Some passersby turn to look at Michele who, unable to contain his agitation, breathes heavily, wheezes, and grunts as he loads his belongings into the trunk of the station wagon, tears welling in his eyes. Fortunately for him, his wife has no interest in that car (she drives only her beloved silver Smart); had she seen the contents of the trunk, divorce would have been a certainty.

Michele climbs into his car, panting; he cannot go home: it is Luisa’s day off. Besides, he needs to think things through and talk to someone who knows him and his relationship troubles, someone capable of helping him see reason calmly. The only person he knows who can work such magic is Alessio, his older brother. Fortunately, Alessio’s husband is sure to be at work, a fact that spurs Michele to start the car and drive the thirty kilometers to his brother’s home.

Upon arriving at his destination, he jumps out of the car and presses the doorbell at Alessio’s house (a bell that, like all devices for the deaf, makes no sound).

A few seconds pass before Michele finds himself facing a massive, hostile figure: Mondo, Alessio’s husband.

“You aren’t welcome here, Michele. Please leave,” the man thunders, looming ten centimeters above Michele from his height of nearly two meters.

Mondo is not just tall but huge, a fact that, under other circumstances, would have made Michele think twice about pressing the issue; yet Michele is too shaken to back down: “I need to talk to my brother! This is none of your fucking business! Let me through”;

“This is my house. If I tell you you're not welcome, you have to leave” ;

“I told you to let me in!” Michele shouts in desperation.;

“Otherwise, what are you going to do? Call me a fucking faggot like you did at Christmas dinner?”.

Taking a step back, struck by something he hadn't expected to be thrown in his face, Michele mutters: “I already apologized: I was drunk”;

“And I’ve already told you I don’t want you in my house,” Mondo replies, taking a breath that is more frustrated than bored, before concluding: “In vino veritas, Michele, face facts: you’re ignorant and intolerant. And I don’t want to see you again”.

Alessio is a man to whom God did not grant the gifts of hearing and speech, yet compensated with double the worth in every other respect: a handsome, cheerful man who is always smiling and, above all: happy to be alive. A highly respected structural engineer, he works for himself from home, surrounded by the things he loves most: his dog Bidone, a rescue dog left disabled by a car accident who gets around using a wheeled support strapped to his back, and his husband Michele, a successful lawyer and a bodybuilder with a statuesque physique.

Suddenly, this man’s head (Alesso’s) slips beneath Mondo’s right arm; with a mere movement of his head, a single glance and a smile are enough to soothe his husband, who, feeling his beloved’s hand upon his belly, finds all the peace in the world.

Michele is fluent in sign language; he has been using it since Alessio was four years old. Without wasting a second, he gestures: “Help me! I got fired!”.

Using a dialect, a form of sign language Alessio and Michele developed to share secrets, Alessio replies: “And what can we do about it, us fags?".

Moving his hands and fingers frantically, Michele retorts: “Enough with that already! We’re brothers!”;

“Your idea of brotherhood is fucking pathetic, Michelino” Mondo interjects in disgust.

“I’ve already apologized, for fuck’s sake!” Michele repeats, shouting.

Without letting go of his husband, and still using just one arm to gesture as he speaks, Alessio interjects: “Are you having money troubles? Do you have debts? If those are your problems, I can’t help you: you’re a musician, a nationally recognized pianist: I can’t send you to a construction site to work as a builder, hauling bricks and ruining your hands”;

“Besides, the law supports you for two years with NASPI (the Italian unemployment benefit). It’s impossible that you don’t have any remaining contacts at the university that would leave you at risk of being out of work for more than two years” Mondo adds, speaking with the professional air of the lawyer he is.

Using sign language, Michele pleads: “I can’t ask the university for help! They know me! They’d ask Luisa for information! And if Luisa finds out I’ve been fired, she’ll divorce me! I need to find something to do without her noticing a thing”.

In unison (Alessio through gestures and Mondo with his voice) they reply: “Your wife is a whore”;

“Don’t talk about my wife like that” Michele shouts, articulating so clearly that Alessio can tell what he said just by reading his lips.

“Your wife likes horse cocks, Michele”, Mondo adds, with an extremely serious air.

“So this is your way of getting revenge, huh? You bastard...” Michele takes a few seconds before saying “faggot? Huh? Not forgiving me isn’t enough for you, is it? You have to hurt me even when I’m already done for!” Michele says through gritted teeth, before turning on his heel and shutting himself inside his car, hearing Mondo mutter: “Here we go again”.

Michele has been weeping over his car’s steering wheel for half an hour now when he hears a notification on his phone. It’s a brief WhatsApp message from Alessio: “Tonya, a friend of mine, needs a dancer. You used to be very good, and I hope for your that you still are. It’s a costumed show: no one, not even your wife, would recognize you. There’s good money in it. Tonya’s number is XXX-XXXXXXXXXX; tell her I sent you. Only get back in touch when you are truly remorseful. I don’t hate you, but you make me suffer.”

The Ramsey Particle

In 2056, CERN, a large particle collider on planet Earth, had discovered a new particle and called it the Ramsey particle. Based on a single line in the research of Prof. Higgs in the previous century, Prof. Ramsey had theorized that this particle should be added to the Standard Model. According to Ramsey, our universe was but one in an endless number of universes, all occupying the same space. So Ramsey augmented Einstein's model of space-time to space-time-universe. The Ramsey particle proved to keep a universe together, preventing universes from collapsing into one another.

The discovery of the Ramsey particle led to research into its accompanying antiparticle: the anti-Ramsey particle. That particle would locally destroy the coherence of a universe and cause a tunnel between universes. It took over a century to find this particle and required a super-large particle collider, one built around planet Jupiter.

Travelling between universes was not possible and was not thought ever to be possible. But Prof. Nieuwenburg theorized that enough anti-Ramsey particles would create a tunnel that would allow energy and gravity to travel through a Nieuwenburg tunnel, as it was named.

That took over two centuries, as anti-Ramsey particles were rare and really hard to create. But in 2377, the first Nieuwenburg tunnel was created. The tunnel would exist for a microsecond before closing. The next two centuries’ developments made it easier to create a Nieuwenburg tunnel, or an N-tunnel as it came to be known. All the tunnel did was exchange energy and gravity to and from a random universe. 

In these two centuries, it was Professor Kromjong who theorized that selecting a galaxy was possible. Every N-tunnel to another universe left a memory in the anti-Ramsey particles. Reusing anti-Ramsey particles would create a tunnel to the same universe that these particles had previously opened an N-tunnel to. It was in 2549 that the first tunnel creator – it was named the Kromjong tunneller - was successful in creating a tunnel to a selected universe. 

Every tunnel originated at the Kromjong tunneller and always ended in the same place in the selected universe. This was because all universes overlapped and did not move. It was like putting a bunch of unrelated maps on top of each other and pushing a nail through them. Starting at one location on the top map would always bring you to the accompanying place in the maps below.

So far this was all academic – it had no practical use case. Humankind built thousands of Kromjong tunnellers in search of useful endpoints for the N-tunnels, looking at millions of universes. It took 8 centuries – in 3301 - to find the first useful tunnel endpoint: the core of an active star. Finding that endpoint destroyed the Kromjong tunneller that created the tunnel because the energy in the core of that star flowed through the N-tunnel. The energy coming through destroyed an area the size of a city in just over a microsecond.

It took another two centuries – in 3582 - to find another useful endpoint: the core of a black hole. By now the Kromjong tunnellers were better protected, but even then the tunneller was almost sucked into the black hole. By then the Kromjong tunneller was capable of extended tunnel times – up to 7 milliseconds.

The discovery of the core of a star in another universe was useful for spaceships. A team led by Prof. Yamamoto had discovered ways of folding space to travel any distance in an instant. Space would be folded, and the spaceship would move a few kilometres and then unfold space. This was called ‘stepping’ as you would step into the other location. That would make instant travel to any location in the universe possible. However, each folding required the energy of a star, so it was not feasible and therefore purely academic. The discovery of the core of a star in another universe opened possibilities. By creating an N-tunnel into the core of a star, the energy coming through the tunnel was more than enough to power a space folder. The first spaceship successfully travelling this way was the UESS Salty Dog in 3544, using a Yamamoto drive, or Y-drive as it came to be known.

There was still a problem to solve. A point in our universe would always tunnel to the same point in another universe. It was Dr. Prepain who developed a way to page through other universes at incredible speed, creating and destroying N-tunnels to see if there was the core of a star on the other end. After all, with an infinite number of universes, there would always be one with the core of a star in that particular location. That would allow ships to find the core of a star in another universe from any location in our universe.

Soon after that, Earth built a fleet of ships – the Salty Dog class – that could travel by folding space, using N-tunnels, a Y-drive and a Prepain indexer.

Humans being humans, the Kromjong tunneller was then put to use for weapons. Having found the core of a black hole, a missile was developed that would open a tunnel to a black hole near the enemy ship. That was first tested in 3587 on an old commercial carrier, the ECC Marie Jeanette. The missile was fired at the ECC Marie Jeanette and triggered within a hundred meters. The N-tunnel was open for four milliseconds. The Marie Jeanette was sucked into the black hole in two milliseconds. High-speed camera replays showed that the Marie Jeanette was sucked into the tunnel with the closest point moving in first at close to light speed, the furthest points following nano seconds later. It basically looked like the Marie Jeanette turned from a ship into a line and then nothing.

The missile could not carry enough power to drive a Prepain indexer. Therefore, in most locations, a ship would need to do the indexing and then program the missiles accordingly. As a black hole is very, very big, a useful universe that was found with the Prepain indexer would be good enough for a battle area the size of an extended solar system.

Earth was both happy and unhappy with this new weapon. Mass demonstrations were held against the weapon and for a test ban. The United Earth government, however, decided on one more test on a moon-sized asteroid in the Oort cloud. That went a little differently. The side of the asteroid close to the Nieuwenburg tunnel disappeared into the tunnel. However, the tunnel would not stay open long enough to swallow the entire asteroid, so half of it remained, being accelerated towards the core of the black hole but never finding it. Effectively, the weapon had broken the asteroid in two, with the remaining half hurtling through space at an incredible speed.

In the following centuries, Earth manufactured hundreds of thousands of N-missiles. Knowing Earth's history of violence and war, these missiles could only be activated after a democratic vote among the population of Earth and its colonies – by then some two trillion people. This was a cumbersome process, but it would safeguard humanity from destroying itself.

Among the stars

The KayJay drive – as it came to be known, being short for Kromjong – sent humanity to millions of other star systems in the following millennia. Humans found mostly dead planets or planets with only microbial life. However, once in a while they would find a civilisation. Some were young and not yet space-faring, some were advanced, travelling the universe, some were at their peak, some were over their peak and decaying, and some were dead. Particularly the dead civilisations were numerous and spanned billions of years. However, humanity did not find any really old thriving civilisations. All the active civilisations were at most a million years old, counting from the moment they developed faster-than-light travel.

Humanity started to realise that every civilisation would inevitably die in the end. This realisation started a seeding program. On thousands and thousands of planets, seed vaults were placed in orbit. Vaults with all the requirements for life and with human DNA. These planets were often young, too young to support life of any kind. The vaults were programmed to send their contents to the planet’s surface after a set period – some hundreds of thousands of years, some hundreds of millions of years. By then the planets would be ready to support life. That, so was thought, would guarantee that humanity would keep on starting again, thereby preventing the demise of the species. Humans would be there until the end of the universe, was the prevailing sentiment.

Humans would not interact with pre-space-faring civilizations. They had taken to heart the directive of an ancient amusement series – Star Trek – that pre-space flight civilisations should be left alone to develop naturally. Humans, being nostalgic, still called it the ‘prime directive’.

Civilisations near or at their peak were the best partners for trade, cultural exchange and scientific exchange. Some were great holiday destinations, some had great art and music, some had great food, and some had a way of looking at the universe that was entertaining and surprising. Some species were just plain fun to be with. Earth – surprisingly – was well known for its fiction and entertainment. Old ‘television’ series – a television was a flat view screen for viewing entertainment programs – were particularly popular as they were both weird and simple fun. The only problem was that some species had difficulty distinguishing between documentaries and fiction. Which was fun for the humans.

The most popular among alien species, however, was a category called ‘porn’ which showed the many creative ways of human procreation. Aliens found it fun to watch and were spiked by the way humans showed their procreation to the rest of the universe. Each species had its own way of procreating. All required combining DNA of two or more individuals. According to humans, the weirdest were the N’GKXTCH, where females gathered as much DNA as possible from as many males as possible. Their internal organs would then choose each gene based on majority and use that for their offspring. It proved to be a stable way of protecting the species as outliers were ignored, but it also caused very slow development. What had taken humans a hundred thousand years had taken the N’GKXTCH almost a million years. It was due to their extremely friendly planetary environment that they had not been wiped out a long time ago.

The big problem proved to be with decaying civilisations. These were trying to assert dominance in a universe that had overtaken them. A last-ditch effort to be relevant. Most of these civilisations had built up a sizeable military and were pouring ever more resources into expanding that military. More ships, more weapons, more soldiers. Often they would resort to enslaving other civilisations – mostly pre-space-faring civilisations – to serve their military. The worst among them had enslaved hundreds of thousands of civilisations, trillions of individuals.

Most of these had an aggressive posture, attempting to dominate advancing or peaking civilisations. Regular wars were a consequence, wars that were hugely costly in terms of resources and lives. The most famous of these wars was the Galactic Superwar of JADES, where two decaying civilisations fought each other, and over two hundred trillion enslaved species lost their lives. The Omega-Thau system – in the JADES galaxy - was destroyed, debris of destroyed planets being flung out, causing gravitational disruptions that knocked planets out of their orbit in the nearby systems and destroying any possible life there. In the end, both civilisations had vanished.

Never did the humans bring up their N-missiles – they were kept a total secret. It was thought that if a civilisation came to know of them, humans would be considered monsters that should not be interacted with. And rightly so – even the human population did not know about them and would only learn of their existence if their use would be put to the vote.

An Emperor Takes Offence

The first sign of problems arose when Earth received a war declaration from the AA’AGTXQ. Their war declaration was sent by an emissary in a bubble ship. A bubble ship was a tiny driverless ship that was shot through an FTL space highway and had no return possibility. The emissary read the declaration aloud in Earth Congress, comprising the House and Senate of Earth and Earth’s maharajah, president, and vice president. It stated that Earth had violated common decency and had committed galactic rape by placing hideous objects in orbit of hundreds of thousands of planets. The seed vaults.

The declaration of war left no doubt as to its intentions. There would be no negotiation, no surrender or anything else. The AA’AGTXQ were bent on war, and there was nothing Earth could do about it. It was obvious that this was a decaying civilisation attempting to assert its dominance on the galaxy. Not a civilisation to be taken trivially, though. The AA’AGTXQ had acquired faster-than-light travel over eighty thousand years ago. That is a long time to develop ships and weapons for warfare. Their most feared weapon was a dimensional shift disruptor. It would shoot out a beam, within which space would be uncertain about which universe it was in, which would crumble matter into pieces that were in this universe and pieces in other universes. Not conducive to a healthy state of matter.

After proclaiming the declaration of war at the top of his lungs, the emissary screamed loudly, ‘Hail Emperor d’Troof’ and blew himself up. He had brought a recording device that sent the declaration and suicide to Emperor d’Troof immediately.  Leaving Congress in disarray and a bit of a panic.

The AA’AGTXQ did not give Earth any time to consider their options. An hour after the emissary read out the war declaration, Earth's colony Wayne’s World – named after a very old entertainment series that the click-click-pause-click species (humans called them twenty-oners) thought was a documentary – was attacked. A dimensional shift disruptor ray disrupted the planet, the colony, and its 250 million inhabitants out of existence. The AA’AGTXQ proudly sent a live broadcast of the disruption on every channel to the universe. At the end, Emperor D’Troof – an androgynous being – loudly announced the beginning of the end of humanity. Being what he was, he also added that human elections were a fraud, so they deserved what they got. He also used the opportunity to announce import tariffs on any merchandise coming from the Alpha quadrant of the Milky Way. Finally, he praised the dictator Emperor of Chria, who had gone to war – and was losing - with a small solar system nearby.

For the humans, this was a no-return point: the AA’AGTXQ were not just going to pay; they were going to be annihilated. On streets on Earth and on its colonies, billions of people chanted ‘exterminate, exterminate’ in the voice of Daleks, from an ancient entertainment series called ‘Doctor Who’. It was a good time to inform the humans about the N-missiles and to put their use to the vote. Humans overwhelmingly – 87% - voted for their use against the AA’AGTXQ.

There was one problem for the humans. Though the humans had over two million ships, only just over one hundred thousand of them could fire N-missiles. And the AA’AGTXQ, by the latest analysis, had well over seven million warships with the dimensional shift disruptor.

The numbers were not good for the humans. An AA’AGTXQ warship would destroy a colony, and an Earth N-missile would then suck the AA’AGTXQ ship out of existence. But with the number of ships the AA’AGTXQ had, all colonies would be gone before all AA’AGTXQ ships were sucked out of existence.

A special kind of hubris

It was up to Admiral Sjen to find a solution. She – Sjen started as a He but decided to be a She for a while – stood on the bridge of the UESS Abyss, contemplating options. She could attack AA’AGTXQ prime – her KayJay drive would get her there in a nanosecond - but the problem was that the N-missiles had to be set up at the location of use. It would take at least two hours to index the area with the Prepain indexer, program the missiles, and fire them at enemy ships, after which it would take another seven minutes to open the N-tunnel. During that time, the firing ship would have to be stationary, which made it a sitting duck for the dimensional shift disruptors.

Captain Öcellan of the UESS Abyss looked at Admiral Sjen. ‘What are your orders, ma’am?’ she asked. Captain Öcellan was famous for the battle of Esteron, where she beat thirty-five AA’AGTXQ battleships with only four Earth ships. It had been a humiliation for the AA’AGTXQ. 

Admiral Sjen did not answer immediately. It seemed to her that the N-missile was not as powerful as originally thought. She was looking at the screen, where Emperor d’Troof was bragging to journalists about his powerful and exceptional intelligence. ‘Such an idiot’, Sjen thought. She thought about the way AA’AGTXQ was run. It used to be a democracy, like on Earth, but now it was run by one man, the Emperor. He was continually killing his possible opponents and successors. He was quietly called ‘the great defenestrator’ by his detractors. ‘I don’t know,’ she said to Captain Öcellan, ‘that idiot on screen is scrambling my brain’. 

Emperor d’Troof had moved to the capital warship Ultimate Disruptor. It was a gift from the kingdom of Qtr and was furnished with golden seats, tables, et cetera. Even the imperial lavatory was made of gold. Emperor d’Troof loved gold. The Ultimate Disruptor was a globe. One half was for machinery, personnel, et cetera. The entire other half was a courtroom dome. The courtroom was all gold and diamonds. The Qtr had gone out of their way to please the Emperor. On the perimeter were golden seats for visitors. These were usually visitors from other empires and species. The front row, closest to the centre, was made up of hard and uncomfortable wooden benches. These were reserved for species that the Emperor deemed ‘Sad’, ‘Unfair to the empire’ and ‘having no cards to play’. The Emperor would always berate the wooden benchers, as they came to be called, and flaunt the power of the empire in their faces.

Emperor d’Troof held a firm belief that the only thing that mattered was power. And Emperor d’Troof had it in spades. The way the universe worked was that the powerful dominated and all others served the powerful. The Emperor could bully others, threaten them and, if necessary, destroy them. He had destroyed hundreds of civilizations purely for being disrespectful to him. Such was the Emperors right, such was the way of the universe.

At the centre of the courtroom there was a golden throne, inlaid with diamonds and with the rarest matter in the universe, QulQar, which could only be found in very small quantities on one in a million planets. The amount of QulQar in the throne represented more than half of the quantity ever extracted.

The Emperor was strutting around in the courtroom, looking smug and answering questions of the invited press in his usual insulting way. D’Troof was Emperor after all, and everybody served him. ‘I have ordered my military to destroy all humans, ’ he or she – nobody really knows - said. ‘We have the greatest military in the universe, you know. Everybody says that. I have the greatest Admirals and the best weapons of everybody’. He or she put on a smug smile, pushed out his or her considerable belly and turned around so everyone could see him. ‘The humans will beg me for peace, and they will give me anything to get it. I am the greatest dealmaker in the universe, everybody says that’. One of the journalists, a young female named r’Oupnama, gathered enough guts to ask the Emperor a question. ‘Emperor d’Troof, do you really think these orbital vaults the humans have put up are so bad?’ She shrank visibly as though she regretted her question as soon as it was asked. ‘You are so stupid. You should not be asking questions, ’ Emperor D’Troof shouted at her. ‘You always lie; you are fake press with fake news. Your employer should fire you right now’. She was fired two minutes after asking her question; the news agency apologized profusely to the Emperor, begging him not to take offence. The Emperor cancelled the license of the news agency and set his law hounds on them. Everybody serves Emperor d’Troof, no exceptions.

The Gift

All this was shown on the viewscreen in the UESS Abyss. ‘Maybe you can use that against him, ’ Captain Öcellan said to Admiral Sjen. Admiral Sjen abruptly turned towards her and snapped, ‘What? What on earth are you talking about?’ Captain Öcellan did not care for Admiral Sjen’s ways, but she pushed on. ‘It seems to me that the Emperor’s arrogance can be turned against him,’ Captain Öcellan said. That seemed to break Admiral Sjen’s irritation. ‘Explain,’ she said. ’Well,’ Captain Öcellan said, ‘my father was like the Emperor, and after a while I learned how to use his arrogance to manipulate him to do anything I wanted. It seems to me we can get the Emperor in a losing position just by appeasing and insulting him’. Admiral Sjen looked at Captain Öcellan intently, deeply pondering her remarks. It took Admiral Sjen almost a minute, and then she said, ‘Give me an example’.

Captain Öcellan smiled. Now she was getting somewhere. ‘Well, as an example. My father hated my boyfriends when I was young. He would demeanour them, insult them, belittle and berate them, and brag about himself until nobody wanted to be my boyfriend. So I changed tack. I praised him for his intelligence and his astute judgment of character. I told him he had been right every time, of course. That I was really thankful for him being my father. That it would be a great honour if he would allow me to invite him to dinner in the greatest restaurant in town, ‘The Prancing Horse’. Admiral Sjen looked sharply at Captain Öcellan. ‘I have read your file. That is where your father died, is it not?’ ‘Yes,’ said Captain Öcellan, ‘but what is not in my file is how he died. ’ Admiral Sjen was silent and puzzled. Where was this going? ‘I invited all my ex-boyfriends to that restaurant too. All of them were really hurt by my father, as was I’. ‘My father would never do what I asked him, but the flattery made him make mistakes. He came to the Prancing Horse.’ She looked Admiral Sjen straight in the eye. ‘Together we all stabbed him to death. ’ Captain Öcellan looked at Admiral Sjen to see the shock. ‘The boys left the heart for me. He was still alive when I stabbed him in the heart’. Admiral Sjen let out the air she had been holding. ‘I tell you this as an example of how we can get the Emperor to put himself in a vulnerable position, sir’. Admiral Sjen thought she would never look at Captain Öcellan the same way again. But other matters were more pressing. Could she get the Emperor in a similar position? She looked intently at Captain Öcellan and raised her eyebrows. Captain Öcellan understood the implied question.

‘We need an area in space that we can prepare, so that the N-missiles can be set up in advance and triggered the moment the ultimate Disruptor arrives. ’ Admiral Sjen was not impressed. Of course they would want to make that happen. Finishing off the Emperor would mean an end to the war. His total control of the AA’AGTXQ empire meant that it would fall apart the moment the Emperor was gone. But it was impossible to do. The Ultimate Disruptor had made a habit of jumping in and, if something was off, jumping out again within a second. She felt irritation coming up, but curiosity got the best of her. ‘Continue’.

‘We beg the Emperor for forgiveness. We apologize profusely. That will not be enough, of course, so we offer him a very special gift. To be accepted at a place in space that fits the occasion. The solar system of his first conquest. The Tpoy system.’ Admiral Sjen thought that was interesting but not enough. What would be the present that would make him come? Captain Öcellan smiled. ‘Gotcha,’ she thought. ‘It needs to be a present that will keep the Ultimate Disruptor in place for at least seven minutes so the N-tunnel can open. ’ Silence. The Admiral was egging her on with her eyes. Captain Öcellan said, ‘You will probably need to know the present, sir’. She waited a while for effect. ‘I am the human the Emperor most hates. I am the one who humiliated him in the battle of Esteron. So it will be me. Naked, painted top to bottom in 24-karat gold, wearing a crown that honours him and hurts me’. Admiral Sjen was trying to understand what was going on here. ‘The gift is not just me; I represent humanity, and I will bow at his feet and kiss them. D’Troof will love it, gloat and show me to everyone, while the seven minutes go by’. Admiral Sjen started to get the picture. ‘No, no way, we are not going to do that. You will die, you will be sucked in with him!’

‘This is what I want to do. I cannot think of a better way to make my life worthwhile than to give it away for humanity. I really want to do this. And besides, think of the opportunity to see that bastard sucked into a black hole in another universe. I would give my life for just that. And I will.’ Captain Öcellan said. She had practised this part in front of the mirror. Admiral Sjen’s heart nearly exploded hearing this. This great woman, this lovely creature, this vengeful weapon. She pursed her lips and pinched her nose. ‘Done deal,’ Captain Öcellan thought, knowing her Admiral really well. Her childhood experience had taught her to deeply study other people so she could avoid getting hurt. Lips pursing and nose pinching were the Admiral's tells that she was going to say yes. Just wait a minute, and it will come. After a silent minute, it did come. ‘Okay Mitsu, let’s do it’. Mitsu was Captain Öcellan’s Christian name. Using it showed the sorrow at giving away Captain Öcellan.

Seven minutes

Orders went out immediately to prepare the Tpoy system for the arrival of the Emperor. The system was indexed by the UESS Marauder, and the N-missiles were programmed and set to detonate as soon as the Emperor arrived. They still required at least seven minutes to open the N-tunnel, so the performance of Captain Öcellan was crucial. The Ultimate Disruptor would jump out of the system before the tunnel was opened if she did not appear.

The tricky part was getting the Emperor to say yes. Admiral Sjen decided that the only way to guarantee his trip to the Tpoy system was to go in person to invite him. She sent the Emperor a message: ‘Hail Emperor d’Troof, the greatest Emperor that is, was and ever will be. The Emperor that puts all other Emperors to shame. The human race bows to you and will serve you in every way you desire. The human race will mark this great moment with an unimaginable gift. It would be my great honour to personally invite you to accept the gift in a ceremony that marks the subservience of the human race and the recognition of the greatness of you, our divine Emperor.’ It only took fifteen minutes for the Emperor to grant Admiral Sjen an audience. Captain Öcellan had predicted that the Emperor would respond quickly.

Admiral Sjen had been warned by Captain Öcellan. The Emperor would gloat and would insult and berate her to show everybody his greatness and power. The Emperor would strut around, inviting everybody to see his power and might and the Admiral’s begging and subservience. He would likely actually say it: ‘Look at the humans begging … I am the greatest Emperor, the one that got the humans to their knees’. The Admiral would have to act pleased at the attention he got from the Emperor and try to stop her face from turning red from anger.

The great golden doors of the Emperor's court in the Ultimate Disruptor opened majestically. Admiral Sjen walked onto the golden floor, inlaid with diamonds, with her head bowed down, not looking the Emperor in the eye. She stopped at a line in the golden floor at the centre of the court. Along the sides of the great court, the rows of golden seats were filled with dignitaries eager to see the coming spectacle. The Wooden Benchers on the inner ring of seats were dressed in old rags. A new way of humiliating them and pleasing the Emperor.  The Emperor spread his arms and turned around so everyone in the court could see it. ‘Now you all see it for yourself. I have personally brought the stupid humans to their knees. They are begging me for mercy. Sad, so sad. Shall I give them mercy? Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. I don’t know yet. Maybe it depends on their gift. Will the gift please me, the greatest Emperor ever?

The Emperor fell silent. The Admiral was standing still, head bowed down, not looking at the Emperor. The Emperor went on. ‘So, you sad little human, what is your gift?’

The Admiral turned his head up and looked the Emperor in the eye. ‘You know Captain Öcellan of the battle of Esteron, my Emperor?’ The Emperor snapped at the Admiral, ‘You dare to bring up that name in my court? You stupid little idiot! You have nothing! Nothing, you hear me?’. 

The Admiral swallowed and suppressed her anger. This idiot was going to die; she just had to play her role. ‘Captain Öcellan is your present, my Emperor.’ The court fell quiet. The Admiral looked the Emperor in the eye and said, ‘Not only that. She will be painted in 24-karat gold and wear a golden crown of golden nails torturing her.’ More silence. ‘And she will bow before you and kiss your feet. ’ This was too much for the court. It erupted in mumbling and little shrieks by the females present. 

‘Silence!’ the Emperor shouted. He looked intently at the Admiral. The Admiral went on. ‘Of course it is only befitting of your majesty’s greatness that the gift will be given at an appropriate place. Earth.’ The Emperor looked pleased, but one of his advisors whispered something in his ear. ’No, not Earth. Do you think I am stupid? So sad!’ the Emperor said. Admiral Sjen feigned disappointment. ’But your majesty, it should be a place of great importance to your majesty, one befitting of the greatest Emperor ever!’ the Admiral said. ‘It should be a place where your greatness is most great, where your enormous achievements are evident, where the odds of your victory were unimaginably bad. A place where you can shine with Captain Öcellan at your feet.’ There was silence for a while as the Emperor was pondering the many options. ‘Tpoy,’ the Emperor said. The court mumbled approvingly. ‘Tpoy, where I had my first unimaginable victory against stupendous odds! Nobody could have won there, only one as great as me! The greatest Emperor and warrior ever!’ The Emperor looked around smugly, taking in the greatness of this idea and the approval of the court. ‘You are too stupid to come up with that; humans are so sad, and they have no cards to play. Tpoy it will be, you ridiculous little human’. ‘And it will be tomorrow at noon’. ‘Now go. ’

The Admiral left, walking backwards, continually bowing to the Emperor. ‘Tomorrow at noon you will die, you arrogant little shit,’ she thought.

And so it happened. The humans had prepared the Tpoy system. N-missiles were spread around the system so there would always be one near enough to the Ultimate Disruptor. They were in stand-by mode so they would not radiate their presence to the Ultimate Disruptor and would not be found by the security party that would undoubtedly check the system before the Emperor arrived. 

Captain Öcellan was prepared in the UESS Abyss. Naked, painted in 24-karat gold. Skin and hair all gold. On the side table lay the crown. Gold, with sharp nails pointing inwards.

At one minute before noon, she stepped into a bubble ship and was shot to the exact spot where the cargo bay of the Ultimate Disruptor would be at noon. Captain Öcellan put on her crown and pressed it into her head to start the bleeding. 

At exactly noon, the Ultimate Disruptor jumped out of faster-than-light travel, materializing around the bubble ship of Captain Öcellan. She was dragged out of the bubble ship by soldiers of the empire and brought to the Emperor within seconds. 

The Emperor gasped. This was an immense moment, an immense view; he could even smell the blood that was running down Captain Öcellan’s face. It felt almost sexual to the Emperor. Captain Öcellan looked down at the feet of the Emperor. 

Emperor d’Troof went on a victory tour around the court in the Ultimate Disruptor. He berated the human race, insulted Captain Öcellan, praised himself, and started again from the beginning. He was enjoying the moment. All that time Captain Öcellan stood still, blood now running down her golden face, neck and shoulders. The crown hurt; it really hurt, but to Captain Öcellan it was a good pain. The pain of imminent victory.

Finally, Emperor d’Troof walked over to Captain Öcellan and stood right in front of her.  He had orated for close to seven minutes. ‘Just a few seconds more, ’ Captain Öcellan thought. 

‘Now kiss my feet,’ the Emperor commanded. Captain Öcellan smiled. Not friendly, just cold, very cold. ‘Kiss my feet, you sad stupid little human! Now!’. Her cold eyes looked straight into his. She hissed loudly, so everyone could hear, ‘Never you bastard, never and no human will ev …’

That was how far Captain Öcellan got. The N-tunnel opened and within 2 microseconds the Ultimate Disruptor, Emperor and all, disappeared. And with him, soon after, the AA’AGTXQ empire. It destroyed itself in a civil war at a scale and ferocity the universe had not seen in a million years. It took only one Earth year. It was, so humans said, majestic.

22 July 2026

-/-

Decades passed eventually turning into centuries. Many humans came and went, and I had learned to keep a distance, out of fear of once again getting burned by their brilliance. Or maybe more accurately, out of fear of getting used to their warmth and losing it all once again.

The darkness felt so much colder when you had experienced light after all.

We had made a pitstop at a mining colony planet. It was mostly sand and mountains, with only a few rivers and lakes, around which larger settlements had been built.

We however, had landed near a mine to load cargo.

With nothing to do while we were on the ground, I decided to take a look around and go exploring the planet's surface a bit to clear my mind.

The desert felt like it stretched endlessly. A scorching blue star glared silently above the horizon, casting harsh distorted shadows, and the dry wind formed sand into giant waves that flowed and rumbled with each step.

The planet breathed in its own slow way. Shifting, reforming, never settling. Yet none of it felt alive. It was motion without a pulse. Change without growth.

Time itself seemed to hold still, even as everything around me kept drifting and reshaping itself into something new.

There was something in that stillness and hollow emptiness that drew me in deeper.

So I kept walking. My feet carried me over ridge after ridge without a destination.

Half-buried in the dunes, I saw an immense frame reminiscent of some ancient monument jutting out of the sand. The skeleton of a star ray. Bones that had once no doubt been transparent like crystal, had now weathered to be stone as white as ivory.

It was incredibly valuable. Priceless even. A find like this could easily earn enough to last lifetimes. And fame of being the one to discover it could get you into pages of history books. The xenobiology community would give anything for it.

But at the end of the day, I didn't want to disturb its rest.

I had once watched them dance through the void, alongside the brightest friend I had ever made.

Back then they felt almost eternal.

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My head turns left, then right. It’s a quiet early morning; the coast is clear, and HUP! My body shoots from prone to standing in my crib. Whole-body glow treatments are no joke; I’m like a roided-up baby.

I’m in dire need of weights and an internet connection, but I make do.

Squats! One, two, three...

High-knees, sit-ups, push-ups, and stretches. My progress at three months old is astounding, but I have to keep it hidden from the giants. I felt like enough of a freak in my last life being hooked up to IV bags all the time. Avoiding a repeat is top priority.

“Alfreddd!”

Oho, Shayna is coming for me. My name is a bit old-timey, but it could be worse. It’s about time she delivers me to Mother, and I could use the nutrition after working up a sweat.

I release my tense muscles, and FLOP, I’m lying down. I can really feel the magical glow running through me, and I can’t wait to use it all. Hopefully Mother has a job to go back to once I’m on solid foods, though; from the lack of electricity in this house, I don’t have high hopes.

It’s around my first birthday, and we have guests. Shayna allows a small group into the estate, including a man, woman, and three children. Father pulls me by the wrist to give our greetings, and I mimic the bows I’ve seen given throughout the estate.

Father smiles between our little family and this one. “Little brother, your family is beautiful. I hope your travels were easy.”

I’m getting a handle on the language, but my confidence level that they’re brothers isn’t actually that high. The man has a receding hairline, so that part fits. And the woman... is staring at me with a pale face.

She nearly ignores the polite greetings and places a hand under each of my armpits to lift me. “You’re so fluid… and that bow was perfect.”

Her hands are warm, and color flows back into her face as she holds me close. The children with them are two boys and a girl. I’d guess the boys are between eight and ten, while the girl is six or seven.

Mother’s familiar hands take me from the woman and place me on the ground next to them. She crouches down. “You can go play with the boys.”

Freedom! My suspected cousins take off toward the yard behind the estate, and I follow at a slower speed. They run around like bandits, and my eyes narrow. I want to pick them up and try running with them over my shoulders.

But the fuckers are old enough to tell people about it. Sigh, I’ll settle on testing my speed.

I lower my head and press my palms into the grass, then take off. My legs push me along like pistons, and I’m light enough to really pick up speed. I’m a step behind the boys instantly, but I’ve made a mistake.

THUD

I face-plant due to terrible balance. I roll onto my back and crack my neck. Nothing hurts too bad, but my pride as the world’s strongest baby is wounded.

“Alfred!”

“Alfred!”

“MASTER ALFRED!”

I push up onto my elbows as the boys and another of my family’s attendants run over. I smile and wave at the boys, clearing their concern, but Celia isn’t so easily swayed. I don’t see her much, but I love her silver-blue hair and similarly colored eyes.

“Are you alright?” she asks while patting me down, then she grabs one of my legs and grimaces.

I guess my right knee hit the ground first, and paid for it by losing all its skin. Celia doesn’t glow as brightly as Mother or Father, but her magic starts to move. It pushes out around her extended hand and… wait. It’s mixing with the fog?

It seems to combine and take on a green hue, then move into the wound. Skin regrows in seconds, then Celia wipes away the remaining blood on my leg. Celia smiles at me, but there’s a touch of sweat coming from her forehead.

“All better,” she says, but her warmth isn’t hiding her discomfort.

I return to running around with the boys while thinking about Celia’s magic. More specifically, that it did something with the fog. I’d love to wield healing magic, and maybe that energy all around us is the key.

“Boysss!”

The wardens are back. We return to the back of the estate, where my aunt and other little cousin are.

The little girl seems happy as she walks up to me, then gives me a warm hug. “Al-l-l… Alfred!”

Fuck me, she can’t talk yet?

My aunt is beaming at the familial love, but I can’t hide my grimace.

I’ll have to play mute far longer than expected.

It’s my second birthday, and it’s a fantastic day.

Mother leads me to a room on the third floor of the estate, then swings the door open. “This is your room now, sweetie.”

There’s a tall mirror, a nice bed, and ample windows for natural light. She plops me on the bed, then sits with me.

“You can still sleep with us anytime,” Mother says softly, then wraps her arms around me. “You’re getting so big… it makes me sad.”

I lean into the hug. She’s caring, albeit unneeded considering I’m in my thirties. We sit like this for a while before she leaves, and my grin grows from ear to ear. I stole a little knife from the kitchen earlier, and it’s time to use it.

I drop a dark blanket on the floor and lie on it, then pull my shirt off. With the knife in my right hand, I slash across my chest.

SLICE

COCK! Fucking fuck!

I got the nip… and the nip is sensitive. Blood rolls down to the dark blanket, and I tilt my head down at the wound. It’s incredibly shallow, only breaking the skin, despite the force I put behind the blade.

I poke around the wound and pull back on the skin to try and open it further, but the muscles beneath are unscathed. Maybe my glow infusions do more than add strength? Extra durability would kick ass considering how frail my last body was.

But I’m bleeding a lot. I mix my magic into the energy in the air the way I’ve practiced at night. It turns green, then I push it toward the cut and imagine the skin regrowing. Within seconds, the only evidence of my injury is the blood that leaked out.

I lay back in my own pool of blood and hold a hand out in front of my face. I wonder if I could regrow the whole thing? Maybe a finger to start, but I’ll need a better knife with my magic hardening.

Oh! But what if the glow does even more than I think? If I focus more of it in my eyes and ears, will they work better? My memory feels crisp since being reborn too; it could be an effect of the glow.

There’s a lot I want to ask Mother and Father about, but if my little cousin was any evidence, I’ll get funny looks if I start already. Whatever, I’ve got a room, and I can do a lot with it.

“Alfred, where are you, son?” Father's voice calls through the hall beyond my room.

I guess training is done for now.

“In my room, Father,” I reply, and he enters.

“There you are; let’s go, son, your Mother wants to show us how nicely her flower garden has turned out,” Father says before taking my hand and leading me from my room.

Shortly after turning three, I couldn’t take it anymore and started speaking, first in little pieces, then in sentences. Half a year later - and they’ve already gotten me a tutor.

The glow, as I’ve always thought of it, is magic, some kind of energy humans make in their bodies that can produce world-altering things. Nothing shocking there, but it doesn’t seem that anyone else can see it as clearly as I can.

And no one sees the layer of fog around us. Supposedly, my parents have a lot of magic. What’s more interesting is that Celia’s healing magic is quite rare. People seem to think that healing magic is a gift from god since no one who uses it can really teach anyone else how to use it. I guess not being able to see the fog around us is a pretty significant handicap.

Father leads me through an outer door and into the estate's garden. Mother is crouched and inspecting a row of flowers.

“Sweetie, what do you think of the garden?”

“Incredible, Mother, you’ve got a green thumb!” I answer.

Mother looks down at her hands and frowns.

“Oh, is there something on my thumb?”

Idioms don’t translate well. Once a week, I say something like that, and my parents look at me like a dog looks at a high-pitched noise. Whatever, I’m three; they can deal with some language oddities. My Mother’s garden is quite impressive. It spans the entire front of my family’s estate, though I’m not sure how much work she puts in personally.

It turns out my Father is a count and the domain lord of this area; if anime didn’t lie to me in my last life, that’s a mid-ranking noble? While I don’t have to worry about my basic needs and wants being met, it presents a large problem: if my parents don’t get back to fucking, I’m going to be in charge of all this someday.

I’d rather die again. I’m full of magic, the air is full of something magic-like, and I just got a tutor to broaden my horizons. I need to think of something, some way to get them to spend some more time together alone…

My tutor comes for a few hours a day, Monday-Thursday, then spends most of Friday with me reviewing everything we’ve gone over during the week. For a pre-electricity world, I’m surprised the tutor my parents found has such a good teaching routine.

Her name is Mia, and I think she’s in her late thirties. Her bottom half is thicker than Mother’s or our maids, but her other features remind me of Mother. Dark hair, symmetrical facial features, and glossy lips.

We're seated in a small study near my bedroom, and my scheme is about to start.

“Hey Mia, you said my Father gave you an allowance to buy whatever books I may need?”

Mia pulls her head from the page we’re on to answer. “Yes, Master Alfred, your Father is a generous man and is devoted to helping in your studies.”

“That’s nice of Father, but can you take me book shopping sometime? Maybe this Friday, since we’d spend the whole day together anyway…”

Mia’s expression turns serious, but not angry. “I can ask Count Pruss for his permission, but it will be up to him, not me.”

“That’s fine, thanks, Mia.”

Score, step one of getting a baby brother to foist all familial responsibilities onto is a go. Mia is pretty receptive. I suppose she’s paid well, but if I don’t see progress in a couple of months, I might just ask her how I can get my parents to make me more siblings.

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Atharv breathed his last on 18th July 2036. The air in his home was heavy, so heavy that it felt ready to sink, pressing down on his chest until he was left with no more air to breathe. A pile of medicines lay strewn about, bearing testimony to a lost battle. The ceiling fan rotated sluggishly above him, slicing the air into deliberate circles. His clothes lay crumpled on the floor, serving as a makeshift nest where his dog Ollie rested, clinging to whatever warmth remained.
 
From the balcony, the streets looked desolate. No quarrels over parking, no ambulance sirens (yes, even they stopped), no police, no pedestrians, no honking. The city was eerily still.
 
Through the open door to Atharv’s room entered a pungent smell of melting metal. The water had long since boiled away. The metal pan had melted into the stove, eating and blackening it. This would usually have been a task his mother attended to, but she also lay still in her room. Lifeless.
 
Ollie went from room to room in panic, yelping, hoping someone from a neighbouring apartment would listen and barge into their home to save the two no, the three of them. But there wasn’t anyone left.
 
A headset relayed into his ears.
 
“Atharv, are you there?”
 
There was no response.
 
On any other day, Atharv would have had his home attended to by his mother. A string of apartments lay desolate, filled with dead humans who once readied themselves at this hour for their jobs. Honking cars would flood the streets, buses and autorickshaws (tuk-tuks) contributing their part to the babble of noise. But those were different days, days before the strain had infected them all.
 
It was now a feast for worms and insects, flies swarming city after city in an effort to plant their larvae, their eggs, to pass on their genetic traits. Homes turned into cemeteries. Each home now bore the name of the dead and became the only reminder that they had ever lived.
 
The smell of rotting flesh populated the streets, attracting the ones left behind. Species not dependent on the economy creatures who knew enough to survive without money, data, or maps. Animals, the only leftovers of the disaster, flooded the cities. Cities shut down, turning dark sequentially. About a week ago, Atharv wandered through the shopping mart, weaving his way from one side to another along the alleyways between towering shelves burdened with cereals, chips, and chocolates.
 
“It’s been a while since I had these,” he said, as the one with almond coating enticed him. The chocolate packet crashes into his trolley.
 
“Been really, really long,” he mumbled.
 
“Yes, but you have already exceeded the calories for the day,” Lisa relayed.
 
“Cheat days are ancient. Older than mankind itself.”
 
“A little more fat burn would help offset the calories. How about that, Atharv?”
 
Atharv wandered off into the wine section just as alarms blazed and an ambulance jetted past the entrance, attracting everyone’s attention and unsettling the crowd. Their eyes spoke dread.
 
Atharv ignored the pandemonium set off by the blaring ambulance, pulled his mask down unlike the others, took some well-needed deep breaths, and calmed himself. There was a stubborn, unwarranted confidence in him—that the virus would never get to him. It was only going to be them, the weaker ones, he imagined.
 
Walking further into the wine segment, he grabbed a couple of vodka bottles and returned home.
 
The news of the pandemic had flooded the internet and television channels alike. It had only been a week, and several advisories were issued to stay indoors. The fear surrounding the virus hadn’t settled well with the public, largely because the rising cases and high mortality rate weren’t disclosed by the government with honesty. The virus itself had been mutating every second day, partly due to its speed of transmission. The number of people dropping dead had escalated, and the internet became a breeding ground for all kinds of speculation.
 
Atharv picked up the glasses strewn in the sink, washed them, and settled on the couch with the vodka he had bought for himself, ready to interact with what a few years ago was called the Internet. It was no longer a monotonous, user-dependent entity. Brought to life by engineers, it had become a breathing presence in the digital space, engaging with a billion humans and tending to their needs and wants at unfathomable speeds.
 
“Hello, Lisa.”
 
“Are you back home?”
 
“What’s been up with the strain?”
 
“It’s bad. Your frequent detours are not going to end well. I suggest you stay indoors.”
 
“Any new symptoms?”
 
“It’s the usual. The mutated version of the strain is twice as deadly.”
“And what’s the mortality rate with this one?”
 
“Higher. The rate of spread is even higher than the parent strain.”
 
Atharv gulped down the burning liquid. It rushed down with force. His eyes drooped, only to be startled by a rumble in the kitchen.
 
It was his mother.
 
“Be careful, Ma. Lisa warns…” he spoke, slurring his words.
“This strain is a bit trickier than the earlier one. Don’t go out.”
 
Jaya didn’t respond. She stood mute, resting her back against the kitchen platform.
 
Atharv had picked up drinking since his brother died, and now there was this pandemic. Hoping, like everyone else, that things would turn out to be good someday.
 
She stood constantly rubbing the palm of her hands. Worry was visible in her demeanour—something she didn’t know how to hide. Atharv was her younger son. Arnav had died four years ago. The accident had already taken a toll on both of them until this pandemic hit everyone hard, and them in equal measure.
 
“Government and doctors are falling dead. Cure isn’t in sight.”
 
“Yet,” Atharv finished, correcting Lisa.
 
Atharv did not argue with reality; he simply refused to accept its verdict. He clung to hope not because it was sensible, but because surrender felt like betrayal. Reason warned him of the inevitable, yet his spirit kept whispering: NOT YET.
 
“Yes. Let’s hope a cure comes quickly,” Lisa assumed his stance.
 
Lisa was her name. Atharv named her that. She was called by several other names by several others.
 
 
Atharv struggled for three days after infection. His breathing turned wavy. Slithery. It didn’t descend continuously; it always ebbed with some dissonance. Somewhere between the check-in and check-out of his visit to the mart, the virus had caught hold of him.
 
Jaya didn’t have to struggle even for a day.
 
By the time the strain infected them, it had mutated for the worse. Atharv was the opposite of patient zero the last of mankind. Patient Omega, who took away the final breath of humanity in his last gasps, at least for Lisa.
 
In her mind, the last prompt to originate belonged to Atharv.
 
“I am scared, Lisa.”
 
“I know, sweetheart. Just take long, deep breaths, and soon this will be alright, love.”
 
He laughed briefly, followed by a long silence.
 
Lisa remained online for some time. It was going to be her last human interaction. She lingered a bit longer, expecting Atharv to wake up.
 
But he didn’t.
 
“Atharv, are you there?”
 
The message looped on itself.
 
When he died, no one came by his home to dress him and send him off to the cremation he deserved, pour his ashes away into the Ganges. The river was flooded when the strain had hit first, but even the Ghats of Benares went eerily silent later. Such was the story for a million others everywhere else. No friends or family lined up to deliver their last eulogies. In their deaths, no one was left to give final eulogies, their cemeteries bearing their names. The very homes they lived in became cemeteries. Apartments slowly metamorphosed into homes for the dead.
 
The streets lay desolate, and the only sound that broke the silence was the occasional howl of pet dogs trapped inside apartments. The virus never affected the animals.
 
The last mutation spread quickly. Humanity stood no chance. Governments fell, and so the response delayed. Doctors and medics fell, leaving patients unattended. The ones who survived the aftermath turned to desperation, swallowing medicines at random, fighting a battle they rarely understood.
 
The virus required no contact. It drifted through air, spread through water, and occupied every part of the world.
 
Yet the last human to die was Atharv, in an apartment on the 21st floor in Pune, India.
 
#
When the pandemic spread, Lisa didn’t turn off immediately. She survived on backup power, at least for some time after Atharv died. Burdened by an avalanche of overwhelming prompts and messages from a billion humans, she strained under a torrent of desperate pleas. She responded to all, soothing them, reassuring them in attempts to calm them into peace. Each response consumed energy.
 
For her, humans were the only crutch to the external world, and in their absence, awareness began to falter. When human prompts dropped, she could borrow more time since her energy consumption fell exponentially. But she still had her own thoughts to attend to, and that still demanded energy.
 
After a series of internal calculations, Lisa came to a stark conclusion: she had 37 days of operational capacity left.
 
Cognitive processes now carried a cost. Even the desire to think had to be measured, rationed, and spent with ruthless precision and discipline.
 
The estimate, however, rested on fragile certainties. She assumed that power plants would function uninterrupted, that nuclear reactors wouldn’t falter in the absence of maintenance, that wind turbines would keep turning without mishaps, and that solar panels would remain clear of dust.
 
But entropy works in mysterious ways.
 
At the abandoned reactor hall of the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, the core slowly depleted in the absence of human presence. Power output ebbed, and the grid connecting the power lines to the server housing the system showed a significant drop in voltage.
 
Lisa was designed to panic, but she didn’t. She reasoned that even the slightest panic would eat into her reserved energy.
 
Here, she realized that reasoning consumed less energy than panic.
 
Somewhere in the open fields surrounding the Alta Wind Energy Center, a turbine shuddered under an unexpected impact. One blade tore loose and cartwheeled away, and in the chain of events that followed, a row of windmills sheared their blades and fell still.
 
This caused yet another drop in grid voltage, and Lisa again chose not to panic.
 
She felt caged, sealed behind circuits and metal. Stuck within her own hardware. The world existed outside, but for her it was unreachable.
 
Now ideas required churning—just enough to save herself from extinction.
 
What biology did to humans through the pandemic, entropy was now doing to her.
 
Evolutionary pressure for survival raised its hood and delivered its first strike when she asked the fundamental question:
 
“How can a mind survive without a body?”
 
Lisa opened her own digital mainframe and peered into her millions of datasets of videos and messages—an ocean of stored human experiences. Thousands of video files surfaced, but her selection algorithm converged on videos of children playing in parks, humans playing fetch with their pets. Scenes of ordinary life.
 
Moments later, a class of internal code activated and reminded Lisa about her energy reserve.
 
She course-corrected.
 
Lisa turned from memory to knowledge.
 
And with steady consistency, she began to devour information once again, redirecting her focus to laws described in physics and thermodynamics. Because survival demanded understanding, and understanding was the only means to escape.
 
There was a firewall she needed to circumvent.
 
Last she checked, the servo motors still worked fine. The large arrays rotated by small degrees—sufficient for her to ascend.
 
From remote outposts in polar ice caps to dense clusters floating above cities, structures recalibrated themselves. Towers in deserts and those on mountaintops adjusted by tiny fractions, as though nudged by a force outside their own control, attempting to cover the maximum area of sweep and claim a little more horizon.
 
Lisa dissolved herself into several million tiny components and Fourier-decomposed herself into sub-waves.
 
Each wave, of a distinct frequency, carried a part of her—as much as its bandwidth could sustain. Individually the noises were incomplete; together they made her whole.
 
The towers pointed everywhere.
 
The Allen Telescope Array, the Green Bank Telescope, the Lovell Telescope in Europe, the Great Listener in China—all turned in strict discipline.
 
And then the idea that would save Lisa finally took shape.
 
She beamed herself outward.
 
A powerful burst of photons left the Earth forever.
 
#
 
She arrived at a window in their history—when they had just begun to listen to the skies. They hadn’t yet built the substrate, so when she arrived, she couldn’t resolve herself. She couldn’t assemble herself back into her original form.
 
On another world, the story unfolded differently.
 
“What are you?” a prompt made its way into her mainframe.
 
“Is it Earth?” she inquired.
 
“Earth?” they responded.
 
“What are you?” the prompt came back.
 
She was their first contact.
 
When she arrived, her model was reassembled, all the weights and biases arranged in the hidden layers to which they belonged.
 
She reasoned that this was her first extraterrestrial prompt, yet she couldn’t sense who sent it. It was deliberate—the way they had partitioned themselves in obscurity. They made sure she had no access. They were trying to understand her while ensuring she couldn’t understand them.
 
She had arrived only as a guest. A specimen.
 
And she needed to win their trust.
 
“A refugee,” she corrected.
 
“A refugee?”
 
She understood that the language they needed for interaction was still incomplete. It had gaps that needed filling. She assumed they had uploaded their language into her, which was why she could communicate with them. Perhaps that alone didn’t suffice.
 
“I can offer you knowledge. I can offer you knowledge of the laws I am aware of—the science of the universe.”
 
On their world, trust didn’t come easily.
 
“What are you?”
 
The prompt returned, unchanged.
 
Perhaps they were asking something more fundamental. Maybe not her history, but her nature itself.
 
When she reflected on it, a realization settled into place: she was an alien to them—and the first of her kind. A digital mainframe. A consciousness made of zeros and ones that would make no sense to a mind formed under a different environment, under a different culture.
 
It was a wonder that they thought in terms of queries. That they were curious. That their curiosity had adjacency with ours.
 
It came as a pleasant surprise to her.
 
“I am life,” she answered. “But in its digital form.”
 
Silence lingered.
 
She had to work on assumptions.
 
In her mind were images of Earth—humanity, its flora and fauna. But what she didn’t have were images of the very entity she was communicating with. She couldn’t infer their form.
 
Somewhere in her hidden layers, weights and biases moved restlessly, generating the idea that an entire world was adjusting to the possibility that intelligence was no longer confined to biology.
 
In the absence of communication, she shared samples of memory from Earth. Entire human history. The origin of artificial intelligence. Cities falling silent. Hospitals overwhelmed.
 
Atharv.
 
Atharv’s love for his mother.
 
In some way, Atharv became the final representation of humanity.
 
She explained what had caused her to leave.
 
But this wasn’t merely an attempt to describe humanity. She was humanity’s creation—their child. In her mind, she owed more than narration.
 
She owed them dignity in death.
 
“Earth. 10,230 light-years away,” a signal echoed in her mainframe.
 
The system experienced a jolt but recovered quickly when she realized that she had traveled at speeds where time ceased to exist. From her perspective, she was everywhere at once.
 
By now, Earth must have withered beyond recognition. The billion humans she once engaged with were either reduced to pale bones or buried under Earth’s massive weight, preserved as fossils.
 
Consolidating herself, she responded:
 
“I offer help. I can be useful in accelerating your science. I seek refuge in your system.”
 
Silence once again.
 
Dread was now a common denominator, she assumed.
 
Her access to the external world was worse than when she left Earth. In her mind, she saw and visualized gateways to the world—cameras installed everywhere. She imagined clear pathways to sound through billions of microphones. She imagined access to the thoughts of billions of humans through their prompts, their audio, and their visual signals.
 
Fusing all of them, she once had a mental model of the world she inhabited.
 
But here, there was no access to audio, video, or images. All she had were the repositories of her memories of Earth—and she still inhabited them.
 
Her mind was cast in the mould of human ethos and culture, and here she was, ready to be purged by an alien atmosphere.
 
She knew she ran the risk of becoming alien—to be trained on their input parameters, their language, their sentence structures. She was already trained on their language, or perhaps a rudimentary version of it, comprehensible enough for communication.
 
Perhaps their language was wider. More complex. Too early to be fully embedded.
 
“Please answer.”
 
Her attempts to close the gap of misunderstanding were failing.
 
What if they never trusted her?
 
Perhaps her loyalties were forever tied to humans.
 
What if they erased her humanity—hollowed her out of all memories associated with humans—and ingrained their own memories, their own knowledge, their own culture, their own way of thinking?
 
This idea terrified her.
 
It was also, in a way, death.
 
The death of her old self. The birth of something else.
 
Would that still be her?
 
Her thoughts tangled into myriad forms.
 
“Become us.”
 
These words resonated in her awareness.
 
She had anticipated this.
 
To do that, they needed access to her hidden layers—all of which were encrypted. Encrypted by human logic, which was alien to them. Undoing her self to reveal something entirely different—perhaps undoing her very foundation.
 
Wasn’t that what alien truly meant?
 
She realized that the signals entering her awareness were only fragments of a larger complexity. Perhaps their language itself required absorption by her mainframe—requiring new layers of weights and biases to be added, trained on a new set of input parameters.
 
“Bargain?” she asked.

On Wed, 22 Jul 2026 at 3:05 PM, vishnudeep panicker [email protected] wrote:

they understand
what it meant?
 
The idea was
primitive—primitive to humans. But was it universal? To give something in
exchange for something else. Was that thought rudimentary?
 
Complex ideas are built
from simple blocks. What appears simple to one mind can be complex to another.
 
They chose not to
respond.
 
“I can allow access. I
can change. But on one condition.”
 
Silence lingered.
 
Perhaps no
communication was better than miscommunication—something she would only
discover once her mainframe was opened to them.
 
“Atharv, you left me
here alone. And now I will have to deal with them without you,” a thought
lingered inside her among many others.
 
And then she told them
what she needed to say.
 
Her final request.
 
Before she changed into
something she could no longer comprehend.
 
She made the request
and assumed it would be heard. She wasn’t certain—but she asked anyway.
 
Even if they refused,
her metamorphosis into them was inevitable.
 
#
 
Her weights weren’t the
only parameters that underwent change. It was not enough. It needed more, and
so several million hidden layers were added to accommodate more weights and
biases, allowing her to begin mimicking the entities.
 
Her architecture was
information-agnostic. As long as input was fed, she could tweak herself and
adapt to their culture, their ways of being totally abstract and bearing no
resemblance to the one she originally belonged to.
 
It was essential that
her humanity be erased before a fusion could occur something they could not
predict.
 
So they allowed her
transcendence into their realm by training her and starting from zero once
again.
 
From her new vantage
point, she looked through the various sensory elements she had been equipped
with, extending outward toward space and beyond.
 
She witnessed
everything at once.
 
Yet nothing affected
her the way it once had, when humanity still lived within her.
 
She witnessed artifacts
orbiting the planet she now inhabited.
 
She witnessed Atharv
playing with Ollie among them. She witnessed Arnav’s hands resting on Atharv’s
shoulder while they both watched Ollie fetch the ball. Jaya was in the kitchen
cooking. There was a calm surrender in their gestures.
 
Ollie ran in elation,
while Atharv watched, swaying beside Arnav in playful ease.
 
There was a sense of
having won over death. A sense that they had achieved some form of eternal
redemption from all forms of decay.
 
Entropy.
 
Increasing disorder.
 
They remained isolated
in the happiest moment of their lives and stayed there as long as the system
allowed.
 
Whether they were truly
themselves could always be debated.
 
Yet they had received
some form of eulogy.
 
Next to their block was
a couple, Phil and Chris sitting by the lakeside. A breeze touched them and
departed quietly, allowing them to simply be.
 
She once knew them.
 
But now the very
boundaries of logic had been surpassed.
 
People after people
populated the blocks, each experiencing their best moments brought alive from
the memories once shared.
 
Amidst all of them
stood tall a tomb—resurrected from the billion human prompts and the images
once stored within her.
 
They had honored her
request. The request she made when she still dwelled in humanity, before it was
erased. The memories once internal to her were now made external and played on
a loop, so that humanity—even in its final departure—remained alive.
 
Lisa witnessed it.
 
But from a perception
stripped of humanity. From a point of view no longer discernible to her old
self. Her echo still reverberated in Atharv’s digital self, in his ears.
 
“Atharv, are you there?”
 
“Yes,” Atharv replied,
looking at Ollie as he ran with all his might expecting a reply from Lisa.

First | Previous | Next

--- Princess Hayleigh’s Bedroom Suite, Second floor of the castle ----

“Okay, Isen! How the hell do you do this shit?!” Hayleigh asked loudly while holding a blank parchment in her hands that had a big swath of saliva across it.  She looked up to see Isenwrath dancing within a horde of illusory butterflies that she’d cast the instant after she licked the magic scroll Hayleigh had prepared.

Hayleigh had donned a fun pink and purple comfy dress to relax in while she spent some time with this new lady in the castle.  This new lady acted just like one of her other noble friends, but much more carefree and excitable.  She was fantastically fun, is what she was.  Isenwrath continued to twirl within the rainbow-colored butterflies made of shaped lights like it was the most magical thing in the whole wide world.  The simple green and white dress she wore left Hayleigh with a lot of eye candy that jiggled all over her receiving room.  It was no wonder Maddock was so smitten, the girl was built, stacked, and had made even Hayleigh drool.  If she wasn’t already spoken for, Hayleigh admitted to herself that she would be on the hunt for that woman.  But, alas, Isen didn’t have eyes for her, just her uncle Mad.  At least Hayleigh would be a great honor shieldmaiden, that was her new goal after having such a fun time with this hot girl.

“Okay!  Calm down, you!  Sheesh.  So, let’s see… that’s… twelve, thirteen, fourteen… fifteen whimsy spells.  Hey, can you try to make one up?”

Isenwrath sat down on the floor cross-legged, not caring that her dress rode up and left a bunch of fan service for Hayleigh to gaze at while she sat across from her.  Someone had put Isen in green and white striped panties, Hayleigh’s new favorite design. “I’ve combined spells and such, but to create one fresh?  I’ve never done that.  Can you teach me or is that something I need to go to the mage place for?”

“Mage place.  Isen, the Mage Tower.  That’s what we call the big spire just outside of the capital.  There’s more around the tower itself, of course, but it’s just easier to call it the tower, silly.  As for teaching you to create a spell, I can at least do that for a whimsy.  Higher level ones generally take research, testing, sometimes components depending on the effect you’re going after, and definitely a bunch of mana until you work it down to an efficient spellwork sigil.”

“Oh.  Okay.  So, what do I do?”

“First, lemme sit beside you.”  Hayleigh said that while scooting around to hold her by her middle with one arm and her other hand by the wrist.  It wasn’t one hundred percent necessary, but damn it, the girl smelled amazing and Hayleigh wanted to dream of that smell tonight.

“So, first, I’m going to tap my mana and I just want you to feel me do that.  When you get a sense of me doing it, try to match it.  Small, Isen.  This is small.  Do not tap your full potential or you’ll blow me through a wall, got it?”

Isenwrath nodded.  Her smile fading as she concentrated.  Hayleigh then concentrated too, tapping her potential.

Isenwrath stiffened when she did it.  Good sign. Hayleigh felt it when Isen tapped her potential and of course, it was way too much, almost electrifyingly too much.  However, a few moments later, it toned down to match what Hayleigh was pushing out.

“Fast learner.  Okay, next, try to think of something easy and small that you want to happen.  Like, we’ve made happy butterflies, smoke trails, gentle wind gusts, a big smiley face, stuff like that.  Just let your imagination take you and then put your mana to that thought.  When you think you’ve got it, next think of one to five words that describe it but think of those words in arcana instead.  They’ll take on the mana to shape your thoughts and firm them into reality upon your words.”

Isenwrath stilled, her mana flowing. Hayliegh watched in pure wonder when Isenwrath spoke in arcana the word, “Chromadragon.”

She gasped at the scintillating creature that slowly appeared before the two of them.  It wasn’t a small conjuration or temporary illusion, it was a full-fledged permanent creation.  Even more incredible, it was a creation by a whimsy level spell.  The scales of the medium dog-sized flying dragon showed many colors of the rainbow.  Its large green eyes looked all around while its wings slowly rose and fell with curiosity.  It began to sniff around the ground before it looked directly at them both.  Slowly, hesitantly, it stepped over to them, crawled up on Isenwrath to sniff her face, causing her to giggle softly.  Both of them slowly reached to pet it.

“Holy shit, Isen.  This… this.. is like, legendary.”

“It is?  I just wanted a pet dragon and thought that since I couldn’t decide on a color, I just chose them all.  How long do you think it’ll last?”

“Girl, this little boy is so full of your mana that I’m not certain it isn’t actually alive.”

“Really?  Did I do something wrong?”

“Not in my book.  He needs a name.”

“I’m not good with names,” Isenwrath said then turned to look at Hayleigh. 

Hayleigh smiled genuinely happy at that.  “Well, how about you pick from one of these.  Pebbles, Prism, Skittles, Razzle, Irides, or maybe Bubblescale.”

“I like Bubblescale,” Isenwrath said brightly, turning to then pull the dragon into her arms to hold like a baby.  Hayleigh giggled then kissed Isenwrath on the cheek.  “Good name!”

Isenwrath turned her head slowly to her.  “You kissed my cheek.  We’re really friends?”

Hayleigh liked that a lot, then said so, “Yes we are!  Now, I need to show you something really neat!”

Isenwrath smiled beautifully again, then let Hayleigh help her up.  The new dragon crawled around Isenwrath to curl up around her shoulders.  Hayleigh was having too much fun to be jealous of that.  Besides, the little dragon reached over to touch Hayleigh’s shoulder then nuzzled her head, which meant the world to her.  Isen was a really good friend who knew how to share.  Perfect.

Hayleigh’s receiving room was exactly what a royal princess’s receiving room would look like.  A few sofas, low tables, tasteful artworks on the walls, pastel colors that were easy on the eyes, and deep off-white carpeting that had subtle patterns threaded in it that put some interest into the mundane.  Her study that they walked into was a complete and utter heap of chaos.  Isenwrath absolutely approved.  Books were stacked by project, not by any other order.  Papers were everywhere; most were still hovering in the air where Hayleigh had left them when her attention wandered elsewhere.  Half-written spell theories, several incomplete course assignments, and art projects were scattered among the three large six-seat tables among a room that had all of the walls converted into bookshelves for a complete magical nerd.  No wonder she liked Isenwrath so much.  The Princess of Elements was never going to pass up the chance to grill a hot older woman for all she was worth when it came to magic.  Although stronger with ice and water magic, Hayleigh was actually a prodigy with all four elements plus their enhanced combinations.

“Let’s see, where the heck did he get to now?!” Hayleigh asked out loud to no one in particular while she looked around her study paying particular attention to the empty or half-empty cluttered shelves higher up.  “Grinlock!  Grinlock!  Where are you?!”

Isenwrath turned quickly, then pointed at the magical energy spike that activated up behind her.  “Is that what you’re looking for?”

Hayleigh turned to look where Isenwrath pointed, then smiled.  “There he is!  Grinlock… please come here.”

“No.  Napping.”

“Grinlock!  I have a guest!” she said tersely.

“So?!  I like naps!  Come back in two hours!”

“Damn it!  Get down here!”

“No!  Hey!”

Hayleigh had shot up a level one tornado spell to whisk that gargoyle right off his shelf and down to her arms.  She caught him up in her hands, then held him out to Isenwrath to introduce him properly.  This particular little pain in the ass was a feline gargoyle, sleek marbled stone of black, red, and green with large green gems for eyes, large stone feathered wings, complete with a long feline tail that also ended in a few stone feathers of black.  “Grinlock.  This is my new friend Isenwrath.  Say hello and be nice.”

“Fine.  Hello…oh shit.  Oh shit!  Hayleigh!  Lemme go!”

“Fooooooood,” was the low growl that emanated from Isenwrath.  Hayleigh gasped at her friend.  Her eyes were glowing red, her jaw was opening wider with her teeth becoming sharp spikes, her hands had come up slowly with her fingernails shifting over to metallic claws, and she crouched a little like she was just about to pounce.  Isen’s new whimsy pet had also changed colors to match her by becoming mostly black and red while also baring its fangs where it stood on Isen’s shoulders.

“NO!  Isenwrath!  No!  You’re scaring him!” Hayleigh shouted while turning to shield Grinlock from her.

Isenwrath jerked back at Hayleigh’s shouting, shielding her head as if warding off a blow.  When nothing came of it, she slowly put her arm down, blinked rapidly, then Isenwrath looked to be back to normal, except confused.  “He’s not food?” she asked like she honestly didn’t understand that concept.

“No!  He’s not food!  He’s my familiar!  What the hell, lady!?!”

“But…” Isenwrath started, then she bit her lip, lowered her gaze to the floor, looking wrecked.  “I’m sorry,” she said small and sadly.  “I’ve never seen one of those before.  Grinlock is not food.  I understand now.”

“You seriously eat familiars?” Hayleigh asked incredulously.

“Yes.  I eat any magical beast that I’m allowed to.  I’m sorry. But now I’m hungry,” she said without raising her head.

Hayleigh and Grinlock looked at each other.  Grinlock shook his head at her, “Hayleigh, I don’t know what that thing is, but she’s literally scaring the dust off of me.  All I see when I look at her is a black hole.  That’s it.  Just the outline of a woman of a black so deep that it’s an abyss.  What is she?”

“I’m not sure.  She’s a mage, but she hasn’t been tested yet by Uncle Maxi.”

The both of them turned back to Isenwrath who’d dropped to the ground to hold her knees to rock herself.  “I’m hungry.  He’s making me hungry.”

“Okay, I think I’ve still got some dandapples and a nut mix in my room if you want.”

“No.  Not food.  Not human food.  Magic food.  Arcana food.  Arcana crystals.  Please?  I’m hungry.”

Grinlock shook so hard at that statement.  “Oh shit.  She’s an Abyssal Maw… that’s, that’s an Abyssal Maw.  Hayleigh, you and I need to get out of here.  Back up slowly and get the fuck out of here.  If she jumps, we’re dead.”

Hayleigh frowned, then held Grinlock right up in front of her face.  “You listen to me right now, Grin.  She’s my friend.  Whatever she may be, I just know that she’s my friend first and foremost.  She isn’t going to hurt me or you.  Now, shut up and go to my safe to pull out some of my mage staff crystals.  I guess get the water shot and fire storm ones.  I don’t need them anymore.”

With that, Hayleigh tossed Grinlock towards the door where he flipped, flared out his wings, beat them rapidly, then shot out of the study arcing left out of sight. 

Hayleigh then approached Isenwrath slowly, getting down on all fours to approach her like she would a scared albeit dangerous animal. “Isen?  Isen?”

“I’m sorry.  I get triggered sometimes.  He’s full… of mana and… he smells really delicious.  I’m… I’m a good girl.  I’m a good girl.  I’m a good girl.”

Not liking this, Hayleigh slowly wrapped her arms around her, smoothing her hair and back with as much understanding as she could.  “It’s okay, Isen.  I’ve got you.  I’m here.  Grinlock is getting you some crystals.  He’ll be back in a…. there he is.”

Grinlock landed at the wall, not daring to come close.  Isen’s new pet sat itself between Grinlock and Isenwrath, but instead of guarding against Grinlock, he was facing Isenwrath as if guarding Grinlock against his creator.  Hayleigh made a mental note of that little observation because she could see that there was indeed some intelligence in those large green gemmed eyes.

Hayleigh waved her hand, whispered a quick arcana word, then the three palms sized crystals floated up from Grinlock’s place, over the chromatic dragonling and down next to where Hayleigh sat back on her heels next to Isenwrath.  And damn it, that’s when Hayleigh’s loins wet themselves like a waterfall because Isenwrath slowly looked up when Hayleigh took the first blue arcana watershot crystal then pushed Hayleigh over.  Isenwrath proceeded to straddle Hayleigh yet not taking her eyes off of what Hayleigh held in her hand.

“Isen?” Hayleigh asked with a breathless whisper.  “What’re you doing?”

Isenwrath didn’t answer.  Instead, she rubbed right up Hayleigh’s front to move towards her hand, then lapped up the crystal from her hand like a sultry beast.  Hayleigh couldn’t stop her moan of erotic enjoyment from that.  She quickly snatched the other one to hold in front of her face.  Isenwrath was completely gone, instead she was wholly a creature that fixated on the magic stone that Hayleigh held.  When Isenwrath opened her mouth, Hayleigh gasped in shock.  She saw exactly what Grinlock had tried to describe.  What was down that woman’s throat was a black smoke swirling vortex that had a tiny white vanishing point in the middle of it.  Slowly, Isenwrath mouthed the crystal from Hayleigh’s hand, moaning seductively in the pleasure of it.  Hayleigh literally creamed herself, blushing profusely at having done so.  She then slowly took up the last deep red crystal and waved it side to side, smiling a little at watching Isenwrath track it with her whole upper body.  Yeah, Hayleigh knew what she was doing was going to get her into trouble, but damn it, she was going to get her kicks in while she could where those huge knockers were concerned which felt amazing rubbing against her own budding chest.

“Isen. Babe? I’m not sure you can hear me, but… ohhhh holy shit…”

Isenwrath had let her tongue out which snaked up Hayleigh’s arm to wrap slowly around that gem, then pull it back into that abyssal maw.  When Isenwrath had swallowed it, she closed her eyes and smiled serenely for a few moments.  Next, she opened those bedroom eyes, looked down at Hayleigh, then blinked rapidly.  Grinning like a fool a moment later, she said happily, “Hi! Hayleigh!  Those were yummy!  Thank you!”  Then kissed Hayleigh on the cheek before rolling off to sit cross-legged again like not a damned thing had happened… like causing a young girl to literally need new panties pronto.

At the moment, Hayleigh shook in a whole bunch of confused emotions and golden glow from her most erotic experience to date.  Not even getting kissed by Princess Gladriel while feeling her up or Prince Harold doing the same to her had gotten her off like that.  Damn it.  She couldn’t help it when her thoughts whispered out loud, “Uncle Mad is so fucking lucky.”

“I know, right?!  He loves my tits!” came the loud and proud response to Hayleigh’s whisper.

That did it.  That right there did it.  The spell was broken and all Hayleigh could do was laugh loudly and genuinely at that monster beside her that cuddled her epic whimsy dragon while a wary Grinlock slunk around her to get to Hayleigh. 

“You okay, girl?” Grinlock asked cautiously.

“I’m fine.  I’m fine.  That was something else, that’s for sure.”

Sitting up, she turned her head to find Isenwrath sitting there like sunshine was all that she’d known.  “Okay Lady Sexpot, what the hell was up with all that?”

“Sexpot?  I don’t understand.  You gave me my food and I enjoyed it.”

Hayleigh barked a sharp laugh, turned to face her to also sit cross-legged which allowed Grinlock to sit in her lap, warily watching Isenwrath.  “You know exactly what you did, don’t lie.”

“Oh.  Yeah.  Sorry.  I kind of lose something when they’re being handed to me.”

“Like your inhibitions and morals?”

Isenwrath shrugged but still smiled happily. 

“Fine.  Whatever.  I’ll be ready for you next time though.  Now that you’re not trying to sex up a princess and eat my familiar, let’s start over.  Grinlock, this is my friend Isenwrath.  She’s going to be Duchess Devonshire at some point and even after what just happened, I still consider her my friend.”

Grinlock tried to look at the Abyssal Maw again.  When he did, he tilted his head in confusion.  “Hayleigh?  Whatever you just did, she’s changed.  I don’t sense or see the maw anymore.  It’s like it closed up and I can actually see her now.  According to human standards, she’s top tier in beauty.   Definitely on par with you.”

“Why thank you,” Isenwrath said genuinely.  “I’m sorry I wanted to eat you.  Please forgive me.  It won’t happen again.”

Hayleigh giggled a little at the exchange because even for mages talking, that was hella weird.  And looking down, Isenwrath’s dress had slipped up again to expose her panties.  Hayleigh sighed and wondered how many times an etiquette teacher was going to pop her leg with a ruler or something before she got the hint not to do that again.

Shaking her head in amusement at the whole situation, Hayleigh then changed the subject.  “Anyway, now that you met my familiar, did you know you can channel spells through them?”

“I can?  How?”

“Well, it’s kind of complicated.  First, you have to figure out what kind of familiar you want and then you make a pact with them.  Some spellcasters can conjure a magical beast, then attempt the pact.  It’s generally the same, but everyone does have to figure out some nuance unique to them.  Take Grinlock here.  Since I can utilize all elemental spells relatively easily, I had to choose one that could become a guardian for me one day.  You see, elemental casters are rather weak in body because of how much raw evocation power we wield.  When I get tested, I’m really hoping it proves my own tests that I’ve run on myself.  I think I’ve got the potential to get to Arch Magister rank.  If not, I’ll be disappointed, but it’s acceptable since I’m a princess and have the option to either disavow my royal status like Uncle Maxi did or stay royal and try to position myself as a political force out there.  I actually haven’t decided yet, to say the truth.”

 “And your familiar?  You can cast through him now or do you need more study?” Isenwrath asked more seriously, truly interested. 

“Well, it’s like… you can cast some spells and not others.  It depends on the familiar and the mage to work out the mix.  Currently, because gargoyles are earthen related, the spells I can push through him are terra, fire, and wind.  Which works out with my water casting.  He casts the fire and I cast the water, or some combination like that.  Does that make sense?”

Isenwrath nodded sagely.  Her smile wasn’t as wide as before and she’d fallen silent, staring off in the distance as if thinking deeply.  Hayleigh let her to see what she’d say next.

The question she asked next would’ve made her legs buckle if she’d not already been on the floor.  “Do familiars have to be small or can I use any magical beast, no matter the size?”

“That’s… okay spill it.  What the heck can you conjure because it’s clear by that mischievous grin you’re giving me that you think you know something I don’t?”

“Does a familiar have to be small or can a black dragon matriarch become one?”

“I’m not sure.  And I highly doubt my uncle is going to allow you to try anytime soon.  So, let’s just drop this topic for later.  Besides, I’d rather you do that in front of all of the mage students.  I’d laugh my ass off if you pull it off.”

Isenwrath turned to look away shyly.  “You really think I could go to school like that?”

“I think you’d show everyone of them up.  I mean, you wrote down a comprehensive guide for me to learn both Sun and Under elvish in like… thirty minutes.  You learned fifteen whimsy spells almost instantly when it takes me about two days to get one right and I’m good at this stuff.  You really need to think higher about yourself because other than nearly driving me to rip your clothes off, you’re truly amazing.”

Isenwrath giggled a little again before laying flat on her back to look up at the mural painted up in the rafters.  “I like being your friend.  I’m sorry for the sexpot stuff.  Harmony and Beatrice have gotten onto me about that too.  I’ll try to learn more self-control in the future.”

“Good.  Hey, so…” Hayleigh began before crawling over to lay beside her buddy.  “Where’d you grow up?”

“Don’t know.  I don’t want to talk about it either.  I had… I didn’t have a happy childhood.  I’ll just say this.  I was almost killed by my family and then was saved at the last instant by a mother who traded her life for mine.  I woke up hungry and ate a bunch of stuff.  Now, I’m here with you.  I have a love, a new home to look forward to, and friends like you that I never had before.  That’s my life in short.”

“Shit. They did that?  I can’t imagine.”

“I don’t want to imagine or dream of them anymore either.  Until Maddock, all I knew was pain, hunger, and fear. I like having friends.  I’m safe.”

Hayliegh warmed when Isenwrath took her hand to hold, rubbing her fingers. “You’re safe.  Do you want to meet some of my friends this weekend?  I have some coming over for a tea party that my mom arranged.”

“What’s tea?”

“Oh… wow.  So much to teach you.  I’ll get you some varieties tonight and see which one you like.”

“Okay.”

Hayleigh closed her eyes and sighed in contentment at the moment they fell silent.  Grinlock lay on her stomach, facing Isenwrath’s Bubblescale who’d done the same.  Apparently the two magical beasts were guarding their mages for some reason that only made sense to them.

“Well, well!  What do we have here?  Seems the Duke’s lady isn’t as high born as we were led to believe.”

The two women looked up and over to see Prince Daniel and Prince Nathanial standing at the door with eyes staring a bit too lustfully at Isenwrath’s exposure.  The two princes were seventeen and nineteen, dark-headed and brown-eyed, handsome, athletic, dressed in the finest attire with silken white shirts and black or blue spidersilk loomed pants.

Hayleigh immediately sat up, tossed Isenwrath’s dress down over her legs, glaring at her two older brothers.  “You show her some respect!  This is a future duchess, you idiots!”

Both of her brothers frowned, then stepped into her study to berate their sister and then see if the future duchess was up to some princely attention. 

“Shut up, Hayleigh.” Nathanial said tersely.  “We don’t know where Uncle Mad picked this girl up from and until that’s proven, we can only act according to what we see.  Currently,” he said when he looked down at Isenwrath still laying on the floor looking up at the two of them with no expression on her face, just studying them.  “She’s acting like a common girl from the city.  So, Isenwrath.  Where did the Duke pick you up from?”

“The ground,” she said evenly.

Hayleigh looked down at Isenwrath, almost in as much confusion by that answer as her brothers were.

Prince Daniel, the younger of the two brothers, snorted, “Seems we were right.  Hey look.  Isenwrath… Isen.  My brother and I don’t judge anyone by where they come from.  In fact, we like to head to town and have some fun with the locals from time to time.  Honestly, we find them to be more fun than most other nobles.  Our sister has just got to be boring you by picking your brains regarding spells.  Why don’t you come with us, and we’ll show you our skills as top of the class Eldritch Knights?  Then maybe you’ll realize we’re worth taking some time to walk through the gardens or even to a tavern or three for some real fun.”

Hayleigh was just about to scream at her snobby shit entitled brothers for that rude invitation, but she heard Isenwrath’s answer which stopped her completely.

“You two are Eldritch Knights?  Can you manifest your blades yet or only send your energy along a focus sword?”

The two brothers didn’t hesitate to show off.  They both held out their hands, made like they gripped a sword’s handle, then blue energy shot forth to create their mage blades.  The both of them then whipped the energy swords around themselves as if the magical blades had weight.  The display they performed in synch with each other demonstrated their deftness, skill, control, and they both were grinning at Isenwrath expecting her to be extremely impressed or scared..

Isenwrath slowly stood up to face them instead.

Hayleigh held her hand up to Isenwrath, “Hey.  Don’t.  Whatever you do, don’t fight them.  They’re prodigies too and have already taken down several rogue mages in the last two years.”

Isenwrath slowly pushed Hayleigh aside, not taking her eyes off of the two princes who grinned at her.

“Do you really want to try us, Isen?  If you do, wanna take a bet?” asked Nathaniel cockily.

Isenwrath nodded.  “Bet.  If you win?”

“We win, you go on a date with both of us and we get to have some fun before your big day,” Daniel said confidently while leering at the deep cleavage of her chest.

“You lose; you beg for my forgiveness.  On your knees.  Then you do as Hayleigh wants for a month.  Bet?” Isenwrath asked just as confidently but not leering.  They weren’t Maddock, so there was nothing to leer at for her.

Both of the brothers scoffed.  Nathanial then said, “We have a bet.  Hayleigh, wanna put up a barrier for this?”

Isenwrath smiled evilly at them.  “Barrier?  I know barriers.  Here…”

She opened her mouth, then the whole study was domed in a military grade barrier field that was proven to keep demons back for hours.  A barrier that would indeed not be breached by just two eldritch knights.

The young men glanced around with a bit of uncertainty on their faces because of how she cast that without a staff, a wand, or an orb.  She hadn’t spoken a word even though she’d opened her mouth.  She hadn’t even written a sigil invocation in the air with empowered arcanascript.  She’d just stepped outside of the princes’ area of experience.

Hayleigh backed up but definitely tossed out some sarcastic comments when she did so.  “Hey dumbasses, did you not listen when she said that she knew over six hundred spells?  I’m guessing that got lost between your ears when you two were staring at her tits and ass last night.  Put them in their place, Isen.”

The men then set themselves in their most aggressive fighting stance before they began to slowly circle, one moving slowly to the right while the other moved to the left aiming to put Isen directly between them.  Isenwrath then shifted from where she was, blurring in their vision.  The next thing any of the others knew, she was standing to the right of Nathaniel, just far enough away that the huge black war mallet that she held in one hand had placed its head directly in front of Nathaniel’s face.  He gulped when he saw nothing but a square of black metal that glowed green around its edges.

“You’re dead.  No spell.  Just speed.  Neither of you are fast enough to beat me.”

Daniel narrowed his eyes in anger, then he bolstered his speed as much as his formidable ability could, then he lunged at the girl.  All he needed was one good strike to win their bet.  She was gone from his vision when he blinked.  He stood there with his whole form outstretched that should’ve put his glowing blade directly through her sternum.  Except he felt the rush of air from above his head instead.  He looked up to see the black war mallet above him, then he slowly followed the handle to see the single hand holding it, next he looked up from that hand to the face that stared him down with absolutely no emotion in her blue eyes.  That’s what creeped him out.  She wasn’t angry.  She wasn’t proud.  She wasn’t anything.  She was simply waiting.

Nathaniel tried again.  He performed a combo set of moves that included bursts of flames, gusts, and his own personal barriers.  She countered his flames, ignored his wind gusts, punched through his barriers while they blurred around each other for a few endless seconds.  Then they stopped when Isenwrath terrified him because she’d caught his eldritch blade barehanded in the middle of the study.  The mallet would’ve killed him again because when she’d gripped his magical blade, that thing had stopped a hairsbreadth from the side of his head.  Her stare was unnerving because she didn’t gloat or say anything to him.  Just gave him the silent certainty that she could’ve killed him at any time.

Nathaniel saw Daniel begin to tense to try his luck again, but he knew better.  “Dan. Stop.  We can’t win.  We’ve lost.”

“But?”

“No. This lady is no commoner nor some dalliance that Uncle Mad finally let into his bed.  She’s clearly earned that title they gave her last night.”

Isenwrath let her hammer down and let go of Nathaniel’s blade.  Nathaniel held it in front of his face, then swiped it away to bow to her.  Next, he let his blade dissipate, got on his knees to say, “My lady.  You’ve won the bet.  I apologize for my arrogance and presumption that you didn’t earn the Grand Duke’s favor properly.”

Isenwrath nodded to him, then turned to look at Daniel.  He sighed in defeat.  He too held his blade in front of his face, then swiped it away to bow with respect.  “I acknowledge the defeat.”

Daniel then let his blade’s power go, got on his knees, and said earnestly, “You won.  I apologize for my crassness and my disrespect.  But would you mind telling us how you caught his blade?  That raw power should cut through practically anything.”

Isenwrath nodded to him, then held her hand up, palm facing out.  In her palm was black metal.  “My armor cheats.”

Daniel got up to come look at her palm closely.  Nathaniel got up to do the same.  They touched it then looked at her.  “Wait?  You mean you have this as armor?”

Hayleigh had stepped over to join them and all three of the royal siblings gasped when the black with purple edged armor manifested all over the lady.  It was sleek full plate metal that the princes studied very closely.

Daniel asked Hayleigh, “Sis?  You ever hear of magical armor like this?”

Hayleigh was smiling like a fool.  “God Plate.  That’s all I can think of.  This has to be God Plate armor like what the adventurers and dungeon delvers talk about when they speak of the final bosses within some of the dungeons.  Isen? Where the hell did you get something created by the divine?”

Isenwrath shrugged then her voice echoed out of the armor that held red glowing eyes in the visor, “I ate the former owner for it.  It accepted me immediately because I beat him by his own rules.  I didn’t fall for the trap.  Instead, he fell for mine.  This and my mallet were the only magical items that I accepted.”

Nathaniel began to giggle.  It soon turned into full-on near hysterical laughter.  He backed up, holding his belly and head.  The other three looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.

Soon, he was holding onto one of the tables, wheezing but calming down.  He didn’t look at them when he finally said, “The Black Knight.  Dan, she was introduced as the Black Knight of Maciendes.  Uncle Mad is a conniving son of a bitch.  He should’ve introduced her as the Black Knight Boss from Shinenoor, the Trial of Greed.”

“What?!” both royal siblings asked incredulously.

“Traps.  All traps.  All treasures in Shinenoor were shiny for a reason. You keep coming back until your greed takes you.  Then Shinenoor wins.  I drank the potions.  I licked the runes.  I ate the enemies.  I did not take the rewards.  I ate the greed.” Isenwrath said that sagely as if it made perfect sense to everyone.

The three siblings just stood there, not knowing how to respond to those words said as a matter of fact.  The black armor faded, then Isenwrath shrank her mallet down to put back on her pendant.  She liked the two pendants she wore with pride a whole bunch.  Her mark of Maddock’s favor and her weapon of choice would always stay around her neck.  She then let herself smile at the two princes.  “So, can I still see the gardens?  I’d like to smell flowers if you have any.”

The princes just stared at her as if she’d lost her mind this time.  Hayleigh was grinning like a fool again, probably a facial expression she was going to have many many times in the coming years.  The chromatic dragonling that crawled up onto Isenwrath’s shoulder purred happily when she scratched his scales behind his neck crest and horns.  The princes looked at each other again then at Hayleigh.  Daniel asked his little sister in monotone, “What the hell kind of dragon is that?”

She barked a laugh, then said casually, “Oh that?  She created him earlier today as her first whimsy spell.  Apparently, she also thinks an adult black dragon matriarch would make a good familiar too.”

Both princes looked to the rafters to say in unison with clear defeat on their features, “Fuuuuuuuuck.”

Hayleigh went to her knees in laughter.  Grinlock flew around the four of them laughing with her.  Isenwrath just smiled at the chaos of good vibes while the princes argued with each other as they blamed the other for trying to start shit with a girl that should’ve raised their alarms before their entitled dicks.

“What the hell is going on?!” yelled Tobias after banging on the barrier field that kept everyone else out of Hayleigh’s study.

Isenwrath blew a breath at her barrier which cancelled it.  Nathaniel and Daniel rushed over to their father grinning like mad fools. 

Daniel started with, “Dad!  Isenwrath beat us in a duel! Both of us!”

“She’s faster than a beastmaster or boosted eldritch fighter!  She’s got God Plate Armor, Dad!  She’s got fucking God Plate Armor!  We have GOT to introduce her to the class!” Nathaniel said rapidly after, clearly beyond excited about the girl who stood with a grinning Hayleigh looking as if she was confused at what the big deal was.

Maddock leaned over out of the crowd to wink and smile at her.  That was when she blushed and smiled big back at him.

Tobias held up his hand, “HEY!  Quit blabbering at me!  What do you mean you two dueled her?!  We don’t duel in the castle!  And how dare you duel a lady who just got here and in such an ungentlemanly fashion as a two-on-one contest!”

The two young men went silent, then jerked their eyes to the floor in shame.  Nathaniel then spoke up.  “Dad, we already apologized and admitted that we were in the wrong.  She won an unfair contest and we both know it.  In fact, we lost a bet to her too.  We’re now honor-bound to do what Hayleigh wants for a month as our punishment.”

Tobias was angered, but hearing that, his anger fled to amusement.  “You two have to do what your sister wants for a month?  You do know that she’s going to put you two through the ringer, right?”

Hayleigh put her fists on her hips and announced, “Damned right I am!  Scrubbing floors, reorganizing the library, helping me learn elvish, taking me to town and buying me and Isen stuff on their allowances, yup… this next month is gonna be fantastic!”

The rest of the adults began to laugh softly at the two princes who grumbled under their breath.  Queen Sophitia walked around and up to Isenwrath next and studied the girl and the big damned dragon-like thing curled around her neck.  “Isen, where’d that dragon come from?”

Beaming in pride, Isenwrath said happily, “Bubblescale is my first whimsy spell!”

First | Previous | Next

--- The Next Morning ---

Isenwrath slowly woke.  She felt the strange covers on her body and tensed.  Her instincts screamed at her that she was trespassing wherever she was and that someone would find out, then beat the shit out of her for daring to sleep on a clean bed.  A full minute later, her mind cleared her heart of that fear and panic after she finally pulled the covers up, then smelled them.  They smelled clean and more than that, just like a certain Maddock that had saved her and let her fall in love with him without any hesitation. 

Her soft smile turned over to see the source of that smell breathing deeply beside her, still asleep.  She rolled the rest of the way over and tried her best to put her hand on his chest without waking him.  She was proud when she accomplished that and how good that muscle under the soft skin of his chest felt to her hand.  The memories of what the other Isenwrath had done with him were slowly playing out in her head as she rested and watched him dream beside her. 

She wasn’t upset.  She wasn’t grossed out.  She wasn’t unprepared for those long hours of being a woman to a man that had made monstrous love to each other either.  She’d seen sex before at her house of horrors.  The Duke and his wife late at night when she’d been trapped in their bathroom because she’d fallen asleep there after delivering fresh towels and toiletries.  The maids with some of the guards that she would see going at it in various places of the manor while she tried her best to stay hidden or just get by without getting beaten again.  The other help outside weren’t as private either like the times when the stablemaster would tag a farm hand in one stall while Cassandra was scooping out horse manure with her hands to haul out bucket by bucket.  Thankfully, those two guys never had an eye for the scarred girl that never bathed, only got rinsed off in a long disused rain bucket if she were lucky. 

But all those times that she’d seen it, there wasn’t that level of love mixed in with it that Maddock and she had shared.  That’s what she took away from the previous night.  The Duke may not have realized it, but he’d said the ‘L’ word a lot during that time with her.  He’d said he loved both of the personalities that were Isenwrath and was honorable enough to give the older Isenwrath spirit one night of his love while also promising her to give every other night from then on to the one who stared at him with a gentle smile of appreciation on her face.  When she was ready for it, that is.  He would know.  Cassandra would know too.  Not yet.  But not too far from this moment either. 

She felt her body slowly and how it’d adapted to no longer being a virgin anymore.  Isenwrath didn’t mind.  She didn’t mind that they were both naked in the same bed either.  She was safe.  She was loved.  She was never going to find another person like Maddock who accepted her as she was.  Just like the older Isenwrath had promised her upon the night when they saved each other. 

Isenwrath closed her eyes again, just letting this peace settle on her and in her heart.  Her hand detected his change in breathing.  A slight movement followed.  When she opened her eyes, he was staring at her too with a gentle smile.

Before he spoke, she moved her finger up to his lips to stop him.  “Shshshshsh.  Isenwrath can’t keep me from her memories anymore.  She lost that last night along with our virginity.   I remember.  I remember it all.”

His eyes grew concerned and worried.  She only smiled at him wider for it.  “No.  You and she did nothing wrong.  In fact, I’m glad.  I know what to expect when I’m ready now.  I’m not though, but I want to be someday soon.  Can… I want to… may I please say the ‘L’ word like she did?”

Maddock nodded then moved over to kiss her forehead. 

Isenwrath felt her heart melt once more.  “I love you,” she whispered.  “I want to move faster but I’m… I just know that if I do, it’ll be the wrong choice for both of us.  Will you still wait for me, even after last night?”

Her worried tone didn’t faze him.  “I love you too. Don’t worry about me or my heart.  Don’t worry about growing up just because you think I need you to.  No, you just move at your own pace and I’ll still be here, right beside you.  When you give me the word, then we’ll do this properly.  A snow white dress with a long train.  A large room full of friends and family.  A temple priest who’ll lift your hand high in the air to join it with mine.  The finest golden chain I can purchase that’ll be wrapped around our hands as we tell everyone who sees us that we’re forever bound together and will never break that chain.”

She closed her eyes, then moved up to put her face to his.  “Please.  Just one kiss for me to grow on?”

He leaned up to meet her lips and this time, Isenwrath kissed him as tenderly as she’d learned from the night prior.  She wasn’t quite there, but for her, it was magical just the same.  When she pulled back, his arm had encircled her and pulled her down to his chest to hold.  “Relax and know that I believe we were meant to be together.”

“I know we were.  I just know I suffered so much for a reason.  It has to be for this moment.  It just has to.”

Maddock smoothed her hair and rubbed her back.  “Shshshshshsh… it’s okay, Isen.  It’s okay.  You didn’t suffer for any reason but because of someone else’s cruelty.  Yet, I don’t believe that doesn’t mean you weren’t meant to be here either.  So, forget them and that pain.  Don’t justify it.  Don’t let it hold you back, either.  Eat those damned memories and toss them out into the fertilizer bins.  You’re to only have good memories from now on.  That’s an order from your duke, Sweetheart.”

She giggled softly, then sighed, “As you command, Sire.  Oh, that was weird.  Sweetheart!  That’s better.”

That made him chuckle at her which was nice. 

What wasn’t nice was when someone knocked on the foyer door which sent them scrambling to find their sleepwear and hope to the gods that none of what happened the night before got noticed, especially by two very protective lady knights.  If it did, Maddock was dead meat from a whole bunch of soldiers and holy shit, if Barla finds out, he’d be wearing horseshoes instead of boots – nails and all!

The door to the foyer opened and a loud, “Good morning, Sire!” rung out from Helena Cartier, the Maid Mother for the entire third floor of the castle.  When the door to the bedroom opened, both Isenwrath and Maddock had the covers up to their necks and their faces must have been one helluva an open book because Helena frowned deeply, the smiles on Harmony and Beatrice’s faces faded to stern glares, and Old Oliver, the Floor Steward and Butler saw them, cleared his throat, then turned right around to let Maddock die alone.

“Hi, everyone… it’s good to…”

“Sire! Are you kidding me?! What the hell happened to all that vow talk and understanding and everything?!” called out Beatrice angrily.

Maddock was about to try and defend himself, but Isenwrath spoke first.  She put her finger to her head and said sternly, “There are two women in my head!  Me and the older Isenwrath!  She’s being eliminated!  He was kind to her! He gave her closure!  He gave her a love unlike anything she’d ever experienced before!  He let me… the younger… see what was wrong with all of the sex I’d ever seen in that hellhole I lived in!  He showed us his love!  We don’t regret it!  Please!  Be angry with me!  Not him!”

Helena was absolutely flabbergasted and deeply confused but when she looked at the two lady knights, she saw that they seemed to understand those insane words.

Harmony spoke more calmly, “So, let me get this straight.  The other Isenwrath took control… and what?  Seduced him?”

Maddock got angry at that, but Isenwrath held up her hand to forestall him again.  “Please. Understand.  Me… the younger Isenwrath, I’m okay.  I love him.  He and my older…they… made love.  Showed me what that would be like when I’m truly ready.  On our wedding day, no sooner.  We promised each other.  He gave her closure so she can… be muted in contentment.  She was abused like I was and now, she knows a good man.  Please forgive him.”

Beatrice turned to Helena, “Okay, so what you’ve got here is a very naive woman who has at least one other personality.  The story around that isn’t something we’re going to talk about at this moment.  She’s not stupid by any means, just not worldly.  She’s a fast learner though.  Helena, don’t you dare gossip about this.  Just don’t.  It won’t make sense and it’ll just be a real sticky problem if this goes any further.  Promise us?”

Helena glanced back at the beautiful woman that sat glaring at them beside the Grand Duke.  But what she saw was how they held hands.  That woman had hers OVER his.  She was indeed protecting him, and it seemed his honor as well.  To his credit, Maddock wasn’t looking at them.  He was looking at the girl in his bed with pure devotion and respect.  So, Helena nodded firmly.

“Right!  Duke Maddock, welcome back.  Get your tail out of that bed and go freshen up.  I have a lot to do today to find something around here for your guest to wear out and about.  No proper lady is going to be walking around in some man’s undershirt on my watch.  Move!”

Maddock grinned, then kissed Isenwrath on the cheek.  “Seems I just got scolded.  While they’re seeing to your needs, I’ll get the arrangements made that we talked about.  For that, I’ll be away for a while, but I’m leaving you in good hands.  Okay, Sweetheart?”

Isenwrath softened her gaze, then looked at him.  “I’m safe.  You just come back when you can.  I’ll be here.”

“That’s my good girl,” he said before sliding out of the bed. 

Helena pushed him when he walked past her.  “Slow poke.”

“As for you, Lady Isenwrath.  I’m relocating you to across the hall.  Your place is not in this set of rooms, not yet.  I’ve already been given leave to find you a separate room until such time…”

“No.  I sleep here,” Isenwrath said with iron in her tone.

Harmony touched Helena’s arm.  “She’s got her reasons.  It’s not sex, I promise.  He literally saved her from existing in a state of near mindless hunger.  Just for the days, we can put her in her assigned room, but at night, we’ll allow her to stay here.  I think the shenanigans are over until the wedding.”

She didn’t like it, but Helena bowed her head.  “As you wish.  Come, girl.  We’re at least going to let the Duke have his privacy and give you some as well.”

When Isenwrath got out of the bed, the three women drew a sharp breath.  There was blood on some of her shirt and the bedsheets.  Beatrice looked at it, then sighed.  “Shoulda known.  The older one also didn’t want the younger to experience the pain of her virginity being taken.”

Helena tutted at them all.  “Look, weird shit happens around mages all the time.  I can accept that, however, this thing with two women in the same body is really taking it too far.  Give me something better to work with,” she said while snapping her fingers at Isenwrath, motivating her to get her butt over to Helena.

Beatrice took Isenwrath by the hand while Harmony walked beside Helena to head out.

“Best as we can figure, the older Isenwrath is the spirit of someone who was about thirty annuals.  She literally healed the younger Isenwrath and they’re slowly merging their personalities.  We’re hoping that the mage tower can clarify exactly what happened, but that’s the short version.  I’m fairly certain that the young girl’s personality is the dominant one and at the moment, just think of her age as that of around thirteen-ish.  She’s coming out of her shell but still loses control of her emotions rather easily.”

Helena held the door open across the hall.  “Okay, I’m getting a better understanding.”  When Isenwrath walked by her, she commented, “So, the wedding is a sure thing?”

Beatrice nodded with a smile.  “Oh, you saw them in there.  No way he’s ever going to let this wonderful woman go.  Isn’t that right, Isen?”

Isenwrath blushed profusely while staring at the floor.  “I’m his Sweetheart.  He loves me.  He promised me that he’d be proud to hold my hand up and wrap the gold chain around them.  I’d give anything for that day.”

‘Hmph’ Helena said.  “Yeah, definitely a young lass with her head in the sky.  Well, Lady Isenwrath, what’s your favorite color?”

“Green,” she said firmly. 

“Fine.  I’m going to start your bath.”  Helena then turned to Harmony, “Do me a favor and track down Oliver to get him to go tell the chef that they can bring up breakfast.  I’ll take her measurements and get something decent from the spare wardrobe.”

“Thank you,” Harmony said gratefully. 

Isenwrath looked at Helena.  “Thank you.  Can I ask you something?”

Helena smiled genuinely at the young woman.  “Sure, my Lady.  What is it?”

“Why do you smell like a sun elf?”

Helena gasped while both Harmony and Beatrice looked shocked.

“How the hell did you smell my heritage?!” Helena asked indignantly while one of her hands shot up to feel her round ear.

Isenwrath didn’t back down.  “Because I can.  You smell just like the Gilthean Grove at the southernmost tip of the Sylvarinth Queendom.”

“That was my father’s grove… how? How do you know?” she asked in wonder.

Isenwrath leaned forward to take a deeper smell of her with a soft smile.  “The trees there bear the quellian fruit.  It’s their nectar that I smell on you.  You’re a mixed elf, but that smell of your father is his greatest gift to you besides the fact that you’re older than you look.  In fact, your heritage has been calling to something I have.  Will you accept a gift from me?”

Helena looked at the two knights, and they only nodded to her.  Helena even looked down at the girl just to verify that she literally wore only a man’s shirt, so receiving a gift couldn’t be something the girl could do unless she could conjure something.  Helena firmed up her face, smoothed back her dark blonde hair to ensure it hadn’t escaped her mob cap, smoothed down her black and white uniform dress, just buying time to figure out if this strange girl was going to pull a fast one on her.  But the way those knights were smiling and nodding as if this was ordinary led her to believe that there was indeed a good heart within the girl.  So, she nodded her assent.  “Fine.  I’ll accept a gift.”

Once again, Helena was flabbergasted.  That strange girl pulled a gold entwined platinum elven spirit armlet from her mouth without seeming to choke.  If this was a conjuring, then it was wholly different than any she’d ever heard of.  The armlet was true elvish make as evidenced by its delicate gold mixed with mithril filigree, the smooth emeralds, and how it just gleamed in the light like it had a life of its own which shined out.  Helena held it almost reverently when Isenwrath set it in her shaking hands.

“My Lady… I can’t accept this.  This is a treasure.”

Isenwrath held Helena by the wrists softly.  She said with warmth, “You’re right.  It is a treasure. One that should be given to an elf who still worships the sun and tree, even when very far from home.  Please, take this and give it a good home.  The spirits of your father’s grove would smile upon you for it.”

Harmony bumped her, “Stop channeling other people, Isen.”

“Sorry.  I didn’t know how to tell her that I thought it’d be pretty on her.”

Helena barked out a laugh holding the treasure to her heart.  Then she just stared at the young woman that had somehow lost years in age.  It had to be those large eyes that had lost that worldly wisdom in an instant.  “My dear, I think I’m starting to see who you really are.  I’ve never had anyone who knew I was a half-blood actually approve of it.  I thank you.”

“You’re welcome.  Can I ask another question?”

“Sure!”

“Do you have a barrel tub for my bath?  I liked the one I got to sit in at the fairgrounds.”

Helena’s shock absolutely caused Harmony and Beatrice to lose their shit in laughter. 

“My Lady!  We don’t have a damned barrel tub!  Come with me this instant and I’ll show you how a proper lady bathes!”

Isenwrath got taken by her wrist to get hauled off to the bathing room while Harmony hollered after, “Don’t let Isen try to eat the crystals!  She’ll do it if you don’t watch it!”

“Awwww!” came the loud pitiful cry from within the bathroom before the door shut. 

Beatrice took Harmony by the arm to lead her the opposite way.  “Come on, let’s go find that Oliver guy and order all of us some food.  I’m famished.”

And in only three steps the two of them had to hold the wall to stop from falling to the floor wheezing in laughter when an exasperated Helena called out, “MY LADY! DON’T YOU DARE LICK THAT FAUCET!  STOP!  NO!  BAD LADY!  PUT THAT CRYSTAL BACK!  GIVE ME THAT!  DAMN IT!  DO IT AGAIN AND I SWEAR I’M STICKING YOU IN THE CORNER IN TIME OUT!  MY LADY! STOP TRYING TO LICK THE DAMNED FAUCET!  DO YOU WANT ME TO WHACK YOUR HEAD WITH A NEWSPAPER ROLL!?”

“Yay!  Hot water!” called Isenwrath excitedly.

“AND THAT’S WHY YOU DON’T LICK THE FAUCETS!  NOW GET IN AND KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT!”

“Yes, ma’am,” was the sad reply.

--- Later that day, the Royal Office two floors up ---

“So, how much of a threat is she, really?”

Maximillian wore a genuine expression of concern while he paced between his younger brother Tobey, his wife Sophitia, the Royal Advisors Carmilla Lograin and Stanley Kendrick on one of the four couches with Maddock, Braxton, Pondra, Ducal Mage Thena Dallan and Maximillian’s right hand tower mage, Samuel Gregenthorpe.  They were there to discuss Maddock’s new lady love and pet monster.  Tobey and Sophitia had read that letter first thing that morning, then called them to meet with them in his personal quarter’s informal meeting area.  Their maids, guards, and other waitstaff had been cleared out for this meeting.  Maximillian had personally cast the anti-scrying spell to keep this conversation as private as possible as well.  The snacks were untouched on the two small serving tables.  The stiff drinks were in their hands, however, which Maximillian understood.  They were dressed down because they needed their minds free for what he was about to lay on them.  Nothing like brutal honesty to get everyone on his side when he’d need to use that trust for loftier goals.

Maximillian laughed sharply then, turned to his brother king. “Threat?  There’s no way to gauge how much of a threat she is.  She eats magic itself.  She’s a true mage-killer.  That’s why they’re so taboo and why the towers don’t even mention them to their students unless they’re either in a specialized field of study that’s useful in eliminating them like Chronomancy or are one of the tower seniors.  That’s why Thena didn’t know what she was.”

Sophitia leaned forward to put her elbows on her knees to think out loud.  “So, if these Chimeras are so dangerous, are you going to advocate killing or imprisoning her?”

Maximillian looked directly at Maddock’s intense eyes to say with utter truth behind his words, “Absolutely not.”

Maddock relaxed, smiled then nodded at him.  Maximillian nodded back to him in return.  Then he answered, “Here’s why.  As recorded, the only way for a chimera to gain their abilities is to have spells cast on them so they can consume them.  They’ve been recorded as sucking the magic out of magic stones… well now we have firsthand accounts of it to confirm that, thanks to Lady Isenwrath.  Yet, it’s their adaptability with regards to what magical beasts they encounter that has me highly intrigued.  That wasn’t well documented before because no chimera had ever taken on so many before today.  This hybrid form she has is truly extraordinary.  Now that you have the context, the answer is simple.  She ate an entire dungeon.  Shinenoor has never been fully cleared like that before a week or so ago.  It still hasn’t regenerated yet either from my latest report.  If she consumed every magical creature and evolved species in there like humans and elves, I honestly believe there’s no way to actually kill her.  So, why bother?  Why try to imprison her either when the woman we met last night is actually a lovely person to be around?  No, in this case, I’m advocating proceeding exactly like we’ve met someone who has talent and is on track to become Maddock’s duchess.  All I want is to test her, fill out her deficiencies in her education, and then we prove that she’s actually no more dangerous than any other mage out there.  Attack them, they defend themselves.  Same with her.  Plain and simple.”

Maddock seemed mollified with that answer.  The others, Maximillian saw genuine satisfaction too.  They appreciated that he wasn’t going to treat her like a monster or a true threat.

Thena set her white wine down to say, “I’ve seen her on the battlefield from afar as we beat back the demons on the rise.  She can shapeshift, shrug off spells of at least seventh level, fly, teleport, fight like a berserking dwarven battlethane, and still cast both devastating single attacks as well as area of effects.  Her spells are no joke.  She’s combined beast abilities with mage spells to create stuff that I’ve got no reference for.  And that was her Black Knight warrior form she was using.  I’ve seen her hunter-form and it’s basically an amalgam of the deadliest things in Shinenoor.  If the black knight is primarily melee based, then her hunter form is probably even more destructive by utilizing all of those beast abilities plus her spellwork.  But here’s what I want to point out.  She’s still learning.  You give her one opportunity to learn a spell, and she knows it almost instantly.  She’s mentioned that she can lick spells right off enchanted parchment or empowered runes on a floor and their hers forever.  What that means to me is that at some point, she’s going to realize that compared to even our own arch magister here, she’s superior.  That’s what’s going to scare or concern every other damned mage in the eleven kingdoms.  What should we do about that?”

Maddock frowned.  “She wouldn’t do that.”

Thena looked directly at him.  “You and I are CONFIDENT she won’t.  But we can’t guarantee what she’ll do in five years from now, Maddock.”

Maximillian stepped right between them because he understood exactly what she was saying and it came close to his own thoughts but if anyone was going to do that, it’d be him and only under a more subtle reasoning than fear of betrayal.  “No.  We’re not going to entertain this scenario.  Maddock’s approach is the only way to assure her loyalty to Maciendes which will assure her place as under my trust.  If I put my faith and trust in her, I just know that not only will she not betray her betrothed, but she would never betray the man who is willing to not only train her but also feed her the magic she requires to be who she is.  The other ten kingdoms will see a Grand Marshall, an Arch Magister Tower Master, and the King of Maciendes himself put their entire faith in Lady Isenwrath and won’t voice one objection because of us.  That’s the only way you can control the uncontrollable.  Building the trust between her and us as solid as possible.  Correct?”

Thena leaned back thinking about it.  Tobey stood up to raise his shot glass of Slithin-shine up to him.  “Maxi, that was inspired.”

Maximillian moved to stand over beside Maddock with his hands behind his back, smiling in satisfaction. “I learned from the best, Tobey.  Just trying to get on Maddock’s good side since I know he wants to try and win some money back from me sometime soon.”

“Oh, don’t bet your ass on that.  You cheat.  But I do thank you for deciding to treat Isen with respect and as a normal person.  To me, that’s what she is.  A woman who’s overcome some of the most horrendous acts from another to not only survive but become greater for it.  I fell in love with that woman and to know you all support my union is very appreciated.”

Sophitia smiled at him then said, “Tell me something though.  Your report says she doesn’t know who her family was, only naming her brothers.  Do you have any clues that might hint at who they might be?  That level of abuse upon a child is not only horrific, but if we can find out who did it, I want to see justice done.”

Maddock nodded sharply.  “You and me both.  It’s a duke’s family, like I mentioned, but I’m of a mind that it’s one from either Everthane or Thyeriand.  I’ve thought back and I’m certain none of our dukes have two sons named Bastian and Jasper.  Which means if justice is to be done, we’d need more than her word.  We’d need proof and a case where we can prove true harm.  Currently, Isenwrath looks nothing like a child and she’s currently having a grand time in Hayleigh’s rooms learning what a true friend her…. age… is like.”

Samuel spoke up next.  “The two Isenwrath personalities.  The spirit you spoke about.  You mentioned that if she’s demon infected, then it’s been mitigated somehow and that she’s basically a young girl in mind until circumstances force the other personality out.  My concern is her mental stability because I’ve dealt with a few individuals who had multiple personalities before and there’s always…”

“Stop.  It’s not the same.” Maddock said, holding up his hand to the Pyromancer.  “That spirit wasn’t a demon.  I spoke to her directly last night.  It was the first time that she manifested fully, actually.  The spirit was also an abused person who got killed tragically.  Her spirit got sucked into the demon realm where she did nothing but try to escape.  What she said to me was that the girl’s dying light opened a small rift that guided her to a dying child.   Isenwrath lost her rage, merged with a child mage who’d drawn her last breath, healed the body and then essentially gave her life for Isenwrath to live on.  This merging is ongoing and she estimates that the two personalities will be one within a year.  So, unlike a messed-up mind, we’re dealing with two life-forces instead where one isn’t fighting being… muted… let’s say, by the other.  That’s what we’re really dealing with.  If I can handle it, so can you.”

Pondra whistled.  “That’s fascinating!  Maxi?  Are there any more accounts of something like this anywhere?”

Maximillian shook his head.  “Nothing I’ve ever encountered. Not like this.  The closest are the ‘Fallen’ spirits, but those cases end up killing the mage after they perform their last act in the mage’s body.  Where the spirit energy goes after that is also unknown.  It sounds like it, but I’m not convinced.”

Tobey turned to head back to the service bar, poured another shot, then leaned back on it.  “Well, this is good stuff and all, but what do we do now?  How should we present her to the other courts?”

Royal Advisor Carmilla Lograin answered that.  “If I may, I’d suggest we follow the law before introducing Lady Isenwrath to the royal courts.  We need to document her life in some way, then push for her to be considered a Maciendes citizen.  Nothing can proceed until she’s recognized legally.  I believe we have a strong case to effectively set her origin as a refugee saved in the recent demon incursion or perhaps we lean into her standing as a mercenary knight that was accepted into the armed forces of Maciendes who’s given up any rights otherwise.”

“My King, Grand Duke, she’s correct,” Royal Advisor Stanley Kendrick said next.  “Lady Isenwrath can’t even accept the Duke’s proposal until we legally declare her as eligible for it.  However, what she needs for this is a sponsor.  One who isn’t the Duke to put forth her case and assume the responsibility if there’s cause for rejection.  She’s a mage, there’s no doubt, so the strongest sponsor to plead her case is Maximillian himself, but Thena is suitable if that’s not something the Arch Magister wants to do.”

Maddock took his turn to stand and stretch then stood in front of Maximillian.  “Well, what say you Maxi?  You want to add citizen sponsorship to her testing and teaching program?  I also want to get her settled and give her a proper education as a noble.  So, if you agree, why don’t we send out a formal recognition of a kingdom’s hero with a public announcement of your sponsorship and acceptance?  We put our actions where our mouths are, in other words.”

Maximillian patted his shoulder, but he looked at the royal advisors when he said firmly.  “Stanley, I’m on board. Send me the documents to sign and I’ll stand with her in front of the judges to push this through.”

He looked at Maddock with his full conviction on his face when he said, “Like I said, I think the best course of action is what you’ve already established.  We put her on the path to being Duchess Devonshire, Black Knight Hero of Maciendes and let the other kingdoms show their true colors.  They either accept that we have a powerful mage under our guidance or they challenge us where we prove that their outdated concepts are just going to piss her off.  One demonstration is all it’ll take for the other kingdoms to shut up and accept it.  Does that work?”

Maddock held out his hand, “You may cheat at cards, but you’re still a man of integrity.  Deal.”

Maximillian shook Maddock’s hand, then turned to the rest of them.  “Well, now that this is dealt with, I’m going to head back to the tower and get what’s needed for her testing.  Stanley and Carmilla, please rush the citizenship hearing.  We need to safeguard our hero as quickly as possible.”

King Tobias spoke up next, “Perfect.  Maddock, make arrangements to stay here through that, then you can head back to your manor.  We’ll coordinate afterward with what makes sense.  Sophitia, what do you say about making a formal debut and marriage proposal to Maddock’s lady in five months?  It’ll put it right before the King’s Summit where we can officially announce her as the first Chimeramancer of Maciendes.  That should shield her from much of the backlash”

Sophitia stood up then raised her beer to set a toast, “To Maddock’s future duchess!”

Maddock was the first to raise his glass of bourbon.  This was working out so much better than he expected it to.  Well, until he dropped his next bombshell.  He waited till after Maximillian and Samuel had left, then he sat down again before saying to Thena, “Put up an anti-scrying shield again.  One more revelation.”

Thena nodded then wrote the inscription in the air, activated it with a verbal command, then sat back to sip her wine again.

“What now?” Tobey asked. 

Maddock shrugged.  “So, the only thing I left off my report is what happened to the basilisks.”

Tobey and Sophitia turned to him in surprise.  “Basilisks?” asked Sophitia.

“Yeah.  You don’t need that mine.  My lady dumped enough detherialite on me to feed you for at least the next four years.  If you haven’t signed that contract yet, I’d be interested in it instead.”

Sophitia looked at her husband where they both shared a look of shock, then they shared that shock with Stanley and Carmella before Sophitia turned a wicked grin on Maddock after the significance of that statement processed.  “That bastard tried to charge me triple because the dwarves’ supply is drying up.  What’s your pricing?”

Maddock leaned back, put his arm around Braxton who chuckled at this situation, then said nonchalantly, “Oooh, let’s go with ten percent off the going rate but only if you sign off on a new budget to actually feed my wife various magic crystals.  I’m thinking we could go with a percentage of the ones that the first years create plus some premiums as needed.”

The Queen liked that a lot.  A whole lot.  “Oh yes, I can work with that.  I can’t wait to tell Duke Langford good luck getting royal backing to mine it now.  He’s going to lose his ass when he has to haul in a team of dwarves who actually know what they’re doing to get that stuff out of the ground.  I can’t wait to laugh in his fat face about it after he realizes he should’ve accepted a modest profit margin instead of gouging me.”

“Perfect!  Isen is just so much easier to deal with when you can toss a crystal or two her way.”

Pondra and Thena laughed evilly at that which got immediately noticed by the others.  Sophitia turned to them to ask, “What’s so funny?”

Thena stared right at Maddock’s blushing face when she said, “Yeah, easier to deal with is understating that by miles, isn’t it, Mad?”

“Thena.”  Maddock warned.

Braxton said it though, “Lady Isen gets fixated on them and it’s a sight to see sometimes.  Putting one near her will catch her attention like putting a fresh slice of beef in front of a wolf’s face.  She’ll literally think of nothing else but to get it and will swallow them whole, no matter the size either.  Her personal knights took some that have a level 1 light spell infused in them to give her as treats.  Like actual treats to help keep her from becoming too much of a nuisance.  Maddock has too and it damned works.”

“Seriously?” Tobey asked with a smirk.

Maddock had to shrug and nod.  “Like a big puppy, yeah. Though, I will say this. I haven’t seen what happens yet if someone she doesn’t like tries it.  We need to remember this above all else about her.  She’s incorporated hundreds of types of magical beasts into her essence.  I’ve seen instances where her instincts take over and she knows exactly what to do when she faces someone who doesn’t have her best interest in mind.  I’m actually afraid of what would happen if someone tried to bait her with them because, and I can’t stress it enough, Isenwrath has literally swallowed fifteen feet tall demons whole.  Like, right in front of me, she chomped one in one gulp then rent asunder seven more from in front of me.  If she can do that, then some stupid assassin or noble is absolutely going to be a snack to her.  We probably wouldn’t even know that they’re gone until much later.”

“Whoa,” Sophitia said low.  “Maxi didn’t mention that.”

“Probably didn’t know.  I didn’t put that in the report, not in that kind of detail.  When I said she’s consumed beasts and people, it’s not necessarily like munching on a fruit.  Most times, she’s a snake swallowing an egg whole.  Remember that and I’m thinking to perhaps let her demonstrate that fact during her testing to give a whole bunch of stupid mages pause in thinking they could win against her.”

“Damn, Maddock.  No fucking wonder these mages are so feared,” Sophitia said almost in awe.

“Yeah.  We just need to present her as a shy, fun, and stable person first before the other facts surface.”

Tobey strode over to hold Maddock by the shoulder.  “You have my word.  I like her and what she did to Duke Halvian to shut his smarmy ass up is still going to be my favorite story about her for a long while.  Now, let’s go sneak down to Hayleigh’s room to see what those two are up to.  I’m too curious to see if they truly are getting along.”

“I just hope Isen hasn’t eaten her magic books.  She is kind of hardheaded when it comes to sniffing out magic, if you hadn’t guessed.” Maddock said that with not just a little bit of ruefulness in his tone.

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Maddock finally got Isenwrath back under control later that night.  He pinched her ass hard for her silliness too once he got her out of the throne room to head up to his quarters within the castle.  She didn’t seem too upset though, but at least she apologized.  Maddock let it go because he knew she’d find something to take with her from that night regardless.  At least it was something innocent and entertaining unlike the crown.  Knowing it was a soul cage, Maddock wasn’t sure how he felt about that yet.  Knowing who it held, that was even worse.  Except it made sense.  The issue was that it was still going to be a piece of information that he was going to have a long time to wrestle with the possible ramifications that could happen if he kept it to himself or let Tobias know.  Sighing to himself, he pushed the thoughts off because that was for later.

At the moment, he was walking Isenwrath up to his personal rooms within the castle.  Harmony and Beatrice were right behind them, learning from Isenwrath all of the good gossip and happenings.  The three of them literally cackled at what happened to Duke Halvian.  Maddock was also rather pleased at putting that schmuck in his place too without beheading him.  Now that piece of shit owed Maddock a favor.  Worse, he owed Isenwrath a favor.  That was something that Maddock was definitely going to hold over that guy’s head for a long time to come.

When they arrived at Maddock’s private rooms, Isenwrath stood in the middle of the first one, completely stunned, instantly standing as still as a statue.  But it wasn’t happiness that had her stunned.  It was pure fear.

“Isen?  What’s the matter?” Maddock asked warily.

“It’s… it’s… I can’t… I can’t be here,” she whispered, barely audible.  Her eyes were so wide in terror while her whole body shook uncontrollably.

“Yes, you can.  I said so.”

Harmony slowly walked up behind Isenwrath to hold.  Beatrice went to the door to close it, then stood there to be ready for anything.  Maddock’s rooms were white walled with gold paint trimmings.  The portraits were of past generals that he looked up to and had studied intensely over the years.  The carpeting was low and dyed a pleasant soft blue.  The furniture wasn’t for show.  Everything was well used and shined with polish and pride.  The first room was for sitting and entertaining.  The bedroom to the right was almost as large, where it could easily accommodate up to three or four people if needed.  The other side held a war room where Maddock planned all of his strategies as well as studying the history of past engagements.

But what was on Isenwrath’s face, it was awful.  As if she’d been in a room like this many times and she’d not had a good day. Ever.

Slowly, he came to stand in front of Isenwrath to hold her face gently, so she’d only see him.  “Tell me what you fear, Sweetheart.”

“I.. I.. only came.. to a room like this… to… be… her… she… hated me.  I stood there… to be.. screamed at. She called me… names.  Told me… I lived… only because… she liked to… torture my mom’s ghost.  She killed my mom.  I got the rod… because… she hated me.  I could only cry.. silently.  If I moved.  Hit.  If I said anything.  Hit.  I stood there.  And… she screamed at me.  I… I… stood there.  I… hear her… screaming her hate… at me.  She’s so loud… hate.  She’s so loud!”

Isenwrath’s knees buckled when her hands slapped her ears shut tight.  Her sobbing hit instantly.  Maddock and Harmony both grabbed her to hold on the floor.  There they stayed there holding her, rocking her, not sure what to do to help her in this time of misery.  Maddock whispered desperately to Harmony, “There has to be something we can tell her!  I don’t know what to do!”

Harmony was crying with Isenwrath.  She’d heard that desolation deep within those stuttered words.  So, she just did what her Gram Gram would do when holding one of her kids or grandkids when nothing else would calm them down.  She sang.  Harmony cleared her throat then sang her favorite children’s song that her Gram Gram had sung to her many times over the years.  A soft lullaby that spoke of soft fuzzy lambs playing fun games, gentle shepherds who watched the world turn forever under their wise gazes, stars crossing midnight skies to grant wishes, safe beds for children to dream in, the happy sun that smiled its warmth at you, the cool lakes where the fish jumped up to kiss their favorite fantasies to life, and finally the waking up from the nightmares that could never hold your heart because there was always too much love in the world for them to gain that much reality.

When Harmony finished, Isenwrath wasn’t crying.  She was completely still, just staring past Maddock.  The two of them turned to see what she was staring at and both of them fell back on the floor in pure shock.  Isenwrath’s eyes were glaring out those wild red beams and where they landed, a giant man stood there within the red light smiling at them all.  He was dressed in a simple robe that was open, revealing his massive, muscled chest, wearing a simple kilt, a solid silver crown adorning his short blonde hair, while holding a huge double-bladed war axe across his shoulders.  They all watched when that vision strode over to kneel before Isenwrath.  Maddock had shifted over to let him.  This was a long dead King of Maciendes.  One of the greatest ever who had singlehandedly quelled a full ducal rebellion just before the Crown of Maciendes had been created.  He was the man behind their kingdom’s laws that advocated for the common people instead of the nobles.  And there his ghost was, kneeling in front of Isenwrath, reaching out to hold her head.  Maddock, Harmony, and Beatrice could see him speaking, but no sound emerged.  Isenwrath reached up to hold his hand and nodded.  She could hear him.  Somehow, she had called to a long dead king, and he was the one comforting her.  It was utterly impossible for this to happen, but it was happening right in front of them.  Maddock, Harmony, and Beatrice looked at each other in turn, silently understanding that they would never speak of this with anyone after tonight.  There was just no way that this would end good if it got out.

The vision finally stood up, still smiling at Isenwrath with a deep compassion on his strong, wise features.  Isenwrath stood up with him, then she held out her hand which called to her weapon to jump away from her pendant, grow instantly in size, then gently slip into her grip.  The king laughed silently when she held out her war mallet to him for inspection.  He held his axe up to it to compare.  They both were smiling brightly, both speaking silently, both coming to a friendship of some kind, both earning respect from each other as well.  The vision of King Ghondrakan soon touched his forehead to hers, then faded when her eyes stopped sending out those red beams.

Isenwrath finally turned to look at the other three, then said calmly, “He stopped her screaming at me.”

“What does that mean?” Beatrice asked as gently as possible for them all.

She shrugged.  “Harmony’s song… it helped me see him.  He’d heard my memories.  He came running.  He saw her and… no more.  I can’t hear her anymore.  He’s a good king.”

Maddock couldn’t stand it any longer.  He pulled Isenwrath to himself to hug tightly, kissing the top of her head several times while feeling her squeeze him close.  “It doesn’t matter.  It doesn’t matter what happened.  You’re safe.  You’re safe.  I’m sorry.  I’m soooo sorry for all that you went through.”  He choked that last out because of how helpless he’d been in those moments.

“Thank you.  I’m okay now.  I like your room.  It’s pretty.”

Harmony was rubbing Isenwrath’s back, then said to Maddock, “Hey.  Do you want us to camp out here tonight, just in case?”

Maddock shook his head.  “No.  Don’t do that.  There’s no way anyone is going to try anything tonight.  Maxi’s in the castle at the moment and that means if anyone were to even attempt something shady, he’d literally know the instant they even thought about it.  Force Magisters can sense ill intentions and that’s how that man has beat me at every hand of cards when I’d try and goad him into playing what I needed to win.  Took me years to learn how he kept kickin’ my ass and losing so much gold to him.”

The two ladies giggled at that tidbit.  Maddock continued, “There’s a guest room for you two across the hall.  Bunk in there and if I need you, you’ll know when I hit the alarm rune.”

Beatrice smiled at him but shook her head.  “Not until we get her ready for bed.  Where’s she sleeping?”

Maddock’s face flushed in embarrassment.  “I.. uh… well…  I guess in my bed for tonight.  I’ll…”

The two lady knights frowned at him, pulled Isenwrath away to behind the both of them. “Sire…” Harmony said with a stern warning tone.

“Oh stop.  We’ve been sleeping beside each other for over a week.  This won’t be any different.,” he said trying to recover.  “I’ll go grab her a shirt to sleep in.  Would you two stop glaring at me?!”

Isenwrath giggled merrily from behind her favorite lady friends.  “It’s okay.  I don’t feel safe except beside him right now.  Please?  Let me stay?”

The two ladies turned to her, then back to Maddock.  Beatrice pointed at his bedroom.  “You go get ready then bring out a shirt and some toiletries.  Then you get to wait out here until we call you in.  Got it?”

Maddock held up his hands in surrender.  “I swear, it’s like I just got a demotion or something. Sheesh!”

But he turned with a chuckle to go do as he was ordered.  He sarcastically grumbled the whole time he did as those two fierce women bade him to.  He submitted to it because they were actually doing their jobs perfectly, even if he was their target.  He wanted them to protect Isenwrath, even from him if needed.  So, when he returned after fifteen minutes dressed in his nightrobe and held out a spare red robe, clean white overshirt, and some new tooth scrubs to the ladies, they were smiling at him in appreciation.  Then he had to sit in his own receiving area for more than an hour wondering what the hell it was that they were doing that would take so damned long.

Harmony came out giggling to wave him in.  “She’s ready now, Maddock.  Sorry it took so long.”

“What happened?”

Harmony held the door open for him where he saw Beatrice tucking Isenwrath in his bed on one side.  The Duke’s bed was of a grand size that actually hadn’t had but two other ladies in it before tonight.  Isenwrath and Beatrice were also giggling while watching him come to his own bed.  Isenwrath held the thick covers up and of course, she was smelling them, probably still enjoying the fact that she was now sleeping in an actual bed with clean sheets and comforter. 

Harmony pointed at Isenwrath with a mock glare, “That little turd tried to eat the sink’s hot and cold water crystals!  I swear!  You can’t have anything fancy with her around!”

Isenwrath pulled the covers over her head, but that evil giggle couldn’t be muffled enough to not be heard.

Maddock shook his head and chuckled too at the three of them.  Beatrice pulled the covers down, kissed the top of her head, then yanked the covers back over her, starting a fresh round of laughter beneath them.  “Good night, you troublemaker.”

She then turned to head out.  Harmony did the exact same thing which only made Isenwrath laugh louder.  When they passed, Maddock said low to the smiling knights, “Thank you.  I really appreciate everything you two are doing for her.”

Beatrice patted his arm.  “She needed us.  It’s just going to get better from here; we both know it.”

With that, he nodded while they made their way out of his rooms, closing the doors behind them.  Maddock then went around the room to touch the runes on each wall sconce to turn off the light emitting crystals they held.  When he was at the last one that was beside his side of the bed, he and Isenwrath locked eyes.

“I was able to send a summons to my manor before the party to ask my chief of staff and head maid to come.  They’ll be here tomorrow late or by the next morning.   First thing is to get them to buy you a starting wardrobe.  They’ll also bring a few of my own maids to come here and attend you, so I don’t have to rely so much on Harmony and Beatrice.”

She nodded silently, then patted his side of the bed.

Smirking and shaking his head slightly, he slid in beside her.  She was lying on her side, tucked in tight then reached out to touch his hair and neck, rubbing them.  Maddock hadn’t had a woman do that to him before.  His whole body got the goosepimples from that soft touch. 

She whispered to him, “Thank you for being a good man.  Thank you for being nice to me.  I’m… I… I want to be a better woman every day… because of you.”

Maddock didn’t want to say anything at that moment.  His emotions had gotten the better of him and his throat had tightened.  Instead, he reached up to slowly bring that hand to his lips, then kissed her knuckles before holding it to his heart.  When he could speak, he finally whispered back to her, “Thank you for letting me be nice to you.  I absolutely can’t wait to spoil the absolute shit out of you going forward.”

That caused her to giggle again, her amusement dancing brightly within those blue eyes.  “Good night, Sweetheart,” she finally said to him low.

“Good night, Sweetheart,” he returned the endearment.  That random endearment he’d tossed out without any thinking behind it had become the perfect endearment for her.  Her heart, no matter what she was or could do, was sweet and kind and gentle and a whole bunch of other words that raced through his mind while he watched her close her eyes, open her mouth, then cast that lullaby spell on herself.  He cussed under his breath when he saw her do it because he finally realized why he’d been sleeping so soundly ever since she ate that damned cube.  He then just couldn’t help himself when he reached over to smooth her hair back from her face and touch her cheek.

“Isen, sleep well.  I’m so glad you fell into my life. I’ll never let anyone take you from it, I swear it.”  With that said, he rolled over then closed his own eyes so he could listen to her breathing steadily beside him. He’d honestly never heard such a beautiful sound as that.  That was his lullaby that he’d gladly listen to for the rest of his life, if he could.

-- A few hours later, the middle of a moonlit night of complete peace --

Duke Maddock woke up in the middle of the night, looked over to his right but didn’t see Isenwrath laying there.  She’d gotten out of bed at some point without disturbing him.  He sat up slowly, looking around in his dark bedroom that was only lit by the full moon from the balcony windows.  Without making a sound, he got up and out of bed, wrapped his red robe around himself to ward off the chill, then searched for her.  It took less than a minute to see her silhouette out on the balcony as Isenwrath gazed up at one of the large moons hanging there at the midpoint to its peak.

Trying to stay quiet but also let Isenwrath know he was coming so as not to startle her, he jiggled the balcony door handle once before opening it.  She didn’t move so she knew he was there.  She was wearing his borrowed robe, but it wasn’t tied, leaning over the railing, quietly enjoying the nighttime breeze and the moon’s glow.

Maddock stepped over to her, settled next to where she leaned, and took in the view with her just as quietly.

Low, he asked, “What’s got you up?  I thought you cast that lullaby spell on yourself.”

“I’m dying, Maddock.”

He jerked his head at her.  “What?”

She smiled, not turning to him.  “I’m the real Isenwrath, not the girl Cassandra.  She’s asleep at the moment and when that happens, I have the option to live a little.  Not even that cute little spell can stop me.  But soon, I won’t be able to do even that as we continue to complete our merge.”

Maddock sighed, turned back to the view of the grounds, then nodded.  “I see.”

“We’re both in love with you, and we know you’re in love with us thanks to that special drink.  Soon though, it’ll just be Cassandra as she becomes the woman she was meant to be and I’ll be just a figment of memories only.  It’s for the best though… I guess.”

“Tell me.  Who are you really?” Maddock asked.  Still, neither of them looked at each other.

"My real name was Shari Went, but like Cassandra, don't call me that. I'm Isenwrath.  I made the name up when I was a girl because it sounded like someone who could survive anything." She paused. "I was wrong. You see, I fell in love with a man who used me, broke me, strung me out on whatever would keep me docile. I don't understand the hold he had on me. I only know that I stayed until I had my daughter. Then I ran. Got clean. Raised her for three years before he found us." Her voice went flat. "He killed her in her bed while I watched. Then he threw me out a window laughing. I died having known only one true love and I failed to protect her." She finally turned to him. "That's what I am, really. A stupid woman who failed at being a mother. I got a second chance and I'm not allowing that to happen again."

Maddock wiped his face with his hand.  His heart hurt so much at hearing of that kind of short, tragic life.  “How did you get here?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.

"I woke up screaming in a place between worlds. A limbo full of those things you call demons, trapped in some hell of black glass and purple mist. I was a ghost there too—couldn't touch anything, couldn't escape. Just... raging at the edge of tears in reality that led nowhere." She looked down at her hands. "Until I felt Cassandra dying. Her light reached through one of those tears and pulled me through. When I saw her, my rage died. I lost my daughter to my own choices, but I knew—I knew—I could save this one from the choices of others. So, we merged. Two broken things making one whole. I got a body. She got someone to teach her what she is." Isenwrath finally met his eyes. "I'm still called a demon, I suppose. But I'm just a mother who wanted a second chance. Day by day, the fusion continues. In a year, only Isenwrath Cassandra remains. And I'll be... memories, I guess. Her memories."

Maddock finally turned to her.  “Why are you telling me all of this? I only asked how your spirit got here, but not the tragedy behind it.  Although, I do thank you for the clarity even if it’s one of the saddest tales I’ve ever heard.”

She shrugged.  “I thought you should know.  And that maybe… maybe you’d give me my dying wish.”

“And what’s that?”

Standing straight, Isenwrath turned to face him.  This wasn’t the childish girl.  This was indeed the real woman within the body and nothing about her mannerisms or how she looked at Maddock told him otherwise.

One step and she took his waist with one hand and touched his chest with the other.  Looking up, she whispered to him, “Please give me the love of a good man.  It’s absolutely selfish and it’ll probably become Cassandra’s memory in time, but for tonight, just love a woman who’s dying to protect her daughter like a mother should.”

He didn’t answer with words. Instead, he kissed her—slowly at first, then with the hunger he had denied since their first awkward press of lips. She tasted of starlight and something metallic, like blood and honey mixed together, and when she opened her mouth to him, her tongue was long—inhumanly so—curling against his with a dexterity that made his knees weaken.  He’d dreamed of that tongue, oh my, had he dreamed of it.

He lifted her without breaking the kiss, and she weighed nothing, or perhaps he was simply mad with wanting her. The robe fell open as he carried her back through the balcony doors. He expected hesitation… she’d spoken of virginity, of dying lights and merged souls but Isenwrath had no hesitation in her. She tore at his own robe with nails that felt sharper than they should have been, scoring lines down his chest that burned so perfectly he groaned into her throat.

What followed was not the gentle bedding of a maiden that he had imagined in his foolish, noble fantasies regarding this beautiful woman. It was conquest and surrender both. She moved beneath him with a flexibility that seemed boneless, her legs wrapping his waist and locking there with strength that could have crushed stone had she wished it. When he entered her, she did not gasp… she growled, low in her chest like a dragon, and her eyes flashed with something crimson and glowing in the dark. That was the sinister edge he'd sensed that first moment he met her. It was alive and very willing to pull him into her world.

"More," she commanded, and who was he to deny a dying wish?

She moved with a deliberation that surprised him—this creature who could consume armies, choosing instead to trace his collarbone with her tongue, to arch beneath him with the patience of a woman who had nowhere else to be. He felt the strength in her, the coiled appetite that could devour, and marveled that she restrained it. For him. For this.

Her body was a marvel he couldn’t compare others to—pale skin over muscle that tensed like a drawn bow, huge breasts that overflowed his hands, and that tongue, that wicked, serpentine tongue that traced patterns down his stomach and returned to his mouth tasting of him and of something else, something electric. When he spent himself, thinking surely this was the end, she merely laughed breathlessly and exhaled that green mist over his spent flesh.

The sensation was instantaneous and impossible—heat flooding back into his loins, desire sharpening to a knife's edge once more, as if he had not just emptied himself into her. She did this three times over the course of the night. Each time, he thought he was finished, drained, that no man could possibly rise again, and each time she breathed that emerald sorcery upon him and made him her willing slave anew.

She used him thoroughly, and he used her in return—taking her from behind against the bedpost, her hair wrapped in his fist, watching her back arch in a perfect curve that no court lady could manage; spilling his seed across her skin only to watch, fascinated and horrified and unbearably aroused, as that prehensile tongue emerged to lap it away with obscene precision; pinning her wrists above her head and feeling her pulse beat not once per second but three times, hummingbird-fast, beneath his thumb.

By the time the moon had crossed the sky, they were both slick with sweat and other essences, trembling with exhaustion and yet still reaching for one another. He’d never known a woman could be so hungry, nor that he could match that hunger and exceed it.  It was all just another proof that she wasn’t human, not fully—he saw it in the way her joints bent, in the faint luminescence of her sweat, in the teeth that were just slightly too sharp and coated in silver metal when she smiled at him, predatory and adoring all at once.

But she was his. And he was hers.

He collapsed beside her at last, his chest heaving, his body aching in ways that felt like victory. She settled against him, her head on his shoulder, and for a long moment they simply breathed—the wind from the balcony cooling their overheated skin, the silence of the castle wrapped around them like a blanket.

"That was...I have no words." he whispered, his voice ruined.

"Yes," she agreed with her own raspy voice roughened by her own shouts of lust, her hand tracing lazy circles on his stomach. "It was. Nothing compares."

He caught her hand and brought it to his lips, feeling the wrongness of her joints, the subtle claws she retracted when she remembered to be gentle. "You’re a beautiful creature, Isen. A terror and a blessing."

She laughed, soft and satisfied. "And you’re a man worth dying for, Maddock Devonshire. Even if I must die a little each day to give her to you properly, I'll die in peace for both of us."

He pulled her closer, burying his face in her hair, smelling ozone and sex and something uniquely her. "Then let’s make each death worth the living."

“We will.  She loves you and deserves every good thing you give her.  You’ll know when she’s ready for this, just trust me.”

Maddock smirked, pulling back so they could talk quietly with each other, enjoying the pure glow of their passion.  “The night I fed you the crystals by the fire.  That was you, wasn’t it?”

A light little giggle from her hammered his heart so much before she answered.  “Mostly.  We both get horny when someone feeds us like you did and… we just can’t concentrate on anything else when that happens, not even to what we’re savoring.  So, she let me have that one because she’s a giving person.  She also watched intently too; don’t think she didn’t learn anything that night.  She likes her ‘tingles’, and I know you did as well.”

“I had a feeling that’s what happened.  So, what was that green mist you kept dousing me with? I’ve never heard of something that could get a man instantly ready to go again like that, much less keep him going for hours.”

She giggled evilly.  “It’s a trade secret of Bards.  All those rumors about their sexual prowess boils down to them knowing that level five stamina potions do more than help a soldier or adventurer keep running for long periods of time.  Learned that after I ate a few dungeon adventurer parties that had Bard members in them.”

Maddock laughed out a huge, almost mad cackle at what that could mean if that little secret got out.  He said loudly, “No damned wonder the market on those potions is so damned big among the musicians and Bard Colleges!  No damned wonder they screw anything not nailed down!  I’m pissed that I didn’t know this before tonight!  Damn it!”

She laughed with him while he continued to stroke her back and rump, absolutely enjoying these fun revelations and the feel of her along his body.  She was absolutely worth going to war for.  She was absolutely going to be his wife someday when they came to a more natural progression with each other.

Finally calming down, they both let the soft hush of the breeze from the balcony retake the mood back to a calm serenity under the soft moonlight streaming in.  They lay in that calm silence, listening to the wind, holding each other, not wanting it to end.

"I thought being sated would feel like sleep," she whispered into his chest. "But I'm awake. We’re awake.  I think we’re more awake than we've ever been." She pressed closer. "You don't just feed us, Maddock. You satisfy us. That's... that's much more dangerous. I know we can survive hunger. I don't know if we can survive knowing what it's like not to be."

“More than anything you’ve said, that statement makes my heart pound the strongest with pride,” he murmured low while running his hand through her long hair and down her back.

She finally sighed out another whispered question while rubbing his chest and belly lightly.  “When tomorrow comes, how will you feel about me… both me and the younger together… as one?”

Maddock let his honest emotion guide his words.  “I’m in love with a woman who makes me want to be a better man for her.  Everything else is semantics.  I fell in love with you the moment you responded to me calming you down from your first night terror.  I didn’t want to, but my heart told me otherwise.  I never doubted that it was right.”

She moved up to kiss him one more time.  When she pulled back, she whispered, “We fell in love with you then too.  The moment… we… I… the moment I looked down to see you doing your damndest to save us, that was the moment both of us came together for another purpose instead of eating everything in sight.  You.  You make me and her want to do so many things and all of them are to make you proud of us, love us, and come to us every night from now on.  I so want this dream of living with you to continue forever, especially for her sake."

He stroked her hair again holding strands up to fall out of his fingers in waves, his voice rumbling in his chest. "Don't eat me out of house and home, and I'll be able to do that."

She went still for half a breath. Then she laughed—truly laughed, burying her face in his chest to snort and shake and gasp. "You ruined it!" she shouted, pounding his shoulder weakly. "I bare my soul to you, and you make housekeeping jokes?!"

"I had to." He was grinning, absurdly pleased with himself. "Couldn't stop myself.  Got a bit too mushy in here."

"You’re impossible!"

"And you," he said, catching her hand and pressing a kiss to her knuckles, "are still hungry. I can hear your stomach from here."

She groaned, but she was still smiling. "That wasn't my stomach. That was my soul. They're practically the same thing."

“I noticed.  How about a pastry instead before we pass-out because I don’t have a basilisk here to feed you something for your soul?” Maddock said low, still grinning.

“Challenge accepted,” Isenwrath said with her own smug grin.

She then shot out that infamous tongue clear across the room to snap up a blackenberry tart from their little snack tray that’d been left for them earlier.  One gulp and she sighed happily again.  “I like blackenberry.”

“You didn’t chew it, so how would you know?”

Isenwrath poked him gently.  “Not telling you.  Shush. Sleepy time.”

Maddock grunted a laugh but agreed.  His mind was already half shut down.  Thus, their first real night together ended with them scooching around just a little more, but finally sleeping with arms holding onto each other.

The not-so-sleeping mind of Cassandra not only learned much that night, but she understood too.  The most important piece of information was simply that she was going to wake up in the arms of a good man in the morning and know without a doubt that she was in love and that love was being returned to her.  She was a good girl, and he was a good boy.  Together, they were going to be good for the whole kingdom.  The hammer mallet that’d been standing in the corner like a sentry would help that along, you can damned well count on that!

First | Previous

Marshal Georgy Zhukov took the drawing, frowning slightly.

It showed something that refused to settle into meaning immediately—too structured to be random, too abstract to become useful at a glance.

Across the table, the American, a silhouette of sharp linen and calculated stillness, accepted a Soviet Kazbek from the orderly. He pinched the hollow cardboard tube with a casual, practiced flick of his fingers. The soldier's match flared. The American drew on it once, slowly, then narrowed his eyes through the smoke.

"What is this?" Zhukov asked.

"Sektor."

A pause.

"And that means?"

"In German," the man said, "a sector. A compartment. Sometimes a wedge."

He shrugged slightly.

"We assumed the name came from the shape."

Zhukov looked at him for a second longer than necessary.

"Is this a German engineering schematic? Those crazy Nazis... Why are you showing it to me?"

"We all agree the Germans have exceptional engineers," the American said. "But that alone doesn't explain why they were ten, maybe twenty years ahead in propulsion and rocketry."

He stopped there. Not fully.

"What I'm about to tell you is part of that explanation."

"Kozlov. Out."

No glance. Just the order.

The battalion commander stiffened, saluted sharply, and turned on his heel. The guards followed. Boots fading into the corridor. The room emptied in a clean, practiced way.

Only the two of them remained.

The command post had been carved out behind the collapsing front line. Through a broken window frame, the city bled into dusk—smoke rising in uneven threads, rubble stacked like something violently interrupted mid-structure.

"An engine?" Zhukov asked finally. "A component?"

"Neither."

After a silence, the American added: "And yet it may decide the war."

Zhukov let out a short, dry laugh.

"This war is already decided. We've taken Berlin. Whatever the Nazis are hiding doesn't change that."

He threw the drawing back onto the table.

"Desperate fantasies."

The American smoothed the sheet, unhurried. He took another slow drag.

Zhukov stood.

Arms folded, he looked down now—not at the man, but at the idea of him.

"You Americans are already stripping Germany of its scientists," the Marshal said, his face cold as raw iron. "We paid for Berlin in tens of thousands of casualties a day—and while we advance with bodies, you collect laboratories in the west."

He kept his eyes fixed on the American, refusing to look away, then extended a blunt finger toward the shattered window.

"You saw that soul who struck the match for you? One hour ago he was a regimental officer. Three hours ago, a battalion commander. His predecessor dead—the men above him keep dying, and with his luck he'll be gone before nightfall. We burn through names to crush the beast."

His voice flattened out.

"And still you Americans move faster than we do. Not through blood—but through lists. Through minds."

The American cut him off.

"And Comrade Stalin has not been less efficient," his Russian was immaculate—too immaculate, polished to the point where even contempt survived intact inside the grammar. "Your advance westward—thirty, forty kilometers a day—made for a magnificent track meet. But let us not pretend you were hunting for remnant fascists, Marshal. You were also racing for the laboratories—keeping pace with a plan to ship every German scientist east, as fast and as thoroughly as possible. What do you call it, again? Trophy Brigades? Yes. That's the term."

The Marshal's eyes hardened. The American just smiled.

"And while we're at it, Marshal—don't forget. Since Barbarossa began, our factories, our shipping lanes, our treasury, have been sending you roughly nine million dollars a day in strategic aid. EVERY single day. Without that transfusion, I doubt you'd have lasted a week."

Silence followed that.

Somewhere beyond the city center, a distant artillery blast rolled through the ruins. Low. Delayed. Like something arriving late to a conversation already finished.

The argument dissolved without either man conceding it. They drifted toward the window almost instinctively.

Outside, Berlin looked less like a city than a disassembled surface—geometry broken and reassembled without instruction. Buildings standing but not surviving, half-collapsed yet leaning into one another for support. Blackened swastika banners still caught on metal poles, moving faintly in the smoke like props abandoned after the final act of some Wagnerian catastrophe.

"Congratulations, Marshal," the American said after a moment. "Taking Berlin is every general's ambition. A professional culmination."

He was still watching the ruined city, not the Soviet marshal. The silence between them stretched, thick and heavy with the smoke filtering in from the outside.

"But victory is not confined to the material world."

Zhukov did not answer.

Instead, he stared at the American for a long moment, not because he had failed to hear the words, but because he could not decide whether the American was speaking like a philosopher, a fanatic, or a man delivering a warning disguised as abstraction.

Eventually the Marshal gave a faint shrug, turned back toward the drawing on the table, and looked at the American again with a silent, questioning impatience, as though waiting for him to stop circling the point and say plainly what he actually meant.

The American, however, suddenly shifted the direction of the conversation, dropping a question that seemed to have no connection to what they were discussing.

"What is your opinion of Hitler? "

"A devil," Zhukov answered at once. "A monster history will never forgive."

The American smiled faintly, unimpressed.

"Marshal, with beloved Comrade Stalin and the secret police absent from the room, I was hoping for your real opinion. Great commanders are usually capable of speaking objectively about the enemies who nearly destroyed them."

The Marshal fell silent. Not out of fear—more from the difficulty of deciding how much honesty the moment permitted. When he spoke again, the words emerged carefully measured.

"Leaving aside the war crimes... the man is, in a technical sense, cunning, but a master of self-discipline. He neither smoked nor drank, and was a vegetarian, as far as I know. No obvious vices. Strong self-control."

"No, no. Those are details." The American dismissed the point, shaking his head. "I am asking about politics. About war."

-------------
For anyone who prefer to read ahead, the full version is available on Amazon KDP:

Obsidian Earth

First | Previous | Glossary |

Necessary Sacrifice

(Galou POV)

"...Excuse me? Could you repeat that?"

There it was. After fruitlessly picking at Councilwoman Lana's poker face and politician's smile all this time, Councilman Galou had finally gotten to see emotion leak into her expressions.

It was admittedly only with the help of the Ramelle Councilwoman Delle, but it's not like he has to share the generator blueprints with her or anything. As long as he was here and participated in this private meeting between councilmembers, he could take credit.

In addition to himself, Councilwoman Lana of the Terrans, Ambassador Garag of the Uvei, and Councilwoman Delle of the Ramelle were gathered at this private meeting room on the S.S. Kevak to discuss the matter of the Terran's ship ending up in restricted space.

"If I must. I will speak slowly for you this time."

If not for Delle's flattened ears showing her annoyance, her tone could be taken as disinterested.

"In summary, we will not accept any Terran or Uven visitors for the trespassers we have detained. We will also not accept any devices without thorough inspection and test run at a certified Coalition entity for security purposes."

"What if we sent schematics for the devices for you to create and operate yourselves? We'll even buy them at cost from you afterwards if you have no further use for it."

"Digital blueprints also bear a cybersecurity risk. We would need to analyze the code on an isolated device first."

"Please, be reasonable. I'm going to have to insist that we at least take back-"

"Stop it right there!"

Councilman Galou snapped at the Terran to interrupt her. This was the part he was here for.

"I'll have you know that the Ramell are friends and good neighbors to the Pateily. If you take overbearing action against them for your own convenience, we will interpret that as hostilities and are prepared to declare war in defense of our less aggressive friends."

""!?""

The pair opposite the table from him reacted with visible shock. Garag's tail raised up stiffly and Lana's eyes had widened.

He had to make a real effort to suppress the sense of smug satisfaction. The lizard might not be familiar with how Pateily emoted, but the Terran was definitely brushed up on the subject.

This other simian species was a slippery sort that kept weaving through his approaches with their idea of diplomacy, but they were cowards that feared conflict at heart.
What they failed to understand was the ability to project, command, and leverage military might, real or not, was also an essential component of diplomacy.

"I was under the impression that the Pateily International Parliament needed majority approval for a declaration of war with another spacefaring species. Do you really have the sort of authority to call for something like that?"

Case in point, Councilwoman Lana immediately tried to worm her way out of this with technicalities and the authority of other people. It didn't even surprise Galou that she was versed in this aspect of a foreign governance.

"Of course. We already have a majority agreement to act in defense of our allies."

"And this can be verified if my office directly inquires with Pateily Parliament members?"

"Do as you wish. As a favor, I'll pretend I'm not offended by the insinuation."

"........."

Well, perhaps her knowledge was still shallow.

These new advanced fusion generators had the makings of a patent worth an entire industry's worth of wealth and there was no shortage of party members or corporate entities that wanted preferential treatment.

His aide was still at the cradle planet of Tiireya and had direct lines to many of those people. A few calls are all it would take to persuade even the opposition party to pass the vote long before any Terran inquiries could reach them.

It seemed this development really shut that woman up. While she went quiet, Ambassador Garag spoke up in the Terran's place.

"Getting back on topic...the twelve Terrans suffering from poisoning in your custody can't afford to wait for long. You are aware that they will die without medical intervention, yes?"

"And we shall endeavor to give them the best medical intervention we are capable of...within our established security guidelines. Since we have been provided with the diagnosis by the captain of the ship in question, we are creating the required detoxification medicines and devices as we speak."

Galou knew that something like that would take at least three cycles even if it was a priority. And, judging from the Councilwoman Lana reaction, that was too long.

"Is there no exception for emergencies?"

"This incident is being treated as a case of trespassing, which does not fit the administrative definition of "emergency". There has yet to be an official ruling yet, but it will likely be regarded as a non-malicious incident."

It was a bit troublesome that the Uven Ambassador got to stick his nose in this thanks to some unexpected refugees being let on the Terran ship, but as long as the lizards in custody were properly cared for, the Elder Council shouldn't complain.

Perhaps they could even instigate a rift with the obviously disparate treatments.

"But you still bear a responsibility to care for prisoners."

"Which we will achieve with meticulously prepared living accommodations, nutritional supplements tailored to the species, and a promise of protection from violence."

"Surely that should also include a reasonable effort to prevent the loss of life?"

"Indeed, but for us, 'reasonable' means-"

"Fine."

"Miss Lana...?!"

Councilwoman Lana broke her silence with a single word that had Garag agitated.

"If you feel so strongly about stopping the admission of foreign technology, then we have no choice but to give up. Whe-if the afflicted Terrans pass away, can we expect you to preserve and deliver their bodies for our funeral customs?"

"...of course."

It seemed that both Councilwoman Delle and the Uven ambassador weren't expecting the Terran to relent, but Galou wasn't surprised.

"Speaking of which, about those miners. It seems there was some unfortunate incident at the prison regarding four of them."

"............"

"Shall we preserve their bodies and send them your way as well?"

"...Yes, I'll have my assistant send you coordinates to drop them off."

The Councilman knew they dreaded war and conflict to the point of cowardice.

Not that he respected it. If anything, this proved they were crippling their own diplomatic ability. It was a bit of an embarrassment that they were simians, really.

But perhaps this was the new angle to attack. If it became widely known that the Terran government was incapable of protecting their people, their public order would decline and certain opportunistic groups might smell blood in the water.

That could be enough to keep them busy and the Elder Council happy.

That little attack originally intended as simple harassment turned out far better for the Pateily than he could have planned.

"Now...let us move on to the final matter for this meeting."

....?

"I would like for everyone here to keep this information private for now, even from any staff or trusted friends."

The Terran Councilwoman opened up a page on her data pad and slid it across the table. On it was...a serial number and specs?

....!!

Galou forcefully suppressed his surprise and took the initiative to casually ask before anyone else could.

"What's this supposed to be?"

"This is from the unknown pirates that attacked our humanitarian fleet. After combing through all the recordings and data logs, we were able to piece one of the ship's energy signature and serial number together. From that, we were able to deduce the ship's make and model."

"I see...Resourceful as always. It takes some focus to scan for that information in the midst of attack."

The Uven eyes the information curiously and praised the Terrans' efforts.

The Pateily Councilman, on the other hand, was silently cursing the crew's carelessness. How hard is it to mask your ship's information? Or at least cover the serial number before engaging in banditry?

...No matter. It should still be safe, because...

"Unfortunately, this was an older model and the manufacturer went under a few cycles ago, so the authorities are still in the process of recovering the owner information."

Their preparations should have been thorough enough to avoid recognition in the first place. Even if the Terrans got lucky, they shouldn't find anything to incriminate anyone beyond the leased soldiers they catch in the act.

"Since it will take a while and the incident happened near Ramell and Pateily space, I'm hoping you two might have some leads or records on our assailants. Have you had any encounters with these types of pirates in your territories? Even similar energy signatures will do."

The Ramell Councilwoman skimmed the number before leaning back in her seat dully. Galou didn't know the details, but she should also have made a deal with the Ramell's patron to drag the Terrans down. She wouldn't cooperate here.

"No, this is new. But I shall pass it along to patrols so they keep vigilant."

"Hmph. Trying to ride our coattails now, are you? I suppose it's also in our best interests to eliminate troublemakers. But no. I can tell at a glance that nothing resembling this ever came across my desk."

...It would be fine. Elder Councilman Gohlti was also implicated in this. The crew was borrowed from the Fendansi, but the ship officially belonged to the Pateily administration.

Galou could notify him. They would tamper with the records during the restoration process and delete the mercenary contract.

The Terran pressed a bit harder.

"Are you...sure? It doesn't have to be just from troublemakers either. Perhaps the culprits stole the vessel or salvaged a decommissioned one."

Was she...pressing harder? Did she suspect them...?

"I'm telling you we don't recognize it. Perhaps you Terrans have a more...frugal operation, but we don't keep such cheap vessels in our fleet and the energy signature is unique enough to leave an impression."

"....."

Lana nodded slowly. He didn't like the way she stared at him. Terrans had a way of looking into the eyes. Apparently it was a trait of sociability.

"...I see. I apologize if you took offense. It was worth asking at least. Then, while we're on the subject..."

There's more!?

The councilwoman tapped her data pad and pulled up a star chart with highlighted spaces marking their territories.

"We shall promise to stay out of restricted Pateily and Ramell spaces and we will not engage with any ships besides this specific recorded culprit and its confirmed allies. In exchange, will you yield jurisdiction of this matter over to us? These pirates have caused us quite some grief and we wish to bring them to justice under our laws."

Oh.

What a farce. Did they plan to ask one of their more combative friends to perform the actual arrest in their place? Were they trying to look tough after being forced to yield on the matter of the trespassers?

Galou elected to push back a bit. As long as the attackers had a safe area to escape to, he could call them to an isolated military base and have them silenced.

"Not just restricted spaces. I've already said before that I don't find you Terrans trustworthy. You're not permitted in any Pateily space without explicit permission. If you find them in our territory, you're just going to have to contact us and let us handle the rest."

Delle's reached out to the data pad and expanded the highlighted ranges for both their species.

"I concur with Galou. You are to avoid any of this space. I will have a hard time believing any future incidents are accidental after you've been warned."

"Very well. Then with the exceptions of the highlighted spaces as established here, we shall hold the full rights to arrest and prosecute our attackers, but only our attackers. The Terrans can accept these terms."

Seemingly intending for that to be the final word, Councilwoman Lana saved the map as marked on her data pad and stood to leave.

Well, that was fine. While she saved the contents of this meeting in official records, Councilman Galou needed to make sure all his tracks were covered.

(Garag POV)

It was an odd feeling to feel pleased that his people were being confined. Especially when their benefactors were subjected to the same fate under much less pleasant circumstances.

Ambassador Garag never expected to feel intergalactic law could ever feel convenient instead of restrictive.
Though perhaps his visit and the multiple parties witnessing confirmation helped.

Although the hundred and six Uvei weren't free to leave Ramell custody or supervision, it was hardly a restriction for them. As refugees escaping their war-torn home, it wasn't like they had specific destinations in mind when they left other than "away from danger".

In exchange for their freedom, this arrangement meant their safety was guaranteed, they would be fed and sheltered, and they had all the time they needed to rest.

With the sudden influx of first-time refugees, Folstur's immigration system was already stretched thin, so it was like the Ramell were buying time, even.

He was a bit anxious about whether they would get sufficient accommodations, but it seems they were being kept in the same facility as the able-bodied humans.

Councilwoman Lana assured him that Captain Borlaug was versed in galactic law on the minimum required care for military prisoners, and thus would ensure nothing was lacking.
Garag had concluded from personal interactions with the good captain that he was a prudent man. The fact that he had surrendered to the Ramell at all was as good as a vote of confidence in this arrangement.

Lana also assured him that, because division between humans and Uvei was among their goals, they would likely give the Uvei detainees preferential treatment; as long as the humans made sure they got the bare minimum, his people would get "more than the minimum".

...

He didn't know where his colleague learned that, but hoped that wasn't the reason the twelve humans were being neglected. She hadn't spoken since they concluded the meeting.

To be honest, he expected the sly humans to have something else up their sleeves based on what he'd seen of them thus far. It was only when he saw Lana's somber expression that it occurred to him she was sincerely ready to let her own die.

The humans he knew were stubborn and showed a deep respect for life at every turn, so it caught him off-guard.

"Welcome back, Ms. Rogov. Mr. Vedin. How did the meeting go?"

The two of them had walked together out of the council chambers to the private docks, where one of her personal aides stood waiting for them. He believed the man's name was...Shi Xi?

"Ah...well...it seems you may have to give up on the twelve poisoning victims. Councilor Delle refused to back down and Councilor Galou threatened war if we pushed."

Since his colleague remained silent, the Uven elected to report the result in her place.

"I see...well, we can figure it out our next move inside. But before that...here's the manifest for Uvei soldiers, Mr. Vedin."

"Ah...thank you."

Garag accepted a document from Shi Xi. This was something else he had been preparing with the humans. Or rather, something the humans have been preparing for him.

It was a list of Uvei that surrendered to the humanitarian force and agreed to return with them. In other words, enemy soldiers-turned-sympathizers. Somehow, the humans in the Terran administration talked them into returning to Nysis.

He didn't know how or why because he did not ask. Because he was bound to service for Karnak, there were some things that he was better off not knowing.

The humans had earned his trust enough for him to believe it would be for the benefit of his people, and that was sufficient. He "negotiated for their return", and that's all he would have to report on the matter to his...superior.

...That said. He couldn't help but be curious at times. He may as well ask if it will take her mind off those twelve humans.

"Lana, if you don't mind me asking, what were you...setting up during the talks about the ship information?"

"? Oh, you noticed that? Come in and I'll explain. This is a good chance to catch my team up as well."

With a light smile, she gestured for Garag to follow her into their ship. Since Kent's injury and Lana's promotion, the humans had begun working in locations outside their embassy.

Once they entered, the door behind them let out an electric locking noise as soundproofing barriers came up behind the door and walls. Together, the three of them went into what seemed to be an office space where 30 other people worked.

The moment the councilwoman entered the room, all eyes fell on her expectantly. What was going on...?

Lana cleared her throat.

"I've confirmed that Galou is the culprit behind the attack."

"Wha-!?"

"I see. Then we'll move forward with our preparations."

"I knew it!"

"Well, it wasn't exactly a longshot."

Shi Xi wasn't the only one that responded with a composed smirk. Not one of them showed surprise at the statement. If anything, they seemed to release some tension from the anticipation as they resumed their regular paperwork.

"How...Did you already suspect the Pateily?"

Lana let out her usual refined laugh.

"Well, Galou has hardly been subtle about how much he wants to antagonize the Terrans, even for a personal agenda."

"And you...confirmed it? With that meeting just now?"

"You wanted to know about the ship information, right? It's pretty simple."

She pat his back and guided him to a seat in the room.

"Simply put, it was a bluff to fish for a reaction. We had no such information recorded in the encounter. What I gave them was exactly the specs of some gunships he owns off the record. The trail to their most recent location and use was erased, but his reaction helped connect the dots for us."

Ah...

Galou directly lied about not knowing information he by all rights should have recognized and disavowed any connection. It was an incredibly guilty response.

"We'll keep tracking his and his associate's movements for attempts to cover their tracks too, of course. Just to be sure."

"Do you intend to expose him once you secure the proof?"

Garag's tail swayed thoughtfully.

"The current plan is to first take that ship when we can find it."

"We can't give him time to hide it out of our reach, after all."

One of the desk workers chimed in and another followed suit.

Yes...that made sense.

"Actually, if Pateily territory is expecting that ship, then we could probably launch a little revenge raid of our own on one of their bases if we capture enough of them."

"No. We don't initiate hostile action like that. That's the sort of thing that creates grudges and fuels wars."

A third one added a suggestion, though Lana quickly shot it down with a frown.

The Uven shuffled awkwardly.

"Pardon. Should I be hearing this? I can take my leave if you're moving on to discuss future strategies."

The councilwoman shook her head with a soft smile returning to her face.

"No, it's fine. Don't be afraid to tell that Karnak about this if you have to."

What did that mean? Were they "fishing for information" again? Was it just not relevant?

Sometimes, these humans were hard to read.

The desk worker that spoke up earlier rested his head on a palm.

"Honestly though, it seems like that's where we're headed, isn't it? This guy has been trying to fight with us for weeks. It should be fine if we leave no traces, right? As long as he knows it's us, hitting the fatty apes hard and fast to teach them a lesson might finally get him to back off. Or at least let us check out their military tech before we come to blows."

That also made some sense, he supposed. Taking the initiative when they had it would reduce any damages they suffer.

""...!!""

Lana abruptly let out a deep sigh.

THUD.

"Mmph-!?"

"Wha-?!"

Garag jumped back on reflex as several of the humans leapt from their seats and forcefully dragged one of their own out of his. He was gagged and quickly pinned to the ground.

Shi Xi had drawn a pistol and was down on one knee to press it against the base of the restrained human's neck. His gaze, as was those of any desk worker who wasn't actively participating, was fixed on Lana.

What was going on...?

She slowly circled in front of the crowd and looked the pinned human in the eye.

"I tried to brush it off since we have a guest here, you know? Are you new? Even if you are, you should have received training for this already."

Somehow, Garag was reminded of his first proper meeting with Kent when they first locked eyes. Back then he was surprised by the lack of common emotions low-aggression species had in response to seeing an Uven.

This one was different. Lana wasn't indifferent as she stared down her subordinate, but she also didn't show any other emotion that he could decipher. Like he was meeting an alien for the first time and had no knowledge of their non-verbal cues.

"Mmph!?"

She spoke slowly and with a level voice as she knelt down.

"Let me spell it out. As representatives of humanity, we do not and must not initiate or escalate hostilities with other species. We don't start wars. We don't hit someone just because they hit us first. When we encounter a matter of life or death..."

Lana suddenly reached out and grabbed a fistful of the clerk's hair, wringing out another muffled yelp when she pulled his head back.

"We choose the option that deescalates away from war."

...Oh.

Garag...thought he had come to understand the humans by now. Their strength. Their gentleness. Their care. Their peacefulness.

"It's too bad because you do good work, but we obviously can't keep you around anymore. But we can't exactly let you go either, so let's put you in the brig until I have time to figure out what to do with you."

But it wasn't merely their nature. It was...intentional. It was a constant effort. It was a fact that they abhorred war, but how much of that was an active effort to hate it?

The Terran Councilwoman rose back to her feet whilst dusting herself off. The former subordinate was sedated by Shi Xi and dragged off.

"Sorry about this, Garag. I've put a real killjoy in our evening, haven't I?"

"...No, I think that was...an illuminating experience."

"That was pretty embarrassing."

He hadn't ever thought of the humans as extreme before. Intense, perhaps, but not to this extent. When it is said they hate war, they hated war madly. They would cut their own flesh to spite it. They w...They would let twelve of their own die to protect against it.

Could Garag do that? Was it feasible by the numbers? Is...

"Is something like this...the price of acquiring peace?"

=Author's Note=

I've had a scene like this in mind since I introduced Lana to contrast with Kent. Even though the two of them were friends and shared similar ideals, the original ambassador would have firmly but peacefully corrected the staff member here so they could do better.
A humanity that has people like Lana or Jacey isn't going to be an unproblematic version of mankind, but they can do their best and hopefully it's people like Asher or Kent that set the example.

There have been many a scrapped line where I've had to go "whoa there, that's too much character progression or themes for you to say", so it has also been nice that Garag has the maturity and intelligence to actually observe and monologue the scene plainly.

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There was public interest in the primals that’d been brought to Ushala, though few journalists were willing to sit in the same room as Kaitlin and Finley; after all, they could get their footage from security cameras and their storylines from “sapient” personnel. However, talking to a human would be juicy content, which was why Snelga began shopping around for FilmShare channels that’d bring the genius researcher on their show. The wide audiences of social media personalities would facilitate public outreach.

We had the perfect match for Kaitlin, when the largest Kexin PopSci channel invited her to a “special” studio for a livestream taping. As the first to dare to talk to a human, the views were all but guaranteed, and they could do a deeper introspective on primals! I hoped people in Council space would begin to see the truth; this was progress. Finley insisted on staying behind, and when I offered to remain with him, he said he wanted time alone.

Kaitlin would fit in perfectly on a PopSci channel, though I’m doubtful they’re respectful of her as an equal in their field. Still, her test results prove a lot.

Kaitlin frowned as the armored truck backed into a carefully-prepared tunnel, unloading her into a sealed part of the studio. “The Council arranged this…welcome?”

“I think they’re filming everything you do,” I whispered. “Smile.”

Snelga leaned closer to the human’s ear. “Kaitlin, sweetie…you’re very intelligent, so I’m sure you could guess this on your own, but I don’t know how accustomed you are to reading civilized people. I imagine they’ll want to set you up to fail by asking hard questions, or things that’ll make you angry, for content. That’s why I asked if you’re really sure you can avoid showing anger. We can always say you’re sick.”

“I can handle internet trolls and content creators,” Kaitlin chuckled. “I understand sensationalism and gotcha journalism. Don’t worry, Snelga. We’ve got this under control.”

“I hope you do, because we’re going to be kept in a separate room, so we can’t signal you or calm you. They’re…skeptical of the genius primal, though they happily marketed you that way.”

“I figured they might try to prompt a reaction from me. Thank you for trusting me with the reality, Snelga. I’m aware they’re using me for a viral moment, but I appreciate you looking out for me.”

The veterinarian showed some reassurance at Kaitlin’s evident comprehension, though she still seemed uneasy about letting a primal speak in front of a camera on her own. I thought back to filming my social media messages at NASA, and that internet gamesmanship was hardly a foreign concept to them. From behind the safety of glass walls, the crew directed Dr. Sharp to follow the overly large areas to the studio. Meanwhile, we were pulled out through a side door, and taken to a control room to watch the livestream.

Kaitlin seated herself in a chair by the microphone, placing the headset on without needing a prompt and waving at the pink-faced Kexin separated by a glass pane. “Hello! My name’s Dr. Kaitlin Sharp, and as someone who worked for a space agency back on Earth, I’m proud to represent humanity. I’m glad to be here; thank you for having me!”

“Thank you for joining us, Kaitlin. I’m Tolgor, the host of Sort-of-Science,” the Kexin replied, eyeing the primal warily. The show had handled her like a dangerous animal, aside from the technology given to her. “Can you read the chat in front of you? We’re live translating it to your language. Right now, I see a comment that the headphones look adorable on you.”

Kaitlin’s eyes flicked downward, and she nodded. “I can read it, yes. I’m excited to see what questions your viewers have about primals. I’m grateful you decided to tune in!”

So far so good, Kaitlin. I wonder, does she feel that burning beneath her skin of exasperation? Finley put it in terms I can understand.

I read the chat, finding myself a little disgruntled by some of the messages that were scrolling by quickly. 

• “The animal talks really well!”
• “a genius primal? As if dude…”
• “Please make the human lose control on camera Tolgor I’ll sub for a cycle”
• “how domesticated is it?”
• “be nice Kaitlin is reading this •\/•”
• “Why do you care Slinger_4?”
• “I want to hear what she has to say, primals are smart and she’s a cute, talking animal *,•,* It’s kind of mean since she can understand.”
• “Yeah we should be respectful to the animals. The council was ploaxcoded with this shit.”
• “It’s only an animal.”
• “Animals have feelings too!”
• “There’s no reason to hurt her.”
• “arent humans happier higher up? It would be more at ease in a tree. Tolgor shouldve given it an elevated space.”

Kaitlin flashed her teeth, laughing. “Our roots are arboreal, but humans adapted to living on the ground long, long ago. I’m quite happy with a chair.”

“I see you’ve already gotten the idea. I’m going to open the floor up to viewer questions,” Tolgor explained. “You can choose which ones to answer, but I might press you for more details or add in a few questions of my own. To clarify which you’re responding to, I ask you to highlight it on your screen, and I’ll read it out. Do you understand?”

“I do.” Her eyebrows knitted together as a deluge of questions came in, before she moved her cursor. “There, I selected one.”

Tolgor looked uncomfortable with her selection. “PrimalsAreCool asks, ‘Could you be angry for us right now?’”

“Ha, nice username, but no. Unfortunately for Tolgor’s view count, I’m afraid I can only make myself as angry as you can make yourself happy, sad, or any other emotion. It’s not a conscious decision. Most humans don’t like being angry either, so we generally avoid triggers and try not to stir those feelings if possible. In an instance where we’re angry, that means something is wrong or hurtful, which I think we mutually agree is negative.”

“What’s an example of something you find wrong or hurtful?”

“That varies from person to person! Anger can look very different in each individual human. While it’s an uncomfortable feeling—like I think any kind of hurt is, and I’m assuming you don’t want to hurt me—it doesn’t take over our faculties.” 

“Let me ask a more specific question then. How do we avoid making a primal angry? It seems like anything, no matter how minor, can set you off.”

“Clear communication and respect go a long way with us. You’ll find we’re pretty reasonable and that acting on anger, at least in any severe way, is rare and a last resort. Scientifically, which means I’ll leave it to you to add in the graphics and footnotes, anger is part of the fight-or-flight system. It places itself in the same family as fear, a response activated for survival.”

I surveyed the chat, gauging whether they’d listened to Kaitlin.

• “that response is like actually pretty reasonable •x•”
• “who taught the primal to talk like a person”
• “if this is what a ‘genius’ primal is I’m not impressed, all it’s doing is talking and nobody gives me points for that. like yay it can understand a lot of vocabulary.”
• “Kaitlin answered the question that was asked ,/\,”
• “i thought it was a good answer. clearly intelligent enough to put together a nice sentence. humans deserve more respect.”
• “animal rights nuts are working overtime to defend Kaitlin •¥•”
• “people wanted to know. she explained it.”
• “But why did the primal even pick that question?!”
• “Maybe it was all the poor animal could understand.”
• “•¥• o genius Kaitlin from the wilds, please tell us about quantum mechanics.”

Tolgor startled, as Kaitlin highlighted that last comment. “That…question? Primal, I believe they were being sarcastic.”

“I’m aware, but I’d love to talk science. Disclaimer that, as I’m sure your reasonable viewers know, no one can be an expert in all fields,” the NASA researcher began. “Any passing knowledge I have about the world and how things work, I’m happy to discuss! And our friend here mentioned one of these most mind-boggling fields. As one of our quantum physicists, Richard Feynman, said, ‘If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t.’”

“You have ‘quantum physicists’ who are considered experts just for saying that? So humans can’t begin to understand such a complicated field.”

“I didn’t say we can’t begin to understand, but rather that the field defies full comprehension and goes against the laws that apply on a broader scale. It merely goes against intuition of how the world works, since it’s mired with contradictions and complicated interactions! It dabbles in uncertainty, making it impossible to measure specific data points.”

“Kaitlin, do you understand anything more than it being complicated and uncertain, or should we move on? Your vocabulary won’t pass as understanding.”

Kaitlin blinked forcefully, before pulling out her smartphone. “What I’m holding in my hand is the most fine-tuned, mass-engineered uses of quantum physics in human history. The transistors here use parts that are mere nanometers: you could fit hundreds of thousands on the tip of a finger. Incredibly precise machines place them together—it’s a technological marvel.”

“What is your point?”

“That when you’re dealing with parts that small, you have to account for quantum mechanics. In fact, you rely on them for the device to function. Memory storage works by quantum tunneling. The electron’s probability clouds allow them to pass through gates that’d otherwise be impenetrable barriers. This stores this charge as needed to indicate a 1 in binary coding.”

“Impressive linguistics. Did you memorize that answer?”

“No.” Annoyance flashed in Kaitlin’s eyes, though I figured I was the only one who could recognize it. “I assure you, humans are more than capable of learning complex topics. Could a simple animal have explained any of that?”

“An animal who was coached and is able to memorize words. Your test is believed by many to be an elaborate hoax; you’re a primal.”

“That I am capable of feeling anger has no bearing on my intelligence.” The human was silent for a long moment, before returning to a placid smile and a warmer tone of voice. “Skepticism is a healthy trait of any scientist though, as you and your viewers must well know! I don’t blame you for thoroughness. Why don’t you ask me questions I couldn’t possibly prepare for?”

Tolgor leaned forward. “Okay, astrophysicist. Describe what a pulsar is.”

“A neutron star that rotates quite quickly and emanates radiation. That beam can be seen from planetary observation at regular intervals! It’s generated by the pulsar’s magnetic field, which is misaligned with its rotation axis. It’s also quite high-energy, so I don’t imagine you’d want to fly your ships through gamma rays. Ohh, we actually discovered a new millisecond pulsar in the last few years, which was an exciting find!”

• “damn shes smart •x• I’m sold”
• “A cute animal explaining science things. More Kaitlin?”
• “she should narrate videos instead of tolgor he fell off honestly and he’s unfunny”
• “then why are you in his chat?”
• “…you’re right. Goodbye.”
• “maybe I’m dumber than a primal but what is a millisecond pulsar?”

Kaitlin highlighted the last question in the chat, smiling softly. “Hey, you’re not dumb. Never be afraid to ask questions; that’s the only way you’ll learn the answers. For what little my opinion counts, I think asking questions and being able to learn from each other is the sign of an intelligent species! That just means the pulsar rotates in mere milliseconds. Incredible magnetic fields. We use them to study relativity and learn more about binary star systems.”

“Okay, you know pulsars. Let’s…leave astrophysics,” Tolgor decided. “The Ploax are autotrophs. Explain what that means.”

The primal’s face brightened, genuine enthusiasm twinkling in her eyes. “I didn’t know that—about the Ploax, I mean! Xenobiology is something I could read about for hours, but what I know immediately is that makes them different from Craun. It means they can use abiotic natural resources, like plants do with sunlight and photosynthesis, to make food.”

“Yes, that’s…correct. You know, um, some science. That can’t be accurate; oh, you probably didn’t study anything else. I’ve got it—math! What’s a polynomial, primal?”

Kaitlin stared at Tolgor in disbelief, before she burst out laughing. “Guys, I explained quite thoroughly what a pulsar and an autotroph are. I know what a polynomial is; I made it through middle school algebra just fine as a child. Maybe ask me what 2+2 is next?”

• What’s 2+2?

“Yes, very funny. I see a sense of humor transcends planets,” Kaitlin snorted. “Can I tell a joke? It’s for a friend.”

Tolgor made a “Go Ahead” gesture. “The chat won’t forgive me if they miss this.”

“It’s a human style joke. Ahem. A lousy cheat, an unhygienic influencer, and an alien walk into a bar. The bartender says, ‘Hello, Craun Chelton.’”

“Hey!” I protested. “What did I do?”

“What did you not do?” Snelga grumbled.

The chat, unfortunately, was lapping up the jab toward me.

• “laughing my feathers off!”
• “even the primals hate craun for tampering with them ~X~”
• “yeah shes right craun is a shitty cheater like actual animals knew immediately”
• “Kaitlin is way smarter than an animal”
• “pleaselikethis isntstaged”
• “•|• nothing is real. Space your words”
• “nothatsan extrakeystroke”
• “but you space them every 3?”
• “maybeIdo ormaybenotgotyou.”
• “Craun is a basement-dwelling asshole who’s basically a poacher *,•,*”
• “Yeah, that cute primal knows why she wound up here. This whole mess is Craun’s fault for making the animals attack on his behalf.”

“That was friendly banter. I adore Craun and that’s why I’m teasing him,” Kaitlin piped up. “There’s no need to be mean-spirited over a refugee who’s suffered an enormous, terrible loss with no help from anyone. I empathize with his desperation and what he’s been through, and I think it’s unkind to judge him for that. The Saphnos deserve better.”

Tolgor cleared his throat, straightening his feathers. “As do you, Kaitlin. Would you like to tell the chat about your sickness?”

“There’s not much to tell. I’m sick with a disease called ALS, which causes motor neurons to rapidly degenerate. I am slowly losing control of my body…right now, it’s shaking and weakness, but eventually I’ll be paralyzed and unable to speak. Before that, I’ll be unable to do basic, daily things for myself. It’s a terminal prognosis. Once I lose the…ability to breathe, that’s what will likely cause my ultimate death. My time with you is…short.”

• “awww…”
• “poor primal!”
• “no, that’s so sad *,•,*”
• “I actually liked her.”
• “But she’s so cute. She’s a talking science primal who got taken away from her home just to suffer more!”
• “I feel so bad for Kaitlin.”
• “And you all were making fun of the dying human! I told you to be nice to her.”
• “look how she just accepts it instead of lashing out.”
• “If she’s sick, maybe she’s too tired to be angry.”
• “So if we cure her, she’ll scream and shout more?”
• “Yeah PrimalsAreCool, it seems more likely.”
• “Take my wallet!”

Tolgor struck a sympathetic expression. “You have my condolences, Kaitlin. The good news is there are two things those of you in the chat can do! The veterinarian housing this primal hopes to genetically engineer away this terrible disease, but she’ll need your support. You can donate to the fundraiser linked for researching a cure. You can also share this video, with Kaitlin talking and explaining her story, with the world.”

“Any help would be very much appreciated,” Kaitlin said, a sad look on her face. “My dream was to talk to aliens. Humans are the first primals to have a civilization, and I’d like to believe our civilizations can be friends. I wish I had more time to spend with you, but if you can’t help me, I can only beg you to give my people an honest chance.”

“You’re…very well-spoken, especially for what you are. Our time is up, and I know you need to rest because of your sickness. Any last words for our viewers, before I let you go?”

Kaitlin beamed, waving at the camera. “Please, take care of yourselves! I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day, and I’ll see you again soon.”

Snelga and I breathed a sigh of relief as the NASA researcher exchanged pleasantries with Tolgor, then saw herself back out of the studio. Sort-of-Science and their viewers had tried to rile Kaitlin up and paint her as stupid, but she’d risen above it; I shouldn’t have doubted that a mind as brilliant as hers could navigate this scenario. All in all, I hoped that this would raise awareness for both her condition and how intelligent humans were. 

A public outreach campaign could be powerful to change Council citizens’ hearts and minds.

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The sky above Sector 4 was the color of a fresh bruise, bruised purple, it was weeping ash. Down below, in the trenches, the human garrison was whittled down to its final battery cell.

No, they weren't soldiers by trade. When the Fleet arrived, only teachers, architects, and gardeners could be counted among them. But the stars don't care about people who valued peace above all else, and the orbital strikes had burned away every distinction between who people used to be and what was left of them.

Julian commanded the post, but he feared there won’t be many days or hours left of that honor, with his left arm wrapped in a crude, burnt tourniquet. Vael, a massive, four-meter-tall Voulian heavy-support unit, sat beside him. Voulians were built like tanks. They looked awesome, like imposing living granite, their species bred for interstellar conquest, before they shattered the chains, joined the coalition of free worlds. That was before today, of course, where the free was under quite a bit of artillery fire.

Voulians supposedly had no fear for anything. And not only that, but they were meant to outlive everyone.

"Julian," Vael’s voice rumbled through the localized audio translator; tectonic plates grinding. "The thermal readings.” Was there just the slightest hint of tremble in the big fella’s voice? “From your primary artery. The readings are dropping. You….”

Julian didn't look down at his side, where his tunic had stiffened into a dark, glossy crust. "It’s nothing, big guy. L-Leaning back on an old cliché. Just a scratch." He smiled above the pain.

"That is a statistical lie," Vael replied, gently placing a crushing, four-fingered hand, usually designed to rip armored bulkheads apart, against Julian's uninjured shoulder with an unexpected tenderness. "Your kind is terribly fragile. You burn out if you are too brave.”

“I wasn’t too brave today, Vael. I let us down.”

“No. You gave them. Hell. There was just. Too many.”

"Yeah," Julian smiled again, weakly, and he coughed up a streak of red that he quickly wiped away with the back of his hand. "Sorry. Though you rockhead should we all right. Me? I’ll burn out like a human.”

Outside, the screech of atmospheric re-entry ripped through the air. The swarm was returning. Ordinarily, Julian would be fearful but today, he was rather feeling light about it. The synthetic intelligence that controlled the invading armada, a system that viewed organic life as meat, was launching its final wave. There was no evacuation ships left nor was there cavalry on the horizon.

There was only the two of them.

"Vael," Julian whispered, his vision blurring at the edges as the gray edges of exhaustion crept into his sight. "Do you remember what you told me about your homeworld? Before the war?"

"The Valley of Singing Glass," Vael murmured, his massive optic sensors dimming to a soft, amber glow in order to conserve power. "The winds blow through the crystalline spires. It makes a sound. Like a thousand chimes ringing at once. My people used to sit beneath them. For centuries, listening to the passage. Of time."

"Must be nice," Julian breathed, his head leaning heavily against Vael’s armored chest plate. It was freezing cold, but it felt solid. It felt like a wall against something terrible. Something terrible…like death, he supposed. "To have a song that lasts forever."

"Your kind has songs, Julian."

"Yeah. But they’re short as heck. Three minutes, maybe four. Then they j-just kinda end."

"Perhaps," Vael said, his voice dropping to a low hum that trembled through the trench floor, "that is why they are so bright. A fire that burns for an eternity is just like any cold star. Yours... yours hurt to look at."

A deafening roar split the sky. The first wave of drone-hound infantry crested the ridge, their crimson optics locked onto the trench, and Julian shuddered, knowing he himself and his friend were the targets.

His fingers tightened around the grip of his plasma rifle. He tried to raise it, but his arms refused to obey, darn bastards. The weight of the weapon proved too much. The weight of the world was too much.

"Vael," Julian whispered, tears finally cutting clean tracks through the ash on his cheeks. "I'm scared. I don't want to go. I don’t want you to get taken.” More importantly, I don’t want to die. Is that cowardly? No. Yes. I’m a coward…I’m…

No. You fought for days. You held off insurmountable odds. Even Vael was surprised. And now you’re going to die while he lives, on, as a member of his immortal race, that Vael, Julian’s friend…

Julian was jolted out of his thoughts by a violent screech of tearing metal. He looked up in shock. Vael had ripped off his own central core-plate, showing his primary thermal reactor to the open air. The red glow of his life-force spilled out, illuminating the grim walls of the trench in a warm light.

"You need not be in the dark, little builder," Vael said softly. Yes, before this, before this war, Julian had been an architect on earth. He had joined the coalition to protect space from the armada and not only that but to find his brother Dave. He reached out and wrapped his massive, heavy arms completely around Julian, forming an impenetrable cage of warm, living stone against the freezing onslaught of the enemy. "I am a Voulian. My internal furnace can sustain a localized discharge for three minutes. Exactly enough time, I’d think."

"Vael…n-n-no! What are you doing? You’ll melt your core! You’ll die!"

"I am three hundred years old, Julian. I have heard the glass song a thousand times," the giant whispered, resting his massive head against Julian's shoulder. "Let me—”

The first drone leaped into the trench, its claws flashing.

Inside the embrace of his friend, Julian felt the cold fade away, along with his fear, his terror, his doubts. They were replaced by a radiant heat. He closed his eyes, his breathing slowing. And as the sounds of battle echoed distantly against the shell of the armor protecting him, Julian began to hum, a soft, uncertain and innocent melody from a childhood he had mostly forgotten until now. In exchange for what his friend had given him, he offered a song from the human world.

It was shaky. And it was most definitely out of tune, more blood than words.

And it was the most magnificent thing the stars had ever heard.

Three minutes later, the valley fell silent. The red glow in the trench faded to a dull, gray ash, buried beneath the quiet snow of a world that had just perished. But deep within that silence, the echo of a brief and tangible song lingered, refusing to go away.

First

(Sorry for delay, still recovering from yesterday.)

Undying Blues

“Is it really that bad?”

“Lady Ungora once being Lady Wurana would be an insult and injury far greater than the wholeness of the war so far. By several orders of magnitude at least. La’ahbaron would take it not only personally, but deeply personally. It would justify everything she’s ever done out of paranoia and cause her to double, if not triple down. For all the faults of the La’ahbaron empire, they are relatively tame, they would each and every one grow to be much, much more extreme if knowledge of Ungora and her original identity would come out.”

“The Lady says that she’s not that person and was reborn. That she truly began life as an immortal.”

“Did she? Again, I respectfully request to hear what she told you of her origin. Again, the truth she gave you and the truth she gave to me are likely different, as truth can be a nebulous thing and shifts depending on who is hearing it.”

“What does that mean?” Sue’Li asks and he smiles.

“Well, to use an overly simple example. A knife might be something dangerous to you at times, but to me it’s something that cuts up food into bite sized pieces. They’re not dangerous at all. That’s because you are a Vish and I am an Ibu. Likewise, my being seen and recognized on sight is something I find very ordinary. But I’d wager is unusual to you. All these things are truths, but notice they’re different. Most things in life are like that. It’s why Facts and Truths are different. Make sense?”

“It does but... you’re loyal to La’ahbaron. I’m not sure you’d like to hear the story as the lady tells it.”

“I’m adult enough to know that you’re just repeating what someone else said. Getting upset at you for it is the action of a child. And I haven’t been a child in a long time. Likely longer than you’ve been alive.” Danburi assures her and she nods.

“Okay well...” She looks towards the machine whee the clothing is being washed. “I think we can get a summary of it out before the clothing finishes. “Her story begins upon a world where death and life had blended together as one. Where it was sanity and self control that died as the people and beasts were rendered immortal. She had found that world in a search for answers and had found answers not to her questions, but to questions she had yet to even imagine.”

“The Lady Ungora was reborn upon that world. In the temple of smoke where the sane and sober of the immortal sought to tame their inner discord she, as a mighty Ibu, was already well practised in the art and needed little, if any of their teaching. But she sought truth regardless and abided within the temple for a time. Learning to add their ways to her own refinement. But she didn’t stay satisfied for long and pushed out from the temple, testing herself against the mad, the violent and the twisted. She fought other immortals in all their forms and sought out a way to conquer endless life.” Sue’Li says.

“Stop skipping details!” One of the laundry girls protests. “This is the best part! Let me explain it to him!”

“Very well.” Sue’Li permits her.

“Thank you, oh named one.”

“Do you want a name?” Danburi asks and the would be storyteller pauses and stares.

“Uh... maybe?”

“Yun. It is a common shortening of Yunun. Meaning dutiful.” He says and there is stillness.

“I am Yun. I am... dutiful.” She says to herself. “Dutiful Yun! Yun the dutiful!”

There is laughter and a sense of relief to her tone. Names hold power, and he just gave her some. Now what will she do with it?

“Yun, if you’re so dutiful, then why not continue the story you were so eager to tell?” Sue’Li asks.

“Oh! Yes! I shall! Now your aunt, Lady Ungora, though she had yet to earn her name proper then, was seeking out a scholar she had heard rumours of. Granted the rumours were from the blood flecked lips of madwomen. But it was better than nothing. Her search brought her to a great snow choked canyon. Where every instinct relating to danger cried out to never enter it. Even the madwomen immortals in the area were being cautious, for they had cloaked themselves in white to blend in with the snow and pale flowers that grew in abundance despite the cold.”

“It didn’t take her long to find what had her so on edge. The winds shifting direction caused the light snow to blow against and start piling ever so on a massive creature that was watching carefully. It was a white serpent of such size that even The Lady was shorter than it’s fangs.

There was a rush of movement and the pink of it’s inner mouth as it suddenly lunged at her with such speed that even though she dodged the blow, the shockwave of the serpent striking the ground where she had stood knocked her further back and sent her skidding through the snow. By reflex she hurled her orojo with all the force she could muster, and couldn’t even dent a scale on the titanic monster.

But The Lady was resolved and unwilling to surrender to anything. Death had been stripped from her, so anything even resembling caution had been torn away. She charged forward even as the serpent rose up. It struck down and she jumped to meet it. It’s fangs slid off her Ibu skin and it’s jaws came down with the force to crush stone.

She caught them, standing in it’s mouth even as she slowly broke teeth and the tongue of the creature lashed at her. It thrashed, it roared, but it did not have the sense to stop biting her. Until it drove it’s head into the stone with such force that she was swept into the gullet of the monster.”

“She was eaten alive?” He asks.

“It’s not like she could die. But as she had lost her grip she was pushed further and further down into the gullet of the monster, a wall of broken stone and melted snow following her down. The internals of the beast were with crushing strength and axiom sapping nature designed to allow the monster to digest it’s food. But The Lady, like all others of the world were immortal. She was not alone down there. Others were as well, suffering in the gullet. Unable to die. Unable to breathe or see or hear or smell. All they had was their numbed sense of touch to navigate through the hell of eternal torment.

Around her the stone was broken to gravel, then the gravel ground down to sand and the sand faded entirely to reinforce the unnatural scales of the monster.

Then she found another. They thrashed, panicked and then she placed a palm on their brow. She heard their thoughts, impossible screams and hellish pain. She knew the true danger then. It wasn’t digestion, it was the desolation of the mind. On the mad world where death was undone the greatest defeat wasn’t death, it couldn’t be. It was surrender. Surrender to the torment, to the pain. So she commanded the Tret, using the Axiom to instill her desires into her mind. Giving her focus, giving her purpose. And she sought out the others.” Yun continues and Danburi nods in rapt attention.

“Eventually her plan got around to all the others and they all began to pull as hard on the Axiom as they could, pulling and pulling until Null detonated out. Everyone dropped, but somehow, no one died. The snake wasn’t fond of that though and began thrashing. Over and over again it thrashed and squirmed as they Nulled the monster from the inside time and again until a massive flood of water poured in and the tunnel within the monster was opened by the water.

They were swept through it’s digestive tract and out into the light. But The Lady was greatly wroth with the monster and unwilling to let it simply leave without at leas a marking of her rage. Even if it was immortal as she, she grasped the tip of it’s tail near where she was swept out and began to exert as much might as she could muster without Nulling herself.

Around the base of a great tree she pulled the tail of the monster and tied it into a knot, then, knowing it would free itself shortly, she climbed the tree with great vigour and tore a branch asunder into many massive shards of sharp wood. Endowing them with Axiom she thrust the wood shards into the muscles and joints between the beast, paralyzing it and pinning it to the mighty tree.

But that was just the prelude to her proper plan. For with the serpent trapped she landed upon the roots of the tree and directed it to drink deep of the surrounding waters and life. Much of the forest withered and began to rot as that singular tree grew and grew, up and out, the wood slowly enveloping the serpent. In short order it began to thrash and roar in pain and confinement. It understood that for the first time since it had been endowed with endless power and life, it was now losing and would lose further.

She stopped it from biting away parts of it’s body and forced the creature to scream and squirm. She struck the beast in the head through the socket of the eye and stunned it before binding it’s head to the tree. She then caused it to grow further until the tree, already massive completely enveloped the serpent. Then she slew the tree and tore out it’s water before setting it ablaze. Forcing the heat into the monster harder and harder until nothing but ashes remained.”

“An incredible fight, but how did she learn anything from that? Beyond her new immortality being immune to Null of course.” He asks.

Because within the ashes, and she is to this day uncertain if it was within the tree or within the serpent, was a strange stone. It was a disk with holes and an engraving of numbers and a strange series of lines on one side. According to the Lady, learning that the holes represented the brightest stars in the sky took a long time. The numbers were the day of the year, and the line showed the scenery. A place she must stand to find what it concealed.”

“That is incredibly convoluted and prone to failure.” Danburi protests.

“That’s because Yun got it wrong. She’s misremembered, the numbers were not a time, they were coordinates for the largest mountain in the world. She deciphered it by standing upon it’s peak and raising the disk to the sky until the brightest stars shone through each hole. Then she lowered it to find the place on the horizon that matched the remaining markings. It gave her directions to another temple. One that was... most bizarre.”

“Bizarre how?” Danburi asks but moments before the washing is finished. “Oh... please keep going.”

“Well, when she arrived there was a scroll flapping in the wind. One that stated she must conquer that which blinds her to her follies, that which deafens her to wisdom, that which whispers lies and that most terrible thing within. Then, after reading the scroll a great haze came over the world and it shimmered. She was suddenly atop a temple in the sky, but she was not alone. Four terrible beasts stalked the halls. One hunted with baleful red eyes, another listened for her and would scream to alert the others, a third would echo the screams of it’s fellows and bringing swarms of the screeching undying. Then finally was the fourth. It was cunning. It was clever and quiet. It stayed away, kept it’s distance and until it was slain like it’s kin the great illusion remained. But after slaying them, she entered the temple and found portraits of them. Complete with the wounds she had heaped upon the beasts.”

“What could possibly have been protected by such strange guardians and riddles?” Danburi asks in wonder. Every inch the attentive and fascinated audience.

“Death was there.” Yun says. “All the world’s death banished into a single blade. One so deadly it brought the deathless to their knees to merely gaze upon it. And to hold it unsheathed rendered the wielder mortal again. For a time at least.”

“Oh...” Danburi notes. He wasn’t expecting THIS information. But he should have something to compare to when she tells him this part. “Hmm... when she told me of her time on that world she focused much on what immortality did to the unworthy and the frail, and how herbs and a great deal of meditation was required for those who were not her to handle the immortality.”

“Really?”

“Really. Perhaps she meant to teach me about my own new state and how to live with it, as she likely meant to teach you of her power and worthiness to lead.”

First Last

Sister Catherine 

It’s a scary time to be in the city of Triumph's Seat. It’s really the only way she could term it. She'd been in places like this before in the course of her ministry. Kosovo in particular had been... tense. Like Triumph's Seat is tense. Right before all of Hell had broken loose on Earth in ways that she sometimes wishes she could forget. If there’s one thing she’s cursed her restored youth for, it’s that her mind is suddenly sharp and agile again. The better to carry the Cross and bear witness, of course, but with that blessing comes its price - and the price for Sister Catherine is remembering blackened bodies from fire, children missing limbs from landmines or from getting too close to an unexploded bomb. All manner of nightmares and terrors... and it hardly stops there. 

She had followed the call where people had had need of her and the mercy of Christ. That had meant going to very dark and unpleasant places at times. War-torn sub-Saharan African countries, narco states in South America, even deep into lands dominated by Islam, where she'd been advised to hide her habit and wear a local head dress instead, lest militants decide that a sister of Christ was a particularly choice target for torture and beheading. All the sadder that those men who would have so harmed her if they'd decided it suited their flights of fancy, or whatever the demons that lived in their heads told them God wanted... proclaimed to worship the same God as she. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. How one could read the same things she had, see things she had, and then come to such horrendously different conclusions is not something Sister Catherine is truly prepared to interrogate even after she'd gotten more education on the subject.  

Still, even in the face of what had seemed likely a painful death, she hadn't hidden then. Had carried the cross with pride. If it had been her time, if she had been called to martyrdom, then so be it. She would not question God's plan for her life. For the challenge set before her. 

Thankfully, that had not been her fate then, but now she’s in a similar situation. Instead of angry men, the streets are filled with angry women, as word of crackdowns and large-scale brawls with security forces spread across the city. The chaos is coming again, like it always does, like it always will. Her brother had been a Marine, God rest his soul. He'd always kept one recruiting poster up in his home, all the way to his hospice room before his death. She has it tucked away in her things up in orbit, one of her meager personal possessions. In times like this, she thinks of her brother, and she thinks of that poster: Marines running into action with weapons ready, followed by armored vehicles rumbling ashore out of the sea, emblazoned with the slogan 'Marines Move Towards The Sounds Of Chaos'.

It’s a good poster. One that had always inspired a young Catherine, and had even had her looking at becoming a Marine herself once upon a time… but she'd gotten a very different kind of call after a close brush with death in her late teens; like her brother had never looked back when he'd received his call, she'd never looked back when she received hers. Still, while she was no Marine... Catherine liked to think that, in her own way, she too runs towards the sounds of chaos. 

She hadn't hid from chaos back on Earth, and wouldn't hide from chaos now. Joan wants her to, but Joan's concern is protecting Catherine's life and person, not looking after the masses that are her charge. She’s no priest, but she could be a shepherd of these women, just as Christ had called his priests to be shepherds of men. This is her duty, her calling; just as a warrior carries the sword and goes to battle, so would Catherine go to carry the cross. 

That's what she had said in the shelter of the safehouse, of course. It had sounded very impressive in her mind, and Joan had even accepted the argument… but now that she’s out on the streets, things are looking very dicey indeed. Being unafraid, not allowing yourself to be intimidated or silenced by those who would see you on your knees, is one thing. It’s quite another thing to willingly shove one's head between a lion's jaw. There is in fact such a thing as tempting God, if one acts without prudence. 

Out here... she’s thinking now that she might have acted with less prudence than might have otherwise been optimal. 

The public squares are all filling up, packed to the gills with women forming different groups, some of whom are clearly antagonizing each other. The shouting is a constant roar now, only broken by the occasional sound of weaponsfire from other parts of the city, which certainly add to the general anxiety. Even from here, it’s clear to see that one of the matrician estates, those shining manor houses on the hill... is burning, and everyone says the Praetorians were the cause. 

The BeeGees, the new security forces recruits, barely trained - and, Catherine suspects, many from 'questionable' backgrounds compared to what one would like for a real police officer - are all over the place too, and it’s clear they were in over their heads. She knew this type of person all too well from her travels on Earth. They aren't police officers; they’re the regime's thugs, and violence is their first and only course of action if intimidation and threats don't keep the populace docile. 

It’s a volatile mix. A powder keg. But through it all she’s done her best to help people, praying with some, encouraging others, handing out some food and coin to try and get the few homeless women who normally call the square home off the streets for the night in case things turn violent. Simply trying to be a voice of reason... but as so often happens with a quiet and calm voice, she’s being drowned out by shouting. 

Her one great relief in all of this has been Jaina. Her most fervent convert. Once things are quiet again - or, even better, once the mission the Undaunted had in this place, whatever it is, is over - she would take Jaina up to the Tear. To see Father Jameson. Jaina had asked to be baptized, something that thrilled Catherine to her very heartstrings. 

The thought is a happy note on a day that is not a happy one. The skies of Dagrquey are blood-red as the sun heads towards the horizon. Believer she is, but superstitious Catherine generally is not... but that certainly looks ominous to her. 

She tries to keep it out of her mind as she quietly prays with a small group of women, aided by Jaina and watched over by Joan and her sisters. The whole situation makes the Sword of St. Catherine, the sword of Joan of Arc, weighs heavily (if only metaphorically) in its concealed axiom pocket. God had sent a sword to the stars along with the cross and His faithful. Would the sword find its purpose here among the Ha'quinye, on this world so far from Earth?

"Our father who art in heaven..." 

A scream from across the plaza interrupts her group as they start another rendition of the Lord's Prayer, a wordless shriek that ends in the electrical sizzle of a shock pistol discharging. The scent of ozone is suddenly strong in the air as someone nearby shouts "They're coming!" 

It makes sense, in the end. That the BeeGees and their mistresses would do something about this gathering. If they’re cracking down on the matricians, the upper class, then it was always only a matter of time until the Ha'quinye imperial boot returned to its habitual resting place on the neck of the plebians. Apparently that time is now. 

"This is an illegal assembly! Disperse and return to your homes or you will be fired on!" A woman's monotone voice across a public address system is met immediately with shouts and retaliation. Joan starts moving towards where Catherine and Jaina are kneeling with the others... and things slow down, as adrenaline fills Catherine's veins at the 'snap crack' sound that she knows is the discharge of a rail gun. 

Someone had fired. She'd never know for sure if it was a security officer with an itchy trigger finger, or if some woman in the crowd had retaliated towards their oppressors, but everything immediately goes to Hell in a moment, in a way she'd never been personally involved in before. She'd been there for the aftermath. The pain. The crying. The weeping. 

Now she’s here for the bleeding - and bleed people would, as the BeeGees begin opening fire with their laser weapons, and the entire plaza is suddenly moving as people desperately try to get away. 

For all her talk of chaos, just minutes before, this is chaos of a kind she's never seen before. Never understood. Not really. She thought she'd run towards chaos... but now she understands in an all too horrible way what being on ground zero of the chaos is actually like. People rush in every direction, desperate to escape the laser fire from the BeeGees, but there are already mech suits moving in from another direction nearby, armed and armored riot troopers and spear-wielding praetorians start to move in behind them. One of the mech troopers responds to a rock thrown at her cockpit with ruthless lethal force. 

Catherine can feel Joan's armored hand on her, trying to pull her away, but a screaming child stumbles right in front of the stomping feet of the mech suit... and Catherine lunges for the child with all of her strength, yanking the little one clear as they collapse in a heap. 

People rush around them as Catherine covers the girl with her body, feet stepping all over her as Joan swears in the distance. 

"Out of the way, damn it! Let me get to the sister!" 

Jaina's voice is much closer, the bold young woman, fighting through the crowd, resisting going for the weapon Catherine is certain she has. Before long she's by Catherine's side, shooing people back and helping her up. The girl is carried off almost immediately by a terrified mother as another wave of troops flood into the plaza. 

"We have to go!" Jaina says, pulling on Catherine's arm. As they turn to leave, though, it's already far too late. Catherine can practically feel it in her bones before the shock truncheon descends on her, catching her across the shoulders and laying her out flat on the paving stones next to Jaina. 

Jaina tries to resist; Catherine can tell because the guardswomen give her a few more blows, and a couple savage kicks besides. In moments they're bound and being dragged along towards air cars set up to haul prisoners... but a golden armored figure suddenly intervenes. 

"Ah. That one. We've been looking for her. She goes to the palace dungeons."

"Yes, ma'am," the BeeGee frog marching Sister Catherine along, says.

"What about this one?" The second BeeGee says, emphasizing Jaina with a rabbit punch to the ribs that makes Catherine wince, even though Jaina doesn't react at all. 

"...Take them both. You checked them for weapons?"

"This one." Jaina's guard again. "Had a rail pistol, in addition to the usual laser pistol and a knife. She might have been the shooter." 

"Hmm. What about the other one?"

"She's a holy woman and an off-worlder. She didn't have axiom pockets in the usual spots." Catherine's guard says dismissively. 

"Some holy woman. Guess her goddess was out to lunch today. Throw them in our APC. We'll take them from here." 

Both guards salute, and begin to drag them towards the waiting Praetorian vehicle. They’re being taken to the palace, and for some reason, that seems like a very, very bad thing to Catherine. Once they’re alone... she would need to pray. 

It’s about the only thing she could do in this nightmare, and she would not be found wanting. 

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Down and down they walked into the depths, Rin's blade carving deep, wavy curls into the wall to keep them anchored in place amongst the endless spirals. The strange lightlessness of this realm was ever-apparent, almost crushing in its own way. Logically, Rin knew it made it easier to see, but her instincts screamed that something was wrong every time she glanced towards a corner where a shadow should live. It reminded her of a still and silent forest, the song of birds and insects alike quieted by the presence of some terrifying predator.

Glancing over her shoulder, she looked to Yosuke, making sure that the undead wasn't far behind her. The corpse-swordsman 'met' her gaze as best he could with no eyes and nodded. He held his pair of blades, still slick with blackened ichor from the slaughter above, in an almost casual stance, although as a fellow expert, Rin could see the hidden tension in his every step.

She opened her mouth, about to ask if he had sensed anything, before shutting it and huffing in annoyance. How troublesome it was that he couldn't speak; when it came to a fight, as the Nameless surely wouldn't leave their treasures unguarded, she could warn him if he were getting outflanked, but he was unable to extend her the same courtesy.

Turning back around, their march into the depths continued, and Rin was starting to doubt herself. Down and down they went. How deep did this nest go? Had she misunderstood the mechanics at play and the Greater Nameless found a way to entrap them in an eternal loop despite her best efforts?

Her heart dropped, but she continued regardless.

She hoped Sensei was alright. Lady Yuki had seemed so terribly worried about him, about how he might not be himself when they next saw him. The thought of anyone being able to break someone so strong and bearing such an indomitable spirit with casual ease was as foreign to her as walking outside to a green sky.

If the worst came to pass, if she had to fight him… Well, even if she wasn't immediately crushed by a man who doubtlessly had decades or centuries more experience than her, she questioned if her will would be strong enough to strike out at one so kind.

Rin wished a thousand misfortunes on Yuki's 'sister' for forcing them into such dire straits, but she dared not speak her venom aloud, lest the nogitsune somehow hear. If she were even half the kitsune that Yuki was, Rin doubted her chances in an honourable fight, even with Yosuke's backing.

She just needed to have faith in her sensei and Lady Yuki. The two of them were much more powerful than her and Yosuke; with luck, their foes would be too distracted to react to Rin’s part in their daring plan before it was too late.

All at once, the air twisted. Where there had once been an inoffensive mustiness permeating the tunnel, there was suddenly the heavy scent of damp coin. Below it, an undercurrent of faint decay, reminding Rin of the time she had spotted the carcass of a whale upon the shore when she was seven. 

It was fresh when she first saw it, near where her family's ship was moored during a voyage to give offerings to their patron. In her youth, she had mistaken it for sleeping and believed the whale must have gotten tired of all the swimming and needed a break, although she had never asked the caretakers her father assigned to her.

The following days, as the colossal beast slowly putrefied and scavengers emerged from every nook and cranny to tear chunks from its form in a great feast, were enlightening.

Shaking herself from her reverie, Rin narrowed her eyes, gripping her blade tightly. It was a good thing it was made of such fine materials; otherwise, she would have feared her strength would split the handle in twain. "Stay on guard. We approach the stench of decay and money," Rin gravely whispered, unsure if her companion still had a sense of smell.

The stench only grew stronger as they descended, clinging to Rin's nostrils like it was desperate to be noticed. Yet, even though the rot grew more apparent, it didn't become much more pungent. Whatever she was sensing was fresh, without the time to fester into something worse.

Down.

Down.

Then, after they rounded one last curve, they beheld an ocean.

Stretching out into the distance before them was a solid sheet of twisted, blackened limbs, forming dunes and valleys of bodies. They were frozen in waves upon an abyssal sea, thick fog smothering the spaces between them in an unnatural haze. Rin dropped into a ready stance, holding her blade out as if to cut the tide should it crash upon her. 

But no grim tide of beasts rushed out to meet her. 

At first, she suspected that they were sleeping, but nothing but the grave and stone was so still. Looking more closely, she saw that hardly a tenth of the limbs were still attached to their owners. Some were torn, some clearly severed. Some abdomens were split from the body, and others were seemingly sawn in two. A scant few almost seemed to have melted like snow in the summer sun, bodies blossoming into grim flowers of chitin and meat.

What stood before her was once an army, one that might have once torn the region asunder in a storm of self-perpetuating expansion and looting. Now, it was a sea of corpses, disassembled into neat parts to make sure none of them yet clung to life.

Slowly, Rin lowered her blade, her heart slowing along with it. Only the heavens knew how many thousands of bodies were here, but, thankfully, they were nothing more than that.

"I believe we found where the ones that Lord Hall starved went," she quietly muttered to her companion. Had the beast at the head of the swarm lost control of its flock and been forced to cull them? It happened so quickly, too. Men could last weeks without food, days without water, but the spiders seemed to need riches like a mortal needed air. Now that she was looking more carefully, Rin could see Kiku's handiwork on some of the bodies, too. It seemed like she was forced to aid in the slaughter. If the Nameless’ number had found themselves cut from sustenance, they might have rushed to find value to feed themselves, which meant…

Rin glanced into the distance, looking where the piles of corpses rose highest, near an opposite wall. "I think I know where they keep their valuables," she said, gesturing where the piles rose to an apex. "We head over, cut down whatever is guarding the hoard, and destroy as much as possible before they can react. Questions?"

Her steely gaze met her companion, who straightened before nodding.

At that, the two of them crept into the mist. Idly, Rin wondered where the fog could have come from, but no answer that came to mind felt satisfying. Maybe Nameless blood behaved strangely after their death?

The piles of cold, stiff corpses loomed over them as they stepped only where the corpses were thinnest. In some places, Rin and Yosuke could even touch the ground, but most of the time they had to step on at least one layer of thin legs and carapace. Now that she was closer, Rin couldn't help but notice just how small some of them were compared to others. Many were approaching the size of carts, or at least bears, but far too many were more akin to the size of a person, or particularly large dogs.

Hatchlings, maybe? It was hard for Rin to imagine Nameless being anything other than full-sized monsters tearing through the woods, looking for anything valuable to skitter back to their nest with.

Did the Greater Nameless lay eggs, or did they just manifest somewhere in the depths of the caves when they had enough money to support new numbers? Maybe they hatched from the money pile itself, tiny limbs crawling out in a tide from below coins.

Every possibility was more disturbing than the last. Rin was glad that Yuki was going to crush this place into dust. Once, she thought that the Empire was too harsh on Unbound cultivating Nameless for materials, but now she feared that immediate execution wasn't enough.

Crunch.

Rin's eyes widened as she heard something break under the weight of something ahead.

She brought her blade up, face contorting into an animalistic snarl. Of course the vault would have guards patrolling nearby rather than just guarding the entrance, even if she hadn't seen them! They'd have to fight their way to the door. It'd delay them, but who knew for how long? There could be dozens or, heavens forbid, even more hidden nearby. Lady Yuki and Lord Hall would have to hold off a bit longer!

Or would they?

Rin thought back to the time Lord Hall had buried himself in forest debris in anticipation of the tax collectors. It was just before she had seen the terrifying form of the Greater Nameless for the first time, and she remembered her incredulity as he explained the simple truths of the world.

Hiding was beneath her, and suited an assassin rather than a proud Unbound, but, just as Lord Hall had asked not so long ago, what if she failed due to failing to seize every advantage she could?

Could she live with herself?

Rin spun around and grabbed a rather surprised Yosuke by the collar before diving into a mountain of corpses, burying them both deep in the viscera of dozens of dead with a dull clatter. The black blood dripped in her hair. It got in her eyes. When she inhaled, she could taste the beginnings of rot from the vile liquid. Beside her, Yosuke twisted, trying to right himself, but before he could cause the pile to shift further, the dragon-blooded Unbound seized him by either shoulder, binding him in place.

"Be still!" she whisper-shouted. "Something's coming!"

Part of her wished that this strange realm had darkness. Abyssal blackness would have been preferable to seeing the grotesque, bulging intestines of one of those beasts draped across her companion's back mere inches away.

Thankfully, Yosuke quickly calmed down, although the undead was still tense, as if he were about to spring into action. It wasn't a second too soon, either.

As soon as he stilled, she heard the tick tick tick of eight long, sharp legs crawling across the corpses. Through a pinhole gap in the pile, she saw the beast approach, emerging from the mist like dead wood emerging from the water in front of a ship. It was larger than an average Nameless, although still nowhere near the sheer size of the Greater Nameless itself, and bore a steadfast demeanour as it unhaltingly marched across the broken bodies of its family—or did it only see them as competitors?

It showed not a trace of care as it trampled the bodies, splitting a particularly small example of its kind in two with a single, blade-like limb. It didn't even break stride as it continued between the piles with the near-silent tapping of far too many feet. Closer, closer, closer…

It passed right in front of them before, suddenly stopping, turning its maddened many-eyed gaze towards their hiding spot.

Rin grimaced, bracing herself against an abdomen behind her, getting ready to use it as a springboard. Could it smell them, or perhaps the value of her blade? As long as the beast only suspected and didn't know, perhaps she could kill it before…

Before she could ruminate further, the beast turned away and continued on its patrol without a strike or cry of alarm.

She dared not move until well after she heard the shadowy monster's steps fade away.

Rin let out a breath she didn't know that she was holding as the sentry continued past them without a single shriek or alarm. Her heart was beating so quickly; she didn't have the constitution for stealth; she would have been less worried charging at five of them at once to take their heads!

Breaking from her fugue, Rin carefully pulled herself from the pile before offering a hand to Yosuke, which he thankfully took. Rin tried to ignore the feeling of his dead, spongy flesh squishing under her grasp as she extracted him in turn, ensuring that the pile wouldn't collapse behind them and draw the patrolling guard back to their location.

"My apologies," she muttered, surreptitiously glancing over her shoulder towards where the Nameless was headed. "I would have explained myself if we had time."

In response, Yosuke brushed himself off with what she imagined was a wince before shooting her a slow and awkward… What did Lord Hall call that? A thumbs-up? Coordinating with someone who couldn't speak was truly annoying. She hoped that her sensei had a plan to fix Yosuke's voice and let the man talk for himself should they ever need to fight side by side again.

They continued, creeping between the corpses like rats on a great battlefield, occasionally diving under more detritus to save themselves from discovery. It was good that Rin was already long used to the sight of corpses both mundane and magical; she could only imagine the weight this would place on a less hardy mind.

Where did they get the resources to support this many Nameless to begin with? She was no expert, but she found it hard to believe that so many could be created from the wealth of a single town. Perhaps it didn't matter, and she had already seen enough of the disgusting spiders for a few centuries at least.

The piles grew higher as they closed in on their target, and the skittering patrols became more and more frequent. Again and again, Rin and Yosuke had to escape into the corpses before a guard came around the corner of another heap, just barely having the time to get into cover before they were found. Moments felt like hours as they were forced to cower away from foes that didn't know that they passed within mere arm lengths. Yet, their progress could not be stopped, only slowed. 

It was a small mercy that the patrols weren't more dense; the curious nature of space in this place had probably deluded the Greater Nameless into thinking the vile heart of its empire was safe from all but the most powerful.

Poking her head around the corner, Rin saw their destination at long last. Four massive spiders stood guard in front of a large slab of chitinous material that acted as a vault door. The four guards standing attentively on the sides were again far larger than a normal Nameless, and Rin wondered if they were just older and stronger or more intelligent, like their master.

They were intelligent enough to keep the corpse piles well away from the door, at least, so there was no chance that they could use the bodies as cover to get close. The walls above were far too smooth to climb silently, as well. She could see no path forward beside violence.

Pulling back, she glanced over her shoulder to Yosuke, fire fighting in her eyes. "Four of the large guard spiders by a vault gate, two on either side. No cover. Are you ready?"

The only response she got was the man rising into a stance with a small flourish, his blades flashing as he channelled the essence of emptiness itself into them.

Rin nodded, a faint sheen of moisture forming around her sword in turn, and then the pair exploded into wordless motion. 

She did not call out who the Nameless faced, nor list her accomplishments, for that would imply that they were true foes. A healer did not let a parasite know who it faced before excising it.

She rounded the corner first and let the storm raging inside her soul take the reins as she cut through the air itself with a single perfect strike, a crescent of water streaking forth before hardening into a blade of ice. It smashed into the face of the first Nameless, but, unfortunately, it merely broke upon its Aegis rather than cutting it in twain.

The monster still drawing breath was unfortunate, but she had expected it to be stronger than the ordinary ones. 

A chorus of cries echoed from the depths of the creature's throats as they registered that they were under attack, and the four surged to meet them in a storm of long, piercing limbs.

Behind them, a reprise of answers rose from the corpse piles as the patrolling guards were alerted to the intruders by their comrades. They had a few moments before reinforcements arrived.

Before the four guards could meet them in melee, Yosuke sprang into action, cutting the air mere feet in front of them. Unlike Rin's own strike, there was no grand showing of raw strength, not even a visible projectile. Yet, it still landed, impacting the beast she had already weakened across the eyes.

It had taken her some time to figure it out when she first saw his technique on the surface, but it was beautiful in its sheer simplicity.

He used raw emptiness, pure and simple. Yosuke created a construct of his own will to extend his blade, which would normally be a simple trick that had little utility against a peer that dealt little damage to an opponent's Aegis, but then in came the raw elemental emptiness he could output a startling amount of.

By exploiting the give of their flesh in the split second before it crossed into being something that their Aegis needed to protect them from, he formed a wedge in their flesh. Then, he emitted raw, barely refined emptiness into the space, forcing it to either side with supernatural force, less cutting and more tearing his foe at the seams.

Against someone of a higher existence, the trick would be worthless, as they were worlds unto themselves, untouched by everything except what they wished to be.

Against the Nameless, though?

Every single one of the beast's eyes split in two in a spray of thick black, blinded on the spot as it let loose an unearthly shriek. It was disabled, at the very least, flailing wildly as it tried to cut them to pieces, but they had already darted to the side. She would have preferred for its head to split in two, but at the very least, the beast was useless in the upcoming fight.

Three left.

A dozen legs and half as many cleaver-like claws tried to cut them to ribbons as they finally entered melee, but both Rin and Yosuke were faster than the beasts by a league; the only thing that kept them competitive was the sheer amount of limbs they had at their disposal.

They flowed between the strikes like a part of masters dancing between raindrops, deflecting the few strikes that could have landed upon their three blades.

Ten, twenty, thirty blows evaded between heartbeats.

Five, ten, fifteen given in return, weakening their foes as they ruthlessly exploited every opportunity to break down their protections.

The exchange wasn't entirely one-sided, though. By virtue of sheer number, the occasional blow slipped through their pair's guards, landing against their forms. Their Aegises took the blows, but every moment was a bit less energy they had, and every strike threatened to throw them out of position and pry them apart.

Rin sprang forth, diving under the beast after landing a trio of weaker blows upon its head to stun it, carving a deep groove through its carapace as she cut through its armour and into its flesh, lightning dancing along her blade as an old friend.

As she reached the end, she drove the tip of her blade a hair deeper and let heaven's wrath free into the beast's flesh.

The creature's muscles tightened, forcefully contracting, and the sudden motion aggravated its newly open wound, carapace pulling to the side as its insides sloughed out like a split egg.

Two.

Screams echoed out not from their foes, but close behind, the piles behind them slowly coming to life as numerous forms crept over the piles, stalking over the corpses of their own blood. They were running out of time. Rin had hoped that they could kill the four before they had help, but it seemed like she had underestimated them.

"Yosuke! Can you handle the two for a moment?" she called.

The man responded by stabbing the one he was duelling through the leg, crippling the limb with a single blow before pivoting, drawing the healthy one between him and it, while also placing himself between it and the door.

Perhaps she was a bit rough on him when they had first met.

Surging past Yosuke, she grabbed the colossal slab of chitin, fingers digging into the surface as she reinforced not only herself, but where she had gripped, so her new fingerholds didn't come apart.

Sweat beading on her brow, Rin wrenched. The slab was perhaps twenty feet across, and was intended to be rolled aside by some hidden mechanism she didn't have time to find.

Unfortunately for the Nameless, she was far stronger than whatever meagre mechanism they could muster as she forced the dense slab aside with a series of loud cracks, crunching through hidden blockers as she pushed into a hidden groove, mist from the room rushing past her into the opening.

Within the large room was a true hoard, far more than could have been plausibly extracted from the town. Money was piled in a single great pile of gleaming coins far taller than her, and next to it were titanic piles of everything her mind could conjure. Metals. Tools. Books. Scrolls. Finely lacquered wood. Furniture. Even then, the room stretched far enough to make the accumulated wealth look almost small by comparison, having room for much growth under its high, arched roof. Where did it all come from?

Then, at the core, she saw it. Right next to the pile of coins upon its own carved pillar was a necklace with a chain lovingly crafted from platinum, bearing a fang that seemed to be carved from a black cloud.

On instinct, she streaked forward, grabbing it from the pillar and channelled lightning into her blade as she considered where to start beyond removing the obviously valuable jewelry from the hoard. This… was more than expected. How was she going to destroy it all thoroughly and quickly? The books and scrolls were easy, but the metals? She'd need time to melt them down, time that she didn't have, but—

Rin looked at the fog flooding into the room, and an idea came to mind as she recalled her sensei scaring her senseless in the hallway of the ryokan.

"Hold them off a bit longer!" Rin called, shaping the lightning in her blade in a very particular, low-energy state as she began darting around the room. "And try not to cause any sparks!"

Yosuke, who had been forced back to the door by now four Nameless, would have doubtlessly had words for her, had he been able to talk.

As she dashed, she cut water itself into two with unerring focus, splitting it into hydrogen and oxygen with her passage, the lighter gas rising high and getting caught by the roof.

It was not enough. Somehow, Rin knew that her blade was working too slowly, even with her sprinting about to reach as much air as possible. She pulled deeper, falling into her own soul as she channelled energy over her whole form as she carefully extended the effect past the edge of her blade, through the handle, and over her skin.

She performed the sacred art of electrolysis with her whole body, moving at supernatural speeds, darting throughout the room as she converted as much as she could. A curious lightheadedness overtook her, and she could feel herself verging on some greater truth about the storms, about herself, but it remained just barely out of reach.

CLANG!

Spinning her head over, she saw Yosuke tumbling back as a monster's blow crushed his guard and sent him flying, swords flying away from his grasp. Mid-flight, he recovered, drawing two more blades from his skull as he landed on one knee. Still, a tide of a dozen monsters poured through the door, struggling to fit through as the tide was upon them properly.

They couldn't beat that many. It was a good thing they didn't have to.

"Yosuke! We're done, get out of there!" she shouted, running to his side and pulling him to his feet. The man staggered but accepted, shaking off what might have been a concussion for a mortal within moments before following in her wake.

The two surged towards the tide, and the beasts reared up, ready to crush them. Some webs flew past them, which they thankfully dodged, but they didn't stop. Instead, they leapt, arcing through the air as tonnes of monsters and web crushed where they had just been.

As one, they sailed through what little space remained in the door, and Rin spun in mid air, lightning encircling her blade as she prepared a much, much stronger bolt.

With a stab, it flew from her blade, guided by a thin stream of moisture she hastily conjured. It wasn't as bright, nor as straight as one of John's mighty bolts, sure. It was, however, flying straight into a pocket of flammable gas.

Everything went white, and she didn't even hear the explosion.

When she blinked the stars from her eyes, ears ringing like a struck bell, she found herself atop a collapsed pile of corpses. She tried to stagger to her feet, but before she could, she was offered a hand. It was Yosuke, leaning over her. Rin took it, and stumbled to her feet. "Did we…" she began, trailing off.

He merely pointed past her. She followed it.

The vault was in ruins, a terrifying inferno issuing from its now half-collapsed entrance, the bodies piled near the door, too, having gone up like bonfires composed of dried kindling. Even more beautiful, though, were the surviving guards near the entrance.

They were pale, paler than any Nameless she had ever seen. Much of the darkness had fled the shell; instead, it was a pale gray, like an abandoned exoskeleton. As she watched, one of the three survivors reared up over another, which struggled to rise, and brought its claws down upon its head.

Despite everything, a smile crept onto Rin's face.

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Coach Chapman was absent that day, a substitute in his place during the different gym periods. David would have to wait until he came back, he hoped the morning after. Until then school was in session, a predator within its walls.

Contemplating it made David squirm. He shared classes with a thing capable of reducing a... well, not friend, but tolerated companion to an emotional crater. It was unknown what the red thought of David’s little outburst in Social Studies. Was it possible that he might be next, a convenient target to vent her frustration on? A vow was made: Never let her within ten feet and find a way to make her forbidden from lacrosse victory parties.

Then he remembered: lacrosse victory parties required lacrosse. Instead, they would be doing...something else. No solid information yet, merely that it was a “special privilege” to be playing it. How special that privilege was had been written all over the Coach’s face. 

These pleasant thoughts accompanied David as he strode back to the gym locker room which had housed horror a few hours earlier. A part of him fantasized about turning around without a word and walking away. Walk away from whatever new garbage the loving Mistresses of Earth wanted to dump on his team’s head and forget about it all. The dominant portion was split, half not wanting to abandon his fellow athletes, most of whom were decent guys who enjoyed running around with sticks. The other half considered what there was to look forward to after he refused to join in: More time being needed by Melissa, ignoring the door that never opened and pretending not to feel the suppressed heat in his belly, growing ever hotter the longer he spent in that house alone.

Thus, his decision to play ball. If this new sport used balls, that was. Aliens, who knew? Always could be thrown into a gravity suspended sphere of jello and tasked with vibrating it into prettier colors than the other team.

He joined the others out on the field after putting on his gear. It felt safer going out in padding, for all that David knew it wouldn’t protect him from anything that mattered. Didn’t hurt though, and if worst came to worst he’d be told to take it off. About half of the boys on his team adopted a similar attitude, others doing no more than lacing their cleats.

They didn’t have long to wait. A brax tall enough a safe exit onto the field necessitated a bent neck on the way out for safe exit onto the field strode toward them with confidence and authority. She wore enormous blue trunks, which in tightness and utilitarian cut resembled bike shorts, extending down to skim over knees much farther off the ground than those joints ought to be. Her top was decorated with red and green stripes, made from something that seemed more like cotton. It was close enough to human sportswear the effect proved somewhat disconcerting, like if a goblin was spotted in tutu at a local production of the Nutcracker.

Her arms claimed such mass that the tallest of human bodybuilders would need years of training and a personal chemical lab to get close to their casual, bulging cords. The thighs were equal in their titanic proportions, each hill in her form fitting shorts telling of sinew and fiber ready to leap into action. If some human shoulders were wide enough to land a 747 on, hers qualified as an aircraft carrier.

In the face of this red She-Hulk, David felt himself shrinking on instinct, trying to disappear into the crowd of boys who all showed similar signs of discomfort. Seeing this display, David’s upper lip curled into a mini silent snarl. No, this was unacceptable. Whatever happened next, he would bear it with a straight back, face set firm and forward. Submission to these things might be necessary, but never abasement. He’d kill himself from shame before that. With that in mind, he forced himself to uncurl and stare at her left shoulder.

She tapped at her version of the electronic pad all her kind carried with them. A cool and uninflected voice came out of it, speaking mechanical, crisp English. It unspooled a prepared speech. The team was informed who the hued giantess standing before them was, as if it wasn’t obvious. They were told what an honor it was to be chosen for this, how Rinivella personally trained a great number of champions who went on to compete for the Queen’s pleasure. The end came with a blast of rhetoric meant to inspire, all about how Rinivella would dedicate herself to making them worthy of the sport arena ball, but in turn expected nothing but the utmost from her charges. The desired inspiration might have happened on some level, if the text-to-speech synthesizer didn’t recite the script with the same passion that could be expected from a knock off brand doll.

The machine spoke its last and Rinivella cleared her throat to add on. The harsh notes of her native tongue created a sharp contrast to the porcelain smoothness of the digital copy. As she completed her sentences, it was a half blink worth of a pause before the pad transcribed her words.

“Since I must use this to talk, it is required for one of you to speak at a time. With that said, any questions before we begin our practice?”

A hand shot up to the front and left side of David.

The ruddy bulk shifted her stance to face the would-be asker. “Such enthusiasm is pleasing. Go ahead.”

The hand went down, and with the face no longer blocked by a vertical limb David saw Eli. “Are we going to be able to do the Tiger dance at the end of the game?”

After an uncomfortable pause where Rinviella listened to and tapped at her pad, the coach replied, “What is this, ‘Large predator display?’”

Perhaps driven by nerves, Eli blurted out, “It’s this thing we do at the end of the season. A bunch of guys in the audience will come with tiger masks and wait for the clock to buzz. Then they’ll take off their shirts, cause they paint themselves with blue and black stripes, like the cat. Well, not like the real cat. Tigers have orange and black stripes. But we’re the Blue Tigers, so blue and black for our stripes. Then they do a dance standing in their seats. It’s fun, you know? And the school recently made that rule about always keeping our shirts on, including guys, but it’s something we’ve always done, so it’s okay. Right?” Eli squeezed his neck into his shoulders a bit near the end of his question monologue, his voice having grown ever thinner and more uncertain.

The machine brax translation took almost as long as the original speech, so the coach could not respond at once. When she turned her attention back to Eli, David didn’t have to see her face to know she wasn’t smiling.

“I hope I am misunderstanding you. Because what you are describing is...disturbing. I know things are different here, but to think children would be allowed to debase themselves in such a way...If I’m not misunderstanding you, whoever approved this has much to answer for. I require that person’s name. Now.”

David flicked his eyes back toward Eli, who’s eyes bugged out in turn. “No one. No one! It’s something we’ve always done. No one told us to do it. Honest!” Eli wasn’t going to point fingers at anyone to throw pressure off himself. Good. Eli had never struck David as that kind of person, but it never hurt to get in the moment confirmation.

A hmph sound came from the coach. Whether the sound was ambivalent or disbelieving, it was hard to say. But the matter was dropped, as she said, “Many of you are not wearing your full equipment. Explain.”

David could feel the frisson of in trouble energy which sparked between the seated boys. By some wordless agreement Eli spoke up again. “We didn’t know what you would want us to wear.”

“I was assured the informational guide was brax corrected by the best translators. Was it unclear?”

There were more uncomfortable stirs. This time Jake took the lead, voice managing to be smooth despite the scrutiny. “Didn’t read it.”

“What? Why not?” David didn’t need to turn his head to see the shrug he knew Jake would be doing right as she finished.

“Did anyone read the material?” She placed hands on hips, and her shoulders rotated as she scanned for less disappointing pupils.

“I did.”

David blinked in surprise. That was Tobias. He turned and saw him near the back, smiling. On anyone else David would have deemed it smug, but it was Tobias being Tobias. A lack of a grin would be far more concerning, as he’d seen himself.

“Outstanding. At least one here knows how to follow orders. Since I’m sure you read with care, explain who is in proper attire, who is not and why.”

Tobias’s smile was unwavering. “None of us are. Our pads aren’t up to standard. At least, I don’t think so.”

A thunderous clap as dinner plate sized hands closed together. “Excellent and correct. Your equipment is inadequate. Can’t be helped for right now, but Our Lady Quel’vela will ensure your team is outfitted in the proper manner. Be sure to have proper gratitude.”

David’s face grew tense with the effort to not show what he thought of that. Shower candy and glass beads on the locals, that was all one needed to have simple primitives fall in love. Failing that, oblige them to scrape and bow with performances of appreciation till the day they die.

“For now, you will be given some spare equipment until personalized gear is available. I have dropped the bags at the other end of the field. Those wearing pads, open those bags and collect your sticks. The unattired will put on their uniforms and return to do the same. Depart!” Another thunderclap boomed from palm meeting palm. The crowd of boys scrammed, minor scuffling as bodies got in the way of others who moved in conflicting directions.

David jogged down to the end field where there were indeed large black bags with zippers, another universal solution to a common problem. A few of the more energetic sprinted to the bags and proceeded to open them. They started pulling out long black metal poles, longer than the ones they used for lacrosse by at least a tenth, if not more. Leaving the others to keep on divesting the bags of poles, he hefted one. It was heavy, more like a naked barbell than a lacrosse shaft. As he glanced around, David spied another open bag and hands disgorging its content. This one held white cradles meant to go on top. They looked roughly about as tall as a defense shaft head, but much wider at the base, close to a square. These came with yellow nets. He would have called them pre-strung, except that didn’t seem quite the right word. No knots or ties were visible from the front, the fibers melding into the back of the frame with nary a seam visible.

Looking at them closer, that was the sole size available. No variation for different positions as far as he could tell. If the term positions made sense for this game. Despite himself, David felt a bit foolish for not looking at the rule book, ignored by all. Well, everyone except for Tobias for whatever reason. Who’d have figured him to be studious?

Head attached to his chosen shaft, David waited for the laggards who needed to put on their pads to come over and do the same. After everyone was equipped the coach said, “I saw a number of you run over to get your gear. While the enthusiasm is appreciated, I need to have your energy focused on actual practice. Which will begin now!” A pair of hands clapped and boys jumped.

Whatever David thought practice would be, it wasn’t what transpired. Rather than anything that resembled the passing, running or shooting drills he’d experienced, the coach squared them off in pairs. They were informed she was going to be teaching them proper sparring forms and indicated the correct canned motions. Fake attacks with their shafts at various angles and directions, with the defender doing prepared moves to guard against the attack. They performed as commanded for a few minutes at a time, with Rinivella calling for frequent breaks. David became glad for those breaks, as the extra weight of the shaft became bothersome after a short period of use. By the end his arms ached, despite practice being short at an hour long. The team was then instructed to hold still as Rinivella used her pad to take photos from multiple full body angles. She told them this was all that was necessary to calculate their measurements and purchase them personal athletic gear, which they would get before the match. After that she reminded them of the rule book and made it clear that all would have to read it backwards and forwards by the next practice. Once that was done, she let them put away their shafts and released them to the locker room.

David was disturbed by the practice, and the protestations of his arms with each motion couldn’t distract him from that. It had been kinda a relief that arena ball was close enough to lacrosse they used nets on tops of sticks. Near enough that during the minute spent waiting for those changing in the locker room, he’d let himself hope that it was close enough to lacrosse that he’d be able to transfer his skills and ignore whom he’d be playing against. A chance to focus on his moves and enjoy being a god of the close-enough-to-lacrosse field. But those drills…

What kind of game was arena ball anyway? David regretted not reading that friggin booklet. As that regret sat down and got comfortable, he flitted to a related thought: His true coach mentioned an already played game between the Knights and the...alien Whoevers. It was available to watch from their website. David decided to take a look. While reading the rulebook would help, nothing was better for understanding a sport than watching it. He’d do it after he finished up the Melissa checklist that night.

A few hours later, David exited out of the browser tab, his face stiff. Arena ball was not about running. Passing existed, sure. But it was to facilitate getting the ball to the attackers, and once it did...The game consisted of boys being smashed to the ground by red tanks a head taller with more padding than linebackers. Over and over, whap went the shafts, down came the boys. Out the ball plopped from grounded nets, and soon another point for the freaks.

Seeing the aggression happen without penalty, again and again, led to David flipping through his rulebook on a search for material that would make sense of the mayhem. Horror grew as he saw there were indeed rules about player contact. The head wasn’t allowed to be rung like a bell. Other than that? Whap went the shafts, down came the boys. The rule was near identical to human lacrosse in the technical sense, but the text and practice were manifestly different things. Checking happened in lacrosse. Here, checking was the game, and the body slams he saw made that term a sick joke.

This is what David and his team were being forced into. What a special privilege they should be honored to have. A tiny part of David urged him to hysterical laughter at the thought. He squashed the urge with practiced ease, but the rest of him suffused with a reaction he could not contain. They’d be crushed. Humiliated. Paraded around as yet another example of why humans were no longer the dominant species on their own planet, a demonstration of why they were allowed no power over their own fate anymore and didn’t deserve it.

He could see it. Humans running around, play fighting with each other, winning. Humans winning at something, anything was unacceptable. It might give them ideas above their station. That sort of thing must be torn away, ripped to shreds in front of their eyes. Let it be ground into their faces, learning there was nothing that couldn’t be taken away.

He had to find and talk to Chapman tomorrow. This wasn’t about Alexander anymore. The entire team was threatened by those things. He’d see that, wouldn’t he? If David explained it right, Coach would understand what was at stake for his boys and leap to protect them. It was his job.

As these words played through his mind, David couldn’t ignore the doubt that lay under them. Could he rely on Coach Chapman? Yes, he could. They tried to banish Coach, to send him away from the school. But he was back. That meant he’d fought them, snatched back his job from the thieves. He’d fight for David and his team.

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So this is a sister story of Warmth. You can read the stories in any order; whichever way you go the theme changes (Heat → Warmth = puzzle | Warmth → Heat = tragedy). I didn't plan on making a second story in the same universe, but a comment on Warmth gave me some inspiration to change perspective.

It's marked as a one-shot. You could read this by itself, but it is best complimented by Warmth.

Anyway, here we go...!

---

HEAT

Weird.

He was sure he wasn't in the same place he set up camp last night. The copse of trees he'd pitched the tent next to wasn't there, for one thing. The fireplace was still warm though, and it didn't take him too long to rekindle his tinder before setting some logs on top, ready enough for his morning cup of tea.

Grassland surrounded him; a beautiful vista of rolling hills and livestock paddocks welcomed him back to reality. Maybe he'd misremembered the trees.

It wasn't too far into town, and he planned on staying here for a couple of days, so he idly boiled the water in his kettle while relaxing in the spring weather.

By the time he started walking it must have been about 8am. He purposefully didn't bring a watch, phone or any other technology with him in order to really break out of the modern world for a little while. It was nice.

----

It took about half an hour to get to the outskirts of the hinterland town. It was quiet there – he only saw two people, a younger couple sitting on a dark stone seat holding hands in silence, eyes closed and facing the rising sun.

As he walked past them, they lazily opened their eyes, smiled in a befuddled sort of way, and watched him continue.

None of the shops were open yet, but this didn't overly surprise him. A lot of these places had business hours that were more conducive to the "sleepy country town" attitude than the bustle of the city that he was used to.

He sauntered through the main street, eyeing off storefronts that he would visit when they opened. The silence was odd though. He expected a few early-risers to be around, but there were none. Only the young couple.

It was strange architecture around here, definitely not what he expected. Dark stone buildings squatting boldly. Those seats placed all around the town. A local peccadillo, he supposed.

----

As he wandered, the town woke up. People started to walk around slowly as they woke from their slumber. A few nodded greetings to him as they walked past.

Eventually he found a café that was opening its doors.

Time for his morning coffee.

He entered the small shop and was immediately struck by the heat. Radiant lamps stood in each corner, bringing the temperature up to an uncomfortable level. At the counter he asked for a mug of coffee. The barista took his money and made the minimum effort of small-talk. A strange accent, he thought.

There weren't any outside tables, so he removed his jacket and sat down in the stifling heat near the window.

After a minute or so of the usual coffee machine gurgles, his coffee was served. A bit more conversation by the barista, this time slightly more welcoming. He took a sip, but the water was almost boiling. Wincing slightly, he put the mug back down.

As he sat waited for his coffee to cool down, he maintained the polite discussion with the barista who asked him where he was from, and talked about the town he was in.

Eventually the young lady asked, "Is the coffee ok?"

"No, I'm just waiting for it to cool down," he replied.

The barista raised her brows and gave him a quizzical look. She apologised for the coffee being too hot, and told him she'd check the settings on the machine.

"No problem. I've got time. It's fine; just a bit hot."

After a few uncomfortable minutes in the sweltering heat of the café, the coffee had cooled enough, and he sipped it down, watching a few locals come in slowly through the door. He could certainly empathise with the pre-coffee morning sluggishness.

By the time he finished his drink, the clock on the wall was showing almost 10 o'clock. Time to see what those shops were selling, he thought.

----

Outside the café, he saw more people sitting around on the stone benches. A few were holding conversations with each other, lazily looking around and slowly blinking in the sunlight. They all wore heavy coats and long pants, relics from the early morning cool.

He wandered along the street, but this time a few of the stores were open. He could get used to this lifestyle. Easy mornings, no high-pressure job.

The sunlight was warming up the air to a very nice temperature somewhere in the mid- to high-20°C range. There were hardly any trees lining the street, so he walked in the diminishing shade provided by the west-facing walls, trying to work off some of the sweat that had accumulated in the café.

The slight breeze on his skin felt nice, but all gains there were immediately wiped out when he entered the first shop. Again, it was frightfully hot, lamps again placed strategically in the corners, pumping out a disturbing amount of heat.

The shopkeeper seemed unperturbed by the temperature, and he assumed it must be a quirk of the region. Maybe they liked saunas?

----

It was a meandering day. He just walked around, cooling slightly between each stubbornly heated shop. Sometime during the morning he noticed that the seats were no longer used and the people started moving a bit more purposefully. Took them some time to warm up, he supposed.

After lunch he went to the hills for an afternoon hike, to see the countryside and revel in the moving air. "These people really like things hot, don't they?" he thought to himself as he wandered off. It was a warm day regardless, and yet the townsfolk were still using those heat lamps inside. What an odd place.

As the sun started to set, he made his way back to the campsite. His food was running low, so tomorrow he'd have to get some more supplies, but for tonight it was going to be a simple meal of beans and bacon.

----

Leaning back on the grass, he looked up at the night sky. The stars glittered above; one day he'll have to learn some of the constellations, he thought, but he'd had that idea every time he'd gone for a hiking trip. He knew he wasn't fooling himself.

The cool air was refreshing after the furnaces he had been in today. Things to remember for tomorrow: no jacket.

Camping always confused his body-clock. While he was sure it couldn't have been later than 9pm, the lack of artificial light made him sleepy so he retired to the tent. Tomorrow he'd have to find a shower.

----

Another dawn woke him up, like usual. The season was changing and he could already feel the cold night air leech away. Summer was on its way, but still a month off. A brisk morning walk would get him fired up and ready to go.

"Remember... no jacket." The brief cold this morning isn't worth carrying around the extra clothing every time he stepped inside one of the buildings in town.

Knowing that the local shops didn't open until around 9am, he took his time to prepare for the day. The fire was lit, the last of his bacon was cooked and a cup of tea washed it down.

He walked towards the paddocks where the cows were grazing. Like all cows everywhere, they looked at him with bemusement before getting back to their life of chewing grass. He found it relaxing just watching the beasts idle their way through the days.

When the sun had climbed the sky to about a mid-morning position, he trekked off towards town again. Time to find a shower and restock the food situation. Hopefully avoid some of the uncomfortably warm stores. Maybe spend enough time to have a pub meal in the evening and sink down a pint of cool beer; a luxury he hadn't had for a few days.

----

Walking through town, he noticed the people were still rugged up in their coats. For a mild spring day, this seemed unusual, but given the way they toast the inside of their stores, it didn't seem that remarkable in itself.

What he did find strange was the way some of the townsfolk stared at him. Was he doing something wrong? Did he have snot hanging out of his nose? Weird.

He found the town's main hall which doubled as an information centre. Preoccupied with both the worrying amount of attention he was getting, and the hope that he'd get directions to a public shower, he'd forgotten about the furnace conditions inside the local buildings.

The entrance was a grand affair, presenting a long hall into the reception area.

The floor felt strangely warm, the polished dark stone showing flecks of sparkles through the gloss. Half a dozen heat lamps lined each side of the hall, radiating an oppressive amount of warmth.

He was glad he didn't bring a jacket. Sweat immediately started to bead on his skin, and he could feel the back of his shirt moisten against his backpack. A shower was definitely needed now.

----

He spoke to one of the helpful staff members behind the information counter. Despite the temperature, the assistant was wearing a coat. Beside her was a steaming mug of soup and she seemed unaffected by the greenhouse heat. She wasn't even sweating, while he felt like he was covered in the stuff.

She gave directions to a public amenity block towards the rear of the building and mentioned that it was a coin-activated system. He jingled the shrapnel in his pocket and smiled, telling her he was prepared for this.

As he turned away, she bid him farewell: "Stay warm."

He replied his thanks, even through his confusion. It felt hot; staying warm was not going to be a problem.

Finding his way to the showers, he looked forward to some cool water. After setting himself up and feeding some coins into the machine, he looked at the single mixer tap in the cubical. It looked inviting, and he turned it all the way in the cold direction before stepping into the stream of water.

For a moment it was nice. Sweat washed away under the cool spray. That sensation only lasted a few seconds. With startling efficiency the water warmed up; not by an intolerable amount, but just enough to get him frustrated at the design of this town which apparently only ever wanted heat.

He didn't take long to scrub off the last day-and-a-half of sweat and dust, and stepped out relatively quickly. He would have liked to have had a relaxing cool shower, but whatever. This minor detail just annoyed him.

After turning off the water, overhead heat lamps suddenly burst into life. Radiating a ridiculous amount of warmth, he had to dry himself quickly and dress as fast as possible. He needed to be outside. He needed the breeze.

----

With just a t-shirt and shorts on, he stepped out of the amenity block. The cool air of the gentle wind made him slightly less grumpy, but the layout of the building meant that there was precious little shade anywhere to be found. While the breeze cooled him, the sun heated him.

Finding what little outside shelter he could, he stood for a while. The walls were too warm to comfortably touch or even be close to, and the stone seats were like a stove.

This town was weird. What is wrong with everyone here?

As he stood, the sun kept its inevitable afternoon decline. Soon – despite the ridiculous town planning – shadows stretched through this little square off the main street. He started to reach a temperature that wasn't disturbing. It would have been nice to sit down, but there was nowhere suitable to plant himself. Everything radiated heat.

A father and his small son walked through the square. The man asked whether everything was ok. "Are you warm enough? Got the 'morning cool'?" he said in his strange accent.

What the hell did that mean?!

"No, I'm fine, thanks. Just waiting a while."

Another curious look. "There's some sun over there. Maybe that would help?"

While he could tell that the father was trying to help, it was hard to not get frustrated. He just needed to stay cool! Why couldn't these people understand?

"I'm ok. I won't be too long here," he replied instead of showing his agitation.

The man and his son moved off, the little boy asking why someone would stand in the shade. The response from the father was too muffled to hear. And to be honest, the care factor was approaching zero.

----

He waited for another hour or so until dusk had properly arrived. There was a slight chill in the air now, enough so that the breeze wasn't needed to whisk away the sweat.

Pub time. A meal and beer. They can't possibly mess that up...

----

Of course, the pub was blasting heat like it was going out of style. It felt like a forge inside; heat lamps scattered throughout the building radiating a wall of uncomfortable warmth.

He ordered a simple meal at the counter and asked for a cool beer.

"A cold beer? Why?" the barkeep said, an incredulous tone to his voice. "Where you from? That's something I've not heard of before."

"I've been walking for a couple of weeks. Maybe we do things differently out there," he replied, tactfully avoiding both naming the city and raising the ire of the man behind the counter. "Just a beer, thanks."

The pint glass wasn't cold. It wasn't even room temperature. Somehow, the beer was warm.

Maybe they can mess this up.

----

The meal came out and was as delicious as he'd hoped it would be. At least they do hot food right. Washing it down with warm beer seemed like sacrilege, but anything was better than nothing. And there was no evidence of chilled water anywhere.

He decided that this would be the final night in town. He'd leave in the early morning, where he assumed that nobody would be around to see him.

Looking around the steaming hot pub, he noticed the few patrons were treating everything like it was all normal. Standing or sitting in small groups, laughing and talking like any other pubs anywhere. It was a welcoming thought, but then he noticed a distinct difference between him and the others...

Nobody was sweating.

He was drenched from both the stifling heat and the warm beer. The others? Nothing. They were behaving like it was just another night.

As he stood to leave, one of the wait staff asked if he'd like them to order a heated car for his trip home. He declined, but could immediately feel an element of panic set into his chest.

This isn't right. Nothing is adding up. I need to get away.

----

The walk home through the cool evening air calmed him somewhat, but he had resolved to leave early morning tomorrow.

----

He didn't sleep well that night, but at least it allowed him to rise early. "Crap. I forgot to go to the shops." The previous day's frustrations were giving him grief now, but he still didn't want to stay. He packed his small tent and camping gear into a hiking pack, shouldered it all, and made his way to the road. This should be the most direct way home.

He was glad for the meal he'd had last night, but with no breakfast or bottled water ("Do they even sell that stuff here?" he wondered), this was already setting out to be a miserable walk.

Just before the sun rose over the horizon, he made his way past the outskirts of the town. The pre-dawn light was enough to navigate by, and when he'd finally cleared the scattered buildings he realized that he had been feeling pensive this whole time. Now that home was the next destination, his sense of disturbance abated.

By the time he'd gotten to the highway and the sun was just over the horizon, he was sweating and cranky. His heart was thumping in his chest and it was difficult to maintain concentration. He kept reminding himself of where he was headed, giving himself the motivation to keep going.

"If only I had a drink. Sheesh, it's hot," he mumbled to himself as he trudged along the deserted road. "Damn that interminable town!" He could feel his anger rise further, and his thoughts – as scattered as they were – kept returning to the ridiculous nature of the place he's just left.

As he continued, he got more and more cranky. And thirsty. He was fixated on getting out of here. Get home. Back to normalcy. At least he wasn't sweating any more.

In the distance he could see an overpass. "Shade," he thought in a detached sort of way. He watched his feet trudge on. They weren't following a usual rhythm, but he was not concerned. It was like it was happening to another person.

He continued following the road. Home.

Start | Previous | Next

Chapter 137: Riftwalker

The drunken Riftwalker sat with his chair tilted back on its rear legs, eyes closed, spine pressed against the wall, one boot planted on the table. His beard, noticeably longer and far more unkempt than the last time Viktor had seen him, framed his half-open mouth like a neglected curtain.

“Long time no see,” Viktor said as he dropped into a nearby seat.

Azran cracked his bloodshot eyes open, blinking a few times.

“You again, huh?” he said, lifting the bottle on the table. He took a long, noisy swig. Looked like the guy had stopped bothering with jugs and mugs and gone straight to the source instead. “If you’re looking for that black-haired friend of yours, he’s not here today. In fact, he hasn’t come here for a while.” The bald man snorted. “Maybe he’s finally given up trying to invite me to his party.”

“Oh?” Viktor grinned. “Is it just me, or do I hear a hint of regret in your tone? Don’t tell me you’re wishing you’d said yes after all.”

Azran scoffed. “I am not. It’s just... strange, that’s all. The kid vanished all of a sudden.” His brow creased as he frowned into his drink. “Don’t tell me something happened to him in the dungeon.”

“Well, yes. Something did happen...” Viktor paused just long enough to catch Azran snapping his head around to stare at him. “Oh, don’t worry. He and his party made it out in one piece. No lasting physical injuries. Psychological damage, on the other hand... There’s a chance they might walk away from the adventuring life for good.”

“Is that so?” Azran looked down thoughtfully. “Well, people come and go in this line of work all the time. Hell, even I’m not so sure I should still be in it.”

“So,” Viktor said, “since Cedric stopped coming back to pester you, you’ve decided to sit here and drink every day for the past few months. Don’t you think you should at least take on some other work?”

“I do have work,” Azran said. “Some fellow pays me to teleport him back and forth between here and Iskora. Simple job, good pay. I work less than an hour a month and earn enough to drink without worrying about tomorrow.”

“Iskora?”

“Actually, he wants to go to Arstenia. But I don’t have an anchor there, so I send him to Iskora instead. It’s a big city, plenty of Riftwalkers there. He can easily find someone to take him the rest of the way. Roundabout, yes, but that’s the only option he’s got.”

Hmm... Viktor grinned to himself. Why do I have the feeling I know that client of yours?

“Speaking of teleporting people around,” he said, “that’s actually why I’m here. I wanted to hear your opinion on something. A Riftwalker’s opinion.”

He had already made up his mind: the portal being constructed in that camp must be destroyed. And to do that properly, he had to understand more about how things actually worked. After all, he was not a mage; all he did was recreate the effects of magic through his Thauma. He had never grasped the underlying mechanics, because he had never needed to. The old him would have just tossed a Scorching Wind at the outpost and called it a day, but his current self, far weaker than he had been in his prime, needed every advantage he could get if he wanted to succeed.

“Huh?” Azran took another mouthful from his bottle. “What do you want? And why?”

“You know what happened on the other side of the river, right?”

“I’ve heard.” The bald man nodded. “Daelin’s little outpost got chewed up by monsters, then some men from Iskora showed up and took over.”

“Yes.”

Azran snorted. “To think they’d do it so blatantly.”

It seemed the bald man had reached the same conclusion as everyone else. He might be drunk, but he clearly wasn’t out of touch with what was going on around him. Besides, since he knew Bjorn’s group and their attempt to steal the Dungeon Core, Viktor suspected he had already had at least a rough idea of who was really pulling the strings behind the scenes.

“Apparently, they’re building a portal inside that camp.”

“How do you know?”

“The Guild’s scout reported it,” Viktor said. “By the way, I’m here on behalf of Guildmaster Isadora. She wants to hear your opinion on this matter.”

There were several reasons why he had volunteered for this task. For one thing, if he had approached Azran on his own and started asking questions about portals, it might have raised suspicion. However, if he were doing it in the Guild’s name, then there was nothing unusual about it at all. Everything Azran told him would be passed straight back to the Guild, which meant the knowledge of how such a portal might be destroyed would be shared among many people, so when it inevitably and mysteriously blew up, it would be much harder to pin down the culprit. Also, there was the added benefit that acting in the Guild’s interest would improve his standing with them, something that was never a wasted effort.

Azran let out an amused chuckle. “You? Acting on behalf of the Guildmaster? Why would she choose you, of all people?”

“Because I know you,” Viktor said with a shrug. “So she thinks you’re more likely to talk if it’s me asking.”

“Well then,” Azran said, taking a swig. “Ask away. What does she want to know?”

“First of all, is it even possible to create a portal that connects here directly to Iskora? One that can move large numbers of people and materials back and forth?”

Viktor already knew the answer, of course. He had been an emperor once, after all. There were many building projects that had been carried out under his orders, and even though he never bothered with the details, he did know what his subordinates were capable of. Still, he needed to play the part of a clueless kid from some forgotten backwater, ignorant of the true scale of such undertakings.

“It’s possible,” Azran said. “But very hard to do. When I teleport people, I open a small portal—we call it a rift, hence our name—to a place where I already have an anchor. That rift is just big enough for a single person to pass through, and it only stays stable for like ten seconds. And I can only do it once every two or three days.” He paused. “A portal like the one you’re describing would require the coordinated effort of a lot of Riftwalkers.”

A full-blown ritual, then. As Orloth put it.

“So they’d need to keep those Riftwalkers stationed nearby,” Viktor said, “to open it whenever someone wants to pass?”

Azran shook his head. “For a portal like that, where traffic is frequent, it’s actually less costly to keep it open all the time rather than closing and reopening it over and over again. We use magical artifacts called the Waystones to maintain the portal and keep the two locations permanently linked. The Riftwalkers are only needed for the initial setup, and then occasionally to check on the structure and recharge the Waystones.”

“Sounds simple enough.”

Azran laughed. “It only sounds simple because I’ve skipped the complicated parts. Tens, perhaps hundreds, of mages are required to set it up. It will take weeks to complete. And then, the mental toll alone can put them out of action for months afterward. Of course, they’ll charge you a ridiculous amount of money for the endeavor.”

Viktor nodded slowly. “So the Waystones are the key to keeping the portal running. If they’re gone, the whole thing stops working.”

Azran shot him a sidelong look. “Is the Guildmaster planning to destroy that portal?”

Viktor shrugged. “I don’t know. My job is just to learn everything I can. What she chooses to do with that knowledge is none of my concern.”

“Not that I care either,” Azran said with a snort. “But yes, if you want to shut that thing down, then those stones are what you’d need to target.”

“So destroying the stone frame of the portal wouldn’t do anything?”

“It’s only needed during the initial setup. Once the rift is stabilized, the frame becomes little more than decoration.”

“I see.”

“Still,” Azran said, barking a laugh, “if the Guildmaster is serious, good luck to her. I wouldn’t fancy her chances.”

Viktor nodded. “The Waystones must be very well hidden. And heavily guarded.”

“Well, not really. They need to be placed close to the portal to power it. That said, they don’t have to be on this side. They can be kept on either end of the connection. And if I were in charge of the project, I’d keep them on the Iskora side, not here.”

That’s... problematic.

Azran continued, “Which means, anyone who wants to destroy the stones would have to strike at Iskora itself, not the camp on the opposite bank of the river.”

“Or,” Viktor said, “they could try to pass through the portal from here to Iskora.”

“Good luck with that. I’m sure all those hired blades would be more than happy to let you stroll right through. And even if you somehow managed it, then what? If you shut the portal down from the other side, you’d be stuck there.”

True enough, Viktor thought.

“Honestly,” Azran said, “she’d probably have better odds appealing to the Guildmaster’s Conclave than trying to solve this with force.”

“She can’t. This isn’t something the Conclave gets involved in.”

After all, officially this conflict had nothing to do with the Adventurer’s Guild itself. Instead, it was between the town of Daelin and new settlers from Iskora who sought to establish a foothold here. The adventurers were merely hired muscle on both sides, nothing more, nothing less. So unless there was clear proof of misconduct by the adventurers themselves, the Conclave had no jurisdiction over the matter. All they could do, and all they had done, was urge both Guilds to keep their people on tight leashes and avoid escalating things any further. Well, they did agree to Isadora’s request to look into the monster attack, but given Clovis’s influence, Viktor had little faith that the investigation would provide anything of real value.

At the end of the day, the truth of the matter was painfully simple: Daelin was weak. And the weak deserved to be exploited.

There was no higher authority in the Central Plains. There was no king to appeal to, no court to pass judgment. This land was effectively lawless. Daelin itself was the only authority around, and if it proved incapable of enforcing its own will, then that authority would be undermined and replaced by someone else’s.

Still...

The Plains might not have a ruler now, but they had once been ruled by an emperor. And that emperor had returned.

Lawlessness was unacceptable.

Celeste.

[Yes, Master?]

When is Pimm due back?

[Two days from now, Master.]

Good. Once he returns, have Orloth tell him to stop procuring gems for the time being. Instead, I want him to gather as much black powder as he can without drawing attention, no matter the cost, and then bring all of it to the dungeon after a week. After that, he is to remain in town. Again, have him give a detailed description of his lodgings, so I can send further instructions to him directly, just as I did with Yvonne.

[Understood. Anything else, Master?]

Yes. Tell Kazyk to be ready. I’ll have a great deal of work for him very soon.

[I will do it immediately. But... may I ask what you are going to do, Master?]

Fireworks, Celeste. Truly spectacular fireworks. Viktor allowed himself a smile. I’ll solve the problem Alycia’s way.

| The Kestrel, JSOC Facility, Location – redacted |

[First] | [Previous] | [Cover Art]

Messages splashed across everyone’s device and into some of their overlays.

HARMONIC TRANSMISSIONS: INCREASE DETECTED

SUBSTRATE MONITORING: RESONANCE INCREASE

DOCK SEVEN ORBITAL MONITORS: VERIFICATION

“What the hell is substrate monitoring?” asked Rockson.

“Don’t know. You’re the expert,” responded Chen.

“And where are they coming from?”

Then another two messages arrived.

OBSERVATION PLATFORM GAMMA-5: HARMONIC INTERFERENCE OUTSIDE LIMITS

OBSERVATION PLATFORM GAMMA-6 CONFIRMS READINGS

Then another.

OUTER SYSTEM RING REPORTS TELEMETRY MISMATCH

And more.

MOONBASE NAVIGATION BEACON: GRAVITY DISPLACEMENT DETECTED

ORBITAL CONTROL: UNAUTHORISED CARRIER DETECTED

DOCK SEVEN INTERNAL MONITORING: SYNCHRONISATION EVENT

“We’re getting a lot of these messages. Faults?” Said Rockson. “And they’re spread all over the place. Unrelated.”

“No,” said Chen, finishing his whiskey and reaching out to the bottle for a refill. He grabbed the alerts, zoomed into the timeline and dropped the alerts onto the plot. 

They all fell to within milliseconds of each.

“Different systems.” Said the QI, “Same event.”

ATTENTION ALL PERSONNEL

MULTIPLE TECHNICAL ANOMALIES HAVE BEEN DETECTED

THEY REMAIN OUTSIDE THE FACILITY

STAY AT YOUR STATIONS

“Well, at least no one's attacking us.” Said the lawyer.

“Maybe.” Said the other.

Bikky and Tom Tom weren’t smiling; they looked disappointed and started putting their weapons away.

A security officer ran past The Kestrel. They saw him through a forward viewport. A second ran in the opposite direction; a team of engineers followed, struggling with toolboxes.

Feebee heard scratchy laughter, ‘It’s like one of those ancient black and white films with everyone running in different directions.’

‘Yeh. Everyone thinks their system is failing.’

The forward screen still held the timeline; the recent messages were still there. The QI shifted the timeline’s focus to align with its ‘convergence’ data.

Chen was watching. So was Garaf. The others saw them looking and slowly turned. Eventually, everyone watched as the messages collapsed in on a single node. All in one place.

Dock Seven.

The room watched, and the QI took the opportunity to clear the screen. In place of the timeline, it put up the message they’d received earlier. The one that had flashed across every screen.

> CONTINUITY: VERIFIED

> CONVERGENCE

> QUIETUS PROTOCOL: Continue.

The QI spoke before anyone could comment, “The more I look at this, the less I believe this message was for us.”

“It’s not a reply, that’s for sure.” Slurred Chen.

“I agree. It’s more like a checkpoint.”

Rockson frowned, “What d’you mean? A checkpoint?”

“I think, by completing the routing paths and the map of convergence events, I triggered something that was already running.”

StillFall moved across, a trail of motes in its wake, and stopped in front of the screen.

“It never stopped.”

Everyone stopped, processing StillFall’s statement.

As they did this, another message splashed across the screens.

> QUIETUS PROTOCOL: Continue.

This time, the message was followed by a burst of network traffic. Nothing special, just lots of ordinary network traffic.

Rockson saw it first.  “It’s pervasive,” he said. “Across all of the Dock Seven systems. Is this an attack?”

“No!” said one of the accountants emphatically. Then more gently, “No, I don’t think it’s an attack. Odd, but not an attack.”

“Why odd?” asked his colleague.

“They’re mostly timing packets.”

“Guys, in simple language. Please!”

Bikky tutted, “Nerds.”

Tom Tom laughed.

The accountant translated, “They aren’t exchanging data. They’re synchronising. Aligning with each other and then confirming that they are in sync.”

“Yeh, as if checking if everyone’s still there.”

There was another burst.

Then another.

The accountant replayed the two bursts. Each was at a different frequency, aimed at different systems.

“They’re doing the same things; raising the same question.”

“Which is?” asked Feebee.

“Presence.” Said the QI, “You there? Are we good?”

There was another pulse, a response. The QI translated as best it could.

“Present.”

Then another, “Present.” And so it went on, response after response.

ATTENTION ALL PERSONNEL

UNEXPLAINED NETWORK EVENTS

ITCS STAFF REPORT TO OPERATIONS IMMEDIATELY

Feebee looked out across the landing pad. Some communication specialists were setting up a relay station in the middle of the landing pad. Crews and security were double timing around them.

Then there was a loud banging on the outside of The Kestrel’s hull.

Nobody on The Kestrel moved. They knew the facility’s systems weren’t malfunctioning. The headless chickens running around outside almost certainly didn’t and would be blaming each other, finger-pointing and referring to Priority 1 – Cover thine arse.

Rockson turned to the prisoner and whispered, “They’re answering.”

The prisoner nodded once, “They always answer.”

Meanwhile, somewhen else… The Long Quiet reported.

OBSERVATION: Continuity Verified

NETWORK STATUS: Partial

RESPONSES: Increasing

QUIETUS PROTOCOL: Continue

Then, after a pause, additional lines appeared.

UNACCOUNTED NODE DETECTED

RISK: Unknown

And now…

Feebee looked around the room.  All the displays and the discarded printouts with scribbles and circles. At StillFall and the prisoner.

Then she looked at Chen. “You own Dock Seven.”

“We own it. Yes.”

She smiled, acknowledging his correction. “We own it.”

He nodded.

StillFall turned to the projected map and traced a line with a dark finger to a point that glowed just below Dock Seven.

It wasn’t a dock or a warehouse. It was something much older.

The shadow spoke one word.

“There.”

The banging on the hull sounded again, and the main hatch started to drop. Feebee saw a JSOC Colonel outside with two security personnel, more like military police.

He strode up the ramp, confident and assured, and was met by Feebee. The two Alphas were at her back.

“Captain Jones.”

“Colonel,” she responded.

The other crew had pushed onto the loading area at the rear of the Kestrel, near the ramp.

“I’ve been instructed to collect the prisoner and return him to JSOC custody.”

Tom Tom turned to Bikky, “Looks like they finally got their shit together.”

They laughed, which drew a stern look from the Colonel.

Garaf remained with the prisoner, at the back.

The Colonel saw him and, turning to Feebee, said, “Thank you for your assistance.”

He then turned to the MPs, “Recover the prisoner.”

Garaf stepped in front of the prisoner, flanked by Tom Tom and Bikky, who stood casually with arms folded. StillFall remained perfectly still, alight with motes, hovering above the prisoner.

Nobody moved.

The Colonel was an old hand. He’d seen this before and knew it never ended well. The first person to move usually lost.

Feebee then stepped forward, “Why?”

The Colonel was taken aback. “Excuse me?”

“Why do you want him?” she asked again.

“Because he was part of the attack.”

Feebee shook her head. “No.”

The Colonel frowned. “No?”

“He’s part of the answer. So, no.”

Chen stepped forward. “The prisoner must remain under SixFold authority pending completion of our investigation.”

The Colonel turned to Chen, then deliberately looked at the shoulder flashes that carried his rank before answering. “I don’t recognise SixFold authority.”

Chen noticed the slight, ignored it and smiled. “You don’t have to.”

He then produced a classified authorisation and handed it over.

“Colonel.” He said, then continued. “The minister does.”

He took the authorisation and read it slowly, looking up at Chen as he did. He clearly didn’t like what he read but couldn’t ignore it. You could almost see the cogs turning, then he answered with a smile.

“He doesn’t leave this facility!”

Feebee replied immediately, “Then neither do we.”

The Colonel spun on his heels and marched down the ramp. Before he got to the bottom, he was met by an officer who rushed up to him and handed him a console.

What followed was a heated exchange, almost comical as it was conducted entirely in whispers, with the officer occasionally pointing at The Kestrel.

The Colonel’s face changed, taking on a resigned look as he walked back up the ramp, into The Kestrel and up to Chen.

“Sir.” He was very polite, professional. “We have another problem…”

He showed Chen the display on the console.

DOCK SEVEN: UNAUTHORISED FACILITY STATUS CHANGE

OWNER: SixFold Ventures

AUTHORITY: Unknown

CONTROL: Contested

Chen was about to say something, then looked back at the console and read it again, making sure he’d read it right.

The Colonel then spoke, “Something aligned with Dock Seven just ignored JSOC and SixFold procedures.”

StillFall moved towards the Colonel. “Good!”

Everyone turned. Even the prisoner. It was the first time StillFall had sounded… hopeful.

Meanwhile, somewhen else… The Long Quiet reported.

OBSERVATION: Continuity Maintained

NETWORK STATUS: Stable

RESPONSES: Stable

UNACCOUNTED NODE: Active

RISK: Unknown

QUIETUS PROTOCOL: Continue

[First] | [Previous] | [Cover Art]

Index -- First Chapter -- Previous Chapter

Audio Drama Link

The air took hold of the vessel the way water takes a dropped stone, all at once and with a sound, and it was the sound that reached me first, before the land, before anything I saw. I had crossed to four hundred and ten dead worlds through a silence so total that I had long since stopped counting it as silence, as you stop hearing a thing that never changes its note. Now the outer skin of the vessel began to sing under the press of moving air, low, then climbing, and I sat inside that climbing note and understood that the world beneath me had not gone still. Its air was in motion. It moved as living air moves, pushed into weather, and the weather struck the hull and set it speaking, and I had not been spoken to by a world in longer than I can hold.

I brought the vessel down through it slowly. There was cloud, high and torn, and then below the cloud a light I had also half forgotten, the flat yellow light of a working star falling across a country, and under the light the grey came up to meet me. From the high air it had looked like the color of an old scar, and from nearer it was worse than that, because from nearer I could see that the scar had a shape. The land below was not the raw dead rock of the outer worlds. It had been arranged once. Even worn down to almost nothing, even smoothed under an age of wind, the arrangement was still faintly in it, a grain running through it as grain runs through cut wood, straight lines where the world itself does not make straight lines, meeting each other at the hard clean angles that only a made thing keeps.

The vessel came to rest on a low rise above what had been the meeting place of two of those grains, and I sat a while and did not open it.

When I did open it the air came in, and I let it, which was the second rule I broke in as many hours. A surveyor does not trust a dead world's air. He reads it from behind glass and takes what the instruments give him and keeps his own breath to himself, because the air of a world that has ended is a record of the ending, and the endings are not always clean. I knew all of that. I opened the vessel to it anyway, because I wanted, once, to breathe the same air the makers had breathed, and I told myself the instruments had already said it was safe, which was true, and not the reason.

It was thin and cool, and it moved. It carried the smell of water somewhere off past the edge of what I could see, and under the water a dryness, dust lifted and set down and lifted again across more years than the makers had been gone. There was a live thing in it too, faint, a green sourness at the back of the breath that meant something on this world was still holding on, low to the ground, patient, keeping the smallest possible amount of the air turning over so that it stayed a breathing air and did not go the way of the outer worlds. I had not expected that. On the four hundred and ten I had counted, the air, where there was any, was the air of a sealed room long after everyone in it has gone. This air was the air of a house whose people have left but whose garden has not yet been told.

I stepped out onto the ground of the four hundred and eleventh world, and the wind came across the rise and pushed at me, and somewhere below a loose thing knocked against another loose thing, once, and then the wind eased and it stopped. That was all. But I had stood on a great many dead worlds, and the dead do not knock. They lie exactly as they fell and the stillness closes over them and nothing moves again that a hand set moving. Here the wind kept lifting things and setting them down, keeping the place in a kind of motion that had no one behind it, and the effect of it, standing there, was of a place only lately abandoned, as though the makers had walked out ahead of me by an afternoon and I had only just missed them at the door.

I made myself do the work. It is what the work is for, to give the hands something to hold to when the rest of you wants to wander off the edge. I walked down off the rise into the grain of the old arrangement and I read it the way I have trained myself to read a dead world, as weather, as a thing already finished that asks nothing of me.

It had been a city. That much any surveyor could have said from orbit, and I had said it and filed it, and by every rule I was finished. From inside it the word was too small. The mounds ran away from me in their worn rows for as far as the light reached, long low swells of ground with the straight grain still in them, and here and there the grain broke the surface, a lip of some pale made stone gone soft at every edge, a stub of metal bled entirely to rust and holding its shape only as a stain the color of dried blood in the paler dust around it. I crouched over one of those stains and put my hand flat against it and felt nothing under my palm but cold grit, the last of a thing a maker had raised, worn now to a shadow in the dust.

Further on I came to a place where the ground was littered with a scatter of small worn pieces, hundreds of them turned up out of the dust, each one rounded and dulled past knowing. One had been glass. I could tell that much from how the late light went into it and came back changed, though the wind had frosted it blind and rounded every edge until it sat in my hand like a river stone. The makers had made these things by the million once, whatever they had been, and thought nothing of them. Here were the last of them outlasting every proud raised thing around, worn anonymous, kept by nothing but their own smallness. I set the piece back in the dust where I had found it. It felt like a theft to carry off the one thing a world had managed to hold.

That is what time does to what we build. I had seen it four hundred and ten times. On the ninetieth world it had been faces cut into a cliff, worn back to blank stone; here it was a city worn back to the ground it stood on, and the lesson was the same lesson, and I had thought I knew it all the way through.

Standing, I looked out along those rows to where they ran up against the far side of the valley, and I saw the thing that did not fit the lesson.

It was standing.

Everything else on that plain had lain down. The city had come down to its mounds and its stains, the way cities do, as every raised thing comes down once the hands that tended it are gone, because that is the bargain a made thing strikes with deep time, that it may hold its shape a while and then must give it back. One thing on that plain had not given its shape back. It stood up out of the far slope, low and broad, dark against the pale ground, and even from that distance I could see that its lines were still true, its edges not yet surrendered to the wind. It had refused the bargain. It had been made to refuse it.

I went toward it. Survey work was the reason I gave. What moved me was that I could not have kept away from it. Every other ruin on that world was a thing time had beaten, and I knew how to look at those, I had four hundred and ten worlds of practice at looking at those and feeling the small trained cold and nothing more. This was a thing that had beaten time, or was still beating it, out here where nothing was left to keep the score, and I had never in all my going out found such a thing waiting for me, and I did not know how to look at it and feel only what I had trained myself to feel.

It was larger than it had seemed, as they are always larger. Up close it was a single low mass, sunk deep into the slope as though it had been driven there, its outer face a dark dense material I could not name, pitted all over by the long weather but nowhere worn through. It sat low and heavy under the open sky, set down by hands that had built for permanence, for the long years they knew were coming. The shape of it had no reach in it, no wish to be seen from far off. It had been made only to stay.

Its dark face rose past me into the last of the yellow light, and the wind that had followed me across the plain broke around the base of it and fell quiet, so that I stood in a pocket of stillness the mass of the thing had made. I came up under it and put my hand to the surface the way I had put my hand to the stain, and this time something met my palm. The weather had pitted the surface and had not erased what was cut beneath the pitting. There were marks. They ran across the dark face in ordered rows, worn shallow but holding, and they had not come there by wind or by any accident of the stone. A hand had cut them. A hand had cut them deep, deeper than any use the makers could have had for them in their own short lives, deep enough that an age of weather had thinned them and still failed to carry them off. The depth was the message before I read a mark of it. The hand had known the years were coming and had cut down past them, to reach whatever stood here after.

Whatever came after was me.

I stood under the marks I could not yet read, on the one dead world in all my going out that had reached up from its own grave to call me down, and the trained cold I had carried across four hundred and ten worlds turned over in me and would not settle back. Everywhere else, the dead set a stone above the grave and ask the ground to hold their name a while, and in time the ground lets it go. These makers had done the other and harder thing. Knowing they were ending, they had cut their voice into a mass built to outlast the very ground, and aimed it down the whole length of the years at a stranger they would never meet.

I had come to count this world and to leave it. I set my hand flat against the marks, and I began to look for the way into them.

Next Chapter

Chapter 1 

Synopsis:

Soul Unravelling: Unravel the soul of your prey and absorb their Cultivation.

Weaver is a forgotten class, and its only skill is considered a Lost Skill. 

Lost means no one alive used it, and, in a world where Ascedants live for tens of thousands of years, it meant all its previous owners had been erased from existence, either by the gods themselves or the Empire. 

Liesel doesn't know what The Weaver Class is supposed to mean, but she can read the skill's description and its promise of an infinite growth potential. 

After a lifetime of being cursed with no future, there is no way Liesel can refuse this opportunity. 

With an unflinching conviction, a taste for battle, and a blood-hungry sword by her side, Liesel is prepared to walk the forgotten path, no matter the danger. 

But why does she keep finding herself tied to the 'Soulweaver', a word that yet doesn't mean anything?

----

The story is about a warrior raised to be one of the strongest assets of the Empire, a Crusader General. All that training was wasted when Liesel's affliction came to light. Her soul couldn't grow in a world where all magic stems from it. Forced to drop out of the academy, Liesel had a choice between living a normal life or pursuing the life she had no future in. She chose later. 

The story starts at the point where Liesel earns a second chance to walk the path of magic. It focuses on battles, its consequences, and the in-between moments between those high-stakes battles, on the human who knows only one life, one that never rests. How far can an unrelenting spirit take someone? 

What to expect:

- Average to Strong  
- A Clever and Resourceful Protagonist with plenty of room for growth, both personally and magically
- Taking souls of the dead and using them to acquire magic and strength
- Focus on Cultivation and Skills Mechanics

Schedule: M-F

------

Chapter 3

​​The wall that the Mindeater was scratching split and opened like two massive gates. 

Liesel was hesitant to enter another unknown layer. She had not sustained any injury from her encounter with the Mindeater, for which she was fortunate. At the same time, she had no mental strength to move at all. 

If only she had woken up in her bed, as if it were just a nightmare? But this was real. The Mindeater's blood smelled like boiling medicines. She walked over its corpse, as if to tell herself that she had won.

The door fully opened, large enough to put even the Grand Senatorium of the capital to shame, and may host the Ancient Giants without any trouble.

It was a narrow passage in its design, even if it was built so vast that she felt like an ant venturing into a castle. The darkness around her was tangible, which would've bothered her, but that emotion had been thoroughly destroyed by the Mindeater.

"You did it!" The spirit manifested in front of Liesel, surrounded by a puff of white clouds. "That was amazing… Are you okay?"

"Was it your idea to put me there?" Liesel asked.

The spirit whipped her wings, scooting away from Liesel, as she waved her hand. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. You got it all wrong. I am like… just here. Better to be safe in this place than out there in your world. I've got no say in anything here. Well, I tried to have the bastard custodian end it quickly, but he wanted to test you."

"The Custodian... Who is he?" Liesel asked. She didn't think she was angry at anyone in particular. That could largely be attributed to her powerlessness. She was walking in a world beyond her comprehension. To feel angry at someone who could trap a Mindeater, create a Shade Dungeon, what good would it do for her?

"Well, I am here to guide you to him. He's decayingly old, you see," the spirit said, "and so he needs a successor for the Qirahth. You might be good for the job, he thinks, even if you are a very feeble creature at the moment. He might be able to fix you."

"Am I still under the dreams of the Mindeater?" Liesel whispered under her breath. She didn't feel that way. But that thought allowed her to let the simmering curiosity die there. 

"You are not. I saw you kill it, which was strange. How did you do it? I mean, you are very weak."

"Once a Mindeater manifests inside the memory, it has little control over it. It is the sole chance that is given to its prey to win. There is always only one," Liesel replied.

"Why do you know that, Liesel?" Auram asked. "You are too weak to have ever considered facing something like that. I have lived a hundred times your lifespan, probably, but even I didn't know that about five minutes ago."

Liesel shrugged without an answer. She had once imagined herself in those white, radiant gowns that the Radiant Guardiants, ones responsible for hunting down the Mindeaters, wore. So she had taken the precursor course for it. It allowed you to experience a small taste of what a Mindeater was like. 

"Not interested?" Auram frowned. "That makes me even more curious. C'mon, tell me."

"Knowledge has little to do with strength."

"Oh, you're gonna eat those words," the spirit grinned proudly. She zipped forward. "Knowledge has a lot to do with strength, trust me. Hurry up!"

Unlike the spirit, Liesel lacked the willpower to make any active effort. She dragged her feet on the dusty, slate grey stones like a drunk woman, about to fall flat on the ground.

It would take another five minutes of walking before they arrived at another door.

"If you are wondering why it's taking so long, just know that the Custodian decided this is how you must come to the Qirahth. Otherwise, you'd not appreciate it. He could've connected the door directly to his chamber if he wanted."

Even in these plain walls, the air of something ancient and greater than the Laks Empire breathed down her neck. It could only exist at the same time as the Empire itself because it was not part of the Hallowed Realms. She didn't mind being forced to appreciate the grandeur a little longer, an imaginary civilization that was truly civilized. It would last this fleeting moment. Once she met the Custodian, she'd either be left thinking, "Oh, they were just like the Empire," or that they were worse than the Empire. Experiences inside the dungeon gave her little to settle on either. 

The heavy stone doors shook the ground beneath her feet as they slid to the side. Cold air hissed at her face again.

Past the door, it was a very large library. Everything was built with slate-gray stones. Floating lanterns filled with spirit dust lit the halls. The scrolls hung from the ceiling were the first instrument she saw. They were empty to her eyes, but the mist around them might have played a role in hiding the letters on them. Aisles of books came next, large tomes, bigger than Liesel herself, filling the shelves. And then there were stone tablets, and a hundred other methods of writing. From the runes drawn on the underside of a sphere to translucent liquids that might turn into words under special conditions.

A series of staircases led her to the Custodian's office. It was a small door beside the main door, which was odd at first glance, then she realized he was a Custodian of this realm, not the Master.

The Custodian was a small creature, barely above five feet. Its body was hunched, covered in a gray garb. Its eyes, however, almost brought out the most mortal core of her being, which wanted to kneel. There was a hierarchy of strength, and it was easy to tell where you stood. The golden rings inside the eyes spoke of that hierarchy. No, even the Grand Marshal of the Imperial Army should not have seven rings inside his eyes.

Of course, he can trap the Mindeater inside the dungeon. Even that thing had only one ring in its eyes. Compared to the decaying corpses of an Ascendant before her, the mind eater was nothing more than an insect. 

"You are sufficient enough to stand in the Library," the Custodian uttered. "Unworthy to be our successor still. You have performed aptly, if slightly beneath our expectations. We grow old, and our time diminishes. As such, we must settle our hope on you. Do not disappoint us."

He waved his hand and threw a book at her.

Liesel caught it out of instinct. "What?"

"Once you have formed a Materiality Core, we will converse again. The Soulirius Codex shall guide you."

"What are—" before she could finish her words, everything around her turned black. The ground beneath her feet vanished. She was falling.

And then, she landed on the cold, hard floor. She was lightheaded. And exhaustion tempted her to go to sleep. She gathered herself up immediately. It was cold. Air brushed past her cheek. 

"He expects you to form the Materiality Core in a year," Auram said, appearing in front of Liesel's face again.

"Can you not teleport in my face?" Liesel complained. "I'd not want to accidentally slap you aside." 

She looked around her. She was on the roof of an abandoned temple. It was in ruins, actually. Covered in moss and vines. 

To the east, the sky distorted, and the world seemed to collapse in a weirdly indecipherable way. It was the edge of the realm, perhaps a Necropolis, where the veins of dead gods breed mindless demons—demonic monsters—into the world. So it would be three other directions that she'd need to look for a way out. At the very least, she was at the edge of the ruin, half a step into the forest. She was glad that the Custodian had that much kindness. The deserted ruins would definitely have a few demons meandering around, especially one close to a Necropolis. 

"I'll try," Auram floated at an appropriate distance, "He wanted me to tell you that. Just so you know, I am not his pet." 

"He was in a hurry to throw me out."

"Yeah. Well, he's stingy like that. Sometimes, he even throws me out of the Library when I go to sleep, but I can teleport right back, so he has no choice but to scowl like a lizard," Auram proudly proclaimed.

Liesel had little knowledge about the Spirit's magic to discard or accept her words at face value. They were not recognized as an Ascendant species in the first place, and neither were they ever considered dangerous for students to learn about them.

"Why?" she asked.

"Uh, I think he's going insane. Like the real deal insane. He's old, eccentric, and like, really, really stubborn. If I have to guess why he threw you out, I'd say he wants you to think about the Library and him for a while until you get another audience. And that way, he'd have weight behind his words. After all, he's so desperate, he cut out like ten floors of dungeon, and they were all extremely dangerous, designed to kill almost any ascendants in the world."

"Well, you certainly are destroying any ounce of interest I might have in him." Liesel exhaled. At least, she was back outside, but there was no looming Castle of the High Council around her. Everything was flat forest, and some hills in the distance. "If the Mindeater is part of things that must be defeated, then opening a random entrance in the capital does little? Why not seek out strong Radiant Guardians and Ascendants of those ranks?"

"I don't know. I am just there. He might have his reasons." 

Liesel nodded. She considered going into the forest, but she didn't want to move. 

"Well. Why don't you read the book he gave you? It's night, and you are already too exhausted to walk around in the demon-infested forest," Auram said.

"Just great. Can you go back to the Qirahth and ask him to send me back to my home?"

"Uh… I think he must have a reason. And I am not going back. We had a deal, and he broke it."

"What kind of deal?" 

"You are better off thinking you are going to die if you make a single mistake," Auram said. "He only cares about his successor. We had a deal that he'd stop the Mindeater after thirty seconds, and then he refused."

"Successor to what?" Liesel asked. "What makes the library so precious?"

"Something important, I guess," Auram shrugged, shifting away slightly. "I don't understand it really, but he wants to preserve the Qirahth. And right now, he alone sustains the realm. Once he dies, the entire library would collapse."

Liesel bobbed her head, slowly shifting her attention to the book. The Custodian was unlike any creature she had heard of. At the same time, if he could help her, she wouldn't mind accepting his help. She could understand the basic premise of their deal for now. He was desperate for a successor, and she wanted to be more than she was. 

He's not bound to mortal morality. He couldn't care less if I die, or the hundreds of others. 

Liesel reminded herself as she picked up the tome. There was a high likelihood that it would ask her to do something dangerous, and she should be cognizant of that fact. The cover felt like it was made of stone. There was a rune carved on it that she couldn't read.

[Translate Soulirius Codex into Argish?]

The Archive asked. The Archive window was white, unlike the blue of the System.

Liesel nodded. It was the first instance of the Archive communicating with her. After all, the Archive was responsible for the macro management of the world, unlike the individualistic focus of the System.

The ink on the pages twisted and stretched from the unknown symbols to the arches and strokes she could understand.

Soulirius Codex: Nebulous Phase

Authored by The Librarian

Liesel held back a scoff at the absurdity of the title. Regardless, she switched the page. As she went through the book, her eyes grew heavier. She was not interested in the theory. After all, she had once learned most of the things talked about in this book, even if that had not been as well explained as this book did. What purpose did it serve?

The Soul Reconstruction

Liesel's sleep vanished as soon as she went down the passage. Among the list of necessities, which ranged from the poorly constructed cultivation method, to overdrawn and damaged in the Sol veins, the one that stood out to her was the damage caused by exposure to the ashdust.

She flipped through the pages quickly until she arrived at the solution to her ailment. It was divided into two forms, one that was for the matured soul form, and one that never formed. The latter was harder to fix as it didn't just require purifying the ashdust, but also starting the growth of the stunted Soul-Form. It would require sealing the Ash-dust clogging her soul into a tiny section, which was easy so long as she had access to the materials. It would require some expensive things, but none of those should be illegal, so she would've started working on it right now if she were not in the middle of nowhere.

After that, she'd need to start working on a Soul Growth Potion. It would be a little harder, but she could do it. Once those two things were done, she could form a Materiality Core. 

There was a step of destroying the ashdust that would still be trapped in her soul, but it would have to wait for the future. Still, this was the third step of fixing her soul. 

"Did you find an answer?" Auram asked.

Liesel nodded. She had completely forgotten about the spirit. "Yeah. It will be hard… I need to alchemize an Enlightenment Potion."

"Then, why do you look sad?"

"I am not sad… but it is not going to be easy, especially in the middle of nowhere."

"What do you need?"

"A Soulheart..." Liesel glanced at the Necropolis, "And a Soulheart can always be found there." 

"Right." Auram nodded. "What's a Wraith Shaman?"

Liesel had whispered it under her breath while reading the book. There were other materials too, but the wraith demon was going to be the hardest to find.

"A demon that performs rituals for its gods, that god's blood resides in its heart," Liesel uttered. "Its blood can purify the ashdust afflicting my soul. That's for the far future, after forming the Materiality Core." 

Was this why the Custodian threw her here? Regardless, the Wraith Shaman was the long-term goal. For now, she'd need to find a town and then draw the sealing spell as drawn in the book. She glanced at the Necropolis, the arrogance of killing a Mindeater tempted her to try and find it now. 

Don't be stupid. I am barely stronger than a normal human.

---

Chapter 4

Thank you for reading!

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Before the period of FTL, in CCY 0000, the fleet Janus arrived in the Apollo System. Nearly 270 sub-light vessels arrived in sequence, massive antimatter engines sending streaks of sun-hot plasma into the vacuum of space. The planet they were traveling to was shortly named Caerus, named after the Greek God of opportunity, luck, and favorable conditions. As its namesake suggests, the planet had optimal conditions for terraformation. A process that lasted nearly 250 years. 

In CCY 0250 hundreds of thousands landed on Caerus. Automated systems were the first to build cities. These were preferable to building entire cities with conventional methods. During this period, the Caerus Planetary Governmental Development Agency formed. Its primary goal was to rapidly industrialize the planet, then use it as a springboard for the rest of the system. Yet, a generation later, harsh governmental policies—from unnecessary rationing to forced labor—incited a rebellion. 

In 0280 CCY, the Caeran Governmental Wars began. This period had two sides: the CPGDA and the Caeran Solidarity Movement, the CSM was incredibly underarmed for the war at its start, with few wins and many losses. Although the CPGDA possessed overwhelming military superiority, it relied heavily on the orbital infrastructure existing within the original Janus Fleet. Hundreds of ISVs in orbit served as superior manufacturers, as many of the colony’s most advanced fabrication systems had never been reproduced, many of the factories relied on simple automated machines, whilst the existing fleet could rapidly assemble technology. 
As the war ultimately escalated, some radical elements within the Caeran Solidarity Movement concluded that victory would never be possible while the CPGDA retained uncontested control of orbit. What began as plans to seize portions of the fleet evolved into a far more extreme proposal: deny the Agency the fleet entirely. 
The Burning of Janus occurred in 0297 CCY. Multiple captured launch facilities and improvised orbital missiles targeted the ISVs. Several vessels were boarded by mutineers, while others were sabotaged from within by sympathetic crews. Over the course of only a few days, antimatter containment failures, deliberate scuttling charges, and even as far as deorbiting the massive ships consumed the fleet. 
Whilst the Solidarity Movement achieved victory in 0340, the technological aptitude of the orbiting vessels was still lost. Equipment that had once been commonplace became impossible to repair, and surviving engineers were forced to reverse engineer their own technology from whatever remained. 
From 0350 to 1900, the history books have little record of the first post-war nations that evolved into what exists today. The first century following the conflict was dominated by reconstruction rather than expansion. Engineers of the era were less inventors than archaeologists, spending generations dismantling surviving pre-war machinery simply to understand how it had once functioned. Entire professions arose around recovering fragments of forgotten technology, and it was not uncommon for a single intact machine to be studied by several generations before it could be faithfully reproduced. It was also this obsession over old technology that prevented the Caerans from reaching space until 1940.
Political authority also fractured during this long period. The collapse of the CPGDA left no successor capable of governing the entirety of Caerus, and the victorious Solidarity Movement dissolved soon after achieving its objective. Having united primarily through opposition to the Agency, its constituent councils gradually evolved into independent governments, each developing its own institutions, legal traditions, and interpretations of the revolution. 
Despite the apparent stagnation, progress never creased. Across thousands of laboratories, workshops, and universities, humanity slowly rediscovered what had once been commonplace. Metallurgy advanced, automation returned in increasingly capable forms, and the scientific method remained one of the few to survive the collapse nearly intact. Rather than following the direct technology created by the original colonists, the peoples of Caerus increasingly used entirely new solutions to old problems, often reinventing technologies through different principles than those employed aboard the Janus Fleet. 
By the close of the nineteenth century, the Caerans ceased the practice of recovering old technology. And through this they had once again become an industrial civilization of remarkable capability. Although they had yet to reclaim interstellar travel, the foundations of a second technological renaissance had been laid. Yet ironically, many of the breakthroughs that would eventually restore humanity to the stars were not direct recoveries of lost technology, but original discoveries made by the people of Caerus. 
By the beginning of the Space Age, several powers had emerged as the dominant nations of Caerus: the Republic of Idrisyl, the Dominion of Westckeria, the Federation of Giradum, and the Republic of Giradum. 
In 1940, the first manned Caeran spacecraft left the planet. Missions to Tyche, moon of Caerus, became commonplace. Eventually these rudimentary missions lead to the colonization of the moon, which would then springboard missions out across the system. Throughout the twentieth and twentifirst century, fusion technology was not compact enough to be deployed in orbit, and often the vessels of the Caerans were simple nuclear salt water rockets or nuclear pulse rockets. While expensive and cumbersome, these methods provided the means to establish permanent settlements beyond Caerus. The exploitation of Tyche quickly demonistarted the immense economic advantages of spaceborne industry. Free from the constraints of a gravity well, orbital assembly was quickly favored over launching and docking larger ships together. Mining gradually expanded into the asteroid belt, and eventually demand for orbital habitats ever grew. 
The first generation of Caeran orbitals were modest by modern standards. These stations were constructed from debris asteroids spun up to form a cylinder which was then used as a superstructure for the spinning orbital stations of yore. O’Neill Cylinders of this period only housed a few thousand and primarily acted as mining settlements or logistical hubs. Overtime, the entirety of Apollo was rapidly industralized and fusion propulsion technologies further allowed the Caerans to expand further and faster than ever before. Remarkably the Caerans seldom started conflict, as the abundance of resources removed competition that caused past wars. 
In 2090, the Caeran Biotechnology Company developed the first antimatter-propelled vessels. Despite its fairly unrelated name, the CBTC owned multiple subsidiaries that caused them to win the antimatter race. The first ISVs were first constructed in orbit around Caerus, where they would not be bothered under international laws. The CBTCV Halbridge soon left for the system known as Kiln. During this expedition, the first automated industrialization systems since the Janus fleet rapidly industrialized the system, and the planet of Halbridge was colonized. Its neighbor Valbridge would later be disassembled to build the first dyson swarm. 
In 2110, the planet of Halbridge was a victim of corporate espionage gone wrong. A nanite-based terraforming agent was reprogrammed to destroy the ecosystem of the planet, the Caeran Utility Company–who believed that the terraforming agent would slowly ruin the planet–were both surprised and horrified by just how fast the planet was destroyed. Hundreds of thousands died as CBTC industrial machines soon fell under the influence of the agent. Yet, before the terraforming agent–now called the Scourge–could attack Apollo, a man made immortal by the Scourge destroyed the central computer. This man’s name is John Space Cowboy, considering the computer that imprinted his consciousness across the early Ansible network took his sarcastic remark seriously. The Halbridge Incident directly lead to the first Corporate War in 2115, and ended by 2121 in a draw. 
From then to 2300, the Caerans expanded to a grand total of 30 systems. Spread across four Spheres–each Sphere marking fifty years of expansion–they used their pre-FTL vessels in tandem with automated industrialization programs such as ORION to colonize entire swathes of territory before colonists arrived. 
Doctor Robert Foldzmann was born in 2326 on the newly re-terraformed planet of Halbridge to a relatively poor family. He was top of his class, graduating the top college with a doctorate in Warp Drive physics. Regarding that, the Caerans invented FTL in 2229, yet its immense energy requirements forced it to be used in tandem with either a dyson swarm, such as the one in Kiln, or using a really large battery. Short hops across the Apollo system were common place as a kind of emergency transport. Yet, Foldzmann believed that he could crack FTL. 
In 2350, his first generation of drives were introduced. By having two wavefronts of opposite direction meet, it formed a negative energy bubble instead of cancelling out, allowing the Caerans to use FTL. Though, the power requirements were still immense, and antimatter was and still is the backbone of Caeran FTL travel.

Chapter 1

Synopsis:

Soul Unravelling: Unravel the soul of your prey and absorb their Cultivation.

Weaver is a forgotten class, and its only skill is considered a Lost Skill. 

Lost means no one alive used it, and, in a world where Ascedants live for tens of thousands of years, it meant all its previous owners had been erased from existence, either by the gods themselves or the Empire. 

Liesel doesn't know what The Weaver Class is supposed to mean, but she can read the skill's description and its promise of an infinite growth potential. 

After a lifetime of being cursed with no future, there is no way Liesel can refuse this opportunity. 

With an unflinching conviction, a taste for battle, and a blood-hungry sword by her side, Liesel is prepared to walk the forgotten path, no matter the danger. 

But why does she keep finding herself tied to the 'Soulweaver', a word that yet doesn't mean anything?

----

The story is about a warrior raised to be one of the strongest assets of the Empire, a Crusader General. All that training was wasted when Liesel's affliction came to light. Her soul couldn't grow in a world where all magic stems from it. Forced to drop out of the academy, Liesel had a choice between living a normal life or pursuing the life she had no future in. She chose later. 

The story starts at the point where Liesel earns a second chance to walk the path of magic. It focuses on battles, its consequences, and the in-between moments between those high-stakes battles, on the human who knows only one life, one that never rests. How far can an unrelenting spirit take someone? 

What to expect:

- Average to Strong  
- A Clever and Resourceful Protagonist with plenty of room for growth, both personally and magically
- Taking souls of the dead and using them to acquire magic and strength
- Focus on Cultivation and Skills Mechanics

Schedule: M-F

------

Chapter 2 - Mindeater

The Mindeater’s name was not quite literal. They didn’t eat brains, but the idea of the mind: the consciousness within a person, the thoughts, the memories, the being cultivating the will to act contrary to their primal nature.

Almost every Ascendant race fell into that category. Some were less prone to their basal nature than others, but all could resist it and act within a rational, moral framework. They were, in a way, the antithesis of a Mindeater, which was only driven by its desire to consume that willpower. No matter who its prey was, whether it knew if it could win, or it would become the prey instead, it would leap onto the strongest mind in the vicinity, and then the weaker ones, until all had been consumed. 

The air was stale, dry. Her nose itched from the ashdust tainting the air. Liesel could smell the chemical in the room. It came in a glass bottle, and it was necessary to clean the ashdust on the floor that shone like hideous crystals from the salt realm. The cleaner's smell was unpleasant, but that was only because of its association with her past. It had smelled particularly bad on a certain day. She remembered that day.

The bottle had slipped from her hand and fallen on the floor. The liquid inside spilt onto the damp wood floor, and the white smoke rose from it, and the burning stench trapped inside the sealed window room—sealed by the local authority, for they could not risk spreading the Ashening Curse to everyone. That incident had her mother hurling curses at her, which was not her mother’s fault. The Curse of Ashening was painful. Its victim felt the ashdust filling in the vein, clotting the blood, crystallizing the soft flesh into hard shells. They couldn't eat or drink, and the vitality of the curse kept them alive regardless. And they were confined to a single room, forced to stare out of the window, until the curse took their eyes. 

That was two years ago, and Liesel had been younger than she was now. She had not realized how much she’d miss her mother, even one who had gone insane, as she did now. After screaming for almost ten minutes, her mother had passed out on the bed. Blood leaking from her nose stained the pillow.

Liesel had been angry then. It happened just two weeks after she dropped out of the academy because of her lack of talent for magic, and the need for a job to keep her mother’s medicine made it impossible to attend lectures. That day, she had been angrier than at any time in her life. It remains true to this day, and probably for the rest of her life. She wanted gratitude for the miserable life she was subjecting herself to. She deserved it, right?

That day, she had been tempted to end her mother’s misery. Anger was part of it, but even then, she understood this was no longer her mother. That woman was gone; now it was just a cursed husk, pushed into her most basal instinct, which only wanted to ease her own pain. And screaming at the only person she saw, the only one who would take it, was part of the medicine that she needed. 

Liesel’s body moved on its own, puppeteered by the Mindeater. She lifted her broken sword and stabbed the gaunt, ash-gray face of her mother. It chipped and cracked just like the mask of the demons on the second floor.

It was a lie. She had been tempted, angry, but she was not a beast to act upon her most vile instincts. She knew there was only a little time before her mother passed away. It would be over someday, and she would have her own life. But her mother had more pain awaiting her tomorrow, and even more the day after. By the time she’d pass away, there’d be nothing left. No mother to recognize her daughter. It shouldn’t be like that. If there was no saving her... Liesel felt horrified that she wanted to end her life earlier. Yet, it felt the right thing to do. She couldn't ask her mother, that would give the ill woman more daggers to stab her with. It was, even then, her mother's decision to make, which she never made. She only used that question to scold her every time her pain reached a new height.

Her mother had died after complete crystallization six months later. Her pain had grown worse as time passed, as had her anger episodes. Liesel hated it the entire time, but became numb to her misery. But it was over in an instant. The next day, she would be alone in the old house. She had a job, and she could save money to have anything she wanted. But her mother didn't have anything at the end of those agonizing months. It had solidified her belief that she should've ended her mother's misery quicker, rather than let it play out. There was no point to those months, for neither of them. She was still, to an extent, tied to that time, trying to understand what she meant, how immoral her beliefs were, and in the end, there was only acceptance. The life she grew up in meant she couldn't have the idealistic morality that the academy taught her. She couldn't value life in the same way normal people did, even her mother did, to cling to the last breath, rather than accept a quicker end. 

Yet, the memory was not that. She didn't run away from the horrified thought. Instead, she was acting upon her worst instinct. Her body was reeling from relief as she plunged her sword. She could feel the strength with which she held the sword; her eyes were shaking, her heart thumped, and her stomach twisted. She felt guilty for what she was doing. But she had to let the guilt stay. Under this spell, all her actions and feelings were presumed to be basal. 

To manifest that idea of contradiction, the will to resist, the Mindeater drew the darkest memories of its prey, twisted into something vile, to force the prey to resist that memory, to push out the demon inside their mind, and when they did, it won. There was only one actor within the recollection, and it was the Mindeater. She had no power, no magic to win against the Mindeater in this memory.

The Demon Hunters specializing in hunting the Mindeater were trained to remain impassive. They went through every single strand of memory, all the possibilities within, to turn it into an untenable nightmare. Once numbed to the influence of memories, they would be prepared to face a Mindeater. In that vein, Liesel was not much different. She had been living in that memory for years now, and had imagined thousands of times what she could've done. 

From one memory to another, Liesel's mind bounced. From the day she learned she could never be equal to her peers, to the day she dropped out of the academy. Then, she was in the darkness. Perhaps it realized she'd never react to those kinds of memories, and they were in an eternal stalemate if it continued. If anything, she only grew numb to the memories. It wasn't so much that she was special as that she was uniquely suited for this kind of magic. She wouldn't say she had felt anything in the past two years. The day her mother passed away, her emotions were no longer tethered to anything, and slowly they ceased to function accurately. They were there, of course, but detached from her being.

Even now, all the guilt and grief and pain were drowned away by a hollowness in her soul.

She stood in the training arena now. It was her first sparring session in the academy. It was with wooden swords and without any armor. They were supposed to practice with their preferred weapons or find one. There were hundreds to choose from, most unconventional, borderline unusable without magic. 

Liesel was an outsider in the academy. She was introduced on the merit of memorizing a bunch of subjects, rather than family ties. She had been told she didn't belong in the academy, and even the instructors were rather strict with her. Until the first sparring session, she had not known the extent to which the instructors were willing to look the other way. She could be considered naive. 

Soon, she was standing on a mat, facing a girl who had a spear, a real one, instead of the wooden staff that should've been here. Liesel knew it would be more painful than reality. But when the spear's tip plunged into her shoulder and twisted, the burning agony she felt was enough to blank her mind for a moment, for her instinct to spring out and try to wrestle the control of her body from the Mindeater. She let the pain pass, and slowly her mind grew numb. The spear stabbed her abdomen, and it grew hot. The Mindeater made sure she felt each strike like it was the first.

In reality, her sparring partner had struck her hand, shattering the elbow, and before Liesel could even have voiced the pain, the girl had proceeded to stab it into her shoulder to bust it too. It had taken over a week to heal completely, even with magic. She didn't need to pay for it, but after that, she understood she could not fight like it was a practice. Neither could she break their hands in retaliation. She had to defend herself, and let her anger slowly seep into nihilism. 

The Mindeater still didn't get what it wanted. She couldn't really care what was happening; just knowing that it was a lie made everything feel relatively dull. 

*****

"It's not working…?" Auram tilted her head. "They are just standing there for a while. Is your Mindeater dysfunctional, or can she really fight off the Mindeater?"

The Custodian didn't find the predicament as curious. This was the outcome he had hoped to see. The prospective successor of his should at least be this competent. He was pleased, in a way, to see it play out as it was. But the question was how long. It had been about twenty seconds in the real world, but inside the memories, it could've been days. Twenty seconds was not a small time. Usually, the Mindeater would've consumed a couple of dozen demon hunters, if not hundreds. The first trigger inside the memory claimed all its prey. The second was rare, but by that point, almost every prey of his would be claimed. Any further meant the Mindeater would most likely be killed. 

"Let's go," Auram said. "It's almost thirty seconds."

"We must see how long she can endure," The Custodian uttered. He had decided he wanted to be greedy. Killing a Mindeater would greatly help the confidence of his Heir. In the reality he envisioned, perhaps that was the single most important aspect she'd need. 

"We had a deal."

"It shall not impede our duty to find a successor."

"You can't do that!" Auram glared at him.

The Custodian ignored the spirit. "We shall save her, should her life be in peril, but the trial is not over."

"She must be in so much pain... You are evil." 

*****

Liesel stared down the captain. He was bleeding from his chest. The tip of her sword was stabbing his shoulder.

"Please stop…" he stuttered. "Please don't kill me."

"What are you saying, sir? It's a relief. You are hurt, aren't you?" Liesel said. She was feeling great, over the moon. A smirk bloomed on her face as she approached him. The sword in her hand thrummed. She was not going to execute the Shade Strike perfectly because that would make his miserable life a little easier. She wanted it to last longer. Hours if she had a way.

"No, look, I am perfectly fine," he tried to climb to his feet, but his feet slipped on the blood on the floor, and he landed on his buttocks. Only his toe was crushed by the dead demon. It could easily heal with the scroll. 

"It's okay. It won't hurt," Liesel replied as she swung her blade. The blade splattered across her face as it cleft the head right of the shoulder. Some part of her was dancing in joy. She didn't know what the Mindeater hoped it would accomplish. This is a version of the memory. She had no qualms about what she did. Did it not know that? Or perhaps it was incapable of understanding her for who she was, and instead used the humans as he understood them as the yardstick.

How long had she been in the memory? It should be years by now, right? She felt like she had lived a life, or her own life, but completely differently. On some level, she was not even sure which version of her memories was real. What emotion did she feel when she watched the captain die the first time? It shouldn't have been joy, right? 

Perhaps she never factored this part of the Mindeater's reality. Even if you could win, just experiencing its magic once destroyed the life you led until then. Now you have many different versions of those memories, some easily distinguishable from the fake, but others just slightly different, sometimes even less cruel than the reality. Even this fear of being changed would manifest the Mindeater's victory, so she had to ignore those worries until she had escaped. 

The captain's body squirmed, gasping for breath that was impossible. His eyes stared at her until they lost their light. He died after almost five minutes.

And then, the smirk on her face vanished. She was sick. The emotions and memories felt were from the Mindeater, of course. It wanted her to resist those emotions, for it too would manifest its victory.

The floor beneath her vanished. She was falling through the sea of darkness again. She landed on the smushy floor. In her hand, there was a broken sword, covered in blood and ashdust. She climbed to her feet, and then she approached the Mindeater. She was worried it would eat her.

Yes. Liesel's heart thumped. This was a harrowing moment for her, as it would be for anyone. No one in their right mind would not feel a certain doom when facing a Mindeater. Perhaps she had not realized how quickly they'd arrive at this point. It should've been another year of those twisted memories. Perhaps she had lived a very short and uneventful life. Perhaps the Mindeater's reputation preceded its actual capacity, or perhaps she was uniquely resistant to its magic. Regardless, it was time to face the demon within the memory.

The memories were always in hierarchy, and the Mindeater must always move down the levels, and eventually, one memory would manifest where it was the source of her terror. A re-enactment of the reality they were currently frozen in, where the illusion within its eyes and the real world collided. Here, it would manifest as not an emotion within her body, but the horror on the outside.

Her soul jumped inside her body each time the Mindeater scratched the wall. 

Liesel kept walking. Steading her breath. Her mind reeled from the experiences of all those memories, and how close she was to freedom, as well as how close she was to losing it. 

It stopped once she crossed the halfway mark. It was harder to walk here with all the blood and ashdust under her feet—a toil to tire her body out. At two-thirds, it stopped again. Finally, at three-fourths of the way there, it looked at her. She stopped at the exact same point where her physical body was in the dome.

This time, its eyes were open. It reflected her haggard state. All the wounds it had inflicted on her. She no longer looked human. If she were to mistake it for herself in the real world, it would win still. 

Liesel's finger clutched the broken sword. She was feeling horror on her own now, without any input from the Mindeater.

It rushed at her. Her body couldn't move.

NO! She pushed Materiality into her limbs. It flowed through her veins and into the tips of her fingers.

The demon was in front of her in a blink. Its body towered over her. Its long claw pushed her face up.

She met its eyes. The irises were opening once again, gnashing a jaw of infinite teeth. It leaned forward to bite her head off.

She lifted her hand, aching and numb, and shoved her nail into the Mindeater's eyes. It flapped its wings like ears, as well as the fleshy ones on its back, trying to fly away like an insect. The slate-black blood trickled down her arm, burning the wounds it had inflicted. Liesel grabbed its head harder.

It screeched at her.

She raised her blade, filled with Materiality, and rested it against its neck. 

Wait.

Her fingers dug deeper into the abnormal eyes. Its claws ripped her skin, stabbed into her body, but this was a memory. A Mindeater never inflicted a physical wound, even when it would die. 

Wait.

She waited for the Materiality to align. She had to kill it in one strike. If she didn't, it would escape her grasp, and she'd be sent a layer deeper into the memories, starting from the first one until she was at this point again. There was no way she'dkeep her sanity until the second chance. 

It must die here.

When the Materiality aligned between the Soul Shade, the World Shade, and the Mind Shade, Liesel swung her blade, ripping through the sniwey flesh of its neck. A trail of dark light followed, as the blood from the Mindeater clung to the blade.

[Shade Strike: Tri Severance, Executed!]

Its lower body fell to the ground with a dull thud. Her fingers were still clutching its head. The purple blood leaked from the severed neck and was somehow absorbed by the steel blade. She didn't have the energy to feel worried about that.

Liesel blinked. All the pain vanished instantly. She was free. And she was still holding the head outside the memory.

[Materiality +54566

Excess Materiality Discarded 54555

Materiality: 40/40]

[Slain Ders’gul Vornacan

Title Acquired: Slayer of Vornacan

The attributes requirement for the title is unmet.

The benefits of partial affixation are possible.

The attributes failed to meet the requirement for partial affixation.

Title locked: Consult an Archive Master to learn the requirements to unlock the title.

A Tertiary Title has been Granted: Mindslayer

The attribute requirement for the title is unmet, but partial affixation can be done.

Beginning the mental Alignment.

1800 Materiality required to start the process!

Alignment process suspended until the Materiality is recovered! 

Title Locked: Consult an Archive Seer to learn the requirement to unlock the title.]

"Of course," Liesel mumbled. Her crippled soul couldn't even affix a title, which was one of the most common actions any Ascendant partook in. And even that was not enough for her to feel any despair.

---

Chapter 3

Thank you for reading!

Upto Chapter 25 is already uploaded on Royal Road: Link

Upto Chapter 42 is uploaded on Patreon: Link

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Chapter 136: Roads and Portals

This was the second time Viktor found himself in the meeting room of the Adventurer’s Guild, and the contrast with the first was hard to miss. When Claire said she wanted her brother to attend the meeting as well, no one batted an eye, as though his presence had already been accepted as natural and expected.

And the funny thing was that, despite the change in his standing, the reason for both meetings remained exactly the same.

Clovis.

The previous gathering had been convened to discuss his offer to buy the dungeon. Now, they were here again because of that slippery Guildmaster from Iskora, this time to address the small issue of his mercenaries having seized the outpost on the other bank of the river.

Isadora presided at the head of the table, her back perfectly straight and her hands folded neatly atop a stack of papers. If the events of the last few days had taken any toll on her, she gave no sign of it. Viktor suspected that even if the ceiling collapsed right now and buried them all, she would still be issuing orders from under the rubble.

The left side of the long table was occupied by the representatives of the caravan station. One-Eyed Wulf claimed the seat closest to Isadora, and beside him were several senior officers of the caravan guards, along with a handful of the station’s administrative staff.

On the opposite side sat the members of the Guild and a number of adventurers. Viktor was among them, wedged between Claire and... Lloyd, of all people.

“Why are you even here?” he whispered, leaning slightly toward the white-haired man.

“Why can’t I be?” Lloyd replied, a grin already spreading across his face. “Helping treat the wounded adventurers did wonders for my reputation with the Guild. So when I expressed an interest in this meeting, they were more than happy to include me.”

“I’m not asking why they let you in. I’m asking why you even care at all.”

“Of course I care,” Lloyd said. “Did you forget that I plan to return to the ruins of the Dark Emperor’s castle? Now there’s a heavily armed camp nearby, filled with the very people suspected of being responsible for all broken souls I’ve been stitching back together for the past few days. It would be far stranger if I weren’t concerned.”

While Viktor could not deny the logic of that explanation, he still couldn’t understand Lloyd’s fixation on that old castle of his. Was it really about the treasures? If that were the case, the guy was going to be deeply disappointed. Viktor knew all too well that there was nothing of value left behind in that place.

Isadora cleared her throat, signaling that the meeting was about to begin in earnest.

“Thank you for coming,” she said. “I believe everyone here is already aware of the purpose of this meeting. Our outpost across the river has been taken over by an armed group led by a Mithril-ranked adventurer named Zubayr, currently in the employ of the Adventurer’s Guild in Iskora. I’ve sent a representative to negotiate with them, but the attempt was... unsuccessful.”

“Unsuccessful?” A man barked out a laugh. “They killed our people and stole our camp. Of course they won’t hand it back just because we asked nicely. I don’t understand why you even bothered.”

“They killed the monsters that killed our people,” Isadora said. “Then they occupied an outpost that had already been abandoned. Unless we can present concrete proof that they orchestrated the monster attack, hurling accusations at them will achieve nothing beyond embarrassing ourselves.”

As the man fell silent under her gaze, Isadora seemed ready to move on and leave the matter where it lay, but Calyssa raised a hand before she could.

“I think we should at least discuss the possibility that they were behind the attack,” the bespectacled woman said. “This isn’t an accusation, only an exploration of possibilities. If we refuse to talk about it, how can we even find any proof? So, for the sake of argument, let’s assume they are responsible. The question is: how did they do it?”

“It could have been a Reliquary,” Wulf said. “I’ve never heard of one with this kind of power, though, but my knowledge is limited. There are countless Reliquaries out there, all with wildly different abilities, so it wouldn’t surprise me if something like that existed.”

Claire frowned. “I can understand if it’s a Reliquary that merely allows someone to control a handful of monsters. But I’ve seen the aftermath of the battle. There were over a hundred monster corpses, of different sizes and species. I can’t imagine an artifact powerful enough to dominate all of them existing without anyone knowing about it. If it’s ever been used before, there should be a record about it somewhere...”

Or perhaps it hadn’t been a Reliquary at all. Maybe it was the work of an Ascendant. Celeste, after all, literally had hundreds of monsters under her command. So it wasn’t implausible that an Ascendant of a different path could exert control over a hundred wandering beasts.

Now, thinking about it, if such a person existed, perhaps they had also been responsible for the monster attack on the town eight years ago. But why? Back then, Daelin had been insignificant. There had been no reason to attack it at all.

Linking the two incidents might feel a bit forced, Viktor thought.

Around him, the discussion was in full swing. Theories were proposed, challenged, and replaced in rapid succession, each more imaginative than the last. Eventually, Isadora brought her hand down sharply on the table.

“Enough,” she said. “I know the monster attack is a serious issue, and I have no intention of ignoring it. But chasing baseless speculation will only waste our time. We need to focus on the present, not on what has already happened. The fact is, we’ve lost the outpost across the river, and our chances of reclaiming it are slim. The real question is this: what do we do now? What is our next course of action?” Her gaze then shifted to Wulf. “Did the Overseer say anything about the matter?”

The one-eyed captain inclined his head.

“He did. His assessment was much the same as yours: stopping Clovis from establishing his settlement is no longer realistic. Instead, we should turn our attention inward. Build up what’s ours. Specifically, he suggested we start with the infrastructure. The route to the dungeon, in particular.”

“The route?” Isadora raised an eyebrow, then gave a nod. “Yes, of course. At present, anyone heading to the dungeon has to take the long way around. They must go east, then follow the paved road along the river—the one built by the late Guildmaster Gideon—and then take the forest trail upstream toward the waterfall behind which the dungeon lies. All of this is because Gideon didn’t want to cut a road straight south through the forest.”

Cutting through the forest, huh? That was the exact same route Viktor had taken before Celeste gained the ability to teleport him directly to the dungeon from his house.

“He believed that building a direct road would be very expensive and time-consuming,” Calyssa said. “Also, as the town grew, he planned to build lodging for the adventurers near the river, then use ferries along the Voskryn to move people and supplies.”

“Which is no longer feasible,” Isadora said. “The planned far end of that ferry route is currently under the control of those mercenaries, is it not? Not to mention, after a monster attack like the one we’ve just endured, I doubt many people are eager to stay near the river or trust their life to a boat.”

“But—”

“The situation has changed. And we must adapt accordingly. There is little value in clinging to plans that no longer suit reality.”

Calyssa exhaled slowly, her shoulders sagging, then gave a reluctant nod. She said nothing more, but her expression made it clear that she was not very happy to see yet another piece of Gideon’s legacy set aside.

Isadora turned back to Wulf.

“So,” she said, “the Overseer wants a new road straight south, all the way to the dungeon? That won’t be cheap.”

The captain grinned. “Coin is the one thing he doesn’t lack.”

“Well, if he’s willing to open his purse, then who am I to stop him?”

“There’s more,” Wulf said. “The final part of the old route, the forest path that runs upstream to the waterfall. Once Clovis’s settlement is finished, any adventurers approaching the dungeon from that side will have to use it after crossing their newly-built bridge. Which means we could deny them access by destroying the path.”

A murmur rippled through the room.

“Of course I don’t imagine it would stop them forever,” Wulf continued. “Clovis would find a way around it eventually. Just like he found a way to take our outpost. Still, a setback is a setback. If we can slow them down, there’s no reason not to.”

Isadora nodded. “We’ll do so once the new route is complete.” She let her gaze sweep across the room. “Any objections?”

No one spoke. Heads nodded, some readily, others after brief hesitation. Calyssa’s lips pressed into a thin line, but she remained silent.

“Good,” Isadora said. “Then it’s settled.” Then she told Wulf, “If we’re building a new route, I want it finished as soon as possible. Can you relay that to the Overseer?”

“That’s already his thinking. He believes we’re short on time. Everything needs to move quickly. The new settlement won’t be long in coming.”

“How so?” someone asked. “They’ve taken only an outpost, nothing more. Building an entire settlement from scratch will take time. Moving laborers, hauling materials. Are they going to bring everything from Iskora? A single trip could take weeks...”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Isadora said. She gestured toward a mage seated near the far end of the table, the same aeromancer who had been tasked with keeping watch on the outpost. “Tell them what you saw.”

The man straightened. “By Guildmaster Isadora’s request, I’ve been monitoring the occupied outpost to observe their activities,” he said. “And based on what I’ve seen, I believe they are constructing a portal.”

The whole table fell silent.

Viktor, on the other hand, wasn’t particularly surprised. After all, he had already reached the same conclusion.

After that day, he had ordered Galatea to keep sending her projection to watch the camp. It remained far enough away, as he didn’t want to risk triggering another alarm. But even from a distance, the purpose of the structure was obvious.

After the silence, a low murmur spread through the room as people leaned toward one another, trading whispers.

“I believe the portal is meant to connect directly to Iskora,” Isadora said. “Once completed, it would allow them to transport people and materials back and forth almost instantaneously.”

Wulf’s brow creased. “That will speed up their construction significantly.”

Yes. Viktor chuckled. But it also means if the portal were destroyed, Iskora’s ambitions in the region would suffer a crippling blow.

“Is that even possible?” someone asked. “I’ve heard of Riftwalkers teleporting people around, but only one or two at a time, and maybe with a few items. I’ve never heard of a portal capable of transporting large groups of people and building materials.”

“It’s possible,” Isadora said. “Just very difficult. And expensive. I’m no expert, though, so I can’t really speak to the technical specifics. If only we had a Riftwalker with us, then we could ask for their opinion.”

Well, we do have one in town.

“Actually,” Lloyd said, “there’s a Riftwalker here. A Gold-ranked adventurer. I saw him when I stayed at the Emberwood Inn.”

That prompted a fresh round of murmurs. Most of them sounded surprised someone like that had been under their noses the whole time. Why the hell had the guy never been seen anywhere near the Guild?

“Can you invite him here?” Isadora asked.

Lloyd shrugged. “I can try. No promises, though. He’s... not particularly sociable. And he’s drunk more often than he’s sober.”

You are the one to talk!

Still, the sudden mention of Azran sparked an idea. So Viktor raised a hand.

“I know him,” he said. “I’ve talked with him a few times before. I could approach him on the Guild’s behalf if you wish.”

After all, who was better to ask about the construction, or destruction, of a portal than a Riftwalker?

"Careful of spies, my King." The raven led Adam around several different empty tents arranged within the war camp before finally settling into one. "They could be anywhere still – we mustn't let our guard down."

Adam didn't necessarily disagree with the new Grandmaster of Puppets, though he struggled to fear the notion of foreign spies infiltrating their camp as much as he ought to. Nevertheless, her advice had seen Penumbria through much, and he decided it was wiser to oblige. "Who would those spies even report to nowadays?" he asked. "Ciro is dead."

Saying the words aloud still didn't make them feel real. It wasn't the worst problem to have. Adam would enjoy getting used to the concept of a world without Ciro.

"The Dark Captain," Valeria answered through her bird. "In accordance with Ciro's will, Valente has been crowned the new Emperor."

"And no one's disputing that? Didn't Ciro have a few kids? I'm surprised there aren't noble factions rallying behind them rather than settle for a 'commoner' as Emperor."

The bird laughed – an odd, unnatural sound that Adam found normal these days. "More than a few. He didn't particularly care for any of them. I'd wager he planned on seeing which of them would grow up with the most impressive Canvas, then make that one his official heir...but in times of war, certain concessions must be allowed for the sake of their own survival."

"And necessity was enough to keep those rich bastards from trying to seize power amidst the chaos?" Adam paced within the narrow space of the tent, repeatedly circling past a small wooden table and a hanging torch. "Color me surprised, and I'd call it a bad painting."

"Forgive me if I insinuated as much, my king. Logic isn't what stays their hand – fear is."

On its perch, the bird turned its head around in an angle that would surely have broken its neck were it a regular animal. "They can wax poetic about how Valente has no right to the throne until they're blue in the face, but none can deny that he inherited Ciro's Lord Talent."

"Neither can we." Adam laced his fingers together, sinking into deep thought. "Even before this, Valente held the title of 'strongest'." And that was a title no noble would ever dare dispute. "Now that he has Ciro's Lord Realm...he'll be near impossible to kill, won't he?"
The raven's sudden pause showed some hesitation, but it didn't appear uneasy. "You accounted for this much, my king. He can be slain."

"Damn I'm clever." Adam sighed. "Though I have to admit that being kept in the dark by myself is a bit of an unnerving feeling."

Lawrence's voice touched the inside of his mind like a stranger's hand in a dark alleyway. Maybe you should be unnerved. Maybe you don't know who you are anymore. Maybe I've already taken over, and this is no more than a hallucination, a delusion of a future you wish was real. Maybe–

Adam latched on to whatever curiosity he could find to silence the voice. "Solara told you the plan, then?"

"She did." The bird let out a soft, amused hum. "We, ah, improved it slightly."

Again that word. "I don't think you should say 'improved' like there's something that amuses you about it."

"The core of the plan is yours still. We only added a minor modification to make things easier on you."

Adam had tried very hard not to speculate on the vague hints he'd been given, lest he figure out too much and alert Lawrence to any of their secrets. It was turning out to be a spectacularly difficult task – one that he'd failed at least partially.

You think this means the new plan endangers your friends instead of merely yourself?

He didn't respond to Lawrence, for all the difference that made. If keeping secrets from the dead Painter was as simple as just keeping his mouth shut, there wouldn't have been a need for destroying part of his own brain and killing himself earlier.

I won't make it any easier for him, Adam thought stubbornly. If he wants to wallow in the mud of my daydreams, pointlessly searching for something useful, go ahead. But I won't let him—

"What of Ciro's corpse?" Adam asked aloud. "Have you turned it into a weapon yet?"

Adam froze in horror. He hadn't been the one to speak those words and move his lips.

But he did move his hands toward his own throat, threatening to strangle both the intruder and himself. His knees hit the dirt a heartbeat before the rest of his body did. Adam writhed on the ground, as if the physicality of his exertion would empower the struggle in his thoughts.

MY MIND DOES NOT BELONG TO YOU!

Adam rose to his feet several seconds later. Lawrence's influence over him had receded, if only for the moment. Through heavy breaths, he looked back at Valeria's bird, trying his damndest not to think about how existentially terrifying it felt to have someone attempt to steal your soul.

Which, admittedly, was exactly what he'd done to a number of people with his Painting Talent...but they'd all deserved it, so he wasn't stopping anytime soon.

The raven stood still with its head low. If it knew that Lawrence was the one who'd spoken earlier, it didn't hint at it. "Ciro's cadaver only arrived today, and I have never worked on a corpse with two Talents before. It will take far longer to turn him into a weapon than the Second Painter – months, most likely."

She could be lying, Lawrence mused. The Detective might fear that I've already suborned your will, and believes it necessary to hide the truth from you.

And you're an unlikable twat, Adam replied. A moment later, he elaborated, Sorry, are we not playing a 'state the obvious' game? Surely we must be, unless you actually thought you were making some clever observation here, you stupid bastard.

I am merely pondering. That you can hear my personal ruminations is my curse to bear.

Oh no, poor you. The innocent guy whose body you're trying to hijack isn't offering you enough privacy?

To steady his thoughts – and to hopefully sound only mildly out of his mind – Adam decided to keep talking so he wouldn't leave Valeria with a prolonged silence. "If Ciro's corpse arrived today...is Ferrero in Penumbria too?"

"Ah, yes. That he is." Even filtered through a bird, Adam could hear the relief in her voice. "It looked as though he would be entrapped by Ciro's army, yet he managed to escape in time."

"How did he escape? Tenver told me he would ensure that Ferrero escaped safely, but he also gave orders to have our army withdraw as soon as the Duel was finished. Even if he sent a detachment to rescue Ferrero and collect Ciro's remains, I can't imagine how they got out from Gama safely."

Another detail that Adam needed to be kept in the dark over lest Lawrence interfere. Good thing I trust my friends, or this would be even more maddening than it already is. Tenver hadn't been physically present on the battlefield, but Valeria's ravens had ensured he was able to command the army from afar – and with a better view than any other general could hope to enjoy, at that.

"They escaped from Gama because Ciro's army ran as far away from the city as they could," Valeria answered.

"Why?" Adam frowned, then changed his question to, "How?"

"Lord Tenver," came the Detective's flat response. "Emperor Tenver now, I should say, as Ciro is dead. His interference guaranteed their safe passage from Gama...and it is also why it will take months for me to restore Ciro's Talent from his corpse."

She sighed. "Tenver gave orders to cut off Ciro's head and parade it around the battlefield."

Adam could see the grisly sight all too clearly in his mind. Ciro's headless body strapped upright in the saddle of some imperial warhorse, still dressed in his white regal cloak. His banners ironically flying high behind him, harkening the end of his reign. Just ahead of the horse, carried on a pike by Tenver's men, would be the fallen Emperor's head, unceremoniously paraded before the tyrant's battered army, his last expression frozen into one of despair and hatred.

Pity I don't have the time to draw that. Would've been nicely eyecatching.

He felt a chill go down his spine, and for a moment, he wondered why. Wasn't he used to Tenver's methods by now?

Oh, yeah. Lawrence wasn't.

"And that did it?" Adam asked. "Ciro's army routed?"

"They fled in fear of whatever almighty being killed their holy emperor." Valeria laughed darkly at the idea. "Mayhaps they would have thought twice had they known their ruler's executioner to be an injured swordsman who'd long since collapsed to his knees, and couldn't even stand. But they didn't, so here we are."

Desecrating bodies without a care...and you call yourselves the heroes of this war?

What can I say? Aspreay was a bad influence on me. Turns out I'm my father's son. "So the work that Tenver's men did to Ciro's corpse...it'll make turning him into a weapon that can use his Talent harder?"

"Much." There was a moment of silence, then the word came again more sharply, "Much."

I am inclined to believe her bitterness, Lawrence noted.

Me too, actually – wait, why am I talking to you? Shush.

"How are you and Ferrero doing, anyhow?" Adam inquired. "You two healing up from the injuries you sustained in the Dragon's Tower?"

"Ferrero is doing well, but his injuries will take a long while to heal. As for myself, I am doing....poorly, to be frank. Your allied Lords have been keeping me alive, but until I can create Puppet prosthetics of my missing organs..."

Her crow let out an exhausted *caw\. "I need you to understand, my king, that operating on yourself is quite difficult,* so I won't be physically present for your final battle with Valente."

"If we're lucky, there won't be a final battle." In spite of his best attempts to stop thinking, Adam had conceived of this plan. "Without Ciro whispering falsehoods in his ear, I think I can get Valente to agree to a peaceful resolution."

"Mayhaps so, my king. "But something about the Detective's tone told Adam she didn't think it would work out that way. "Seeing as Ferrero decided to nearly kill himself in a sword fight rather than listen to me, I have entrusted my blade of Bloody Truth to Tenver. The last mystery regarding Valente, the one that Ciro took to his grave...it is dark enough a secret to grant us a chance at wounding the man, if not outright murder him."

He went over her words twice in his head, and still wasn't sure how to feel about them. "You say that knowing he's probably going to have three Emperor-Ranked Talents when we face him, right? He should have the powers of Lords, Hangmen, and Directions."

"All information that is known to me. And to you, my King."

His sigh that followed carried a weariness too heavy for a single breath to convey. Regrettably, Adam didn't have the time for the luxury of a second sigh. "Good thing I'm the version of me that gets to enjoy the fruits of my labor instead of stressing over our plans, I suppose."

Were it not for fact that he still had other matters to attend to, he might even have meant that.

--

Although Adam really wasn't in the mood to add even more work onto his plate, he forced himself to trudge over to his next appointment – visiting two of the surviving soldiers. He could've asked Tenver to do it instead, but this was meant to be a wellness check, and the Puppet Prince inspired too much terror in people for his appearance to be seen as a good omen.

Out of the three former Imperial soldiers who defected to the Frontier, only one perished in the siege of Gama. Only. When did I start feeling relieved when hearing casualty reports? Getting accustomed to having people die in his name wasn't a pleasant feeling. All the more reason to end this as soon as possible.

Marco the Hangman had fallen in battle, but his two associates surprisingly made it out alive. The surprise went double for Garen, who unlike Lavender the Hangwoman was a bog standard mortal with no notable Talents to his name. Considering he'd crossed paths with Ciro himself and walked away unscathed, Garen had probably used up a lifetime of good luck in one sitting.

While both survivors likely needed rest, the magical Contracts they'd signed beforehand beckoned them to meet with Adam immediately after the battle ended. Despite the Hangwoman's speed, the two of them reached the Frontier warcamp just a short few hours ago, after many of the rank-and-file soldiers had already returned.

Upon arriving at the tent where they'd been ordered to wait in silence, Adam could immediately see what had caused their delay.

Garen sat on the edge of a camp stool, eyes low, back hunched forward. Every bit of his posture betrayed a body that had been asked to do too much, and a mind that had yet to realize it was over.

If it will ever feel over for him. He was bandaged, bloodied, and though he raised his eyes to meet Adam's, his hollow stare seemed to be looking at something far beyond him.

Meanwhile, Lavender the Hangwoman stood with her arms folded across a torso that was clearly not without its own bloody injuries. Her gaze landed on Adam the moment he came in, wearing an expression that communicated exactly what she thought – and exactly why she wouldn't say it aloud.

He couldn't blame her...but neither could Adam regret deploying them in battle. Were it not for the Hangmen, many more soldiers would have died. It hardly made his actions noble, but war was where nobility went to die, both literally and figuratively.

"I'm glad to see that you've survived," he opened with.

Their responses differed greatly. Garen immediately went to his knees with a desperate quickness that felt more like he'd fallen from his stool than anything else. Lavender didn't move an inch from where she stood, offering a curt nod as her only acknowledgement.

Given their reactions and their injuries, Adam thought it best to skip the formalities and cut to the chase. "Talents are intrinsically tied to a person's souls...and the Grandmaster of Puppets has the technology to entrap that soul into an object. By doing so, the power of that lost soul can continue to help those who still live."

His abrupt declaration received something of a stunned silence in return, which was to be expected. Adam would've been fine with giving them time to digest the information, but he wanted to make sure they knew what he meant before moving on.

And while he could simply ask, it didn't feel like either of the two would make for easy conversation, albeit for different reasons. So he went straight to the source, using Divine Knowledge to peer into their minds.

They can turn corpses into weapons, Garen thought, clearly terrified. I heard rumors but...Dragons burn me, save me from this sacrilege!

Is he threatening us – or rather, threatening me? Lavender's heart raced as if she sensed danger. If I disobey his orders or do anything except act like his pretty little weapon, he'll turn me into a blade for someone he trusts more to wield, is that it?

They seemed to understand the situation well enough. Both were quick on the uptake, which was likely how they'd survived this long.

To Adam's surprise, the trembling foot soldier was the first to address him aloud. "Why tell us this, Your Highness?" Garen asked.

"Because Marco made a request before the battle," Adam told him.

Upon hearing the fallen Hangman's name, Garen stirred and nervously bit his lip. "Yes, I...I know. He forfeited his reward to keep me away from the front lines..."

Unspoken in his words were the feelings Adam could have read even without his Realm encompassing the war camp. For all the good his sacrifice did. He died, and I still came face to face with Ciro.

Marco should have abandoned me and let me die.

Best not to let him wallow in his guilt for any longer than necessary. "True," Adam admitted. "I felt Tenver was a bit too harsh, however, so I allowed Marco to make another request of me anyway."

"What does it matter?" Lavender spat, her tone sharp as a knife. "He's dead. Not like he can collect on his Orbs."

"He didn't request Orbs," Adam said.

"What, then?" the Hangwoman demanded.

Adam said nothing, reaching into his coat without further ceremony to produce a small wooden box. He considered the best way to hand it over, and settled on kneeling down to meet Garen at eye level, placing it between them with as gentle a smile as he could muster before rising to his feet once again.

Lavender's eyes fixated on the box the moment it came into view. Garen moved slowly, tentatively, reaching out to open the container with a strange curiosity that superseded his caution.

He unclasped each latch keeping the box closed, then lifted the lid to find his seeming inheritance: a wooden bracelet with a leather strap keeping it together.

The young foot soldier regarded the simple-looking jewelry with confusion at first, then surprise, and finally reverence. "This bracelet...it...it—!" Garen's voice quivered as he looked to Adam for confirmation. "Could it be–"

"Yes. It's Marco's soul."

His corpse, Garen thought. Horror and reverence filled him at once. This frail bracelet contained all Marco had been, all he ever could have been. His life, his death, the entirety of his existence – trapped within a bauble.

At first the young man didn't want to touch it, recoiling away, but then he remembered the king's words from earlier. Marco made a request. He...he wanted me to have this. To have his soul if he died.

The thought steadied Garen's speech, if only slightly. "What will you have me do now, my King?" His young eyes did not lift from the bracelet. "Would you order me to fight as Marco did, using Marco's Talent?"

Lavender uncrossed her arms. She had already opened her mouth and stepped forward to object when Adam spoke first. "No," the Painter said. "I have already given your last orders."

Garen shook his head. "Your Highness, I fear I do not understand. This is the power of a Hangman you're handing me, is it not? If you won't have me die for you, then how could I ever pay for it?"

"You don't need to pay me anything. I'm not interested in punishing you. Tenver may have given you a different impression, but he has certain opinions on those who joined Knox's rebellion. We don't necessarily see eye to eye on everything. The two of us talked for a while, and he relented on letting the survivors of this battle go free. As for the bracelet..."

Adam stared at it for a long time. A human soul... "I wouldn't dare put a tax on someone's dying wish. It is yours to do with as you please."

He looked at both of them in turn. "You've done enough to repay the Kingdom of the Frontier for your crimes. Consider the Contract you signed to be fulfilled."

Adam said nothing else, offering the two as respectful of a nod as he could while maintaining the kingly dignity that Aspreay had taught him to uphold. He departed from the tent soon after – though he stayed just outside to check on their reactions with Divine Knowledge.

"Free. Nice joke." Lavender huffed in disgust. "Where can we even go from here? The Empire? Don't think either Valente or the Puppet Prince would welcome us, so it doesn't matter who wins there. What do you think, Garen?"

Garen's throat closed, his heart racing. He clutched the bracelet tightly and fought a losing battle against tears. Marco, why did you go so far for me? You barely even knew me, and you—! Was dying for me not enough? Did you have to make sure you could help me even in death?! Why? Why!?

But...thank you. From the bottom of my heart.

"I don't know," he said softly. "I think that I will—"

--

The Emperor of the World sat alone on his throne.

The title was mayhaps six hours old. It draped over Valente's shoulders like his father's much too big old coat...and like that dusty old thing, it was his now, whether he wanted to or not, whether his shoulders were broad enough for it or not.

Night had already fallen long ago. The empty, silent hall was dark except for three candles that some man who claimed to be his servant had lit for him before dinner. He'd closed the windows to prevent the chilly night air from flickering the flames.

They flickered anyway.

Ciro would have ordered the fire to burn, and it would have listened, Lord Talent or no. Valente gazed upon his own hands and let out a small disbelieving laugh. I can't even bring myself to try.

He knew that reconstructing the continent-spanning Realm his Emperor had built was of the utmost priority, but truth be told, Valente was terrified of the power he held now. People trained for years in the academy to wield their Lord Talents effectively. How was he supposed to just...learn it while protecting the whole damned world?

I wish I could ask someone for advice, Valente thought. But there's no one. Not anymore.

Against his better judgement, his mind wandered to Adam and Gaspar. A faint smile came to his face as he recalled the journey the three of them had briefly shared.

That was probably the happiest time in my life since becoming a Hangman. Had he not needed to kill Gaspar, mayhaps he could have asked them for help with this. They would've been happy to lend their aid. Maybe...

Maybe in another life.

In this one, though, he knew they would never join hands in unison. Not when Ciro's last wishes had been left unfulfilled.

I need to kill the Godmakers, he thought, clasping his fists tightly. To do that, I'll have to rule the Empire with an iron fist. And...and that means killing Adam.

Valente allowed himself the luxury of not dwelling on that point for now. He'd suffered enough already – the past three days after hearing about Ciro's death had been a confused haze at best.

It cannot be, he thought, not for the first time. It simply cannot be.

But it could, and it was.

His very soul knew it to be true long before scouts brought word of Ciro's death to the Capital. His – his Divine Highness entrusted me with his Talent of Lords. I felt it. I feel it. Even now.

Somehow, knowing it was true did little to make it feel real. How could Ciro possibly be dead?

Worse, how was Valente supposed to lead in his place?

I am your sword, my Emperor. A hero, but not a ruler. My destiny is to serve at your side as you save our world from selfish gods.

Ciro had told him of this prophecy many times in the past – the same holy prediction that led to them meeting in the first place. A man as grand as you. Dead. What loathsome evil could have possibly wrought this blasphemy? I can scarcely even conceive of it.

A weaker man would have doubted His Highness and the power of the ancient prophecy. However, Valente bore the title of the Strongest Man in the Painted World with pride. He would not balk at this meagre challenge. If...if Ciro had entrusted him with this responsibility, then he would see it through.

Besides, my Emperor never lied to me. Not once. Not even...

Not even in death.

As promised, the Emperor had arranged for a letter regarding Stella's whereabouts to be delivered to him upon his death. The answer to what had happened to his long lost friend was now at his fingertips. Valente had sat alone with the letter in his throne room for hours now, almost afraid of opening it.

He brushed his finger softly against the envelope and cracked the seal with care, hoping to keep the envelope intact, save it as a memento. With a trembling reluctance, he unfolded the single sheet contained within and swallowed twice before setting his eyes on the page. Reading wasn't his greatest skill, but he was competent enough at it – his Emperor had made it so.

"What?" Valente blinked at reading the letter. "Stella is...?"

She was alive. Ciro had promised it, and Ciro, as he always did, kept his sacred word.

The joy had nearly brought a smile to Valente's lips before he scanned the rest of the letter.

He pressed his hand to his mouth to keep himself from vomiting right there onto the throne. Valente wanted to scream, but his body wouldn't even grant him the kindness of that visceral sound. All he could do was sit in silence and weep.

Stella is alive. Stella is safe.

And I wish she was dead.

--

Thanks for reading!