The lindwurm answered Falliana when he cowed from Bellicosiaxtramondagron.

  “Worms aren’t the wisest of my kind. To be frank, they are barely of my kind. Stragglers on the edges of the family tree, so to speak. His youth does him no favors either.”

  The lindwurm screeched, rippling the air just behind the undead dragon’s skeletal tail.

  He had length on the belligerent one, but not bulk.

  His long, sinuous body undulated like a serpent of the sea swimming through the air as if it was water under the power of his inherent magic.

  The youths tended to instinctive spellcasting rather than the deliberate, practiced kind.

  He was long and sinuous, except for the pair of long, sinewy arms ending in four-fingered hands with curved claws like swords extending from a slight chest and shoulders roughly a third of the way down his body from his draconic head.

  “Have you a name, worm?” Bellicosiaxtramondagron said.

  A ringing shriek was the answer.

  “Very well. Die unremembered. Don’t worry, I shall take care of your— my hoard.” Bellicosiaxtramondagron lowered his voice to a whisper. “Well, kill him.”

  “Squeamish? I had not thought you had a heart,” Falliana said.

  Not in the literal sense.

  The undead dragon’s heart was the only thing in his body that could be considered alive, loosely.

  “Would you kill a child of whatever species of human you are? I thought not. He is beneath me.”

  “You would disobey Lord Cross?”

  The undead dragon rumbled a moment then rolled into a dive.

  One sustained blast of freezing breath.

  One magical javelin explosion.

  One dead lindwurm crashed into the mountainside.

  “My lord.”

  “The lindwurm is dead.”

  She heard his voice in her ear as if he stood next to her.

  A feat she had yet to understand considering she was beyond the range of the inferior communication gems he had allocated from the empress’— his armories.

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Good job. Proceed as planned.”

  “Collect the corpse, monster. We return to the Frozen Eternities.”

  “I should cover the hole. We don’t want thieves stealing from my— the hoard.”

  “Make it quick.”

  The undead dragon breathed ice over the dead lindwurm’s lair in one pass before skimming the ground to pick up his body up.

  …

  Draglisa loomed over Nila.

  The old woman was apparently over three hundred years old.

  The blue-skinned human was not only as tall as a basketball player and as powerfully built as a power-lifter, she was still hale and hearty despite having been taken from her people as a baby in the last apocalypse.

  She had been forced to bear many children, who were forced to bear many children and so on and so forth.

  Despite this the formerly enslaved across the entirety of the Frozen Eternities only numbered a few thousand.

  All of which had been moved into the safest, warmest cavern.

  Which was to say it was slightly above freezing despite the hot springs.

  Bowed heads and hunched shoulders.

  Generations of brutal degradation wasn’t going to be undone in a few weeks.

  “How are things for your— the people, Elder Draglisa?” Nila amended.

  Roughly ninety percent of the freed were blue-skinned.

  The rest was comprised of peoples from all over this world and the last remnants of peoples now extinct from the world.

  She and Cal didn’t know how to go about sending the latter to their people on other worlds.

  There were a lot of questions.

  They were the same species, but what about culturally?

  Distance and time might make them aliens to each other.

  “We have no complaints, Lady Cross.”

  Nila kept her face expressionless.

  They were all very sensitive to the slightest expression, waiting for the lash or the touch of death at the lightest perceived mistake. Those were the empress’ most merciful punishments. Experimentation and torment that could last centuries had been more common.

  As much as she didn’t like that name, she’d bear it for their sake.

  “Please don’t hesitate to ask for anything. Food, medicine, potions? Entertainment? There are entire chambers filled with, uh, show orbs, music boxes and moving art scrolls and books.”

  She had taken a brief read and watch of the latter and had to admit she might’ve found a new obsession.

  “No, my lady. We have all we need.” The massive old woman’s eyes flicked to the silver and black object hovering slight behind and over Nila’s shoulder.

  The octahedron was a little larger than a basketball and thrummed with barely contained power and threat.

  Nila eyed the thin silver and black bracelet around her left wrist.

  “Okay, well, I just wanted to keep you all informed.” She raised her voice and activated the speaking gem to carry her words to every part of the massive cavern so that not a single person would be left out. “We’ve begun the attack. All fishing villages on the south shore have been captured without a single loss of life. So, those that volunteered to go and speak with your people, please be ready. You might be called on at any time, but not until tomorrow most likely. We have to make sure it’s safe for you first.”

  A few more encouraging words and promises that their eternal nightmares were behind them and that there were only a few more steps until they were out of the dark tunnel.

  Nila left, striding quickly to the next box on her checklist for the day.

  The living armor followed.

  …

  “I’m Adwird Trovas.”

  Nila watched from behind special magic ice clearer than glass and stronger than titanium.

  She checked her magic tablet, also made of special magic ice.

  Footman, Level 27.

  Empire of Man.

  Conscripted in the last calamity.

  Farmer’s son, but refused the class even when it would’ve given him good strength, endurance and toughness Skills for a combat base.

  Drawer, Level 9.

  His true passion.

  Revenant, Level 1.

  What the empress made him.

  Frozen the whole time.

  Over three hundred years in his ice tomb.

  “I’m Adwird Trovas!”

  “Yes, yes, stop moving. You’re tearing your flesh.”

  Blue-ish tint to his skin, but not nearly as hairy and much smaller than the only other blue-skinned human population on the continent.

  Adwird’s people had lost the last apocalypse, paving the way for the Empire of Man’s current upper class to take over.

  Records in the archives said that his people were either turned into a few thousand revenants like him or their skeletons and parts were now part of the many undead. Any stragglers that escaped her hordes ended up elsewhere. On other continents or worlds where their descendants continued to exist, probably.

  “Congratulations, Adwird Trovas. You have your memories once more.” The other revenant, Doctor Holoni Jynson fiddled with the Enysomen Crown, pulling it from his head with only a few droplets of crimson lingering on the small needles.

  Adwird’s smiled from ear to ear.

  “I— my family?” It dropped.

  The pink-skinned revenant doctor sighed.

  “Hopefully they’re really dead. You wouldn’t want their corpse walking around would you? Or their souls trapped in eternal suffering in an abomination?”

  “Er… no…”

  “Adwird Trovas, you’re luckier than most that you just awoke. You haven’t had to live, see and do all the atrocities she made me do.”

  “I’m… sorry?”

  She shooed him out of the chair.

  “Thank whatever god or gods you believe in that you are free. Now, please follow the blue arrows to your next appointment.”

  It was convenient that the empress had been a pathological collector.

  It meant that there was a revenant for almost anything Nila and Cal needed.

  Adwird had an appointment with a therapist, specifically, a mind healer.

  Suiteonem Prime, Suiteonem’s Sanctuary, World Tree, Suiteonem V, 20136

  Less than month was all it took to make Seven look like a strategic genius several steps ahead of the rest of them.

  Sixty-eight stood in her place in the neat rows and columns of the assembly hall.

  Golden-eyed eidolons stood above her and the ninety-nine other demigod children of Suiteonem.

  They occupied the highest platforms, while the many kathigos and hoplos occupied lower platforms according to their statuses in the schools hierarchy.

  “Today you will select your lochos,” the Speaker intoned.

  The Speaker spoke for the eidolons in all but the most important occasions.

  Sixty-eight understood this to mean that the eidolons only addressed the assembled if Suiteonem was present.

  The Speaker bothered her.

  They wore loose robes of painfully vibrant violet and a blank helmet that looked to be made of the same stone in her dormitory.

  The voice didn’t help in revealing their gender.

  It sounded neither female, nor male or maybe it sounded like both?

  The best that she could tell was that the Speaker was at minimum a humanoid based on size and proportions.

  “Five is a sacred number. Five in your lochos. Five hours to choose. Failure will lead to a dire fate.” The Speaker spread their arms, pointing to the exits on both sides of the large hall. “You may utilize training areas to aid in the selection process. Begin in the name of your God! Suiteonem watches eternally! May his rage strengthen us always!”

  Sixty-eight tried not to look at the pair of golden eyes set high above and behind the speaking stage.

  They sometimes moved and glowed.

  Or at least that was what she thought.

  A heavy, calloused hand landed on her shoulder.

  It took effort to not blindly lash out with a kick like the dogmules in her friend’s farm back home.

  Eighty stepped up beside her.

  “We should join our war band.”

  The older girl was big and brawny like most of the boys.

  She was quicker to anger, but what made Seven choose Eighty was that she was a follower and though quick to heat, she was also quick to cool.

  Sixty-eight used Eighty’s bulk like a plow to push through the chaotic crowd of half-siblings to the front of the assembly where Seven and Fifteen waited.

  “You said you were going to get all five before this.” Fifteen scowled, jabbing a finger at Seven’s chest.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  He stifled a snarl and took a deep breath.

  “I miscalculated. My projections suggested we had approximately two weeks.” He regarded the crowd with a pointed look. “Four out of five puts us ahead of everyone else. Only a handful have gotten to the point of pairs or a triad. Would you rather you had to deal with that?”

  Shoving matches and even a few blows were already being traded in the many heated confrontations to determine hierarchies and such.

  Sixty-eight kept her mouth shut, but she had to admit it had been a good idea to listen to Seven.

  “Very well,” Fifteen huffed. “Let’s get our last member before I start getting angry. Since you haven’t, Seven, I have a few ideas on who might make a good fifth.”

  Seven smiled broadly.

  “Perfect! Let’s all compare our lists and narrow our choice to one. It shall be our first act as a lochos!”

  Sixty-eight growled.

  List?

  What list?

  She had made no list.

  Eighty grunted toward the rest of the kids in the same row as Seven at the front of the assembly.

  Groups were forming around the top ten as they allowed the others to come to them.

  “Start at One.” She shrugged boulder-like shoulders. “If he doesn’t want, then we ask Two.”

  “Our numbers don’t matter, Eighty.” He gave her a significant look. “It’s just the order in which we were knocked out of the Grand Brawl. Are you weaker in a fight than seventy-nine others?”

  “No,” she grumbled.

  “Correct. It took six working together to knock you out.”

  “How do you know that? I don’t even remember most of it.”

  “I watched the recording. You can go to the library and the archive to ask to watch it there or they’ll give you a copy to watch in your room.”

  “You just don’t want another challenging you for leadership.” Fifteen crossed her arms.

  “Yes. That would make for a difficult and ineffective band, wouldn’t it?” Seven regarded them silently. “Here’s my thoughts. A war band needs to be balanced. Not just in the fighting part, but in the intellectual part. Remember, we’ll face challenges out in the training fields and in the classrooms. We need people that can cover as wide an area as possible. So, to that end I propose our fifth be one exceptional in the intellectual arena with a specific focus on the mechanical or alchemical field. Someone that can create devices or potions that enhance the rest of us.”

  Sixty-eight shrugged.

  That sounded good enough to her.

  “We need to prioritize a second front-liner,” Fifteen said.

  Sixty-eight was impressed that Fifteen, even on her best behavior, managed to condescend to both Seven and Eighty when explaining that the two were insufficient as the war band’s front line fighters.

  “In conclusion, you are an adequate defender,” she nodded at Eighty, “but you, as our provisional tactical leader do not belong at her side,” she said to Seven.

  “There is some merit to that, but I shall dispute it at later date when we aren’t faced with rapidly falling sand.” Seven clapped. “In any case, fighters are easier to find. Let us be on with it before the rarer gems are plucked.”

  Fifteen glared.

  “I’m sure you already have the one you want in mind.”

  Seven grinned.

  “On my list.”

  “Very well. My list also contains some that fit want you want,” Fifteen said.

  They followed Eighty forging a path through the skirmish at Seven’s direction all the way out the other side to the first name on his list.

  One of the biggest boys cut them off.

  Glaring down at Eighty, who growled and stepped closer.

  “Back off. We saw her first,” Twenty-three grunted, jerking a thumb back to their target.

  Seven pulled Eighty back.

  They moved to the next name on his list.

  “What are you doing?” Fifteen hissed. “You’re making us look weak.”

  “Not actually my first choice. Look around. We’ve got a few eyes on us. See, how they’re heading over to fight for that one. Who, admittedly, was high on my list.”

  “Then who are we getting?”

  “Thirty-two.”

  Fifteen blinked at Seven.

  “Okay, he fits your criteria, but he’s even weaker in a fight than her.”

  Sixty-eight scowled at the finger pointed in her face.

  She almost bit it off, but remembered the inner calm and inner peace of her parents’ exercises.

  “We want his mind. And with enough training the weakest of us will become fearsome fighters. We’re demigods, remember?” Seven led them to a far corner of the assembly hall.

  Thirty-two was crouched with his back to the corner like a, well, cornered mouse despite being taller than Eighty.

  He reminded Sixty-eight of the stick and straw men used to keep birds out of the crop fields.

  Even his coloration was like that of wheat.

  “Thirty-two, join our lochos,” Seven said.

  “Why?”

  “I will not beat you and I will not allow anyone else in our band to beat you.” Seven said. “You know I have far greater control of our God’s gift than anyone else. You’re not likely to catch a fist in the teeth if you displease me like you would in any of the other war bands.”

  “That’s all well and good, but they said we’ll be fighting a lot. Monsters, others, each other. I can imagine that sorts of beatings I’ll receive when you can’t win.”

  “We’re not going to lose!” Eighty snarled, stepping right in Thirty-two’s face.

  “How did he last that long in the Grand Brawl?” Fifteen mused.

  “Because he’s smart. Even when in the throes of our rage, he was able to keep out of the fray,” Seven said.

  Eighty looked at him like he had grown another head as he pulled her away from the cringing Thirty-two.

  “There’s no way you can win, not with a little girl.” Thirty-two’s eyes fell on Sixty-eight.

  She shrugged.

  A little bit of anger flared, but she didn’t care what he thought.

  “Yet, she outlasted thirty-one others in the Grand Brawl,” Seven said. “And unlike you, she didn’t hide. She more than held her own against others twice and more than twice her size. You all really should watch the recording. I found it illuminating.”

  “Forget this one, Seven. Let’s compare our lists. We can’t afford cowards,” Fifteen said.

  “Give me a moment.” Seven regarded Thirty-two like an eidolon regarded the children. “You want assurances? You want a concrete picture of my vision for our war band?”

  “One would think that is the bare minimum before I pledge the next however many years of battles and challenges to one. Yes, of course.” Thirty-two huffed. “I’m not a commoner conscript! I bring value. Otherwise you wouldn’t have sought me out.”

  “Very true. Thus, picture this.” Seven laid a hand on the taller boy’s shoulder. “Eighty’s massive strength at the front. Fifteen’s powerful spells in attack and defense. Sixty-eight’s precision sniping of enemy weak points. My strategic and tactical strengths combined with my all around ability to fill in anywhere needed. All of that made even greater after we are armed and armored in your tinkering.”

  Thirty-two blinked in silence for what felt like an awkwardly long time.

  Sixty-eight thought he very much looked like an owl with how big and round his eyes were in his lean face.

  A small crowd had gathered at their backs only kept back by Eighty pacing like a mother bristlebear in front of her cubs.

  Other partial bands.

  “I agree,” Thirty-two said suddenly.

  “Great! That gives us more time to plan for the fight,” Seven said.

  “Of course,” Fifteen groaned.

  “What fight?” Eighty grunted.

  Oh, right.

  Sixty-eight remembered where she was.

  They had sprung the Grand Brawl on them.

  They were surely going to spring a repeat, probably as soon as all the war bands were set.

  Seven led them outside where they tried to ignore the fights taking place among their half-siblings to determine their bands.

  …

  Their lochos’ first fight was against One’s lochos.

  No prep time.

  No gear.

  Straight from the assembly hall to an open field of sand and dirt.

  One smiled, brandishing a fist sheathed in golden energy.

  “That’s all he can do,” Fifteen grumbled.

  “Can you cast anything more or more powerful than what you’ve shown so far?” Seven said.

  “Maybe… maybe one spell, but then I’m vulnerable.”

  “Specifically?”

  “Well, what do want!” she snapped. “I remember all the spell formulas, but I haven’t been allowed to try more than the basic ones and without my spellbook having to rely only on the divine energy— I guarantee nothing.”

  Sixty-eight growled.

  She couldn’t do anything with her divine energy beyond the instinctive strengthening like all of them could.

  “Can you hit them with something big while they’re all together,” Seven said. “Then the rest of us… pile on,” he shrugged. “This isn’t a real test. It’s just like the Grand Brawl. To push us past the limit and remind us of what we are.”

  Eighty paced and stomped.

  Thirty-two vibrated in place behind the rest of them.

  “I’ll try,” Fifteen said.

  The glowing numbers hovering overhead neared zero.

  “Weird team composition, Seven!” One called out. “You would be the one that took the little weasel on. Hoping to stand out by taking the hardest challenge? That’s why I keep telling you that you’re too arrogant. You haven’t done anything to earn it.”

  Sixty-eighty marked his nose for biting off.

  Stupid golden fists and perfect face always looking down on her.

  Zeroes!

  Bell!

  Battle!

  Fifteen’s fiery explosion erupted underneath the enemy team.

  “Attack!” Seven roared.

  Suiteonem Prime, Sonombera, Talan, 213916

  Ragay knew about the great underground rivers that flowed underneath, well, every landmass on the planet.

  To see them firsthand was entirely different from intellectually knowing of their existence.

  Well, to see was perhaps not entirely correct.

  For it was pitch black.

  All he could see was nothing.

  He only felt Miss Karagatan beside him and the bubble construct she used to propel the two of them through the twisting tunnel at a speed he couldn’t quite comprehend.

  Faster than a bird? Easily.

  Faster than a shot from a gun? Easily.

  Faster than… what else exactly? He didn’t know.

  She had only told him their destination, nothing more.

  Merquani.

  A coastal nation on the small to medium-sized continent to the northeast of Suiteonem’s Sanctuary. South of the frozen ocean in the north with its cold waters and colder storms.

  Although, Merquani being on the southern end made for a more temperate climate.

  The distance involved boggled his mind.

  To think that they passed underneath the land of the God and the World Tree.

  He wondered if those mountain-sized roots reached deep enough to touch the waters many, many kilometers underground.

  They would have to, he decided. For giant magical trees must have need of water. More really on account of its size.

  Pressure shifted quickly.

  He couldn’t see, but that had to mean that they were rising.

  At a rate unsafe for him and many of his kind.

  Even they needed to acclimate to the changing pressure as they rose from deeper waters.

  Not Miss Karagatan for she carried Sinaya’s Heart within her.

  Black gave way to deep blue rapidly.

  Ragay hadn’t noticed when they had exited the underground river, but he could see life now.

  Not that he thought that the tunnels had been lifeless.

  He knew from his studies that life existed in all of Sinaya’s waters.

  Fish and other things swam in the distance.

  The ocean floor teemed with life around the tall, living vents that spewed heat from the molten rivers of red that ran as deep and even deeper.

  The Merquani Sea, the drylanders called it.

  A false name.

  Its true name was simply Sinaya.

  All oceans, seas, rivers, lakes were simply Sinaya.

  They slowed as the waters turned blue.

  “What do you know of the Merquani? Specifically, their relationship with Sinaya.”

  It was a far off land and people.

  Not covered in any detail in his lessons.

  There were higher level lessons for those that pursued the scholar’s or diplomat’s path, but as an aspiring reef defender he would’ve finished his schooling long before those.

  His face twisted into a snarl as he remembered what he knew about the Merquani.

  “They hunt the gentle singers of the deep.”

  “For?”

  He didn’t want to voice the sacrilege.

  The Merquani would’ve been scoured from the oceans had it not been for Suiteonem’s protection.

  “The oil, the blood, the meat, everything.”

  Miss Karagatan grinned like a hungry blue death.

  It was the first expression he had ever seen her make and it froze him to the core.

  “There are rules from the God,” she spat. “He allows the Merquani a harvest,” she spat again. “As if the wise, gentle singers were mindless chattel. I cannot act unless they exceed their quota.”

  His insides coiled like they had suddenly come to life and wanted to warn him of some impending trauma.

  “Good, Ragay. Listen to your instincts for they will serve you well.”

  “Miss Karagatan. What do you do when they… when they…”

  “You shall see and do.” She regarded him with that ever-present melancholy as the hungry grin slipped. “Never forget that all we do is Sinaya’s Will.”

  …

  The fishing vessel looked more like a warship to Ragay from where they observed it high in the sky in Miss Karagatan’s bubble.

  His hands struggled to hold his hooked staff despite its grippy coral surface.

  It wasn’t just the height, okay, a lot of it was the height.

  He belonged in the ocean, not in the sky.

  To push back the growing panic he studied the Merquani vessel like Miss Karagatan had told him to.

  The vessel was enormous.

  Twice the size of the poor deep singer they were slowly pulling in with massive harpoons hooked to chains as thick around as him.

  Out in the ocean far from their shores the drylander’s fishing vessel was also armed with fearsome weaponry.

  Miss Karagatan had pointed out the domes filled with massive attack spellgems, some larger than a person. They also had guns, large and small, in movable turrets that allowed them to cover nearly every angle from the water to the sky.

  She had also pointed out the mages and ranged combat classes in tall towers whose only job was to watch and defend against threats.

  The Merquani were lighter-skinned drylanders in general. He had only ever seen them in pictures and recordings. They were quite tanned, but he could see their base pink, close in coloration to the domesticated swine ubiquitous all over the countless islands of Sinaya’s Gift.

  It occurred to him that he was in danger if Miss Karagatan expected him to fight.

  “It is time, Ragay. You will hide beneath the surface and free the deep singer when I capture the Merquani attention. Once she is free, you shall join me in dispensing judgment.”

  “My orders?”

  “You’ve received them. To be Karagatan is to do as you will. None but Sinaya gives me orders and she leaves the specifics of carrying them out to my discretion.”

  Ragay plunged to the ocean as she dropped him from her bubble without warning.

  The Quest chimed in his ears and flashed across his vision.

  An instant to read and understand was all he needed before he shelved it away like a book when his carers called him for dinner.

  He was strong and tough enough to handle the drop, though it wasn’t pleasant.

  Hitting water from that height was like hitting hard ground.

  He tried to block out the deep singer’s distressed song.

  It was louder in the water, but so weak that it clutched his heart.

  Miss Karagatan flew down to the alarmed shouts of the Merquani.

  “Merquani. You have violated the agreement. Five thousand tons. Release her and prepare for judgment. I shall give you ten minutes to compose final messages to whomever.”

  The ship’s captain emerged from the tall bridge.

  “That’s not right. We’re under the limit by at least thirty tons. More than enough to cover that whale.” He smiled. “We’ll head back to port immediately once we’ve finished the harvest.”

  “And the other vessels hunting?”

  “Ah, well, they’ll have to stop as soon as we let them know that we got the last one.”

  Miss Karagatan suddenly flew down faster than they could blink to float above the captain.

  “She is fifty tons.”

  Violence erupted with freezing water and hot fire.