When Heroes Die

[Sharpedge]

"Six. If you find a strange person in a Villain's Lair trapped inside a ritual circle, don't help them to escape. Yes, even if they promise to have your children."
– 'Two Hundred Heroic Axioms', author unknown
​

---

Unease filled him as he took in the sight that had just flared up on the horizon. Far ahead to the left of him and just off the dirt road, in the shadow of a small hill jutting out in the grassy plains, flashes of particoloured light lit up the late afternoon sky. It was distant enough that he could not make out the source from where he was, only just falling short of the horizon, but still, it could only really have come about in one way. Mage combat, he thought to himself warily.

Olivier had been on the road for some time now, selling enchanted wares and keeping his eyes open for wayward gifted in need of support, long enough that he had started upon the journey home to Beaumarais. He was on the return stretch to the small town, although the mountains and valleys that surrounded his home were still beyond the horizon. This trip had been an exciting one, and although he had found no more gifted during it, people had been enamoured with the wares he had to sell.


He had ventured farther afield than usual, but the sights he had seen had been worth the extended journey. He gently tugged on the reins of his mules from further back on his wagon, they brayed at him sullenly, tossing their heads of brown hair back and forth, then slowly drew to a stop. The cool autumn sun bore down upon them, the sky cloudless far above, and he waited several heartbeats for the sight up ahead - whatever it was - to finally draw to a close.

Suddenly, seemingly out of nothing, tall solid structures of metal and glass sprouted from the earth. They grew and grew and grew, the surrounding terrain almost seeming to melt like cheese over a fire to compensate. The plains grass vanished into the earth, and the knoll which had been present had since flattened out. The towers, for what else could they be, seemed almost to reach up and touch the sky.

Looking on, he was reminded once again of his argument with Morgaine in the past. The moment when he had realized that if she had wanted to kill him, there was nothing he could have done about it and the shame he had felt then at the time. For but a moment then, he had understood what regular folk felt about magic.

Olivier knew magic and had some understanding of what could be done with it. He had, after all, grown up in a family of mages even if he had no magic of his own. This — whatever it was — defied his understanding of it. Was this some new grand Praesi ritual being tested, out in the middle of nowhere, stuck in transit between two towns? He licked his lips nervously and considered what he should do.

It made sense, he thought, for him to turn back now and carry news of this to the last town he had passed through. It was only two days past at his current pace, but then again, what could he even tell them? That a city made of pure fantasy had grown in the middle of nowhere? He would be laughed out of town for sure. No, better that he wait a bit longer for the spell to draw to a close before he acted.

He had his mules pull the wagon to the side of the road, allowing them to feed on the grass while he waited, continuing to watch the working unfold. Whatever it was and whoever it was that had made it, it truly took his breath away. To do all of this with a single spell, he doubted even the vaunted Praesi Warlocks could achieve something of this scale. That left him wondering about who exactly was responsible and why they had seemingly transmuted large portions of an open plain into what was quickly becoming clear was a city. It unsettled him how quiet the working was, for something of such scale to make seemingly no noise at all, it was like trying to imagine a dragon sneaking up on you. Utterly preposterous.

Half a bell later, it seemed that the working had drawn to a close. He had, in the interval, talked himself into approaching. Shouldn't he, after all, learn more about it before he carried the news? Guiltily, he acknowledged to himself that secretly this was not the real reason he approached, no, it was more about the thrill of it. Sorcery of this scale was something extraordinarily rare and, despite how he had expected someone else to show up and notice it, he was still the only person on the road. So he would approach carefully and learn as much as he could, then carry news of it with him to Beaumarais when he returned. Magistrate Alisanne Lassier, he decided, could be the one responsible for deciding what to do from there.

He clicked his tongue twice, signalling to the mules that, once again, it was time to continue. They eyed him balefully, then, with great sufferance, began to pull his wagon. He stuck to the road for now, allowing himself to be drawn in closer, without having to dismount and approach on foot. The plodding of hooves, the gentle rumble of the wagon beneath him, and the waning light of the sun against the back of his neck all served to distract him from his good sense. That way, before he decided to be smart here and turn tail, leaving before learning more. Absently, he reached to one of the packs beside him, pulling out some jerky to chew on. The marvel of magic drew inexorably closer, and finally, they pulled as close as they could whilst still following the road.

Once again, he signalled for the mules to stop, then, climbing down, the soles of his worn leather boots sent up a small cloud of dust as they made contact with the ground. His legs were unsteady for spending too long on the wagon, and so he took a moment to stretch. Then, finally ready, he prepared himself for the short hike off-road. He picked up one of his water skins and grabbed one of the decorated torch staves on the wagon he intended to sell. It wasn't intended for use as a walking stick but was enspelled to keep the flame on the end burning in exotic colours, making for a somewhat extravagant light source. There weren't any trees nearby for him to pilfer any branches, however, so it would have to do. It would serve, regardless, its only duty to poke around in the grass up ahead as he moved, alerting him to the presence of any snakes, before they became a more immediate problem.

Step by step, he made his way towards the city, a bitter breeze occasionally pushing one of his curly locks into his eyes. The closer he drew, the more impressive it was to his eyes. Then, the grass came to an abrupt end and his boots thudded against a hard, smooth bronze beige surface. He paused and bent down, running his fingers along the grain. It was a novel material, something he hadn't seen before, and looking at it brought his concerns to the fore.

Was this the work of a demon? He wondered to himself. The very thought sent a shiver not related to the evening chill down his spine. Praesi Warlocks had a reputation for dabbling with demons among those not educated in magic. The reality was different, though, at least as he understood it. Only the maddest and most ambitious of diabolists risked bringing one of them into Creation. To his eye, this did not look like the aftermath of a demon incursion either, although admittedly he had no practical experience with them. The result was too… inorganic, structured to the convenience of people. It did not look like a nightmare of mutated flesh that demons of corruption were famed for and although demons could certainly achieve an outcome like this, their frame of reference was too alien to conceive of it.

His eye roved further, to his right, there was an ash-grey road paved out of another unknown material with a white line down the middle, between two of the bronze-beige paths, which were elevated just slightly in contrast. He wondered what the purpose of the distinction was; a footpath, maybe? Either way, the road beckoned him onwards, and cautiously he stepped onto it, deciding to follow it on the way in. Every so often, there were round metal disks buried in the road, as well as metal poles extending from the ground a few feet into the air like branches from a tree. He was puzzled as to their purpose.

Then, he arrived. Even from a distance, the buildings had made him feel small, but standing directly under them, under these marvels of construction, fed into both his sense of adventure and his sense of caution. There was glass everywhere. Surely, not even the First Princes' Palaces in Salia used glass this liberally? It was extravagant on a scale that defied his understanding.

Standing at the base of one of the buildings, he noticed what seemed to be letters painted onto the surface of one of the windows in a language he didn't recognize. He traced over one of the figures, a straight line that then curved to the right in a loop, ending at half the height of the symbol. He knew Lower Miezan, the language most commonly spoken in Praes, and had passing familiarity, in the sense that he had seen the written alphabet, for both Taghrebi and Mthethwa. This didn't look like any of those. That should have reassured him, as it meant that whoever was responsible for this was unlikely to be one of the mad wizards from Praes. It didn't.

If it wasn't the Praesi, then he had no idea who could achieve such a grand work of sorcery. The Dead King and the Titans maybe, although neither side had a motive. But who else? He didn't know much about the Dwarves, aside from the fact that they were more or less the only nation on Calernia that wasn't just a regional power. However, they weren't renowned for extravagant magics, so he doubted they were responsible. The Fae, perhaps? That thought worried him, but upon further consideration, he doubted it was them. They had the power to achieve this but lacked the agency to pull it off. By their very nature, they were tied to stories, and he couldn't conceive of a story tied to an event like this, except maybe the gnomes.

He continued walking down the road, taking in the alien sights surrounding him as he mused. Why were there rows of metal loops connected to the ground perpendicular to the main road, on that slightly elevated section of roadway? Who could afford to just leave metal like that? How was a road designed that was so flat? And how did these towering monoliths stand as they did and not come crumbling to the ground? Surely, some of them stood taller than the tower in Ater? What kind of magic could create a place like this, and why do it at all, seemingly in the middle of nowhere? As he explored, the questions only piled up.

He approached one of the buildings, looking through the glass to take in the interior. There were rows upon rows of shelving, made out of another material that he didn't recognize. Absently, he reached for the door, only to find it had no handle, and he couldn't figure out how to make it budge. Who made doors with metal frames and glass bodies anyhow?

The more of this place he saw, the more he suspected that it wasn't so much built as transplanted from elsewhere. The posters stuck to the outside of windows were what drew him to that conclusion. Pictures of people garbed in strange, foreign outfits. Clothing of the likes he had never seen before. The posters were far too… Sterile, almost artificial in nature, seeming not to have been penned, painted, or drawn by hand at all. Many of them depicted strange machines, or in some cases people performing what looked to be magic. Either way, they were his best source of information on the place so far.

The idea that someone, or several people, had teleported what had to be a substantial chunk of a city from somewhere else terrified him. Especially whilst leaving the occupants behind and just dropping it here somewhere on the outskirts of Bayeux. How would someone even go about achieving something like that? This was going to have ramifications very high up, he realized.

It occurred to him, then, that he had at most another hour or two before the sun would set, and he would need to make his way back to his wagon. It was unlikely someone would steal from him. Anyone who saw the wagon would see the city as well and were they tempted to theft, the prospect of stealing from a place like this was far more tantalizing. Regardless, though, the idea of finding his way back to his wagon after the night had fallen did not appeal to him in the slightest. Making the most of what limited time he had left was important then, and that meant deciding what he needed to see.

If this was a ritual, and it seemed to be one, he thought to himself, then the point of origin was likely the centre, which meant heading to the middle of the city. How a ritual on this scale could be accomplished, without leaving miles of countryside wasted by the desolation, he didn't quite know. That was a riddle in and of itself. Still, if he wanted answers, finding the caster would be the best way to acquire them, which meant finding the eye of the spell. A little voice at the back of his head cautioned him that being in the presence of someone who could do this wasn't the smartest idea, but he smothered it before it took root. When was he ever going to have the opportunity to see something like this again?

Destination in mind, he started to walk, making his way towards the epicentre. As he did so, the haunting stillness of the place seeped into his bones. For a city like this to exist, how many people would need to occupy it, and walk its streets? The eerie feeling amplified the further he walked, it felt like he was striding over someone's grave. As far as he could tell, he was drawing close to what he estimated was the source, a bit over a mile in from the edge. He reached the end of another one of the megastructures, the road coming to a four-way split, and turned left, expecting to find the cause.

His breath caught, then stilled. Unlike the rest of the place, what he saw looked like it had been a part of the original countryside. A smooth, circular chunk of rock with a crack running through it from one side to the other, sitting untouched in the midst of a displaced city. On it, were runes writ in blood, spiralling inwards. They were detailed, intricate, almost certainly a ritual, and right in the middle was a girl, her back facing towards him, clad as she was on the day she was born.

She was pale, hunched in on herself and, with the slow rise and fall of her chest, seemingly unconscious, with long curly black hair facing towards him. Her right arm lay on top of her and ended at the elbow in a stump. A mass of scars crisscrossed the girl's back, and he hastily averted his eyes, contemplating on what to do.

Disgust curled in his stomach as he considered what he had seen. It looked to him like she had been intended as ritual fodder, a human sacrifice, only the ritual had clearly gone wrong, and the circle was broken. He examined the runes again and then turned away, pacing restlessly, their shape fading from his mind the moment he did so. Maybe it had been a Praesi ritual then, with a Duni sacrifice, but one where the caster's madness ended with their demise.

Concern for her warred with concern for himself. He wasn't sure what would happen if he stepped into the ritual circle. It was broken, or at least, he thought it was broken, so it shouldn't do anything. But an entire city had appeared regardless of that, so clearly there was still something happening despite that. He didn't know if stepping into it would cause a reaction again. Should he risk it? The breeze stilled as he thought over it, as if the world was taking a breath.

No, he decided, he didn't want to leave her fate up to chance, not when he could help. He would take the punishment on his own head if this decision ended poorly. Hesitantly, he stepped into the spell, careful not to disrupt any of the lines. The wind picked up again and he reaffirmed his decision. He would help her, he thought, surely it couldn't go wrong. Tentatively, he moved closer, keeping his eyes averted, then tried to wake her. She didn't even stir.

Grimacing, he resolved to pick her up and carry her back to his wagon. Hopefully, she wouldn't take offence at his presumption. Dropping the intricately carved length of yew, he made to pick her up. Right arm beneath her legs, the other supporting her back, he hoisted her up and started to make his way out. She was light, stick thin, and considering all her injuries, she hadn't lived an easy life at all. Putting one foot after another, he made his way out of the city. He walked cautiously, a misstep now would have poor consequences.

Arriving back at the wagon, he noted, to his mounting disbelief, that the road was still empty. True, this wasn't a path travelled along much, but he still would have expected someone to show up by now. He considered what to do next, she wouldn't fit into his clothes, despite looking around his age, she was tall, having a few inches on him. Regardless, he doubted she would appreciate waking up and having someone else clothe her. No, he decided, better to wrap her in one of his cloaks, then figure out where to go from there whenever she finally stirred.

Placing her down on the wagon leaning against one of his packs and firewood, he considered whether to stop here for the evening or continue on for the night. Usually, he would halt at around this time. His brother had called him unwise, travelling alone like this. He grimaced, the thought of his brother once again bringing unpleasant feelings to mind. They had not been on good terms for some time, and it still stung somewhat. He pushed the thought aside.

Despite the turmoil in Procer at large, the civil war had not reached the sleepy parts of the outer edges of the Bayeux principality and, despite the dangers of travelling alone, he had not been bothered on the road. When he did eventually settle down, he would activate one of the alarm wards that his brother had enchanted. It would warn him if anything larger than a fox came within thirty feet by emitting a piercing shriek, which should, in theory, give him plenty of time to react.

He decided, after some thought, to push on until the city was out of sight. He didn't know if there was anything dangerous in it, but staying around to find out seemed like pushing fate. Better, he considered, to make some distance, before settling in for the night. The mules glared at him balefully in the pale evening light, but he was having none of it. They set off and soon, the only light illuminating the way forward was the pale light of the moon and stars above. Between the chirping of the crickets and croaking of frogs as dusk set in, he could almost pretend a semblance of normality.

A few hours of travel later, the city was out of sight. Deciding they had gone far enough, he pulled some logs off the wagon and set them down in a haphazardly arranged ring of rocks. Tiredness had long since set in and, after cooking himself a stew with the little he happened to have on hand, he set up the wardstone and proceeded to doze off against a bag positioned against the wagon wheel.

Waking up the next morning with a knife pressed against his neck came as a bit of a shock that, in retrospect, he should have expected. This, he thought wryly to himself, was not how he saw himself being greeted by the person he had tried to help out.
​

 

[Sharpedge]

"When waking up in an unknown bed, examine the environment before the people. If there are chains and bars, you can be sure they are Villains and you are soon to be rescued. If there aren't, you will need to rescue yourself."
– Eudokia the Oft-Abducted, Basilea of Nicae
​

---

"We're almost there, Theo, you're doing fine."

He was panting hard, the exertion of jogging with me still something he hadn't fully adapted to yet. It had taken some time, but he was almost there. It surprised me, none of the other Chicago Wards would have been willing to stick with me for my morning runs for so long, and yet, he was still pushing on.

"It's… funny…" He began, then cut off.

"What's funny?" I asked.

"Three months running, and I'm still holding you back."

"And I've told you before, it's fine. If you weren't willing to do this, I would be stuck on a treadmill instead."

I felt him flagging with my swarm, and I slowed myself down to match. We had, after all this time, got ourselves into somewhat of a routine. The shadow of the Sears Tower loomed ahead of us and, once again, we pulled in closer to the buildings on our left. We were avoiding another cyclist who seemed to take it as a given that we would be the ones to move out of his way. I eyed the rows of unmanned bicycles parked to our right, thoughts of Brockton Bay once again flashing wistfully through my mind.

"You miss it too, don't you?" Theo asked quietly, coming to a stop.

"Miss what?" I asked.

"The Bay," he replied.

"Yeah."

Nothing more needed to be said, really. Despite the many months I had spent here, Chicago still didn't feel like home. It was too large, too busy. People were awake at all hours, and there was never a time when they weren't getting in my way. No matter how early it was that I woke up, there would always be somebody else doing something. I could never have the city of Chicago to myself, not in the way I could claim a piece of Brockton Bay.

"You ready to keep going?"

"Sure," he agreed.

We picked up our pace again, starting the beginning of our return trip. The better Theo became at keeping up with me, the longer we ran to compensate. Another week or so like this, and he would be matching the pace I wanted to set.
​

---

The scratchy feeling of something hairy against my skin was the first thing I felt upon waking up. Next, came the odour. Pungent, oily, the smell of unwashed bodies. I wrinkled my nose. It must have been a prank of some sort, but for a prank, this was really going too far. I would need to tell Grace this was…

Memories started coming back to me, flashes of experience. The fight with Jack, Scion's rampage, the end of the world. The fight on the oil rig, Eidolon's death. Running through empty metal corridors, trying to find something, anything that could give us an edge. And then, the step off into the abyss. I remembered.

The world, no all the worlds, viewed from an omniscient perspective.

I remembered me, gradually slipping, losing myself. First my control over myself, then the ability to recognize faces, then names, then body language. Bit by bit, piece by piece, I had gradually fallen apart.

A memory came back to me. The aftermath, mere moments after Scion had died. Me standing there and watching a crowd celebrate, unable to see it as anything more than a threat display. I choked back a sob.

There was more, though. It didn't simply end there.

Being confronted by the Faerie Queen and stepping through a portal. Then there on the other side, a woman in a white dress shirt and suit pants. Contessa. We had talked then. Somehow, I had still understood her, and she had asked me a question, then, she had offered me a choice. A final look at the night sky, before the welcoming darkness. So why, then, was I awake?

This hadn't been the choice that I made.

The chirping of a sparrow broke me out of my thoughts.

My back was cramped and my throat parched. Whatever I was lying against made for a poor pillow. I reached up to clear out my eyes, then realized my arm ended in a stump. Awkwardly, I reached with my other arm, then stiffened.

Vaguely, I had the sense there was somebody else nearby.

I opened my eyes. I blinked rapidly, the harsh light of dawn cutting into them, and waited for them to adjust.

At first, I wasn't sure exactly what they were taking in. I seemed to be on the back of a wagon, on a dirt road, out in the middle of nowhere. The wagon was hitched to what seemed to be two brown mules. The back half, where I was, was under a shaded roof. The front was exposed to the sky above.

My vision roamed further, taking in my surroundings. It was blurry fields of grass as far as the eye could see. A few lonely trees dotted the landscape, breaking up what would otherwise be an almost featureless view.

Where was I? This didn't look like any place I knew.

The aches I felt were from resting against a stack of cut logs that were stacked to one side. Opposite me, there was a random assortment of goods that looked like it belonged at a flea market. I was wrapped in what appeared to be a scratchy cloak, but was otherwise completely nude. I felt a sliver of fear lodge itself deep in my chest.

Had something been done to me while I was asleep?

Almost absently, I reached towards my swarm, then realized to my dismay that it wasn't there.

After a bit of thought, I realized that it didn't surprise me, although it still stung. I figured I should be dead, not having my power was the least startling part about this. So why was I alive?

That, more than anything else, made the reality of my situation start to set in. I clamped down on my emotions as best as I could, but found my leg twitching nervously. Frustrated at my inability to maintain control of myself, I changed my focus, looking for something I could use to defend myself.

I reached down to my side for the nanothorn. Then I realized, once again, that not only was there no nanothorn, I also had no right arm.

Right, Taylor.

I looked more critically over the paraphernalia and spotted what seemed to be a dagger, buried inside a sheath.

I moved across on my hand and legs, careful not to make a noise. The damp chill of morning dew was clammy beneath my palm, the cold biting into my skin. The shuffling felt awkward like this, my balance was off. After grabbing the hilt, I fumbled with it a bit, trying to pull it out. My frustration mounted.

Come on, Taylor, you can do this.

I hated how vulnerable I felt, how I couldn't distract myself by burying my attention in my swarm. It had been so long, I had forgotten what it felt like to not have my power at all.

Finally successful, I examined my find. It was broad at the base and about the length of my forearm. For some reason, the person who made it didn't fashion upon it a guard. Unfortunately, that meant if I wasn't careful and my hand slipped, I would be down a couple more fingers and regretting what happened. Upon looking closer, I guessed it to be made of steel, although the make seemed to be poor.

I wasn't left-handed, and that was the only hand I had remaining. That meant when handling the dagger, I would need to be more cautious than usual.

I gave the collection of junk a second look, hoping to find something better. I couldn't seem to find an alternative. Looking at it, I grimaced.

It will have to do.

I climbed to my feet. The wagon creaked, I stilled. With a better vantage point, I could now see down below, directly over the sides. To the left of the wagon, was a small circle of stones surrounding the dying embers of a fire. Just making their way into my field of vision, two legs clad in leather jutted out, from near where I imagined the front wheels were.

Carefully, I made my way to the front of the wagon. One of the mules turned and looked at me, I eyed it warily. It snorted, dismissing me, then turned away again.

Gripping the hilt of the dagger tightly, I slowly, hesitantly lowered myself to the ground. Then, I made my way towards the man.

My first impression of him did much to soothe my concerns. He was short, much shorter than me, and had a mop of long, curly brown hair adorning the top of his head. His face was tanned, handsome, in a somewhat effeminate way. Despite his height, I suspected him and I were about the same age.

He was clad in leather from top to bottom, with a somewhat rugged looking coat covering what seemed to be a chain vest. That, more than anything else, threw me off.

I remembered, when I had controlled Clairvoyant, the view of all the many versions of Earth that there were. Not all of them had been as developed as Aleph and Bet. There was a possibility I was stuck on a less developed world. A world that was perhaps hundreds of years in the past. I hoped, as unlikely that it was, that he was simply Amish rather than the alternative.

It was hard to tell past the armour, but he didn't look muscled, and I suspected violence was not something he was well accustomed to. With his head resting against the wheel and drool trailing down the side of his mouth, he wasn't particularly intimidating. I didn't really want to consider what he had planned for me, but I thought that, despite my missing arm, if it came down to it, I could probably still win the fight.

Now to wake him up, I'd put the point if the dagger right beside his neck, then give him a shake. I'd need to straddle him to prevent him from simply overpowering me, but -
​

---

"You never learned to ask for help when you needed it," Tattletale said. Her voice was almost accusatory. "I mean, you ask when you approach other groups, and it's like you're holding a gun to their heads as you ask, or you ask at a time when it's hard for them to say no, because all hell's about to break loose."
​

---

A flash of memory, an ugly feeling settled in my gut. I shook my head. No, this was different. I was alone, I had no power. If it turned out the man was hostile, and I hadn't taken the initiative, there wasn't really any way I could recover here.
​

---

"I keep on asking myself the same questions over and over again," she said. "Maybe you can answer. Was it worth it?"

I stared down at my hand. It was shaking, but it wasn't from fear.

"Would you do it all over again? Knowing what you know now? Knowing that you end up here, at gunpoint?"

"I… know I'm supposed to say yes," the words made their way past my lips. "But no. Some-somewhere along way, it became no."

"Just about everyone comes to this crossroad," she said. "Some get seventy years, some only get fifteen. Enough time to grow, to take stock of who you are. Enough time to do things you'll regret when you run out of time."

"Don't- don't regret it. Was- had to. Saved lives. But I would do different, given a chance."
​

---

Another memory, another stab of guilt. I stopped, halted my train of thought. Then, I started to consider.

This wasn't an opportunity to do it all over again, at least, I didn't think so. There was no Scion to kill, no world to save. Either by luck, happenstance, or Cauldron intervention, I was somehow still alive. That didn't mean, however, that I shouldn't treat it that way.

If I keep making the same mistakes, I will only pile up more of the same regrets.

So I stopped, breathed in and started to consider. The world seemed to still as I did so.

A girl wakes up naked, alone in a wagon belonging to an unknown boy. From the outside, what did the situation look like? To me, it sent all kinds of warnings. In my time with the wards, I had had with criminals of all types, and not all of them were thieves and murderers. I forced myself to look for another explanation, though.

How did the girl get there?

Say the boy was a traveller. He was on the road, heading to his destination, and then he found her, unconscious, stranded somewhere along the road.

He could be well-intentioned, realizing that I was probably in trouble, he could have decided to help. If he found me in such a vulnerable state and wasn't able to wake me up, it might have been the best choice.

Alternatively, he could have darker intentions for me.

How did I wake up?

I wasn't bound, and I didn't think I had been touched in any way. If he had been planning to take advantage of me, he certainly didn't plan well. He had slept on the ground, leaning against the wheel of the wagon, and left the wagon itself to me. That couldn't have been comfortable. All of those actions spoke in favour of the other option, that of the well-meaning traveller.

The question burning in my mind was whether to wake him up gently, or wake him up at the point of a knife. If he wasn't friendly, and I woke him up without the threat, his armour would make ensuring my safety much, much harder. I mulled it over for a moment.

Or I could just leave.

That was an option, but I didn't think it was a good one. I didn't know where I was. I didn't even know when I was. The chances were, the boy did. Either way, it seemed like talking to the unknown kid was my best bet.

Waking him up at the point of a knife when his intentions had been noble would cost me goodwill. Goodwill, on the other hand, was something I could earn back. I could apologize if that was the case, but it was the safe play.

Alternatively, I could wake him up without the implied threat.

If I was wrong in my read of him, if he was actually hostile, I would be giving away my only advantage for the chance to make a good first impression.

I frowned. I didn't like the conclusion I had come to.

Doing better meant making different choices. It seemed like, on reflection, I had just talked myself into making the same choice. On the other hand, not every choice I made, was a choice that I regretted. If he wasn't trying to take advantage of me, if he was genuinely a good person, I would do my best to make this up to him.

My resolve reaffirmed, I decided to act.

First, I reached up, careful not to poke myself with the knife and unpinned the cloak, allowing it to fall to the ground. With what I was about to try, I couldn't risk myself getting caught in it, and trying to pin the buy down was chancy enough with only one hand.

Then, I moved.

Straddling him to pin him down, I positioned the knife close to his neck, but far enough away so that he wouldn't accidentally cut himself on waking up. He stirred. I raised my stump and tapped his head with it, finally waking him up.

He blinked, the drowsiness quickly fading from his eyes.

"Who are you and what were you going to do with me?" I asked, pushing the knife in closer.

He opened his mouth and began to speak. And then, an ugly problem reared its head. One that I hadn't considered, but really should have. I didn't understand a word that he said.

It was funny, really. The idea that I wasn't on Earth Bet had occurred to me, it seemed likely, even. The idea that the person I was planning to interrogate wouldn't speak English, however, had not. Now, we were at somewhat of an impasse. We couldn't really negotiate, because we had no way to talk, and I had already gone and made a poor first impression.

Great work, Taylor.

His caramel eyes, I noted, were averted and his cheeks had a reddish tinge to them. What had him embarrassed? It wasn't like I had breasts.

The braying of one of the mules interrupted my thoughts.

Do better, don't make the same mistakes.

I decided, then, to give him a chance. I had probably got off on the wrong foot and made a mess of this, and that was entirely my own fault. Something told me, though, that even now, he didn't mean me any harm. Slowly, I lowered the knife and placed it on the ground, then, picking up the cloak, I stood up and backed away, covering myself in the process.

Picking up the knife and moving slowly towards the cart, he found the sheath and put it away. Awkwardly, I followed behind. He turned around then.

Now, how to proceed?

"Taylor," I said, pointing to myself with my index finder. Then, pointing at him, I waited.

"Olivier," he replied, with a tone that came across as half amused.

Now to determine if that was his name, or something else.

"Male, Female," I continued, pointing at him first, then myself. He did the same in turn, using two words I didn't recognize.

Great, now hopefully, sometime today, we can have all of this figured out.

Slowly, we continued. Mule, wagon, knife, cloak. Each time, I made the effort to commit each word to memory. Ten minutes in and my stomach rumbled, my hunger making itself known. Both of us paused, then he pointed at the wagon, enunciated a few words and proceeded to point at the ashes between the stones. From context, I realized he wanted to pause and cook something to eat. I nodded.

Sitting and waiting on the side while he cooked left me feeling restless. I tried to offer to help, but after the third time of him turning a stern eye in my direction, I decided to leave him be. I wasn't used to feeling useless like this, and it frustrated me.

He looked my way again and his face softened. Then, he started to talk again, pointing to objects as he worked. I gave him a small smile in thanks, relieved to have a task I could focus on.

Point, speak, repeat. You can do this, Taylor. If I kept telling myself that, then maybe I would start to believe that everything was fine.​

 

[Sharpedge]

Thanks to Scathias for Beta reading this.
​

---

"Wisdom is the anticipation of consequences. That's why whenever I burn the enemy's fields, I make sure to salt the ground."
– Dread Emperor Terribilis I, the Thorough
​

---

We had been on the road for five days now. Communications were still a problem. On the first day, we had stopped in a small town. Once there, Olivier had helped me negotiate for some ill-fitting clothes.

That stopover had convinced me that the Earth I was on was one stuck sometime in the past.

Dirt roads, ramshackle buildings and the pervasive smell of shit was enough to sell me on the idea that I wasn't going to be seeing a city like Chicago again soon. Actually internalizing that was likely to take some time.

Since then, we had passed through some larger hamlets on the way to our destination. It was, according to Olivier, a town called Beaumarais. When I had asked him why he was going out of his way to help me, he had grown frustrated trying to explain it. It had something to do with the condition in which he had found me. He didn't have the right words to explain why.

Being stuck in a place where I didn't speak the local language had instilled an ugly sense of loneliness in me that I hadn't felt since Winslow.

Either way, I had decided to place my trust in him. He had an easy-going nature that made it hard not to like him. I had learned a little about him, as we journeyed on. As far as I could tell, he worked as a peddler of some kind. He travelled around and sold goods in the many small villages that littered the countryside. He was also fortunately literate and had taken to teaching me the written word using handwritten texts in his possession.

I wasn't sure what I was going to do now.

For years, I had had the end of the world as something to work towards averting. Nothing I did now would ever compare to that in importance. In a sense, it felt to me like my life was already over, and now I could have some peace.

It was both stifling and liberating at the same time.

Being stuck in a place still hundreds of years behind Earth Bet with one arm, left me feeling even more lost. I wasn't sure what job prospects I even had. At least this world didn't seem to have as strongly engrained gender stereotypes as I would have expected it to. That was one relief I hadn't been counting on.

Perhaps, I could work as some kind of teacher or scribe.

Unfortunately, that would rely on me having time to learn the local language, both written and spoken, in much greater detail.

The countryside gradually became more rugged as we journeyed onwards. We were no longer surrounded by featureless plains. Small hills and valleys were the norm now. They were coated in green, and looming in the distance were much larger mountains. The roads were much busier here, and we were no longer the lone travellers on the country path. I wondered what it was that made this place more lively.

The closer we came to arriving, the glummer Olivier seemed to become. His shoulders seemed to hunch in on themselves, and his responses to questions became more terse. I wondered what it was about his home that caused that kind of reaction.

"Is something wrong?" I asked, in broken Chantant.

There was a pause before he responded.

"No, I just don't like being home."

Water vapour frosted the cool morning air as he spoke. Each day we travelled, the sun rose just a little later. Winter was on its way.

"Can you tell me why?"

He turned his head my way and glowered. "It's a family matter."

I felt my face flush and I turned away.

Of course, whatever problem he has at home is private, Taylor. Think.

I was about to try apologizing, when he started to talk again. "I've been fighting with my brother about a girl."

That was my interpretation of what he said. It was spoken in Chantant.

It took a few tries explaining for him to get his meaning across. The actual wording was more flowery. It was something about their connection being bruised. Olivier had a way of talking around topics without ever stating what he meant directly. It both amused and frustrated me at the same time. It meant I was receiving a crash course on the local metaphors, but each sentence took minutes of explanation to deconstruct.

The meaning was still the same.

A gnawing feeling of guilt welled up in my chest at the thought of his issues at home. A reminder that I hadn't properly said goodbye to my dad. A reminder of how I had left matters unfinished with Brian. Before I had even realized what I was saying, I had begun to talk.

"You should try to talk it out with your brother," I told him quietly.

He looked like he was about to argue. Then he paused, examining my face carefully.

"My mother died when I was young. Several years later, I did some things that made a bad break between me and my dad. We never managed to fix our -" I cut off, not knowing the right word. Frustrated, I tried to come up with an alternative.

"Relationship," he added sombrely.

"We never managed to fix our relationship before I ended up here. You never know when things will end, so it is better to try to mend them early." I finished, stumbling through my speech in half mangled sentences. I hoped I managed to convey my meaning properly.

He remained still for a moment, then nodded his head. "I will think on it." The matter was left there.

The journey continued. The rattling of the wheels on the uneven ground and the plodding of the mules being the only sounds to break up the silence. It was restful in a way that I hadn't truly expected it to be. Time continued to pass. The sun reached its zenith, then started to wane. We came to a stop. We halted in the shade of a gnarled tree, its canopy shielding us from the light.

Olivier unharnessed the mules, giving them a chance to rest. I helped bring out the tools to cook our meals, although I wasn't much involved in the process itself. I had tried to help once, two days before. After tasting what I had made, the glare he had sent my way had convinced me to drop the matter entirely.

Apparently, he didn't believe I could cook properly. Having had to cook for myself for years, I felt somewhat affronted by this. We didn't have any proper ingredients around, so I couldn't prove him wrong.

"What did you do?" He asked me in patchwork English.

He had been making the effort to learn it as well. When I had asked him why, it was apparently because he liked to learn, it didn't really matter how useful what he was learning was.

"What do you mean?" I replied.

"What work did you do?" He elaborated.

This was the first time he was asking me a question about my life before he met me. I thought for a moment about how to answer it.

How do I even translate law enforcement?

Talking about powers was out of the question. I didn't have the right words to explain them and even if I did, I didn't think it was a smart idea. How would I even explain something like the unwritten rules or the reasons not to unmask capes to someone living in a society so different to my own?

Even if I wanted to tell him about powers, I could no longer demonstrate my own. No, better to leave powers out of it entirely. After some consideration, I found something that I thought would work.

"I was paid to use tools like this dagger to stop people from cutting others," I explained, pointing towards the dagger in question.

He nodded, as if he expected the answer. Then he said a word I didn't recognize. Soldier or guard, I guessed. Considering all of my scarring, it wouldn't surprise me if he had guessed something like that already.

"Tell me about some of the fights you fought."

I grimaced, thinking about which ones I could talk about without making them sound implausible. Noticing that I seemed to be unhappy with the topic, he changed it.

"What was your home like?"

This was a much safer topic. He had struggled to explain where he had found me, although it had sounded like part of a modern city. I had no idea how it was transported to this world, but that was a question for later. However it happened, it made explaining what Brockton Bay was like much easier. And so I started to talk.

It was nice to talk about the bay with someone who had absolutely no frame of reference. Someone who, when I described the sights on the boardwalk or gave little anecdotes about the best places to go to avoid trouble, had their face light up with interest. On Bet, it didn't matter who you talked about the Bay with, it was seen as an example of a herald of what was to come. A bell that was tolling the inevitable coming of the collapse.

I didn't mention the portal to Gimel to Olivier. I wasn't even sure how to describe it. Although it was seen as an important milestone for our survival, I didn't feel like it was an important part of who we were as Brocktonites. Eventually, I trailed off wistfully. Clouds overhead blocked out the stars, and the fire was the only light we had to see by.

"How many people lived there?" He asked.

I frowned. We had covered basic arithmetic already, although I didn't know the words for these numbers in Chantant. I picked up a stick. In the dirt on the ground, I scrawled three-hundred thousand and four-hundred thousand, respectively.

"Between this," I pointed to the first number, "and that," and then I pointed to the second number.

"Is this one of the larger cities to exist where you came from?"

"Not really. It was one of the smaller cities where I lived," I replied absently.

Olivier went still at that, that topic of conversation dying there.

"That stone, what is it?" I asked, pointing to an engraved rock he was holding right before we went to sleep.

Every night he performed the same series of actions. He would take it out and go through some sort of ritual. When dawn came, he would put it away again. I suspected it was a part of his religion. I didn't want to offend him and ask about something everyone was expected to know here. However, my curiosity had finally won out.

He paused. His face scrunched up the way it did when I knew he was trying to think of a way to explain something to me. Then, he pointed about forty feet away, "Walk there," he instructed.

"Why?" I inquired, puzzled.

"It's easier to show you, than to talk." He replied.

Intrigued. I did so. He finished performing the same sequence of actions he always did, then he told me to move closer. Thirty feet away from the stone, it let out a shrill scream.

What was that?

I suppressed the urge to react, completely taken by surprise. Clearly it was an alarm of some sort, designed to warn if someone came too close. Was this some strange form of technology? Suddenly filled with questions, I began to interrogate him.

The more he explained, the less it made sense. My first thought had been that they had some form of parallel technology to Bet. Unfortunately, the descriptions he used for how the stone functioned didn't seem to fit. It sounded more like magic than science to me. In my mind, that put it firmly in the realm of something made by tinkers.

To my frustration, he admitted that making objects like the stone was a skill that could only be learned by people with the gift. I wasn't sure what that was. He didn't have this gift, although his brother did. If I wanted to learn more, I would need to speak with him. Eventually, I got the sense he wanted to drop the subject and put it off for later.

"There is always tomorrow," he told me, amused.

"If you're worried about people, isn't it better if we take turns awake?" I asked.

"This part of Bayeux has been left alone by the civil war," he replied dismissively. That wasn't as reassuring as he seemed to think it was.

"And you are sure we will be safe?" I was dubious.

"Nothing is going to go wrong," he reaffirmed.

Against my better judgement, I decided to trust his opinion on the matter.

We turned in for the night. Him, asleep by the dying light of the fire once more, and me on the wagon. When I had asked why he chose not to sleep on the wagon, he informed me he preferred not to.

I was awoken by the wail of a banshee.

Enbringer attack?

No, this wasn't Bet. It was the alarm, I realized.

Struggling to come to my senses, I opened my eyes. Looking around for something to use, I spotted one of those fancy engraved poles that seemed to sell so well. I grabbed it just a few fingers short of the base. I didn't have time to fumble around with the sheath of the dagger in the dark if we were soon to be attacked, so it would have to do.

Then I climbed to my feet. Stumbled my way to the front of the cart. Dismounted, then looked around, careful not to look directly at the remnants of the fire.

Three figures approached. They dashed towards us with weapons drawn. Shortswords, by the looks of things. The one in the middle carried a torch in their other hand. Had that been different, I may have responded without immediately resorting to violence. Considering the circumstances, I couldn't afford to hesitate. Olivier was still coming to his senses and, as much as it stung, I was likely to need his help.

My pole had longer reach, and I couldn't allow them to close. I swung from right to left, aiming for the leftmost figure. He was the shortest and the one I figured I was most likely able to do something about. I couldn't put much force behind the attack with only one arm.

The figure paused. My attack went wide as a result. Then he closed in on me. As he approached, he said some words I didn't recognize to his companions. They laughed in response. Rather moving in to support him, they stood back instead.

Probably making sport of me, rather than taking me seriously.

The idea grated on my nerves. Now that he was closer, I could see he was clad in a chain shirt of some kind. Hauberk, I thought vaguely. Both armed and armored. No wonder he considered me no more than a passing joke. Despair bubbled beneath the surface, but I shoved it down. I had plenty of experience with that.

Behind me, I heard Olivier finally drawing his blade. I didn't believe it would help.

The figure continued to close, then he jabbed. I pulled back and as I did so, Olivier moved in. The other two figures stopped spectating and started circling. This wasn't going to end well.

The rightmost figure, a tall, broad shouldered man, swung from behind. He was just outside Olivier's line of sight, and I doubted he would react in time. Desperately, I swatted at his wrist with the pole. I hoped to deflect the strike. I missed. Instead, it collided with the blade. After penetrating part way, it found itself stuck.

Choosing to see the outcome as an opportunity, I pulled hard, stumbling backwards in the process. I was hoping that the sword would come with me. Instead, the pole had slipped out of my grasp. I found myself with my back pressed against the wagon and empty-handed.

The figure seized the rod and pulled. Olivier let out a cry and threw himself to the ground.

What?

Moments later, there was an understated whoomph. I found myself pushed hard against the wheel of the wagon. The three who were still standing had been thrown apart. Their weapons had been dropped in the process. Olivier climbed to his feet and I moved as well, making to claim one for myself.

Picking it up by the hilt, I closed in on the tall one. He was struggling to his feet still, but I wouldn't give him a chance to recover. Putting aside any misgivings I might have, I rammed the blade deep in his throat. There was a slight gurgling as I made to pull it out. I let go hastily and threw myself to the side as I felt one of the figures approach from behind.

I felt the whistle of air as the blade narrowly missed my head. Then I turned. Olivier and the first figure I had engaged with were fighting further back, both of them armed. The last assailant was focused on me and unlike the first, he was treating me like a real threat.

I felt his body tense and another strike came my way. I dodged again. Right this time. They were slow and lumbering, relative to me. Whilst I could keep this up for some time, eventually I would flag or make a mistake. At that point he would land a strike.

A jab this time, I pulled back once more. My heart was running a mile a minute, I tried to force myself to think. I needed a weapon, some way to hurt him. I tried strafing right in such a way so that I would end up near the sword again, but my foe caught on and was having none of it.

Methodically, they pushed me back. They were trying to force me back against the wagon once more, where I wouldn't have space to move.

I angled left, trying to move towards the fire pit. The hope was to make use of the coals as a distraction. They caught on and cut me off once more.

Frustration welled up. If only I had my swarm.

It seemed like people in this world had powers of some sort. It sounded like they had tinkers at least. So where was my power? The poison from hundreds of insects making my objections known would have rendered this group harmless. Even just the intimidation factor would have been enough.

I felt a pressure inside of me, as if I was straining against a metaphoric wall. Angrily, I pushed. I felt something give.

Suddenly, my enemy let out a whimper, followed by an agonized scream. The skin on his face bubbled, then seemed to melt like wax. Boils and pustules erupted, then his skin started to turn black, necrosis setting in. He dropped his sword, reaching up in confusion.

I stared dumbly at the scene.

That was a power, but not my power. I shook myself out of my reverie fast, pushing aside my surprise.

Taking the opportunity, I dashed forward, picking up the blade. My foe collapsed to the ground. Not leaving the matter to chance regardless, I cut deep into his neck. I looked towards Olivier and saw their fight had stalled. Both of them had stopped and were staring. Pulling the sword out, I advanced.

Now that they were outnumbered two to one, the figure turned around and ran. I was about to follow and cut him off when I felt Olivier's hand close upon my shoulder. He shook his head mutely.

"What if he comes back with more friends?" I asked, warily.

"There is no doubt he does have more friends, but he won't come back." Olivier denied.

"Why is that?" I pressed, my lips forming a line.

"Because you were seen using the gift, and attacking someone with the gift when they know you are coming is a bad idea."

So people do have powers then, and they call it the gift.

I considered insisting we chase after, but decided against it. Running around in the dark was an easy way to become lost. The temptation to ask about powers was also there, but I shoved it aside as well. I could find out more later, when the situation was less tense.

We need to strip the corpses and leave, there's no telling what might…

I noticed then that Olivier was shaking. His face pale in the dim light of the fire that still flickered but a few feet away. No matter, we didn't have time to slow right now, we needed to act fast. I opened my mouth, about to start pushing things forward, when the thought struck me. Don't make the same mistakes. I stopped, considering what I could see.

Why is he like this?

"Is this your first time in a fight like this?" I asked quietly.

He nodded stiffly, then shook his head. Gently, I reached towards him, taking the sword from his hands. He let me.

"It's my first time in a fight where someone-" He said a word and then drew his left thumb from one side of his throat to the other. Ah, first time seeing someone die in a confrontation like this.

"But not your first time in a fight?"

"No, I've been threatened with death before."

"It gets easier," I told him, meaning what I said.

He averted his eyes from me, I noted, as I said that. It seemed the thought bothered him.

"How do you live with it?"

I considered the question. "The first time I killed someone, what bothered me was the thought that I wasn't bothered by it."

"How many people have you killed?" He asked.

I looked at him searchingly. "Do you really want to know?"

He thought about it, then shook his head.

"Do you think you're a good person?" He whispered.

I wasn't sure I wanted to answer. I decided, given the circumstances, he was owed the truth. There was nothing stopping me from simply brushing him off or avoiding the question. The idea tempted me even. That was the path that had ended with me here, though, and I wanted to avoid walking it a second time.

"No," I replied. "But I think I would like to be."

He dropped the subject and started examining the corpses.

"Who are these people, should we expect another attack?" I inquired, not really expecting him to know. I had to mime a bit to get my point across.

"No, I already explained why," he denied, then rolled one of the bodies over and pulled one of their cloaks off. Turning it around, he pointed to a section that have been cut off on the back.

"They were mercenaries, probably in the employ of Arsene, that seem to have deserted. Likely, they would have earned death regardless."

There were a couple of words there I couldn't make sense of, but with context I pieced together what he meant.

"So we won't find trouble for having killed them, then?"

He pursed his lips. "We will need to answer some questions some people will have. I don't expect there to be any problems, though."

Gingerly, he proceeded to strip down the corpses. He took anything of value, the armour included, and left them with just their clothes. Then, by unspoken agreement, the two of us hitched the mules once more. Half an hour later and we had departed, continuing on through the night. Just because he was assured they wouldn't return, didn't mean it was smart to stick around.​

 

[Sharpedge]

Thanks to Scathias for beta reading this.
​

---

"When making new friends, always make sure to put your best foot forward. That way, the dawning look of surprise on their face is all the more satisfying when you slide in the knife."
– Dread Emperor Traitorous
​

---

The days passed by as our journey continued. It didn't take much suggesting on my part to convince him that it wasn't safe for both of us to sleep after the fight. In the evenings, we took turns keeping watch.

Conversation had become stiff since that night. Olivier still made the effort to help me learn the language, but it seemed almost perfunctory now. Where what had once been for a short time an easy camaraderie, there was now an open wound.

I didn't particularly blame him.

It was easier to like someone when you only knew they killed people in abstract, than to like them when you saw it up close. I was tempted to try to bridge the divide, but I wasn't sure a monster like me deserved to have friends.

Still, having him avert his gaze when I looked his way or tense up when I moved stung more than I cared to admit.

It had been nice to talk to someone without the baggage of who I was.

I had tried learning more about powers here instead. It frustrated me. Every time I raised the topic, he deflected to something else. That, or he told me to wait until we reached Beaumarais. I guessed there was some sort of cultural taboo around the subject.

We had just yesterday passed into the shadows of the mountains. We were passing through a valley. Despite what little I knew about nature as a city girl, the terrain here struck me as odd. The ground looked as if in the past there had been much more moisture present, almost as if It had been dried out. Half the trees we passed looked to be dead, and there was a great deal of detritus half buried in the soil.

Another half hour passed.

The landscape changed again. We found ourselves entering a sleepy valley with tall grass. The gentle babbling of water hinted towards the presence of a river, although it couldn't be seen from where we were.

"We are almost home." He told me.

The sun had set an hour past but considering the proximity, Olivier had insisted we push on. The tooting of owls, croaking of frogs and general cries of other wildlife did much to distract me from my concerns.

Twinkling in the distance, the lights from torches could finally be seen.

"Beaumarais," Olivier said simply.

He didn't need to tell me any more. Despite the awkwardness that existed between us, I still smiled broadly.

Now, to figure out what to do with my life from here.

The smile faded. I had just been going along with Olivier up until now. I had been reacting, not thinking forward, and I didn't know what to do. It was a new frustration. Somehow, when I was planning for the end of the world, I didn't anticipate what would come after.

"What do we do now?" I asked, bouncing my legs nervously. Irritated at myself, I stilled them.

"First, we talk to Alisanne," he told me stiffly.

"The Magistrate, right?" I inquired, butchering her title in the process.

He made a sound of acknowledgement. After stopping the wagon under a roof seeming to have been set out for it and unharnessing the mules, he set off. I trailed behind. He walked with purpose towards one of the better looking buildings in the town. Then, he suddenly came to a halt. We were about thirty feet away at the time.

"What's wrong?"

He didn't reply.

Out of the residence strolled a teen with similar features to Olivier. Broad shoulders, a short trimmed beard and a knife at his hip. He stood a finger or two taller than my guide and looked a year or two younger as well, but the resemblance was there. Likely a brother then. Also, likely the source of that family dispute.

"You should resolve your differences with him," I murmured quietly.

Not responding, he approached. I decided to stick with, matching my pace to his. Soon we were in talking distance.

"Olivier," the younger brother spoke, smiling, "back so soon this year?"

"Out so late, Roland?" Olivier spoke in response.

Feeling lost and not really sure what to do, I kept quiet.

"There's no call for that face, brother," Roland said. "I was only having dinner with a dear friend. We share great hopes for the future of Beaumarais."

What face? I frowned. Both of them were smiling, although the smiles looked forced. It frustrated me. Both of their voices were so frosty that it sounded like they were trading barbs. Deciding I had had enough of whatever this was, I spoke up.

"Can you two fight over this later?"

Both of them froze in surprise, then turned to face me.

"Another one, brother?" Roland asked.

"This is Taylor, brother. And yes, Taylor also has the gift." He said the latter part sourly, as if it gave him offence.

Roland smiled at me affably, then spoke. I didn't understand what he said.

Olivier, amused, made my circumstances known. "She's from very far away, brother, and is still learning the language."

Roland's smile soured at that. "Well, you will have a lot to learn then," he informed me.

"Learn about what?" I asked, puzzled. It seemed that the two of them had decided something for me, without asking my input.

"The gift, of course," Roland replied. His tone could have curdled milk.

Some local equivalent to the Protectorate, then?

It seemed strange to me, how powers were openly discussed like this as if identities didn't matter. I knew though that I was the one displaced.

Olivier frowned then. "This is my fault. She didn't know she even had the gift until near the end of our journey, and I haven't really talked about it with her. I left the teaching to you."

"What did she do, start a fire?" Roland asked, bemused.

"She rotted a man's face off, which is why we are visiting Alisanne." Olivier replied bluntly.

"The man was trying to kill me," I added somewhat defensively.

Roland looked between me and Olivier then, his face queasy.

"I think her home is something like Praes, they even have big towers." Olivier muttered to Roland under his breath.

What's that supposed to mean?

"And you want me to take her in?" Roland replied, his face having paled.

"There was nothing wrong with my home," I interjected, somewhat affronted.

Both of them ignored me.

"I found her in a-" Olivier let out a stream of words which I had heard before, but still didn't have the context to properly parse. Roland's gaze softened in understanding.

Conversation continued, the initial awkwardness having faded away. Soon, Roland parted, heading elsewhere. The two of us continued towards our destination. As I approached the building, I felt an odd sense of foreboding. It was the same sense of foreboding I had felt when we had approached the seamstress over a week ago.

Flanking the entrance were two men wearing simple uniforms. Servants, I suspected. The idea upset me, but right now I didn't have the power to do anything about it.

The servants took one look at Olivier, then opened the door.

"Can I come in?" I asked.

They took one look at Olivier. He indicated I was with him, and then they gave their assent. The eerie feeling faded away, and I walked through the door. We were led through the building by the servants quickly, not giving me the time to examine the place much. Soon, we arrived in what seemed to be a parlour.

We were greeted there by a woman in austere white robes, seated at a table and sipping wine from a glass. She looked up as we entered. Absently, she flicked a lock of blonde hair out of her eyes, her features softening as she looked on Olivier. Then, she turned her attention to me, the grey of her irises sliding over my way. Her expression hardened. She dismissed me from her gaze.

So this must be the girl Olivier and Roland are fighting over.

"Olivier," she plastered a smile on her face. "Back early this year? And it seems someone else has-."

I couldn't follow the rest of her speech.

My companion seemed startled for a moment. On the back foot, as if he didn't expect what she said. Then, the conversation took off. They talked rapidly, back and forth. I was able to understand a word or two between everything else, but not even enough to pick up on context. Both of them seemed to be upset.

Ten minutes later, and the argument started to die down.

"I apologize, Taylor. It seems I have given-," Alisanne spoke a word, I figured it to be offence, based on the rest of what was said.

"No offence was taken," I replied, puzzled.

"Then we can move on to why you are here," she said.

What proceeded was a long, drawn out retelling of my arrival. Olivier started by explaining the circumstances he had found me in. Much of it was still lost to me. Then, an explanation of the journey that followed. When Olivier started talking about the attack on our camp during the night, an argument almost started up again. Apparently, Alisanne thought him a fool for travelling alone.

I couldn't fault her for that.

Arrangements would be made to send people to investigate my point of arrival, and a message would be sent to a place called Apenun. Provisionally, the two of us were in the clear.

I couldn't follow the full discussion, which frustrated me.

Not long after that, and the two of us were ushered out.

"Why is she in charge?" I asked Olivier quietly as we left. It was something that had bothered me upon meeting her. She was young, someone our age. Apparently, however, she was the authority within this town.

"Her mother rules Apenun," he replied, as if that explained everything.

In a sense, it did. I hadn't really been thinking about what it meant to be living in a society like this. I had just been drifting along. It hadn't occurred to me to ask about the system of governance. Was I in a monarchy, a republic, a commune, or some form of direct democracy? Considering Olivier seemed to take it as a given that leadership was inherited, I was leaning towards some sort of feudal system.

That didn't bode well for me.

The people in charge had been bad enough when they didn't believe it was their divine right to rule. I didn't want to see how bad things could get with that added on.

I needed to stop drifting and start thinking forward. Right now, I was alone in a new world. If I didn't start taking action, the world would keep acting on me. Unfortunately, I didn't know enough about where I was to make well-informed choices. I suspected I had a way to fix that, though.

"Where are we heading next?"

He gestured towards a rocky footpath heading up into the mountains.

"Up there is a tower. You will be offered two meals a day and a place to stay, as well as some pay. You will also be taught to use the gift. In return, you will be expected to offer your gift in service to our shop and the local House of Light."

It sounded almost like the Wards program. Whilst the idea of going back to school, or a version of it, didn't really appeal to me, I could deal. It wasn't the end of the world, after all. I did have some questions, though.

"The House of Light?" I asked, puzzled.

He looked at me as if I had grown a second head.

"Where people go to-" he said a bunch of words I didn't quite understand. After a bit of back and forth, I realized he meant the church.

Organized religion, great.

And it appeared that here, at least, they were the ones in charge.

"Do you not have the House of Light where you come from?" The idea seemed to leave him scandalized.

The closest thing I had ever seen to a god had gone on a genocidal rampage. In humanities hour of need, no angels had descended from heaven in order to offer us salvation. The Simurgh with an air gun didn't really count. I wasn't about to provide lip service or otherwise to imaginary beings that hadn't even deigned to show up. Telling people that probably wouldn't be the smartest idea, though.

So I changed the topic of conversation back to that of the tower.

"What will I be expected to do at the tower?"

He shrugged. "Different people have different talents. It will depend on what you are good at. You will need to be taught first, before we could say for sure. Ideally, you will help produce more of the same wares."

This was starting to sound less and less like powers as I understood them. People couldn't be taught how to use powers. Innovating with a power was possible, but the basic functionality was always the same.

Keep moving forward.

Regardless of any doubts I might have, I didn't see a better way to progress. I would need to learn about the world I was in, before I did something that would land me in trouble that I couldn't escape.

If I didn't learn the rules, it was bound to happen eventually.

"And will I be expected to fight at all?" I tapped my thigh nervously as I posed the question. Involving myself with the local law enforcement, without knowing if I approved of them, wasn't a good idea.

"You won't be expected to fight unless the town is attacked," he explained. I got the sense from his tone that he meant if the town was engaged in war. That was an acceptable outcome, if discouraging. The idea that wars were frequent enough that they needed a specific exemption didn't exactly appeal to me.

"Is there anything else I need to worry about?"

He paced back and forth, thinking before answering. "The people around here don't like those with the gift. Don't give them a reason for that."

Ah, local stereotypes.

"What do they have against us?"

"If I start a fight, whoever I am fighting with can fight back. If you start a fight, they just lose." He tapped the knife at his belt to illustrate.

Power dynamics, of course.

We walked towards the tower. The sky was clear and the light of the stars above lit our path forward. Following treacherous footpaths, we passed through tall grass littered with red flowers as we left Alisanne's home.

Arriving, The structure was the tallest building I had seen since I first woke up in this world. Shaped like a cylinder, it stood just over four storeys tall. The top looked to be incomplete. There were tents outside. I was told they were vagrants.

Once again, I asked to be invited inside. The sense of foreboding I felt at the threshold disappeared.

After being let in, I was introduced to the other occupants. An older widower by the name of Maurice and his daughter Segoline were the first. They were the most pleasant. The next, Maxime Redflame, I took an immediate disliking to. Seated at a corner table on the bottom floor, he looked to be nursing a tankard of beer. He was a man who looked to be in his mid-forties. His face, red and puffed due to an overconsumption of alcohol, was liberally decorated in scars.

"Hey girlie, come on over here will you," he shouted enthusiastically and raised his tankard as I came into view. I ignored him, and he proceeded to make an obscene gesture as a result.

Everyone, I noticed, was looking at the man with visible distaste.

My opinions on the place were rapidly being revised downwards. Less of an equivalent to the Wards program or a school and more of a shared study group, if it could even be called that. I suppressed the urge to frown.

Then the last two members of the tower showed up. Ludovic was the exact opposite of Maxime. A young man, but short and willowy. A strong breeze would blow him over. He was timid and seemed to hide in the shadow of Morgaine, the last member of the group. As they arrived, he kept his eyes on the ground.

Morgaine, a woman who looked to be about twenty to twenty-five, was fair skinned and was dressed in a way that spoke to her being well off. She took one look at my missing arm and a flash of emotion seemed to cross her face, anger, I thought.

That's odd.

"Another child who has been-" She went on a rant then, shouting at Olivier. She spoke too fast for me to follow properly. I caught a word or two on the side though and from context, I put together the picture that she thought my parents had abused me.

Wait, what?

"My parents did none of this to me, I was a soldier." I interjected. At least, that is what I think I said. I wasn't entirely happy about using the word soldier. I didn't know the word for hero, though. Even if I did, it wouldn't carry the right cultural context.

At that, Maxime wheezed. "All that anger for nothing, isn't that funny, Morgaine?"

Everyone turned to glare at him. He was unmoved.

"So, what can you do, girl? All these people over here want to do is run a shop. Throwing balls of fire around doesn't count, anyone can do that."

Suddenly, the centre of attention shifted to me again. Uncomfortable, I began to respond.

"I didn't know I could do anything until we had almost arrived here. The two of us were attacked. I rotted the attacker's face off," I explained.

Maxime whistled, the others looked queasy.

"This is a place to craft, not to fight," Olivier stated, sounding concerned.

"If these people aren't willing to teach you how to use your gift properly, then you can always come to me," Maxime said, winking at me. I shuddered.

"That wasn't why I came here," I assured Olivier.

What went unsaid though was that I wasn't against learning how to defend myself. I doubted that powers could be taught. It went against everything I knew about them. I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to learn if it was offered, though. As obnoxious as Maxime came across, I was willing to tolerate spending some time with him if it meant being able to fight. I just needed to be sure he was always in sight of one of the others as well. And sober.

Olivier gave an abridged explanation of my circumstances to Morgaine, then left soon after. I was shown to a room where I could stay and told that my education would start on the next day. I was also shown a place where I could properly wash. After so long on the road, my hair was a tangled mess. I wasn't sure if I would be able to fix it, but I would do my best.

It wasn't what I expected to be doing after the end of the world, but at least it was a start.​

 

[Sharpedge]

Thanks to Scathias for beta reading.
​

---

"What do you mean when you say, 'a Demon as a Gatekeeper is going too far,' my friend? According to Heroes, the most important step of any journey is always the first one."
– Dread Emperor Sinister
​

---

Ten days passed in the blink of an eye. Finally having somewhere safe to stop and think had been nice at first. After cleaning myself and some goodwill from Morgaine, I now felt like a person again. I didn't like having to rely on the charity of others. After she'd made it clear I would have the opportunity to pay it back, I had finally caved in.

Those were the positives of my situation. The "apprenticeship" itself was another matter entirely.

I had seen enough around the tower so far for my thoughts of these being parahumans to have been completely dismissed. Parahuman powers were not teachable. They were not standardized. They didn't require arcane symbolism to affect the world.

As absurd as it was, I had had to concede to the idea that magic was real. Magic was real and the people living here could learn it. I could learn it.

It was a novel and exciting idea at first. Then everything else had hit home. The front face in the town for this halfway house for orphaned wizards was a shop that operated for profit. They needed me to produce magical goods for me to be worth keeping.

In theory, that was not a problem. In practice, I had one arm.

That made no real difference in learning to read, write, or speak the local language. It made no difference for active magic either, other than slowing it down a little. I had been told that many of the rituals or magics that were reliant on me casting them myself were all things that could be done with only one hand. I hadn't had the opportunity to really learn any of them yet, but it was something I could do.

There would still be some degree of a disadvantage compared to someone with two hands. But it wasn't the kind of disadvantage I couldn't overcome.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the kind of magic Olivier and Roland wanted me to learn.

Artificing turned a profit and is what this place cared to teach. What I had learned so far about artificing made the realities of my situation clear. Unlike throwing fireballs and lightning bolts, this type of tinkering almost certainly required the use of two arms.

Most of the others suffered through my attempts to spend an hour or so attempting to learn from them each day in good humour. It went even worse than expected. Not only was I physically at a disadvantage compared to others, but it seemed like something I was just incapable of learning. No matter how hard I tried, I achieved no results.

"Not everyone has the talent to be an artificer," they commiserated.

Not everyone was talented at all kinds of magic. They suspected I would be good at offensive magic, but also weren't willing to teach me it.

They had also commented about the uncanny speed I was learning to speak the language. It made me uncomfortable, because it wasn't something I could afford to pretend to do worse at.

Then I was sent out with Maxime to gather herbs. He was like me in that he wasn't a good artificer and was instead relegated to drudge work. They had him fetch herbs and then turn them into potions. So I was out with Maxime, where I could actually be useful to them. It stung. It was worse than that, though. From the way the others averted their eyes when talking to me, or they frowned when they thought I couldn't see, I could tell that I wasn't really wanted around. I didn't even know what it was I had done to earn it.

With time to reflect in the evenings now that I was somewhere safe, I grew more and more morose. I was alone in an alien world that seemed to follow completely different rules from the one I lived in before. Whilst there were other people living in the same place as me, I was tolerated, not liked.

This likely wasn't another version of Earth but instead something else. Something completely different.

I didn't really have any idea of how I got here.

Magic was real. At least, a force existed here that operated on rules which on Earth Bet would probably be termed magic.

And most crushingly, I would almost certainly never see any of the people I cared about again.

My evenings were not any better. Sleep was restless, troubled with dreams of hexagonal gates opening across a myriad of worlds and the golden glare of the wrath of an infant god. I woke intermittently, crying out whenever I did. The looks of pity the others gave me come morning did nothing to improve my mood.

Frustrated, late one afternoon while out in the mountains with Maxime, I finally caved in.

"Can you teach me war magic?" I asked angrily as I pulled out another herb and deposited it in my pack.

I didn't like the man. He was still crass in how he talked and provoked people for no good reason. He didn't pity or shun me, though, and instead seemed to treat me like a comrade in arms. Someone who had been through the same crucible and came out with similar scars. That made him more tolerable than talking to anyone else.

Also, I was tired of feeling like I was making no progress at all.

"Girlie finally got tired of picking flowers and wants to put her hands on a real tool, eh?" He asked, leering suggestively.

I stared at him flatly.

"You're less fun than my last commander," he muttered under his breath. "Fine, let's head deeper into the mountains, so we won't give the people around here a scare."

I was surprised at how quickly he agreed.

With the onset of Winter, frost was creeping down into the valley. As we hiked, our breath trailed behind us in the bitter Autumn air, and the path forward became more and more precarious. Eventually, he called to a stop.

"The fancy academics will argue for days about the benefits of one system of standardized magic or another. They will go on forever, discussing the merits of Jaquinite compared to Ligurian or Trismegistan Sorcery. Don't let any of that claptrap fool you, though. When you are on a battlefield facing down a cavalry charge, it doesn't matter what school of magic you were taught in. So long as you can rip the earth up under their horses' hooves, pelt them with blocks of ice, or drown them in hellfire, your skinny ass might have a chance to survive."

He came alive as he began to talk. Almost as if he was another person.

"Roland told me that attempting to learn a second school of sorcery will drive the practitioner mad, is that true?" I asked.

I wasn't sure how learning more than one methodology could cause an onset of insanity, but it was worth finding out before I made a terrible mistake.

"That's true," he agreed.

"What will you be teaching me then?"

"Jaquinite war magic. It was what I was taught, so it's not like I can really teach you anything else. If you want to go balls deep into Trismegistan sorcery like those evil fucks up in the tower to the east, you'd need to find someone else." He spat at his foot as he spoke, then took a swig from the flask at his side.

"What will we be starting with, then?"

"The fireball. It's one of the simplest workings someone can do. Even an idiot can pick it up." He started tracing symbols in the air, demonstrating what to do.

I tried mimicking what he was doing. Over and over, I repeated the gestures. Whenever I messed up enough he would interrupt me, warning me that the outcome would be dire and told me to start again. As I worked, failures continued to mount. Frustrated, eventually I visualized the fireballs that Othala used to grant people back in Brockton Bay. I felt resistance again, much like I had on that night on the road. I pushed.

Finally.

A syrupy ball of liquid napalm languidly flew out of my hand, colliding with the mountainside. The grass it struck caught the light and, hastily, Maxime extinguished the flame. The two of us both looked on in surprise.

"Well girlie, that wasn't what I was expecting when I taught you that spell," he mused, scratching at his ass as he spoke. His grey eyes narrowed on me searchingly.

"Why not?" I asked. Was he expecting me to fail even more?

"Well, because I taught you a standardized spell construct, see. The ball should have looked like this."

He proceeded to demonstrate, going through the hand movements rapidly as he worked. A ball shot out, colliding with a rock. He repeated the gesture and a similar ball appeared. Moments later, he had extinguished both. I understood what he was trying to show me. The ball I had created had looked nothing like either of the two that he made.

"Maybe I did something wrong then, but not wrong enough to mess up the spell?" I asked.

He shook his head. "If you had made a mistake like that, I would have stepped in. Try repeating what you did again and see if you get the same result."

I did as he asked. I went through the hand motions, visualized the same image, felt the resistance again, and pushed. Another ball of flame tumbled through the air, landing on the slopes further down.

"Well, I'll be, maybe girls like you just handle balls differently," he said absently. The usual bite wasn't in it, though, he seemed distracted by what he had seen.

He had me practice for another half hour. As I did so, he kept putting out the flames. He watched what I did avidly, as if trying to solve a puzzle. It was unnerving, but not in a bad way. The process was cathartic. Despite the oddities that apparently existed, it felt like I had found something I could do.

The fact that what I was doing was clearly not what was intended, was something I needed to worry about. Nobody liked Maxime though and if I was only practising around him, even if he did raise a fuss about what I was doing, I doubted anyone would believe him. The others apparently knew nothing about war magic anyhow.

We started the journey back, arriving just as the bell in the centre of town tolled out the hour. We started the trek to the tower next. I asked to be invited in as we arrived, and then we deposited the ingredients we had collected. Usually, this was where we split off. He headed towards the local tavern in town and I stayed around the tower. As I was about to leave, I felt his hand on my shoulder.

"You should come drinking with me, girlie, it would do you some good."

I felt my eyebrows raise involuntarily at the assertion.

"Why's that?" I asked.

"I can see you wallowing in misery about whatever it was that happened. None of the people here get what it's like, really. They're all soft. So pull the stick out of your ass and come down drinking with me, talking it over will do you some good."

He let go of me then and turned around, leaving.

I didn't say anything or take him up on his offer then but chewed it over in my mind.
​

---

A month later, and Winter had properly dug in. Snow covered the pass into the valley, cutting off all but the most adventurous of travellers from making the journey here. It dusted the roofs of buildings and clogged down the roads, turning them into a slurry of mush.

With some of the spare coin I had, I had purchased an empty journal and taken to recording everything I could about Earth Bet. Without having a ballpoint pen, it was challenging, but I persevered. Who I was, what I lived through, and the people I knew. The food, the culture, the technology. I had been struck by the fear that it would, with time, all fade from my memory. That I would forget where I had come from.

I had been writing it in English, since I doubted anyone here would be able to speak it. There were likely some skilled sorcerers who could translate it with magic. If any of them took a passing interest in my journal, though, I had far greater concerns.

The process would take long, and I expected it would be months before I finished. Better to take the time now, though, then leave it and have my life fade from memory later on.

Olivier had reconciled with Alisanne. Come Spring, the two of them would be leaving to get together somewhere else. He was moving on. The more time I spent at the tower, the more I realized I didn't want to keep staying here. The moment I felt that leaving wouldn't land me in trouble, I would probably depart as well.

The other people in the town shunned me. This was unsurprising, as they turned away from everyone else who could work magic as well. I would be able to live with that if I felt some sense of friendship with the other sorcerers. Unfortunately, I had drawn apart from most of them too. The only exception was Maxime. As obscene, obnoxious, and odious as he was, time spent with him had become the highlight of my day.

Throwing fireballs, lightning bolts, and chunks of rock far out in the countryside had become my only escape. The explanations for how to achieve higher order effects were becoming increasingly arcane. Unfortunately, I was reaching the limits of what he could teach. That meant I was reaching the limits of what I could safely pretend to learn. He wasn't capable of what he called High Arcana, which was apparently the more advanced part of sorcery. Without a teacher, I would need to learn more on my own.

He still hadn't taught me how to heal. It was supposed to be much more complicated than anything else I had covered so far.

With the change of seasons, my trips out with Maxime had become shorter and more of the time was spent digging up plants. That left both of us in a foul mood. The others avoided us as a result whenever we returned to the tower.

It was early evening, and I was digging through some books on sorcery that Roland had made available. It had taken me some time before I was able to even partially read them, considering the language barrier. Whilst it was still a struggle to decode the text in front of me, I understood enough to be able to piece together the words I didn't know.

I was trying to work out how I had arrived here.

While it was possible that I had been brought here by Contessa, I had doubted that for a while. I strongly suspected this universe was not one of the ones typically accessible to people from Earth Bet at all. It seemed likely that if there had been people capable of magic available during the fight with Scion, I would have mastered them at the time.

Given my state of mind during the fight, I would have considered it the reasonable thing to do.

The fact that I hadn't, suggested that however I arrived here had come from this universe and not the reverse.

I was fighting my way through a treatise on the nature of Creation written by a Proceran priest. It was mostly filled with theological ramblings. I was about to give up and look at another text when a passage stood out to me.

Devils and the Fae are not creatures born of Creation. Manifesting here takes effort for them, as they fundamentally do not belong here. Bringing them into Creation almost always involves a ritual of some kind, although the Gods Above caution that it is unwise to do so. If the practitioner finds themselves in a position where they are forced to deal with the aforementioned beings, however, do note that they can be contained by use of an appropriately structured threshold.

The text went on, providing more detail. That was not what concerned me, though. The sense of foreboding I felt whenever I approached a building, I finally understood the source.

It was because I was approaching a threshold.

On a hunch, I tried creating a flame. I didn't bother going through the required motions, instead just focusing on the result. It appeared, dancing on my fingers. I dismissed it.

Unable to help myself, I laughed. It was a bitter, ugly, laugh. Thresholds. The world itself was telling me that I didn't belong.

The effect was not supposed to be as strong as it was for me. For me, a building didn't even need to be warded at all. So long as it could be considered lived within, I couldn't enter without an invitation. Maybe it was because I came from a place even further removed from Creation than the beings that the text described.

No wonder I felt so alone.

It didn't explain everything. How I arrived here, for one. Someone probably summoned me, but I didn't know who, how or why. I did know that I wasn't performing sorcery as the others here understood it, though. This was likely why none of their lessons helped. It surprised me that none of them had realized that.

Maybe they had and just thought it wiser not to inform me.

I discarded the idea. Almost all the stories I had heard locals tell about how to deal with extradimensional entities involved either running away or killing them as fast as possible. Containing them was seen as the worst possible option. Letting them roam free was dismissed entirely.

Whatever it was, the other practitioners hadn't caught on to the fact that I didn't belong. They had ways to check for the gift and seemed to believe I had it. Without a much better foundation, I couldn't be sure why. It was even a possibility that I did have the gift, but I couldn't figure out how to use it. I didn't consider that likely.

Feeling down, I closed the book and put it away. I had read enough.

Where to go from here? I felt so very lost. What I wouldn't give to talk to Lisa again, or say goodbye to my dad. Tears ran down my cheeks and I didn't bother to wipe them away.

Then, a recent memory struck me.

"I can see you wallowing in misery about whatever it was that happened. None of the people here get what it's like, really. They're all soft. So pull the stick out of your ass and come down drinking with me, talking it over will do you some good."

Talking about my life from before wasn't an option. Not without being extremely creative with the truth. The offer of company made in good faith, however, called to me like a moth of a flame.

If it drove off the loneliness, I could deal with everything else.

Heading out, I was struck by the cold the moment my foot slid past the door. I looked around, there was nobody else in sight. Not in the mood for being even more miserable, I pictured an aura of gentle warmth exuding out from me. Moments later, I shoved the idea down Creation's throat and wondered out onto the street.

The walk to the tavern only took a few minutes. People eyed me distrustfully as I went, but I was used to that by now.

You can't escape those looks, even a world away.

Knocking on the tavern door, I asked if I could be let in. They agreed, but seemed confused, as if the idea of even asking was odd. I didn't care. I spotted Maxime by a table nestled in the corner on the far left. He was alone, nursing a drink. There was a wide gap between him and anyone else.

That suited me just fine.

I grabbed one of the bar stools and pulled it up, taking a seat opposite him.

"Finally got the stick out your ass, eh?" Maxime slurred.

I didn't bother to reply.

"Louis, get the girl a beer." He bellowed. Then, his eyes narrowed, eying me critically. "Actually, make that two."

I was about to protest that I didn't want to drink. The memories of what people had been like at the Merchant's parties were still fixed in my mind, and they weren't nice ones. Then, mouth half opened, I paused.

Why not at least give it a try?

I closed it, letting the order go through. What the hell, the world I knew had ended. My dad wasn't around to shout at me for drinking, and I had stopped listening to him years ago anyhow. On the list of things I'd done to disappoint him, this wouldn't even make the top ten.​

 

[Sharpedge]

A/N: This will be one of the darker chapters for a while.
Thanks to Scathias for beta reading.
​

---

"The road to redemption is paved with a thousand corpses. After all, one who commits no evil has nothing to redeem."
– Dread Emperor Benevolent
​

---

Another ten days passed. The nights grew longer and the snow piled up. People grew more surly and unpleasant to be around.

Roland had found out that Olivier and Alisanne were leaving together. Since then, a perpetual storm cloud had followed him around wherever he went. He had already been distant from most of us. Now, the only person he spoke to on the regular was Morgaine. Often, they left together, heading out on their own.

I suspected they were plotting something. I couldn't bring myself to care. So long as they weren't hurting anyone, I wasn't going to make it my problem.

I had enough issues of my own.

More time indoors meant more time to read. In a fit of inspiration, I had turned to the Book of All Things. It was supposed to be the Holy Book about the Gods Above. That was not what interested me. It was most likely that I had been summoned from beyond Creation. Angels were from outside of Creation as well.

It was amazing how much motivation you had to learn a new language when you were stranded in a foreign world.

Learning that in Creation, Angels and Devils were real had come as a nasty surprise. If real gods existed, then why hadn't they done anything about the golden man? At first, I had only entertained the idea in terms of it concerning the existence of beings from beyond Creation. Then I brought the topic up with Maxime. The two of us now got together drinking every evening.

I found it helped drive off the thoughts of how I was so alone.

The two of us were sitting at our regular table. Successive generations of patrons here had carved plenty of unflattering images into the surface. It was in the leftmost corner, at the opposite end from the fireplace. Usually it would be cold, but Maxime usually used magic to create his own warmth. There was a large gap between us and anyone else. People avoided us as if we were diseased.

"Ssso Max, Iiiiii've been reading the Book of all Things," I began, my speech just the slightest bit slurred.

"Oh no, girlie, don't tell me you going all good on me now. Or you planning to do the whole naughty sister act and get down on your knees in front of me in one of them fancy white robes?" He leered my way unflatteringly.

I gave him a deadpan stare. It was spoiled when I hiccuped and knocked over my own tankard, spilling its contents all over the table. I scowled.

"The Book talksss about Gods and Angels as if theyyy are real. Are they?" I asked.

He looked at me strangely.

"I think you've had too much to drink," he told me, firmly.

"Nooo, I'm fiiiiiine." I denied.

He snorted. "If you want proof the Gods are real Girlie, just go to the House of Light for a day and ask for a demonstration. I'm sure the Sisters there will be more than happy to bring you to the Light, if you catch my drift."

Conversation drifted there. Eventually, the two of us headed back to our rooms at the tower. I headed to sleep, for another night tormented by dreams of a golden sky. After nursing the hangover that struck me the next day, I decided to consider his advice.

My first thought was to dismiss it. If Gods were real, then they probably knew what I was and were fully capable of warning their followers about me. It didn't take much thinking for me to change my mind. I had been in the town for a while now. If the Gods were going to warn the priests here, I would have already been noticed.

So I followed Maxime's advice.

I took a trip to the House of Light. At first, they scowled at me even more than the people on the streets. Their attitude changed entirely when I asked them to tell me about their faith. After an hour of listening to a priestess babble excitedly about the Gods Above and demonstrate some minor miracles, I was convinced. The Gods here were real. That, or there was another extradimensional entity with Godlike abilities, handing out powers.

The results were the same, either way.

There aren't any prophecies about the end of the world, so I don't need to worry about it.

If I kept telling myself that, then maybe I would believe it. After seeing one nigh Godlike entity bring about the apocalypse, my faith in the good intentions of what appeared to be another wasn't at an all-time high. At least these ones tried to pretend to be good. They even had a holy book. Scion had bad advertising in comparison.
​

---

The end of the month had come sooner than I expected. Tempers were high at the tower. Roland had taken to snapping at us more and more often. Max and I had taken to staying progressively later at the tavern each night. The atmosphere suited us better here anyhow. Despite how foul his mouth was, he had never actually tried anything.

I found to my surprise I was actually starting to consider the man a friend.

The two of us were thoroughly drunk. That, or there were more tankards on the table than could physically fit. I suppose with magic, both could be true. The thought amused me. I giggled. Max and I probably reeked of alcohol. I hadn't washed in two days, and I didn't make for very good company.

Nowadays, I was usually either drunk or hung over, much to my chagrin. The stuff still tasted vile, but it pushed the haze that haunted me just a bit further away. Just one year ago, if I had known I would end up like this, I would probably have been horrified.

Back when I still had a purpose to live for.

A small voice at the back of my mind was shouting at me that I should try to do better. I had grown adept at muting it.

Max set another mug in front of me.

"Thanksss Max," I beamed at him. His grey eyes softened in response.

"Say Girlie, you feel like telling me your story?"

He'd asked me a few times now, and so far I had always said no. Right now, though, I was brimming with confidence and felt like spinning a yarn.

Might as well talk about it, I trust his discretion regardless.

Licking my lips, I considered how to begin my story. I would need to exercise some creativity, to make it fit with the audience.

"Surrrre Max, ssso long asss you call me Taylor," I replied.

"Alright Taylor," he said, the tone of his voice odd. Why were there three of him?

No, don't get distracted.

"The ssstory ssstarts a few years ago," I began.

"Like all good stories do," he agreed.

"For reasonss I won't talk about, I was a messss, mister-misar-misher-" I trailed off, frustrated.

"Miserable," he added helpfully.

"That," I agreed affably.

"Soooo I went out trying to find a fight. Looking back, I thhhhhhhink I wanted to die at the time. Then I ran into a dragon that wanted to eat some children. Soooo I decided to do be a hero and try to save the children." I smiled in recollection.

"And you survived?" He asked, his eyebrows raising in surprise.

"It turned out the children were villains." I giggled and took another sip of my drink. It was unbearably bitter. I was sweet in comparison.

"And what happened next?"

"We saved each other and they sssort of invited me to join them. Ssso I did."

"So you were a Villain then?" His voice had a sharp tinge to it.

"At first, then I became a Hero later." I agreed.

"Redemption stories always have tragic endings," he muttered.

"Heyyy, don't spoil my story. I haven't got to that part yet," I complained, swatting at him with my stump. I knocked over a tankard in the process. He caught it deftly and placed it back on the table.

"I'm going to need another drink after this," I vaguely heard him complain.

"Sssoo I'm going to ssskip a lot of the sssmaller ssstuff we did early on, like fighting a Tyrant, buuut sssoon before the sssea monster wrecked the city I learned our bossss had captured the Princess and had her in his dungeon. Rescuing her became my goal. It took some time for me to figure out he was ackshually the Chancellor, but finally I killed him and ssset her free."

"And that was when things went awry?" He asked, leaning in.

I couldn't help myself, I snorted. "Thingsss were always going wrong. I was sssort of failing myself into successs."

"So, what came next, then?"

I continued my story, using the appropriate substitutions I had made up. Noelle became a Demon summoned by the Chancellor in his last moment out of spite. The Slaughterhouse Nine were an Evil cult dedicated towards trying to end the world. They had, in my retelling, made it their mission to try to create something equivalent to an evil god. Scion got no mention at all. I made sure to be vague on details.

As my story drew to a close, my eyes began to droop.

"You don't have a Name any more, do you, Taylor?" He inquired.

"Nope."

"What was your Name as a Hero?"

"Weaver," I replied. It slipped out before I even considered whether I wanted him to know.

"Looking back, I didn't do a very good job. Lotssss of regrets." I continued.

"Looking forward, you should try not to make new ones," he murmured.

Our conversation stilled then. The two of us staggered back to the tower, supporting each other. Max was juggling coloured balls of fire as we hiked our way back home. We arrived at the ground floor. I took a seat to wait while Max went to find a bottle of wine from his room. We had made an evening ritual of singing songs and drinking before heading to sleep.

I didn't know the context for the ballads and butchered the pronunciation badly. It didn't really matter. Max arrived back, and we started to sing, punctuating every other line with a drink.

Hours later, I stumbled my way into bed. My sleep went untroubled by dreams for once.

Which was why it came as such a shock when I woke up by being dunked into a nearby pond.

Dawn had not even set in yet. The sun had yet to rise. The icy cold of a body of water that should have been frozen solid made for an unwelcome appearance upon waking up. I sputtered my way to the surface. My head was a throbbing mess and my mood was foul. After catching my bearings, I saw Olivier standing beside the pond.

His arms were folded, and his expression was stern. He wore his usual coat in addition to frilly long pants. Were I not so angry, I would have commented how well the look suited him.

How did he even carry me here without ending my rest?

"What exactly did you do that for?" I demanded frostily, poking his chest with my index finger.

He looked calm, unruffled. Ignoring my outburst, he began to speak in a measured tone. "For some time now, you and Maxime have been provided accommodations by me on rather generous terms. However, when the House of Light, the Townfolk and the other people living in the same tower as you have all raised complaints, I started to have some concerns."

"So you're throwing us out then?" I said bitterly. It didn't surprise me. A part of me knew it would happen sooner or later.

His expression softened. "On that night, when we were struck by brigands, you told me that you were trying to improve the manner of your comportment. Would that girl be proud of how you conduct yourself now? Drinking all night and then causing strife during the day?"

"Maybe I wouldn't be like this if everyone but Maxime hadn't treated me like an outcast from the moment I first arrived," I bit back.

His eyebrows rose. "I have no recollection of this."

"You wouldn't, would you? Ever since that night on the road, you haven't even been able to look at me properly. You avoided conversation when you could, as if I was diseased. Then, when I arrived here, it was more of the same. The people in the tower either pitied me or avoided me, and the people in the town outright disdain me. Then you wonder why I started drinking with Maxime." I stopped, taking in a breath.

He frowned for a moment and then asked, "did you ever stop to consider how you appear to everyone else?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"When you first met them, what were they told about you?" Olivier pressed.

"That you found me and I discovered my gift in a fight." I replied.

"Where you left the foe you felled with a face plagued by rot," he explained.

"So perhaps I made a poor first impression. That isn't a good reason for them to shun me, though," I argued.

"Upon arrival, you proceeded to spend most of your time with Maxime, who had some notoriety already. You avoided associating with anyone else," he continued.

"Because I couldn't stand people either looking at me with pity or avoiding looking at me at all."

"Did you ever discuss this with them? Try to find some shared common ground? If not, how could you have expected another outcome?"

How dare he.

"When I tried learning from them, they brushed me off, telling me that Artificing is the only skill I would need. Then, when I failed at that, they sent me off with Max into the mountains to pick herbs. Does it surprise you that I made friends with him? Is my friendship a problem for you?" I challenged.

"I take no offence at whom you make friends with. The two of you drinking is what the town finds fault with. You have a week in which to better yourself." His face softened. "Would your father be happy to see you now? Don't disappoint him, Taylor."

I stiffened.

"Fix your own family problems before you go and start digging up mine. It's not like you and your brother get along well, is it?" I hissed back at him.

His eyes became flinty, and he started to walk away. "One week, Taylor."

I stormed my way back to the tower. I looked like a wet cat. My temper was foul, and I was itching for a drink. That usually soothed my nerves. After washing and changing clothes, Max and I headed out into the mountains.

He was quieter than usual. It struck me as odd, but I didn't mind. He still made for good company.

Time passed and soon we were headed back. He stopped near the river. We were still a fair distance away from the town. His hands, I noticed, were shaking.

"Max?" I asked, concerned.

"Last night, you told me your story," he began.

Did I?

I couldn't really remember. I hoped I didn't let slip something too concerning. "Is there a problem?" I asked, concerned.

"No, no. I just thought it was only fair if I told you my own in response."

Oh.

I sat down next to him on the bank of the river. My hand reached for his. He grasped it firmly. Around us, snow fell and was pushed away by the field I had surrounding us. It was quiet, not even the chirping of insects could be heard.

"A few years ago, Taylor, I worked as a soldier." His voice rasped as he spoke.

I realized that for once he was completely sober.

"I went from Fantassin company to Fantassin company, never staying in one group for long. The money I earned, I gave back to my family in Apenun whenever I returned there to help support them." He paused.

"You can stop if you want," I told him softly. He shook his head, tears running down his cheeks. They made a mess of his beard.

"During the Summer five years past, I returned only to find a Villain had killed my wife and daughter while I had been out playing soldier. The Redolent Torturer. He had been caught and killed before my return. The things he did to my family before they died…" His chest heaved as he talked.

"I know I probably would have died if I were there, but I always wonder…" He trailed off.

"You wonder if you might have saved them if you hadn't been away from home." I finished softly.

He nodded stiffly.

There was a lull in the conversation as we just sat and watched the falling snow. The moment was heavy, but somehow peaceful.

"You remind me of what I think my daughter would have been like, if she hadn't been killed." He said quietly.

My eyebrows rose. I couldn't help it, I snorted.

"I hope you didn't talk to your wife and daughter the way you talk to me," I told him sternly.

He grinned at that.

"Nah, that came after. Thing is, I don't like seeing a girl that reminds me of my daughter pissing her life away the way that I did."

He reached to his side and pulled out the flask he usually carried everywhere.

"Olivier came by and offered me an ultimatum, you know," he began.

"He did the same for me," I replied.

"I'll make you a deal, Taylor."

"What kind of deal?" I asked.

"The kind of deal where I'll try to stop pissing away my life, if you do the same for me," he stated. As he did so, he popped off the lid from the flask, pouring the wine into the river below.

My breath caught. I felt a funny warmth bubble up in my chest.

"You'll clean up your language?" I asked. It didn't really matter much to me at this point, but it gave me room to think about what he was trying to do here.

"Now, girlie don't go demanding too much of me," he began, affecting taking offence. "But if it makes you make the effort, then I'll try to change that as well."

"No, no, that's fine." I said quickly.

He said nothing more, just giving me room to think. This was the second time today someone had approached me about this. However, it felt more personal. Like it actually mattered.

"Alright," I breathed in, nodding jerkily. "We'll both make the effort then."

"Together," he agreed.​

 

[Sharpedge]

Thanks to Scathias for beta reading.
​

---

"Twenty-eight. If you find an orphaned child on your quest, be sure to hand them off to someone else. Whilst fulfilling, the role of a mentor has a limited life expectancy."
– 'Two Hundred Heroic Axioms', author unknown
​

---

The following weeks were frustrating. The temptation to keep drinking plagued the both of us, although neither of us gave in. We weren't evicted from the tower. Unfortunately, there was now nothing distracting us from reflecting on our pasts. The two of us had taken to talking over games of Shatranj. As a game, it was like a local variant of chess.

I talked about my time on Earth Bet, although I always kept the details sparse. It remained a land far off beyond the coasts of Calernia in my stories. I never talked about heroes again, or the fight with Scion. I didn't even know how to start.

Max knew I was holding a lot back. He was kind enough to never press.

The others still viewed us warily. They probably expected us to fall back into drinking. I could have made the effort to befriend them, as Olivier had suggested. To my surprise, I found that I didn't really want to.

They wanted to make tools and live quiet lives. As romantic as the idea seemed to me in abstract, I knew that trying to live like that would probably drive me mad. Our perspectives were too far apart, and I was fine with that.

As time moved on, more and more of the tower's residents had left. It wasn't even our fault, either. Roland was hardly around. When he was, though, his presence was tyrannical. Ordering people around and venting anger, he alone was driving people off.

I had already been toying with the idea of leaving. The stay had done me some good. It had helped to ground me in a new world. But I was restless.

I needed a purpose. Some goal to drive me forward.

"So I was thinking," I began. I picked up my pawn, capturing one of his.

"Now there's a first," he teased. I gave him a mock glare.

"When the Winter ends, I think we should leave." I told him seriously.

"With Olivier?" He inquired.

I hadn't actually considered that as an option. It was something to think on. Olivier and I hadn't quite reconciled, but… we weren't on bad terms.

"Possibly, but even without him." I replied.

He frowned at the board in concentration. "Let's hear why."

"We aren't made for this kind of life. It's bringing out the worst in both of us. I'm planning on leaving regardless, and I thought that I may as well invite you along." I explained.

He said nothing for a while, then slid the white queen diagonally across the board, capturing my rook. "Where are we going to be heading, then?"

I suppressed a smile. Whilst it wasn't an explicit agreement, it was more or less the same thing. He was willing to come along. "I hadn't put thought into that part yet," I admitted. "I figured I should ask you first."

"You've never fought in an army before, have you?" He asked.

"No, I haven't. I'm not sure if I could." I set up my knight to capture his bishop a few moves down the line, threatening his queen in the process.

"And why's that?" Without looking at the board, he moved his queen again, taking one of my bishops.

Damn.

He usually won our games.

"I can't trust other people to make the right choices. I need to be the one in charge." I explained.

He grimaced. "Not much room for that kind of attitude on the battlefield, kid."

"That's another reason I brought this to you first. I don't need to be a soldier. I just need to feel like I am making a difference. A goal that is worthwhile." Now that his queen had moved out of the way, I could promote my pawn.

"So what else can you do then. From what I've gathered, your homeland was very different to Calernia." He proceeded to capture the other rook.

"It was different, yes. In most ways, I would argue it was better. On the whole, people were lived easier lives. We had machines that could do the work of tens of men in barely a fraction of the time. I miss it a great deal." I said wistfully.

"You know how to make any of those machines?" He inquired.

I shook my head. "The technical details for most would escape me. I understand the broad strokes in some areas. Enough to point someone in the right direction. I couldn't build them myself, though."

And just telling everyone everything I had some vague understanding of would never end well. Either I would be taken as a lunatic, or I would be taken seriously. The latter was probably more dangerous. There was nothing stopping me from talking later once I understood my situation better, but if I talked now and regretted it, then I couldn't take it back.

He furrowed his brow in thought. "I believe I know what you need," he asserted.

I said nothing, waiting for him to go on.

"You need to travel and get to know Calernia for yourself. You want to do something, but you don't know what to do because you don't know enough to decide on your own. You feel out of place, lost. Tying yourself to a cause right now would be a mistake."

The game continued as I mulled over his words. It ended up being one of the few games I won, despite how distracted I was.

It felt almost like a cop out. But it was a cop out I could live with. Not so much was working towards a goal as working towards the goal of having a goal. It wasn't committing to something permanently without having figured out what I wanted first.

"Would you be willing to travel with me then?" I asked.

"I'll think about it," he replied.

Weeks passed by, eventually he agreed. We planned to leave come the Winter's end. I had asked Olivier if he would mind if we joined him for the journey. Apenun sounded like it would make for a good first stop. It was the closest city that was somewhat important. Visiting it would give me a taste of what the Principate was really like.

Olivier had still not taken my advice.

He had avoided talking to his brother, who had withdrawn even further from the rest of us. The few travelling wizards who had set up around the tower had departed. What once looked like the birth of a new institution was now on the decline. The only person who saw Roland regularly was Morgaine. The two of them spent more and more time away from the tower.

I warned Olivier that I expected something was wrong. He brushed aside my concerns.

When trouble finally came, all of us were taken by surprise. Max and I had just arrived back in town from our time spent foraging and were making our way to the tower. We were passing the tavern when it happened.

"Is that a lute?" Max asked, slowing.

I stopped for a moment and listened with him. It was hard to hear anything specific over the din. Frowning in concentration, I could eventually pick something out. It was off tune and didn't make for very pleasant hearing. But it was unmistakably a lute.

"I think so," I said. "I didn't think anyone here had one."

"Whoever is playing it needs to be flogged," Max scowled.

"It's bad, but I wouldn't consider it that awful," I disagreed.

We bickered over it for a couple more minutes and were about to go inside when the crows came home to roost.

An entirely different sound caught our attention. From the direction of the Knightsgrave, the clamour of hooves could be heard. I squinted. Vaguely, about a dozen cloaked figures could be seen making their way towards the town. They were carrying lit torches flickering with clear blue flames. As they approached, they started hurling them onto the roofs of buildings.

"We're under attack!" Maxime roared at the top of his voice, before I could even react.

He formed a fireball, hurling it at the lead rider. Their cloak caught light. They remained eerily silent. Hastily, I started to support him.

Can I restrain them?

Max hadn't taught me any ways to incapacitate rather than kill. He was too caught up in his own fight though to pay attention to what I was doing. I decided it was better to risk him discovering my secret than to risk living with more regrets. I visualized the ground beneath the hooves of the lead rider becoming quicksand and pushed. The horse began to sink.

The rider leapt off. As they got closer, I saw into their helmet. A skull stared back at me. It was one thing knowing that you were living in a storybook world, and another to understand it. I was so taken by surprise, I failed to dodge as a blade headed my way. Someone shoved me to the ground, averting what would have been a hit.

"Get your head into it, girlie!" Max bellowed at me.

I rolled as I landed, then climbed to my knees. Another zombie horse was headed my way. They weren't really alive, so I had no reason to hold back. For a moment, the world around us darkened. Then a spiralling helix of actinic light departed from my fingertips. The last time I had seen something like it, Purity had been on a murderous rampage. I felt something drain out of me.

Four of the riders were blasted away.

I blinked, spots appearing in my eyes as a result of my attack. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw another sword swinging at me. Diving to the side, a sharp pain jolted through me as I landed on my stump.

I turned towards the figure and sent another beam in their direction.

I hadn't tried using it before now, it was too flashy to not be seen. It was something I was fairly sure I could pull off, though, considering the other powers I had tried out. On the other hand, when I had tried to see if I could use Flachette's power, I had given myself a splitting headache and not had much else to show for it. Creation hadn't been too keen on me doing that at all.

"Careful with that murder beam girlie, you're going to fry the townsfolk!" Max shouted.

Right, the civilians.

The riders had split up and were making their way through the town. Feet thumping heavily on the snow, we chased after them. They seemed to be going out of their way to avoid us and were heading towards the east side of Beaumarais.

When we arrived, the House of Light was under attack.

The two of us joined in the defence. My approach was much more cautious than before. I pulled water out of the snow, freezing it on their bones. It didn't completely incapacitate them. It only made it easier for others to handle the fighting.

Unfortunately, there were many friendly targets around and it was hard not to injure them. Dimly, I realized how much easier it was to avoid collateral damage when you controlled a horde of insects.

I'd tried to see if I could control bugs over a month ago, once I started to realize what I was doing. There was no point to it. It wasn't that I couldn't do it. I just couldn't multitask effectively without my passenger. It made the entire exercise meaningless when I suddenly had to micromanage individual insects. I didn't test if I could control people. Even if I could, nobody would take kindly to it.

Best for me to leave well enough alone.

It wasn't like insects would help me much against skeletons anyhow.

Several of the priests had been killed, but some were still alive. The mayor was helping mount a defence, but Alisanne couldn't be found.

I couldn't feel any more of our enemies immediately nearby. In the distance, I saw more of them coming. What I guessed were another four dozen zombie riders were on their way towards us. They came down the hills from the Knightsgrave.

The town had woken up though and was rallying to the defence. The militia had come out, as well as priests from the House of Light. Those that were still alive, in any case. I expected more would die before the night was out.

The riders were still some distance away, so I took a moment to consider what to do. Purity's beams were effective, but caused too much incidental damage. Fire was too slow, and I didn't know if lightning would even do anything. My first plan was probably the best one.

Trapping them in mud would make it easy for everyone else to deal with them.

So I tried the same approach again, but this time I thought larger. I remembered Leviathan when it came to Brockton Bay. I remembered the waves. That wasn't what I wanted, but it was something I could work with.

All around us, the snow started to move. It fell off of rooftops and clumped up into a muddy wave. The wave began to move. It crashed into the riders and their progress slowed dramatically. The corners of my eyes began to darken and my vision swam.

Everyone else took advantage of my manoeuvre, though. The militia formed up properly, and the priests organized themselves as well. I felt a hand seize my shoulder, shaking me gently.

"We should go, Taylor." Maxime urged me.

"What about the attack?" I asked.

"Zombies usually don't just raise themselves. There is probably a sorcerer or necromancer behind this. We should go look for them. We need to stop them first." He asserted.

Trusting his intuition, I went along with his advice.

The pale light of the moon peeked out from between the clouds as we scaled the path back to the tower. We hurried along recklessly. In hindsight, we were lucky neither of us slipped and injured ourselves.

It was eerily quiet when we arrived. There were two more skeletons outside, but they were easily disposed of. There was nobody else around. When we reached the threshold, something felt different about the place. As if it no longer counted as a home. That was cause for concern. We entered the room.

In the armchair beside the fireplace, Morgaine's corpse lay. Her side was badly scorched. Blood pooled on the ground beneath her feet, oozing out a wound from her chest. She looked anguished.

The soft murmur of voices could still be heard from above. The two of us started the ascent.

"The ma - it was - I was so angry." Roland said.

"Your - attacked - is dead." Olivier replied.

"It was her - told me we would never get - needed to raise the corpses. - you have to believe me." Roland hissed.

"Taylor warned - regrets." Olivier spoke mournfully.

"She - wake - spell is broken," Roland said. "She… - know. Olivier, - help me. I never meant to hurt anyone."

We were at the base of the stairs leading to the final floor. Their voices were much clearer now and could be easily heard. I was about to start the climb, when Max put his hand on my shoulder and quietly shook his head.

"What do you want me to do, Roland?" Olivier softly asked.

"Morgaine is dead, or good as," Roland said. "And it was her idea from the start. We can tell people… Alisanne is the magistrate, and she trusts you. If you tell her it was all Morgaine she'll believe it."

There was a lull in the discussion. Olivier didn't say anything. I looked at Max again, but he just shook his head.

"They need to talk this out without us, girlie," he whispered to me.

"Trying to get rid of me, are you?" Roland accused. "Now that you have all you wanted, time to do away with the mage brother before you buy yourself a title. You owe me, Olivier. If you hadn't taken her, I never would have-"

"It's your fault," Roland spat out. "You know it is."

"I do," Olivier quietly replied.

"You can't have done this," Olivier mused. "It would ruin it all."

"Yes, exactly," Roland agreed.

Whatever it was they were contemplating, I didn't like the sound of it. I started to climb the stairs.
"There is a spell that could make her more suggestible when we wake her," Roland told him. "Nothing untoward, just as if she'd had a large cup of wine. It would-"

"You should not have magic," Olivier said.

"It should have been you, right?" Roland laughed. "You manage to go a great many years without saying it, brother. I'm almost impressed."

"You have abused your power," Olivier said slowly, as if testing out the words. "You no longer deserve to hold it."

"I was born with it, Ollie," Roland hissed. "There it is, the simple truth: I was born with it and you weren't. And you've been trying to take things from me all my life to make up for that, but it won't ever do anything because the Gods Above already decided which of us would matter when they gave the Talent to only one of us. Allow me to demonstrate-"

The world grew quiet for a moment, and then a Roland made a keening sound. I quickened my pace.

"What have you done?" Roland shouted. "What have you done, Olivier? Did you destroy my magic?"

"It's over, Roland," Olivier declared. "You won't escape the consequences of this."

Max and I reached the next floor, to see Roland standing beside a desk. He was simmering with rage. Olivier was lying against it, dazed.

"It will come back, if I kill you," Roland seethed. "Won't it?"

Olivier grabbed at his brother, as if to attempt to push him back. He failed, and his head was smashed against the desk once more.

Deciding the fight had gone on for long enough, I ran in, grabbing a chair with my hand as I went. I hurled. Spinning through the air, it hit Roland dead on, sending him tumbling to the ground. He landed beside what appeared to be the sleeping body of Alisanne. Both of them froze.

"Somebody had best explain what happened here." I declared, fixing them both with a glare.

Olivier opened his mouth and I turned my attention his way. Before he could say anything, though, Roland cried out.

Alisanne was sitting up and had buried a knife in his heart.

Great.

"Max, separate those two. Can you heal Roland?" I ordered.

I kept my eyes trained on Olivier as I spoke, daring him to do anything.

"Roland is at fault. He raised the corpses and set them on the townsfolk. His plan was to take over and see himself declared as lord. He did not deserve his magic, and so I took it from him." Olivier began to explain.

"You have developed a Name." I stated, testing the word.

Names, as I understood it, were something like this world's version of trigger events. I didn't really know the specifics, information on them seemed to be frustratingly vague. The details were similar enough though that I couldn't help but draw parallels.

Someone without powers undergoes some ordeal and then gains powers in the aftermath.

He smiled at me bitterly, but didn't say anything.

Max raised his head. "This one's beyond my skill with healing, Taylor," he informed me.

"Are you here to tell me that you told me so?" Olivier asked.

I opened my mouth, about to reply, when I saw the warning glance from Max.

What would I be feeling right now, if I was Olivier?

I would be in shock. Upset, struggling to put together an answer for a problem that had no real solution. I changed what I was about to say.

"What do you want to do now?"

Max left the cooling corpse. Alisanne took the opportunity to run up and hug Olivier. Awkwardly, he hugged her back.

"It can't have been him," he stated.

"What can't have been him?" I inquired. Whatever train his thoughts were following was on a different timetable to our own.

"The necromancy, the attack on the town. The story we tell cannot allow it to be him."

"I thought you claimed he was the one who did it, earlier." I pressed.

Is he in denial, or does he want to blame someone else?

"He did do it," he agreed. "But we can't tell people that."

"And why is that?" I asked.

"Because if he takes the blame, this all falls apart. This refuge for wizards, all I have been trying to build up. If the townsfolk know that he is at fault, all of their prejudices will seem earned." He explained.

"There is no denying it is his corpse here, how do you plan to spin this?" I asked.

He licked his lips thoughtfully, then raised his hand. Quickly, I watched him attempt to weave an illusion. It took him multiple tries, but eventually he got it done.

"No," Alisanne quietly said. "No, please. Olivier, don't do this. Don't take his face."

"Olivier de Beaumarais died," he replied. "Slain along Lady Morgaine by the Praesi warlock who raised the dead and set them on the town and tower. He will be buried here."

I tried to follow his logic, but didn't see what he was trying to achieve.

"Roland de Beaumarais heroically drove back the Praesi but failed to kill him, and now pursues him to avenge his brother," he continued. "He wills all his possessions to Alisanne Lassier, to dispose of as she sees fit, as he will never return to Beaumarais."

It would serve to sell the lie, but I couldn't see it doing anything else. His dream was still dead. Without him around, nobody would maintain the tower. It had been his project from top to bottom and now, like all dreams, it lay broken.

Before I could start speaking, Max's hand settled gently on my shoulder.

His dream was dead, but telling him serves no purpose.

Though there was something else I could offer that would help.

"Max and I will come with you on this journey," I declared.

"I don't recall putting my ass on the line, girlie," he stated, amused.

"So are you choosing to stay behind then?" I asked.

"I never said that, but I think I can speak for myself."

Olivier looked like he was about to protest. I shut his mouth with a glare.

"This is the worst fight you have ever been in. For me, this isn't even in my top ten. Of the three of us, you have the least experience. The two of us were already planning on leaving with you before all of this, so why not allow us to come along."

"It will be dangerous-" he began.

"Max was a Fantassin, and I fought in a fair share of battles myself. Both of us have nobody who will miss us if we die. Neither of us mind the implied danger. The two of us understand the risks. You're the one who doesn't." I cut him off.

Alisanne looked at me gratefully, then added her own thoughts. With her voice thrown in, it didn't take long for him to change his mind.

Not an hour later and the three of us departed, riding out on horseback. If I had known how uncomfortable riding was before then, maybe I wouldn't have left.​

 

[Sharpedge]

Thanks to Scathias for beta reading.
​

---

"Don't be absurd, Princess Marguerite. Executing the Princes of Procer is certainly a sound campaign strategy. Is it not obvious? The outcome of every election is determined by those who show up."
– Madeline de Jolicoeur, also known as the Fey Enchantress
​

---

Prince Arsene Odon considered the news which had been brought to him. It had come first from Beaumarais, a sleepy border town with barely any residents where nothing much ever happened. There, it had made its way to Apenun, where Lady Lassier had it verified, before sending it on to him.

A city had appeared out in the middle of nowhere inside the borders of his principality. If that had been the extent of it, then it would only be a minor trouble. It still would have raised a fuss, but it likely would have been manageable.

Unfortunately, it didn't end there. The city was only slightly in excess of two miles in diameter and, to the eyes of the observer, looked more like a chunk of land displaced from somewhere else. In addition, parts of it were grander than even the most extravagant buildings in Salia.

The prevailing theory was that a Praesi warlock had teleported an entire chunk of land deep into the heart of his territory.

Sorcerers had been consulted and were still being consulted as to the likelihood of the Calamities to the East to have engineered a feasible mass teleportation spell. Military strategists were speculating on whether they needed to be primed for an oncoming invasion. Cartographers and historians had been asked to see if they could determine where exactly the chunk of city had come from.

The ritual, for what else could it have been, was extraordinarily efficient as the expected desolation which should have accompanied such a working was notably marked as absent.

The Praesi had managed to make a headache for him without even having landed a single soldier in his territory.

Experts were being consulted to determine the feasibility of actually sustaining a city in that location, now that it was there. Just because the structures existed, didn't mean living there was a good idea. Investigations would also need to be done to establish how such a city was constructed in the first place. And, lowest on his list of worries, maps would need to be redrawn.

All of these paled in importance compared to his largest headache, though. That was obviously the political fallout.

Somehow, news of the city's appearance had made its way to Princess Constance of Aisne. She had determined that she wanted a piece of the pie for herself. It wasn't within her borders, but that hadn't stopped her from pulling together her troops and having them set to march. Her goal wasn't to occupy it, so much as it was to seize the place for a short term and then scavenge what she could before pulling out. His informants among her retinue had confirmed as much.

So now he was forced to muster up a response.

The civil war, having gone on for nine years now, was bad enough on its own. Having to concern himself with this in addition to the ongoing jostling for the position of First Prince made him almost consider just conceding the prize to her. The problem was that it seemed like too enticing a prize to lose.

And after multiple fights with her on his northern border, he wasn't prepared to just roll over without a fight. He wanted her dead too much to just do that.

He would need to watch his borders closely to ensure that Prince Arnaud didn't take advantage of the reduced manpower down south while his forces were deployed in response to Princess Constance. The real concern was that he wasn't sure whether it would be wiser to inform all the other Princes about the city, or try to keep it a secret held in reserve.

News would inevitably find its way to all of them. Even if it wasn't known to Princess Constance, there was no way something that size could remain entirely unknown. However, there could be an advantage both in breaking it early, to offset actions taken by the others elsewhere, and in keeping it quiet for as long as possible.

He grimaced. He would likely need to be the one to break the news, if only to deny the advantage of doing so to Princess Constance in the process. The entire situation was a mess. With Princess Aenor currently favoured for the position of First Prince, he didn't want to suddenly have to turn his attention away from the southern border, for fears of her biting at the time. She had the largest coalition backing her, and was the one most likely to cause problems.

When scrambling for power in the halls of the highest assembly, having an unexpected monster climb out from under his chair like this was not a surprise that he wanted. If it had appeared elsewhere, under one of his rival's chairs, then he would have felt more comfortable. At that point, it would have only presented an opportunity. But it had appeared in his own lands, which meant the other Princes were eyeing him, and that made it a weakness as well. He had to worry about whether feeding the monster was a mistake, and if it would decide to eat him.

Finally, having come to a conclusion, he gave the orders. He would ride out and investigate the city. After he had seen it with his own eyes, he would decide what to do with it himself.
​

---

Princess Constance smiled, the gift that had dropped into her lap seemingly from the heavens presented an opportunity she had no choice but to seize. When she had declared regency in Salia and the other Princes had laughed as they left the chamber, she had sworn to herself she would see herself seated as First Prince. Nine years of war later and she was tired to the bone.

She currently had the support of Prince Amidis among others, although she suspected that he was conspiring with Princess Aenor as well. That was, however, how these games were played. So long as she stuck to a narrow enough path, she could thread this needle and come out the other side.

Which was why the report she had just received had come as such a pleasant surprise. The original copy had been sent to Prince Arsene. If the initial report provided to Lady Lassier had not faced a request for verification, it was likely she would not have seen it until it was too late to act. She had long since bought out the person responsible for processing such requests. Very rarely, something would land on their desk which was of critical importance, but hadn't seen itself elevated to the Lady herself. The position itself did not face enough scrutiny that she couldn't replace it with one of her own men, and thus sometimes it gave her an edge.

This was the perfect opportunity for her to finally get the best of Prince Arsene. The reports of the city that was found made for an opening far too tempting to ignore. If he was forced to act early, he would feel compelled to investigate himself, which would provide a chance for her to strike.

She arranged for information to be leaked to one of his known spies, allowing them to "discover" that she was planning an organized raid into his territory to claim spoils from the site. That would provide him with all the incentive he needed to leave the safety of his walls.

In reality, she would head out with an army of four thousand strong. She would need to consult with her sharper military minds. Moving this many soldiers around without Arsene catching on would be difficult, especially considering they would need to be supplied. If she succeeded here, though, she would be using a rare opportunity to finally pull out a perpetual thorn in her side.

She would ride the Ebb and the Flow all the way to the seat of the First Prince, or she would die trying.
​

---

The city which was slowly appearing over the edge of the horizon strained the limits of belief. Towers that reached up and seemed to touch the sky, stranded in the wilderness. If he was not here, Prince Arsene would discount the entire affair as farcical.

A quarter of an hour later and he gave the orders for his forces to set up camp. It was just past noon, and they were close enough to make out finer details. Over two thousand troops, all brought out, because some Praesi prick decided to play god somewhere in his principality. A force this large necessitated complicated logistics, which weren't made any easier by the presence of camp followers.

After consulting with one of his wizards, he was told they couldn't detect any hostile magics waiting for them. That surprised him. The Praesi were known for enchanting absolutely everything they could. They would coat a city like this from foundation to rooftop in magics, just because they had the means to do so.

He issued commands for the scouts to head out and gather intelligence on their destination, and sent some sorcerers along with them. Better to play it safe and be sure, then be caught unaware. Then he settled in to wait. Two hours later, the first of those scouts started to trickle back in. Aside from a rough outline on the actual layout of the city, news on Princess Constance forces had been provided.

She had sent just over a thousand troops of her own, all cavalry, and they were camped on the opposite side. Definitely a raiding force, as his informant had suggested.

After consulting with his strategists on the matter, they recommended moving in and seizing the place in advance. The buildings were tall and if they scaled them on the inside, they could rain dwarvern crossbow bolts down on the enemy forces from above when they approached. By making strategic use of choke points, they could minimize losses and turn the battle into the kind of one-sided slaughter that would serve as a warning to Princess Constance about why she should stick to her own lands.

They would need to send in an advance force first. Decamping entirely without first establishing a stronger ground presence would be a poor idea.

The city itself proved to be more intriguing. Initial reports described what sounded to be manhole covers similar in nature to the ones in Ater. After a scout had gone to the effort of removing one of them, they had been puzzled to find that rather than there being an elaborate sewer system below, instead there was a hard ground surface.

That provided more evidence to support both the Praesi wizard theory and the teleporation theory. This was further backed up by what looked to be the remains of some sort of Praesi summoning ritual.

The fact that none of the wizards he had sent out had detected any enchantments, however, spoke to the opposite. The idea that the Praesi could, or even would, build something on this scale without branding it with their signature magics was so out of character for them as to border on absurd.

No news had come out of the East mentioning the construction of such marvels, though, which was a major concern. If they were operating on such a large scale and successfully preventing intelligence of it from making its way out West, then the Calamities were a far greater threat than they were already considered to be. The matter would need to be raised at the Highest Assembly at his earliest convenience.

If the civil war continued for much longer and Praes was allowed to develop unchecked, it would threaten the security of the Principate.

No matter, that was a task for later. After he had his men form up into ranks, he gave the orders to march. It was best to seize the opportunity now.

They arrived in the city and began to make their way down the empty, snow covered streets. The quiet of the place was unsettling. A place this grand should be filled with the clamour of people hawking their wares or merely moving from one place to another. They drew close to the centre of the anomaly, the point with the ritual circle, which stood under the shadow of the largest building around.

His commanders started issuing orders. Sending squads to occupy select buildings, with the intention of having infantry holding the narrow approaches.

That was when everything started to go awry.

Crossbow bolts started to rain down on them from the buildings above. The enemy commanders had apparently seized upon the same idea and had time to set it into motion before him.

The entire city was a trap.

They could risk trying to push forward and scale the buildings, turning the trap back onto the enemy, but they didn't know how many troops Princess Constance had actually sent in here. They also didn't know how much time she had spent preparing to mount a defence. If he made the wrong call, it could cost him his Principality.

Bitterly, he swallowed his pride and called the retreat.

They started pulling back in as orderly a manner as possible, whilst being peppered with crossbow fire from above. As they were approaching the exit, the next part of his foes scheme made itself known.

The force of a thousand cavalry which had been camped on the opposite side had circled around and were sacking their camp.

They must have been signalled somehow when we made our approach.

They quickened their pace, heading back fast. By the time they had arrived, the enemy forces had already pulled out, leaving their camp a mess. Distantly, Prince Arsene realized it had all been far too neat, too well organized. As if his foe had arranged the entire affair from start to finish.

Most likely, that meant that his informant had either switched allegiances or was compromised.

Their supplies had been either seized or put to torch. This was friendly territory, which meant he and his men could, in theory, go a day or two without anything to eat, provided they all pulled out. Resupplying could be done elsewhere, and there were no shortages of rivers providing water to drink.

The problem was it meant ceding this fight to Princess Constance and with it, the prize. More and more, however, that looked to be the way this fiasco was headed. Casualty reports had come in, and they had lost just under a hundred men, with not a single strike landing on an enemy to show for it.

Those were the kinds of losses that could break an army.

He was just about to start issuing orders when a scene out of myths and legends lit up the sky. His heart dropped and for the first time in his life, Prince Arsene felt truly humbled.
​

---

Princess Constance had to make a conscious effort to maintain her poise as she watched the battlefield from many floors up in the sky. The best case hadn't materialized and Prince Arsene had pulled out early, preventing himself from being truly beaten. He would live to see another day, but the prize was still hers for the taking.

And it was an even greater prize than anyone had initially thought. Her engineers and wizards had been studying samples taken from all over the city. From their excited ramblings, none of the construction here had been performed at the hands of sorcery. That meant that with a sufficient understanding of the natural sciences, her engineers could see all of it reproduced. It would take them some time and effort, but eventually progress would be made.

She watched as Prince Arsene's forces made their way back to the remnants of their camp in defeat. This would serve as a lesson for him, a reminder as to why it was she who should claim the position of First Prince.

That was when everything began to go wrong.

The sky darkened above and hundreds, no thousands of metal contraptions, blocked out the light of the sun. Then something began to fall from them. Black rain, coming down from above. The first of the projectiles touched one of the buildings roofs and then detonated.

And more of them continued to fall.

She had thought that the Gnomes were just a myth. A fable to tell children about the hubris of reaching too high. Hastily, she ordered the evacuation, joining in the retreat herself.

It was a nightmare straight out of the blackest of Praesi hells.

The detonations continued unabated, the ground shaking beneath her feet as more explosives continued to fall. Shrapnel danced through the air and as she continued to run, she had a far closer look than she would like at the city's collapse.

Thump, thump, thump went her feet on the floor below her. Thump, thump, thump went her heart. She was panting, sweat ran down her forehead as she threw herself down another flight of stairs.

Suddenly she was tumbling through the air.

Her arm struck a railing, bent at an angle that arms were not supposed to bend. Suppressing a whimper of pain, she pulled herself to her feet and pressed on. The world was spinning. She felt lightheaded. Why were those spots dancing in front of her eyes?

The floor she was on seemed to tilt, and suddenly gravity agreed that the wall was the way down. Why all of this? Why her?

A deep despair filled her as she fell, and then the darkness took her.
​

---

Half an hour later, Prince Arsene and his forces found themselves the only survivors. All of them stood solemnly, looking on at the blackened crater occupying the space that had once been claimed by a city from myths and legends.

It seemed fitting, that foes from myths and legends had come to see it buried.

Barring the cavalry, Princess Constance's forces had been killed to a man, and yet he could not find it in him to call this a victory. This was a fight where everyone had lost. He didn't know if she herself had been on this field, if she had, she was almost certainly among those who had been buried.

There would be stories told of this day, although what nuggets of wisdom would be drawn from them, only time could tell. The scene he was seeing was one that was forever branded into his mind. A lesson he would not forget. For all the Principate's vaunted pride, they were still like ants as to giants compared to the greater powers in Creation.

There were forces out there that could kill them all at a whim, and it was best to leave those monsters alone.​

 

[ptbptb]

Somehow, news of the cities appearance had made its way to Princess Constance of Aisne.

Click to shrink...

Should be "city's".

After a scout had gone to the effort of removing one of them, they had been puzzled to find that rather than there being an elaborate sewer system below, instead there was a hard ground surface.

Click to shrink...

Sounds like good ol' Chinese civil engineering.

The sky darkened above and hundreds, no thousands of metal contraptions, blocked out the light of the sun.

Click to shrink...

And there come the Gnomes. Summoned by mobile phones, petrol-driven cars and vestiges of the Internet.

 

[Sharpedge]

Should be "city's".

Click to shrink...

Fixed, thanks!

 

[Kiche]

Wonder what Taylor will think when she learns the world is purposefully stuck in the dark ages? Sounds like a worthy cause to fight against

 

[memoryofglory]

"How many people lived there?" He asked.

I frowned. We had covered basic arithmetic already, although I didn't know the words for these numbers in Chantant. I picked up a stick. In the dirt on the ground, I scrawled three-hundred thousand and four-hundred thousand, respectively.

"Between this," I pointed to the first number, "and that," and then I pointed to the second number.

"Surely this city must be one of the largest to ever exist," he said, sounding awed.

"Not really. It was one of the smaller cities where I lived," I replied absently.

Olivier went still at that, that topic of conversation dying there.​

Click to shrink...

It's fantastic to see some actual Guide fanfic, especially from someone who seems to have a good grasp of the world. This part feels a bit off though.

For all that Guide has a medieval aesthetic, it's demographics and population density are very different. Salia has a population of 900,000. Hainaut only has about 60-70k people, but it's also geographically constrained by being built on top of a butte, and it's the capital of a relatively poor principality to boot. Don't get me wrong, 350k is a major city by Guide standards, but that's not all that special to a Proceran, they've got two dozen major cities. He definitely would be surprised to hear her call it small though, anyone but the dwarves would raise their eyebrows at that.

 

[Sharpedge]

Thanks to Scathias for beta reading.
A/N: Note, this will be the last time a language barrier will show up in text. After this point it can be assumed that either Taylor can speak the language in question, or there is an intermediary translating for her.
​

---

"An efficient bureaucracy is one of the greatest tools of Evil. That's why when invading Praes, you kill the functionaries first."
– Queen Elizabeth Alban of Callow
​

---

The early light of dawn was peaking over the horizon by the time we called to a halt. I was sore in all the wrong places and exhausted as well. The temptation to try experimenting with modifying my own body rose up in response to the pain, but I squashed it mercilessly. I wasn't sure what it would do to me, and the consequences of a poor outcome would be dire. I would leave that until I was more sure of what exactly I could do.

Right before we left, we had packed what we could in as brief a time as possible. Olivier, no, Roland, wanted to leave as quickly as he could.

Despite my general exhaustion, I felt more alive than I had in months. I had a duty. Keeping Roland alive. He wanted to play Hero and I would help him learn the ropes. It would give me something to strive towards until I found a goal of my own.

We were preparing to set up camp on the slope of a mountain east of Beaumarais. Maxime had started a fire, and I was cooking a stew over the flames. The others were setting up sort of makeshift shelter. Now that we had come to a stop, I had some questions that needed to be answered.

"So Olivier-"

"Roland," he corrected me firmly.

It wouldn't actually change anything in Beaumarais, but… if it makes him happy.

"So Roland, where is it exactly you plan for us to head?" I asked.

He frowned in contemplation. "For now, I wish to depart Procer for Callow. While there, we will do our best not to draw untoward attention." He replied.

I didn't have a good picture of the local politics or geography. I had only been in Calernia for four months. Most of my efforts had been spent learning to talk to people, as well as developing the one marketable skill that I had. With that being said, it was hard not to pick up some details in idle conversation.

"That's the place currently occupied by the Empire, inhabited by Evil diabolists who summon demons and devils, right?" I inquired.

The idea seemed absurd. From what I heard, they even called their standing army the Legions of Terror. It was almost surprising that they weren't ruled over by a dark lord who could only be killed by throwing a ring into the fires of Mount Doom.

"About nine years ago, during what is now known as the Conquest, Praes marched the Legions of Terror across the Field of Streges and conquered Callow. All the Princes were too busy sniffing at each other's asses trying to work out who should rule the Principate to bother intervening." Max explained.

"They are ruled over by the Calamities at the moment, correct?" I gave the broth a stir.

"That's right, Taylor," Max confirmed.

"The people with a reputation for killing every Hero who sets foot into the area?"

Roland, I noticed, was avoiding looking at me now.

"Those would be the ones, yes." Max agreed. I noticed he was suppressing a grin. I suspected he knew where I was going with this.

"So what part of that makes you think that heading there is a good idea, Roland?" I asked.

"I did suggest that accompanying me on my travels would be fraught with peril-" Roland started.

"We know it's dangerous," I interrupted him. "I want to know why you chose to come to Callow and not somewhere else in Procer."

I wasn't convinced that entering this place was the smartest idea.

"After the events in Beaumarais, the House of Light will have questions for me which I do not wish to answer. Whilst they still have a presence in Callow, their influence is much weaker than it would be if we remained within the Principate." He replied.

"I bet Olivier hasn't even figured out how we are going to get past the border without drawing attention." Max added.

"Roland," Roland insisted.

"Alright Olivier," Max needled him. I gave Max a flat look.

"Fine, Roland, since it makes Taylor happy," he deflated. I returned my attention to the pot.

I let the topic of conversation change.

"Is the border heavily guarded?" I gave the broth a taste. It wasn't great. With what little we had brought along with us, though, it would have to do.

"Tighter than a whore's purse." Max said cheerfully. "They have border fortresses guarding every available pass."

"And they would really take note of only three people?" I asked doubtfully.

"Three people with horses that all have the gift for sorcery? Maybe one wizard on foot wouldn't attract notice, but not three." Max explained.

"We aren't going to enter Callow without at least being seen then."

"So we leave the horses once we are closer and then try to sneak past on foot." Roland proposed.

"Kid, if we're caught trying to sneak in, it will be a whole different kind of trouble." Max replied.

The two of them continued passing suggestions back and forth. Invisibility was out, we didn't know if the border fortresses had wards against it. They didn't know how to teleport, and the books Roland had hinted that it was impractically expensive anyhow. I suspected I could pull it off, but without being able to see my destination, I was worried about ending up dead ten feet underground. I listened with one ear as I stirred the pot.

Suddenly, I struck upon an idea. It was bold and took refuge in audacity. Roland didn't like it. Maxime approved of it from when I first suggested it, though. He laughed as if it was the best joke he had heard in a month.
​

---

The day we arrived at one of the border forts, the weather was absolutely foul. Were it a little worse, you could swim while standing up. Fortunately, my plan didn't call for subtlety. The outer walls were nothing more elaborate than what looked to be twenty feet of rock stacked on top of each other. There were no bastions or towers. The place was truly bare.

We approached the walls openly, warded against the downpour by a spell maintained by Maxime. To anyone looking on, it was clear sorcery was in use. The gate we were heading towards was open, although the guards stationed at it seemed to want to be almost anywhere else.

Somewhat disappointingly, the rain made it too difficult to properly make them out. A childish part of me wanted to see what genuine Legions of Terror looked like.

There will always be another opportunity.

As we passed through, we were led by a surly looking man towards a small office on the other side.

Stepping out of the downpour, it was almost uncanny how quiet it was once we were inside. There was an old man with dark skin and a bald head seated behind a desk. He looked up dourly as we entered. In the corner of the room sat a young, fair skinned girl smoking a pipe. She looked to be my age.

He muttered something in a language I didn't speak under his breath. I'd bet he was complaining about the time of our arrival.

My hand tapped the side of my leg nervously. The nervous tick frustrated me. I found myself doing it often. Before I arrived in Calernia, it would never have been a problem.

I wish I still had my swarm.

"Girlie here doesn't speak Lower Miezan," Max pointed his thumb back at me.

He took a piece of paper from a pile on his desk and placed it in front of him. If I still had my glasses, I would have been able to read it from where I was. "Name and place of origin," he stated in Chantant, without looking up.

"Maxime Redflame, from Apenun."

"Roland, from Beaumarais."

"Taylor…" I hesitated.

"From where?" He sounded like he was pulling out teeth when he asked.

"… from nowhere in particular." I finished.

He paused his recording there and looked up at me. "If you want to be let in, you're going to need to tell me where you came from."

I realized it didn't matter if I told them the truth. They had no way to verify it, and it would mean nothing to them.

"Brockton Bay, the United States of America. It's all meaningless to you," I answered in English.

"She's not from Calernia," Maxime interjected, grinning at the man.

The man harrumphed in response. "Reason for entry?"

"Roland summoned six dozen undead in Beaumarais. The House of Light took issue with it," I explained.

"I didn't mean for it to happen," Roland protested.

"Of course," the man muttered. "It's always an accident. They never mean to. The demon was surely there all along. Diabolists are all the same when their plan inevitably fails."

He turned to look at the girl and asked her something to her in Lower Meizan. She performed a complicated gesture, grabbed a knife at her left side, and then slit the palm of her hand. A spell manifested that I didn't recognize. She said something back to him in reply.

His eyes sharpened and he looked up at us.

"Right, all three of you have the gift, although-" he bent down to consult his papers, "-Taylor here is somewhat of an anomaly, being from off the continent. This process just became a bit more involved. So I repeat, reason for entry."

"Escaping religious persecution," I explained.

"All three of you?" He inquired.

"Roland summoned the zombies. He was our direct superior. The House of Light doesn't take kindly to that where we came from."

"Right. In the event that you believe that the Dread Empire of Praes allows practitioners to freely summon up whatever creatures they like, allow me to disabuse you of that notion. We have strict laws here about what can and can't be done." He reached across the desk to his right and picked up a book. Opening it, he turned to a specific page and then pushed it across to us.

I leaned in and picked it up. It was a list of laws involving magic. Details on who could and could not own a mage tower, bans on the sale of magical texts and restrictions placed on the summoning of devils and demons. There were other laws as well. Lists of which enchanted goods were allowed to be produced. Lists vaguely detailing what types of learning were restricted. Most of the laws we had no intention to break. The laws went on for multiple pages and took a while to read through. After I finished reading, I passed it to Roland.

"We won't fuck with those laws," Maxime said, when he was done reading.

"See that you follow them, or you will die." The man replied.

The questions continued. Slowly, the man built a profile on us. Half an hour later and we were done. We were cleared to enter Callow. We climbed back on our horses and left.

When we set up camp for the night, we put up protective wards in the event of eavesdropping. Then, Roland finally allowed his incredulity to seep through. "We admitted to guilt for the events in Beaumarais, and they just let us through."

"It's not that surprising when you think about it," I stated.

"Girlie's right, Roland. The Empire doesn't care whose daughter you fucked in Procer, so long as you don't piss in their breakfast too. Being seen as just another wizard with more ambition than sense is simply fitting in here."

"Reputation matters a lot to Villains," I agreed.

"And you have sufficient experience to call upon with Villains, then?" Roland asked skeptically.

I debated what I wanted to tell him. After a while, I made my decision. If I was going to be travelling with him for a while, he would need to know something about me.

"Sure. I was a Villain first before I switched and became a Hero. Then I lost my Name before I ended up here." I explained.

It wasn't exactly true but… Max had already heard something like it, so I may as well keep my story straight.

"I was under the impression you served as a soldier," he replied dubiously.

"When I told you that, I barely spoke a word of Chantant."

"And how long were you one of the Chosen for?" He inquired.

"About two years. Heroes and Villains were different where I came from, though. My experience will differ from yours," I warned.

"How did they differ?"

How to answer? Heroism here compared to Heroism on Bet really were two very different beasts. I didn't want to give him the wrong idea.

"Heroes in my homeland weren't expected to win," I began.

Both Maxime and Roland stilled at that.

"There were more than twice as many Villains as Heroes. Even though all the Heroes banded together in one team, they lost more often than they won. This is despite the fact the Villains all fought among each other as well." I explained.

"How many of Heaven's Chosen were there?" Roland asked.

"Hundreds."

"And how big were the sticks they swung around, Girlie?" Max butted in.

"Keep in mind, my opinion is based on what I have seen so far, and I could be wrong," I warned.

"To expect otherwise would be a folly," Roland agreed.

"Well then, there is no point to even compare Heroes." I stated.

"And why is that Girlie?"

"Because our normal soldiers had weapons strong enough to kill everyone on Calernia over the course of an afternoon." I poked at the fire with a stick absently. An awkward silence fell in the wake of my declaration.

Finally, Roland broke it. "What manner of weapons could achieve that?"

How do I explain planes?

"We had machines that could fly. They could travel from one side of Calernia to the other in a matter of hours. Some of them carried explosives. They could be dropped on cities from high up in the air. Since my arrival, I haven't seen anything which could stop them." I finished.

Roland looked sceptical, Maxime looked subdued.

"You're no Gnome, Taylor. They're just stories." Roland stated.

I didn't even know what Gnomes were, but it didn't really matter. I didn't need to convince them, it wasn't like I was going to reinvent planes anyhow. So long as they trusted me to stick with them, I was satisfied. So I changed the subject.

"So, the reason that reputation is so important for Villains is that you have far more enemies. You need to be seen as unbeatable, even though you aren't." I began.

"And how does that perception matter?" Roland asked.

"Because you aren't unbeatable."

"This is something that people are all aware of." Roland responded.

"There is a difference between knowing and knowing." I argued. "Even if everyone knows that the enemy isn't unbeatable, if there is even a seed of doubt, then many opportunists won't act. As a Villain, this gives you a measure of safety. Your reputation alone prevents many foes from taking the chance to strike."

"Girlie's right," Max murmured.

I smiled. I was about to thank him for his support when he continued.

"She has her head screwed on properly when it comes to fighting. Just ignore all of her relationship advice," he finished.

Well, that was just rude.

"Anyway, that's part of the reason why it doesn't surprise me. We will be seen as just another group of overly ambitious necromancers coming to perform experiments that would be illegal elsewhere. Long-term, it probably even helps us stay safe," I explained.

"How does attracting attention keep us safe?" Roland asked, sceptically.

"You told me they would investigate us. If they looked into Beaumarais after we left, then we were always going to attract attention. This way it's not the wrong kind of attention. Heroes get killed here. Necromancers who keep their heads down don't."

The easy-going banter continued for half an hour or so. We continued to debate the merits of the method of our entry. It was nice.

Roland turned in for the night not long after.

I was sitting on a rock at the edge of our camp, watching the clouds above, when Max sat down next to me.

"You should stop with the foreplay and share your story for real, Taylor." He murmured.

"What do you mean?" I deflected.

What had I given away?

"Just because I was a drunk, doesn't mean I had my head up my own ass." He curled his left hand into a fist in front of him.

"You always wait to be invited in when penetrating a threshold." He raised his index finger.

"You asked me about the Gods Above as if you didn't believe they existed at all." The middle finger came next.

"You have the gift, but you aren't actually using it. You're teasing Creation using will alone." Up went the ring finger.

"You fed me a story involving Tyrants, Dragons, Demons, Dark gods, and Chancellors. It can't be anything recent, and it doesn't fit any history I know." The thumb stuck out.

"And lastly, you were found in a ritual circle, in a place so exotic that nobody has seen its like before." He finished with the little finger, then looked at me expectantly.

"We know you aren't from Calernia Taylor, but it's clear that you're not from Creation at all."

A sense of dread had seized me with every finger he raised. I tapped my leg absently while I framed my response.

"If I wasn't from Creation, what would it mean exactly?" I asked.

He snorted.

"You're worrying yourself too much about the wrong problem and not dealing with the shaved bear in the brothel. I can guess what's worrying you. You read our stories about known creatures from beyond Creation. Now you're thinking about what they mean to you." He stated.

"I don't know any stories that start with inviting a Devil into your house that end with a happily ever after," I told him.

"You're reading the wrong kinds of stories, then," he grinned at me wickedly.

In spite of the vulgarity, I smiled a little.

"I bet whoever summoned you here was thinking that too," he continued to joke.

"Ew, no." I protested firmly.

"I've never been so far up shit creek that I ran into a Demon or Devil. Most people never are. Nobody is fucked enough in the head to mistake you for one, though." He stated.

"Why is that?" Aside from Angels and the Fae, they were the only extradimensional entities I had read about.

"Because if you were a Demon or Devil, Beaumarais would have been sent to the hells the long before I worked it out," he paused.

I felt like there was probably a flaw in that logic, but I wasn't going to look for it.

"However, that still isn't the problem that's going to steal your knickers, Taylor." He turned his head my way, locking his gaze with mine.

"So what do you think I should be concerned about then?" I challenged.

"Think, Taylor. You're travelling with a Hero in a story and keeping a secret from him. When does the secret come out?" He replied.

"At the worst possible moment." I answered dubiously. I was aware of how strongly the locals believed their stories. That didn't mean I bought into them.

He shook his head.

"You still don't understand it, do you. Well, here is something you might believe. We're heading into lands controlled by Praes. The place that is known for its mastery of magic. It's certain that someone here will recognize you for whatever you are. Whoever they are, they won't care to just let you travel around." He explained.

That gave me pause.

He was right about the people here. In Procer, magic was reviled. In Praes it was apparently coveted. I had been so caught up in worrying about how Roland might cause problems for us that I never considered myself.

"I'll think about it," I told Max seriously.

"Make sure you think fast then. The boy needs to know. Ideally, before we get into a fight with a diabolist, and they chain you down with wards." He declared.

And I did think about it. I didn't make a decision then as I stared up into the clouds. Instead, I thought about all the difficulties that lay ahead. Callow was pushing the limits of what was safe for me. Praes would be off limits entirely. It bothered me that I hadn't even considered that aspect of our safety when we decided to come here.

Maybe I was even more lost than I thought.
​

---

We were on the road for a while before we eventually arrived in Ankou. It was my first time since being found by Roland that I had seen a proper city. It was both bigger and smaller than I expected. The city seemed to sprawl out, as if it had grown over time rather than been planned. Most of the buildings only had a single floor and had slanted slate roofs.

Shortly after our arrival, we sold our horses and rented a place to stay. It was frustrating being in a land where I once again didn't speak the local language. Considering we were planning to stay for a while, I had time to learn. For a while we lived simply. Maxime and I would pay people to bring us herbs, then profit off of the potions we made. Roland would sell enchanted wares that weren't banned or restricted. Farming implements and household tools that didn't rust.

In addition, the two of them offered their services as healers. I would have tried to do the same, except I didn't know the human body well enough to have a hope in hell of pulling it off.

The plan was for us to keep our heads low and escape notice. To solve problems without drawing attention. I had stopped experimenting with new powers for a while, simply because I didn't know if what I was doing could be detected. I also didn't know how closely we were being watched. Better to play it safe for now, rather than see us all dead.

I had been told that the Eyes of the Empire were always watching. I didn't know how true that was, but it was best to be cautious nonetheless. The threat of ever present watchers hanging over my back made me very aware of my need to be invited into residences. It was even more frustrating than before.

It almost felt like we were back at the tower in the Knightsgrave. There were some differences though. The only books on magic we had were the ones we had carried with us. In order to learn more, Olivier was forced to resort to experimentation. The ban on the sale of magical treatises was absolute. We couldn't learn more on magic without enrolling with the Legions of Terror. None of us were keen on that.

The diversity in species was what took the longest for me to adjust to. Orcs were real here. Big, bulky, with green skin and large teeth. Not only were they real, but they walked the streets of Ankou as part of the Legions of Terror. Goblins and Ogres existed as well, I just hadn't seen one yet.

Early into our arrival, a local gang tried to intimidate us into paying for protection money. After they had been incapacitated and handed off to the guards, we weren't bothered like that again. The guards asked me to please be more careful when defending myself in future. Sending them running away covered in bruises was not considered acceptable.

It had taken me effort to suppress the laugh.

Roland and Maxime had given me a crash course on Callow's history. The Black Knight had literally crucified people who disagreed with him during the conquest. I hadn't seen anything like that happening so far during my stay. If I had, I certainly wouldn't have been able to sit by and just let it happen.

A month into our stay and the news of Princess Constance's death arrived. It was late evening. The three of us were hunched together around a table at one of the nearby inns. Then we heard the news. A city in the middle of nowhere, fought over by two Proceran Princes. Then the sky above was darkened by metal as the bombs began to drop.

At the news of the deaths, many of the locals began to cheer. The casual disregard for life here made me wish for Earth Bet once more. I had killed people, but I hadn't done it because I enjoyed it. It was just something that needed to be done. What was there to be happy about this anyhow? Two fighting armies were annihilated to the last man because they went digging through the remains of a modern city. It was like they were cheering at the boot pressing down on their necks.

The civil war had briefly stalled into a lull. Prince Dagobert and Princess Aenor had allegedly called for a temporary cessation of hostilities while the matter was debated in the Highest Assembly.

At that, the cheers died down.

We paid and left shortly afterwards.

My emotions were a complicated mess. I was upset, my anger was dark and undirected. There wasn't a good outlet for it. I had heard more about the Gnomes since the first time Roland mentioned them to me. An unseen force, keeping the people of Calernia in the mud. Learn too much, and they would erase you from existence.

People considered them to be myths, so I had dismissed them as unimportant. Knowing they were real strongly changed how I felt. I didn't know what to do about them, or even if anything could be done about them. They were a significantly more advanced foreign nation, dictating how everyone on Calernia lived. It was unlikely I would ever have the power to do anything about it, but… I knew that if I ever found myself in a position where I could contest them, that I would do something.

I didn't even understand the point of what they did. What benefit was there to keeping down an entire continent of people that are almost certain to one day rebel against you?

Regardless, their presence meant that I needed to be careful. I didn't want responsibility for a place being blown up, simply because I said too much. I didn't even really know what counted as too much. In the aftermath, Roland and Maxime took my stories far more seriously. It didn't surprise me.

We left Ankou shortly after. We purchased mules and a wagon, and then set out on the road once more.

It was four months into our time in Callow when we stumbled upon our first major problem.

We were stopping over in a small town between Ankou and Hedges in the Callowan heartland. We had rented rooms at one of the Inns and were planning to stay for a week before we moved on. A day into our stay, a family stumbled in.

The husband carried a small girl in his arms. She looked to be six years old and was frail, sickly. Her pale skin was clearly soaked in sweat. What I guessed to be his wife was clutching his arms tightly as they came in.

"You're the travelling Wizards?" The wife asked nervously.

"That we are. Do you require our assistance?" Roland replied.

By unspoken agreement, he was usually the face of the group when dealing with customers. He was more approachable. I was the face of the group when dealing with threats.

"It's our daughter, she hasn't woken up for two days. Nothing we do works. We think that she's sick. Can you try to heal her, please?" She pleaded.

Wordlessly, we made space on the table. The barkeep looked at us sourly as we did so, but said nothing. After half of an hour of trying to heal the girl, both Roland and Maxime looked like they had swallowed a lemon. The parents looked on nervously as they worked.

"It is not within our means to heal her. What ails her isn't an illness." Roland told them, sombrely.

"What do you mean? It's obvious that she's sick!" The husband shouted out angrily.

"Somebody has pulled her soul out from her body. Physically, she is fine." Roland explained.

"You mean some diabolist did this to her?" The man said, his voice hoarse.

"That is the likely explanation."

"Can you do anything about this?" The wife asked.

"I would talk this over with my companions and then speak with you on the matter in the morning." Roland declared.

They left soon after, having told us where they lived when they did. We made our way to the rooms we were renting, and then Maxime put up a ward. The space in a single room was cramped and there wasn't enough seating for all of us. So we sat huddled together on the floor.

"We have a problem," I began.

"I think it's a big one." Maxime agreed.

A "Problem" is how we referred to any difficulty that specifically involved Roland's Name. So far, nothing major had happened. He helped to resolve small issues. Solving disputes between locals was the extent of his heroism.

This was a notable step up. If we weren't careful, we would draw the Calamities' attention depending on what we did.

"Someone pulled the kid's soul right out of her body. That makes this a murder," Maxime began.

"The child is not dead yet," Roland stated firmly.

"She's missing her soul, she's as dead as Callow's royalty." Maxime replied.

"We do not know what manner of use her soul has been put to, but if it has not been used to fuel a working yet, it could still be restored." Roland continued to argue.

Max and I did not protest the statement, even if we both found it to be unlikely.

"This is a small community, with just under a thousand residents at most. The Praesi presence is barely felt here. The local militia does not have the talent to handle a problem like this. We should claim this cause as our own." Roland suggested.

I was sorely tempted to agree. When I had decided to follow Roland, I had not expected him to truly keep his head down. He was much more level-headed than I thought. The amount of inaction we were experiencing was making me restless.

"Where do we start investigating?" I asked.

"You're going along with this girlie?" Maxime looked surprised.

"Roland's right, we are best suited for this." I argued.

"Tomorrow we should split up. The town is small, we can cover it more easily. We're looking for signs of magic use, possibly diabolism." Roland mused.

"One of the wenches downstairs mentioned a Praesi wizard living in a small house just outside the town. Achlys of Aksum." Maxime added.

"She is the most likely actor," Roland stated.

"I don't think it will be her," I said quietly.

"Why not Achlys of Aksum?" Roland inquired.

"She has lived here for a while. The locals all know she is here. If anything like this were to happen, she knows she is the first person who will be blamed." I explained.

"Who could oppose her here, if she was at fault?"

I thought it over. While it was true in the short term, nobody here could likely oppose her. My time in Callow had taught me that the Legions were not to be crossed. Come to their attention, and they would see her imprisoned before the day was out.

It struck me then. I had spent so long not involved in an investigation like this that we were going about it the wrong way.

"We need to investigate the scene of the crime first," I stated firmly. "Talk to the parents, find out where the girl has been. Find out where she was found and who she has talked to. We also need to ask around about if any other similar deaths have occurred. Is this an isolated case, or part of a larger pattern."

Roland eyed me contemplatively. "I take it you have some experience with this kind of investigation, then?"

"I do," I acknowledged.

"I will liaise with the townsfolk then, you meet with her parents and Maxime can visit the witch. Are we all in accord?" Roland asked.

We both gave our assent, then left to our respective rooms. The next day, we split up. I made my way towards a rather sad looking house right at the edge of the town. I knocked on the warped wooden door. Heartbeats later, I was greeted by the father.

"Oh, it's you. Where's your friends." His voice was surly and his face splotched. His eyes were red. It looked as if he had been crying.

"We split up. We are going to try to help. We think this was done deliberately, which means someone was behind it. Do you mind if I ask you some questions?"

Grudgingly, the man let me in.

I was pointed towards a rickety chair. He and his wife sat down opposite me. Then, I started to interview them.

Where had their daughter been the past few weeks? The same places she always had been. Had she at any point been out of their sight? No, she hadn't. Was she acting any differently recently? She had been growing more and more tired for the past week, before she eventually no longer woke up. Had she met anyone new? No, she hadn't. The questions continued.

I wasn't making any progress.

I tried not to let the frustration get to me. The process reminded me of my time with the Wards. The same sets of procedures. The same lack of results.

Eventually, on a whim, I asked to see the child's possessions.

There wasn't much. She slept on a cot near her parents, in the same room. A wooden doll and a top. I felt a pang of sadness. My childhood had been a dream in comparison. The most notable item was a surreal portrait of the girl, with a castle behind her. It was well done, but as far as I could tell, there was nothing magical about it.

When I asked about it, they told me they had paid a travelling artist for it. He had stopped by a month past and the price was cheap enough they found it worth the cost. Apparently he was staying until the start of Autumn, before moving on.

With nothing to show for it, I left.

I went out into the street looking for Roland. Hopefully he would have made more progress than I did. I couldn't find him. Eventually, I stopped at a stall selling ripe oranges.

"Do you know where my friend Roland went to. About this high, has brown eyes and hair, and wears a distinctive coat?" I asked, gesturing with my hand.

"Buy an orange, and I'll tell you," the man said, snorting.

I shrugged and did so.

"He was asking all of us some questions, then he out that way." He pointed out of the town.

There were a couple of derelict buildings in that direction, but not much else.

Maybe he found a lead.

Thanking the man, I headed to where he had pointed. I passed a couple of buildings, then slowed as a man called to me.

I turned. He was short, only coming up to my chest. His features were wiry, with black hair going on grey, a goatee, and a toothbrush moustache. His teeth gleamed as he smiled at me. "Miss, would you like to take a look at some of my paintings?"

I was about to reject him offhand, but then I recalled the portrait owned by the victim. It had been well done. I was unlikely to buy one, but there was no danger in taking a look.

Let's see what he has.

"Alright," I agreed.

He started to walk away, beckoning that I should follow. He had an exaggerated cheerfulness to him that put me on edge. The folds of his oil-stained patchwork clothing flapped around comically as he moved, and I was surprised he didn't trip himself in the process.

We arrived at what looked to be a gypsy caravan. It was painted just as obnoxiously as he was.

He opened the door to one side, then let the both of us in. It was a dingy, claustrophobic space with not much room to move. The fumes of oils were overpowering, and I found it difficult to breathe. Paintings were strewn from one side of the place to the other. Slowly, my eyes roamed, taking it all in.

His art was exceptional.

The first painting I looked at depicted a forest at twilight. Fireflies flickering in the leaves of trees, which were just starting to turn from green to gold. The forest floor was a mess of rich greens, reds, and browns. Lastly, peaking through the leaves of a bush the faint hint of bottle-green eyes could be seen, as well as the tail of a fox.

I turned to the next painting.

It was of a waterfall, flowing down the edge of a cliff and pooling in a lake at the bottom. The scene was dark, tranquil. I moved on.

"They're beautiful," I whispered.

"My thanks. I truly do try to capture the essence of a place when I work," the man smiled.

Then my eyes fell on one more painting. It was a landscape. Part of a skyline I had seen before. Tall metal buildings reaching to the sky. Chicago, from my time during the Wards.

Before I even realized it, I was walking towards it.

"Where did you see this?" I asked softly, my hands trailing along the edge of the canvas.

"In Procer. I was lucky enough to see this sight before the Gnomes burned it to the ground. I feel like it's missing an element, though." He added.

"Really?" I asked.

"It is incomplete. Why don't you tell me what you think needs to be added?" He asked.

I looked at the piece more critically.

"The streets are too empty. A city like this would always busy, at all hours of the day. No one person could ever claim a part of it for themselves. There would always be somebody with them, no matter where they went. You could never be alone." I found myself answering.

"And so the city lacks its soul," he agreed.

I felt a sting in my arm. A prick, as if by needle. I turned around to complain, but saw that he wasn't beside me.

Must have been an insect.

"Do you mind if I paint you into it?" he asked.

The question caught me by surprise.

"You want to paint me into this?"

"Why wouldn't I want to paint you into it? Doesn't the painting speak to you?"

"It reminds me of something," I admitted.

"You want to buy it, correct? I can already tell." He smiled at me as he said so.

I thought about it for a moment and found to my surprise that it did. It was a piece of my past, frozen in time forever.

"Yeah, I'll buy it."

He took out an ornate wooden brush. It was covered with detailed engravings, and fine white hairs extended from the ferrule. Then, he began to work.

It was mesmerizing to watch.

I waited while he painted me into the foreground. His rendition of me was flattering, with fewer scars and a carefree smile on my face. Two hours later, and I left. I gingerly carried the painting with me, careful not to touch any of the still damp paint. After depositing it in our wagon, I decided to settle in and wait.

That night, we met up again at the inn and discussed what we had found. Not much progress had been made. Roland had talked to the Townsfolk and learned there had been strange noises coming from the derelict houses. After investigating, it turned out to be an infestation of rats.

Max had spoken to Achlys. She was a gregarious old woman who lived all on her own. She sold medicines to the locals, but otherwise seemed mostly harmless. We had made no progress so far.

I showed them the painting. Roland said it made for a good purchase. A token reminder of my first day in Calernia. Max looked worried about something, but said nothing.

Two more days passed while we were staying in the town. Two days of fruitless investigating and frustration was starting to mount. Aisling's parents were panicking, as it seemed like there was nothing that could be done.

I found myself fatigued. I pushed on in spite of it. Exhaustion was not the worst problem I had dealt with, and we only had so much time to solve the problem before we would need to move on.

On the eve of the second day, as I was drifting off to sleep, I heard a voice. It came from far off, as if it was echoing across a large body of water.

"You will make a marvellous painting."

"Impart."

And then everything changed.​

 

[ptbptb]

After they had been incapacitated and handed off to the guards, we weren't bothered like that again. The guards asked me to please be more careful when defending myself in future. Sending them running away covered in bruises was not considered acceptable.

Click to shrink...

I'm a bit confused about this. Like, they didn't send them running away covered in bruises. Is that 'not' not supposed to be there in "was not considered acceptable"?

The most notable item was a surreal portrait of the girl, with a castle behind her. It was well done, but as far as I could tell, there was nothing magical about it.

Click to shrink...

I don't care if you can't see anything magical about it, that is sus as heck.

"You will make a marvellous painting."

Click to shrink...

Quelle surprise.

 

[Sharpedge]

I'm a bit confused about this. Like, they didn't send them running away covered in bruises. Is that 'not' not supposed to be there in "was not considered acceptable"?

Click to shrink...

That's why Taylor was darkly amused. Because it's apparently fine for the Guards to do it, but not her.

In the early Guide arcs, we see that things like the fighting ring etc are illegal in Callow. Obviously the Calamities are both aware of them and tacitly allow (and control) them, but I figure they want the "public facing" people to present the illusion of civility. The guards have the monopoly on public facing violence, even if there are different rules for what occurs under the table.

 

[ptbptb]

That's why Taylor was darkly amused. Because it's apparently fine for the Guards to do it, but not her.

Click to shrink...

That wasn't what I was confused about. What I was confused about was that Taylor was told that something she didn't do was something she shouldn't do.

 

[Sharpedge]

"The safest way to negotiate with the Fae is through somebody else. That way, when they come to collect, you're not the one who has to pay the price."
– 'Essences of the Fae', written by Madeline de Jolicoeur
​

---

I found myself on the streets of Chicago. I was about a block away from the PRT building. The streets were unusually empty. It was nice, peaceful.

Maybe I can have a part of the city to myself for once, just for today.

I started to jog, going past the trees by the lake. Their leaves were a verdant green, the life of Summer bleeding through. I felt the early morning rays of the sun beating down upon my back, urging me forward. I smiled, it was pleasant.

This is wrong.

Why was I jogging? I didn't have anywhere I needed to be. I had always wanted to just take a day to sit by the lake and relax. Frowning, I slowed down, then came to a stop. The world was saved now, right? There was no schedule I needed to follow. The leash was gone, and I could finally rest on the shores.

Slowly, I made my way to the edge of the lake and just sat down, enjoying the view. It was serene.

This isn't me.

"Hey, you're ready to go?" Theo asked half an hour later. He sounded impatient.

"Where to?" I replied, puzzled. I didn't recall needing to be anywhere.

"The celebration, of course. We did it." He was grinning.

"What did we do?"

"We stopped Jack. Don't you remember? You were instrumental. You helped coordinate us all and cut off his escape with your Swarm."

This never happened.

Something was wrong. I wasn't supposed to be here. I knew it. Deep inside of me, something was protesting that I should be somewhere else.

"Come on, let's go." He urged.

I stood up and followed him.

We reached the PRT headquarters, one of two in Chicago. It was squat, broad, and not terribly pretty, but it sported a statue on the roof that had been paid for by an old member, Stardust.

Standing outside was a crowd of people. In the faceless masses, I could see the faces of people I cared about. My dad, Lisa, Brian, Rachel. Everyone was here. They greeted me warmly and I was ushered inside. Apparently there was a celebration.

The end of the world had been stopped, and those of us who had stepped up to do our part were being honoured for the part we played. Eidolon came up to speak.

He should be dead.

Why was he here? He died, didn't he, in the fight against Scion?

The sky darkened and the people vanished. Clouds rolled in. The surrounding buildings decayed, crumbled, and then collapsed. There was a flash in the sky, then a rumble of thunder not long after. The rain began to fall.

People started running away, panicked. The wind picked up, howling. In the distance, out on the open water, the vague silhouette of a wave could be seen approaching.

I clenched my hands and reached out for my swarm. Maybe I could do something, help with search and rescue.

I only have one hand.

Where were Max and Roland? Why weren't they with me? This was wrong. This was all wrong!

I reached out with my mind, my indignation made manifest, and pushed against the world. There was resistance, as if someone was contesting what I was doing. They didn't appear to be giving it much attention, though. It seemed almost like something they just passively maintained. A sharp pain wracked my head.

That wasn't acceptable.

Filled with determination, I shoved again, ignoring the pain. Something gave. The world around me shattered.

I was in a forest, standing between two maple trees. The waning light of the sun broke through from above, casting dappled shadows on the crimson leaves below. I took a step forward, tilting my head and looking around. The leaves crunched underfoot and the chatter of birdsong stilled.

Where had I seen this before?

I took another step, a fox dashed out from behind a bush. It looked at me, sending a grin in my direction before turning away. Then it ran, disappearing between the trees. I reached down and picked up a long, reasonably straight, branch. Poking the ground ahead of me as I walked, I made my way in the direction of the sun. The hope was to find my way out.

The sound of bells jingling in the distance distracted me. I stopped for a moment and listened. It was faint, almost imperceptible. Then I heard the baying of hounds. That meant there were probably people here. I should head that way.

A painting. There was a painting like this.

Suddenly, I panicked. Hounds, there were hounds coming. I ran, dashing between the leaves on my paws. I had my nose to the ground, my snout sniffing the trail ahead. My ears twitched as the riders drew close. I needed to move!

Paws? I wasn't a fox.

A moment of clarity. I rolled through the underbrush, landing on my stump. I suppressed a wince. Then, I climbed to my feet. Concentrating, I tried to keep my thoughts organized. I had gone to sleep, then woke up in a vision of Chicago. When I tried to escape the vision, I had ended up here.

I remembered visiting a caravan and looking at the paintings inside. One of them was a landscape of Chicago, another was a forest in the woods.

I was under the influence of some kind of master effect.

The effect was subtle, it made it seem like ideas that were just on the edge of being reasonable were reasonable and then kept pushing the boundaries for what counted. When dealing with master effects, it was best to use an emotional response to logical manipulations and a logical response to emotional manipulations. At least, that is what was taught.

I wasn't sure which one this was, but I was leaning more towards logical than emotional. I focused on the situation. On my feelings of frustration at falling into a trap. How did the Painter so easily trick me? Did he have more compulsions? I let the irritation of having to constantly be invited inside places mount up.

The vision kept trying to distract me, but I drowned myself in my feelings instead.

There had been many paintings, and I couldn't afford to keep moving from one to another.

The hounds came closer and the tolling of bells grew louder, but I put that all out of my mind. Closing my eyes, I concentrated on the idea of simply being out. I refined the idea, honing upon my intent. Being in another portrait was unacceptable, I needed to escape.

Once more I felt resistance. The illusion, or whatever it was, tried to fight back. I could hear the panting of the hounds. I ignored it. My attempts weren't working. I wasn't making any progress at all. My frustration rose, but still I kept trying. It felt like there was someone actively contesting what I was doing. They were no longer just sitting idly by. Whoever it was had a stronger grasp than my own.

So I tried something else.

Instead of trying to bulldoze my way through, I tried subverting their purpose. I felt around what they were trying to do. It was like a uniform wall all around me. Experimentally, I tried sending something else through it. Focusing my will, I tried to shove some of the painted landscape around me beyond the wall. It went through uncontested. That meant whatever my opponent was doing was selective.

I hadn't tried using stranger powers yet, but this seemed like a good opportunity to try. My experiments with other power types had shown me that the more absolute the power I tried, the more difficult it was to enforce. I'd need to be careful to choose an ability that didn't leave me knocked out for an hour. I didn't need Imp's power here to escape, just anything that could convince my opposition that I didn't belong inside. So I chose to try something a little more subtle. There was nothing out of place about me. Everything I was doing was completely normal, just what you would expect from the average nice girl.

The effect went through. It took effort on my part and was more draining than I expected, but to the world it was suddenly as if what I was doing wasn't worth paying attention to. The focus of my assailant drifted somewhere else.

I capitalized, focusing on the idea of ejecting myself. At the last moment, I felt whoever was on the other side scrambling to try to stop me, but it was too late.

The scene shattered.

I landed unceremoniously on a bed of snow. Experimentally, I tried feeling out the existence of a similar effect again. My will found almost absolutely no purchase on the world around me. Ominously, they seemed much stronger here than inside the painting. Whoever had been containing me was now actively working much harder to keep me contained.

Usually I had a vague sense of the world up to just over a mile out. As if it was almost a part of me. It wasn't like my swarm sense, I couldn't tell where things were in relation to each other. Just that I could affect them. It had taken me a while to notice because of how subtle it was. It wasn't something that I often played around with, considering the effort it took and the likelihood of being found out. Here, that was just gone. I could feel out no further than maybe thirty feet. It was like the essence of me was being squeezed real tight, down to the size of a ball.

It was claustrophobic, unpleasant. I didn't like it at all.

I tried to impose a stranger effect again, but my assailant noticed and struck out, shattering it almost immediately. What they were doing felt similar to what I was doing, but not exactly the same. If I was to qualify the difference, I would say it was almost as if… What they were doing was tacitly allowed by the world, while my actions weren't.

It was like a house invader destroying the coffee table instead of the house owner. The table was still broken, but the circumstances were different.

That wasn't good.

There also wasn't anything I could do about it. Whoever they were, they seemed much more adept at this than I was. They knew how to fight this way, and I was still learning.

Running when I didn't know where I was also seemed to be a bad idea. So it was time to find out more about where I was.

I took a look around.

Around me on every side were rows upon rows of glass spheres, all placed delicately on cushions seated upon plinths. The room was an oval, with a roof that looked to be made of transparent ice above. The walls of the place were unnerving. If I was to describe them, I would swear they were carved out of the blackest of night skies. I was near the centre. There was a narrow path that led out to a door that terminated where just shy of my position. Near me was a basin that was intricately decorated in silver plating.

I was in the middle of a very big stadium.

I stood up and took a closer look at the ball closest to me. Inside was the scene of the forest in miniature. Puzzled, I moved to the next one. This one contained a tavern. To my horror, a man was drinking himself into stupor within.

Souls. They were prisons containing souls. There must have been thousands of them. What kind of person could do such a thing? Wherever I was, I didn't think it was inside another painting. This seemed more like the… artist's containment facility.

Looking back over how I ended up here, I felt like slapping myself. I hadn't taken the warnings that I had been given seriously and ended up trapped as a consequence. I should have been more cautious, but instead I had walked right into some sort of master or stranger effect. Max had told me I would need to worry about travelling with a hero. I hadn't taken that warning to heart.

I still didn't quite believe in the power of stories, but you didn't need to believe in a weapon for it to be able to cut you. Treating them as if they were a threat to me wouldn't cost me much. If it saved my life, it would be worth making the effort.

I turned around and trudged towards the basin.

To my surprise, I heard murmuring as I approached. The basin contained a pool of mist. Puzzled, I was about to look at something else when I realized that I could see figures moving within. It was showing somewhere else. Looking closer, I tried to make out the scene below.

"You do not understand my vision, the true beauty of my work." A figure said. He was standing in a poorly lit room filled with mostly empty canvases. It was the painter.

"I understand that you have stolen the soul of one of my friends, return it." Roland demanded firmly.

The painter ignored him, rambling on.

"All my life, I lived in the shadow of someone else. My parents snubbed me, for I had not the gifts of my sibling. My friends pitied me, then cast me aside. Then one day, on my journey through the Waning Woods, I was approached by one of the Winter Fae. It made me an offer and I accepted it. Finally, I had a way to earn the respect I was owed."

"And what was it that you bargained your soul away for?" Roland asked, aghast.

"It was not my own soul I bargained away." The painter laughed.

"A paintbrush tipped with unicorn hairs that, when fed a drop of blood, can paint windows in and out of Arcadia. For the paltry price of one human soul a month, I had a way to climb out from the shadows of others and finally live. For a time I profited, amassing for myself a fortune through trade. Moving across the land far faster than any other merchant could." The painter continued.

To my incredulity, this was a storybook villain giving a genuine monologue.

"And where is this brush now?"

The man tapped his side, grinning gleefully.

Why was Roland just allowing him to talk?

"Then, my brother became jealous and confronted me, demanding I turn it over. For he was the one in the family with magic, and clearly he was the one who deserved it. It dawned on me then that I would never have my due. That, if I wanted recognition from the world around me, that I would need to take it from others and manifest it as my own." He spread his arms dramatically.

Is…this…for…real?

Why was somebody actually acting like this.

Behind him, the painting of a tiger came to life. It leapt towards Roland, snarling, and Roland dove to the side.

"Maxime!" he shouted out.

The wall of the caravan detonated into a shard of splinters and from behind it, my friend came hurtling through. His face was contorted in rage and from his palms, two fireballs leapt out. They struck the tiger.

It was good to know that they were seemingly fine, but I had my own situation to deal with. I had a dagger strapped to my left leg, but I doubted it would help me against whoever was restraining me. My struggle against them continued, but I was making no ground.

I was just about to turn around and start looking for an escape when a voice called out.

"Amusing, is it not?" It reverberated eerily, not against the stadium, but seemingly against the air itself.

I turned around warily.

A figure stood at the entrance. Despite how far away he was, I had been able to hear his words perfectly. His face was pale and narrow, almost vulpine in nature. He had long ears and was missing one eye, a black silken patch covering it over. He was clad as he was in a sober long-sleeved tunic with buttons of shade, and wore a sword at his hip. It was slender and lacked a sheath. The man radiated an aura of violence.

Beside him, strode a black horse carved from wood. Ebony, I realized.

I had read stories of these creatures. There were myths and legends about them on Earth Bet as well.

This was one of the Fae.

That meant I was probably somewhere in Arcadia.

I would need to be very cautious.

A part of me wanted me to attack, but I shoved it down. He was clearly the one currently keeping me contained, and I suspected a fight wouldn't go in my favour. When trying to find out more about myself back at the tower, I had found passing references to the Fae. Apparently, they lived life entirely through stories. I was doubtful.

Unfortunately, it was unlikely that I could fight the creature on my own. My efforts to resist him were going poorly, I would need some help. Hopefully the other two would be able to either pull me out of here, or provide me with support. That meant I needed to buy time.

I didn't think that stories would help at all, but they were a valid way to stall. There was no reason to be reckless here just because I didn't believe they would do anything, though. Fae were supposed to trap people with words, so I would need to be on my guard.

"May I have the honour of knowing who I speak to?" I asked, careful in how I phrased my query.

If they did follow stories, then I had no idea how many stories told about these creatures on Earth would hold up. The idea of escaping one trap to end up in another did not appeal to me. Was lying to them dangerous? How about bargains? Was he weak to iron and lulled by music?

"So cautious," the figure mused, laughing delightedly. "You may refer to me as the Prince of Nightfall. And who may I have the honour of talking to?"

He walked closer, then came to a stop. Watching his eyes, I noticed he was warily staring at what I would approximate to be the perimeter of my presence. He was also going out of his way to remain outside of it.

Would making a rush towards him be a mistake? Possibly. I wouldn't take the chance just yet. Everything about this man screamed danger. That if I messed up, he would kill me in a moment.

I didn't know if there was any risk in me giving him my name. Better to err on the safe side here, rather than take the plunge. If the world really did listen to stories, though, perhaps I could try to tell one of my own.

"A captured Princess, waiting for a hero to rescue her," I replied.

Max will never let me hear the end of this if he finds out I said that.

It was the first story that came to mind, as much as I didn't like it at all.

His lips twitched. I guessed he found the idea that I was a Princess just as ridiculous as I did.

"And from where does this Princess hail from, then?" He fished.

Wait, he's actually playing into this?

… That wasn't what I expected at all. Did that mean I needed to actually come up with a plausible Princess story now?

How do I justify this?

… I should have just gone with damsel.

The fight continued to play out in the bowl below. Maxime was keeping the painter tied down and Roland was moving in. I wasn't sure what he was trying to achieve, exactly. I just hoped he would break me out of this prison soon.

Every word I said would need to be considered carefully.

"From the court beyond the stars," I answered.

Technically, I was from beyond the stars. If lying to Fae was as foolhardy as the stories I knew would suggest, I wouldn't try it here. The Faerie Queen might have been mad, but if she kept calling my passenger a Queen, that made me a Princess, right?

His eyebrows rose for a moment. Then, he smiled, seemingly satisfied with my answer.

I hope I don't come to regret that.

"And what does her Royal Highness think of my humble accommodations, then?" He inquired.

I stared into the bowl, buying myself some time to think. It was nerve wracking seeing a fight play out and not being able to help.

Suddenly, Roland leapt. He grabbed at the paintbrush at the artist's side, tearing it away.

"No, that's mine!" The painter cried out in anger.

"You are not worthy of the power granted by an artefact like this. You are misusing it, wielding it to the detriment of all those around you." Roland declared.

"I am the only one worthy of it," the painter shouted, "for I am the Arcadian Artist."

"Confiscate."

I turned back to the Prince.

"I think the manner in which I was brought here leaves much to be desired," I evaded.

The Prince walked away from the path, moving towards the globes. "Only thirty of these souls were payment made by my little friend there. The rest were payments delivered by others."

Right, so it sounded like this wasn't so much the Artist's soul storage but instead the storage of some dangerous Winter Fae. I wasn't sure where he was going with that digression, but at least he hadn't tried running me through.

Why hasn't he tried killing me?

This entire situation was ridiculous.

"I will offer you a trade, a question for a question. Truly answered, to the best of our abilities." He continued.

I was out of my depth. A voice at the back of my head warned that if he wished to, he could talk circles around Lisa. Unfortunately, every moment I kept this creature talking was another moment in which the others potentially freed me. I would have to take the risk.

"I accept this trade," I replied.

"Bargain struck then," he acknowledged.

"I offer you the privilege of asking first." he stated.

I almost began to speak, but then realized that accepting the offer might be a bad idea.

"The privilege is all yours," I denied.

"Very well, then," he smiled. "Does the Court from Beyond the Stars intend to lay claim to these parts of the Garden?"

That was not the question I had been expecting. I could practically hear the capitalizations when he spoke them.

That wasn't a real place, was it? Surely it was just a name that I had made up.

The question had come out of nowhere, and left me thoroughly confused. Even if it was a real place, I wasn't actually a Princess from it. This creature had to know that.

Fumbling, I answered. "The Court from Beyond the Stars lays no claim to these lands."

Claiming territory I had no right to was probably a bad idea. If he wasn't trying to kill me now, I didn't want to give him a reason to.

I felt a sudden weight pressing down on me. A presence, an outside observer, listening to what I had to say. The feeling disappeared and with it, I was left even more confused than before.

I paused, taking time to gather myself before I made a mistake.

Now I had a question to ask of my own. I considered what to ask. I could ask him to point me to the shortest way out. In fact, I was sorely tempted to. If the power of stories was as real as people believed it to be, though, then doing so might be a mistake. I had begun with the story of a trapped Princess waiting to be rescued. If I tried to escape on my own, I would be changing the narrative.

Do I rely on others to try and rescue me, or try to rescue myself?

Lisa's words about never relying on others came back from the grave to haunt me.

I… didn't want to rely solely on someone else to save me. That didn't mean I couldn't have it as a fallback option. I could make room for someone else to save me if my escape attempt failed. Stories might be a weapon here, but they wouldn't be my first weapon. For the Princess story to work, I would probably need to climb back into one of those balls. I wasn't willing to do that unless I knew exactly what they did.

The pressure of his will against mine shifted constantly. It was like he was testing the limits of my ability to respond.

It seemed stupid to not take the opportunity to try and make my own exit, but I had no idea how far the closest way out from here was on my own. I only had one question, and I didn't know if the creature could lie or not. Between risking escape without directions and climbing in a prison without knowing the cost if I couldn't win a fight, I would rather do the former than the latter. Swallowing my pride, I chose to find out what the balls really did.

"What is the mechanical functionality of the spheres?" I asked, pointing at one.

If it came down to choosing between running, going back into a ball or fighting him, I would try fighting him first. This way I knew if I had a fallback option. If those prisons did something truly insidious, then I would have to be willing to fight to the death. It was important to know if playing the damsel was an acceptable, although humiliating, way out of here.

The Prince's expression remained unchanged as he continued to speak. I wasn't sure if that bode well or ill for me.

"Each soul tells a story. Each sphere, a dream in which the events that transpire compose the tale of their life as they will it to end. A life spent in a painted world, unending, save by the breaking of the glass. As the warden, I claim their stories as my prize."

That told me most of what I needed to know, but it didn't tell me everything. He also hadn't really answered my question either. He told me what the prison contained, not how they worked. Time to see if this creature would truly play by stories.

"You have not truly answered your question," I challenged. "You told me what is inside the spheres, not what they do."

The air of danger around the creature thickened. It seemed he wasn't happy with my assertion.

"The dreamscapes draw the essence of a person into a world carved half the distance between the Garden and Creation. The spheres anchor this end and the paintings, the other."

… Right. He actually answered me.

Maybe my doubt in the effectiveness of stories was misplaced.

I still didn't have the last answer I needed. What would happen if you broke a sphere? I guessed it would eject someone out into the world again. That was what would happen if you removed one anchor, right?

"You have not told me what happens if the spheres break," I tried.

"That is not the question that you asked of me," the Prince smiled.

It was worth a try.

"Now, it is time for the Princess to return to her cell, for it seems that she was caught in her bid to escape." He stated.

It seemed that my stalling had come to an end.

"I would rather not," I declared.

I dashed his way. He had been afraid of me closing in, so why not try that first?

Faster than I could blink, he leapt back, landing on a platform of ice suspended high in the air. I tried throwing a beam of light his way in response. Spots appeared on my vision. The beam departed from my fingers, only to fizzle out at the edge of my influence.

… That wasn't what I had expected to happen.

Then, a bigger problem. The moment in which I had summoned the beam, my focus on defence had slipped a little, and he had compressed me even further. My range was down to just over twenty feet now. I tried to push out again, but my efforts slid off. It was like trying to grab at mist.

It seemed like fighting wasn't going to work. I turned towards the exit.

The Prince's mount had moved to block the path. That didn't matter. If the Prince was scared of me, his mount was definitely not a problem. I dashed its way. A dome of ice materialized around me. It was just a little larger than my presence and seemed to be slowly shrinking towards me.

What was even the point of that?

The moment I moved a little, I would be able to contest it.

And I wasn't about to let him trap me in.

Which was when I started to feel the pressure against me mount. This time it was targeted. As if he had evaluated all of my weak points and knew where to strike. My presence began to shrink.

Ah.

It seemed that fighting and running wouldn't work.

That meant trusting that the story I had tried to tell would. The Prince's dome of ice was uncomfortably close when I dove to the side, landing against one of the plinths. I suppressed a wince of pain. It tilted, and a globe fell into my hand.

The globe was familiar. In it, a little girl strode through an empty castle.

Here was a hope my hair brained backup scheme worked. These prisons were supposed to be gilded cages. I wouldn't be happy in one, but it played into the story I was trying to tell, and my first plan hadn't worked out.

"Fine, I'll go in!" I shouted out.

The approaching sphere stopped, then faded away. The Prince looked at me, as if waiting for me to move.

"Is this one fine?" I helped up the sphere of the girl.

The sphere of Chicago was harder for me to resist the influence of. It was a familiar landscape and one I could easily buy into. It was a risk to enter a different one. I didn't know if Roland and Max would be able to find me in this one. We had been trying to save the girl before I was trapped, though, so there was a chance.

A darker part of me whispered that if Roland didn't break me out, then I wanted my cage to be one where there wasn't a chance of me falling under the effects. That way, I could make another attempt to escape on my own.

The creature gave its assent.

Reaching out with my will to the globe, I impressed upon it the idea of me falling in. It was within my sphere of influence, so I had no trouble achieving the outcome I wanted at all. Then, I felt myself compress inwards, hurtling towards the globe. Finally, the world flickered for a moment before my new reality set in. I just had to hope that if the sphere was broken, nothing bad was going to happen to me.

"Who are you?" A child's voice asked from beside me.

"My name is Taylor," I replied.

"Do you know where my mommy went to?" She asked.

I felt the surrounding space try to warp and instinctively fought against it.

"Your mommy isn't here, Aisling." I answered her softly.

"But I want my mommy," she cried out, tears starting to run down her face.

I felt the world shift again. I realized what was happening. In a way, the Prince of Nightfall had already told me. This was a prison designed to try to trap the prisoners inside a vision of what they desire. If there was only a single prisoner, it was shaped by only a single mind. Now, the mirage it was creating was a melding of her wishes and mine.

That made it easier for me to resist.

She cried out, visibly upset, and I felt a pang of guilt. It was easy to resist this version of the prison, but did I really need to? So long as she was the one directing the scene, it wasn't like I would be convinced by it.

The next time I felt Aisling wish the world try to change, I allowed the change to take hold. Resisting it would be needlessly cruel. The actors who materialized unnerved me, but they seemed to make the girl happy.

Allowing her vision of the world to rule made the unreality of the place far more clear.

I sat on a fake rock and watched her laugh and play while I waited. It brought out a deep melancholy in me. A reminder once again that I was in this world, but not truly part of it. An invader.

This place viscerally disgusted me. It imprisoned people in a way that made them happy to stay trapped, not even aware that their real lives had come to an end.

Waiting was all that was left to do now. That and a large amount of hope. I didn't like having to place my trust in someone else like this.

I could feel the presence of the Prince outside the sphere. Fortunately, it was much easier to resist from inside. Much like before, it seemed like he wasn't trying to crush me now that I was inside. He was only attempting to keep me contained.

So now I was stuck in a cell, hoping to be rescued. I had to put my trust in a story, rather than any actions of my own. It rankled.

I didn't know how much time was passing outside. According to Max, time passed differently in Arcadia. We could have been trapped here for years already.

I felt invisible walls closing around me. I clamped down on the urge to tap on my leg nervously. They would rescue me. I wasn't trapped. This was just a… Temporary vacation.

Suddenly, I heard a voice again, coming from all directions.

"Manifest."

The world seemed to fade, the colour leeching out of it.

Reality winked out.

I woke up in the room I had rented. After blinking away my drowsiness, I unsteadily climbed to my feet. Then, I changed and left the room. I was suddenly grabbed from the side and enfolded in a firm hug. It caught me by surprise, but was nice.

"Don't fucking scare me again like that, Taylor." Max said, his voice hoarse.

"I'll try not to," I replied.

The fact that the story had actually worked surprised me more than anything else. I had been largely discounting the power of narrative up until I got caught in one. To my dismay, I was beginning to realize that being less sceptical of the world I was in might actually help to keep me alive.

We made our way to Roland's room. After he had ensured that I was fine, we started to discuss what had happened. It turned out that a day had passed since my capture.

"So after you disappeared-" he started.

"Didn't I just fall asleep like Aisling did?" I interrupted.

"No girlie, you vanished." Max answered.

Roland launched into his tale. After I had disappeared, they had retraced my steps from the days before. First, they visited the artist. It was Maxime's suggestion, he had found the timing of my purchase suspicious. They tried being circumspect, posing as people interested in purchasing a painting. Unfortunately, they weren't able to draw anything out of him. After that failed to provide any results, they checked the with family, then they visited the various merchant stalls.

It was only then that they looked closely through my possessions and took another look at the landscape. It was the lead that they needed. There was a difference to the painting now. The image of me was animated, moving around as if alive. That was the only real proof that was needed.

Roland and Maxime tried to pull me out, but were unsuccessful. They didn't know enough about the kind of magic that messes with souls to succeed. They almost went after the Artist immediately, but then thought better of it. If they couldn't do it, it meant their only real hope of free me was bargaining with the enemy.

So they took some time to plan. They needed to find a way to blackmail him into getting me out. Having proof of what the paintings did, they asked the parents for theirs. There was no reason not to try saving both of us at once, after all.

Then they had gone to confront the artist. The plan was to get him to pull me out, then kill him afterwards. That had led to the confrontation I had witnessed. After seizing the paintbrush, they managed to bargain for the release of me and the girl. Unfortunately, he got away. Terms for his safe departure enforced by a binding were part of the deal. Then he painted a doorway into Arcadia and made his escape.

It was a bitter pill to swallow, that after all of this, the villain got away. Still, Aisling was saved, and that counted for something.

Which brought us to the next topic of discussion.

"Would you shed light on at which point you were planning to inform me that you weren't from Creation?" Roland's eyes were hard as flint.

"When the time was right."

"Would the time ever have been right?" He pressed.

It…probably wouldn't have.

"I…don't know," I admitted.

"There is bruising between us, Taylor. This is no minor slight. If you wish to continue sharing my fire, you cannot choose to keep me in the dark."

"So you're fine with me still travelling with you then?" I asked.

It surprised me.

"Make no mistake, I considered reporting you to the priests. Were it not for Maxime's speaking up in your defence, I would have been hard-pressed to choose." He said.

The two of us continued to discuss the matter tensely. Roland was understandably upset that I had kept the truth from him for so long. Fortunately, it seemed that it was not a total deal-breaker. It would take a while for the bridge to be mended, but I knew that with time it would be. I had experience, after all.

Aisling's parents thanked us profusely for our help when we next spoke with them. Fearing drawing too much attention, we left the town not long after.

Thoughts of the Prince of Nightfall's prison weighed down on my mind. I wasn't sure how I was going to do anything about it, but I wouldn't be leaving it alone. Something about me had made him cautious. I may not know enough to do anything now, but that wouldn't always remain true.​

 

[Redcoat_Officer]

Looks like I picked a good time to give this a read. You've done an exceptional job with both the Practical Guide's setting and Taylor's own personality.

 

[Queenofescalator]

I love this story, but I've got to ask.

Why hasn't Taylor tried to use Thinker powers. Honestly they were the first thing I thought of.

They are force multipliers with insane utility and their lack of even a single mention by Taylor bothers me.

 

[Sharpedge]

I love this story, but I've got to ask.

Why hasn't Taylor tried to use Thinker powers. Honestly they were the first thing I thought of.

They are force multipliers with insane utility and their lack of even a single mention by Taylor bothers me.

Click to shrink...

I maybe should have clarified it a bit better, but she has tried some of them and the reason she's not using them is because they don't work. I am playing by the Guide rules and the Guide has some "Hard Rules" to the setting that can't be broken.

One of those is that a person cannot create something more intelligent than themselves. I am applying that rule to self recursive intelligence improvements as well (aka, most, but not all thinker powers do not work).

Another is Ex Nihilo matter creation. It's why I spend a lot of time describing how scenery moves around when she reshapes stuff, or how the light in the area literally disappears for a moment when she sends a beam at someone. She's not making a beam out of nothing, shes concentrating all the light in a mile wide radius into a beam.

 

[Sharpedge]

Thanks to Scathias for beta reading.

---

"I have to say, Chancellor, that too many chefs do not in fact spoil the broth. Try it, the chefs taste great."
– Dread Empress Sanguinia I, the Gourmet

---

My clash with the Prince of Nightfall had made me far warier of the power of stories within the world. I wasn't certain exactly how strong the narrative was, but I would still try to watch out for it. It also made me far more worried about the Calamities. I was doing my best to learn about the politics of Callow as we moved through it. What I learned painted a concerning picture. The Black Knight went out of his way to avoid many of the more obvious stories. He founded orphanages, regulated the education system, and actively prohibited any behaviour on the parts of his legions that would drive citizens to rebel.

It was the kind of behaviour I would expect more from a proper amoral tyrant, rather than from a monologuing villain. The man knew what he was doing, probably better than I did.

That made remaining in Callow very dangerous.

I had raised the issue with Roland, but he had brushed me off angrily. He was still upset over me not confiding in him and seemed determined not to trust anything I said.

I didn't relent and brought the matter to Maxime. This concerned our safety and I felt Roland was putting us all at risk. I wasn't sure just how spread out the Eyes of the Empire were, but there was a good chance our actions were being heavily scrutinized. Max agreed with me and confronted Roland about the matter.

Roland was undeterred.

Quietly, Maxime informed me that he suspected Roland didn't want to return to Procer out of a desire to avoid confronting his own past. The death of his brother still hung over him, and staying in Callow allowed him to avoid it.

As frustrating as it was, I wasn't willing to just abandon him despite our current dispute. I was doing my best now to shroud us in secrecy whenever I could, making us as uninteresting as possible to everyone we passed by. It was draining to do and left me feeling irate.

The others kept pressing me for details on my life. I kept putting them off. I told them about many of the fights I was in, but nothing that really mattered to me. The end of the world. The distance between me and my dad. All the people I missed now that I was here. They were all topics I avoided. Some of the pains I had thought myself over, but losing everything had made them feel fresh. All of it hurt too much to talk about when sober, and I wasn't about to start drinking again. Besides, I was in a new world. I was owed a fresh start.

I didn't want to think about Earth Bet. There was a part of me that was quietly hoping for a way back there. Calernia didn't feel like home to me. Another part of me worried that if I talked about it, the hope would grow. I didn't want to start building up that hope only to disappoint myself.

If I never looked into it, I couldn't be let down.

I strongly feared that if I was let down that way, I wouldn't be able to pull myself back up. That if I found another goal and didn't think about it, the hope would always remain. Right now, I needed that hope just to make it through the day.

Travelling with Roland and Max wasn't that goal, but it kept me occupied. It kept me moving forward, rather than regressing.

My first harvest festival had been an interesting experience. The people in Callow were much more open about sex than I was used to, and that had been made clear to me during the raucous celebrations. I had to turn down far more people than I was actually comfortable with.

I wasn't in the right state of mind for a casual fling.

It was also odd seeing people refuse to eat poultry when the geese were migrating, but that was easier to swallow.

We arrived in Hedges at the start of Winter. A light dusting of snow fell over the pastures as we rode in from the south. Despite this, the place felt cosy. It was a small town that barely had a wall surrounding it. It looked so worn down that if the fairytale wolf came and huffed and puffed, I was certain it would fall over.

We set up shop once more, by now it was an experience all three of us were familiar with. Despite Maxime having recently started teaching me the theory behind healing, it was not something I had risked putting into practice just yet. None of us knew what would happen if I did, since I wasn't using traditional sorcery. The plan was to test it on animals first.

I didn't expect it to go well, but it was a skill I was determined to learn. Even if it meant having to learn far more about biology than I had ever intended to, being able to modify biology was too valuable a skill to pass up.

I was busy stirring a cauldron inside when a man came in, looking visibly concerned.

"This is the place with the wizards?" He asked.

I looked him over more critically.

A full head taller than me and broad shouldered, he was absolutely massive. Put in any room, and I would bet on him towering over everyone inside. His face was weathered, worn down by age. I guessed he was in his late fifties. Despite this, he stood straight. I couldn't see anything immediately wrong with him, so I wondered what the problem was.

I hoped it wasn't another one of those men hoping for a pick me up in bed. Too many people came in for a treatment for that "ailment."

"It is," I replied.

"Would you mind looking over my wife for me? I've visited the priests, and they said there was nothing they could do." He sounded distraught.

That sounded more serious.

"Give me a moment," I told him.

Looking over the mixture more critically, I determined that it had another minute or so before it was done. Once it finished simmering, I put out the fire, leaving it to cool.

"Right, I'm not actually a healer, but I can take a look and find out if there is something that can be done. Mind if I let my friends know that I'm going out?" The others were upstairs, busy looking over somebody else. This was something I could do on my own.

"That's fine," he agreed.

It wasn't feasible for us to always stick together. By necessity, we sometimes had to split up. That didn't mean we couldn't be careful about it. Telling each other where we were going and what we were doing was the very least we could do to avoid problems.

After going upstairs and letting them know what I was doing, I came down and told him to show me to her.

He nodded at me thankfully, then started leading the way out.

The light from the sun shone down from above, shining through between the leafless branches of trees on either side of the road. We made our way rapidly to a farm just outside the city walls. I was alert, wary in case of an ambush. I didn't actually expect one, considering how stupid it would be to try to attack an alleged wizard. That still wasn't a good reason for me to be careless. After all, it would only take one mistake on my part to end up dead in a ditch.

The farmer invited me in and after being led to the bedroom, I was greeted by the sigh of an elderly lady sleeping peacefully in bed. At first glance, it seemed there was nothing wrong. Then I noticed the painting hanging from the wall.

It was a painting of the wife standing beneath what I guessed was The Wall. The Wall was a structure which existed in Daoine, separating the Duchy of Daoine from the Greenskin Marches.

The style looked familiar, but I didn't immediately recognize it. Something about it tickled my memory. It bothered me, so I asked about it.

"Where did you buy that?"

Bewildered, the man took a moment to respond.

"Why, is it important? I brought you here to look over my wife!" He sounded upset.

"Because something about it is familiar. Maybe it's related." I answered.

"We bought it a week ago from a travelling merchant. My wife only passed out four days ago, though. Now, tell me. Is there anything you can do?" He pressed.

A sense of foreboding stole over me as I recalled the Arcadian Artist. It wasn't a guarantee it was him, but the possibility was there and it was strong. I realized why I hadn't recognized it immediately. The quality of the work was much lower than the paintings I had seen before. The lines of the brush strokes seemed more careless, as if they were done in a hurry without being given much thought.

I was about to tell the farmer my suspicions, when I felt the phantom fingers of Max pressing down on my shoulders.

Think, Taylor.

If I told him there was a villainous painter going around, what kind of outcome would it cause? If he believed me, he would be angry. Maybe go to the Legions and rouse a fuss. Regardless of whether the Artist was here or not, telling him would cause more trouble than we needed.

We could solve the problem, without actually informing the farmer of the cause.

… It also wasn't my decision alone to make. I was part of a group. That meant taking other people's opinions into account.

"I will need to consult with my friends. There is nothing I can do alone, but I think one of them may be able to help." I told him. He didn't look happy, but he accepted the outcome with a wordless nod.

Making my way back to our shop, I prepared to break the news.

This seemed like the beginnings of a story. That meant Roland was going to be the one front and centre stage.

Arriving, I made my way upstairs. Their patient had since been ushered out, and the two of them were talking to each other in low voices. From a distance, it looked like they were examining something of a desk, but I couldn't make out what.

"Roland," I said.

"Yes, Taylor?" He replied frostily, without looking up.

"I think we have a problem."

Both of them stopped what they were doing and turned my way.

"How rough are we talking here, Taylor? Alamans or Lycaonese?" Max asked.

I ignored what he said and continued to lay out what I found.

"A farmer came in. His wife has been unconscious for four days. In their room is a painting they bought from a travelling artist a week ago. I think the Arcadian Artist is somewhere nearby."

What levity remained drained out of the room.

"Did you cause us further strife by raising your concerns with the farmer?" Roland accused.

"No."

"Then we should begin investigating. Our first step should be to ask around, find out if anyone knows where he is. Once we have discovered where he has made his lair, we can perform a closer reconnaissance." Roland started laying out his thoughts, planning out what we should do.

Despite how long I had spent playing either second or third fiddle to him, it still rankled not being the one in control. Learning to let someone I felt didn't have enough experience take the lead was hard for me. Sadly, with Names involved, it might actually be the right choice. Fortunately, he didn't completely disregard my advice.

Max and I would stick together. It was one of the defence mechanisms we had agreed to try out. I wasn't sure how much it would help, but it was better to try something than nothing at all. We suspected it would work to avoid stories involving companions being abducted, although we couldn't be entirely sure. It certainly avoided stories involving defenceless maidens off on their own. Not that I was a maiden regardless.

The two of us set out and started asking around.

What we learned was concerning.

There were another five cases like this in the outlying farms. The farmer who had brought the matter to us was just the first to get us involved. The Artist wasn't being discreet at all. After regrouping, we discussed the matter. Max suggested that it was an effort to recoup his losses after we drove him away. The idea seemed plausible.

The fact that he would be willing to be so direct after being circumspect in his previous encounter surprised me. My guess was that he intended to leave using his brush again and didn't care to burn bridges as a result.

Soon enough, we learned that our suspect had left the city, heading out west. I wasn't sure where he was going. That way lay the Whitecaps. They were the mountain range dividing Callow and Procer and at this part of the range, there wasn't an easy way to cross. It was no matter. Whether he was heading there to paint the scenery or start a new plot, we would find and stop him.

The three of us collected our belongings and headed out in pursuit. We were days behind, and so we had to push hard. I wasn't sure whether the Artist would be expecting anyone to follow him or not. With the way he seemed to work, he didn't draw much attention to himself. By the time evidence of his activity started to show up in an area, he had already moved on. Him drawing attention to himself like this seemed like a break in the pattern.

---

Four days into our following of his trail, and we finally caught sight of a caravan on the horizon. The terrain had grown rugged. The grass was short, and the ground was uneven. In the distance, the mountains loomed. It was a nightmare to progress. Our transport was not built for this kind of terrain, and I doubted the Artist's caravan was either.

We spotted it standing just below what looked to be the ruins of some ancient civilization. The ruins themselves were on a plateau above and weren't easily reached, but whatever the place was, it looked to have an interesting history.

The field of disinterest I maintained around myself was a constant drain, but I would rather keep it up than risk any problems.

Then I felt something odd. It was like a braided knot tied inside my sphere of influence. Curious, I poked at it and found it unyielding.

"There's something strange up there," I pointed from my position on the cart.

"Strange how?" Max mused.

Roland stood up and began an incantation. His eyes flashed briefly, then he turned towards where I indicated.

"Indeed, I am unable to discern any notable discrepancies," he added.

"It's like there's a knot in my perception up in those ruins," I explained.

The other two looked at each other, concerned. Whilst Max was accepting of what I could do, Roland was still uncomfortable with it. This was the first time something had appeared that was only detectable to me and not them, so their reaction was reasonable.

"Have you any insights into the nature of this oddity?" Roland inquired, sitting down again.

I focused harder on it. This particular sense was extremely subtle and took a lot of concentration for me to even notice it was there. I doubted I would be able to provide them with any useful information, but there was no harm in trying.

Whatever it was, I didn't think it was alive, but I couldn't actually prove it. The sensation of whatever it was mostly closely approximated the feeling of approaching a warded building. That was the only reason I was able to make any judgement calls about it at all.

"I… think it's some sort of ward, but I'm not sure," I hedged.

Both of them seemed satisfied with my response.

"Then we should endeavour to approach most cautiously as we make to engage with our foe."

I didn't know why there was a ward active this far out. But I did agree that leaving it alone did seem like a smart idea.

"That makes sense," I replied.

We picked up our pace, moving closer. We had halved the distance when I called for a stop. I doubted the effect I was maintaining would offset the oddity of seeing three people in the middle of nowhere if we moved any closer. Especially since the Artist apparently negotiated with the Fae. It seemed likely he would have experience with similar effects.

The drain was also a liability once we actually got into a fight.

"He'll probably notice us if we move closer," I stated.

It was unfortunate. Being able to simply walk right up and knife the man would make the situation so much easier.

"It is the most likely of circumstances," Roland agreed.

"We should ambush him," Maxime stated firmly.

I was inclined to agree.

"Which of us do you believe should strike out as our guiding knife?" Roland asked.

We had what loosely counted as three mages, and the Artist was vulnerable without time to actually prepare. The others had clued me in on how the Artist appeared to fight. He had the ability to bring some of his paintings to life, materializing them in Creation. The constructs were still blobs of animated paint, but that didn't make them less dangerous. The claws of the painted tiger that Maxime had fought we just as sharp as real claws, despite being made of paint.

The Artist's ability was odd because of how versatile it seemed to be. Nothing in magic was free, he had to be paying for the power somehow. We suspected that it was fuelled by captured souls.

"Why not try to coordinate a joint strike all at the same time?" I kept my eyes on the Artist's position as I spoke, in case something went wrong.

"If we commit the fullness of our strength to the opening blow, then how are we to deal with his response?"

I sort of followed his logic, but I didn't like it. It was more story bullshit. If we committed fully at the start, then he could escalate and we would have no appropriate response. Still, I'd already been bitten once by a story, I was willing to give this a shot.

"Maxime should. He has the most experience with war magic," I answered.

"You want me to fuck around first? Why not you, girlie? Out of all of us, you can strike-"

Suddenly, I felt a change. It was as if there were two different places overlapping somewhere inside the caravan.

"I think the Artist is doing something," I interjected urgently. "I can feel something in the world around me. We need to act fast."

Both of the others became alert at what I said.

"Maxime, heed her words," Roland commanded.

"I can blow him from here," Maxime declared. His gaze sharpened, it looked like he was preparing to cast.

"Forces from above, powerful and profound," he began, raising the palm of his right hand to the sky. His other hand traced symbols in the air.

I jumped off the cart and then split off to the left. Roland did the same, but split off to the right. This time, we wouldn't be allowing the Artist to get away.

"I call upon you to pay heed, bring your wrath to bear." His hand came down, index finger pointing towards the caravan.

"Hear me now and rend this world asunder!"

Jaquinite sorcery when used properly was very dramatic to watch. Max had told me it was based off of mages trying to emulate the miracles of priests with their workings. If you were in it for theatre, I could definitely see the appeal. I would prefer to know a different school of magic myself. I wasn't the biggest fan of how everything done by Jacquinite wizards looked and sounded like you were supplicating yourself before the gods.

Unfortunately, after spending time in Callow and having seen some of what Trismegistan sorcery could do, I was regretting that it hadn't been what I was taught to use. It apparently required more book learning up front, but had a much greater pay-off long term. That is, I would regret it if I ever found myself using traditional sorcery instead of doing… Whatever it was that I was doing.

The sky darkened for a moment. Then, three consecutive bolts of lightning came crashing down out of a cloudless sky, blasting into our enemy's mode of transportation. The charred wreckage rolled over thrice before coming to rest.

Staying alert, I sped up. I was waiting until I saw our opponent before I attacked. I didn't know my exact limits on larger effects. It wasn't like I could test them without drawing attention. Better for me to be sure, then waste my efforts on nothing.

The distance continued to close. Up ahead, what looked to be two dozen painted tigers suddenly phased into existence. Reacting on instinct, I hurled a ball of fire at one of them. It was far more effective than I expected. The fire spread rapidly over it, consuming it entirely in a matter of heartbeats.

Alerted by my attack, the others started to close in. Maxime and Roland joined in the assault. It didn't take long before the creatures had been whittled down to the last remaining tiger. Now that I was more alert, I took the time to examine it more closely. It was clearly painted into existence. Its stripes were thick lines of ivory black paint trailing across a body composed of burnt sienna blobs.

It really was the Artist then.

Not that I had had any doubts, but it was good to confirm it.

Disposing of it, we picked up the pace. All of us were tense.

"He's trying to slow us down!" Max exclaimed.

I couldn't help but agree.

The tigers served no other purpose than to buy him time. Without catching us in an ambush, they simply weren't threatening. Right now, we were already forewarned. If he didn't come up with a something else, then this fight wouldn't be a problem at all. It would not be long now until we were close enough to engage the Artist properly.

Then a painted dragon manifested.

It was twenty feet from tail to snout and seemed to have been conceived of in a hurry. Whilst the outline of the Dragon had been completed, and the extremities had been painted in, the stomach was an incomplete mess with holes gaping through. The crimson brush strokes that made up its wings were messy and dripped splotches of paint onto the rocky ground below.

For a moment, I paused.

That…hadn't been what I was expecting.

Right then, I looked on in that way animals do when they respond to the presence of a larger predator. Shaking myself out of my funk, I hurled a ball of flame at it.

The dragon caught light.

"It still burns!" I shouted out.

It dashed forward, coming towards me in a blaze of movement. Next thing I knew, one of its claws was swiping at me. I tumbled to the side, trying to avoid the strike. I suppressed a wince as I smashed against some of the snow covered rocks.

Fast!

Another claw came raking down towards me. I manifested a pane of solid force between us. It struck, but my shield held.

I started to run, making some distance between myself and the dragon. I threw more flames at it as I went, trying to keep up the pressure. The dragon followed. I found, to my mounting dismay, that it moved faster than I did.

A third blow. The shield I conjured this time cracked under the force. I was sent crashing to the ground. I scrambled to my feet.

Why is it focusing on me?

No matter, I would do what I could. I realized that it moved slower when turning. This time, when I ran, I ran towards it and angled just slightly left of its claws. Awkwardly, it tried to stomp on me. I jumped to the side and narrowly avoided it. I could feel the heat radiating from the serpentine conflagration beside me. It was uncomfortably hot this close.

Out of nowhere, two painted tigers jumped at me. Scrambling, the world darkened for a moment before a beam of light bored into them. A wave of fatigue washed over me. The drain was starting to set in.

Fuck.

Distantly, I saw Roland behind the dragon. He was raining down balls of flame on its right flank, feeding into the blaze. The dragon whipped its tail back and forth, sending Roland flying backwards. I hoped that he wasn't badly hurt. Then, a bolt of lightning came hurtling out of the sky, smashing into the dragon. The beast roared.

This wasn't working. It was burning, but not fast enough. Another strike, and this time my shield shattered. I summoned a reinforced dome around myself, buying time to think.

If we couldn't burn through it quick enough, then we needed to contain it somehow. I wasn't sure if it could actually fly, since it hadn't tried yet, but it would actually be less of a threat in the air. Up there, it couldn't use its bulk as a battering ram. That gave me the inkling of an idea. I focused on the ground below it, turning dirt and rocks into mush. It started to sink in.

Scrambling, it let out a roar. Parts of it spread out into the mud. Then, it took flight. Crimson flecks rained down upon us as it flapped its wings.

At that point, the unexpected happened. The paint in the mud started to turn into amorphous blobs of ooze. That would have been fine on its own, except the ooze was on fire and jumping towards me.

I conjured a beam of frost, pulling snow from the surrounding landscape and flash freezing one of them. There were more of them coming my way, though, and I couldn't afford to be indiscriminate. Not with my friends nearby. Frustrated, I resorted to containment. I pulled up the surrounding ground, shaping it into walls and boxing them in.

The efforts of changing so much was rapidly wearing me down. My vision started to swim.

A tiger crashed into the side of my dome. How many of the cats did the Artist make? Irritated, I doused it in napalm and left it to die. The world was spinning. I realized that the fumes of burning paint were starting to colour my perception. Shaking my head, I turned my attention back to the fight raging above.

Another series of lightning bolts came crashing down from above, smashing into the dragon. Max was in fine form today, it seemed. His attack struck one of its wings, disrupting its flight.

Then the beast did something unexpected. It seemed to roll up into itself, from tail to snout. As it did so, its mass compressed into its head. Then it acted. In a final act of spite, it breathed its body out as a cone of flaming paint. If it hadn't been on fire, it would have been more comical than threatening. Unfortunately, it was.

The remaining snow all around the battlefield was pulled in towards one point. Then, a pillar of condensed snow shot up from the ground. The pillar proceeded to curve outwards. It shaped itself into a dome. The flames collided with it. They broke up on contact, scattering around. I looked around and saw Roland panting beside our wagon. Seemed it had been action on his part then.

I started making my way towards him. Max sidled up beside me and we arrived together not long after.

"We must make haste. The Artist is surely using the commotion to buy time in order to enact his escape." Roland declared.

"Right," I agreed.

Max said nothing.

The three of us started to approach the caravan's remains. Shaping a hole into the floor, we entered. Inside was a mess of upturned artistry. Cautiously, we looked around. Supplies were strewn haphazardly across the interior, and furniture had been displaced. Shattered glass and flecks of paint decorated the place like a work of modern art. We walked forward along the right wall, careful where we placed our feet as we went.

The artist couldn't be seen.

Then, on the far wall, I spotted a doorway that had been painted in white tinged with red. I moved in close, examining it further. Experimentally, I grabbed a rolled up sheet of canvas and prodded the paint. The canvas passed right through.

Frowning, I pulled the canvas out and looked over it closely. It looked perfectly fine. I dropped the canvas. I suspected the Artist had escaped through the painting. That was how he escaped the last time, right?

Slowly, I poked the doorway with my stump. I figured if I was going to lose some more of my body to ill-advised experimentation, it might as well be the part I had already partially lost. It sunk in, but otherwise seemed to be undamaged when I pulled it out. Feeling more assured, I reached out with my hand.

My hand passed through the paint.

"He went through here," I called out.

Max sidled up beside me.

"How can you be sure?" He asked.

Shrugging, I picked up the roll of canvas by way of explanation and tossed it right through.

"You didn't check what happens by sticking parts of your body through there, did you?" He said, accusingly.

"I stuck the canvas in first!" I protested half-heartedly.

"Taylor, how many times do I need to tell you to care about yourself more!" He exclaimed.

I looked away sheepishly.

You're not my dad.

The thought registered dimly, but I didn't say it out loud. Even if he was, I was nineteen, and I had been looking after myself for years before I arrived here. I could manage just fine.

"It was only a small part of my stump," I protested.

He seized me in both hands by the shoulders and gently shook me.

"If you don't give a fuck about yourself, how can you give a fuck about anyone else? Weeping heavens, girl. Think! What do you think it would do to us if one day you happened to kill yourself?"

I froze stiffly.

Roland cleared his throat noisily. Both of us turned and glared at him.

"I feel like I should remind you two that while you are talking, the Artist is making his escape."

"Right, well," Max said, looking flustered. "Let's get a move on."

The three of us stepped through and found ourselves in a verdant jungle. The trills of birdsong rang out around us, and the leaves of evergreens blocked out the sky above. I looked around, frowning. I didn't know which way our foe had gone.

The feel of this place reminded me of when I had fought the Prince of Nightfall.

"Be careful," I declared, "I think we are in Arcadia."

Both of the others tensed.

"That way," Max declared, pointing decisively. "See the way the underbrush has been disturbed. That isn't the work of animals. He went that way."

Following his lead, we progressed deeper into the jungle. It was slow-going, and the more time dragged on, the more our frustrations began to mount.

Eventually, we reached a tree with the outline of a doorway painted onto it. The paint was white, with hints of red. Likely the blood that the paintbrush needed. We stepped through the portal and were immediately put on the defence.

On the other side there was an ambush of tigers waiting. Hurriedly, I deployed a wall of force. They slammed into it, snarling at us. Cream-white spittle dripped all over the barrier.

The feeling of the knot was gone. I suspected that didn't bode well for us.

"Oh, how considerate of you fellows to join me. Marvellous, just marvellous. For a hero, you have my sincere admiration. I must admit that seeing you put that demon to use served as inspiration-"

… And of course the Artist was monologuing at us.

He was far behind the snarling cats, standing on the platform on the back of an absurdly large painted pachyderm. In one hand, he waved around a canvas with a sloppy painting of a standard on it. It was pitch black with a golden snake swallowing its own tail painted on. He wore a rainbow-coloured cloak on his back, which fluttered in the icy wind. Behind him, were the ruins we had seen from below.

I saw no reason to just let him talk.

I drew deeply and deployed a cone of light in front of me. There wasn't a single part of me that was willing to allow this fight to drag on. When the spots cleared from my eyes, all the tigers were gone. Drained, I folded to my knees.

The elephant was singed, but otherwise still intact. It stomped its feet angrily and turned to face my way.

… I should have gone for something more direct against him.

And he was still talking.

I started to gather myself for another strike. This one I would make sure was both more direct and fatal.

"-finding a journal detailing this location took a great deal of coin, but was clearly worth the cost. Now, thank you all for volunteering. Your contribution to my vision has been duly noted. You will be the soul of my next piece. For the next part-"

Max threw a fireball at him, interrupting his speech.

The Artist dodged aside and looked like he was about to keep talking, when my senses screamed at me. I tried to figure out what was wrong. Then I noticed that the painting of the banner had caught light.

An emptiness blossomed inside my perception. It was ravenous, seeming to try to actively consume the essence of me, and it was spreading fast. This… wasn't good.

Don't panic.

For the time being, it seemed to ignore the others. As if I was the tastiest meal in the room. Alarm mounting, I slammed my will back. I managed to reclaim some of what I was.

Whatever this thing was, the experience of fighting it was bizarre. The space that it occupied inside the nebulous area that felt like me, no longer felt like me. If I was to describe it, it felt like the absence of anything at all. The feeling of the very essence of non-existence was disorienting, especially since it seemed to be competing with the idea of me.

In the background, I saw the expression of the Artist shift into one of distress. He jumped off the back of the elephant, trying to put some distance between himself and the rapidly growing absence in reality. Max and Roland sent more fireballs his way, and I heard him yelp as he was scorched.

Another jagged slice was carved out of me, and I grimaced, fully focusing back on my own fight. If I wasn't already on my knees, I would be by now. It reminded me of my clash of wills with the Prince of Nightfall. Only, this enemy was far less methodical, almost rabid in how it lashed out.

It made it both easier and harder for me to fight against.

Another attack came my way, biting into me. Each strike felt like an ever-growing emptiness. It was what I imagined Imp's power would feel like, if you could sense she was there.

Fuck it.

Angrily, I formed my will into jaws and took a bite out of it in return. I wasn't just going to give this thing a free meal. That…turned out to be a mistake. The chunk that I took out of it tasted of paradox. As if I was hungrier for having eaten it in the first place.

I winced in pain. Right now, the absence was still winning. It was simply too fast for me to react to, and had already eaten a large part of me. Panic was starting to set in.

Max and Roland were busy contesting the elephant, which had positioned itself between them and the Artist. The beast was tougher than expected and was giving them a rough time.

My fight continued. I wasn't sure what I could do. All the tactics I had tried against it so far had failed, it seemed almost memetic in how fast it was able to strike out.

This isn't good.

What could I do? It didn't seem to adapt, or have any real intelligence at all. If I was to describe it, it was as if it was the essence of a single idea given form. It was the hole in my heart where my mom, dad and Lisa used to be. It was safety in Brockton Bay after Leviathan. A living idea that happened to be exceptionally skilled at making things absent.

The creature was much better than me at doing that single thing. But… My advantage here was that I had options. I wasn't limited to one tactic. What would be the best way to counter it? If it was absence then…

Could I…make it present then?

I had no idea if it would work, but I was running out of time and had no better ideas. I focused on the idea of remembering forgotten dreams, of nostalgia for events that never happened. It was the most abstract effect I had tried to force on the world so far. This was also the first idea I had tried to manifest that I had no power basis for. To my surprise, I didn't have much trouble imposing it.

It was as if the world really, really didn't like what the creature was doing to it.

The effect took, and the beast reeled back.

Finally, an effective weapon.

Unfortunately, it was still far faster at this type of combat than I was. Even with a tool that worked, I was losing ground.

Maxime and Roland had shifted their attention away from the elephant and were trying to box the creature in with wards. They weren't proving particularly effective, but I appreciated the help nonetheless.

I was about to suggest we do our best to run away from this thing when a word rang out.

"Harmonize."

For a moment I saw double. Two worlds, Creation and Arcadia. Then, within a radius of about five hundred feet, they overlapped. Unfortunately, I couldn't take the time to appreciate the beauty of the merge because I was busy trying not to be utterly consumed.

Then out of the sky, a very angry looking Fae lady dropped. She fell on the other side of the emptiness, but halted her descent midair by manifesting a platform of light. She was tall, light skinned and with hair of flame. The air surrounding her warped from the heat. In moments, my presence compressed again down to the smallest of balls. She stood above the battlefield with the air of someone who was clearly in their element.

At that point, everyone except me and the horrible nothingness ceased fighting and stared at her for a moment. The absence didn't stop because I don't think it was even capable of conceiving of surprise. I didn't halt because I was certain that if I did, then I wouldn't survive. To my relief, the constriction of my essence had given me somewhat of a reprieve. The thing was only brushing up the narrowest portion of me now, but unfortunately, on the other side it was currently spilling out into the countryside.

The merge ended, but the Fae Princess remained.

As if the day couldn't get any worse.

Then the Fae lady turned to me and spoke haughtily. "I greet you warmly, Princess of the Court Beyond the Stars. Have you come to lay claim to the lands of Summer, then?" Her voice had a lilting musicality to it. Despite the distance, I could hear her clearly.

As she talked, she bombarded the void with waves of fire and light. It didn't seem to be harming the thing, but it was being pressed back against me once more, no longer expanding on the other side. Flames flickered around the mountainside ominously, their movements synchronized as if dancing to a haunting tune.

I shivered involuntarily.

Somehow, I didn't think I would like her definition of warm greetings.

The heat ramped up significantly, becoming blinding to look at. I averted my gaze, focusing solely on my fight. Most of the ruins on the other side of the battlefield had been melted down into slag. There was no place for shadows to hide.

The Princess was absolutely terrifying.

Maxime and Roland had both left the battlefield and moved in beside me. Their faces were pale, and they seemed to be on their last emotional legs. They were completely worn out.

"I do not intend to lay claim to the lands of Summer," I shouted out. I had no idea if it was the right thing to say, but right now I could not afford to fight a battle on two fronts.

Let's not upset the Fae, Taylor.

Once again, I felt a presence looking in. It seemed to take note of what I said. Then, it promptly vanished. It disturbed me, but right now wasn't the time to dwell on it.

Unfortunately, I hadn't managed to learn much about the Fae yet. The kinds of books that contained that information I needed were banned in Callow, and so I only had children's stories to go off of.

"She's… Princess…Sulia…" Roland panted out at me. Sweat ran down his brow in rivers, the heat from the Fae was overpowering.

I didn't know what that meant. If she operated at a similar level to the Prince of Nightfall, though, then in our current state we didn't stand a chance.

I continued to wield my weapon against the emptiness. With the smaller surface area to defend, it was easier for me to fight back. I realized what the Princess was doing. Her attacks seemed capable of moving the thing, but not harming it. She was forcing it against me to see it finally killed. Each strike of mine, the beast recoiled as I hit at it with its complete opposite.

"Who?" I hissed back for clarification.

The scorching presence I had felt from the Princess seemed to cool suddenly. It no longer felt like I stood in the centre of an inferno, but instead felt like I stood next to the fire of a hearth. I looked up at her once more, now that the light shining down on me was no longer blinding in intensity.

"Princess Sulia of the High Noon, girlie," Max repeated, his face as pale as an ostrich egg.

That still didn't help. From the way that the other two reacted, though, it was something to be afraid of.

Not that my own experiences with Fae royalty gave me any other kind of impression.

Sulia turned my way again, then smiled radiantly at me. "News of your military prowess has reached the Summer Court. Your command of the battlefield is to be lauded. A visit to our Court on your part would be most welcome. An exchange of tactics would benefit both Courts, after all." Her voice came from all around us and seemed to hint at grand celebrations and scenes of splendour hidden just out of sight.

Despite taking her eyes off of the enemy, her assault did not let up. She had the creature surrounded by a roaring conflagration, imprisoning it in an incomplete sphere of flames. Slowly the two of us were whittling it away.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noted Roland and Maxime looking at me as if I had grown a second head. I wasn't entirely sure what she was talking about either. I had only ever commanded what could be counted as an army once, and I wasn't so proud of what I did at the time. If she was referring to that fight, then I wasn't so keen on seeing the Court of Summer copying the tactics I used either.

The size of the absence had shrunk significantly. It seemed almost panicked, doing anything it could to escape from me. I was tired and worn through, but it didn't matter. Right now, it seemed that I was winning, and so I went on the assault.

"You told me you weren't in the army, girlie," Maxime said reproachfully.

"I wasn't," I hissed back.

I needed to think through how I would respond to the Fae Princess.

Despite still being out of my depth, I felt more confident negotiating with the Fae than I was the last time. I had seen enough to convince me that they truly did live life entirely through narrative. That meant that there was a story in play involving me being a Princess, and the Fae were inclined to follow it.

I really should have gone with damsel and not Princess.

I just needed to figure out what the story was. Which was where the problems started. Was I supposed to be an ambassador of some sort? The idea that the Summer Fae wanted to make an alliance with an imaginary Court seemed absurd to me. Unfortunately, it was my best guess.

As magnificent as I expected the Summer Court would be, I didn't want to actually go there. I didn't expect I would survive the place for very long. How could I talk myself out of a visit? Refusing outright seemed like a bad idea, she would probably take offence. Maybe try delaying for an indeterminate amount of time? Having to fight this thing and think at the same time meant I was sure to make mistakes.

The last of the essence of nothingness was consumed, and the battle drew to a close. Then, the fires all winked out. It was an intimidating demonstration, showing just how capable the Princess really was. Looking around, I noted the Artist was nowhere in sight. I wasn't sure if he was dead or had escaped, but I would assume the latter.

Better to be paranoid and alive, than carefree and dead.

The Princess manifested stairs of light from the ground to her platform, and then began to descend. She stopped before us.

"We are currently in pursuit of our quarry. They are aligned with Winter's Host. Would holding off on other matters until our hunt has concluded give offence?" I rasped out. The air was unbearably dry.

Please let this be the end of it.

Whether he escaped or not, I would use him as an excuse to try and untangle myself from Fae politics. The Callowen children's stories I had read suggested that Summer was militant and valued strength of arms. It was not much to go on, but it was better than nothing. If it was true, then maybe I could use it to escape here.

"That is acceptable. I look forward to your pending visit." The Fae Princess replied. She seemed pleased about something, much to my chagrin.

Did that vague statement count as making a bargain?

This was a mess I would need to untangle later.

Sulia turned to the portal behind us and eyed it critically. Somehow it had survived the conflict. Stepping through, she turned around and smiled at us, then the entire thing went up in flames.

My bubble of influence spread out again, rapidly claiming the surrounding countryside. Pockets of absence still remained, but I quickly snuffed them all out.

All the tension from the fight drained right out of me.

"Is the Artist dead?" I croaked.

Both of them shrugged.

It seemed none of us knew.

Roland sat down beside me and then started shaking, as if suffering from hysteria. I wasn't sure what to do.

I turned to Max. He looked pale as well.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Girlie, if you eat out a demon, is it sex or cannibalism?" his voice sounded faint.

What?

I was too tired to say anything back.

"The creature that the two of you felled was an Absence demon. Had it merely touched Max or me, we would never have existed at all," Roland stated.

"Really?"

There weren't many things that could allegedly stop demons. Heroes were one, Angels another. If you were utterly mad, using another demon was a distant third.

Guess that really did make me a demon then.

This would make some introductions awkward. What happened when I met someone who could tell what I was at a glance? Someone who didn't live their life through a story, anyhow. Somehow, I didn't think telling them I was a friendly demon was ever going to pass muster.

"There is no doubt," he affirmed.

If that was the case, then no wonder they looked so pale.

"How can I remember? I shouldn't remember. I have a memory of something that's not." Roland muttered quietly to himself.

Because that wasn't concerning at all.

"We're fucked now, you know that, right?" Max said.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because if anyone finds out about this fight, they will try to purge us for sure."

Lovely.

"Say…" Maxime trailed off.

"Yes Max?" I part opened my eyes, looking at him.

"What does Absence demon taste like?"

"You're more hungry after you eat one," I told him.

Max smiled, seeming to find the idea funny.

I certainly didn't.

"Is it within your ability to clean up the corruption?" Roland asked, his voice sounding strained.

"There is none," I replied absently.

"How certain of this are you?" He pressed.

"It never left the full extent of my influence. When Sulia left, I claimed whatever remained." I explained.

That seemed to mollify both of them.

"Taylor, I haven't pressed you hurting but… We need to have a proper talk about where you came from and how you got here, with nothing left out. Without drinks involved." It was the most serious I had seen Max in a while.

"Do we really need to?"

"How's about another deal," Max said. "One day a month, all of us tells one story from our past. The ones that hurt the most. All of us are hurting, this way we can find strength from each other. You promised that you would pick yourself up, remember?"

That sounded like a compromise of sorts. That they would share, because they wanted me to.

It reminded me vaguely of Jessica Yamada, except none of us were psychologists.

"I find these terms agreeable," Roland added.

That was obvious. We all knew his story.

It seemed I wouldn't be avoiding my demons after all.

"Fine."

"It's imperative that we ascertain the wholeness of what you can do, Taylor. The manner in which you arrived, if others like you will arrive as well. I propose that moving forward we consider this our primary goal." Roland expanded as he climbed to his feet.

"I thought you wanted to be a hero, though, go out and help others?" I asked

"What kind of hero would I be if I did not make the effort to assist my friends. This is your journey as much as it is mine," He replied.

I… was going to have to live with that. I suppose it beat just aimlessly wandering around. It gave us a goal, even if it was one I had been actively avoiding because of how much it hurt. Find out more about how I got here.

And risk having my hopes crushed.

"Furthermore, I would go so far as to state that we may have to journey into Praes to learn more."

While I could see his point about needing to know more about me, I also had no intention of being killed or stuffed in a bottle. Going into Praes sounded like a sure way to end up dead.

"No," I shut him down immediately, "Callow at most, not Praes."

"But we need to determine what influence you are having on-"

The battle had shown me that I was missing a lot. I hadn't even thought to try to create effects that weren't powers before running into something that did as much. So I could sort of see his concern, but I wasn't willing to take such a big risk.

"No," I cut him off again.

"Say girlie," I could hear the teasing in Maxime's voice, "when you were planning to tell us you were a proper Princess. A high class lady like you can't be caught out with the likes of us."

It took me a moment to realize what he was talking.

"I'm not. I just made that up to occupy the Prince of Nightfall," I answered curtly.

"If the claim had no merit, then the Princess of High Noon would have entertained it not at all," Roland denied.

The thought bothered me. It meant that there was even more we needed to find out about. They were both right. I had been stagnating.

Travelling as we had been had helped distract me from my funk, but it wasn't helping me find a way forward.

"Then we need to learn more about the Fae as well," I admitted.

We bickered a bit longer, then each of us took a moment to share a single story. Haltingly, I began to talk about the end of the world. I didn't mention my part in it, only the details surrounding what happened. I told them that as far as I knew, I died during the fight, then I woke up here.

A solemn silence fell for a moment after I finished speaking.

Max talked about what he came home to when his wife and daughter were murdered. Their entrails hanging from hooks dug into the ceiling. Roland talked about the brother he used to know, not the brother that came to be.

I didn't know if it helped at all, but it seemed like I wouldn't be able to put off talking about the specifics of my life any longer.

Eventually, the conversation died. The three of us rested for a moment before heading back to the cart. Reflecting on the battle, it felt like defeat. The artist had likely escaped from us, and we had nothing to show for it.

 

[derivativeoflife]

Man, Taylor needs to stay tf away from Warlock if she doesn't want to get dissected.

 

[Slow Learner]

She fused with queen admin and is technically royalty by shard standards.

Also, will she be able to use legends powers now that she ate that demon? Or does she need to eat more? I'm also stumped why she hasn't tried thinker powers or healing herself.

 

[ptbptb]

She fused with queen admin and is technically royalty by shard standards.

Click to shrink...

Mixture of one part Queen and one part Commoner equals Princess. The math(?) checks out.

 

[Zoolimar]

Don't forget that QAs suggestion at the end of Worm was for Taylor to conquer the multiverse together - as in take over the Shard Network and then the whole multiverse Earth cluster. With possibility of expanding further later.
And the end result that we got is because QA allowed Taylor to choose what she wants.

So Taylor is basically Princess in Exile.