The Insider System

Chapter 109: A Boring Evening

When Lake entered Lucas's office he wasn't there so Lake sat down to wait for him. He wasn't surprised that Lucas had things to do with the fact that a huge battle just happened outside. Lake was sure Lucas had gone to watch the battle the same way he had and was on his way back right now.

Lake wasn't actually guessing he always knew where Lucas was and he could see he was currently on the elevator and would be here in less than a minute. As soon as the elevator reached the office and Lucas stepped off they made eye contact, and Lake could tell Lucas was high strung.

He must have seen something during the battle that had made him nervous. Lake knew Lucas had Perception much higher than his so he wouldn't be surprised if Lucas had been able to see the fine details of the battle in the sky. "Lake I'm busy so you need to go."

Lake could tell this wasn't the same Lucas he usually dealt with and he needed to get out of his way. Standing up Lake said, "If you need anything done just tell me." and headed for the stairs. This in a way accomplished his goal of getting something to do without Lucas getting annoyed with him.

After about thirty seconds of flying, Lake was on his floor and heading towards his room when he thought he might as well go see Wallace. Lake disliked sitting around and doing nothing so he thought it would be a good way to pass some time while he waited for Lucas to get back to him.

Knocking on the door it wasn't long before one of Wallace's servants let him in. Being led inside Lake saw Wallace and Sam. Wallace was chasing Sam around the room telling him to calm down and that the fight they had just watched wasn't something to be excited about. Lake could tell by the way Sam was acting that he had really only been able to see the large spells that had been cast and all the people killing each other had been too far away for him to see.

Watching Sam run around imitating people casting spells, Lake thought how three people could see the same thing completely differently. He didn't really care about what had happened, and Sam was excited because he thought it had been cool, but Lucas was deathly serious and was acting like he had seen death on the horizon.

Wallace seemed to also understand it was serious by the way he was acting but seemed to be downplaying it so Sam wouldn't be scared. "Hello Wallace, Sam." Lake was sure both of them had already seen him but he wanted to get them to stop because it was starting to get annoying.

It worked and Wallace finally caught Sam and made him sit at the table, and start reading some book.

"Hey Lake, did you see the fight just now?" Lake nodded and said. "Yeah it was too bad that the spell was blocked. I wanted to see what would happen when it landed." Lake was messing with Wallace and started to laugh as soon as Wallace made a face of confusion. "I'm just kidding."

Lake said this just to make sure Wallace understood because the joke had kind of bombed because he was the only one laughing. "Yes of course you are. So did you come for a reason?" Lake had a reason but he didn't want to say he was just here to kill some time so he made up a lie. "I just wanted to see if you had made any progress in your research."

Wallace made golems so it would be interesting to get to see anything he had been working on. "Yeah I have one I'm about to send down to floor three, you want to come with me?" Lake knew the first twenty or so floors had plants growing in them so he guessed he was about to see something Like the Scarerat.

Following Wallace to the office area up the stairs, Lake saw a golem that was about 4 feet tall that had long thin arms and a wide bin area on its back. Getting a closer look at its limbs Lake could tell it wasn't at its full height at the moment and once it was activated it would probably be around 8 feet tall.

Its legs weren't the only thing that looked like they could stretch either; the arms seemed to also be in a retracted form even though they were already so long. "Alright, help me lift it, actually you know what, let's have the servants do it. I keep forgetting I can make them do stuff I don't want to."

Lake remembered it had taken him a second to get used to having servants as well so he could understand why Wallace had almost made a mistake and did physical labor he didn't need to. Watching Wallace's servants pick up the golem Lake heard Wallace tell them to take it to floor three, and they would be there in a little while.

"I'm gonna go tell Sam to behave while I'm gone then we can leave." Lake nodded and headed to the door to wait. He heard Wallace say exactly that to Sam and after telling Sam that he wasn't allowed to leave the room Wallace walked over and motioned for them to leave.

Once they were in the hallway Lake turned to Wallace and asked. "Why didn't you just bring him with us?"

"The staircase is kind of precarious." Lake guessed he was right, the staircase didn't even have railings in 80% of it and it had clearly been added after the spire had been built because the quality dropped in a few places to just wooden planks, so Lake could understand Wallace thinking Sam would fall.

"I Also don't want him to bother anyone because he isn't actually meant to be in the spire, and I don't want anyone to complain." Lake nodded to this as well. Sam could be kind of annoying just because he was a child and this was a place of work so people had no time for such things as a child's antics.

"Can you fly?" Lake asked once they were in the stairwell to which Wallace said no. It wasn't that big of a deal that he had to walk because he had already expected this to happen anytime he was with someone else, and he had no plans to princess carry Wallace to save himself a few minutes.

As they were making their way down Lake saw someone coming up in their direction. This happened all the time but most of the time it was someone's servant so Lake never paid them any attention because you couldn't really have a conversation with them while they were working.

"Hey Millie." Lake had been wanting to talk to Millie for some reason for a while, so it was nice to finally see her not working. "Hey Lake, I'm really tired, so I'm not going to stop and chat because you know all these stairs." Lake did know about the stairs. They were a pain in the ass, and every time you climbed them it made you wonder why people even lived in the spire anymore.

Lake was sure there was a reason, but one of these days he should really ask Lucas what he would need to get the teleporters working 24/7 again. He remembered it was some form of resource problem which made Lake think he could probably solve it if he really tried.

"So that was Millie huh." Lake looked at Wallace who seemed to have heard of Millie, and said. "Yeah, have you had a chance to try the food?" Wallace nodded and said. "Yes, it was one of the first things I did after joining. She was apparently one of the reasons Lucas let me join so fast after I showed him my golems, he said the guild was going to need a lot of food real soon."

"For the restaurants?" Wallace nodded and said. "Yeah he said we could have the golems work a farm near any restaurants we open that would be able to grow all the food we serve. When I first came I was expecting for him to ask me to grow food for the city because of the war but then he showed me some of Millie's food and I realized the guild already planned to take over the food industry before I even arrived."

"It's nice you can help though, Lucas wouldn't have let you in if you weren't going to play an important role in the future." Lake had been blown off by everyone except for Wallace today, so he thought he could repay him by giving him more confidence in himself. "Yeah I guess you're right." Lake was happy his deception had worked.