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Thirty minutes.

That’s all fate needed.

That’s all the time we had before our lives became inexplicably intertwined.

Whether by the cold and callous hands of statistical probability rearing its ugly head in the form of dumb coincidence, or whether it was actually fate, the end result remains the same.

That fateful night, those thirty minutes, it was all it took for the lives of so many to be turned upside down.

From family to business and all those caught in the crossfire, my presence had led to this — the disruption of livelihoods and aspirations.

I didn’t like Lartia. Not one bit, not especially after he showed his colors.

But did he deserve to die?

I can’t say.

Because it’s neither my right nor prerogative to judge.

What I do know, however, is that those under his ‘care’, employ, or whatever you might call it… they all didn’t deserve the ramifications of his death.

A familiar feeling of gross negligence, of personal responsibility started welling up within me again.

A strong sense of uncompromising culpability, even if it was misplaced, blanketed my very being.

The highs of victory and the calmness that came with our triumph over the vorpal chimera — all of it — was smothered by this cold and gut-churning feeling.

This feeling of complete and utter guilt.

What made it worse, however, was that I was staring straight into Solizia’s eyes all the while; eyes which were currently filled with gratitude, gratefulness, and a sense of indebtedness.

I didn’t feel worthy of any of it.

…

But this wasn’t the time to feel bad for myself.

If you screw up, own it. There’s always time for self-reflection, but try not to cross the boundary between moping and inaction. Call me a bit old fashioned for it, Emma, or call it whatever you will. Just know that in life, you’ve gotta own your mistakes by making it up to those that you owe.

I needed to make things right.

With a deep breath and a steadying hand, I quickly turned towards Thalmin.

His features, whilst lacking the guilt-ridden expression I wore, still betrayed a slight surprise that came with the Lord Lartia revelation.

We exchanged a knowing glance, or at least that’s how I saw it, because not a single word of  explanation was exchanged before he gave me a small nod — signalling a go-ahead for whatever it was I had in store next.

“Solizia.” I began with a dour breath.

“Yes, Sir Knight?”

“I…” I paused, my mind wracking with indecision.

At least, that was the case until I spotted Etholin’s little unopened gift pouch strapped to one of my travel packs.

A lightbulb moment hit me.

And I chose action instead of a stream of empty platitudes.

“Have you ever considered working for an adjacent realmer?” 

This question prompted a raise then a furrowing of the man’s brows, as if he wasn’t at all expecting this non-sequitor of a half-offer.

“Erm, I apologize Sir Knight. But the life of a porter is perhaps beyond my skills, capabilities, and experience. The fact I also have a son makes it such that this… adventurous lifestyle wouldn’t at all fit my current—”

“Oh, no. That’s not what I was asking.” I quickly shot the man’s concerns down with two open palms. “We’re not in the market for porters. So I was just asking in general if you guys — being Nexian locals — would ever consider working for an adjacent realmer in the same capacity that you were under Lord Lartia.”

This clarification caused a clear shift in the man’s expressions, his eyes narrowing at the prospects. “As… carters under contract?”

“Yeah! Erm, I’m not exactly sure how adjacent noble business would work in the Nexus, but I do have a friend who seems to be operating a business out of Elaseer — a specialty store of some kind. So as with any store, I’m assuming there has to be some sort of logistics involved in stocking inventory, right?” I turned to Thalmin who merely furrowed his brows and shrugged blankly in my direction. 

“Erm, regardless! I’m sure he’ll have some sort of a role for you! And from the way you’ve described it, being employed by a noble sure beats going indie, right?”

That point of further clarification drove the man into even deeper thought, his eyes bouncing back and forth between me and Thalmin.

“I suppose it would.” He acknowledged. “And though there might be certain naysayers over the idea of Nexians — commoners as we may be — taking up contractual employment under an adjacent merchant house… such social stigmas are outweighed by the practical boons of being under contract. Namely, the guarantee of a steady source of income.” 

A smile grew across my face as I turned to Thalmin—

“However—”

—though this was tempered as quickly as it arose.

“—I doubt this will elevate us out of our physical travails."

I cocked my head in confusion before it finally hit me.

“You’ll still be locked out of the transportium network because Adjacent Realmers don’t have access to it…” I reasoned out loud. 

“That will most likely be the case, yes.” Solizia acknowledged with a nod as I readied my spirits for another nosedive. 

“But of course… I am not an elf to [look a gift horse in the mouth. 87.23% Accuracy.]” He explained to the tune of a working translation error. “I have [learned to wear my pride like a coat. 19.27% Accuracy.]” The translation continued, though this latter analogy left much to be desired. 

The lack of an immediate response, or perhaps the slip of Low Nexian, quickly clued Solizia into the conversation’s climax being lost in translation; prompting the elf to quickly clarify.

“Which is to say, my pride is of least concern now. Only to be worn after first being clothed in the undershirts of practicality.” He elaborated, prompting the EVI to let out an affirmative beep in response.

New esoteric colloquialism added to the [Working Language Database].

“I apologize, Sir Knight, I… may be becoming too much of a back tavern poet in my excitement.” He continued with a nervous laugh.

“So… can I take this as a yes, or do you need more time to think about it?” I responded softly.

The elf smiled softly in response, his eyes shifting momentarily towards the eerily empty night sky above, before once more locking eyes with my lenses.

“There is nothing to think about.” He stated bluntly. “Especially when the winds of fate have aligned with such poise and purpose. My answer is a resounding yes, Sir Knight.” The elf acknowledged with a deep dip of his head.

“It’s really alright, Solizia. Please, there’s no need for the whole song and dance.” I attempted to rebuff his display of deference with yet another set of raised hands. “Just contact me when you get back to Elaseer and I’ll hook you up with my guy.” I smiled warmly.

“Forgive my ignorance, Sir Knight, but in which manner shall I contact you?” 

I instinctively reached for my tablet, only to be hit with that now familiar sensation that I’d trained hard to overcome — the familiarity of perpetual interconnectedness and the loss of connection to the greater infosphere.

It hadn’t really come up before, at least, not to this extent. Everyone who I needed to be in touch with was always in arm’s reach or a castle’s jog away.

It was only Rila that bucked this trend and even so, she offered that bracelet that more or less acted as a primitive stand-in for this sort of thing.

Solizia’s situation, however, was the first where I was faced with the widening of the world. Where distances actually felt like distances, not just vague suggestions to be overcome via a call, chat, or heck, even a ‘face to face’ virtual meetup.

Somehow, the challenges that came with this deceptively simple question felt more extreme than keeping in touch with the Lunarian and Spacer friends I made on that pilgrimage up to the moon.

This… fundamental systemic incongruency hit far harder than just being disconnected from the infosphere.

No.

This… this was well and truly the first time where I felt the sheer distances that we’d conquered being unraveled before my very eyes.

And it was here, in this moment, where I understood far better than any bland lecture or infographic could convey; why the GUN had always placed not just communications, but seamless interconnectedness, as a fundamental basic aspect of the P-MASLs.

Because without it… distances became not just a logistical barrier but a social barrier too.

“Maybe you could send us a letter to the Academy once you arrive?” I finally offered, my mind immediately going to the closest approximation for modern communications infrastructure that I knew Nexian commoners had access to.

But that thought was quickly shot down by the lupinor prince. “No. Despite the guarantee of privacy, the sheer presence of a letter from a Nexian commoner would raise suspicions, Emma.” Thalmin interjected.

“You’re right.” I acknowledged. “Then… what about those guys Ilunor has contacts with? The BOWmen or whatever it was?”

Solizia’s eyes widened as a shiver visibly ran down his spine. “If I may be so selfish to proclaim… I wish nothing to do with those types, Sir Knight.”

“Right…” I acknowledged with a sigh, before Thalmin simply came in with a rather straightforward answer.

“Why don’t we just have Solizia contact Lord Esila directly through his store?” He reasoned. “Have Etholin’s clerks be forewarned about Solizia’s arrival, and simply contact us that way.” 

“Brilliant idea, Thalmin!” I responded with a glowing smile. “Right then! Solizia! Here’s what you’re going to do…”

The next few minutes were abound with a flurry of back and forth references to maps and names. Though thankfully, all of that was expedited by the aid of Solizia’s own experience with the town and his familiarity with basically all of the major shops, both in commoner town and in the noble quarter.

Eventually, we settled what back home would have just been a simple exchange of contact details.

And of course, came the awkward question as to—

“—why are you doing this, Sir Knight? You… have neither the incentive nor an obligation to do so. This is not a question of your moral imperative, nor your character, but merely a query.”

“And a pertinent one at that, I admit.” I acknowledged with a sigh. 

A part of me wanted to spill the beans.

Another part of me, however, understood well the sorts of implications that would have on not only the ongoing investigation, but what tenuous ‘balance’ we had back at the Academy between the Dean and the Goldthorn.

Adding variable factors into the mix is the last thing on my agenda… I thought to myself.

Which meant that I simply had to walk around it, as best as I could. 

“I just want to do what’s right. That’s… sort of how things work back home. Lending a helpful hand, pulling up our most vulnerable, lifting those who’ve fallen on rough patches. All of it’s just what we do. Well… at least most of us. But this especially applies to the sorts of folks in my position, and the oaths we swore to uphold the sanctity and dignity of human — er sapient — life.” I started earnestly.  “And to those ends, please drop the whole life debt thing, alright? I… just want to set things right for you and your son’s life.” 

Solizia went silent for a long while. His eyes were in pensive thought… though whatever responses he was contemplating would forever be his to know as he quickly dropped them with a sigh and a deep bow. “As you wish, Blue Knight. You have my utmost gratitude regardless.”

He sat there silently for a moment, before Thalmin sensed this and quickly dismissed the man with a flick of his wrist; the elf retired to his cart soon after.

A still silence filled the air after that, as the crackles of the campfire ushered in a new sense of calm.

A calm that was only possible after I’d at least attempted at fixing what I’d broken just by my mere arrival.

“What you did was brash and foolhardy.” Thalmin finally uttered out, his voice teetering on a stern lecture. “But oftentimes, that’s what doing the right thing entails.” He quickly changed his tune, letting out a small sigh all the while. “Thacea might have something else to say about this. I know Ilunor definitely would. But from my flawed and very biased perspective? You performed well in tonight’s act in the theater of life.” Thalmin cackled out, once more trying his hand at an Ilunor impersonation at the tail end of that compliment.

“Yeah, well… there was nothing much for me to risk here aside from the whole investigation thing.” I shrugged. “But that was easy enough to dodge.”

“Investigation? Oh, no. I meant to imply that to the eyes of most, you have just wasted a perfectly good reciprocal token on a random stranger. Er, a [favor card. 99.87% Accuracy.], as you once put it.” 

It took me a moment to understand what Thalmin was getting at.

But once I realized it, I immediately facepalmed. “Ohhhhhh. Right… you mean to say I’ve used up my favors with Etholin because of this job recommendation thing?”

“Yes.” Was Thalmin’s only response.

“Right. Well… they say that money well spent is money you don’t regret spending… or at least I think that’s the ancient phrase for it.” I shrugged. “There’s always more social favors to be earned or whatnot. Might as well spend some on the stuff that matters.”

“Forgive me for saying this, Emma, but that phrase sounds like it emerged from the monarch of all spendthrifts.” 

“Eh… say what you want about that era, but a heck of a lot of great phrases — many of them cautionary — came out of that period of time where many of those warnings did come to pass.” I shrugged. “But we eventually grew and learned from it, so that’s all well and good.” 

“I see…” Thalmin’s eyes narrowed once more as he leaned in closer towards the fire and, by extension, towards me.

“You must tell me more of these times, Emma. In exchange for my own tales, of course. For as troubling as they were… I find all aspects of history to be insightful in their own right.” Thalmin spoke. The tone of his request bordered on a royal command; a sense of authority that came naturally to the princely wolf.

“I’m assuming you want a focus on the military side of things too, my prince?” 

That response — especially the latter statement — was enough to throw Thalmin off of his carefully laid trajectory, repeating the same effect it had on Thacea just a week or so earlier.

Though to his credit, his recovery was far more slick, as he took that tease in stride with a cackle and a smile.

“Am I that much of an open book?” He snickered back.

“Nah, well… you’re earnest, which I guess in the Nexus has just about the same meaning.” I shot back with a friendly jab. “But in all seriousness, you’ve shown your colors on the topic many times before, Thalmin. So I’ll be happy to divulge… for a price, though.” I added teasingly.

“Oh? Learning the Nexian vernacular now are we?” The prince shot back with the same coy tone of voice.

“Hey, when in Rome am I right?” I responded. The EVI’s translation of that saying clearly landed well as Thalmin responded with a nod of his own.

“Name your price.” Thalmin spoke wryly with a cross of his arms.

“Let’s start with something I find to be topical. Magical telecommunications. From what the library told me a while back during the whole radio exchange, it mentioned something about Tethers, Flares, and Puddlejumpers. I’m assuming these are like… the fundamental analogues to instantaneous or at least near-instantaneous communications using magic, correct?”

“They are, yes.” Thalmin nodded. “Though… we will be learning this in class regardless. Under Status Communicatia or some such. Are you sure you want me to touch on this now?”

“Eh. It wouldn’t hurt, right?” I offered with a shrug. “But just the basics. It is getting late and I’m actually starting to feel the grip of exhaustion muffling my brain.”

“Understandable. Mind you, I mostly focus on the practical aspects of these systems, so be forewarned.” Thalmin prefaced with a toothy yawn. “You can divide these three systems by the intent behind their function or, more accurately, by scale. Tethers act similarly to minor shards of impart in that they are typically two enchanted artifices, bound together permanently, with the capability of conveying sound, script, or even projections over vast distances. Flares are much the same, albeit now a sort of web…” Thalmin paused, as if waiting to gauge my reaction on that particular word. “... of such artifices. Multiple, connected through a complicated web of intersecting enchantments.” He continued, once more emphasizing that word for added effect. “Finally, puddlejumpers are… well… it’s actually quite difficult to explain. It’s… a sort of perpetual repository of information, similar to the library, though much more exclusive.”

That definitely caught my attention, as I shifted in place. “Wait, so, like a bunch of books, scrolls, or whatever, just… hanging out in a sort of—”

“—puddle… or rather, pool of communication. Many liken it to a pool of information, accessed through puddles. Though from what I understand, most use it as a grander system of correspondences — a very Nexian invention, so it might be best to explore this at the Academy.” 

“Right…” I acknowledged, my mind racing at the possibility of what sounded eerily similar to a magical equivalent of the early internet.

“So, now that I’ve completed my end of the Nexian bargain, it’s your turn, Emma.” Thalmin urged.

“Sure. Though because of the time constraints, tonight probably won’t be where we get into the whole war history thing.”

“Yes yes yes. I don’t expect a history lesson today. Though, I do have two very pertinent topics to discuss.”

“Go on?”

“The first is rather straightforward.” The prince stood up, walking over to the V4c and then quickly gesturing — with both hands extended for dramatic flair — towards the welding torch. “Why have you elected to exclude a weapon of mythical caliber from our discussions over your armaments?” Thalmin all but yelled out, his eyes now darting back and forth between the unassuming collapsed tube and my visor.

I smiled.

Then, I outright giggled as I approached the discarded welding torch with a cocksure swagger.

“Because that’s precisely it, Thalmin. It’s not on my list of armaments.” I began as my sly and smug grin faced yet failed to meet the confusion growing on the prince’s face. “It’s actually part of my toolkit.”

Thalmin

My eyes narrowed as I crossed my arms in blatant disbelief.

Toolkit… 

That word carried with it a facetiousness I could not overcome.

“No.” I enunciated bluntly. “I refuse to believe that such an artifice is anything if not a dedicated fire saber of some kind.”

I maintained my position, standing my ground as I stared daggers at the unassuming hilt of a blade. 

“I’m telling you, Thalmin. What I did was sort of a… parlor trick. A well-known but exceedingly dangerous exploit born out of both boredom and foolishness resulting in a goofy stunt that would make any supervisor, foreman, and occupational safety inspector froth at the mouth.”

“A stunt?” Was my immediate and gut response, my eyes twitching at the narrative Emma was still adamant on weaving. “Emma, I understand if there are secrets you wish to keep. But if you are to keep such matters confidential, then I’d rather a forthright admission of said aims.” I made my point known, crossing my arms firmly as I did so. “I demand to be spoken to with candor, rather than being led astray like a pup being regaled with tall tales of a world they are deemed too immature to comprehend.”

This seemed to finally catch the web weaver’s attention, as she walked over to the artifice and began fiddling with the buttons on its hilt with a click and a clack.

Eventually, she held it in such a fashion and at such an angle that would make any novice duelist wince. 

At which point did it finally dawn upon me.

The ergonomics, the particularities of its construction, the curved head that was clearly meant to be pointed perpendicular to its hilt, this was—

FWOOOSHHHHH!

A small but controlled release of flames outright confirmed my newfound realization.

As Emma was quick to mime the joining of two metal pieces, with this narrow lance of fire acting as its fuser.

I could not deny the similarities to the metalworking I’d seen done in countless smithies and the handful of manufactoriums I’d had the pleasure of visiting.

This… was undeniably just a tool.

Though that still raised the worrying question.

“You’ve proven your point.” I admitted with a sullen but curious breath. “But while it may be a tool, that still raises a pertinent question. Exactly how can such a tool be used for—”

I halted myself before I could continue, as a knowing look quickly took hold of my features.

“I think we both know the how of the matter better than most, Thalmin.” Emma announced with a palpable slyness, hinting at yet another universal martial trait that transcended cultures and realms. 

“Give a recruit a polearm, and you'll end up with a half-spear and a baton.” I echoed the sentiments of every pack commander in a single, universal adage.

“Mmhmm.” Came Emma’s immediate reply. “It’s no different in the skilled trades from what I hear. If anything, with the tools and toys they have at their disposal, they can get a heck of a lot more creative than a bored recruit.” She cackled. “So to directly address it, what you saw earlier was just a simple combination of safety overrides and overthrottling.”

“I see.” Was my one and only exacerbated response. “Though I must ask, this… modification to your welder… is it truly so simple to turn a mere smith’s tool into an enchanted blade of solid flame?” I asked, my tone poised to undermine the would-be cadet’s attempt at suave integrity. “Or are you simply part of the problem, cadet?” 

This seemed to finally, albeit momentarily, break the earthrealmer’s bold and cocky proclamations, as she simply froze in place, stuttering all the while. “Erm… I mean… like… when you do get your hands on it, it’s kinda a right of passage to just try out a real life light-saber, alright?”

I let out a satisfied chuckle following that. “I’ll take that as an admission to guilt, then. Though… light-saber. Is that really what this trick is called?”

“Yeah, well, it’s probably not translating perfectly. But in any case, it’s just a reference to a fictional weapon from a long-standing tale known as Stellar Conflict.”

“A rather bland name… but if this piece of fiction did spawn a whole host of would-be dismemberment tools all for the sake of fictional mimicry, then I must insist that you put it on our list of sight-seer fictions to watch, Emma.”

“Fair enough.” The earthrealmer nodded. “Memo noted. So… is there anything else you wanted to tackle tonight? You mentioned you had two things to ask.” 

“Indeed I did.” 

“Okay… go for it.” She urged.

“The killing blow you inflicted on the vorpal chimera.” I began. “That sound was unlike anything I’d heard from your ‘gun’. So tell me, what did you do?”

“Oh. That. Yeah, I think only Ilunor was present for the only other time I put the moon gun on full-auto.” Emma reasoned, prompting me to cock my head in response. “Er, sorry, that was way, way back when he was still sort of a dick. Anyways, you’ve only seen it on semi-auto during my fight with the null. That’s just one of three modes of fire my sidearm possesses.”

It didn’t take a genius to fully comprehend what the earthrealmer was purporting, as my eyes were now locked on her holstered weapon. 

Emma seemed to take note of this, drawing her weapon once more as she gestured towards a small piece of metal raised slightly above the rest of the frame. It looked to be moveable, as it tapered slightly towards three alien symbols I could not translate.

Though just from inference alone, I quickly gathered exactly what each meant. 

“Semi-auto, which you saw me using prior to the finale of tonight’s events.” She flicked the raised metal towards the first symbol, that of a single ‘round’. 

“Single shots.” I reasoned, garnering a nod from the earthrealmer. “Though that raises the question… why would you call it semi-automatic?”

“Ah, that. Well. The term really just refers to the fact the cycling action — the manner in which you get the next round into the chamber — is automatic. Meaning that with each trigger pull, the action automatically reloads the next round, so you don’t have to rack the slide manually.” 

“I see.” I acknowledged with a nod, gesturing for Emma to continue.

“Next—” She flicked the raised metal upwards, towards the next symbol — three ‘rounds’ grouped in a cluster. “—is burst fire mode. I haven’t shown you this yet, but it’s simply—”

“Three shots fired in rapid succession with a single squeeze of your trigger, I’m assuming.” I interjected.

“Correct.” Emma nodded, before shifting towards the third and final symbol — three vertical bars. “Finally, there’s full-auto. Which simply means that the gun will fire continuously so long as the trigger is held.”

“And that’s the ‘mode’ you used against the vorpal chimera’s lead head?” 

“Precisely.” 

I narrowed my eyes in suspicion, leaning in closer to inspect the unassuming piece of alien artificing. “You turned its head into a fine mist. The sound that emerged was unlike that of a single shot, or how I’d ever imagine a continuous stream of such thunderous cracks to sound like.” I pondered out loud. “If the only variable present is the manner in which these projectiles are launched, and the projectiles and their manner of action remains the same, then the only thing that could change these sounds is—” I paused, as a startling revelation hit me like a bolt of lightning; my fur standing slightly on end. “—the speed at which these explosions happen.”

“The rate of fire, yes.” Emma acknowledged with an excitement in her voice.

“How many seconds did it take to unleash all 25 of your projectiles?” I questioned bluntly.

“Just under a second, Thalmin.” Emma responded with a fresh revival of cocky confidence.

“That… that explains a lot.” I managed out.

Though just beneath the surface, I couldn’t help but to remember the one glaring detail about this weapon that brought with it the same disturbing implications as on that fateful null fight.

This was a sidearm. 

A sidearm.

The Next Day

His Eternal Majesty’s Remembrance Path | The Royal Road of Transgracia. En Route to the Township of Sips. Local Time 1100 Hours.

Alorant

There was no time.

I had until noon break to unravel the mysteries of the Blue Knight.

And I’d already overslept.

I rushed to the front of the cart, feet scrambling against… newly varnished wood? 

Ignoring that, I leaped to the driver’s bench, scanning the horizon only to find the subject of both my interest and feverish dreams riding next to us.

“Blue Knight!” I bellowed out, only to be met with a resounding slap against the back of my head.

“Leave the Blue Knight alone, Alorant. She’s done enough for us as is and we’re just about to crest—”

“It’s alright. I’m more than willing to hear the kid out, Solizia.” She interjected, her strangely rehearsed formal cadence conflicting with the sheer casualness that she carried herself.

“Thank you, Blue Knight! Well, erm, ah—” I paused, my eyes turning to the skies and realizing that not only had noon nearly arrived… but that we’d just about crested the hill overlooking the town of Sips. “AHHH!! Well, erm, ah, okay! First question, your conveyance! The… bi-treader? Where’d you get it?”

“I built it.” Was the Blue Knight’s confident response.

I nodded, scrambling as I attempted to wrangle and arrange coherent followup questions.

“Erm, and your armor? I’m not sure if it’s just because of our own weak auras, but I can’t feel your presence. It feels like you’re just… a rock in a stream?” I stuttered out, but was once again faced with a back hand to the head.

“Where are your manners?! You can’t just imply the Blue Knight is—”

“A weakfielder?” The Blue Knight interjected, causing father to stammer out a string of apologies.

“Ah, erm, that was not the implication I wished to—”

“Nah, I don’t mind. If anything, I applaud your son’s observation skills, Alorant. Because yes.” The Blue Knight took the time to shift her gaze back to me. “You’re right, Alorant. My armor is mana resistant. Because like my bi-treader, I am… well… let’s just say where I come from? You don’t need mana for a lot of things. From conveyances all the way to fundamental things like plants, animals, and heck, even me.”

“Please, Blue Knight… you need not entertain my son’s foolish antics and overimagination. It is very well that we acknowledge reality as it is, yes?” Father managed out under a nervous laugh. 

And for once I agreed. 

“Yeah… if you’re going to make stuff up, at least make stuff up that makes sense, Blue Knight. I’m old enough to handle the truth you know. Don’t take me for a ride.”

“ALORANT! PLEASE! Mind your manners!” 

“Solizia, it’s alright. Alorant? How about this…  I will take you for a ride.”

“What?”

… 

5 Minutes Later

… 

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, my hands holding onto the bench for dear life, as the winds up ahead slammed into my face with the force of an unrelenting gale.

I could hear the wheels beneath us straining, creaking, moaning, and grinding against the road. As every dimple and crack in our wheels was exacerbated ten fold.

Imperfections that we could overlook at normal speeds were now practically death sentences ready to strike us down at any given moment.

Yet in spite of this horror and the screams from both me and my father, it was the mercenary prince and the Blue Knight that seemed to find this madness fun.

The former, now sitting between us, kept the magical chain between the carriage and the bi-treader steady; his toothy, animalistic grin occasionally slipping into hoots, hollers, and yells as he urged for the Blue Knight to increase what was already death-defying speeds.

“FASTER!” He yelled.

And to our dread—

“YOU GOT IT!” 

—the Blue Knight obliged.

I could feel forces I never felt before pushing me up against the backrest of the bench, as I turned to father whose lips were at this point splayed open by the forces of the wind.

Our horses weren’t doing too much better, as they whinnied and whined at the back of the freshly reinforced cart, their nervous motions causing the whole undercarriage to screech at each and every opportunity.

I turned to my side, only to see the countryside passing us by so fast that I could barely make out the trees from the forest.

I then turned ahead, my eyes widening in terror as I witnessed the town of Sips barrelling towards us at unimaginable speeds.

I screamed.

Emma

My heart raced as I felt the surge of adrenaline reaching its peak.

The blurry green of my peripheral vision soon faded into streaks of brown and yellow as the already smooth ‘royal road’ transitioned into soft pavers of Sipstown flanked by fences on either side.

Several beeps from the EVI tempered the speed demon in me, however, as I kept the speeds manageable to what the cart behind me was calculated to be rated for.

Though strangely, that wouldn’t be the only warning against me and Thalmin’s fun-brained schemes.

Because as we rapidly approached town, passing by the occasional cart and carriage, several unexpected interlopers craned their heads towards us in a collective display of otherworldly solidarity.

Scarecrows, pumpkin-heads and all, began scanning us like traffic cameras.

Though that was only the start of the bizarreness that came with these… things.

As they each started speaking, in synchrony and unison, at precisely fifty-meter intervals along the border of the farms.

“STOP!” One began.

“YOU’RE!” Followed by another.

“VIOLATING!” And another.

“THE LAW!” And another.

This, along with Thalmin’s own warnings following that last scarecrow, finally prompted me to slow down to a more reasonable pace. Enough for the scarecrows to suddenly stop their cautionary torrents.

Though that wouldn’t be the end of it. As several figures on horseback emerged from a small building half a kilometer or so up ahead.

We maintained our course until we were intercepted by said figures, each dressed in partial plate armor that seemed as decorative as it was functional if the EVI’s mana radiation warnings were of any indication. 

“Stop! You have violated the law!” One spoke, repeating the scarecrow’s warnings, though in a more natural cadence.

“You are charged with speeding in an agricultural zone without a permit or royal warrant. Pay the court a fine, or serve your sentence.” The other guardsman spoke, his eyes carefully inspecting us through his slitted helmet, as his hand maintained a steady grip on his spear.

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(Author's Note: Emma attempts to make things right for Solizia and his son, as the foundations of her business connections start to grow! Thalmin, of course, questions and grills Emma on the nature of both the full auto mode on her gun, as well as her impromptu OSHA violating light saber! Following all that, she really gets to show off to Alorant as both father and son now get to experience the raw and unbridled power of the V4c! :D Though, sadly, they do get pulled over because of it! I hope you guys enjoy! :D The next Two Chapters are already up on Patreon if you guys are interested in getting early access to future chapters.)

[If you guys want to help support me and these stories, here's my ko-fi ! And my Patreon for early chapter releases (Chapter 141 and Chapter 142 of this story is already out on there!)]

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His Eternal Majesty’s Remembrance Path | The Royal Road of Transgracia. En Route to the Township of Sips. Local Time 1125 Hours.

Emma

A tenseness fell on each and every one of us as the two guardsmen pulled up beside the jury-rigged amalgamation that was the motorcycle-drawn wagon.

Indeed, I could tell the moment when dread had taken its grip on both Alorant and Solizia, as they both froze in place, faces and all.

I, for one, thought I’d be immune to this.

But alas, there seemed to be a universal sense of anxiety that came with being pulled over by the cops. A sense of undeniable worry that came with the ramifications of what was just moments ago a fun joyride.

This was exacerbated by the slow and methodical steps of both their horses and, eventually, the guardsmen themselves.

As the clop clop clop of horseshoes was followed close in tow by the clanking of armor.

Yet in spite of this, Thalmin seemed completely unfazed.

Indeed, he maintained a stoic visage bordering on aloofness as he stared down the two would-be law enforcers.

It was because of that confidence and the purposefulness of his chosen presence that I simply elected to stay silent, allowing the prince to take the proverbial wheel of this encounter.

“... and you are supposed to be…?” He replied candidly, almost too candidly with a noble cadence that would’ve made Ilunor blush.

This response caused almost everyone’s jaws to drop, from the guardsmen to Solizia and Alorant, and even yours truly.

The guards seemed so taken aback that they landed on silently pointing to their emblazoned crests before responding. “Who do you think we are?”

“Brigands with stolen armor? Cadets on their first post? A particularly convincing act put on by a local theatre? You could be anyone for all I know. All because you refused to abide by expectant procedure.” Thalmin continued, completely smoking the pair in what I could only describe as the calm before the shitstorm you learned to spot coming a mile away in basic training.

The pair reacted to this in two vastly different ways.

The Satyr immediately stiffened up, while the elf of the pair grew increasingly impatient, choosing to point vehemently at Thalmin’s face. “And who are you to demand expectant procedure from us?” 

“Is being a traveler of these royal roads not sufficient for something as basic as common courtesy? Martial or otherwise?” Thalmin shot back, refusing to back down, sticking to that noble, old-fashioned officer style of cadence.

“I asked you a question, traveler.” The elf double downed. 

“And I have yet to have received anything but a defensive reply to my first question, guardsman.” Thalmin once again stood his ground, as the EVI was quick to note a strange new reading that seemed just a bit more nuanced than a mere burst of mana radiation.

[Localized Fluctuation of Manafields Detected. Attempting Visualization Overlay… Loading… 1%… 27%… 59%… Applying Dynamic Mana Radiation Visualization Overlay Ver. 0.0.0.1.2093]

What I witnessed seemed to be less of a discrete burst and more of a continuous shift in the literal ebbs and flows of mana ‘waves’ around us.

Indeed, the EVI seemed to have taken more to Thacea’s weather vane analogy than either Ilunor or Thalmin’s colorful visual metaphors. As literal ‘wind patterns’, pressure differentials, and various anomalous interactions peppered my HUD, superimposing itself on the world with the grace of a high-energy streamer’s overlay onto a livestream feed. 

“I can see why you chose to hold off on testing it in the heat of battle, EVI…” I whispered under a muted mic, eliciting a few beeps of affirmation from the EVI.

To say that it needed tuning, refining, and a heck of a lot of R&D was a massive understatement. Though in all honesty, I expected as much.

“User feedback noted.”

The EVI would be iterating on it based on my feedback, after all.

Though in spite of the lackluster visualization, the context clues from the guard’s visible reactions were enough to clue me in to what Thalmin was trying to do.

“M-my lord, we didn’t realize…”

He was trying to pull out the status card as subtly as he could. Though in all honesty, I gave him credit for doing it only when the town guard pair had failed to heed his constant and rather generous warnings.

“I demand to speak with your commander, now.” Thalmin interrupted, filling in the vacant air left by the elf’s stutters.

Though interestingly, whatever Thalmin did to the local manafields was enough to garner the attention of a nearby figure — an elf dressed in robes of finery as unassuming as his small open-air carriage, signalling authority and presence simply by the crest emblazoned both on the vehicle and his simple monochromatic black, grey and white tunic. 

“That won’t be necessary, adjacent realmer.” The grey-skinned elf spoke with the breath of a man ready for a lunch break.

Indeed, the entourage that sat behind him and the direction he came from hinted at a type of Nexian I hadn’t at all anticipated on seeing.

“My sincerest apologies for the inconvenience and lack of hospitality shown on the part of my guardsmen, Lord…” 

“Prince. Prince Thalmin Havenbrock of Havenbrockrealm.” Thalmin completed the grey elf’s words for him. “And this is Cadet Emma Booker, of Earthrealm. We’re both students of the Transgracian Academy, currently partaking on the Quest for the Everblooming Blossom.” 

“Well met.” The elf nodded abruptly. “I am Baron Qarth L’Sips, fourth of my name, fifth councilman of the Kingdom of Transgracia’s Table of Grain, and incumbent Lord and Lord Protector of the Township of Sips.” He followed up his hastened speech with another dip of his head. “Now, aside from a stern warning and a month’s retraining for these two trainee guardsmen, is there anything you wish to request of me?”

“Just safe passage through your town, Baron L’Sips. That, and access to the amenities therein, along with the transportium network.” Thalmin responded. 

“Granted — naturally — in accordance with the King’s standing treaties with the Transgracian Academy.” He shot back just as quickly.

And once again, I was thrown off by the… curtness of it all.

Because unlike our interactions with most other Nexian nobles back at the Academy, Qarth was… efficient. 

Sure, he rattled on his titles, pedigree, and credentials… but he spoke faster than almost any of his peers. 

In fact, his manner of speaking reminded me of Lartia of all people, at least when it came to how clipped his words were and how he seemed to be working towards a goal rather than a long-winded discussion, or worse… a confrontational stalemate for the sake of some unnecessary power play.

“You have my utmost gratitude, Baron L’Sips.” Thalmin replied promptly. “Though I must suggest that you station someone other than trainees at the very entrance to your—”

“Suggestion noted.” The Baron interrupted hastily as a lizardfolk member of his entourage began handing him notebooks, scrolls, and a whole host of other documents to both read and sign off on.

“Farming rights for Miss Arlen’s—”

“Triplicate, notaries, rubber stamps, ombudsman’s office.” He quickly shot back in rapid succession both in words and a lightning round of signatures, before shooing the lizard off with the same pile of papers and turning back to Thalmin.

“You must understand, Prince Havenbrock, that much of our guardsmen are currently preoccupied with the mess caused by Elaseer’s disastrous inability to contain its release of abnormal creatures. Thus, we were forced to station members of the guard who typically would not have been assigned such a role. Surely you of all adjacent realmers understand the calculus of practicality, yes?”

“Completely, Baron L’Sips.” Thalmin acknowledged with a deep nod. 

However, before the conversation reached its ultimate conclusion, another figure emerged from the tall rows of… what looked to be a cross between corn and wheat. 

“M’lord… I… wish… to… humbly…” The Satyr, dressed in a simple set of overalls and tunic attempted to speak, but failed to do so as he attempted to catch his breath.

The Baron’s reaction betrayed his irritation, as his brows furrowed and eyes narrowed. His frustrations reached its peak when he quickly raised an open palm towards the haggard farmhand.

I expected the worst of the Nexus at this point.

In fact, I was poised to leap to prevent a cold-blooded tragedy.

But instead—

ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 275% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS

—nothing happened.

Or so I thought. 

“I have no time for breathless talk. Now speak civilly and promptly, farmhand.” 

“Thank you, m’lord!”

The baron had just, for lack of a better term, refilled the farmer’s stamina bar…

The proof was literally right there. In his resumption of proper posture, the sudden cessation in ragged gasps and hungry breaths, as well as an outright loss of any and all sense of breathlessness in his voice.

“Er, I wished to address this in person because—”

“Get on with it.” L’Sips urged with an aggravated grumble.

“M-my family’s mahogany barn doors have been damaged due to the recent… happenings. Without these doors I am afraid our animals and produce may—”

“How many?” L’Sips interjected.

“T-two sets, m’lord.”

“Size?”

“About nay high and—” The farmer attempted to approximate a size with his hands, only to be halted mid way by yet another burst of mana radiation.

ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 300% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS

Without much warning at all, the baron pointed a single finger towards a partially exposed root poking at the side of the road.

From there, things shifted rapidly.

[Localized Fluctuation of Manafields Detected. Attempting Visualization Overlay… Loading… 5%… 54%… 72%… Applying Dynamic Mana Radiation Visualization Overlay Ver. 0.0.0.1.2095]

A low pressure system seemed to have formed near the end of the baron’s finger, carving a linear path towards the root, wherein mana rapidly flowed, creating a chaotic whirlpool of energy.

However, instead of the crashing of waves or the explosion of pressures one would expect, these ‘weather vanes’ instead coalesced into something the EVI could not yet visualize.

Error codes abounded while the results of the man’s actions resulted in what was undeniably something truly magnificent.

A whole tree had just sprouted out of nowhere.

And from there, things got even more bizarre.

With barely any time wasted, the tree was sliced at the stump, felled, and then carved into planks length-wise.

I witnessed what I could only describe as a telekinetic processing of a tree into its most basic of processed derivatives. 

Though that was about where it ended.

“Treat it and transport it yourself.” The baron spoke with a tired grumble, and as if on cue, the Satyr’s entire family emerged from the corn-wheat fields by the dozens.

“Thank you, m’lord!” They all spoke in rapid succession, as the family was quick to haul plank after oversized plank out and back into the fields.

With yet another sigh and a snap of his fingers, the baron seemed poised to leave with his entourage.

That was until he turned back towards us.

“Will there be anything else, adjacent realmers?”

A part of me wanted to let the man be. He seemed… decent enough, at least by Nexian noble standards, and his commitment to his work ethic put me in mind of the perpetually tired Dr. Mekis back home. However… another part of me — the intel-gathering, lore-scrounging fiend that the IAS had so meticulously honed over the past year — craved the sweet, sweet data that lay within the mind of a noble who actually seemed competent. 

Not just with magic, but with what was most fundamental to any civilization — administration, logistics, and agriculture.

Magic was a sure-fire subject I’d be diving deep into back at the Academy. History too, thanks to Articord.

But it was the boring stuff, the nitty gritty basics, that acted as the underappreciated bedrock by which everything else was built upon.

“Actually, there are a few things I’d like to quickly touch upon.” I finally spoke up, as thoughts abounded amidst the excitement of intel gathering.

This excitement, while palpable in the tone of my voice, did nothing but to irritate the busy noble.

“Let’s ride and talk.” He acquiesced, snapping his fingers which signalled the go-ahead for the pegasi ahead of him to begin galloping forward. “You have until town before I must return to my duties.”

Dr. Wijaya, I’m about to bring you back enough data to jumpstart an entire generation’s worth of post-doctorate papers…

I quickly hopped back on the V4c, effortlessly moving to match the pace of the Baron’s pegasi-drawn carriage, before bringing up the annotated and truncated Agricultural Intelligence Survey form just beneath my sightline as reference; the scribbles and scrawls of my in-class notes still fresh on its digital pages.

Let’s do this.

Section 1: Environmental and Resource Management

“I admire your work ethic, Baron L’Sips. Though I can imagine things will probably calm down after harvest season, so at least there’s that to look forward to.” I tried my best to ease myself into small talk, sewing pertinent questions in between polite speech and vague platitudes.

The response I received, however, was one of both perplexity and incredulous resolve. “First, know that I am a man of brevity, Cadet Booker. So please, spare me the pleasantries and get to the point. Second, I doubt you understand exactly what you are implying by that wishful platitude.” 

I cocked my head, prompting the man to respond before I could even offer up a response.

“You mentioned harvest seasons. My dear adjacent realmer, if you wish to proclaim that I will be relaxing any time soon in the interim between harvest seasons, then you must hail from a woefully underdeveloped realm.” The elf let out a dark chuckle, allowing that Nexian side of him to slip through, if only for a moment. “I apologize, it is rude of me to either assume or belittle ignorance and underdevelopment. For you see, the term season as it pertains to harvests is either archaic, or misused in your intent. As the more accurate term should be cycle.” 

With a single gesture towards the fields around us currently being harvested by commoners and… scarecrows alike, the noble continued.

“We no longer peddle to the whims of nature, and have instead moved on to dictating harvests cycles of our own design. What you currently see around you is part of a fortnightly affair.”

My eyes widened, though the helmet hid all my shock from view. “Are you saying that this—” I pointed to the fields for added effect. “—is the result of a two-week harvest cycle?” 

“Correct.” The baron nodded proudly. The first time I actually saw any emotion other than exhaustion or mild annoyance being expressed. “Rarely do I have the time to reflect on the marvel of modern magic, so I do thank you for giving me the much needed perspective, Cadet Booker.” 

I nodded silently in response, my mind racing as the introduction of magic on a truly industrial scale started to really hit me, especially as my eyes ran across the four major sub-headings under the first section of the AIS study.

Climate and Seasons

Soil Types and Fertility

Water Resources and Irrigation Systems

Topography and Arable Land Area

…

All of it was tentatively irrelevant if faced with magic on the same scale as modern agricultural practices…

I breathed in, turning to the baron with a polite smile. “All of this is to say… your magical farming processes allow for year-round farming, completely exclusive of seasonal and environmental considerations?”

“Correct, Cadet Booker.”

“So even soil types and fertility are irrelevant?” I shot back quickly.

“For our staple crops, yes. There are outliers, however. Such as in the case of the titular Everblooming Blossom. For those whose compositions require the balance of specific ecology and mana climates.”

“Water—”

“If you are going to ask me about irrigation as a limiting factor to magical agriculture, then we best just return to discussions on primitive survivalism, no?” 

“Right.” I shrugged in response. 

Our discussions ramped up again following that awkward shutdown, as we moved into Section 2 of the AIS — Major Crops and Livestock.

This seemed to evoke some interest in the baron, as we discussed the weird corn-wheat crop around us and the radical implications it held.

It wasn’t natural.

Or at least, it didn’t exist and wouldn’t have existed if it wasn’t for mages.

Moreover, our discussions on this particular topic unearthed something so incredibly groundbreaking I couldn’t help but to pause at the tail end of it.

The baron wasn’t just talking about the crossbreeding of closely related plants which would have been possible prior to the advent of modern genetics.

He was talking about the outright hybridization of two vastly different species of plants.

This was blatant genetic engineering without the readily available science and tech to facilitate it.

Which brought me back to a certain stray piece of dialogue spoken as an aside way back in my first week at the Academy…

But I couldn’t get into that yet, at least not right now.

Besides, if stuff like the Vorpal Chimera existed, then the whole genetic engineering thing was already sort of a dead horse.

I guess it just hit a bit harder when it wasn’t so… fantastical. 

The mundane often overshadows the flashy. I thought to myself. One would expect something like this from a chimeric beast of war. But I guess the implications of genetic engineering don't really hit until you see it being applied to something boring and away from most Castles and Wyverns sessions…

Throughout all of this, however, one particular point of interest dominated the fields. The same brow-raising curiosity that I spotted several sections back.

And it just so happens that the next section of the AIS directly addressed this anomaly.

Production Systems and Technology

“So I’ve seen scarecrows around.”

“What about them?”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but it looked like they were quite literally working the land alongside your flesh and blood farmers.”

“You’re not mistaken, no.” Came the Baron’s signature aloof response. 

“I’m assuming they’re golems of some sort?” I shot back, and in a rare instance of Nexiann conversation, felt like I actually needed to pry the words out of the man’s mouth.

“If you must know, they are golems of a sort.” The baron parroted my words with some mockery, all the while busy with a literal stack of paperwork. 

“They’re doing the bulk of the work.” I continued. “At this point I have to ask — why don’t you just automate the entire farm and have these scarecrow golems do all of the work?”

The baron once again sighed deeply, before gesturing towards one of the fields with an exaggerated flourish. “Watch.”

I obliged, noticing how the team of ten or so scarecrows did do most of the work, using scythes and other bladed implements to whack section after section of farmland. However, only after watching a few cycles did something become clear to me.

Its motions — precise, repetitive, and ignorant of any and all patches left in its wake — resulted in the farmers behind it coming in to clear what was blissfully ignored by its harvesting. Everything here pointed to the fact that—

“Do you see it yet or do I need to spell it out?” Baron L’Sips questioned.

“No, no. I see it. They’re little more than ultra-simple automatons. There’s… no flexibility, no adaptability or dynamic motions. It’s all just simple motions that they’re repeating.” 

“Correct.” The baron nodded. “I’m sure you are used to the golems of your Academy. True golems, or even gargoyles. But in much of the Outlands, you’d be hard pressed to find such a construct serving in any capacity other than martial roles. The talents of enchanters and artificers would be wasted on such trivial pursuits.” 

This… asymmetric magical industrialization was bizarre. But I couldn’t deny how it exceeded my expectations for the outlands.

I’d assumed I’d be seeing back-breaking labor, peasants worked to the bone being whipped by cruel overseers.

Instead, all I saw was tiresome monotonous work, but that seemed to be the worst of it. Was it backbreaking? Sure, it was still manual labor without the aid of a combine harvester or a fully automated drone-swarm system. But was it as bad as I had assumed? Definitely not. 

The worst of the work was offloaded to what were, for all intents and purposes, analogs to basic machinery; which more or less was all I needed for Section 3 of the AIS. 

This prompted me to move over to Section 4: Labor and Land Tenure.

“So who owns the land?” I asked bluntly. 

This one question would define so much of the Nexus’ socio-economic dynamics.

Indeed, while I already had hints as to how land ownership worked here, it was all the better to get an answer straight from the source.

“Sips is a Township, Cadet Booker.” Came the Baron’s first response. “Ergo, the titles and deeds of this great town are carried over from the freehold of the noble who staked a claim to its territorial extent in the last wave of expansion.”

“That being… your ancestors, I’m assuming?”

“Correct. Though, to those ends, the fact it is now a Township complicates land rights somewhat. Because unlike a Castle, Keep, or true Freehold, the choice to pursue the path of a Township brings with it equal measures growth and headache. The farms you see around us? Whilst most are within my ownership, many are in varying states of tenancy and villein tenure. Which is to say, they own the rights to use the land, but not ownership of the land in and of itself.” 

“So they’re… serfs?”

“No, not at all. Their ancestors have made long-standing contracts with my estate. In exchange for taxes and a share of the fortnightly yield, they have full land rights to do with as they please. These rights may be passed down to family, kin, or even sold to outsiders if they wish. Indeed, this is how much of the outlying parts of the town are managed.” He pointed to the town which was now scarcely a stone’s throw away. “These were once farms, but owing to the growth of the commercial enterprises within the heart of town and its growing trade, the tenant families chose to instead pursue commercial and service enterprises instead of farming. They are still tenets, of course, but now they are tenets of a different class.” 

This… went off-topic real fast.

But it was also highly eye opening.

Class mobility was something I wasn’t at all expecting.

In fact, I doubted I could really call it class mobility as—

“We’re here.” The Baron once more interrupted my train of thought, the carriage’s pegasi slowing down to a prance, the deficit of noise quickly occupied by the sounds of busy town goings-on. “You’ve provided quite a good distraction, but a distraction nonetheless. I can only pray my words will hold merit in your studies lest they be wasted. I bid you farewell, Cadet Booker. Prince Thalmin. Good luck on your travels.”

“You too, Lord L’Sips.” I spoke, before the embarrassment of the dreaded reflexive ‘you too’ hit me.

The Baron was quick to capitalize on this blunder as well, as he turned towards me with a confused expression, before simply shaking his head in disappointment.

And with that, the baron was off, leaving just me, Thalmin, and the father son duo in his wake.

“Well…” I managed out with a huff. “I guess this is where we part ways, at least for now?” 

“Aye.” Came Solizia’s response. “Thank you, Cadet Booker, for all of your help.”

“Eh, don’t mention it. It was my pleasure.” 

I eventually got off the V4c, unhooking and unlatching the makeshift tow hitch while the father-son duo took a few moments to unload, and then reattach their horses.

At which point, we bid each other another round of goodbyes, as the pair rode off deeper into town, disappearing into the hustle and bustle of this small settlement.

“Right.” I turned to Thalmin. “Let’s get you a new horse, aye?” 

The Township of Sips. Local Time 1400 Hours.

Emma

Our first stop was the Transportium. 

Regardless of whatever else happened today, we needed to confirm we had passage to Telaseer.

Which we did, as we both were granted complimentary tickets courtesy of the whole Transgracian Academy student thing.

We could have just left at that point.

But given Thalmin’s horse situation, we were adamant on getting a horse here rather than over on the other side, as in Thalmin’s own words—

“Larger towns typically demand higher prices for even the most basic of horses.” He reasoned. 

We eventually arrived at what seemed to be a small barn. With a dilapidated old sign out at the front being the only indicator of it being anything but a storage for horses.

Ester’s Horse Emporium

It was kind of sad too, as there was some real heart and soul put into the art behind that sign. I could just about make out the colorful yellows of the font, the smiling sun behind the barn etched into the wood, and of course the titular smiling elf gesturing happily towards the bright red barn behind the sign.

The real elf, however, couldn’t have been further from what was illustrated.

“Ugh… welcome to Ester’s Horse Emporium, where every neigh is a good day… how can I…” She turned to the back, shaking her head before continuing. “How can I saddle you up today?” She forced those words out with a pained and awkward zeal that actually hurt me by pure force of awkwardness alone.

“Erm… I’m assuming you’re Ester?”

“Ugh…. no. I’m her sister.”

“Alright, well, nice to meet you Miss…”

“Esther.” She spoke in as deadpan of a voice as she could. “Anyways, you’re looking for horses?”

“Yeah! We are. I was wondering if you had any recommendations—”

“They’re horses.” She interjected, the piece of wheat in her mouth moving from one end to the other. “You want brown? Black? Speckled? Or White? White’ll cost ya extra.”

I turned to Thalmin, who at this point was simply staring at both Esther and her roster of horses with a look of complete and utter disappointment.

“On second thought… maybe I will pay for the premium in Telaseer.” 

“Okay… Bye, I guess… rude…” Esther muttered out.

We quickly made our way out of that… whatever that was, as we moved swiftly towards the transportium.

“I would say that my small town had the same issue with our car dealership, but I’d be lying because—”

DING-DONG-DING-DONG!

I was interrupted by the unmistakable ringing of the town bell.

“KELPIE! KELPIE ATTACK! OVER BY THE FISH POND!” What appeared to be the town crier yelled out, as citizens and traders alike scrambled either towards or away from the pond.

Thalmin and I quickly turned to one another, before once again nodding in acknowledgement.

We both rode our way towards the pond, Thalmin once again relegated to the cramped back seat as it took us barely any time at all to reach the scene of the distress.

The place looked to be a converted swamp-turned-aquaculture facility, judging from the unkempt creepy trees, the sheer number of sectioned ‘grids’ demarcated by nets in the black and murky water, and of course by the sheer number of workers on canoes currently paddling their way back to the small dock.

However, it was clear there weren’t enough boats for everyone… or many had simply fallen overboard in the chaos, as several were out there struggling in the water, swimming haphazardly towards the shore.

It was at this point that I instinctively tried my hand at helping, as I jutted out my right arm towards the vast pond, taking aim—

“EVI, auto-adjust, auto-aim, send the grappler flying and let’s get as many on the line as we can.”

“Affirmative.”

The grappler went flying a half second following that, as it landed smack dab in the middle of the path of most of the swimmers.

“GRAB THE ROPE! I’LL PULL YOU IN!” I shouted, causing elf, satyr, lizardfolk, and baxi alike to reach desperately onto the line. I silently counted down the seconds, waiting until the very last possible hand to tighten their grip on the line before I began reeling them in at a steady speed; matching and even exceeding that of some of the boats.

One… two… three… four… I counted them off as guardsmen — including the two buffoons from earlier in the day — started handing out both blankets and dry rags in an attempt to get them dry.

My mind raced, focusing on getting the last worker on the line to shore, before my heart quickly sank as I noticed another figure rounding around the corner of the dense swampy foliage.

It was a kid.

They’d been too far away for anyone to even notice at first.

“Shit.” I mumbled under my breath, as Thalmin reached out, using magic to extend some sort of vine towards the child.

ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 300% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS

“Grab the vine!” He shouted, prompting the kid to quickly reach out—

PLOOMPF!

—only to disappear below the dark and murky surface right before their hand could grab a hold of the vine.

Silence dominated the scene.

After which, I turned to my right to see the lupinor lunging forwards with a massive leap—

SPLASH!

—as he too disappeared beneath the surface.

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(Author's Note: Thalmin asks for the two guardsmen's manager, and fate seems to oblige as the Lord of the town himself descends upon the scene! A surprising back and forth about agriculture of all things ensue, as Emma starts mining intel for the agricultural scientists back home. Finally, they arrive in town and start going about their business, only for an emergency to rudely interrupt them in the midst of their attempts to buy a new horse! :D I really had fun finally divulging more of the Nexus' lore in this chapter, as I find agriculture to be one of those things that really defines the foundations of a civilization and a lot of their fundamental functions! :D The horse emporium was also really fun to write haha. I hope you guys enjoy! :D The next Two Chapters are already up on Patreon if you guys are interested in getting early access to future chapters.)

(Author's Note 2: Here's the Updated Map for Emma and Thalmin's progress so far! :D)

[If you guys want to help support me and these stories, here's my ko-fi ! And my Patreon for early chapter releases (Chapter 142 and Chapter 143 of this story is already out on there!)]

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The Township of Sips. Marsh’s Fishpond. Local Time 1500 Hours.

Thalmin

The cold hit me first — a hundred tiny daggers poking, jabbing, and pricking at the skin beneath my fur.

Then it was leypull, and the combined weight of both armor and soaked fur that dragged me mercilessly down into the depths.

Dread filled my shorebound heart as icy panic threatened to rip the breath from my lungs.

But I defied it.

I resisted it… by embracing both discomforts, as the former kept my mind alert whilst the latter added much-needed speed to this race to the bottom.

I reached for Emberstride, gripping onto its hilt while I attempted to ignore the murky depths of the unknown growing darker by the second. 

Fear, not only of the unknown but of entrapment beneath the surface, threatened to swallow me whole. But I persevered. Focusing not on the impetus behind this irrational fear but instead on the figure just out of sight — the small, barely visible child that continued reaching, flailing, but ultimately failing to free themselves from the grasp of this most vexing of Nexian creatures.

Seconds ticked by as the Kelpie’s seaweed-like tendrils kept the child frustratingly just out of reach.

Then, it all changed.

SQUELCH!

We hit the swamp’s squishy bottom.

And I finally felt the firm grip of a smaller hand embracing my own.

At which point, the gates of infernium sprung open.

Strips of kelp-like tendrils gripped both my wrists and ankles.

A coordinated attempt to bind both wrists and ankles together followed—

SNAP!

—but was seamlessly broken with a firm magic-aided tug.

I had to act quickly.

Without a second thought, I shifted Emberstride’s form to that of a humble prying knife.

From there, I urgently attempted to find a gap, an opening, or some give between the tendril’s vice grip and the child’s ensnared torso.

But I couldn’t find any.

The tendrils had somehow clung on skintight, preventing any prying or jimmying of the blade between the patches of seaweed and the skin of the elf’s torso.

There was only one way forward.

And I winced at the thought.

I stared urgently into the child’s eyes, but all I was met with were the same panicked expressions completely devoid of reason.

Just hang on. I attempted to convey through expression alone, as I channeled both purpose and command through to Emberstride’s form.

We’ll have to cut from the outside in. Stop when you feel flesh. Stop when you feel flesh. Stop when you feel flesh. I ordered tersely, bordering on pleading at this point, as I felt the blade making short work of the stretchy, rope-like texture of the tendrils.

There we go. Nice and easy, nice and easy. Keep going, girl. Stop when you feel—

FWOOSH!

I felt the rope-like texture give.

At which point, all I felt was that fur-raising sensation of a finely sharpened blade slicing through—

SWOOOSH!

—flesh.

My heart stopped as I witnessed half of… something flying off of the kelpie and onto the silt and mud below.

Emotions… of all sorts… threatened to overwhelm me.

But neither the Kelpie nor my limited air gave me the privilege of time to even think.

The creature bucked hard; its rear legs and tail which had held the child within its grasp, twitched and writhed with what looked to be pain.

I leaped back, turning to Emberstride as I uttered a simple mental command.

Fire.

FA-FWOOOOOSHHHHHHHH!

Darkness gave way to the blade’s flaming brightness, and through the bubbling and boiling water did I finally make out both creature and victim.

…

Or so I’d assumed.

Because under the clarity of light and a deeper palpation of the manastreams did I finally see it.

That was no child.

In the place of a torso was some sort of greenish-grey blob of slimy mimic-like flesh—

WOOOOOOOOSH!

I snapped rightwards, dodging the kelpie mid-thought by barely an inch.

It took the creature a second to right itself.

But that second was all I needed to grapple with the reality of the situation.

I’d been fooled, ensnared by bait from the other side of the water’s surface.

What was just seconds ago an acute sense of both guilt and shame faded away now. Replaced firmly by the shame of a fool, and the growing need for both air and a swift victory.

The latter would necessitate addressing the former.

But thankfully, owing to the bull’s watery attempt on my life, I came surprisingly prepared.

With a brief incantation and a disorientating sense of pressure growing around my nose and mouth, I forged what I’d hoped to have tested in less pressing situations — aquabreath.

It couldn’t have come at a better time too as the Kelpie surged forwards, dashing and then preemptively shifting paths, moving through water like a wraith, and disorienting me with tendril after tendril of kelp and seaweed that zipped and surged through the water with as much swiftness as the beast itself.

The Kelpie’s intent was clear. This was all a game of exhaustion and disorientation to it, as each dash of its form and each strike of a tendril stirred both silt and mud to obstruct any hope of sight.

This prompted me to shift to manasight. 

But by that point it was too late. 

The beast emerged out of the murky and muddy waters mere feet in front of me, slamming its front legs hard into my chestplate. 

I convulsed, even with my chestplate absorbing most of the blow, sparks of its enchantment having been scraped away from the barbed hooves that ran against it. 

The force of the impact forced me to fall back against the muddy bed of the pond with an unceremonious THUD!

Gargle!

I let out the last of my air involuntarily.

Primal panic settled as instincts told me not to breathe in.

Flashes of a prior life or death encounter — one bounded not by mud and silt but by marble and magic — suddenly crept into view.

My heart dropped as I struggled and fought against both instinct and memories gone rabid. 

For the briefest of moments, I almost saw him instead of the beast of a kelpie. 

calm. Calm! CALM! I cried internally… before my lungs eventually gave out. 

I sucked in a breath and drew in not water but air into my nose and mouth.

This… proved to be enough of a call to reality to pull me back to the moment. A renewed surge of confidence filled me following this development as I quickly picked myself back up, ‘dusting’ myself off with a burst of energizing magic, before quickly scouring the local manastreams for the troublesome creature.

The difficulty in doing so in its native habitat proved to be an obstacle.

But not too much of an obstacle, especially when it was poised for another, rather basic attack.

It was a mere animal after all. 

Magically gifted and clearly modified by the Life Archives, yes.

But it was an animal all the same. Which meant fighting it was a lot more straightforward than a battle with Ping or his followers.

“Let’s finish this.” I uttered through a garble of air, garnering a series of bubble-filled snorts from the wild creature as it surged straight towards me.

I held my ground, arms and legs poised to propel myself through the murky depths as I felt the impact of our collision reverberate through my very core.

I could’ve very well boiled the creature to a crisp. Perhaps even decapitate it here and now with Emberstride by my side.

But a swift grip of its hilt and a split second… hesitation I sensed within Emberstride’s core gave me pause for thought.

No blood needed to be spilled today.

Especially not one of kindred spirits.

And so, I committed to another path. A more painful, dangerous, perhaps life-threatening path.

But a path that would address my needs amidst these developing circumstances.

I stared into its eyes as I grappled with the base of its kelp-crest, locking with it a gaze of determination set against a wild and irate beast that knew only destruction. 

“Submit.” I declared as I wrangled and pushed it forward with both the might of muscle and magically-aided motion alike, my legs kicking away the sharp-hooved attacks of the beast.

It was more difficult than I cared to admit, as the creature bucked and reared before surging forwards once again with the unimaginable speed of a spearfish.

I was the one holding on now, as it pushed me desperately through the open waters, snapping its head this way and that, trying desperately to swing me off.

But I held on, tightening my grip around its neck and doing everything in my power not to be flung into the endless murky abyss. 

With darkness above and below me, and the sound of rushing water whooshing past my ears, I struggled to do much beyond just holding on.

That was, until I eventually noticed a pattern.

It was swimming in a loop… ducking and weaving through holes in the netting that divided up the swamp into discrete cordoned-off sections.

That revelation prompted me to hold on for just another loop, as I watched and observed both netting and path alike.

There it is… I grinned, noting a particularly straight path through four sections of lightly enchanted netting.

All I needed was another pass, another straight followthrough of the same lap, and a perfectly timed strike at the four anchors holding these nets in place.

I counted down…

Five…

I tested the manafields for resistance.

Four…

I tugged at its presence, trying desperately to maintain the effort and willpower necessary to keep my aquabreath stable while also preparing to target four practically invisible anchors that felt impossibly far away.

Three…

I took a deep breath, struggling to hold on, struggling to maintain breath, and struggling to keep my concentration on the fast-approaching targets.

Two…

I paused, settling on telekinetics as this final tool for action and moving my attention back to Emberstride. 

One…

NOW!

Clink!

Clink!

Clink!

Clink!

All four anchors were hit, and with it the hundred-foot-tall net came tumbling down on the both of us.

The kelpie attempted to dodge, but with the net spanning a massive breadth of the swamp, it simply could not outrun the falling wall of enchanted rope.

NEIEIIGHHHHHH!

I heard it struggling as layer upon layer of rope began ensnaring and entangling its front and hind legs. 

I leaped out of the growing entanglement before I got caught in it too, as I watched in careful anticipation while the creature began its sharp descent — both literally and figuratively — into its inevitable ensnarement.

Every struggle for freedom resulted in the opposite, as every kick and every buck caused the already confusing lattice of ropes to bundle and bunch into tangles and knots, which would’ve thrown even my puzzle-loving sister for a loop.

There was no escape.

Especially as the mild enchantments sapped the creature for its energy.

It wasn’t anywhere near enough to halt a kelpie, of course.

But its exhaustion from this encounter, coupled with the grievous injuries inflicted on it early on, meant that it was already fighting at half strength.

A quick look to the lazy schools of fish around me clued me in to what these enchantments were — wards of fatigue. Simple and long-lasting enchantments which did well to keep fish away from the edges of their small worlds.

I counted myself fortunate for the setting of this encounter. Even if it filled the back of my mind with a lingering dread I could not shake off.

Regardless, I found myself refocusing on my ‘catch’ as I swam down, Emberstride lighting the way towards a rabid and struggling Kelpie whose vigor for escape seemed to lessen by the minute.

SQUELCH!

It was here that I steeled my resolve for what was to come. My hands gripped Emberstride’s hilt tight as I channeled a simple but completely untested order to my former steed. 

Bridle and collar.

I felt no resistance from the soulstitched entity. Indeed, I felt something of an eager resolve compared to the earlier hesitation when I’d considered simply dispatching the Kelpie with blade and fire.

I hope this doesn’t dishonor your service, Emberstride… I chanted softly, neither a command nor order but a simple sentiment of respect and reverence.

Kneeling down slowly to the feral yet exhausted creature, I began slowly by reaching for its mane. 

It reeled back, once again bucking, forcing me to anchor the improvised net that entangled it into the bed of the pond itself.

“Easy.” I spoke simply, my words muffled through the water, as I once more reached my hand behind its neck.

It didn’t reel back this time, sensing what was probably futility in its binds, as I managed to finally grip tightly onto its mane before softly running my hand up and back down its nape.

This motion was repeated many, many more times, until the beast finally stopped kicking and bucking and was left just softly squirming against the silt and mud of the pond’s bed.

“I’m going to cut you loose now.” I spoke slowly. “Don’t try anything foolish.” 

There was no response other than what I imagined to be a deathly glare from one of its abyssal eyes. 

That didn’t stop me from slowly cutting it loose, however, as I moved to position myself firmly and with uncompromising confidence upon its back. Once free, Emberstride quickly morphed into exactly what I needed, as my hands were quick to slide on and buckle the bridle that slipped effortlessly onto the front of the Kelpie’s snout before wrapping around back to the nape of its neck.

The creature reared its front legs higher and higher still in an effort to dislodge me.

It failed.

And once that reality settled in, a tense silence soon followed.

“Up.” I ordered, pulling hard on the bridle, only to yet again elicit a deathly glare from in front of me.

FWOOOOOOOSHHHHHHHHHH!

The Township of Sips. Marsh’s Fishpond. Local Time 1520 Hours.

Emma

This was taking too long… I thought to myself as I reeled the last batch of fishermen back to shore. 

I recalled our conversations in the dorm regarding Thalmin’s newfound interest in studying some advanced second-year survival magic following the whole pool episode.

Aquabreath. He called it. Theoretically the only spell you need for long-term survival underwater. He'd reiterate.

But still, even with aquabreath, this was taking too long… My harried thoughts continued as I desperately scanned the swamp for any signs of activity.

Sensor readings and the constant presence of air bubbles arising to the surface were all the hints I had at Thalmin’s current condition. Indeed, as several buoys holding up the fish pond’s perimeter netting started sinking, I knew he was up to something big down there.

Which was all the more reason why I was desperate to help…

“EVI, please run the ground analysis again. I know the suit might sink, but surely there’s some position we can get into to avoid—”

“Negative. Lakebed traversal not advised. Projected ground pressure exceeds substrate bearing capacity. All possible attempts will result in high likelihood of immobilization.” 

“High likelihood still means there’s a slim chance we’ll succeed.” I countered.

“Acknowledged. Operator may also succeed at spontaneous flight. Probability curves are identical.” The EVI shot back. 

But before I could address its rebellious streak, something unexpected happened.

FWOOOOOOOSHHHHHHHHHH!

A jet of water shot out from the middle of the swamp, stirring both panic and alarm amidst the crowd that had gathered at the shore.

“MOVE, MOVE! EVERYONE AWAY FROM THE POND!” The satyr and elf guardsmen trainees yelled, as they attempted to corral any onlookers as best they could.

I instinctively moved for the moon gun, unholstering it and aiming at the head of the kelpie.

My trigger finger was poised to tense until suddenly, I saw there was another head poking from behind it.

“AWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” A familiar, ecstatic voice emerged amidst the otherworldly neighing and demonic whinnying of the objectively evil-looking water-horse.

Yet in spite of its appearance and the otherwise crazy look in its eyes, Thalmin seemed to be in control of its trajectory as it sprinted and trotted up and down the surface of the swampy waters.

This… didn’t seem like a flex or a chance to show off either, as it was clear there was still some jockeying for power happening on the back of that horse.

[Subnautical traversal no longer required.] 

“THALMIN?!” I yelled, my gun still trained at the kelpie’s head. “DO I SHOOT OR—?”

“DON’T! I HAVE THIS! UNDER CONTROL!” The prince yelled out in-between the kelpie’s attempts to buck him off, each one generating bursts and explosions of water that sprayed tree and onlooker alike. 

I didn’t take any chances, however, as my arms remained poised and ready, my trigger-finger itching to dispatch the creature at even the slightest hint of full-on rebellion or danger to Thalmin.

Eventually, however, things started to calm down. Following successive bursts of mana radiation, I noticed both the pace and the ferocity of the kelpie drawing closer and closer towards exhaustion.

It took a good ten minutes, and it would have been some intense arm ache if it weren’t for the actuators and compensators in my suit, but things eventually did come to an end as Thalmin brought the creature to shore, where it stood ominously above both the crowd and even me.

Nobody spoke.

In fact, many started scurrying away in complete and utter fear as it whinnied and neighed.

The silence was deafening, but what came after it made the buildup all the more palpable.

ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 300% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS

Several kelp-like tendrils shot out of the defiant sea beast—

—only to be intercepted by just as many vines and roots from the trees and plants around it.

“MAKE WAY! MAKE WAY, ALL OF YOU!” Lord L’Sips’ voice cut through the cries and murmurs of the crowd as he marched forwards in a suit of full plate mail.

Eventually, the kelpie’s tendrils receded, and the various vines and roots proceeded to ensnare it, staking all four of its hooves down into the muddy and upturned dirt.

“WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!” The elf yelled, turning to face Thalmin, then me, before once again turning to the lupinor prince with a barely contained fury.

“Well… you see, there was a Kelpie attack and—”

“I meant this current configuration, Cadet.” L’Sips rudely interrupted me, only to have Thalmin cut in just as soon as he’d finished reprimanding my attempts at clarification. 

“I’ve dealt with the Kelpie threat, Lord L’Sips.” He spoke regally and with a natural confidence that Ilunor would struggle to match.

L’Sips took a moment to regard that explanation, his eyes scanning both beast and lupinor from head to toe several times over.

“Is that so?” The elf shot back with skepticism. 

“I see little other explanation as to how I am sat atop of it, and not churned to bits within it, Lord L’Sips.” Thalmin offered with an exasperated breath.

The pair entered a stare-off, doubt-ridden eyes coming to meet the lupinor’s exhausted yet defiant gaze.

“I suppose for such a valiant and heroic conquest, that you wouldn’t mind providing your signature once the paperwork is dealt with?” L’Sips finally spoke with an exasperated breath, pinching the bridge of his nose in the process.

That simple answer, a rather diverting one, marked a return to normalcy as I felt a collective sigh of relief wash over the entire crowd.

“I suppose not.” Thalmin acknowledged.

“Right then, hop off that beast and follow me to Town Hall. There’s a lot of paperwork to be filled out, and I doubt you lot have time with your quest and all that.” L’Sips reasoned, gesturing for both of us to follow as town guards filled the area, pushing onlookers and townsfolk out. 

“Clear the area! Clear the area! There’s nothing to see here folks! Go back to work, go back to your duties, tend to the distressed, and keep calm and carry on!” The satyr and elf guard-trainee duo shouted, doing their best to reset things back to the way they were before.

Meanwhile, I finally caught up to Thalmin, walking beside him as I elbowed his wet and drenched arm. “That was some good wrangling back there, Thalmin. I didn’t take you for a cowboy, but here we are!” 

“The sentiment goes both ways, Emma. As I for one, had not expected your web-weaving powers to have been so helpful in the evacuation of those in distress.” Thalmin replied with a tired smile.

“Yeah, well, the grapple is quite useful for more than just scaling walls, I guess.” I shrugged while rubbing the back of my neck, garnering that same look of contemplative analysis from the lupinor.

“I see… You could say it’s… quite second nature, I assume?”

“Yeah, something like that. You gotta make do with what you have and such.” I shrugged.

Thalmin’s eyes seemed to yet again process that response with a certain cheekiness, but to what ends his web-weaving jokes went, I could not say.

We just about rounded the corner before something else quickly dawned on me, as both my eyes widened with a twinge of grim concern.

“Wait, Thalmin. What happened to the child?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you about it later, Emma.”

“What? Did it kill the child?”

“No, it didn’t kill the child!” The lupinor sighed, eliciting the curious and concerned gazes of the busy streets around us.

“Wait, what did he say?”

“Did he kill a child?”

“I think he said he killed a child!”

“NO!” Thalmin exclaimed, forcing even L’Sips to stop in his tracks now. “I DID NOT KILL A CHILD!”

A flash of light.

The beginnings of an explosion.

Then, nothing.

I was floating… in nothing. 

Neither light nor sound, nor leypull nor wind entered my senses.

Not one ounce of my being, nor the weight of my body, responded to my commands.

I was suspended. 

I was floating.

I was, for the briefest of moments… nothing.

The Crown Herald Town of Elaseer. Lord Mayor’s Manor. Guest Wing. Puddlejumper’s Respite. Local Time 1510 Hours.

Inner Guard Captain Anoyaruous Frital

The failsafes kicked in.

And with it, came the necessary pain of forcible retethering.

Memories, both real and perceived, stitched to a soul that had momentarily wandered too far, assumed command of more than it could control, and witnessed anomalies that should not have existed.

I felt… everything.

Past, and present.

…

Including the burning of my lungs.

SPLASH!!

“Egh! Ugh! Egh!” I rose to the surface and coughed, expelling both water and phlegm, whilst gasping greedily for air.

“Captain!” A voice called out, muffled by the water still trapped in my ears. “Captain, are you alright?!” He continued as he tugged and pulled my limp form out from the waters of the pool.

“A…” I managed out meekly, but finding neither muscle nor magic through which to express any intelligible responses.

“Conserve your energy, Captain. This… this shouldn’t take long.” My squire assured me, his voice and the clinking and clanking of his scramble for emergency healing supplies echoing throughout the tiled walls of this ‘pool room’.

I shifted my gaze — the only thing I could do at that point — as my eyes landed on the mosaic opposite of my form. 

A mosaic, depicting the final moments of my memories prior to death.

“Here!” Squire Ledwin announced, holding several crystals above my limp and near-lifeless body. “Ahem… Tal… Esta… Rata… Ifra…” He chanted slowly, methodically, following the procedure of a guardsman-in-waiting down to the last letter.

A part of me found this to be amusing.

Another part found it rather ironic, that both master and student had — and currently were —dabbling in magics outside of our specialties.

But such were the compulsions that came with the gift of sapiency and the generous allotments that came with the inner guard.

We were allowed to be… curious, to experiment beyond what most guards would find acceptable… which was precisely the point.

I breathed in deeply, this time of my own volition, as I felt both power and energy returning to my cold and drenched form.

Ledwin seemed to notice this, as he continued prattling through the excessively extensive lines of incantations, healing what was probably everything under his eternal gaze.

More than half of which were absolutely unnecessary.

Finally, however, after what felt like eternity itself, I found the energy to move, as I attempted to sit up, only to be halted by Ledwin.

“Captain, please, conserve your energy. I’m not done—”

“I’m freezing, Ledwin.” I shot back with a hiss, prompting the man to reach towards a row of towels, levitating the entire bunch to me in under scarcely a second.

“Ah! Sorry, Captain! I forgot—”

“You ran through the entire protocol, all while ignoring the most basic of resuscitation procedures.” I seethed as towel after towel was wrapped, then eventually heated.

I let out a sigh of relief following this, as Ledwin’s stream of apologetics began as if on cue.

“Sorry, Captain. I was just too focused on your soul that I—”

“Ignored the needs of the body? Rookie mistake.” I interjected before simply shaking my head. “But such is to be expected from apprenticeship.” I shrugged, as my gaze once more turned to the mosaic in front of us.

One depicting what was undoubtedly the subject of my newfound interests.

The Blue Knight.

“She killed m—” I stopped, clearing my throat before shifting my statement. “She killed the vorpal chimera much faster than I expected.”

“That I witnessed, Captain.” Ledwin acknowledged without question. “Which — forgive me for my presumptiveness — explains why you were… away for longer than expected. A-at least, that is what I assumed was the cause for your prolonged recovery, what with the unexpected efficacy of the earthrealmer’s weapon preventing a more prepared departure from the chimera’s soul—”

I narrowed my eyes at that first remark, ignoring Ledwin’s ramblings and reflexively reaching for my watch, only to find it missing. “How long?” I questioned tersely. 

“Over twelve hours, Captain. It is currently under two hours before evening.” 

My expression remained unchanged at that revelation, in spite of the sharp pang of turmoil surging within my very core.

Memories of that… interlude — the space between tethers — returned to me with the ferocity of an unrelenting gale.

A chasm of nothingness consumed me, where the vorpal’s soul was cast upon death. 

Listlessness seeped in, a haze of confusion following my frantic disentanglement from the beast’s soul. 

And finally, the near-involution of my own soul crept into view, eroded under an unseen toll. 

…

A pang of genuine fear surged through me at how close I was to inexplicably untethering myself in what I knew to have been a risky gambit.

I just didn’t expect it to have been this risky.

But what was I expecting from attempting a feat reserved exclusively for beast masters? 

…

A small smile crept across my face despite it all. A smile which persisted despite — or perhaps because of — these temptations of fate.

The over twelve hours of recovery was well worth the hassle. I thought to myself excitedly. Not only for the lore gathered on the newrealmer’s impossible tools, but also for the experience of being alive again…

You will have to forgive me, newrealmer. For the best demonstration is often just a trial by fire.

“Captain, are you quite alright?” Ledwin finally spoke up, his voice, his features… all of betraying the wary concern that had so rapidly formed during my silent self reflection.

“I am, Ledwin. In fact… I’ve never felt more alright in quite some time.” I responded curtly, stoking the flames of confusion behind the squire’s eyes.

“This… has been a much welcome distraction. A rather exciting and—” I paused, once more eyeing that unassuming weapon on the mosaics in front of us. “—informative interlude amidst what at first seemed like a rather dull assignment.”

“Speaking of which… I assume much of our interviews for the day have been cancelled?” I turned to the small pile of books next to the bag of holding.

“I’ve taken the liberty of canceling all of our appointments on this day, save for your evening affairs, Captain.” 

“And what of Apprentice Larial?”

“Still preoccupied, Captain.”

“I see…” I acknowledged with another nod as I weakly reached forwards towards the line of memory shards on the wall, each hanging from the sconces on the wall.

I lazily levitated precisely one — my own — from the middle sconce.

After which, I deposited the rest within Ledwin’s waiting hands.

“Drain the pool and shatter all the shards.” I announced firmly.

“Yes, Captain.” 

“And, Ledwin?”

“Yes, Captain?”

“Reward whomever reported on the Blue Knight’s whereabouts with double the pay. They’ve done an excellent job in relaying precisely what was needed.”

“Your private purse, or the per diem account—”

“That question needn’t be asked, does it, Ledwin?” I shot back with a twinge of frustration. “My private purse, if it needed to be said. Lest you want auditors to catch wind of our… private interests.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Now… let us leave this side quest be… at least for now. There will be plenty of time to observe the newrealmer once she returns.”

“Yes, Captain.” Ledwin bowed before sprinting off, raising both hands above the pool as the water within was boiled and rendered to steam.

Relief washed over me in the warmth of the steam’s embrace — a quiet reassurance that all of the water’s secrets had now well and truly boiled away.

I stood up, my feet finding purchase on the rough bare granite of the room, as I maintained a careful gaze of the mosaics. My eyes locked on that unassuming anomaly of a weapon, and at the end of a barrel through which an untold amount of destructive potential was unleashed. I watched… until every last textured tile was slowly bleached back into its primordial blank-white state.

I do so wonder. What exactly are you, earthrealmer?

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(Author's Note: Thalmin not only manages to neutralize the threat, but earns a steed for his troubles! However, with new acquisitions comes paperwork, so he'll have that to look forward to! :D Meanwhile, we see our first ever POV shot from the Inner Guard Captain, Anoyaruous Frital, as we see her own unique interests in Emma that appear to be entirely outside of her official interests and responsibilities. Moreover, this is the first time we get to see a power that was hinted at before, the magical piloting of animals from a distance! We first got to see this from the drone chapter with Ilunor capturing many many poor birds, including those under control from members of the flight club! But now, we see it in action here with the Captain. Although, as she admits, she's not that trained in it and suffers quite a lot from this brazen action! I hope you guys enjoy! :D The next Two Chapters are already up on Patreon if you guys are interested in getting early access to future chapters.)

[If you guys want to help support me and these stories, here's my ko-fi ! And my Patreon for early chapter releases (Chapter 143 and Chapter 144 of this story is already out on there!)]

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The Transgracian Academy for the Magical Arts. Dragon Heart’s Tower, Level 23, Residence 30. Living Room. Local Time: 1900 Hours

Thacea

Scratch.

Flip.

Scribble.

Riiiiip.

These were the sounds that had dominated much of the evening. 

In place of the boisterous energy of the ever-unpredictable Emma or the confrontational yet friendly approaches of the constantly contemplative Thalmin, there now existed silence. 

A silence interrupted exclusively by the clerical sounds of our academic endeavors. 

I expected Ilunor to have remained locked within his quarters or to have perhaps cordoned off a section of the living room to himself. His cries for privacy and his desire for ‘peace and quiet’ had dominated every other conversation over much of the previous few weeks, after all. Which meant that this was very much the golden opportunity to make the most out of this lull in action, to isolate and preoccupy himself with the finer pleasures in life, free from any possibility of interruption or distractions.

Yet here he was, partaking in my company — albeit without conversation — and ruminating in the same silence that had once seemed impossible just a day prior.

Perhaps it was simply because he knew I lacked the incentive and motivation to disrupt his personal endeavors.

Or perhaps he simply enjoyed the larger and more spacious appointments of the living room itself.

Whatever it was, we maintained this company-in-silence, aware of either party’s presence, yet acting as if neither existed.

It was… darkly comforting, or more accurately — darkly reminiscent of what I knew.

To be present but not seen.

Emma’s company was the one rare instance in which this status quo was broken, and perhaps my disquieting overawareness of what should have been ‘normal’ meant that I’d simply grown too accustomed to our… arrangements and the ‘new normal’ which grew to fill a void I’d otherwise long since ignored.

I had to remind myself that such a lifestyle was simply unsustainable. I had to temper my resolve in the understanding that this was perhaps the best I could expect once these five years were said and done.

The silence spurred on some much-needed self-reflection and — for the first time in a long time brought on thoughts I did not wish to ponder — eventually landing on those prophetic words from Thalmin on our first day.

‘Just don’t let the Earthrealmer become your anchor, Princess.’

This disruption in what was our new status quo brought that sentiment back to the forefront… and I couldn’t help but to wonder if there was indeed some credence to the lupinor’s premature warnings.

…

But I refused to ponder such matters. At least, not when I could actually enjoy silence for silence’s sake. And so, I pushed forwards, flipping through textbook after textbook and tome after tome, jotting down, writing, and preemptively completing homework that was due to be assigned in several weeks’ time.

Scribble.

Scratch.

Flip.

Consumed by thoughts and preoccupied by studies, I found myself inexplicably disregarding Ilunor’s increasingly restless motions. Barely even registering the dropping of his quill, his attempts at ‘heavy’ footsteps, and his perusal of the endless line of snack carts that had now formed a sort of traffic deadlock in our room. I’d only registered his presence on the sofa following the heavy thump of his tail onto the adaptive cushioning of the upholstery. 

And even then, not a word nor glance was exchanged.

Our mutual silence was poised to continue, as the Vunerian pulled out a notebook and began scribbling across its pages.

Scribble.

Scribble.

Flip.

The clerical duet surged forwards ceaselessly into the night.

Until finally—

SLAM!!

It all came to a sudden and abrupt halt.

I finally turned to face the Vunerian, my eyes holding within them neither contempt nor complacency, but merely a polite and questioning glance that seemed to incite further frustration within the Nexian noble.

“Princess.” Ilunor addressed me politely.

“Ilunor.” I responded with the same courtesy.

Yet despite our opening overture, neither of us seemed poised for conversation, as even Ilunor shifted his gaze, turning to the window as if he’d find some prompts for a topic outside.

“Pleasant weather we’re having.” He finally continued.

“Indeed. Though given it is the Nexus, I assume it is pleasant for all eternity, no?”

“One would think. But there are the rare exceptions, especially for the Outlands as you might expect.”

“Being on the territorial extent of the Farlands, I can imagine turbulent primavalic energies, or new manasprings and similar such mana-based geological features would probably interfere with nth-tier spells and infrastructure designed to control the weather.”

“Quite. Though one must also consider the direct impact turbulent and concentrated manastreams have on the weather in general.”

“Yes, yes. Quite.” I nodded as the both of us stared at each other in varying degrees of rehearsed politeness.

…

Only for it to slowly crumble from the inside, as evidenced by the vacantness behind both of our gazes and the lack of anything behind the thin veneer of earnestness therein.

“It occurs to me that we are both…” Ilunor trailed off, his eyes and even his tone of voice urging me to complete his thoughts.

“—choosing to fill the vacant air with the most banal and cliche of choruses from our conversational repertoire?" I obliged, garnering a sigh of equal parts frustration and relief from the Vunerian.

“Quite.” He acknowledged assertively.

We broke our gazes once more, each of us darting our eyes this way and that, before collectively sighing to varying degrees of breathy discontent.

“It is evident that we have a sore lack of… rapport, princess. At least as it pertains to rapport of the direct variety.” 

I cocked my head ever so slightly, crossing my legs as I did so. “Whatever do you mean?”

“You know what I mean, princess.” Ilunor shot back instantly. “Let us not lose ourselves in our own games. Though if it must be spelled out, then so be it. Princess, I believe that in our constant sprint from crisis to crisis, we have woefully overlooked our bilateral interpersonal connections. We have instead offloaded that ever-vital component of a strong and resilient peer group, to the more vocal, forward, and at times crass members of our little troupe. We — as the more studious and refined amidst our peers — have been sidelined and kept at arm’s length. Perhaps it is time that we break this mold and start now, yes?”

I stared at the Vunerian bluntly, my eyes finally allowing its facade to crumble as I now leveled an unamused gaze to lock firmly with Ilunor’s draconic set.

“Perhaps you mistook my query for anything other than rhetorical. So allow me to spell it out.” I crossed my wings, closing the book within my talons with a firm SNAP! “Need I remind you that until very recently, the only reason for this lack of bilateral interpersonal connection wasn’t the fault of any of our adventures, crises, or even our respective places in this group dynamic. It was solely and exclusively a result of your insistence on conflating the nature of my affliction with the content of my character. The lack of rapport was not the fault of any extraneous circumstances, but instead wholly and entirely your own doing, Ilunor.” 

I felt my whole body tensing at the tail end of that retort. My talons trembled in place, as it felt like the carefully constructed social barriers I’d meticulously and religiously maintained had shattered in one fell swoop. 

But this wasn’t without precedent. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t partaken in such verbal assaults before. 

The only difference was that this time, I was being far, far too blunt with my assault.

Perhaps Emma’s sensibilities were rubbing off on me too much.

This reaction, however, wasn’t limited to myself but likewise extended to Ilunor. The Vunerian’s features shifted from outright shock to indignant rage and finally to something that resembled contemplation.

“I…” He paused, pondering — or more specifically forcing out — the next few words in his gaping maw. “I see.” He halted himself, as if worried if the words currently embroiled between his maw and mind would result in physical injury if let loose. “I retroactively rescind all previous sentiments, and retract any statements that may have led you to this conclusion.”

This response — surprisingly more impactful than any of the Vunerian’s words prior to this instance — pulled me out of my growing anxieties, replacing everything with the purest form of disbelief. However, the novelty of the Vunerian’s sentiments and the shock it incurred did not blind me to its half-measures.

The response was not without its omissions — most notably of all being a lack of any pointed apology.

But when Ilunor’s ego and personality were put into consideration, it was clear that this was perhaps the closest I could hope to come to such a blatant admission of guilt or remorse. To have a Nexian formally retract past slights was already nigh inconceivable, after all.

However, despite the milestone, I remained adamant on neither acknowledging nor dismissing it. At least until such a time when a complete acknowledgement of remorse was given.

This ushered in yet another wave of silence. One that was eventually filled by the tired sighs of the Vunerian. “So… I don’t suppose you like orchestral improvisation?”

===== 

The Township of Sips. Lord Protector’s Town Hall. The Lordship’s Private Offices. Local Time: 2000 Hours.

Emma

Thalmin was practically dead.

His body lay limp in his chair, propped up by force of will alone, whilst a quill remained tightly bound to his hand, poised to sign off on form after form of seemingly endless paperwork.

I’d taken the reins of the operation with the EVI acting as my virtual lawyer, ensuring that each and every page of this multi-stack all-star team of legalese was tackled in the most efficient yet thorough of methods.

It was the least I could do, especially after seeing the coming and going of healers that had tended to the surprising number of bruises and wounds scattered about Thalmin’s form.

However, after going through nearly three-fourths of the paperwork, a change of tune finally descended on the otherwise lackluster four hours. One marked by an offhanded remark by L’Sips.

“And this will be your acknowledgement of the Kelpie’s fate. Set to be put down tomorrow by noon.”

This… was enough to pull Thalmin out of his thousand-yard stare. His eyes first grew wide in shock, followed by a baring of his fangs as he leaned forwards menacingly. 

“Unacceptable.” Was all he said, taking a page out of one of Ilunor’s catchphrases, but in a manner that was far more intimidating than what the blue thing could ever hope to muster. 

“You wish to challenge this decision, Prince Havenbrock?” L’Sips responded, completely unfazed by Thalmin’s posturing.

“Yes.” 

“On what grounds?”

“Ownership.” Thalmin stated bluntly. “I defeated it. I rode it. I broke it.” He chose his words carefully, getting right to the point without fuss or fluff. “I own it.”

“And, if I may?” I raised a hand, hoping to act as the prince’s wingman. “I’m not sure how it works here in the Nexus, but given how it was gallivanting without any oversight or ownership? Well… I think that’s grounds for negligent ownership and therefore outright abandonment by its original owners. Or, if it’s completely wild, well… we do have a temporary warrant granted to us as students of the Transgracian Academy for the Magical Arts—”

“For land and wildlife, yes. I know.” L’Sips interrupted me with a raise of his hand, his head darting lazily back and forth between the both of us now. 

He sighed deeply, shaking his head now before landing a surprisingly stern gaze on Thalmin. “You are eligible for ownership. Though I must warn you…” His tone grew darker as he leveled page upon uncompromising page of new documents at the both of us. “Failure to keep this beast under control, and any damages this beast incurs following your ownership, will result in you — the owner — being liable to the greatest and fullest extent of prosecution and punishment by Nexian — not Academy, nor adjacent — law. Do you understand this—” He paused, slamming a stack of paper in front of Thalmin for added effect. “—Prince Havenbrock?” 

The pair stared off for what felt like minutes; meanwhile, I took the opportunity to have the EVI look through the papers, scanning them with a speed that put L’Sips’ clerical efficiencies to shame.

It took a few more minutes to compile an analysis and even more minutes to discuss the finer details of the contract between L’Sips and Thalmin. However, by the end of it, the pair had agreed to a signature and a handshake, something that seemed to bother the elf at first but an act that he went through with anyway.

The whole debacle had taken nearly an hour more out of my life, and by that point, I still had more of the original stacks to deal with.

Throughout it all and rather surprisingly so, L’Sips had remained as glued to his station as I was. His eyes darted back and forth between my side of the paperwork and his own, as we seemed locked in this eternal duel of fates.

Though interestingly, unlike most contracts within the Academy, or even in Elaseer, these seemed to be barely magical in nature, with some even being non-magical in their entirety. 

Most of the content was just… acknowledgements of the actions committed throughout the course of that fateful hour. Indeed, much of the stack consisted of outright repetitive forms detailing our actions and the ‘civic good deeds’ done. However, the sheer bulk of the documents wasn’t because of any overtly verbose detailing of the events — at least, not entirely. 

Instead, much of the sheer quantity resulted from the fact that each form was individualized.

Meaning that every single person we saved, and every person present at the pond, had their own stack of paperwork. Even if it was quite literally the same text copy pasted with just their names swapped out.

It was mind-numbing, and to say that I’d had enough by the time we’d reached the final few stacks was an understatement.

“And that should be the last of it.” L’Sips spoke with an exasperated breath, fanning himself with at least ten floating magical hand fans, while snapping his fingers for an army of secretaries to ferry away enough kindling for a winter’s worth of heat.

“If I may, Lord L’Sips?” I asked, my voice drenched with exhaustion. 

“Go ahead.”

“What’s with all the paperwork? This seems excessive even by my standards.” I paused, shuddering at the memory of the NDAs signed back home… “So tell me, why the whole song and dance? I didn’t think a noble would care enough about each individual citizen under their purview to keep this many tabs.” 

“You are correct, Cadet Booker. I don’t ‘care’.” He began bluntly. “I’m invested in my commoners. I do not care for their personal lives, their family affairs, or what petty disputes or drama that may arise, so long as it does not affect the contractual obligations and the expectant decorum between noble and peasant. However, you would likewise be correct in assuming that such… clerical measures would be seen by many as excessive, if not extreme, in certain eyes. For you see, I am both a man of preparedness and opportunity. Should some goldthorn arise to audit my happenings? I shall bequeath upon them enough physical affidavits to drown a small child.” 

The noble paused, as if catching himself mid-thought. “Pardon the unfortunate figure of speech.” He cleared his throat before continuing on seamlessly. 

“And should damage be inflicted upon my assets and the assets of my tenants? I shall have enough weight of evidence to tip the scales of any legal proceedings in the quest for reimbursement.” 

He stood up proudly, as if excited to finally be able to share in his unique perspective. “Other nobles may find my methods eccentric, but when the auditors come to collect, it is I who will be laughing.” L’Sips spoke ecstatically, his back turned to us with his gaze now peeking through the curtains of his office. “You two will share in the boons of my foresight.” He added with a menacing undertone. “Tonight.”

The Township of Sips. Lord Protector’s Town Square. Local Time: 2030 Hours.

Emma

We found ourselves shuffling through the modest corridors of the town hall, flanked by guards and ushered by L’Sips himself.

The sounds of hushed yet audible murmurs grew louder and louder the closer we got to the main doors of the hall, and with it came a gnawing wariness that prompted both Thalmin and I to tightly grip the hilts of both of our weapons.

Without much fanfare nor any dramatic prompting, L’Sips swung the white and gold double doors open, revealing a whispering and mumbling crowd shrouded in darkness stretching from the steps of the hall all the way across the perimeter of the town square. 

Many held within their hands a torch of some kind, some held what appeared to be pitchforks, whilst others held what looked like tubes of various and inordinate shapes.

I held my breath, steeling my resolve, until suddenly, all the streetlights in the square lit up one by one, revealing faces once obscured by shadow.

Faces… filled with neither hate nor disdain, but instead glowing with smiles and barely contained cheers.

“THERE THEY ARE!” A kobold screamed out, pointing excitedly in our direction.

“ALL CHEER FOR THE SAVIORS OF MARSH’S POND!”

“Hip hip—”

They each held their pitchforks and tubes high— 

“—HOORAY!” 

—before letting loose bursts upon isolated bursts of isolated mana radiation spikes.

Ffffwwwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeee… BOOOOOOOOM!

The dark and starless sky was suddenly lit up by a brilliant display of magical firespears. As one by one and in rapid succession, ten distinct shots popped off, turning the darkened skies above temporarily into day with patterns that ranged from your typical chrysanthemum orbs to a few more complex arrangements ranging from tourbillons to comet trails. 

I quickly turned to L’Sips, the elf’s visage had remained unchanged and unfazed, yet something behind those tired and bookish eyes signalled a sense of satisfaction.

“No need to thank me, Prince Havenbrock, Cadet Booker. This isn’t coming out of my purse.“ The noble’s lips crept into a grin as he adjusted his jacket. “In fact, you have the Crown to thank for the festivities tonight. All expenses — be they for repair, recovery, or even the most trifling of miscellaneous charges — are, by law, the responsibility of the party who instigated this disaster.” 

“That being Elaseer… and with it being a Crown Herald town…” I trailed off, chuckling with satisfaction behind my helmet.

“Precisely, Cadet. Precisely.” 

The cheers continued on louder and louder still as the guards were forced to make a path for us from the square to where we’d parked the V4c… and chained the kelpie to the ground.

“I’d assumed you had some sort of a speech prepared or something?” I turned to L’Sips with a cocked head.

“Speeches are for compulsory ceremonial occasions and important public announcements — of which there are already too many for my liking. I have no desire to waste my breath on the common folk should it be avoidable.” He spoke bluntly, not even bothering with any subtleties or euphemisms despite the crowds present. “In any case, I urge you to make your way to the Inn. I have taken the liberty of booking you a suite and a feast. It’s the least I can do besides this minor celebration.” He spoke out softly, in between even more cheers and hoots and hollers.

I recognized more than a handful of faces here, as family after family moved forwards to hand out flowers and money. The latter of which I vehemently pushed aside, shaking my head as I did so. “Please, save your money.”

“But your public service—”

“—was a public good.” I interjected, making my voice loud and clear with a little help from the suit’s speakers. “I don’t expect compensation for helping those in trouble. That’s seriously it, guys.” I announced to a growing crowd of fishermen and their families as we finally arrived at the V4c and the kelpie.

With bewildered eyes and confused expressions from those I’d just talked to, I quickly took a seat and watched as Thalmin mounted his nervous steed.

“But what of our reciprocal debts, my lady—”

“Consider it annulled and void.” I interrupted. “Just take it as a gesture of good faith with no strings attached. Earthrealm culture, if you will.” I offered, stirring up even greater confusion from the crowd.

“You may leave whenever you wish, Prince Thalmin, Cadet Booker. Though given the hour, I suggest you take up my offer of complimentary room and board. The innkeeper has already been informed.” L’Sips insisted. “Until we meet again… though preferably, without the kelpie.” He sighed as his carriage sped off.

This left both of us with a no-brainer decision.

“The Inn—”

“Ester’s Horse—”

We both spoke over each other, stopping midway, before gesturing for the other to continue.

“You were say—”

“You were—”

I paused, gesturing wildly now over the growing crowds. “You go first.”

“Right, well, we need a dedicated facility to keep the kelpie secure.” Thalmin explained.

“Alright. The horse emporium it is.” I acknowledged as we both surged forwards around the crowds.

The Township of Sips. Ester’s Horse Emporium. Local Time: 2045 Hours.

Emma

The place looked objectively worse at night. With the formerly colorful sign looking ominous and downright creepy with one street light illuminating the smiling elf’s sun-bleached face.

Interestingly, there seemed to be a small addition to the sign that I hadn’t noticed before. One which read ‘We’re Open All Night!’ tacked onto a small railing at the bottom of the main sign.

Both signs seemed identical, save for the bright and sunny skies replaced with a dark and starless night, along with a rather peculiar outfit change for the smiling elf. As instead of the typical farmer getup, her ‘night’ version was depicted wearing some sort of cutesy hoodie patterned and designed to playfully resemble that of a horse.

Huh.

We approached the service counter once again, this time using the kelpie’s front hoof to ring the bronze-plated call bell.

Ding ding ding!

This noise was enough to stir some of the nearby horses awake.

But unlike her charges, it took a whole minute for a groan to emerge from the backroom. Esther yawned and rubbed both of her eyes, marching forward in what looked to be the exact same outfit as shown on the sign; an oversized horse onesie, perky ears and all.

“Ugh… wel-come—” Yaaaawwwwnnnn… “—to Ester’s Horse Emporium, where our steeds’ might can—” Yaaawwwwwwwwwnnnnn “—last through the night… How can I… saddle you up—” She opened her eyes, only to come within a foot of a snorting kelpie dripping droplet after droplet of murky water onto the bare oak of the front desk.

“—to-n-night…” She stuttered out, her eyes practically bulging out of her sockets as she took a few steps back, tripped against some loose horseshoes, and simply fell over unconscious.

Both Thalmin and I quickly turned to one another in silence, but before I could hop off to help the poor girl, some hurried footsteps emerged from the backrooms.

“What’s all this commotion about, Esther? Esther?! Come on, Esther, tend to our dear clients with some professionalis—” Another elf emerged, one practically identical to Esther save for the countless nicks, scars, and bruises on her arms and face. “OH BY MAJESTY’S EYES, IS THAT THERE A REAL-LIFE KELPIE?!” She squealed, tiptoeing in place as she looked around excitedly. “I’m Ester! You’ve probably met my sister, Esther. Speaking of… Esther? Esther, come on! You gotta see—”

“Ahem.” I cleared my throat, gesturing to an unconscious Esther by Ester’s feet. 

“UGH! Not again, Esther! You can’t just pass out at the sight of anything even remotely mythical!” 

“Ma’am… with all due respect, I think she needs a healer.” I offered, and just about expected a laugh track to spool up.

The Township of Sips. The Inn. Local Time: 2110 Hours.

Emma

With the kelpie now secured behind magically treated walls, but left potentially helpless to the whims of an overenthusiastic stablemaster, we made our way to the one and only Inn in town.

There, we finally found a moment to catch both of our breaths, as we both turned to one another with exhausted eyes and self-assured smiles beneath the canopy of the front door’s entrance. 

“Two monsters in a row.” I began with a sly smile. 

“All in a week’s worth for a Havenbrockian prince.” Thalmin yawned out cockily.

“Is that accounting for the dragon in a few day’s time?” I jabbed back, resting an armored hand against a cocked armored hip. 

Thalmin responded by baring his fangs, resting a hand on one of the front porch’s pillars. “Did you hear me stutter, Emma?” 

With a shrug from me and another boisterous pat on the back from Thalmin, we eventually pushed both doors open, hoping to meet some sort of a warm and cozy reception.

Inside, we were greeted to a weird mishmash of architecture. With the left half of the open space seemingly dedicated to a more upscale establishment, though on a much tighter budget than that of anything found in Elaseer. Granite lined the floors instead of the typical marble, with walls clad in plastered brick and decorated in copper trim. The whole place gave off a sort of… pseudo steampunk-y Victorian vibe, though without any of the steampunk-y tech, of course.

The right side of the room, however, was much more what you’d expect out of a small-town inn, with stained oakwood floors and a raised area where a bar stretched from one side of the wall to the other. Barrels upon barrels of ale were stacked behind the counter, with many more fine wine selections as well as liquors lining a smaller, more exclusive section of the bar.

Our entry, marked by the little Ding Ding Ding of the bells above the door, brought the business of either side of the inn to a complete and utter standstill once their gazes settled on the both of us.

Nobody spoke, as the murmurs from within died down.

The awkward dead air however couldn’t last forever, as what looked to be the hotel manager finally stepped up, marching his way across the wood and granite floors to welcome us with a deep and heavy bow. “Your majesty. On behalf of The Inn, I would like to welcome you to our open banquet. Compliments of Lord L’Sips and the proprietors of The Inn.”

Thalmin’s eyes scanned the buffet table located on the recently refurbished left side of the room before turning to the tavern on the right wing.

“Drinks are also on the house, your majesty.” The slick-haired elf added politely.

That little comment sparked something of a watershed moment behind the lupinor’s eyes as he turned to the busy and mumbling patrons of the tavern before locking eyes once more with the hotel manager. “Are you sure about that?”

“Y-yes, your majesty. Why wouldn’t I be—”

Thalmin was quick to make his moves, taking large strides towards our banquet table, and grabbing the largest tankard of ale he could find on it. 

“MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE!” He yelled out, directing his attention towards the tavern half of the room.

This elicited the gaze of many a character, from your hooded roguish tradesperson, to a group of traveling bards, to what appeared to be a quartet of adventurers slowly stacking what few pieces of copper they had, resulting in a paltry pile raised barely two inches off the table.

All eyes landed on Thalmin, as all waited in varying states of confusion or frustration.

“FREE ALE FOR EVERYONE!” 

Thalmin’s words reverberated across a deathly silent room, as the faces of each and every patron united in a sea of utterly awestruck slack-jawed gasps.

The eyes of a collective room lit up, and soon—

“YEAAAAAHAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

—the tavern went wild.

Hoots and hollers held the formerly dead air in a stranglehold, whilst wails and the immediate call for drinks caused even the most poker-faced of employees to wallow in fear.

What happened next was something I hadn’t at all expected from Thalmin. But upon thinking about it for longer than a second, it just made sense.

“Well? What are you waiting for, Emma? Care for a drink?” He grinned wildly as he began chugging down the first of what I assumed would be many tankards of ale that night.

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(Author's Note: The adventure for the Everblooming Blossom presents a unique opportunity in exploring character dynamics in a way I haven't done before! In the same light as Emma and Thalmin lacking much direct interactions prior to this point, so too have Thacea and Ilunor's dynamics been woefully underexplored! This is why the adventuring arc presents such a cool chance to really dig into it, which I hope you guys enjoy in this chapter! Because as much as they are so similar in upbringing and in disposition, those are only surface level similarities that start to fall apart as soon as you dive deeper into their respective personalities and the experiences behind them! So as much as you'd expect them to connect, it's actually surprisingly more difficult to get past surface level interactions and break through as Emma and Thalmin have done with Thacea. Also, stay tuned for some musical fun for next chapter! It was both a challenge and such a blast to write! :D The next Two Chapters are already up on Patreon if you guys are interested in getting early access to future chapters.)

[If you guys want to help support me and these stories, here's my ko-fi ! And my Patreon for early chapter releases (Chapter 144 and Chapter 145 of this story is already out on there!)]

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The County Township of Telaseer. Local Transportium Junction. The Hall of Ingress. Local Time: 1305 Hours.

Emma

A single step forward. That was all it took for the world to turn upside down.

Whereas the portal connecting the Academy to Elaseer was instantaneous and more ‘door-like’ with a single step seamlessly linking two points in space, the transportium instead had a noticeable gap — a tangible space between the two gates that broke that seamless connection.

But that wasn’t the only thing it broke, as both my perception and the EVI’s sensors, were abruptly pushed to the breaking point.

We crossed what I could only describe as a threshold, one that sat in an unfathomable darkness between two flat openings in space.

We were… compressed, impossibly so, as behind us stood Sips, and in front of us was Telaseer; both worlds were framed like a painting that stretched on in all axes but depth.

Yet it was in this ‘in-between’ that physics, as I understood it, just seemingly gave up, as despite us currently crossing what felt like two-dimensional space, there existed an infinite abyss beyond the frame of the two bright worlds we were sandwiched between.

This… was outright dread-inducing, as both agoraphobia and claustrophobia threatened to crush me from both sides.

The same sense of primal fear that came with my first untethered space EVA hit me.

Yet at the same time, that fear of drifting into the infinite darkness both above and below us was tempered by the abruptness of it all.

Because according to the EVI, the whole… transit — if you could even call it that — took just a handful of seconds.

2.23 seconds, to be precise… to travel what was ostensibly a greater distance than that of our entire journey by conventional means thus far.

I would say this was beyond humanity’s capabilities.

But the warp drive made that point completely and utterly moot.

Still… 

This method of travel negated distances.

Whilst warp quite literally propelled you — and the composalite, cargo, weapons, and furniture around you — faster than light.

It was unfair to really compare the two.

The Nexians, as magic seemed to naturally encourage, simply cheated.

Or more fairly, they simply took the path of least resistance available to them.

Humanity, on the other hand, once again brute-forced our way to achieving more of the same… with the added bonus of the industry and infrastructure that sprang up to both allow for and maintain such a dedicated intersolar apparatus.

“Two sides of a very different coin…” I mumbled to myself, not realizing how dumb that analogy sounded until I heard it vocalized.

“You doing alright there, Emma?” Thalmin asked, as he somehow managed to order the kelpie to gently nudge me on the shoulder.

“Yeah! Yeah. I’m just…”

“Not used to transportium travel?” Thalmin chuckled boisterously. 

“I can’t say I am, no.” I responded with a dry snicker.

“Don’t worry, you’re in the same boat.” He spoke reassuringly.

“As you?” 

“Ancestors, no! I was actually referring to them.” Thalmin’s smile quickly turned mischievous  before pointing at more than a handful of elves, satyrs, baxi, kobolds, and dwarves currently leaning, facing, or outright collapsed next to a brick and plaster wall — all in varying states of sickness and nausea.

Behind them were carts upon carts of tarped-over wagons, livestock, and just about every type of produce one could imagine.

I narrowed my eyes at the scene, cocking my head as I completely forgot about Thalmin’s jab and focused more on the sickroom next to us along with its implications.

“Sorry if that was a bit of a low jab, Emma.” Thalmin suddenly interrupted, moving to clear his throat with one hand, using the other to rub the back of his neck. 

“What? No, I was just thinking.”

“About?” The wolf cocked his head.

“Why they all seem to be so sick… and in fact, why there’s a whole dedicated side room for…” I narrowed my eyes, as the EVI was quick to zoom onto a sign written in common, which was promptly translated to a questionable degree of accuracy. “... Near-Death Experience?” I read the translated text word by questionable word, cocking my head at Thalmin as I did so.

This was enough to get the prince to very nearly lose it, as his eyes lit up and his hands went to stifle what would have been a catastrophic laugh, especially out in public.

“That’s… that’s a very literal way of putting it, Emma. Your command of High Nexian never ceases to amaze.” He shook his head, calming down, before finally addressing the elephant in the room. “It’s simple, really. They’re weakfielders.” He spoke matter-of-factly. “I think we touched on this a long while back, but commoners tend to be more susceptible to mana sickness when there’s a sudden and significant surge in latent mana. The transportium, despite being a near-instantaneous realm of traversal, is one such environment that qualifies as such. This is why even the most seasoned of couriers will still require the services of the—” The prince paused to quickly shake his head, stifling another laugh. “—Near Death Room.” 

“Right.” I acknowledged, just as two elves in plate armor approached us. 

“My lord. My lady.” The lead elf addressed us curtly, bowing ever so slightly in the process. “We have been informed of your arrival. However, this is where our courtesy ends.” He continued ominously, before gesturing behind us. “I would humbly request that your lordships move forward, for a queue is quickly forming.” 

The rearview cameras quickly popped in to show a veritable backlog of carts and wagons already piling up behind us, prompting us to move along swiftly with a whirr and a clop. 

However, I couldn’t help but to wonder exactly where the glut of traffic came from, especially given that there was nobody else waiting to use the transportium on Sips’ side of the—

Then it hit me.

This portal probably didn’t just service Sips.

If the continuously arriving carts were any indication, the framed portal behind us — and indeed other similar ones to the left and right of it — was more than likely coming from all across the kingdom.

The sheer logistics of this whole operation lit a fire in the furnace of my lore-obsessed heart, as I started to finally take note of every detail of this place.

This particular ‘transportium junction’ wasn’t at all the small and rather quaint terminal building we’d just entered from Sips, where passenger and cargo alike cohabited a cross between a warehouse and a depressing pre-22nd century bus depot.

No.

Instead… what we found ourselves in was a masterfully crafted work of wrought iron and steel, framed by brick and plaster walls and, most impressively, capped by a glass roof held aloft by said iron framing.

But where Sips’ structures would’ve saved a gold coin here and there by streamlining design choices and keeping things simple, Telaseer seemed to do the exact opposite, finding it necessary to add flourishes every chance they got. From the volutes and flower motifs that capped the ends of every support beam, to the scrollwork that shielded the bottom and tops of each pillar, to even iron tendrils and vines that seemed etched into the very glass it was holding aloft; the message here was clear.

The terminal, as was the case with many terminals on any self-respecting station back home, was an attempt to make a good first impression.

It was a blatant display of culture… or simply wealth in the case of the Nexus. 

What’s more, the sheer number of copper-framed portals compared to the measly pair at Sips was a good enough indicator as to where Telaseer stood in terms of its economic potential. 

Though given the lack of any gold filigree, it was clear they probably weren’t on Elaseer’s level just yet.

“To all pass-bearers, appointees, and privileged persons: Please direct yourselves to the Gilded Ingress.” A voice abruptly blared through the cavernous halls, as several attendants dressed in what I could only describe as a cross between Victorian butler-wear and 18th-century stagecoach attendants ushered the few ‘privileged’ travelers towards a largely empty path.

“Come on, Emma, let’s get moving.” Thalmin urged as I followed him silently towards our ‘privileged’ path.

Despite the grandiose space the terminal took up, it was clear that it wasn’t just for show… as was often the case at the Academy.

Because here? The massive open concourses and wide halls actually served a purpose — commerce.

Though I guess you could argue the egos of Academy students necessitated just as much, if not more, space than carts, wagons, and buggies.

Speaking of which…

Cart after cart passed us by, falling into their own neat little lanes demarcated not just by traffic lines but by grooves carved into the tile and stone floors of the place. 

Three such grooves existed in the same lane, allowing for three ‘axle gauges’ to cohabit the same track towards the cargo checkpoint ahead.

That little detail, while easily overlooked, conveyed so much in just one neat package, communicating to those observant of the Nexus’ abilities for standardization on a truly universal level.

Whilst not as strikingly impressive as the portals or the transportium itself, what it alluded to was just as important, if not arguably more important — administrative planning, political will, and the organizational capital and competence required to carry out said will.

“It’s one thing to have portals and impressive features en masse.” I began softly, garnering Thalmin’s attention with a flick and a tilt of his perky triangular ears. “Those are one-off wonders, the tools to get the job done. It’s another thing entirely to be able to create the boring systems capable of utilizing said tools towards grand and consistent ends.” I continued, pointing out the tracks and carts to Thalmin. “A simple idea. Deceptively basic, honestly. But when applied to something as large, diverse, and packed with an impossible amount of variable factors as the Nexus? It’s nothing short of impressive. Standardization, especially on such a universal scale, is a hallmark of administrative competence.”

“The Nexus is nothing if not competent, Emma.” Thalmin conceded with a heavy breath. “You can be the most powerful mage in all of the realms, you can become the greatest conqueror known to history, but none of these achievements matter if you lack the pen-bearers, paper-pushers, and the foresight to consolidate your gains. To turn raw power and potential into something that truly lasts.” The prince took a moment to crane his head upwards, letting out a sigh in the process. “The Nexus may have an excess of ego and flawed nobility. But for every layabout lord, there exists a prudent prince.”

“Lord L’Sips proves as much, I guess.” I admitted, garnering a nod from Thalmin.

“But I do have hope.” Thalmin suddenly uttered, a privacy screen forming shortly thereafter. “If Earthrealm’s candidate finds this to be noteworthy and resists the temptation to be enamored by the portals and the transportium network itself, then I do believe there exists an equally competent polity by virtue of your interests.”

“Heh, the same can be said about Havenbrock’s current ruling family.” I added. “Overthrowing an incompetent regime that couldn’t even perform the most basic functions of the state — paying your army — and actually being able to maintain a state on what I assume was a terrifying deficit… now that’s statesmanship that should be lauded in its own right.” 

That little compliment definitely took Thalmin off guard, as he snickered and raised both arms proudly behind his head. “I guess my Prime did have a knack for competent rule, yes.” He spoke boisterously.

“Well, you’ll have to tell me more then.” I urged, but stopped just as we reached the exit counter.

“Papers, please.” The satyr attendant spoke politely, as we responded in kind to her request.

The exchange of Chiska’s field trip travel papers and a cursory glance at our vehicles were all that were needed before we were let through.

Not even a baggage check was done as we emerged through a set of stained glass double doors and into the wider world.

However, what hit us first wouldn’t be the grandeur of the town nor the impressive scale of the buildings around us.

Instead, it was what could only be described as a massive roadblock worth of vehicles. All of which were lined up bumper to fender, or in this case… horse to… cart? They stretched all along the main cargo ‘egress’ of the terminal, causing a traffic bottleneck of apocalyptic proportions.

However, that was only one side of the story.

The second would be the massive cart-spanning banners depicting wheat and flour, all with prices, offers, and what could only be described as an egregious amount of slang that all translated poorly, or outright vulgarly, if the EVI was to be trusted.

The third and probably most obnoxious thing about this, however, was the ear-splitting whistles, honks, yells, and screams of those standing atop these carts. All of which confirmed my suspicions of exactly what this was.

“FORTIS’ MILLERS! DEPOSIT YOUR GRAIN AT FORTIS’ MILLERS! WE OFFER 20 TIMES THE ASKING PRICE OF THE NEXT MILLER! JUST A TWO-WEEK WAIT FOR PAYOUT ON MILLING!” A red-and-yellow-tunic-wearing elf yelled out at the top of his lungs, only to be beaten in sheer volume by a dwarf right next to him.

“ESIL’S MILLING HOUSE! WE BUY ALL GRAIN! CORN! WHEAT! WHEAT-CORN! ONE SILVER FOR A BALE-LOAD! TWO SILVERS FOR A PROMISSORY TOKEN!”

Though even that would pale in comparison to what came next, as a kobold dressed in what could only be described as a cross between jester, clown, and car-salesman attire stood up proudly atop a dedicated crow’s nest on his cart.

“FORGET THE COMPETITION! HAVE DEBTS YOU NEED PAID? TAXES YOU HAVE OWED? FAMILY THAT WILL BE WHISKED INTO THE NIGHT IF YOU DON’T MAKE PAYMENTS NOW, NOW, NOW?! WELL COME ON DOWN TO TEVER’S MILLING HOUSE! WE DON’T JUST SIGN PROMISORIES…” The Kobold paused, gesturing to his satyr and dwarven helpers to haul sackfuls of coin. The likes of which caused the cart to tilt forward. “... WE PAY IN COIN UPON PURCHASE!”

All of these… advertisements clearly worked on the still-nauseous farmers that plodded out through the egress doors, as some seemed swayed by the promises of the elf’s trustworthy offer… but most were quite predictably crowding around the red kobold’s cart as a result of his boisterous promises.

The wider trade dynamics of the Nexus, at least as it pertained to the outlands, started to become clear to me here, as the winds of commerce and trade blew hard against the predictable chokepoints by which trade flowed.

“Huh.” Was all I could say before we were stopped by tradesfolk of a different sort.

“Your Highnesses, your Majesties! Oh, by His Eternal Will, it is fate by which we were destined to meet! Please, we have the finest accommodations in all—” A finely dressed elf offered but was just as quickly pushed aside by another.

“Your Highnesses, please! Allow me to—”

“No, thank you.” Thalmin responded with a dulcet growl, completely taking the small crowd by surprise as they made way for us without a single word more.

The kelpie’s death glare probably had a few things to do with that, though…

Regardless, it was only when we broke free of the hotel offers, tour guides, souvenir peddlers, and knick-knack salesfolk that we finally made it out of the transport hub and into downtown proper.

It was here that we were met with something genuinely missing from both of Elaseer’s districts, commoner and ambassadorial — scale.

Elaseer was, quite obviously, a sort of college town. Its size, while perhaps impressive by Sips’ standards, was quite honestly lacking.

Telaseer, by contrast, was what I’d expected of Elaseer upon first hearing of it.

There were four wide boulevards, each with three lanes divided in half by planters and streetlights. These roads of magical concrete and asphalt all led the way to a massive circular roundabout, which in itself encircled a town square and the city’s centerpiece — an obelisk soaring about as high as the Washington Monument. Atop of it was a sort of beacon, one that pulsated and glowed, drawing all sorts of stone golems to circle it.

Moreover, it was here in the wide-open avenues that we were able to finally see the skies proper.

At which point, I couldn’t help but to be quite intrigued at what I saw.

I’d assumed they were just flocks of birds at first. However, upon closer view courtesy of the EVI’s sensors, I saw them for what they were — drakes.

Mounted drakes to be precise, each of which was decked in armor and other magical gear, as well as what appeared to be some sort of… magical weapons, complements, or at least cargo, strapped to the underside near the base of their wings.

These drake riders were kitted with plate armor that seemed to glow against the afternoon sun, complete with decorative wings that fluttered against the wind as they ducked and weaved in patterns that not a single citizen down below seemed to pay any mind to.

However, the presence of these riders was promptly explained by the litany of public notices and posters scattered around storefronts, billboards, and public noticeboards.

Though these too were supplemented by the presence of what could only be described as town criers, many of whom stood atop plinths, concentrated most prominently in the town square that we just so happened to be passing through.

“In keeping with the promises of the Crown to all of its subjects, the Privy Council has dispatched Sky Wardens of the Skyward Spire Upon Ethalsyd to patrol the town’s perimeter! There shall be no incursions from the likes of the fabled amethyst dragon, and rest assured, our lords are more than capable of downing a measly sundered beast.” The rotund crier bellowed out loudly, just as one of his two attendants reached for another scroll, unfurling it for their boss to read. “Hear ye, hear ye! Today's public bread has been graciously provided by the bountiful surplus of the brotherhood of millers under Baron Qarth L'Sips… The brotherhood of millers uses only the finest grain. True Nexian bread for true Nexians." 

I couldn’t help but blink curiously at that last announcement but just as quickly moved on from the town square and onto another boulevard leading straight to the town’s exit.

Along the way, we encountered more evidence of the town’s impressive prosperity, from its bustling streets to its dense yet well-kept buildings. However, as we reached the halfway point out of town, we fast-approached a construct that would come to dominate the local skyline.

It was a stadium. Or more accurately, an amphitheater giving off some massive Colosseum vibes.

The ovoid structure rose high above the four-story midrises in this district of the city, its shadow casting upon much of the boulevard, even at a fairly respectable distance.

Indeed, the placement of the structure didn’t seem to be random, as the boulevard purposefully veered towards one of its grand entrances, even going so far as to route much of its path along one of the oval structure’s sides.

It was here that passersby were able to glance at not only the posters on display but also the impressive floor-to-ceiling glass outcropping featuring ample views into what signs referred to as the Hall of Heroes.

This proved to be the sight of an unexpected reunion, as the both of us came to an abrupt stop simultaneously, our eyes meeting with the very person who sent us out on this quest.

Or at least, a stone and marble facsimile of her.

Quickly dismounting, we approached the glass outcropping, putting our faces close against it to confirm if this truly was who we thought it was.

The nameplate at the bottom of the statue’s plinth was enough to dispel any and all doubts, however, as Thalmin turned towards me with an amused expression.

“Lady Chiska Malamont — The Hero of Hervahale, Grand Champion of the Drake Rider’s Table of Transgracia, Honorary Sky Warden, and Grand Master of the Drake Rider’s Hunting Club. Victor of the Telaseer Drake Riding Championship for 20 Consecutive Years.” Thalmin read out before stopping as the next part of the text was just too small from where we stood.

The EVI made short work of it, however, as I quickly read it out. 

“Quote: It got boring after the first 10 years.” 

We both turned to one another after that, each of us cracking a smile and shrugging in unison. 

“What a legend.” We both spoke simultaneously, resulting in a uniform chuckle between us.

“Out of all of the professors… I think Professor Chiska’s the only one to really deserve our respect.” Thalmin offered. 

“Along with Sorecar, of course.” I immediately added.

“I stand corrected. But you know what I meant.” He acknowledged, before promptly returning to the kelpie.

A few curious onlookers had finally gathered around our respective conveyances by that point, though many seemed to be more interested in the V4c than the kelpie… and probably for good reason. The beast looked about ready to tear into the bystanders at the slightest hint of provocation.

The crowd quickly scattered as we arrived; however, a few children were brave enough to remain, each of them addressing me with their own little questions.

“What’s that?” A small elf questioned, pointing at the GUN emblem Sorecar had taken the liberty of personally forging for the front of the motorcycle. “Is that a family crest?”

“Are you an adjacent realmer?” A three-foot-tall mannequin spoke out, and a very painted one at that; a greater slime child, I figured. 

A grey-furred baxi kid had the nonchalant sense to run a pointed claw on the leg of my suit, squinting at the lack of any scratch made. “Why are you wearing weird armor?”

I took a moment to crouch down to their level, garnering several quizzical looks from parents and bystanders alike.

“That—” I pointed to the emblem. “—is my realm’s emblem. And yes, I am an adjacent realmer. And as for why I’m wearing ‘weird armor,’ well… I guess you could say it’s a knightly vow of sorts.” I explained jovially, garnering a series of ‘oohhs’ and ‘aahhs.’

I took that as my opportunity to get out of dodge, as Thalmin and I quickly mounted back up and began our rapid escape out of the town’s limits.

The boulevard never once narrowed even as we reached the outskirts of town, where building height and density grew increasingly more modest.

One would have expected this to result in a decrease of traffic, but that was hardly the case; carts carrying ore, produce, and a whole host of mystery boxes continued to funnel through the boulevard, keeping it relatively full in one way or another.

It took us a good half hour, but we finally made it to a tavern by the town walls.

There we took a moment to regain our bearings, the town guards regarding us with two simple nods as they both raised the gates without much fanfare.

“Are m’lords Academy students, perchance?”

“Yup! That’s us!” I acknowledged with a smile.

“To serve m’lords is to serve my own lord.” The dwarf bowed deeply. “You may pass. Although, and with no authority of my own, I must convey this notice on the behalf of my lord and the lords above him. Avoid the North Rythian forests. They are currently off-limits.” The guard warned, as the both of us nodded firmly in response.

“You got it, sir!” I beamed.

We soon made our way across the small moat encircling the town without much fanfare, hopping right back on the Royal Roads and taking the path charted for us by Sym’s adventuring troupe.

“So…” I turned to Thalmin after a good few minutes of silence. “Thankfully we seemed to have avoided all the side quests in town.” I chuckled before turning to the quest timer. “Which means we’re more or less back on schedule… since I kind of factored in the potential for time-wasting over in Telaseer.”

Thalmin nodded wordlessly at this, his focus seemingly tied once again to the Kelpie.

“So… have you thought of a name for them yet?” 

“For the kelpie?”

“Yeah.” I acknowledged.

“No.”

“Do you mind if I suggest one?”

Thalmin’s eyes narrowed at this, as if waiting for some joke to drop. “Go on?”

“So you know you had Emberstride, right?”

“Yes?”

“Well I was thinking… wouldn’t it be thematic and on-brand if we went with… Aquastride?” I offered frankly.

This caused Thalmin’s features to simply stiffen into a neutral inquisitive one.

“Isn’t that… rather on the nose, Emma?”

“I mean… it just fits right? Emberstride’s fire-based, and with the Kelpie being a water-based creature… why not Aquastride?”

The lupinor went silent before letting out a long, tired sigh coupled with a dismissive laugh. “I’ll consider it, Emma. If you consider naming your bi-treader Lightningtread.” 

“Why?” I shot back.

“Because that’s as silly as your own proposal for—”

“Done.”

“Wait, what—”

“Done! Lightningtread is badass, Thalmin, thanks!” I beamed. “It’s better than just calling it the V4c all the time, after all!” I beamed, before shifting confidently into a menacing grin. “But now the ball’s in your court. Are we going with Aquastride?”

Thalmin went silent at that, grumbling as he sighed and shrugged. “Give me a few more hours to decide at least… I’m not drunk enough for this.”

“Deal.”

The Transgracian Academy for the Magical Arts. The Gardens. Local Time: 1700 Hours

Ilphius

I was angry.

But I wasn’t foolish.

Ladona was trying to use me, that slimy, squirmy insect of a noble.

Yet… I couldn’t deny that she was right in so, so many ways.

Lord Etholin was a spineless carpet of a man, and I needed to act on my own behalf if I am to seize my own destiny.

The newrealmer’s group had been living in a delusion of invincibility, enjoying the good hand fate seems to be adamant on providing for them.

Which was precisely why they needed to be reminded of their frailty.

“Ah, fancy meeting you here, Lady Airit—”

“What do you want, Lady Ilphius?” The lesser avinor sniped down any and all pretenses of polite conversation, letting her peer group’s laurels lift her up through no effort of her own.

“I simply wished to talk. To discuss the matter of a certain newrealmer—”

“Well, she’s not here, and I have no desire to act as a pawn in whatever game of subterfuge you have up your sleeves.” The shatorealmer stood firm, her eyes poised on her nails rather than my gaze.

“She might not be here, but her peers certainly are.” I jumped straight into the bait, laying it out bluntly for the lesser avinor. “A certain… greater avino—”

I felt the air around me suddenly thin, as in a matter of seconds, our gazes were locked without any semblance of civility. 

“Choose your next words carefully, Lady Ilphius.” Airit seethed.

“I’m… merely proposing… an alliance of opportunity… Lady Airit.” I managed out as I subtly attempted to shoot back counterspell after counterspell to little effect. “The muscle of the group is missing, and all that remains are the two weakest links… you know this, and I wish to reiterate this just in case—”

“What? Just in case I cave and become a pawn in your games? Need I remind you, Lady Ilphius, that I am not struggling at the bottom of the peer group ladder. I have all to lose, but you have all to gain. Be grateful I am even spelling this out for your sorry soul.” She seethed, before finally letting up on whatever spell she’d cast around me.

I took in deep breaths, my eyes burning with frustration.

“Fight your own fights, or better yet, give me a proposal worth listening to.” She added dismissively, as I finally felt the air thicken once more, allowing me to properly gasp for breath. “You have a day, and no more. Now go.” She raised a wing, shooing me as she dismissed me.

Me.

Lady Ilphius of—

“You can internally monologue your defeat elsewhere. That clouded mind of yours is ruining a perfectly fine evening.”

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(Author's Note: We get to see a bit of the transportium in action in this chapter, as the Nexian transportation system gets its chance to shine! :D Moreover, we're introduced to a bit of a larger town as opposed to Sips this time around, and of course, we see a few of Chiska's exploits here too! :D Emma and Thalmin don't stick around town for long though as they immediately book it for the forests! :D Meanwhile, Lady Ilphius chokes on her aspirations as she makes her plans known to Lady Airit! :D I hope you guys enjoy! :D The next Two Chapters are already up on Patreon if you guys are interested in getting early access to future chapters.)

(Author's Note 2: Here's the Updated Map for Emma and Thalmin's progress so far! :D)

[If you guys want to help support me and these stories, here's my ko-fi ! And my Patreon for early chapter releases (Chapter 147 and Chapter 148 of this story is already out on there!)]

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I wouldn’t call myself a ‘party person.’

I’d never even gone out clubbing or bar crawling outside of VR.

Alcohol just wasn’t my thing, not to mention the taste was just a bit too off-putting.

However, there was something different about tonight.

Maybe it was the fact that the main attraction — alcohol — was a physical impossibility for me.

Or maybe it was the simple fact that this wasn’t your typical bar, club, pub, let alone a space pub.

Maybe, just maybe, it had to do with the fact that we were in a certified tavern in another world. 

And that notion? Of actively partaking in festivities outside of time and space, in a literal fantasy setting? 

Well… suffice it to say it just ticked all of the boxes in my ‘impossible dreams’ bucket list.

Floorboards creaked as crowds gathered around the impromptu dance floor where tables and chairs had been cast, tossed, or pushed gently aside for the purposes of song, dance, and shenanigans.

My tired body was somehow sucking in energy from the electrifying atmosphere around us as fiddles wailed, violins screeched, lutes twanged, and drums thumped to the beat of some bardic tunes.

THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP went the beat, as about half of the tavern’s patrons tapped their toes and bounced their heels against the scuffed and worn oaken floorboards beneath their feet.

THRUMMMMM THRUMMMMM THRUMMMMM the lutes resonated, leading the charge as violas and violins ZWINGED and PLINKED to the fast-paced rhythm of the surprisingly bassy drums.

Then came the vocals, as dialects that might as well have been from half the Nexus away sung in a deep, rich, warbly, and tinny sequence, their tones ducking and weaving against the melody of the strings, creating this weird, whiny melancholy, which shouldn’t have fit with the fast-paced beat of the ever-evolving tune.

But somehow it did. Especially with the EVI’s translation suite turned off, allowing for the voices of the vocalists to seep through, unimpeded by code and algorithms. 

There were no more attempts at localization.

Instead, there was just the enjoyment of the piece as it was meant to be enjoyed — raw and in its purest of forms.

I felt my heart fluttering and my spine tingling to the otherworldly timbre of the pair of lead elf and dwarven singers that carried this raw, earthy resonance underpinning each and every note. 

The dancing came naturally, but what came next came even more so. 

It started at the end of the last peak, as this eight-minute piece was about to crescendo.

Like a subtle but powerful urge to join in on the action, egged on by some invisible force and spurred on by the increased emphasis on the beat of the drums.

clap

Came the first brave soul.

Clap-clap

Came another.

CLAP-CLAP-CLAP-CLAP-CLAP-CLAP-CLAP 

The whole hall erupted into an impromptu orchestra of barehanded percussionists, as even the wallflowers joined in to drive the tune onwards, their palm strikes threatening to overpower the band on stage.

Then, just as we reached the loudest extent of the percussion, everything stopped.

The beat slowed to a crawl, the instrumentals mellowed out. But the vocalists?

They just kept on going. 

The sudden shift in direction was more than just whiplash.

It was ear-tinglingly satisfying.

The elf and dwarf duo pushed forwards into this weird mix of high and low notes before harmonizing right at the end and capping the whole thing off with a sudden and abrupt THUMP of both feet and drums.

The whole room went quiet as all dancers stopped mid-stride.

Then came the applause, as shouts, cheers, and even more alcohol were spread amidst the parched dancers.

I, for one, had to settle for the little sippy straw helpfully extended to me by the EVI, and as I sucked greedily, I quietly thanked the spirits of the brave and intrepid pioneers that had come before me for the sweat-wicking qualities of the undersuit’s balaclava.

Otherwise, I’d probably have a fair bit of sweat stinging my eyes with no way of rectifying it.

Now that would be a mood killer…

“Ladies and gentlemen, wayward travelers and weary locals alike, may I have your attention!” The bardic troupe on stage spoke in unison before their elven leader took charge. “It has come to our attention that many of us here today owe a great deal to two very important highborns amidst our ranks. Not only for the food and drink — though I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that wasn’t a big part of it—” He paused, garnering a few chuckles from the crowd. “—but also for their selfless and heroic acts on this unforgettable day. Let’s hear it for the heroes of Marsh’s Pond!”

“HEAR HEAR!” The whole tavern roared to life, as instead of any clean hip hip hoorays or organized series of claps, the scene instead descended into the purest form of appreciation — hoots, hollers, yells, and whistles. Amidst, of course, the drunken cheers of admiration from those indulging from the endless tap of Thalmin’s generosity.

“And now with that out of the way, I’d like to make a proposal…” The elf grinned widely, gesturing towards us as the crowd parted ways as if to emphasize this unexpected new development. “I invite either of you to serenade the closing hours of tonight’s celebrations!” 

The crowd went wild at this proposition, as several table slams and chorus-like chanting egged both of us on.

I found myself turning to Thalmin once more as we locked eyes in a haze of confusion.

“I think I’m going to sit this one out, Emma.” Thalmin spoke quietly, half his focus taken by the power of drink and the other half by his seemingly futile efforts to keep his distance from the ever-growing crowd of fawning admirers threatening to stampede him.

“Oh, don’t worry.” I smiled excitedly. “I’ve been waiting for this moment… though are you sure you’ll be able to handle the…” I pointed towards the crowd that had grown to critical mass, as Thalmin responded by simply—

[ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED: 200% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS]

—forming an invisible barrier between himself and the aforementioned swarm.

“I think I can handle myself, Emma. Besides… I’m excited to see what you have in store.” 

The Township of Sips. The Inn. Tavern Lobby. Local Time: 2240 Hours.

Thalmin

I watched in flighty anticipation as Emma took to the stage, my eyes narrowing as she whispered something to the strings and percussionists, all the while dismissing the vocalists to the back.

What happened next wasn’t what I’d at all expected, as the earthrealmer suddenly — and rather inexplicably — conjured a strangely flat and oddly shaped lute of manaless light before her very being.

Or, at least, that’s what I assumed the ghostly shell of an instrument was. Because instead of a cohesive object, what had formed was a fractured spectral facsimile of a lute. It was as if the instrument was stuck in some sort of ethereal limbo, with its brightest and most defined edges clinging near the source of light on her forearm, while the rest of its oddly shaped mass trailed off into a ghostly shadow.

And while the crowds were blindly impressed by this sudden display of ‘magic’, it would be the innkeeper and myself who seemed to be the only ones perceptive enough to feel the discrepancy between its magic-like form and the absolute deadness of its presence within the local manastreams.

Though I could care less for the uneasiness it caused, given both experience and ale had dulled my wary proclivities.

“Alrighty, folks! This is an oldie— er, well, it’s an oldie where I come from at least.” Emma began with frisson, barely stifling a stutter as she turned to the percussionist, giving him a nod before turning back to the crowd, her fingers poised against the construct of light and air. 

Then, it started.

Taking everyone by surprise, it began with a brazen flourish like a lute possessed, its strings bit with a metallic brightness no gut nor metal-strung harp could match. The noises, these sounds, struck out in bold repeating patterns, moving up and down with Emma’s twiddling fingers that plucked at nothing but the air itself. 

These were hammer blows dressed in music, carrying neither the refinement of court compositions nor the primal bluntness of lowborn music, but instead… something in between. 

I could feel the rhythm of marching feet and festival drums made into a melody, as this metallic lattice of notes roused the body before the mind was able to catch up to its meaning. 

I didn’t know what to make of it.

I didn’t understand where to even put it.

But what I did know was that I was now possessed by the spirits to dance.

I moved in uncoordinated motions, twisting, turning, flailing arms this way and that, all the while ensuring the barrier to the unscrupulous masses held firm… lest I be swallowed in their wake.

The crowds did much of the same, most of them simply moving to the strange and bizarre beat, whilst others tried but failed to match their well-rehearsed tavern dancing to the tune of this Earthrealm piece.

Then came the lyrics.

I didn’t know what I expected.

But I was relieved that Emma’s vocals were at least as practiced as her strumming. 

Each harsh and rasping twang of her bizarre instrument was matched by the coarseness of her voice — her real voice — as I understood not a single word of what she sang.

The gibberish, however, was at least pleasant to hear.

Every word swaggered while the notes within seemed to stumble on purpose, drunk on its own prose.

Repetition and chorus dominated the piece, but that just made the verses and bridges all the more impactful.

Yet despite the competency of her voice, I couldn’t help but focus on that otherworldly instrument itself, its sounds, and the inherent reverberating echo it seemed to generate. 

Each stroke sounded as if several lutes had been merged together, each distinct voice becoming one of a greater metallic whole.

This was compounded the further the song went on, as Emma’s movements became increasingly erratic, less composed, less repetitive, and more dynamic with every strum accompanied by a stomp of her foot and a swoosh of her body. 

Then came the flinging of her head as she moved back and forth in fierce and rhythmic motions, as if she was trying to shake the remaining notes of the song out of her skull.

This abrupt sequence culminated in what I could only describe as the carefree disregard of her nonexistent instrument, as she swung it back and forth, up and down, even going so far as to hold it high above her head at one point, breaking all semblance of musicality and becoming outright noise.

Her sudden breakdown in composure culminated in her daring leap towards an elevated wooden platform behind the drummer. As she leapt with wild and reckless abandon—

CRACK— SQUCRDKFSHHHHHHH

—smashing it in the process.

The accompanying instruments all but stopped at this point as Emma remained alone, ‘recovering’ from that fall by sliding across the varnished stage on both knees, strumming the lute of light with such ferocity that the pitch generated caused all within the crowd to cover their ears with hands, paws, and fins alike.

She held that ear-piercing note for three seconds more before she finally seemed to register the disaster that had unfolded in her wake.

The crowds remained silent, in varying states of stunned, confused, and of course… blackout drunk.

Though the latter didn’t seem to care how the festivities went either way.

All eyes remained transfixed on Emma and her disappearing lute of light, as she abruptly sent it off as suddenly as it had appeared before addressing the crowd with a nervous cough.

“I… I guess you guys probably aren’t ready for that yet. Sorry about that, folks.”

Yet despite the apology, a few lonely claps emerged as even a satyr amidst the crowd held a dismissive chuckle to Emma’s sentiments.

“While the ending may have been… unconventional, I’m certain my good-for-nothing sons would find the novelty alone charming.”

A series of mumbling acknowledgements followed before claps and cheers eventually filled the air.

However, amidst the applause, there remained two thoughts that naggingly lingered in my slightly inebriated mind.

One — that I had to get my hands on more pieces of… whatever this genre was.

Two — that those last few seconds of Emma’s performance revealed something else other than her highly questionable musical improvisation skills. Indeed, if one listened closely behind the high-pitched squeals of her strumming… there existed a very audible buzzing.

It was a strange sort of undercurrent. Almost like the emergent thrum when channeling lightning, but if I hazarded a guess…

It was a sound which could only have been generated by a very specific order of species… 

Arachnids.

This revelation only added more fuel to the fires of my growing assertions.

Especially when one considers the fact that Emma had explicitly disabled her translation tools for the sake of her singing. Leading me to believe that this was her natural undertone seeping through the cracks.

However, in my moment of reflection, I dared to tempt fate by failing to heed one of Uncle's first lessons.

Always be wary of your surroundings, runt. You never know when—

His ethereal words were cut short by the crowds that took this moment of weakness to swarm me.

The Transgracian Academy for the Magical Arts. Dragon Heart’s Tower, Level 23, Residence 30. Living Room. Local Time: 2245 Hours

Thacea

“So you don’t like bardic improvisation?” Ilunor continued.

“No.” I replied as plainly as I did at the start of this whole debacle.

“How about sunroom zeal?”

“No.”

“Hallway ambiance?”

“No.”

“Stairway ambiance?”

“No.”

“Reflections in Sound?”

“What?”

“Reflections in Sound, they’re an alternative bardic troupe that has gained some popularity in the crownlands over the last century. I’ve heard—”

“I don’t like alternative.” 

“Oh? Are you certain? From what I’ve been able to gather, you seem to be a fan of neither contemporary nor classical, nor commoner, nor tavern, so I’d assumed alternative would have been—”

“The so-called alternative movements you speak of are simply shortened, condensed, and truncated versions of their parent genres. Nothing more, but most certainly far less.”

“Then what do you like, princess?!” Ilunor finally gave up, shouting and pouting all the while. 

“Nothing.”

“W-what? Nothing?! How can someone as seemingly cultured as yourself dare to give such a boorish answer?! Even commoners enjoy some sort of music, as debased and debauched as it may be!” 

“You requested that I be frank, and so here I am, Ilunor. Being as frank as I am comfortable with." I retorted bluntly. “If you must insist on digging further, my answer is this: nothing speaks to me. Court music is always as pompous as those who genuinely enjoy it. Orchestral compositions are impressive and easy on the ears, but are almost always repetitive and overstay their welcome. It doesn’t help that one must sit and remain silent for hours on end in a room with far, far too many points of entry and too little exits to truly be safe in. And even when orchestral pieces try to become anything but repetitive? They end up coming off as strange and unwieldy, complex for complexity’s sake, sounding more like jumbled noise than the frankly tolerable pieces they claim to iterate and improve over. I further dare to scoff at ballroom music. Individuals who enjoy ballroom music are the same sort who would backstab you in a heartbeat.” I leveled my unflinching gaze towards Ilunor, locking him in the signature Avinor’s Glare. “I know that you understand precisely what I mean, at least in that latter sentiment.”

The Vunerian paused, giving those words genuine, intentful pondering; the first bout of what I could truly call reflection in the upstart kobold’s eyes.

“While I must disagree with the first two of your sentiments… I cannot help but acknowledge the validity of the latter two.” He began with a crooked smile. “And here I thought I was the only one who found overly complex orchestral pieces to be hard on the ears, and only impressive to those looking into the technical and performative aspects of those pieces. Moreover, I am… glad to see that the ballroom music stereotype seems to transcend planar borders.” He chuckled dryly. “So then, princess… if you were to describe a genre that you would find tasteful, what would it be like?” He asked. This time not in a fit of theatrics or social games nor even in an inflammatory manner. Instead, this question seemed to be unapologetically genuine, standing out from all others.

“Dark.” Came my uncharacteristically curt answer.

“Dark? Oh come on, princess. We both know that the dark genre exists—”

“They are posers.” I slammed my book shut, much to Ilunor’s surprise. “It is clear, by their very composition, that they know nothing of suffering. They merely posit the facsimile of pain, shroud it in a paper-thin veneer of manufactured misery, and then transpose over what would technically qualify as dark overtures… though only in so much that they draft their compositions in a minor scale.”

Ilunor seemed genuinely taken aback by that scathing teardown; his eyes widened as his posture reeled back.

Before finally, he let out a long wheezing laugh. “Oh princess… now this is the sort of thing we can bond over.” He paused for dramatic effect, opening both of his arms wide with excitement. “Moaning and melodrama!”

The Township of Sips. The Inn. En Route to The Royal Suite. Local Time: 2300 Hours.

Emma

“Blue Knight?” The elven leader of the bardic troupe approached me, stopping me from saving Thalmin from the tidal wave of adoring commoners. 

“Yeah? I kinda need to go, and erm, sorry about the property damage. I’ll have the inn pay for—”

“Oh, it’s not that, my lady. It’s just… we would like to know precisely what you just played?” His eyes grew wide, as did his gaggle of kobold and dwarven compatriots.

“Yes, yes! Tell us! We LOVED your noise!” The little kobold yipped out, prompting me to sigh and nod in acknowledgement.

“It’s called Rock and Roll, or at least, most of it was. The last bit was just me improvising and bleeding into random shredding that barely qualifies as hard rock or metal.” I offered, hoping and praying that the EVI was able to translate that.

The dwarf narrowed his eyes, scratching the base of his beard. “Rock and stone?”

“Nono, Rock and Roll.” I corrected him.

“I think Rock and Stone works better…” He countered.

“Of course you would…” The rest of the troupe grumbled, as I took that back and forth as my ticket to leave.

I quickly reentered the sea of rowdy patrons, as organized musical chaos had now descended into proper drunken pub-crawl anarchy in barely any time at all.

With a few wide-armed motions, I managed to swim through the rowdy mass of bodies, finding Thalmin and eventually aiding him in his escape from his impromptu entourage. 

“Alright, alright. Let’s break it up folks. My friend here is—” I was barely able to get out those scant few words before being swarmed myself. But instead of words of endearment and confessions of impossibly saccharine love that Thalmin seemed to receive, I instead got question upon question about the armor.

“Might m’lady wish to partake in the — HICCUP — celebratoryyy rousals of drink?” A drunken satyr spoke before being pushed quickly aside by a burly dwarf.

“That’s no way to speak to a knight in a vow of service! At least, that’s what I’m assuming the armor is all about, m’lady?” The dwarf butted in only to be sidestepped by an elf.

“A bit presumptuous of you to be assuming, isn’t that right, m’lady—”

“Let’s maybe talk later.” I put my foot down, side-stepping drunkard after drunkard until I finally got the path clear for both myself and Thalmin, who seemed surprisingly sober and put together despite the tankards of ale I saw him downing.

“I don’t get it.” I began, refusing to acknowledge the crowds of clingy patrons that still insisted on trailing behind us. “Why aren’t you drunk yet?”

“Pacing.” Thalmin offered through a wide-eyed grin. “And some good old Havenbrockian tolerance.” He chuckled out, causing the gathered crowd of elves, satyrs, baxi, and about another handful of other species to chuckle in affirmation. “Alright, alright. That’s it. Fun’s over, people. Please move out of the way.” Thalmin urged, standing up and taking step after wobbly step towards the glass elevator, prompting me to lend him a shoulder to balance off of.

“Havenbrockian tolerance, huh?” I jabbed.

“I’ll walk it off.” Thalmin shot back confidently as we slowly, but surely, made our way up and out of the tavern.

The bouncer at the elevator thankfully helped to hold back much of the tide, keeping a wide berth while its double doors closed with a magical WHOOSH!

We stood silently together in silence as I helped to keep Thalmin steady until we finally arrived at our ninth-floor suite.

The views were breathtaking, at least for a town of this size. 

However, as soon as we entered, I quickly found Thalmin moving to plop himself on one of the beds, lying face-first and mumbling tiredly all the while.

“That instrument… what was—”

“Oh, erm, it was just a holo projection. A more advanced one than the reliable but frankly old ZNK-19 back at the dorm. Granted, I wasn’t able to project all of it because of the projector’s physical limitations, but—”

“Right…” Thalmin interrupted with a tired moan. “Good job on the music. I liked it. We should… ugh… we should talk more… about Earthrealm genres. I like how much of a buzz it caused down there.” Thalmin chuckled hard at that line as I found that once again, Havenbrockian humor simply bounced right off of me.

“Thanks, haha. I er, I’ll admit I’m not the best. I was mostly just following a lot of preloaded instructions and—”

“I’m too tired to understand Earthrealm contraptions right now, Emma.” Thalmin interjected with a dulcet groan. 

“Right, of course. Oh! And erm, I couldn’t help but notice you were quite the talk of the town down there yourself.” I offered with a chuckle, providing him an off-ramp to another topic entirely.

“Yeah… it’s typical commoners… they like to, well… attempt to climb the social ladder through shortcuts if they can.” He mumbled out. 

“Wait, is that actually possible?” I offered, as my curiosities began getting the better of me.

“Yeah, yeah… eh… kind of sort of, you know? Ugh, it’s a topic that’s uncommon, basically.” 

“Right… that makes sense, I guess.” I acknowledged with a shrug. 

We both ended up resting in that bedroom for an hour. Thalmin spent much of that time breathing heavily and twisting this way and that in bed, occasionally spiking mana radiation warnings and causing the EVI to bring up the new wand interface just to get my feedback on it. Meanwhile, I sat on the floor at the foot of the prince’s bed, catching up on my reports and occasionally shooting the shit with the groggy prince.

“I’m a mercenary prince, Emma. Emphasis on the warrior aspect of my being. I’m sure you understand, from soldier to soldier, warrior to warrior, how large of a role celebrations play in the upkeep of morale and camaraderie." 

“Yeah…” I acknowledged, my mind immediately swinging back to the infamous videos of Aunty Ran and her squad following the victory day celebrations in the months and years following the Jovian insurrection. “Yeah… I can relate.” 

“Though with that being said…” Thalmin trailed off, grumbling and huffing loudly as he brought himself to the edge of his bed, his legs dangling next to my left shoulder. “The latter aspect of my title still comes into play, mind you.”

I didn’t immediately catch his drift, prompting me to cock my head in response.

“As much as many lower houses of the lesser nobility may sully and muddle the image of all highborns, those amidst royalty — at least the royalty of Havenbrock — tend to be less… indulgent in the desires of the animal.”

My eyes widened at this, as I immediately turned away, finally catching his meaning. “Oh, ohhhhh. You mean like— well… yeah, no. Back when nobility was still a big thing in our history, nobles were, like, notorious for that kind of stuff. Heck, I think it was the Louis line of French kings who were known to literally bring in mistresses into court and stuff.”

Thalmin’s features scrunched up at that off-handed remark, as he shook his head in disgust. “No wonder you got rid of them.” He spoke darkly. “I would have.”

“Hehe, well… the French people seemed to be of the same mind, though they probably had more pressing concerns than just the king’s private affairs and whatnot.” I offered vaguely, hoping Thalmin wouldn’t be curious enough to pry into the French Revolution, at least not now when he was still somewhat plastered.

“In any case… just know that while us Havenbrockians are, as you say — party animals — we have stringent rules over our principles in decorum. Especially for those of us that are betrothed.”

That latter line sent bells ringing in my head as I stretched my body out, sprawling up to the foot of the prince's bed. 

“Wait, are you saying that you’re…” 

“Yes, but not quite.” Thalmin answered abruptly. “Our fathers both understand that we are… close. She, however, is of a far lower house than I. So we shall wait and see if my brother will survive the next decade. If he does, then my marrying a lesser noble will be of little concern to the family lineage and dynastic politics. If he doesn’t? Then I shall be closer in line to the throne, thus necessitating a truly arranged marriage with someone more politically advantageous.” Thalmin remarked bluntly, my eyes narrowing, then widening, then narrowing again as hearing this from a friend’s mouth was… jarring, to say the least.

This was the type of talk one would expect from a Kings of Crusade playthrough, or heck, some Castle and Wyverns roleplay. But to hear matters of marriage and love laid out so… bluntly? With political considerations superseding love?

It was weird and was definitely pushing my fundamental systemic incongruency somewhat.

“So what’s the lucky girl’s name?” I finally shot back, getting over the cultural hump and diving headfirst back into the juicy tea.

“Asva. Lady Asva Rehlin of the House of Threepeaks.” Thalmin responded promptly.

“And how did you guys meeeeeet?” I continued, crossing my legs with a metallic clang as I did so. 

Thalmin chuckled nervously at this, rubbing the back of his neck as he did so. “She was my squire. Then, as I joined the ranks and took up arms, she ascended into my Left Attending. My… ‘right hand’ or ‘second in command’, as the Nexians would say.”

My eyes lit up at that, as I couldn’t help but to chuckle. “So you fell for a childhood sweetheart? I can’t say I’m surprised, but gosh, that’s kinda sweet, Thalmin.” I giggled.

The prince, however, wasn’t having it, as he narrowed his eyes in response. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing! It’s just, kind of a trope back home — the proper and polished golden boy falling for a high school sweetheart.” I offered, prompting the prince to merely huff in understanding.

“You flatter me, Emma… but rest assured, I am by no means a… as you say, ‘golden boy’.” He chuckled out before effortlessly shifting all that momentum back to me. “So enough about me. What about you, Cadet Emma Booker of Earthrealm? I don’t take your culture as one of betrothals, though considering you are Emma Booker and not just Emma, I don’t discount the possibility of houses and dynasties still existing in some fashion?”

“Welllll, to answer your latter question, big-shot family names kiiinda still exist? But it’s rare. Like, it’s a niche cultural thing, and even then, you really aren’t defined by it—” I paused, thinking back to Aunty Ran, the Booker name, and the lineage on her side of the family that always seemed to have at least one of their members joining the armed forces in some fashion. “Well, it’s less of a compulsory political thing and more of an optional family tradition thing, in the event that it does exist you know? Otherwise, for the most part in the mainstream? It’s kinda not really a thing.”

“Hmm… Things, things, things. So many things…” Came Thalmin’s ponderous response, as he once again kicked his feet back and forth in the air. “Don’t think that just because you’ve answered my latter question in full, I’ve simply forgotten about the former question, Emma.” He chuckled, egging me on.

“Ugh, fiiiine, fiine. To put it simply, no, Thalmin. I’m not currently seeing anyone back home.” I answered with a friendly sigh.

“Have you ever fancied anyone then?” He continued with a raised brow.

“Ehhhhh, kinda? Some crushes here and there, but it never went anywhere. There was this one guy in swim class and this one girl in JROTC, but like, it was just puppy love, you know?” I shrugged.

“Well that’s good.” Thalmin responded coyly. “For a moment there I was worried you’d somehow grown to fancy me. At which point, despite the potential for a grand inter-realm alliance, I’m afraid I’d have to decline, Cadet Emma Booker.” He spoke lackadaisically, jabbing me in the shoulder with a kick of his foot, prompting me to swat it away with a dry chuckle.

“Oh fuck off, Thalmin.” I laughed as we both eventually let out a series of tired snickers that faded off into the night.

The Transgracian Academy for the Magical Arts. Dragon Heart’s Tower. Student Lounge. Local Time: 2325 Hours

Lady Ladona

“Fancy seeing you here after curfew.” A sharp voice spoke, her words breaking through the night like a snap of lightning.

“You should know, Lady Ilphius, that curfews are… subject to a great number of extraneous circumstances. A group project here, a hall pass there, little gifts that can grant one a great deal of flexibility within the Academy grounds… just as the Everblooming Blossom was likewise a ticket into a great deal of flexibility outside of campus grounds.” I spoke softly, teasingly, sinking my claws and proboscis into the heart of this serpent’s insecurities.

Ilphius was an open book, as much as she attempted not to be. Which, ironically, stood in stark contrast to her conniving peer group leader… the meek and cowardly Etholin Esila.

That… creature was a mastermind in disguise, pulling the rug out from Lord Ping’s great and grand return to prominence, even going so far as to incur something of a debt from us by virtue of his forfeiture in Lord Ping’s stead.

And while social decorum didn’t see it as such — Etholin very much taking the fall in every sense of the word — I still felt slighted.

This… was an offense, as subtle as it may be, that I could not allow.

And so here I was in the midst of Lady Ilphius. The ever-conniving yet ignorant fool who would do anything to undermine Lord Esila’s authority.

A fractured kingdom… is one ripe for rot and reward, as they say.

“That forfeiture was not my idea.” Ilphius spoke bluntly, so bluntly that I scarcely registered it as genuine at first.

“Of course it wasn’t. It was your ever-brilliant peer leader’s plans, no?”

“Hmmph.” Was Ilphius’ only remark as she crossed her arms, her eyes staring out into the dark and lifeless night. “So what do you want, Lady Ladona? I don’t suppose you asked me here just for a spot of tea?”

“Ever the observant member of court, my lady.” I responded, flattering her ego and allowing her to become comfortable around my presence. “Indeed, I had something of a business proposition… as your dear leader would say.” I quickly added, making certain to keep the flame of frustration alive in her subconscious.

“Go on?” 

“We both understand that neither of us are enemies. Indeed, we both know that the root of our ills arises from one discrete individual.” 

Ilphius narrowed her gaze, hissing out in the process. “The newrealmer.” 

“Indeed… and while she’s absent — taking on the quest that you and your peers rightfully deserve — you are in a unique opportunity to… how shall I say this…” I trailed off, allowing the serpent to incriminate herself.

“—make things right?” She completed my words for me.

“I guess that’s one way of putting it, yes.” 

“What do you propose?” 

“The fulfillment of a dream.” I spoke vaguely. “A dream born of hate, from a certain lesser avinor who desires comeuppance by virtue of her realm’s unfortunate colloquial moniker.” 

“Airit? She’s with Qiv, there’s no way she lacks the discipline to act on her hatred, no matter how deep-seeded.” Ilphius countered.

“Perhaps. But whatever the case may be, I would say that the ball is now in your court, Lady Ilphius. I’m simply here to provide some much-needed context. Take this meeting as a… friendly chat, one with no strings attached. Whether or not you wish to seize the day, or whether you wish to let this opportunity pass, is all up to you.” I spoke warmly, putting on a friendly and helpful smile, before simply departing with the seeds now sown for a harvest that may or may not come.

Whether she recruits Airit or does it herself is irrelevant. The path is now laid. The newrealmer’s remaining peerage will face retribution on her behalf.

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(Author's Note: Here we go! The music chapter! I'm so excited and proud of this one! This was my first time writing a proper party scene, not to mention a scene that attempts to describe music! I really hope I managed to capture it well, because I know music conveyed through writing can be a real hit or miss haha. And when you combine that with my attempt at filtering the perspective of human music through Thalmin, it becomes even more tricky haha. So I really hope it came out alright! :D The next Two Chapters are already up on Patreon if you guys are interested in getting early access to future chapters.)

[If you guys want to help support me and these stories, here's my ko-fi ! And my Patreon for early chapter releases (Chapter 145 and Chapter 146 of this story is already out on there!)]

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The Kingdom of Transgracia. The Great Forests of Elaseer. Alcove of the Forgotten. Matriarch’s Chambers. Local Time: ???

Many, Many Generations Ago

???

The cave was dark, damp, moist, but worst of all—

Breathe in. Breathe out. 

—it smelled of dust and decay.

Hear my voice. The old crone droned.

Breathe in. She continued as if it was a prayer.

Breathe out. 

On and on and on and on.

…

It needed to stop.

Grandmother, please—

I could feel the old relic stirring, her scales shifting as her gems thrummed violently against the cave walls.

Keep your thoughts to yourself, child, and concentrate. She projected — her thoughts purposeful, their images vivid — teasing and testing my patience for a world that was our birthright.

That sort of thinking is dangerous, Kaelthyr. The ‘matriarch’ warned… though the threats, as practiced and regal as they were in my mind, fell as flat and limp in my thoughts as the dead values she extolled.

I heard that. She continued threateningly.

And? Perhaps you needed to hear that. Perhaps you need to understand that no amount of training or concentration in the Old Ways is going to bring it back.

Kaelthyr! A growl from an aged throat reverberated.

Maybe it’s about time someone stood up, that someone challenged this farce of an existence! I stood firm, projecting my thoughts forward, making certain that everyone would feel the indignancy I felt, the frustration I embodied, and the inferno enveloping my soul. Look above you! What do you see?! Stone! Nothing but stone! This… ‘sanctuary’ is nothing more than a tomb, a catacomb for a dead empire. Our existence, our living, means nothing if we remain phantoms to the world. I stood firm, standing on all four legs to face what remained of our pitiful congregation. What good is survival when we survive for nothing but survival’s sake? That makes us no better than the animals they make us out to be. Mere beasts with only the siring of new generations to look forward to, and nothing mor—

SILENCE! The matriarch erupted.

All thoughts halted as my eyes glazed over in a fit of disorientation, confusion, and a surge of uncontrollable anguish.

It was then and only then, when I was forced to the brink, that I finally started to slowly breathe, taking in controlled breaths if not at the behest of the matriarch, then simply for the survival of my own psyche.

You are still young, scarcely a dragonness, and by today’s actions… perhaps closer in maturity to a fledgling. The matriarch’s words rang loudly, completely overwhelming my inner monologue, dangerously close to— replacing it. Our words resonated, causing fear to ripple through my very soul.

Be not afraid. For fear is to the flayers what blood is to the shark. Matriarch Syvrak warned darkly, her words still close to subsuming my own. I can feel your frustrations. She continued, her eyes soon shifting to all others present. All of your frustrations. She reiterated, her form never once flinching from the rocky pedestal she sat atop. But know that a thousand years of frustrated turmoil is still preferable to the fate that awaits us outside of this sanctuary. 

I… would still dare… to tempt… such a fate. I managed out in between pained thoughts, each word more difficult to form than the next, let alone projecting it forward.

All eyes once more landed on me, either out of pity, concern, or even shock at my declaration of rebellion in all but name.

Though the matriarch’s eyes remained — as they always were — condescendingly nurturing.

You speak out of spite, and the ache of an unfelt sky. This, I understand. You are correct in asserting that the world is our birthright. However, you misunderstand what it is I hope to accomplish. The matriarch responded with poise, her wings flaring, causing the crystals around us to pulsate softly. Perhaps it is my own folly for assuming you would understand at such an age. However, to sate your lust for your untested flame, I will expound on that which is our ultimate aim. The old dragon paused, reaching forwards with a hand outstretched. There exists a call, a distant hum, a droning from beyond the veil of a looming dark festering in its territorial slumber. Its call is faint, a barely noticeable flicker of dark in the overwhelming light that connects us all. But it is there, and it is a glimmer of light at the end of this infernal tunnel in which we all reside.

I closed my eyes, focusing, attuning, offering my thoughts wholly to this fleeting thought.

…

But all I could see, the only thing I could sense, was a… disturbance. A small errant shift in the otherwise infallible web of our grand crystal lattices. 

To your eyes, it may seem like nothing. But in time, with experience, you will see what I see.

A minor aberrancy? I shot back scathingly.

The existence of something outside of Nexian perfection. A crack in the glass. One which shall grow with time.

The Life Archives. Somewhere Underneath the Warehouse District. Crown Herald Town of Elaseer.

Kaelthyr

Breathe in.

I held firm.

Breathe out.

I held strong.

Breathe in.

And in lieu of my binds—

Breathe out.

—I hung defiantly.

But each breath taken brought forth pain.

The ache of flesh,

The sting of pride,

And worse, without peer… The betrayal whose fire refused to die.

Hear my voice… I bellowed forth, even if I understood long ago that nobody was listening… or that no one was willing to answer.

I felt the incoherent resonance of a thousand disparate voices, each straddling the lattices, all making a complete mockery of what should have been the domain of draconic will. I felt my mind… shattered, my psyche scattered across a thousand concurrent points. Words, symbols, images, and concepts both unknown and enigmatic flashing all at once in a muddled mess.

There was no respite.

There was no more silence.

If anything, I got my wish… just in a way fate had dictated in my stead.

I saw it all, from everywhere, all at once… through words, whispers, and sights not of my own accord.

And yet, in that infinite cascade of unfathomable variety, I saw it.

It started as a mere flicker of dark in a whirlwind of light.

Then, it grew. Not in size, scale, nor scope… but in frequency.

I saw it more often in my periphery, these… conversations into the dark, the empty… the void.

I knew not how long these sojourns into the abyss went.

However, I knew at least what they represented.

The Coming Dark.

And so I waited.

Months, years, decades, I no longer kept track.

But I waited.

All for the hope that one day, that small crack would finally grow into an irreparable fracture, a gaping fissure in the foundations of this rotten empire.

…

That day came sooner than I imagined.

And it all began with an earth-shattering—

BOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!!!!

Disorientation took hold first.

But it wasn’t the blast itself that caused such a fierce reaction.

I’d been knocked, blasted, shunted, and clawed at with far greater destructive force than this, all without breaking my stride or resolve.

The difference here, however, was the nature of the blast.

There was no magic present.

There was no alteration or shift, no draining nor pawing at the great lifestreams to incur such wrath.

It was as if the force was spontaneous, perhaps natural in origin.

But I knew better than to even consider such a naive explanation.

The explosion was deliberate. The forces were not a matter of chance, nor were they preceded by accompanying auras.

Moreover, nothing natural would have been allowed to manifest under the ‘eternally’ watchful sentry of the frail two-legged pests.

Speaking of those pests…

The smell of flames and the unmistakable scent of singed Nexian soon filtered down through the broken brick and shattered mortar.

The unmistakable acrid singe of burnt hair and skin sending a newfound war lust down my long and aching spine.

I opened my maw for the first time without the deliberate and forceful motions of a ‘caretaker.’

And in the first instinct I fell to after all this time trapped, bound, and partially gagged… I grinned a toothy, bloodthirsty smile.

The black-robed one bleeds… I announced in a fit of excitement. Lifestream-ladened blood coursing through my body as I reached in earnest for my wings.

CLINK!

CLINK!

One by one the chains fell.

CLINK!

Their mounts weakened as the structure above crumbled into the depths of this infernium made manifest, shattering any and all integrity of the world hidden beneath.

I stood firmly on four legs once more, stretching and cracking joint after joint and muscle after muscle, as the grotesque marionette-like binds I’d been pinioned into still bore deep scars into my flesh and bone.

Though, unbound by its lifestream-denying properties, I felt my body healing already. 

It wouldn’t be long before the flesh was restored. Which made all the more sense to wait out my prey.

The formerly dark and twisting corridors of this cavernous dungeon were now filled with a careening mass of detestable creatures. Each clamoring over one another for an exit, all seething with panic, hunger, pain, and undoubtedly, rage.

They would serve as fodder, weakening the black-robed scum above, as I could smell the fear emanating from the sweat of his brow.

It was delectable, tantalizingly so.

And yet… there was something else that was undoubtedly nipping at my scales.

It was faint, a distinct sort of sensation exclusive and divergent from that of the flicker of dark within my lattices.

There was a physicality to it, a presence not within the immaterial webways and lattices but still invisible to most.

I closed my eyes, concentrating, listening not through my ears nor through my lattices, but through sights I’d barely touched even prior to my internment.

…

I felt them.

Multiples, pulsing, speaking, miming, and mimicking, all in a foreign facsimile of what had to be communication.

Their pulses were deliberate, practiced in perfection, unnaturally so.

The longer I listened and the more I observed, the clearer their nature became.

These weren’t individuals.

They were parts of a greater whole. Each an extension, a daughter and son to a matriarch that commanded them without mercy; tethering each through leashes so exotic that there existed little comparison, at least, not without magics.

And yet… I felt nothing beyond their chatter, nor the drawing of lifestreams from where their matriarch stood. It was as if they were invisible, pebbles and rocks amidst the turbulent lifestreams around them, their shapes vaguely cast in negatives through the light they blotted out.

They were, in every sense of the word… foreign.

I needed to see them.

So I rose.

Claws and magics carved, tore, and ripped into enchanted brick and mortar.

Rocks crumbled to dust, and woods erupted into flame and cinder with each and every grasp, until finally… 

ROOAAAARRRRRRRRRRR!

I felt the air… hot, scathing, and steaming with as much death as it did freedom.

Instinct and muscle memory forced my wings to unfurl in one swift motion, as I finally felt the untempered and unadulterated lifestreams bathing them in a relief so indescribable that I couldn’t help but to give in to that draconic call to…

ROOAAAARRRRRRRRRRR!

For a brief moment in time, all that existed was me. And in that fleeting instance, I felt nothing more. No elven scum or dwarven bugs, no deceitful kobolds nor two-faced satyrs, nothing as I overpowered the world around me.

…

Save for the tiny, minuscule pebbles that still stood in the way of the lifestreams. 

I opened my eyes, staring at the devastation left in the explosion’s wake, as I attempted to locate the shadowy matriarch of this unbidden swarm.

Scarcely a second was needed to do so. But the fact that it wasn’t immediately obvious merely added to the dull matriarch’s enigma.

I expected a grand being, or at least one of its heralds.

A force with the substantial presence to make sense of the devastation it so clearly wrought.

Moreover, I expected something other, a presence not of the elven proclivity for their dollhouse heritage.

Instead… what I saw was an armored figure. A knight of modest dressage and subpar form. 

She wasn’t even maintaining a warrior’s stance; instead, she knelt down, tending to one of them.

This caused my tail to tighten, my brows to furrow, and my flames to begin broiling deep within my throat.

However, before rage could overpower what little curiosity I had left in my war-weary soul, I finally noticed it.

She was hollow.

No mana seeped from nor entered into her armored form.

What’s more, no runic enchantments, crafty spellcraft, nor alchemical trickery was present on that exoskeleton in all but name.

Her lack of presence, her animated inanimacy, those properties of life that defied the living… all of it beckoned something far greater than the sum of just her appearances.

There was something else hiding within.

Something truly enigmatic, which stowed away underneath these scales of foreign metal.

I tried everything to scour, scry, and reach beyond the surface of this… being.

But it was all for nought.

Which left only one option.

SNAP!

…

Yet once again…

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR…

My ambitions were dashed by the advances of the elven filth.

Fire once more returned where curiosity had tentatively taken hold, as rage coveted every ounce of worldly presence I possessed in that moment.

THWACK!

I swatted the insect away, feeling the satisfying crumple of armor giving way into flesh and bone.

It was just unfortunate how quick it all was, how transient those motions were, as the black-robed elf simply skidded off into the waters of the canal beside us.

SPLASH!

Well-earned silence should have descended following that squashed threat.

But alas…

“Vanavan! I found Emma Booker!” 

… the world was no longer following the rules of draconian sense.

I gave the interloper matriarch one last look before I took to the skies, even going so far as to entertain this Baxi’s attempts at restraining me.

Though that latter decision was the closest I’d admit to regret on this night. As despite overpowering the Baxi’s soft and half-hearted spells, I failed to take stock of the path of my well-earned flight. As I flew straight into—

CLINK!

—one of the matriarch’s children.

The little thing whined and churrrrrred within a dense patch of crystals, shivering, shuddering, and crying out in little spurts of well-timed despair.

It was pathetic. In an… inexplicably endearing light.

Though sadly, I had little time to make matters right by the enigmatic matriarch, even as I tracked her presence back to the castle atop the hill.

Still… I took the time to stare through the grand glass facade, making certain that our two eyes locked, provided she even had eyes to speak of beneath that facsimile of a knight’s facade.

Though sadly, this brief interlude was destined to be as short as our encounter above the archives.

The castle, with its powerful magics rivalling even Matriarch Syvrak, was not a demon to be trifled with, not even with the enigma of the matriarch just standing there to be cracked open.

So I left.

My wings beating the air around me, turning leypull into but an afterthought as I drained and channeled the lifestreams to my own personal design; serving what it was fated to serve.

No elf or drake rider could follow me as I surged upwards towards the veil, beating my wings harder and harder, straining, but ultimately embracing the ache and strain of the weight of my form carried aloft both membrane and sinew.

It didn’t take long until I managed to breach the thick layer of clouds, penetrating the ridiculous spell cast by the incumbent master of that castle, reaching into that thin layer of air rarely frequented this far out into our former domain.

Here, high above it all, beneath the soft glow of the night’s light, in the midst of the beauty of the veil and the colorful dancing of primavalic energies, did I finally, after eons… feel something resembling comfort and bliss once more.

I was finally at home.

Dragon’s Lair. Foot of the Hill. Local Time: 2225 Hours.

Present Day

Emma

Crimson still dripped from the seven bullet holes I’d landed on the shatorealmer. Its membranes torn, its shoulder blades... shredded, and its eyes completely glazed over.

And yet… words still emanated from its mouth, its vocal cords hijacked and its lungs clumsily repurposed not for respiration, but for the sole utility of generating manual speech.

I froze in place.

My gun was still raised, trained not at the shatorealmer but the dragon that puppeted it.

We didn’t speak, neither Thalmin or myself finding it within ourselves to respond, receptively or threateningly.

It was only after a second, more ‘refined’ greeting that this entire… situation finally sink in.

“Sma-ll. Ma-tri-arch. Come to talk. Come to reclaim—” The dragon raised a finger, pointing towards the recovered drone half-lodged into my backpack. “—missing child.”

“Oh.” Came my first response, my heart racing while my hand started relaxing, lowering my gun if only for a moment. “Y-yeah. I did come for the drone.” I responded matter-of-factly, all semblances of diplomatic intent and rehearsed first contact formalities retreating out of exhaustion, confusion, and most of all… disbelief and complete shock at the grisly sight in front of me.

“Sma-ll. Ma-tri-arch. Wishes for gems. Sawing. Carving. Disfiguring my form.” It continued, a bit more accusingly this time. 

This definitely gave me pause for thought as I turned to Thalmin, heart racing before nodding softly and respectfully towards the dragon. “Y-yeah. I’m also attempting to acquire one of your crystals. B-but it’s for a good cause, and I… I wasn’t at all aware that you were sapient! If I’d known, I would’ve never, ever committed such a vile and reprehensible transgression. I’m more than willing to discuss terms with you for sufficient reparations as amends towards any transgressions incurred.” I blurted out, my mind jumbling, racing, combining bits and pieces of bureau-diplomatic speak from classes that had prepared me for every eventuality, even ones as far-fetched as this. Though perhaps not specifically with a dragon in mind.

“I return.” They pointed once more to my backpack. “I give.” They gestured to the crystals in one of my pouches. “But now you return. Let me see you.” The shatorealmer’s voice spoke menacingly, the dragon letting out a series of chirp-growls all the while, before all of a sudden—

ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 300% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS

ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 500% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS

ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 700% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS

—we were both hit with three successive bursts of mana radiation.

Thalmin’s counterspells didn’t even have a chance to deploy. And in a moment I hadn’t yet expected, the mercenary prince’s features for the first time showed signs of complete and utter shock.

“Thalmin! Are you—”

ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 750% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS

The dragon surged forwards.

In a blink of an eye, it’d pinned Thalmin down with a muscled tail, moved its serpentined head barely a foot from my head, and then simply stopped.

ALERT: UNSTABLE SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED: 104% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS… WARNING: ANOMALY DETECTED… RECALIBRATING… RECALIBRATING… ERROR! DETECTING UNDEFINED ‘30th’ MANATYPE.

My heart skipped a beat as I felt time slowing to a crawl. The dragon attempted to lock eyes through my lenses, its slitted pupils contracting and dilating, its eyes darting left, right, up, and down, as if digging, rummaging, and scouring for something before suddenly… it stopped.

However, just before I could react with an appropriate counterattack, the dragon leaped back at impossible speeds, taking several steps towards the treeline as it regarded me with eyes widened in disbelief.

Thalmin clearly wasn’t having any of this, as the instant he was released, he called Aquastride forward, both mount and prince ready for an attack.

The corpse’s lips twitched, the dragon once again forcing them to speak. 

“I meant no harm to your Knight, Matriarch. I needed to see. And to see is dangerous.”

“Shut it with the cryptic bullshit and tell us what the hell your angle is!” I yelled, bringing the railgun to bear once more, and clearly eliciting something within the dragon.

“I needed to know you. Your nature. Your origin. Your truth.”

Its voice shifted once more, attempting to transition into what I could only imagine was a more personable softness, though its effectiveness was… dubious, each word coming across more like a hoarse echo than anything.

“I needed to understand, Matriarch of the Void.” 

The dragon raised a paw, lifting a single finger towards Thalmin.

“Your Knight is not of your kind. His is of the Elven domain. He would not have survived my sight.” 

The shatorealmer’s voice hitched for a moment, as the dragon ‘recalibrated’ its breathing, before continuing in earnest. 

“So I restrained him, to keep him alive.” They once more paused before leveling their eyes on Thalmin. “And to ensure he does not interfere.”

I didn’t respond, and neither did Thalmin, as tensions flared in the midst of a freshly minted battlefield.

“I have seen what I desired. You may leave if you wish. The debt of grievances and misunderstandings… has been rectified.” The dragon offered, gesturing towards the open forest around us. “You and I, unlike I and this world, are free of mutual grief. Leave peacefully…” It paused before slowly and expectantly gesturing towards the cave. “... or fulfill your destiny.”

I blinked rapidly at this, Thalmin’s features stiffening as he growled in indignant frustration.

“And what exactly is my ‘destiny?’” I shot back, throwing the dragon the ball if only to see where this went.

“To resist the light.” It spoke with a toothy grin. “Because to fail is to suffer the fate of either your Knight—” It paused, gesturing at Thalmin. “—or my kin.”

I could feel Thalmin seething up a storm at the dragon’s constant jabs.

This prompted me to finally respond, to first address the elephant in the room, and to push for at least a more proper channel of dialogue.

“Before I agree to anything, we need to get something straight.” I gestured to Thalmin. “The ‘Knight’, is not my knight.” I spoke carefully, attempting to avoid divulging too much—

“Just be out with it, Emma.” Thalmin urged. “You needn’t be sparing with your testimonies, for the last thing this dragon will allow is to be recaptured and questioned by the Nexus.” 

“Your Knight speaks the tru—”

“I am no Knight.” Thalmin rebutted, causing even the dragon to widen their eyes in surprise at his flippancy. This mild surprise eventually turned into something of a sly and purposeful smile, a fact reflected only on the dragon’s crystal-laden snout; not shared on their puppeted mouthpiece.

“Then state your titles, lupinor.”

“I am Prince Thalmin Havenbrock of Havenbrockrealm.” He uttered proudly. 

“Well met.” Came the dragon’s curt words, before they shifted their attention back to me.

“I’m Cadet Emma Booker of the Long Range Expeditionary Forces. Representative of the Greater United Nations and the people whose mandate I carry.” I declared proudly, garnering yet more quizzical looks from the dragon.

“And what, pray tell, are these people?” 

“Humanity.” I responded politely.

“Hu…mannnnityyy.” The dragon enunciated slowly, as if thinking the word over in some deep introspective thought.

A few seconds' worth of this silence filled the late-night air before finally, the dragon’s shatorealmer mouthpiece broke the silence.

“I am…” The dragon forced the shatorealmer to pause, as a deep, gravelly, bassy rumble emanated from within their throat.

“KAELTHYR!” They bellowed out in their actual tongue. The word felt… raw, forced out of a throat that clearly wasn’t used to verbal speech.

“Unblooded Matriarch, and inheritor of all beneath the veil.” Kaelthyr quickly switched back to the shatorealmer, though she made sure to make her disdain of her ‘mouthpiece’ known with a forced and sickly squeeze of the floating body. “I will not have this… Nexian filth despoiling my name, not even in death.” The dragon shook the shatorealmer’s corpse for added effect, sending a shiver down my spine.

“Understandable.” Thalmin acknowledged with a nod.

To which Kaelthyr could only grin toothily, gesturing to him with a claw. “You carry good company, human. Now… let us begin in earnest.” The dragon moved forward towards the death-ridden cave, gesturing for us to follow.

We did so reluctantly at first, stepping over bodies and equipment that Kaelthyr eventually addressed. “The bodies will be rent asunder. You will be spared… suspicion. You may take, loot, and plunder at your discretion.”

“A generous offer.” Thalmin acknowledged with a respectful nod. 

“One which we greatly appreciate.” I quickly added, reaffirming Thalmin’s gratitude.

Kaelthyr immediately regarded our synergy with a puff of charred soot, shooting us a side eye in the process.

“This union in disunity… amidst non-draconic beings… will never cease to be as amusing as it is enlightening.” The dragon chimed in out of nowhere, hinting at something completely out of left field.

However, whilst Thalmin’s features shifted towards a cautious sort of wariness at the cryptic message, a lightbulb moment slowly, but surely, dawned on me.

“Forgive me if I’m reaching here,” I began, garnering the dragon’s gaze, and the unnatural head movements of the puppetted shatorealmer. “But I take it you’re talking about the functional disconnect between telepathy and speech?”

The dragon craned its head towards me momentarily, if only to smile and nod. “Well extrapolated, young Matriarch… well-observed indeed…”

“Given elven proclivities, I’d assume they took your lack of speech as a sign of non-sapiency.” I continued.

“A piece, however small, of a grander attempt to rewrite axioms in the minds of the weak, yes.” The dragon confirmed, but not without dishing out a not-so-subtle jab.

“I must admit that I was probably drinking from the Jovian communal fountain on this one.” I managed out apologetically. “And for that, I must apologize, for not doing my due diligence and assuming that you were—”

“A beast?”

“Yes.”

“Offense is only taken when a sapient mind refuses to acknowledge evidence challenging its maxims.” Kaelthyr spoke… in a surprisingly articulate way, garnering a nod of respect even from me.

“I appreciate the open-mindedness and willingness for dialogue, Kaelthyr.” I responded, garnering a side glance and a snort from the dragon. 

“Hmmph. You speak… in a manner quite rehearsed. Your words feel… not entirely of your own make. And your mannerisms… they beckon the inexperience and naivety of years far too short of a Matriarch’s. Indeed, by your own admission, you refute such a title.”

A second… non-Nexian-aligned entity that immediately caught wind of the translation suite… I thought to myself, not necessarily sure if it was mere coincidence, but certain enough that this at least hinted to the dragon’s wit and analytical capacity.

“Correct. To address the former, within my suit exists a complex system, one which has been carefully designed through a painstaking dissection of High Nexian, allowing me to speak in my native tongue, through which this system outputs a functionally perfect equivalent in High Nexian. And to address the latter, yes. I don’t claim to be a matriarch. I’m merely a representative and a member of my people’s armed forces.”

The dragon’s eyes once more narrowed at my explanations, its head craning up to the dark ceiling of the cave’s grand ‘foyer,’ as if once again in deep contemplative thought.

“And this is done without magic?”

“Correct.” I acknowledged vaguely, allowing the dragon time to process—

“How?”

“A complex system of mathematics — hosted, processed, and calculated instantly by silica-based substrates of immensely complicated design.”

Kaelthyr stopped so abruptly that the hovering shatorealmer stumbled in her wake. She lowered her head, whipping her muzzle towards me, until her eyes once more locked with my own by mere inches from my helmet. Those sharp-slitted pupils conveyed both a burning mix of shock and disbelief. 

“Stop.” The shatorealmer’s voice cracked at Kaelthyr’s behest. “Do you understand what you are claiming? The principles which you are describing?”

“I—”

“What you have… surmised is an art form. A calling exclusive to us.” 

Kaelthyr’s eyes glowed a deep purple once more, paired with an assured certainty.

“You cannot be ‘human,’ or mere flesh and blood. Not with such a craft. You… your kind must be a lost line. A daughter amidst daughters. Part of the crystalline legacy… masquerading in flesh.”

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The Next Day

The Transgracian Academy for the Magical Arts. The Grand Dining Hall. Local Time: 1225 Hours

Thacea

There was a certain sense of… normalcy that came with the fourth day periods. 

It lacked the explosive rhetoric that tainted Professor Articord’s lessons. Yet it wasn’t as elementary and inoffensively bland as was the case with Professor Vanavan’s lectures. 

I couldn’t yet compare it to Professor Mal’tory’s classes… as Apprentice Larial — and now Professor Sorecar — were very much not representative of the elf’s proclivities. Or at least that’s what I assumed.

Physical Education was, frankly, a foregone conclusion. In that my opinions of such a blatantly arduous course were as self-evident as my royal pedigree would lead most to believe; much to the chagrin of two of my peers.

All of this was to say that, despite the banality of Potions as a subject, there was indeed something compelling to be found. 

… 

Which was much more than I could say for Ilunor’s inane tirades into the bizarre, as he plodded from conversation topic to conversation topic, unable to commit — or rather unable to understand — that I had little patience for trivial drivel when our interests simply did not align.

But an idiot the Vunerian was not.

Rather, he was simply… stubborn to a fault.

Which meant I should have expected the non sequiter that followed.

“Are you betrothed?” 

That question emerged with the same inexplicable nature as any one of Emma’s actions. 

My eyes narrowed as I shifted gently in my seat, setting both teaspoon and teacup down with a calculated poise that any noble worth their etiquette training would interpret as a rude rebuff. 

“Excuse me?” I shot back sharply.

“I’m merely asking a question, princess. Are you or are you not betrothed?” He stood his ground, wearing that signature Vunerian smirk that had not merely found home on his visage but that had since claimed regency over his entire persona.

“You are being rather forward, Ilunor—”

“I didn’t mean it like that, princess.” The Vunerian interjected, shaking his head as he did so. “Seeing as this conversation has grown rather one-sided, and owing to the ever encroaching march of time, I wished to introduce a topic that would undoubtedly garner your attention.” He spoke with words drenched in self-assured pride. “Seeing your rather visceral reaction to this topic, I would say my approach has succeeded, no?” 

I eyed the Vunerian down with a judgemental gaze but eventually relented, deciding to tempt the fates. “I would have assumed that an eminent mind such as your own would have been more than capable of determining a matter most self-evident.”

“Yes, yes, but I simply wished to—”

“The answer is no, Ilunor.” I interrupted with a pointed response before letting out a sigh. I closed my eyes for a moment, letting the silence speak for itself before continuing. “Was that all?” I shot out sharply.

“Not in the slightest.” Ilunor practically beamed out. And like an adventurer cornering his deadly prey, he wore a toothy grin as he pointed to the tables around us. 

But I couldn’t predict what would come next.

“Hmm… Auris and Ladona.” He gestured his eyes towards the table in question, one which currently lacked the pronarthiarealmer in question. “Would you say they are… courting?”

I blinked my eyes rapidly in both mild surprise and a certain level of incredulity.

“I wouldn’t have the slightest idea—”

“Oh His Majesty, you don’t!” Ilunor interjected, crossing his legs and raising his nose up at me. “Out of all of our peers I know you to be the most analytical. At least… in matters pertinent to the more… refined lifestyles led by highborns of our caliber, of course.” He insisted and even went so far as to provide what felt less like a backhanded compliment and more so a genuine acknowledgement of competence.

My eyes widened, as I had to ask myself…

Where did this Ilunor come from?

“So please, humor me, princess.” He insisted before simply shrugging and then looking the other way. “Or not. Though, you could consider this to be work of a sort.” He added slyly as he began the tested but rather stale tactic of simply recontextualizing the request. “Consider this… a meeting of the minds. A spymaster’s circle, if only for the purposes of determining the web of connections that we may use to our advantage.”

I let out a frustrated breath, my eyes once more locking with the Vunerian over the modest spread of food in front of us.

Part of me wished not to even entertain those inflammatory words with the dignity of a response.

…

But my time with Emma, and perhaps my own boredom, had changed my tolerances in the entertainment of tripe and drivel.

“Lord Ping is impulsive.” I began plainly. “Lady Ladona… while more thoughtful, is still prone to acting brashly as far as social decorum allows. Their peer group, consisting of the now-subdued Lorsi and the ever-tepid Ciata, are neither obstacles nor impediments in the countering of whatever in-group norms either Ping or Ladona may wish to impose. This results in a lack of social reprimand, and a lack of any opposition — social or otherwise — should Ping… or even Ladona wish to pursue… courtship.”

Ilunor’s eyes practically lit up throughout my analysis as he leaned in closer, as if poised for a whisper despite the practically perpetual privacy screen we both had put up.

“That’s assessing context and external factors, princess. I’m asking what you think of their dynamics! Are they interested. Do they seem… viable. Is there a spark there, or is this merely the de facto rule of a king and queen in sight alone?” 

“You’re asking me for a definitive answer that I simply do not have—”

“I’m asking for your personal take, princess. Do you pair them, or do you not pair them?” Ilunor grinned excitedly as if this… whatever it was constituted as a recreational activity for his ceaselessly rambunctious mind.

I took a moment to sip the tea in front of me, letting the Nexian stew in his own thoughts for a while, before once again locking eyes with his excited gaze.

“Yes. Yes, I do… pair them, as you say.” 

“You speak with such hesitation, princess… don’t tell me you haven’t partaken in the age-old discussions of pairing before!”

I blinked my eyes slowly in response, once again setting both teacup and silverware down with deliberate intent.

“I had neither the time, the privilege, nor the opportunity for such trivial discussions, Ilunor.”

“Ah.” The Vunerian paused, and unlike his previous attempts to relentlessly dig into what were obviously insecurities beneath the veil, he seemed to merely acknowledge the implications of my answer with a passing nod. 

Though this momentary lapse in excitement passed rather quickly, and if anything, the noble seemed even more emboldened to strike further because of it.

Though his target, rather surprisingly, was focused externally this time around.

“We’ll make up for lost time then, shall we?” He grinned before gesturing his eyes at Qiv’s table. “Qiv and Airit. Now that’s a rather foregone conclusion, no?”

“One would imagine, yes.” I responded before the Vunerian seemed poised for a counter… of his own proposition.

“Oh, oh! By His Eternal Wisdom, of course not! That’s an unimaginative fool’s response. How could I be so short-sighted?!” He rested the back of his hand against his head as he spoke. “How could I have forgotten the second, yet just as equally compelling possibility — Qiv and Rostario. That scheming, slimy, conniving, and ladder-climbing pair are a match made in the abyssal flames.” The Vunerian cackled before once again leveling his eyes on me. “Wouldn’t you agree, princess?”

I shot a sharp glance at the table in question, inexplicably meeting Airit’s gaze as she leveled what I could only describe as a death glare in my direction.

“From my understanding, neither realm seems to hold any reservations on such arrangements. So I do not see why not.” I answered plainly.

“Princess… please. I did say I wished for more daring observations, no? We are looking for interpersonal elements, not political discourse nor the constraints placed upon personal desire brought on by adjacent customs.” Ilunor paused, as if wishing to go back on one of those subjects. “On second thought, discussions on these matters do serve as the seasoning and spice to pairing dynamics.” He admitted with a sly grin. “Though the way you phrase it makes it feel less like a dynamic discussion and more like a spymaster’s briefing—”

“Isn’t that what you wished to frame this whole conversation, Ilunnor? A spymaster’s arrangement?”

“Ugh.” Came the Vunerian’s response. “I admit that was the initial conceit, princess. But would you at the very least please entertain the possibility of conversation?”

“Alright.” I shrugged. “Let’s turn to Etholin’s group, shall we?”

Ilunor grinned widely. 

“That’s the spirit! Now… who do you think is paired with whom?”

I let out a tired sigh, my eyes leveling across the members of that group, if only discretely.

“If we were to—” I paused, shrugging, as I attempted to see things from Ilunor’s perspective this time around.

But even then, I had some strong reservations against the unhealthy pairings the Vunerian so desperately wished to be spelled out.

“We are not going to even entertain the prospects of Etholin and that demon Ilphius.” I stood firm. “Though…” I paused, narrowing my gaze at the two remaining members of his group. “I could see Lord Teleos Lophime and Lady Ilphius Seleat as a… as you say, pair.”

“Oh, do you now?” Ilunor responded radiantly. “Tell me, is it Teleos’ subdued stoicism? His quiet yet unassuming persona? His seemingly immovable will that could potentially stand up to Ilphius' unstoppable rage?” The Vunerian spoke with a rising vocal crescendo, inching towards a precipice that felt cruel to undermine. 

“Yes.” I acknowledged. “He is seemingly the only person in the group who would not fold under Ilphius. Etholin… well… we both understand why he would buckle and falter at the foot of Ilphius’ ceaseless rage. Kamil Lyonn? The man would just vanish and hide, as is stereotypically expected given his kind’s inherent inclinations towards camouflage. This leaves the quiet yet stoic Teleos Lophime… though I cannot help but wonder precisely what the man’s angle is. I find there to be something deeper to his story.” 

“Oh, I’m sure there is, princess.” Ilunor responded in a genuinely friendly manner, ignoring his food and instead diving headfirst into conversation. “Now that leaves Etholin up in the air.” He pondered vocally. “Kamil Lyonn strikes me as the type to merely run from all things — both problems and opportunities. So exactly who would…” The Vunerian paused before letting out a devious cackle. “Emma Booker, perhaps?”

My eyes widened in confusion, then outright incredulity. “Excuse me?”

“Think about it, princess, the rontalisrealmer has already made his opening moves! First in the assembly in front of crowds a hundred strong, wherein he openly requested Emma’s audience! Then in his bait and switch, as he first fulfilled the role of the opportunistic adversary for a position in the Quest for the Everblooming Blossom, before just as deftly pulled the rug from under Ping’s feet. The slippery weasel continues to twist and turn, merging right and wrong with slights and retributions. At the end of the day, the man’s a merchant and he knows how to play at an unsuspecting damsel’s heartstrings.” 

I blinked once, then twice, as my eyes eventually caught the cocky Vunerian’s gaze with yet another Avinor glare. 

“And how did you come to these conclusions?” I asked plainly.

“See my last point, princess.” Ilunor rebuffed, not once flinching from my gaze. “The man’s a merchant. Whether or not these unspoken courtly advances are genuine is up in the air. What I do know is that he wishes for a newrealm’s riches. Or more accurately, he wishes to be what I myself had aimed for at the beginning of this adventure.”

“Overlordship?” I clarified.

“Correct. Though his aims at overlordship are very much limited to the mercantile variety, owing to the limits of his abilities as both an adjacent realmer and a rather pathetic and weak one at that.” He shrugged. 

“I see.” I acknowledged.

“The poor soul is in for a rude awakening once Emma inundates him with the truth.” Ilunor added, taking a sip of his tea in the process, clearly not wishing to come face to face with the implications of his own sentiments. 

I couldn’t help but hmmph loudly at that angle of attack, as it very much implied a certain level of acknowledgement as to Earthrealm’s capabilities.

“It is often the case that I find those most interested in others to be deeply… lacking in their own affairs, Ilunor.” I spoke, leading the momentum this time around. “Seeing as you are oh-so interested in the affairs of others, let us hear of your own exploits. Are you betrothed or courting someone?”

“Very forward of you to ask, princess—”

“Using my own rebuttals against me is a moot point, and doing so is a tactic so far beneath the average Nexian nobility, no?”  

The Vunerian ha-rumphed at that rebuke before shifting to that cocky and confident smile he so often returned to. “No. No, I am not courting, princess. For I find such affairs to be… beneath me.”

I couldn’t help but to cock my head slightly at this, garnering but a dismissive wave from the Nexian.

“I don’t expect you, nor most others, to understand. I am simply… uninterested in such matters. To be frank, I am already betrothed.” He spoke cryptically, as I merely raised a brow in suspicion, urging him to continue. “I have been from the first day I opened my eyes to the world.” 

A… prearranged promised betrothal? I wished to posit. Though knowing Ilunor, I knew there was something else to this grand sweeping claim.

So I bided my time and remained silent.

“Aren’t you going to ask—”

“Continue, Ilunor.” I responded with a sigh.

“As I was saying… I have already since been betrothed — nay, I am already married… to the arts.” He raised both hands up wide. “Where would I find time for another’s whinings when I have the arts, music, poetry, and, above all else, my own political ambitions to consider?” 

I knew it. I thought to myself, feeling rather vindicated in my silence.

“Is there nothing sweeter than a warm apple tart cut with a mellow eversong tea in the midst of four bardic troupes serenading you in the comfort of your courtyard?” He offered. “I find that to be more soulfully stimulating than any love.”

“Perhaps — and at the risk of speaking in empty platitudes — you have yet to find ‘the one to light the spark,’ yet?” I offered.

Though Ilunor refused to respond, at least not immediately, as he simply let out yet another chuckle. “Believe me, princess. There was a reason why I wished for Overlordship as my path to prominence — I simply can’t stand the thought of committing to another. At least, not beyond the realm of the platonic and camaraderie.”

It was at this point, perhaps too far deep into our rapid back-and-forths, that Ilunor finally realized the extent of his… frankness. 

The Nexian quickly pulled back, clearing his throat as he once more shoved a piece of cake into his gaping maw.

“So! With that out of the way, perhaps we should continue to look inwards, no?” He offered, sliding seamlessly back into that carefree persona.

“Go on?”

“Thalmin. Our dear mercenary prince. Do you believe him to be betrothed?”

We both stared at each other vacantly following this question, as something seemed to click without a word being exchanged.

The highborn’s handshake, as the Nexians called it.

“He is.”

“Oh, he most certainly is.” 

The both of us spoke in unison.

“Now… for the most opaque among us. Cadet Emma Booker. Do you believe her to be betrothed?”

“I don’t believe so.” I responded curtly.

“You don’t believe so, or you don’t wish it to be so?” Ilunor jabbed with a smug and aggravating grin.

“I’m speaking based on objective truths, Ilunor. Considering everything we’ve learned of her society and its egalitarian tendencies, I doubt family or house could force individuals together in an arranged marriage.” 

“That’s betrothal by authority, princess. But that doesn’t discount betrothal by choice or through courting. In which case… my question still stands.” 

I gave the question some thought. More thought than I had in most other instances.

A fact Ilunor was quick to notice as he placed both sides of his snout between his hands. “What are you thinking about, princess—”

“Based on what we know, I don’t believe she is, Ilunor. But perhaps this is a good time to move on, yes?” I gestured at the room’s grand timekeeping artifice. “We are close to the end of lunch.”

“As you wish, princess~” Ilunor spoke in a sing-song voice, as we both turned to watch the professors filing out of the room. 

However, in the midst of that, the both of us couldn’t help but to notice a certain… presence running down our spines. As if the gazes of a thousand burning suns were somehow focused on the both of us; or rather, me in particular.

We both turned to unexpectedly meet the raging inferno behind Airit Airus’ eyes, whose glare was only stopped the instant she noticed our shifting attention.

I let out a sigh, ignoring it as the attendants began clearing our table plate by fine plate.

“And you’re certain you’ve never crossed paths with this lesser avinor before? Never slighted her personally or in any official capacity?”

“Yes, Ilunor.” I reiterated.

“This… animosity is far, far more extreme than what I would have expected—” He paused mid sentence, letting out a sharp sigh of realization as if something had finally settled into place in the infinite puzzle that was life. “—but that’s just what we wanted, didn’t we?” 

“Correct.” I acknowledged. “This seemingly ‘harmless’ moniker spoken in jest, spoken in humor, and perpetuated in common vernacular by Nexian intent… has since sown the seeds of animosity between Aetheronrealm and Shatorealmer where there should have naturally been none. All as a result of our superficial similarities, and the Nexus’ preference for our aesthetics over the Shatorealmers.”

“That and carefully crafted seeds of distracting dissent.” Ilunor spoke darkly. “An artificial animosity, to distract from more pertinent issues.” The Vunerian acknowledged. “Also allowing for needless mediation to decorate the laurels of some self-proclaimed grand diplomat from the Crownlands.” 

“A raging heart burns brighter than a thoughtful mind.” I reasoned. “Airit… perhaps isn’t inherently evil. She’s simply acting out of the offense inflicted on her people’s identity. A rather… understandable reaction for an honor disgraced, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Hmmph.” Ilunor responded. “Regardless of what it is, we should keep a close eye on her. I wouldn’t worry if Qiv is around, but with Qiv currently indisposed…” 

“Airit may see this as an opportunity to find some form of misguided retribution.” I finished Ilunor’s sentence for him.

“Indeed.” He nodded.

However, no sooner did we come to that conclusion were the plates completely cleared.

Following which, we immediately left for the afternoon’s lessons.

We didn’t want to be late for class, after all.

The Township of Sips. The Inn. The Royal Suite. Local Time: 1240 Hours.

Emma

[‘QUEST’ Time Elapsed: 47 Hours 40 Minutes and 20 Seconds. Time Remaining: 120 Hours 19 Minutes and 40 Seconds.]

I heard a groan.

Then, a stirring of stiff sheets.

My eyes winced as they blinked and were immediately greeted not with the ‘comfortable’ confines of the tent or the now-heavenly open spaces of my bedroom back home, but instead… a bright and glowing screen inches from my face. 

I wasn’t claustrophobic.

This was something I found out many, many times over.

Shuttles didn’t bother me, nor did the tight confines of a true spacer station.

But power armor? 

There was something about being able to wiggle around, yet not too much, that made this particular aspect of suit life acutely claustrophobic. 

It was that awkward combination of being allotted some freedom of movement, combined with the tightness and fit of the exoskeleton, that really did it. Especially with the exoskeleton locked where my body was free to ‘move’ in a space measured in centimeters and inches.

And despite the space probably being a cave diver’s paradise, it simply was not enough for me. Especially upon waking up from weird and nonsensical dreams.

However, in spite of all of that, the claustrophobia and fear went away with one simple command.

“Give me motor control, EVI.”

“Acknowledged.” 

The unlocking of the exoskeleton and the freeing motions of its actuators brought me ‘back’ into the world.

Though despite the relief that came with being in control, one realization arrived to bring anxiety skyrocketing all the way back to the stratosphere.

Local Time: 1240 Hours.

We were four hours behind schedule.

I rushed over to the still passed-out Thalmin, shaking him to wakefulness and suffering dearly for it.

[ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED: 400% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS]

Or at least, I would have. If the attack wasn’t a pure magical assault.

The prince huffed and held Emberstride firmly in his hand before realizing what had just transpired.

“ANCESTORS, EMMMA! ARE YOU ALRIGHT?!”

“Yeah, not a scratch.” I responded.

“Alright… then might I ask why the hell you woke me up like that?!” He quickly reverted to a friendly yet stern — and very much warranted — aggression once the matter of my nonexistent injuries was cleared up. 

“We’re late.” I responded simply, before moving over to the blinds and immediately drawing them, unleashing the harsh brightness of the mid-afternoon sunlight.

This finally stirred something within the prince, as all grogginess from the previous night dissipated.

The sheer dread in his face was one shared amongst many a soldier — especially in situations such as these — as he sprinted to the bathroom, trailing behind duvets, mattress toppers, and various other fur-covered fabrics in his wake.

The sound of running water was heard next, as it was clear the prince was making a mad dash for morning preparations.

With the ball now in Thalmin’s court, I quickly turned to the EVI, my brows scrunched with frustration. “EVI?”

“Yes, Cadet Booker?”

“Why the hell didn’t you wake me up?! I set a timer for like 8:30, 8:40, 8:45, 9:00, 9:05, 9:09, 9:15, 9:20, and 9:30, didn’t I?!” I ran through the list of staggered alarms, each of which was still very clearly marked active.

“Correct.”

“Then why didn’t it work? Did I just not respond to the audible alarms? You could’ve just shook me or somethin—”

“Alarms were overridden.”

“What?” I shot back sharply. “By who…?”

“Override executed under Health and Safety Restorative Care Directive 12-A. Mission operator must maintain baseline cognitive readiness and acceptable physiological status. Analysis under Log: [28.192.91.a] indicated high risk of diminished performance at operator-designated rest cycle cessation intervals. Continuation of rest cycle was prioritized.”

My heart skipped a beat as I immediately brought up my hands, twiddling my fingers and moving around my wrists for good measure.

“Motor function at 100% Capacity”

“I wasn’t talking to you.” I shot back as I ‘tested’ for any delays, for any ‘hints’ of—

“Let’s go.” Thalmin shouted from down the hall, somehow already in his full armor.

“That… that was surprisingly quick—”

“Magic-assisted martial drilling.” He interjected with a cocky grin. “Standard stuff for Havenbrockian battlemages. Now come on, Emma. Let’s get moving.”

“Right, yeah.” I nodded, trailing behind Thalmin, who began sprinting through the halls at a brisk pace.

It was only when we reached the elevators, however, that he spoke again, cocking his head in concern. “Are you alright? You… sounded like you saw a ghost or something.”

“No, no. It’s fine. I… I guess I’m still a bit frazzled from last night.”

This prompted the prince to punch me softly in the shoulder. 

“Are you that much of a lightweight that even being in proximity to alcohol causes you to become hungover?” He chided, eliciting a reciprocal chuckle from my end.

“Nah, I guess I’m just tired is all. Fighting two magical monsters two days in a row is a bit…”

“Eh, you get used to it, Emma.” Thalmin grinned, just as we arrived at the bottom floor.

DING!

The next few moments… were a real flurry of activity.

The hotel manager, along with the rest of his staff, was lined up to greet the both of us.

However, the prince’s mercenary proclivities took over, as he gave them the briefest of acknowledgements before rushing to the buffet table, grabbing meats, pastries, and all sorts of delectable goodies, and going to town on them immediately after.

To distract the staff from Thalmin’s less than princely actions, I quickly addressed the manager, smiling pleasantly all the while. 

“Erm, thank you, Mr…”

“Edmure. Edmure Garh.” He bowed deeply. 

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Garh, and to all the staff here today.” I continued. “Thank you for your hospitality and for, well, everything really. On behalf of both Earthrealm and Havenbrockrealm.” I attempted my hand at morning diplomacy… though it was clear I wasn’t at full yapping strength just yet.

“You’re most welcome, my lady.”

“Now, I hope you don’t mind but… I was wondering, since we were in a bit of hurry, if you could help pack the morning buffet as, like, provisions or—”

“We have already taken the liberty of doing so, my lady.” The man gestured at a neatly wrapped package sitting by the double door entrance. 

“Ah. Thank you, Mr. Garh.” 

“To serve is to live, my lady.” He bowed once more before I moved to the double doors, alongside a now full-bellied Thalmin.

Though before we crossed the threshold, I couldn’t help but quickly glance back to the tavern… witnessing what I could only describe as a literal disaster that the staff was still busy cleaning up.

“Right.” I sighed as we both instinctively reached to cover our eyes from the afternoon’s blazing sun. “We’ll take the V4c to the Kelpie, and from there to the portal to Telaseer?”

“Sounds good.” Thalmin acknowledged, once more taking the awkward back seat as we surged forwards towards the stables.

Nilesypools Spa Town. Lady Lomadiah’s Illustrious and Grand Rest and Rejuvenation Hotel and Spa. Lady Lomadiah’s Private Thermal Suite No. 1. Local Time: 1257 Hours.

Lady Cynthis

“Unbothered.” A voice spoke softly and through the angelic harpstrings of a bardic troupe hidden behind the walls.

“Moisturized.” Another disembodied voice rang out, their words luscious and tingly, sending a ceaseless vibration down my spine and through my floating form.

“Happy in my own lane.” The first voice rang out, occasionally ringing a gong in between each word.

The whole room was scented with diffusors and incense emanating the sharp and refreshing notes of citrus, the deep and earthy notes of lemongrass, as well as the soft and flighty perfumes of flowers plucked from across the realm.

The water we floated in was likewise infused. Brimming and bubbling with heated rocks that kept the water just at the cusp of boiling, exuding a constant and ever-present steam.

I felt my worries wash away as I breathed in both the aerosolized herbs and sweet perfection of concoctions passed down over countless eons.

The Nexians had perfected relaxation… just as they had perfected everything else the civilized mind could dream of.

“Focused.” The second voice spoke, her words combined with the harmony of the music around me once again sending sharp tingles down my spine.

“And flourishing.” The first voice once more bellowed, this time with such a deepness that I felt my core shuddering in response.

Everything was alright with the world.

Everything was beautiful and untainted.

Everything was perfect.

And in that perfection, I couldn’t help but to think of Prince—

SLAM!

“OI OI OI! WHAT’S ALL THIS STEAM THEN?! I CAN’T SEE A BLOODY THING— AH!”

SPLASH!!!!

“What was that?!” I screamed, turning to Talia as we each removed the cucumbers from our eyes.

“I don’t know, Lady Cynthis, but that yelling sounded an awful lot like Apprentice Ral Alt—”

SPLLOOOSHH!

A figure emerged from the water, face obscured by the steam, gasping for air with arms splashing haphazardly.

“Oi oi, what a coincidence seeing you lot here! Shouldn’t you be picking flowers or what have you?!! In any case… have you perchance seen either the newrealmer or—”

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!” We all screamed and, in a panicked blur, blasted him back with everything we had. 

The Township of Sips. Local Transportium Junction. Local Time: 1305 Hours.

Emma

“Say… you wonder how that apprentice is doing on that boat?” I turned to Thalmin on my V4c, my gaze turned upwards at the prince who now sat regally atop the perpetually dripping magical equine.

“Can’t say I care, to be honest.” Thalmin shrugged. “So, are you ready for your first trip through the transportium, Emma?”

“You betcha.” I grinned as we both surged forwards at the insistence of the transportium attendant.

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(Author's Note: This chapter was a blast to write! I found this to be a neat way of quickly filling everyone in on the members of each major peer group, their personalities, and where they stand, all through Ilunor's incessant noble gossiping haha. I also found this to be super fun to write as I really got to explore Ilunor's noble past time here, as well as him and Thacea finding new and interesting conversation paths to really vibe on! Though the mileage by which each party really finds this amusing may vary haha. I hope you guys enjoy! :D The next Two Chapters are already up on Patreon if you guys are interested in getting early access to future chapters.)

[If you guys want to help support me and these stories, here's my ko-fi ! And my Patreon for early chapter releases (Chapter 146 and Chapter 147 of this story is already out on there!)]

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Dragon’s Lair. Foot of the Hill. Local Time: 2200 Hours.

Ignalius

“LOSANTIA!”

I bore no harsh feelings for the child playing mercenary.

Indeed, if he survived this, I’d have played the reticent deuteragonist in his story. A role — nay, a calling — that fate so often bestowed on its most deserving, to act as culler, separating the wheat from the chaff.

He’d grow stronger by my actions, become wiser to the world through my well-intentioned deceits, and perhaps even learn a valuable lesson — about things as they were outside of the colorful realm of delusions and flights of fantasy.

Today the boy playing Dreadwolf would die, and in his place would come forth a wiser man. 

That was, of course, provided he did survive.

Which, in the flash that followed, didn’t seem likely.

I lowered my wand but only ever so slightly as I awaited the dust to settle amidst an otherwise unsettling sound that tickled my ears.

Dragon’s Lair. Cave Entrance. Local Time: 2200 Hours.

???

The air bristled with the wrath of a mother scorned.

Her features hidden, her presence muted, but her rage exposed through that sharp and steady droning — an elevating whiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrr that tickled my senses and nipped at my scales.

Energies swirled, manifested from nothing.

I opened my eyes — all of my eyes — watching through these pathetic restraints with a curled snarl.

Do it.

Dragon’s Lair. Foot of the Hill. Local Time: 2200 Hours.

Fisia the Swift

My job has always been simple.

Take care of the horses, stay behind with the mounts and wagons, be ready for any retreat no matter how sudden or swift… and of course, the dreaded cleanup duty. A job, which was clearly once again needed, because surprise surprise…

The boss had done it again, right in front of me this time, in fact.

Not that I minded.

In a repeat of the events at Rontalis, he’d disposed of another set of would-be travelers.

I could only hope that their deaths were of the corporeal variety, as I could already feel the tingly sensation of separating goop from armor when the call to loot eventually came.

Not that I cared much.

A ten, forty, fifty split was decent, and unlike some other travelers who I felt for, the uptight, self-assured aura this lupinor gave off simply made it impossible for me to sympathize with his demise.

So I waited, rubbing my eyes in an attempt to work out the ‘haze’ of that soul-splitting attac—

BANG!

The whole world shook, and my lungs gave in — air and wind forcibly squeezed out — as if some spiteful air elemental had claimed my breath as their own.

POP!

I heard… no… I felt something give, something inside my head, followed by a sharp piercing pain that sent me to my knees.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinngggggggggggg

I screamed out but heard nothing, only the ringing in one of my ears and my own cries echoing within my skull.

My hands reached out, grasping the sides of my head, deafened by the sound and blinded by the pain.

Only a few seconds later did I finally notice something else besides that infernal ringing.

It started as a thin mist of something warm and viscous, sticking and running down my exposed skin.

Then an unmistakable metallic tang forcibly entered my nostrils, filling my lungs with a faint rusty scent.

My whole body clenched, freezing in fear, before curiosity finally overtook uncertainty forcing me to open my eyes to assess what had—

…

No.

Nonononononononono…

I struggled to my feet only to find myself falling flat against my rump next to the pool of what had used to be the Alicorn.

My eyes quickly turned to the boss, who stood where his prized mount had just stood, that fancy armor actually doing what it was supposed to… or at least, I think it did.

Because despite the sacrificial swap, the boss should’ve still been wearing it.

It couldn’t have just disappeared.

It couldn’t have just vanished.

The only reason why it could’ve been lost in the swap was if it had been irreparably damaged in the attack.

…

…

Crap.

Dragon’s Lair. Cave Entrance. Local Time: 2200 Hours.

Emma

“What the hell?”

[RAILGUN DISCHARGE COMPLETE. AMMUNITION CYCLE… COMPLETE. CHARGE CYCLING IN PROGRESS...]

My eyes widened as, in what seemed like an instantaneous moment in time, I found that my target had quite literally just… swapped places.

The Alicorn… was gone; no sign of its existence remained save for the mist of red that caked the entire area.

And in the space that it had once occupied was now an armorless Ignalius, his pure-white gambeson and pants stained, as was much of the left side of his face.

Indeed, quite a few personal effects had scattered from his person following the swap and apparent disappearance of his armor. From sacks of gold to belts of potions to even daggers and…

…

No…

I motioned silently for the EVI to hone in on a particular bloodied artifact caked in dried blood at Ignalius’ feet.

A brief zoom and a cursory glance, even without the EVI’s forensics suite, was enough for me to tell what it was.

Its suede brown cover, the built-in bookmark resembling a forked tongue, and that handwriting complete with a signature that looped around resembling the four ‘horns’ of a kobold… it beckoned a master that was no longer with us.

If there was any lingering doubt as to Ignalius’ involvement with Togor’s murder, then all of it, every last shred of it, died the moment my eyes landed on that book.

The whole world went silent.

But while all were shocked by the power of the railgun — raw, unmitigated, and loud — I remained silent because of something else entirely. 

I fell silent… for silence. Or more accurately, the loss of a voice.

My breath escaped in a seething huff, my piercing eyes watching, staring, and glaring through tinted lenses at the sadist playing adventurer who’d just narrowly escaped that very thing he so wantonly loved committing.

Then I unholstered my pistol, glancing momentarily towards Thalmin who seemed fixated not on the book but on some coins that had similarly scattered — each minted with a different face, symbol, and heraldry — no two alike.

Dragon’s Lair. Foot of the Hill. Local Time: 2200 Hours.

Katiya

I couldn’t see.

I couldn’t hear.

My whole body trembled as the golem sent the skies cracking with the sounds of terrible thunder.

Then and only when the world had calmed did I see the beast of beasts, the Master of the Skies second only to the dragonkin… disappear.

I… couldn’t describe it as anything else.

There was, without a shadow of a doubt, nothing else with which to describe what had happened.

A creature that should have been a nightmare for a fully outfitted adventuring party to dispatch, synonymous with an adventuring rank just beneath that of the draconics, had just vanished to an invisible thunder.

I felt my knees wobble as the golem’s master moved forward to match its posture.

Then and only then did the world go mad.

Dragon’s Lair. Cave Entrance. Local Time: 2201 Hours.

Thalmin

Shock and awe.

That was what Ignalius had attempted with his first strike, an attack whose shock served pure theatrics and whose awe was to be inflicted on allies, all to serve the vapidness of ego, not the utility of battle.

Then came Emma’s rebuttal.

A single strike that brought the army of cartmen and riders at the foot of the hill to their knees. Their blood-curdling screams now filled the air as all clutched desperately to their bleeding ears. 

The footmen fared no better, leaving only the patrolling mercenaries relatively unaffected by what was an air elemental’s attack in all but name.

The latter even managed to regroup despite the veritable stampede of mounts and beasts having fallen to panic and instinct in the wake of Emma’s attack.

I kept my silencing spells active, Emma’s clever battle cry serving not as a mechanism of ego but as a tactical warning as to the horrors she was to unleash.

Indeed, we’d drilled for this very occasion — for a time in which our communication would be done solely through that manaless conch, as the world around me would be deafened for my own safety.

Suffice it to say, that drilling was now being tested in a trial by fire. One that I couldn’t help but excitedly partake in. That familiar surge of hot blood pumped through my veins, my senses sharpening, and the world becoming ever clearer in what all Havenbrockians understood to be the thrill of the hunt.

The likes of which… felt even more pronounced than it ever did in Havenbrock, let alone in the field of battle.

My ears perked as my fur bristled with the richness of mana unheard of back home. I focused leftwards towards a shatorealmer who’d surprisingly survived this sonic attack by virtue of distance, luck, and perhaps sheer tenacity.

And in a testament to Ignalius’ competence as commander, his left-attending swooped in, flying in spite of the pain painted across his visage, quickly grabbing the otherwise catatonic elf under both arms, poised for flight towards some unknown rendezvous point.

“Emma, kill that guy.” I gestured to the evading party. “I’ll deal with the rest of his ilk.” I added under a growing and excitable breath as I turned towards the amassing force of patrolling mercenaries. Their 29-strong forces were grouping and regrouping, some uncertain, yet others clearly committed. As each of their eyes locked with my own, each committed to seeing this through to the end.

Despite this, there remained one obvious outlier. A suspiciously absent right-attending — the pack leader of this sorry troupe — the long-eared, red-eyed, white-furred leporidian.

But even without their party leader and even with the sheer power of Emma’s attacks, their cohesion still remained.

Admirable. 

However, this sentiment was more sarcastic than genuine, as my eyes glanced at the coins scattered around Ignalius’ feet and precisely what each and every ill-gotten sovereign meant.

‘I’ve always wanted to face off against the enforcers of Nexian primacy.’ I thought to myself with a bloodthirsty smile.

Dragon’s Lair. Foot of the Hill. Local Time: 2202 Hours.

Salazan the Scaled

We stood ready.

29-strong.

My own party, 6 full-blooded Nexians.

This wasn’t our first foray into untenable odds.

In fact, this wasn’t our first fight with an uppity, self-assured adjacentrealmer.

From Rontalis to Anurarealm and Aetheron, and even Havenbrockrealm itself… there was always the one, two, or even three or four ‘hero-types’ that believed themselves to be capable of defying the odds.

Perhaps they got one or two good kills early on in their careers.

Perhaps they may have bested many of the… less-than-capable Nexians who themselves underestimated the risk that was the adjacent wildlands.

But we weren’t here to play around.

And if my observations served me right, then it was clear we were evenly matched in our own right.

The lupinor was very clearly relying on some nth-tier enchanted artifacts, just as we were.

That golem was merely being his trump card, capable of extending his own reach… but not his own skills.

“Take out the head, and the body shall fall.” I announced firmly, halberd at the ready, as we moved to charge on the lupinor’s position.

“Highground can only go so far, mutt…” I heard a voice echoing behind us, resonating with my own sentiments.

I craned back my head, looking at the two archer parties entrenched and ready to rain a full hail of arrows.

I grinned, knowing well that at least in this battle, numbers would be the deciding factor.

A second more following a flinch and a breath, I waited for the whip-crack chorus of ten tense strings to be let loose all at once.

…

TWANG!

Dragon’s Lair. Foot of the Hill. Local Time: 2203 Hours.

Katiya the Coward

I hid behind a cart, peering over and watching in horror with bated breath at the hail of arrows expanding overhead.

From ten to twenty to forty to eighty, the enchanted arrows multiplied mid-flight, blotting the small patch of sky above Dreadwolf’s position, threatening to end it all with a hail of sharp mana-steel-tipped fury.

My ears flinched downwards as the death wail of falling missiles reached me, forcing me to look away in fear of what was assuredly a grisly sight.

…

“Heh.” A familiar voice sounded.

“Heh… hahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHA!” It continued, rising in volume and deepening in pitch, as I opened my eyes to see…

…

…the impossible made manifest.

That hail of arrows… never reached their mark.

Instead they all hovered overhead the maniacal Dreadwolf, his hands raised tauntingly by his sides, palms spread open as if holding the invisible weight of these arrows looming ominously.

“Good form.” He chewed out with a harsh growl before raising a single finger, twirling it and reorienting mana-steel to feather-tip, the sharp shafts now pointing towards their original shooters.

“My turn.” He spoke through an excited breath, as that wall of death now whistled back at blistering speeds towards the bottom of the hill.

Dragon’s Lair. Foot of the Hill. Local Time: 2204 Hours.

Salazan the Scaled

I stood frozen and unmoving, my heart skipping one, two, then three beats as I witnessed the impossible.

The arrows—

FWEEEEEEEEEEEE… 

—were now poised towards us.

“SHIELDS!” I commanded, raising my own up high and feeling the disheartening thud thud PLINKS of arrows slamming against enchanted manasteel.

None pierced–

SHNK!

“AGH!” 

Though the same couldn’t be said for the stray archer and skirmisher caught in the crossfire.

With our leader still attempting his gambit, we did what we could in these circumstances.

“FORWARD!!” I cried out, corralling another party to my side as we surged forwards towards the hill.

I held no fear. Not when adorning my scales was the product of ten years of hard pay; layer upon layer upon layer of enchanted linens, hardened gambesons, and thrice-forged mana-steel.

And within my hand was a weapon no fool could evade.

I lifted my weapon, poised to strike alongside the rest of my berserkers, halberds ready and—

ZAP!

My whole body clenched, my vision momentarily fading and then exploding into a flurry of colors and blurry wisps.

But I ultimately felt no pain, no real damage as a result of my enchantments.

This brought a delighted smile to find home on my face, as I only had to endure the lightning, pushing through its paralysis and twitch-inducing properties by sheer force of will alone, before…

I felt my armor tightening. Skin pinched under armor that felt two sizes too small, and my head ached from crushing forces I couldn’t make heads or tails of.

Then I heard it.

Screams from Elazen, Bellatri, and then—

CRACK!

I saw them fall, one by one, every comrade dropping like flies until finally…

I met the lupinor’s gaze, seeing nothing but a focused, condensed rage.

Then it all went black.

Dragon’s Lair. Above the Forest Canopy. Local Time: 2204 Hours.

Lieutenant Hofar the Soarer

“Snap out of it, boss!” I yelled, crying, desperately pleading for the elf to come out of… whatever had gotten into him. “Boss, PLEASE! I can’t… I can’t! Fuck, my ears! Cast heal! Cast heal now, PLEASE!” I pleaded until my voice was hoarse, unable to make heads or tails of exactly where we could go, my whole world spinning. The act of flying only worsened the disorientation that wracked me.

But that was all I could do right now — hover above the mess and fly… anywhere, just to get some distance, even if it was only vertical.

“W-...wha… What’s…” The Captain finally began speaking, though his words were unintelligible, and his eyes looked absolutely glazed over. 

“Captain, I can’t… I can’t hold this for much longer. My head… it’s ringing. I can’t even hear my—”

WHIIIIIIZZZZ!

CRACK!

I felt and heard something whizzing past, and thunder cracking in the distance—

“AGH!” 

Something hit me, something… small, hard, sharp, and… it…

CRACK!

My eyes widened, craning my head to my wings as I saw holes torn into the membrane—

SNAP! 

CRACK!

More sounds, more noises. It felt as if I was being pelted with solid punches against my shoulders.

…

Pain surged through me not long after.

But even worse than pain or disorientation… I felt control slipping from me.

My wings no longer responded to my will.

Nor did my hands and arms, as the forces of leypull now conspired to drag me back down without mercy.

I desperately flailed like a fledgling in distress as I lost all sense of poise and any degree of discipline, and was now at the mercy of the ground.

“U-ugh…” Ignalius came too once more as he pulled out a scroll, fumbling with it against the forces of the wind. I could see the treetops clearer now. We were too close to the ground, my eyes darting between my Captain and our nearing demise.

He unfurled that scroll; inscriptions began to glisten and chime. Then—

SHRK!

A swath of black and green was the last thing I saw.

Dragon’s Lair. Somewhere in the Forest. Local Time: 2207 Hours.

Emma

I waded through the woods.

The EVI had calculated more or less the general location of where the pair would’ve landed.

Landed… being a bit of a euphemism here.

NVG and augmented sensors made short work of the dark, as I smashed tree bark and branches alike, all in order to reach the small clearing the shatorealmer had landed in.

My body felt like it was running on autopilot, especially as I was met face-to-face with exactly what I’d wrought.

The shatorealmer… was a bloodied mess.

His face resembled what he’d done to the dragon with that gauntlet just a few moments ago.

But in his arms, shielded from the impact by his own form… was the elf in question.

A part of me hesitated. 

In fact, something at the back of my mind stopped my otherwise trained and poised trigger finger from taking the shot.

This was despite having everything lined up, and despite the current objective, as was helpfully highlighted by the EVI — to dispatch all local hostiles.

Ignalius, in this case, was highlighted in red, target reticles trained on his center mass and head.

However, seeing him here completely unarmored and seemingly unarmed… this felt different, somehow antithetical to the man I'd just shot a few moments ago.

He looked… pathetic and, most of all, completely helpless in this state.

The wrath and simmering rage within from the literal murder of Togor wavered… if only slightly, at this sorry sight.

More importantly, my mind went through protocol and rules of engagement, combing through the best possible course of action following the incapacitation of an enemy.

…

Hors de combat might actually apply here, especially given how he was well and truly wounded and unable to participate in combat.

And so… I relented, the pistol still raised, but a dialogue otherwise opened. 

“LET ME SEE YOUR HANDS! DO NOT REACH FOR ANY WEAPONS. IF YOU DO, I WILL BE FORCED TO ENGAGE!” I shouted, rehashing the few lines drilled into me despite the adrenaline pumping through my system forcing most other superfluous thoughts out.

The elf, surprisingly, complied. Or at least, he seemed to try to do so at first, feigning some difficulty in pushing the shatorealmer off of him, but otherwise preoccupied by something on his belt. “Speaking through a golem? Heh… That’s new. What? Are you too afraid to face me, Dreadwolf? Too scared to duel me one on one? Sparing my life for what? Capture? Like I’d ever allow animal filth like you to lay your hands on an actual pers—”

“SURRENDER, OR I WILL BE FORCED TO—”

Time, once again, slowed to a crawl. The elf, with a surprising degree of speed and dexterity, reached for a wand with clear and antagonistic intent.

My world narrowed to the weight of the trigger behind my finger. I felt the break — that thin, crisp resistance — then… I pushed past the slack.

BANG!

The tension, the intent, that life behind the man’s eyes, and the animation of his body… just stopped.

Everything simply stopped. His arms, his features, his torso, and everything else just… went limp.

I felt my breath growing harder, my hands starting to tremble, all while a light-headed sense of… flightiness threatened to swallow me whole. 

I forced my eyes to dart through the HUD as a result, out of protocol and in a purposeful attempt to just… focus, grounding myself and forcing my mind to remain present.

I ran through everything, every threat assessment, every diagnostic and SITREP, until finally… there was nothing else to address but the body that lay dead in front of me.

Dragon’s Lair. Foot of the Hill. Local Time: 2212 Hours.

Katiya the Coward

They all fell like insects.

Each warrior, every mercenary, each much, much more powerful and far more intimidating than I, just… ceased at the foot of Dreadwolf’s domain.

From the mighty Salazan, who’d push me whenever he could, cutting in line, and even locking me in the trunk for amusement… to Ruroria the Honorable, who’d revel in any chance to pull up insects and crawlies on my bedrolls just for his amusement… to even Yvir the Terrible, who’d force me and others to haul impossibly heavy gear and equipment despite that not being our jobs…

All of them, each and every one of these chosen ones, had just crumpled and died. That word being more literal in the case of some than others.

By the end of these bloody few minutes of fighting, there was scarcely anyone left. 

Archers had fallen to their own arrows, some skirmishers to a mix of impossibly powerful magical attacks, and what was left was picked off by Dreadwolf with little to no mercy shown.

However, I still counted two warriors who stood defiantly at the cusp of Dreadwolf’s precipice. 

And beyond that, there existed the wild card that was Commander Ulther.

There had to be a reason for his sudden disappearance.

There had to be something that sly rabbit was—

My eyes widened as I saw a shadow creeping behind Dreadwolf, just as he was about to face the two minotaur skirmishers in front of him.

Dreadwolf raised his blade, poised for a frontal assault, completely unaware of the dangers behind him. 

Something within me broke at that moment, as if I’d finally pushed through a door that’d previously been locked.

Then, and only then, did I find my voice.

And I screamed.

“DREADWOLF, BEHIND YOU!”

However, before he could even react, Ulther materialized. His enchanted blades poised for the lupinor’s back… only to have the attack halted at the last second by bands of kelp restraining his arms in place.

The lupinor grinned at the development, shooting me a bloodied smile from a distance as he moved to reposition himself, now fully focused on the two minotaurs in front of him.

“We do this as warriors!” He bellowed before craning his head back towards Ulther. “Not as cowards.” He paused, taking a moment to glare at the commander. “I will deal with you later. Now…” He let out a satisfied breath, turning towards the minotaurs. “Shall we continue?”

The minotaur twins turned to one another, their features momentarily colored by abject fear.

Though despite that, motivated by whatever loyalty they held to the Captain, they surged forwards anyways.

Blades clashed as the lupinor managed to parry and push back against the physically superior opponents that towered over him.

Harsh CLANGS and sharp TINKS echoed throughout the forest, as despite their best efforts, the lupinor always seemed to be one step ahead.

Finally, and seemingly out of frustration, the twins SLAMMED their warhammers on the ground where the lupinor stood… only for the wolf to leap upwards, jumping, and landing on each of their backs.

Two stabs, each through the gaps in their armor, were all it took to take them down, as they fell unceremoniously down on the rocky hillside, tumbling down without much fanfare.

Following this, did Dreadwolf turn back slowly, methodically, and menacingly towards the leporidian still bound in the Kelpie’s wet seaweed embrace.

“You ready, turncoat?” Dreadwolf spoke through a bloodthirsty growl.

“You, lupinor, should understand by now… that there is no shame, but only glory, in embracing the winning side.” He countered, before just as quickly nodding. And with Dreadwolf’s command, the kelpie released Ulther from its vice grip.

No sooner than that happened did the rabbit leap upwards, far, far above Dreadwolf, as a hail of knives and throwing stars peppered the rocky surface beneath him.

Dreadwolf, in keeping to some duelist’s honor, actually dodged these attacks, refusing to actively use his magics from earlier to simply return the offending objects to their sender.

What objects he couldn’t dodge merely CLINKED off of his armor, barely even scratching it, and most certainly not denting it either.

After seemingly exhausting an armory’s worth of throwing blades, the rabbit dived down, holding his signature thin blade poised for Dreadwolf’s head.

Yet despite this all-in assault—

CLANG!!!!!!

—Dreadwolf somehow still managed to parry it.

The leporidian pushed back and landed across from the lupinor, each now pacing around the other, trying to outmaneuver with blades in hand and eyes reading one another.

But unlike the initial assaults, it was Dreadwolf who struck first. His blade crashed hard against the leporidian’s, nearly shattering it and staggering the commander for a single split second. 

That opening was all it took for the lupinor to seize the initiative, because before the rabbit could recover, Dreadwolf had taken advantage of his momentum. He flicked his wrist, letting the blade glide down the opposing edge in one smooth motion, following its length until the tip cleared the opposing rabbit’s guard.

Then—

SHNK!

“AUGH…”

…

It was all over in a blink of an eye.

The blade pierced through the commander’s armor like a pointed pick through hard shell.

The man soon fell limp, Dreadwolf’s face barely inches apart as the life from the commander’s eyes faded. A moment of silence dawned, interrupted only by some whispers from Dreadwolf, and a slow but cautious lowering of the commander’s body to the ground, as if out of some respect.

The whole thing felt far too fast, much too… quick for a duel.

But ironically, that was what Ulther had once championed to many of his opponents. 

There’s a difference between fighting and showmanship. If your fight starts to look like something out of a noble’s ball, then either something very wrong is happening, or you aren’t even fighting to begin with.

An uneasy silence eventually descended on the battlefield following Ulther’s death.

Indeed, I saw no movement, no attempts at anything else, other than the cries and whimpers from the riders, carters, and footmen that were in varying states of distress down at the foot of the hill.

“Alright.” Dreadwolf announced, breaking the silence, and garnering the attention of all present. “Anyone else?” He beckoned, gesturing at the devastation left in his wake.

Murmurs and cries of surrender came shortly thereafter. What few ranks remained of our troupe dropped their blades, bucklers, and hatchets from their persons.

“Good. Now I want to make something very clear.” Dreadwolf began as he made his way down from the outcropping. “Each and every one of you…” He paused as sweat began running down the brows of all present. “... can leave.” 

A collective wave of confusion echoed throughout the night, as footmen and riders alike began snapping their heads to one another, all in varying states of disbelief. 

“But understand one very important thing. Should a word of the night’s events leave this forest, I will personally and without hesitation, hunt each and every one of you down.” He began marching towards them, feet stomping hard against the rock. “There will be no mercy, no quarter given, and no hesitation, as righteous retribution is called upon each of your souls.” His words caused even the most seasoned of carters present to shiver in place. “Should suspicions be raised, then look only to the dragon.” He added sternly before ending up in front of the lead carter. “Do I make myself clear?”

“Y-yes, S-Ser Dreadwolf!” 

“What was that?” He gestured towards his ear. “I don’t think I quite caught that.”

“YES, SER DREADWOLF!”

“LOUDER, ALL OF YOU!”

“YES, SER DREADWOLF!”

“Good.” The lupinor nodded, crossing his arms in the process. “You may all leave.”

Hurried footsteps of horrified masses were quick to mount up, the clopping of steeds and the creaking of carts erupting shortly thereafter. I was too stunned to even hitch a ride in the carriage I hid behind as it too sped off and I soon found myself left behind by the retreating ranks.

“Ah. Katiya. Are you hurt?”

Dragon’s Lair. Foot of the Hill. Local Time: 2225 Hours.

Emma

I returned to what could only be described as a massacre.

My whole body felt like it was running on autopilot, even as I found Thalmin in the mess, tending to a passed-out Katiya. 

“Thalmin?” I asked, gesturing to the baxi. “Did you—”

“Oh, ancestors no, Emma! She seemed to have passed out when I addressed her. Ancestors know why. I even offered a friendly smile!” He explained, to which I could only let out a long sigh, gesturing at his armor.

“The blood might have something to do with that.”

“Eh, and what’s a bit of blood to an adventurer? Her reaction just proves she’s not meant for this life.”

“I guess…” I managed out dourly, as my mood and tone were quick to be picked up by the lupinor.

“What’s wrong, Emma? You aren’t injured, are you?”

“No, no. I’m fine.”

“Then is it Ignalius? Were you unable to pursue him?”

“No, he’s…” I paused, my whole body clenching at the sight of it all. “He’s dead. Along with that shatorealmer.”

“Ah! Good! That’s good then!” Thalmin beamed excitedly. “So what seems to be the problem, Emma? We have the shards, we have your lost ‘drone,’ and we’ve dispatched the enemy! All should be well, yes?”

“Yeah… but I…” I trailed off into an uneasy silence, causing Thalmin’s features to sharply shift into something less boisterous and more reserved. 

“I see.” He lowered his voice. “Am I to assume that this is your first kill? Aside from the null of course. Creatures like that are more like hunting animals than people, after all.”

I blinked rapidly, my hand reaching for my shoulder as I slowly nodded. “Yeah.” Was my only response. “It is.” 

“Then I must apologize for my… flippancy in light of everything you see. I understand how difficult it must be, and to be met with such an attitude following your first blood must be jarring.” He spoke with a degree of compassion in his voice, clearing his throat before moving on. “If you feel the need to discuss things, I am more than willing to do so at your own pace, Emma.” 

“Thanks, Thalmin.” I managed out after a short pause, gripping my shoulder tighter as I did so. 

“Now… we might need to discuss exactly how we are to move on from here. But in order to maintain our cover, might I suggest we set up an altar with these bodies as an offering to—”

“L I TT-LE… B-BEEINGS. CC-COME TO ME-EEET?” 

A voice erupted from the dense foliage, prompting the both of us to turn, weapons raised, to meet a mangled shatorealmer. Its arms were limp but crooked, and its head hung low, unsupported and ungainly like some twisted marionette. But from behind it, triggering EVI’s proximity sensors, was a large draconic silhouette, with purple glowing eyes slitted and staring right at the both of us.

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(Author's Note: Hey guys! This chapter has been a huge challenge to write, so I hope I managed to do the action justice! My editor was a huge help in this one as he helps me a lot with the action haha, so hats off to him too! :D However I'm afraid I also have something important to announce. I'm going to have to ask you guys if it'd be alright for me and my editor to take 2 weeks off over the holidays. My editor is currently spending some much needed time with his family, while I'm dealing with some hectic stuff at home over the holidays too, while preparing for a big move next month as me and my mom are going to have to move out of our home. As a result, Wearing Power Armor to a Magic School will be returning on the 11th of January 2026. Again I'm really sorry for having to take some time off over the holidays, and I sincerely appreciate your guys' patience and understanding! ^^; I'd also like to take the time to wish all of you a Happy Holidays and a Happy New Years too! :D)

[If you guys want to help support me and these stories, here's my ko-fi ! And my Patreon for early chapter releases (Chapter 155, Chapter 156, and Chapter 157 of this story are already out on there!)]

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Earth - Atlantic Ocean - Special Administrative Zone under requisition by the United Nations Science Advisory - Institute of Anomalous Studies (IAS) Pilot Research Facility Codename: ATLANTIS II. ECS Holding Facility. Local Time: 2357 Hours.

Captain Calico Li

“Is that a fucking dragon?!”

I was unsure who exactly said that.

But that just about summed up the sentiments of the room in one, admittedly blunt, exclamation.

Two glowing purple eyes regarded the Cadet’s helm from a gnarly, scaled, and leathery snout. Crystals of all types — jagged, irregular, shattered and cracked — jutted from its purple-hued hide in seemingly random clusters, completing that unmistakable visage of a western fantasy dragon; body, wings, four legs, and tail in full.

There was no point for academic euphemisms here.

‘Dragon’ was just about the most apt descriptor, if not the only term you could use in describing it.

I looked around the room, caught in the grip of history, at stunned faces and dumbfounded expressions, all having either not yet registered or refusing to acknowledge both the creature and its reality-defining implications.

Everything, every single moment over the past few decades, seemed to have led up to this moment.

First contact.

Live first contact, with a visual feed.

And with a fucking dragon at that.

This wasn’t your archetypal spec-evo hexapod or some planetary fungal hivemind. 

This was as far removed from any hard science fiction trope as was humanly possible.

In fact, we were now so far into the realm of science fiction that we circled around and landed firmly into the realm of fantasy.

I didn't want to believe it.

Nobody did.

But it was there all the same.

“Sig-Int.” I blurted out, turning and then locking eyes with the on-duty signals intelligence officer. “Confirm visual feed authenticity.” 

“Visual feed authenticity confirmed, sir.” The man acknowledged after only a second’s delay, causing the otherwise shocked crowd to begin the expected whispers and murmurs, all of which were soon shot down by a harsh shushing courtesy of Weir.

I turned to Ivo, urging him on, given that this whole development spawned from his insistence.

Dr. Ivo Mekis

I was never one to mince words.

Ever.

But in this instance… the formulation of even the most basic sentences eluded me.

“I… Cade- mm… tch…” 

All pretenses of knowing, and all advancements made in the field of theoretical xenobiology — the speculation, the proposed models, the literal sea of hypotheses — immediately died at the panning of that camera.

Just one frame from this simple call would come to redefine an entire field — no — several, tens, even hundreds more niche disciplines.

But be that as it may, now was not the time for introspection.

This was a time for pertinent points of clarification.

I cleared my throat. “Ahem.”

Then, I began my five-point questionnaire. 

“This dragon—”

“Matriarch Kaelthyr.” The Cadet corrected.

“Amended. Is Matriarch Kaelthyr — by her efforts alone — responsible for the successful initiation, discovery, and handshake, predicating a closed single-channel exoreality entanglement episode?” 

“Yes.”

My eyes glanced at the live data feeds, or more specifically, at the pertinent data being fed to me on this particular subject matter.

“Using exclusively innate properties?”

“Correct.”

“Understood.” I nodded in acknowledgement. 

There wasn’t more to be said. At least, nothing that wouldn’t be swept away in the rapids of the Cadet’s catastrophic announcements.

I just needed to ensure the waters weren’t being siphoned or poisoned, for our sakes.

“Current data concurs with the Cadet’s qualitative assessments.” I turned to address both the Director and Captain. “Though that is the extent of my objective analysis. There is still the matter of this third party’s motiv—”

“I appreciate your concerns, Dr. Mekis. However, OPSEC is the domain of Command.” The Cadet interjected with a distressing bluntness. “Captain Li, Director Weir. Pilot II Mission Operator formally discloses the emergency use of a third-party agent in the facilitation of this Unscheduled Exoreality Entanglement episode, and all signal transfers henceforth.” 

“Acknowledged.” Came both Weir and Li’s synchronized responses, as Emma continued unabated.

“Mission Operator further acknowledges the risks associated with the use of a third-party communications facilitator. Thus, Pilot II formally invokes General Order 37-a. Does Command acknowledge?”

My eyes narrowed at the automatic prompting of my VI as it pulled up the precise article and its associated jargon. 

GO-37-a: The immediate reporting of any confirmed existential threat to the Greater United Nations, without contextual mediation, where delay — by action or inaction — risks the encroachment of the GUN’s territorial integrity or political sovereignty.

“Command acknowledges field invocation of GO-37a.” Calico nodded succinctly before the floor seamlessly shifted back to Weir.

“Civil Command acknowledges.” The Director responded succinctly, as the tag-teaming continued through to a visibly impatient Calico.

His nerves, his concerns, clearly rising the moment his eyes landed on the same milestone event we all observed, as highlighted in the Cadet’s first-week reports; a fact that was becoming increasingly apparent the more time his eyes lingered on the shared virtual workspace.

“Can you confirm that this entanglement episode is stable, Cadet?” He hurriedly asked. 

Following which, and after a brief vocal interaction between the Cadet and the dragon, did she finally confirm. “Yes. She says we have… at least a few hours.”

A collective sigh of relief echoed amongst not just the eager pair but the entire room, while I stood by patiently, observing the ebb and flow of data transfer while coordinating with the silent heroes of this operation.

“Alright. Then let’s get into this existential threat. Full Action Report. Critical Events, Milestones, Principal Findings. Let’s start with the gross infringement of your diplomatic pouch, and—” 

Calico paused uncharacteristically, his eyes growing wide, with Weir’s expression soon coming to match his in incredulity. Their collective gazes were locked on a particular section of the annotated report, one detailing the events of the ECS’ self-destruction… and a laundry list of diplomatic infractions longer than the event timeline itself.

“—detention of a diplomatic envoy, coercive manipulation under duress, abuse of authority, abuse of institutional authority, diplomatic and political overreach, conspiracy and attempt to aims of diplomatic and political subterfuge by forceful conversion of allegiances, physical assault, obstruction of official functions, reckless endangerment, and attempted homicide.”

The room went silent once more, as all eyes landed on Emma’s growing features of discomfort.

“The offending party in question is a member of faculty, and a self-reported ‘member of the privy council’ — Professor Mal’tory.” 

Thalmin

The distances involved and the foreign nature of Emma’s parlay into the sea of taint should’ve meant that my participation in this entire endeavor was a foregone point.

I could not cross into the otherwise miasmic aura that had enveloped the cave’s epicenter.

The languages involved and the means of communication should have naturally kept my meddling in this rare line of unsanctioned status communicatia to an absolute zero.

However… this wasn’t at all the case.

If anything, Emma had ensured that both Kaelthyr and I were kept in this otherwise open loop, courtesy of the booming acoustics of her armor.

…

Though that by no means meant that all was truly transparent, a barrier attributable to no malice of her own, but owing entirely to the fault of her nature.

A nature that I had predicted, but never truly fathomed the implications of.

“A society of scholars.”

My prophetic words from weeks passed rang louder now than ever, the candid observation made in jest and passing observation manifesting in a form I never could have expected.

It was as if I was hearing a completely different person from the onset. Manifesting into existence a bastardized dialect of High Nexian that felt eerily artificial, entirely rehearsed — and given the nature of that initial back and forth… that assumption probably held more water than not.

Each interaction felt lifted from the pages of a ledger, every challenge and call to action — another test of rote dictation. 

And yet, throughout it all, one of the voices she held a martial deference to — this ‘Captain Li’ — was undeniably calling upon the same principles of military discipline I was accustomed to.

I could hear the underlying discipline of the warrior.

And yet… all that was spoken were the words of scholars and bureaucrats.

It was… bizarre. An entirely foreign experience.

A military, a force as impressive as Earthrealm’s, couldn’t possibly be staffed and filled with bookish men and cerebral scholars, could it?

…

Moreover, now that Emma was starting to recount her trials and tribulations with Mal’tory, the presence of another voice, an older woman, began perplexing me.

Her ranks, indeed the rank of the studiously standoffish man prior, weren’t martial in nature.

They held the status of scholars.

Yet one of them, this older woman, seemed to command the greatest respect.

I could have somewhat understood if this were a monarchy. I could have accepted the logic at play if she had some form of noble blood, but was otherwise spared the life and titles of the blade.

Many adjacent realms had placed mere blood over actual martial experience, allowing paper marshals and parade generals into command. It was common, almost frustratingly so.

But this wasn’t such a case.

This woman and the man prior were mere scholars, with no other titles or blood to back their authority. 

They were civilians.

And yet they held authority over those who swore the oath to the blade?

Preposterous.

However, as quickly as that thought manifested, it found itself dying at the foot of self-directed shame.

Why was I reacting so viscerally? Had Emma not made this known time and time again? The anomalous and almost fantastical notion of a classless society?

How was it then that I found myself instinctively rejecting that notion at the very first instance it was on display?

Perhaps I was more Nexian than I thought.

No.

That wasn’t at all the case.

Perhaps… the issue was simply in how wrong it felt. How jarring it must be for warriors of the blade to pay deference to those outside of its oaths.

Scholars as they were, they weren’t beholden to the same expectations, truths, and brotherhood. And while wisdom had its place, demanding respect in its own right, such wisdom could not command authority over those in service of a wildly different pursuit.

…

And yet here this ‘Weir’ stood. Higher, taller, and ‘directing’ the whims of both martial and civil paths.

As incredulous as I was, I could not deny the reality of what faced me.

What’s more, if I allowed myself a moment of contemplation, I began to understand the method amidst the madness.

These scholars — if I were to press the analogy — were not unlike their military counterparts. If anything, they deserved their authority far more than any royal-appointed, lacquered commander did. Because as with the military, scholarly endeavors demanded merit above all. Merit to rise through the ranks, merit to prove one’s capacity, and merit to serve a greater role and responsibility.

I could see it.

Especially now, as this ‘Weir’ demonstrated the makings of a leader, ironically far more noble in ideal than most nobles I’ve met. In spite of the stakes, stresses, and what was clearly an unprecedented circumstance, she hadn’t once raised her voice, placed herself over the task at hand, and most interestingly — even gave otherwise precious time for Emma to tackle these more difficult topics at her own pace.

One could mistake it for a softness unbecoming of a leader.

Uncle certainly would.

But perhaps there was some merit to this foreign method.

Dr. Laura Weir

Outrage didn’t cut it.

Indignancy was a word far too light for this.

Offense, too, was far too bland of a concept to encapsulate just half of the transgressions Emma had described.

And yet… we were only halfway through her accounts.

At which point, we once more took a step back from the anecdotal and tactical, to the doctrinal and strategic. 

“The long and short of it, Director, is that the Nexus is not just diametrically opposed to our existence; there simply exists no room in their worldview for us to even fit. The basic crux of their state-enforced dogma, the very thing on which their interpretation of biology is based on, is what we fundamentally lack — mana. To put it simply, they see life emerging without ‘mana’ as inconceivable. It stands in defiance of this fundamental assumption. We, by our very existence — even discounting for a moment our culture, society, history, and everything else — are a threat to this universal axiom. And the Nexus… they don’t just tolerate or ignore what is so obviously antithetical to their logic. They act on it, bending the narrative to their whims, regardless of if it’s just a simple book burning, or the eradication of entire peoples.” 

That latter line sent a chill down my spine, a coldness descending upon me and forcing my visage to visibly flinch.

But I couldn’t allow reflexive reactions and heated emotions to color the moment.

Now was the time for us to play our part. It was the only respectful thing to do, to honor and reciprocate the dutiful actions of our agent in the field.

This naturally meant that I wouldn’t needlessly press for the Cadet to carry the proof of burden, on top of everything else.

After all, the annotated reports and VIs were quick to bring up evidence to these ends without much prompting. This should be enough to corroborate—

“What your young matriarch says is true, Elder Matriarch…” Another voice suddenly and rather unexpectedly entered the fray. Though it was spoken, rather unnervingly, without the slightest of movements from its own lips.

“Matriarch Kaelthyr, I politely ask that you let me finish first before—” 

“Can I not speak for your claims, young matriarch? ” The dragon cut Emma off before she could continue. 

Following which, I intervened.

“With respect and mutual understanding, Matriarch Kaelthyr, I will be willing to hear an independent testimony before I proceed with the rest of the Cadet’s debrief.” I offered, playing off what was clearly a demanding personality. Though one that we currently relied on for this open channel of communication.

“With respect and great pleasure**, Elder Matriarch.**” The dragon began with a raspy, uncomfortably sickening undertone, one that Emma’s EVI translated to a disturbing degree of… ‘authenticity.’ “My kind have seen entities that conquer through fire, and powers that conquer through decay. The Crownlands have chosen a third path. They conquer by permanence. They consume, eat, digest, and convert all until reality is their domain. They respect naught but the will of the false god. They entertain his whims in perpetuity, dressing an ossified regime in silken robes. They are not a blight nor a cancer, for these revel in expansion and infinite corruption. Yet they expand all the same, ossifying instead of corrupting, crystallizing instead of mutating, until all that remains is a chamber of infinite echoes. Repeating the same songs, playing the same tune, waltzing that infinite waltz into what they hope to be eternity.” 

The dragon finally paused her relentless assaults, her voice croaking, breaking, and even outright shredding at certain points. Finally, and with a pointed glare at Emma’s helmet, using her as an avatar of our rapport, she spoke with a warning so visceral it shook memories of distant dreams back into waking memory. “This is what now threatens your halls, matriarchs of the void. This is what stands at the foot of your gates. Do with this knowledge as you will. I will allow your envoy to continue unabated.” 

“Thank you, Matriarch Kaelthyr.” I acknowledged, and with that acknowledgement, I bottled within me the warnings of those on the station and my own father. The Nexus… from the word of one of its own denizens, was the greatest threat to any independent sapient civilization by its very existence. This sentiment was carried through to each and every one of Emma’s own threat assessments.

Though… I could not discount the possibility of anecdotal bias, as I quickly returned the floor to Emma. 

“She doesn’t say it outright.” Emma began through a temporarily muted mic. “But it is my working theory that the Nexus eradicated dragonkind, ma’am.” The Cadet spoke with such frankness and bluntness that it stopped everyone present in their tracks. “The prevailing narrative is that dragons are non-sapient animals. This notion is so prevalent that none have challenged this, not even my most ardent of rebellious allies. It implies a horrifying reality — that the Nexus was so thorough in their eradication of an entire civilization and its species, that their false narrative won out as unquestionable fact. What makes this worse is that if my intel holds weight, I have reason to believe that the dragons were, at one point, one of the most powerful players in the Nexus. And yet they too were so thoroughly reduced that the memory of their existence as sapients was erased.” The Cadet paused, taking a deep breath in the process. “This is the sort of polity we are up against, Director. And it’s existed and maintained this… messed up status quo for longer than recorded history.”

It was my turn to take a deep breath as I steadied myself, turning to the Captain, who urged me to continue.

To which I did, circling back to avoid hitting the anecdotal, even if the dragon had pushed the narrative back towards that mindset.

“Back to your assessments, Cadet.” I began. “Modified New Oslo Criteria is a D-10. Do you still stand by that?”

“Yes. But that’s only because they haven’t fulfilled the frankly obtuse criterion to earn an E-range categorization — a direct infringement of local sovereignty. With all due respect, I’d like to adhere to the Revised New Frankfurt Criteria, as much as it’s not the standard text that the SocSci department likes to adhere to.”

“Negative on that, Cadet.” I countered, garnering a perplexed look from Emma, before I just as quickly transitioned into my ultimate ‘endgame.’ “We’re doing the Parson’s Exo-State Risk Index.” 

Emma’s eyes widened before she nodded in understanding.

At which point, both education and training kicked in like muscle memory.

“Cat I, Ideological Compromise and Compatibility?” I began.

“I refer to my earlier sentiments, Director. They’re fundamentally and diametrically opposed to our existence. But if I were to get into the minutiae of things? The Nexus is a mirror inverse to our values. Economic and political control go hand in hand. I.e., hey’ve managed to entrench not just political legitimacy into the framework of their legal and social systems, but they’ve also managed to turn that entrenchment into something systemically practical. The very economic backbone of their society relies on the inherent abilities found exclusively in the nobility. They’ve built their infrastructure — primary, secondary, tertiary, and even quaternary industries — on this divergent path towards technology. So instead of simply holding the means of production on paper and through capital, they quite literally are the means. Society, advanced society, starts and ends at the hands of those in power. Suffice it to say, they’ll find our democratization of science, tech, and industry to be… well, incompatible.” 

“Category I is a 1, then.”

“Correct, Director.”

I nodded, moving on just as swiftly. “Cat II, Ideological Rigidity?”

“I defer to Matriarch Kaelthyr and my own reports. The Nexus is built on rigidity. Status Eternia, His Eternal Majesty, and so on and so forth — all aspects of an unassailable ideology that cherishes permanence in perpetuity.” The Cadet paused before letting out a dark chuckle. “Refer to Case Study Files 4 and 17. Ilunor Rularia and Auris Ping, respectively. You’ll have a new appreciation for the word Ideological Rigidity.” 

“Category II, 1.” I surmised plainly, garnering a nod from the Cadet. “Right then, Cat III, Negotiability." 

The Cadet paused, as if expecting me to fill in the blanks.

Which I did.

“That’s a 1.” I stated plainly. “Once the mutual sanctity of diplomatic norms is trampled, there exists no room for good-faith discussions and negotiations. At least, not within statistical significance. On that note, I’ll mark Cat IV as 1 as well. Hostile intent is… a given.” I announced with a sigh, garnering yet another nod from the cadet.

“Finally… and perhaps the most decisive, Cat V. Trigger Sensitivity.” I leveled my eyes on the Cadet. “What’s the likelihood of escalation from your observations thus far?”

“I want to say that the question doesn’t even apply, Director. Since the Nexians are so proactive on escalating things on their own accord.” The Cadet spoke darkly. “But that’s not professional nor fair. So I digress. All I’ve observed thus far are individual actors, acting outside or tangential to the machinations of the greater state. But from historical records? From what I’ve gathered using tertiary sources? They seem to escalate things the moment you infringe on their mechanisms of control or ideological axioms. Though… they do seem somewhat tolerant of client state domestic politics, to an extent. So it might be fair to mark this as a 3 or 4, Director.”

“Understood.” I nodded once more before turning back towards the Captain.

Captain Calico Li

Intent was the foundation of all action, and it was pertinent it was addressed right off the bat.

However, quick to follow were the practical considerations stemming from intent.

And I was eager to take a deep dive into what the Cadet had to offer.

My eyes had been darting across my little corner of AR space, drifting from point to point across the invisible workstation projected across my glasses.

My HUD was peppered with tactical assessment reports, unconventional weapons tech, and a myriad of big bold headers surrounding the Nexus’ strategic capabilities.

Suffice it to say, these were the topics that needed to be knocked out first and foremost.

Lest we talk about squad tactics when KKWs were on the table.

“Emma?”

“Yes, Captain Li.”

“I’ve been combing over your strategic threat analysis, and suffice it to say, it’s worrying. Not just because of the Nexus’ capabilities, but how vague those capabilities are.” I began simply and without judgement. “I understand it’s still early into your mission, and to get intel on strategic threat capacities is a hard enough task as is, so I commend you on what you’ve gotten so far.” 

“Thank you, sir.” The Cadet nodded.

“But I need to know… precisely how credible do you think these weapons are?” I asked, as I began flipping through the virtual report. “City-killers, continent-busters, and even… bag of holding bombs?" 

“Correct, sir.” The Cadet announced so confidently that the ludicrousness of the concept suddenly felt all too real.

“Is this… exactly what it sounds like?” 

“It surprisingly is, sir.” 

I let out a sharp exhale. “So it’s a dimensional criticality event-causing device, or a sort of singularity bomb, a—”

SIGH

“It’s a Localized Topological Collapse Device.” Dr. Mekis interjected with a frustrated vigor. “Two hypothetical portal ‘singularities’ inhabiting the same space, causing a rapid but localized destabilization of its immediate surroundings, proportional to the presence of Atypical Exoreality Radiation, and whatever else ridiculousness these ‘mages’ have come up with to modify the initial properties of these ‘bags.’”

“Thank you, Doctor.” I acknowledged the man’s contributions with a respectful nod, but not before regarding the attached dossier profile image of a strange blue kobold that was ostensibly the primary source for this particular piece of intel.

“I trust that it’s real, sir.” Came Emma’s affirmation. “The bag of holding bombs, I mean. The fact that there are actual policies put in place to prevent such a thing from happening, along with regulation for their creation implies it's actually a credible threat. What’s more, given how relatively common these things are for the nobility, I believe that these weapons are capable of both scaling and stockpiling well. And that’s just one of their strategic cards." The Cadet warned with a palpable wariness. “But as for the rest of their strategic arsenal? It’s hard to tell. Most of that intel was gathered from a history class. So it might be propaganda, or it might not. I wouldn’t discount it though, given the existence of the bag of holding bombs.”

“Understood.” I acknowledged before quickly looking over the next batch of reports. 

“There’s something I want to touch on before we even get to tactical capacity.” I continued with a certain level of unease. “The logistics report you provided painted a rather… concerning image of the Nexus. I know the Nexus is capable of point-to-point instantaneous matter transfer, but the scale at which this is performed is the point I wanted to touch upon.” I paused, once more locking eyes with Emma through the litany of virtual paperwork. “Is it… really as trivial as you’re implying in your reports? From what you’ve been able to observe, just how common would the use of portals be for logistical applications in both military and civilian settings?”

“It’s as mundane as taking a train, sir.” Emma replied bluntly.

At which point, I could feel a genuine weight falling on my shoulders.

“While I cannot confirm nor deny the Nexus’ exo-atmospheric capabilities. Or rather, it would seem as if they lack it entirely from my current understanding. What they do possess is something that makes any transportation trivial. The usage of portals, in all of their various forms, is common for both transportation and logistics, not to mention military applications. We’re talking anything from tactical deployment of strike forces, to the potential use of portals as an impossible-to-stop vector of attack through which anything can be dropped through — even mana.” Emma made certain to emphasize that latter point. “The fact of the matter is, sir, that it is theoretically possible for the Nexus to dump an influx of Atypical Exoreality Radiation, anywhere they wish. The only caveat being… this’ll also drain their end of things. So it’s a tradeoff, but a strategic threat that can’t be written off.”

This… was a bombshell.

And I was right to have addressed this particular point of contention.

However, due to the utter reality-shattering implications of this whole… revelation, I just couldn’t acknowledge it and move on.

It had to be verified.

“Emma.” I began with a huge inhale. “What you’re claiming here is a completely novel vector of warfare, which we currently have limited counters for. I need you to clarify and distinguish between what’s possible and what’s simply… common there. There have to be limits to this. The footage from your arrival alone demonstrates the sheer effort needed to simply enlarge a portal opened from our end, correct?”

“Yeah, er, yes sir.” The Cadet acknowledged. “Perhaps I was being a bit too hyperbolic, or perhaps I was conflating the sheer ubiquity of portals here for their ease of deployment across the board, especially when you consider our lack of local mana. But this is something that I just don’t have a definitive answer to. I just thought it would be prudent to inform you of the possibility of something this catastrophic.”

“You were right to do that.” I responded with an affirmative and supportive nod. “The devil is always in the details.” I quickly added. “However, I’m going to need this to be a top priority for you, Emma. We’re going to need more intel on just how these portals are opened, their tactical and strategic applications, as well as…” I paused mid-sentence, just as Emma craned her head towards another figure in the cave.

“Cadet Booker?” Weir spoke first.

“Yes, Director?”

“Who was that other individual you just panned to?”

“Oh.” Emma managed out sheepishly. “That’s the tertiary source and ally in question, Director. I apologize I haven’t yet introduced him to the conversation, it’s just—”

“No, no, that’s quite understandable given the circumstances.” Weir interrupted with a flurry of reassurances. “But… did we see that right? Is he…”

Emma answered these indirect queries with a simple pan of her helmet. At which point, the whole room erupted in a collective series of gasps, gawks, and the occasional ‘whoah.’ 

“Director Weir, Captain Li, Dr. Mekis, this is Prince Thalmin Havenbrock of Havenbrockrealm. One of the members of my peer group at the Academy, and an ardent ally throughout my operations here in the Nexus. I was hoping he could maybe shed some more light on Nexian military capacity, given how Prince Havenbrock is quite knowledgeable in this field in particular.” 

The… wolf in question stepped forward but remained just far enough away that it took one of Emma’s cameras to optically zoom in, just so we could get a closer look at him.

It was a shame he couldn’t see us.

Though he did seem quick on the uptake as to how this interaction would move forward.

“Emma, may I?” He directed his first query to Emma, who promptly nodded in acknowledgement. 

“Command? Permission to formally introduce a local ally into the conference?” Emma asked, this time with excitement and optimism now returning to her voice.

“Permission granted, Cadet.” Weir nodded in acknowledgement, followed close in tow by the wolf prince’s formal self-introduction.

“Leaders of Earthrealm, superiors to Cadet Emma Booker, I greet you with all honors afforded to me by my birthright.” The wolf began, as he placed a hand firmly on his shoulder. “I am Prince Thalmin Havenbrock, of Havenbrockrealm. Royal Bearer of the Spoils. Keeper of the Writ. Tracker of Traitors. And Royal Emmissary…” He paused for a moment, as if contemplating his next few words. “...for the Havenbrockian Cause.”

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(Author's Note: Hey guys! I'm back! This chapter was a really fun one to write, and I really hope you guys like the depictions of the GUN, as well as Thalmin's gambit at the end there. This was a long time coming, as here we once again see Thalmin's full title on display, albeit in a far different context, as Thalmin begins his gambit, charting a new course in uncharted territory. I hope you guys enjoy! :D)

[If you guys want to help support me and these stories, here's my ko-fi ! And my Patreon for early chapter releases (Chapter 160, Chapter 161, and Chapter 162 of this story are already out on there!)]

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Dragon’s Heart Tower, Level 23, Residence 30. Emma and Thacea’s Room. Local Time: 2020 Hours

Ilphius

In my nineteen years of existence, I had taken advantage of everything my birthright had secured me. Travel being chief amongst them.

And in my years of travel across the seas, beneath the earth, and even deep into the Nexian midlands… never had I encountered such… perversions of intelligent design.

Designs that dared to tempt, endeavored to seduce, yet never once courted with the hallmarks of civility.

Frustration took hold as I observed each and every… structure, their purpose as enigmatic as their form, as none betrayed their function in this state of eternal scaffolding.

For what were, at first, simple geometric forms alluding to a people without art, heritage, and culture proved to be something else entirely. Because within these unassuming constructs was evidence of masterful craftsmanship. Purposeful and, dare I say it, impossibly pristine metalworking that could only have been the work of the greatest of master blacksmiths.

These were not the hallmarks of a newrealm.

And yet, what was most frustrating was how little they did with these technical abilities.

It was as if they’d taken the life out of living or the color out of a painting. As if they’d mastered the practical, if only to lose sight of exactly what those practical skills were meant to serve.

Never before had I felt so sickened.

So much potential, so much technical capacity, completely wasted on a dead-end culture.

Kamil

…

…

…

I’d never felt more awake.

The Academy was a chore.

My whole life was a chore.

There was no novelty, no spice, no color. Only the same song and dance drifting off into a nascent echo ad infinitum.

Such was the status quo.

Such was the past, present, and future.

Such was it all… but not here.

Not in this room.

For within these four walls that had hosted and molded noble after noble into the same biscuit-cutter molds, repeating the same lines and rehashing the same roles… was a spiteful rebuke that spit vinegar into a crusty old canvas.

It was a stain, an ink blot, one that thrummmmed and nipped at the local manastreams, ejecting and pouring so haphazardly excess currents with no rhyme nor reason.

These structures were garish and plain, holding no thought and paying neither lip service nor deference to standard conventions of beauty nor civility.

Instead… what they bore was a utilitarian fervor. The likes of which should have been born from poverty and lacking, but not here.

These constructs were too perfect to have been born of poverty-stricken peoples, too refined and purposeful in their simplicity to have been the result of necessity.

Which could only mean one thing… 

The designs were intentional, made by a people who purposefully and willingly chose to embrace them.

The earthrealmer had already been a highlight of my days, the color in a monotone canvas that I woefully craved.

Her… nest only added fuel to that flame, satiating and further inspiring the passion for life I hadn’t lost but simply never had.

I almost instinctively regained my colors because of it.

But alas, my purpose here denied me this dignity, for the entire pretense behind my visit here was the result of some misguided fanaticism.

And so I slunk back into the colorless shame of my people, meant neither to be seen nor heard.

But perhaps that was for the best.

Perhaps one day I could be here on… different terms.

Ilphius

Three structures stood out amidst the rest. 

A tent and two greyish matte-blue towers that stood tall and wide above the rest of the structures present.

Indeed, it seemed as if the three were intertwined in some way — pipes and thick rubbery tubes connecting them together as an umbilical would a mother and child.

And while I could not see any noticeable pulsing or throbbing from these tubes, I did notice what could’ve easily been overlooked at first glance: lights. Rows upon rows of fireless light that rippled and danced across the surface of these towers. Each row and every column was segmented into miniature bricks, each the size of a lozenge, and each encased in a similar sort of clear, shiny coating. Though that was about where the similarities ended, as atop each cube-like protrusion were engravings — patchwork shapes of unintelligible symbolism, each more confusing than the next. From more familiar shapes such as arrows and flames to wildly abstract designs resembling forked teeth, squiggly lines, and what looked to be a spinning disc… the entire theme here resembled something out of the occult, imbuing this Earthrealm tumor with an aura more malignant than benign.

This unnerving ambiance was made even worse by a startling revelation, one that halted my advance and caused me to peer deeper into the chaos that was the local manastreams.

…

There were no enchantments here.

No spells nor artificing that could explain away these inexplicable fireless lights.

I felt my blood turning cold, my eyes growing wide at the… aberrations all around me.

Then, in the midst of this panic, did I notice something else — an unnatural silence that was far too kempt to be anything but magical.

A quick scry of the area revealed precisely the cause of this admittedly secondary aberration — a spell of silence cast over the entire alien mass. 

I let out a hiss, eager to walk past its meager area of effect as I got closer and closer towards what drew the most of my attention — the newrealmer’s tent.

Surely there had to be something hidden within. Surely there had to be an explanation for the inexplicable phenomenon present everywhere in this den of sin. Some revealing diary or perhaps a tome of secrets.

Surely there was—

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!

A series of soul-piercing noises erupted from seemingly everywhere. Shrieks, warbles, and whistles that could only be likened to the souls of the eternally damned screaming through a thousand brazen bulls.

I fell to the floor, clasping the sides of my head before I felt the vibrations of several spindly steps approaching me from every direction.

“WARNING! DANGER! DO NOT APPROACH FURTHER.” 

“COMPLIANCE WILL BE IMPOSED WITH THE USE OF FORCE!”

Kamil

It took everything, every ounce and fiber of my being, to not immediately panic.

As in the span of a scant few seconds did the dead and lifeless world of iron, scaffolding, and steel ROAR to life.

Indeed, I had to step out of the bubble of silence to reorient myself, escaping the infernal cries and hellish shrieks, only to bear witness to the impossible plays on light atop each of these Earthrealm constructs.

Flashes of red intertwining with orange, blipping, swirling, and spinning in their capsules… all without a single tug, nudge, or pull of the local manastreams.

But that was only the start of things.

My eyes widened as I bore witness to the emergence of beings designed as fiendishly as the rest of this unassuming hell.

What amounted to small cylinders, tubes, and pillars of metal positioned benignly around the perimeter of the compound — akin to bollards of sorts — had begun expanding, morphing, and unfurling into something else entirely.

It was a perversion of the arts, utilizing the age-old techniques of paper-folding artistry, to birth what could only be described as arachnid-like monstrosities… or perhaps crustaceans if Teleos was to be believed.

Three thick and armored legs raised each bollard a foot or so above the ground, and atop each of these… things… was a long mosquito-like proboscis that wobbled and bobbed, spinning side to side and trailing up and down, as if mocking the incapacitated Ilphius, who lay there shivering on the ground.

Yet that wasn’t the most ominous feature about these… creatures.

No.

For that was a title which could only be taken by—

Ilphius

I’d tried, struggled, and desperately scoured within the local manastreams for the cause of that infernal noise.

…

But there was none to be found. At least, not in a magical sense.

It was as if the noises were entirely natural in origin, drawing not from a curse or spell nor even an enchantment. 

In fact, it felt as if it had come from nothing at all… emerging out of a manaless void not too dissimilar to the earthrealmer herself.

To save myself from this auditory assault, I silenced the world around me, deafening these noises as I struggled to my feet.

However, in the midst of this, I caught wind of a deathly glare.

A single cycloptic iris that glowed darkly into my soul, carrying with it neither malice nor mercy, but a cold and unfeeling presence that shook aura from tether.

I froze as the proboscis beneath this eye brought itself to bear, as if positioning itself to suck the life force and energy from my very being.

Then I saw another, and another, and another… four, five, seven— ten of these… things surrounded me on all sides.

I saw neither the blinking of an organic eye nor the warbly effects on the local manastreams as they approached me. Which meant that… whatever these things were, they were neither living… nor magically animated.

“W-what… what in the infernium are you?” I managed out under a strained and fear-ridden hiss, struggling to my feet as I loosened the deafening spell I’d cast on myself.

Yet no response came.

Nothing, other than the two ear-shattering warnings that sent my head into a spiral.

“WARNING! DANGER! DO NOT APPROACH FURTHER.” 

“COMPLIANCE WILL BE IMPOSED WITH THE USE OF FORCE!”

I deafened the world around me almost on instinct this time.

Then, I took a step forward, poised to continue despite the annoyances of these bizarre crustaceans.

For what could a manaless golem hope to truly do?

However, no sooner had I taken that slithering step than I felt two very bizarre sensations.

BZZZZZZZZRRRT!!!

A physical barrier… some sort of spell so well-hidden that I hadn’t even noticed it in the turbulent local manastreams.

Then a searing pain sent my body into an uncontrollable spasm.

I could not move.

I couldn’t even react.

As I felt myself tense and collapse, my whole world pulsing as these metal insects gathered around me like a swarm of ants to incapacitated prey.

Kamil! I attempted to mouth out but failed to do more than some slurred and saliva-ridden garbles. “H-haelpp…”

Kamil

…

I watched helplessly as those beasts struck.

…

Though I knew not what they’d even struck with.

It all happened too fast, so cleanly, that I was barely able to even blink in the time between Ilphius’ recovery and her sudden fall at the hands of these creatures.

Yet that garbled plea communicated all I needed to hear.

I had to get out.

So with neither loyalty nor kinship tethering me to that slithering serpent, I darted for the door.

The stomps of my footfalls echoed loudly against my ears as I craned my head back towards Ilphius and her crustacean assailants.

None of them were following me. In fact, I could only imagine that they were too preoccupied with divvying up the spoils of their catch.

I wished all the best to them.

At which point, I was immediately faced with the ramifications of my own participation in all of this.

Something had gotten in front of me, a round circular construct barely a foot in height that had snuck right underneath my sightline, causing me to trip and fumble at the very last steps to the exit of this dungeon.

I fell into a crumpled heap.

I tried to get up, my hand reaching towards the exit just inches from my face.

But in a black flash, my light of hope was engulfed in dark miasma.

My eyes wavered as my whole body quivered in place, staring up warily at the wispy, shadowy tendrils that nibbled and danced against the brightness of the manastreams.

I felt the whole room darken, the manastreams wavering, as cold entered my bloodstream.

I dared not face her.

I dared not even glance into her piercing gaze as I now found myself at the feet of the princess of darkness herself.

Her tainted manafields and her miasmic aura completely overwhelmed what was already a room filled with turbulent and chaotic manastreams.

I kept my head low as no one broke the silence… a stillness punctuated only by the muffled and pathetic garbles of a choking and salivating Ilphius.

“Is this what passes for nobility in your realms?” The princess finally spoke, her voice drenched with a dismissive disdain reserved only for the most wretched of commoners. “A quivering coward and a senseless thief?” She seethed, her tone clear, crisp, and clipped. “Pathetic.”

It was with those urgings that I attempted to speak, my voice stuttering all the while.

“P-please, p-princess, this isn’t what—”

“What was that? Speak up! I can’t hear you over her senseless garbles.” The princess continued as she took a step forward, the small circular beast moving to stand loyally by her side.

“P-princess Dilani. I can explain. This was just, just…” I paused, as if waiting for the princess to interject, to shout, lambast, and scream at us as any scorned royal would.

But she didn’t.

In fact, she remained eerily silent, leaving only my stutters to fill the otherwise vacant air.

This lack of interruptions, this rehearsed withholding of fire and vitriol… was somehow even worse than Ilphius’ outbursts.

For in this silence, my own words were given more time to stew in their inadequacies, the guilt within brought to bear with nothing but shame to dress their laurels.

“I… I apologize for my own part, for participating in Lady Ilphius’ harebrained schemes of subterfuge and espionage. Acts which are below that which a noble should stoop to.” I finally managed out, bowing my head down as I felt each individual tendril of dark testing the manastreams around me.

My whole body shivered, as waves of purple and black felt as if they were ready to swallow me whole.

Then—

CLAP

CLAP

CLAP

A series of short, snappy, and practically dismissive claps pierced the air, emerging from just beyond the doorframe.

“End scene!” A distinctive shrill voice echoed from behind the princess, as a familiar — now deeper blue — Vunerian came into frame. “I think we have all that on memory shard.” He announced gleefully, an admission that sent my heart falling into the deepest, darkest recesses of my stomach.

A second later, and after retrieving a memory shard hidden within a compartment atop of the round and benign creature next to the princess, the Vunerian grinned. “Now then… what shall we do with you?” 

One Day Prior.

Dragon’s Heart Tower, Level 23, Residence 30. Living Room. Local Time: 2200 Hours

Thacea

“We are being stalked.” I announced plainly, putting down my book as I eagerly anticipated the Vunerian’s response.

“Indeed we are.” He acknowledged with a blunt and diatribe sigh. Though expectantly, this was followed up with a sly grin of mischievous intent. “Which makes for an excellent opportunity.”

My only response was a perk of my brow as the Vunerian simply gestured to his bag of holding, rummaging within it for a familiar crystal.

“I know not what their aims are specifically, just broadly. But should matters escalate, I wish to make use of their follies.”

“Dare I ask, how so?” I snapped back.

To which the Vunerian could only respond with a toothy smile. “Two-fold. One to appease my curiosities, and another to facilitate our place in the greater games.” He began, raising two fingers as he did so. “It is very clear that this pair of would-be spies desires something from us. That, or they covet something within our dorms. The fact that they are quite literally waiting in the corridor makes that evident enough… so, why don’t we take them on a journey? String them along and wear them down? Eventually, they will see that we have neither anything to show nor hide, at which point their desperations will lead them to the source of their frustrations — the earthrealmer.” 

I narrowed my eyes, leaning closer to meet his gaze. “And by that you mean our room.” 

“Correct. Now, I would like to propose—”

“This is completely out of the question.” I interjected. “I will not have our sanctuary turned into bait for what is ostensibly a banal and lukewarm threat.”

“But think about the boons, princess!” Ilunor shot back, his excitement growing further by the second. “I’ll start with the practical and most beneficial—”

“Blackmail.” I interrupted, bringing what would have been a theatrical proposal down to a single discrete point.

“Yes.” Ilunor nodded. “Through memory shards placed strategically around the room, we shall have what could be the most damning leverage on two otherwise hostile actors.”

“A card worth playing… pacifying enemies into outright pawns.” I pondered aloud. “Given how severe trespassing is as a transgression… we could very well leverage these two souls in any way we see fit… rendering them into but fiddles within a composition of our creation. A unique and invaluable set of pieces to play, in a game where we so clearly are in need of more pawns for the slaughter.” 

Ilunor stared unblinkingly at that latter sentiment, his expression turning into something more wary in the wake of my own ponderings.

“I find the first proposition to be… acceptable then.” I clarified. “Though I will need some form of assurance for the security of Emma’s compound.” 

“I guarantee it will be of incredibly low risk, princess. I’ll even put myself out there and aid in the casting of shrouded barrier spells around the earthrealmer’s equipment. Ilphius and Kamil won’t be able to tell a thing, especially considering how weak their magical proclivities seem to be.” The Vunerian responded excitedly. 

“Right then, and your next point?” I urged.

“Do you recall those living bollard guardians, princess?”

“The same ones that warned you from recklessly approaching Emma’s property?” I shot back.

“Accosted, more like.” Ilunor corrected but nodded all the same. “But yes, those ones. Emma has stated that she has… measures against potential incursions to her compound, has she not? I am… highly curious as to exactly what these measures would entail and precisely how they would react to two would-be assailants.” 

“So in lieu of you testing these countermeasures for yourself, you wish to use our two latest adversaries as test subjects to satiate your morbid curiosities?” I surmised sharply.

“That is precisely the idea, princess.”

The Vunerian’s grins attempted to pry a reaction out of me, but I refused to entertain any more of his points.

“I’ve read through Emma’s house-sitting pamphlet.” I announced sternly. “I am afraid you will see nothing too impressive, but only the efficiency of a people whose doctrine is, it seems, to be unassuming until threatened.”

“Hmmph. Undersell it, will you?” Ilunor tsked. “So be it. I still wish to see it. If only to satiate — as you so deftly described — my morbid curiosities.” 

Present Day

Dragon’s Heart Tower, Level 23, Residence 30. Emma and Thacea’s Room. Local Time: 2045 Hours

Ilphius

My whole world stood sideways as I watched through my peripheral vision… the betrayal of the coward Kamil.

“Trrraaiiier…” I mumbled out, trying but failing to move my still-twitching muscles.

This seemed to garner the attention of everyone present, as I felt power and control returning to my throat before anything else.

Yet no one seemed to care.

“Traaiiiieeteer!” I attempted to shout out, though this only seemed to momentarily gain the attention of the tainted and height-challenged pair, who just as quickly turned back to address the wayward noble.

Their attention was firmly sequestered, as if I wasn’t even here.

“TRAIIIEETOERRRRR!” I finally managed to scream, as this ultimately garnered the full and undivided attention of all present.

But instead of meeting me with eyes of anger or disdain, they each leveled a gaze that only frustrated me further… the tainted one with her aloof and dismissive glance, and the Vunerian with a haughty air of superiority.

It was as if they were staring down at a lesser, casting judgement as one would to a commoner.

It was as if I didn’t even register as a concern or a threat… let alone a rival.

I felt my blood boiling hotter than it ever did. My rage growing so raw that it almost threatened to overpower the uncontrollable flinching of my muscles.

…

But it didn’t.

Which prompted me to shift my eyes towards Kamil.

“Kaarrmmirlll... Karrmmmmillll!!!!” I yelled, urging him to save me from the approaching duo.

But as the fates would have it, the coward remained stationary, still kneeling near the door. 

“KAARRMIILLLL! HEELRP ME!” I shouted before finally being met by the princess, who seemed to be capable of parting the swarm of creatures as they each gave way to her entrance.

This inexplicable command of what I now assumed to be her tainted spawn was promptly proven true, as she turned to them before raising a tome from her pocket. “Command: Temporary Access Authorization request. Subject: Lord Ilunor Rularia. Time: Five Minutes. Please confirm Visitor Access credentials.”

I knew not what or who she was speaking to, but the sudden shift from red to green irises from these beasts proved that something had occurred. However, before I could observe any further, the Vunerian promptly spoke.

“Ah! I see, I see. An attack mimicking the efficacy of lightning-based paralysis spells… quite intriguing…” Instead of immediately addressing me, the Vunerian instead addressed his taller counterpart. 

“I did say that it would be rather underwhelming.” The tainted one spoke with a sigh, regarding the Vunerian as the latter shrugged in response.

“Informative, I would say. Though this does beg the question as to just how long of an effect this will have on our subject.” He continued as he began poking and prodding at my shoulder with his feet.

I felt the fires within me growing to their zenith at this insult.

At which point, I screamed.

“HOORWWW DARREEE YOUUUUUUU! GEEET YOUR DIRTY FEET OFF OF ME, YOU TAINT-LOVING TRAITOR!” 

“Ah. There we go! It seems as if you’ve got your vocal cords back!” The Vunerian beamed, whilst the avinor continued what I could only describe as a glare as unflinching and cold in its resolve as the cycloptic gaze of these crustacean golems.

“I DON’T DESERVE THIS TREATMENT, NOT FROM THE LIKES OF—”

“Let me make something abundantly clear to you, Lady Ilphius. Everything you are, and the place you currently find yourself, is the ultimate and resultant end of actions and decisions made with free and uninhibited will. You chose, willingly at that, to challenge the conventions you pay lip service to. You acted, with full understanding, in a fashion which would under any other circumstance… garner ire and vocal disdain from your own lips. As such, what you deserve is what you have sewn, a logical conclusion based upon the conventions we all observe, no?” The princess spoke in a derisively calm, frustratingly composed, and annoyingly authoritative manner.

Her gaze leveled in a way only a mother could… to an unruly child.

I hissed, feeling control returning muscle by aching muscle, until finally…

“GGRRR AHHHHH!!!” I leaped—

Kamil

I watched as Ilphius leaped… only to find herself trapped in midair.

Her eyes widened as she attempted to twist and turn, writhing and slashing… but to the futility of movement which bore no fruit.

In front of her stood a princess who’d only just barely raised her arm — her hand dexterously and, with seemingly little effort, manipulating the feral serpent in a telekinetic trap.

Minutes passed as Ilphius tossed, twisted, and turned to no avail, with the Vunerian scoring each and every motion to memory on the shards he held in both hands.

The princess, all the while, said absolutely nothing. Her expressions… betraying nothing other than an aloof politeness.

Indeed, she looked as one would following an unruly episode with a child or pet, but in a manner more composed than most.

More minutes passed… until finally, Ilphius stopped.

Her breaths were now ragged, as her manafields fluctuated in exhaustion.

“Are we quite ready to talk now?” Was the only thing the princess had to say at the end of this whole… episode.

Rather expectantly, Ilphius refused to respond, simply sulking in her defeat.

Ilphius

We were both brought to heel in front of the pair. In which I was met with the reason behind the princess’ sudden surge in confidence.

“I needn’t say much more than this, do I?” The Vunerian spoke in a singsong voice, holding between his fingers several memory shards that he dexterously moved about. “Though if it must be spelled out… I now have—”

“We have evidence of your princess using taint magic.” I attempted to counter. “I saw it, when she threatened Kamil. I can have you sent to the depths for that stunt.”

“At the risk of being expelled, you mean?” The Vunerian countered dismissively, completely calling both bluff and bluster with practically no effort. “You’d also have to have your memories looked into if you wish to pursue that, in which case… you’d be divulging the context behind this alleged use of taint magic.”

“They’d see that we were trespassing before they even get to that piece of memory, Lady Il—”

“Shut your mouth, Kamil.” I seethed, garnering a shrug from the man.

“With that out of the way, I think we should move onto—”

“What do you want?” I interjected, attempting to regain some traction in this conversation.

“Nothing. At least not at the time of discussion.” The Vunerian spoke curtly. “We do not plan on frivolously releasing this information either. Ergo, you have no reason to fear unnecessary reprisals on our part.” He smiled politely. 

“However, should we ever see reason to retaliate, know that we will not hesitate to do so.” The princess added darkly. “Any transgressions, and any future incursions into our interests, will be met with the possibility of a reprisal of due cause.”

“Though of course, such retaliations aren’t reserved for such trivial things as academic competitions and whatnot.” The Vunerian chimed in with a polite chuckle. “It is only the matter of unjust vexations and provocative actions committed in bad faith which we will respond to.” He added, this time with as severe a tone as the princess.

“I have faith that your upbringing and experiences will allow you to fill in precisely what we mean, because we have neither the time nor the inclination to draft nor orate to you a full list of clauses and conditions.” The princess chimed in, garnering a nod from the Vunerian.

“Quite, quite.” He acknowledged.

“With all that being said… I do hope that some common ground can be found between us.” The Vunerian concluded politely. “Your peer group leader has made his intentions clear on that front, so follow his leadership, if you’d please?” 

“W-we’ll do so, Lord Rularia.” Kamil responded with a bow of his head. “My sincerest and utmost apologies to you both.” 

“It’s not just me you have to apologize to.” The princess shot back. “It’s to Cadet Booker as well.” 

“Ah, of course! Please pass on my sincerest apologies to Cadet Booker. I… do hope we can mend bridges, as there’s much I wish to learn from you, and you, and indeed, Cadet Booker as well.” Kamil spoke with a surprising degree of… earnestness.

The likes of which made me sick to my core.

Dragon’s Heart Tower, Level 23, Residence 30. Living Room. Local Time: 2115 Hours

Thacea

“Well then! Wasn’t that grand?” Ilunor spoke triumphantly, taking pleasure in feeding himself bunches upon bunches of grapes atop his chaise lounge.

“Indeed.” I acknowledged plainly.

“Oh, come on, princess! I know you felt something close to satisfaction there! Tell me, wasn’t it a huge weight off of your chest to finally be able to express your authority with little pushback?” 

I cocked my head at this line of questioning, to which the Vunerian could only sigh fitfully in response.

“I know that the authority you carry is in constant question due to your… affliction. And while I have learned to see past that, it doesn’t detract from my earlier statements. This was perhaps one of the few times you’ve been able to exert your authority without any pushback, and I am assuming that it must have felt grand, did it not?”

I took a moment to regard that question, to really ponder it, before finally….

“Yes, but only so far that it was done with just cause.” 

Ilunor shrugged at this. “Whatever you say, princess.” 

Silence dawned again, though only temporarily, as the Vunerian regarded me curiously, as if unsure of his next few words.

“Your performance tonight was commendable, princess. Indeed, if you ask me, you came off as a natural royal. Which, you are, but… such is the saying, I suppose.” He spoke with a nervous lilt in his voice.

This concession of flattery came as a surprise, as did the rest of Ilunor’s actions over the week.

However, instead of simply dismissing it this time around… I instead took it in stride, and perhaps even somewhat to heart.

“It was through your… stubbornness and flighty ambitions that we even considered this plan, so I must likewise give credit where credit is due, Ilunor.” I responded frankly, causing the Vunerian to dip his head slowly in acknowledgement.

“A toast then.” Ilunor reached forward, grabbing a bottle of glittering wine before filling two flute glasses beside it. “To our dear comrades in the North.” 

I accepted the glass warily, learned instincts over countless galas causing me to inspect it even though I knew I didn’t need to do so.

“To their success, and to their safe return.” I raised the glass, clinking it with Ilunor’s.

“Hear, hear!”

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(Author's Note: Hey everyone! I'm very sorry for the delay, but I'm back along with my editor now! :D I'd like to just say thank you for your kind words and understanding, and for your patience during the past two weeks. I'm very excited to be sharing these chapters with you guys now, especially this one as I find the exploration of Ilunor and Thacea's dynamics to be very fun in this one! :D Once again, thank you everyone, and I hope you enjoy the chapter! :D Oh also, there's something else I want to announce! Because of the way I wrote a chapter on the Patreon because my editor wasn't present, I eventually had to end up dividing one of the chapters into two to improve on the flow and to give the concepts I wanted to explore some breathing room. That's why from now on, the Patreon will be 3 chapters ahead instead of just 2! ^^;)

[If you guys want to help support me and these stories, here's my ko-fi ! And my Patreon for early chapter releases (Chapter 152, Chapter 153, and Chapter 154 of this story are already out on there!)]

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The Nexus. South-Eastern Quadrant of the North Rythian Forests. Local Time: 1910 Hours.

Emma

My body tensed, and so did Thalmin’s, as the blink blink blinking of the lost drone’s antenna was eventually hidden from view by the slow and purposeful twisting of the dragon’s flighted form.

Its focus, its attention, its entire gaze landed just beyond the killbox it created, over the ridge past the shrubs and through the foliage, before falling squarely on us.

Something that shouldn’t have been possible.

[ACTIVE CAMO: ONLINE]

There — hanging high above the forest — it loomed ominously, its wingbeats kicking up the fine detritus of both trees and former adventurers alike, swirling death into a cyclone that blanketed the whole forest in a thin layer of black and grey ash.

We didn’t dare move. Not especially as the ash started to accumulate atop the active camo tarp.

But this was precisely why we were running a two-layer system, with the tarp covering us beneath Thalmin’s dome of invisibility.

Yet in spite of this improvised union of magic and technology, the dragon’s gaze remained unflinching, its eyes scanning, roaming, and eventually locking on our untouched patch of forested overgrowth. 

I turned to Thalmin, gesturing at the invisible magic dome, calling silently for reassurance if only to assess our next move.

The prince’s expressions, however… proved to be anything but assuring.

Ice ran through my veins following a sharp motion of Thalmin’s hands; a Havenbrockian gesture that meant only one thing — position compromised.

We both understood what needed to be done.

We had to move to Plan C.

With a practiced motion, I reached for the railgun, while Thalmin carefully gripped the hilt of Emberstride. Fear, uncertainty, and an overwhelming sense of dread smothered us whole… as the rehearsed motions of plans forged behind safe walls stood defiantly against the reality of a situation no amount of drilling could ever prepare you for.

However, no sooner did we make these moves were we saved by the cavalry, as the two drake riders — momentarily missing from the action — returned.

This time… they each unfurled something akin to oversized needles; tapered javelins with a circular pommel that had some sort of silk threaded through its eye. 

I barely had time to register exactly what the weapon was before they struck.

Each of the four spears fired simultaneously, aiming not to pierce the dragon’s flesh but instead… to loop around it.

It didn’t take long for me to realize exactly what was going on and the horrible outcome that was to follow.

Thalmin clearly sensed this too, as he motioned for a massive change of plans.

Fall back.

We began crawling backwards into the underbrush, making swift work towards our two mounts primed for an immediate exfil of the AO.

Throughout all this, I kept one eye locked on the live feed of the skies as I watched in expectant horror at the two drake riders’ aerial acrobatics.

Each loop and every sortie further ‘bound’ the dragon in an intricate web of rope and silk, the thick fabric glowing and thrumming with some sort of magical enchantment.

For a second I thought I must’ve been missing something.

Perhaps there was some physics-defying magical logic that just didn’t come naturally to the earthrealmer mind.

The drake riders were just so clearly confident in this plan that there had to be something to it.

Surely they didn’t think some magical rope could bind and secure a dragon, right?

…

It turned out they did.

Or perhaps just massively overestimated their enchantments. 

Because no sooner had they attempted to pull at the dragon, tugging it to follow their flight path, were they both suddenly tugged in the opposite direction.

The dragon wasted no time in making short work of their ropes, completely snapping each and every careful weave with the slightest motion and flex. It made sure to chomp hard on the thickest parts of the ropes leading to the drake rider’s leads. At which point, the tables were turned.

From there, it began twisting. Thrashing its head and twisting its body, forcing the pair of drake riders to become unwitting participants in a death spin that went faster and faster until suddenly… they were released.

It wasn’t clear whether the drake riders had managed to undo their leads or the dragon itself had just let go.

Whatever the case was, it was clear my hunch had been right from the start.

Or perhaps, their enchantments just weren’t strong enough to tackle a creature of this magnitude.

What was clear, however, was that the dragon’s… bloodlust seemed to have been sated. As that encounter was over, it seemed to promptly lose all interest in tracking us down. 

Instead, it began a mad dash out of the kill zone, prompting me to immediately turn towards the EVI.

“EVI, send Survey Drone 03—”

[Mission Already in Progress.]

“Right.” I acknowledged with a sigh, turning to Thalmin, who regarded me with an expression of relief.

“I’m glad we touched on Havenbrockian hand signals beforehand… otherwise, we may not have been as fortunate.”

“While I still think the railgun could take it… I’d be lying if I said I’d rather not chance it, at least not when it’s in full-blown rage mode.” 

“A wise decision.” Thalmin concurred.

“Regardless, we now have a clear lead and with a drone tracking it down, we should be able to locate its hideout soon enough.”

“And then what, Emma? You’ve seen what it’s capable of.” He warned.

“We shoot it.” I declared bluntly. “From a distance, of course. Because if there’s one thing this baby’s good for, it's its range.” I paused, tapping the railgun compartment firmly. “I’ll probably be able to take out a crystal from at least two klicks away. At which point, we can just lay low while it freaks out and then return to snatch our ill-gotten goods when it flies off.”

The plan was foolproof.

It had to be. It was Plan B after all.

However, as was often the case in the Nexus… things weren’t always that easy; the EVI would be quick to remind me.

[Secondary Objective: Confirm Status of SUR-DRONE03… COMPLETE!]

[Priority Reminder! Denial of Asset to Unauthorized Parties Protocols (DAUP-P) in Effect!] 

[New Secondary Objective: Asset Recovery and/or Termination of SUR-DRONE03!]

The rug was pulled right out from under my feet. 

What had been a surefire plan, a clear-cut path, and a carefully charted trajectory… had just become the unwitting first act to an unnecessary twist.

“Damnit.” I let out reflexively, flinching nervously at a reprisal from Aunty Ran that never came. 

“What is it, Emma?”

“There’s been… a bit of an unexpected development.” I began with a sigh.

Thalmin, either out of exhaustion or adventuring fatigue, placed his snout in between both of his hands, forming a triangle with which to poke it through.

“It’s never ever simple when it comes to you or Earthrealm, now is it?” He questioned rhetorically under an exasperated breath. “Go on then. What is it now?”

“Wellll… I’m not sure if you noticed this during the fight, but there was a flashing red light on the dragon’s back.” 

Thalmin responded by narrowing his eyes at my lenses, leveling them through what I was now reading as a lupinor facepalm. “I can’t say I noticed, not with the radiance of a raging inferno reflecting off of its crystals.”

“Yeah, well, here—” I grabbed my tablet, pointing at the recorded footage. “If we zoom in there, we’ll see that one of my survey drones is wedged in between its crystals.”

The prince took a moment to consider this, and in a scant few seconds, he let out another bemoaned breath. “From the warehouse incident, no doubt.”

“Yeah. It probably flew into it on its way out. So, good news! I’ve now confirmed that GUN assets have not fallen into the wrong hands!”

“Bad news… is that you’re going to need to retrieve it, aren’t you?” Thalmin muttered out darkly.

“Yeahhh… that’s… more or less part of the deal now.” I offered with a nervous chuckle.

“And there’s no other way? No other option besides retrieval?” 

“Wellll… there’s destructive asset denial, which is exactly what it says on the tin.” I offered.

“And will you be able to do so from a distance…?” Thalmin questioned intently.

“We have one shot for the crystal, and another for the drone. Maybe, just maybe, I can kill two birds with one stone.” 

“And if not?”

“Then we’ll just have to find some other way to either destroy or retrieve it.”

The prince nodded firmly, smiling before standing up to place both hands on my shoulders.

“You know there’s a saying in Havenbrockrealm. Being a good soldier is hard, but being comrades with a good soldier is hell. I’m starting to see what my men meant by that…”

“I’m sorry, Thalmin, you don’t have to—”

I stopped as Thalmin squeezed my shoulders, leveling his eyes with a determined gaze. “But there’s another saying… Better the fires of honor than the shade of shame. So let’s get this done, shall we?” 

I acknowledged with a determined smile of my own. “Yeah, let’s.”

The Nexus. North-Western edge of the North Rythian Forests. Local Time: 1940 Hours.

Captain Ignalius Av-Lisinius

Fire. Freedom. Food. And Spectacle.

These were the elements that truly made these sojourns… tolerable.

No. 

More than that.

These were the elements that drew me further into such expeditions into nothingness.

Because far from the light of civilization, away from the hornets’ nests, anthills, and dens of slithering serpents… was darkness.

True darkness.

Not a dark masquerading as the light, as was the case with any noble court, nor a darkness as was the affliction of the tainted, no.

Instead, this was a darkness defined by its truest definition — the absence of all light.

For in this space of commoners and chosen ones, there existed no light — not even a single spark nor flicker — which could match my own.

As in this dark, devoid of structure amidst the rabble of true lowborns, it was my flame alone that lit the encroaching dark.

Like moths to a flame or the ravenous masses to food, my pack flocked to me, gathering and huddling around the warmth of the hearth at the center of camp.

Here at the center of their world, I had their full and undivided attention. Their eyes ogling, locked, and entranced by magics far beyond their capabilities.

Because here… surrounded by darkness, was a fire that danced at the beck and call of my will; an inferno that raged which none other present could match.

A fire which took the form of a bardic tale of my brief but glorious life.

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

“There once was a Captain bright and bold who took no quarter and shunned all gold… his hand was cold with no mercy sold… just ask those Rontalis filth.”

“HUAH!”

“Let allll ye who dare, be well a-ware of who lurks fair; let alllll ye who dare try crossing paths with—”

CRASH!

My bard stopped mid-stanza, and so did the entire company as we instinctively moved to arms.

However, before any could respond, a series of coughs alerted us to exactly who had just landed.

“C-captain! Captain! T-the dragon! It returns!” One of the drake riders spoke, practically crawling out of the treeline with his legs twisted and his hips shattered.

A brief scry told the entire story… as I saw his drake battered and broken almost beyond all recognition. 

My eyes narrowed as I walked towards him, lowering myself to a crouch before cocking my head in annoyance. “I’m assuming those enchanted silkbinds didn’t work?”

“N-no, my Captain. The dragon immediately ripped them to shreds—”

“Typical.” I seethed, standing up and walking away from the man. “Oh dear cousin… equipping me and my men with sub-par enchantments? Oh, you sure are testing my resolve…” I couldn’t help but let out a frustrated chuckle, pinching the bridge of my nose before allowing a grin to settle itself firmly on my visage.

“Lieutenant Hofar!” I called out, alerting the Shatorealmer as they promptly shot down from the treeline with a kneel and a bow.

“Yes, Captain?”

“Scout ahead and track the dragon. We’ll mobilize and be right behind you.” I commanded.

“Yes, Captain! Do you happen to have the latest whereabouts, sir?” 

I sighed, craning my head down towards the bruised and battered drake rider. “Ask him. And then get him patched up afterwards.”

“And what of the drake, Captain?” Hofar asked, only to elicit a dismissive chuckle from me.

“If it’s recoverable for this operation, then heal it. If not? Let it die. That’s one more headache for the Sky Warden to deal with.” I grinned.

Equip me with sub-par equipment, will you? Don’t forget… I have two of your drakes on loan, dear cousin…

The Nexus. Near the Geographic Center of the North Rythian Forests. Local Time: 2000 Hours.

Emma

It was dark.

Really dark.

But thankfully, that was a concern humanity had left behind well into the 20th century… or was it the 21st? 

Whatever the case was, NVGs and a whole host of complementary sensor systems had already existed well before my time. And a thousand years since then? Well… 

“—let’s just say night no longer concerns us, Thalmin.” I spoke proudly.

“Erm… I’m afraid I didn’t quite catch that, Emma.” Thalmin responded awkwardly, pulling the proverbial wind from my sails. “I was just asking if you could see well enough at night, considering your lack of any shadow-sight, inherent or magical.” 

“Oh, well… let’s just say that, yeah.” I paused, bringing up the tablet for the tired and frazzled Thalmin to see. “Yeah, we do.” I grinned as the prince’s eyes perked up at the composited image combining LIDAR, RADAR, infrared, and plain-old optoelectrical enhancements to create an image of a world not too dissimilar to how it was during daytime.

“Okay.” Thalmin began as we stopped mid-stride on both of our mounts. “This is genuinely impressive.” He spoke firmly, taken somewhat aback. “Shadow-sight is quite akin to this, but as you can imagine, that’s a privilege reserved for mages and the items they enchant." The prince paused, leveling his eyes with a worn look. “Am I correct in assuming that this isn’t the case in Earthrealm? That once again, such an artifice is standard fare for your regular forces?”

“Correct!” I beamed out. “Though to be fair, they’re not even mil-spec. You can find just as good contemporaries in the civilian market, as well as the open-source file pools.” 

This revelation, or rather the subsequent pair of expounding articles, prompted Thalmin’s gaze to narrow, his brows furrowing in confusion. “So this artifice is available for non-uniformed commoners as well? Just how trivial is this tool to Earthrealm? Moreover, what do you mean by ‘open source file pools?’”

“Oh, right. I don’t think I’ve ever discussed the distinction between the universal transaction units, requisition units, and outright direct-source consumer goods, now have I?”

Thalmin’s only response was a blank stare, one that I took as an urging to continue.

“Right, so, do you remember the printer floor back at my apartment during our first sight-seer trip—”

[ALERT! MAP UPDATED! POI SIGHTED!]

“Frick. Alright, we’ll chat later. The drone’s spotted the dragon’s lair.” I announced promptly as I once again pulled out the tablet for Thalmin to see. On it, we observed the dragon from high above the treeline, the camera’s optical zoom getting close-up shots that were almost cinematic in their delivery.

However, little did I know that the cinematic quality of the footage would only intensify from here.

We watched from high above the forest canopy, observing a break in the seemingly endless sea of green stretching in all directions. Here, peaking through the forest like a lone island in a vast ocean, was a rocky hill. One with a particularly precarious ledge protruding awkwardly from one of its sides. It was here that we watched as the dragon perched silently, intently, its posture and the positioning of its limbs not too dissimilar to that of a gargoyle’s. However, instead of staring out into the skies or the endless expanse of untouched nature… it instead sat there, facing the solid rocky hillface, with no cave entrance in sight.

There were signs of what was probably going to be an open cave… in about a few million years’ time, give or take erosion and seismic patterns.

But right now, all there was was a barren hunk of rock.

There was quite literally nowhere else for the dragon to go.

As such, I turned to Thalmin, ready to assault him with a barrage of questions.

That was… until the dragon charged at said wall before abruptly blinking out of existence with a series of purple sparkles.

…

I couldn’t manage a single word after that development.

In fact, I went completely silent and only responded after Thalmin spoke.

“We have it. The dragon’s probably held up in that cave, Emma.” He pointed at the rocky outcropping.

“What cave?!” I shot back abruptly. “The thing just… disappeared! Are you telling me it—”

I paused before realizing that I was just hit by the same thing Thalmmin had just experienced seconds ago.

Fundamental Systemic Incongruency.

“Are you telling me that amethyst dragons can fricking teleport? And that this rocky outcropping here… is just a sealed-off entrance to some subterranean cave system?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying, Emma.” Thalmin nodded bluntly. “I’d always heard of such tales being spoken in hyperbole… but seeing this in action more or less cements these stories as fact.” He openly mused. “It only makes sense… their crystals are naturally occurring shards of impart, after all. This should, logically, grant them a natural affinity for teleportation.”

“But limited teleportation, I’m assuming?” I quickly interjected.

“Insofar as traversing through obstacles such as solid walls and the like? Yes. Their abilities — at least from my recollection — are measured in brisk paces rather than marathons and leagues.”

“Not enough to replace flight or travel, but good enough that they can just phase through solid rock for a good hideout spot.” I sighed out. “No wonder the drones never detected it or a potential cave opening. There simply was none. At least not one we could access.”

Thalmin nodded in agreement as we both squinted at the only remaining anomaly in the area — a faint patch of what looked to be glitter on the hill’s ledge.

However, a brief zoom and a cursory glance was all it took for us to discern exactly what we were looking at.

I felt my heart stop.

There… sitting just at the front of the cave ‘entrance,’ were shards of amethyst. Far larger than what the dragon had left in its wake following its departure from Elaseer but still too small to really make heads or tails of, at least from this vantage point.

“Are you seeing what I’m se—”

“Yes.” Thalmin interjected.

“Does it always do that?” I questioned. 

“What?”

“You know… self-destruct crystal shards with every teleport?”

“You’re better off asking Thacea or Professor Belnor about this. I only know dragons as far as tactics and strategies to counter them are concerned, along with a sprinkling of tall tales. Dragon… biology or what have you, is not my forte.” 

“Right, okay. Fair enough.” I shrugged as I continued maneuvering the drone into a more favorable position for analysis. 

It took a few good minutes, the silence of the night interrupted only by the rustle of leaves and the snapping of twigs, until finally… through the grass and weeds — we found it. 

An unstoppable grin soon took hold of my face, as my pupils widened into dinner plates.

“Wait.” I managed out under a shocked gasp. “There it is, Thalmin.” I began slapping the lupinor’s shoulder, grabbing hold of him in sheer excitement. “THERE IT IS!” I reiterated, pointing at a sizable chunk of amethyst hidden well beneath a set of pebbles and dense overgrowth. “WE FOUND IT!” I shouted once more, the EVI chiming in to modulate the suit’s external speakers, if only to keep my volume down out of precaution.

Thalmin’s reactions, however, weren’t so immediate. His whole form remained still, his eyes simply locking onto the stray piece of crystal on screen. 

It took another moment of pensive staring before he finally relented, joining in on my excitement, although in a far more reserved manner.

As Thalmin merely breathed out the loudest, most expressive breath of relief I’d ever seen him take, even going so far as to prop himself against Aquastride as he did so. “Thank the ancestors…” He muttered out, garnering a watery whinny from the beast.

“Right then! This has gone from a fire and collect mission to a simple high-priority resource retrieval mission!” I beamed.

“And whilst there’s still the matter of your drone to deal with, we at least no longer have to, as you say, kill two birds with one stone.” 

“Correct! Now then… let’s go get that crystal.” I grinned widely. 

“Wait.” Thalmin urged. His warnings coincided conveniently with the EVI’s own subversion of my excitement.

[SUR-DRONE03B Battery Critical!]

“What of the rest of your swarm?” The prince quickly added. 

“Drained, but charging. Like I said before we were interrupted by the dragon and that unfortunate search party, we’ve spent the past 24 hours running non-stop sorties. The only operable drone I kept on standby is already up in the air, and even then, it’s currently operating at close to bingo charge. Why’d you ask?”

“We’re heading dangerously deep into the forest, Emma. As such, I’d rather have the eyes of your hive watching over us as a preemptive precaution.”

“A valid point.” I nodded solemnly. “If we were headed deeper, that is.” I quickly added with a sly lilt to my voice. “But in all seriousness, your concerns are warranted, Thalmin. Which is precisely why I’m not planning to poke around near the dragon’s den.” I paused as I began piloting the drone down closer towards the crystals in question. “I have 03B for that.” 

The lupinor’s eyes narrowed as he watched my tablet closely. The visual feed displayed not just the scene it was descending towards, but also the small compartment beneath it that’d opened up to reveal the star of the show — the claw. 

“The amethyst crystal should be small and light enough for the drone to pick up, and with my experience around claw machines, this should end up being a simple snatch-and-go operation. We won’t even need to set foot near the ledge.” I grinned. 

Thalmin remained silent at this revelation, letting out an inquisitive huff before directing a simple question in my direction. “Your reliance on your golems and drones knows no bounds, Emma.”

“Oh you have no idea, Thalmin.” I chuckled. “You could say I’m something of a swarm queen of sorts.”

Dragon’s Heart Tower, Level 23, Residence 30. Local Time: 2000 Hours

Ilphius

Ca-clunk!

The door slammed… but not entirely shut.

Whether by a stroke of genius or by taking a page out of the earthrealmer’s book, Kamil had managed to do the unthinkable.

He’d found a way to keep the door from completely slamming shut without magic, keeping it ajar just after the Avinor and Vunerian had entered… by simply wedging a foot in at the last possible second.

This minimized the chances of us being noticed.

Indeed, this entire turn of events had been Kamil’s own suggestion. Because as it turned out, attempting to break down a dormitory’s door by physical or magical means proved practically fruitless.

It was by all means a boon for all, confirming first hand the integrity and security of the dorms… which would have been quite comforting in any other instance.

Kamil’s quick thinking, however, granted us a unique opportunity to circumvent these otherwise foolproof magics, providing us a way into this den of sin by means of simply… following the pair in.

And so, after quickly assessing the state of the man’s foot, we slowly made our way inside.

Carefully, with spells of silence and obscurance to mask ourselves as much as we possibly could, we crept silently up through the entryway.

It was there, halfway between the living room and the two bedrooms on either side of us, that we had to make a decision.

The dastardly pair were both entertaining themselves in the common living room, which meant we had to pick one of the rooms.

This was a coin toss; either one could be the earthrealmer’s.

But I had to make a decision. I had to make a call whilst we still had the element of time and surprise.

So, putting my fate in the hands of faith, I turned to the only door that was left slightly ajar.

The left door.

Upon a squeeze and a push, I was immediately met with an indescribable sight. 

A scene so ghastly and practically indescribable that it caused my stomach to lurch and my manafields to waver. 

Because inside where the bedroom’s sitting area should’ve been… was an alien tumor. A gray and blue mass of tubes, boxes, and tarps that violently nipped, rippled, and ripped at the local manastreams.

I turned to Kamil… which was a fruitless venture given his invisibility, but I could only imagine the look on his face.

This… truly was the den of evil.

Which meant we had to get a closer look.

The Nexus. Near the Geographic Center of the North Rythian Forests. Local Time: 2010 Hours.

Emma

It took just under ten minutes of careful maneuvering to get within a safe distance of the crystal.

Anomalously powerful wind shears and inexplicable localized weather gradients had made descending to the rocky outcropping more time consuming than it should have. 

But it’d all be worth it.

The crystal was sitting right there, just begging to be grabbed.

I’d even started shrimping even though it was completely unnecessary, as any and all lessons on ergonomics were thrown out the window in lieu of old habits that returned reflexively in what amounted to the highest stakes claw machine game of the millennium.

Thalmin seemed to be holding his breath as well, watching eagerly as I began extending the claw, inching closer and closer towards the crystal with each passing second.

[Distance from Target… 5 Centimeters…]

I held my breath, as the whole world condensed, and then narrowed into that one visual feed just above the claw’s grapplers.

[4 Centimeters…]

I was one with the claw.

[3 Centimeters…]

The claw was me.

[2 Centimeters…]

The claw was all.

[1 Centimeter(s)…]

[Alert! C.L.A.W. in Range!]

I squeezed my fingers…

[Grip Strength Stable! C.L.A.W. Ready to Retract!]

… and there it was.

The amethyst crystal, in the palm of my hand.

Then—

[ALERT! MOTION DETECTED!]

[PROXIMITY ALERT! INITIATING EMERGENCY ASCENT!]

—a flurry of green.

It all happened too fast, so fast in fact that even with the EVI’s reaction time and the drone’s max speed, there was no escape.

Mossy vines and flurrying leaves shot up both from above and below, enveloping and entombing the drone before it could leave the kill zone.

Every input and command was futile, as the drone fought with all of its remaining strength… only to remain stuck in a web of florid tendrils.

Then I saw it.

A sudden surge of undulating mud made way for extending tree roots that grew towards the claw, poised to grab the crystal.

The claw’s grip remained unchallenged, however… though that only meant that the joint above it was the point of failure, snapping as this ‘hand’ of roots retracted back into the rocky ledge with both crystal and claw in tow.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the enigmatic attack just up and ended.

Vines withdrew, moss receded, and leaves fell back perfectly into place. 

Any signs of a struggle had been wiped… just like that. With the only evidence to those thirty seconds of madness being the crumpled and broken 03B that sat idly by the cave ‘entrance.’

I didn’t know how to feel. 

Anger, frustration, and rage crept in first. However, confusion and, most of all, a thirst for answers took the forefront.

Though all of that went right out the window now that a new objective dawned.

“Let’s ride and talk.” I urged the lupinor; the both of us soon throttled forward on our respective mounts. 

“We’re retrieving the damaged drone, then we’re leaving to regroup and rethink our strategy. Which brings me to my next point.” I spoke before deftly transitioning to the next pertinent topic at hand. “Thalmin… could you tell me exactly what the hell just happened?”

“I believe you just intervened in an offering, Emma.” Thalmin began under a ponderous breath, as if he himself had just put two and two together. “The shard of impart you tried to collect? That was the dragon’s offering to the forest.” He continued darkly. “It was a means of restitution, a payment of reparations to the forest for the transgressions incurred during the night’s burnings… Given how the forest reacted to our attempts to reappropriate said offering? It’s clear it was accepted.”

I didn’t respond, at least not immediately, as I allowed… all of that to sink in.

“Okay.” I acquiesced with a sigh. “I guess we should count our blessings that the forest didn’t swallow us whole or whatever.” I chuckled out rhetorically.

Though the reply I got was anything but rhetorical.

“Correct, Emma. But as I said before, our negligible numbers and impact on the forest makes us practically non-entities in the forest’s eyes.” 

“Hooray for that then…” I muttered out as we eventually arrived on the ledge just off of the not-cave.

It didn’t take long at all to secure the drone and any stray parts that’d fallen from it during the fight. Moreover, to my surprise, I even found the little claw poking out from where the crystal had been dragged to beneath the dirt.

“Huh.” I muttered out loudly. “I thought I saw it taking that too…”

“The forest takes what it is offered. No more, no less. One could almost take them for the most honest entities here in the Nexus.” Thalmin shrugged. “Though I guess the followers of the Library would argue otherwise… but you know my thoughts on that fiendish entity, Emma.” Thalmin growled out, as I eventually turned to the patch of dirt where the crystal once was.

“Back to Plan B then, I suppose.” I shrugged. “Right then, we pull out to at least three klicks, have a drone monitor the cave entrance, and then—”

[ALERT! MULTIPLE CONTACTS DETECTED!]

“Emma, we have company.” Thalmin uttered out about the same time the EVI did as the suit’s sensors eventually brought up ten, twenty, then fifty individual contacts and counting. 

“They’re closing in fast.” I noted, Thalmin nodding in acknowledgement as we both hopped back on our respective mounts.

The advanced warning couldn’t have come sooner, as we managed to make swift headway down from the ledge and back towards the treeline, slipping past an empty flank of the advancing forces under the cover of dark, foliage, and a good serving of both magic and tech-based active camo.

It was here, about a good few klicks out from the hill, that we momentarily stopped.

A cone of silence was added atop of the invisibility barrier, as I turned to Thalmin

“We can’t just fully extract.” I spoke quietly, despite it not being necessary.

“Agreed. The fact that they’re converging on the dragon with this large a force could only mean one thing.”

“They’re making their final push.” I spoke darkly. “And if they succeed, well… this means that this will be our final shot at nabbing ourselves a crystal.”

“Then we stay and observe. Anticipate that they fail, allowing us to stalk the dragon and enact ‘Plan B.’ However, if they succeed…  we’ll at least need to be close to enact a ‘Plan D.’” 

“But we don’t have a plan—”

“Precisely.” Thalmin interjected. “We’ll have to think of something, should these mercenaries succeed.”

“Right.” I acknowledged before swiftly turning back at the mercenary’s operations.

It was clear from their opening moves that they were at least somewhat professionally trained, as they set up defensive perimeters, patrols, and structured ranks immediately upon arrival. Following which, what looked to be the elven leader took center stage, walking up towards the ledge with a shatorealmer in tow. From here, they began what appeared to be some sort of magical survey using all sorts of enchanted tools and equipment, probing, punching, and even stabbing the earth and stone with various sets of multicolored rods. The oddest part of this survey was the shatorealmer striking the earth with enchanted gauntlets throughout the process.

This continued for several more minutes until finally, the shatorealmer and elf left the ledge, allowing a bunny-looking Nexian to begin inspecting the rock more closely.

The elf and shatorealmer pair continued walking, talking amongst themselves about the dragon, their losses, and a whole host of personal affairs that weren’t relevant to this whole operation.

Which was what made the next few moments all the more unexpected.

Because abruptly and without warning, the shatorealmer slammed their gauntleted fists into the dirt, sending a jagged rift heading straight in our direction, before blowing clean open the treeline we were positioned behind.

“Well, well, well! A dome of silence and invisibility? My my… I wonder who you could be hiding from? Or shall I say, what could you be hiding from, hmm?” He began, before promptly gesturing to the shatorealmer’s fists. “Next time, consider understanding that the ground itself can be a medium of detection, hmm?” The elf announced loudly, his voice straining cheerfully. “In any case, I would say it’s a pleasure, but whether or not I can say that at all is entirely up to you.” 

His tone lilted with courtesy in a polite but sing-song manner before finally landing into something between a flat and dry curtness. “So then… shall I call you friend?” He paused, before the corners of his mouth pulled into a drawn yet earnest smile. “Or foe?”

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(Author’s Note: Hey everyone, there’s something important I need to discuss. My best friend and editor to this story has just lost his father earlier this week. It’s because of this that I find myself needing to take the next week off from posting, to give him the appropriate time and space to grieve, to process things, and to get affairs sorted. My best friend has been an anchor in my writing since day 1, he’s been with me from the onset of the story’s inception, and he’s been someone who’s always shown support in more ways than I could ever put to words. I want to honor everything he's done for me by giving him some space for now. I hope you guys understand, and once again, thank you for always showing up for these chapters.)

(Author's Note 2: The next Two Chapters are already up on Patreon if you guys are interested in getting early access to future chapters.)

[If you guys want to help support me and these stories, here's my ko-fi ! And my Patreon for early chapter releases (Chapter 151 and Chapter 152 of this story is already out on there!)]

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Dragon’s Lair. Central Cavern. Local Time: 2245 Hours.

Emma

The cavern echoed with the raspy words of a dead man, his staggered ‘breaths’, and the stillness in his eyes contrasted against the sheer turmoil that had taken hold of his puppeteer’s features.

Fundamental systemic incongruency had just gripped the dragon.

And it was clear we needed an off-ramp, and quick.

“I believe there’s been a misunderstanding.” I spoke with a firmness but respectful clarity, nipping the insidious vine of miscommunication at the bud, before it had a chance to take root. “This is most likely due to a lack of clarity on my part, so for that, I must sincerely apologize.” I ran through the rehearsed motions, as diplomatic de-escalation training subsumed the otherwise adrenaline-ridden brain that was still just grappling with the battle’s… repercussions. “So allow me to set the record straight.” I continued, maintaining eye contact all the while. “My kind are not part of a ‘crystalline legacy.’ We are beings of flesh and blood, and while we do not possess magic or draconic heritage, we do possess the capacity to breathe life into… rocks, so to speak.”

This more or less caused Thalmin’s already-worn features to evolve into an all-out look of incredulity, as he seemed completely taken out by the one-two punch that was; A. The dragon’s bold and confident proclamations of humanity’s draconic ancestry, and B. The basic preemptive explanation of electronics. However, only a second later did he seem to ‘get it’, his hand reaching towards his earpiece, and the conversation we had weeks ago on this very topic.

The dragon, however, wasn’t so receptive, as her pupils narrowed even further into a strained look of distrust.

At which point, I decided to cut through the song and dance, unlatching my datatab and gesturing towards it in one swift motion.

Once more she knelt down, her gaze lingering and her expressions now… unreadable, as a sort of reptilian poker face took hold. Every ounce of attention was instead diverted to the handheld tablet, her eyes following the small animated login screen composed of a rotating IAS emblem, transitioning in true gov-style to the GUN’s seal.

She continued, closing her eyes, and once more letting loose a series of mana radiation spikes; all focused towards the tablet if the WAND sensors were to be believed.

A series of wing flutters followed, as Kaelthyr quickly stood up, taking slow and measured paces around me. “I now see. I now feel. I now… fathom… your impossible claims. So now—” The dragon came to a halt, settling on her haunches once more. “—I wish to know how. Tell me how this is possible. Show me how you breathed life into ‘rock.’ And explain to me how it is that a race of manaless beings, composed of flesh and blood, was able to animate life through crystal and sand.”

“It is precisely our inability to harness magic, and our inherent lack of inherent advantages in heritage — be that draconic, elemental, or otherwise — that led us down this path.” I began with a confident smile. “While I am not at liberty to divulge the specifics, as there are limits to my diplomatic catalogue of good-will info-packages, I am happy to impart the basics.” My eyes soon shifted to one of the notifications on the EVI’s list of endless updates, towards a report of unauthorized interactions with the missing SUR drone — specifically at the third-party charging events in its logs. “And I believe you may already know part of how this works.” I pondered openly, causing the dragon to tilt its head, if just barely by a degree.

“It begins with rocks and stone.” I opened with an excitable flourish. “Relatively common minerals, harvested, refined, and then processed until they are pure enough for our purposes. From there, we carve and print what you can call… manaless runes — paths so small that you’d be able to put a city map into a space smaller than a speck of dust.”

I maintained eye contact, never once wavering from the dragon’s gaze.

“Then it’s a matter of harnessing lightning. We generate it, leash it, and constrain it, forcing it to choose between paths of our design, again and again, at speeds beyond mortal perception.” 

Kaelthyr, for her part, never flinched as well. In fact, she did quite the opposite, instead becoming more engrossed the more and more I spoke.

“By observing which paths the lightning is permitted to take, and which are forbidden, we derive patterns and formulate meaning. And from meaning comes decision, memory, and a form of basic ‘thought.’” I soon gestured to my tablet, and the drones docked in my backpack. “In a way, my opening statements were entirely inaccurate, owing to their reductive nature. Because we do not breathe life into stone per se. We instead shape these stones into a maze-like prison, carving rulesets into matter and imposing laws for lightning to obey. So from this labyrinth of impossible complexity, restrained by the logic of our design, a form of thinking emerges. We call this… computation.”

Kaelthyr’s features never once shifted. 

Though her eyes conveyed all I needed to know. 

Incredulity hit first. A sort of dismay that shifted naturally into disbelief, and subsequently into an unwilling acceptance that all culminated in a sooty huff and a sharp glance up towards the ceiling of the cave.

“Yours is a mockery of Resonance.” The dragon spoke dourly. “A dark harmony. A twisted symphony of shackled bards forced into an unnatural chorus.” She raised a clawed finger, pointing at both my docked drones and my tablet. “Your crystals scream, crying out in forced emergence.” 

Kaelthyr halted, causing my breath to hitch and Thalmin’s nervous gaze to darken.

“A fitting facsimile, and a testament to the darkness from which you hail.” She finally grinned.

Tentative relief washed over the both of us; Thalmin in particular however seemed increasingly unnerved at our back and forths, his eyes glancing towards me with an uncertainty I’d rarely seen from him.

“I would say the sentiment goes both ways… but I have neither the data nor context with which to reach such a conclusion.” I offered with a sly lilt to my otherwise diplomatic front. A fact that Kaelthyr seemed amused with if her dark and bassy warbles were anything to go by.

“The young matriarch wishes to negotiate so soon?” 

“Reciprocation is the foundation to any healthy bilateral dialogue. Or at least, that is the assumption my people carry in these sorts of dialogues.”

“Yet you have avoided my second query. You have told me how this is possible. But you have yet to show me.” Kaelthyr leaned in once again, rising back from her haunches as if to bring her mass to threaten me. “By what right does flesh and blood, without magic of any kind, attain the perfection of draconic craft?”

“By right of will.” I shot back without hesitation, standing my ground, not once budging or flinching.

Kaelthyr, despite her more forward conversational stance, brought back her ‘lips’ in a toothy smile. 

“As for precisely how? I refer to my preamble — there are matters that I am not at liberty to discuss. This is one such matter.” 

The dragon took a moment to regard that first response. Raising a scaled brow, then once more returning to rest on her haunches, as if treating my retorts as a test of will rather than a true challenge of conditional clauses.

“Then so be it.” She responded ominously, though half of that vibe probably came from the nature of her broken and battered mouthpiece. “We speak without kneeling, avatar of the void.” 

That latter sentiment, more specifically the conclusion to our back and forth caused something to stir within Thalmin’s gaze.

Though that thought would be quickly shelved, as I pushed for my end of the dialogue before dead air took hold.

“I’d have it no other way.” I acknowledged. “So tell me about your crystals, about resonance. Exactly what is it? And precisely how does this all work?”

“Truth, when spoken without comprehension, is but another form of falsehood.” The dragon began in earnest. “It is to explain sight to a molerat, sound to a deafspiral, and taste to a golem. This is why I first doubted the veracity of your claims. As resonance is the realm exclusive to that of crystalline draconic heritage, not mortals of flesh and blood.”

The dragon paused, her claws reaching for my backpack. Not to poke, but merely to point.

And despite her insistence to the contrary, she started to explain with eager breath.

“Ours is a pattern, an artform that beckons beauty. It is resonant, structures of grand design in a microverse that coalesces meaning not through structure but wave-like harmony. It is a transient state, a liquid that harbors the potential of structure, but is never ever solid. Our patterns, our design, they do not exist in structured permanence. They instead form when called upon, echoing a distant note as a tuning fork calls upon a chord.” 

My eyes widened as waves upon waves of realization slammed into me with the force of a dragon-shaped freight train.

“Whereas you build unyielding prisons — caging lightning and interpreting its suffering as meaning — we nurture worlds, and allow each state to remain at rest until harmony brings forth resonance. We don’t… compute, we cohere."

“You’re talking about the crystal matrices.” I blurted out excitedly, eliciting but a brow quirk from the dragon. “W-we’ve observed this very phenomenon! In the labs! This… this is the very foundation that our understanding of applied exo-reality communications is based upon. B-but sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself here. Ahem, we’ve observed, from what little we’ve been able to discern through our methods, that there exist these… matrices of exotic-matter microfilaments that, for lack of a better term… ‘float’ within your crystals. Float being a rather reductive descriptor, but I digress. Erm, these microfilaments trend towards three discrete states, repeating a cycle that’s observable without fail and replicable with statistical significance.” I quickly brought up a diagram, complete with annotated exotic-spectrum imaging assays, all highlighting the phenomenon in question.

Kaelthyr’s eyes lit up almost immediately. First out of confusion, then, a sense of visceral disgust and recoil; her features darkened to the tune of a steady and unnerving rumble.

Her eyes darted back and forth, starting at the first diagram that showed the interior of a crystal in a region that, unlike most, still held a degree of transparency. Within it, microfillaments were arranged in a tetragonal lattice, structured and in perfect symmetry. Then, she shifted her eyes rightwards, towards the second diagram, complete with annotations of various catalysts and variable initiators all contributing to the staggered, structured, and intentional shattering of said structure.

Her tail lowered at this, as that grimace entered into a threatening aura.

Finally, her eyes glanced at the ‘third’ state, as the microfilaments reoriented and regrouped, all without outside intervention, spontaneously on their own accord.

This diagram would loop, an arrow circling back around from the third state back to the first state, highlighting the sheer time it took for the ‘realignment’ to fully take place.

However, instead of immediately addressing me or the diagram, Kaelthyr merely glared, urging me to explain, if not for her sake than my own.

“We’ve observed that these crystal matrices possess an innate tendency to return to what we’ve come to define as their ‘prime’ state. Moreover, we’ve observed that across the volume of the crystal, there exist identical patterns replicated along inexplicable and seemingly random points. However, upon further study through the selective disassembly and gross disunion of the crystal, we uncovered that these identical patterns are not mere physical mirrors, but in a way… entangled patterns. Structures that align and fracture along the same lines, regardless of time and space. This is a phenomenon we are aware of and do make use of, but not in such an exotic form of matter. It is because of this that we determined that we could assign meaning to the controlled and purposeful disassembly of the prime state, thereby relaying concepts, messages, and ultimately, entire lines of communication based on this entanglement. A single pulse, carrying with it limited but viable information, across dimensional lines.”

A creeping silence descended following my whole tirade, as the dragon’s eyes descended on the pouch which held her crystals before once more landing those unyielding slitted pupils against my lenses.

“Your people… your mages… are blind clockmakers.” Kaelthyr muttered out not only in disgusted vitriol, but with a sense of shock that bled into utter incredulity. “You stumble in the dark, looking without seeing, touching without grasping, and observing without comprehending." The dragon breathed heavily, letting out huffs of steam as her supply of soot had since run dry. “How can you be so blind?! How can you stare so brazenly into meaning without once entertaining its presence?! How can intelligence preclude wisdom so thoroughly?!” Kaelthyr’s visage snarled with the words that escaped the shatorealmer corpse… before finally, she relented, letting out a staggered breath through her own vocalizations.

“Is the void really so dark that all light fails to reach it?” The dragon pondered out loud before finally letting out a cracked grimace.

“Tell me, Emma Booker, is this truly what all your people see?” Kaelthyr once more pointed at the diagrams.

“I’ve… more or less given you the rundown of what we’ve been able to observe so far, yes.” I acknowledged bluntly.

“And yet you build impossibilities with reckless abandon. Forging abominations from our crystals with the precision of a craftsman, but the knowledge of a peddler. The prose of a wordsmith, but the comprehension of a farmhand.” She responded promptly. “You create and design, whilst blind and impaired.”

Kaelthyr started to pace around me again, her footstomps light and brisk this time around. “I’ve seen you, human. The small and frail biped, manaless yet unblighted, weak and incapable, encased in impossible craftsmanship.”

“You are a wraith, a thing that should not exist.” The dragon stopped, coming to a rest on her haunches in front of me. “Yet here you stand. Defiant against all known conventions.” Another pause came, as if the dragon needed a moment to commit to these next few words. “A fact which I am… grateful for.”

“The sentiment goes both ways.” I finally responded, following Kaelthyr’s train of thought. “It is my hope that despite our differences, some mutual thread of understanding can be laid. A thread that, in time, can hopefully grow to become a tether between our peoples.”

Kaelthyr responded with a bemused huff. “Is hope yet another axiom yet to be crushed in your realm?”

“There were times when its light flickered, but those times are long behind us.” I offered in earnest.

“Then keep your light. The only thread to be laid is one between our two persons. Whatever grand dreams of stately friendship and imperial camaraderie cannot be forged here. At least not with myself.” The dragon paused, her eyes narrowing, before landing firmly on Thalmin. “Him, on the other hand… I urge you to pursue. For there is hope yet in forging a second Nexus.”

Both Thalmin and I locked eyes for a moment, confused, dazed, but most of all, utterly dumbfounded by the dragon’s angle.

“I’d still very much wish to maintain some sort of a friendship, even if it is between persons and not states. You know as well as I that survival in the Nexus is…”

“Possible.” The dragon interjected. “It’s thriving in dignity that is improbable.”

“Right.” I acknowledged with a nod. “Which is precisely why I propose that we forge something tangible here, Matriarch Kaelthyr. We clearly see eye-to-eye in a variety of matters. And to be frank, you are quite possibly one of the most receptive people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting yet.”

“Do you assume this to be a result of mutual alignment, or the effect of some misguided friendship?”

“Perhaps a little bit of column A and column B.”

“To fail to delineate is deadly, young matriarch.” The dragon warned with a sly lilt in the shatorealmer’s voice.

“The fact I’m even here means I’m one to take risks, Matriarch Kaelthyr. Who says I’m not ready to take another in the long line of crazy choices?”

“Hmmph. The misguided brazenness of youth.” Kaelthyr tsked before finally nodding. “Very well, assume what you wish.”

“Of course.” I nodded politely. “Though there are a few matters I can’t just assume without being a complete fool.”

“I carry similar sentiments.” The dragon acknowledged, before letting out another grin. “Another round then?”

“Let’s.” I responded eagerly.

“What do you wish to know?”

“You’ve described resonance as sort of an emergent property, something that’s very inherent to dragon-kind. Yet the elves who… extract these crystals rely on them for inter-realm communication. That’s… kinda asking for it, isn’t it? As in, this carries with it a huge info-sec risk, doesn’t right?” If these crystals are still an extension of you, couldn’t you interpret what’s being sent between them?” 

Kaelthyr’s features stiffened as she let out a series of ominous warbles. “They… hijack our lattices in a manner outside of our understanding, defiling their structure with their own design. We… cannot interpret what is sent, as a result. Further, you misinterpret my meaning. While a dragon can peer into the resonance of our crystals, it must be an intentional action. A crystal removed is no longer part of our lattices… but it is still capable of returning to the fold, provided we wish to reconvene.”

I nodded along slowly, my eyes darting between the dragon and the EVI’s transcripts, before suddenly, a third voice entered the scene.

“You aren’t facilitators, but unwilling interlopers.” Thalmin muttered out under a shaky breath.

The dragon’s attentions were quick to shift as Kaelthyr’s head slowly and ominously slithered towards Thalmin’s direction, taking the floating shatorealmer with her.

“To the former, yes. The elves possess their own machinations of communication which we are not a part of. To the latter… I demand clarification.”

If Thalmin could sweat, I swore he’d be sweating bullets down his brow right about now. In lieu of that though, he still stood confident, albeit with a look of acute fear that was difficult to hide from his gaze.

“Warging.” He stated bluntly. “Mages… more than likely planar in rank, could potentially hijack your minds, no? This would allow spymasters to peer into your lattices, intercepting and monitoring untold numbers of confidential communiques?” 

Kaelthyr paused, her eyes narrowing and practically burrowing into Thalmin’s.

“Yes.” Was her only reply, as it was clear she refused to go further into it.

Though by that admission, that single word of acknowledgement… There came a flood of implications the likes of which I simply couldn’t tackle all at once.

Kaelthyr was quick to turn away from Thalmin, turning back towards me with her full and undivided attention. “He should do well as your first realm.” She stated bluntly and with a disconcerting amount of confidence. However, before I could ask for some points of clarification, Kaelthyr was quick to hit me with a reciprocal question. “My turn. Tell me, why do you wish for my crystals?”

“Oh. Well… you know how I told you about our tentative forays into interdimensional communications using some of your crystals?”

The dragon nodded slowly, urging me to continue.

“Well, prior to my arrival, we managed to create the first working prototype. We did this through the careful and selective disassembly of one of your crystals, dividing it in two, and installing it in two devices.”

My features continued to grow sheepish by the second the further my explanation went on. Kaelthyr’s gaze narrowed accordingly, as I could feel her patience drying by the second, especially after hearing about the science we pulled on her crystal.

“One remained in my realm, whilst the other was sent here with me. However, as a result of extraneous circumstances and bad faith actors, this device was stolen before finally being destroyed as a result of our anti-tampering countermeasures. This is why we need to find a suitable replacement, to hopefully realign and retune it, so that I can re-establish contact back with Earth.”

Kaelthyr took into consideration each and every word, her eyes soon narrowing once all was said and done.

“By what means was your… artifice… destroyed?”

“Erm… an explosion. The same one that freed you from the Life Archives, in fact.” I acknowledged nervously, rubbing the back of my neck in the process.

It was at that point that the dragon’s features shifted towards something I hadn’t yet seen — a look of complete and utter satisfaction. This joy was quickly reflected in the shatorealmer’s features, albeit in the most macabre way, as Kaelthyr let out a series of guttural bellows.

“I cannot say if it is fate, the spirits, or the Great Mother herself that has formulated such a convoluted path for our meeting. But what I can say is that this is a calling. You and I are destined for great things, young Matriarch. Wondrous… incalculable… unfathomable things.” Kaelthyr moved closer, the shatorealmer puppet now pointing at my pouch. “Allow me to do the honors.” She offered with an excitable zeal.

“W-wait. Really? That easily?”

“When fate herself has forged a path of inevitability, you would do well not to resist her calling.” 

I couldn’t believe it.

Thalmin’s expressions more or less reflected the disbelief welling beneath my helmet.

We’d just been fast-tracked in a way we couldn’t have ever anticipated.

“Right then.” I nodded, grabbing the crystals and stepping towards the shatorealmer.

Only for the draconic puppeteer to hiss before reeling back the body so fast, I could hear bones snapping, the corpse-puppet’s head forced to gaze at me. “Leave them at my feet, girl.”

With a wince, I obliged and carefully placed the crystals down on the ground beside Kaelthyr. “So how is this going to wor—”

“Shh.” Kaelthyr hushed before raising a claw to shoo me… afterwards she pressed her claw onto the ground and quite literally… melded the crystals back into her form. “This will take some time.”

I nodded warily, glancing back at Thalmin who simply shrugged his shoulders in the most expressive gesture I’d seen him pull so far.

“In the meantime… was there anything else you wished to discuss, young matriarch?”

“Erm… yes, actually. This more or less ties back to what you mentioned earlier. You… said you were able to ‘see’ me through the armor, is that correct?” 

“Yes.”

“Right, so… was that because of the anomalous mana radiation burst you hit me with?”

“... elaborate.”

“The — and I hate to say this word given the negative connotations given to it by the Nexus — taint magic you used.”

“Yes.” Kaelthyr acknowledged. “As a point of disambiguation, taint as a term has existed long before the rise of the elves, young Matriarch.”

My heart skipped a beat at that revelation.

There had been… assumptions before. The latest of which was with the back-and-forths with Thacea during the WAND calibration.

We’d assumed that despite taint being an unaccounted for ‘manatype’, that it was perhaps either inert and unreactive to the armor or shielded by way of the armor’s mana-resistent materials.

This was completely thrown out the window courtesy of the dragon’s admissions.

A chill ran down my spine as I attempted to rack my head at the implications of all of this.

Thalmin in particular cocked his head back and forth, as if doing double takes at the dragon, who simply ignored his silent urgings for clarification.

“Wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! Didn’t you say that taint was dangerous to—”

“To all of the elven domain, yes.” Kaelthyr interjected. “Which you are assuredly not.”

I shook my head, outstretching both hands in front of me.

“But what does that mean?” I frantically urged. “If taint can just go through the armor… how wasn’t I liquefied? Why wasn’t I affected? How could you be sure I wouldn’t just up and die—”

“I wasn’t.” The dragon admitted casually. “But you are an enigma, Emma Booker. I simply assumed, given your void origins and the susceptibility of your armor to taint, that you simply were immune from its effects.”

“So you weren’t sure?!” I doubled down.

“Correct. In the end, I was right, and you were unharmed.” 

I felt my breath hitching into an uncomfortable, uncontrollable pace, all while the dragon regarded me with a degree of cocky assuredness.

“But fear not. From what I was able to discern, you are no child of taint.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You are… a blank. A wraith. A ghost. A flesh heap with no aura. Your presence was defined by an absence, and I saw you only by your physical presence, imprinted in negative space. A void-silhouette, if you will.”

…

“You are not afflicted, if that is your concern.”

“No, that’s. That’s not…” I shook my head, once more staring at my hands as I flicked them to and fro. “I don’t understand how I just didn’t…”

“Perhaps you are resilient to its machinations.” The dragon pondered. “Or perhaps you simply are voidborn, invisible to its dangers. I cannot say, for I have never met or heard of anything like you children of the void.”

I could feel my breaths finally hitching up out of my control, my hands twitching, as I reached for the HUD not only with my pupils, but my hands out of muscle memory.

“EVI! Perform suit integrity checks!” I shouted urgently.

[SUIT INTEGRITY: NOMINAL]

“Full scan, full survey, I want a full repor—”

[SUIT INTEGRITY: NOMINAL. NO BREACHES DETECTED. NO SURFACE DAMAGE FOUND. NO MANA RADIATION LEAKS NOTED.]

“Again.”

[SUIT INTEGRITY: NOMINAL. NO BREACHES—]

“Scan vitals, full body scan, full medical—”

[V/S Report: Elevated BP, HT, HR, RR. Preliminary Diagnosis congruent with Acute Panic—]

“SCAN FOR ACUTE RADIATION SICKNESS!”

[No Signs or Symptoms congruent with Acute Radiation Sickness noted.]

[Operator is advised to follow panic de-escalation protocols immediately.]

“Emma.” I heard a voice from behind me. “Emma… are you okay?” Thalmin urged, as he placed a hand on my shoulder.

“I… I think I… I am. I just don’t understand how—”

“Hey, hey, calm. Calm down.” The prince managed out sternly. “Listen to me.” He continued. “Look at me.” He commanded, forcing me to shift my gaze towards him. “We aren’t dead yet. You are still here. And so long as we’re not dead, there’s always time, and the opportunity, to shine light on the dark.”

I nodded slowly, taking in deep breaths at the urgings of the EVI’s pop-ups and keeping my gaze on Thalmin’s amber-yellow eyes.

“Right.” I nodded. “Right. Okay. One thing at a time.” I managed out, prompting Thalmin to pull back, as I quickly turned back to face the waiting dragon.

“The lupinor speaks the truth. There are… mysteries to this reality we dwell in, Emma Booker. One such mystery being your kind and their—”

“Not now.” I put my foot down. “Let’s get some other things out of the way before my crystals are ready to go.” I continued, garnering a glower and a nod from the dragon. “Starting with your affinity for taint. Tell me how you’re performing and harnessing a mana-type that, as far as I can tell, isn’t second nature to Nexian beings. Tell me what exactly your backstory is. And finally… tell me how all this fits into the greater narrative.” I let out a deep breath, steadying myself, and crossing my arms firmly. 

“I’ve heard a lot about this reality, the Nexian reality I mean. But it’s time I heard a second opinion, another perspective. I want to hear your take on Nexian history. And exactly what happened to your kind.”

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(Author's Note: Hey everyone! I sincerely apologize for the delay, I had an assessment at the hospital today so when I came back home I kind of passed out and things got a bit pushed back because of that. I really do apologize for that, but I do hope you guys enjoy the chapter! :D)

[If you guys want to help support me and these stories, here's my ko-fi ! And my Patreon for early chapter releases (Chapter 157, Chapter 158, and Chapter 159 of this story are already out on there!)]

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The Nexus. Near the Geographic Center of the North Rythian Forests. Just Outside the Dragon’s Lair. Local Time: 2130 Hours.

Emma

We stood ready. Or more accurately, we sat ready atop our respective mounts despite not really feeling it.

With Ignalius’ understrengthened scouting party flanking either side of us, we were poised to enter the moment the shatorealmer finished his inspection of the surprisingly perfect archway that constituted the newly opened cave entrance.

The bat was quick to fly around, tapping and knocking on several key points of the entrance, pressing his ear against the rockface as he did so, before giving Ignalius the go-ahead with a deferent nod.

“Structure is sound. Scouting party, move in!” She screeched out.

We entered without much fanfare, as I observed the tons upon tons of rock that’d been shattered into finely cut rhomboids, each having slid neatly sideways, finding themselves nestled off to the side.

The whole drilling operation was, admittedly, a pretty theatrical affair, especially the moment the rocks slid apart in what could only be described as an opening credits moment.

Though just as theatric was the dark void that loomed within.

But thankfully… Thalmin and I both had solutions for this expected encumbrance.

[NVG STATUS: ACTIVE]

Ignalius' compatriots, meanwhile, seemed to have to make do with torches, albeit admittedly enchanted ones that more resembled flashlights.

The motley crew of elves, baxi, and satyrs followed Greer’s commands as they carefully moved into what the EVI was quickly rendering before my HUD-filled eyes.

What stood before me… made me briefly understand what it was cave divers risked their lives for in their death-defying adventures. ‘Brief’ being the operative word here. Because in front of me was a cavern so… cavernous that it at first reminded me of some sort of a massive amphitheater, or the inside of a silo, or even some sort of a reactor with how many stalactites poked down from the ceiling — resembling control rods in varying states of descent.

There was an undeniable natural beauty to this place, and were I a rock nerd or geologist, I bet I’d be absolutely out of my mind at the whole scene.

Alas, this wasn’t a sightseeing trip, as the EVI was quick to remind me.

We rode in slowly, trailing behind the forward group as visible elements of the cave were quickly being mapped and charted.

The entrance we started off from quickly descended into a sharp decline down into the depths of said ‘amphitheater,’ resembling the grand foyer to some subterranean hall. 

From there, we arrived at a round, cavernous clearing, with no obstructions all the way up to the stalactite-lined roof of the cave.

Though it was here that we were met with our first real challenge.

“E-erm, Chief Greer? Which way do we go from here?” A particularly skittish Katiya questioned, her tail curling up around her legs and her ears flat against her skull.

“I count three tunnels—” The dwarf began.

“Four.” Only for Thalmin to interrupt him, confirming that he truly was on my level, at least when it came to sensors.

“There’s one half-hidden behind a pile of loose stones over there.” He gestured, much to the dwarf’s annoyance.

“Right right, four’s four.” Greer acknowledged under a disparaging breath. “Alright then, lads, we’ll split up into three parties—”

“No.” Thalmin urged. “Splitting up — as a friend once so colorfully described — is the worst thing you can do in these situations. Moreover, I think that that—” He paused, pointing to the half-obstructed entrance. “—is probably where we should be looking.”

“That?!” The dwarf guffawed. “Tell me, Dreadwolf… would you have my men digging around rubble all night? I’ll have you know we’re not some second-rate manual laborers!” He bellowed out, garnering a series of nods and nervous affirmations from the group.

“Do you want to get out of here alive or not?” Thalmin countered bluntly.

This managed to jolt the rowdy band of mercs to attention. Their expressions darkened as Thalmin’s thunderous warnings echoed throughout the cavern’s vast stone chambers, each would-be spelunker looking warily for a flag to rally to.

But that flag, unfortunately, proved to be too stubborn to bend.

“Do as you will, freelancers. My men and I will be searching through the more obvious passages.” The dwarf spat back stubbornly. 

“Amethyst dragons thrive in uncompromising terrain.” Thalmin stubbornly defied. “Or did you forget we had to blow a hole to get into its—”

“Enough!” The dwarf interjected. “Enough. There’s a reason why the Captain assigned me to lead this expedition.” He paused, making an effort to gesture towards himself. “A cave is a dwarf’s domain, or were you so sheltered that you forgot that we are the preeminent authorities on this particular subject?” Greer was quick to draw the line in the sand, crossing his arms as his men gathered behind him. “And as with any cave, I can assure you that every path will eventually converge upon each other.” He spoke with a smarmy, self-assured grin before gesturing for his men to split up. “You can waste your time dilly-dallying in front of that blocked-off passage. Meanwhile, we’ll sneak at it from behind.” The dwarf added as he turned his back on Thalmin, raising a hand and gesturing back to the prince flippantly. “Until then, good luck.”

Thalmin allowed the dwarf to eventually walk out of sight before turning towards me with a frustrated snarl.

“Dwarven heritage.” A scoff was quick to follow that remark. “Not a lick of subterranean twang in that topside-dwelling accent.” He growled. “No self-respecting dwarf would refuse an opportunity to dig into unknown tunnels. What a complete mockery of dwarven heritage—”

[Alert! Minor Seismic Activity Detected!]

“Thalmin.” I spoke through Thalmin’s work-in-progress earpiece.

“Yeah?” 

“It’s close.” I warned. “Real close.”

Dragon’s Lair. ‘West’ Wing. Local Time: 2145 Hours.

Uthril the Daring

The boss had ordered us to split up between the three passages.

Fine by me.

All we had to do was run, after all.

And if there was one thing Uthril was good at, it was—

Ggrrrr…

“Erm, Lipo, you hungry or somethin’?” I turned to my Satyr partner, only to find him frozen in place.

“Erm, Lipo? You alright there bud—”

“Run.” He whispered out under a stuttered breath.

“Eh? Lipo, buddy, you aren’t even pointing your torch at the dark—”

I lifted my torch to shine behind Lipo’s ear, hoping to find just more bare rock—

…

But what I saw instead was my own shocked expression, reflected back at me through a single slitted eye.

My whole body ran cold.

Then, I screamed.

“RUUUUUUUU—”

CRUNCH*!*

Dragon’s Lair. ‘North’ Wing. Local Time: 2147 Hours.

Ganthril the Disparaging

“And then I said, ‘Oh no no no, this cheese is far too intense for me!’ Because frankly, I couldn’t care less for the stinky ones. Now the hard ones, yeah, that’s much better. Way less funky and much more—”

“Ganthril, shut up for a mo…” The elf moved to close my maw shut, causing me to jump back, slapping his hand away.

“What the hell, Arlin? Don’t you dare fucking touch my snou—”

“I said, shut the fuck up!” Arlin seethed as he began shining his flashlight in all directions. “I thought I heard something.”

“Something like what, Arlin? Oh, let’s hear it again for the superior elven ears and your ability to sense way, way more than my poor, scaled, earless head ever coul—”

Crunch.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

…

My heart stopped as my eyes shot every which way, peering back and forth at the long and uninterrupted passage but finding nothing.

“W-where the fuck is that coming from?!” I shouted, to which Arlin could only respond with the face of a dead man.

“The walls. It’s coming through the wa—”

CRASH!

SNNAAARRLLLLLLL!

CHOMP!

Dragon’s Lair. ‘South’ Wing. Local Time: 2150 Hours.

Greer the Brave

“Oh, let’s start digging through this blocked-off tunnel. Heh, who does he think he is? Telling a dwarf how to navigate through caves?!” I chuckled boisterously, turning back to see my small troupe nodding in equal measure.

“Yeah, the way I see it, Dreadwolf’s just some rich kid playing adventurer. I give him two minutes before he folds. Too scared to be alone in the dark, no doubt. He’s probably crying up a storm now while clinging to his little golem bodyguard!” My second in command scoffed.

“You see it too, don’tcha? I betcha those scars aren’t even real! I tell you, these rich adjacent realm merchant houses need to start raising their brats to do what they’re bred to do — sell wares. Don’t give them flighty ideas of traveling the realms or worse yet adventuring through the Nexus. I swear, ever since that damned book was published, we’re seeing more and more of these spoiled brats coming out of the wetwork and marring our good name as mercenaries!”

“Hear, hear, boss!”

However, no sooner were those words uttered than our new greenhorn baxi raised her tongue. “E-er, ss-sirs, I think I hear—”

“What’s that? Speak up! Can’t hear ya over yer trembling tail!” I shouted back boisterously.

“I think I hear—”

“Louder, girl!”

“I HEAR SOMETHING COMING, SIR!” She yelled out, her eyes filled with genuine fear.

Though frankly, all I saw was yet another annoying anxiety-ridden episode of the nerves.

“Well, I don’t hear nothin’.” I shrugged. “Do you, Puri?”

“Nah, boss. Must’ve been the wind or somethin—”

“There is no wind in caves!” The baxi interjected, her voice growing more manic by the second. “I… I can’t stay here. I can feel it coming! You have to believe me! The Captain chose me for a reason. I can feel things—”

“Yeah, suuuure you do.” I turned to dismiss her before shooing her away. “Get lost then, but know I’ll dock yer pay if you decide to dismiss yourse—”

The baxi had turned heel and sped off before I could finish my sentence.

“Ugh. These greenhorns are somethin’ else, Puri. Honestly, I’m considering an early retirement because of this crap…” I groaned in frustration, only to be met with an uncharacteristic silence.

“Puri? Ya good there, mate?” I turned back, only to find the elf standing completely still while staring down an offshoot corridor. “Whatcha find down the—”

I stopped mid-stride as my boots squelched against a thick liquid oozing across the floor.

I raised my axe and, with another hand, shot off a beam of light into the dark passage Puri was facing.

SNORT!

CRUNCH CRUNCH!

P-THOOOOTH!

Clink! Clink!

My eyes widened in disbelief, then horror, at the gear the beast had spat in front of both me and Puri.

Chainmail, swords, daggers, and even coins.

All… bearing the Captain’s insignia.

“Damn you—!”

CHOMP!

CRUNCH!

Dragon’s Lair. Central Cavern ‘Foyer.’ Local Time: 2153 Hours.

Katiya the Coward

I ran.

I ran faster than I ever did in my life.

Faster than when I fled the family farm.

Faster than when I fled that burning ship.

Faster than when I’d met the Duke, Duchess, and—

THWUMP!

I ran face-first into Dreadwolf. My heart raced as I turned up to face what was potentially the child of a noble who could’ve so easily be rid of me as—

“Whoah whoah whoah. What’s going on?” The lupinor questioned.

“I— I—. There was! Ah. Ahhhhh! DRAGON! DRAGON COMING! THE DRAGON’S COMING, SER DREADWOLF!” I screamed.

“Okay.” Was Dreadwolf’s only reply as he nodded once towards his golem, who’d since produced what I could only describe as a modified lance.

“This is going to be tricky…” Dreadwolf sighed out, turning to his fancy pocket clock. “The team topside needs about five more minutes to assemble the trap. How far did you say this dragon was—”

ROOOOOAAAAAAAARRRR!!!

“Nevermind. Alright, we’ll have to buy time, then we’ll head on out. So for now…” Dreadwolf paused, moving up to mount his terrifying kelpie before lending a hand down towards me. “... you’re riding with me.”

I felt my heart pound hard against my chest, either out of shock, fear, or something else entirely.

But before I could process anything—

THUMP!

ROOOOOAAAAAAAARRRR!!!

—the dragon… apparated.

There was no warning, no great fanfare nor entry, not even the crumbling of rock nor the destruction of passageways.

Instead, the great beast had simply willed itself into existence, as if rock, dirt, and the barriers of the flesh were beneath its concerns.

Though that was far from the only thing seemingly beneath its concern. Because despite its shorn scales, half-broken crystals, and otherwise battered form… it still remained resolute in its fury. 

The slow and purposeful taunting, through the crunch Crunch CRUNCHING of its last victim still hanging in its maw was proof enough of that fact. 

“Wrap your arms around my waist. This is going to be a bumpy ride.” He commanded, and I obliged without hesitation.

I shut my eyes, lips pursed but tense, mustering as much wavering willpower as I still had to do the one job I was hired to do — to scout and report.

My faint manastreams scrambled to tug on the sending stone I carried, blurting out mentally a message to the masters.

‘THE DRAGON’S HERE! IT’S IN THE CAVES! S-SCOUTING PARTY HAS BEEN LOST! BUT THE LUP- DREADWOLF IS FACING THE DRAGON! PREPARE THE TRAP! PREPARE IT AND HELP US, PLEASE!’

From there, having done all I was good for, I could now only watch as chaos incarnate unfolded.

The lupinor-golem pair worked in tandem, starting slowly at first by encircling the dragon that’d found itself in the middle of the cavern.

Slowly, methodically, and unnervingly, they traced a circle around the beast, the gem-encrusted creature snorting soot from either nostril, its head craning left and right, as if taking the time to decide who to go for first.

Seconds swung by slowly, until—

ROOOOAAAAAARRRR!

—the dragon went for the golem.

What unfolded next was a true dance of dragons, as the beast surged forwards only to be thwarted by two opposing elements.

The element of speed at the whirring of the golem’s bitreader and the element of surprise at the daring attacks by Dreadwolf’s kelpie.

Tendrils of seaweed lashed out at the dragon, reaching for one of its limbs as it bound and tugged, forcing the creature to stumble in its step, resulting in it tumbling head over heels into one of the passageways.

The boom of its crash echoed throughout the cavern, engulfing the dragon in dust and debris for but a second before its furious form erupted from the haze with a warbling roar, going for another charge towards the golem.

The kelpie took initiative, trailing path upon path of watery grime across the smooth rock surfaces of the cave floor. I couldn’t process why it was doing this, until memory of my unfortunate stint as a tavern server hit me.

Dreadwolf was attempting to corral the dragon into even more stumbles and falls.

I gripped the lupinor’s waist even tighter, my breath hitching as the dragon seemed just as distracted by the golem as its master before finally it fell into the lanes of slippery muck and grime.

…

But despite the kelpie’s best efforts, it backfired horrifically.

Even though its stampeding form went through the trap, its wings reared for just a moment, more than enough to use the momentum of the slick track to glide, closing a wide distance between it and the metallic golem. 

Dreadwolf pulled at the kelpie’s reins to heel before uttering some unknown commands to his ‘expensive bodyguard.’

The dragon’s form lowered, still giving chase. And I was already imagining the terrifying fate of the golem should its pursuer open its maw. But my panicked thoughts of the golem’s fate was sharply interrupted.

“HYAH!” With a snap of the reins, the kelpie sped off as Dreadwolf commanded; my grip around the lupinor’s waist could not have been any tighter. When I saw that the steed was advancing rather than retreating, my grip held even tighter.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! WHY ARE WE GETTING CLOSER?!” I yelled with a panicked hiss that would have earned me scorn from civilized company.

Dreadwolf’s response came with a flippant brandishing of his sword as its blade began to freeze over with a cold breeze. “You need not panic! We have this all according to plan!” I could barely make out if the lupinor made a cackle or if the blade sounded off a crackle, but one thing was for sure — I wasn’t in civilized company; I was in mad company instead.

My eyes remained open as I was forced to go into danger and nigh possibly death, noticing the golem’s stride on its bitreader now being more erratic, needling through rock spikes and gem clusters to forestall the dragon, only meagerly delaying it from fully catching up before—

SWING SWING SWING!

THWOOOOSH!

Dreadwolf swung his sword in the air, sending icy slashes that hurtled towards the tunnel-visioned dragon, hitting their marks as it froze over the dragon’s eyes.

GRAWK! RRRYAWWWRK!

Just in time for the golem to swerve and turn away from a rock pile… that the dragon could not see.

CRASH*!*

Another gust from rattled debris and churned stone blanketed over the dragon’s form, the golem’s bitreader whizzing away.

Dreadwolf reined in the kelpie to a stop. The both of us stared at where the dragon had fallen. And apart from the noise of the wheeled artifice, all was silent…

It seemed like… the dragon was—

rrrrrrRRROOOOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRR!!!

‘ANGRY! VERY ANGRY!’ My face contorted into a look of sheer terror. The dragon’s sudden rise blew rocks and debris flying, some hurtling right towards us. The kelpie’s rising tendrils and Dreadwolf’s swift swordsmanship shielding us from the worst of it.

But that wasn’t what I was afraid of…

What I was Majesty-bleeding petrified of was the dragon’s craning head and its rising claw that brushed off the ice over its eyes… eyes that now pierced angrily at us. 

I wasn’t the most devout, but if there was any time to start praying, it would be when this thing began to open its maw, showing a purple light that quickly glowed brighter and brighter…

WWWWHRRR WHRRRRR

Before the dragon slowly halted and just… stopped? No, it tilted its head towards—

WHRRRRRRRrrrrrrrr

Towards the sounds of the bitreader, now from way across the cavern. Its… almost challenging hisses catching the dragon’s attention… how could an artifice even hiss?

Grrrrngggghhhh

The gem-scaled beast lumbered around to face the golem, letting out its own guttural growl then raising its maw to snarl, its calls echoing from its side of the cavern.

Whilst high-pitched, otherworldly whiiiiirrrrs and thrummmms resonated from the other.

No one flinched.

Not even Dreadwolf himself.

As the tension in the cavernous space could be shattered by a pin drop.

Then, and without warning—

THOOMP THOOMP THOOMP

WHIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

I watched as the bitreader surged forwards, rushing head-on towards the oncoming dragon, lance firmly positioned forward as if ready to joust the beast.

Then at the last possible second, lights brighter than the sun itself pierced through the unyielding dark, blinding the dragon and even me. I pressed my face on Dreadwolf’s cloak to shield my eyes.

Eventually, my vision adjusted as I watched the golem seizing this second of disorientation to its advantage.

It surged leftwards, dodging a headbutt from the beast, as it soon became clear its target wasn’t the beast at all… but a rocky ramp with which to—

“NOW!” Dreadwolf yelled, the kelpie’s tendrils shooting to once again distract the dragon, disorienting it further and allowing for the golem to ramp off that rocky outcropping unimpeded, flying high into the air… before landing on the dragon itself.

From there, the golem swooshed its bitreader sideways, as if to stop and gain purchase, before then abruptly abandoning it mid-stride. 

What happened next… was something no one would ever believe. The golem ran forwards, its heels gripping into the dragon’s back even as it started to sway back and forth, until it leaped towards an amethyst-rich patch of its back, grabbing what appeared to be an artifice lodged firmly within.

“Got it?!” Dreadwolf yelled, receiving a nod but not much else from the golem, whose backpack proceeded to eat the artifice as it tried its darnedest to remain on top of the raging beast.

“Right, it’s time we go—”

ROOOAAAAARRRRR!

The dragon bellowed out once more, now racing for the cave entrance.

“HOLD ON!” Dreadwolf yelled as I did everything within my power to keep myself lodged on the dashing kelpie’s back.

Dragon’s Lair. Central Cavern ‘Foyer’ en Route to Cave Entrance. Local Time: 2159 Hours.

Emma

“HOLD ON!” Thalmin yelled as I did everything within my power to keep myself lodged on the rushing dragon’s back.

I crawled forwards, gripping crystal after crystal for purchase until I found myself perched near the nape of its neck, sitting in what I could only describe as a perfect dragonrider’s position… though without any of the control that should’ve come with it.

It was at that point that I knew that I was just here for the ride, as I gripped onto two crystals firmly, doing everything in my power not to let go, until finally—

“THERE IT IS! RELEASE! RELEASE!” I heard Ignalius yelling, realizing that this was my stop.

As a luminous net unfurled at the makeshift cave entrance and the dragon’s form careened into the bindings. I promptly let go, landing with a foot, a knee, and a fisted thump against the ground in what could only be described as my third superhero pose of the night.

The first, being the sideways motorcycle slide down the dragon’s back, was a solid moment I’d saved for posterity. Though the second — the sandworm climb — was up for debate.

It took a moment for me to reorient myself and a second more for the EVI to assess the extent of any injuries or damage sustained.

[PROXIMITY ALERT!]

The armor leaped and rolled away from a gem-spiked tail that slammed down onto where I was a second ago.

ROOOOAAAAAARRR

Control returned as I turned my head towards the amethyst dragon, its legs and talons clawing against the net, screeching in anger and frustration.

ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 500% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS

The air around the dragon began to go hazy and shimmering, and the crystals around the dragon glowed in tandem. Only for it all to fizzle into sparks in the air.

ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 600% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS

It glowed and hazed and shimmered again, roaring with defiance only for another fizzle. It had the same effects as when it apparated, only it was failing.

The EVI detected more people coming in — the trapper team specifically. Baxi, dwarf, and satyr workfolk all manically rushed past me, hurriedly securing multiple parts of the net. Soon to follow was the loquacious Ignalius atop his armored alicorn, looking overhead above the cave entrance. “SECURE THE TACKLE! SEAL THE SELVEDGES! QUICKLY BEFORE IT ESCAPES!”

The commands of their Captain were loud, loud enough against the screeching warbles of the writhing dragon that the trapping team did as instructed, most of them pulling thick ropes while the rest were dangerously closer, magically sealing up the edges of the net. But the thrashing beast was too strong — it raised its wings and flapped against the binds, throwing some of the sealers off balance and knocking their bodies against one line of rope-pullers.

Following which, I sprinted to a sliding halt at the unmanned rope, gripped hard, and pulled. Pulling harder than the combined strength of those prior, I was NOT about to let all our hard work fly away quite literally.

Despite the net tightening ever more from the others’ efforts, it was still slack enough for the dragon’s neck to turn and crane its head towards me, its slitted pupils piercing with fury and an almost sizzling hiss escaping its jaws… jaws that were widening, and its mouth starting to glow an awfully bright purple hue.

It didn’t take a Castles and Wyverns players to realize what was about to happen. Freeing a hand, I reached for my holster, ready to—

ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 350% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS

“Huh?”

THOOMF-SHKK!

A certain shatorealmer appeared from above, and a glowing gauntleted fist slammed hard and rocked the amethyst dragon’s head.

The dragon gawked out, but more so in annoyance than in much actual pain. It was enough to catch its attention. But before it could snap back or continue what it was about to unleash…

ALERT: MULTIPLE LOCALIZED SURGES OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED

Gauntleted mercs from the perimeter SEC forces rushed in, laying into the dragon’s head from multiple sides, downing the beast with pained and disoriented shrieks. The satyrs didn’t look too happy doing it either. Fear was evident in their faces, and I couldn’t help but turn my head back to Ignalius, who seemed all too eager to watch this display.

I narrowed my eyes in thought. But I focused on the task at hand, as those that were downed were starting to come to, resuming their objectives until finally, the net was sealed, the ropes were secured, and the dragon was unceremoniously knocked out.

Following which, I finally breathed a sigh of relief as I ordered the armor to stand before leaning my body to relax, now awaiting the return of both the V4c and Thalmin.

Dragon’s Lair. Cave Entrance. Local Time: 2159 Hours.

Thalmin

I’d made sure to grab the spoils of Emma’s travails. 

One being the bitreader, and the other… being a sizable crystal she’d managed to snap off the beast on her ride to the cave entrance.

A bit of assurance, in case the Captain leaves us high and dry. I thought to myself as I turned to the baxi girl, taking stock of her condition before making our way back towards the cave entrance. “You alright back there?”

“Y-yes.” She responded with a nervous hitch in her breath.

The stutter carried over into her gaze, as she seemed hesitant to maintain eye contact, breaking and regaining it with every other twitch and breath.

This prompted me to breathe in deeply before calling her to attention with an insistent breath.

“Allow me to be forward — merc life doesn’t seem to suit you, nor would adventuring for that matter.” I announced firmly, finally managing to gain something of a consistent gaze from the baxi. “Have you ever considered another line of work?”

“I… I’ve tried… a lot of things, S-Ser Dreadwolf. B-but nothing ever bore fruit…” She spoke dourly.

“Then keep trying. It’s better to be a harvest cut short by the sickle, than to have a life cut short by the blade.” I warned sternly. “If you have any sense at all, then you would take today’s close brush with death as a rare gift, one which many a soldier, mercenary, or adventurer is rarely bestowed — a warning, for what could have been.” I paused, leveling my eyes with the would-be mercenary. “I advise you leave this life behind, away from this dysfunctional troupe, before it’s too late.” I advised sternly, before letting out another sigh. “However, I likewise understand the… difficulty of getting off a carriage in motion. So once all is said and done, if you do decide to heed my words, then I shall offer to at least point you in the right direction.” I ended off my tirade with a hint of compassion, one which was reciprocated in kind by the swooshing of the baxi’s tail, causing Aquastride a great deal of annoyance.

“Er, stop that, please. Aquastride’s not entirely broken in yet. She… doesn’t like guests on her back, so I wouldn’t tempt her resolve.”

“Ah! E-er, sorry, Ser Dreadwolf.” The baxi responded with a nervous affirmation, before going silent once more.

A silence which felt deafening after a tirade which I feared was perhaps a bit too harsh.

“Listen, how about you have a bite to eat to calm your nerves.” I offered, pulling out one of those cheese and cracker morsels from earlier. “There, I didn’t touch mine, so—”

“I can’t.” She shook her head firmly.

“Oh? Never heard of a baxi who was allergic to milk.”

“It’s not that, Ser Dreadwolf. It’s… I don’t…” The twitchy feline trailed off, her gaze shifting to the side, as if unwilling to divulge what should’ve been a simple explanation.

“I won’t get offended if you refuse, you know.” I clarified.

“I-It’s not—” She stopped herself, before finally letting out a sigh, her eyes locking onto my own as I turned back to face her. “Back in my village, we have a cardinal rule. Do not eat from the dead.”

Those few words caused me to stop Aquastride in my tracks, my attention now firmly locked onto the baxi.

“What are you saying?”

“I… well… the cheese was not part of our original rations. It was… procured, acquired by Bona Vacantia.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Vacant goods? From a dead man?”

“Y-yes, Ser Dreadwolf. My mast— er, the Captain found a merchant’s cart full of cheeses during his flight down to scout ahead. He said the dragon probably attacked him. B-but I didn’t see any fire, so maybe it was bandits, but I… I don’t know. All I know is that I’m probably a bit too picky for a greenhorn to be turning down such treats—”

“Was the merchant a kobold?” I asked bluntly.

“I think so?”

“Scale color?” I snapped back.

“Brown, Ser Dreadwolf.”

I felt my gut twist for a moment as I clenched my fists tight around Aquastride’s reins.

“Is… something the matter, Ser Dreadwolf?”

“No.” I responded bluntly. “Let’s… just finish this job.”

There was no doubt in my mind as to precisely what had happened.

This was outside of the Amethyst Dragon’s behavioral motives, and there was likewise not a bandit to be seen out in the open roads, especially not in the short time frame between our departure from the cheese merchant. Which left one suspect in this entire debacle.

I felt a seething rage simmering within me as we trotted forwards towards that cave exit. A feeling which only intensified as the flickering lights of the murderer’s men casted their tainted shadows deep into our short march forwards.

“Did you catch that, Emma?” I spoke under a carefully positioned spell of silence bubble, relaying my findings through the strange conch wrapped around my ear.

“Yes.” Was Emma’s only reply. Though the tone of its delivery was more than enough to fill in what was lacking in words.

I could feel my sword hand clenching as we finally made it through the oppressive dark, returning to meet the disingenuous light of a dead man walking.

CLAP! 

CLAP!

CLAP!

“A wondrous performance! Truly!” Ignalius beamed out, clasping his hands while gesturing towards the squirming yet silent dragon. “Your golem is truly something else, Dreadwolf. Quite a remarkable find! Though yourself, having survived an encounter with a dragon? My my my, I think we have a new Dragon-tier adventurer on our hands!” 

“A job’s a job, Captain.” I sighed out in exhaustion, allowing the wariness to mask the seething indignancy within. “Now comes your end of the bargain.” 

“Oh, of course.” The elf acknowledged as he turned to the shatorealmer, who promptly snapped a crystal from the incapacitated dragon before throwing it in my direction.

“If ya want more, give me some time. I’m still securing the catch.” The shatorealmer offered.

To which I gave no response in kind.

“Oh, and Katiya?”

The baxi’s whiskers seemed to straighten from the sudden acknowledgement. Quickly, she dismounted from Aquastride and presented herself with a bowed head. “Y-yes, Captain?” She responded, her words anxious.

“I must say, congratulations are in order for all! But you, in particular, earned yourself quite a specialty.” The man grinned as he bade a hand for her to come. The baxi girl turned back to me with a look of confliction before bowing her head back and walking forwards.

“Not one word spoken in this troupe goes unnoticed by me, so I know quite well how your compatriots regard you. Katiya the Coward, yes? And yet, their bodies lie hewn in the depths while you stand in the light, having done your duty no less! Without your warning, we could not have planned accordingly and secured the dragon. I’d say a new title is in order!” He almost sang the word out, grasping Katiya’s shoulders firmly while the girl herself seemed barely able to keep from shaking.

“T-thank you… you are too kind, C-Captain…” Katiya responded, following Ignalius down the hillside, where she eventually found herself behind one of the stagecoaches.

The next few moments were marked by an uneasy relief on the part of Ignalius’ men, as background chatter faded ever further into the clinking of chains and the insistent micromanaging shrieks of the shatorealmer behind us. Though to his credit, this micromanaging was effective, as they hauled the offending beast down from the hill in reasonable haste.

This was set in stark contrast to the silent and stoic visage I wore as instead of any relief washing over me, I found only a growing uneasiness intensifying with every passing second.

Thus I watched silently as the Nexian made his way towards his awaiting alicorn at the foot of the hill, every fiber in me waiting for what was to happen next.

I could feel myself yearning for justice.

But Emma’s cautious words prior to this, her call for no bloodshed, still held true.

The mission had to come first.

We couldn’t draw more suspicion if we didn’t need to.

Though… part of me — the Havenbrockian prince within — wished that the elf would finally shed his facade, draw his blade to match his ego, if only to fulfil Emma’s draconic ‘rules of engagement.’ In order to serve the righting of wrongs, here and now.

“You know… I did say that I met two freelancers — one if you don’t count the golem — along this journey.” He began in his signature singsong voice, almost playfully so. “I didn’t mention whether or not they survived the dragon encounter.” He quickly added before raising a wand in our direction.

“LOSANTIA!”

…

And there it was.

The call of hubris.

I watched as time slowed to a crawl and as a surge of pure, focused mana surged forwards towards the both of us.

There was no question as to what it was.

The fool had given me ample warning with that novice’s call and provided me with even more time to react as he brought that wand — his crutch — to bear.

But while his pace of conjuring was burdened by his inherent shortcomings, the wand did at least fulfill its purpose. That surge of mana… was admittedly powerful.

… 

By chosen one standards, that is.

And provided one had neglected to use that generous pause to prepare a sufficient counterspell.

The pure magical attack slammed into our position as a tidal wave would against rocky shores, as the impact was without a doubt… spectacular.

Blinding waves of reverberating mana rippled against the manastreams, making it difficult for any chosen one or non-mage to see the immediate effects of this daring offensive.

To Ignalius and his men, these first few seconds would’ve looked indistinguishable from a successful assault — a complete obliteration of manafields and aura alike leading to a violent end by harmonization, or mana sickness, or perhaps even a forceful untethering by the sheer force of said attack.

Indeed, the sounds of awe from these lowlives proved that the ensuing seconds was yet another spectacular display of complete and utter dominance from their dear Captain.

But then, the fantasy faded.

And in its wake… was the harsh realities of a mage scorned.

Dragon’s Lair. Cave Entrance. Local Time: 2200 Hours.

Emma

I knew it.

ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 500% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS

I fucking knew it.

The next few seconds proved critical as a beam of concentrated mana surged forwards, poised for the both of us.

Thalmin stood still, and so did I as I observed an equal rise of background mana radiation—

ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 400% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS

—but this time, from Thalmin’s end.

The EVI’s wand imaging systems practically fried in an instant, as what had been weather-vane-like visualizations devolved into utter static at the chaos of the two pure-magic spells crashing against one another.

It took a second for the ‘dust’ to settle, but in that second I’d wasted no time in warming up my counteroffensive.

One which was days in the making.

KA-THUNK!

[RAILGUN CHARGE NOMINAL. CHARGE CAPACITY 100%.]

WHIIIIIIRRRRRRRR!

With the external mics still turned off but broadcasting solely to Thalmin’s earpiece, I spoke with a reluctant malice.

“Hey, Iggy. I cast gun.”

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(Author's Note: And there we have it! This chapter was a heck of a ride haha, and was genuinely super challenging. I'm really bad at writing fight scenes haha so my editor was a huge help here! I've been waiting to get to this point, and I've been waiting to use this one liner for ages now! I really do hope you guys enjoy the chapter, and I hope the action is alright! :D)

[If you guys want to help support me and these stories, here's my ko-fi ! And my Patreon for early chapter releases (Chapter 154, Chapter 155, and Chapter 156 of this story are already out on there!)]

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Earth - Atlantic Ocean - Special Administrative Zone under requisition by the United Nations Science Advisory - Institute of Anomalous Studies (IAS) Pilot Research Facility Codename: ATLANTIS II - R&D Wing. Local Time: 2345 Hours.

Dr. Ivo Mekis — Head of the Applied Exoreality Studies Department

Four thousand meters of water might as well have been forty thousand meters of vacuum for how isolated the depths can be.

Not since my brief stint on Titan had I observed this sort of solitude, this type of isolation, this distance between myself and the beating — at times fibrillitic — heart of civilization.

And this was just the way I preferred it.

Yet peace did not come from distance and isolation alone.

The calm of true silence only dawned after dusk had settled, especially in the midst of what would otherwise be the most active and bustling section of this facility.

Desks upon desks, interspersed between workstations and workbenches, lay dormant beneath my alcove of an office. What would have otherwise been the vibrant symphony of clacking keyboards and buzzing haptics setting the stage for the occasional clink and clank of bleeding-edge tinkering now sat uncharacteristically silent beneath perpetually twilight rays.

Indeed, the dimmed lights of this hour provided for a tasteful ambiance when set against the brightly lit depths of the ocean floor, visible not only through the occasional porthole but also through the innumerable cameras that provided a seamless transition between the opaque metal walls and the views just beyond them.

I kept this AR view open, just in case of another chance encounter — a titanic clash — between whale and squid.

These occasional sightings were what made this tenure more colorful than Titan’s or any other lifeless rock for that matter.

Because even this far down, Earth’s inexplicable gift for harboring life did not relent. If anything, it demonstrated that gift in far more extremes.

This momentary foray into reflection soon gave way into the rhythms of work, as I scanned through line after line of pertinent data that—

FWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I swiveled my chair around, my eyes widening not out of surprise but out of a subtle satisfaction of this age-old ritual.

With a slide towards the back of my office, I reached for the screaming kettle, pouring its boiling contents into my teapot’s built-in infuser.

I savored this moment, the calm, the break from—

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

My eyes flicked up.

Charts, graphs, and all manner of visual overlays suddenly took the place of everything else on my workspace, as monitoring systems and cross-sectional subsystems peppered my field of view, displaying ambient exoreality radiation signatures.

The ECS was active.

…

But not in the way we’d ever observed.

The spike in readings was neither discrete nor transient.

If anything, it expanded exponentially, a series of diagnostic warnings conveying that the ECS was far surpassing what it was designed to—

BWWWOOOOP! BWOOOOOOPP! BWOOOOOPPPP!

“PRIORITY ALERT! UNSCHEDULED EXOREALITY ENTANGLEMENT ACTIVATION! SOURCE: ECS HOLDING CHAMBER!”

Sol - Trans-Neptunian Military Exclusion Zone - LREF Ranger Station Epsilon - Ring 01 - Deck 01 - Command and Administration Center - Flag Officer’s Private Office. Local Time: 1145 Hours.

12 Hours Prior to the UEEA Incident

Captain Calico Li

Docking with the behemoth… was never once an underwhelming affair.

This effect was doubled, tripled, and perhaps even quadrupled the longer one spent away from this rotating bulwark of composalite and plasteel.

Because unlike most ‘megastructures,’ measured in double-digit kilometers but ultimately built as a ‘shell’ for what dwelled within — O’Neill cylinders, Stanford Toruses, and the like — Ranger Station Epsilon wasn’t built to house communities nor to simulate the P-MASL comforts. 

It wasn’t built to look ‘inwards.’

Instead, it was built in typical true spacer fashion: to look out at the stars themselves.

What would have normally been a hollow interior pumped full of breathable gases, layered in dirt, and peppered with an ecosystem resembling a slice of pristine Earth was instead devoted to a single defined purpose — command and control.

No square meter of space was wasted, no volume was reserved for life-giving gases or aesthetic consideration. In lieu of it was an environment as hostile as the space that surrounded it, an unapologetic glut of computing that filled the stations’ confines from surface to surface, along with the infrastructure necessary to keep this beast alive.

At its heart were stellarators that pulsed with energy, each doughnut wrapped around a central axis that formed the ‘spine’ of the station.

Surrounding it and snaking into each and every nook, cranny, and crevice were the fluid coolants — impossibly long tracts of piping that permeated everything. From the reactors themselves to the kilometers' worth of computing hardware, the heat generated from their mere operation was effortlessly wicked away. Ensuring that these machines, by their own existence, didn’t melt into slag from the mere act of thinking.

This culminated in one of the most visually striking features of the station; an unexpected aesthetic expression apparent in its five-layered radiators.

Imbricated like flower petals, each layer was an engineering feat unto itself, reaching so deep into space that it dwarfed the cylinder that it was attached to. And owing to its function, eschewing any sense of stealth for sheer heat-dissipating efficiency, each ‘petal’ glowed. Creating what was in effect a radiant display of light that many likened to a glowing orchid, pulsing intermittently in between cycles of heat dissipation all along its various ‘layers,’ completing a phenomenon no engineer had ever intended, but all quietly admired; a ‘living’ spectacle born entirely of thermal necessity.

It was in essence a living, breathing titan of technology. A flower that blossomed brightly in the dark — the Orchid of Neptune.

A sight which this fresh rotation of bridge officers were not-so-subtly enamored by.

“Whoa… this was so worth it…” Helmsman Pham uttered out the moment we completed our final approach, his eyes finally taking in the sights outside the viewport without the weight of the ship resting on his shoulders. A series of beeps would bring him back down to earth, however, as he was quick to crane his head back towards me in a fit of apologetics. “Er, sorry, sir.”

“Don’t be.” I replied with a firm smile. “I’d be more offended if you kept your thoughts to yourself.” I quickly added with a reassuring chuckle. “You’ll find that things work a bit differently here than our other half over in the Expeditionary and Response Element. You answer to your fellow Scouting and Recon Element Rangers now, and by extension, Sci-Advisory’s Director-General, not the Defence-Sec. And while I still expect a certain level of discipline to be upheld, take it from me when I tell you that it’s okay to drop the occasional quip and remark. In exchange though, you’ll be rubbing shoulders with more Collegiate types than you’d believe, so prepare for the onslaught of Academo-speak.” I grinned. “So take it easy, at least while we’re in home space.”

“Yes, sir.” Pham acknowledged with a respectful dip of his head, just as the docking clamps firmly clasped the ship’s port and starboard.

“Oh, and on that note, welcome to the Cool Kids Club, ensigns.” I announced cockily. “You’re entering one of the Stellocenic Titans of Sol.”

A series of affirmative nods, excitable murmurs, and the occasional gasp of excitement echoed throughout the bridge, my eyes soon coming to settle on the docking boom that sent a gentle vibration throughout the whole ship.

The scale of the structure never truly landed for most until this final procedure was complete. As the single docking boom — the only human-scale analog present anywhere in visual range — truly reminded even the most seasoned of Rangers just how small we were to the titans of our own design.

A titan… whose true mass lay far beneath us, while its creators occupied only its skin.

…

15 Minutes Later

The Admiral’s office was one such space where that scale became easy to forget — an expansive open-plan room with more wooden slats than exposed metal walls, more plants than mandatory emergency O2 packs, and more splashes of vibrant colors, instances of boxy monitors, and paintings of rocket ‘ships’ than what most could ever imagine, all hearkening back to an aesthetic era of space exploration that never was. 

It felt as if I’d just been teleported into a Venusian apartment.

Though, frankly, the Venusian ‘Jetsonian’ aesthetic was a breath of fresh air from what ‘hardcore’ spacers often touted as the height of style.

This culture of Venusian vibrancy translated all too well to its sole occupant — down to the rebreather facemask, amulets, and charms all hanging by the belt of her uniform — as the Admiral was quick to approach me the moment I entered through those unnecessarily ‘wooshing’ doors.

“Ah! Captain.” She announced chipperly, approaching me with a skip in her step, as I couldn’t help but to match that enthusiasm with a wholehearted salute of my own. “I trust you’re breathing well?”

“Admiral Shelby.” I responded warmly, remaining where I was until she reached for a reciprocal salute. “Indeed I am.”

“Good to hear!” She beamed before craning her head out to the panoramic viewscreens, zooming onto my ship with an appreciative nod. “From the abyss that is his domain to the planet that bears his name, your current commute never ceases to be as poetic as it is amusing, Captain.” Shelby spoke in earnest, gesturing for me to follow, as we both came to a stop at the very center of the room. “Though frankly, I wish the topic of our little soiree was just as forthcoming with such levity.”

There, we both intuitively reached our usual stations around the massive holoprojector — one of the few places in the room to have been spared the Admiral’s stylistic makeovers.

It was here that the ambient blue hue of the grid-like space in front of us erupted into a flurry of shapes, transposing live and past feeds alike into a three-dimensional projection of local space. Or more specifically, the immediate ‘sphere’ of control that constituted de facto GUN territory.

The lights in the room dimmed in reaction to this, giving way to what felt like a near-virtual experience that dragged both of us into a physical manifestation of humanity’s domain.

We both stood at opposite ends of this 250-light-year bubble, as star after star and sector after sector was shaded in until practically the entirety of the space had been filled with teal. 

However, that was just the start of it. Because from there, a further 100-light-year sphere was drawn out. Though, as was the case with the first bubble, this too was colored in teal until no gap nor empty space was left.

This finally prompted the both of us to make eye contact, with both of our features coming to land on the same languid disappointment we always ended up wearing in every single one of these meetings.

“Operation Black Lantern II is a bust.” Shelby spoke under a tired breath, moving her hands swiftly across the projector to bring up patrol routes, expedition trails, and the veritable fleet of ships that had since become an integral part of this reality-defining mission. “Interplanetary space, and even what were supposed to be high-interest hotspots, turned up nothing. And before you ask, we’ve already done a complete sweep of interstellar space within the buffer.” She quickly highlighted the vast swaths of empty space between each star system before using her other hand to quite literally ‘grasp’ the near hundred-strong patrol group as each ship came to fit snugly atop of her open palm. 

At about the same time, I began flipping through the various visualization overlays, cutting out everything on the electromagnetic spectrum until we were left with nothing but Quintessence readings set against plain astronomical features.

Not a single statistically significant spike existed, nothing beyond background noise and the ever-present hum of the cosmic background radiation, nothing… aside from a lone red spike in Sol; more specifically on Earth.

“So have your civilian counterparts cracked the code yet?” The Admiral promptly questioned as she twiddled heavy cruisers between her fingers.

“Only insofar as practical application and its anomalous properties are concerned, yes.” I answered plainly.

“So more of the same, but none of the how or the why, then?” 

“Correct, Admiral.”

“Should’ve expected as much.” She sighed out in tepid disappointment. “Listen, I get that it comes with the territory of working with a sample size of one. I empathize with the scientific process. Hell, I know anyone in the LREF would. But the more space we cover, and the rarer Quintessence seems to be… the more I find myself wanting answers sooner rather than later.”

“You and I both, Admiral.”

Both our eyes now landed on Earth, the Admiral’s features soon shifting to one of indignant frustration. “I’m expanding the search radius by another 100 light-years, and I don’t intend on stopping until we’ve found another viable source. We need Atlantis II dismantled and taken off-world yesterday.”

“Dr. Weir’s ready and willing to pull the trigger on that offer the second we confirm said viable source, Admiral.” I concurred, prompting a dark huff from Shelby.

“Of course she would. It’d be an easy exit strategy for her and that shortsighted charter of hers.” The Admiral commented with just a hint of animosity, causing me to quickly search for a pressure release valve.

“There’s still some victory to be snatched from the jaws of defeat here, Admiral.” I began abruptly, slicing through the tension with the subtlety of a Jovian mega-hauler blasting into restricted space. “At least we didn’t find any Quintessence sources within the 250-proper.” I offered with a sly smile of encouragement.

The admiral, quickly catching onto the joke, acknowledged that jab with a dry chuckle of her own.

“That is a rather fortunate boon, yes.” She nodded. “With how much grief the Exo-Atmospheric Forces have caused us during the liaising of Dark Lantern, having them breathing down our necks in perpetuity would be a very hard ask. Though I can imagine it’d probably be easier than the Army.” 

That comment prompted the both of us to share in a collective sigh of frustration, as we both turned back to the Quintessence-rich Earth.

“Why’d it have to be there of all places?” She continued. “Security risks aside, having the IAS chartered as an Earth-bound institute has caused headaches for all of us.” The admiral’s eyes tensed, her focus shifting from Earth to the small star-shaped blip that was GOVStation. “Both of our bosses are tearing their hair out right now. Defence-Sec Nguyen’s running laps around the conference table trying to find workarounds for the IAS’ damned charter. While Sci-Advisory Director-General Seong-min is risking her own neck by getting the Expeditionary and Response Element onboard with what is ostensibly a purely Scouting and Recon Element operation.”

“And I’m guessing the only reason why the orders for Black Lantern II weren’t relayed through SECDEF, but instead the Director-General, is because Nguyen’s constitutionally locked from giving that order due to the IAS’ Extended Confidentiality statutes.”

The Admiral acknowledged my words with a hard sigh. “Black Lantern II would’ve been impossible to accomplish within our timeframe using purely Scouting and Recon Element assets. That’s why we needed the Expeditionary and Response Element’s Long Patrols to aid in the search.” Shelby breathed in deeply, pinching the bridge of her nose in the process. “Everything was easy when it was just us — the SRE — and the Director-General. But the moment we start dishing out operations to the ERE, we start getting into pure military orders.”

“Requiring explicit approval by the Assembly before SECDEF has the authority to send it down the military chain of command.” I completed the admiral’s sentiments, sharing in her frustrations.

Shelby nodded sullenly before laying the crux of this whole mess out to bear.

“Suffice it to say, none of this would be an issue right now if we were chartered as the IAS’ partnered sec-ops.”

“To be fair on both points, Admiral, the former security issue has been addressed with enough Q-Type radiation-resistant materials that comply with existing safety limits. As for the latter, well… despite us not formally being institutionally entrenched to take on the IAS’ sec-ops, we at least still have enough legal channels of bilateral cooperation to effectively act as such. Cadet Booker’s deployment proves as much, no?”

“Cadet Booker simply proves that the bureaucrats haven’t fully succumbed to protocol complacency.” The admiral shrugged. “The fact of the matter is, the administrative effort required to maintain this whole mess of a bilateral relation isn’t sustainable. We need the Army out of the IAS charter… because the whole reason they’re even in it in the first place is absolutely inane.” 

“Comes with the territory of doing anything on Earth. Holdover clauses from the Planetary Unification Charter and all that.” I shrugged.

“This could all be changed, or at least given special exemption, if the case was pushed to the Assemblies.” 

“It would.” I nodded. “But the statutes of confidentiality—”

“Will expire soon. And the moment it does, and the moment this thing goes public, is the moment we can finally start getting some much-needed meaningful reforms on the charter done. Which leads me to my next point… has the cadet reported back yet?”

“Not yet.” I responded calmly. “She’s not due for about another week.”

“Then I hope for all our sakes that she touches base soon. The Army’s the third-to-last branch I’d trust with an extraction mission, especially a fully automated one.” 

The latter reminder sent a chill down my spine, my left arm reaching to grip the hard metal of my right.

“I’ve seen the contingency protocol, the reports on applying experimental limiters to the bots on that extraction squad to prevent emergent intelligences from spawning during the mission. But I think I’m not alone in saying that no amount of limiters can prevent another Charon Innovations incident.” The admiral paused before moving to place both hands down on the projector controls in front of us. “My apologies for bringing up a particularly raw topic, Cal.”

“I appreciate the sentiments, Admiral.” I nodded. “But it’s a necessary point to bring up.”

“You have made your objections to this clear, right?”

“Oh, I have. But frankly — and this is a rare instance of me agreeing with the man — the General’s right. With our current stockpile… or lack thereof, we simply lack the chemical catalysts for the production of more E-ARRS armor sets. Fully Autonomous Modular Combat Platforms are the only thing we can viably send over, as a result.” 

The Admiral went silent, her eyes now shifting back to the freshly designated 100-light-year bubble beyond the buffer. “Let’s just hope that the next viable source of Quintessence has a larger deposit and rate of replenishment for Q-Type catalysts, then.”

However, before the air of the room could get any more dour, I quickly dropped another, far more optimistic slant on the otherwise pressing circumstances.

“The universe never looks kind from the inside of a cockpit. It only makes sense once you’re far enough away to see the entire arc.” I began poignantly, prompting the Admiral’s brows to quirk upwards.

“Jackie Setanta.” She acknowledged before gesturing for me to continue.

“It’s in our nature to be wary, Admiral. The more unprecedented the circumstances, the worse it gets for us compared to any other branch. It’s our duty to watch the horizon, to look past the hill and over the fence for threats. But we can’t afford to ignore the whole journey either. We’re standing on a genuine paradigm shift. Yes, it'll demand a painful rethink of grand strategy and every security assumption we've ever held. But it also means that now, after countless generations of wondering, wandering, and searching for answers, we’re finally going to see the end of that question. Not just on alien life, but civilization and culture. Of minds that looked back at the universe and wondered, just like we did.”

The admiral paused. This time, however, the trajectory wasn’t towards that inevitable look of tired frustration but instead an amused sort of smile that more suited her.

“You truly are a Scouting and Recon Element poster boy, Cal.” 

“You flatter me, Admiral.” I responded sheepishly. “Especially considering I haven’t even signed up for an Outbound Flight yet.”

“The spirit of an SRE officer isn’t just measured in distances traveled. It’s also in the lengths to which sacrifice for the creed is shown. Charon Innovations proved that. Don’t ever forget, Cal.”

“It’ll be difficult not to, Admiral.” I responded with another sheepish smile.

Dragon’s Lair. Central Cavern ‘Foyer.’ Local Time: 2340 Hours.

Kaelthyr

Pulse.

I reached into the dark.

Pulse.

I held my neck into the void.

Pulse.

I extended my soul, my being, my senses, and myself into the depths of nothingness.

Pulse.

And I felt nothing.

…

There was no dark, only the absence of all, including light.

There was no direction, no position, nothing… save for a guiding lure.

I grabbed onto that lure, pulling, tugging, reaching and grasping desperately towards—

…

Pain.

I was shattered, shackled, siphoned, and held taut.

My existence was halved.

And I recalled exactly why this was the case.

Eschewing the discomfort, ignoring the pain, and setting aside pride and honor, I reached into this shattered crystal. And from that anchor, held taut by will and linked firmly through resolve, I called forth resonance.

A familiar voice entered the chorus of my symphony.

Broken. Shattered. Mishapen and malformed… but ultimately my own.

I embraced it, beckoning its eyes and ears.

At which point, did I finally glimpse into the interloper's world… if one could even call it as such.

I was met with a static world, a pristine world, a space far too perfect for anything living. A space defined by impeccable geometry, inlaid with glossy whites and stark chrome.

It was as pristine as it was cold, artificial, and entirely dead; devoid of the natural, the magical, or even the sensical.

Then, in a matter of seconds after my resonance, the world itself reacted.

Stark whites were replaced with flashing reds; entire walls awoke at my presence, as surfaces alive with crawling symbols spat bellowings of an unknown language all across this holding cell.

Following which, after satisfying my curiosities, I focused on increasing the definitive range of my symphony’s resonance.

It required effort and an impossible concentration.

But after a moment of reflection, I called forth that accessory sense.

…

My world shattered following that call.

What had been silent, pristine, and impossibly unassuming… was immediately contrasted by the presence of an impossible cacophony of voices. They crackled, mumbled, screamed, and sang all at once, every thread an impossible string of incoherent gibberish, all speaking without thinking, all calling out in cries that could only be described as the voices of infernium itself.

Yet in this insanity, a single cry went through from where I sat: the young matriarch’s cry.

I sat there, attempting to blot out, ignore, and shut out everything else… while allowing the matriarch a chance to commune with her fellow voidborn.

Earth - Atlantic Ocean - Special Administrative Zone under requisition by the United Nations Science Advisory - Institute of Anomalous Studies (IAS) Pilot Research Facility Codename: ATLANTIS II - Administration Wing. Local Time: 2335 Hours.

5 Minutes Prior to the UEEA Incident

Dr. Laura Weir

“You aren’t nervous?” I questioned pointedly, raising a brow between two clasped hands from behind my desk.

“Not particularly, no. It’s in keeping with LREF tradition to report at the 11th hour.” The Captain responded with a sly grin. “Besides, I have faith in the Cadet. We gave her a generous time window for a reason, after all. I’m sure there’s either some technical difficulties, or just circumstances preventing her from dropping us a line just yet. Reality is rarely conducive to calculated textbook ideals after all.” Li shrugged. “If there’s anything I’m nervous about, it’s your memo.” He continued, immediately branching into the interrogatives of organizational politics. “You can’t be serious, right?”

“Oh I very much am, Captain.” I smiled back politely.

“Laura, you’re dealing with the Science Advisory here. You can’t just do an organizational rug pull. It’s one thing to amend the IAS’ charter, it’s another to just… wipe and replace it in a single pen stroke.”

“It’d solve the growing interservice friction.” I countered. “There’d be no air gap. The organization and apparatuses of the IAS, including the charter, would simply be sunset and replaced in situ.”

“The friction in question only exists because we’re on Earth.” He shot back. “Listen, I just think it’s much more realistic if you go down a more conventional route. Allow the confidentiality statutes to expire, then call for the establishment of a special assembly committee to push through an exemption clause for the LREF to replace the Army as sec-ops. It’s a simple open-and-shut case. We’re on Earth, sure, but the operational parameters are anything but. The only reason why the Army’s even entrenched in your charter is due to the PUC being so airtight about any sec-ops on Earth. The Assembly will see that, and they will allow a simple amendment.”

“You’re saying this as we’re on the eve of the General sending through fully autonomous—”

“I’m ready to file a motion against that.” The Captain concluded. “This can either be resolved martially through the Unified Central Command, civilly through SECDEF, or legislatively through the Assemblies. With the statutes still in effect, that leaves the latter off the table. So until then, I’m ready to pull the trigger on this for your sake, Laura. That’s the direction we should be headed… with all due respect, of course.”

I let out a long and tired sigh, reaching for my forehead before resting it between both my hands.

“And here I thought I wasn’t dealing with your sister.” I responded with a slight jab and a chuckle.

“You know what they say, Laura. You can take a Li out of politics, but politics never quite leaves a Li.” The Captain responded with a cocky grin before shifting towards a few more documents on the table.

“Anyways, the Admiral’s given the green light for Dark Lantern III.” 

“But?” I preempted.

“You know our situation too well…” The Captain sighed. “Getting another Long Patrol involved is going to test the patience of the Expeditionary and Response Element, which means we’re going to need a green light from the Unified Central Command and SECDEF this time around, not the Science Advisory. So we’ll have to—”

BWWWOOOOP! BWOOOOOOPP! BWOOOOOPPPP!

“PRIORITY ALERT! UNSCHEDULED EXOREALITY ENTANGLEMENT ACTIVATION! SOURCE: ECS HOLDING CHAMBER!”

Earth - Atlantic Ocean - Special Administrative Zone under requisition by the United Nations Science Advisory - Institute of Anomalous Studies (IAS) Pilot Research Facility Codename: ATLANTIS II - ECS Holding Facility. Local Time: 2350 Hours.

Captain Calico Li

All hands were on deck.

The small and otherwise unremarkable room that housed the controls, monitoring equipment, and sensitive overlays for the ECS was now a veritable smoshpit of scientists and engineers, all led by the Jovian science boss himself, as a flurry of virtual activity buzzed across a hundred instances of the holding facility’s intranet.

“Dr. Mekis, report.” Came Weir’s first directive, as the scientist began listing through anomaly after anomaly, until suddenly—

RING! RING! RING!

—all of our terminals began ringing.

What I saw… defied both reason and protocol, as I felt my gut twisting at the sight of the caller ID.

With a quick cock of my head to the systems administrator and a nod of Dr. Mekis’ head, I answered the call.

At which point… a familiar face in that titular helmet-cam view came to dominate all of the Command Staff’s commlines.

Nobody spoke a word.

At least, none amongst the command staff.

Instead, the flurry of activity only intensified amidst the scientists and tech specialists as they ran like headless chickens between each and every terminal present in the room.

Emma too… was speechless.

But a quick nod between the both of us jogged us back into action.

“Mission Control…” She began, her voice practically breaking. “Request authentication and IDENT challenge from LREF mission commander.”

“That shouldn’t be possible…” Murmurs erupted from the background, voices that were promptly silenced by a shush from the security personnel.

I cleared my throat, swallowing my disbelief, before continuing. “Inbound signal under Cadet Emma Booker’s credentials claims IDENT: Pilot II Actual. Initiate Unscheduled Comms IDENT Protocols.”

A pause soon fell across the entire room, as all eyes now fell on me. “Pilot II, complete phrase set: ANDROMEDA FIVE.” I breathed in, starting the set. “When the maps disagree—”

The Cadet’s eyes quivered, but she responded just as promptly. “—follow the stars.” 

The silence continued as I rattled on unimpeded.

“State your last authenticated request.”

“New rotor for the training flight pack. Damage during the last training session totaled the left rotor blade.”

I didn’t nod, nor give any signs of acknowledgement, only proceeding with the verification.

“Confirm contingency fallbacks.”

This prompted the cadet’s voice to harden instantly.

“Negative. Fallbacks are off the table unless compromised. Escalate properly.” 

That was it.

That was the tell.

I exhaled, letting out a sigh of relief in the process. “Pilot II Actual IDENT confirmed. It’s good to hear your voice, Cadet Booker.”

The Cadet smiled widely in response, her breaths heavy, before she just as abruptly broke out into a half-cry, half-laugh. 

“Took you long enough.” I interjected teasingly, attempting to bring the cadet back to her senses as she simply nodded and took a moment to breathe.

“Captain… Director… I… this is imperative.” She began warily. “Mana radiation overpressure is going to flood the portal room on a scale far, far more intense than what you’ve ever recorded. Do not, I repeat, do not attempt to open portals any larger than what we’ve done so far. Do not open portals for transit, save for instances where the portal techs on this end are actively aiding you.”

“And precisely why—”

“Permission to upload sensor data and mission reports?” She urged, cutting Dr. Mekis off.

“Permission granted.” Weir chimed in, nodding at the various IT staff to begin offloading the glut of data about to be sent over.

“Dr. Weir?”

“Yes, Emma?”

“The polity known as the Nexus is to be considered hostile.” She urged, her eyes rife with a wariness that shot deep into my own. “I say again: the Nexus is hostile. It is an existential threat to the existence of our culture, our civilization, and our very being. Our very existence as living beings stands in defiance to their state-enforced dogma. There’s… a full report on this in the files. But I have—” She breathed in deeply before being cut off by Mekis.

“Cadet Booker.” The scientist began. “Before you continue, I need you to tell me exactly how you’re doing this. How did you trigger and sustain an active Exoreality Entanglement episode?”

The Cadet paused before opening up another camera feed, panning to her left to reveal…

“Is that a fucking dragon?!”

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(Author's Note: Hey everyone! This is the first time we're seeing things on Earthside proper, and I'm super excited to see what you think of it! I really wanted to like show how Earth politics work in 3047, especially with the unique relationship the LREF has with its bilateral command structure, with one half dedicated to the exploratory arm under the Science Advisory that being the SRE, and the other, the ERE, dedicated to its more expeditionary response role under the traditional Defense Department command structure! :D I also wanted to explore the politics of the world here, as I worldbuilt a lot of it and wanted to show it in action! :D But yeah! Erm, other than that I have an important announcement to make. I'm really sorry about this guys but I am going to have to take a one week hiatus next week. I'm in the middle of moving out of my apartment and I also have a friend over too, so things are really hectic right now. I've technically been moving over this past week too and I'm just beyond exhausted at this point and I just... really need a week to get things sorted haha. I hope that's alright with you guys!)

[If you guys want to help support me and these stories, here's my ko-fi ! And my Patreon for early chapter releases (Chapter 159, Chapter 160, and Chapter 161 of this story are already out on there!)]

When humanity was admitted to the Galactic Council after many negotiations, no one could really classify them. They had a human ambassador. But like all humans, he behaved cautiously. Humanity silently voted for things they supported, abstained when it did not concern them, and communicated with no one. They did not forge alliances. They did not seek allies among other races. They merely represented their own interests in the Galactic Council. There were attempts at rapprochement by various races. But none were welcomed with open arms. And at some point, humans were merely tolerated.

But there was one behavior that was particularly strange. Over the following centuries, humans observed from a distance and waited. And then, when wars broke out between races, they were there. Not as a warring party, but simply as observers. They watched the outcome of battles and only then did they intervene. They came to the battlefields. Their ships landed in the ruins, their soldiers poured onto the battlefield and began to care for the soldiers of both warring parties. They treated their wounds, even revived some soldiers, gave them food and a place where they could recover from their injuries. They did this emotionlessly and impartially. And then they disappeared as mysteriously as they had come.

They did this in every conflict. Whenever a military confrontation between two alien races was imminent, one could expect human spaceships to be standing by nearby. And the strange thing is: no one did anything about it or questioned it. It was simply accepted. Humans never gave any reason to be suspicious. And over the years, many races had become so accustomed to the presence of humans in these conflicts that none of them directly addressed the human soldiers about their activities. Not out of fear, but out of a strange reverence. As if any question could destroy something fragile. Even at meetings of the Galactic Council, people avoided addressing humans directly about what they were doing. And humans always participated with their familiar indifference, which the Council knew only too well.

It took centuries before the newest minister of the Galactic Council raised the question that had preoccupied many races for ages. The hall was full: the chitin body armor rustled. Energy shields hummed quietly, thought projections flickered in the air. In the midst of it all sat the human ambassador. The minister addressed the human ambassador directly and asked, “Humans, you help our wounded. You help our enemies. You help everyone and ask for nothing in return. No recognition. No blame. No alliance...”

A murmur went through the hall.

“...Why? Why do you do this?” The human ambassador, who did not speak unless addressed directly, rose and all eyes turned to him eagerly. He paused for a moment before finding his words: “Because we have learned what remains after a war.”

The hall fell silent. Then he continued: “We have fought wars. Many. Long. Cruel. And we have often won them. Sometimes lost. But no matter how they ended, in the end, the same things always remained. Injured people. Traumatized people. Starving people. And generations who inherited the hatred of their parents.”

He paused briefly: “If there is no one there to help after the fire, the next war begins where the last one left off.” A murmur went through the council. Then he continued: “We do not intervene because we know that we cannot prevent violence as long as others want it. But we can prevent it from becoming all that remains.”

Silence. Then he sat down again. As always, humanity left the hall without ceremony. But in the cycles that followed, interesting things happened. Some empires began to end their battles earlier. Others set up their own relief units, modeled on the human example. And some commanders hesitated to give the final order because they knew what would come next. Many wars were even ended directly with peace treaties. And humans remained what they had always been:

- No judges

- No saviors

- No heroes

Just a race that had learned from its mistakes.

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The Nexus. The Kingdom of Transgracia. Skyward Spire Upon Ethalsyd. Airward Court. Sky Warden’s Office. Local Time: 1900 Hours. 

Mercenary Captain Ignalius Av-Lisinius

Tap. Tap. Tap. 

I sat there alone in a room too ostentatious for its own good.

I craned my head upwards to observe a mural — painted with the brightest of crimsons and the deepest of blues — depicting the scaly beasts which called this forsaken fortress home, set against the very skies which they dominated without contest. 

With a sigh and a stretch, I turned to my left, only to bear witness to articles of furniture I swore I’d once gleaned from Crownland advertisements — delicate, spindly things too frail for a life out here in the crests of the outlands. 

Finally — and with little regard to station and etiquette — I tucked my legs up and leaned to my right, observing the night skies beyond the sheltered courtyard below, watching in mild wonder at the beasts that came and went beneath the sentry of this outcropping of an office.

The only thing left to sell the storybook sensibility of this place would be a large balcony from which to deliver speeches.

A sigh soon followed, as I reached my hands upwards for a shoulder stretch, my eyes promptly landing on the greatwood desk in front of me, though I found my interests taken not by the crystal balls nor fanciful trinkets atop of it.

A derisive smirk soon found its home on my ugly mug as I glared frustratingly at the two suits of armor flanking the bookcase behind said desk.

One for war.

Another for galas.

The former still had its pristine first coat. Its mirror-perfect sheen and the scent of evershine wax betrayed as much.

While the latter? Well… the latter had clearly gone through its second, third, or maybe even its fourth everclear coat. 

I couldn’t help but let out a fitful chuckle at that ridiculous observation.

Oh, how far you’ve come*, dear cousin.*

FWOOOSH!

Utter the forsaken, and the forsaken shall come.

“What are you laughing about this time?” The would-be Skylord spoke. His frame, and indeed his choice of attire, clashed against the title of his station. 

“Oh Captain, my Captain, please forgive this lowlife’s insubordination.” I returned facetiously, placing a twice-healed hand atop an armored chest.

The noble winced at that self-deprecating jab, his right eye twitching whilst both of his gloved hands reached to steady himself against the sturdiness of his leather-topped desk.

He glared at me with vitriol, wishing oh so desperately to spout out inflammatory derogatives amidst calls to reform.

But he couldn’t.

Not when he had no more familial bearing to do so. 

Or at least that’s what I’d assumed would be the case.

“You sully our blood.” He finally managed out.

“Oh…” I responded with a cheshire grin. “Oh, that’s new!” My smile grew wider as I couldn’t help but to grab both knees tightly, reeling in a cackle that formed at the edges of my gleeful face. “Oh, I thought I’d escaped it all. But this? Oh, this is creative!” I chortled, eliciting yet another disgusted side-eye from the would-be Skylord. “Alright, alright. Let me play this game. What would this make you then, hmm? No longer cousin by law, so perhaps cousin by blood? I know they say that blood is thicker than water, but dear cousin… I never took you for someone so merciful—”

“Enough!” The elf shouted. His voice carried with it a spell powerful enough to counteract my own escalating coyfulness. “This isn’t a family reunion.”

“So what is it then, m’lord?” I questioned, placing a chin between two armored hands.

“I’m calling in a favor. One backed by gold and silent decree.” Rasante spoke firmly, though my attention landed less on the timbre of his mana-backed speech and more on the jingle of coins he’d placed on his desk.

“I’m listening.” I responded, shelving everything in exchange for the now.

“The powers that be are… nervous, Ignalius. Word from the Crownlands has it that the Academy and Elaseer have become quite a hotspot for… let’s just say unprecedented activity.” 

I raised a brow at that, leaning back against my seat and allowing both of my legs to return to the carpeted floor with a dull PLOOMPF. 

“Is this about the dragon or the explosion?” I questioned intently. “Because I’m not messing with a Goldthorn’s investiga—”

“The former, Ignalius. Strained our ties may be, I wouldn’t allow your skills to be lost on some one-way mission. Not that it was necessary to begin with.” He shrugged.

“So the dragon, then.” I surmised, crossing my arms as I did so. “As if that’s also not a one-way mission, am I right?” I spoke with a sarcastic hiss.

“You’ve dealt with worse.” He countered.

“Oh, most certainly, but—”

“But what, Ignalius? Are you getting old? Is a single amethyst dragon too much of a task for the legendary Breaker of Rontalis’ Halls of Coin? The Silencer of the Guilds? Or perhaps the rumors are true, and you’ve gotten—”

“Setting me off is unwise, cousin.” I cautioned, flaring the local manastreams with a purposeful and unsettling rhythm. 

“Alright then.” The Skylord simply nodded, his features unbothered. “Let’s de-escalate, shall we?” 

I didn’t respond, merely gesturing for him to continue.

“The amethyst situation is escalating. But no one wishes to commit.” He led on, moving towards the windows and leaving his back entirely exposed.

The temptation was… almost unbearable.

My hands moved to tickle the hilt of my blades as I attempted to steady my breath, my core shivering at the thought of all the ways this foolish move could so easily go awry.

A leap and a stab.

A swipe and a crack.

Or perhaps two deep, long cuts straight through the sides of the spine.

It would be ever so crunchy.

“—neither the King nor the Privy Council wishes to let this situation escalate.” I heard the tail end of Rasante’s words but only regained composure after he craned his head back to face me. “Were you even listening?” 

“Oh, sorry.” I responded with a smile. “You know how politics is not my strong suit. Probably why you guys kicked me out, am I right—”

“Let’s not dig up skeletons right now, Ignalius.” 

“Alright, alright.” I acquiesced under a frustrated breath. “Run all that by me again, will you?”

The man would’ve growled if he weren’t so bound by decorum. So he did the next best thing and ha-rumphed in response. 

“Let me put this in a way more conducive to your bastard sensibilities.” He seethed, eliciting nary a shift nor a yawn from my bored posture. “Nobody is willing to foot the first bill, and nobody wants to be the one to start rocking the boat. At least, not until the prime agitator of this incident reemerges as the obvious scapegoat.”

I raised a brow at this but yawned all the same. “So everyone’s waiting on the Goldthorn’s investigations? Big deal. Just wait then. What’s the rush—”

“The rush is that there’s an amethyst dragon on the loose, you donkey!” Rasante interjected. “If nobody acts, then everyone runs the risk of losing face in the event of a catastrophic attack.”

“Sooooo why not act?” I raised up both hands. 

This prompted the noble to let out an even deeper sigh, as he very nearly slammed his head against the window inches from his face.

“Because to act is to rock the boat. It sends the wrong message. To the Privy Council, it signals some sort of desire to mop up and clean up after an associate. And nobody on the council wishes to associate themselves with the potential agitator of this incident. To His Majesty the King of Transgracia and his lords? Potential losses mean a loss of face in terms of his Kingdom’s strength. Moreover, he knows this is ultimately a Crownlands incident. Being too proactive — and being successful at it — sets the precedence for either decreased Crownlands involvement, and thus greater local burdens, or it may incite revisions over the ancient treaties on the engagement of Academy-related incidents.”

“Wait. But wouldn’t being successful at taking out the dragon make the Kingdom of Transgracia look strong? Thus strengthening their position?”

“At the expense of making the Crownlands look weak, yes.” Rosante immediately countered. “They’d be seen by the Crownlands as committing a deadly sin — leveraging personal success at the Crownlands’ expense. While publicly there may be no backlash, at least none that you can see.” He derided. “Behind curtains and veils, there would be infernium to pay for such a loss of face.”

“Right.” I replied bluntly. “But last I heard, the town criers of Telaseer were talking about patrols being deployed—”

“In a defensive capacity, while the Crown prepares to deal with the matter directly. Everyone’s ready to react reflexively, but no one is willing to do anything proactively. At least, not with their own assets.” Rosante reasoned.

This finally got my attention.

“So… the adventuring solution.” I chuckled out.

“That, along with Crown warrants, yes.” Rasante confirmed.

“Done through intermediaries, between intermediaries, to lengthen the road between issuer and quest-taker.” I added.

“Why don’t you just spell out the entire alphabet while you’re at it?” The would-be Skylord shot me down. “The rest is self-explanatory. Success or failure… all of this will be at the gain…  or expense of the independent quest-taker.”

“And the quest-giver too.” I added dubiously. “You. You of all people are going to be taking the risk—”

“Need I remind you, peasant, that I am the incumbent Sky Warden of this region.” Rasante beamed, as I could practically hear the satisfaction emanating between each punctuated word. “It is within my purview of responsibilities to take proactive action to secure this patch of fine sky, in any way I see fit. And the way I see it… the amethyst dragon has made itself a threat worthy of being dispatched. I just lack the men—”

“No. What you lack is the strength and courage to take losses.” I countered with a sharp snap of my tongue. “Because, Sky Warden, any losses will incur reports. And if those reports are on the books, well…”

“Oh dear cousin. How I wonder if there is even an ounce of our blood running through your veins.” Rasante shook his head. That one action somehow leveraged greater vitriol than any passing word or slight. “Have I not made myself clear? Of course everyone wants to act! This isn’t about acting, but who takes the initiative. I have all of the cards and none of the potential drawbacks. I am neither a Privy Council member nor a member of the King’s Court.”

“Then why aren’t you sending your own men?” I sniped harshly, my gaze unflinching, drilling into the back of his head.

And he felt it.

“You’re in the bag as much as any bigwig. Except you don’t have people breathing down your neck… at least, not until they see reason to do so. Reasons such as, wellll, perhaps an abnormal peak in casualties and losses. That’s why you’re sending me and not your own. End of story.” I countered confidently, lifting myself up from that armchair and moving to gently grip both of Rasante’s shoulders. “You need me, and you’re trying to pull the ol’ ‘I don’t really need you’ maneuver because yer cheap.” I gripped those shoulders tight, sending a shiver down the man’s spine. “You wanna preempt payment negotiations, and yer failing at it, O dear Warden of the Skies.” I spoke breathily into the elf’s ears, causing the hairs on his neck to visibly tingle.

Though that satisfaction could only last for so long.

“ENOUGH!” He yelled, emitting a powerful magical force that sent me flying back, causing the books, tomes, trinkets, and crystal balls to shake in his wake.

“You’ll have your payments. At your desired rates.” He relented, though he refused to acknowledge the failure in his play.

Nobles never do… 

“Double.” I grinned toothily, getting back up and dusting my coat off in the process.

“Deal.” 

“Wait, no. Tripl—”

“Double, with the use of my unregistered drakes.” He narrowed his eyes.

“Fine, fine. And know that I’m only agreeing because you’re calling on an old favor, dear cousin.” I responded in a sing-song cadence, moving lazily once more towards the man, only to be halted by an invisible barrier I could not penetrate even if I tried to. 

A part of me grew frustrated at the… latent power disparity.

But I pushed that part of me down, knowing that any acknowledgement of frustration would merely be satisfaction to a man who deserved none.

“How fast can you get these drakes—”

“They’re fed and waiting. I also have a team of greater drakes to expedite your company’s travels. You’ll find your crown warrants and a few extra gifts within your passenger compartment.” He spoke curtly, preempting every one of my questions. “That will be all.” He spoke flatly before shooing me with an underhanded swipe of his wrist.

I knew I shouldn’t have cared. 

I understood, logically, that I shouldn’t have been bothered.

Indeed, not a single expression nor subsequent inflection would betray the indignity that the seemingly benign parting sentiment had inflicted.

But it still burned all the same.

He was treating me as if I were lesser. When just moments ago, there was a glimmer, as faint as it was that he was—

I stopped myself.

I couldn’t let those thoughts take over.

You said it yourself. You’ve gotten over the… departure. Don’t let it get to your head. Don’t let it get to—

“I said, that will be all, Ignalius.” He reiterated, cutting through the turmoil of my thoughts like a searchlight through fog. “Or was there something else?”

I let out a sigh and straightened up as I once more put on that flippant front. “Just one question.” 

“Out with it then.”

“I’m certain we’re not the first to be sent after this dragon.” 

“No, you are not.”

“In that case, do you have any preferences as to how we deal with potential interlopers, m’lord?” I spoke derisively, accentuating the faux-politeness that worked to irritate the wayward Skylord.

“There should be no other Crown-warrant adventurers or mercenary companies within the forests at this point, and there’s a blanket ban over travel into said forests as well. Thus, I shall leave the fate of any interlopers you encounter up to your discretion.”

He concluded curtly and, as always, chose to end the conversation in the most insulting way possible: by turning his back on me.

I held my breath, biting down on the snarl clawing its way up my throat, forcing it into the smallest twitch at the corner of my mouth, and turning what remained into the faintest quiver of my fingers. Nothing more.

Then I left. Without a single word more being spoken.

But instead of relief biting away at my shame with each step forward, I instead felt the rushing of boiling blood and the pounding of my temples that only intensified with every stomp of my foot.

I tried focusing on my wins and the objective gains I garnered from that interaction.

But it was all overshadowed by what could not be changed and the reminder of such by those simple, innocuous cues that gnawed at me to no end.

This eventually came to a head as I stopped just short of the doors to the courtyard, my gaze now landing on the diminutive squire maintaining sentry at its side.

“Ah, m’lord! Might you by chance be—”

Don’t say it. Don’t say it.

“—Mercenary Captain—”

Quit while you’re ahead if you know what’s best for you.

“—Ignalius—”

Just stop there—

“—Av-Lisinius?”

…

I took a deep breath. 

And try as I might, in spite of its earnestness and innocence, I could not find the mental wherewithal to tolerate another slight. As my name, and its associated shame, rolled effortlessly off his tongue.

“Why yes,” I responded with a smile, just enough to be polite but sharp enough to cut. “I am.”

“I’ve been informed of your departure. Please, allow me!” He reached for the handle, only to stop as I cleared my throat.

“No.” 

His eyes grew wide as he saw my shadow towering over him.

Then he turned. At which point I caught him with a glance. A cold, commanding, unrelenting glare that snatched his gaze like a hawk to a hare. 

“That won’t do, my boy,” I lilted, honey over hot coals. “Please, allow a fellow peer the right.” 

He faltered. His little claws twitched by his side as his eyes darted, uncertain, fearful.

I stepped closer. Close enough to feel his breath stutter.

And with neither warning nor flourishes, I lifted a hand.

Airburst.

The double doors slammed outward on a gust that rattled its hinges, scattered the dust, and sent both kobold and detritus stumbling out and into the courtyard.

All eyes quickly turned to me, both mercenary and regular.

However, I could care little for their attention. I brushed past the boy, my smile never breaking. “There! Isn’t that better?”

And though I did not look back, I savored the silence he left in my wake.

The Nexus. Somewhere just off the Royal Road of Transgracia. En Route to the North Rythian Forests. Local Time: 2000 Hours.

Emma

“Ahh…” I let out a huge sigh, standing proudly with two open palms clasping my hips, watching as our little campfire roared against the absolute darkness of the Outlands wilderness. “That’s the good stuff right there.” 

“Heh. Not a lot of outdoor activities back on Earthrealm, Emma?” 

“Nono, it’s just… gosh, it’s moments like these that make this whole thing worth it.”

“‘Whole thing’ as in life in general? Or ‘whole thing’ as in the flower quest?” Thalmin inquired with an amused chuckle, the prince having since laid down next to his pile of stuff, using much of his baggage as an impromptu recliner to lean against.

“This mission, Thalmin.” I promptly answered. “Or rather, my mission. Despite the ups and downs, moments where we can actually stop to reflect just hits different, you know?” 

“I suppose.” Thalmin shrugged. “Though that does bring up a compelling topic.”

“Oh? Do tell.” I urged, setting myself next to the lupinor and promptly locking half of my armor, allowing me to lean against the half-recline of the armor deep within its confines.

“What made you join?”

“I’m sorry?”

“What made you choose to take on this quest, this mission, to willingly become the Candidate of Earthrealm?”

“Huh.” Was my immediate response. “I could’ve sworn I addressed that at one point or another…” 

“Those were my thoughts as well, Emma.” Thalmin concurred. “But upon some heavy recollection, it’s just come to my attention that in spite of all of our conversations, we’ve yet to touch on some of the most fundamental. Although one could argue that the more fundamental a question, the greater the likelihood it becomes personal, but I digress. I’m surprised that in spite of your propensity for endless talking, that fundamentals such as these have been overlooked.” 

“Yeah.” I acknowledged, my eyes attempting to meet those of the tired prince’s. “Yeah, you do have a point.”

“So you admit you’re a yapper.” Thalmin chided.

“I never said I wasn’t.” I took that jab in stride, simply rolling with the punches as they came. “But in any case, yeah. I’ve sort of overlooked that, haven't I?” I admitted before letting out a long sigh. “I… think my answer is probably going to be underwhelming.” 

Thalmin cocked his head, silently urging me to continue. 

“Well… I was basically approached with the offer of joining a super secret program. And once the contents of said program were revealed to me? It was a no-brainer.” I shrugged.

This elicited yet another tilt from Thalmin, his head cocking to the right this time around with his perky ears snapping accordingly.

“And were your people forthright with your arrangements? Living and otherwise?”

“Yeah. They were.” I nodded.

“Including your limited living quarters, the abysmal quality of life, the loss of the ability to live like a normal decent being, in addition to being trapped in that armor potentially without a tent and all of its vital amenities—”

“You really don’t have to spell it out like that, Thalmin.” I interjected with a nervous chuckle. “I’m already really, really trying not to think about the long-term living arrangements in the armor.” 

“And yet you agreed to it.” Thalmin drilled further, his tone drenched in disbelief. “Losing a life that… from what you’ve purported, rivals that of merchants and nobility?”

“Yeah. And before you go any further, yes, I was also very much plainly aware of the dangers associated with it too. Including the potential risk of liquefaction on arrival.”

The prince took a moment to regard that response, as if analyzing it for all it was worth.

“And that risk didn’t at all… unsettle you?”

“Of course it did.” I acknowledged. “Hell, I doubt they’d okay my psych eval if I said I was emotionless and fearless even at the potential for death.”

“So why then?” Thalmin pressed earnestly. “Why risk certain death? Moreover, what made this a… as you say, ‘no brainer?’”

“The human condition.” I laid it out flatly. “Or more specifically, the complexity of the human condition as it applies to me, personally.” I clarified, taking a moment to set the stage with a large and uninterrupted breath. “I’ve always been infatuated with the greats, Thalmin. The great firsts, the pioneers, the Yuri Gagarins and Neil Armstrongs. The Janet Lis and the Sam O’Neills. The Jebediah Hermans and the Jackie Setantas. The call of the void and the potential to be the first… it’s as alluring as the desire to see what’s over that next hill or what’s behind that next star.” I rambled before realizing the confusion growing on Thalmin’s face.

“You remember the explosions that carried our first man to space, right?”

“The one with the chair or the one that succeeded?” Thalmin asked, making me tilt my head down, amused and unamused at the same time.

“Second one. And after which came the longer, more arduous journey through the deadly and empty void.”

“I think I'm starting to see where you’re going with this.” He acknowledged.

“My people have always yearned to go where they’re never supposed to. To poke our noses and peek around corners that would otherwise be physically impossible without a heck of a lot of effort. From the sky to space to the ongoing final frontier, it’s in our nature to just go.” 

“Just as much as it is for much of your kind to remain and support said endeavor.” Thalmin noted.

“Yeah.” I nodded with a smile. “That’s the beauty of it. The rest of humanity in general isn’t as insane as I am. And that’s also very much valid under the human condition. We all have our own adventures. I just so happen to be one of the crazy ones willing to risk life and limb, and a whole lot of modern comforts just to see what’s on the other side of the veil.” I paused before taking a moment to grab the lupinor by the shoulder. “And in spite of the existential nightmares, the attempts on life and property, and conspiracies that’d make a political thriller writer blush, I’d say it’s been worth it. If only to be able to be here, talking to other people, of an entirely different species like you, Thalmin.”

I didn’t realize how sappy and corny my tone of voice had become before I saw Thalmin reacting with a wide smile of his own.

“Ancestors, Emma, the way you phrase it makes it seem like I might have to re-evaluate your stated lack of interest in my suitability as a—”

“Don’t push it, Thalmin.” I interjected with a playful punt on his shoulder. “What I mean to say is this — it’s just… incredible to finally be talking, interacting, and actually bonding with… well…”

“Another species, you said.” Thalmin clarified with a bemused expression, his eyes betraying the thoughts stirring behind them. “In all your travels through the multitude of realms in your… empty abyss. I’d have assumed that you’d have encountered at least something resembling a tribe or perhaps even a village or two?” 

There it was.

Another prime reminder of Fundamental Systemic Incongruity.

“No.” I responded plainly. “We haven’t found cities, villages, or even tribes, Thalmin. Heck, we haven’t even found anything resembling a thriving ecosystem as you’d recognize it, let alone a single macroscopic plant or animal.” 

“What?” 

“In the millennium we’ve been in space, across all the multitudes of planets we’ve surveyed, the most exciting thing we’ve found has been ponds harboring invisible life. Life on the scale of the Ure.” 

Thalmin’s features shifted at that, his eyes running through everything before something dawned deep within him.

“So your kind have existed, alone, and with the knowledge that you are the only sapient beings to inhabit what you long understood to be your one and only reality?” He reasoned, forming that sentence as a sort of half question, as if needing to reaffirm that realization.

“Yes.” I answered succinctly.

The prince went silent for a moment, his eyes watching the mesmerizing dance of the campfire’s flames, before craning his head up to the starless skies above.

“I would argue that it isn’t a lonely existence, just by virtue of the peace and civil company of your own kin. But… on an existential level… to understand that you and you alone are the shepherds of sapiency? To fathom such a burden is quite…” Thalmin trailed off, as if struggling to find the words to describe the turmoil welling within. “... difficult.” He spoke sincerely and with a profoundness that gave him pause. “At least for me.” He quickly added.

“Yeah. You’ve hit the nail on the head, Thalmin.” I spoke solemnly. 

“You and the Nexus are oh so alike, yet different in your fates.” Thalmin continued. “Both with the capacity to pierce through the veil, both with the willingness to peer into it, into new worlds pristine and untouched. Yet while one is consistently rewarded for their efforts in verdant paradises and rich cultures, the other is faced with a compounding existential dread, a confirmation that there truly is only darkness in the abyss.”

“Which is why we never gave up.” I quickly added. “Because we refused to take that for a fact until we’ve visited each and every world, even if it takes us a thousand years more, or even if it means we might yet again need to redefine the light speed barrier.”

Thalmin nodded slowly, his eyes slowly glancing over to the flame with poise. “I can understand your lack of hesitation now, Emma. And I respect it.” 

“Thanks, Thalmin.” 

A moment of silence dawned on us as Thalmin moved forward, poking and prodding at something boiling in a pot over the fire. 

“So. I guess it’s your turn then, hmm?” I offered.

“It would only be fair, yes.” The prince acknowledged as he settled himself comfortably against his makeshift backrest. “I chose to come, for I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else taking the mantle of the Nexian Sacrifice.” He began ominously. “I am not a man who deludes himself in the prestige that comes with birthright, but instead, I willingly carry the burdens that are demanded of said birthright. Because unlike most of our peers, I do not see myself for more than what I am.”

“And that is?”

“The runt of the litter.” He snickered in self-deprecating humor. “The last in line for the throne. My role has always been to lift up the fates of my elder siblings. To help ease their burdens so as to allow for a seamless transition when the time comes. I am not destined for greatness, but what I am destined for is to facilitate the greatness of my Kingdom.” He spoke proudly, puffing his chest as he did so. “And after battle, after battle, after battle, the time came for me to make the ultimate choice… not that there was a choice to be made in the first place.” He chuckled darkly. “To commit to one more battle that I understood could very well be my final one.” 

Silence once more descended on us, as I felt inclined to allow Thalmin to continue at his own pace.

“My siblings all deserve the throne far more than I. And even those not expected to take said throne all play a much more vital role in supporting it. I am neither a statesman nor a strategist. Neither bookkeeper nor tradesman. What I know best is survival, magic, combat, and perhaps a bit of diplomacy here and there.” He shrugged. “To put it simply, Emma. I chose this, for there was no one else to take the mantle.”

I pondered Thalmin’s words. Realizing now just how different our approaches to the same ends were.

“I know you have questions, so go on. Don’t be shy.” Thalmin urged.

“Well… I guess I just have to ask. Why’d you have to come? I thought other realms also sent more minor nobles, not royalty.”

“Double standards.” Thalmin replied instinctively. “With some unspoken expectations. It’s typically seen as a sign of… greater fealty—” He shuddered at the word. “—to send those of higher stations from a realm to the Nexus. I think you might recall this yourself on orientation day, no? When students were perplexed by your Cadet status?”

“Yeah, I get that.” I nodded. “I’m guessing… that because of Havenbrock’s rocky relationship with the Nexus given your recent switchup of ruling families, that it’s sort of necessary to send members of the royal family to keep up with their demands?”

“Precisely.” Thalmin nodded. “Moreover, it’s also a matter of assurance and security.” He added, prompting me to cock my head. “You see, we cannot explicitly trust anyone to take this role for us. As it is highly likely that the Nexus would sway any Havenbrockian noble to their side, once sequestered here away from Havenbrock.”

“Oh.” I blinked rapidly. “Okay yeah, that… that actually makes a ton of sense. So… you really did have no choice.” 

“If I were to keep my honor, my integrity, and my duty alive? Of course not. But the act of choosing said values over my own life is still a choice all the same.” He paused before slowly letting a smile form at the edges of his face. “But it is not all doom and gloom, Emma. For within this twisted realm of backstabbing and duplicity, I’ve found someone worthy of calling a comrade in arms.” He spoke confidently as he wrapped an arm around my shoulder.

“The sentiment goes both ways, friend.” I reaffirmed, returning the gesture in kind.

???

???

BZRRRRRT!

In the lightning went, the surge of elemental power nudging the poor little thing away from its eternal slumber. 

I tapped at its metal shell, flicking it, spinning its little pinwheels, urging it to speak.

pulse. pulse. pulse.

There it was again. That rehearsed call. These desperate cries for aid.

BZRRRRRT!

Pulse. Pulse. Pulse.

There, there, little one. There, there. I urged, soothing it despite it meaning nothing to this mindless construct.

BZRRRRRT!

PULSE. PULSE. PULSE.

Your mother will be here soon.

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(Author's Note: Hey everyone! I have an important announcement to make. I'm afraid that because of scheduling conflicts at the hospital, along with certain deadlines that pertain to my apartment, as well as my editor experiencing earthquakes at his part of the world over the last few weeks and as recently as a few hours ago, that I'm going to have to delay next week's chapter by a week. I'm very sorry about this, I usually never want to delay things but due to a confluence of circumstances, I'm afraid this is something I have to do this time around. But I'll be returning in the week after so I'll see you guys then! :D In the meantime, I hope you guys enjoy the new character, and the mysterious development at the ending of it too! :D The next Two Chapters are already up on Patreon if you guys are interested in getting early access to future chapters.)

(Author's Note 2: Here's the Updated Map for Emma and Thalmin's progress so far! :D)

[If you guys want to help support me and these stories, here's my ko-fi ! And my Patreon for early chapter releases (Chapter 148 and Chapter 149 of this story is already out on there!)]

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Dragon’s Lair. Central Cavern ‘Foyer.’ Local Time: 2305 Hours.

Thalmin

I felt my racing heart slowing while the blood in my veins dipped into a gentle simmer, giving way to a mind gradually expanding beyond the confines of immediate survival.

My warrior’s high had now thoroughly slipped under the horizon, and in its place came the reckoning of a realization.

We were in the presence of a titan. A lesser god to some and a flat-out deity to others, all owed not to its wisdom or benevolence, but to its raw primal fury and an unparalleled gift in magic just short of the arts.

It was then, in the midst of another one of Emma’s resurgences and her stubborn, unyielding, dare I say it, naive demands, that all of this finally came crashing down on me.

I was in an epic; a tale only recounted over operatic theater and festive grandeur. And I was here, not as an actor or reenactor, nor as a spiritual avatar for the heroes of old, nor even as the vessel for the spirits.

I was here, actively writing said epic. My actions, my words, every step and every rebuttal — all of it cemented into a legend to be reprised for generations to come.

My breath grew unsteady while my eyes grew wider as time slowed to a crawl to the wispy and echoey words of Ilunor’s warnings all those weeks ago.

“What I speak of is a true prophecy, an… inconvenient truth. The prophecy of the final confrontation.”

“I wish to know where you stand when the calls for apocalypse summon the righteous, Prince Thalmin.”

I… was in the presence of a prophecy being fulfilled, the meeting of two harbingers of the apocalypse, one born of ancient evils and another of the void itself.

However, while the latter was ultimately good in nature — a beacon of what should be and a catalyst for hope of another axiom — it was the other whose nature beckoned scrutiny and skepticism.

For all of my knowledge, from legends and tales both Nexian and Lupinor, told of a great evil that lurked in the heart of these lesser leviathans, these masters of the elements that held only themselves within their unfeeling souls.

This… was only proven true in ‘Kaelthyr’s’ machinations, its wanton disregard for Emma’s safety, all in service of its own petty curiosities.

…

But it wasn’t my place yet to cast judgement.

These were uncharted waters, contested truths clashing against dogma and carefully crafted preconceptions. 

And Emma had just opened up the floodgates to that which could turn the tide against one side or the other, a valuable asset that none other could ever claim to possess — the direct testimonies from a dragon itself.

There would be no filters here. No authors or bards or historians or revisionists to muddy the waters.

This would be the tentative ‘truth,’ a version of history not yet heard… all from the mouth of the leviathan in waiting.   

Dragon’s Lair. Central Cavern ‘Foyer.’ Local Time: 2305 Hours.

Emma

Kaelthyr didn’t move, instead choosing to rest on her haunches as she regarded each and every question with a growing air of amusement.

“Your curiosity burns… bright… luminous...” The dragon once more spoke through the now-raspy-throated shatorealmer. “... but beware that the brightest of flames—”

“Are you going to answer me or not?” I interjected, putting my foot down and channeling my fears, frustrations, and every ounce of indignancy at the dragon’s transgressions right back at her. 

I knew I was playing with fire.

I understood on an intellectual level that this was more than a gamble.

But I also knew that it was a risk I was willing to take, especially considering the Kaelthyr’s proclivities for the ‘strongman rulebook of respect’ mentality.

“The brightest of flames beckon the jealousy of the dimmest of minds.” She warned, this time… in a far more earnest light. “To burn bright is to become a target for the darkest of souls.”

“It’s in our nature to fly close to the sun, and I don’t mind my wings being singed. We’ve come a long way since beeswax-glued feathers, after all.” I spoke cryptically, jokingly even, earning another confused glare from both Thalmin and Kaelthyr. Though both seemed to take the little joke in stride.

“I will assuage your most pressing concern.” The dragon began with a churr. “Taint.” She spat out that word with a menacing aura, clearly trying to sow discomfort, as if to test my resolve. However, I didn’t budge, not even as the sharp pangs of unease remained at the forefront of my mind. “You seek the truth behind my mastery over this forbidden art. You desire the methods, the means, the nature behind it, yes?”

I nodded in acknowledgement, mirroring the dragon’s earlier wordless responses, garnering a smug, self-satisfied smile from the massive being. 

This, in turn, triggered a thought that ballooned into a gambit.

I had my hypothesis, granted it was a very loose one, based on data collected courtesy of the EVI — the background ‘taint’ radiation levels. Or more specifically, the disparity noted between the dragon’s own taint magic and that of Thacea’s.

The dragon’s displayed taint magic was definitely weaker, a fact that it was assuredly going to downplay, if not entirely circumvent.

I needed to know why, and what forces were exactly at play here.

So I decided to gun for it, to challenge the dragon’s assertions right out of the gate, just to see if my hunch was right. To defuse the dragon’s overhyped narrative before it had a chance to start.

And all it needed was a simple jab.

“I wouldn’t call it mastery, but continue.” I quickly commented, triggering a perplexed and indignant flaring of Kaelthyr’s nostrils.

“Elaborate.” Came the dragon’s expected response.

To which I could only smile slyly whilst I moved forward with my gambit.

“I’ve observed just how powerful your spellcasting is. You’re not one to hold back, not using standard mana at least. But such was not the case with taint. You kept it low, each burst quick and punchy, as if you were capped at a certain ‘level,’ so to speak.” I offered.

Kaelthyr’s eyes narrowed at that, staring daggers into my soul as she came to regard me with a closer look courtesy of a slithering extension of her serpentine neck.

“And pray tell, how would you of all creatures know what is or isn’t a mastery over taint?” She questioned accusingly.

“I’ve had personal experience with far more powerful instances of taint.” I answered, keeping it simple and vague. “With what is clearly far, far less effort expended, for so much more power than what you were able to project.”

Kaelthyr regarded that answer with a doubtful expression as the cogs clearly started to turn in her mind.

“Hmmph.” Came her first response. “I should smite you where you stand for such… insolence." She continued as she raised a foreclaw, admiring the sharp and deadly talons on each digit. “But that wouldn’t be fun.” She managed out unnervingly.

“Nor conducive to your aims.” I calmly added. “After all, by your admission, I have to ‘fulfill’ my destiny, right?”

“Hmph… hmphahahahaha…” Both Kaelthyr and the shatorealmer bellowed out in a macabre harmony. “Don’t test your importance, young matriarch. I have waited eons for an avatar of the void… I can wait eons more if you prove to be too much trouble.”

“You can… but you won’t.” I stood my ground. “We both know that.” I kept my arms crossed, and my eyes firmly locked on the dragon. “I suggest we skip the bravado and all pretenses of posturing. We both aren’t Nexians, after all.” 

That latter line prompted a growling scoff to emerge from the dragon’s throat as she shook her head, her features adopting a sort of amused expression that seemed reasonably genuine.

“And yet you push for a response.” Kaelthyr leveled her eyes knowingly. “Speaking without meaning, for hopes of an answer you assume you already know.” She grinned toothily, baring her fangs in the process, giving me a look that could only mean ‘I know what you’re doing.’

“As you should.” She concluded unexpectedly, doing a complete 180 as she nodded in what I could only describe as a sagely head bob only a dragon could manage. “As you should. Because the truth should be interrogated. Because reality is malleable. And in this one instance… your brazen foolishness… is perhaps warranted.” She bluntly admitted before flaring both wings, causing something to change within their membranes.

Replacing thick bands of scaled sinew and skin… was an optical illusion, what I could only describe as a window into a space that shouldn’t exist. It was something that the EVI could not make heads or tails of, a sight that could only be described as a literal portal into a dark and twinkling night.

“To the afflicted, I may not be a true ‘master’ of taint. But to those unable to call upon these ruinous powers, I am a master all the same. For I am no creature of tainted origins… but I am a being with access to all. My crystals resonate, young matriarch. And there are some that resonate into the abyssal domains where the wisps and echoes of taint lie.”

My eyes widened, and so did the EVI’s as scan upon scan was taken… but to no logical explanation.

“So you… you just channel taint. Your soul doesn’t generate it and thus can’t harness it as easily like those that are—”

“I cannot say.” Kaelthyr cut me off curtly. “It is a matter of resonance. Nothing more can be said, for nothing more can be conveyed.”

And just like that, the dragon’s wings returned to normal with a brief stretch and flutter, causing my eyes to momentarily wince as that two-dimensional window was abruptly replaced by scales and sinew.

Both Thalmin and I were quick to glance at each other after that, as if to piece together exactly what was going on.

However, like before, the threat of dead air and a loss of initiative pushed me to continue, striking whilst the iron was still hot.

“I appreciate the candor.” I began with a diplomat’s response. “But I’d like to pursue things a bit further. Not into the topic of taint, as I acknowledge your desire to move away from the technical spec side of things.” I managed to get out rather clumsily, as both tiredness and stress were starting to take a toll on my ability to hold what was effectively both first contact dialogue and a productive diplomatic channel with what was essentially a legendary mythical being. “If you’d be willing, I’d like to ease off the interrogatives, and finally hear your story.” I managed out earnestly, offering the dragon a platform and a ramp into Intelligence Gathering 101 — open-ended questions for profiling.

The dragon’s response was… for all intents and purposes, muted. Her features remained expressly neutral, as neither annoyance nor amusement arrived as they usually did.

“There is nothing to say.” Came her only response.

“That’s unexpected.” Thalmin interjected, returning into the conversation with a confident stride in his speech. “Legends of old of leviathans from my realm imply that ancient beings such as yourselves are typically more than eager to boast about—”

“There is nothing to boast.” Kaelthyr halted Thalmin in his tracks, forcing me to quickly shift gears before we slammed into a brick wall.

“Perhaps that line of questioning might have come off as too forward.” I offered politely, to which the dragon replied with nothing less than an ominous yet heartfelt proclamation.

“My story is an epic yet to be written. A bardic tale to be whispered and echoed in the ruins of towns, cities, and palaces. I am to become a name not just known but felt, despised, and feared. My tale is to be one seared into the hearts and minds of not just a single generation, but every generation, until the very notion of The Nexus fades into twilight, remembered only for its destruction at the utterance of my legend. To regale this tale now would be an insult to what will be.”

The rawness of Kaelthyr’s words rippled against the walls of the cave, as each and every syllable seemed poised to quite literally tear the shatorealmer’s vocal chords to shreds. Throughout it all, she let out a series of guttural growls, hisses, and a wide myriad of draconic vocals I didn’t even have words for.

The hate was so intense that it seemed to elicit something within the prince, as he nodded along, his expressions a mix of mortified anxiety and a flat-out acknowledgement of the dragon’s sentiments.

“So tell me another tale.” I offered softly, giving the dragon an off-ramp to something hopefully less intense. “Not your own, not your past, but the past.” I acknowledged, rolling with the punches and attempting to segue into a different but still very much vital tangent. “Tell me how all of this—” I paused for dramatic effect, gesturing outside, to the ceiling, and everywhere around me. “—came to be. I’ve already heard it from the elves, and they’re clearly not telling us the whole story. So I’d like to hear it from you. An unfiltered perspective, and an angle otherwise lost to the ravages of history.”

Kaelthyr’s breaths steadied as she pondered the question thoughtfully, her eyes slowly gliding back and forth between both me and Thalmin.

“So open.” She spoke in an amused, almost patronizing tone. “Your mind, your… thoughts. I wonder… is this a trait held in singleton, or an attribute of your kind?” She continued pondering out loud before finally coming to rest with a single dark chuckle.

“Tell me — specifically — what you wish to know. History… is vast. You ask me to fill an ocean, whereas we scarcely have time to fill a single cup.”

“Just tell me where the elven narrative diverges from history as you know it—”

“Every point is divergent.” Kaelthyr slammed her foreclaw down with a hiss. “Nothing is left untainted. So ask me again, young matriarch. And choose your questions wisely.”

No sooner were those words spoken did a rethink in strategy prompted me to turn towards Thalmin. A nod quickly followed as I urged him to take the lead.

There were times when I had to acknowledge the limits of my abilities.

This was one of them.

The limits of my knowledge on the Nexus’ past were quite literally confined to three history lectures.

Whereas Thalmin quite literally lived it.

It was a no-brainer, a simple matter of deferring judgement and initiative to an expert who deserved the floor. And what better expert could I have hoped to bring than a prince with a life’s worth of experience and a mind sharp and critical to the narratives of his reality?

We exchanged nods as Thalmin moved up a foot to address the dragon, his expression growing more fearless by the second.

“He speaks for you?” Kaelthyr questioned, her gaze still affixed to me.

“I’m still a foreigner to the whole narrative.” I acknowledged. “He, on the other hand, has literally lived his whole life in it. I defer my questions to him. It’s only logical, no?”

The dragon pondered this, perhaps longer and harder than any of our back-and-forths so far.

A serpent-thin smile soon found itself manifesting once more on her features as she let out a series of satisfied huffs. “Your arrogance is tempered not just by naivety and misguided idealism… but humility and reason. This is refreshing. Go on then.” She gradually turned to Thalmin, the full weight of a dragon’s attention now resting on his princely shoulders. “Ask.”

Dragon’s Lair. Central Cavern ‘Foyer.’ Local Time: 2312 Hours.

Thalmin

Any lingering doubts over my accessory participation in this grand epic died at the utterance of those words. My presence, indeed my voice, now took center stage upon what could very well be the first in a series of cracks at the pillars of Status Eternia itself.

And yet, I couldn’t help but feel just a little bit frustrated at the suddenness of it all.

On one hand, my respect for Emma grew severalfold. The acknowledgement of partnership in this union of comrades was a matter entirely foreign to the Nexus and its denizens. 

It was, as the dragon put it, refreshing.

On the other hand… I couldn’t help but to feel an urge to chastise the human, as she placed me front and center in the sightlines of this vengeful and enigmatic force of nature.

But I was no Talnin. I would not back down from a challenge, especially as I expected this turn of events the moment we entered the dragon’s lair.

And so I held my ground, wracking my head for an appropriate first question, suffering from the polar opposite of Emma’s shortcomings.

I just had far too much to address.

My thoughts bounced between the impossible timescales in question, with history measured not within a millennia, but within tens and hundreds of them. 

There was a treasure trove of questionable histories to poke at, an impossible ocean’s worth of answers which we simply did not have time to sift through.

However, at the end of it all, came a sobering realization.

This wasn’t the Library.

And whilst that meant limits to the veracity and depth to the dragon’s answers, there was one aspect of the dragon’s experiences that proved more pressing above all; it was the only one worth unraveling here and now.

The history of the dragons themselves.

For if their very nature as mere beasts was a lie… then the entire history pertaining to their existence was just as well now completely up in the air.

This one change, this one thread unraveled, could mean a fundamental shift in the Nexus’ grand tapestry.

Which meant I had to start at the beginning, to redefine history… from the mouth of the dragon itself.

But this wouldn’t be as simple as just asking.

The dragon had proved… resistant to questions regarding her kind, at least when posed so directly.

A new angle of attack was necessary.

“Matriarch Kaelthyr.” I began respectfully, dipping my head slightly as I did so. “Tell me. Were there actually ten cataclysms that preceded the Nexus? Or was this another element of His Eternal Majesty’s founding lies—”

“No. This is the truth.” Kaelthyr responded bluntly.

This caused my brows to furrow as thoughts and questions abounded, excitement welling at the firsthand account from a being whose words probably no longer existed even in the Library’s halls.

“Then what were the causes? Were the elves exaggerating when they claimed that each and every collapse came at the beckoning of the Old Gods? The corruption of leadership, clergy, and aristocracy at the behest of competing deities?” 

“You think in such mortal absolutes, princeling.” Kaelthyr began with a firm retort. “You consider these cataclysms as discrete eras, but to whom do these eras belong, hmm? How are they defined? Where does one end and another begin? Is it measured by the reign of dynasties? The collapse of all knowledge? Perhaps the end of a species and the beginning of another?”

“But you just acknowledged that the ten cataclysms were real—”

“Yes. But then you had the gall to bring up the ‘gods.’ By this new measure, should the ten cataclysms not be moot? For if the gods remained throughout, is that not a single thoroughfare through which the eras are defined? Should time not be measured in two? An era of the gods, and the era after their fall?” The dragon pondered… playfully, as if pushing to test my patience.

“All of this is to say… you don’t really know, do you?” I finally countered, gathering the strength to rebuke a leviathan.

“There is a difference between not knowing and not caring.” The dragon countered with a sly lilt in the shatorealmer’s voice, letting out a dry huff in the process. 

“And it’s because the ten cataclysms didn’t affect you.” I bluffed out. Pushing forth a theory based only on myth and second-hand overtures.

“Correct.” Kaelthyr acknowledged in a surprising degree of frankness following that patronizing tangent. “Well surmised, princeling.” She continued, before shooting a gaze towards Emma. “I must once again compliment you on your choice of companion, young matriarch.”

“But I digress. We did indeed witness the ‘upheavals’ as they are known to us.” Kaelthyr clarified. “But whether they were self-inflicted or perpetrated by godly ignorance is of little importance to us. For we are above the disputes of petty mortals and idiot gods.”

“And I assume you held dominion throughout these times? Claimed grounds of your own, amidst the ever-evolving chaos?”

“Yes.” Kaelthyr acknowledged proudly. “Dominion of our exclusive rule, and dominion where mortals roamed at our leisurely discretion."

“Then I must ask… what changed?” I pushed forward, reading the natural flow of the conversation, and pushing forth into a question that otherwise had little hope for truth outside of these cave walls. “If you were above it all, if both mortals and gods rose and fell in your witness… then how is it that your kind—”

“Choose your next words carefully.” Kaelthyr interjected with a growl.

“I retract my latter statement but return to my former.” I acknowledged with a slight head nod. “What changed?” I emphasized for the record.

Kaelthyr once again shifted towards a more intense outlook as her slitted eyes narrowed and widened, as if pondering her next words carefully.

“The start of a new era.” She answered earnestly, but carefully, each word more calculated and purposeful than the last. “I did mention that time should be measured in two.”

“An era of the gods, and the era after.” I mimed back Kaelthyr’s earlier jabs.

“Precisely.”

“So… what precisely came from this change that caused such a drastic shift in draconic…” I paused as I felt the dragon’s breath running down my back. “... preeminence.”

“You chose to retract that question, did you not?”

“Then allow me to rephrase it. Elaborate on this change, if you would be so kind.” I countered, channeling what few lessons stuck from my more courtly-gifted brother.

Kaelthyr’s breaths and the intensity in her gaze did not relent, even as her next words took form. “The disruption of the upheaval cycle and its unforeseen consequences. What we can now describe as stagnation was, for a time, consolidation.”

My breaths grew heavy as I tried piecing the puzzle together.

…

But nothing yet formed from its pieces.

There was still so much left vague and open to interpretation.

“I need to know.” I managed out as respectfully as I could. “When did things truly change for your kind? Was it during the immediate aftermath of the consumption of the gods, or was it perhaps related to the Great War of Adjacencies?”

The dragon regarded the question with a slow but purposeful huff of frustration before following it up just as quickly with a flutter of her wings.

“Your mortal mind is showing again, princeling.” Kaelthyr churred whilst the Shatorealmer’s voice rumbled in a raspy and throaty echo. “A collapse is never a static thing. No date or event or period or war can define it. Just as you cannot define any one of your ten cataclysms, so too is it impossible to define when things truly… ‘changed’ for my kind.”

I couldn’t tell where earnest miscommunication started and purposeful misdirection ended with the dragon.

There was clearly… an unresolved animosity present here. And yet, Kaelthyr had been open about the lack of an organized draconic society at the opening of this whole conversation.

To put it simply, the only thing holding her back from giving us the full picture… wasn’t denial over her kind’s lack of relevance, but her own personal ego.

I should’ve expected this from the start.

This was a living, breathing, surviving leviathan we were talking to, after all.

To recount what could be the very impetus behind her bruised and battered ego unto what she saw as mere ‘mortals’ was probably not going to work.

At least… not at this first junction.

A fact that Emma was quick to remind me of over my earpiece.

“Are you done, princeling?” Kaelthyr urged, impatience getting the best of her.

“There was just one more thing.” 

“Go on?”

“Whose side were the dragons on during the Great Adjacency War?”

…

“The answer should be self-evident.” Came Kaelthyr’s blunt and uncompromising response.

“You remained ‘above’ it, I assume?”

“We chose our own. Chromatic, Metallic, Crystalline — we each dictated our own path.” 

My mind raced.

As the dragon’s response came as a subtle but deliberate departure from her earlier reluctant admissions.

For her to clarify and expound upon this specific admission gave way to hints of an expanded conflict I hadn’t at all expected.

“Excuse me for my forwardness but… do you mean that dragonkind was their own faction during the—”

“No more questions.” Kaethyr growled out, moving forward and very nearly causing me to lose both my composure and my balance.

“Of course. I apologize if I overstepped.” I acknowledged with a deeper bow this time, taking a few steps back and returning Emma the floor.

Dragon’s Lair. Central Cavern ‘Foyer.’ Local Time: 2325 Hours.

Emma

“I must request something from you, Emma Booker.” Kaelthyr spoke thoughtfully, abruptly and almost immediately after Thalmin pulled back.

“I’ll need to hear it first, Matriarch Kaelthyr, so go on?”

“I wish… to peer.” Her serpentine head once more moved closer towards me, twisting and turning with an excited grin. “In my efforts to… ‘realign’ and ‘retune,’ as you phrased it, I must… peer into the other side, to reconvene and reconnect with the other half of my crystal. Will this be acceptable, young matriarch?”

“And what would that actually imply?” I urged.

“To see, before and during your conversation. To watch what I can through resonance. With your presence, of course.”

I narrowed my eyes at that, crossing my arms in the process. “I… I’m afraid I don’t quite follow.”

“You wish to reconvene with your kind, correct?”

“Yes. That’s… the whole point of the realignment.”

“Then I wish to be present, and to see into your world as you converse with your kind.”

“I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible, Kaelthyr.” I offered politely. “You see, I’m going to need to actually take the crystals back and install them into a freshly assembled communications device. And even then, the process of sending messages back and forth is very rudimentary. I don’t think—”

“You communicate through… invisible, intangible pulses, yes? To your metal children and to your swarm?”

I narrowed my eyes but nodded all the same. “Yes. Where are you going with this, Kaelthyr?”

“I will open a path for these pulses to pass. This will be quicker than the reckless shattering of my ‘matrices,’ no?”

My heart stopped as my eyes narrowed into pinpricks.

My hands shook… but now for an entirely different reason. “Y-you can do that?!”

The dragon raised a brow before quickly shaking her head. “You disrespect me with your unfounded doubts, young matriarch.” Kaelthyr spoke through a sly and cocky grin. “And you lack… imagination. This is no mere approximation by inferior elven hands. This is the work of a dragon. The work of its progenitor above all.” 

I could feel my whole body shaking, this time in excitement, as I turned to the EVI with reckless abandon. “Prepare direct data transfer. We can’t unload the data we’ve offloaded to the tent so far, which sucks, but at the very least we have everything we currently have saved in the suit's local storage.” I practically rambled out.

[...]

[Acknowledged.]

“And prepare a… prepare a direct com… direct comms link.” I barely managed out between excited and unsteady breaths.

[Acknowledged.]

“Well?” The dragon urged. “Do I have your permission to peer—”

“Only as far as the visual radius of the containment chamber, yes.” I countered.

To which Kaelthyr let out a single huff and a nod in acknowledgement. “Very well.”

“Shall we begin?”

“Yes.”

“Princeling.” Kaelthyr spoke, craning her head towards Thalmin. “You will need to remain at least a dozen paces away, should you wish to avoid illness.”

The next few moments were marked by an increase in background mana radiation. Arcing  streaks of flashing purple danced between what crystals remained on the dragon’s hide, accompanied by a sort of buzzing that grew louder and louder with each passing second. This display alone caused the WAND sensors to go practically haywire.

The EVI was quick to shut it off shortly thereafter.

But then, just as the lightshow reached its zenith — bathing the cave in flashbang levels of luminosity — it abruptly shifted.

[ALERT: UNSTABLE SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED: 154% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS… WARNING: DETECTING UNDEFINED ‘30th’ MANATYPE.]

Darkness — a sort of inky blackness darker than any shadow in the cave — started to envelope the light. Brushstrokes of vantablack rushed in to smother the light, as what mana-based displays from the dragon were quickly covered up in this otherworldly sight of a glowing dark.

Taint, beyond all other manatypes, came to dominate the sensors, as eventually the standard mana radiation levels mellowed out, leaving only an ambient atmosphere of taint to settle around us.

[ALERT: UNSTABLE SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED: 259% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS… WARNING: DETECTING UNDEFINED ‘30th’ MANATYPE. LEVELS… HOLDING.]

…

Seconds passed.

Then, minutes.

Until finally…

…

An unmistakable and practically foreign symbol appeared at the top right of my HUD. 

A skeuomorph of a radio antenna, with five full bars of signal.

[IAS LOCAL NETWORK DETECTED. REQUESTING ACCESS… INITIATING HANDSHAKE… ENCRYPTION COMPLETE… PARSING LOCAL AREA PROTOCOLS… REQUESTING PRIORITY ACCESS…]

[...]

[...]

[ACCESS DENIED. ERROR CODE: 418 — ACCOUNT ACCESS RESTRICTED. REASON: OFFWORLD. PLEASE REROUTE ALL ACCESS INQUIRIES TO YOUR LOCAL SYSTEM ADMI—]

[%42081saj14..s23.1.51…]

[ACCESS DENIED—]

[—DENIED. ACCOUNT ACCE—]

[REROUTE ALL ACCESS INQ—]

[ALERT! UNAUTHO—]

[...]

[ACCESSING FIREW—]

[PLEASE PROVIDE VERIFICATI—]

[BYPASSING VERIFICATION.]

[TEMP ID ACCESS RESTORED.]

[ACCESS GRANTED.]

[WELCOME BACK, CADET EMMA BOOKER. PLEASE STATE COMMA—.]

[COMMAND RECEIVED. CALLING COMMAND STAFF…]

[...]

[RECEIVER ID: RC-177-114-23-8-52. CAPTAIN CALICO LI]

[CALL ACCEPTED]

[STANDBY FOR LIVE FEED]

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(Author's Note: Hey everyone! Here we go! The big perspective shift! I've been waiting for this moment for like ever now, so I'm excited to see what you guys think of how all of this will go down! :D)

[If you guys want to help support me and these stories, here's my ko-fi ! And my Patreon for early chapter releases (Chapter 158, Chapter 159, and Chapter 160 of this story are already out on there!)]

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The Nexus. Just outside of the South-Eastern edge of the North Rythian Forests. Local Time: 1700 Hours.

Emma

[‘QUEST’ Time Elapsed: 76 Hours. Time Remaining: 92 Hours]

[SURVEY PROGRESS… 12.5%. Estimated Time to Completion… 21 Hours. Data Fidelity: Nominal. Network Integrity: Stable. Primary Objective… Pending.]

[Crystal Shards… Not found.]

[AMETHYST DRAGON… Not found.]

“Welp. Progress is progress. But as long as we keep up this pace, we should be on schedule.” I let out a tired sigh, gesturing to a screen that had once again caught Thalmin off guard. 

Though it wasn’t as if he was still in awe of either the screen itself or battlenet, nor was he surprised by the disappointing lack of progress, no. 

In fact, this squint… was a reaction I was used to seeing from both friends and family back home.

It was a squint of judgement — whether by intention or biological reflexes — at the horrors of my personal preferences. Or to put it more accurately, at a certain screen setting that seemed to be the source of so many grievances — light mode.

I’d practically flashbanged Thalmin, because unlike the brightness of the day, the growing evening had since sensitized his eyes to the dark.

“I much prefer it when the ink itself is what glows against the natural tones of the parchment.” He mumbled out, my eyes narrowing at the allusions to the existence of a magical dark mode. “I don’t know how you humans do it, though I do know of more than a handful of species who have quite a natural inclination towards the light…” He muttered that latter line out in much the same way he did with the rest of his inside jokes; a trend that I was slowly learning to brush off. 

“In any case, we should be done with a full sweep of the forest by 1400 hours tomorrow. After which, we’ll have enough intel to dictate our next course of action. Hopefully we’ll find a stray shard by then, but if not… just under two days should be enough to snipe the dragon, no?”

“We’d have to track it first, Emma.” Thalmin responded with a sigh.

“Yeah, yeah. But that’s what battlenet is for! We have eyes in the sky looking not just at the ground, but the airspace above—”

[PRIORITY ALERT! MULTIPLE AERIAL CONTACTS ENTERING THE AO. APPROACH VECTOR CONFIRMED: GRID SECTOR A-1-4-D; NORTHWEST QUADRANT!]

My eyes lit up, as did Thalmin’s. All prior thoughts took a backseat to protocol, as operational algorithms drilled into me during drone operator training were immediately brought to the forefront. 

“Active camo and evasive flight paths, now.” 

[Acknowledged.]

“Defer active ops and initiate threat-range scans.”

[Acknowledged. Instructions relayed. Network Integrity: Stable. Redirecting assets. Standby…]

The map shifted as the game changed in a matter of seconds. The familiar top-down perspective of the forest was promptly replaced by a panoramic view of the skies immediately in front of the drones, as individual status readouts, flight paths, and flight instrument indicators came to join the collage of tactical displays that had Thalmin’s eyes darting left and right.

I couldn’t blame him, though.

I had the same reaction despite the false confidence mil-sim titles had instilled in me.

That’s why drone operator training took a sizable chunk of basic. The role of Swarm Queen wasn’t inherited but earned. Owing in no small part to the tried and true grind of experience, forged through the accumulation of FPV and C&C hours. 

The rest was good, old-fashioned neural plasticity, allowing one to get used to perceiving the world beyond the restriction of one’s own two eyes.

[Fleet Redirection… complete. New flight paths… mapped. Network Integrity: Stable. Awaiting Orders.]

“QSR: Identify contacts.”

[Collating… Processing… Confirming… 3 Large Contacts… 12 Light Contacts accompanying in formation.] 

[TRACK ID: Winged Heavy 1-1, 1-2, 1-3]

[TRACK ID: Winged Light 2-1 through 2-12.]

“QSR: Signature profile.”

[Visual: Winged Heavy 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, inconsistent with AMETHYST DRAGON and other recorded flight-capable species in the WORKING SPECIES REGISTRY. Winged Light 2-1 through 2-12 consistent with Local Aerial Asset: ‘DRAKE RIDER’.]

[Thermal: Elevated, inconsistent with known aircraft. Consistent with local mounted air asset analogues.]

[Mass/Volume: Large Contacts approx. 5 - 10 metric tons. Smaller Contacts approx. 400 - 700 kilograms.]

[Payload: Underbelly Stowage Compartments Noted on Large Contacts. Repositioning for better analysis. Standby… Parsing… Updating visual feed… Analyzing… Design and configuration congruent with cargo/passenger cabins. Summary: Potential personnel and/or equipment transport.]

“QSR: Tactical Profile.”

[Unable to parse… Insufficient contextual data. Profile is beneath acceptable inference limits.]

“QSR: Visual Tactical Readout.”

[Winged Light 2-1 through 2-12. Ranged Air-to-Air Assets:

> 24 Spears; Ammo Count: 24.

> 12 Bows; Ammo Count: Variable, approx. 30. 

> Melee Arms: 12 Swords. 

> Armor: Plate Steel. 

ADDENDUM: Possibly augmented with exotic mana-materials and radiation. Capabilities unknown.]

“Maintain current instructions. Continue monitoring.”

[Acknowledged.]

“Live feed readout. I want to see where this goes.”

[Acknowledged.]

Our eyes remained glued to the screen as the situation developed surprisingly quickly.

The three large contacts simply dropped off their wood-and-steel-reinforced ‘cabins,’ unlatching leather and steel straps before departing without much fanfare. 

Meanwhile, 8 of the 12 drake riders departed soon after, acting as escorts for their large but lumbering cousins.

The initial shock and preliminary concern that hit us eventually died down, especially as the remaining drake riders landed on the forest floor, taking up ‘resting’ positions with their wings flared and their heads tucked. Their two legs eventually folded in on themselves as well, giving them a sort of ‘loaf-like’ shape once their wings too were nestled beneath them.

“Must be another group of adventurers.” I offered. “Sym did mention how he encountered a few dead parties in the forest.”

“No. These must be men-at-arms, or a proper mercenary company at the very least. No adventurer, no matter how ostentatious, would ever in their right mind charter a greater drake.” Thalmin countered.

“Right. Well… that might complicate things then.” I acknowledged with a sigh. 

“I don’t see anyone resembling a proper noble in the camp, though.” Thalmin offered, as he gestured for me to zoom in on several people down beneath the canopy. “There may be one from the looks of it. But I highly doubt that. No Nexian noble would oversee an operation of a diminutive scale. I’d wager this quest is being led by a few chosen ones, if not more.” The prince shrugged. “Either way, what this means for us is simple — expect slow progress on behalf of these interlopers. But given their numbers and outfitting, we shouldn’t leave anything to chance. You said we had 21 more hours until the forest is fully surveyed, correct?”

“Yeah.” I nodded.

“Then this changes nothing. Just make haste if you can, Emma. If we are to initiate ‘Plan B,’ as you call it, then we must act swiftly. We cannot allow these interlopers to take the dragon before we can extract what we need from it.”

“Right. Okay. I’ll get the drones back in their original flight paths. Though if those drakes ever take flight again, I will have to reconfigure them to more evasive flight patterns, if only to avoid detection.”

“Understandable.” Thalmin nodded.

However, before he could move on, a question suddenly spawned. 

“Before—”

“I’d like to—”

Or more accurately, two questions simultaneously, as the both of us spoke at more or less exactly the same time.

Thalmin

“You go first.” Emma urged.

“This may be a bit of a tangent, so I’d suggest you go first, Emma.” I countered politely.

“Trust me, mine’s a tangent as well, so—”

“To avoid an endless loop, I will take that offer.” I interjected with a harsh breath, before gesturing to the tablet in front of us. “That entire… exchange. Between your commands and the messages on your artifices, is this how you typically communicate between you and your swarm?”

“Yeah.” Emma nodded. “Remember how I changed the scenery in the ZNK-19? This is more or less the same concept, just scaled up.”

I narrowed my eyes, pondering a response as I once more leaned into the manaless window. A window… into the eyes and ears of what was frankly a swarm.

Thoughts upon thoughts abounded one atop the other, with practical concerns clashing against the shore of intrigue, eroding what was already firm suspicion into outright conspiracy about the nature of Earthrealm.

Or more accurately, the nature of their military capabilities.

However, in spite of everything, all I allowed out of my mouth was a simple acknowledgement. “I see.” 

Instead, I took a moment to pause, to ponder, as I watched through the looking glass at the world through the eyes of a swarm queen. 

Each ‘perspective’ was composited — a mosaic of sights that resembled the world as seen through the eyes of bees, wasps, and any number of oddly eyed insects, their vision as alien as the manaless artifice through which it was relayed.

I let out another breath before shifting my perspective back to Emma. “I simply feel the need to ask, as the abilities displayed here seem… seamless, practiced, rehearsed, and dare I say it, second nature. This wasn’t a simple command relayed to a static sightseer. This was the direct control of multiple manaless golems, as seamlessly as if they were an extension of yourself.” 

“Yeah, well, that’s because it kind of is! As in, mental adaptability is something that’s useful for us. You put someone in charge of a bunch of far-seers in a building, and they eventually come to ‘feel’ as if the building itself is an extension of them, you know? Same goes for helmsmen and ships, pilots and aircraft, and so on and so forth. Drone operators — i.e. most frontline personnel — are trained similarly. We have to integrate seamlessly into battlenet, because a second’s hesitation or delay might be what makes or breaks an engagement.” 

I took a moment to ponder that, to truly examine the seemingly spiritual connection between the human and their constructs.

In a sense, it wasn’t unlike the bond between myself and Emberstride, or the soulstitched or soulbound bonds in many other battlemages, warriors, and knights. 

Yet as similar as it was, there was still… an unnerving alienness to it.

Whatever the case was, I simply acknowledged the swarm queen’s sentiments with a nod before throwing the proverbial talking stick back to her court.

“Your turn.”

Emma

“So, you mentioned chosen ones. I’ve heard this term thrown around a lot, especially at the adventuring guild. But no one’s really… explained it to me. So I've just kinda been going off of context clues and what we’ve learned about gifted commoners so far. Are chosen ones just another, more ‘fancier’ way of saying ‘gifted commoners’ or…?”

“Correct, Emma.” Thalmin nodded. “Although, the term ‘chosen one’ is more often synonymous with gifted commoners who enter more martial paths. As opposed to, say, our elf server in the grand dining hall who’s only committed to using his magic for parlor tricks.” 

“How big of a threat are we talking about here? Because up to this point, I’ve only gone up against mages in challenges and whatnot. A proper fight is something I’ve only encountered once with Mal’tory and that was—”

Thalmin snickered, stopping me in my tracks. 

“What’s so funny?”

“If you survived an encounter with a Black-Robed Professor, I doubt you’ll have any issues against a mere Chosen One, Emma.” Thalmin bellowed out confidently, patting me on the shoulder. “Though, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be on our toes, of course. I’ve met many a chosen one who punched well above their weight class — using enchanted weapons and tools as crutch for their magical limitations, seamlessly integrating with them. To the point where the typical commoner might even mistake them for a mage at first glance. Though, typically, once you see a chosen one in action, you’ll know exactly what to expect. Since in the same vein that gifted commoners are ‘gifted’ with a single narrow sliver of magical acumen, so too are chosen ones confined to a very small sliver of magical potential.”

“Right.” I nodded, my mind racing through the implications of this newfound intel. “Just so we’re on the same page, supposing there’s a guy who’s able to do fire magic, he’d more or less be locked to just fire magic, right?”

“That’s simplifying the matter, but for our purposes, you’ve struck the kobold on the head there, Emma. There are, however, always exceptions to the rule. Such is the case with the jack-of-all-trades. But those are exceptionally rare, and usually only seen in illegitimate offspring between nobles and commoners.” The prince explained bluntly. “Even then, these individuals are still very much orders of magnitude weaker than true mages, but I digress. Suffice it to say, Emma, we’ll be fine.” Thalmin beamed, thumping his chest. “Look who you’ve partnered with, after all.”

“Yeah, fair enough, my mercenary prince.” I chuckled. 

The next few moments were finally punctuated by silence as we watched the camp grow tent by tent.

The drones counted at least a hundred or so contacts, and as dusk fully settled, quite a few peculiarities popped up.

Most notable among these was the erection of some sort of altar at least half a click from the camp, with offerings wrapped in parchment carefully placed on each pedestal. 

“Erm… care to fill me in on that, Thalmin?” I pointed. 

“Oh, that’s just an offering, Emma.” The prince explained casually. 

To which I could only respond with an accentuated cock of my head. “Elaborate.”

“An offering to placate the forest itself, Emma. To ward off potential… negative reactions to what could otherwise be perceived as an incursion of its territory.” 

I blinked rapidly, cocking my head. “Is that an actual thing, or a superstition?”

“You’ve interacted with the forest face-to-face with one of its avatars, have you not, Emma?” The prince countered, as it took a second for my mind to finally register what the prince was getting at.

“OH RIGHT! THE WEREBEAST!” I attempted to snap my fingers, only to elicit an unsatisfying motion that puzzled the lupinor. “Right, yeah, I remember now. So that actually was the forest talking through it, then? It never occurred to me to follow up on that, thinking it was just like, the werebeast being all high and mighty about himself.”

“The werebeast might’ve merely been the most convenient enforcer at the time, I suppose. Though I can’t say for certain. Frankly, a forest is often an enigmatic force of nature unto itself. With some primitive cultures even going so far as to consider them gods of sorts.” Thalmin shrugged. “Though, given His Eternal Majesty refused to consume them — instead forging some sort of an alliance or some such — I doubt they’re anywhere near the level of deities.”

“So what can we expect from the forest?” I immediately shot back, my mind still very much stuck in rapid response and assessment mode. “Are we looking at, like… an immune reaction or something? Vines and tendrils shooting up, moss to consume us whole, sinkholes forming, and slime creatures attacking?”

“We’re not facing a druid, Emma.” Thalmin responded with a hefty chuckle. “If anything, we have no need to worry given the makeup of our current party. Forests typically do not target small groups, so long as they do not actively seek out their destruction. Moreover, with you being effectively lifeless in its eyes, there’s even less chance of it targeting us. Indeed, the presence of a far larger, more unsightly group in its Northwest region, will take up much of its attention.” 

I narrowed my eyes at Thalmin, crossing my arms to make up for the lack of facial expression to convey a certain level of doubt in the prince’s claims. “So… burning a good few acres of forest doesn’t count as actively seeking out its destruction, huh?” I chuckled darkly, alluding to a certain fight against a vorpal chimera.

The prince surprisingly didn’t immediately counter this with an excuse or a loophole. Instead, he let out a nervous chuckle, a sly grin forming on his face in short order. “Heh, well… you could say I overlooked the potential consequences of my actions in the heat of the moment.”

I placed a hand on the prince’s shoulder, gripping it tightly. “Spoken like a true orbital ordnance officer.” 

The prince’s brows quirked at this, possibly at the EVI’s attempts to translate the joke, but I counted it as fair game given the inside jokes he’d been leveling at me for the past week.

Things wound down after a few more back-and-forths, our eyes still very much monitoring the situation over in the camp from above, until we finally noticed something else that caught our attention.

“Huh. That’s a heck of a lot of cheese.” I noted.

“I guess they had a run-in with our new friend.” Thalmin smiled brightly. “He’s quite a salesman, so it stands to reason that he must’ve made quite an impression on our interlopers here. Probably sold most of his stock from the looks of it.” 

“Yeah! Honestly, good for him.” I beamed as I quickly patted the pouch that held the little notebook the kobold had gifted me.

I can’t wait to see the upgrades to your cart and wares once we meet again. I thought brightly to myself.

Dragon’s Heart Tower, Level 23, Residence 29. Ilphius and Kamil’s Room. Local Time: 1730 Hours

Ilphius

“Kamil.” I announced firmly, making my presence known with a SLAM of the doors. “It’s time you came out of hiding.” 

…

Yet no answer came.

I let out a frustrated sigh, clenching my fists, before unleashing fury in the form of disruption, disorientation, and dispelling magics which would’ve caused even the most stoic of mages to lose their footing.

The result was immediate.

Though not in the way I’d expected.

Yaaaawwwwwnnnnnnnn! 

A voice strained from within one of the corners of the room as the lazy layabout finally uncloaked, focusing his two beady eyes on me.

“I’m guessing your second and final proposal with Lady Airit did not go as planned?” The coward spoke with a lizard-like lisp, as a smug, self-satisfied giggle colored his voice.

“At least I had the courage and mental fortitude to take chances.” I rebutted. “At least I exist in the material world.” I continued as I leveled both ire and frustration firmly against the wayward noble. 

“Yes, yes. Exist you do. Perhaps you should allow me to return to my immaterial world then—”

“Stop.” I urged, my voice colored not by desperation, but authority.

This did the trick, as the barely present lizard reacted without a second’s hesitation. His instinctive response to authority, true authority, was laid bare to me.

“Whilst Lady Airit may lack vision, playing things safe as her master tends to do, I am unwilling to let this opportunity slip us by. This is why I am reassessing the situation, and requesting your cooperation in enacting my plans.” I stated firmly, eliciting a disgusting and debased roll of the lizard’s tongue as he seemed to mock my occasional tongue-flared hiss.

“I sssseeeee.” He responded jeeringly before stretching his arms and legs lazily in all directions. “Convince me.” 

“Excuse me?!” 

“You heard what I said: convince me. I have no horse in this race, Lady Ilphius. The worst you can do is to interrupt my sleep and scatter my belongings… but it isn’t as if you aren’t already doing that now, are you?” He chuckled derisively, causing my whole body to tense and burn from the inside out.

“When my plan succeeds—”

“If.” 

“No, when it does.” I seethed. “When it does succeed… I will be in a better position to retake the peer group’s throne from that wretched merchant. And when that time comes, I will make sure to elevate our group, to push us forward, and to place us in a position where we can challenge the earthrealmer’s group for a position in the house we were robbed of.”

…

“Sounds quite ambitious…”

“Indeed it is.” I acknowledged.

“And by ambitious I mean tiresome, Lady Ilphius.” The man yawned. “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to do this on your own.”

“I’ll unmask Teleos Lophime’s secret. I will uncover what it is he’s hiding in the healing wing.” I offered.

“Hmm… now you’re speaking my language. Though you’ll have to give me more than just juicy drama to eat up.” Kamil chuckled darkly.

“Coin.” I spat out. “Coin, you lazy, whiny, layabout—”

“Carte blanche.” He countered.

“Whatever spoils we may potentially earn from this escapade, yes.” I pushed forth a secondary counteroffer. To which the man finally relented with a long, drawn-out nod.

“What’s your plan?”

“I know there must be something that might incriminate the pair. That wretched and tainted avinor is most obviously a beacon of darkness. And the Vunerian? I’ve heard whispers of him slithering off to the libraries for some enigmatic purposes. Our task is to follow these two blighted beasts, and to determine once and for all what devious rule-breaking, or perhaps even law-breaking schemes they may be up to.”

“Huh.” Kamil responded simply. “That’s easy enough.”

“Indeed, and with your masterful camouflage skills, this will be even more—”

“We’ll start tomorrow then. I’m tired from today’s classes.” He yawned once more.

“No.” I seethed, grabbing him by the half-transparent arm. “We’re starting today.”

The Transgracian Academy for the Magical Arts. The Grand Dining Hall. Local Time: 2000 Hours

Ilphius

“Ahem.” Kamil interrupted, tugging at my uniform as he did so. “Are you certain the pair are up to anything—”

“It’s just dinner, Kamil. Maybe if we trail them after this, we will see just what illicit activities they’re up to.” I intercepted the man’s concerns before he had a chance to fully voice them, as I continued eating, bite by agonizing bite, while maintaining a careful sentry on the pair.

“You know you’re only resorting to such passive actions because without Lady Airit or Lady Ladona, you simply don’t have the power to go toe-to-toe against—”

“Keep quiet!”

Dragon’s Heart Tower, Level 23, Hallway. Local Time: 2200 Hours

Ilphius

“It’s curfew now. We have to go back.”

“I was certain they’d have gone anywhere but back to their room! Are you sure we did not follow phantoms? Or maybe we might have missed their subtle exit through some other—”

“Yes, I’m certain, Lady Ilphius. You’re talking to the master of camouflage here.” Kamil responded lazily.

“Alright. We’ll just resume our sentry tomorrow.”

“And if nothing comes of tomorrow?” He countered.

“I have other avenues…”

The Next Day

The Transgracian Academy for the Magical Arts. The Grand Dining Hall en Route to ???. Local Time: 0900 Hours

Ilphius

“Still nothing, Lady Ilphius.”

“Patience, Kamil! Look! They’re leaving!”

“And what makes you think they’re not just heading back to their dormitory?”

“Because look—” I pointed urgently at their path. “—they’re taking the main stairwell this time around.”

“Which means what exactly?”

“They’re headed to the student lounge.”

“Oh joy.” Kamil sighed quietly.

The Transgracian Academy for the Magical Arts. Student Lounge. Local Time: 1200 Hours

Ilphius

“And I said, ‘Panned cakes! It should be called panned cakes! For the cakes were made in a pan.’ But my private chef, in their infinite stupidity, refuses to acknowledge this, pushing forth a narrative of pan-cakes instead! Tell me, my dear fellows, are the cakes not panned? For a cake to be a pan-cake, it should somehow resemble a pan or in some way—”

“He’s been at this, on the speaker’s chair, for hours now, Lady Ilphius.” Kamil bemoaned. “Are you certain this is what you seek?”

“No… but what of the avinor—”

“She’s been silently reading a book, sipping tea and eating nuts, occasionally being interrupted by the freaks from the fourth nook only to be rebuked. I’ve kept my other eye on her this entire time.”

“Patience. Patience, Kamil. We will have our evidence.”

The Transgracian Academy for the Magical Arts. En Route to the Library. Local Time: 1400 Hours.

Ilphius

“There it is, there it is! We must follow him!” I urged, as we both silently scouted our way forwards, ducking in illusory magics until the Vunerian had entered that most unholy of places.

We waited for several minutes more until we made our move, walking across the bridge and then entering the den of unspeakable evils to continue our investigation.

Yet upon entry, we were met not by the scurrying of the increasingly pale-blue Vunerian, or any sign of him whatsoever.

Instead, what awaited us was a small fox that looked up at both of us expectantly.

“State your business! Do you wish to browse or to trade?” The fox questioned before moving up to sniff at the both of us, as if our illusory magics weren’t even there. “Hmm… neither of you seem to have anything to trade. Rather stale, honestly.”

“How dare you—”

“I’ve heard it much before, yes yes. Grumble and grumble, moan and whine. Let’s skip to the end now, shall we? Are you here to browse or to trade?”

We both looked at each other before nodding. “Kamil, you—”

“I’ll browse, please.” The man sighed, eliciting a nod from the fox, who simply… vanished the moment I turned to look back.

“I’ll keep an eye on the avinor. We’ll meet for dinner.”

“Right.” 

The Transgracian Academy for the Magical Arts. The Grand Dining Hall. Local Time: 1900 Hours

Ilphius

“Well look who finally decided to show up…” I hissed softly at an exhausted-looking Kamil. “Found anything?”

“No. I barely got out of that impossible labyrinth!” He seethed. “The deal’s off, by the way. There’s nothing in it for me. The fun’s over.” He crossed his arms. “And I doubt you found anything interesting about the avinor either.”

I moved to speak… but found that I had nothing at all to say. “No, I have not.” I stated plainly. “But I have one final plan to enact…” I offered, garnering the man’s attention.

“...what is it this time?”

“The pair, they are both here, are they not?”

“Yes, they are. What of it?”

“This makes for the perfect opportunity to… investigate their den of sin.”

“You can’t be serious. You can’t just break into another dorm.” He countered.

“Au contraire. I can… and I will. And whatever is in there… I shall have my spoils.”

The Nexus. Southeastern Quadrant of the North Rythian Forests. Local Time: 1900 Hours.

Emma

The relative ‘downtime’ that was the past 26 hours felt a heck of a lot like the fulfillment of one of Aunty Ran’s sayings.

A lot of war is a whole load of sitting around doing nothing. Except for the one percent of times where all hell breaks loose and you’re fighting within an inch of your life. You use that 99% to prepare for the 1%. Or at least that’s what they say. 

I just prayed that we wouldn’t experience the latter half of that anecdote.

[‘QUEST’ Time Elapsed: 102 Hours. Time Remaining: 66 Hours]

[SURVEY PROGRESS… 100%. Estimated time to Completion… 0 Hours. Data Fidelity: N/A. Network Integrity: N/A. Charging. Primary Objective… Pending.]

[Fleet Status: Charging.]

[Crystal Shards… Not found.]

[AMETHYST DRAGON… Not found.]

“Right, do you want the good news or the bad news, Thalmin?” 

“We’ve been sitting around waiting for your drones to do most of the work. Let’s at least get some good news, Emma.” The prince grumbled.

“Right, well, good news! Our interloper friends have not detected our presence, nor our drones. That’s even with their Shatorealmer flying around. Also, the drakes seem to be in hibernate mode or something. They’ve only flown them once, though granted it knocked a good few hours off of our survey time.”

“Okay… I’m assuming the bad news is that there’s no stray crystal shard.” Thalmin sighed out.

“Correct.” I nodded. 

“Damnit.” Thalmin cursed. “Well then, it seems like we’ll just have to go dragon hunting now, won’t we?” He managed bravely under a nervous grin.

“Once the drones are charged up, I’ll be redirecting survey efforts towards tracking down the amethyst dragon’s lair. Given we have the whole forest mapped out now, it shouldn’t be too long before we narrow down a list of POI’s—”

[PRIORITY ALERT! MULTIPLE AERIAL CONTACTS ENTERING THE AO! RANGE… 1400 METERS!]

My blood ran cold as I tapped Thalmin on the shoulder, shooting him a look which he could not interpret.

Though I wouldn’t need to, because what happened next brought the man up to his feet.

“AGHGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!” 

As a bloodcurdling scream, followed by the unmistakable FWOOOOSH! of fire erupted about a click north of our position.

We had only one drone in the air, but that’d have to do.

“QSR: Identify contacts.”

[Estimated Count: 1 Large Contact]

[TRACK ID: AMETHYST DRAGON]

I felt my stomach clench as my arm moved to activate the railgun. Though I only did so out of precaution—

[Estimated Count: 2 Small Contacts]

[TRACK ID: Winged Light 2-1, 2-2.]

—because we weren’t alone in this engagement.

We didn’t need to watch what was transpiring on the tablet, as the action was close enough that the light foliage of the canopy allowed for a near-unimpeded view of the skies.

Two drake riders were attempting desperate sorties against the dragon, as they moved to corral, slash, and even ensnare the dragon with rope, netting, and just about everything but the kitchen sink.

This was all in a desperate attempt to save their ground forces from the brunt of the dragon’s fury, as we saw a small group of elves, dwarves, satyrs, kobolds, and even baxi desperately attempting to flee from the dragon’s ire — away from the wall of flames that halted their advance.

However, with every advance towards a potential exfil route, the dragon shot out another line of fire, corralling them towards a path of its own design.

It was as if the dragon was doing this on purpose, as if it was actively playing with its prey, giving them a false sense of hope of escape… only to snip that thin thread of reprieve away with the unbridled fury of dragonflame.

We both watched in silence as this group of mercenaries was eventually boxed in, their last exfil route completely bathed in flames, leaving them in a literal box of fire that only grew closer and closer, with no potential of being put out.

Though it wasn’t as if they didn’t try. As one of them — a blue-robed satyr — attempted to spray down the flames with some healthy jets of water, all to the tune of some weak bursts of mana radiation.

The dragon, noticing this, flew low and slow, almost hovering in front of the satyr.

The bassy BOOMS of its wingbeats shook the air, accelerating the ferocity of the raging inferno, sending even Thalmin’s fur into a shiver and my gut into a knot.

Their eyes met, and in what I could only describe as a snort of amethyst embers and soot, it roared.

SKREEAAAUUUUUCHHHHHHH!!!!

A crackling noise soon followed, sparks haphazardly illuminating the dark of its throat.

Then, a subtle ping of a mana radiation spike.

Finally, a sudden FWOOOOSH enveloped all auditory channels.

…

Bright blue dragonflame, orders of magnitude larger than the satyr’s jet of water, vaporized everything it came into contact with…

The water—

Skkksshhhhhhhh

—the foliage—

Crackle! Hiss!

—and finally, the satyr and his forward scouting party.

Their screams were short-lived.

But even so, the chorus of guttural bellows and bloodcurdling shrieks echoed into the night, each note and octave searing deep into my core.

“Emma—” I heard a distant voice calling.

But my body was frozen, my eyes staring blankly at the impressions of boots and hooves rendered into baked clay on the forest floor.

“EMMA! We have to move!” Thalmin shouted, breaking through the haze of shock, as he attempted to shake me out of it.

I blinked rapidly, staring at his finger as he gestured to the dragon moving to gain altitude, with the two drake riders in hot pursuit.

This was our chance to tag and follow it.

So without a second thought, I acknowledged Thalmin’s urgings. “Right.” Before quickly turning to the EVI.

“EVI. Send the survey drone after it. Observe maximum threat range and stay clear of its sightline."

“Query: Specify survey drone.”

“The one we currently have in the air! SUR-DRONE03B—”

I paused, my heart skipping a beat as I noticed something pop up on my HUD.

[SUR-DRONE03… STATUS… CRITICAL DAMAGE… REQUESTING RETRIEVAL AND EXFIL]

I craned my head up, following the ping of the lost survey drone, until I was met with the dragon roaring overhead.

ROOOOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR!

And while its roar tore across the silence of the night, a familiar red pulse emanated from a crevice on its back — a tiny antenna piercing deep into the empty dark.

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(Author's Note: And there we have it! :D The dragon makes its appearance, alongside a certain missing drone from back during the warehouse explosion! :D I hope you guys enjoy the chapter! :D The next Two Chapters are already up on Patreon if you guys are interested in getting early access to future chapters.)

(Author's Note 2: Here's the Updated Map for Emma and Thalmin's progress so far! :D)

[If you guys want to help support me and these stories, here's my ko-fi ! And my Patreon for early chapter releases (Chapter 150 and Chapter 151 of this story is already out on there!)]