Bernadette said: "For now, we can treat it as a hard crowd-control ability. Use it to forcibly interrupt an enemy's current action or intention, then use that window to counter-attack."
She continued: "But first we need to establish what 'valuable' actually means here. Like the Bribe ability — does throwing anything at all work? Or does it need to meet a genuine standard of value? Or does it specifically have to be something valuable to the target?"
"Right."
Bernadette then went around the Emerald City collecting a pile of things and stashing them in the hidden compartment: jewellery, gold, antiques, books, and some Beyonder characteristics — all in preparation for Dark Box testing.
She returned to the Dawn and recruited First Mate Crunch as the test subject.
At Her Majesty's request to attack at full force, Crunch did exactly that without a shred of hesitation — transforming into his Wraith state and deploying everything: Wraith Possession, Spirit Wail, Frost Manipulation, and more. He even produced an orange-red bead and began projecting scorching bursts of light from it — a sealed artifact he'd had Boneva craft using an Unshadowed Beyonder characteristic last time.
Bernadette's first test: throwing pebbles and sticks while activating Dark Box. Result: nothing.
Next she threw gold coins, paper notes, and gemstones, while projecting the request for him to stand down and stop harming her. This time the effect was immediate.
Crunch abandoned his assault without hesitation, ceased all harmful actions toward Bernadette, and looked at her with an expression that had gone subtly strange.
Bernadette then scattered a handful of powder. Crunch snapped back to himself — visibly bewildered at what he'd just done and completely unable to account for it.
She ran the experiment many more times after that, each time using something slightly less valuable than the last. Her conclusion: as long as she produced a coin purse — whether filled with pennies, gold pounds, or gems — the Dark Box would successfully activate. The content's actual monetary value didn't seem to provide additional bonus effects.
The requirement forced on Crunch through Dark Box also couldn't directly harm his interests. She could make him stop attacking; make him switch sides and protect her instead; direct him to sail the ship to a particular location. All of those worked.
But when she tried to make him harm his crewmates or harm himself, he snapped out of the effect instantly — because those requests directly cut against his own interests.
After finishing with Crunch, Bernadette headed to Bayam and ran further experiments using several hardened pirates. The results were identical.
Vincent thought it over for a while, then said with mild puzzlement: "This is basically just… combat-speed hypnosis, isn't it?"
The Spectator pathway's combat hypnosis did roughly the same thing — forcibly entrancing an enemy mid-fight, making them act strangely, and similarly unable to directly harm the hypnotised person. The only real difference was that combat hypnosis was usually short-lasting, whereas Dark Box could sustain the effect for a long time.
Bernadette said: "I think Dark Box definitely has more to offer than this. We just haven't found all of it yet. And don't forget — it still has that second form of execution."
She produced a coin purse, created a "dark box," then thought for a moment: "I want these two pirates to die."
A brief silence fell inside the box. Then a rattling, grinding sound came from within it. Bernadette produced another coin purse and sent it in.
Rip. The purse came flying back out in tatters — clearly the other party wasn't satisfied with that.
Bernadette's eyebrow went up. She retrieved a Sequence 9 Beyonder characteristic and slid it in.
A moment later, a desiccated hand reached out and shook hers, then took the characteristic and withdrew.
A short time after that, a slit opened near the two unconscious pirates — a hand shot out of the spirit world, snapped both their necks one after the other, and retreated.
"The entity trading with us in there was a spirit-world creature," Vincent mused. "Based on what just happened, in theory, as long as we can pay the Dark Box's price, we can fulfil almost any 'wish.'"
Which made it a little like the Miracle Worker ability — except that a Miracle Worker first had to fulfil other people's wishes, accumulating "miracles" over time, before spending them on their own desires. Dark Box was simpler and blunter: bribe someone, get the job done.
The risk, of course, was running into a con-artist on the other side — in which case whatever went into the box would simply disappear.
Bernadette, listening quietly, then looked at the dark box in front of her and said: "I want to know my father's current location."
There was a brief silence — and then the box erupted with violent turbulence. An aura of something that made the skin crawl seeped out from it. A few seconds later, a series of branch-like appendages, covered in what looked like sinew and veins, began extending from the box.
One glance at them was enough.
Bernadette's skin felt like it was boiling. Every desire in her surged up and ran riot in an instant. She immediately cancelled the dark box, and the horrifying branch-things vanished along with the coin purse.
Vincent's voice went sharp: "WHAT was that? Just looking at it nearly made me detonate on the spot — and it even managed to contaminate you at Sequence 3?"
"..."
Bernadette was quiet for a moment. "If my instinct is right, it may be connected to the evil god worshipped by the depraved faction of the Rose School of Thought."
The Desire Tree.
Vincent blinked, rapidly pulled up everything the original novel had mentioned about that entity, then let out a wry laugh. "You're always telling me I attract evil gods. Looks like you're not exactly clean either."
Bernadette said, as if she hadn't heard him: "All I asked was where my father was — and something like that showed up." Her brow knitted. "Does that mean Father's situation has something to do with an evil god?"
She thought back to what the priest had said — that stepping foot where Father was now, at her current level, was the same as walking into her own death.
If an evil god was truly involved, that would explain it.
She hadn't expected a random impulse to yield this kind of accidental discovery. But the weight of what had been found was suffocating.
Still — even knowing this, the moment she learned where Father was, she would go.
She was almost there. Just one more Sequence to go.
"Vincent — for the Dark Box advancing to Sequence 4, does it also not require a ritual?"
"Nothing came through to me about one."
Vincent said: "Rather than thinking about the ritual right now, I think we should focus on how to roleplay for the potion. From the name alone, what we're supposed to be roleplaying is probably dark-box dealing and dark-box manoeuvring."
"But when we just traded with that spirit-world creature and had those two pirates killed, I didn't feel the potion moving at all."
Bernadette nodded slightly. "Which means there are other factors missing."
Dark-box operations — in plain terms, using positions of authority to quietly do unjust or illegal things, in order to achieve a goal. The authority could be your own or someone else's.
"Let's try piece by piece," Bernadette said after a long pause. "To use authority, the first step is to have authority — or to find someone who does. Then you use it to operate on something, turning what's fair into something unfair, and accomplishing your goal through that."
"But you and I right now…"
Vincent immediately said: "Hey, who says we don't have 'authority'? We're the Aurora Order's divine emissary, we're Princess Loen's 'boyfriend,' we're a Prosecutor, and we're the leader of Element Dawn."
"..."
She went quiet. "You want to exploit bugs again."
"No."
Vincent grinned. "I'm thinking that 'dark-box operations' are inherently a kind of bug-exploit."
To be continued…
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