“It’s a trap!”

  Seven punctuated his pronouncement with a punch into his palm.

  The crack echoed out of the planning room and brought one of the librarians at the speed of the sound.

  “Too loud, Seven,” she said.

  “Damn it…” he sighed and held out his hand.

  She drew a short, thin blade and stabbed right through his palm faster than any of the lochos could follow.

  Then she carefully bandaged the crimson hole.

  “Natural healing only. You may use the sliver of our God’s divinity. May Suiteonem grant us strength through rage.”

  With that the librarian popped out the way she had popped in.

  “Carelessness isn’t like you,” Thirty-two said.

  Sixty-eight had to agree.

  Eighty mumbled something, but her face was a swollen mess of cuts and bruises.

  The price of failure.

  They had tried, carefully, to spy on their trainers and teachers.

  Except for Sixty-eight.

  The plan for her hadn’t yet been attempted and perhaps would never be after their setbacks.

  Thirty-two’s fingers were still bandaged and splinted after his insect automatons had been detected flying and crawling into an eidolon’s office.

  Eighty had tried one of their combat trainer’s office by simply breaking the door, which was not according to the plan.

  Fifteen was still in the school’s hospital from a magical scrying attempt gone wrong.

  That teacher’s office had been warded with five layers of nasty counterspells.

  Fifteen had managed to bypass four.

  Evidently, that had been impressive because the teacher had handed over a little bit of intel on their upcoming big test.

  The name of a place.

  Grail Beach.

  That was it.

  A brain fried by a counterspell earned a single name.

  They didn’t know how much time they had left before the test started.

  That was the kind of information they had to obtain for themselves.

  Seven grimaced at his bloody bandage.

  “As I was saying. Our plan,” he eyed Sixty-eight, “isn’t happening. The trap is obvious. I realized this when I discovered that our lochos is the only one with a free period on that day. You see, each lochos has their own time slot where there are no other demands on their time..”

  Sixty-eight had figured that out too.

  She just hadn’t brought it up.

  It hadn’t been too hard for her to pick up the pattern.

  “That’s how they’re catching everyone.”

  “Yes,” Seven said. “Easy to catch a mouse when you know which ones are out of their cage to go for the cheese. They just have to watch and wait.”

  “So, I’m not sneaking into the quartermaster’s office?”

  Sixty-eight was a little disappointed.

  “No. There’s no point.”

  “So? What do we do instead?” Thirty-two said.

  “Research Grail Beach. The four of us—” Seven glanced at Eighty, “the three of us can split up. I want information on its location, geography. What kind of terrain are we fighting in? Population, if there is one. Humans and monsters. How close are the encounter challenges and spawn zones? Is it inside one of those things? In full or partial? So, that means maps. Present and past, as far back as we can find. Maybe we can find a census? I want the history of the place and its people, if they exist.”

  Marching orders given and received, they moved with purpose, leaving Eighty to her chair.

  …

  Sixty-eight unrolled the map on the table with a wince.

  Seven of her fingers stung, as evidenced by the bloody bandages around each tip.

  The archivist down in the archives that was on duty guarding the maps section had been a riddle archivist.

  It had been a tough riddle battle.

  Each wrong answer had cost her a needle underneath a fingernail.

  Each right answer had taken one out.

  Five correct in a row without a needle in her had been victory and the maps she wanted.

  “Grail Beach’s not on the beach. It’s… that far from the beach.”

  She was in a bad mood.

  The others could read the map and see that it was about five kilometers from the beach.

  “This map’s ten years old.” Seven nodded. “What are these maps?”

  She unrolled another one.

  “This one is for the underground caverns and tunnels around Grail Lake.”

  Whatever that was.

  “The others are for the spawn zones surrounding the lake.”

  “What’s this about a beach?” Eighty sat up.

  The huge girl’s face had improved greatly in the few hours the others had gone on their research quests. Oh, it was still like ground meat, but her eyes were no longer swollen shut.

  Seven nodded to Thirty-two.

  The tall, thin demigod cleared his throat and patted a stack of books.

  “Briefly, please,” Seven said.

  “Grail Beach, so named… well, not necessarily because of its geographical location—” He inclined his head to Sixty-eight.

  She shrugged.

  Whatever.

  “But because of the Grail. A powerful magical artifact found deep in said Grail Lake, which, as the map shows, is located underneath the city and is surrounded by spawn zones.”

  “Fancy. What’s it do?” Eighty said as she raided the food table.

  “It’s got two effects. Immersing items in the lake imparts minor to above average quality enchantments at random.”

  “That’s not that good.”

  “Well, maybe, but they don’t run out and they don’t degrade over time.”

  “That’s better.”

  “Eighty! Please don’t interrupt me.” Thirty-two sighed.

  “Sorry.”

  “Thank you. Where was I? Ah, yes. The second effect and the significant one. There is a cup and if one proves worthy of it they may drink from it upon which they become empowered in every way. Mind, body and soul. But, that’s not all. They don’t lose their class. They get the ‘grail’ modifier, which, in addition to a superhuman everything, grants improved Skills and spells.”

  Seven frowned.

  “That doesn’t add up with my research. If they have superior classes then why aren’t they one of the most powerful cities on this world?

  “Well… there is one big negative,” Thirty-two chuckled nervously. “The, uh, grail nymphs… they, uh, decide worthiness and if one fails, they, um, get eaten. There’s, um, also a thing the worthy have to do once a year.”

  Eighty perked up.

  Though it was hard to see the smile in her swollen lips.

  “Can I guess?”

  Seven glanced at the clock and shook his head.

  Thirty-two swallowed.

  “It’s how the nymphs, um, breed.”

  “Gross,” Sixty-eight said sagely.

  “That answered my question comprehensively,” Seven said. “My turn. Right, I’ll summarize. I researched news about Grail Beach and they have been very successful in the last few decades in terms of expansion, both in territory and population. They’ve been absorbing the other cities and settlements on their continent without much difficulty and it’s obvious that in another decade or two they’ll have control over all of it. And based on what we’ve been taught I think I know why our test is going to be held there.”

  Sixty-eight shrugged.

  “Does it matter? It’s a test. We have to do it. The end.”

  “It’s a hint to the contents of the test,” Seven said. “Grail Beach has grown too strong, so it must be weakened. I believe we need to prepare ourselves for real bloodshed.”

  Suiteonem Prime, Aasin Bay, Apolakan, 213918

  Ragay barred the door with a stout length of hard water.

  His vision darkened around the edges.

  He had been shot many times on the run up to the tunnel station.

  Most had been stopped by his coral armor, but not all.

  The Merquani marines poured fire into the windows.

  The shattered glass was a good sign that the building’s magical defenses weren’t working.

  Which, he thought, was obvious.

  Strange that he even had to think about that.

  At least the drylanders were getting their airbreathers on and heading into the water tunnels.

  So, that was good.

  Less good was Tagge laying slumped against a beautifully colorful pillar, which was surfaced with small tiles and shells to create a sort of cylindrical ocean scene going all the way from the depths to the surface, floor to ceiling.

  Her armor was as battered as his and her brown fur was wet and matted wherever he looked.

  At least her eyes were closed and not staring unblinking.

  Oh, more importantly, her chest rose and fell.

  “Ragay!”

  Keisho’s voice wavered.

  The dark-skinned halfblood lingered near the water tunnel pool, standing protectively between the front of the station and the last of the drylanders.

  “Hurry! Come, help Tagge into the tunnel. I’ll take over for you.”

  Keisho sure sounded as bad as Ragay felt with the slight wet gurgle due to the slice across one set of neck gills.

  “How are you going to do that? You can’t barricade the door and keep doing that.” He looked at Keisho’s gut.

  Three stab holes in Keisho’s armor.

  No longer leaking thanks to Sinaya’s Heart dangling at the end of Keisho’s hooked staff.

  “You take my place and you bleed out. You’ll have to help Tagge. I’ll be right behind you.”

  The Merquani didn’t help him make his case as they hit the doors with something heavy and hard.

  The thick wood held thanks to his brace, but the hinges in the coral shook and cracked.

  “Sinaya please lend me strength,” he prayed.

  The swirling orb rippled.

  His stout bar of hard water suddenly spread, flowing over the huge doors and the walls and broken windows until the entire front of the tunnel station was covered by a thin layer of deep blue hard water that held against the Merquani attacks.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  “Go, Keisho! Take Tagge! Protect my people!”

  Ragay didn’t know if the other potential listened.

  He was sucked into a vortex where the only thing that existed was his will to keep the foul Merquani out.

  How long did he hold?

  How long did they pour their hatred and lust for blood?

  Only Sinaya knew.

  Time didn’t matter to him.

  Not when he felt her hands on his shoulders like the cold embrace of the ocean depths. Not when he heard her whispers in his ears like Aunty Bilaya’s encouragements.

  He thought of Talima.

  Two years of only seeing her face and hearing her voice through recorded messages.

  She had grown as he had.

  She had grown more beautiful.

  He thought of his trials.

  Two years until he could enter adulthood. The privileges and responsibilities of which he both feared and desired.

  He thought of his house and of leaving.

  It would’ve been nice to have more time with the others.

  He thought of the explosion—

  The high ceiling of the tunnel station rained coral shards down on him, cutting his head.

  The perils of being in battle without a good helmet.

  A roar rattled Ragay to his core.

  A familiar ugly face climbed out of the crater where some of the water tunnels’ entrance pools had been.

  “Suiteonem damn that tiny fishwoman. I hate seafood, but I’m gonna make an exception just for her.”

  The empyreal guardsman was a mass of cuts and bruises, which were slow to heal.

  “Hey! I remember you, fish kiddie! What were those rules again? Eh… don’t matter much. A lot of things can happen in a battle. Fog of war and all that. Can’t say for sure if I accidentally crushed you with a piece of debris I accidentally kicked, right?”

  Another explosion rocked the building, showering them in coral and dust.

  Ragay held his will.

  Held the deep blue coating over the front of the station.

  It was all that he had left as the shadows around his vision kept scuttling closer like hungry crabs around a landed fish.

  A second missile crashed through, forcing the huge empyreal guardsman to duck.

  “Watch it, bright butt boy! You almost— aw, fuck!”

  What Ragay guessed was the second guardsman was a splattered mess of crimson and fading bright yellow against a half-broken pillar.

  Miss Karagatan appeared above through the massive hole in the ceiling, silhouetted by the sun.

  “One death guaranteed. One death to end all other deaths,” she intoned. “This battle is over.”

  The hulking guardsman snarled.

  The Merquani marines shattered Ragay’s defense.

  Miss Karagatan waved her trident, filling the air with deep blue shards.

  The silence from outside the station was deafening.

  Distant thunder boomed from the bay.

  She sent the shard rain in response.

  “Suiteonem will make you pay, fish bitch,” the guardsman said. He pulled out a gem from a bag of holding. “Cease fire, you idiots! I still need a ride out of this humid shithole. Battle’s done. Retreat or die.” He rushed to collect the remains of his fellow guardsman. “Enjoy this win because your fate’s been sealed. Times running out. And next time your kids might not have any rules to protect them. Might want to think about bringing them along. I ain’t no parenting type, but seems to me you’re being irresponsible.”

  With the last word, he leapt away.

  Miss Karagatan peered down at Ragay for a long moment as though studying him, judging him.

  “Well done, Ragay,” she said flatly.

  Ragay lost the battle against the crabs of darkness.

  Suiteonem Prime, Haven, March 2058

  Children played around her.

  Snow balls flew amid yells and laughter.

  “They look happy,” her husband walked on her right, close enough to hold hands, but not quite touching.

  A shifting fractal geometric living armor floated over her left shoulder.

  “She’s getting pinker every time I see her.”

  “I’m getting her to choose for herself. She didn’t even know she could change her shape and color.”

  Children climbed up a small mound of snow.

  “Don’t worry. There’s a big boulder under that. It’s stable.”

  “I’m not worried about that part. I’m worried about—”

  “Lady Cross! Lady Cross! Witness me!” A brave little girl waved before swan diving into the snow.

  “Don’t worry. All powder. And I caught her before she hit the ground.”

  “Uh huh. You know that one of the caretakers has noticed a certain lack of scrapes, bruises and nightmares that coincide with your visits?”

  “Well, I’m not technically visiting, unless a visit counts from hundreds of kilometers away.”

  “I think it counts. She’s really on to the mystery of it. Quite concerned about a nefarious monster seeking to fatten up the children before a harvest.”

  “Yeah… I believe she’s leveling from it. So,” her husband shrugged, “I’d say it’s good for everyone involved.”

  “It’s stressing her out.”

  “That’s why she’s leveling.”

  Nila sighed.

  A snowball flashed through Cal’s smiling face.

  Not that anyone else could see him.

  “Soooo… how’s Carlot’s Lamentation?”

  She frowned at her husband.

  “We’re not using that name. We don’t know if she choose that, but I doubt it.”

  “How is she doing overall?”

  “She’s shy and wary. She’s only ever been used to fight and kill and she doesn’t like that. Even against monsters.”

  “Will she fight to protect? You? Them?”

  “I… I think she would be willing. You know I’m not going to force her to fight even if I can. I’m trying to convey that to her, but it’s hard without the whole speaking in words thing.”

  “Still stuck using feelings and emotions.” He nodded. “Well, move at her pace. You and her are not in my war plans. I just want you and them protected with a little bit extra and by extra I mean top tier.”

  They walked in silence for a bit as they patrolled around and through the playing children.

  Guards formed a perimeter while caretakers stood or played with the children. A mix of Blues from the mountainholds and Imperials rescued or recruited from all over the Empire of Man.

  They were inside the town’s walls, but being deep in the northern frontier of the empire meant they didn’t take chances against the possibility of a monster attack coming down from the mountains or from the forests.

  Nila regarded the children sadly.

  Most were native Imperials, but there were a few from other lands or different species entirely.

  Cal took a deep breath.

  “You can ask about them.”

  “I guess I should know if I’m going to be spending time with them,” she sighed. “It’s not fair that I get to stay away from what they’ve been forced to suffer.”

  “You can still be good for them without knowing all the details.”

  “But you know them.”

  “Trust me, I’d rather not, but it’s unavoidable.”

  “You could erase it from your memories or remove the emotion from them.”

  “Ah, but that would be selfish.”

  “What’s good enough for you is good enough for me.”

  “Okay.”

  Cal told her about a depraved nobleman, as many of them were, with a depraved appetite and a depraved goal to defile as many different species of children as he could.

  Her husband had trapped him in a nightmare pulled from the subconscious to last three decades in the mind as the body died in a few minutes of filth.

  As punishments went, she thought it insufficient.

  “Lady Nila!” A blue-scaled boy ran up to her with something behind his back, tail swishing.

  “Oh!” She crouched down to wipe the snot running from his nose slits. “Do you have a surprise for me, Travalyn?”

  The boldness fled, replaced by shyness as he found something suddenly very interesting to focus on in the snow.

  “Please, don’t keep me waiting.” She smiled as she coaxed him to reveal the beautiful blue flower with petals that were delicate ice crystals. “For me?”

  He nodded.

  “Thank you so much! It’s beautiful! Like the color of your scales!” She took a moment to brush the snow from his hairless head and pull the hood back on before sending him back to play with the children.

  “It’s good that there’s not a lot of bullying,” her husband said.

  “The caretakers are on top of it. Helps that you put a revenant in charge of them.”

  “Everyone here’s been hurt in some way by the empire elite. Solidarity isn’t that hard to encourage.” He regarded the blue-scaled boy. “His name isn’t one he’d get from his people. Someone else slapped it on him when he was trafficked.”

  “Do you think he’d like another one?”

  “I don’t have a lot of information, but I think his people don’t name their children until a special ceremony somewhere between birth and adulthood.”

  “Gee, that’s not very accurate, is it?”

  He shrugged.

  “The trafficking organization didn’t know more than that.”

  “And how are they doing?”

  “Not very well. That is to say they’ve met and continue to meet mysterious deaths. Accidents, health emergencies, acts of God and a few falling rocks.”

  “Good. How about the human baby breeding farms?”

  “You ask me about that every time we talk.”

  “It’s important.”

  “Agreed, but there’s an issue of caring for that amount of babies and toddlers. And moving against them would be noticed by the Emypreals and Suiteonem. He’s really looking forward to seeing those warmachines in action. Messing with their production will be noticed. There’s also the poison pill protective measure they’ve bargained with.” He raised a hand in that annoying way to interrupt her. “I’ve been sabotaging them. Small issues here and there that are hard to notice, but cause large issues further down, which lead to the inability to ‘harvest’ the babies.” He grimaced. “Just talking about this makes me feel evil.”

  “How long?”

  “I’m projecting I can get away with three to six months before drawing attention. By that time the empire and Suiteonem will have an undead apocalypse to keep their attention. Then we can rescue.”

  “Okay, but if a single child is in danger you have to step in.”

  “They won’t be. The next ‘harvest’, luckily, works with our timeline, but if that happens, then, yes, I will obviously stop it and deal with the consequences after.”

  They watched the children roll snowballs down the back side of the snow-covered boulder for a pleasant while in silence.

  The children grew bored as they did and began rolling themselves down.

  “I miss him.”

  Thoughts of their son frolicking in the snow across his ages filled her.

  Her husband wrapped his arms around her.

  He wasn’t physically there, but she felt his strength and warmth nonetheless.

  “Which memory are you thinking of?”

  “I don’t know. Tahoe. Our lake house in the winter. Heavenly. It blends together.”

  “You haven’t been asking for a dream every night.”

  She laughed bitterly.

  “Every other night.”

  “Baby steps.”

  “To spend my days looking forward to the dreams and waking up disappointed that I have another day to wait wasn’t good. Which, I knew and was warned about by our therapist back home.”

  “This helps.”

  She watched the happy children, although if she really watched them closely she caught moments where their smiles dropped and the look in their eyes turned into that she had seen in people and in the mirror from the earliest days of the spires.

  The look of horrors seen and imprinted.

  It got worse at night for the children.

  The day’s light gave them a feeling of security, while the night’s darkness brought their past terrors back.

  The thought healers and caretakers could only mitigate and slowly heal.

  There was no one panacea.

  Well, that wasn’t entirely true.

  She craned her head back to look at her husband.

  He could make them forget the evil done to them.

  She’d thought to argue for it, but stopped when she had realized that he, more than anyone, knew what the children went through.

  “You can ask,” he said.

  “No. That’s okay. I don’t want to add more to your plate.”

  “It really isn’t an imposition.”

  So, she asked.

  “I will if they can’t heal with what they’re already doing. If time doesn’t heal. I just think they should have the choice no one on this world ever gave them. I’m also selfish and a hypocrite. I don’t want to play god with them when I’m doing it with the ones that hurt them.”

  “You are… but I wouldn’t want you to do it any other way.”

  “Did you want a dream tonight?”

  She hesitated before shaking her head.

  “Tonight will be an all-nighter. A happy, tiring day tends to lead to bad nightmares for the kids.”

  “Not tonight then.”

  …

  Suiteonem Prime, Lakeside Town, March 2058

  Sarnathan, the Doom That Scratches, regarded the grand room of the lord’s keep.

  “Tch, like a piss-swill tavern common room. Emphasis on ‘common’,” he muttered to no one in particular.

  The revenant stood dwarfed by the seven leaders of the seven mountainholds.

  “For troglodytes, you all look very uncomfortable in this cramped place.” He graced them a beatific smile.

  The shortest was well over two meters tall and all were built powerfully, yet they eyed him like he was the snow bear and they were the blue snow rodent.

  “Sarnathan.”

  The other person in the room sent a shiver down his mostly undead spine with a single word.

  He supposed that he was also the rodent when viewed from another perspective.

  “My apologies, Dawn’s Light. I meant no disrespect. I merely used the word as strictly a definitional thing. Sometimes I do get a tad insufferable with my insecure need to display my mastery of the dictionary and the thesaurus.” He sketched a deep bow, practically scrapping the well-made wood floors with his face.

  Habits were hard to break.

  He was a weak revenant compared to one such as Falliana and experience had taught him painful lessons about displeasing those stronger than him.

  After all, the empress, may her soul rot wherever it went, thought nothing of inter-revenant violence when she could just fix them afterward.

  “You forget that we no longer hold to the old ways,” Falliana said. “Respect is given and received to all, regardless of personal strength or status.”

  “Yes, of course, so says the Lord and Lady Cross.” He stood straight once more and smiled up at the wary Blues, as his new lord called them. Better than ice barbarians or frost savages, as they had been called.

  Must be that mutual respect thing.

  An adjustment he was still working on.

  “How may we serve our lord?”

  Falliana fixed him with an unblinking stare for a very long time.

  Though, he figured that was a matter of perspective as the rodent to her bear.

  “You shall administrate this place. You shall turn it into a war camp, a fortress to fit the needs of the people of the Holds.”

  “Ah! Of course. I live…” he couldn’t help but smirk, though if she appreciated his attempt at self-deprecating revenant humor, her face revealed nothing, “… to serve.”

  “But first you shall accompany me to Lakeshore Town.”

  “Pardon, Dawn’s Light,” he raised a finger, “are we not here?”

  “We are in Lakeside.”

  “Ah! Understood. The other empire frontier town set on the northern side of another lake. About a two week walk through the deep snows northwest of here.”

  “A week for us,” one of the Blues grunted.

  “They shall not be going at this time,” Falliana said. “It will be myself, you and a few other revenants. We go to demand ransom for our prisoners and to announce that Calamity is upon the empire.”

  “I shall ready my travel boots.”

  “We shall not be walking.”

  Sarnathan tried not to wince.

  He had never flown on the terrifying undead dragon, had never wanted the dubious honor.

  But, needs must and all that.

  He looked on the bright side.

  A quick flight beat running nonstop for the two or three days it’d take to get to the other town while fighting monsters along the way.