Bernadette forgot the cat entirely. She tore through the pages with wide, disbelieving eyes — page after page, line after line, every single word written in Roselle's script.
What is going on?
What is this world?
Sensing that the terrifying large human had abruptly stopped paying attention to her, the cat began inching her way toward the door — one careful step at a time. When she was satisfied she'd been forgotten entirely, she bolted.
As she ran, her expression hardened into resolve. This isn't over. Everything she lost — she would take it back. Every last bit of it.
"Vincent — ask him!"
Bernadette snapped back to herself, and practically threw herself at the writing desk. She snatched up the quill and wrote at the bottom of her message, adding in a rush: "Why does your world have—"
Then her thoughts dulled. The sounds around her began to recede, growing distant and smaller and quieter, until they were gone.
A brief moment of disorientation —
And Bernadette was back inside Caesar Restaurant, back in her own body, in the world of the Fool.
"No!!"
She was still holding her writing posture. But it was already too late — she was home.
She sat very still for a moment, head swimming. Old memories surfaced in the confusion — pieces of her father, images from years gone by — and the swirling questions slowly coalesced into a single enormous one.
Did her father have something to do with that world? Could he have actually come from there?
She let out a quiet breath. It was too early for conclusions. Everything she was thinking was still just guesswork. If she truly wanted answers, she had two paths: ask her father directly, or teach herself Roselle's script and search through his diaries herself.
She had been working through Mr. Fool, hoping to piece together answers about her father — what had changed in him in those final years, where he might be now — but that approach would take time she no longer felt she had.
The Fool.
Since Mr. Fool could read Roselle's script, might he too have some connection to that world?
And Vincent — did Vincent know Roselle's script? Bernadette felt a flash of irritation at herself. If she had only left her father's diary with him last time, she might already have her answer by now.
After a while, she brought herself back to the present.
She scanned the room. The books from the coffee table had been moved to the desk, but otherwise nothing was out of place. She looked down at her own clothes — the same outfit from before the swap, though the innermost layer was slightly different.
Bernadette conjured a mirror with a gesture, and studied her reflection. With this face, most people really wouldn't be able to identify me. Vivienne's skill with cosmetics is exceptional.
Admittedly, it is a somewhat unfortunate face.
She stripped off the disguise and restored her own features, then picked up Vincent's message.
"Hello, Miss Bernadette.
Thank you for listening to my suggestion and not leaving me marooned alone on that island again. I have to say — it really is unbearably dull there.
First, some good news. Or — what should be good news. Three days ago, with Vivienne's assistance, I successfully hosted an Extraordinary gathering and facilitated more than twenty transactions and collaborations.
Every transaction I mediated produced a grey crystal on the opposite pan of the Scales, and the crystals merged and grew until the Scales finally balanced.
And I received the so-called 'benefit.'
After absorbing the crystals from the pan, I became an Extraordinary — not a half-formed Hermit riding on the coattails of your abilities, but something through a Pathway you never mentioned. Its Sequence 9 is called the Broker."*
The Broker?
Bernadette's frown deepened. That name didn't match any of the twenty-two known Extraordinary Pathways. But how could that be possible? Every Pathway in this world originated from the Blasphemy Slate. The existence of a Pathway not found on the Slate was something she could not account for.
Leave that aside for now.
Why is it that my body can simultaneously sustain two separate Extraordinary Pathways?
She had theorised in an earlier message that Vincent might be unable to use her abilities because his spirit was that of an ordinary person who had never consumed a potion. But that didn't mean her body could simply accommodate a second potion on top of the first.
Because potions didn't only transform the spirit. They overhauled the physical body, the spiritual body, the astral body, the mental body, and the ethereal body — a total, simultaneous transformation across every plane of existence.
What is that room? What are those Scales? What kind of thing is capable of bending the rules of the Extraordinary world itself?
She kept reading.
"The Broker hasn't granted me any dramatic abilities — it simply allows me to perceive certain needs more acutely, and to facilitate corresponding transactions and collaborations through words and relationships — particularly those touching on matters in the grey areas of society.
Yes — exactly like the Scales in the hidden room, still pointing me toward brokering deals. So over these past two days I've continued playing the Broker, and I've been trying to work out the rules of the role.
I'm not certain whether you'll be able to use my Broker abilities the same way I've been using your Hermit abilities — but I hope you'll try.
The first rule of roleplay is: as a Broker, I must never solve people's problems directly. My role is to be the bridge — the person who connects the solver to the problem, not the one who does the solving.
The second rule is: a Broker isn't simply a go-between for isolated transactions. The real work is connecting people who would otherwise never have crossed paths, and letting those threads multiply — building from small links into a larger and larger web of relationships.
The third rule is still speculative, but here it is: the Broker Pathway may be reversible. Under normal circumstances, a broker works to bring different parties together for mutual benefit. But — what if different factions unite specifically to come after the broker? Might that also count as a collaboration facilitated by the Broker?"*
Bernadette: "???"
What an extraordinary way of thinking.
She paused. But based on her read of Vincent over these exchanges, he wasn't the kind of person to say things without a point. Which meant—
He wouldn't.
"The reason I arrived at this conclusion was…"
Vincent then described it in full: wanting to undercut the competition, he'd had the Invisible Servant deliver tip-offs to all three Churches — only for the creature to deliver them by hurling stones through the cathedral windows.
The next morning, all three Churches had issued a joint declaration vowing to bring the sacrilegious perpetrator to justice, with a reward for information leading to any relevant lead.
And Vincent had connected the dots: the Broker potion's sudden massive digestion the night before, the rush of grey crystals onto the Scales — it had to be the three Churches genuinely collaborating to hunt down the source, which happened to be him.
"…"
Bernadette took a long, slow breath.
Stay calm. Keep it together.
Compared to the last incident — where he'd inadvertently caught the attention of a Beyonder God — offending a few mortal Churches barely even registered on the scale of disasters.
Barely.
To be continued…
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