Seventy-one hours to prove you deserve to exist.
Alex had worked under tight deadlines before, but never with stakes quite this existential. As he and Elara hurried back to her workshop, his consciousness was already running through possibilities, analyzing the system requirements like the most important code review of his life.
"We need to approach this systematically," he wrote in Elara's notebook as she locked her workshop door behind them. "The compatibility verification wants four things: beneficial interaction, non-destructive integration, unique functionality, and acceptance of binding protocols."
"We can prove the first two easily enough," Elara replied, gathering materials. "Your scroll restorations and spell debugging have clearly benefited the network. And you've been working with me for weeks without causing any system-wide problems."
"But unique functionality is trickier. I need to demonstrate capabilities that the system actually needs but can't get anywhere else."
Alex reviewed the critical system alerts again. The transportation network failures seemed like the most urgent problem—and the one most suited to his particular skills. If he could repair part of the ancient teleportation infrastructure, it would prove his value in ways that simple scroll restoration couldn't match.
"Do you have any documentation about the old transportation network?" he wrote.
Elara nodded, pulling out a collection of maps and technical diagrams she'd accumulated during her research. "The Great Network used to connect every major city in the kingdom. Instant travel for military forces, trade goods, even civilian passengers who could afford the fees."
She spread out a detailed map of the network's former extent. "According to the historical records, there were over two hundred transportation nodes at the network's peak. Now there are maybe a dozen still functioning, and those only for short-range hops."
Alex studied the map with his enhanced perception, looking for patterns in which nodes had survived and which had failed. The data streams flowing through Elara's documentation showed him something the physical maps couldn't: the transportation network wasn't just a collection of individual teleportation points. It was a unified system with redundant pathways, load balancing, and distributed processing.
"It's like the internet," he wrote excitedly. "The ancient mages built a packet-switched network for teleportation. When one node fails, traffic should automatically route through alternate paths. But something's preventing that from working properly."
"Route through alternate paths?"
Alex sketched out a quick diagram: "Imagine you want to teleport from City A to City D, but the direct connection is broken. The network should automatically route you through Cities B and C instead, so fast you wouldn't notice the difference. But if the routing protocols are corrupted..."
"The network would start failing even when most of the infrastructure is still intact," Elara finished. "Is that fixable?"
"If I can access a functioning transportation node, maybe. I'd need to examine the routing code directly, identify where the corruption is occurring, and patch the algorithms."
Elara was already moving toward her equipment storage. "There's a minor transportation node in the Guild's basement. It's mainly used for moving supplies between floors, but it connects to the wider network."
"Perfect. But Elara..." Alex paused, considering his words carefully. "Once I start poking around in active network infrastructure, the system is going to know exactly what I'm doing. If I mess this up, I might not get another chance."
She looked at him—or rather, at the empty space where she'd learned to focus when addressing him directly. "Then we don't mess it up."
---
The Guild's transportation node was smaller than Alex had expected, tucked away in a utility room between the boiler that heated the apprentice dormitories and a storage closet full of cleaning supplies. But when he focused his enhanced perception on the seemingly simple stone archway, he could see the incredible complexity hidden beneath its mundane appearance.
[Transportation Node - Guild Internal]
Status: ACTIVE (Limited Functionality)
Network Address: GUILD_BASEMENT_NODE_001
Connected Routes: 3 of 47 original connections
Throughput: 2% of design capacity
Last Full Maintenance: 312 years ago
Current Issues: 847 routing errors, 23 authentication failures, 1 critical buffer overflow
"No wonder the network is failing," Alex wrote. "This node alone has over eight hundred unresolved errors."
Elara examined the archway with both visual inspection and her own magical senses. "I can feel the magical pathways, but they're... tangled somehow. Like someone tried to fix them without understanding the underlying structure."
"Exactly. Look at this—" Alex guided her attention to specific error patterns in the node's status logs. "Someone did try to repair this, probably multiple times over the centuries. But they were treating each connection as an isolated system instead of understanding that they're all part of a unified network."
It was like trying to fix internet routing problems by randomly changing IP addresses—you might temporarily restore some connections, but you'd break the overall system architecture in the process.
"Can you fix it?"
"I think so. But I'll need to interface directly with the node's control systems, and that's going to require..."
Alex paused, realizing what he was about to attempt. Up until now, his interventions had been limited to passive systems—scrolls, crystals, inactive spells. The transportation node was active infrastructure carrying live traffic. If he made a mistake, he could crash part of the magical network that kept the Guild running.
On the other hand, he had less than sixty hours before the system deleted him from existence.
"I'm going to need you to be my safety net," he wrote. "If something goes wrong, if I get trapped in the system or cause a cascade failure, you'll need to shut down the node manually."
Elara nodded grimly. "How?"
"There should be an emergency disconnect sequence built into the physical structure. Look for runic patterns that seem separate from the main transportation circles—probably something that would cut all power to the node if activated."
She spent several minutes examining the archway before finding what Alex had described: a series of small, subtle runes carved into the stone foundation. "Here. They're hidden, but I can feel the disconnection protocol."
"Good. Now, I'm going in."
Alex focused his consciousness on the transportation node's control systems, diving deep into its operational code. This was far more complex than anything he'd worked with before—not just a single program, but an entire distributed system with multiple processes running simultaneously.
The node's core functions included:
Destination_routing()
Authentication_verification()
Mass_displacement_calculations()
Temporal_synchronization()
Safety_protocol_enforcement()
Network_status_monitoring()
Error_logging_and_recovery()
Each function was riddled with accumulated errors, patches upon patches applied by well-meaning but fundamentally confused repair attempts. Alex began systematically working through the issues, starting with the most critical problems.
The routing function was the worst. Centuries of manual corrections had turned it into a labyrinth of if-then statements and hardcoded exceptions. Alex carefully stripped away the accumulated cruft, restoring the elegant algorithmic approach the original designers had intended.
BEFORE:
if destination == "KINGS_LANDING" then
if node_status["KINGS_LANDING_PRIMARY"] == "OFFLINE" then
if node_status["KINGS_LANDING_SECONDARY"] == "OFFLINE" then
display_error("CONNECTION_UNAVAILABLE")
else
route_through("WESTGATE_HUB", "KINGS_LANDING_SECONDARY")
end
else
direct_connect("KINGS_LANDING_PRIMARY")
end
else if destination == "DRAGONPORT" then
// 847 more lines of similar hardcoded logic
AFTER:
optimal_path = pathfinding_algorithm(current_node, destination, active_connections)
execute_route(optimal_path)
As Alex worked, he could feel the transportation node's performance improving in real-time. Routing errors disappeared, connection timeouts resolved themselves, and throughput capacity climbed steadily upward.
But more importantly, he could sense the attention of the larger system focusing on his activities. The magical infrastructure management network was watching him work, analyzing his methods, evaluating his impact on system performance.
COMPATIBILITY ASSESSMENT IN PROGRESS
Beneficial Interaction: CONFIRMED
Non-Destructive Integration: CONFIRMED
Unique Functionality: EVALUATION ONGOING
Entity Skill Assessment: ADVANCED SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
Projected System Improvement: +23% network efficiency
Threat Analysis: MINIMAL RISK DETECTED
Alex felt a surge of hope. The system was clearly impressed with his work. But he couldn't stop now—not when he was so close to proving his worth.
He moved on to the authentication systems, which had been compromised by accumulated security patches that created more vulnerabilities than they fixed. Alex streamlined the verification protocols, implementing proper access controls and eliminating the legacy backdoors that previous repair attempts had inadvertently created.
Next came the mass displacement calculations, which handled the physics of actually moving objects through dimensional space. This was the most mathematically complex part of the system, but also the most elegant. The original designers had created algorithms that automatically adjusted for everything from gravitational differentials to temporal synchronization across vast distances.
Unfortunately, centuries of "improvements" had broken most of these sophisticated features, reducing the network to crude point-to-point transportation with massive energy inefficiencies.
Alex restored the original algorithms, marveling at their sophistication. Whoever had designed this system had understood dimensional physics in ways that his own world's scientists could barely imagine.
As the restoration progressed, Alex became aware that he was attracting attention beyond just the automated monitoring systems. Other nodes across the network were detecting the improvements in routing efficiency and beginning to relay traffic through the Guild's newly optimized hub.
NETWORK STATUS UPDATE:
Guild_Basement_Node_001 performance: +340% improvement
Connected routes: 3 → 12 (additional connections auto-discovered)
System-wide efficiency gain: +8.7%
Traffic volume increase: +156% (stable)
"Alex," Elara said urgently, "something's happening to the archway."
He pulled part of his attention back to the physical world and saw what she meant. The stone archway was beginning to glow, runic patterns that had been dormant for centuries blazing to life as the restored node reconnected to long-lost parts of the network.
More importantly, Alex could see new transportation destinations becoming available—cities that hadn't been accessible for generations, ancient strongholds, research facilities, even what appeared to be connections to other kingdoms entirely.
NEW CONNECTIONS ESTABLISHED:
- Crystal Falls Academy (Last Contact: 127 years ago)
- Northern Watch Tower (Last Contact: 89 years ago)
- Deep Library Vault (Last Contact: 203 years ago)
- Sunspire Observatory (Last Contact: 156 years ago)
"The network is healing itself," Alex wrote in amazement. "By fixing this one node properly, I've restored connections that have been lost for over a century."
But even as he celebrated the success, Alex realized he was approaching a critical decision point. The system was offering him full integration into the magical infrastructure network, but acceptance would mean permanent binding to this world's magical architecture.
There would be no going home.
COMPATIBILITY VERIFICATION: PASSED
Integration Offer: ADMINISTRATIVE ACCESS GRANTED
Binding Protocols: Will link entity consciousness to network infrastructure
Effect: Permanent residence in current reality matrix
Authority Level: SYSTEM ARCHITECT
Responsibilities: Network maintenance, infrastructure development, user support
Accept Integration? [Y/N]
Countdown to Forced Integration: 14 hours, 23 minutes
Alex stared at the offer, weighing his options. Accept, and he'd have the power to restore this world's magical infrastructure to its former glory—but he'd never see his own world again. Refuse, and the system would delete him in less than fifteen hours.
But as he considered the choice, Alex realized there was a third option.
What if he didn't have to choose between worlds?
What if he could find a way to bridge them instead?
"Elara," he wrote urgently, "I need you to help me with something incredibly dangerous. But if it works, it might change everything."