Chapter 16 — Scope Creep
We left Kastell Vale before anyone woke up.
Not because we were being chased—but because staying would have been worse. Towns remember things like us. They remember in ways people don't. Walls start leaning. Roads redirect. Accidents become coincidental.
By dawn, the vale was behind us, folded back into the hills like a paragraph someone didn't want reread.
None of us spoke for a long time.
The audit lingered.
Not as pressure. As context.
Every sound felt framed. Every choice felt like it came with an invisible dropdown menu.
Puck finally broke. "So just to summarize: the Curator noticed you, indexed you, cross-referenced you, and then personally told you to knock it off."
"That's one interpretation," I said.
"And the optimistic one?"
"They asked for justification," Valerius said quietly. "That means you are not classified as malicious."
"Yet," Puck added.
I rubbed my temples. "I don't feel malicious. I feel… expanded. Like the consequences got wider."
"That's scope creep," Valerius said. "Happens when systems aren't designed for what they're asked to handle."
I shot her a look. "You've been around auditors too long."
"Yes," she replied. "And you are becoming one."
That stopped me.
I halted mid-step. The forest didn't resist. That, somehow, was worse.
"I'm not auditing anyone," I said.
"You intervened in a correction," she replied. "You overrode local authority. You forced escalation."
"I saved people."
"So do auditors," she said gently. "They just call it compliance."
The Shard stirred, uneasy.
I clenched my fists. "Then what am I supposed to do? Let towns erase themselves quietly?"
"No," Valerius said. "You're supposed to choose."
We reached higher ground by midday—rocky shelves overlooking a fractured plain. Far below, lines cut through the earth like hairline cracks in glass. Old margins. Abandoned edits.
"This is bad land," Puck muttered. "I can feel the footnotes itching."
I stared out at it.
Somewhere out there were more Kastell Vales. More obelisks. More people trying to imitate the Curator because it worked.
And somewhere higher still—
The original.
"You said further deviations mean direct review," I said.
"Yes," Valerius answered.
"What does that look like?"
She hesitated. That alone was an answer.
"Personal oversight," she said finally. "An Auditor Prime. Or the Curator itself, if the matter is foundational."
Puck went very still. "Foundational as in… reality?"
"Yes."
I laughed weakly. "Of course."
The Shard pulsed.
Not warning.
Inquiry.
It wasn't asking can you.
It was asking will you.
I knelt and pressed my palm to the stone.
The residue reacted—not flaring, not hiding. Responding.
The cracks below shifted subtly, aligning into something like a diagram.
Paths.
Pressure points.
Places where correction piled up because no one else could fix it cleanly.
"Oh," I whispered.
Valerius knelt beside me. "You see it."
"I see where it hurts," I said. "Where reality keeps correcting because it doesn't know another way."
Puck swallowed. "Arthur… buddy… that sounds dangerously like a job description."
"I know."
I stood slowly.
Every instinct screamed to stop. To stay small. To blur my outline until the Curator lost interest.
But the audit had already started.
And audits don't end because the subject behaves.
They end when the system changes—or breaks.
"I'm not going to hunt the Curator," I said. "And I'm not going to become it."
Valerius watched me closely. "Then what?"
"I'm going to limit the damage," I said. "Close margins where they shouldn't exist. Break imitations. Interfere selectively."
Puck grimaced. "You just invented freelance compliance."
I smiled faintly. "With ethical objections."
The Shard hummed—steady, aligned.
Not power.
Purpose.
Far away, something vast adjusted its expectations.
Not alarmed.
Interested.
And for the first time since the audit began, I felt something unexpected settle in my chest.
Not fear.
Not resolve.
Direction.
Whatever the Curator was—
Whatever it would decide to do with me—
I was no longer just reacting.
I was operating within scope.
And that, I suspected, was the most dangerous thing of all.