Someone had added a second brazier to the corner.
And the correspondence spread across the table had been arranged into neat stacks rather than left scattered.
The woman with the winter-river eyes was sitting where she had been the first time he came down here.
There was no blade anywhere near her hands.
Neither of the two men standing against the far wall had drawn weapons either.
"Sit," she said.
He sat.
She finished the line she was writing, placed the pen down, and looked at him.
Then she did something she had not done during their first meeting.
She folded her hands together on the table in front of her, deliberately, where he could see both of them.
"We have never been introduced," she said.
Encrid waited.
The woman looked directly into his eyes.
"My name is Crescent."
✦ ✦ ✦