Sixty-eight remembered everything she did under the red-gold haze. Not as herself, but more akin to watching another act through their eyes. To feel the soft flesh and hard teeth break on the other girl’s knuckles.
The young man had smiled until the end. Until there was nothing left but mangled meat.
She thought of his younger sister, feeling a sense of connection to someone she’d never meet.
They had both been taken from their family.
Forced to be alone in the vast infinity of the spires worlds.
The girl shouldn’t be alone.
She shouldn’t be alone.
Alone with a pain in her chest that was always on the verge of turning her eyes into waterfalls.
Alone with the vain hope that her mother and true father were just about to get her and bring her home.
Alone with the sense of betrayal and anger every time she woke in the morning that they hadn’t.
Such thoughts filled Sixty-eight with guilt.
The eidolons had told her many times that her parents were no longer her parents. That she had only one parent, Suiteonem and that the honor dwarfed her mortal former parents like the titans of myth dwarfed an ant.
Her brain knew that no one could fight Suiteonem just for her, but her heart cried in silence that her parent’s hadn’t even tried.
Seven groaned from where he lounged in a chair with pillows soft enough to melt into.
The other demigod’s white clothing was stained red and pink with flecks of gold in multiple places where the criminal he had killed had cut him.
They sat in a private chamber looking down on the entire arena separated from the crowds by glass.
Each lochos had been granted the honor of a space of their own to watch trials by combat.
She wondered if it was truly an honor if they hadn’t been given the choice to not watch.
“I shouldn’t have signed up for more than one slot.” Seven groaned.
She hadn’t made that mistake.
“Healers?” she grunted.
“I tried. No outside lochos healing aside from basic ointments and bandages.”
That wasn’t good for Seven, Fifteen and Eighty.
The three had signed up for multiple slots over the three days.
“I’m just hoping Fifteen doesn’t use up her divine energy healing herself.” He chuckled. “No spells. No weapons. Just us.”
She shot him a vicious scowl.
“I know.”
“Right, obviously, sorry. I am concussed. This nice room is spinning and the lights hurt my eyes.”
They fell into silence as Ninety-five bludgeoned a criminal into the sand.
Almost a year of tough training had turned her eyes into rifle scopes.
The projection from the viewing orb in one corner of the private chamber looked the same to her as the live action hundreds of meters below.
Ninety-five was lucky.
Her criminal deserved death for his crimes.
Every trial she had watched had been for murders, rapists or worse.
Seven stopped covering his eyes with his hands to peer at her.
She wished he’d stop doing that and just said what he obviously wanted to say.
“What?” She hit him with a scowl.
“I saw your fight.”
“So?”
“Hardest fight out of all the one’s I’ve watched so far.”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“Not even a little.” He winced. “Stealing bread isn’t a death worthy crime. I don’t understand why they had him here. I’m glad it wasn’t me. You didn’t have a choice, especially since we didn’t get to pick, but I’ll take executing an eater of human flesh over a bread thief. Even if she had a monstrous transformation Skill.”
“She almost bit your face off.”
“Yes!” Seven agreed. “And cut me up good with her claws. As you can see. And you probably couldn’t tell from up here, but they were not clean.”
“I don’t think Fifteen has a healing spell to handle bacteria issues.”
“It shouldn’t be a problem. The healers down below at least let me clean my wounds with bacteria killers.” He sighed. “Don’t think too hard on it. Someone was going to have to execute that guy. It’s all down to luck on who got him.”
She told him what the eidolon had told her about the young man and his sister.
The grim line on Seven’s face swept upward.
“Oh… well, I change what I said. That’s lucky for you! He wanted to die here for his sister. He traded a few minutes in the arena for a much better life for his sister. That’s a good sacrifice by any measure!”
Her chair’s armrest squealed under her hands.
“Please don’t hit me. My next trial is only three hours away.”
“Your fault for choosing that,” she grumbled, but relaxed.
She didn’t have much anger left.
Her pot had gone room temperature.
Seven closed his eyes and sank back into his chair.
“Do you want to check on Thirty-two? I’d do it, but walking that far might be beyond my ability at this time.”
She stood.
Getting away from a people, even Seven, who she didn’t usually mind, a lot of the time sounded good for her.
“When’s Fifteen fighting?”
“Eh? In three or five more fights, I think.”
“You need her to win easily.”
“Yes and I wouldn’t say no to you maybe, possibly, stealing a healing gem when you go down there. Just a small one. One they won’t miss.”
Sixty-eight descended from the bright heights to the dim depths of the arena.
Well… not that dim. There were plenty of light crystals and gems.
Healers and guards nodded respectfully as she walked past them.
Thirty-two lay unconscious in a bed.
The large room had many beds in neat rows.
Most were empty.
She counted five demigods, including Thirty-two, in various states of injury.
A young healer smiled at her politely even as he stepped in her way… respectfully.
“Apologies, honored child of my God, may he grant us his righteous rage, no one may enter without his word.”
She glared up at him and contemplated shoving him aside, but, again, she felt drained, heavy.
“I’m here to check on one of my lochos.”
“May I have his or her name?”
“Thirty-two.”
The young healer grimaced.
“He shall live. Don’t be concerned. We’ll be allowed to properly heal him once the trials are completed. He doesn’t have another trial, does he?”
“No.”
The young healer let out a breath.
“Thank Suiteonem! Without proper healing he wouldn’t be able to fight one of those vicious criminals. Too many broken bones, you see.”
“I don’t. Which is why I’m here. To see.”
“Apologies again, honored one. I don’t dare disobey the word of our God.” The young healer looked anywhere but in her eyes.
“Fine.”
She spun on her heel and flounced away.
Her hope had been to waste time looking at Thirty-two.
Now she had to head back to watching the fights with Seven.
Suiteonem Prime, Aasin Bay, Apolakan, 213918
Ragay struggled to keep from flinching at every boom in the distance.
That many meant that the remaining Merquani warships had closed the distance enough to bring all their weapons to bear on the city.
He could see bright flashes of light to the south even in the daylight, which meant that Miss Karagatan’s battle with the empyreal guards had begun as well.
Whistling sounds filled the air.
The fact that he could hear them meant they were close.
“Ragay! We must protect them!” Gossamare pointed at the group of warriors they had linked up with as they sought to engage the Merquani marines.
“Roof?”
“Yes, but angled down that way.” She pointed at the sloped street.
“Done.”
They created a construct together over the warriors.
Just in time too.
Iron balls larger than a man’s head began to fall like ice rain.
Buildings on both sides of the narrow street erupted in shards of wood and coral. Even the strength of the latter couldn’t stand against the iron rain.
Their roof cracked, but held as strong as their wills.
They protected their heads, but they had overlooked their sides.
Gossamare leapt, standing a big and tall as she could, which was considerably larger than usual in her crustacean-like landsuit.
Shards from the building sprayed out like a volley from the Merquani.
She took the brunt of it with little damage, saving the warriors from fatal wounds.
The other side fared less well without her as an added wall.
“Crab’s Shell!”
Warriors with defensive Skills survived.
Five without cried out their last.
A sudden explosion knocked Ragay into the rubble.
He had coral armor too, but not nearly as good as Gossamare’s.
Pain dripped wetness down his back.
He stifled a yelp as he climbed back to his feet and out into the street.
Gossamare stood in the middle of a fire storm with wide eyes in her translucent face behind her helmet’s glass.
The warriors—
Were scattered in charred pieces as far away us up the street where it forked and down where Merquani marines rounded the corner.
Three ranks deep, ten across.
The first rank dropped prone, the second took a knee, the third stood tall.
A commander with a curved sword thrust it toward Gossamare.
“Volley Fire!”
Tiny iron balls pushed Gossamare back as they chipped away at her landsuit.
“Company Skill: Automatic reload! Volley Fire!”
Gossamare stumbled back as leaks began to spring from her landsuit.
“Company Skill: Acidic Shot! Volley F—”
A high-pitched whistle washed over the Merquani.
They dropped their guns, clutching their ears in agony.
The building next to them, a shop for children’s toys, exploded outward.
A gray bulk crashed through their formation behind a deep blue wall of hard water.
Sings Too Loud plowed over the Merquani, crushing and breaking them with his wall construct and his huge, tree stump-like feet.
The commander drew a small gun and fired uselessly. He raised his curved sword with wide eyes.
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“Death Cut!”
The blow never landed.
A small spear of hard water lanced through one eye.
Ragay’s hand fell as he dropped to one knee.
His hooked staff felt too heavy.
“Ragay! You have a piece of wood in your back!” Gossamare rushed to his side.
“Your landsuit is leaking.”
“Yes, but my body is untouched. I must perform field aid on you. Do not move. This will be painful.”
…
Ragay winced.
The hand-sized piece of jagged wood that had gone into his shoulder had torn muscles.
The healing magic Gossamare had packed into the wound and bandage was working, but he re-tore flesh with every move.
It was a very two strokes forward, one stroke back situation.
He raised his hooked staff to launch a barrage of hard water spears at the Merquani firing from behind cover with their long guns and spells.
“Keep suppressing them, Ragay!” Tagge grinned a red smile. Her eyes were wide, pupils dilated.
The Merquani had taken shelter in one of the city’s main transportation hub to regroup and treat their wounded.
Bad luck them.
It was one of the only places that had underwater tunnels large enough for Sings Too Loud, which meant Ragay and his fellow potentials were ending up there at some point.
Thunder and lightning continued to crack overhead.
Errant strikes shook the building and sent fine dust showering down on them all.
A high-pitched whistle heralded the drylanders’ doom.
It appeared that they didn’t have good intelligence. Otherwise they wouldn’t have sheltered behind the low wall near a large pool.
Sings Too Loud burst out like a breaching Great Blue Death.
His battle cry was a high-pitched song, almost like the deep singers, but Ragay heard the tightness and warble to it.
Sings wasn’t enjoying the fighting.
The huge oceanborn fell upon the Merquani.
Crushing one beneath his bulk.
The others fired and blasted, but Gossamare shielded him with small, round shields precisely placed in front of each iron cylinder, wand or outstretched hand.
Sings never stopped his scared song as he crushed and broke soft Merquani bodies with each swing of his arm and hooked staff or stomp of his feet.
One unlucky young marine found himself thrown into the pool and drowned by Gossamare, who shut a lid of hard water on the marine’s head.
“Blood to them! But we can still take our share!” Tagge leapt out of cover.
Running low to the floor.
A marine saw her.
He turned, aimed and fired.
The iron ball glanced off her helmet.
She pounced, brown-furred tail flapping with excitement.
The marine thrust with the long, stabbing steel affixed underneath the end of his gun.
She blocked with a quickly willed shield of hard water, bearing him to the floor.
Cold water splashed the young man as she tore his throat out with a vicious bite.
The fight ended with twenty dead Merquani marines and a few more cuts and burns on Sings Too Loud’s bare arms.
Gossamare fussed over them as he sat on the wet floor glumly.
Tagge grinned at Ragay as he approached.
The brown fur around her mouth was matted with Merquani red.
She spat flesh and blood.
“Yuck! Gossamare can you open the pool?”
“Yes.”
Tagge fished the drowned Merquani out and pushed the body aside as if it was flotsam before removing her helmet and dunking her head, staining the clear blue water with Merquani red.
“Thanks! They taste terrible.” She spat, then gargled, repeating the process a few more times.
To consume the flesh of another thinking being was at least in the top ten of taboos according to Sinaya’s Laws.
It was one of the surest paths to obtaining a monstrous class.
“You didn’t accidentally swallow any of… that… did you?”
“Hard to say, Ragay. We’re in the fires of real battle.” Tagge shrugged.
“Do the Merquani count for the taboo?” Sings Too Loud’s whispered. “They eat the deep singers and make decorations of their bones.”
“Do not say such things, Sings,” Gossamare said. “Even these drylanders have a place in Sinaya’s cycle of life.”
“What is that place? They take, but return nothing but blood and pain.” Sings Too Loud fell silent.
Ragay regarded Tagge a moment.
“Please tell us if they start tasting good.”
She shrugged, grinning as she held up her hooked staff.
“Sinaya’s Heart will protect me… at least it’ll warn me… probably… right?”
Her grin slowly fell away.
“I’m just being cautious, but I believe you will be safe.”
Suiteonem Prime, Lakeside Town, February 2058
Garvrun wasn’t a good fighter. He didn’t have hidden talent that just hadn’t had the opportunity to shine. Perhaps, if everything worked out for him he’d be an adequate fighter at best.
Cal didn’t drop the enchanted dragonbone mace in the Blue’s hand because of his potential as a fighter.
What the young man had was humility drilled into him by being at the lower rungs of Snow Bear Hold’s martial-centric society for as long as he could remember.
It was easy to see in the way Garvrun set his feet, or rather didn’t, as he swung at the town’s wooden palisade.
The Empire of Man’s defenders were slow to react.
The night, as all nights were in the valley, was freezing.
Heating charms in their clothes and armor were just good enough to keep the sentries on the walls from freezing to death.
It didn’t do anything for the boredom.
Minds wandered, thinking of warm drinks, warm beds and warmer men or women as one’s persuasion dictated.
Even the roughest, most violent mercenaries and adventurers wanted the comforts of civilization.
Think of how much they’re paying me. Think of how much they’re paying me.
Fuck! My balls are freezing even with the extra heating charm pinching my taint. Fuck!
That whore better not complain. One more strike and I’m banned. Not going back to unsanctioned whorehouses. Can’t afford to waste paying for medicines anymore. I’m getting too old for this. Retirement calls. Need to find me a young woman with big tits, a flat belly and wide hips. Pump a few kids out and just sit fishing and drinking when I’m not pounding my young wife. Ha!
It itches? Why is it itching? I bathed yesterday— three days ago? I should have at least a day or two before things start itching. Shit! It can’t be the whores. It’s an official House of Pleasure. They guarantee clean. Bugs? Its too cold for them… isn’t it?
A hundred minds on watch or patrol, a hundred rambling trains running through their thoughts.
The frontier town was large, built with space for expansion.
It meant there was a lot of space between the outer walls and the barracks where the empire’s garrison slept.
They’d wake up, but slower than they had trained.
Garvrun clanged his mace against the enchanted wood, blowing a man-sized hole with a sound like thunder.
Sentries in the nearest watchtower didn’t notice until most of his warband had squeezed through.
They never got the alarm off as Bannegurd, now the size of a Blue teenager, leapt up and crushed their heads with a few light punches.
This was going to be a real battle.
The vast majority of the men and women in Lakeside Town where not the best examples of the Empire of Man.
Many were mercenaries and adventurers running from serious crimes or trading a prison sentence for service on the dangerous frontier.
They knew what they had signed up for.
As for the employees in the House of Pleasure or other various services?
They slept safe and sound in pleasant dreams.
Cal would make sure none of them would end up as collateral damage.
Swing lightly. Let it do the work like that nice revenant showed me.
Garvrun skidded in the ice and snow as he charged a warrior with a round shield and an axe.
It might have seemed unfair at first glance since Garvrun was over two meters tall, as wide as a door and as heavy as a young snow bear, but the warrior was Level 37 with decent enchanted gear and years of experience.
It was unfair in the imperial’s favor.
But the dragonbone mace was a cheat code, treating lesser enchantments as if they weren’t there.
The shield shattered, followed by the warrior’s arm.
Garvrun’s follow up blow crushed the man’s helmet, granting him eternal rest.
Warbands skirmished with sluggish mercenaries and adventurers.
They moved quickly, killed quickly or pulled back if they couldn’t.
Sow chaos and make a hundred blue-skinned giants seem like a thousand.
Alarms remained silent.
Lights remained dark.
The defenders didn’t know why.
Shitshitshitshit! What’s going on! Where’s my team?
A Level 40 arcane archer stumbled out of tavern.
It was her one night a week off.
“Wake up, you bleeding holes!” She screamed into her communication gem.
Why isn’t this stupid thing working?
She had forgotten her bow and arrows in the tavern’s weapons locker.
It was unlike her.
She had over a decade of experience in some of the most dangerous, high level encounter challenges and spawn zones. Even fought in a few territorial disputes between city-states.
I shouldn’t even be in this Suiteonem forsaken town.
That was true.
Her team leader couldn’t keep it in his pants.
He had spent a few hours with the wrong noblewoman’s latest young, trophy husband at a party.
It was a year in Lakeside Town or a year in an inquisition prison.
Everyone knew that was about a thousand times worse than a regular one.
As she stumbled through the snow waiting for the sobering potion to take effect, she decided that she should’ve told her team leader to stuff his dick up his own asshole instead of agreeing to come along.
Why am I still drunk?
Blues rounded the corner.
She ducked into an alley, letting them run past her.
“Emergency Bow,” she whispered. “Light Arrows.”
Still drunk, she started planning for her survival above all other concerns.
Elsewhere, a young soldier, a Level 27 lieutenant lay in his bunk.
It was well past light’s out, but his mind always struggled to turn off unlike the rest of his snoring fellow junior officers.
Maybe those blue flowers that sort of look and feel like crystals? Would she like those? I can’t let the others know. They’d laugh at me trying to woo a pleasure lady. Maybe I shouldn’t? Mother and father won’t be pleased. I can’t get to the flowers in any case. The patch is outside the walls and I’m not assigned to escort the logging crews. I can’t just go for a stroll either. Rules are rules for a reason. I don’t want to end up like that drunk mercenary that wanted to go ice fishing. So much blood and guts… what is that sound—
“Wake up! Fuck! Everyone wake up! The alarms!”
By the time the professional soldiers woke up, geared up and headed toward the alarms the warbands would have scattered elsewhere in the town.
It would be a desperate game of hide and seek for the soldiers, which meant they wouldn’t be ready for the second phase of the attack.
…
Garvrun slipped.
The steel blade would’ve sliced a red smile across his blue neck had the seasoned mercenary swordswoman not also mysteriously slipped.
The tip of her blade nicked underneath his eye, glancing off his cheek bone instead.
His desperate swing of the dragonbone mace thrummed on impact with her enchanted chestplate, sending her crashing through the stout wooden wall of what appeared to be a brothel.
Too close! Too strong! Have to be better. Have to be worthy. Can’t go back to cleaning.
Red warmth ran down his face.
He tasted iron on his lips.
The rest of his warband fought against a ragtag group of mercenaries and adventurers in the bright, colorful lights of the brothel.
The empire humans looked like children next to them, but they fought with skill and Skills— a fireball blasted the man next to him across the street— and spells.
Another man, a warrior from a settlement he forget the name of, fell with a spear through his throat and a blade through his gut.
Oh no! I don’t remember his name.
“Moonlight’s Cleave.”
Out of the corner of his eye a thickly muscled blue arm swept an axe, drawing a sliver of white light from the visible moon and sending a cutting arc across the air.
“Umbral Slash!”
Garvrun remembered that he didn’t truly belong among the higher leveled and more experienced warriors.
Light met shadow.
The two canceled each other out.
“Snow Crash!” a woman warrior of his warband slammed her warhammer into the white ground.
Snow and ice exploded over the mercenaries and adventurers as if a huge star rock had plummeted from the distant dark to land at their feet.
“We’re not supposed to get bogged down. Remember, we must reach the barracks.”
“What about him?”
Garvrun eyed the dead warrior.
Their first fallen.
“Lord Cross commanded us to leave them were they fell. He’ll take care of him.”
“But—”
“Hurry it up! My Skill won’t keep them blind and deaf for much longer.”
“We go then!”
Garvrun followed after one last look at the fallen warrior whose name he couldn’t remember.
…
In the center of the town lay a keep.
Small as such things were.
Stone when everything else in town was made out of wood harvested from the impossibly dense forests carpeting the valley.
Enough timber to last the empire centuries.
A lord lay abed with his arms around a crying girl.
Ah! Such a sweet sound! The tears of my conquests.
He turned her head roughly so he could lick them off while she stiffened.
“Not so brave now are you.” He leered down at her.
His face was a demon’s to the girl.
He sat up, gripping her throat tightly, but not too tight that she’d pass out. He wanted her fully conscious for every moment.
“It’s your parents’ fault. Mother and father are failures and thus they sold you to me.”
She shut her eyes whimpering.
He laughed as he spread her legs.
“You thought you would work off their debt by being a mere serving girl? Ha! That would take you seven lifetimes!” He leaned down once more to taste her sweet tears. “Don’t worry. I’ll set you free once you grow out of the freshness of youth.” He didn’t mention that he’d sell her to another less enamored of youth than he was.
The lord pulled his hips back and— stopped.
The girl waited for the pain again, but when it didn’t arrive she dared open her eyes a sliver like she once did when she thought shadowy monsters lurked in the dark corners of her room.
The lord stared blankly at nothing.
His eyes glazed over as he backed off her and the bed.
Like an automaton, he walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.
A shadowed corner of the room rippled.
What stepped out was not a monster.
A woman knight in ancient plate and chain.
The only thing the girl could see through the helmet slit were crystal clear eyes.
She shrank back, pulling the covers over her head like she had done when she thought there had been shadow monsters in her room.
The knight’s voice was warm, kind.
“I am here to keep you safe, child. That man will never touch you again. If you wish it you may see his punishment in the light of day. For to see is to know that there is one monster that can never harm you or anyone again. I am Falliana and I shall guard you until the dawn’s light shines down to drive this foul darkness away.”
The girl dared a peek and saw a stern, but kind face.
“Tell me what you want and I shall provide.”
She could only think of one thing.
“I— I— I’m dirty—”
“No, you are not. Not in the way you think, but there’ll be time for healing later. Very well, a bath for the body. Who among the keep’s servants do you trust to help you?”
She had trusted them all, until they had all betrayed her this night.
So, she told Falliana.
“Very well, it shall be my honor to be your handmaid.”
The knight held out a strong hand.
The girl hesitated, but she reached out knowing that this wasn’t a dream or another trap.
Warm thoughts filled her head.
Peace to push away the nightmare.
And a whisper that sounded like an apology.
…
Later, the girl lay in a different bed in a different room.
Clean.
Safe.
Falliana sat at her side.
“Lord Cross,” she muttered. “I’m displeased. Why did we wait to save this child after she had been ill treated?”
The gem in her ear crackled with the effort it took to pierce the keep’s protections.
“I couldn’t look inside the keep until I discovered which servant carried a tentacle.”
“And what has become of this spy?”
“I had the lord tell him to go see what was going on with all the alarms from the southern wall. He is about to run into one of our warbands.”
“I accept the necessity, but my displeasure remains.”
“I agree. I will try to do better in the future.”
“I wish to take the girl to Haven as soon as she has watched justice carried out on that foul lord.”
“Only if she wants to. If so, I’ll take her to Haven right away.”
