The Triarchy, leaders of the Office Inquisition, dwelt in a small city within a city.
Barak had no time to enjoy the opulent sight of the golden towers and the exquisite sculptures and frescoes everyone one looked.
He strode quickly after the young priest that had met him at the gate leading to the High House upon a hill.
Heavily armed imperial soldiers were on war footing.
He couldn’t recall ever seeing that many manning the wall weapons emplacements and patrolling the grounds.
There was less of his own order than he expected.
The priest knocked on a door said to be carved from the World Tree itself.
“Enter.”
He stepped into Mother di’Buratti’s office performing the requisite niceties before speaking.
She waved them away.
The lady inquisitor was a young woman nearly ten years his junior.
She wore her noble family’s wealth on every inch of her. From the powerful enchantments in the jewels and gems she wore to her flawless features and shape.
Here was a woman that hadn’t earned her office. A seat on the Low Council at barely over twenty years old.
He steeled his expression.
She liked her lips.
He saw it then.
In the tightness around her eyes, in the dark bags almost perfectly concealed by the highest quality makeup. The kind that made it look like she wasn’t wearing any.
She hadn’t slept well, if at all.
“Senior Inquisitor Barak d’Marea.”
“Yes, mother inquisitor? How may I serve?”
“Are you aware of the… troubles we face?”
He chose his words carefully.
“Yes. I am prepared to brief the High Inquisitor on what my district office has gathered so far about the… troubles. Admittedly, it isn’t sufficient to our standards at this early time. However, my office has mobilized to gather more accurate information.”
“Very good. You will report everything to me directly.”
Strange, but he knew better than to question her.
He briefed her.
It was… brief.
Preliminary reports of dead inquisitors in houses of repentance and the escape of the penitents.
“Proceed in haste for the Golden Eyes are upon us.”
“Do you have commands for me, mother inquisitor?”
Her eyes seemed a bit too wide open and she blinked as if she had need to think of it.
“I’ve received an alarming report about death in a noble house. I want you to personally lead the investigation. You shall—” she licked her lips as if they were dry rather than glistening. “You shall report to me directly and you shall not conceal the findings of your investigation in your reports.”
Now that wasn’t according to protocol.
“Forgive me for my temerity, but the noble houses are not under the authority of our office.”
“No, they are. Every citizen and servant of the Empire lives beneath our Golden Eyes. You just weren’t ranked high enough to know that. Congratulations, now you are.” Her smile was perfectly crafted and he would’ve felt butterflies if he hadn’t been trained and Skilled to see through the masks people used to deceive.
“I obey, mother.”
“May our God watch over us always.”
“May Suiteonem’s golden light burn away the darkness and evil in our souls.”
…
Lord Malum di’Montiano’s estate was enormous.
It built up rather then out owing to its location in the old city where streets were narrow and twisting.
The walls rose thrice Barak’s height.
He imagined one could pluck these ancient noble estates and drop them on the frontier to create an instant fortress.
The late lord hung from his neck, naked, from one of the lower balconies.
High enough to be visible for the crowd gathered on the street, but close enough that they could see every bit of his corpulence on display.
An emperor’s man beckoned him from the gate, opening it to lead him inside.
“Why is the lord still up there?”
“I beg forgiveness, inquisitor. It is our failing for we were unable to bypass the protections on the late lord’s doors. We await a specialist.”
Barak scanned the grounds.
Expensive plants and trees turned the space into a vibrant jungle mimicking the wild, untamed lands lining both banks of the Grand River.
Amidst the green and color he spied many bright silver sheets.
The kinds the emperor’s men and his own office used to cover dead bodies before they could be properly investigated.
“How long ago?”
“Unknown. The first report was an hour before dawn. There were no reports of any kind prior to that. My partner’s canvassing the area to see if someone else knows something.”
Barak halted before getting close to the dead lord.
There were a lot of… drippings that he didn’t want to stain his golden armor.
“That is a long time. Where are your forensic mages? Or a priest?”
The emperor’s man smirked.
“I think, from what I’ve been hearing, inquisitor is that we all woke to quite a lot of trouble this morning.” He indicated the dead lord’s dead guards. “Bled in the assassin’s ways. A stiletto across the throat, through the neck or right here.” He drew a finger across the inside of his thigh.
“Assassin’s Guild?”
That didn’t sound right.
An assassin sneaked past the guards to kill the lord, they didn’t kill all the guards first.
The emperor’s man shook his head.
“Not unless every assassin just decide to work together to do this. The guards died where they lay. Means that they had to have been knifed practically at the same time. Three over there. Four there. Five there.” He pointed. “Two up in each guard tower.”
“The lord’s family? Servants?”
“The lady and the children spend this time of the year in an estate down near the Inner Sea. As for the servants? Gone.”
“They’re all dead?”
“Not dead. Just gone. Except for a handful.”
“Lead me to them. I shall begin interrogations immediately.”
“Can’t. They’re dead. Same as the guards.” He ran a finger across his throat.
Barak regarded the emperor’s man, bemoaning the lack of professional quality.
Which suggested a worrying truth.
The better ones were either too busy to see to a dead lord, which meant there had been more deaths of a higher quality. Or, the better ones were missing or dead like his brother and sister inquisitors.
“Why don’t you do your thing?” The emperor’s man gestured at the covered bodies. “Call their souls and ask them who bled them.”
“Too much time has passed and it would be profane to simply do it where any commoner can watch.”
Suiteonem Prime, World Tree, Sirrah’s Ranch Town, Suiteonem I, 20137
“Apologies, oh great and powerful demigods, but I… uh… we are unable to accept your points.”
The butcher’s apprentice behind the counter nervously hid behind the wooden slate with which they did their transactions as if it was a shield.
“What? It says right there that you do!” Eighty jabbed a thick finger at the sign on the wall behind the apprentice. “Give us what we want for our points like it says!” she snarled and jabbed her finger on the laminated wooden counter, sending cracks spider-webbing.
The apprentice stammered.
He wasn’t that much older than Eighty, but he was a lot smaller.
Sixty-eight eyed the other employees in the front and through the opening to the back where they butchered the meats of many varieties of livestock.
The smell was familiar.
Her house had a dedicated butcher for the animals they bought or hunted.
Her parents had thought it good that she knew where the food she ate came from.
Something about letting her appreciate and understand how the natural order functioned or something.
She mostly remembered trying to breathe through her mouth.
“They told us not to accept points from you! Only coin or other valuables! Please don’t destroy me!” The apprentice cringed, shrinking until she couldn’t see him over the counter.
Eighty roared.
“Sixty-eight!” Thirty-two wrapped long, skinny arms around Eighty’s thick, muscular stomach.
She leapt on the broad back and hooked fingers in both cheeks, pulling with all her divine strength.
“Eighty! We need their meats!” Thirty-two pleaded. “Don’t destroy! Don’t destroy!”
The much bigger girl shrugged them off, but instead of plowing through the counter she turned and stomped outside.
“She’s getting better at that,” Thirty-two said as they watched Eighty punch craters in the concrete street. “Excuse me, butcher—”
The apprentice peeked his head above the counter like he was a warrior behind a shield wall.
“Just a humble, insignificant apprentice, oh mighty and merciful demigod. H— h— how may I serve you?”
“Why can’t you take our Universal Points?”
“I don’t know. It’s what the owner said and he said that he got it from the mayor’s. That’s all I know, please spare me your righteous anger!”
“It’s just another stupid test,” Sixty-eight grumbled. “Everything’s a stupid test.”
“Yes, obviously, but what are they testing? Do they want us to give into the anger and simply take what we need? Or are we to gather whatever coin or denominations this town uses?” Thirty-two regarded her.
“What?”
“Your thoughts on our problem…” he prodded.
“Dunno,” she shrugged. “We beat them, take what we need and give them points anyways.”
Their lessons did strongly teach that their natural rights as demigods where second only to Gods.
Mere mortals, like those in the butcher shop, were little better than the livestock hanging from hooks compared to them.
“I don’t know if I like that,” Thirty-two said.
She didn’t either, but it sounded about right from what she had learned so far.
It wasn’t like she had better ideas.
She hadn’t had to personally buy anything ever.
Her household’s servants or her parents had done that for her.
Thirty-two’s face lit up suddenly.
Literally, his red-gold eyes shined for a moment.
“Of course!” He turned to the watery-eyed apprentice. “Does your fine system allow for purchases in credit? Or a tab-like system? Perhaps, barter?”
The apprentice looked desperately at his fellow employees.
Not a one made eye contact.
The cowards.
Eighty’s punches continued to be loud.
“Yes?” the butcher’s apprentice said
“That’s fortunate.” Thirty-two said. “Our order then, please. We’d also like to place an order for a future date. Much larger. Thank you.”
…
Suiteonem Prime, World Tree, Frontyr, Suiteonem II, 20137
Sixty-eight studied the bounty board.
Rough and tumble frontier adventurers and the like eyed her warily.
She noticed a few predatory gazes until they noticed the gold in her eyes or the warning whispers they received from other, more intelligent ones.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Her lochos could double dip the bounty reward from the Adventurer’s Guild on top of whatever the spires gave in the Quest.
They needed coin to pay for the supplies they needed for the stupid festival cooking competition and test. They also needed coin if they wanted to buy better gear for the trials by combat than the basic ones provided by the school. They were strictly prohibited from using anything purchased from the spires marketplaces with their Universal Points.
She had her suspicions that her points might’ve been at risk of an unfair seizure.
It sounded like something the eidolons would do to hurt them and make them angry at the end of their first year.
She remembered the individual requests of her lochos.
Eighty wanted one where she could fight.
Fifteen wanted something magic-related with magic-related rewards.
Thirty-two wanted something inside the town.
Seven just said he trusted her judgment. Whatever that meant.
She didn’t like Fifteen, so out went the magic-related stuff.
Eighty was her least disliked person in the lochos so she settled on a bounty for ten dryad hearts from a nearby forest cavern.
She grumbled.
The idea of forests inside a tree still bothered her.
The bounty was marked as Level 20 to 30 difficulty so she ripped it off the board and took it to the scowling man behind the front counter.
…
“Okay, we don’t have a lot of time,” Seven said.
“They cut all our meal times in half,” Eighty muttered.
“We can’t kill dryads,” Thirty-two said.
“Why not?”
“Because they’re thinking beings, Seven!”
Fifteen laughed.
“Someone’s thinking with the wand between their legs.”
“I am not! There are natural dryads and a dryad class!”
Fifteen’s eyes narrowed.
“No. I’ve never heard or read that anywhere.”
“Did you have them on your homeworld?” Thirty-two challenged.
“Yes and they are monsters. They lure stupid men into the forest and do… stuff with them. Then they eat them.”
“They don’t do that on my homeworld.” Thirty-two hesitated. “Okay, maybe some did, but those were isolated incidents and they were imprisoned like any criminal would be.”
“Cannibals,” Eighty nodded. “There are cannibals everywhere.”
“They. Are. People.” Thirty-two punctuated each word with a vigorous thrust of a finger in Fifteen’s face. “I know a lot of dryads and half-dryads and quarter-dryads. There are dryads and dryads.”
“First, I’ve heard of it,” Seven said. “But there are monstrous classes. My world has vampires and vampires. Plus, shifters with and without the class.”
“Your homeworlds must be horrible places.” Fifteen scoffed. “Bestial.”
Sixty-eight sort of agreed with the older girl, which had her questioning herself.
The World Tree settlements had been an eye opening experience in terms of variety in human-like species.
It was unlike her home where the dominant thinking species were like her only differing in minor, insignificant ways like skin tone and facial features.
Honestly, if the skin was removed there’d be no way to tell the difference.
“I can get a different bounty.”
She decided that she didn’t want to risk killing the dryads if they were just people.
“Probably for the best,” Seven agreed.
She returned with a bounty for monster parts.
Messier work, but easier on the conscience.
…
Suiteonem Prime, World Tree, Mathogopolis, Suiteonem II, 20137
Sixty-eight scratched around the scab under her left eye.
Those lizard-pig monsters had venom glands under their claws.
They had been prepared for that with antidotes.
The problem was that the eidolons only allowed them to purchase lesser quality potions, which meant the wounds merely healed at the normal, basic rate and they itched.
The elevator dinged.
It was a fancy building.
Very high, though about mid-sized for the huge city inside the World Tree.
The night was dark and wet.
There was a thunderstorm… inside…
The architecture was a mix of wood grown straight from the tree and what was probably expensive stuff brought from wherever.
She didn’t really care about all that.
It was kind of cool the way gold, silver and other shiny metals spread through the shiny, black stone like tiny rivers on a map.
A butler greeted her upon the elevator doors sliding open.
“The master welcomes you to his humble home, honored demigod. Daughter of the greatest of Gods, Suiteonem. May his eyes forever shine down on us and grant us strength through our rage.”
The butler looked weird.
First of all, she was a she.
And her white-shirt, black suit and tie uniform was missing a lot.
“Please follow this humble servant.”
Sixty-eight grimaced.
Why was the butler’s butt showing?
“The master. Empyreal Guardsman. Loyal servant of your father. The terror that resounds in the night. The voice of the storm. Thundercrash!”
“Please, Alfria. That won’t be necessary. I am beneath this honored demigod.”
The empyreal guardsman was a tall man. Strong and sleek.
He moved like the huge, spotted jungle cats from her homeworld as he stalked toward her before taking a knee, which placed him at eye level.
Up close she noticed that his black eyes were as deep and dark as his long hair.
Strange.
Though he had fair skin like humans had in the colder climates of her home, he had very pointed ears.
That made her pay more attention to the rest of him.
Teeth?
Like hers.
Nose?
Pointed like a raptor’s beak but generally like hers.
Tongue?
Pink and not forked or pointed.
Fingers?
Four and a thumb.
Tail?
No tail.
Feet?
Hidden by shoes but she’d assume they were normal until she learned otherwise.
“Thundercrash is my working name. My true name is Ely’ot Fra’anklynson. As you no doubt have deduced based upon my appearance, I am not a native of this world. I’d love to share my long, adventurous tale of how I ended up in such illustrious company in service to the greatest of the Gods, but I understand that your time is precious.”
She shrugged.
“I have to be back before class tomorrow morning at eight. That’s the only rule I have to follow.”
“Ah! Then the night awaits! Let criminals beware! Come, let us go to the… Panopticon!” He gestured upward with a flourish.
She followed Thundercrash to a bookcase of all things.
It was enormous.
Floor to ceiling.
With a ceiling that stretched over ten meters to her practiced shooter’s eyes.
He pulled a random book about halfway out and a great grinding sound erupted from behind the bookcase.
Part of it slid open to reveal another elevator.
Up they went.
“We’ve already discussed the details of your, ah, test was it?”
She shrugged.
“Do you want to ask any questions?”
“No,” she grunted. “I got the Quest.”
“Good…” he hesitated. “There is one small change to the terms.”
She scowled up at him.
If he tried to renegotiate her percentage…
“The gear I promised you has been un-promised. Apologies, but I was told that you are to have a very specific loadout.”
She sighed.
“What am I allowed to use?”
“You shall see.”
The elevator dinged and she followed him into something of a mix between an armory, training area and command center.
“Father Eye, bring up the tactical map.” Thundercrash gestured toward a blank wall. “Let’s go over the plan in greater detail.”
It was a simple plan.
“A large gang of thieves with no name have been quite successful in the last few weeks. They’ve fattened themselves up nicely for us to harvest. I’ve allowed them to remain untouched for that very purpose. Their last theft pushed their ill-gotten gains past the threshold for execution.”
Assault the thieves in their warehouse base and she’d get twenty percent of the value of the stolen items.
“Questions?”
“No.”
Thundercrash led her to the armory section of his tower base.
“Again, my apologies. This command came from above.”
The plain table contained two things.
A dagger the length of her forearm with a stiff, triangular blade. A stabbing weapon.
And a hammer.
Not even a warhammer or battlehammer.
A carpenter’s hammer.
“Feel free to test them. I promise they are of the highest quality… of their kind.”
Thundercrash left her to get his own gear.
“Stupid…” she muttered.
Suiteonem Prime, Nautirusia, Mayarian, 213917
The Bloodtide.
A regional threat that periodically appeared to do great evil before disappearing just as quickly.
Raiders, reavers, ravagers and everything else evil in the world.
Ragay had no idea they existed until Miss Karagatan woke him up a few hours early.
Now?
Now, he questioned everything.
How could one person face such evil and emerge unscathed in mind, body and soul?
They were like him.
Oceanborn and landborn.
Except they were worse than shiver hunters.
At least those sharp-toothed animals only killed to live. An acceptable aspect of the cycle of life for all things.
The Bloodtide hunted for pleasure and levels in their evil classes.
Pilgrims swam the current during the holy time to journey to the deep city of Nautirusia, which floated in the twilight space straddling the thick line between blue and black where the sun’s light finally failed to penetrate Sinaya’s depths.
Nautirusia made Sonombera look like a child’s toy.
It was so massive that he could see the lights despite being still a few hours away.
It was a once in a lifetime pilgrimage and from what Miss Karagatan had said as she carried them through the underground river network it was a relatively peaceful journey.
The current was swift enough, the escorts were strong enough to protect them from threats.
Not this time.
The Bloodtide turned the waters crimson.
Ragay watched as a leering face with gray scales and sharp teeth dipped into the current.
He lashed out with his hooked staff, firing a spread of hard water spears.
A second Bloodtide member cut through the water as fast as a sailfin, taking the spears on a turtleshell shield.
Ragay could only watch as the first one ripped a small child from her father’s arms and disappeared out of the current.
More came cutting through the water, reaching for the rest of the family.
He desperately enclosed them in a bubble and sent them shooting faster than they could swim down the current.
Their laughing faces stuck in his memory, but he couldn’t remember how they looked a moment later.
There had to be Skills or magic at work.
A way for them to keep their true identities hidden.
Heat erupted across his back.
He spun, scattering his crimson around him like a dancer’s ribbons.
Clawed hands crushed his throat as a sneer of sharp teeth leaned close.
It opened wider and wider until Ragay’s mind threatened to shut off.
A mouth wasn’t supposed to grow large enough to engulf his head in front of his eyes.
Will faltered, but didn’t fail.
Deep blue thoughts birthed a wall of spikes between the two of them.
Crimson bloomed from the dark, yawning cave of teeth.
He released his will, dissipating the spikes from the scaled torso.
Crimson gushed free like hot water rushing up from hydrothermal vents, turning the clear blue murky with filth.
A huge block of hard water crushed the crazed Bloodtide raider out of Ragay’s sight.
His fellow potential swam past, armor and thick gray skin covered with countless cuts and slashes.
The oceanborn made a triumphant whistling sound as he pushed the block ahead of him like a plow.
More Bloodtide appeared from outside the current.
How were they swimming fast enough to keep up and even get ahead?
He was almost sure he had seen the brightly colored mage-type before.
She giggled as she cupped her mouth and blew forth a school of disk-shaped biter fish.
Those definitely didn’t belong in the ocean.
He was almost certain they were freshwater species.
And yet, they swarmed his fellow potential.
The triumphant vocalizations turned into pain, then alarm as the school began to devour him in a frenzy one small bite of flesh at a time.
Ragay fired at the mage, hoping to disrupt the spell.
The two warriors flanking her slashed his hard water spears with contemptuous laughter.
They didn’t laugh at the huge great blue deaths that burst from outside the current.
Teeth-filled mouths opened and snapped shut.
The enemy vanished.
The biter fish vanished.
He realized that the great blue deaths were translucent.
Hard water constructs.
Miss Karagatan hadn’t left them alone despite battling the strongest of the Bloodtide outside the current.
He swam over to his fellow potential and slapped a high grade healing patch on a bare arm.
A hundred bites began to close as the white layer of fat regenerated.
He tried not to taste the iron in the water that belonged to the potential.
The current carried them forward.
Battle could be seen or felt through the watery vibrations.
The Bloodtide dipped in and out of the current. Always taking or killing each time.
They focused on the pilgrims, avoiding the escorts unless they had an opening or no other choice.
Up ahead, the green-scaled landborn slapped his tail against a Bloodtide ravager before he could stab a trident through the face of an elder pilgrim.
Ragay heard the crack from distance and watched happily as the ravager’s legs drifted limply.
The evil man wouldn’t have time to learn what it was like to live without the use of his legs as an escort plunged a trident through his lightly armored chest and cooked him from inside with a Skill.
The charred corpse drifted out of the current as they swam past.
…
Ragay’s fellow potential that looked more like a dark-skinned drylander then one of Sinaya’s people swam past.
The boy’s hooked staff glowed bright blue as a simple wedge coalesced into existence right before he slammed into a cluster of reavers closing in one a motley group of desperate, crying pilgrims.
Ragay didn’t notice all of that at first.
No.
What he saw first was the potential’s missing arm.
His elbow lay a long crimson trail.
…
Too late.
Too late again!
Ragay swam through the crimson bloom that had been a pair of pilgrims.
They were young. Only a handful of years older than him.
If he remembered correctly they had just been wed.
The Bloodtide mage responsible vanished from sight, as if he dissolved into the water.
…
His coral chest armor disintegrated upon a single touch from a black tentacle spell.
The caster sneered, readied another spell, then his face twisted.
Translucent arms and legs wrapped around him from behind.
The deep water oceanborn potential.
Her translucent skin contained stingers she could extend and retract at will.
The venom was said to be excruciating in the smallest of doses.
She hadn’t given him the smallest of doses.
Ragay returned the favor, wrapping her in a hard bubble before the Bloodtide ravagers behind her could strike.
…
The final swim!
A loud, piercing echo sounded across the deep, penetrating even the current’s wall.
Ragay knew that it was salvation by the cheers from the bloody, exhausted escorts.
Nautirusia’s armies were on their way.
The pilgrimage was finally close enough to the deep city!
…
Clawed hands tore apart a crying child even as a half-dead escort threw herself at the ravagers in a vain attempt to do something.
His fellow potential, the brown-furred landborn, swam chittering. Her armor was in tatters like his and a wide band of hard water was around her stomach. One construct type at a time. All she had left were her teeth and claws.
She slashed one throat and bit another.
A stinger sword pierced her shoulder through her armor—
He lost sight of them all in the crimson bloom.
A moment’s hesitation before he plunged in after her.
…
Nautirusia welcomed them.
Not in joy and hope, but in blood and tears.
