Wizardry 8 - Destination Dominus ()

Wizardry Novels
These novels written by: Chris Beebe, based on the trilogy of games by Sir-Tech Inc.
Wizardry is a registered trademark of Aeria Corporation, Japan. All original characters, story, dialogue
and anything else in this trilogy of novels that is not a copyright of Aeria is the exclusive property of Chris
Beebe.
In other words, everything in this trilogy either belongs to Aeria or Chris! You can share the story, but
keep it intact, and don’t steal it! Please send any comments, complaints, suggestions or otherwise to
Chris at [email protected]. And have fun!
Table of Contents:
Wizardry 8 - Destination Dominus
Introduction
The Cosmic Lords
Contenders
Part 1 - End of a Journey
The Umpani
Duty, Power, Victory
The T'Rang
Stinger and Claw
Demon Children
Chance and Chaos
Elson
The Favored
The Party
Home
Reunion
The Other Half
Two Professors
Part 2 - Worlds Collide
The Umpani
One Down
Beyond the Sea
The T'Rang
Two to Go
We Survive
Elson and the Demon Children
From the Night
The Party
Shift and Stir
The Tournament
Family
True Blue
Part 3 - Overthrow
Everyone
War on Ascension Peak
Allied Assault
Ye Shall Be As Gods
- Reconciliation
- One Last Embrace
- Claw in Hand
- Bloodlust
- Sacrifice
- Fallen
Epilogue
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Wizardry 8 - Destination Dominus
Introduction
Contenders
The Cosmic Circle
Minutes after the events on Guardia...
Darkness penetrated all. From somewhere within, the Cosmic Lords watched... and listened.
The machine god gripped the globe within his gloved and powerful hands, then disappeared in a flash of
light, leaving the five alone with their grievous wounds and crippling despair. Moments later, the
behemoth Black Ship slowly moved out of orbit and into the darkness of space. "The Dark Savant has
won," Aletheides informed them, and opened his eyes.
The cybernetic man was suddenly revealed by a bright beam of white light from above him, his humble
red robe fluttering towards the flawless and sparklingly clean bridge of blue, and a field of starry brilliance
beneath him.
Years passed in the blink of an eye as several ships traversed the lonely depths of space, warmly
cradling and protecting the individuals of varied races within them. The universe watched silently, and
absorbed their every unique thought and feeling into its own consuming nether.
"It appears he is the first to arrive," Aletheides said. "This will certainly complicate matters for the
others..."
A slight shifting, a wondering. "Yes, of course," he responded. "Of whose exploits would you have me
speak?"
Part 1 - End of a Journey
Duty, Power, Victory
"The Umpani... a militaristic race of rhinoceros-men from a distant star, whose vast trading empire
stretches from one end of the galaxy to the other. Having been at war with the insectal T'Rang for
centuries, the Imperial Umpani Federation long ago shifted from a large and loosely-knit network of
trading planets, to a centralized and expansive military force.
"The IUF first heard of Guardia and the Astral Dominae a full century after its existence was no longer
obscured. When the Cosmic Forge, the pen used to script the laws and destiny of this universe, was
stolen, the law written to safeguard the planet and its legendary prize likewise disappeared.
"Not long ago, a lost and damaged miner's vessel stumbled upon the sacred planet, and transmitted word
of its existence upon its return home. Without the power of the Forge to hide Guardia, nothing could be
done to stop the resulting exchange of information that would bring the Umpani there.
"The IUF was skeptical, having routinely receiving many such reports from all over the universe of
mystical artifacts and powerful weapons that could turn the tide of war against the T'Rang. Likewise, their
reliance on technology and only a passing interest in matters of religion or sorcery, including their god
Urrhina, added to their disbelief in the existence of a mystical globe with power over Life itself.
"But the possibilities were too good to pass up. They sent a small detachment of their considerable
military force, along with the powerful and respected leader of their military forces, to investigate the
claims of this artifact and its power. With General Yamo leading their considerable force upon Guardia,
the Umpani were certain that the truth of the rumors would be laid bare, and that their victory was
assured.
"The T'Rang had a similar idea, however, and being more in tune with their magical nature and less
doubtful of tales of arcane power, they came with a much larger and more powerful force than their hated
rivals. In a bold attack on the Umpani stronghold itself, and after an accidental explosion within the main
compound there, the T'Rang routed and defeated their despised enemy.
"The scattered Umpani survivors carried out a days-long guerilla war... that ended with the sudden and
surprising retreat of the T'Rang. Reeling over the loss of their General and regrouping with the Master
Tracker, Rodan Lewarx, the Umpani boarded their great ship Horatha and gave chase to the Dark
Savant, who had absconded with the mystical globe.
"Now, the Umpani have arrived on Dominus, in far greater numbers and much better equipped than the
simple expedition sent to Guardia three years ago. Their new leader, General Yamir, is said to be in every
way a worthy replacement to the honored General Yamo, whose life was lost on Guardia.
"Their mission is threefold: to eliminate the T'Rang... who have also made planetfall upon the surface of
Dominus... to destroy the Dark Savant, and to secure the Astral Dominae in the name of the IUF.
"But their story begins humbly... with the tale of an aspiring recruit, lover of nature and defender of her
hometown Trynton. It begins with a girl, the Trynnie named Sparkle."
Mt. Gigas
Day 2
As if the constant attacks by the Rapax and the Black Ship overhead weren't enough... now there were
Rats! Big, smelly, ugly, barbaric, invading hordes of Rats!!
Well, there wasn't that big a difference between them and the Trynnie, aside from their selfish squatting in
the Trynnie's rightful tree. And their propensity for killing. Oh, and those skin-crawlingly creepy ridged
tails...
That's why Sparkle was here. Four feet tall, wearing nothing but some old brown shorts and boots and
brown fur all over, she cut a cute figure. Her eyes were large, deep black orbs that shone with curiosity
and were always searching about.
She held a small bow in her paw and a pack of arrows in a quiver on her back, with a hand axe hanging
loosely at her side. Aside from the times she needed to hunt for food, she had not really needed to use
either weapon.
Nonetheless, as with all other Trynnie Rangers, she was prepared for the day that she would need to
wield them. And in these times, it seemed more and more likely that that day was coming.
It had taken her several days to walk here from Trynton, but when she heard from Trynton's scouts that
the Umpani were hiring and offering training, she couldn't pass the opportunity up. Her chief and her
people needed her help, and if these alien creatures could offer her anything to rid Trynton of the Rats,
she'd gladly do it!
As she walked across the rusted old arch bridge linking the Northern Wilderness to the towering peaks of
Mt. Gigas, she wondered just what kind of people these Umpani were.
She didn't know what they looked like, or even what kind of people they were. She hoped they were nice,
but when she received word that one of their ships had been shot down by the big space bully, the Dark
Savant, she didn't imagine them being in the best of spirits right about now.
The Trynnie passed through the familiar canyon that led to the tallest of the Gigas mountains, and her
eyes went wide with surprise. The last time she had been here, it had been nothing but a sparse forest at
the base of the caves leading into the mountains.
The bright moonlight shone down and revealed the new face of Mt. Gigas: a wooden wall as tall as three
fully grown Trynnie standing on one another's shoulders, wrapped around an area easily several tens of
thousands of square feet wide. Barbed wire that looked sharp enough to cut metal ran the length of it, and
dozens of heavily armed creatures walked in and out of the structure with giant swords on their backs and
guns at their sides.
Somehow, Sparkle ruled the possibility of a heartfelt welcome out... though strange as it was, their
obvious experience with war-related matters and the weapons they wielded comforted her. If they would
train her, she knew she would receive some very helpful tips on how best to free her hometown.
The Umpani, if this was them, were easily twice her size. Most were dressed very snappily in formal red
coats with white undershirts, and in very neat black slacks. The ones leading them, often a head taller
than their subordinates, sported even nicer blue jackets that were impeccably pressed and buttoned over
their muscular bodies.
Their skin was rough and grey, and large horns protruded from the spot where noses were on most
anyone else. They hustled in and out of their camp, and the vast majority looked at best fatigued, and at
the worst utterly beat.
The Trynnie ducked her head shyly as a group of five, one blue officer and four soldiers, walked by her.
They carried backpacks that smelled of something sweet and delicious, and carried a myriad of tools on
them. Rope, flint rocks, a few splints...
Though they obviously saw her as they walked past, none of them made an attempt to stop her, or even
greet her. By the looks of exhaustion on their faces, she didn't blame them.
As she approached the entrance to the compound, marked by a very impressive red flag bearing the
silhouette of an Umpani's proud head, she noticed a very long line of Umpani leading from a struggling
and shouting guard... a line which ended nearly a hundred feet away from him.
"Get your cards out, I said!" he shouted. "How many times do you have to fumble with them when you get
here? Nobody gets in without clearance!" The tired Umpani in the front of the line fired back a quick retort,
accusing the wait of being nonsense and a waste of time.
Sparkle ducked next to the line of Umpani, slowly walking past each one. When she reached the front,
the Umpani who hadn't had his card ready finally received approval to enter. As he strode left up a step
and onto the metal floor that led in, the Trynnie sneakily matched his step, keeping him between her and
the Umpani guardsmen there. She had no time for lines when the Rats were on the loose!
Whether the Umpani behind her were too tired to care, or merely approved of her daring entry into the
guarded compound and past the needless procedure out front, nobody spoke up as she found herself in
the Umpani base camp.
It was amazing that they had managed to construct such a fortified place without the Trynnie suspecting
what was going on until so recently. It was testament to their industriousness, and Sparkle admired them
for it.
The camp was situated on a grassy field where once towering trees had stood, and simple brown
buildings dotted either side of the humble dirt road ahead of her. Umpani hurried in and out of them, all
carrying different supplies for separate tasks, but not a one of them was without a blade or firearm of
some kind.
The road continued even farther, then forked left and right in front of a massive black structure that was
probably the nerve center of the Umpani command. To its left, nervous and exciteable Umpani lined up to
enter a small brown building, and on the right, similarly energetic Umpani emerged with scorching burns
and cuts all over them, clapping one another across their backs and laughing.
An Umpani with half-closed eyes nearly bowled the Trynnie over as she barely jumped away from him to
avoid being stampeded... and inadvertently, she jumped straight into the leg of another. She looked up at
him with an apologetic expression, when he began to speak in a calm, musical voice.
"What brings ya to Mt. Gigas, darlin'?" he asked. "Seems a bit far from Trynton."
He was an older Umpani, and free of the spirited hustle that seemed to infect all of the other soldiers in
the camp. His skin was a lighter grey, almost white in certain places on his face. He was dressed as one
of the regular Umpani soldiers in red, but carried a curious shiny brass item in his hand.
Sparkle stared at it and the shiny sword on his back with love in her eyes. She rose up as high as she
could, then pointed at herself proudly. "I'm here to enlist!" she proclaimed.
The Umpani stiffened his lower lip as he studied her. "Mighty me, that's a fine attitude," his silky voice
spoke, "but Balbrak's the one who'll make the final call." He pointed to the building to her left. "In there, to
the left. He'll tell ya if ya have what it takes."
The Trynnie put her paw across her chest and saluted the Umpani, who returned the gesture. "Thanks a
lot!" she said.
He nodded. "My pleasure, little'un," he replied as he walked to the building on the right. Following his
directions, Sparkle walked past a small army of Umpani, who were darting in and out of a tiny office
stacked with papers and swarming with soldiers.
Tables covered with flashing machines and piles of reports were strewn about the room in a seemingly
random fashion. Against the back wall, a bulletin board with memos addressed to Umpani officers was
adorned by a large picture of a brown and green bug man's face, which was summarily circled and
slashed in red ink.
Amdist the chaos of busy Umpani, a lone officer scribbled and stabbed impatiently at several pieces of
paper at his desk as he spoke with the soldiers around him.
Their leader, "Sergeant Major Balbrak" as the placard indicated, looked even more harried than the
soldiers under his command. Though he was obviously an Umpani of rank, judging from the experienced
and serious look on his face and his clear position of power here, he wore the simple red jacket of a
common soldier.
Sparkle felt guilty about burdening the busy Umpani with even more requests and reports, but courage
took a hold of her when a brief window of opportunity arose. As Balbrak shoved a piece of paper into the
hands of an Umpani team and they subsequently left, all the while not paying the tiny Trynnie any mind,
she approached the officer and cleared her throat.
"What?" he asked without looking up, writing furiously.
"My name's Sparkle, and I'm here to enlist in the Imperial Umpani Federation's army!" she proclaimed.
Perhaps it was her squeaky voice, or the fact that it came from three feet lower than he expected, but
Balbrak briefly looked up from his work to see who was speaking. He slowly eyed her from head to toe
and back again, then returned to his report.
"Sorry, we don't need any mutant gerbils," he said. "We're fully staffed and not accepting applications at
this time."
Sparkle stood still, mouth agape. "Excuse me, you deformed Hogar," she huffed, "but I happen to know
my way around this planet, unlike you outsiders. And I am very handy with this bow here!" She patted the
weapon affectionately; it had been there for her all her life.
Balbrak scoffed and continued writing as he said, "Hogar? I don't even know what that is."
The Trynnie opened her arms wide in disbelief. "That's why you should..." she started, before Balbrak cut
her off. "And we have satellites to keep us informed of the layout of the land."
He finished the report in his hands and shoved it into a basket with a few scant papers inside, next to a
much larger stack. "We appreciate the offer," he continued, "but the IUF has no need for primitive wood
shooters wielded by fuzzy midgets."
Undaunted, Sparkle folded her arms across her chest and stepped forward confidently. When she was
next to Balbrak, she tilted her head to the side and in front of his face, blocking his view of the report he
was finishing.
He grunted in annoyance and shifted on his pachyderm toes, and tried looking over her annoying head.
"Is that so?" she asked him. "Then why do you only have one guard out front, holding up an entire platoon
of men for clearance into the base?"
Balbrak finally ignored his report long enough to make eye contact with her. The Trynnie stepped back,
walking boldly and proudly across the room. "And for that matter, why do all of your men look so
exhausted?" she further queried. "Is it because they push themselves for the IUF? Because they have no
stamina?
"OR..." she continued, pointing a fuzzy digit in the air, "is it because you're short-staffed, and sending too
few men on too many missions?" Balbrak's jaw worked, but nothing came out, and she chuckled. "And
don't tell me you know everything there is to know about Dominus," she teased. "For one thing, I saw the
explorer gear your men are carrying with them. They're scouts, aren't they? For another... if your satellites
are so great, why would you need so many men out there looking around?"
She pointed at the map of her planet on the wall. "Look at this, you even have Ascension Peak sitting
right next to the Rapax Rift. They're at least a hundred miles apart," she pointed out. "And Arnika? It's not
even close to the Sea Caves! Hence the name: Sea Caves... across the sea!"
Balbrak's face changed from mild annoyance, to furious, then suddenly to wondering. Sparkle smirked as
she noticed, then pointed at the map again. "There are circles around Arnika road, in the caves and sand
near there," she said. "Does that mean you're exploring there? There's nothing but a bunch of Hogar,
vines and a couple of Higardi thieves out there. You ask me, you should probably be focusing your
attention here," she pointed just southeast of Arnika.
"Your other alien friends probably live near here," she said. "The ones who leave the slime all over the
place. I don't know who they..."
He suddenly dropped his pen in surprise. "Wait, what aliens?" he asked with his eyes on her. "What do
they look like, these slimy things? Like that?" he pointed at the circled and crossed bug picture behind
him.
Sparkle shrugged. "I don't know, I just know that the house there is covered in that brown gunk."
The Umpani swore and picked up a green pen. Sparkle smirked, knowing this color was reserved for
more special spots to explore or to take over. He circled the spot she indicated, then returned to his desk
and held down the report he was working on as if he were going to finish it.
He made no move to write on it, though, and she watched as he struggled with something internally. A
few seconds of silence passed between them, before Balbrak finally released the report from his grip and
pulled another out of a cabinet behind him.
"All right," he conceded as he filled out this new form. "I'll give you a chance, but only because today's
been less hectic than usual." He shook his head and exhaled sharply. "You really notice a lot of things,
don't you, furball?" he asked.
"Of course!" Sparkle replied. "It's my job to notice."
Balbrak finished the form with impressive speed and handed it to her. "Well, now it's your job to do
everything I say, to the letter. You understand me, soldier?" he asked.
After a quick nod from the enthusiastic recruit, he continued. "This is the IUF, the strongest military force
you'll ever have the pleasure of joining," he explained. "We're here for three reasons: to investigate this
Ascension you locals are talking about, to stop the Dark Savant, and to eliminate the T'Rang, those slimy
bugs you so innocently stumbled upon."
He pointed at the picture of the bug on the wall. "This is your enemy," he informed her. "Memorize this
face, as much as it may turn your stomach, because the next time you see it... it better have one of your
pointy sticks in its eye right after."
"'kay," she answered.
Balbrak looked at her suspiciously for a second, then extended his hand. Sparkle took it without
hesitation. "Welcome to the IUF, Private Sprinkle," he welcomed her.
"Sparkle!" she corrected while she shook his hand.
The Umpani snorted. "Either way," he conceded. "We'll see if your name is really Power Mouse or Bug
Bait when the time comes." He pointed at the orders in her paw. "Your orders are simple enough, but
there they are in case you forget," he told her.
She looked at the paper, annoyingly labelled "Private Sprinkle," when he explained what was already
written there. "You will finish the Obstacle Course tomorrow morning," he said. "I'd send you tonight, but it
seems the boys from Company B are getting a little rough messing around in there. I don't think you're
ready to play with the big kids just yet."
He fished a red and black card from his pocket, bearing the symbols of a sword and a gun crossed over
one another, a black stripe across the back, and a prominent "1" on its face.
"Take that to Sergeant Kunar over at the Commissary, and he'll get you your gear," Balbrak explained,
then eyed her up and down. "And for the love of Urrhina, get a shirt," he ordered. "Normally I wouldn't
object to girls running around topless in my office, but the IUF has a respectable reputation to uphold."
"Ok, got it," Sparkle replied with unerring diplomacy. She turned around... only to see the line of over a
dozen Umpani, waiting for the exchange to finally end. She looked sheepishly at the foremost one, whose
arms were folded as he stared at her impatiently.
When Sparkle walked past him, he thundered up to Balbrak and started yelling, but she was already too
far down the hall and elated to care what it was about. This is so cool! she thought to herself, then
grinned and clenched her fist in anticipation. "Look out, Rats, 'cause Private Sparkle's coming for you
soon!" she said aloud.
***
Kunar rustled around in the back room, trying to find the spare Blunder Buss that Sergeant Krahr had
ordered but never received. He swore angrily as he looked through the same boxes over and over, not
finding it anywhere.
Having just come back from a meeting with his contact, it was a dangerous time to return to an empty
shop with who knew what kind of dishonest or drunken idiots who decided to do a little shoplifting... or
exploring.
Something rustled near the cash register and the Umpani swore again, his heart suddenly thudding
faster. He hastily cast a blanket over the plate bearing its long-legged symbol on the floor, and burst out
of the storeroom to see who was messing with his wares.
It was a small furry creature, pawing in a box and pulling out several shiny items, including some daggers,
a box of Musket balls and a couple of glowing spellbooks.
"HEY!" he roared at it. The creature practically jumped straight into the ceiling as it ran in front of his
counter and out of sight. "What the hell? I thought we cleared out that rat infestation a month ago..." he
muttered as he grabbed his Musket from its stand on the wall.
"Rat?!" the creature yelled from the counter. Sparkle popped her head up and made an angry face at him.
"Who are you calling a rat, hornface?!"
Kunar suddenly pressed the Musket against her cheek as he stared angrily at her, and silenced her
immediately. "I will give you one chance to rephrase that and explain what you're doing here, before I
decorate my shop with your grey matter," he warned. He paused, then said, "...or whatever color your
pea-sized brain is."
Sparkle grinned and chuckled nervously. "Oh... this is your shop, huh?" she asked. "Sorry... me and shiny
things have a love-nice relationship. That is, I love to have them, and they feel nice when they're with
me!"
Kunar pulled the hammer back on the gun; she sweat nervously. "You're serious, huh?" the Trynnie
commented. "Let me show you my orders..." she said as she reached for her pocket.
"Slowly," he ordered, pushing the barrel of the gun farther into her cheek.
The Trynnie complied, and carefully put her ID card and orders on the counter. The Umpani glanced over
them, then slowly eased the hammer back on his gun and stepped towards the merchandise behind him.
"Great, another recruit for the peace corps..." he grumbled as he picked up a box. He dropped the
container, labelled "IUF Basic Gear - Extra Small," on the counter, and opened the top for her.
"Peace corps?" she asked innocently.
Kunar suddenly animated, and began angrily slamming gear on the counter as he yelled. "You're damn
right, 'peace corps!'" he yelled at her, and dropped a vest that was surprisingly near her size in the
process. "Back in the day, the IUF was something to fear. We saw something, we'd take it. We had an
enemy, we bombed and raided and slaughtered them until there was nothing but quivering, spineless
wretches begging for their lives and kissing the ground we walked on."
He slammed a miniature Musket onto the counter. "But now look at us!" he roared with a wave around his
shop. Sparkle looked, but saw nothing aside from a few sterile metal walls and a ceiling. "General Yamir
has turned us into an interstellar joke! We're babysitters, nothing more," he told her.
The Umpani shook his head in dismay. "Now Yamo, he was our man," he continued. "General Yamo, the
finest soldier to ever grace this quadrant of the galaxy. Then the bugs kill him, and we're left with General
Yamir to take his place... the worthless coward.
"As long as we have someone like him scaling back our offensive forces and doing that whole 'wait and
see' nonsense, we're just gonna have more and more victories for the bugs." He punched the counter,
almost knocking the vest and Musket to the ground. "Damn him," he swore. "He's the one responsible for
us losing ground to the T'Rang. He's gonna drag the whole IUF into the murk along with his sorry ass..."
Sparkle stood there, not knowing what to say. Silently, she took the flak vest from the counter and slipped
it over her head, then tightened the straps on either side of her chest. It fit very snugly, and looked like it
could stop a good amount of damage.
She stood up straight and looked at the angered Umpani. "Well then, thanks for the shirt, and for not
killing me and all that!" she said sarcastically. Kunar looked briefly at the Musket with a sour face. "You
can keep it... I won't need it," she continued.
"Gee, thanks," he grumbled, and stuffed it back in the box before he tossed it aside. As Sparkle turned to
go, Kunar called after her. "Steal from me again and I'll blow your head off," he warned. "I'm well within
my right, even if you are in the IUF."
Sparkle waved back at him. "Gotcha, Sunshine!" she called to him, and rounded the corner and out of
sight. Too bad the only souvenirs of our meeting were legit, she thought with an evil smile.
Down the hall, the end of a very smooth and relaxing song came to her ears. To her dismay, the musician
ended it just as she walked into the dark and lonely bar, surrounded by several Umpani in varying stages
of inebriation.
When she got closer, she realized that the music man was the same person who had directed her to
Balbrak just an hour before. As he stepped down from the spotlight above him to a smattering of
applause, he noticed her standing at the entrance, and walked over to meet her.
"Well, if it isn't the new recruit," he said. "Did ya make it in?"
Sparkle nodded emphatically, and the Umpani gestured towards a seat at the bar next to a slumped and
defeated Umpani, offering her the chair two spaces away from the drunk soldier. She climbed up and sat
as he patted his hand on the morose Umpani's back.
"It'll be just fine," the musician assured his friend. "I'm sure he'll turn up eventually."
The other wiped his sweaty face on the cool bar and slurred, "S'already b'n sree days shince he'n
Rodan'n all the otherssh went ta'tha Rapax place'n haven't heard hide'r hair'a'em..."
The musician patted him reassuringly once more, then glanced at Sparkle. "A good friend'a ours
disappeared a few days ago with a mountain of a soldier, Rodan Lewarx," he said, then looked at the
entrance to the bar as if he could come in at any time. "Knowin' that guy, they're probably fine. But still..."
He sighed. "Haven't properly introduced myself, have I, little'un?" he asked her. "I'm the 'Recreational
Technician' of this here expedition, though most just call me a musician. Name's Saxx."
"I'm Sparkle," she introduced herself. "I'm just a Private for now, but I've got big plans!"
Saxx sighed with contentment. "I remember bein' young 'n scrappy like you," he said with a smile.
"Seems a long time ago, now..."
She cocked her head to the side. "You don't look that old," she lied. "What rank are you?"
"Me?" he asked. "Why, I'm retired, darlin'. Came here as a favor to my friend Bildublu." He pointed at the
grizzled bartender, who was busy listening to a long and sorrowful confession from one of his many
regulars. "Not that any'a the boys here care about anythin' but what's in their mugs..."
Saxx made a humming sound as he suddenly remembered something. "Ah, you'll have to forgive me, my
manners not bein' what they used to be," he apologized to Sparkle as he waved at the bartender. "Hey
Blu," he called to him. "Get me somethin' stiff, and a..." he looked at Sparkle.
"Water, please," she said. Saxx paused and blinked at her, not sure if she was joking or not.
When she didn't budge, he chuckled. "Ya look a little young for the swill we serve around here," he
conceded. "In fact..."
He called out to Bildublu again. "Two waters, Blu." The bartender looked at him with slight confusion, but
complied, splashing water from a metal spigot at the back of the room into two mugs.
"What's the matter?" he asked as he pushed the slightly dirty mugs at his two customers. "Your new lady
friend here not a drinker?"
Sparkle and Saxx laughed in unison, then the Umpani spoke. "Now, it ain't like that this time, Blu," he
said. "Sparkle here's a new recruit, 'n I'm just givin' her a proper welcome."
Bildublu looked doubtful, but nodded and held out his hand. "Welcome to the IUF, Sparkle," he said,
shaking hers. "You ever need to get somethin' off your back, or somethin' warm in your stomach to kill a
memory, you come on over to the Roadhouse, all right?"
She thanked him, and he went back to the confessing Umpani several seats down.
As Sparkle sipped carefully at her drink, her eyes wandered the bar behind the bartender, travelling over
the hundreds of bottles of powerful and stoppered liquor. Her eyes stopped on the magnificent portrait of
an Umpani in steel armor, who was wearing an impressive red cape that draped over his shoulders as he
stared bravely into the distance. The placard read "In memory of General Yamo."
So this was the one Kunar was talking about... she thought.
"That there's the finest General the IUF has ever been blessed enough to follow under," Saxx explained.
"General Yamo... fought the bugs on more worlds than I've ever heard of, 'n victor'a more campaigns than
missions I even been on."
He shook his head. "Damn shame he had to leave us, on that backwater planet of all places. Never
forgave the bugs for what they did there..."
Sparkle looked at him in wonder. "Is that why the IUF is slipping?" she asked innocently, and Saxx
furrowed his brow while he sipped at his drink. "Who told ya that, darlin'?" he answered.
"Uhhh..." Sparkle tried to remember. "The guy in the arms shop... Conner or something."
Saxx scoffed and downed his water in a single gulp. "Thought as much," he said. "Somethin' ain't right
with that boy, 'n it starts way before his attitude.
"Our new leader is takin' a different approach to war, gatherin' more intel before makin' a move," he
explained. "Ya ask me, though Yamo was more quick to act 'n get results... 'n often got 'em I might add...
Yamir's attitude suits the IUF well. Doesn't faze me one bit."
"So who are the T'Rang?" Sparkle asked.
At the mention of their hated enemy, Saxx made a disgusted face to beat all disgusted faces. "The bugs?"
he asked. "Mere sight'a 'em would drive ya to the drink... or make ya lose any ya had in ya. Been at war
with those things longer than any of us can remember... balance'a power shiftin' one way or the next
every so often, but nobody really gainin' any chains'a smashin' victories or crushin' defeats."
He sighed and signalled for another drink, this time something hard. Bildublu obliged and slid a mug of
foul-smelling yellow swill under Saxx's nose, and he downed it quickly. Sparkle noticed the turn of mood
in the conversation and changed the subject. "So I'll be doing my training tomorrow," she said.
"Yeah?" Saxx replied. "Who's goin' with ya?"
Though she tried to remember Balbrak saying anything about a partner, no names sprang to mind. She
fished out her orders and read them over again, but there was nothing there either. "Looks like... I'm going
alone!" she realized.
"Alone?" Saxx asked with a concerned face. "Don't nobody take trainin' by 'emselves... not with the
swarm waitin' for ya down there."
At the sound of the word, Sparkle couldn't help but shiver. She wondered briefly if he meant some kind of
bug... and he eyed her with concern. "You'll be ok down there by yourself, darlin'?" he asked.
The Trynnie sipped at her drink and put it back on the bar. "Of course!" she assured him. "The Trynnie
are experienced with all kinds of creatures that want to kill and eat us. Right now it's the three R's: the
Rapax, the Rynjin and the Rats.
"When I finish my training here, not a one of them is going to bother us ever again!" she exclaimed with a
clenched fist, but her face fell a little just a second later. "I think I need to go to bed first, though," she said
with a grin.
Saxx tussled her fuzzy head. "Sounds like a plan to me, darlin'," he said, then rose from the bar. "Break
time's over for now. Ya ever find yourself in the mood, come on back here 'n I'll play a little somethin' for
ya. Heck, I may even write a song about the fuzzy sweetheart who made herself a General someday..."
Sparkle giggled happily and waved goodbye as Saxx took the stage again. He waved with his back to
her, and stood under the spotlight as he pressed the end of the brass object to his mouth. The instrument
issued a calm, reedy and sad sound that wrapped the room up in its own sorrow... at the same time that it
inexplicably lifted everyone's spirits.
Like a long-time partner and friend, it sang Saxx's own life story with an all-knowing understanding. The
instrument had an almost magical effect, one that Sparkle had seen only a few times before, played by
the most skilled of musicians who knew music like the Umpani clearly knew war.
Nonetheless, she was tired, and after she walked out of the bar among the crowds of Umpani stumbling
with exhaustion or inebriation, she returned to the building where she first joined up with the military force
that would be her people's liberation.
The barracks were just down the hall of the large structure, directly across from the recruiting office, and
were filled with the snoring and sleep-mumbling of hundreds of Umpani. The cots there were behemoth,
large enough to hold the body of a full-sized Umpani, and extremely comfortable because of it.
As Sparkle lay down on an empty bed, she paused and looked over the many cabinets and footlockers
that lined the walls between the cots. It took a sheer amount of willpower to not go rifling through any of
them looking for anything worth stealing, but with the Commissary Umpani's response fresh in her mind,
she found the strength to refrain from lockpicking.
She removed her flak jacket and placed it on top of the blanket, to mark the bed as hers and keep any
unsuspecting Umpani from squashing her. With that, she laid her head down on the soft pillow and went
to sleep, thoughts of her grueling training and resulting victory over the three R's running constantly
through her mind.
***
Sparkle was up bright and early, and happy to see the new face of the Umpani army around her. They
were bright, strong and ready for action, every last one of them rejuvenated with the healing power of a
good night's sleep.
With her card pinned neatly on her flak vest, she noticed that she was finally being recognized by the
towering Umpani, even though she was well out of many of their fields of vision. One or two even nodded
and saluted as she walked out the open door of the barracks/recruiting building and into the bright
sunshine.
Sighing happily as the warmth struck her skin, Sparkle was suddenly filled with a sense of community with
these alien creatures. They had accepted her, and despite a few snags along the way, she now felt like
she was beginning to become truly one of them.
She spent a few minutes wandering the compound, noticing several different activities going on at once.
There was a sparring area that was sparsely populated by the few Umpani with nothing better to do, a
wide field filled with brawling and slashing soldiers. However, the vast majority of Umpani were still busily
hurrying in and out of the compound, just beginning or finishing some all-important task that the
exhausted Balbrak had probably ordered them on.
In the daylight, the main black building of the Umpani compound looked even more impressive. It was
very tall, and a pair of burly guards dressed in blue jackets now stood outside of it. Apparently, the night
had brought several outstanding teams back to the compound, and she wondered offhand if the fiasco at
the front gates had been remedied yet.
She finally found the place she was looking for: another small brown building that led deeper into the
mountain. She recognized this "Recruit Training Course," as it was labelled... it was a natural cave that
led very close to an active magma pool underneath the volcanic Mt. Gigas. Sparkle grinned as she
approached the Umpani blocking the entrance; it seemed like the perfect place to cut one's teeth on the
rough and tumble outfit of the Umpani army.
"Yo, pipsqueak," the proud Umpani with a confident smirk rumbled to her. "How's the tour of our
compound going?"
She pointed at the badge on her chest. "Hey, where'd you get that?" he asked. "The lost and found
should be over at Kunar's place, if you'd..."
The Trynnie waved her paw at him. "No, no..." she interrupted. "I'm Sparkle, IUF Private extraordinaire!
Balbrak ordered me to come here and do some training... is this the place?" She handed him her orders
before he could question her further.
He hastily scanned the document. "Balbrak let you in, huh?" he laughed. "An outsider finally beat the
hazing process... I love it!" He backed up and walked to the other end of the small room. "If Balbrak gave
you the go-ahead, you're all right by me, kiddo!" he exclaimed.
The two arrived at a large, open archway that led into the cave itself. Her view was blocked by a wooden
ramp that the Umpani had built there, but she could hear the rush of a small pool of water just beyond it.
"I'm Sergeant Rubble," the Umpani introduced himself, "and I turn the boys who cry for mama into the
men that will someday bring glory to the Federation!"
He stopped his usual introduction suddenly when he realized his error. "'course, in this case, it'll be the
girl who becomes a woman, but let's not bother with details, huh?" he added, then waved into the cave.
"The rules are simple. Get in there... and come out alive on the other end. There's no time limit, but of
course, making me wait may have a negative effect on your final score."
He chuckled. "Get your butt through training, and I'll see you commended for your sheer lack of size," he
half-joked.
Sparkle thumped her arm across her chest. "Roger, Rubble!" she saluted, and dashed for the first of the
great wooden ramps. Rubble watched her scurry over the first and land just beyond it, already preparing
the forms for disposal of her body in his mind.
There were three ramps, one right after the other, which eventually led to a pool of water that the Umpani
had constructed there. Sparkle had spent her life climbing and swimming, though, so each obstacle was
not even tough enough for her to consider an annoyance.
Just after that, a trio of metal spikes lines descended from the ceiling in rhythmic patterns, each
successive one dropping and returning into holes in the roof of the cave quicker than the previous.
Sparkle passed them with ease; stopping just in front of where they brutally thrust downwards, she waited
until they began to rise, stepped forward, then stopped just in front of the next before continuing.
With the pattern in mind and always just out of range from a piercing death, she advanced into the large
cave she had seen a few times before... except then, there was not a bridge spanning the lava pool.
Balance was on her side that day. She climbed up the wooden ramp leading to the thin wooden planks
beyond it, and carefully crossed over the hot and churning pit of magma.
At the end of the bridge, a platform suspended by a rocking tow line swung back and forth over the pool
below it. It stopped next to the bridge for a brief second, then swung back over to the other end, where it
briefly paused over a large wall laced with barbed wire.
Simple enough... Sparkle thought as the platform began its sway back towards her. She lept forward,
grabbed the line suspending the heavy platform, and swung down to the bottom.
The platform didn't seem to mind the extra weight, pausing ever so slightly before it began its expected
veer back towards the barbed wire. Just before it paused, Sparkle used its momentum for extra force as
she jumped over the sharp, protective barbed wire and to the rocky ground below it.
She knew this cave, how just beyond the lava pit, it ended with the wet and dripping wall that housed
nothing more interesting than several patches of moss.
Now, it appeared to be some kind of storage area, filled with boxes spilling out various pieces of armor,
gunpowder and shot for the Umpani guns, daggers and piles and piles of rocks.
Situated among the messy containers and their untended contents were several white Trynnie-sized
dummies with red bulls-eyes painted on their chests. Though they looked stuffed like strawmen, as
Sparkle jumped to the ground, they began to move.
They emerged from between and inside the crates from all around her. Each one was accompanied by a
swishing noise as their leg joints rubbed together, all in a mad dash to punish the skilled intruder who had
just arrived.
The Trynnie's eyes twinkled as the first two lept forward to grab her legs, when she flipped up and over
the dummies to land just behind them. As they stumbled and fell over one another, she nocked two
arrows and fired them into each of their backs, pinning them to the ground.
A rustle from behind. Sparkle ducked low and sliced at the kneecaps of the dummy behind her with her
axe. Then, as it stumbled over her tiny body, she pushed up with her back and flung it over her using its
own momentum. While it tumbled end over end towards its two clumsy friends, she flung her axe at it,
cheering as it lodged in its chest and it crashed on top of the others.
Before any other dummies had a chance to reach her, Sparkle took out a small jar of bubbling green
liquid, which she threw with a backhanded fling at a group of three of them. The Acid Bomb exploded in
the middle of them and coated the dummies with a corrosive blast of the hissing fluid.
They still lunged forward to grab her, but before they had advanced even five feet, the acid had eaten
deep into their bodies. Their joints dissolved in seconds, and the dummies stumbled to the cave floor on
now useless legs.
Sparkle quickly fired five more arrows into faraway dummies that hadn't yet seemed to notice they were
under attack, and hit each squarely in the bulls-eye on their chests. She let the final active dummy run
straight to her, nocking an arrow as she watched it draw closer and closer...
Just as it had its hands near her throat, she dodged right, spun and hooked the dummy's head with the
wooden part of her bow. Its legs kept running and it clotheslined itself, tugging hard on the bow in the
process, but Sparkle held it still enough to position the arrow towards its neck and let it fly through the soft
fabric protecting it.
The dummy's head wobbled, and it slumped to the ground as she untangled her bow and let it drop to her
side again. "Ha! Simple enough," she called out.
As if in response, the dummies began to shake and rise from the ground. To her surprise, though, they
came not for her, but instead returned to the crates that they had sprung from. Oddly enough, they
seemed to be in just as good a shape as they had been when she dropped into their midst just seconds
ago.
Even the corroded mess of dummy that her Acid Bomb had left reformed themselves into a shadow of
their former shapes, repairing further with every passing second. She was so enthralled by the strange
display of amazing healing power, that she was only mildly surprised when the dummy she had axed
began to slowly walk towards her.
As it approached, it tugged the hand axe from its chest, and the wound stitched closed before her eyes. It
flipped the weapon around in its hand, positioning the blade towards itself and holding the handle towards
Sparkle.
When it was only a foot away, it stopped and held the axe still and out towards her. "Thanks!" she said as
she took it. "No hard feelings, right? Getting whupped by a girl and all."
Without a word, the dummy walked back towards the crates nearest the wall, between her and the
magma pool. There, it crouched down and awaited the next thorough thrashing it would receive from the
next prospective trainee.
Sparkle walked past the spilled crates, slyly snagging a gleaming sword, a sparkling helmet and a very
round and beautiful metal bracelet that was much too big for her... but very shiny!
The Umpani had not only placed a lot of their goodies here... she made a mental note to return with
several large sacks... but had apparently dug a tunnel on the far end of the cave. It was being blocked
now by a very large metal door with several braces running down and along it.
The only part of the door that allowed potential access to the other side was a thin hole about a foot over
her head. She jumped up a few times to see what it was, and pieced together information about its
purpose and construction with each leap.
It was a lock... and a very, very sad lock, at that. "The tumblers are showing," she said aloud. "What kind
of training is this?! Please! There isn't even a deadbolt on here!"
Removing the lockpicks from her pocket so fast that they might have been sitting in their own holster,
Sparkle deftly placed her pilfered helmet on the ground and stood atop it, then pushed the three tumblers
simultaneously up to hear a resounding click as the door swung open.
"See? Simple as that," she said proudly.
Her feet wobbled. Perfect time to lose my footing, she thought, then slipped off of the helmet and onto the
ground, landing hard on her rear.
She sighed in exasperation. "At least nobody saw that," she said, but a scant second later, she heard the
boisterous laughter of an Umpani from somewhere beyond the door no less than a second later. She
rolled her eyes and put the helmet under her arm, then walked down the exposed hallway that the
Umpani constructed, all the while looking as innocent as possible.
Sergeant Rubble was there, seated at a table and watching an odd machine with blinking images on it.
Grey lines filled the screen as he fiddled with a small black device with many buttons in his hand. He
pushed one... and Sparkle gasped as she saw herself fighting the dummies from a vantage point several
dozen feet above herself.
"Wow!" she said from over his shoulder.
He shook his head in disbelief. "Yeah. That was fast, soldier," he commented. He whistled as she
wrapped the bow around the dummy's head and shot the arrow through its neck again, then exhaled
sharply. "Amazing..." they said in unison, though for entirely different reasons.
Rubble looked back at her. "No, I didn't..." Sparkle started with a wave of her paws.
"No... you should take pride in your strength, soldier!" Rubble told her. "There's no need for modesty in an
outfit like the IUF! You have power... you show it off!" He closed one eye and formed his hand into the
shape of a gun. "Might make the bugs think twice about messing with you if you play it that way,
pipsqueak!" he said as he pretended to fire.
A thought came to him as he pointed to her. "Ah, yes, that reminds me... you wouldn't mind if I showed
this little video to the more dainty of our toy soldiers?" he asked. "You know, let them know how a real
soldier fights."
Sparkle blushed. "Um... no problem here, I guess," she said.
Rubble barked a laugh. "Haha... perfect!" he exclaimed, then pressed a button on the machine, which
ejected a small, transparent disc. He pocketed it and turned the machine off. "Well, that'll do it for you,
Private. Or should I say..." he said, then suddenly stopped.
With a chuckle, he continued. "I'll let Balbrak tell you about that little part. Report back to him and get your
new orders," he said.
Sparkle saluted across her chest. "Yes, sir!" she said before starting for the door.
"Oh, and pipsqueak..." Rubble said after her, and she turned back to meet his eyes. "The gear," he said
simply.
With a nervous laugh, the Trynnie emptied the goods onto the floor. "Oh, these?" she asked. "I was just...
see, they looked so lonely, and..."
He wasn't buying it, and stared at her with his arms across his chest. "We'll call it a greenhorn blunder for
now," he offered. "Provided you bring back a few T'Rang stingers with those moves of yours..." She
laughed nervously, then whisked herself out the door with an innocent tongue sticking out.
Thankfully, it seemed that most of Balbrak's usuals were on assignment or sleeping in today, because
there was only a small line leading into his office. After the Umpani in front of her were through making
their report on T'Rang movements around her hometown of Trynton, she approached the Sergeant Major.
"Done!" she said with a salute.
"I know," Balbrak replied with a serious face and tone. "Rubble told me over the horn. He also asked that
you be promoted..."
Sparkle's eyes shone. "Does that mean I get a bonus?!" she asked happily.
Balbrak guffawed. "Not likely, Private... or should I say, Private First Class," he said, then opened a
drawer in his filing cabinet.
He turned back to her and offered her a beat up old card that had probably seen many owners. Sparkle
made a face when she saw the stain on the front... one that looked suspiciously like dried blood covering
the "3" marked upon it. "Believe me, this one's in the best condition," Balbrak assured her.
With a disgusted face, the Trynnie exchanged her old card for the bloody one, and Balbrak waited
impatiently until he had her full attention. "From here on out, it's the real thing," he said ominously.
Sparkle made as convincing an "oh, no!" face as she could; the Umpani looked pleased with himself.
"From now on, the danger is very real, and you won't be seeing any more of that supervised training
nonsense," he continued. "Your work with the IUF truly begins now. In fact, I have orders for you... the
last ones I'll be giving you."
Sparkle looked at him inquisitively. "You will rendezvous with your new CO in Mt. Gigas and he'll direct
you from there," Balbrak explained. "Just follow the signs when you get inside to the Firing Range, where
he's probably still practicing.
"If you're interested in getting yourself a real weapon, he'll probably have a few spare Muskets lying
around..." the Umpani continued. "Hell, he might even let you shoot a couple times before he sends you
off to fight the T'Rang... or die. Probably both."
All at once, the Trynnie began to have second thoughts about being in the IUF. Carelessly throwing the
lives of their soldiers around? Asking them to push themselves to the point of exhaustion for the glory of
their people? Just what kind of training is this, anyway? she thought bitterly. I'd have better luck honing
my skills on the Rapax than throw my life away serving this pigheaded fool.
"Soldier!" Balbrak barked. Sparkle returned from her doubt-filled thoughts to see his angry mug. "You
listening, or off in World Two?!"
She made a face at him. "Yeah yeah, Firing Range, new CO, get myself killed, I get it already," she
muttered bitterly. She turned her back on him and walked away in a huff, ignoring his shouts for her to
stop. "You forgot your ord..." he started, when the next Umpani in line blocked his view. "Sergeant!" he
shouted. "You won't believe what we found in Arnika!"
"Tch..." Balbrak hissed tiredly. Rookie didn't even get the CO's name... he thought briefly before he took
the soldier's report.
Outside, Sparkle was in the middle of debating the pros and cons of going AWOL and how best to slip out
of the compound unnoticed. If I wait 'til nightfall, there'll be a huge line coming in... that might be best for
me to slip out, she thought to herself, and chuckled. It'll be easy... these guys are so far over their heads,
they don't know what's what!
"Somethin' funny, darlin'?" a voice came from far above her. She looked up and saw the calm face of
Saxx looking down at her, though she had a feeling if she told him what she was planning, it might turn to
anger real quick.
"Oh, um... nothing, just remembering something my, uh, Chief said last week," she stammered.
Saxx smiled. "Oh, one'a them time bomb funnies, huh?" he replied. "Those tend to be the best, comin' at
a time ya need to hear 'em the most."
"Yeah," the Trynnie agreed quickly. "Say, I gotta be going now, so see ya later, ok?" She stepped
backwards towards the barracks, hoping she could wait until the musician was sufficiently out of range
before she made a break for it.
Saxx motioned for her to wait. "Whoa, whoa, now darlin'. What's the rush?" he asked in his beautifully
silky voice.
Sparkle spoke quickly. "Got orders... yep. Big orders," she replied. "Meeting my new order giver at the
Firing Range, 'cause he has orders for me. No time to waste... gotta get my orders!"
The Umpani nodded knowingly. "Ah, the Colonel," he said.
All at once, Sparkle stopped backing up. "You know him?" she asked.
"Oh, ya bet I do, darlin'," Saxx answered. "Known him since he was kneehigh to a Zint..." On her
confused look, he said, "Oh, now that's just Umpanispeak for 'since he was a young'un,'" he explained.
"What kind of person is he?" she asked.
Saxx looked off into the distance as he spoke. "A changed man since Guardia, that's for sure..." he
replied. She again looked confused, but the Umpani dismissed her curiosity with a wave. "Nothin' to worry
about now, darlin'. Just an old mission..." he explained. "Caused the IUF a lot of trouble... 'n three years
later, we're still carryin' the scars."
He sighed before he spoke again. "They say, 'Time heals all wounds,' but in this case, it may just be war
that does it. Anyway..." he said, changing the subject, "if you're goin' to see the Colonel, I'd certainly like
to pay him a little social call myself."
Sparkle made a face at him against her better judgement, but thankfully, Saxx only laughed. "Now, now,
don't think I'm tryin' to barge in on your business," he said. "If anythin', ya can consider me your
bodyguard. There's lots'a critters still runnin' loose in them caves, despite our efforts to clean 'em out. We
ain't got the time to be searchin' 'em all, what with the T'Rang 'n the Dark Savant runnin' loose... 'n a
whole planet to explore."
He's not going away... she thought to herself, and sighed. It was time to come clean. "The truth is..." she
started, "...I'm not sure if I'm cut out for the IUF after all."
She braced herself for an angry retort or a call to alarm, prepared to dodge a sudden fist and bolt for the
exit.
Instead, she got a look of concern. "Somethin' happen to ya, darlin'?" Saxx asked. "Tell me who's been
botherin' ya. Ain't no man have a right to lay a finger or throw an unkind word at a pretty little thing like
you."
For some reason, the Trynnie felt like she could trust him with the truth. She stamped her foor on the
ground. "Balbrak's a jerk!" she said a little louder than she intended. But undaunted, she continued on.
"He makes it seem like I can't do anything, even after Rubble took that magic disc of my fighting skills to
show the other soldiers. It's not fair!"
Saxx hummed and nodded with understanding. "Might be a bit of a cultural thing there, darlin'," he said.
"That there Balbrak... he says those things to inspire, to challenge... not to tear ya down."
He looked at the building that housed his office. "Ya know he fought in that slaughter on Guardia?" he
asked. Sparkle remained silent. "Took on an army'a T'Rang on with nothin' but a few dozen soldiers at his
back. Got himself a slew'a medals and commendations after leadin' those attacks, and stymyin' the bugs'
rampage for those many long days.
"He had himself an opportunity to take a desk job on a peaceful planet, live out his days in a cushy office,
attendin' meetings, developin' strategies 'n workin' in peace. But Balbrak?" he asked with a respectful
nod. "He refused every attempt to take him away from what he loved doin' the most: inspirin' new recruits
to give their all for the Federation," he explained. "He finally took those promotions, but only high enough
to be just short'a that coveted officer position, so he could be down here with the rest of us."
He looked back down at Sparkle, who was looking shamefully at the ground, and tussled her fuzzy head
playfully. "Don't ya worry 'bout it none, darlin'," he said to her. "I'm sure ya give the IUF enough time, you'll
come to know us... 'n like us, much better." Sparkle nodded and smiled in response. "Now, what say we
head on into the mountain and meet your new CO?" he offered.
The Trynnie, feeling much better, swatted his hand away from her head with mock annoyance. "All right,
all right," she conceded. "Working under a vet... sounds interesting!"
"After you, Private," he said, and ushered her forward. Sparkle wagged a single digit at him before she
turned and walked towards the main building leading into the mountain. "First Class," she corrected.
"That right?" the Umpani wondered aloud, then smiled. "Gettin' mighty fond'a ya already, darlin'," he said
to himself.
After they went up the stairs, and Sparkle pressed the dirty card into a slot at the base of a massive metal
door, they were inside the main nerve center of the Umpani information network.
"This here's the EWAXX," Saxx explained. He pointed towards the screens and the buttons bearing many
alien symbols to her left, and large, blinking machines to her right. "This is where we store all the
information we need to know about our mission here, 'n previous operations, too." He pointed at the
buttons. "That's where ya log into the main computer. Get a higher security clearance, 'n you'll be able to
explore it like I can."
"I thought you were retired," Sparkle remembered.
Saxx shrugged. "I don't question the higher-ups... too often, at least," he replied. "If they think an old blues
man like me needs to know about the Dane-Munk war a few years ago, I ain't gonna argue with 'em."
Sparkle ignored the cryptic reference; she had a feeling he was probably full of them, and unashamed to
keep bringing them up.
He pointed towards an alcove at the back of the room. "Go on, step on in there," he said. She padded her
bare feet over the cool metal floor to the inside of the small cube, which had nothing but another card slot
for a feature. She reached her card towards it, but Saxx stopped her.
"Whoa, whoa there, now..." he called out. "Let the old man join ya before ya go stickin' that thing
anywhere ya want." When he had finally brought himself next to a shifting and impatient Sparkle, she
swiped the card in the slit.
"Hold on tight," he warned.
She had enough time to look him in the face, before the boxed room suddenly closed tight and rocketed
upwards towards the top of the mountain. Sparkle immediately lost her footing and was pressed towards
the ground by the sheer speed of the machine. It was an elevator, much like the ones in Trynton, but way
more powerful!
Before she could strike her head on the floor, Saxx reached an arm under her shoulder and pulled her up,
keeping her steady until the lift came to a gradual stop some seconds later.
The door opened, and three Umpani soldiers dressed in red awaited them, looking exceptionally bored.
One of them seemed slightly suspicious upon seeing the strange, small creature stepping out of the
elevator, but when good old Saxx joined her side, he visibly relaxed.
"What's up, Saxx?" he greeted, then reached his hand out to shake his. "Haven't seen you in a while."
Saxx shook it firmly. "Likewise, boy," he returned. "When ya gonna come on down to the Roadhouse 'n let
me play ya a li'l somethin'?"
"Whenever Yamir decides I can stop hanging around here and go kill some bugs, that's when!" he
exclaimed.
The soldier got nothing more than a snort for sympathy. "Maybe when ya learn to get more powder in the
gun than on your face..." Saxx replied.
"Ah, bite me, old man," the soldier teased. He released his grip on Saxx's hand, then looked at Sparkle.
"So who's the girl?" he asked. "Tourist? Or...?" He elbowed the older Umpani with a knowing grin.
"It ain't like that, boy," he replied, and pushed the guard's hand away. "Ya keep your manners about ya
with the lady here, ya understand?"
The soldier backed off. "All right, all right," he conceded. "We're still on for next week, right?" he asked.
"Far as I know," Saxx replied. "Long as your vacation don't get cut to sharpen your trainin' again. Ya work
hard now, all right?"
The younger Umpani saluted as he looked at Sparkle. "Take care of the old man, now," he said with a sly
grin at Saxx. "His reflexes aren't what they used to be... decades ago, back in the day."
The musician pshawed. "On today, ain't ya, boy?" he commented. "I'll come back later." The soldier
laughed and clapped him on the back. "Take it easy, Saxx," he said after him.
Sparkle waved back at him. "Who was that?" she asked.
"Just one'a my friends, the kind you'll be makin' soon enough," Saxx explained. "Meet a lot'a people in the
music business." He pushed a button next to a door in front of them, and it slid into the ceiling.
The caves were as big as Sparkle remembered them, though the metal partition between the elevator
and here was new to her. Likewise, the Umpani had installed metal braces that ran along the walls and
ceiling, and every few dozen feet, a glowing and humming blue light kept the usually gloomy caves nice
and bright.
It certainly was a welcome change from when she had first been here, when many a hapless Trynnie had
been carried off by giant spiders or Ghosts in the dark. Truthfully, she had been a bit nervous coming up
here, knowing the creatures who made the caves their home... now, she was happy to see what the
Umpani had done with the place.
Nonetheless, the creepy bats that hung on the ceiling and watched her with their disgusting, beady eyes
were still around, hanging upside-down from the brief portions of shadowy respite where they could rest
in peace. She heard that Vampire Bats lived here, but had never seen one herself.
They wound through several more of the crate-filled caves for several minutes. Unfortunately, most of the
boxes that were strewn about the hallways and lit by orange lights on the floor were closed and nailed
shut, leaving any opportunity for a little souvenir hunting far from Sparkle's ability to do without arousing
suspicion. Saxx did seem like a laidback kind of guy, but she didn't want to push her luck.
The two also passed many roaming groups of patrolling soldiers. Each group had kind words to exchange
with Saxx, who patiently acknowledged and spoke with each of the greeters in turn. Thanks to the
constant catching up that the Bard had neglected to do for what seemed like months, it took longer than
she expected to reach the end of the caves.
They finally reached a large area with stalactites that reached from ceiling to floor, and met the ground at
random intervals. Every step they took resounded painfully loud off of the walls around them, threatening
to awake any creature sleeping or lying in wait nearby.
All at once, Sparkle heard the sound of skittering feet behind her, and she had an arrow in her bow and
had turned around just before the creature was upon her.
An Ensnaring Spider! she thought in a panic. She couldn't believe it... of all the bugs to run into in this
nasty place, they had to fight an Ensnaring Spider!
It was a large, fuzzy, hateful thing, black and soulless eyes situated on a grey body with large, dripping
white fangs ready to paralyze and devour her alive. Its long legs clicked on the ground with sickening
speed as it approached.
She let the arrow loose into its forehead without hesitation, and had another nocked and ready to fly as it
kept on towards her. Before she had a chance to shoot it again, though, it did exactly what she feared it
would do: it spit a glob of venom into her eyes, as if the arrow in its head was nothing more than an
annoyance.
Sparkle fired the arrow harmlessly into the ceiling as the venom burned her. The Ensnaring Spider
pounced upon her, then began to envelop her in its sticky web with ruthless efficiency.
"Help me!" she screamed out, just before her mouth was covered with the sticky substance. As the spider
worked, she realized that she had been so focused on the fight thus far that she had not heard a distinct
sound, one that had sounded since the battle began: the sound of Saxx playing a calm and relaxing song
on his instrument.
Her eyes were still open, so she saw everything: the Ensnaring Spider was wrapping her... then suddenly,
its droopy eyes closed and opened in fleeting fits of sleep. It finally stumbled backwards and hit the
ground, its round body rising and falling slowly in slumber.
Saxx walked slowly forward, still playing the haunting song, but despite its obvious effect on the spider,
neither she nor the Umpani felt or looked tired. With one hand working the buttons on the front of the
instrument, he unsheathed his massive sword from his back, then plunged it through the spider's head
and torso, cutting it in near halves. It didn't even stir as it drifted so peacefully from sleep into death.
The musician finished the last two notes of his song that became the spider's dirge, then sheathed his
sword and turned back to Sparkle. "Sorry if I worried ya, darlin'," he said as he started to pluck away the
strands from around her body. "I heard the critter comin' as plain as day, but I needed time to craft that
song on this here sax."
He tore the web painfully from her mouth, and she winced before she spoke. "Sax?" she asked. "You're
named after your instrument?"
He laughed. "I prefer the idea that it's named after me..." he joked as he ripped the last of the web from
her body. "But ya know... ya seem mighty calm now, for someone who came that close to gettin' her vitals
turned to goo."
Sparkle stood and pulled off some of the errant web. "Yeah, well, when your people are meals on the
hoof..." she paused to wiggle her toes, "...or in this case, cute little piggies... to about half the planet, you
start to feel right at home with the natural order of things."
Saxx shook his head and let her lead him to the southern exit of the great cavern. "Ain't no way to be livin'
your life, darlin'," he commented. "It's one'a the reasons we Umpani banded together 'n became the IUF.
Ain't ever gonna be taken for fools by our enemies again."
"Exactly why I'm here," she said through her smile.
He nodded. "Turn right here," he said at the intersection in the cavern.
They walked a short way past a murky and algae-filled pool of water to another elevator, where Sparkle
waited patiently for the older Umpani to enter. When she placed the card in this time, she didn't need a
supportive arm to keep her balance.
The next floor was flooded with Umpani of every rank and demeanor. Though many seemed to recognize
Saxx, few went out of their way to break the serious silence that enveloped the entirety of the cavern.
"General's on this floor," Saxx explained, "along with the Firin' Range, Covert Ops 'n the Underwater
Tactical Unit, where our specialized units cut their teeth on new kinds'a trainin'. Naturally, they're all under
heavy guard."
"I can see that," Sparkle commented as they passed by the dozenth blue-jacketed Umpani wielding a gun
larger than her entire body, and a sword on his back taller than two of her.
A few minutes later, they were facing a strange black machine sitting in the middle of a large cavern. "Put
your card up on that thing," Saxx instructed. As she walked towards the tall reader, though, he stopped
her with a hand. "Never mind... seem a might short for it," he pointed out.
He took the card from her paw and placed it on the black screen, then waited for the green reader to read
the strip on the back. But nothing happened, even after several seconds. "Oh, lordie," he said tiredly.
"This thing's always actin' up." He gave the card back to Sparkle and walked around the back. "Better
keep your distance, darlin', 'cause this thing likes to zap ya good if it gets the chance..."
Sparkle did as she was asked, and took several steps back. Saxx knelt down behind the machine, then
began fiddling with something there. After a few seconds, the sound of an electrical shock zapped
through the air, and Saxx jerked his hand back, shaking it painfully.
"For Urrhina's s..." the Umpani started to swear, but calmed in time to avoid any harsh language in front
of the young'un. After a little bit more tinkering, he finally got the wires put back together, and the machine
began to beep... but he didn't know how much longer it would hold.
"Ok, quick, give me the card, darlin'," he gestured to her. Sparkle ran towards him and put it in his hand,
and he swiped it along the screen just before it went dead again. A metal door ground open somewhere
beyond them, and the sudden blasting of an Umpani firearm suddenly echoed around them. Saxx looked
proud. "Nice work, if I do say," he said with a smirk.
He waited politely for Sparkle to take point and lead them forward to a four-way intersection of separate
caverns that led in each cardinal direction. "Straight ahead now, keep goin'," he told her.
Sparkle almost pointed out that she could hear the guns blasting just as well as he could, but decided
against it. Not to Saxx... she thought to herself. But if Balbrak brought me here, he'd get an earful! ...As
encouragement, of course, she added as a wry afterthought.
The Firing Range was littered with more of the slovenly Umpani army's crates and bundles of items,
which were all stacked in a corner alongside the wall to allow full access to the actual range itself.
A two foot high wall, just half her size, blocked off access to a long tunnel scorched and pockmarked with
the holes and soot of a thousand blasted pellets and fiery weapons. At the end of the hundreds of feet
long range, a large picture of a T'Rang was covered from stingered head to spidery gown-covered toe
with the holes of countless gunshots.
To the left, a caged hallway allowed prime viewing for any of the range's onlookers, as well as safe
passage to a small room in the back, whose contents remained a mystery. A few of the familiar
self-repairing dummies stood and wandered aimlessly at the back of the range just under the T'Rang
picture, providing stationary and moving targets for effective target practice for all levels of firearm skill.
The sole occupant of the Firing Range was a large and powerful Umpani, a height and muscled frame the
likes of which Sparkle had not yet seen before now. Though his blue-jacketed back was to them, he stood
proud and focused, firing blast after blast of the firearm in his hand with unerring accuracy at the helpless
dummies at the end of the range.
This gun, which Sparkle would later come to know as the "Blunder Buss," was actually a modified version
of the base, double-barreled design. Atop it, a device fed an exact amount of gunpowder and Musket
balls directly into the twin barrels, which allowed for quick reloading and firing on the fly.
The two watched in silence as the Umpani blasted again and again down the range, shooting the very
legs out from underneath the dummies, then ripped off their arms and heads with successive firings.
There was no telltale spark on the back wall or puff of dust from the ground below, no sign that he had
missed a single shot. Sparkle was in love.
Finally, having punished the dummies enough, the Umpani put his gun down on the Firing Range counter
and turned to meet the newcomers, with no surprise evident on his face.
Sparkle winced despite herself as she noticed the long and deep scar that ran from his forehead, over his
left eye and down to his cheek, and the eye permanently closed from the injury. As disgusting as the
brown scar was, she was also impressed at the accuracy he displayed in his shooting... considering his
depth perception was practically non-existent.
His good eye looked between the both of them, and recognition passed across it. "Saxx?" he asked in a
voice that was as boastfully strong and confident as it was placatingly relaxing and calm. "You're the one
Balbrak sent me?"
Saxx shook his head. "No, Colonel. That would be the li'l miss here," he said from behind Sparkle, with
his hands on her shoulders. "Private First Class Sparkle. Just joined up yesterday."
The Colonel met her eyes. As intimidating as his depth of confidence was, she could not look away. "And
already a PFC?" he asked her directly.
Sparkle had not the strength to answer, so she merely nodded.
"Not much for speaking?" he asked. She braced herself for the expected insults, the decrying of her
skills... and of course, some comment about her height, and the fact that she was a girl.
He nodded at her. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Sparkle," he said in that powerfully calm voice. "I'm
Colonel Gruntwrapper, IUF." He saluted her with two fingers on his forehead, which she returned with a
confused arm across her chest.
Introductions done, Colonel Gruntwrapper dusted the gunpowder and dirt off of his hands. "Well, let's not
waste any time, shall we?" he continued. "You're here for orders... and I'm here to give them to you." He
indicated to the south with a nod of his head and opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to suddenly
change his mind about what he wanted to say. "You're from here, aren't you?" he asked.
Slowly but surely, Sparkle began to feel more at ease. "Yep! Trynnie, born and raised, and proud of it!"
she exclaimed.
The Colonel blinked and gestured towards her. "Good, then," he replied. "Then I don't have to explain
about directions or dangers." He paused. "In fact... I'd appreciate it if you could brief me on a few things
later, if that's all right with you."
"Yes, sir!" she said proudly.
He nodded, and continued. "All right," he said. "We're heading to Arnika, home of the Higardi and current
base of operations for the Dark Savant. With such a small group, we should be able to slip in and out
without anyone being the wiser.
"However," he continued, holding his index finger up, "this is not an attack mission. We are going to make
contact with an alien race of giant creatures called the 'Mook,' who may be in possession of a device that
may be of use to the IUF, and in this so-called 'Ascension.'
"Get in, do a little recon, make friends, get out," he summarized.
Before he could continue, Sparkle motioned for him to wait. "Hey... what do you mean, 'we?'" she asked.
"I thought Balbrak said you were going to send me alone."
Gruntwrapper closed his eyes and smiled ever so slightly. "Don't let the RO get under your skin now,
Sparkle," he said. "The IUF takes care of its own. We never leave a man behind, and we always send, at
the very least, enough men to get the job done. Usually more."
He waited as he looked down the hall towards the entrance to the range. "At least... that's policy, now that
General Yamir is calling the shots," he said. "We vowed never to have another Guardia, and by Urrhina,
the General is keeping his word."
Sparkle felt a sudden sense of camaraderie with her new CO, who explained everything so calmly and
truthfully. This was what officers were made of, she realized: those who could inspire the kind of trust and
loyalty that soldiers would gladly follow to the edge, or even the abyss, of death.
With that feeling firmly in mind, she clenched her fist and grinned. "So when do we leave?" she asked.
Gruntwrapped remained silent for a time, then looked down the Firing Range. Finally, in a smooth motion,
he grabbed his modified Blunder Buss, aimed and fired down the long stretch of hallway.
The bullet shot straight into the forehead of the T'Rang, so threateningly poised those hundreds of feet
away, and left the angry bug looking just slightly more pathetic than it did with the other hundred bullet
holes and burn marks on its body.
"Right now," the Colonel said, and holstered his Blunder Buss at his side. Sparkle waited for him to lead
the way, but he stopped just in front of Saxx. "Good to see you again, friend," he said. "I'll take good care
of the PFC here... just have a cold beer and a warm song waiting for us when we get back."
He started to walk towards the door when Saxx clapped him on the shoulder. "If I may ask, Colonel..." he
began.
Gruntwrapper smiled slightly. "Want to tag along?" he asked knowingly, and Saxx laughed. "Ya know me
too well, Colonel," he said. "Can't just let two good friends'a mine walk into the lion's den without a bit'a
music to back 'em up..."
The Bard sighed. "'sides, ain't no place in a bar'a uncarin' drunkards for a musician to be. Couple'a days
without Saxx oughta get 'em thinkin' about the tips they leave behind..." he finished with a grin.
Sparkle felt no need to hold back her elation. "All right!" she exclaimed. "The gang's all here! Let's go tear
the Savant down a notch and teach him what it means to mess with the IUF!" She dashed out the door as
Gruntwrapper and Saxx slowly followed.
"Thought I told her this wasn't an attack run..." the Colonel said.
Saxx chuckled and shook his head. "Ain't much different from when ya were a boy, eh, Colonel?" he
asked with an elbow in his ribs. Gruntwrapper cracked his knuckles and followed with a smirk.
Stinger and Claw
"The T'Rang... universally distrusted for their spidery appearance and alien mannerisms. This distrust is
met with the T'Rang's disdain, which greets contempt, which reflects scorn, which precedes open hatred.
Thus do they live, at best under the universe's wary eye, and at worst, behind the crosshairs of its gun.
"It has been said: to make a friend of the T'Rang is to bring a universe of protection upon oneself. To
make an enemy of them, however, brings something quite different: a universe of the T'Rang's frightening
and unforgiving wrath.
"Indeed, their empire stretches as far across and as deep within the galaxy as the Imperial Umpani
Federation does, and it is this race that the T'Rang considers to be their most bitter and despised of
enemies.
"The T'Rang Empire was once ruled by a collection of old and powerful Queens, who by birth were not
only tasked with bolstering the already teeming population of T'Rang, but were considered the only
rightful and effective rulers of their people.
"It was one such Queen who joined the race for the Astral Dominae upon the planet Guardia. A rogue
who continually defied the rulings and will of the T'Rang High Council, H'Jenn-Ra T'Rang entered into
alliance with the Dark Savant for the sole purpose of acquiring the Astral Dominae and consolidating her
own power.
"Before her loyal ranks could discover its location, she was assassinated by the Fiend of Nine Worlds, the
High Father Ninja, Elson. Days later, the Dark Savant turned upon his former allies and snatched the
Astral Dominae from its resting place for himself, leaving the T'Rang beaten and betrayed.
"Following the death of H'Jenn-Ra, a lowly drone by the name of D'Rang T'Rang, whose family and
Queen were both taken in the war with the Umpani, together with a powerful T'Rang named Z'Ant,
conspired together to plot the downfall of the old and corrupt leadership they had once served.
"With an army of loyalists at their side, the worst of the T'Rang Queens were forced from their high
positions of power by the two rebels. Under their new rule, it was no longer the Queen who held the reins
of power from birth, but rather those best suited to lead who commanded their siblings and children into
battle.
"Z'Ant himself became leader of the new expedition to Dominus, followed closely by his allies D'Rang
T'Rang, and the most powerful of all T'Rang Assassins, Shritis. The new T'Rang presence on Dominus is
more open to outsiders than any previous settlement of persecuted T'Rang, but they have come solely to
annihilate the Dark Savant for his betrayal on Guardia, and to procure the prize he had stolen.
"Moreover, their war with the Umpani continues without signs of stopping, battling over more systems and
among more stars than any person on any planet could ever see on a clear, moonless night. But those
battles are meaningless to us now.
"All that matters is the final battle that will soon take place on Dominus itself for the prize of godhood. It
has yet to be seen how this new T'Rang Empire will react to the multitude of races, alien and local, that
currently reside here on Dominus... including the Umpani."
The Mine Tunnels
Day 3
The mountains east of the Swamp were as peaceful as ever. Among the ruined huts of a long abandoned
village, a small group of gigantic, humming yellow wasps buzzed around in search of food. From a small
pool of water at the base of the shack-dotted hill, giant mosquitoes fluttered lazily about.
The small houses sat at the base of a large, grassy mountain path that wound up and around a deep
valley bearing a beautiful lake. A chain guard ran along with it, providing a more-or-less useless deterrent
to a sudden slip and tumble off of the tall peaks.
On top of being one of the highest points on Dominus, the view from the mountains was spectacular.
Alongside the moist brush and lush vegetation of the Swamp, the blue sea lapped against a sandy shore
to the far north, extending farther than the naked eye could see. Just the fleetest glimpse of the island of
Bayjin was visible on the extraordinarily clear and warm day, an island which was home to the fierce, and
rumored cannibalistic, Rynjin fish-men.
Up and up the mountain path with unnatural speed, the valley and the lake far below. Past the sparsely
growing bushes and weeds, the towering cliffs on either side, and over the pleasant trail of grass. Over an
innocent-looking part of the mountain, partially hidden by a dense growth of long-leaved green plants
shooting up from the soil. Through the very wall itself, into a great metal structure built into the mountain.
Around the guarded walkway on metal plates, partitioning the path from a rolling pool of green sludge
below. Over a control panel that regulated the sewage to a lone T'Rang seated there, calmly reading a
large book labelled simply, "Magic."
Tantris... a voice came to him. The bespectacled, insectal creature's stingers perked up, at the same time
as his head lifted and looked about. His deep black eyes searched the room for his unexpected guest,
before he realized that it was the thoughts of the Overmind.
Yes? What may I do for you? he thought back.
Several seconds passed before he received a reply. Z'Ant has ordered your return to the Bluff. Take what
you need and come at once... time is fleeting.
Tantris rose, holding his page with one of three talons, while he picked up and secured his grey Shock
Rod to his back, just over his spidery brown robe. He never used the thing, but if Z'Ant himself was asking
for his presence, he didn't want to look unpresentable. What of the sewage control? he thought back.
He waited for the familiar thoughts of the T'Rang Overmind to finally reach him. The automated system
will be enough. Come... you have one day, she ordered.
Very well, he thought finally. He pushed a few buttons on the control console to set the sewage to
regulate itself, and made sure that the trap was ready should any intruders attempt to access the system
without clearance. "Trespassers will be squashed," indeed, he thought, with the image of several
precariously placed boulders on the cliffs above him flashing through his mind.
The T'Rang pushed his glasses slightly down his face and over his large mandibles so he could read
while he moved. His specially customized katana, Stinger, was still clutched in his bottom left claw, and
ready to be sliced out at a moment's notice.
Two claws holding his book steady before his chitinous torso, another turning the pages and the last
ready to defend himself, Tantris pushed a button on the wall and turned off the lights to his post. He went
out the secret entrance and slithered among the weeds of the mountain, attention firmly rooted in his
book, and leaving a trail of brown goo behind him.
"The most important aspect of magic is control; that is, to be able to manipulate energy with precise
molding, purpose and direction in mind," he read. "Anything less results in spells that have an effect
lesser or opposite of what you intended, ones that fail to find their mark, or ones that simply do not work."
Tantris read in calm earnest, devouring each page as he descended the mountain. He'd read this one
three times already, but it never hurt to go over the basics. Moreover, there wasn't much to do when his
life was based around moving goop around.
Anything for the Empire, he thought. If his efforts kept clean, nourishing sludge going into Marten's Bluff,
and its waste proceeding smoothly out for treatment, he could say that his life had not been lived for
nothing.
Thus began Tantris' long trek back to the place his people now called home, on this great ball of dirt. He
preferred being somewhere darker and more enclosed... like where he just was... but if he was being
called upon to serve the Empire, by Z'Ant himself no less, he was only too happy to venture outside into
the uncomfortable warmth.
The worst part about this particular path was the multitude of creatures that made this mountain their
home, which for some reason attacked him with a ferocity he had never seen before. Nature, the Umpani,
the Dark Savant... everyone versus the T'Rang, it seems to be on this planet, he thought bitterly. Just like
it is everywhere else.
The first ambassador of the nation of Nature was a long and tiny insect, roughly the same size as one of
his arms, whose legs and antennae protruded out from both sides of its torso and head. Unsurprisingly,
its first reaction was to open its mandibled mouth and spit a stream of green venom towards Tantris' eyes.
The T'Rang dodged left as his stingers moved to point at the insect, and the bug suddenly rose into the
air.
It rotated in midair to reveal its fleshy underbelly as Tantris continued slithering forward, with his eyes cast
on the book in his claws. When he was underneath the floating bug, the T'Rang plunged a stinger into its
torso and injected it with an agent that would keep it from moving for a few minutes. It wasn't enough to
kill it, or long lasting enough to leave the bug for a chance predator... it was just enough for the T'Rang to
pass, with his eyes still on his book.
"When the novice Mage pictures magic, without fail, the image conjured is that of the Fireball. Though
certainly not for the neophyte, the Fireball is, in fact, the perfect spell to practice the conjuration,
manipulation and structuring of arcane energies."
A humming sound made Tantris look up briefly. For some reason, the path down the mountain and
overlooking the lake below was always a trouble spot for swarming wasps. They came in literal swarms,
one right after the other, as if the planet's maker herself had constructed a wasp-making generator on the
mountain, then forgot to turn it off.
Once again, the T'Rang found himself standing right in the middle of an army of wasps above him on the
mountaintop, and below him hovering among the abandoned huts. Once again, they turned in unison with
hive mind efficiency and large stingers at the ready.
And once again, they had not learned a thing.
Tantris returned his attention to his book, and took in the positions of the wasps by their sounds alone.
When he was sure of where they were, his stingers glowed bright red. They stiffened and pointed before
and behind him, each slowly conjuring a ball of red flame that grew in size with every passing second.
When the weight of the pair of Fireballs' energy caused his stingers to droop ever so slightly, Tantris
braced his body as both blasted out towards the wasps in tandem.
After the second it took them to find the middle of the wasp swarms, the Fireballs exploded and flung the
insects over the mountaintop, down into the valley, straight into the air and to the ground with blackened
bodies. The few that were not killed instantly struggled vainly to beat their charred wings and flee, but
struck the bottom of the tall cliffs, instead.
He picked up the sound of a wasp body flying towards him from behind... then dodged right, and sliced
his katana in a quick circle to his side. As he returned it to his spidery robe, two wasp halves came to a
bouncing halt a few feet down the mountain path.
The wasp groups behind each of the doomed swarms faltered and retreated from the sudden flames,
eyeing the slowly advancing T'Rang with their multi-faceted eyes.
As Tantris moved down the mountain path with book in claw, slithering among the ruined shacks, no
effort was made by the bugs to seek round two. The T'Rang moved alongside an old and leaning fence
made of pointed vertical logs, and continued onto the humbly cobbled road that would lead him into the
Swamp.
Time passed, and the lush green of the Mine Tunnels and mountaintop gave way to the moist, hostile and
overfed brown lands of the Swamp. Even the leaves and fronds of the trees hung sadder and lower as he
drew deeper in; it felt just like home.
He pushed his glasses up slightly, then continued to read. "Magic is a destructive force, though it has its
limitations. Only a certain amount of energy can be called upon at any given time, leaving a novice Mage
without a means of defense should they expend too much of their energy, too quickly.
"For this reason, many Mages divide their time between the study of the arcane with the study of the
sword, following the path of the feared Samurai. One such famous..."
A tiny water drop plinked onto the word "Samurai." Tantris sighed and closed the book, then put it back
into his robe. Luckily, the warning drop was small enough not to run the ink, and did little more than warn
the calm T'Rang of its larger and more personable cousins, which fell together in groups of two or three.
The Swamp extended for a several dozen miles in every direction. To the east, where he had just come
from, it calmed and came to life in the form of the vital Mine Tunnels. North of here was the underwater
cave entrance to the island of Bayjin, and the sea itself.
To the southeast, the Swamp ended abruptly just short of the southern edge of the Mine Tunnels, leading
into the enclosed valley of the Southeast Wilderness and the cursed Cathedral there. On the opposite
side, far to the west, the wet and dangerous Swamp gave way to the calm breezes of Trynton and the
tiny, furry, thieving Trynnie who lived there.
His destination was all the way to the south across the bulk of the dangerous Swamp, Of course, he
thought tiredly, in the T'Rang-held fortress of Marten's Bluff.
He slithered for many hours along the damp road, avoiding or roasting attacking insects as his mood
warranted. He took great pains to avoid the entrance to Bayjin and the scattered huts of the Rynjin
nearby, for even though he had no doubt that he could kill several of them with just a thought, they tended
to swarm by the dozen.
Tantris' blood pumped slightly faster when he noticed the shadows of the Rynjin traipsing through the
Swamp to the north. Among the tall, dark green weeds, their lithe and scaled forms trudged forward as
they grunted their strange, bestial language to one another.
They were ugly, large-mouthed and sharp-toothed creatures with fins on either side of their head. Though
their bodies looked small, and their webbed toes seemed comically useless, they were skilled in both the
mental magic of Psionics and a form of acrobatic martial arts. The T'Rang did not know about the sharp
nails in their fingers and toes before they landed here... but they certainly understood after a few
confrontations with the aggressive fish-men.
Tantris took shelter under a large log spanning two small hills, and waited until the Rynjin had left before
he continued his travels. Blast this drizzle, he thought to himself. An entire day of hiking with nothing and
nobody to keep him company would mean certain boredom.
He slithered over the ground littered with dead leaves and squishy brown grass, lamenting the many
things getting caught in the hem of his robe, until at last, he reached the wooden bridge that connected
the northern Swamp with the southern part.
It spanned a calm river filled with snapping and hungry fish, and was the site of many a battle between
the T'Rang and many different creatures, from giant ants to rock golems the size of a house. The
creatures seemed to understand the bridge's position as a bottleneck from where they could more easily
capture and devour their prey, and frequented the area around it.
It was no surprise, then, after Tantris had travelled just a few feet over the wooden planks, that he noticed
something walking to the west on the other bank. His stingers drooped noticeably when the shape
switched direction and stepped onto the bridge, then began to walk towards him.
Here we go again, he thought, until the form suddenly came into focus as his reading glasses slipped
down. His interest suddenly piqued.
Unlike the machines that the Dark Savant had used on Guardia, who seemed almost Human, there was
no doubt as to the mechanical nature of these new Savant machines. Gone were the brown faces and
humanoid hands of the cyborgs of years past... ones who wielded electric lances and were built for
combat, but who were still Human enough to speak to those whose lands they tread upon.
The new models of Savant androids were built for combat, with armor of solid steel and titanium covering
networks of wires and gears that kept them moving in peak condition. Their hands were nothing more
than points now, sharp metal spikes on the ends of broad and motorized shoulders with enough power to
spear a tree trunk.
Metal legs and boots covered where ominous metallic robes had once been, and their voices came not
from the flesh of moving lips, but from the internals of a voicebox and out a triangular speaker system
where their mouths once were.
Though they had eyes, and their bodies were shaped as a Human's would be, the whole of their forms
easily made their black "eyes" into "occular data recorders," and their bronze "bodies" into
"alloy-protected internal machinery." No T'Rang could relate to these no-nonsense creatures that blindly
and remorselessly followed their master's orders.
Without a word, its programming took over and the Savant Trooper rushed him. Considering that the
T'Rang came to Dominus to settle the score with the treacherous Dark Savant, Tantris expected nothing
less than the machine's orders to kill any T'Rang on sight.
Nonetheless, this one appeared to be one of the Savant's older models. Tantris lunged forward to meet
the Trooper's charge, and silently thrust Stinger into its chest, twisting it around and tearing the Trooper's
internals with the screeching sound of grinding metal.
The Trooper's spike-arm thrust harmlessly past Tantris' head, where it had expected the T'Rang to be
before the T'Rang suddenly rushed forward, and its sensors began to shut down. Tantris removed Stinger
from the machine's chestplate and let it rest back at his side, while the machine began to gyrate and
stumble backwards towards the bank it had attacked from.
"T'R... T'R... Destroy-oy-oy-oyyyyy... T'Rang-g-g..." its voice stuttered, then it collapsed in a heap on
the mushy ground behind it. Tantris almost felt sorry for it as its body convulsed with every spark that shot
from the hole in its body. Nonetheless, he slithered away until he could hear its struggles no more.
Night began to fall on the dank and dangerous Swamp. The T'Rang sought shelter in the trunk of a
hollowed-out tree, carefully avoiding the pockets of swamp gas that he had been warned about before
being assigned to manage the Mine Tunnels.
Marten's Bluff was only fifty or so miles south of where he was, but to venture out into the Swamp at
night, even a Samurai of his unique strength and skill would stand no chance against the many creatures
who lurked in the darkness.
His stingers darkened and sent forth a black light that covered the tree's hollow trunk on each of its three
openings, coming together in a cloud of darkness just ahead of him. The cloud slowly solidified, taking
form.
A wolf with a dark coat slowly appeared from the mist, then blinked its yellow eyes at him. Tantris nodded
at it and leaned into the back of the trunk, trusting the Shadow Hound to alert him to any coming danger.
In dreamless sleep Tantris healed and recovered, and the day of his most grand adventure began.
The Swamp
Day 4
Only three attacks? Tantris thought with disbelief as he waved his loyal canine companion away into an
explosion of dark smoke. Who says the creatures cannot learn? The T'Rang slithered next to the body of
an impaled crocodile who stared glassily out into space, and back onto the road leading into Marten's
Bluff.
Finally, he began to see traces of his people as he avoided spikey plants and slippery underbrush. The
trails of brown goo that followed wherever a T'Rang passed may have been hidden by the similarly
colored ground of dead leaves and murk of the Swamp, but he could tell nonetheless that his people had
been by here.
He breathed deeply as he passed under the large, fallen log that served as a natural entryway into his
home away from home here. Just a few hundred feet's travel between the drooping trees and over a
slime-covered road brought him to a small pool of clear water, and a grassy trail just after it.
I am here, he thought to the T'Rang Overmind.
The response was almost instantaneous at this distance. Earlier than expected... good work, she replied.
Z'Ant awaits.
Tantris moved up the grassy hill between the mountain cliffs, passing a roaming group of Deathsting
Apuses in the process. These bird-like insects, with beaks as well as tiny, skittering legs, were capable of
hurling spines from their tails that were so sharp, they could penetrate flesh and strike vital organs.
He felt no fear, though. As he approached, the Apuses gave him a single look, then carefully tread to the
side to avoid blocking his progress. With the efforts of the T'Rang to exterminate all hostile wildlife
surrounding the fortress of Marten's Bluff, some of the fauna had learned not to impede the T'Rang
Empire's progress so readily.
On that thought, the fortress itself came into view. It was a wide and deep grey structure made of mortar
and brick, surrounded by a moat populated by fierce crocodiles. Towers with archer slits rose up at
strategic points, and only a single chokepoint in the form of a natural bridge over the moat allowed access
inside. The gate was open now, as it always was, leading straight into the main structure with the
floor-mounted elevator that would lead him into the depths of the Bluff itself.
Tantris slithered in front of a transparent window pane that descended into the ground as he approached,
and stopped on the metal plate in the middle of the small room. With a tiny hum, it quickly lowered him
down into the dark recesses of the Bluff, then came to a slow stop at the bottom.
His eyes adjusted to the darkness as he slithered forward towards the open window that protected Z'Ant
from any potential invaders. Generally, T'Rang leaders chose to speak with their people through such a
division... to show that they were truly in charge, and that all others were simply drones.
Z'Ant, for a long time on the arriving end of the partition, now stood behind one as the receiver... and at
the request of the T'Rang serving him, no less. So used to the division between themselves and their
Queen, and protective of their leader's safety when they were so surrounded by their bitter enemies, the
T'Rang requested that he keep tradition alive. Z'Ant, in the end, felt he had no choice but to abide by their
wishes.
Tantris slithered forward between his patrolling siblings, the Watchers, who were tasked with being the
eyes of the T'Rang no matter what planet they were on. They eyed their surroundings warily for any
danger, weaving among the curved supports that stretched from the metallic ground to the ceiling a
hundred feet above their heads.
He approached the window, which was still carefully guarded by Z'Ant's eternal ally, the three-clawed and
one-stingered D'Rang T'Rang. Neither T'Rang was a Queen, the traditional leader of an expedition and
the only T'Rang capable of birthing others like herself, but after the revolution the two had led...
"Tantris!" D'Rang shouted in greeting. "You're very early... I hope you did not place yourself in danger
coming here so quickly."
"I am always careful," Tantris began, then stopped as a formless, ghostly wisp suddenly appeared from
out of a pillar and hovered next to the two T'Rang. "Protect Z'Ant!" he cried, then sliced his katana through
the wisp's form.
It became even harder to see as it faded from view, but still remained floating there as if nothing was
wrong. "Hey, whatcha guys doin'?" it somehow asked in the native T'Rang tongue, even as Stinger
passed completely through it. With the danger of the T'Rang's slicing katana momentarily passed, the
Ghost's smokey form came completely back into view.
But when Tantris sliced at it again, the cloud faded once more. Without fail, every quick slice he made
into its formless body, the Ghost would fade for a brief second, then return when his sword was out of
range.
D'Rang sighed and waved for Tantris to stop. "They've been wandering around here for a while now,
pestering us with their questions and interrupting our work," he explained. "And yet, we can do nothing to
stop them. I would show them the power of the nephew of K'Borra, but..."
He perked with a sudden thought. "Can you take care of this?" he asked Tantris hopefully. "Dispel them,
fry them, anything?"
Tantris spread his claws out in helplessness. "I am no Priest," he replied.
As they spoke, the ghostly cloud bounced left and right in impatience. "Can't scare me," it said, and
hovered into the window where Z'Ant was now standing.
Strange that this being knows our language... Tantris thought, then put his curiosity aside so he could
speak with the T'Rang leader.
Z'Ant, a tall and long-stingered T'Rang in a spidery brown gown, waved two claws at the Ghost as he
would at a fly, or other such nuisance. "Ignore it," he ordered in a deep voice. "We have much to discuss,
Tantris." At the T'Rang leader's words, D'Rang waved the Samurai forward and slithered to the side, still
on the lookout for anything that might pose a threat to their leader.
"I'll get to the point," Z'Ant said. "You know we have come here to settle the score with the Dark Savant,
for his betrayal on Guardia, and to take our Queen's death out on his hide. You also know the Umpani are
here, and will most likely attempt to impede our progress should we come into contact with them."
Tantris nodded. "They are annoyingly persistent..." he hissed.
"But there is something else..." the T'Rang leader continued. "A local legend here regarding something
called the 'Ascension.'"
Immediately, the Ghost cloud floated up behind him. "Hey, I know about that!" it insisted. "The other
Ghosts are saying that the time is coming soon, for new Cosmic Lords to reach the Cosmic Circle and
rule over the universe."
Z'Ant swiped his claw behind him and into the Ghost, forcing it to fade. Thankfully, the movement also
kept it from moving or speaking as long as the taloned appendage remained inside its body. "The
information does come from an untrustworthy source," he said with a cock of his head towards the
ethereal smoke, "but the Ghosts knew about the Astral Dominae."
The Astral Dominae... Tantris remembered. I was not there for our loss on Guardia, or for the death of the
Queen H'Jenn-Ra, but ripples of its painful effects are still felt today, even among those who were not
there. When the Dark Savant stole it from us, he took our pride as a race along with it.
"That's not all," Z'Ant continued with his claw still in the Ghost's body. "The Astral Dominae is apparently
one of three devices, all containing the power of a fundamental aspect of this universe."
Tantris thought back to what he heard of this mission from his Queen. "And the Astral Dominae contained
the power of Life," he remembered.
Z'Ant gestured at him, unconsciously taking his claw out of the Ghost in the process. "Exactly," he said,
unintentionally allowing the Ghost to fly out of the window and above the three T'Rang. "Then there's the
Destinae Dominus which holds Knowledge... and the Chaos Moliri which holds Change," it said.
D'Rang sighed and thrust his Psi Rod at the Ghost, but it was too quick for him. "Though we do not know
of the location of the Destinae Dominus," Z'Ant continued, "we do know that the Mook have the Chaos
Moliri, and have brought it with them to Arnika."
All the different terms spun in Tantris' head. He was, after all, only assigned to the Mine Tunnels for these
past few weeks.
On his confusion, Z'Ant explained. "Arnika is a city, the city of the Higardi, which the Dark Savant himself
now occupies. The Mook, who now also reside there, are an alien race of tall, scientific explorers, here to
investigate the Ascension and their device's purpose with it."
"So the Mook have the device we need, and they live in Arnika?" Tantris summarized.
Z'Ant nodded. "I brought you here so you could accompany one other to Arnika... and get that device," he
replied. "I want you to do anything it takes short of violence to procure it, for though we lost a Queen to
the Dark Savant three years ago, we will lose much more if he gains the universe."
Tantris slowly absorbed the information and filed it neatly away, as he did with any of his reading, then
spoke. "Is it not unwise to send anyone into a town held by our mortal enemy?" he asked carefully.
Z'Ant sighed. "Such is the reason I have chosen you and your leader for this task," he replied. "With his
stealth and speed, and your extensive knowledge and diplomatic skills, I am sure the both of you can find
a way to complete this mission without being discovered."
"And my leader... who is he, exactly?" Tantris asked.
The T'Rang leader cast a glance at the elevator, which had already risen back into the main structure of
the Bluff above. "Either Drazic or Shritis, though neither one is here right now," he answered. "They have
been gone for some time, and I am quite worried about them... and the rivalry that exists between them.
"When I ordered Drazic to scout the Umpani base camp, I could not stop Shritis from following and
attempting to do it first. Whoever of the two returns first will be the one to accompany you to Arnika."
Tantris bowed. "I will do as you ask, Z'Ant," he said humbly.
"Yes, I know you will," Z'Ant replied, then waved the Samurai away. "Go visit Sadok to acquire your new
equipment. After that, you may do as you wish until one of the two Assassins returns."
D'Rang waved goodbye with two of his claws as Tantris turned back down the great hall towards the door
leading to the innards of the fortress. To his surprise, the smokey cloud broke loose of his Psi Rod to join
the Samurai.
"Hey, sounds pretty tough, this mission you're going on," the Ghost said.
Tantris placed his upper right claw in a claw-shaped red groove next to the door. The door whirred open
in a fan shape, and he continued into the goo-covered hallway. "I do what I can for the Empire," he replied
neutrally, turning right past a painting of the legendary Marten holding the Destinae Dominus high above
his head.
The Ghost floated next to the picture. "You know him?" it asked. "The other Ghosts call him 'Marten.' He
stole the Destinae Dominus from the Higardi, and the others are still ticked off about it! They still don't
know what to do about it, though."
"Others," "The Higardi," "They..." Tantris thought to himself. "Who did you say you were again?" he asked
without looking at the ghostly cloud.
The specter stopped in the middle of the dark hallway. "Um... I dunno," it admitted.
Tantris turned to him in sudden interest. "What do you mean, you do not know?" he asked. "You mean to
tell me that you can remember intricate details of an Ascension that has nothing to do with you, and yet
you cannot even tell me your name?"
The phantom bobbed up and down. "I only told you what I overheard from the others," it answered. "They
don't like me very much."
"Why?" Tantris asked, before he started down the hallway once more.
"You got me!" the Ghost replied, then began to follow him like a lost puppy. "Maybe it's because..."
Tantris looked around as the voice paused, and immediately recoiled at the new sight: the Ghost cloud
had taken his exact likeness, a transparent and smokey T'Rang staring back at him with a friendly grin,
like a mocking reminder of his own forthcoming demise. "I might be a T'Rang!" it said sickeningly.
The T'Rang Samurai slithered forward and pointed at his ghostly mirror image. "Do not do that again," he
ordered.
In an instant, the Ghost T'Rang exploded into a cloud of smoke, and hovered before him. "Sorry," it said.
Tantris slithered away without it, and the Ghost did not follow.
However, it did speak after him. "You don't know how lonely it is here, all by yourself," it said, to which
Tantris stopped and sighed. "Death is bad enough, where you have limited contact with the living and
all... but to be pushed aside by your own kind?" it wondered.
The T'Rang turned to see the cloud sinking low towards the ground. "No matter who I was before, I'm
dead now," it continued. "Why can't the others understand that? We're all in the same position, regardless
of who we were before..."
For some reason, he was intrigued. "Well, what do you remember, Ghost?" the T'Rang asked.
The cloud stopped sinking, and slowly lifted a few feet above the ground. Its edges became less blurry
and began to round off, almost like a look of happiness. "Not much..." it said, then hovered closer to
Tantris. "I lived near the water. It's my most powerful memory...
It paused as it tried to remember more, and several seconds passed before it spoke again. "Then there
was darkness..." it said, "...then suddenly, I'm here, where there's a lot more like me... except they're all
shaped like Higardi, and I'm, well, you can see.
"Everything I know about this world I learned from them, but the water... that's mine and mine alone," it
explained, then floated beside Tantris as he slithered down the dark hallway.
"And you understand our language... why is that?" the T'Rang asked. Perhaps he is T'Rang after all...
"I hear your voice in my mind... and I respond," the cloud responded simply. "A better question is, why
aren't you guys speaking Galactic Common? The Lords gave the intelligent species of this galaxy a
similar language for a reason."
Maybe because no matter what language we T'Rang speak, others despise us all the same, Tantris
thought to himself. He ignored the Ghost's question and continued on.
"Hey..." it asked suddenly. "Do you think I could come with you on this little mission? I promise I won't get
in the way... I mean, I can always fade away or take a less obvious form if you need me to!" It bounced up
and down in the air. "I can't stand being alone in this place anymore; I want to see the land I grew up on
with my own eyes... or whatever it is I got!"
Tantris turned right into a big room adorned by the thirty foot long portrait of a backlit figure, probably
Marten, and to the hall that led to Sadok's workshop. "I do not mind, provided you do not pose a
problem," he replied. "Our leader may not be of the same mind, though." At the end of the hall, he pushed
a button on the wall of the door, and it fanned open to reveal the old T'Rang, who was checking the
readouts of two large containers of swirling slime.
He looked up briefly, then turned to a table covered with vials and jars of variously colored liquids. Upon
it, he picked up a black, double-hooked Stun Rod and a grey gun, and handed them to Tantris.
"Is that it?" the bespectacled T'Rang asked. "I do not think I will need them."
Sadok shrugged and put the rod back on the table, and Tantris put his own Shock Rod next to it. "Take
the gun anyway. Z'Ant's orders," Sadok said.
"I was never skilled with the..." he started with a shake of his head, when the other T'Rang hushed him
with a hiss. "This operation requires delicate handling," he said, then picked up a few of the smoking vials.
"If you have no further business, please leave me to my work."
Tantris bowed deeply and put the useless gun away in his robe, then slithered back out the door towards
the rest area just across the hall. At one time, it was a storage room, with barrels, crates and chests of
primitive war-related weapons and armor their only contents.
A bookshelf of scrolls and books, penned by Marten himself, was the only thing that intrigued the
Samurai. Taking down and opening one of the books, though, he saw that the pages were filled with
indecipherable symbols, words and ideas that would either take years to understand, or were possibly
just gibberish.
Every other book he checked was much the same, and Tantris finally decided to give up and return to his
book on magic. He lowered himself down in the corner and started the chapter on elemental mastery as
the Ghost cloud hovered next to him.
"The world is made up of six elem..." was all he had a chance to read.
"So... whatcha readin'?" the Ghost asked.
Tantris sighed... it was going to be a long wait.
***
Only a few hours later, the Assassin that would lead Tantris to Arnika, and the Chaos Moliri, returned.
When word of his arrival reached him via the Overmind, Tantris was there to meet the nine foot,
black-robed Assassin bearing a striking, Umpani Golden Medallion around his neck. The Assassin
greeted him with the briefest of nods before being briefed by Z'Ant.
Shritis T'Rang... slayer of a thousand Umpani, including the Master Tracker Hector Lewarx, the first called
upon for the Empire's most dangerous assignments, and master of all T'Rang Assassins. His very
presence on this planet inspired awe in all who saw him, and proved without a doubt the seriousness of
the T'Rang's mission and desire to succeed here on Dominus. He knew more than any other T'Rang
about this planet, having spent many a day exploring the planet's surface just after the Dark Savant shot
down the T'Rang Master Ship from Guardia.
When he stood before Tantris, he looked strangely at the cloud hovering over the Samurai's shoulder.
"What is this?" he hissed impatiently.
Tantris briefly looked at the Ghost, who wavered ever so slightly in the face of the powerful Assassin.
"This is..." he said, and thought quickly. "...Jick," he said finally. "Our guide to Arnika, who will speak with
the Mook if they are unreasonable with mistrust."
Shritis suspiciously eyed the cloud for a few brief seconds. "Take a form," he finally ordered, and hurried
past them both to the elevator.
The Ghost cloud wavered, then slowly solidified into the form of a Higardi, with a ghostly shroud draped
over his head and around his body. His face was utterly non-descript, a phantom placeholder for the
countenance he had long forgotten.
"'Jick?'" the specter whispered.
Tantris spread his claws upwards in helplessness. "I tried to think of a good name, and all I could think of
was my book on magic," he explained. "So there you are. If you do not like it, then..."
Nonetheless, the Ghost bounced happily up and down. "Let me keep it!" he laughed. "I like it."
With a brief nod, Tantris passed through the transparent man and joined Shritis on the elevator, who
pushed a button on the wall and sent the two T'Rang, together with their ghostly companion, up to the
surface of the fortress.
The death screams of several T'Rang greeted them as they rose to the ground level. By the time Tantris
looked over and saw the great creature slice three T'Rang in half with a single swipe of his curved katana,
Shritis was already halfway towards him.
He was a beastman, brown-skinned and wearing a breastplate with a purple cloth bearing a golden flame
draped across it. His eyes were beady and small, and his nose small and animalistic. Cloven hooves,
horns extending from his head, long tail... he was every bit the image of a Demon that inspired tales of
terror on planets all over the galaxy.
On this, the rumored home of the Cosmic Lords, the existence of a demonic presence was certainly not a
good sign, Tantris reasoned.
Fledgling T'Rang Watchers swiped and poked at him with their Stun Rods, but had no success
penetrating the creature's tough hide. Again, the creature sliced down past the defenses of a helpless
T'Rang... but Shritis' quadra-hooked Psi Rod was suddenly between him and the T'Rang to block the
strike.
The smaller T'Rang slithered backwards in retreat, and Shritis pushed the other Watchers out of the way
to advance on the creature.
With a sick smile, the beastman snorted in derision. "Are you the leader of the T'Rang?" he suddenly
asked.
Shritis stood still to let the creature untangle his katana from the Psi Rod's curved hooks, then chuckled.
"Ssomeday..." he hissed.
The creature pointed his katana at Shritis' body. "No matter. Stand aside, for I have been sent here by the
Rapax King himself to take his insectal head!" he proudly proclaimed.
In response, Shritis blinked slowly, but did not move... and the Rapax barked a laugh. "Very good... these
others were of little challenge," he said, then stood up straight with his blade at the ready. "I will make a
trophy of the one who dared stand up to Raven Rapax!"
With a clean motion, he lunged the sword into Shritis' body, and smiled wickedly as it cut several inches
into his torso. With the blade still lodged there, the T'Rang slowly looked over the stab wound, then back
up at the Rapax... with a grin more evil and deadly than the creature had ever seen before.
The Rapax froze in sudden fear, and before he knew it, the T'Rang thrust his Psi Rod's hook through his
shoulder, lifted him up to the ceiling, then smashed him facefirst into the ground, with his head just
outside of the sliding, transparent door.
Shritis' stingers went to work, plunging into the Rapax in every vital area he could see, and injecting a
specific enzyme with each pierce. Raven, surprised that he had been so easily beaten... and even more
surprised that the stingers did not hurt... suddenly opened his eyes wide in terror; he couldn't move.
The Watchers knew what was going to happen next. With bows of thanks, they proceeded down the
elevator to report the sudden attack of the demonic creature to Z'Ant. Tantris waved Jick backwards and
out of the elevator room, and stood outside in the open air as Shritis towered over the Rapax.
"You came for Z'Ant'ss head, yess?" Shritis asked him with his wicked grin, then slowly slithered towards
a small room to the west. "And after all of your trouble, it would be the T'Rang Empire that would lay claim
to yourss."
Raven suddenly realized the situation he was in, with his body inside the structure and head placed just
outside of it. He looked in a panic to his left and right, where great transparent walls affixed to large
cylinders of metal stood.
"No... wait! Let me go!" he screamed. "Mercy!"
Tantris looked at him briefly from outside, then turned his back to him. "Yess, mercy," he hissed. "Of the
ssame ssort that you sshowed our Watcherss."
Shritis pushed a button on a console in the small room, and the two walls suddenly smashed together
with ferocious and surprising speed. The Rapax's body exploded in a fountain of red mush that soon
coated the walls around it, and the two transparent panels slowly moved outwards into their original
positions.
Downstairs and in voices tinged with fright, the Watchers related panicked tales of the twenty foot,
fire-breathing Demon who had attacked them upstairs, when a whirring sound made them turn around.
The open elevator was descending from the ground floor just across from them. When it reached the
bottom, the head of Raven Rapax rolled out to a slow stop in the middle of the grand hall. On the now
unmoving platform his sword lay, still coated with Shritis' own green blood.
Chance and Chaos
"Rebecca and Bela...
"The former, the daughter of a holy man and a commoner, and the lover of one of the two responsible for
the theft of the Cosmic Forge: the Bane King. The latter, the son of the same holy man, and the woman
who would become the Bane Queen.
"Both are products of the Bane of the Cosmic Forge. Rebecca has written with the cursed pen, and her
appearance and life have suffered for it. Her mind and body have only recently returned to normal,
following the return of the pen here, to the Cosmic Circle.
"Bela was also born of the pen's bane. However, the Bane is hard-written into his very DNA through the
seed of his mother, the Bane Queen, an abuser of the pen's sacred power. To remove the Bane from
him, therefore, would be to destroy him utterly.
"For that reason, Bela was and still is a Dragon. Traditional tales of Dragonian greed and hatred for
Humankind, however, do no justice to the patient and inquisitive issue of the Cosmic Forge's Bane. He
seeks knowledge of the Cosmic Circle, and of you, my Lords.
"Rebecca is fiercely loyal to the Bane King, and fell into deep despair following his desired death at the
hands of a Samurai of Llylgamyn. Upon feeling waves of his return through the Samurai, who acted as a
conduit for the Bane King's very soul, Rebecca joined the curious Mook on a starship bound for Guardia,
where she was able to meet both the Samurai and her beloved once more. She single-handedly toppled
the shadow of the Dark Savant, then joined her brother on his ship, the Forge, bound for Dominus.
"She in particular is one to fear. She comes to Dominus to protect her brother, and to hopefully be with
her lover once again.
"And yet, in the forefront of her mind lies one objective in particular: she comes to murder you, my Lords."
Space, approaching Dominus
Day 12
She breathed slowly, with pauses between them so long, that it might have made the casual observer
think no life lay within her. The room was dark and cold, like the blackness of space just a few feet
outside of the metal walls of the ship.
Rebecca and Bela travelled the stars for three years in pursuit of the Dark Savant, and the eventual prize
of Ascension. Aside from the month-long interlude where they had to stop for refuelling and repairs on a
backwater planet (Bela had gotten the ship to run on old dinosaur fossils, after all), the trip was non-stop
from Guardia up to now.
The pale girl drifted to sleep with the familiar feeling of her lover next to her, though it had been years
since she had seen him "alive" last. She was happy knowing that all three of the goals she so
single-mindedly strived to fulfill would be completed on the same planet, Dominus, where she and her
brother were heading for now.
First, she would look out for Bela with every last ounce of strength she had, not only as a promise to her
beloved, but because she truly loved him. This one sat at the back of her mind, though; the great black
Dragon was an unholy terror on the battlefield, and needed little protection.
Secondly was the Elf, the one who was host to her lover's spirit... Rebecca would finally see her again,
and was firmly committed to being by both of their sides until the end. She had had nightmares for several
nights a few days ago, that her beloved was in unbearable pain and crying out for help, but she could do
nothing to save him.
She woke up in tears, and the feeling took many hours to finally dissipate. She knew their lives were
bound, and it made her worry even now to think what might have taken place while her protective hand
was not there to support her beloved.
These were her plans to protect the ones she cared for, but the third goal was for her alone. In her
slumber, Rebecca's closed eyes flinched, and she inhaled sharply at the thought of the formless beings of
light, looking down at her with absolute neutrality.
The Cosmic Lords... for their crimes, they would die.
"Coming up on Dominus soon, Becky," Bela's voice came from the speakers at the corners of her small
room.
The Vampire girl's eyes flicked open. Cosmic Lords... what an unpleasant thought to awaken to, she
thought. But we're finally here...
She stood slowly and stretched, gratefully cracking her stiff joints after the many weeks she had slept in
preparation for this moment. She arched her back and silently yawned, then walked to her cabin door and
waved it open with her hand.
Rebecca was a different person than the one on Llylgamyn, but the difference was merely cosmetic. After
the Cosmic Forge was returned to the Cosmic Circle by the strange machine-man on Llylgamyn, the
Bane had finally released its grip on all those who had used it.
The curse that had bound her soul to the lifeless dummies in the Temple of Ramm, and which had kept
her eternally alive to care for her love... but in turn required her to live off of the blood of others, and
turned her skin green with corruption... was gone.
She was now the same person she was on the day she had been born, before her father the Vicar sold
her to the Bane King as a demonic write-off. As much as she had been the day her innocent mother had
birthed her, she was a Vampire.
Her skin was pale white, and her shoulder-length black hair was nestled between her dark wings. At
Bela's insistence, she had changed her usual outfit of a black belt and boots... and nothing else... to the
dark blue duster with a tail that kept her much more modestly covered. The diamond ring on her left ring
finger, however, had not and would never move.
She stepped out into the main corridor of the grey ship, Forge, and joined Bela in the cockpit. "How much
longer?" she asked, revealing her white fangs as she spoke.
Her brother pointed out the front of the transparent screen in front of them. Dominus was quickly
approaching, and fast becoming a tiny orb of green and blue from the white speck it had been just
moments before. "Any minute now," he replied. "Which means the Dark Savant could be watching us as
we speak."
Bela was a hulking black Dragon, an image that led most who met him to expect a hazardous
poison-breathing and claw-slashing introduction to his rumbling stomach.
Quite to the contrary, gentle Bela chased knowledge in the same way that others of his kind would chase
prey. Perhaps it was the circumstances of his birth to the holy Vicar and the Bane Queen, who was under
the influence of the Bane of the Cosmic Forge, that made him so different. Or perhaps it was the result of
living a life locked within a castle with only books, universe-scanning information receivers, Rebecca and
the King for companions that made him who he was.
Whatever the reason, Bela was a generous and calm being who would sooner teach another the exploits
of the mad Wizard Xorphitus than rend them to pieces. Then again, it wasn't as if he was more capable
doing one than the other.
"Weird," he said after a time. "The scans are picking up nothing. No Dark Savant, no visitors, nothing in
orbit or near the planet."
Rebecca took a deep breath. "You think the Dark Savant already killed everyone?" she asked as she
eyed the field of stars in front of her.
"Possibly," he replied, "or maybe he is just not here yet. I will engage the cloak, just in case." As he
spoke, he opened a plastic guard on the control console and pushed a black button underneath. Nothing
appeared to happen, but Rebecca had seen the ship disappear from the outside when Bela had tested it
before. Nobody could see them now...
...or at least, that's what they thought.
The Black Ship suddenly shimmered out of nowhere and appeared before them, entirely blocking the
view of the planet behind it. Like a leviathan opening wide to swallow its prey whole, the hangar door at
its tip groaned open, and enveloped the Forge.
"Nuts," Bela said, when he realized the controls were no longer responding.
"Guess he wants to talk," Rebecca reasoned. She stood from her seat, then tilted her head to the left and
right, cracking her neck in the process. "He'll be the first we take down..."
Figuring the effort was largely wasted, Bela stopped struggling with the useless controls and allowed the
Savant's ship to force them farther inside. The hangar closed behind them, throwing everything into
darkness for several minutes while the Forge continued to fly forward by itself.
After breathable atmosphere finally worked its way into the hangar, a single light flashed on above them.
They had been stopped in a small hangar barely large enough to hold their ship, and it was utterly bare
and grey all around.
The Forge's side door opened of its own accord, and a single Savant machine walked inside. Its entire
body was metallic, and its dead black eyes and spike-tipped arms exuded a no-nonsense demeanor.
When it spoke, its voice came from a triangular shape where its mouth might have been, and harmonized
a single, monotone word: "Come."
Rebecca looked at her brother. "What choice do we have?" she asked. She walked towards the machine
with her wings wrapped around her body as Bela stood, and the machine calmly turned towards the open
hatch and walked out.
They followed it down several narrow hallways with windows looking out into the darkest reaches of
space, and the countless suns and teeming life among them. Occasionally, they would pass a metallic
door on their right that led into who knew what kind of prison cell or torture chamber that the Savant found
necessary to use. Only one of them opened to let out a few of the Savant machines; Rebecca was
confused to see clean and spacious quarters reserved for some unknown guest of the god aboard this
ship.
Finally, the small hallway joined a much larger one, which spanned farther than the eye could see to the
right, and into a massive audience chamber to the left. In the chamber were several busily working,
Guardia-style, metal-robed Troopers that were huddled over consoles and rushing back and forth with
important data in hand.
And in the center, in front of a great window looking out on the planet Dominus on a raised throne, sitting
atop a tall platform, sat the behemoth, heavily armored Dark Savant himself.
His red eyes followed their approach from inside his clear, domed helmet, and he rapped his gloved hand
on his throne as they approached. The machine that led them paused a dozen feet away from its master,
then with an almost imperceptible wave of the Savant's glove, the machine turned and walked down a
side hall and out of sight.
"The Children of the Bane," the Dark Savant's calm voice boomed from all around them. "There is no
doubt that you have come here to challenge the Cosmic Lords. In this, our goals are not so
different. But..."
He rose slowly and descended the steps of the raised dais. "You will not interfere with my plans," he
said. "The Ascension is rightfully mine, and no other has claim to godhood. Though I admire your
power, and respect in particular the past actions of your lover," he said, with a slight hand
acknowledgement to Rebecca, "you will not challenge my claim to the Cosmic Circle.
"If you do attempt to Ascend, the planet itself will be forfeit," he warned.
Bela shifted his weight nervously. "What do you mean?" he asked.
The Dark Savant waited for a few brief seconds, then spoke. "I have placed a device capable of
destroying the planet on the outskirts of the city of Arnika," he explained. "The device itself is
harmless enough without my directive to detonate, and should serve only as a warning to those
sharing your ambition.
"However, cross me, and the deaths of millions will be on your hands."
Rebecca shook her head and smiled disbelievingly. "You coward," she said softly. "You can't take a little
competition, so you barter for your success with the lives of innocents?"
The Dark Savant slowly clenched his gloved fist, then put it behind him. "I require only your
obedience," he said, "neither your approval, nor your meaningless insults. The life of every living
being on Dominus lies not in my hands, but in the willingness of the chosen to understand their
place. Anything else is just excuses."
Rebecca smirked, then suddenly disappeared. Metallic screeching filled the air as the Guardia Troopers
in the command center of the Black Ship exploded one after the other in a shower of sparks and gears.
A scant second later, when the pieces had just begun to litter the ground with loud clinks and a huge
clatter, Rebecca stood behind the Dark Savant with her pale hands inches away from his back. "And if
you are not there to give the order?" she asked calmly.
"Wait!" Bela yelled to her. "You know he is serious! If you..."
All at once, the Dark Savant interrupted him with an echoing thunder of laughter, a roar that slowly built
from a hearty rumble, to a powerful and painful throb in the two siblings' ears. Rebecca looked at his back
in barely concealed anger, prepared to rip his mechanical heart out.
Slowly, his laughter died down. "You may have the power to do this yet," he conceded. "It was not
long ago, Rebecca, when you faced my 'other' in a similar fashion."
Rebecca growled at her fearless adversary. "I could kill you now," she threatened.
Despite the danger evident in her words, the Dark Savant simply turned his domed head slowly to the
side, until his red eyes could be seen staring at her threateningly. "You will not," he stated, slowly
clenching his organic hand into a claw wrapped around something invisible.
She suddenly felt a kind of fear that she had not had the displeasure of experiencing before this moment:
the fear of potential and imminent death. This was the real thing... not a shadow, nor a duplicate. This
being was the Dark Savant, former Cosmic Lord, the scourge of a thousand planets, and the one who
simultaneously held the life of an entire planet in one hand... and her own suddenly fragile one in the
other.
Rebecca backed up a step, then another, then spread her wings out from her body. With a few simple
flutters, she was again standing next to Bela before the god of the stars.
The machine god waved his hand, and a spike-armed Trooper appeared from the side hallway. "Let me
see what you can do, children," he boomed as he backed up and returned to his throne. "Show me
what you can do without the love and wisdom of your god to guide you."
The Trooper marched back down the corridor to their waiting ship. The Vampire girl stared icily at the
Savant, studying every inch of his metallic body. Then, with one last look into his red eyes, she walked
after the Trooper without a word.
Bela waited until she had gone, then met the Dark Savant's piercing gaze. "Why?" he asked. "Why are
you doing this? You once cared so deeply for the people you created, and now..." He stopped, then
shook his head in incredulity and distaste... and the Savant made not a move in response.
"I will see you on the Peak," the Dragon finally finished, then followed Rebecca back to the ship.
"Soon, you will understand..." the Dark Savant said, feeling the warm sensation of pure love for his
children wash over his metallic body. After the feeling finally dissipated, the machine god closed his eyes,
then internally summoned replacement Troopers to the task of running his ship.
Space, approaching Dominus
Day 13
"There it is!" Bela cried out. Ascension Peak... the site of the Ascension itself. After many years of travel,
and even with the seeming permission of the Dark Savant himself, they had finally arrived.
"Do you think he was serious about letting us into the Cosmic Circle?" Rebecca asked. "He doesn't strike
me as the type that likes to share power."
"Count your blessings," he replied. "We have free reign until we get there, without interference from any
egomanical machine-men, so we might as well make the most of it."
She stretched backwards in her seat and breathed deeply. "Scans showing anything? Where's the
entrance to the Cosmic Circle?" she asked.
Bela pushed a button on the console, and a top-down map of their immediate vicinity appeared on the
screen in front of them. He pointed at a few of the larger valleys between the more narrow canyons as he
spoke. "The ship is too large to make a direct landing on roughly 90% of the Peak," he explained. "But
there are some places here, here... and here, where we could land the ship."
After a moment of silence, he hummed thoughtfully. "What?" Rebecca asked.
Her brother gestured towards the map on the screen and pushed another button on the console. The
image zoomed in several times, and displayed a few disheartening images.
In one, towering Demons with large, curved blades and a single eye patrolled the rocky grounds before a
temple. In another, unicorns made of strong, shining crystal wandered another temple with a powerful,
and transparent, woman leading them on.
The last temple was guarded by several walking trees holding gnarled staves, whose spellcasting ability
was evident from the slight glow that surrounded them all. As guardians of the most sacred and
empowering ritual in the known universe, their peaceful walk through the pleasant grove... complete with
waterfall... was pure deception, to be sure.
A giant scorcher beast, a huge, tentacled nightmare, crowds and crowds of the nastiest serpents she had
ever seen... the Peak was very well guarded, to say the least.
To top it all off, two armies, that were at least several thousand strong each, were in the midst of a titantic
battle in a grassy valley between two large mountain ranges. Neither of the two were surprised to see that
the opponents were the disciplined, gun-wielding rhino men, the Umpani, and the far more numerous and
mystical bug-like T'Rang.
"Lords above..." Bela said under his breath. The valley was stained with the mixed red and green blood of
thousands of the combatants on both sides.
He shook his head, then turned his attention to their own task at hand. "Three temples guarded by
monsters," he said, "and a final one, in the center here, which does not appear to lead anywhere just yet.
I would say that we have found where the three artifacts are supposed to go, in addition to a bonus
temple. Perhaps it houses some of the artifacts we seek?"
"Guess we'll start with a plan," Rebecca suggested. "Now there are three variables here..."
She held up a finger. "First, we have the Dark Savant's tower, which he'll blow if anyone attempts to
Ascend," she said. "We'll need to deactivate that later, but for now, it's not a problem."
A second finger. "Next, are the three artifacts we need to Ascend. The Astral Dominae is in his hands,
which means its out of ours. The other two, the Destinae Dominus and the Chaos Moliri... could be
anywhere on the planet. I don't suppose this ship can track something that small..."
Bela shook his head. "I thought not," she said. "Which leaves us with investigating the third... these
temples..." Her brother smiled grimly. "...which are guarded by creatures that could probably kill a person
with just a look..." he added.
"Probably," she agreed. "And if we land the ship next to them, they'll most likely attack... and possibly
leave us without a way to get out of here later. Unless, of course, if this ship has any weapons we can put
to use..."
Bela shrugged. "Again, didn't think so," Rebecca said. Not your style to bring them anyway... right, bro?
she thought. "So seeing as how two options are out of our hands, and the last is inaccessible by air..."
she trailed off.
"...I suppose we are walking," Bela finished.
His sister sighed. "Can we go soon?" she asked. "I've had quite my fill of recycled air."
"I had the same idea," he admitted with a laugh, and guided the ship to a landing in the great canyon,
nestled between several towering mountain ranges.
The two stepped out of the grey ship and walked up the great valley between the mountains of Ascension
Peak, enjoying the feel and taste of crisp morning air. The sun was barely beginning to rise over a
mountain range to their right, and provided sufficient light to see the creatures around them.
The peaks were teeming with life: great winged serpents flew in a straight line formation overhead, and
packs of screeching, clawed and fire-breathing reptilian creatures marched in the middle of the great
canyon around them. They walked for several hours under the hot Dominus sun, wandering the rocky
ground and trying their best not to annoy or intrude upon the creature populations around them.
"Hmm, local culture," Bela said, pointing at a great fountain in the middle. Three fifty foot tall statues
depicting a Human, a horned and tailed creature and a short, furry mouse-like figure, all female and
dressed from revealing to naked, stood proudly around the water, facing in three different directions.
While the mouse and the horned creature had on a respective pair of pants and a breastplate, the Human
was much less shy.
Upon closer examination, they all seemed to be pointing at different gates barring entry into three paths
leading up the mountain in separate directions. "So, which way?" Rebecca wondered.
Her brother looked between the three canyons, each looking as similarly rocky as the others, but none of
which appeared to be more safe or sane than the others. "Demon, Mouse or Human?" she wondered
aloud. She shrugged and walked straight, the direction where the furry creature was cheering.
They walked all the way to the northern gate, which despite being twenty feet tall, forty feet wide and
made of solid marble, proved very ineffective against the two winged explorers. From atop the great gate,
Rebecca and Bela scanned the featureless canyon beyond it.
The Dragon was the first to look back at their ship and see the creatures... and suddenly grabbed his
sister and flew her to the shade of the right pillar of the gate. "What's going..." she started, before Bela
hushed her. He swept his great black wings over both of their bodies, leaving just the slightest opening to
look back at their ship. "Oh..." she groaned grimly.
A mile away at the entrance to the canyon, their ship had been overtaken by a vast army of horned and
brown-skinned creatures in metallic armor, what looked like male versions of the Demon statue.
Hundreds were beginning to flood into the canyon, while several dozen were poking at the ship and
apparently searching inside. Each of them carried a tool of war, from lengthy swords, to bows almost as
tall as their own massive bodies.
"So what?" Rebecca asked as she struggled under Bela's protective wing. "I can take 'em."
"Yes, but..." he protested, holding her back, "that many? We do not even know if they are bad people..."
The Vampire girl pushed her brother aside and ran across the top of the gate. "Then let's get a closer
look," she insisted before he could grab her.
They flew stealthily from outcropping to shallow cave along the mountain range, hiding behind boulders
and in crevices where they could. The creatures were busy enough trying to fight their way through the
ground-based creatures of Ascension Peak, that not a one of them saw the two Demon Children stalking
them from above.
Finally, the two found a spot to watch the thousands strong army of creatures without being noticed.
"They just keep coming," Rebecca said, and indicated the base of Ascension Peak to accentuate her
point. Indeed, the line of creatures went beyond what either could see from their vantage point.
"Looks like they are ready to fight," Bela said, "but they may not be so bad."
Rebecca looked the marching, brawling creatures over until she noticed a particular commotion in their
ranks: on the fringe of the group, a tall and very fair-skinned girl with long brown horns coming from her
head walked alone. She wore a grey dress and a thin halter top that ended in a broad collar around her
neck. Her arms were very long and impossibly thin, and ended in sharp claws.
Without warning, she stumbled on a loose rock and fell into one of the creatures next to her. In response,
he angrily pushed back into her teetering body, and knocked her to the ground.
The girl pushed herself up and bounded backwards, kicking him full on in the jaw. As her body flew over
his, she grabbed his arm, twisted it around his back and drove her palm into the elbow joint. It bent
outwards with a sick snap.
She put her claws on either side of his head and was only a second away from snapping his neck, when
three others surrounded her and placed blades to her own. The girl looked between each of them, then
slowly backed off... when one of them flicked his wrist and cut her neck anyway. She did nothing more
than stare daggers at him; it was all she could do at this point.
From the mass of creatures, a regal Demon in plate mail, with a blue cloth draped over his shoulders,
strode through the ranks of his soldiers to see what the commotion was about. It was her brother, the
Rapax Prince, and his left cheek and eye were partially closed by a giant purple welt.
He briefly scanned the scene, passing his eyes between each of the four Rapax, then his sister. Then,
unsurprisingly, he turned and marched farther into the canyon without a word, dropping his hand from the
sword on his back.
"Even the Prince knows you're a damn klutz," the Rapax soldier insulted her with blazing eyes. "Now,
apologize."
The girl stood tight-lipped and proud, refusing to bow to this blowhard for any reason... and the Rapax
raised his blade. "Then that's how it will be..." he said, and swiped the sword down at her.
She dodged to the side... but in fact, there was no need to. She heard a leathery swoop, and suddenly,
there was a pale, winged girl on the Rapax's back, with her fangs sunk deeply into his neck. Mere
seconds passed before his brown skin turned a dull grey, and his body, drained of blood, slumped to the
ground.
With a collective shout, dozens of Rapax charged the Vampire at once, when a second swoop from up
above was accompanied by a loud hissing sound. A black Dragon descended, and breathed devouring
poison in an arc between the Rapax and the Vampire, which halted the violent charge.
"You ok?" the Vampire girl asked her.
Without warning, a silver snake appeared from nowhere and wound its hissing way around the horned
girl's body, finally disappearing behind her back and into nothingness. "I'm fine," she replied. "I don't need
anybody's help."
The Vampire girl hissed and bared her fangs at the few Rapax who still dared to draw closer, when the
Rapax Prince returned. "Who are you?" he demanded in a hoarse croak of a voice. "What have you done
to my men?!"
Rebecca bared her talons at him. "Such concern you show now," she commented as she gestured to the
horned girl, "when seconds ago you left this one alone to die."
He snarled angrily in response. "She is not one of mine," he shot back. "I don't care a whit what happens
to the half-breed." The mystical snake wrapped itself around the horned girl's body again, though it
stopped briefly to hiss at the Prince before it disappeared behind her.
"Then you will not mind if we take her," Bela cut in, and stood between the Prince and the two girls.
Rebecca put her arm under the horned girl's, but she shrugged her away. "I told you I'm fine!" she
shouted. "I don't want your pity!"
"Then how about I offer you something more..." the Vampire girl said softly, looking into the other's solid
brown eyes. "Ascension, power... vengeance."
The girl made a face. "Vengeance?" she asked, irritated. "Against who?"
The Vampire girl gestured towards Ascension Peak. "The ones responsible for all your troubles," she
stated, even as the girl still looked unsure. "Decide quickly," Rebecca said, then turned back to the
advancing horde of Rapax.
I have no idea who these people are, the horned girl thought to herself, but if I just stay here... She looked
over the army of Rapax, who once considered her nothing more than an animal, but were now ready to
lop her head off.
No sooner had she relented and whispered, "All right," Bela seized her around the waist and flew into the
air towards the top of the nearest mountain with her.
Rebecca looked one last time at the army with an evil smirk, and kicked the lifeless body of the one she
had drained. "If anyone follows us, they will die a similar death," she promised. Then, with a final look at
the Prince, she said, "And theirs will be a much more slow and painful end..."
With that, she swooped up into the sky with a beat of her wings to join her brother and the girl in
mid-flight. The two winged siblings easily dodged a couple of arrows, launched from a few of the Rapax
hopelessly suicidal enough to attack after Rebecca's warning. Bela held the girl in his powerful arms as
they flew northward to the first gate, and the temple waiting there.
The Vampire girl caught up to them and nodded at their new companion. "I'm Rebecca," she introduced
herself, "and this is my brother, Bela. What's your name?"
She waited for several seconds, as if the mere act of speaking were the most painful act she could
undertake. In the end, she finally spoke in a deadpan voice, which was somewhere between righteous
anger and powerful shame. "My name," she said flatly, "is Al-Elson."
Rebecca had not seen someone as otherworldly and cold as Al-Elson in many years... and the Dracon
Ranger had more in common with Rebecca than even her own lover did.
Bela let the conversation between them rest as he scanned the ground for danger. Al-Elson was as light
as his sister and hardly made a move, which made the flight over the fire-breathing and large horned
creatures down below a smooth and easy one.
He pointed towards one of the peaks to the west. "Let us rest atop this mountain and see where the
nearest temple can be found," he suggested. "I am sure we are all feeling a bit tired."
The siblings fluttered to the top of the great mountain, where Bela gently let Al-Elson down. Without a
word, the horned girl sat at the edge of the mountain and looked down at the Rapax army flooding up the
mountain by the thousands. It was hard to believe that that many Rapax were alive at all, let alone that
many strong and willing enough to be part of the great Rapax military.
"Oh, dear," Bela said, standing and stepping to the edge of the cliff.
Rebecca looked over his shoulder, but saw nothing aside from slightly clouded valleys ahead of the
Rapax army. "What?" she asked.
He pointed towards the wide and deep valley where the Umpani and T'Rang were fighting. "You may not
be able to see, but the valley ahead, where the two armies are..." Bela started.
"I saw them earlier," Rebecca interrupted.
Bela waved his claw "no" at her. "The Rapax are marching straight towards them," he said. "If they
continue at their present speed, all three of the armies will meet within the day."
Al-Elson and Rebecca both winced; the latter had heard only tales of the never-ending fighting between
the alien Umpani and T'Rang, but the former had seen acts of barbarism performed by the Rapax... as
well as been the victim of them. "I guess asking them to turn back is out of the question," Bela asked
Al-Elson half-seriously, but she didn't reply.
He continued nonetheless. "If I may, you know these creatures, do you not?" he asked her. On her refusal
to speak, he said, "Perhaps as one of them, you could consider asking them to turn back? There will be a
lot of bloodshed..." He suddenly caught himself. "Though they were acting very cruel towards you.
Forgive me for ask..."
"They are Rapax," Al-Elson interrupted. "As I am... partly. My unnatural birth is the reason for the dischord
between us." She looked at him. "And if you're through prying into my business, I'll ask you to keep your
questions to yourself," she finished.
"It is my mistake. Forgive me, please," he answered, then stood and looked over the three armies below.
"It appears our group has suffered a bout of dischord of its own," he pointed out, then paused for a
second before he continued. "My sister and I are here to find the Cosmic Circle, wherever it may be. You
are welcome to join us if you wish, or I can let you down behind this 'Rapax' army and you may go where
you please. It is up to you."
Before she could respond, a loud, gurgling cry suddenly echoed all around them on the craggy peak. It
continued for several seconds, seemingly coming from every direction at the same time. Al-Elson perked
up for the first time since their escape from the Rapax army.
Without telling it to, her body stood and walked to the western edge of the cliff, which was looking down
on a second valley. Unlike the slightly grassier valley to the east where the Umpani and the T'Rang now
fought, this one sat on the edge of a small but disgusting swamp, and was much more craggy.
A mammoth black creature of thin body and several waving tentacles stood in the middle of the valley,
and beasts of every kind drew closer to it from all over. When they reached the frightening, towering
beast, it whipped its tentacles around their bodies and stuffed them into its mouth in several sick motions.
"The Soul Eater..." Al-Elson whispered. Rebecca walked next to her and looked at the very large creature,
which was deceptively small from their position of at least two miles away. "It's huge," she commented.
Al-Elson nodded. "I've heard stories, but I've never seen it before," she said calmly, as if in a trance. "It's
said that it swallows the very soul of its prey, before it devours their body."
The creature gurgle-screeched again, a sound that made the very blood in their bodies chill in fright. They
watched the procession of entranced prey walk straight into its maw with grotesque fascination. "Good
thing we're up here..." Rebecca said.
The world slowed as a scene out of a nightmare unfolded before Bela's eyes. The Soul Eater, miles away
and out of reach to do any apparent harm, reached its tentacles towards him on the high peak of the
mountain. Its whipping black grapplers extended by a mile a second, stretching impossibly long towards
Al-Elson and lashing out for her body.
"Look out!" Bela screamed, and pushed the two girls down to the ground. The Soul Eater's tentacles shot
past the place where Al-Elson was standing, and grabbed him firmly around the waist. Then, they
retracted as quickly as they had come, pulling the great black Dragon with them.
In actuality, the monster had done nothing of the sort. "Bela!" Rebecca yelled after him, scared to literal
paralysis at Bela's sudden jump off of the cliff. Why did he do that?! she thought. And why was he aiming
straight for the Soul Eater?!
After he had come within a hundred feet of the monster, it whipped its tentacles out and grabbed him,
slowly choking the life out of his great body. After Rebecca saw him struggling so far below in a mess of
lashing and constricting limbs, hope washed away her fear and launched her in a near-suicidal dive off of
the mountain towards the valley below.
Al-Elson felt control of her body returning to her. The Soul Eater had definitely tried to convince her to
jump off of the cliff... it had felt the power in her spirit, power that would serve to further strengthen itself
once it had consumed her body and soul. If it weren't for the Dragon...
Her savior himself struggled with the tentacles wrapped around him, and clawed and scratched and bit at
every extra grappler that reached for him. He struggled vainly to free himself from just one of the
tentacle's grip, but his poisonous breath ran harmlessly off of the grappler with no apparent effect.
At the same time, tiny spines in the Soul Eater's tentacles pierced his body and robbed him first of his
ability to move, then of his ability to even think and reason. The last thing he saw was the monster
yawning open its gigantic maw to devour him whole... and the world went dark.
"No!" Rebecca screamed as she shot down from the top of the mountain. The Soul Eater noticed her
descent and stretched its tentacles out to grab her, but the winged Vampire girl swooped, dodged and
lifted on the air to slip past each of its attempts.
"Hold on, Bela!" she yelled, cutting left through the air and out of the reach of another one of the
creature's grapplers. "I promised I'd take care of you! Just hold on!!"
The Soul Eater gurgle-screeched once more, and Rebecca felt control over her body slipping away, along
with her ability to sense anything going on around her. In this state, it was easy for the creature to grab
her body and pull her close to its mouth.
The yellow eyes on either side of its head were large and dilated, and sent shivers of fright down her
spine. As it blinked disgustingly, the enchantment it held over her broke with the sudden feeling of
revulsion that welled up within her.
From inside its wrapped tentacle, Rebecca spun violently in a circle and slipped out the bottom of the
Soul Eater's grip. On her way down, she raked her sharp nails along its underside... and the tentacle
shrivelled and turned an even darker shade of black as the beast screeched in pain.
Its cry failed to even make her flinch. "Not this time," she spat, and charged forward into its thin and long
body. She flew up and sliced it from its snapping mouth to waving tail, leaving a long and painful cut along
its entire torso.
She flapped her wings hard and jumped up, narrowly dodging its whipping tentacles, and landed on its
back. Digging her fingers in, she ran up its back and to its neck, leaping and twisting out of the way of its
grapplers, when she finally reached its neck.
She could see and feel the throb of its lifeblood there, the familiar artery that pumped so strongly and
deliciously. After raking her fingers across the spot and into its neck, its jet black blood began to spurt in
intermittent cycles onto the ground below. The beast screeched and whipped its tentacles along its neck,
but hit nothing other than its own body as Rebecca flew through the air and landed on the rocky ground in
front of it.
As tempting as bathing in the beast's blood seemed, its color was enough to keep her from partaking in
the pleasure. She beat her wings and flew towards what she assumed was its stomach, intent on ripping
it open and pulling her brother out bodily if she had to.
The Soul Eater suddenly stopped screeching and dropped low to the ground, and stopped the Vampire
girl with a wide-eyed stare of pure hunger and desperation. She suddenly couldn't move, no matter how
hard she tried.
It stared for what seemed like an eternity, crying out softly every few seconds, until it issued a ghostly,
terrifying howl that penetrated her very soul. At the same time as the sound made her want to flee in
terror, she felt herself being pulled towards the creature.
"What's going..." Rebecca started, then stopped suddenly. Why was her voice coming from behind her,
and not from her own mouth? "I..." she continued loudly, now hearing her voice even farther behind her.
She suddenly realized that she was no longer inside her body, floating forward and bound by an invisible
tether to the creature in front of her. The Vampire girl summoned all of her willpower to make the slightest
turn of her attention behind her, where her body stood stupified and staring at nothing in particular.
It slowly and lifelessly slumped over, and seconds later, the Soul Eater reached forth to grab it and draw it
towards its mouth. Rebecca turned her attention back to the creature, only to see her body disappear into
its maw. The beast's eyes were still on her as her spirit floated forward, and merged into its flesh.
This can't be, she thought. You can't take my spirit... I belong to only one...
The Soul Eater finished its meal of two powerful Demon creatures, and several hundred lesser ones,
feeling sated for enough for weeks, even months. Already, its body surged with the energy the two beings
possessed. It trampled along the valley to the west, where its cave home and a long sleep awaited.
Another surge of power. The Soul Eater shifted its focus to the mountain peak where it had gotten its two
prior meals, and saw the horned creature it had originally reached out to to devour. Feed, devour,
strengthen...
Its tentacles reached out to grab her as she floated gently down to the ground. She swept her claw out in
front of her strongly, and an unseen power whipped the creature's tentacles in every direction away from
her body.
Curiosity, wonder... The horned creature reached the ground and set down lightly, standing so small and
puny before its might. Then, slowly, she knelt to the ground, as if offering her life. Feed, feed, feed...
The Soul Eater reached out to grab her once more. Two tentacles shot out from either side and twisted
around to grab her. Both of them grabbed flesh... but it was not her body.
Two Rapax warriors were now on either side of her, wearing plate mail and roaring ferociously as they
sliced at the tentacles wrapped around them with large blades in their hands. The Soul Eater dropped
them in surprise, and they charged forward towards its body.
The girl crossed her claws across her chest and hissed angrily. A silver snake appeared from beneath her
grey dress and coiled its way around her body, then joined her with a hiss of its own. Tiny lights emerged
from her stomach and danced in the air before her, some colored light blue, while others were blindingly
white.
As the lights twirled and danced around one another, some blue lights met a single white one, and paired
off. Together, they circled and merged into brilliant flashes of light... that spawned a tiny baby Rapax.
The baby Rapax were small horned, large-headed versions of the adults that now lept onto the Soul
Eater's body, and in seconds, grew through infancy, to adolescence, and finally to adulthood.
Plate armor and a large sword emerged from their own naked bodies like suddenly protruding bone, only
metallic and much more heavy. The Rapax dashed forward onto the Soul Eater's body with their
bretheren, some being grasped before they could approach, while others hacked and slashed at its body
from below.
The lights continued to dance and join, pair off and spawn more and more Rapax until dozens, hundreds
of the horned men were either piled onto the Soul Eater's body, or seconds away from reaching it.
Despite its best efforts to slap, grab and bite at its prey, the monster was not able to stop even a fraction
of the Rapax from toppling it in mere minutes.
The Rapax cut and sliced, beat, stomped and pummeled the Soul Eater, until its body finally stopped
convulsing and shaking in pain and fear, and instead twitched in its death throes. From inside the small
army of Rapax, the Soul Eater's stomach pushed out several times, as if something was trying
desparately to get out from inside.
Finally, Bela's claw ripped out from within its torso, and the Dragon emerged with Rebecca's unmoving,
but conscious, body in his arms.
To the Dragon's surprise, the Soul Eater was felled by the same creatures who just minutes ago had
murder for him in their eyes. Now, they were helping him and his sister out of the beast's body, and
bringing them gently to the ground outside of its lifeless shell.
Al-Elson stood slowly and walked forward to meet them. "What happened?" Bela asked. Rebecca's eyes
rolled up to see her brother, then over to the horned girl standing a few feet away.
"My children saved you," she said, and ran an affectionate claw under a nearby Rapax's chin.
The Rapax around her nodded and smiled, but did not speak. Slowly, one by one, they degenerated from
adults, to children, then back into little Rapax babies... then finally exploded in brilliant flashes of light.
When the light cleared, groupings of blue and white lights swarmed and swirled together, then slowly
floated through Al-Elson's stomach and disappeared.
"Is she ok?" she asked, with a gesture at Rebecca.
Bela shook his head and cleared his thoughts of the amazing spectacle he had just seen. "Y, yes," he
stammered, and ran a comforting claw through her black hair. "I think so."
"We are Children of the Bane, after all," the Vampire girl suddenly whispered. "We have souls like no
other." The mystical snake wound around Al-Elson's body again, with a face almost bordering on wonder.
After slithering around her waist, it disappeared around her back and out of sight.
Bela nodded, thinking he understood the shy gesture. "Both of us were conceived in the image of, or
warped by, the power of the Cosmic Forge," he explained.
"The pen that writes the laws of the universe..." Al-Elson realized.
The Dragon smiled. "You are quite knowledgeable, I see," he complimented her. "I was conceived of a
tryst between a holy man and, shall we say, evil incarnate... the latter of whom was under the effects of
the Bane."
Rebecca spoke up. "And I was altered by using it," she said. "Neither one of us can ever be considered
normal, not just because of how we look... but because of how we came to be."
Al-Elson opened her mouth to say something, then closed it just as quickly. Bela shifted his sister to make
her more comfortable, then said, "It is all right. If you have a question, or something to share, you may
speak freely. We are all friends here."
She took a deep breath. "Does it bother you?" she asked.
"What, exactly?" he wondered, with his head cocked inquisitively to the side.
Al-Elson bit her lip, then continued. "Being... born, partly of pure evil," she said.
He shrugged and smiled. "Sometimes," he admitted, "but in the end, I am myself. I am sure the same
goes for any other person in my situation."
In response, Al-Elson blinked twice, then looked off into the distance. "Sorry, I shouldn't have asked such
a personal question," she said, but Bela waved his claw "no" at her. "I should be the one to say that," he
said. "In the future, I will try and keep the feelings of others in mind... before I seek understanding."
She looked away from him. "It's all right..." she said quietly.
Bela looked back down at his sister for any serious injuries. "Think I'll be fine," she said, and struggled to
leave his arms and stand. Al-Elson's shadow fell over her, and she reached out her long, slender claw to
pull the Vampire girl to her feet. Rebecca took the offered claw and stood, stumbled a little, then fell into
the horned girl's arms.
Al-Elson steadied her before she spoke. "My mother is... was, the Demon Goddess of the Rapax," she
told the two. "A woman who cared for nothing more than her own pleasures of the flesh, and of the torture
and killing of the Rapax's enemies and detractors." She sighed. "To be an issue of that woman's womb,
who has wantonly maimed so many... even her own people..."
"I know what you mean," Rebecca said softly, "and I'm sure Bela does, too." She looked out onto the
darkening horizon, to the slightly cloudy skies to the northeast. "We may not have found the answer of
why we were born or what it all means just yet, but as long as we are all searching for the meaning
behind it all..."
She coughed weakly, and Bela picked up where she left off with his claw on her shoulder. "I guess what
we are trying to say, is that you are welcome to come with us and find that answer when we do," he
offered. "And who better to ask than the Cosmic Lords themselves?"
After a short time considering their offer, Al-Elson nodded. "All right," she finally said, "let's go see what
they have to say about this."
Bela smiled happily, and pointed up at the mountain peak above. "Shall we?" he offered. Al-Elson nodded
and stepped forward into his massive arms. The Dragon scooped her up and beat his powerful wings,
and as Rebecca joined him, the three took to the air once more.
As they flew, the screams and blasts of the war between the Umpani and T'Rang pierced the silence of
the mountain peaks... and they watched in awe as burning lasers from the Savant's ship suddenly
streaked down like unholy yellow rain. Ships exploded and crashed, men screamed, and the battlefield of
Umpani and T'Rang became deathly silent. Bela shook his head in dismay, but said nothing.
After a time, Rebecca finally worked up the courage to share some stories of her and her brother's life on
their home planet. While she spoke, Al-Elson was finally able to piece together her thoughts. I had doubts
about what kind of person I could possibly be, she thought to herself. Rebecca chuckled at Bela's story of
catching her and the Bane King necking in the Chamber of the Cosmic Forge, and pushed him playfully in
the air. But it might just be possible to be more than the circumstances of my birth...
***
Finally, as the late day sun slowly set and barely lit the narrow canyon leading up the center of the
Ascension Peak mountain range, they finally arrived at the only of the four temples not bearing guardians.
Great white marble blocks led up past several pillars on either side to... nothing. While the other three
temples were most likely receptacles for the three devices that triggered the Ascension, considering how
they were all identical and much larger than this tiny structure, this was quite possibly the entrance to the
Cosmic Circle itself.
Bela set Al-Elson down and stopped in front of the great steps, scratching his head. "I guess... it opens
when the devices are put in place," he reasoned. He and Rebecca flew up the steps to the arch at the top
to be sure, but saw nothing else aside from the smoothed out portion of the mountain cliffs on either side.
Try as they did, they could not get anything resembling a portal or an entrance to reveal itself.
"What do we do now?" Al-Elson muttered.
The Favored
"The Helazoid are the descendants of the Higardi, the first of the many races created by you, my Lords.
They are a race of fiery warriors and brilliant scientists, and live in seclusion on the planet Guardia in the
hidden City of Sky.
"Their culture revolves around the completion of the 'Prophecy,' in which their fabled ancestors, who had
long ago left on a journey to the stars, would return to ascend into the heavens with their lost children.
"The time of the Prophecy came and went, during which time the Dark Savant attacked their capital, then
departed with the legendary Astral Dominae shortly thereafter. However, the prophecized return of the
Higardi never occurred. Thus disappointed, the Helazoid took it upon themselves to send a delegation of
their leaders, dreamers and doers to the stars after the Dark Savant, in hopes that he would lead them to
the homeland of their revered ancestors.
"I regret to tell you, but there is someone with them that even I have little knowledge of, and cannot read,
as if he is from outside the universe itself...
"Elson, the Fiend of Nine Worlds, High Father and infamous Ninja, is aboard the vessel bearing the
Helazoid delegates to this very planet. I know little of his past, save that his sudden appearence in a
system shortly heralds massive and sweeping changes through sudden kidnapping, torture or death.
"He worked briefly with the Dark Savant on Guardia, suddenly killed the Queen of the T'Rang, then
mysteriously reappeared with the Helazoid several days later. Whether his actions are dictated by the
Dark Savant, by another source, or simply come from himself, I do not know.
"I know nothing of his motives, his fears or his purpose in this time of Ascension. I only know that they
who find themselves between the Ninja and his objective, or who are the target themselves, need not
pray for a quick death... for they will assuredly receive one."
Space, approaching Dominus
Two weeks before the race for Ascension begins
Jan-Ette walked along the metal planks of the rapid transport shuttle, checking on each of its many
passengers. "How are you, my Queen?" she asked Dame Ke-Li, who nodded happily. "Good? How about
you, Li-Na?"
Each of the nervous and excited blonde Helazoid nodded and waved with great smiles on their faces,
knowing that the time of meeting their revered ancestors, the Higardi, was close.
Very close, in fact; her stomach fluttered with nervous butterflies at the thought. Just what would they be
like? Would they be happy, surprised?
Jan-Ette smiled and let out a cleansing breath. Gotta calm down... she thought to herself, then rubbed her
hands together. But I've waited my whole life for this moment...! So you gotta expect a little excitement!
The spaceship's interior was long and lined with seats on either side. Far in the back were the crew and
passenger's private quarters and the eating area, but this was the place where everyone was gathered for
their arrival upon Dominus. It was packed from nose to tail with the excited whispers and smiles of almost
a hundred Helazoid women.
Finally, she took a seat next to her everpresent, serious and somber guardian. He was staring off into
space with his gloved left arm resting on the arm of the chair, and rubbing his black masked mouth with
his right index finger. "We're gonna be there in a few hours... you nervous?" Jan-Ette asked him.
Elson briefly glanced at her from the tiny eye slit in the cowl that covered his face, then returned to staring
off into space. "Why?" he returned.
Jan-Ette chuckled. "Because you always favor your right arm and your face just before a big, stressful
mission."
"..."
"So, are you nervous?" she asked again.
After a brief pause, the Ninja spoke. "...I'm ready," he answered.
She smiled and leaned back against the cold metal of the ship wall. "We're going to see the Higardi..."
she said.
"Maybe," Elson replied.
"Definitely!" she asserted.
"..."
The Helazoid made a face. "Ok, I know what you're thinking," she said. "'It's not definite, and we could be
disappointed.' You know as well as I do that the Prophecy wasn't exactly forthcoming with how we would
meet the Higardi... but I know in my heart that we'll see them soon."
Elson lightly scratched the cowl over his cheek. I don't understand you, he thought to himself, and
touched his mouth absent-mindedly again.
Suddenly, a loud swear issued forth from the front of the ship. It was the Captain, a calm and older
woman, whose voice at this moment was on the verge of panic. "It's the Black Ship..." she called back.
A collective weight fell over each of the ship's occupants. From the least studious of Helazoid to the most
brilliant, each of them had heard enough tales of the ship of the Dark Savant to know what his vessel was
capable of.
Jan-Ette stood up so she could see out the main window. "Just veer away and keep going!" she said with
a strong, sweeping gesture in front of her. "We're almost there!"
"Sit down," Elson ordered her.
The Helazoid, who had either not heard him, or more than likely, wasn't listening, began to walk towards
the nose of the ship... and he was unbuckled and grabbing her around the waist before she took another
step.
She struggled vainly to escape his grip. "Why? I wanna see, and help if I can," she told him.
"Because it's safer," Elson answered, then suddenly but carefully whipped her around and back into her
cushy seat. She tried to push at him, but he had buckled her in before she could make another move. He
drew close to her face, with his brown eyes staring intently into her blue ones.
The look, and his deadly serious voice, robbed her of any further ability to protest. "You are my charge,"
he said calmly. "Our lives are bound to one another." He stepped back and joined the Captain at the
bridge, as Jan-Ette once again undid herself from her restraints and went to join him.
Ahead, the moon-sized behemoth that was the Black Ship stared at them silently, any move on its part a
certain tell of their forthcoming death. For some reason, it had not attacked them from its position there,
and seemed hesitant to either advance or withdraw. "This is our chance," the Captain said. "Doesn't look
like they see us yet... so if we can fly to Dominus full throttle, we might be able to slip by before they can
target us."
She pushed a button on the console and activated the PA system. "All passengers and crew... buckle up
and hang on to something," she said. "This could get rough."
Aboard the Black Ship, sitting atop a great throne of grey metal, and with his back to a hundred foot tall
and wide view of the stars, the Dark Savant looked over the radar scans of the ship that had just come to
Dominus.
The design was a bit more sleek than he had seen before, but there was no doubt from the markings on
the side that this ship belonged to the Helazoid. Logic fought with emotion as he cradled his massive
domed head in his gloved right hand.
"Master-the-ship-will-land-soon," his loyal Savant Trooper reported.
The Dark Savant grumbled in thought, a sound that reverberated and almost shook the very ship with its
power. His red eyes narrowed inside his helmet, and his massive metallic body was utterly still. They
would be on the planet in minutes...
Finally, he raised two fingers from his humanoid left hand and breathed deeply. "Shoot them down," he
ordered the machine. "Aim away from the passengers. Do not destroy anything vital."
The Captain's heart sunk when she saw the yellow light forming at the base of the Black Ship's nose.
"Oh... hell," she said, when she realized she was holding the PA button down in her terror. With her finger
still on it, she merely said, "Brace for impact."
Elson's eyes darted over the scans on the bridge in an instant. He was targetting... the engine? That's not
his style... he thought. He turned back towards the passenger area. "So, you have not the strength to kill
your children, Lord?" he chuckled under his breath.
The Ninja's grim attitude changed to one of sudden fear when he noticed Jan-Ette standing in front of
him, out of her seat and just in front of the bridge. With no time to return her to her seat, Elson dove on
top of her and covered her body with his, just before the lasers struck.
Fire ran through the passenger area, and burned several Helazoid to cinders before the safety system
kicked in, and doused the flames with a sticky white substance. Just before the explosion that rocked the
entire ship, Elson remembered holding Jan-Ette in a protective ball, not letting go of his ward for an
instant. Flames licked at his back, something heavy struck his head, and everything went black.
***
The sounds of the ocean rolled back and forth in his mind. While he was sleeping, his head
unconsciously moved ever so slightly up and down to match the sound of the waves.
As consciousness set in, a massive headache that gripped his forehead and temples in a painful steel
vise came right along with it. He tried to sit up, and slowly realized that his legs, an arm and a few ribs
were broken, so he slumped on his side to avoid putting any further strain on them.
His eyes began to focus. He was lying on sand inside a small hut that appeared to be made of mortar and
brick, in a jail cell made up of some type of bamboo under a thatched grass roof. The front door to the
small hut was likewise made up of the rigid stalks of bamboo, and a giant clam with a bottle of blue liquid
sitting in it lay at the side of the portal.
Elson closed his eyes and let the sounds of his surroundings wash over him. He might have been
immobile, but he still had his hearing to guide him.
The sounds descended from every direction, drawing a picture in his mind of what was going on around
him. Skittering legs, belonging to some sort of insect or crab... the sound of claws pinching the air ruled
more in favor of a crustacean.
An odd growling sound... a lot of it, coming from a group of creatures walking all around the hut. As
animalistic as it sounded, the voices appeared to be responding to one another. Intelligence, perhaps.
The sound of the ocean rolling in, receding. Crabs, waves, he was obviously near a beach... but how he
got here, he couldn't be sure.
As the sound of the waves rolled out and quieted, he was suddenly aware of another sound, right next to
him. The Ninja painfully rolled his head on the sand, and saw that he was not alone. Two other cells, one
empty and one occupied, made up the bulk of this little hut.
In the occupied cage, Jan-Ette's body rose and fell with light breaths. He could tell it was her; none of the
other delegates were in nearly the same shape as the beautiful Helazoid before him.
But now, her purple shorts and halter top were ripped and bloody, and her blonde hair was tangled and
covered with dirt and sand. Elson only managed to hear her breathing after the waves receded, and now
that they pounded against the shore again, the sound was obscured once more.
Despite his broken body, he dragged himself forward on his left arm to the vertical bamboo bars
separating them, and exhaustedly slumped next to the largest opening between the stalks.
Even from here, and with her back to him, he could tell she was in bad shape. The waves receded and
quieted, and revealed that her breath was not as uniform as he had originally pieced together in his mind.
He strained to hear better... and heard the wet and ragged sound of someone trying to breathe with blood
in their lungs.
The Ninja lay there for a brief time, in deep thought. He never failed a job... never. He told her to get back
in her seat and stay still, but...
After a time, he began to wonder... why were they the only two in the cells? He looked around and
strained to hear beyond them to be sure. He heard nothing... but it hardly spoke as to how many people
survived.
Still, with one empty cell here, it would be an inconceivable coincidence that their captors decided to fill
the last hut with him and Jan-Ette. If there was even one other survivor, she should have been in the final
cell next to them.
All at once, something hit him. They were the only ones who weren't strapped to their seats... and now,
they were the only two he knew of who were in this place. Did I make a mistake? he wondered. If
Jan-Ette had buckled in like I ordered her to, would she not be here now? Would we have been confined
to a blazing, fiery tomb?
Not once had he screwed up before, this was certain. There had to be other survivors around here
somewhere... but none of that mattered now. Elson grit his teeth and worked his left arm from underneath
his side, and reached out to touch the dying Helazoid. She stirred slightly at his touch, then began to
cough. He could hear the blood fleck against the sand as she hacked weakly on her side.
"Don't move," he said hoarsely. "You're hurt." Jan-Ette coughed in response, but did as she was asked...
and he began to look around for something to help her.
In the corner of his cell, he saw that some of the sand was less uniform than the rest, and was
surrounded by plucked blue flowers. He dug into the mounds, and took out green plants of varying
shapes and sizes growing from the cracks between the hut and the beach outside.
He rolled over and grunted as he landed on his broken ribs, and began to painstakingly pick and pull out
one of every variety that he could. A few sharp, pointed green fronds, a dark green stalk and the few little
flowers with blue petals that were brought here rather than planted, judging from their position on top of
the sand rather than shooting from it.
Without hesitation, he bit into the blue petals. Almost immediately, his mouth began to burn, and he spit
them out before their poison could take hold in his body.
The green stalk seemed to have no effect on him, no matter how much of it he ate. To his surprise,
though, the fronds seemed to relax his body and dull his pain. "Just hold on. Don't move," he repeated to
Jan-Ette.
A tiny cry was his only response. Elson lay still as he focused on the plant's effect on his body. His
biggest worry was that the dulled pain sensation might be a sign of the body's organs shutting down,
rather than a healing effect like Snowthistle or Rainweed.
The little bite of the plant was enough to start knitting his broken ribs, and after several minutes, he was
more awake and aware than before he ingested it. It wasn't like he had a choice, so the black-garbed
Ninja dragged himself back over to the bars between him and Jan-Ette's still body, and reached a handful
of the fronds as far as he could into her cell.
"Jan-Ette," he said calmly, "just behind you, I'm holding out some plants that will help you. Can you reach
them?"
Her arm moved ever so slightly from her side, then noticeably slumped back to its original position. It had
clearly been shattered in the crash, and was now useless. "No," she whispered so silently, that he almost
didn't catch it.
Dammit! he swore internally, then began to work out a plan. If she didn't get them soon, she would
probably die; there was little else he could do to help her. He exhaled sharply. "Listen, I need you to roll
towards me," he said with a quickness that betrayed his worry. "Carefully, as slowly as you can. I'll be
there to catch you, but I need you to come towards me..."
Jan-Ette's body moved ever so slowly towards him as she shifted her weight behind her. "Easy now, don't
push yourself," Elson said. "Take your time."
After a few agonizing minutes, she was able to ease her center of balance farther and farther towards her
back, until she was at the point where she could not stop her tilt even if she tried. Her body slowly rotated
towards him to a potentially damaging drop, but his gloved hand gently stopped her and let her down on
her back.
For a girl to be that injured, and then asked to do something potentially life-threatening, Elson expected
her face to be a mask of pain, with tears of fright and anguish streaming down her cheeks.
When her face was revealed to him, there were indeed tears there. But she looked... calm. Serene, even.
Her look was made even stranger by the fact that she landed partially on her crippled arm, which would
have made even a muscled brute weep in pain.
"Did you see it?" she whispered.
Elson let the frond of the plant fall over her mouth. "Be quiet, and eat this," he ordered her.
She complied and took a piece of the frond in her mouth, swallowing slowly while he pushed the leaf in
his hand farther up with each bite. She kept talking, though, much to his dismay. "The Higardi city..." she
said softly, then took another bite of the frond as tears ran down her cheeks. "It was so beautiful..." She
coughed another spasm of blood and turned her head to the side towards him, then slowly fell
unconscious with a bite of the plant still in her mouth.
"Hey! Wake up!" the Ninja shouted at her. Jan-Ette's body looked less beaten than it had a moment ago,
but he knew these plants would only stave off what was inevitably coming within a few days.
What was she talking about, the Higardi city? he thought. When he blacked out, he had only seen a large
ocean and towering mountain peaks before the Dark Savant's lasers ripped through the ship and sent
everything spiraling into nothing.
Their Prophecy was nonsense from the beginning, and yet she keeps clinging to it, he thought. As if the
Higardi are watching, and at any moment are going to come screaming from the heavens on a thousand
white horses to deliver us from this stinking hut.
He returned the fronds to his own cell, but did not eat any of them. How can you put your destiny in
someone else's hands like that? he thought. The only thing that can change things in this universe are our
choices, the actions we take.
The Ninja shook his head slowly. I don't understand you... he thought once more.
Slowly, the fatigue of the crash and the situation itself overwhelmed him. Elson gave in, and allowed
himself to slip into unconsciousness.
***
He awoke to a scuffle coming from Jan-Ette's cell. When he turned his head to look, he was surprised by
the strange being who was in the enclosure with her, and struggled to get to his broken feet to help her.
The creature was best described as a man-fish... a short, beady-eyed creature with fins on both sides of
his head, and who had webbed hands and toes. He had a large underbite and growled as he struggled
with the Helazoid. Nonetheless, Elson could tell from a glance that his lean muscles were nothing to
ignore, and that his movements in trying to pick up Jan-Ette spoke of at least a rudimentary intelligence.
There was not much he could do in his condition, and locked up as he was... but in the end, he didn't
need to do anything. Jan-Ette, despite her internal bleeding, slapped and kicked at the fish-man from the
ground until he finally decided to back off and lock her in again.
As he exited the front door, the Helazoid struggled to catch her breath and keep the world from spinning.
"Not... getting me... without a fight!" she gasped, then collapsed onto the sand again.
Elson said not a word, and simply watched the fish-man as he left the two behind. He was seldom in a
position like this, prostrate and at the mercy of his captors with no means of escape or method to fight
back, but he had gotten out of worse predicaments before. It would only be a matter of time before a
guard slipped up, an opportunity presented itself...
Jan-Ette coughed more blood onto the sand, which pulled him immediately from his thoughts. The Ninja
tapped the sand around him to find the fronds to feed and heal her, worrying more every second that her
wounds would soon overtake her.
There was nothing around him. The poisonous flowers, the stalks, nothing was there. He swore, thinking
of what else the fish-men could have done to or taken from him while he slept so defenselessly. His
wounds were more serious than he had originally thought...
With a precursory glance around the hut, he noticed that the plants had been left in the giant clam in the
corner, like an offering to some fishy god.
"Ei...sin?" Jan-Ette asked weakly.
He dragged his body to the partition between them and looked through the hole. "I'm here," he said.
"I thought... when the guard came, he did something to you," she whispered in relief, and Elson pshawed.
"Takes more than a giant salmon to bring down the legendary Fiend..." he replied.
Jan-Ette laughed softly, then her face became serious. "We're going to get out of here, aren't we?" she
asked.
"Of course..." he answered, but her reply, in contrast, was as confident as it was disheartening. "You don't
need to sugarcoat anything," she said. "I know how bad I must look..."
For this, Elson had nothing to say... there really was no point in dancing around the fact that she might die
at any moment. He had never needed to do this comfort thing before, and had no experience in it, so he
decided to let her help herself.
"So..." he started. He paused, and wondered how best to ask without seeming overly interested. "Why are
you so concerned with this Prophecy and the Higardi, anyway?" he wondered. Perhaps nostalgic hope
will buy her another day or two... he thought.
The Helazoid turned carefully onto her side to face her masked bodyguard. "It's..." she started, but didn't
quite know how to explain. She settled for an example. "Don't you have parents, who love you dearly no
matter who you are?" she asked with a soft smile.
"..."
She looked at the hut's ceiling. "The Helazoid have been independent and lived according to... only the
way we wished to live, for as long as we've known," she said. "Decades, centuries of true freedom, where
we have produced remarkable machines and created wonderous technology, refined our culture to a
beautiful pillar of Guardian culture.
"And you know what?" she asked, then paused to form the words before she spoke them. "All of it was
fleeting, transitory, unimportant... nothing but distractions." She exhaled slowly. "I think we clung to
technology because it was the closest link to the only real source of history... of family, that we had," she
confided.
"The Higardi..." Elson realized.
Jan-Ette slowly nodded. "They're the only ones who would understand us best... we, their blessed and
beloved children," she said. "The Prophecy is not a deification of our ancestors... it is a reminder, that
despite being alone and fending for ourselves on that planet, that we were loved... by someone,
somewhere."
She smiled. "All the people who came here, they weren't just the most important of the Helazoid people,"
she said softly, "but those who wanted to meet our ancestors the most. I can't wait to find everyone, so
we can go see the Higardi together..."
Elson, for some reason, decided not to tell her that the chances of their survival were almost non-existent.
Jan-Ette continued. "I saw our ancestor's city, even from that high up," she said. "And not just the
buildings, the people, too. Wonderful, giving, welcoming people in a grand and splendid temple, just
waiting for us to arrive..."
Not likely... he thought, but spoke something completely different. "I'll get you out of here," he promised.
"You can show me everything when we get there."
She slowly closed her eyes. "I'd like that," she whispered, and passed out again.
The Ninja sighed... it wasn't his style to play the enabler to his charges' delusions, but being the first job
he had ever failed made this one a rather special case.
Suddenly, it felt like something had hammered into his stomach... and he had felt it at the very second
that he referred to the girl as nothing more than another mission. She was in every way his opposite:
open, trusting, optimistic. And yet...
Strangely enough, he felt he might miss this one when she shuffled off to the land of the dead, and not
just because she'd be a black mark on a spotless hiring record. Her willingness to place her future in the
hands of another, especially ones as removed as ancient ancestors who had long left their children
behind, was intriguing to say the least. When this was all over, he knew this strange girl's outlook on life
would certainly stay with him.
Over the next few days, Elson allowed Jan-Ette to speak of every aspect of her life, despite his previous
warnings for her to save her strength. Her first time on one of the rocket sleds, missions in and around the
wilderness of Guardia, looking for clues about the Higardi, the girl was full of stories.
She enjoyed deferring her life to the whims of others, he realized. From her Queen's orders on where to
scout, all the way down to the alien Samurai who demanded, on the Helazoid's sworn honor, that she
assist in a civil war, others seemed to always dictate how she should live and act.
He spoke little, offering her an apathetic ear for her final moments. The girl was already a write-off; he
wondered how he'd explain it to his client... even though his boss was the one who ended up causing this
trouble in the first place. He had been unbalanced for as long as Elson worked for him, but he sure
offered good targets.
From the first encounter with the fish-men on, Elson kept an ear open as he slept, not allowing himself to
drown too deeply into the blissful nothingness of sleep to offer the creatures another opportunity to
surprise him.
Occasionally, a fish-man would enter the hut and look over the two captives, then just as quickly leave
without a word or further action. They never arrived without Elson expecting them, and he assumed that
they were just waiting for one of them to buy it so they could come in and clean up the mess. At least,
that's what he thought... until a full week later.
Jan-Ette was on the verge of death. It had been days since either one of them had eaten or had anything
to drink, and though he felt himself becoming weaker as a result, she looked much worse: her skin was
becoming paler before his eyes, and some of her wounds had become infected, adding even more injury
to the girl's already ravaged body.
She had begun to talk to herself and in her sleep, and spoke in strings of unrelated greetings, comments
and observations. At one moment, it sounded like she was speaking to an invisible Higardi, who seemed
to be assuring her that she would soon be rescued. The very next sentence, she would sound like a child,
begging for her mother to bring her a cup of juice.
Even in the end, she expects some magical coincidence, some giving soul to show her the way, Elson
thought. Sad, really.
He noticed that she had recently taken to holding a small metal triangle in her hands, rubbing the red eye
and the blue clouds beneath it with a shaking finger. "I'll give this to you, I'll bring this to you," Jan-Ette
kept repeating as she stroked it. "I promise, I'll see you soon..."
If he still had emotions, Elson might have felt a sting in his eyes. As it stood now, he was only watching
the inevitable self-destruction of those who surrendered their will to another.
When a fish-man arrived again that day, he met with no resistance from the delusional Helazoid. It
croaked loudly out the front door, and three more arrived to pick up and carry the dying girl outside.
Elson watched the first smudge on a clean record being hauled out the door with some interest, and
leaned up against the stone behind him with his left hand in the sand, and his broken right arm lying
across his right knee. He neutrally hung his head near his right shoulder, utterly silent.
Jan-Ette suddenly seemed to perk up, and realize where she was being taken. This is the part where you
realize your entire life has been a mistake, the Ninja thought coldly. A fitting end for being a willing pawn
to fate.
When she turned to him, though... she looked happy. Her eyes were shining as she smiled gently, then
nodded ever so slightly at him. She gripped the banner tighter in her hand as they carried her out.
Just before she was out of sight, Elson saw her mouth open in surprise, as if she had suddenly come face
to face with something beautiful outside. Then, with a simple sigh, her body sagged weakly in the
fish-men's scaley arms, and the banner slipped from her hand. She was dead.
Confused, the Ninja weakly slumped forward onto the ground to get a final look at the departing girl. His
mouth worked, trying to form words to reflect his confusion, but nothing came.
One of the taller fish-men's hands suddenly sprouted foot long claws... and the door closed behind it.
Seconds later, there was a tremendous, guttural cry from a large group of the fish-men, and Elson heard
the sound of tearing flesh.
For many hours after that moment, he sat in his cell in complete silence, even as night fell on the beach
and his body demanded sleep. He didn't understand... she had spent her whole life worshipping
something that had let her down in the end, and she went to her grave... with a smile.
That look stayed with him, haunted his dreams for days as his body grew weaker and weaker. It was like
clockwork... the fish-men would check on him in the morning and then leave, his body would fail to
respond more and more, and he inched ever closer to death with the girl's last moments running through
his mind.
Why? he wondered over and over again. She must have known the Higardi weren't coming. So why did
she continue to act as if she did? Why did she die with... Her smile returned to him. Unbelievable, the
depths of some people's stubbornness...
Now and then it would rain, and Elson was able to capture some drops from the leaky roof in his gloves.
The water was bitter and disgusting, but it kept him going. His chance would arrive soon...
The fish-men started to get more bold as time went on. They came into his cell twice or three times a day,
trying to beat him, cripple him. He was ready for them every time, though. Never was he able to break out
of the cell in his condition, but they were never able to take him away and kill him, either.
The dance continued for several days, until the other finally arrived.
Bayjin
Day 4
"Get your hands off me, you snaggle-toothed tuna!" the arrival yelled, even as he was thrown into the
empty cell across from Elson by four fish-men. His wounds were fresh, but non-lethal, with claw and bite
marks covering his body under his ripped red uniform. The fish-men ignored his cries and barely spared
him a glance, but they seemed very interested in Elson. As the Ninja sat up in the corner of his cell,
though, they seemed to stop caring and left out the front door.
"When the IUF gets here, they'll make sushi out of all of you!" the Umpani screamed after them. His eyes
were bloodshot, his nose-horn chipped, and his jacket and pants were torn in several places; he hardly
seemed worthy of rescue. He pounded on the bamboo shoots that made up his cell, to no avail.
Elson hissed an audible chuckle at his futile shaking, a sound that the Umpani apparently heard. "The hell
are you laughing at, fruitcake?" he roared. "You think I'm screwing around? When I get out of here, those
fish'll rue the day they messed with Sergeant Glumph!"
He snorted loudly. "Who do you think you are anyway, coming to Bayjin dressed in your jammies?" he
taunted, then backpedalled. "Oh, I see," he said with a smile. "You're so hideous that you're gonna wait
until you get a big group of them together, then take off your mask and ugly them to death, am I right?"
Glumph laughed long and hard as he continued to pound at the cell door. A fish-man came in not long
after, but for some reason, he spent less time looking at the blustering and raving Umpani, and more time
focused on the quiet and still Ninja in the cell across from him. Elson didn't move, and the fish-man began
to cautiously approach... then slowly opened the cell door.
The Ninja shifted then, and the fish-man quickly closed it, then turned his back on the two and exited
through the front door again.
It all came together then. Cowards... Elson thought as he swooned and slumped on his side, then made
no further motion or sound.
Glumph continued his tirade. "Hey, wake up, you masked freakazoid!" he yelled, smashing the bamboo
as hard as he could, but not moving it an inch. "Don't tell me a few days in a Rynjin gulag will take you
down that easy!"
The Rynjin's guttural language floated around outside the hut, and to Elson's delight, he heard the front
door open again. With his eyes closed, he listened intently over the Umpani's blustering to the Rynjin who
opened his cell to slowly approach. He poked him with one of his long claws, and sliced into his garb
enough to draw blood. Elson did not move.
Finally, he turned towards the door and started to call for his fellows to join and take out the next sacrifice,
when Elson propped himself up on his left arm and pushed his body up and next to the Rynjin. Using his
falling weight, he grabbed the creature by the neck and drove his fishy face into the sand below, muffling
any cries for help. With a sharp twist he broke the fish-man's neck, and the thing stopped struggling.
Glumph clapped at the prone Ninja. "Hey, not bad," he said. "Now open this cage and let's get out of
here!"
Elson dragged himself by his left arm to the clam next to the front door, and devoured the fronds sitting so
patiently there. As his strength began to return, he sat up and reached for the stoppered blue bottle. "Any
time now," the Umpani grumbled impatiently with his arms over his chest.
The Ninja ignored him and opened the container, and sipped carefully at the liquid inside... it was a
healing potion. He recognized the flavor instantly, and felt his wounds slowly knit.
How sick of his captors to leave healing so readily within sight, yet just out of reach for any of it to be of
any use. Just their style, though, he thought.
It was clear, from the way that the Rynjin acted around their prisoners, that they only sacrificed the most
wounded and close to death that they could find. Fear of retaliation, a cultural necessity... whatever the
reason, having healing staring their prisoners in the face, but being just out of reach, was the perfect way
to extinguish their captives' spirits... before they closed in for the kill. As bad as it was, though, he'd seen
worse.
Something glittered on the floor in the patches of sunlight coming through the thatched roof. He looked
down and saw the banner Jan-Ette had dropped days ago, a telling reminder of her presence here. Elson
knelt down and retrieved it, and looked it over. All that remains of your faith, he thought with a light tut,
and pocketed it.
He flattened himself against the wall next to the front door, ignoring the Umpani's continuing insults and
roars for help. There was nobody coming... so the Ninja slipped carefully out the door and into the
sunlight.
Even in broad daylight, he was difficult to see. From the shadow of the door to the palm trees next to him,
Elson flitted from one dark spot to another, all the while taking in the sights around him. He was definitely
on a beach, dotted by several grass-roofed stone huts, and patrolled by hundreds of marching Rynjin.
He quickly scrambled south into the trees and up the peak of a mountain, finding footholds and hiding in
crevices well away from the sight of the patrolling Rynjin. From there, he heard the sound of the beach
crashing all around him. It could have been the height of the mountain, or possibly an echo, but it looked
like he was on an island.
To the north, a long wooden bridge led into a great stone temple adorned by burning torches, a possible
place of worship to these disgusting, scaley creatures. Soon enough, he found a good spot to wait and
look out over the entire Rynjin encampment.
The first of the patrols to find his cell empty waddled excitedly out of the jail hut to warn other Rynjin of the
escape and the dead guard inside. Elson watched silently as they scrambled in every direction looking for
him, but not one of them thought to look up into the shadows of the mountain where he observed their
every move.
After a while, he began to notice a pattern in the Rynjin's movements: though they spread out and
searched in every direction, they all seemed to return to the same spot in the middle of a circle of huts,
which was now obscured by the fronds of a palm tree. He silently worked his away across and down the
mountain to another alcove, where he could finally get a better look at where the Rynjin were
congregating.
In the middle of the huts, next to a roaring campfire, a particularly large Rynjin pointed and gestured in
different directions, sending the smaller ones scrambling off on one mission or another. Unlike the rest of
the Rynjin, his right arm was much longer than his left, and culminated at the end with several large,
sharp claws.
The memory of Jan-Ette being taken from her cell came back to him then. Her sighing death slump, the
banner dropping, a Rynjin extending his massive claws, the sound of sliced flesh... and her smile.
This Rynjin... was the one responsible for his one black mark. He was the one who locked them up,
murdered his ward, and the one who was now holding his Ninjato like trophies in his left hand. Elson
lowered his head in deadly seriousness, then slipped down the mountain and into the shade of the palm
trees below.
With every Rynjin that momentarily dropped his guard and looked away from him, he slipped ever closer
to the Rynjin leader... tree by tree, and hut by hut.
Within seconds, he was standing atop the thatched roof of a hut looking directly out on the Rynjin Chief.
He watched for a brief time, then slowly rose until he was in full view of every Rynjin standing there.
He was immediately spotted by one of the smaller Rynjin, who gestured at him with a croak of surprise.
The Ninja watched as every one of the hundred Rynjin looked up to see him, but his eyes were focused
solely on the largest Rynjin in their midst.
Immediately, the Chief raised his tiny green eyes to meet Elson's. Any thought that these creatures were
one and all primitive savages left him there, when he stared into the familiar, arrogant and cold eyes of a
creature drunk with his own power. No matter the planet, no matter the job, the struggle is always the
same, he thought to himself, as he jumped from the rooftop to an empty spot before the Chief with
frightening quickness.
The Rynjin's condescending look quickly changed to one of stark fear when Elson was suddenly in front
of him, and the Ninja's elbow cracked into his exposed throat. As the Chief reeled backwards, Elson took
his Ninjato from the fish-man's scaley hand and sliced two diagonal arcs down his chest.
As the Rynjin fell, the Ninja rammed both of the blades into his chest and jumped up, spin kicking several
Rynjin who were reaching for him before they could grasp his body. The Chief growled ferociously, and
his head suddenly began to glow bright blue as he stood.
Elson was surprised that the creatures could use Psionic spells, but was not unprepared for the
eventuality. Just as the light around his head dimmed, and before the Rynjin could cast the spell, the
Ninja wrapped his gloved hands around the Chief's face and head, encompassing it completely.
The Rynjin's Mind Flay spell, with no outlet from which to spring on the Ninja, recoiled into his own mind.
The spell rocked between Elson's hands, passing over and through the fish-man's brain to liquify it as his
body convulsed.
Elson kicked out to the left and behind him, knocking back more of his would-be Assassins, but didn't let
his hands off of the Chief's head for an instant. The Rynjin's eyes glazed over behind his gloves as the
spell finally finished its rebounding, damaging path through his mind.
Feeling this, Elson let the him drop. Still breathing but with no spark of intelligence left in his eyes, the
Rynjin dropped to the sandy beach, then shook ever so slightly.
The Ninja felt surprised as the other Rynjin backed away from him in fear, but his surprise didn't come
from their terrified retreat. Usually, after he had assassinated the murderous leader of a people who didn't
question orders, he was filled with a sense of accomplishment, strength... even borderline happiness.
This time, however, there was nothing, just a sense of emptiness... of a pointless action, a meaningless
gesture, and a wasted life. Whereas before he might have thought this planet safer for having lost a
murderous ruler who tortured its victims, he could only now think of the millions, the billions, the countless
other creatures among the stars who wielded and abused power in a similar way... ones he would never
have enough years in his short life to topple.
Generals, kings, queens, chieftains... he'd killed them all. Every place his clients pointed, every target he
was presented, was shortly thereafter nothing more than a corpse lying motionless on the ground.
So why is it different now? What changed?
Elson backed away from the quivering mass that was once the Chief of the Rynjin, and heard the
creatures around him cry out in fear and scurry away from him. A fitting end for being a willing pawn to
fate... his own words returned to him.
He paused, finally stumbling upon the irony in his own words. "I condemned you for looking to others for
meaning and salvation..." he realized, "...at the same time that I followed clients' orders without question,
and executed evil only at their request."
With that revelation in mind, he walked along the beach of the island, seeing Rynjin fan out at his
approach. He laughed softly at first, a laugh that grew louder and louder, until it finally became a
madman's cackle. Unbelievable... he thought through his laughter. That it would all come to this...
And with that, Elson began to walk.
Through an underground cave that led from the island to a fetid Swamp, through dense forests and
across grassy vales, he drove endlessly forward for days, with thoughts of his own hypocrisy and
inherently futile life in mind.
His disbelieving laughter soon gave way to quiet reflection. His hidden grin turned serious, and his eyes
fell downcast to stare at nothing in particular. Thoughts of Jan-Ette continually returned to him, despite his
best effort to drive them from his mind.
I had faith in my contracts, and you had faith in your vaunted Higardi, he thought to himself. Yet, you were
smiling in the end...
Arnika
Day 6
The difference plagued him for days with no answer in sight, until he finally came upon the gates of the
city Jan-Ette had wanted to see for her entire life.
The archway leading into the city of Arnika, home of the Higardi, waited silently for him to enter in the
waning sunlight. Without a word, Elson walked around the fountain at the city's entrance, then past grand
buildings of stone and wood to the city's center.
A great statue of Phoonzang stood there, gesturing towards the sky as if it expected to call the very moon
itself to it. Elson stood and looked at it silently for several minutes, and wondered what Jan-Ette would
have said, had she survived to see it.
"Welcome, brother," a voice said from behind him. The Ninja did not turn to acknowledge whoever it was,
hearing from his footsteps that he was physically weak, and therefore nothing to be concerned with.
The skullcapped and green-robed Monk continued despite the lack of response. "That is Phoonzang, the
Cosmic Lord," he explained as he drew next to Elson's side. "He watches over us and keeps us safe, and
we keep this Temple in his honor."
Elson inhaled sharply, but whether to quell derisive laughter, or overflowing emotion from Jan-Ette's
death, even he wasn't sure. The Monk spoke again. "If you have the time, you should visit our leader,
Lord Braffit," he said. "I'm sure he would like to meet more of you visitors from the stars, provided you do
not serve the Dark Savant."
The Ninja said nothing. "Ascend these stairs and descend the next you see, and you will find him," the
Monk explained, then took his leave. Elson stood quietly for a time, with his eyes on the statue... before
he finally did as the Monk instructed, and entered the private room of the leader of the Temple.
Between the white marble walls, and in front of a praying statue overlooking a pool of water, Lord Braffit,
an older, red-robed Higardi with worried blue eyes and neatly cut brown hair, slowly wrote on a piece of
parchment at his desk.
He jumped when a gloved hand suddenly came to rest atop the parchment he was scribbling on. He
hadn't noticed the masked person entering, but he certainly saw him now.
As the Ninja took his hand away from his desk, Braffit saw that he had left something behind: a triangular
piece of metal with a very familiar symbol upon it. Wait a minute... he thought, then looked at the masked
man in surprise.
Elson looked him firmly in the eyes. "They were here," he said simply, then turned and went back up the
stairs. By the time Braffit got over the shock of the meeting and the sudden gift, it was already too late; he
looked up, then ascended the stairs near him... only to find that the masked man was long gone.
Lost in his thoughts, Elson walked a long road west and north of town past walking vines and a few
groups of bandits. The few leather-garbed thieves who decided to accost him were seconds later lying
dead on the ground with snapped necks and spines.
For a full day, he walked the worn road, past the dead body of a very large bull-like beast with large tusks,
and into the wilderness just short of a great mountain range. My life has been a waste, he thought, as he
crossed a great bridge that spanned a very deep canyon with a raging river at the bottom. No matter how
many of them I kill, there are always a thousand more murdering, raping and pillaging. It will never stop...
A great rock golem stood in the middle of the mile long bridge, and came to life as he approached. You
saw the pointlessness of your beliefs in the end, didn't you? he continued in his mind. So why did you die
so happily?
The golem punched down at him, but Elson quickly slipped forward, then walked calmly between its legs.
The rocky creature tripped over itself trying to turn around, then fell over the side of the bridge, rocking it
violently before it shattered to pieces on the rocks below.
How are we so different?
He stepped off of the bridge and walked the mountain path that wound to the very peak itself, finally
stopping at a drop that looked down on the rocky wilderness miles and miles below.
At that moment... he finally understood. He knelt slowly at the edge.
"Is that why... Jan-Ette?" he whispered softly. "You placed not only your life in the hands of others... but
your faith as well?" He paused and looked down on the wilderness, populated by fiery ants and marching
golems, as the thought expanded upon itself. He shook his head in disbelief. "And even at death's door,
when there was nobody to hear your cries, you still kept that stubborn faith alive," he said solemnly.
He stood at the edge of the cliff, and looked into the sky. "And what of someone who has no such belief in
the goodness of man?" he asked. "What of those who see people for what they are: selfish, craven fools
who deserve nothing more than a torturous death?" He closed his eyes and stepped forward towards the
edge, then smiled grimly underneath his mask. "Shall we be the first to put our disgraceful selves to
death?" he asked.
With a single step, the Fiend of Nine Worlds plunged from the mountaintop towards the rocky ground
below. Elson was lucky enough to black out, just seconds before his body struck the ground.
Home
"The Crusaders. The ones who delivered the Astral Dominae to the Dark Savant, in exchange for the life
of their companion, Vi Domina. Despite their name, they are really just normal people, cast into
extraordinary circumstances. All of them, save Vi Domina, are from the same planet.
"Shss is an Amazulu from the planet Llylgamyn. She was taken from her home and placed in the care of
a village of Lizardmen, whose lifestyle became her own. She is a remarkably skilled Fighter, combining
her own natural athleticism and her instincts and training as a Lizardman with contemporary weaponry.
"Next is an Elf named Lucciana, once a Samurai, now a 'Ronin.' She was cursed at a young age to
experience the mind and heart of those she killed, and to be physically burdened with their souls, until
they could be coaxed into the hereafter.
"Upon slaying the Bane King, she took his essence into her mind, including his thirst for blood and his
desire to kill. The emergence of his personality was kept at bay for a time by a Priest travelling with her.
However, several years ago, he was able to temporarily take control of the Samurai's body and slay
several thousand in the process.
"Since the incident, she has managed to find a measure of control over the Bane King that she lacked in
the beginning of her journey.
"Kiwi is a Faerie, daughter of the Faerie Queen Saeren and a disciple of the ways of the Monk. Despite
her size, she has enough control over her qi to break steel with her bare hands.
"As a Monk, she was taught to be self-sustaining, and to not give in to negative emotions. However, as a
Faerie, she had a life too painful for the lessons to sink in. After losing her teacher and her two best
friends within the span of three months, she sunk into a malaise that has only recently let up enough to
allow her to live normally.
"Tearn, a Felpurr or cat-man from the same planet, shows an incredible amount of talent with the skills of
Thaumaturgy and Alchemy. After losing his family to war, his path has been soaked with the blood of
many.
"On Guardia, with the help of the Faerie Kiwi and a Dracon Ranger he once travelled with, he has learned
to channel his anger into training his mind and body for the sake of protecting those around him. His
power has at least doubled since his time on that planet.
"Lastly, Vi Domina is a descendant of the Cosmic Lord Phoonzang, and holds a special power over his
creations, including the Astral Dominae. Her journey with the other four is based on a promise to return
their two deceased friends with the power of the sacred globe.
"These are only the first of the Crusaders. There are also two others, who have already arrived..."
Space, approaching Dominus
Day 1
Vi watched the tiny dot in the field of stars before her grow larger with every second. At first it seemed like
any other star, but as the ship drew closer, it became more of a tiny disk that showed hints of blue. In
time, she could even tell where ocean stopped and land began upon it.
At the same time, she scanned the field of stars for the Black Ship, which was almost assuredly lying
somewhere in wait. Strangely enough, her radar wasn't picking up anything. Whether he wasn't here yet,
had landed or was somewhere else entirely, she didn't know, but now seemed like the best chance for
them to land on Dominus without incident.
She turned her head and called back to her passengers. "You guys ready to get off this ship?" she asked.
"I was ready to get off the second I got on, girl," a gruff male voice replied, then snorted. "Not that three
years of sitting here with nothing to do hasn't been enough of a hullabaloo, but I think I need to stretch my
legs."
"I'm with him," a strong female voice agreed. "I've dropped at least a few levels just waiting for the action
to begin."
After a brief pause, another spoke up. "Yeah, are we there yet?" a squeaky girl's voice asked.
"Better not provoke her," a fourth voice, calm and feminine, said. "She probably has her finger on the
afterburner button, what with all the complaining. And we all just ate..."
Vi surreptitiously took her finger off of a red button on the console, then cleared her throat. "Yeah, well,
we'll be there in like three minutes, so keep your shirts on," she said. An evil smile worked its way across
her face. "Couldn't hurt to have a final review session now, would it?" she asked.
There was a collective groan, but her companions eventually relented. "Three objects leading to one
Ascension, one unhinged god and an army of robotic soldiers..." the man said in the monotone voice of
someone recalling information studied hundreds of times before.
"And how many of us are there again?" the calm girl asked with grim humor.
"Five..." the squeaky girl responded.
"Soon to be seven," the strong one added. "You know it!" the little one exclaimed.
The ship suddenly shook... and everyone's stomach tied in knots. From the beginning of the journey, the
few things that had added a sense of stability to the journey were their deep-seated friendship and
respect for one another, hope that they would see their friends again... and the ship not moving like this.
"What was that?" the man asked.
Vi looked over readings on the console, and soon found something peculiar: the readings for the engine
indicated that... they didn't have one. She laughed nervously, then tapped on the console in case it was a
glitch. "Oh, you know these old ships," she called back, noticing that the readings were still the same.
"Always shaking and rattling when they aren't supposed to. It's been a few years since its last tune-up,
you know?
"Might wanna strap in, though, just to be safe," she added.
"Right when we're gonna land, this happens?" the strong girl asked. "I don't buy it."
Vi soon heard the clicks of several buckles behind her, and turned back to the radar and stars in front of
her. The planet was just ahead, a great blue and green orb shining in the darkness. For a moment, she
stared at it, dumbfounded, with a tear welling in her good eye. She was finally home...
The ship rocked again and shook her from her daze; apparently, they now had no power.
To emphasize the point, the lights in the cabin of the ship suddenly went out, and the console blanked.
She was now flying blind. Halfway there anyway, Vi thought with a grin, and ripped the sapphire amulet
that powered the ship out of the groove it was nestled in. Then, she opened a separate, hidden
compartment on the console to reveal another amulet-shaped hole, then jammed the jewelry in.
The ship bucked and veered sharply to the right... and unbeknownst to them, avoided the kill shot. "Hang
on, we're going in!" the eye-patched girl shouted back as she put her hands back on the steering handles.
With renewed power, the crippled ship shot forward with amazing speed, while it burned the very last of
its energy.
Just as Vi caught the barest glimpse of her hometown sitting on the edge of the sea, a bright flash of light
shot past the nose of the ship... and everything went painfully white.
In her mind's eye, she followed a blind path ahead of her with expert jink and juke maneuvers,
successfully avoiding a sudden barrage of bright lights coming from somewhere behind them. However,
the ship, previously pointed towards Arnika, soon came to be centered on a large structure sitting on the
western edge of the sea.
One of the lights finally ripped through the tail of the ship, and destroyed their living quarters. The ship's
controls suddenly stopped responding, and they plunged through the burning atmosphere towards the
ocean.
Vi was awake for every last second of their painful descent. The cockpit was much more secure than the
center of the ship, where falling wreckage and exposed systems could prove deadly. Knowing this, she
was very worried about the four behind her, who would have to face the brunt of their attacker's wrath.
The Dark Savant, no doubt about it, she thought. I had no idea he could cloak his ship like that...
The ship struck the surface of the calm sea, skipping over it like a stone. She heard cries of pain and
surprise as her companions were struck by unseen debris, and were jolted violently about in their seats.
Again, they skipped and hopped over the water as Vi's vision slowly came back to her. She heard the
sound of streaking magic, saw her body coated in a transparent field of green.
Vi looked up through the window to see the blur that was the Monastery rapidly approaching them, and
just before they crashed into the sandy beach just before it, she heard several popping sounds and
pained yells that suddenly went silent.
The ship rammed into the beach with unbelievable force, and kicked a wave of sand several hundred feet
up into the air and all around them. Pieces of twisted and sharp metal pierced at her flesh, but stopped an
inch away from her body on the green shield.
There were a few final sounds of metallic scraping, then the sound of sand raining down upon them, and
finally, everything went silent.
Vi let out a breath she had been saving the whole time, and quickly unstrapped herself from her seat. As
she stood, she coolly ripped a jagged piece of metal out of the shield around her back, where it was
sticking out so oddly. She heard the same popping sound as before, and the transparent green
Armorplate shield disappeared.
She ran to the back of the darkened ship and felt around on the floor. There was one, two people whose
seats had been ripped from the very wall itself, and who were now strapped in and lying prone on the
ground.
"You guys all right?" she asked, but received no response. She panicked for a second, but soon found the
strong pulses of at least these two: the two bigger girls, judging from their size... and the lack of hair on
their necks.
Moments later, she found the other two: she felt the little one wrapped protectively inside his robe, and he
was slumped against the wall. Both were also alive, and would most likely snap out of their protective
unconsciousness within a few hours.
The door leading outside was jammed, but with a little insistence, she managed to wrest the portal out of
the deformed doorway around it until it was almost swinging outwards. She backed up and kicked it with
all her might, and it dropped outside and onto the beach.
Light streamed in, and she could finally see the mess that was left of Phoonzang's old ship: their
belongings were in piles on the floor, the seats were ripped from the walls and sheets of metal and pieces
of the engine were littered everywhere.
Nonetheless, probably thanks to his Armorplate spell, her companions were only slightly bloody and
battered.
Vi considered waiting until they had woken up, but with the Dark Savant running loose as he was, she
knew every second had to count. She bowed slightly to them. "Sorry, guys," she said. "You'll be safe in
here until nap time's over."
She lifted the heavy door from the beach with great effort, then propped it back up against the entrance to
the ship. A quick once-over showed that there was plenty of room for air to get in, but not enough for any
critters to sneak in and cause trouble. Satisfied, she stepped out into the warm sunlight of Dominus, a
feeling she had not had the pleasure of experiencing in seven long years.
Vi Domina was every bit the same girl that she was on Guardia. She stood tall with confidence woven into
her every step, and evident on her face with her trademark sly smile. To back up the strong figure she
cut, a gleaming White Sword hung off of her fully fishnet stockinged left leg, and a pistol was holstered
outside the half-stocking on her right.
She ran a hand through her short black hair, then brushed the dust and dirt from her stockings covering
her black undergarments. Though she tended to wear some kind of revealing outfit no matter where she
went, it seemed the perfect choice for the current beach weather. Her black boots made her feet kind of
hot, but the strip of purple cloth covering her shoulder and breast on the right, and the half of a metal
brassiere cupping her left, were light enough to keep her from sweating too much. The V-shaped red
metal shoulderpads that ran down from her shoulders to her cleavage, however, were already collecting
and dripping a few salty beads down her body.
The most imposing part of her, as it always had been, was the black eyepatch that covered her right eye
socket. Where it once protected the clouded, genetically deformed eye of a child of Phoonzang, it now
served to guard nothing but the vacant hole it once housed, courtesy of the Dark Savant.
Vi knelt down to the beach and dug, until the darker earth beneath the fine white sand atop it could be
seen. Satisfied that her message would be seen when the others woke up, she began to walk to the front
door of the Monastery. With a deep and happy sigh, she took in the sight of the building she had not seen
in ages.
It was a centuries old structure, erected in the name of Phoonzang and the Cosmic Lords and built into
the mountains themselves in the cliffs sitting on the edge of the sea. A tall, man-made waterfall was still
running strong to the left of the Monastery's entrance, and added a soothing aura of peace to the already
serene building.
The Monastery itself was only visible from the outside from the western exit that led to Arnika. Here, on
the other hand, only a simple wooden door framed by boards that went stories high could be seen. With
nostalgia delighting her every step, she approached, pulled it open and stepped in.
Its internals were as quiet as she remembered them... but unlike the Monastery of her memories,
everything seemed more dead than peaceful. The stone walls had not been scrubbed in a while, the floor
was dusty... not like the Monks at all.
She walked down the hallway and rounded some corners, expecting to hear the sounds of prayer,
chanting, quiet steps through the echoing halls, anything from her many childhood memories of the
place... but still, nothing came.
The path ramped up in front of her, and she saw the luminescent green domes of three living slimes, who
were huddled in the corner and lazily rolling their bodies back and forth. She giggled, remembering how
she used to wiggle the little buggers and roll them up and down the ramp.
"Lunch, lunch, luuuunch!" a five year old Vi in a swimsuit screamed as she tore up the ramp leading to the
small library at the top.
An older man huffed and wheezed as he ran after her. "Please, lower your voice, Vitalia!" he said, in as
quiet a shout as he could manage.
Vi laughed at the memory as she spun one of the slimes for old times' sake. "I put you through a lot, didn't
I, Lord Braffit?" she wondered aloud.
She ascended the ramp into a large room with four pillars at each of its corners. The stone walls were
bare, and the area spartan. Ahead of her, the ramp continued up and into the library where she and
Braffit would sometimes take their meals.
To her right, the gated passageway that led to the storage area, then up and out of the Monastery, was
closed and locked for some reason unbeknownst to her. It looked like the only way to proceed was
through the storerooms and hallways opposite the library.
As she walked through the large archway leading into the maze-like corridors of the storage area, she
finally began to hear signs of life. "Hello?" she called out. "Is anyone there?"
There was no answer, but the scratching and clicking on the floor continued. She walked into the dark
passageway and looked down both of the hallways at the intersection, and saw a most peculiar sight.
There was a family of rats there. Actually, more like a family reunion at second glance, she thought. They
were walking along the ground in single file, strutting past her like a row of ducks. They didn't spare her a
glance, and merely squeaked and clicked on by as a trio of bats fluttered past her on leathery wings.
She sighed. "Looks like the animals are running things now," she concluded. Without incident, she walked
the dark hallways past the furred and the fluttering, around old crates filled with scrolls and books and
receipts, all the way to the door to the main storage area. If the gate hadn't been locked, like it usually
wasn't, she could have gone straight in and been well on her way to getting out of here... but for some
reason, the Monks thought it necessary to make the long way a necessity.
With a quick tug on the handle of the great wooden door, she soon realized that it was locked as well. On
the other hand, a gate was one thing... but a door was quite another. A swift quick later, she knocked the
door off of its hinges, and whipped her gun out into the storage area, just to be sure.
A king crab, easily twice as big as she was, suddenly marched out. Its brown shell was hard and rocky,
and it clicked its pincers together as it skittered forward with a speed contrary to its size. "Crabby!" Vi
shouted out as she holstered her weapon. The crab stopped just short of her and clicked his pincers
again, then began to dance left and right. "Remember me?" she asked with a pat on his head.
He remained still for a second, then slowly moved forward to brush his pincers along her feet, then her
knees, then finally brought them to her waist. After a few confirming antenna waves through the air, he
backed up, then walked back into the storage area without a sound.
Vi laughed. "Oh, I see," she said happily. "Doesn't matter who I am, unless I have food, huh?" She
crossed the length of the storage room covered in crates, and hefted the very heavy wooden brace off of
the gate there. After she pushed it open, Crabby brushed past her and rushed down the ramp towards the
beach.
"Good to see a familiar... face," she decided would be an appropriate word, then climbed a long set of
stairs to the main audience chamber of the Monastery. This was where you could see the true location of
this place, she remembered.
The ceiling was not wood or stone like most of the Monastery, but rather, the mountain itself. The
audience chamber was one of the final places that the Brotherhood had erected during the expansion of
the Monastery, and they all agreed that a natural look was the best.
Vi remembered sitting on the stone here, bored, as one of the Monks droned on about Phoonzang this
and destiny that, looking up at the stone ceiling and counting the tiny fissures and cracks there. 3474 of
them, if she remembered right... the Monks gave her ample time to section off and count specific parts of
the ceiling for the most minute of rifts; they sure loved to talk themselves silly.
Once more, she shook herself from her memories, and came face to face with another of her childhood
friends. "Gregor! You nasty little thing, come over here!" she yelled to the long-legged, eight foot tall
brown roach across the room.
He was faster than she remembered, and before she knew it, he had grabbed her around the waist in his
mandibles, and flung her onto his back. "Whoa!" Vi yelled as she balanced herself atop him. "It's been
awhile, hasn't it?" she asked, rubbing his head.
Gregor chittered and shook his thorax. She remembered the action as clearly this day as she did about a
decade prior. "Hungry?" she asked. "Well, I have nothing for you! You'll have to go scrounge something
up on the beach with Crabby."
She smiled and looked around the audience chamber from her vantage point. She remembered well
worrying the Monks by befriending and riding its few animal inhabitants, and it seemed a fitting thing to do
on her return to its hallowed halls.
With a final pat on Gregor's head, Vi slipped off of his body and ushered him down the stairs where he
could find food. As he followed her command, she wondered how the Monks could have left the
Monastery's pets locked up and hungry like this... it must have taken a real emergency to get them to
leave so quickly.
An emergency like the Dark Savant, she reasoned. Was he so obsessed with godhood that he would
attack defenseless Monks to try and attain it?
She sighed; she wouldn't put it past him.
Before she started towards the gate and stairwell leading to the upper floor, she heard something shift on
the stone behind her. "Gregor, I'm serious. I don't have..." she started, when she turned and saw that it
was someone else.
Her eye went wide. "A Trynnie!" she exclaimed. Bare-chested and dressed in a ragged old pair of pants,
the short and furry creature approached her with a gnarled staff in his hand.
"Hey! Good to meet ya," he said. "I'm Burz, your local friendly merchant." He looked around. "Guess I
picked a pretty out of the way... and empty... place to be doing business, huh?"
Vi laughed. "Not that it seems to be stopping your 'business' any," she said as she gestured to the
Brotherhood staves and robes slung over his back.
Burz balked. "Oh, these? Uh, well, see... they're souvenirs, you know?" he stammered. "Can't go back to
Trynton without a little something for the kids, and..."
She tilted her head to the side, and seeing that his feeble excuses were having no effect on her, he
changed the subject. "So, where ya headed, o ye of little clothing?" he asked.
"Arnika..." the eye-patched girl replied. "Wanna come with?"
The Trynnie made a face. "What, after what the Dark Savant did to it?" he asked. "No thanks, I think I'll
wait here 'til he goes along his merry way..."
Icy fear gripped Vi's chest. Arnika, where she had lived out her childhood and grown up, all the people
there... He couldn't possibly have... she thought, while her lips visibly quivered. "...What did he do to it?"
she finally asked.
"You don't know? It's only been news for the past few months," he said, then shrugged. "Well, he hasn't
done anything too terrible... just some machines running around the town and keeping martial law, couple
of scuffles with the locals, that sorta thing."
Vi sighed deeply. He hadn't destroyed it after all... "So the people are ok?" she asked.
"For the most part," he replied. "The HLL and the machines get into a few brawls here and there, but
generally people still go about their business." The Higardi Lunar Legion, Vi remembered... the most
disciplined of any police force she had seen on this side of the galaxy.
"I tend to stay away from places where fights have a habit of breaking out suddenly," he continued. "I
don't think the Higardi or the Savant care too much about one squashed Trynnie!"
He paused for a second, then spoke again. "Oh, there's also that tower," he remembered.
"What tower?" Vi asked in confusion.
Burz grinned. "You really are clueless, ain't ya?" he commented. "The big bomb that the dome-head put
just outside the city! Says if anyone interferes with the Ascension, he'll blow the planet sky-high with it!
...Or space-high, or whatever direction we'll get scattered in. Hey, live it up now, right?" he finished, with a
shake of the stolen wares on his back.
Vi turned away from him without a word, then dashed for the gate behind her. It was also closed and
locked, though given the reason that the Monks probably left, she was beginning to think she would have
done the same.
"Hey, let me know if you need anything!" Burz yelled after her.
She hardly heard him. With a quick slice of her gleaming White Sword through the metal bars of the gate,
she cut a circle through it, kicked the bars in, then stepped through the hole and rounded the corner, out
of sight.
Burz heard the big roach somewhere down the stairs, coming up quickly. Better skedaddle, he thought,
and backed towards the cliffs overlooking the beach again. When's this thing gonna get tired of stalking
me, anyway?
Vi continued up the stairs to the upper floor of the Monastery, where the lower floors that were dug into
the mountain gave way to the stones and mortar of the actual building itself. The Monks had left a pile of
crates in the middle of the large room, which were currently being rummaged through by several large
rats with matted fur and wild eyes.
As she stepped towards them, one of them poked its head out of the garbage it was eating and squeaked
loudly. The others looked about wildly, until Vi stood before six separate rats, all standing still with their
eyes on her. It was a creepy scene.
Suddenly, the rats burst into movement. Two immediately ran away from her and out of sight with slimy
trash in their mouths. At the same time, the other four bared their fangs and charged for her exposed
legs.
Vi immediately jumped sideways from the first of the charging rats. She sliced her White Sword down and
into its body, then pushed herself up and over the other three with the beast still impaled upon the blade.
At the same time, she unholstered and blasted her Frontier Phaser into two of the other rats. Two holes
were suddenly burned into both of their foreheads, killing them instantly.
She landed neatly on her feet and swiped her sword and its occupant out towards the wall, and the rat
slid off and into the stone with a loud squeak. Behind her, she heard the sound of the first rat
approaching, so she swept her leg down and under it with a spin and kicked it into the air.
The eye-patched girl twirled her blade around in her hand and sliced the rat neatly in half, but before its
corrupted blood could come into contact with her, she jumped backwards and away from the rat halves to
avoid the bulk of it. Without missing a beat, she ran around the crates and down the hallway that would
finally lead her outside.
Just past the bunk room filled with empty beds that once cradled two dozen Monks to sleep, she was in
the main entrance hall to the Monastery itself. Massive pillars lined both sides of the entrance and the
current path before her, making an L-shaped hall that was punctuated by a grand marble statue of
Phoonzang where the two paths met.
To her surprise, there were Higardi here. There were four men, dressed in studded leathers with gruff
looks on their faces, and who were carrying very sharp daggers. They laughed as they smashed a
stained glass window of a rose, and chipped at the statue of Phoonzang with their tiny blades.
"Hey!" she shouted at them. "What do you think you're doing, you shameless tools?"
They looked away from their desecration to see the lone girl standing at the doorway. Exchanging smiles,
they crept slowly forward with their blades at the ready. "Nice sword! Mind if I take a look at it?" the
bearded one on the left laughed.
Vi grit her teeth. "My pleasure," she hissed, then darted forward.
She grabbed the bearded man's dagger arm and pushed herself off of him, then kicked the younger one
next to him in the jaw. As he spun in the air and struck the stone beneath him, she whirled around the
bearded man's body and sliced him deeply, but non-grievously, along both of his arms.
Enraged, he attempted to grab her and thrust his dagger into her belly, but she dropped down and back
onto her hands, then kicked the blade out of his. She pushed herself up and cold-cocked him in the nose,
then prepared for the attack of the next two.
She whipped out her pistol and shot each one in the shin, and as they dropped in pain, she sliced both of
them across their cheeks with her bloody blade. Finally, she walked over to the body of the dazed young
thief she had punched, and made a shallow cut across the back of his neck as he whimpered in fear.
Looking out upon the wounded and downed thieves, she spoke. "I'm feeling generous today, so I won't
bother to kill any of you," she said. "But considering that I just put this sword through a few diseased rats
not two minutes ago, I'd suggest you find yourselves some healing soon."
She grinned as they exchanged panicked looks with one another. "Best place I can recommend is
Arnika," she said. "Center of town, the Temple, guy named Braffit. You can apologize for smashing his
windows while he helps you."
"Rich, I can feel my head spinning!" the young one screamed at the bearded one.
"I feel... hot..." one of the others groaned as he stood up and wavered. Vi laughed as they scrambled for
the front door and rushed out onto the sandy road leading to Arnika; disease never set on that quick...
they had at least two days to make a ten hour trip.
She cast a glance at the chipped marble statue of Phoonzang and nodded at it with a smile. "Been a long
time, huh, old codger?" The statue didn't respond, but she thought she could almost see the eyes twinkle.
Her emergence onto Monastery Road was the second most confusing and disheartening part of her
entire experience on Dominus so far, right behind the almost-news of Arnika's destruction. When she
exited the Monastery, she was surprised to come face to face with a frightening gaggle of monsters,
creatures, animals, beasts and thieves.
She made a confused face just as the first group charged at her, five Crusher Crabs about the same size
and shape as Crabby. "What's going on...?" she started, before she blasted each of them with her
Frontier Phaser.
Seconds later, there were five fresh Crusher Crab corpses with burn marks in their heads lying in the
sand. Without pause, she ran forward down the sandy road to Arnika, not willing to waste any more time
getting there and finding out if its residents were still alive.
"Good... Lord Phoonzang above!" she exclaimed with a disbelieving shake of her head. "Was it this bad
when I lived here?"
Next, a group of slithering red vines attacked... Crimson Poppies, which were known for the red gas cloud
that they emitted that could put their prey to sleep. Knowing this, Vi was content to shoot them all down
before they had the opportunity, just as another group of crabs approached from the east.
Her Frontier Phaser beeped in annoyance at all the sudden usage to let her know it needed time to
recharge. She holstered it and ran west through the sandy valley of the mountains, slicing her blade when
one of the Venom Crabs drew too close.
For hours, she ran through the valley of Monastery Road, being constantly beset by one group of
creatures after another. Bandits thrust at her from the shadows, crabs tried to slice her in half with their
pincers, and vines slapped at her from what seemed like every direction. After each of the few precious
minutes of reprieve following each battle, another group would inevitably attack.
She never remembered Dominus being this hostile, but being protected by the Monks back then, she
might never have had to deal with the hungry side of nature before. Having the Dark Savant nearby is
certainly another reason to consider, she thought.
As time went on, her sword slashes became slower and slower, and her pistol required more and more
time to fully recharge. Vi finally decided to hunker down behind a rock, just a mile away from an
abandoned house, and a few miles northwest of Arnika.
She breathed deeply, feeling her muscles give way and threaten to take her whole body to sleep with
them. She fought to stay conscious as she wiped the blood of red, green and other assorted colors from
her blade into the sand beneath her.
At that moment, she began to regret going on without the others. Arriving late to Arnika was certainly
better than not arriving at all...
Just as quickly, Vi shook the thought from her mind. She'd been in tougher scrapes before, and there was
no reason to consider being surrounded by predators and jerks any deviation from the norm. She
chuckled and wiped the sweat from her brow.
"Something funny, miss?" a voice asked from the shadows behind her. Before Vi had a chance to bring
her sword to bear, she felt the sharp, burning pain of a dagger tearing through her back and into her
body.
She cried out in pain, but it came out more as a sad gurgle as she tried to swing out at him. The
long-haired man easily dodged, then withdrew the knife and plunged it into her back twice more. Vi
struggled vainly to find him, to choke or fight against this cowardly bandit, but darkness soon began to
overwhelm her. Death crept over her... and she slumped to the ground.
The bandit laughed and pulled his dagger from her bloody back. Finally, he put his finger to her throat,
then laughed again. No pulse... "Looks like we got ourselves a haul here!" he said loudly, and three other
bandits came out of the shadows to join him.
A grey-haired bandit took the Frontier Phaser from her holster. "Unbelievable!" he said, and fired it into
the air. "Do you know how much these things go for?!"
"So what do we got here?" a cruel-faced man with a perpetual sneer asked the long-haired one.
"Looks like a White Sword and a Frontier Phaser," he replied, taking her sword in his hands. He chuckled
with a look over her dead body. "And a couple other things, I'd imagine."
All at once, Vi pushed up on both of her arms, spun, and grabbed the man around the larynx. "And what
would those things be, exactly?" she spit, then crushed his throat in her bare hands. She dropped his
body as she took her sword back from him, and sliced it into the chest of a bandit hiding in the shadows.
Without a word, the cruel-faced bandit stepped forward and slit her throat with a single move, causing
blood to spray from the wound and onto the sand below. The battle over, the bandit licked the blood off of
his dagger, then swallowed.
Once more, Vi collapsed onto the sandy beach and didn't move. The thief knelt down with his dagger to
her chest and felt her throat, then checked her breathing. "Nothing this time..." he said to his sole
surviving partner. "How stupid do you have to be to think a live girl dead?" he asked nobody in particular,
and plunged his dagger into her body a few more times for good measure.
He yanked the sword from her hands and stepped to the side of the man holding her gun. "Whatever," the
grey-haired thief said. "Split it two ways, instead of four." He put the gun in his pocket and smiled, then
walked after his partner in crime on the road back to Arnika.
The cruel thief sighed. You came in handy Eno, but you were always too damn careless, he thought.
When we get the money for that Phaser, I'll have a drink to your stupidity.
He heard a rustling, then a cracking sound behind him... and before he had a chance to turn, he felt the
barrel of the Frontier Phaser pressing against his neck. "What the hell do you think you're doing?!" he
demanded of his partner.
"Something nasty, I'd wager..." Vi hissed in his ear.
Stark panic rippled through the man's mind with those four words. There was no way... she was dead! I
was sure!
Wait, he thought... while the pieces slowly came together. "Your eye..." he said simply. "A Guardian of the
Key...?"
Vi smirked. "Heard of us?" she asked.
A shiver went down his spine. "Your kind... you can cheat death...!" he suddenly remembered.
"Yeah..." she responded. "Can you?" And with that, she pulled the trigger, and splattered the bandit's foul
mind across the sandy beach.
She knelt by his headless body to pick up her sword. She suffered through a fit of bloody coughing, then
stumbled forward into the large canyon where the sand of Monastery Road met the grass and dirt path
that would take her straight to Arnika. It was unbelievable how many she had to kill to get here... she had
been careless coming alone.
In bleeding exhaustion, she slumped to the ground in the middle of the canyon, surrounded suddenly by a
huge swarm of large wasps ahead of her, two pursuing Crusher Crabs behind her, and another group of
bandits who had suddenly noticed her coming from the right.
Sorry, everyone, she thought. I really wanted to see you all one more time...
She was too weak to even lift her sword. This was it... by the claw of a crab or the thrust of a dagger or
stinger, her life would end here.
The sound of firing lasers suddenly came from in front of her. Her heart lept, knowing in her heart of
hearts that the Higardi had come to save her...
When her weakened eye focused and she saw the bodies of the wasps there, though, she suddenly felt
even more depressed. "Didn't... mind being killed... by a wasp," she struggled to say, "but you guys?"
Savant Troopers, dozens of them, marched off of the road to incinerate the wasps with wrist-mounted
lasers, just behind spike-tipped arms. They were much different from their Guardia cousins, who at the
very least looked vaguely Human, but Vi had seen enough prototype blueprints aboard the Black Ship to
realize that these things served the Savant.
These machines were built to kill, with the size and shape of a man, but with soulless black eyes and
brown metal bodies. One by one, they turned their heads to her, then at the crabs behind her, in a steady
and mechanical rhythm as they passed.
The frontliners charged the Crusher Crabs with their spike-arms slicing outwards, and she heard the
sudden sounds of carving flesh and animalistic cries of pain behind her. Two Troopers then stood on
either side of her kneeling body and looked down at her, like nothing more than an object to be scanned.
The rest of them darted to the north after the crowd of bandits, who failed to hide their brandished
daggers in time. Vi fought unconsciousness long enough to see twenty Savant Troopers descend upon
them, then plunge into their leather-garbed bodies with their sharp arms.
Screams of sheer terror and torturous death assaulted her ears as the ruthless machines overtook the
fleeing bandits and finished off the ones too slow or scared to run in the first place.
And as the sand was stained red with the blood of the Higardi Highwaymen, Vi collapsed onto the road
below.
Reunion
Monastery
Day 2
Three small brown crabs skittered around the ship with mild curiosity. During the day, it offered a peaceful
bit of shade that kept the sun from irritating their sensitive eyes, and throughout the night, they were able
to cuddle up to its cold metal surface to avoid the offshore breezes that came from the nearby beach.
BAM! came a sound from within the ship... and a shadow stretched and fell as part of the ship fell away
and descended to the beach below. The crabs shrieked in surprise and bolted for the safety of the ocean,
just as the door of the ship smashed onto the sand where one of them had been resting.
Small grains of the beach flew out as the door kicked up a small wave of sand. The morning light
streamed into the dark ship, a view that was blocked by the girl emerging from inside.
Her many braided locks of long black hair hung just past her shoulders, and swung with every turn of her
head. Her clothing consisted only of an animal skin halter top and a pair of white shorts, which clung
tightly off of her dark, athletic body. A golden amulet on a simple brown lace with a purple jewel in the
middle rested in her cleavage. Her dark eyes scanned the beach with a quick sweep for any potential
dangers, but she saw nothing.
She turned her body slightly to allow the two polearms on her back enough room to exit the ship. One
was a grey rod with four hooks extending from the top, which were all curved around a yellow globe in the
middle. The other was a black spear that glinted in the sunlight, with a sharp and pointed head at the tip
of the shaft. The two were crossed over one another in an "X" over her spine.
She beckoned the next person out with a smile, an Elven girl with very pale skin, who was holding a six
foot long, light brown bo in her left hand. Her medium-length black hair stopped just above her shoulders
and covered her pointed ears, and her even bangs ended above her sapphire blue eyes. A long and rigid
stem hung from her mouth, and she chewed on it absent-mindedly.
Her white robe was torn off at the elbows, and was tied, cut and bunched up around her knees in a
makeshift pair of short pants above wooden sandals. The robe was folded down her chest in such a way
as to reveal her torso in a V-shape, from her neck to a little bit above her navel.
The open robe showed off the most important of her few possessions: the necklace her friend and savior
Hiromi had left behind in her death, the reminder that she was now free to pursue her own path in life. It
was dull, much duller than when Hiromi had worn it... a red jewel set in a plain golden necklace on a
golden chain.
But to her, it was her most treasured belonging, even more than the mystical Zatoichi Bo she now
possessed.
The final two occupants of the crashed ship emerged into the daylight: a brown-robed cat-man with fur
striped orange and black, and a blue-skinned Faerie less than a foot in height, who was sitting on his
shoulder. The man's hood was down, and his fur was showing signs of greying around his green eyes.
The little Faerie sat comfortably in loose azure shorts and a vest, and as she shielded similarly emerald
eyes from the sudden blast of sunlight on her face, she revealed a face that was more angular, and
thinner than before she had set out on the journey. It was the face of a girl on the cusp of womanhood.
After spending so long inside the ship and away from any real light, the heat felt almost unbearable to her
here. Sweat began to drip from her bald head almost instantly onto the sandy beach.
Shss took point, stepping barefoot across the hot sand to the tall building to the north. "She went this
way," she said. "Let's get a move on!"
Lucciana worked the stem from the right side of her mouth to her left with her tongue as she followed, and
Tearn looked about slowly. "Hey... how do you know she's in that building up there? Maybe she went
down the beach," he said, with a point of his paw to the north along the coast.
Shss laughed. "Are you kidding?" she asked. "The message is clear as day."
When the Felpurr furrowed his brow in confusion, Kiwi tapped the side of his head, then pointed down at
his feet. "You're standing on it," she whispered.
Sure enough, he was standing on some words dug deeply into the sand: an arrow pointed towards the
building in the cliff face with the words "Come to Arnika" below it.
He jumped aside before the others could see, though his prints were enough to link him to the crime. "So
I guess we make for... 'Ar-paw-ika,'" he whispered back to Kiwi. She giggled, and they continued after the
other two.
Shss led them through a damp old hallway, up a ramp and through an open gateway. "There's a bootscuff
on the ground here," she said, pointing to an almost imperceptible bootprint on the ground and the stairs
they led to. "She went up this way."
Kiwi closed her eyes and sent her thoughts as far out as she could. Her head glowed briefly, then
returned to normal. "I can't get into contact with her," she finally said. "Wherever she is, she's miles away
by now."
"Why would she run off like that?" Lucciana asked around the stem. "She knows the stakes as well as we
do."
Wasting no more time, the Fighter beckoned them up the stairs. "Maybe that's why she left so early..."
she guessed. "Be careful, there's something alive up here."
Lucciana moved past her with her bo held gently at her side, but still at the ready. Quietly, she travelled
up the stone steps to a great and empty hallway, which might have once been used as a meeting hall.
The ground was constructed of man-made stone, but the naturally rocky ceiling showed without a doubt
that the structure was built right into the mountain. It's been too long since I've had a good workout... she
thought.
She heard it then, an excited chittering coming from two directions at once. The one on the left and down
the hall sounded tinny, small, and was not moving.
On the other hand, the one off to her right was much louder, and getting louder by the second as
whatever it was approached very quickly. The Ronin whipped her bo around and held it out horizontally
where she heard the sound the very loudest.
It was a roach, a disgusting, mandibled and long-legged bug with a disgusting brown thorax, and was
easily ten feet tall... and even wider. It opened its jaws wide, then sliced its mandibles inward towards her
ribs on either side. Lucciana adjusted the position of the Zatoichi Bo until the roach's jaws caught on both
ends of it, and though the roach snapped inwards to try and break it, the staff held fast.
Then, per the Umpani Rossarian's instructions, and with the roach pushing the buttons down on either
end of the bo, Lucciana twisted at the middle and pulled the bo apart into two equal halves.
Out of the makeshift, enchanted sheathe came a pair of katanas. The roach shrieked in pain as Lucciana
pushed its mandibles out wide, then dropped and spun with the blades whirling through its armored jaws
like a Demon's blazing scimitars through ice.
Once its jaws had been sliced off, she sheathed the katanas within one another and twisted them shut
into their bo shape once more. Then, before the roach could counter-attack or run, she knelt under the
sad foot of mandible it still had attached to its body, flipped the bug over with a plant and thrust of her bo,
then rammed the staff straight into the roach's overturned and fleshy belly.
The roach's legs bent inward as it squealed, but it refused to get up and continue the fight. "Oh, stop your
whining," Lucciana said, then let the bo go slack in her hands. "You don't need a mouth that big to eat
stuff smaller than you."
Once again, the excited chittering sounded just down the hall from them, but Tearn was on the case
quicker than she. He pushed a feeling of air into his feet and jetted down the hall, and after something
shrieked in terror, he returned into the main hallway with a small fuzzy creature with dark black eyes and
a single pair of brown shorts in his paws.
"Ah!" the newcomer cried. "I was just trying to see what was going on out here! Jeez, you people are so
paranoid..."
Tearn dropped him to the ground with a paw still on his shoulder. "Who are you?" he demanded. The
newcomer struggled to free himself, but when Tearn retracted his claws and rested them on the fuzzy
creature's shoulder, he immediately stopped moving.
"I'm Burz, your local friendly merchant," he said with a nervous laugh, then looked among them
suspiciously. "Though in your case, I might have to change my title to 'anywhere-but-here, warily
apprehensive merchant.' Heh heh..."
He paused and clicked his tongue, looking about them once more. "I guess you're the latest arrivals to the
planet of a thousand shipwrecks, though you're a day late to meet up with that girl who just got here."
Kiwi animated suddenly. "Hey, do you mean Vi?" she asked excitedly. "Is she ok? Where did she go?"
Burz made a face at the Faerie, but snuck a quick peek at the two cute girls behind her anyway. "Hey,
look," he said. "She seemed nice enough, and I don't think it would be good of me to give up any info you
guys might use to cause her trouble."
"Trouble?" Tearn barked, and Burz did his best to try and sink into the floor. The Felpurr's free paw
suddenly charged with electrical energy. "You've been eyeballing our stuff from the beginning, probably
waiting for the roach to kill us so you could grab our gear afterwards!" he said. "In fact, that's probably
why you were hiding in the first place... isn't it, you little furball?!"
Burz turned beet red. "Ok, ok! I'm sorry!" he said, trying to wiggle out of the paw holding him, and far
away from the electrified one. "Look, it's tough for a Trynnie in the big city! Everyone thinks we're thieves,
and we get blamed for anything that gets misplaced while we're in town!" He paused. "Of course, it's
usually true... but that's beside the point! Poor shopkeepers like me have to resort to graverobbing to
make ends meet, and... hey, get that away from me!!" he yelled, even as Tearn slowly pushed the streaks
of lightning towards the Trynnie.
"Where... is... she?" he asked slowly.
The Trynnie shot his hand towards a large gate just down the hall. "There, there!" he cried out. "She went
down there, towards the exit and Arnika! She seemed fine when she took off, but who knows with all the
bandits running around in here... and with all of nature going nuts in the past few weeks!"
Satisfied, Tearn finally let go of him, and he scrambled down the hall in the opposite direction from the
large metal gate.
Unfortunately, in his haste, Burz dropped a palm-sized clear jewel on the ground below. He stopped
several feet away, torn between escaping this group of strange outsiders and getting his precious stone
back.
In the end, Kiwi made the decision for him. She picked up the stone in her arms and legs, and flew it back
over to the Trynnie, to put it in his hand. "Sorry..." she whispered, "Tearn's a little rough around the edges,
but he's a good guy." She kissed him on the cheek, then returned to the Felpurr's shoulder.
Yeah, right! Burz thought sarcastically, and retreated down the corridor with his jewel in tow. Tearn turned
his back to him, and without looking, fired the static charge straight into the Trynnie's rear end. He yelped
and hustled down the corridor even quicker, and Tearn could barely hide a slow grin of satisfaction.
The foursome made their way past an innumerable amount of storage crates in a tall and wide room, rat
bodies that looked like they had been taken out by Vi's weaponry, and several sleeping rooms complete
with tucked in beds and sandals that had been abandoned for some time. Aside from the odd Trynnie and
a few corpses or fleeing animals, there was no sign of any living creature in the grand Monastery.
It was all quite eerie, until they found the main entrance chamber of the temple, complete with a large
white statue of Phoonzang, stained glass windows along a large wall... and a group of men in studded
leather slinking nervously about.
"Think she's still here?" one of them, a young man with a bloody knife, whispered to another with a cut on
his cheek. "How should I know?" the other replied. "But we can't go out there with all of those creepy
crawlies running around..."
The other two men, one with a cut on his cheek and yellowing skin, and a bearded man with a nasty
cough, silently brought up the rear.
"He~y!" Kiwi shouted at them. They all turned in unison as she flew forward. "Have you guys seen a..."
she continued, before the jaundiced man took a dagger from his belt and flung it at her. "A MONSTER!"
he screamed with terrified eyes, and pulled blade after blade out to fling at her. The other three, seeing
combat begin, charged forward with their daggers ready to strike.
The Faerie immediately darted out and above the throwing knives, and kicked them down into the stone
below before they could hit any of her friends. When she was close enough, she deflected a quick knife
from the jaundiced man across the hall before she floored the young thief next to her with a single punch
to the liver.
Tearn launched a blazing red fireball at the bearded man beyond her, which missed and exploded into
the far wall when Kiwi cut through the air and behind the target, then kicked the man's head to the stone
with a tiny foot to his upper spine. The man's head cracked off of the pavement, and he groaned in pain
as she blasted into the healthy and scarred man and punch-kicked the insides of his thighs.
He fell straight on his rump. Kiwi flew up quickly, kicking down more and more of the throwing daggers
that the yellow man threw at her in a panic, and drew closer with each metallic clink of the knives on the
stone below. Finally, as he reached for a final dagger, she grabbed his arm and pulled it behind him, then
secured his other as he flailed desparately in her grip. With both of his trapped hands in hers, she flew
him off of the floor and towards her friends.
"I was just gonna ask a question, dummy," she told the jaundiced man. He whimpered in fear, and she
dropped him to the floor in a heap by his likewise beaten allies. The bearded man stirred between violent
coughs and hacks, and the other men joined him in sickly shivers, rocking back and forth with nauseated
looks.
Kiwi gave them a concerned look, but joined her friends in leaving them behind anyway. "Is there
anything we can do for them?" she asked.
Lucciana shrugged. "If one of the other two were here, they'd probably know of some kind of plant or spell
to help them..." She fingered the amulet around her neck, respectfully leaving their names in the back of
her mind.
The four left the shivering, pain-stricken men behind, and exited the front door of the Monastery and into
the wild lands that led to Vi.
Only half of them had seen Vi Domina in action before. Even then, all Kiwi and Tearn saw of the girl was
a valiant attempt to take down the Dark Savant, followed by an effortless beating delivered by the domed
god of the stars. It was hardly a memory to inspire confidence in her ability as a warrior, and served to
make them feel as if they were babysitting a wild, but unskilled, girl.
But when they passed the piles of bodies of walking red vines, large and pincered crabs, giant wasps and
several bandits, there was a collective realization that a true power had become their steadfast ally. In the
three years that they had spent together on the ship from Guardia, Vi was little more than an entertaining
fount of knowledge... a girl who could weave quite a tale, but whose talent stopped where her sword and
pistol hands began.
How relieved they were to realize the truth, on a planet which was no doubt under the heel of the Dark
Savant.
Arnika
Day 3
They arrived at the great pillars of Arnika's front gate, and were welcomed by the statues of
water-spewing fish, surrounding a naked marble woman covering herself with nothing but her arms and a
smile.
A man in black leather with a small red poncho around his shoulders was pacing back and forth along the
second set of pillars, muttering to himself. He gripped a pointed dagger tightly in his hands, and stroked
his dark brown "bad guy" goatee thoughtfully. As the group approached, he looked up, and his face
brightened. "You folks interested in making a little dough?" he asked, cutting straight to the chase.
Shss looked at him suspiciously. "Doing what, exactly?" she inquired.
The man swept his hand out and across the town, waving over a long street and a few buildings, and
pointed to the north. "Over there, we got ourselves a little babe-napping," he said. "The way the Troopers
high-tailed it outta there, it's clear as crystal she means something to the great and domed one."
"Short black hair, patch over one eye, dressed to impress?" Lucciana asked through her stem.
"Bingo!" he replied. "I figured if you guys could make it through Bandittown, Dominus and the wildlands
around it, that you'd be able to help me score the loot... er... praise, that comes with this type of operation.
So, you ready to go or not?"
Kiwi cheered with a great smile. "Count me in!" she said, and the others nodded in agreement.
He twirled his dagger around in his hand and gestured to the city with his head. "Great!" he said. "We're
heading straight north, to a downed HLL spaceship, turned makeshift prison."
After only a few steps in, he shook his head with a short laugh. "Where are my manners?" he asked
nobody in particular, then turned back to them in a sweeping bow. "My name is Myles, outsiders, and
you're lucky to run into a Higardi like me who knows who's who and what's what around here. Welcome to
Arnika."
The town of Arnika was a modest place, with buildings made out of simple stone and wood that were built
around the business section in the very center. It hardly seemed to be the city of the Helazoid's advanced
ancestors, but the party could see hints of the Higardi's humble culture in a Temple at the city's center,
where green-robed Monks calmly milled about, tending to business within the marble white structure.
Higardi civilians wandered the streets of Arnika, visually happy as they carried on blissfully from one
destination to another. At the same time, there were also Higardi men in plate armor and helmets
patrolling the streets, clearly carrying medieval maces that glowed electrically, with deep scowls on their
face.
And then, to the north, were were the remains of a smoldering spaceship that had smashed into a
building some time ago.
Their culture was an interesting blend of the historic, the futuristic and the magical. If the din of battle
hadn't arisen from the smashed ship, the four might have had more time to mull over the meaning of it all.
From the back of the broken ship, an older man with white hair, in the same armor as the mace-wielding
men they had seen earlier, burst out backwards. He was bleeding from the brow and panting heavily, and
being pursued by a Higardi Brigand wielding a dagger. The older man suddenly tripped and fell, and held
his right ankle with a pained face.
"I'm not going back to jail!" the thief screamed, and lept at the armored man to slit his throat.
In the blink of an eye, Myles spun in a circle and threw a throwing dagger backhanded at the thief. It
whistled through the air, and before anybody knew it, lodged directly in the Brigand's throat.
The Brigand landed atop the old man, then slowly rolled off, with open and dead eyes staring out into the
sky. Myles hurried to the older man's side and knelt over his foot. "Take it easy, old man!" he
admonished. "A few days wait and we'll have a dozen more bandits to pester our fair populace... but we
only got one Tramain."
Tramain panted heavily. "I still got some fight left in me..." he wheezed. "Enough to haul yer behind to jail
for what happened at the bank last week."
Myles grinned sheepishly. "I'm workin' on paying the good folks back, now," he assured the older man.
"Give me a little time."
Tearn closed his eyes and sent his mind into the wrecked ship through a Wizard Eye spell while the
others gathered around the injured man. "Welcome to what's left'a Arnika," Tramain said, shaking their
hands and paw. "What the Dark Savant hasn't destroyed or terrorized, the bandits are takin' for
'emselves. I wish I could say the HLL had it handled, but..."
"HLL?" Kiwi asked.
"Higardi Lunar Legion," Myles explained. On her continued confusion, he elaborated. "Police," he said.
"Other side of the law, you know."
Shss knelt next to the old man. "Have you seen Vi?" she asked. "Girl, black hair..."
Tramain nodded before she could finish. "Not a day's gone by I ain't worried 'bout that girl, 'fore she set
off with the Savant'n all..." he sighed. "Now, the one time she needs me, I go'n let her down again..."
"Where is she?" Lucciana asked, through chews on the stem.
Tearn opened his eyes and the glow around his head dimmed, and he and Tramain simultaneously
pointed into the wrecked ship. "There," they said in unison. "And there's more than a few machines in
there with her," the Felpurr added.
Shss put the black spear back on her back and unslung her Psi Rod without a word. Machines don't
agree with the rod... she thought with a grin.
"That's my cue," Myles said, and stood. "Where I work off a little debt to the people of Arnika... before I go
and accrue a little more!" He flipped his dagger around in his hand and flashed Lucciana a killer smile.
"Milady?" he said, beckoning to the entrance. She raised a cautious eyebrow, then followed him into the
dark and ruined ship.
The ship's back end was a trapezoidal shape, wider at the bottom than the top. The bottom was bare,
save for a few chemical fires that the party avoided, and was probably looted and picked clean by roving
bandits.
The top, however, was a forest of tangled, exposed wires. Shss noticed them immediately, and stopped
the group with an outstretched polearm in each hand. Myles, Kiwi said into the Rogue's mind, and he
jumped in surprise. "What in the...?!" he said loudly. "Could you warn me before..."
Lucciana clamped her hand over his mouth, stifling his protests, and Myles closed his eyes tightly at the
sudden blunder. Several seconds passed, but when the whirring sound of death machines charging from
the front of the ship did not fill the air, they all breathed a silent sigh of relief.
The Faerie raised her tiny hand in apology. Are those wires live? This ship is stable, isn't it? It won't fall
over and crush us or anything? she asked him.
I've been he... er... I've had friends who have been in here, dozens of times, Myles replied.
Liar, Kiwi thought back with a smile.
It'll be safe enough, the Rogue assured her with a wink. Kiwi let the others know, and they all proceeded
forward.
The ship really did a number on the house. At the front end of the ship, where the cockpit had once been,
there was a three foot tall mound of dirt that separated the blasted ship from the open face of the ruined
building. The hall and two doors could clearly be seen beyond where the ship and house met.
Kiwi mentally requested everyone's attention, and pointed at Tearn. The Felpurr gestured off to the left,
then motioned for everyone to stay quiet. In agreement, the five slinked over the dirt mound and
surrounded a very fragile-looking pair of doors. The wood on the left door was warped inward, from the
intense heat or the push of debris upon it, but impressively, it was still standing.
Tearn put his back to the door, and gestured out a battle plan. To Shss: You, two, right side. To Lucciana:
You, two, straight ahead. To Kiwi: You, three, far left.
Shss mouthed, "Hey!" Tearn shrugged helplessly, and Kiwi gave the other two girls her most smug face.
Lucciana tapped her on the head with two fingers, but by the time the Faerie looked up to glare at her, the
Elf's eyes were on the door.
After getting their strategist's attention, Myles gestured at himself and shrugged. Tearn stared at him for a
second. Finally, he pointed at him, then crossed his arms over his chest, then covered an eye. "How am I
going to get a share of the loot if I'm just babysitting?" the Rogue hissed as quietly as he could.
"I don't know how well you fight," Tearn said. "She'll thank you for it later... now shut up."
He turned back to the door and backed up, and let the three close combat fighters take point. Lucciana
raised a hand and counted off the seconds on her fingers: three, two, one...
With a swift kick, she sent the heavy door flying into the former dining room, and the battle began.
The door flew across the room and crushed one of the machines on the opposite wall, one of the two she
had to deal with. Aside from a smashed table and an overturned couple of chairs, there was nothing to
this room... overlooking Vi and the group of deadly Savant Troopers, of course.
"Guys!" she cried out, and kicked the Trooper behind her in the head. The new model machines were
built for death, and nothing more. Their bodies were humanoid, but made of bronzish, plated metal. Their
hands, which were once dark-skinned, humanoid and capable of gripping a glowing Stun Lance like a
Human could, were now simply sharp points at the end of long, metallic arms.
The Trooper that Vi kicked recovered faster than she did, and started slicing at her with unbelievable
speed. With no weapon to fend them off, Vi's only recourse was to dodge and take scratches and grazes,
all the while trying to avoid its kill shots.
A blur whizzed by her ear... and Myles lept from the shadows and over the machine's head. Once he hit
the ground, he slid backwards and drove a pair of daggers into the machine's back. He immediately
withdrew the dagger in his left hand, then turned and jabbed the point straight into the Trooper's metallic
neck.
"Miss me, darlin'?" he asked wryly, then threw the Trooper to the floor.
"Myles!" she cried out happily as he darted in front of her, and hunched protectively in front of her. "You'll
have plenty of time to be calling out my name once we're out of this jam," he flirted.
Shss kicked the Trooper on her right in the throat, and held it against the wall with her bare foot as she
thrust her Psi Rod into the one next to it. As the current ran through and electrocuted the helpless
machine, the Trooper pinned by her foot raised its spike-arms, then bent and pointed them straight at her
leg.
She cried out in pain as it impaled her calf and shin with its arms, but she refused to let the Trooper under
the Psi Rod get loose. Her friends were struggling as hard as she was, and she knew that any failure on
her part could mean worse injuries than a shattered leg bone for the others.
Just when she thought she could take no more, the Trooper at the end of the Psi Rod stopped shaking
from the high voltage, then collapsed to the ground in a heap.
The Fighter pulled back her bloody and shattered leg as she brought her Psi Rod back to her. The once
trapped Trooper immediately broke free and lunged for her... only to meet the outstretched hooks of her
rod before it could attack. When the hooks sliced completely through its body, she twisted and flung the
Trooper to the ground, then unslung her black spear and impaled it through the chest plate.
Her side of the battle won, Shss grit her teeth and covered the gushing leg with her hands. The pain she
was able to ignore for those precious seconds of fighting suddenly overwhelmed her like a large wave,
receding just before it struck her full force.
Lucciana stretched her right hand out and zapped her only Trooper with a powerful blast of lightning, then
poked it in the chest with her bo. The slight tap still managed to unbalance the machine before it could do
anything, a true testament to the hidden power of the innocent brown staff. She twirled the bo around and
bashed the Trooper over the head in a graceful coup de grace, and turned to Shss to see what had
caused her to cry out in pain.
Suddenly, the concave wooden door behind her exploded in a shower of splinters, and something cold
and metal burst out of her half-robe and out her chest.
As much as the Trooper's arm through her innards caused her an unbearable amount of white hot,
searing pain... she was overcome even more by a sense of pure anger. It was a rage directed at the
Trooper for such a cowardly attack, and at herself for being so careless.
Her skin paled, her eyes began to darken, and her canines slowly elongated into tiny points. With an
angry hiss, she slid backwards on the Trooper's arm until she was back-to-front with the mechanical
being and its entire arm had gone through her, then elbowed it in the side of the head. She continued the
quick, hate-filled strikes against its small, metallic temple until she managed to break it at the neck and
rotate it completely around.
Immediately after, she slid back off of the Trooper's arm and turned to face it, her wounds closing as mere
seconds passed. It was jerking violently, stumbling around in the corner of the dark room and crackling
electricity from an exposed part of its neck.
With the immediate danger passed, Lucciana squeezed her forehead with a single hand, squinted her
eyes shut, and shook her head slowly. Once her vision had cleared and she saw that her hands had
returned to a normal, more lifelike color, she raised her head to see the fallen machine.
She conjured a feeling of fire out of her hands, then to the tip of the bo, until large sparks and streaks of
electricity wound themselves around the entire staff. Then, with a twirl, she swung the bo around and
struck the side of the Trooper's head, knocking it clean off and sending the voltage down its exposed
neck.
Her battle over, she joined Shss and the four Troopers they had felled on the ground, clutching the painful
and gushing wound in her chest and doing her best to tend to her friend's pain.
On the other side of the room, Kiwi and the final Trooper battled over the electrocuted and impaled body
of another machine. Tearn had taken care of it with a simple Energy Blast, but the final one was much
more trouble than the others.
Tearn could not get a clear shot with Kiwi and the machine fighting so hard, now that their surprise attack
had become an all out melee. "Kid, back off! Let me handle it!" he yelled, still holding the ball of lightning
in his paw.
Kiwi ducked away from a quick slice of the Trooper's arm and replied, "I got it! Don't you worry about me!"
No sooner had she said those words, as she flew atop the Trooper's right arm and tried to yank it off at
the shoulder, the Trooper sliced her across the back and left wing. Kiwi rolled atop its arm with tiny drops
of her blood marking her progress, then dove into the elbow joint there.
It split straight down the middle as the Trooper sliced open her tiny left arm. "Ow!" she yelled out, and
ripped its half spike-arm from its body. She flew up and around in a circle, then descended on its
remaining arm. "You big jerk!" she cried out, and impaled the Trooper's functional arm to the floor with its
dismembered one.
The Trooper tried desparately to jerk its trapped arm away from the ground, but succeeded only in ripping
up the one it could still use. Kiwi flew towards it, and gave it the meanest of her mean faces as she looked
up into its black eyes. "Hyaa!" she screamed, and flew under its chin with a powerful upward thrust of her
knee. The machine's head tilted back and whirred, just as Kiwi twirled, spun and double kicked it with her
left heel and right foot across its cheek. Something snapped inside it, and it fell to a sparking, buzzing halt
on its arm as it powered down.
The battle over, the party assembled around Vi, and tended to their many wounds. "These... aren't the
same machines that were on Guardia..." Shss said. Lucciana collapsed on the ground and started to
cough blood, and Tearn rushed to her side with one of his clear healing potions.
Vi knelt next to Shss and helped place her own hands on the nasty, flowing wound on the Fighter's leg.
"I'm really sorry about..." she started.
Tearn poured the potion on Lucciana's chest, put it to her lips, then turned on Vi in a rage. "What in the
hell were you thinking?!" he shouted. "Running off alone on a strange planet on some fool quest? Did you
think the Savant wouldn't be looking for you?!"
The eye-patched girl narrowed her good eye at him, and bemoaned her inability to point an accusing
finger at the Felpurr when Shss needed her hands even more. "He already had a faster ship and time
ahead of us... and you want to allow him even more time to Ascend?!" she shot back. "What did you
expect me to do? Wait around until you were done with your little nap? My friends here could have been
dead by the time you got up!"
"And you nearly get us killed with your recklessness. My potions can't..." Tearn started icily.
"Reckless, nothing!" Vi interrupted. "I left you all out of concern for Arnika and its people, not on some
ill-timed adventure! I'm not a kid anymore." She shook her head angrily. "Did you even care that I left you
a note?" she asked. "That I opened the gate inside the Monastery as a shortcut? That I took care of those
diseased rats and bandits and all the beasts outside so you wouldn't have to?"
When Tearn said nothing, she added, "No, of course you didn't! All you care about is the one or two bad
things that happen, while you ignore all the..."
Before she could continue, Myles stepped between them. "Look, we can argue all about this anytime, but
right now there's something a little more pressing than a little family squabble," he said. Kiwi nodded in
agreement. "My reward!" he continued. The Faerie slowly stopped nodding, then crossed her arms at the
suddenly not-so-loveable Rogue.
Vi stared blankly at him for a second, then the kind and carefree look that belonged to the adventurous
traveler of the stars, and descendant of Phoonzang, returned. "I should have known it was about
something like that!" she laughed. "Go ahead and raid my storage vault at the bank. The password is..."
She blushed, then said, "...'To the stars.'" Myles saluted her, then darted happily out the door of the
ruined house.
"You ok, Kiwi?" Vi asked the Faerie, who nodded in response. "A couple of scratches, but I'll be ok," she
replied.
The eye-patched girl exhaled, then said, "Come on... let's get these two to Lord Braffit. We can get one of
those sapphire rings there, and he'll take care of these guys in no time..."
The five emerged from the ship to see that Myles was long gone. Vi, with Lucciana leaning heavily on her,
came out first. Luckily, the only people present were not Savant Troopers out for retaliation, or bandits
looking for an easy kill, but a patrolling group of the HLL police force. They were travelling away from the
party, and heading straight for the Savant's Tower in the middle of a large and grassy field to the west.
"I used to play ball up there with the other children," she said, indicating the field where the spired black
Tower, which thrummed as if bearing a mechanical heart, now loomed. She smiled. "Sometimes we
would try and get lost in the forest when Lord Braffit was trying to catch and punish us for some mischief."
The smile immediately faded as her next thought came to her. "Now... since the Dark Savant plopped that
Tower down, and with the machines constantly spewing from it, Braffit no longer rules this town."
They walked down the cobbled street towards the Temple, only a few hundred feet away. Tearn cleared
his throat carefully, then took a deep breath. "Hey, listen..." he said, but didn't bother looking to see if he
had Vi's attention; it was difficult enough to say without eye contact. "I... apologize for what I said. I know
you only came here to protect the people close to you." He sighed. "If I were you... I would have done the
same."
Vi shook her head. "I'm sorry I caused you guys so much trouble," she replied. "We'll get you better at the
Temple, I promise. And after that... we head straight for the Cosmic Circle to get your friends back."
Tearn's face flushed, then slowly returned to normal. He had fully expected her to respond to his apology
by pressing her advantage, to get in a cheap shot dig at him. But maybe that was just his style...
"Will your treasures be ok?" he asked, changing the subject. "That guy seemed kind of sleazy."
Vi chuckled nefariously. "Oh, I think they will," she replied. "I have a little trap set up in there: the second a
certain Higardi with an eye for things that are not his own steps into the storage locker, he'll have a little
guest to entertain. Eight feet and two tons of solid rock golem, to be exact..."
Lucciana chuckled, though it came out more as a gurgle. The blood dripped onto Vi's stockings, but
before the Ronin could say anything, Vi interrupted her. "I'll have time to apologize to you once we get
you fixed up," she said, and scooped her up in her arms. Tearn followed her example, and picked up
Shss before throwing her over his shoulder.
"Hey, gently now!" she said from his back. "I'm injured, too." As Vi broke out in a trot towards the Temple,
Kiwi picked up Tearn by the left shoulder and flew the two forward. "I've killed men who complained less
than you," he retorted.
The Temple was a simple, white wooden structure supported by columns, with a perimeter of stone that
served a more ornamental role than a defensive one. The party walked and flew over the grass
surrounding the stone wall, then up a simple ramp to the entrance of Braffit's inner sanctum.
Unlike the outside, the stairs and walls inside the Temple were finely carved and polished marble.
Multiple mirror images of the party made their way down the stairs to where Braffit sat at a simple,
wooden desk.
The room in the belly of the Temple was lit by a single, spiral orange lamp on the far wall, and a wavy
stone arch wound around the walls of the room in subsequent crests and troughs. Lucciana felt guilty as
she spilled blood on the floor of the very clean and beautiful room, but Braffit himself seemed more
worried than angry.
"Vi!" the red-robed and brown-haired Higardi exclaimed, then stood to greet her. "So you are back! ...And
who are these people with you?"
Lucciana nodded towards the ground, and pushed herself away from Vi. The eye-patched girl let her
down gently, and strode forward to embrace Braffit. "It's so good to see you, Lord Braffit," she said, but
pushed away just as quickly from him. "These people saved me, back on Guardia, and now here on
Dominus," she explained. "You have to help them!"
Braffit looked among them, and bit his lower lip in thought. Finally, he said, "I can help them. There is, of
course, the matter of the, well... nominal fee..." he started.
Vi took a step back. "Lord Braffit!" she exclaimed.
He paused, then spoke in a wavering voice. "You know as well as I do that we have bills to pay,
renovations to make, potions and scrolls and..."
Tearn reached into his robe for extra healing potions and empty vials to make more, and Kiwi flew in front
of Vi with her back to Braffit. "Come on, forget this guy!" she said, pushing her to the exit. "We'll make do
with Tearn's potions, or find somebody in town who isn't such a stingy..."
Braffit reached out to them. "Wait!" he said, then shook his head and rubbed his mouth as he spoke.
"Please forgive me," he beseeched them. "All my life, I have never been able to do the right thing when it
was asked of me. Time and again people seek my counsel or my aid, and I turn them away without a
thought... just before true morality softens my wicked heart."
He gestured to a fountain in the corner of the room, whose beautiful, crystal waters lay quiet and serene
in a marble pool under a tiny statue of Phoonzang. "Drink all you need of the fountain," he implored them.
"And do not worry about dirtying it, or drinking too much. I will take care of it later."
Vi wasted no time getting Lucciana to the edge of the fountain along with Shss, and the two drank
greedily at the clear and crisp cold water. As they slurped and their wounds closed, Vi turned back to
Braffit. "I know how difficult it is nowadays, with people losing their faith and money not coming in," she
said. "If I still followed the faith and the Dark Savant came to claim the Ascension, even though there is no
word of it in the Prophecies... I'm not sure if I would still believe, either."
With a sigh, the older Priest returned to his desk to slump down in his chair. "How can I blame them?" he
asked. "Even my own faith has been tested. After Marten stole the Destinae Dominus those many years
ago, and after the machines arrived on the wing of the Savant to wreck my beautiful town and chase off
its people..."
"What do you mean, 'chase off?'" Tearn asked. "The Guards only attack if you do."
Braffit raised his head, his eyes shining. "You... you mean it?" he asked. "I don't believe this... the HLL
insisted we take the fight to them, but all we had to do was let them be to have peace?"
The Felpurr snorted. "I'd call it 'appeasement,' but it's a hell of a lot better than fighting in the streets... at
least until you can get your strength up," he replied.
Shss and Lucciana finished drinking, then leaned up against the marble wall; they looked very tired. "Can
you fill us in on the current situation?" Lucciana asked.
"Of course," he said. "We are in the end times, the time of the Ascension... it is natural for the uninitiated
to be curious. We must make this quick, however... I must bring word of the Savant machines' intentions
to the HLL as quickly as possible."
He took a deep breath, then began. "The Higardi have long believed in the Prophecy of the end of the
universe," he explained. "It is from this Prophecy that the Temple and its faith were constructed, and that
which gives us the strength and will to live."
Shss blinked in confusion. "Why would the end of the universe give you hope, of all things?" she asked.
Coincidentally enough, he had asked the exact same question when he first entered the faith. With a
slight chuckle, Braffit answered her question, in the same manner that the Priest had explained to him
those many years ago. "Well, the Higardi would be there to see this universe through to the end, and join
the Cosmic Lords in remaking the next," he explained. "The Ascension is the culmination of this
Prophecy, a time when mere mortals will join... or even replace... the current Cosmic Lords as the new
lords of destiny.
"They have grown tired, you see, and the fact that the other two devices... the Chaos Moliri, whose power
I can feel even now, and the Savant's Astral Dominae... were brought to this place where the Destinae
Dominus was once safely kept, is proof enough that the Ascension is here now," he said. "The Lords are
ready for the beginning of a new universe."
Kiwi's head spun with everything he had explained. She looked at Vi helplessly, who simply turned to her
and mouthed, "Keywords."
Braffit continued. "Gather together the artifacts and bring them to Ascension Peak, where the gateway to
destiny lies in wait..." he finished.
"You mentioned others..." Shss said. "Besides the Savant?"
The Priest nodded. "Yes, in addition to the machine god, the benevolent Mook have also arrived," he
said. "They occupy the old town hall just to the north of here, though they are reluctant to let anyone in. I
am not sure what fuels their paranoia, but I suspect the Dark Savant has something to do with it."
Everyone knew who he was going to mention before he even said it. "Some strange pachyderm creatures
called the Umpani have also arrived, a militaristic race if I have ever seen one," he continued. "We have
had a few of their 'scouts' come by, and from what little information we could gather from them, it appears
they also have no love for the Savant.
"The others are spidery creatures, magic users wielding electric rods..." he said, then stopped. "Much like
yours, young miss," he told Shss. "Be you an ally of theirs?"
She laughed out loud, and rolled her eyes with a great smile. "Not anymore," she answered.
"Well, if you know about them, I won't waste my breath explaining too much," Braffit said, then headed for
the stairs. "They're after the Savant as well, something about a betrayal on Guardia, where our
descendants the Helazoid live. I would suggest caution dealing with them, as they are quite the repugnant
species... but remember what they say about the enemy of my enemy."
He stopped at the stairs, remembering something. "Are our children all right?" he asked, then turned to
everyone. "You must have seen them on Guardia... the Helazoid?"
The party collectively shrugged and shook their heads. "Last I saw, they were mopping up the Savant's
machines in their town," Kiwi said from her position in the air, then winced slightly. "Though, to be honest,
I didn't see too much..." she admitted.
Braffit sighed. "Very well, then. Let me know if you hear anything..." he said. "I'll be at the HLL
headquarters if you need me. Ask Vi how to get there."
"Lord Braffit, wait," Vi said. "We'll need one of the sapphire rings that control the Astral Dominae. Can you
let us borrow one?"
He turned and nodded, then pointed at his desk. "You can have one, Vi," he said. "Top drawer on the
left." Vi smiled in thanks, then retrieved the ring from a small pouch inside the drawer. She slipped it onto
her finger as Braffit turned away.
When his echoing footsteps had retreated up the stairs, Tearn and Vi gathered up the exhausted Fighter
and Ronin in the corner to help them up and out of the Temple. As the Felpurr knelt by Shss' side, Kiwi
stealthily slipped off of his shoulder and landed on the ground nearby. The others left without noticing,
and for a brief time, she was alone.
The water in the fountain gently lapped against the sides, and wind whistled down the stairs in the
corridor. Once more, she quieted her soul, closed her eyes and let the world drop away from her. Though
only seconds passed in the real world, it felt closer to an hour for her as she tried desparately to reach out
and hear just the slightest inkling of consciousness from the other side. Not once had she had success on
Wikum's Powerboat, nor on Vi's ship... but maybe, in this calm and sacred place, she might have
success.
Again, her heart sank when she heard not a peep from the other side. Fighting back tears of
helplessness, she flew dejectedly up the stairs to join her comrades on the outside of the Temple.
Had she spent a moment longer trying to focus through her pain at the room around her, she might have
seen the faintest glimpse of what she was looking for. Jang, Hiromi, Janus... not a one of them could
speak to her in her current state, but just the barest wisp of shadows stood in the corner of the room,
called here by a desparate plea from a lone, shivering Monk.
Two shadows... one larger, and one smaller.
"Well!" Vi said aloud as they entered the empty streets once more. "That was quite expositive."
Shss furrowed her brow in confusion and looked at Lucciana, who shrugged. "You probably know more
words than I do by now," the Ronin said. "I'm too old to be learning new things."
The Fighter laughed. "You're not even twenty two yet," she pointed out, causing Lucciana to briefly stick
her tongue out at her. "Yeah, well, I feel old," she replied.
"Old enough to drink!" Vi exclaimed, then caught herself. "Maybe we should hold back. Certain winged
company seems a little too green... and tiny... to be kickin' back a tall one."
Kiwi scoffed from behind them. "Excuse ME, missy," she said, "but if you want to poison yourself with that
swill, you can be my guest. I'll just order a milk."
Vi waved back at her. "All right then," she said, then pointed just in front of them at a large building.
"He'Li's bar should be right over..."
All at once, the door to the bar suddenly burst open, and four men in scruffy clothes flipped end over end
into a heap on the ground. A pair of green hands receded into the darkness and out of sight, and a
woman's voice shouted out after them. "Show yer faces 'round 'ere again wi'out a fist'o cash in 'and and
an apology on ye lips, I'll 'ave me enforcer do ye twice over, ye 'ear?!"
The party walked into view, just in front of the battered, bruised and groaning men. It was hard to believe
a single person could throw them all out in a single toss, but when they looked into the bar, disbelief
turned quickly into knowing surprise.
"Vi!!" "Serkesh!!" a buxom lady with a brown ponytail and a blue dress, and Shss, screamed in unison.
The two darted forward, past one another, and into the arms of the person they recognized. While Vi
easily stopped He'Li's charge with a pair of arms, the party was surprised to see Shss bowl over the
creature in front of them.
He was a Lizardman with scaley green skin, and was easily eight feet tall, wearing only a brown loincloth.
He looked large enough to tear a man in half with his bare hands, but his tiny eyes looked gentle enough
to forgive a hundred for their offenses against him. They went as wide as they possibly could as Shss lept
into his arms and knocked him completely off of his massive feet.
"I don't believe this!" Shss shouted, squeezing the Lizardman as tightly as she could from on top of him.
"Serkesh! How did... why... I don't...!" she stammered. Serkesh wrapped his burly arms around her and
returned her hug with a series of clicks, hisses and throat rumbles. Shss immediately lapsed back into the
girl she was years ago, returning Serkesh's own greetings of disbelief in their native tongue.
As joyous a reunion as He'Li and Vi had going, the sight of the tall Shss on top of the even taller Serkesh
was too much a spectacle to ignore for a simple hello. The entire party watched the confusing spectacle
of the wide-eyed, hissing reunion, until the two realized they were being watched. Shss sheepishly
climbed off of the Lizardman and helped him to his feet.
"Well don' just stand 'ere," He'Li ordered him. "Get everyone 'nside where it's warm'n booze-filled!"
Serkesh rubbed the back of his head apologetically. "Sorry, lady," he said in a low, slow voice.
He'Li beckoned the others after her with a great smile. "And stop callin' me 'lady,' junior!" she yelled at
him. "It's twe'ty years too early fer ye ta be callin' me 'at!"
Lucciana quickly joined Shss' side as they walked down the carpeted walkway into the main hall of the
bar, but shrank back slightly when the Lizardman turned his head, widened his eyes and bared his many
rows of sharp teeth. "Is that... who I think it is?" she asked the Fighter.
Shss smiled and turned, standing at Serkesh's side until everyone arrived between the main tables of the
bar. "Everyone... this is my brother, Serkesh," she introduced.
With a wave, and a frightening baring of his teeth, the Lizardman spoke. "Hello," he said slowly.
"Un sha, Serkesh! (Very good, Serkesh)!" Shss hissed at him.
Tearn stroked his chin in wonder. "Am I missing something here?" he asked. "I may not be an expert on
Mythology... but you two are a different species."
Serkesh made a confused face, so Tearn pointed between the both of them. "You... two... different," he
said slowly. The Lizardman's confused look immediately turned to one of understanding and happiness
as he bared his teeth again. The party shrank back.
The Fighter playfully slapped the kind brute's arm, and they exchanged some quick hisses and clicks.
"He's just smiling," she explained to everyone. "In our culture, we widen our eyes to show approval or
pleasure. He's trying to fit in by..." She turned to him. "How did you say it? 'Showing my teeth?'" she
laughed. "We call it a 'smile.' You say it, now."
"Smai-el," Serkesh sounded out, then simultaneously widened his eyes as he bared his teeth again.
Then, without warning, he scooped up Shss by the bottom and put her on his broad right shoulder, and
she laughed all the way.
Tearn watched the procession with a wary eye, preparing a particularly nasty spell to melt the
Lizardman's mind if he stepped out of line. "You still haven't answered the question," he said.
"Always to the point, are we?" Shss asked. "Serkesh and his family adopted me when I was just a baby.
A masked woman brought me to their village and left me in their care... and I've been a Lizardman ever
since."
She indicated Tearn with her head. "And you can stand down that Cerebral Hemorrhage spell," she
continued, to the Felpurr's surprise. "My brother wouldn't hurt a fly..." She chuckled. "Unless fly stew was
on the dinner menu."
The Felpurr did as she suggested. "I'm just being cautious," he told her.
"There's no reason to be!" Shss insisted, hugging Serkesh's head to her. "Even his name is proof of how
gentle he is... Every member of the tribe is named according to the type of person he or she develops
into. In our language, 'Ser' means kindly, weak, or timid. 'Kesh' is the name of a really nasty spined
creature we used to hunt in the Swamp, and literally means 'strong.'
"Put them together, and it means something like... 'Ferocious Rabbit' or 'Gentle Elephant,'" she explained
with a laugh. Serkesh had no clue what she was talking about, but guessed well enough it had to do with
his name; she always loved to tease him about it.
Lucciana cautiously crept forward, ready for the beast to crush her into jelly at any moment. Nonetheless,
she bravely reached out a hand to him, and was surprised when he not only took her hand slowly so as
not to frighten her, but also shook with a gentleness she hadn't though possible in a creature of his size.
Perhaps "creature" is a misnomer... she thought to herself.
She allowed the smallest of smiles to creep across her face, and was not frightened this time to see the
Lizardman bare his teeth at her again; it was actually kind of funny.
Just then, a thought struck her. "People of your tribe are given a name at a certain period of life, one that
means something special, right?" she asked. Shss nodded. "I can't believe I haven't asked before, but..."
Lucciana began, "...what does yours mean?"
The Fighter got a faraway look in her eyes. Her family, her people, life before the "Kassmak Ohss" turned
everything upside-down, a slew of images floated by in that instant...
"Mine was given to me the day I was brought to the village," she explained. "It means 'Rain Child.'"
"'Rain?'" Kiwi asked. Shss smiled and shrugged. "That's kind of cool! And it's nice to see a family back
together... Serkesh," the Faerie continued with a nod at the Lizardman, then looked at Shss. "Rain," she
teased.
Shss raised her eyebrows with a smirk, but then looked down at Serkesh. "How did you guys get here,
anyway?" she asked.
"I can ansher that," a gruff voice from the bar said. The small lump sitting there was so still, nobody had
noticed it sitting there until it had spoken. Whoever it was, they were only a few feet tall, and dressed in
dark chain mail that blended in with the shadows there.
Kiwi's heart beat faster, and she blinked in disbelief. "Hi... Hi-chan?" she asked.
The person turned, and revealed a mangy and tangled brown beard that was as tasteless as it was
disheartening. Kiwi sighed deeply, but managed to keep from spinning immediately into an introverted
depression. "Who'n blazesh are ye talkin' ta, little one?" the Dwarf asked her. "The name'ssh Patch," he
continued with a point at the black eyepatch over his right eye.
He swivelled around in his chair, teetered, and would have fallen if Serkesh hadn't put his arm out to stop
him. "Shanksh, big guy," he said, and leaned back up against the bar. His head bobbed, but he finally
managed to hold it up and look among them with glazed eyes.
"Mook brought ush here," Patch explained. "Ol' Grimpak the Mook... came down ta Llylgamyn about, oh,
shree, four yearsh ago, and bashically 'shcanned''r whatever the whole planet for people ta eshcort him ta
Guardia."
He coughed loudly, then composed himself. "Now, nobody'n their right mind'sh gonna trust a big furry ape
like that... no offensh," he said to Tearn, who blustered silently, "'lessh they're desparate'r downright
shtupid. I like ta shink I belong ta the shecond group... 'course, Sherkeshh'n the Vampire girl came outta
wantin' ta shee their lovey-dovesh..."
"Vampire girl?" Lucciana asked. "You don't mean..."
Patch shrugged at her. "What, ye know Becky? Hold yer oosh'n aahsh fer after yer eldersh're done
shpeakin', wouldja? Now I gone'n losht my place..." he muttered.
He'Li sighed. "Mook? Companions? A ship'a love 'n dreams?" she offered.
The Dwarf snapped his fingers. "That'sh it," he said. "So anywaysh, we shree climbed aboard the big
metal bird," he continued. Shss, Lucciana, Kiwi and Tearn exchanged a knowing look; it was uncanny
how closely related their initial impression of the spaceship was. "Made our way ta Guardia, where we
heard the Bane King'n Shhhhshshhh... Shhhssssshh..." he slurred, then pointed at Shss. "Ye, would be.
'Coursh, with our luck, ye folksh already left, 'n we heard the Ashtral Dominae had up'n gone ta
Dominush, sho we had ta chash'ye all over the galaxy ta find ye here.
"We losht the Vampire girl on Guardia, good riddance I shay, 'cause them undead girlsh'll getcha..." he
continued, "but we picked up a few othersh... shome tall Helazoid girl, a Dane, a Gorn'n a Munk." He
paused, and turned around to take a large swig from the tankard on the bar behind him. "When the
Shavant shhot ush down, we losht jusht about all'a 'em."
Silence pervaded the bar, until the Dwarf broke it. "I'm a Lord, 'n comin' back from the brink'a death ish
my shpecialty," he explained. "Sherkeshh here'sh too big ta be taken down sho eashily, 'n the other
guy'sh spellsh barely kept himshelf alive, but the othersh..."
He sighed deeply. "Ushed ta tell my kidsh... '"God hash already forgiven ye. It'sh up ta ye ta forgive
yershelf, and atone fer yer shins with the people ye hurt.' But I ain't past the forgivin' myshelf part jusht
yet, conshiderin' I wash the one who got them Guardia people ta join up in the firsht place..."
He took another swig from his tankard and said no more... it was clear that the Dwarf's story was over.
He'Li walked forward to the other side of the bar. "Well, if ye all don't mind, we'll be joinin' Mister Patch
'ere in a toast ta'r woes. We'll leave the Savant'n 'is machines fer tomorra... after we up our spirits wit'
some spirits."
As she began taking bottles of liquor down from the shelves at the back of the dank bar, there was a
shuffling near the entrance. A door squeaked open and then slowly shut, and a very sleepy, bald and
blue-skinned man with tired yellow eyes stepped into the light.
He wore two robes: the outer blue one was covered in yellow stars, moon crescents and other arcane
symbols, and the inner was a simple purple. Both were sashed at the waist by a bright red piece of cloth
that went around his thin body, and his brown slippers slapped against his feet as he trudged out and
smacked his lips.
"What's with all the noise?" he asked, looking about the newcomers. "Your bar was never that popular,
He'Li..."
It was all he had a chance to say before one of the strangers lept off of Serkesh's shoulder and grabbed
him in a giant bear hug, tackling him to the ground. "Hey, let me go!" he pleaded, trying to push at the
crazy girl squeezing the life out of him. He couldn't see her face but he could tell she was probably drunk.
"Look, lady... I'm a Bishop of Dane, and you can't just..."
He stopped, when she raised her tear-stricken brown eyes to his. His mind was awhirl; it couldn't possibly
be her. To see her now when she only occupied his thoughts and memories before... it was like
something out of a dream.
"Shss?" he asked in sheer disbelief. His eyes travelled down her face, to her neck and even farther, when
he found what he was looking for: the necklace. "Shss!" he yelled. "I can't believe we finally umph!"
The Fighter silenced his gushing with the strongest kiss she had given anyone in her life. Their tears
slipped down one another's cheeks, joining in a pool on his chest. Her face flushed hotter than if she were
in a thousand battles all at once, and electricity surged up and down her body. It had been so long...
Belcanzor, on the other hand, trembled with a nervousness that had come to be omnipresent over the
past few years; it wasn't until he had met her that he truly knew what it meant to be vulnerable.
Now, with his greatest and most treasured memory now the goddess who had stepped out of his dreams
and into his arms... he was worried. As good as this felt right now, how long until she realized he was
probably not what she expected?
Still, for the seconds that seemed like hours, holding her warm body close to his... there was nothing
more than the two of them. He held the passionate kiss as long as he possibly could, embracing her as if
she would escape and take the greatest thing that he had ever felt with her at any moment.
Serkesh, totally forgotten, made a face of mock sadness, and He'Li cleared her throat loudly. Slowly, the
two let go of one another and stood, hand in hand, but they didn't take their eyes off of one another. "We
'ave rooms fer a reason, ye know..." the barmaid started. Belcanzor grinned and blushed until his face
went purple, and she pointed to a door next to them. "Three rooms, all available ta friends'a me wo'kers'n
bo'yguards..." she said.
With a nod of thanks, Shss yanked Belcanzor back to the group. Serkesh pouted at being so suddenly left
out, so his sister hugged him in apology. "I tell ye, 'is place 'asn't been as lively fer weeks!" He'Li
commented. "Ever since 'at Savant came'n sta'ed causin' trouble, there ain't been no'in' but tables ta
clean in 'ere! I wouldn't'a let 'ose ruffians in if I 'adn't needed the money so badly..."
"So what's been going on around here?" Lucciana asked, taking a seat at the bar. "Yeah, fill us in, would
you?" Vi added as He'Li put a bottle of liquor in front of the Ronin.
"Haha... fill ye in?" He'Li asked incredulously. "Ye been roamin' around wi' 'at 'nsane robot god fer God
knows 'ow many years, and ye expect me ta fill you in?!"
Vi shrugged and smiled. "I took off when he started going off of the deep end," she said. "And don't give
me that! He was as nice and fatherly to you as he was to me seven years ago... remember how mad you
were when he picked me to go with him, instead of you?"
He'Li pointed a bottle at her. "Don't ye be bargin' inta me bar 'n start dredgin' up the past, now!" she
exclaimed, but the eye-patched girl simply took the bottle from her and started taking liberal swigs from it.
"You started it," she laughed.
Tearn sat down at a table in the shadows with Kiwi on his shoulder. "Back to the subject at hand, if you
will," he said to the barmaid, who instead took a broom from behind the bar and handed it to Serkesh. "Be
a dear 'n start cleanin' up the mess 'ose 'ooligans left, would ye, darlin'?" she asked, indicating everything
clearly with her hands.
Serkesh bared his teeth and took it, heading upstairs. Shss walked after him with Belcanzor's hand still in
hers. They stretched their arms out to hold on for a few more seconds, until the Dane relented and
walked with her; he wasn't ready to let go just yet.
"We'll fill you in later," Lucciana promised Shss. "All right," she replied, and the three went through the
side door to the upstairs room.
"Well, I'll tell ye people two thin's strai' up," He'Li continued. "First is about 'em artifacts ye're probably
lookin' fer. The Dark Savant's got one'a 'em, so ye can forget about 'at one. Who knows who 'as the
second... could be the 'orn aliens, or maybe the bug ones. Maybe even 'em 'airy Mook, or the rats in
Trynton.
"What I can tell ye, is that the third one's with Mar'en," she continued, and smiled. "And anyone who's
anyone on Dominus can tell ye, if ye're lookin' fer Mar'en, ye start in Trynton. That's where 'e ran ta when
the HLL was chasin' 'im for the theft, ye know."
"Done," Lucciana said, slamming the empty tankard to the bar. The Dwarf next to her didn't stir; he
seemed to have passed out.
He'Li whistled in appreciation. "Ye're lucky these're on the 'ouse, being friends'a me good pal Vi'n all," she
said, handing the Ronin an entire bottle this time. The Elf uncorked it and began to chug. "Pace yeself,
now," He'Li warned. "It's powerful stuff."
"...You were saying?" Tearn asked of the distracted barmaid.
"Yes, Trynton," she said. "'ome'a the fuzzy, thievin' Trynnie. They 'id out Marten from the HLL, right before
'e up and left fer the Bluff. Before ye ask..." she continued, holding up a finger to Tearn, who closed his
mouth. "...Trynton's a two ta three day walk from 'ere, due southeast along the road. Can't miss it... and if
ye do, it's Vi's fault for bein' as bad a guide as she is."
Vi laughed and raised her bottle. "Cheers!" she said, and downed another few gulps. Tearn ignored her
and nodded at He'Li. "You said there were two things you needed to talk about..." he said.
"Yeah..." the barmaid said. "That dark-skinned girl who just left... she always had both 'ose heavy things
on 'er back?" she asked.
"Long as I've known her..." Tearn replied.
He'Li shook her head. "'ow can ye be so calm about 'at?" she asked. "That kinda thing'll kill yer posture. A
woman in my position should know."
Lucciana shrugged. "Not much we can do about it, I guess," she said.
"Maybe not on the backwoods planet ye people come from," He'Li laughed, "but 'ere on Dominus, we 'ave
ways around things like 'at."
Tearn raised an eyebrow... and the threesome chose that time to come back downstairs. "Done,"
Belcanzor said. "For deadbeats, those guys were pretty clean. We may need a change of sheets,
though." He looked around. "So what's going on?" he asked.
He'Li gestured to the bar. "Have a good time, everyone," she said to the assembled group, then walked
over to Shss. "You'n me... 'ave a little business ta take care of," she said, then hooked her arm under the
Fighter's.
"All right," she replied, and saluted everyone a goodbye. "We'll be back in just a few hours," He'Li
promised. Before anyone could say anything, He'Li rushed Shss out the door.
During the time that they were gone, the party discussed their next move on the planet Dominus. It was
generally accepted that both Belcanzor and Serkesh would be joining them, though whether the Dwarf
would be able to summon the energy to come along was still anybody's guess.
Kiwi was silent throughout the whole discussion. While not strange in and of itself, especially during times
of doubt when things were up in the air, the fact that she had not a single word to chime in was especially
worrisome to Tearn... the others simply did not know her well enough to know that something was wrong.
Lucciana and Serkesh sat at the bar, downing shot after shot of He'Li's liquor, until the bar was strewn
with empty bottles. As she finished her sixth bottle of the rancid swill, Lucciana had to admit that she was
starting to feel a little dizzy. Impressively enough, the Lizardman was keeping even pace with her... but
she would not be beaten.
"Shichi...!" Lucciana hissed to Serkesh as she finished her seventh one. "What's the matter? Can't keep
up?" she challenged, holding up five fingers and pointing at his bottle. Serkesh widened his eyes at the
jab, and took a second bottle in his left hand, drinking both at once. The race was on.
Tearn shook his head at the shameful display. Boozing was fine after a hard day's work or a particularly
gruesome kill, but not when an entire universe was at stake.
Still, the fact that Kiwi, Vi and the newcomer had all decided to partake of a little moderation kept his
impatience in check. Luckily, as he found out, the boy was an adept healer, freeing his own attention up
for more destructive tasks.
When night had fallen, He'Li and Shss finally returned. "Everyone," He'Li said when she stepped into the
light, "I called in a favor with our local armorer, Antone, and 'e cooked up a li'l some'n for yer li'l beau'y
'ere." She waved at the darkness. "Show 'em, Shss," she said.
A metallic clanking sounded as the Fighter stepped out of the shadows... and the change in appearance
was almost too great to be believed. Her white shorts had been dyed grey, and were covered at the
bottom, along with her legs and feet, by black metal greaves.
Similarly colored steel bracers were on each of her wrists, and her normally, nearly bare chest was
covered from stomach to neck, shoulder to shoulder, by steel plate mail. Her purple and gold necklace
hung out in front, and shifted slightly as she raised her new weapon into the light with a great smile.
"Psispear," she said, holding it out for everyone to see. It was her Psi Rod, only where the base had once
simply ended bluntly, the head of her black spear now pointed out. "All of the enchantment is in the
spearhead, so it's much more potent now," she explained. "Now I can use whichever end will be the most
use for us."
At the tip of the Psispear, several feathers swayed with her every movement. Serkesh's eyes widened,
and he nodded in pride.
"I once wondered if killing was the right thing," she said. "I vowed once never to slay another living being
as long as I lived, to show mercy and peace in everything that I did."
She shook her head. "But it was only an idealist's fancy," she admitted. "When I met all of you, I knew
there would come a time when I might have to kill. And I knew it wouldn't be fair to sacrifice any of you for
my ideals, if I refused to kill and it cost one of you your lives."
At her words, Lucciana blinked, but remained silent.
Shss paused, and breathed in deeply before speaking. "Now, I have the choice... here, in my hands. On
one end is mercy... the other, death." She looked at each person individually. "I promise you all that I will
make the correct choice when we set out. I will err on the side of peace, but I will not let what I perceive
as moral stand in the way of protecting all of you... and stopping the Savant."
Lucciana raised her bottle in salute. "Not a one of us doubts you either, sis," she said, then took a giant
gulp. "And on that note... I'm going to bed. Someone help me to... ugh!" she yelled out, and slipped off of
the bar.
Before she hit her head on the floor, Serkesh grabbed her, and the two shared a loud belly laugh. "I
suppose if Shss and Belcanzor want to take one room, and Kiwi and Tearn probably want the other, I'll
bunk with this big lummox," she said.
"You're right... we should probably get some rest," Shss said. Belcanzor's stomach flipped when she did
not protest the sleeping arrangements, and he turned purple again. "What's up, Belkie?" Shss asked.
He flushed even darker. "N... nothing..." he said. The Fighter smiled, then beckoned him down the hall to
the first room.
"C'mon, kid," Tearn said to an unresponsive Kiwi. "Let's hit the hay."
Vi waved as everyone sleepily shambled off to their respective bedrooms. "I'll stay out here and catch up
with He'Li," she said. "And see you all in the morning."
The party went their separate ways, and several doors closed. Vi took the last swig out of her drink, then
raised an eyebrow at He'Li. "Still got those extra weapons lying around?" she asked.
He'Li smiled. "Since the days o' the Piracy Squad," she said. "And before ye ask... Myles did not lay a
finger on either one o' me beau'ies." She took down a pair of bottles from the shelf, which sat beside a
concealed White Sword and Frontier Phaser, and handed one to Vi. They clinked the drinks together, and
He'Li said with a knowing grin, "To the old days."
Upstairs, in a spartan room with only a chest and bed inside it, Lucciana and Serkesh shared what little
they knew of the other's language. It was an exchange whose humor, volume and relevance was
bolstered by a factor of ten, thanks to the booze.
Lucciana learned how to count to ten, Serkesh learned how to smile without looking like a grinning shark,
and the Ronin finally collapsed in a drunken heap atop the brute's chest when he unceremoniously
passed out on the floor. Their combined snoring practically shook the room.
"Are you all right?" Tearn gently asked Kiwi in their room. "You've been really quiet since we arrived at the
bar."
Kiwi turned over to face the wall and scrunched the blanket around her. "I'm ok," she said... though the
Felpurr knew her long enough to know that it was a lie.
He also knew her long enough to know that no matter how much he prodded, she wouldn't talk about it
until she was ready. He nodded, and lay down next to her on the soft bed. "All right," he conceded. "But
when you need me, you know exactly where I am, ok, kid?"
Kiwi smiled softly, then closed her eyes. Before sleep took her, she whispered a very quiet, "Thanks,"
thought she was not sure if he had heard or not. Apparently, she had not taken to heart the fact that no
matter the distance, and no matter the volume... he always did.
Belcanzor sat quietly on the bed as Shss stripped off the showy, but protective, pieces of armor from her
body. When her eyes met his, though, he looked away shyly. Stop gawking, idiot! he yelled internally.
But he couldn't help it... Shss was the pinnacle of beauty. Her muscles were toned and sleek, her body
curved deliciously in at her hips before they gently swooped back out, her...
He looked away again, cursing at himself. How many times would he have to pull his eyes away from
her?
Shss sighed as she dropped the bracers in the corner of the room, and finally unstrapped and lifted the
chest plate off of her body. Belcanzor's heart melted once more at the sight of the necklace that he had
given her so long ago...
"Sorry if I smell a little..." she apologized, then sat down next to him on the bed, and Belcanzor shook
from his stupor. "N... no, no," he stammered. "It's not... I mean, you don't..." He chuckled softly. "Sorry, I
must seem like a real mess right now."
Shss cocked her head to the side. "Do you want me to leave?" she asked. "I can go crash with Lucciana
and Serkesh, if it's too much trouble for you."
Belcanzor shook his head violently, but couldn't manage to say anything, and she laughed. "I'm glad
you're the same person I remember," she said, then began to softly stroke his cheek. "I thought about you
a lot, you know," she said.
He reached out to touch her leg, but withdrew just as quickly. She smiled at the movement, then reached
out to place her hand on top of her thigh anyway. "It's all right," she said quietly.
The young Dane laughed sharply in nervousness, but didn't move his hand away. "You..." he started,
trying to find the right words, "...your... speaking skills... have gotten much better!"
Idiot! he shouted in his mind, but Shss' grin just grew wider. "You think so?" she asked. "Thanks! I've
been practicing with the others ever since we left Guardia."
After that, they both fell silent and looked into one another's eyes, each feeling an electric sense of
warmth course through their bodies. Slowly, Shss leaned in and gently touched her lips to his, running her
hands along his scalp and the side of his head. Belcanzor, in such heavenly bliss, didn't realize that one
hand was still on her thigh for the entire duration of the kiss.
Shss suddenly pulled away. "Ok, this is really bothering me," she said. Belcanzor's heart thumped as she
stood... could she be leaving him? "I really, really stink," she laughed, and headed for the door. "I'm going
to go see if He'Li has any showers or baths around this place..."
"Actually..." Belcanzor said, raising a hand to stop her, and Shss turned around. "I can... help with that,"
he said.
"Really?" she asked. "Let's hear it!"
The Dane nodded, then closed his eyes. The curtains on the window looking out slowly drew to a close.
The Dane summoned forth the feeling of water, and a slight feeling of heat in his chest and stomach.
Carefully, he mixed the two feelings together, then pushed them through his arms and into his
outstretched hands.
A ball of water slowly appeared between his palms, getting larger and larger until it was the size of his fist.
"Here, test this," he said.
Shss walked forward and put a pair of fingers into the ball, but withdrew almost immediately. "Ouch!" she
exclaimed. "It's hot."
Belcanzor apologized, then scaled back the feeling of fire. "Ok, try it now," he said. This time, Shss
washed her hands around in the globe of water. "Its heavenly!" she said happily.
He grinned, then indicated a chest in the corner of the room. "Open the box over there and take out the
soap in the waxen wrapping," he said. Shss did so, and brought it to him. "You can drop it now," he said.
When she did, the soap remained in midair as Belcanzor kept it afloat with a Levitate spell. "Are you
ready?" he asked her.
Shss nodded and smiled from ear to ear. "Of course..." she said softly.
Belcanzor floated the soap into the middle of the hot water ball, then incrementally allowed the feelings of
heat and water to increase in size and strength. Within seconds, the fist-sized ball of water became a
cylinder, slightly shorter than Shss but three times her girth. The soap moved about in the water until it
became cloudy and translucent.
Then, with a thought, he instructed the column of soothing, soapy water to encompass the beautiful girl in
front of him.
Shss' face slowly melted into pure bliss; it must have been a long time without a decent bath that didn't
involve recycled water and five minutes in and out, he gathered. The others aboard Grimpak's ship
probably felt the same... and more than likely hated his guts for having the ability to do this for himself.
He almost dropped the cylinder of water when she disrobed in front of him. Though her wet clothes were
all he saw clearly as she placed them outside of the water, and her body was only a beautiful silhouette
covered by the soapy liquid pillar, it was still a shock to see her so comfortable around him. She scrubbed
her body, diving her head in and emerging happier and cleaner than she had felt in years.
Without realizing it, his jaw dropped, and she laughed when she noticed. Then, after fifteen beautiful
minutes of watching the most beautiful creature he had ever seen bathe in front of him, she was finished.
Belcanzor removed his outer blue robe with his right hand, with all of the images of the stars and moon
upon it, and placed it on the bed. Keeping his left hand free to hold up the water, he reluctantly turned his
back on Shss and faced the window. "I'm going to throw the water outside," he said. "You should put my
robe on, if you feel cold. I'll conjure up another column of fresh water so you can get the, uh..." He gulped,
picturing her naked body in his mind. "The... the soap off," he finished.
"Ok," she answered. The Bishop mentally dragged the water away from her, opened the drapes and
window, then bodily blocked the outside world from seeing inside. As the cylinder passed him, he
distinctly smelled the sweet aroma of her body, which had haunted his every dream from the day they
shared the kiss on Guardia, to this very moment.
Then, he shot the cylinder out the window and onto the stone below; it would be long gone by the time
anybody was up to care about him littering. As he did so, he heard her step over to the bed and fit the
robe on. "Is it ok now?" he asked.
Shss nodded. "Yes," she said, and Belcanzor turned to see her wearing his clothes. "Looks great on you!"
he complimented, and she laughed as she spun to show off. "Maybe," she conceded. "I don't think I'm cut
out for magic, though."
"I'll teach you someday," he promised, "once all of this is over."
The Fighter nodded. "I'm looking forward to it," she said with a smile. "Now... about my water," she
teased.
He shook his head in surprise. "Oh, uh... right," he stammered, and conjured another pillar of crystal clear
water. He tested the temperature himself this time, and when he was sure it was right, he moved it
towards her with one hand as he closed the drapes behind him with the other.
Shss started to open the robe, and Belcanzor immediately looked away. She laughed again... that
heavenly sound. "You're so shy," she said. "It's cute." He didn't say anything, and simply moved the pillar
near enough so she could step in.
She splashed and rubbed the soap off of her body in no time at all, and a squeaky clean Shss emerged
from the water to don his robe again. He opened the window and tossed the water out again, then closed
it and the drapes once more. Finally, he sat back on the bed where Shss was waiting for him.
"I'm sorry..." he said.
Shss looked at him funny. "For what?" she asked.
Belcanzor sighed. "The truth is... I never stopped thinking about you, either," he said. "But now, I'm acting
like a complete fool... My dream in life used to be me, becoming the leader of the Dane... and when I met
you, I just thought you were some outsider looking to stir up trouble," he laughed.
"I remember," she said with a chuckle. "I also remember you telling me that we couldn't be together until
the Munk and Dane stopped warring with one another."
He perked up. "You weren't there when the Prophet showed up!" he realized, and continued in an
animated voice. "I never saw him myself... or even know what he looks like! Some say he was eight feet
tall, and had a voice that could fell a mountain!
"The only thing I know for sure was that whoever he was, he was just one man... and travelled by one of
the Helazoid rocketsleds!" he said. "The Prophet was there wherever a fight was going to break out, and
immediately put any disputes to rest! It's because of him that the Munk and Dane are now working
towards a lasting peace!"
He smiled happily. "When the Mook arrived and offered us a ride to Dominus, and one of the crewmates
told me he was after his sister, that's when I knew... it was a sign," he continued excitedly. "Not only does
the fighting keeping me away from you end soon after you leave, but then, a band of adventurers came
out of the blue to take me straight to you!"
She blushed. "That crewmate... wouldn't have been Serkesh, would it?" she asked.
Belcanzor widened his eyes, and Shss laughed. "I spoke to him with my limited skills in Psionics... and he
was a scary guy at first," he explained. "When he found out what happened between you and me in the
Tower of Dane, he nearly tore my arms off!"
Shss giggled and shook her head. "He was always a protective one," she said.
"That's putting it mildly!" he joked. "After a time, though, I guess I started to grow on him... because
eventually, we started to become friends. I even learned a little of the language, see? O Belcanzor, I
Shss, I un paen! (I'm Belcanzor, you're Shss, you're very beautiful)!"
She clapped happily. "Un sha!" she exclaimed.
Belcanzor grinned stupidly. He blushed as he formed his next question, but asked it anyway. "How do you
say, 'I love you?'" he asked, and Shss blinked in surprise. Her face was starting to hurt from smiling so
much. "A ai I," she said softly.
"O ai I," he whispered, as his smile slowly faded.
Her smile fell along with his. They stared into one another's eyes, drinking of the pure, unrestrained
feeling of attraction in the other's colorful orbs. Belcanzor slowly closed his eyes and gently moved
forward, and Shss responded in kind.
Gently, she pushed him on his back. The warmth of their bodies flirted, danced and merged, and the
world dropped away.
Arnika
Day 4
"No."
The abrupt answer was sudden, but not wholly unexpected. "I'll be no good ta any of ye in the state I'm
in," Patch explained. "Until I've come ta terms with what I've done ta those people, I'll stay here'n protect
Arnika with He'Li." He snorted. "Group like yours wouldn't need an eighth, anyway..." he muttered, and
walked back inside.
Under the morning sun, the assembled team stretched and prepared for their long hike out of town.
Serkesh leaned on his very heavy, very large axe next to Tearn and Kiwi, who stood in meditation with
closed eyes next to him. The Lizardman looked happily at Shss and Belcanzor, whose eyes had not left
the other's since they came outside, and who still wore perpetual grins on their faces.
Lucciana, red-eyed and groaning, stared off into the distance as she leaned heavily on her bo. Neither
Tearn nor Belcanzor had a cure for her condition, but she bet Janus might have... "Thanks anyway," Vi
called after the Dwarf, then walked outside. "You guys ready to book?" she asked.
One confused look, five who weren't even listening. Yep, they were ready.
"Take care now," He'Li waved at them as they wandered down the street and out of sight. When she
turned back into the bar to begin her daily work, she was surprised to see Patch still standing there.
His good eye was trained on the distant Vi Domina... and it wasn't until she disappeared around a distant
building that he finally tore himself away to begin his morning chores.
The Other Half
Arnika-Trynton Road
Day 4
The descendant of Phoonzang, Vi Domina. The Faerie with the blazing spirit, Kiwi, and her constant
companion, the icy Felpurr Tearn. Shss, and Amazulu raised in the culture of the Lizardman, her massive
but agile brother Serkesh, and the Dane Bishop who gently held her heart, Belcanzor. A step away from
the rest of the group, the calm and cool Elven Ronin Lucciana.
They were here, now, to find the artifacts spread across Dominus that would hold the key to Ascension,
the event that would allow mortals to become Gods themselves. One artifact was already in the hands of
the Dark Savant, their enigmatic and removed, but frustratingly close, enemy. The second was lost amidst
a crowd of rumors, leaving only one place left to go: Trynton.
The road to Trynton was a humble dirt path that wound through wide plains that went on for miles. It had
been trampled so often by wagons, travellers and creatures, that in contrast to the lush green plains
around them, the road itself was a simple brown road of dirt and rock. Any grasses that bravely clung to
life among the stones in the ground there were almost assured of a life snuffed out by a boot heel or
rolling wheel.
How ironic that they were bound to this planet with no way to escape, with the Dark Savant's mammoth
Black Ship in orbit... a god who was always watching, always knowing who was where, and why. It was a
ship capable of destruction from a place beyond reproach, wielding weapons that could rip buildings in
half with a single shot, level cities in mere hours.
The Dark Savant was the powerful, determined traveller on his constant search for the other two
Ascension artifacts... and they were mere blades of grass.
If the artifacts are in specific places, and he knows about them, Lucciana thought groggily, there would be
nothing to stop him from ripping this planet asunder.
Even though Vi clearly had more to worry about, as a piece of the divine puzzle with some yet
unexplained part to play in the Ascension, it did not stop her from celebrating her return here. The
eye-patched girl took a few steps in front of the other six, rubbed her chin with a wide grin on her face,
and took in everything around her with utter glee.
"I can't believe I'm finally back here!" she exclaimed. She pointed in front of her, at a grouping of trees. "I
used to play with the other Arnikans over there... sometimes getting in a game of tag or hide-and-seek
with some of the neighboring Trynnie."
Old leaves fluttered down lazily from their branches as a gentle wind kicked up, dancing in front of the
group and across the road they travelled. Vi nodded happily. "I know it," she said. "I just know we'll stop
the Savant and set things right here."
Tearn cleared his throat loudly. Vi put her hands on her hips and revelled a bit more in the scene, but
waited for the others to catch up. "Glad you're so excited," he said.
She laughed. "That's so like you..." she replied, and he shrugged. "We should go over our tactics in case
we run into some trouble out here," the Felpurr insisted. "Dreaming about a victory isn't going to get us
any closer to it."
Lucciana chewed on the stem in her mouth thoughtfully. "Pragmatic Tearn..." she muttered, but the
Felpurr ignored her. "I should think the jobs of the ladies on the front lines should be obvious enough..."
he said, then turned to Shss. "Lover girl, translate for the big guy."
She nodded, and quietly matched Tearn's words with her own series of hisses and rumbles.
"However, for the newcomers on hand... and those who were a bit incapacitated the previous night..." he
said, with a glance at Lucciana and Serkesh. When Shss finished her interpretation for the Lizardman, he
laughed uproariously. "Drink! Ahahaha!" he shouted.
Tearn breathed out his nostrils in mild exasperation. "As I was saying, the ladies and the big guy are
obvious enough." He patted the Faerie on his shoulder, who was still silent from the previous day, and
decided to speak for her. "The kid here is also on the front line, though probably stronger than all four of
you beefcakes put together."
Kiwi looked away as her body tightened up ever so slightly. He had seen this reaction many times before:
shyness at overbearing praise. Without looking, he knew she was probably blushing, too.
"However, I'd like the Bishop to explain what he's going to bring to the table in terms of support or
damage," the Felpurr finished.
Belcanzor, his hand still in Shss', cleared his throat nervously. "Well... I'm a Bishop, as you said," he
explained. "What that basically means is... I study all four of the basic schools of magic: Alchemy,
Theosophy, Thaumaturgy and Theology."
Shss interpreted expertly for Serkesh, but stopped before the end, and gave Belcanzor a blank look. He
blushed purple, then qualified his statement. "Um, basically... Alchemy, Psionics, Wizardry and Divinity.
You know... potions, mind magic, blowing things up and healing."
"Why didn't you say so?" she teased, then finished explaining to Serkesh.
"In essence, whatever we need to happen, he can probably take care of it," Tearn summarized, which
made Vi grin. "Sounds like someone's been outclassed," she joked.
The Felpurr suddenly stopped, bringing the party to a halt... and Vi's face flushed as she wondered if she
had said too much. With his eyes still ahead of him, Tearn pointed at a small, grassy hill just a little over
ten feet to the side. "Bishop, hit that hill with a Fireball," he ordered him. "Your hottest one."
Belcanzor blinked in confusion. "Why?" he asked. "Is something there?"
Tearn shook his head. "No," he replied. "I just want to prove a point."
With a shrug, the Dane turned to the little hill. He conjured the hottest feeling of fire that he could within
his entire being, and quickly conjured forth and blasted a greenish-blue Fireball towards the hill ahead.
Something was wrong... he could sense it almost immediately. In horror, he watched as the Fireball
changed course and flew straight back towards the party, aimed directly for Shss. "No!" he shouted,
stepping between it and the girl he loved.
Before any of the other shocked party members could do anything, Tearn shot forward and sliced his paw
violently through the air from left to right.
A large, concave and transparent red barrier suddenly appeared to cover the party, and the Fireball
blasted directly into it and exploded... but the barrier held. The resulting red, blue and even white flames
licked up the side of the transparent Fire Shield, but not even an ember passed through to strike the
party.
When the fire had dissipated, Tearn let out a pent-up breath. "All right," he said, "try it again."
"Hey, wait a second..." Lucciana began to protest, but the Felpurr interrupted her. "Step it down a hair this
time," he finished.
Belcanzor met Shss' eyes for confirmation. Her kind smile and nod set his mind in an instant, and he
conjured another, much cooler, red Fireball. The ball swirled and blazed in his fingertips until it was the
size of his chest, but still red in color. Then, with a shout, he sent it into the hill ahead of him.
It blasted through the air, and right when it came into contact with the grasses, it exploded exactly on
target.
When the smoke cleared, a man-sized hole and a few scant fires now decorated the unhappy mound,
and Belcanzor turned to the group with a smug sense of satisfaction. Tearn slowly nodded, in what
seemed to be a begrudging show of respect and apology for being wrong.
But then, without a word, the Felpurr walked forward until his back was to the party. He closed his eyes,
conjuring fire from his entire being and into his paws. The energy was so violent and powerful that Kiwi
could feel his shoulder shake from the sheer strain of all the power.
In his paws, a red Fireball quickly formed. It grew and grew until it was half the size of his own body, at
which point he had to stretch his arms out to contain the massive thing.
Then, he pushed his paws into the ball and it shrank, becoming a yellow ball hovering between them. He
repeated the gesture a few times, enlarging the yellow ball then shrinking to green, enlarging then
shrinking to blue, then finally enlarging and shrinking the ball into a head-sized, white Fireball.
"Close your eyes," he told everyone, then pushed his paws out. The Fireball was at the hill in an instant,
and exploded in a flash so bright that everyone had to turn away to avoid being blinded, even with their
eyes tightly shut.
Once the light had finally dimmed, everyone looked in awe at what damage had been wrought... and even
Kiwi could not supress a quiet gasp at the scene.
The hill was nothing more than a crater now, surrounded by brush fires and piles of dirt and rocks that
had been thrown away from the massive explosion. Tearn waved his paw from left to right again, and a
long ribbon of water flung out and on top of the flames, extinguishing them.
Vi understood then: the power of the jack-of-all-trades, as opposed to the focused magician: versatility
versus raw strength.
He turned back to Belcanzor, who stared at the newly created hole in awe. "There are two things needed
to wield power like this," he said. The Bishop blinked, and looked at him with wonder. "The first is a
reason, a purpose to have strength such as this," he said, with a quick glance at Shss to accentuate his
point.
"The other... is having the actual power itself," he said. "You have the first prerequisite in abundance; I
can tell from the way you shielded your mate just a minute ago." Belcanzor bit his lower lip in shyness
and said nothing. "However, while purpose is the easiest thing to acquire, it is also the easiest to lose.
Ask yourself what would happen if the Fighter died... would you still have the resolve to carry on?"
Tearn signalled the party to continue down the road. When they were on their way again, he sighed
thoughtfully and clapped his paw on Belcanzor's shoulder. "The first is your issue, but I can most certainly
help you with the second," he said, then chuckled. "We can start with the way you gather and focus
energy... who taught you to aggravate and let it skitter around without the proper controls, anyhow?"
As the day rolled on and the party pushed over the open and calm windy fields, everyone broke up into
unofficial groupings of mutual temperament and like-minded interest. Tearn pulled Belcanzor away from
Shss, his green eyes staring intently through the Dane's body, and quietly picking up on the subtle
movements of energy within his body.
"...Mm-hmm..." the Felpurr hummed, as he stroked Kiwi's tiny back with a furry digit. "Where did you learn
to summon up all that energy again?"
The power calmed in Belcanzor's body as he spoke. "It's Dane culture to maximize one's own strength, to
protect our lands and our way of life," he explained.
Tearn smirked. "And how many Danes have exploded themselves when they couldn't tame this strength,
Bishop?" he asked.
Belcanzor screwed his mouth up, reluctant to answer. "Couple," he finally admitted.
"I assume that means a lot," Tearn replied, but the Bishop simply shrugged. "Control is a Munk concept,"
he almost spat in contempt. "They sit around in their temples and ponder morality all day, but what good
is all that when the enemy is march..."
All of a sudden, he stopped himself. "Sorry," he said, then sighed. "That's the old thinking; the Prophet
warned us about descending this slippery slope."
Tearn nodded, and remained silent for a brief while; he hated looking into living mirrors. "I've met several
Munk," he said at last. "They may not have the power that you blue guys do, but they make up for it in
perfect precision."
He paused, remembering something. "And from what Kiwi tells me, they're as unreasonable about your
power-seeking as you are of their morality," he admonished the Bishop. "If all of you hardheads can't
abandon your black and white positions for one second to listen to the other..."
Belcanzor exhaled slightly through his nose and smirked, and Tearn gave him a disapproving look.
"What's so funny?" he asked.
The younger magic user shook his head and smiled. "I got this same lecture three years ago...
second-hand, but word for word, from the Prophet's mouth," he replied, then looked the Felpurr in the
eyes. "Although the Prophet was less of a bastard about it..."
The Felpurr couldn't supress a chuckle. "Do another wave of water energy," he ordered. Belcanzor
obliged, then slowly let the feeling emanate from his chest and out to every part of his body. With
emphasis on control rather than strength, he felt a rush of pride as Tearn nodded slowly in approval.
"Good..." he said as he stroked his furry chin, "...run it more cleanly through your left arm... yes, yes,
that's it."
With a smile, Shss turned from the once flustered, now confident Belcanzor, and surveyed the plains
around her from her high position. Having a brother like Serkesh had definite advantages... it had been
too long since the last time she was able to travel in tall and proud style such as this.
"Ma te Bo eshk i, Shss. O mo eshk, (Mom and Dad miss you, Shss. I did, too)," said Serkesh to his little
sister.
Without looking at him, she said, "A ket eshk isha. (I didn't miss you guys)." The Lizardman hissed in
amused confusion... and Shss smiled, then put her arm around his neck. "A shia kin isha te A. (I always
felt everyone with me)."
A slight wind blew across Shss' body, making the chilly plate around her torso even more uncomfortable...
but so close to her brother, it was little more than an annoyance. "Shia? (Always?)" Serkesh laughed.
Shss squeezed him and joined him with a giggle of her own. "Ke ket shia, (Ok, maybe not always)," she
admitted. "Ke shia ash isha te A, ane A rak. (But you were all there with me, giving me strength)."
"An eo te I tasha, ne? (Now he and you are together, huh?)" he asked with widened eyes. "Gense eo te I
ishyan ss? (When are you guys going to have kids?)" he teased.
She blushed almost immediately and slapped his head, which felt barely stronger than a tickle to the
laughing Lizardman.
Several feet away, almost out of earshot, Lucciana caught bits and pieces of the discussion, especially
the next part after a brief moment of silence: "Ea te aka zen A iba... (She and the others helped me get
by...)" Shss said, suddenly serious. "Teen, Ki'i, Bai, Ooshiama..." the Fighter counted off the names of her
friends, the ones who had always been there for her.
The next names came with her eyes focused on the ground, in a voice searching and faraway. "Te
Aness, te Hiomi..."
After a deep breath, the Elf quietly excused herself from the conversation she no doubt would overhear;
she and Shss had discussed and remembered enough of the two they had lost on Guardia to fill several
novels worth of experiences. Having essentially been through the pain of losing them several times
already, and with an entire past of problems to deal with, she had no strength for another round just yet.
She figured that Belcanzor and Tearn would most likely be busy for quite a while longer discussing the
arcane. She never saw the point in magical study... once the power ran dry, what could you do to defend
yourself? A basic knowledge of it was enough for her, and she had little desire to hear more.
With the siblings otherwise engaged, and a silent Faerie not interested in any company, Lucciana joined
Vi at the front of the party. They had spoken little enough since they started this journey, and now
seemed a good a time as any to say a true hello.
Thankfully, she started first. "Want one?" Vi asked the Ronin, holding out a somewhat long, but thin, piece
of rolled up white paper. Another was in her mouth, hanging idly off to the side.
Lucciana guessed immediately what it was, and shook her head. "I gave that up years ago... I just stick to
the harmless stuff now." She worked the stem around in her mouth and chewed the end as she spoke.
At first, Vi simply stared at her blankly. Then, her mouth slowly curved upwards, and she chuckled
slightly. "I think you're a little confused as to what this is," she joked, then patted her sides. "In hindsight...
probably should have asked He'Li for a light," she continued. "Now I'll have to use my pistol to get her
going..."
Lucciana moved her thumb in front of Vi's face. "Allow me," she said, and conjured a small flame from the
end of the nail.
Vi puffed the rolled paper to a steady flame, then nodded. "Thanks," she said. "I swore that I'd quit over
ten years ago... never had a desire to do this until recently."
"Really?" the Elf asked. "I could have sworn you looked overjoyed to be back here again."
The eye-patched girl shrugged. "I was... until I remembered why I left in the first place." She took a long
drag, held it, then slowly breathed out a cloud of smoke. Lucciana offered her a comfortable silence in
support.
"They called us 'Guardians of the Key,'" Vi said. "Me and my mom and dad, that is... before they died in a
fire a long time ago."
"Sorry," Lucciana replied with a slight bow, but Vi just shrugged. "Thanks, but not much you can do about
it," she answered. "After they passed, and the Brotherhood couldn't get together enough of their bodies to
bring them back, they took me in and raised me. But, you know..."
She took another drag and sighed. "I couldn't shake the feeling that I was overly different from the other
kids. The whole eye thing certainly didn't help matters," she laughed, with a quick thumb flick at the patch
covering her now empty right eye socket. "But it wasn't until the day I fell into the aqueduct, then down the
waterfall outside the Monastery... you probably saw it... but emerged without a scratch, that the difference
was pretty much confirmed."
Lucciana's eyes went slightly wider. "You fell down that thing? It must have been at least a few hundred
feet high..." she guessed.
"Yeah," Vi said through a smile. "And from what the Monks outside told me, I landed on my head... and
broke my neck," she remembered. "You should have seen the looks of horror on their faces when I stood
up like nothing happened a few seconds later."
The Ronin clicked her tongue. "So you cheated death that day..." she commented.
"Yep," Vi said, then chuckled at a sudden memory. "And several more times during my days as a pirate...
mortal wounds that became nothing more than painful exhaustion in mere seconds."
"Well, if that's all you have, there's nothing to worry about," Lucciana said. "I've cheated death a fair
amount of times myself..."
"Not like I have," Vi interrupted.
Lucciana raised an eyebrow and continued, undaunted. "...and being the only Elf in a land of Humans
lends itself well to feelings of estrangement," she said.
With a slight turn of her head, she gestured behind her. "Ask Shss what it means to feel different," she
said. "She seems to have come to grips with where she was born, how she was raised, and who she has
become."
Vi nodded as she watched Shss and Serkesh share a family moment, one that might have seemed
improbable to just about anybody on their home planet. "I understand what you're saying," the
eye-patched girl said, then turned back to Lucciana. "But how many other Elves are there on Llylgamyn?"
she asked. "How many other Lizardmen, Felpurr, Faeries?"
After a pause, Lucciana conceded, "Quite a few."
The eye-patched girl took another deep drag, and formed the words of what she would say carefully in
her mind. "If it were just some ability of birth or a physical difference, that would be one thing," she finally
said, and exhaled a broad cloud of thick smoke. "But I'm a child of Phoonzang."
She waved her hand to the sky. "It was the whole reason that I went with him back then," she continued.
"The Dark Savant... he seemed like the only one who really understood who I was. He wasn't the insane,
powerhungry being you see now... he actually had a heart.
"And to think that he, of all the powerful Gods in the universe, would be looking for me, of all the confused
and strange girls of the universe, for some special task that no other could pull off," she continued, then
sighed. "Am I the only one left of Phoonzang's descendants? Is there anybody who can truly understand
who I am?"
With a final puff, she finished the last of the tobacco, then held it unthinkingly in her hand. Lucciana
reached down and took it from her, then flung it into the air. At the height of its arc of travel, she
incinerated it with a single blast of fire from her palm. The blackened and dead ashes danced and carried
on the wind, spreading over the grass.
"Thanks," Vi said. Lucciana nodded, and the party walked on in silence for some time. Conversations died
down, until there was only the sound of the rustling wind blowing the grass around them, and their own
dull footsteps.
It started to get dark, before Vi worked up the nerve to ask the question that had been forming in her mind
for so long. "So," she asked her bo-wielding companion, "how did you end up getting over these feelings
of solitude so well?"
All at once, Serkesh laughed uproariously behind them. Shss covered her mouth while she joined him.
"He can't wait until we reach the next town," she explained, "and wants to know if they have some kind of
bar there."
Vi nodded. "Fuzzfas should have some drinks. Why?" she asked.
Serkesh looked down at his little sister for confirmation, then whispered something to her. She nodded,
and he looked back up. "Round... two!" he shouted, grinning, with his eyes on Lucciana.
The Ronin turned around, resting her bo as calmly as she could atop her left shoulder and behind her
neck. "Tch... you'll have to hope you have another handicap this time, you big lug," she taunted. "When
I'm nice and rested, I'll drink you under the table."
On Shss' translation, Serkesh made a fist and flexed his broad, right bicep, then widened his eyes.
Lucciana cocked her head to the side arrogantly and gave him a half-smile, before turning back to the
road ahead of her. "In answer to your question," she said, "I guess I'd have to say..."
"Never mind," Vi interrupted. Lucciana turned towards her in curiosity, and saw that Vi had a new look of
bright hope on her face. "I think I'm starting to understand..."
***
The seven sat quietly around the campfire in the middle of the field, each lost in their own thoughts. From
wood chopped and gathered by Serkesh and Lucciana, to the pit readied by Belcanzor, to the flames
started by Tearn and stirred by Shss, it was a clear symbol of their united effort here on Dominus. The
Lizardman, his Ronin friend and the enigmatic daughter of Phoonzang were already showing signs of
exhaustion.
Tearn, on the other hand, was wide awake. There was nothing like the discussion of Wizardry to keep
him awake and alert, especially when it was he who was in the teaching role. It had been a long time
since he had felt so free, so connected to his craft and the others around him... a feeling he had last felt
teaching his boy the basics of the Fireball those many years ago.
He sighed softly. He knew that they were still waiting for him on the other side... but he also had the
unshakeable feeling that he had disrespected their memory. If they wanted him to protect his fellow
Felpurr and avenge their deaths, he had shamed them by giving up his path of vengeance against the
Rawulf who had ordered and supported their deaths.
On the other hand, if all his family wanted was for him to lead a normal life and forgive those who had
caused him so much grief, he had most certainly disrespected them by killing so many of his hated
enemy in cold blood.
Either way, when it came time for the Felpurr to lay down his life, he was sure he had much to atone for.
As it stood now, all he could do was follow the path of forgiveness that he had chosen on Guardia, in that
dingy and empty tomb so long ago, and hope that...
Tearn? a tiny, familiar voice spoke in his mind. The Felpurr didn't miss a beat as he stood. "I'm going to
take a little walk," he announced. "I'll be right back."
Without another word, he padded across the cold grass to a lonely spot several hundred feet away.
Around the campfire, Lucciana peeked her head up from beside the massive Serkesh, and looked into
the eyes of Shss, sitting so quietly in the arms of Belcanzor.
"What's up, kid?" he asked, with a voice that betrayed his relief at the young Faerie finally feeling the
desire to speak to him.
Sorry I didn't say anything for so long, she said in his mind, too shy to voice her feelings.
"That's all right," he replied aloud. "You know I'm always here when you need me, no matter what you
need, or how long it takes."
Kiwi nodded on his shoulder. It's about Janus and Hiromi, she said.
"I know," he answered. "And I'm pretty sure I know what's going on."
The Faerie was silent and didn't move for some time, but Tearn waited patiently for her to continue. He
sat down on the grass with her, then put a comforting paw on her back.
Do you think... her voice came, then stopped. Tearn remained quiet, waiting with a calm that he afforded
only her. It's... the other two. Serkesh and Belcanzor... she finally continued. It's like... I don't know. I feel
like they've... replaced... Janus and Hiromi. You know?
Tearn nodded. "I know what you mean," he replied. He looked up at the glittering stars above and
exhaled slowly. "When my family... after they were killed, you don't know how many times I've thought the
same thing. Only in my case, it wasn't people who took their place... it was other things taking away their
memory. My training, my anger, my vengeance..."
Kiwi nodded slightly as he continued. "All of it felt like they were threatening to chip away the memory I
had of who they were, new pushing out the old..." he said, then bit his lower lip to stop any tears. When
the danger was gone, he spoke again. "When I saw you in the tomb that day, almost going down the very
path that I did, I knew then what I was losing by refusing to forgive.
"The memory of my family became tainted by rage, and little by little, I forgot about the things that made
them who they were... and our many happy memories together. There was only their deaths, and the
people responsible."
I can't stop replaying what happened to both of them, Kiwi said in his mind. I'm going to forget about
them, aren't I... until there's only the thought of their bodies left to remind me of who they were...
Tearn shook his head. "The six of us..." he said, "...we are the Crusaders."
Kiwi nodded silently. "And I'm not talking about the big guy or the Bishop," Tearn said, which caused her
to immediately perk up. "You, me, lover girl, topknot... and shortstack and Janus, too," he said. "We six
are the Crusaders, and nobody else.
"It doesn't mean that the other two aren't a part of our party now, but nobody can take away what the six
of us had together, ever."
Really? she asked, and he nodded. "I don't care if these two come along," he said. "I don't care if that
drunken Dwarf stumbles after us. I don't care if the Umpani General zombies his way from the grave and
begs to tag along... and I certainly don't care if the Savant renounces his evil ways, puts on a flower lei
and ballerinas along with us. Nobody will ever change who the Crusaders are."
The Faerie laughed suddenly, even as the tears fell from her eyes. As she looked at the ground, she
finally found the strength to speak audibly. "If any of you die... if I die, will you replace me, too?" she
asked.
Tearn gently turned her head to meet his eyes. "I know I don't say it enough," he said, "but even the
Reaper is nothing but an obstacle when it comes to us. If I died tomorrow, I would crawl through hell itself
to find you," he promised.
All at once, her face lifted in a smile... as a voice spoke from behind Tearn. "Until the end, we're all with
you," Shss said, kneeling to stroke the Faerie's cheek with a single finger.
Lucciana approached from the Fighter's side. "We'll all do the same for the missing members of our
clique," she added. "I'll... I'll kill to protect you... and I'll fight through a thousand Savants to bring the other
two back. I promise."
Tearn should have felt annoyed at having been so flagrantly spied upon, but for some reason, he didn't.
Kiwi rushed forward and squeezed the Felpurr's furry feline face, and the other two knelt next to her in
support. When the Faerie drew back, Tearn put his paw out in front of him. "For Janus," he said.
Kiwi fluttered backwards and landed on the digits, bending down to put her tiny hand on the upturned
pads on his paw. "And Hiromi," she added.
Shss put her hand on Kiwi's and simply said, "We are the Crusaders..." Finally, Lucciana rested her hand
atop them all, nodding in agreement. "'til the end," she promised.
Arnika-Trynton Road
Day 5
Early the next morning, the seven continued with higher and more sustained spirits than any of the
previous days they had been on Dominus. The planet of chaos, death and evil had, in the span of a single
night, become one of hope... and continued strength. It was perfect timing, for Dominus had something
entirely different in mind for the party that day.
It began with Tearn, and Kiwi on his shoulder, on the fringe of the group. The two remained near the
back, relating happy memories of their two lost companions for the first time in a long while. Both found it
odd that even with plenty of light shining from the sun ahead of them, that the shadows seemed to be
looming for them. The two chalked it up to fatigue, shadows playing tricks on them.
Then, the shadows burst out and attacked. And if it weren't for Belcanzor, Tearn might have been
skewered.
A swirl of wind appeared underneath the attacking creature and held it in the air. It had a powerful brown
body, muscular legs and a torso and arms that ended in spikes made of pure bone. Unlike the similarly
formed Savant Troopers, these creatures looked powerful enough to take more than a few sword slices or
spells before they finally dropped. Its tiny eyes looked hastily between them all.
And the fact that they were quiet enough to utilize stealth meant...
"Form a ring!" Vi shouted as she drew her pistol, and the party immediately complied. Beads of sweat
started to form on Belcanzor's forehead as Tearn conjured a feeling of ice in his chest. A long lance of
pure ice formed between his paws, and he sliced it out and into the hovering creature's body. Once the
spear was inside the beast, Tearn mercilessly dug it up and around the creature's body as it screeched
pathetically, until it finally stopped struggling.
Belcanzor dropped it on its head while Serkesh grabbed the Dane's shoulder, throwing him into the
middle of the protective ring. "I can't believe this," Vi said. "The very first creatures we meet, too. Of
course they had to be Juggernauts...!"
"What are they?!" Shss demanded, seeing black shapes move in the corner of her eyes.
Vi scanned the area in front of her, sweeping her Frontier Phaser slowly in front of her. "Stealthers," she
said simply. "Big, mean, armored stealthers..."
"Over there..." Lucciana said, with a nod to the space right in front of her.
Vi sighed in exasperation. "And they had to bring friends, didn't they!" she shouted, then broke rank and
charged for the distant, newcomer enemy vines.
"Hey, wait...!" Kiwi called out.
"Don't break the formation!" Vi yelled back. "If those Rank Weeds come over here and start spitting their
pollen, we're done for!"
Only one of the Juggernauts was following her, but before it had a chance to strike, Kiwi blasted down
between its needle-arm and Vi. She clasped its arm in both hands, stopping it just at her chin. As Vi spun
and sliced the head off of the first walking red vine with her sword, then blasted the next with her pistol, a
small trickle of blood started to run down Kiwi's chin.
"Almost," she spat. The Juggernaut struggled vainly to pull its arm away, then as it lunged with its other,
she used its own momentum to flip the several hundred pound beast over and onto its head. It saw stars
while she flew up, flipped over and blasted into its kneecaps, one after the other. The crying beast lay on
two broken legs, unable to strike back as Kiwi flew back to join the fray behind her.
The Juggernauts pounced forward at the group all at once, an action born of either centuries of evolution,
or an unsettling intelligence. They all seemed to be purposefully staying away from Serkesh, though it did
none of them any good. Lucciana, busy with one of the beasts, did not see the other charging from her
right... in the same way that it did not expect Serkesh from its left.
"GRARGH!" the Lizardman bellowed loudly, causing both friend and foe alike to falter for the briefest of
seconds. Then, using the flat of his two-handed axe, he baseball swung the weapon into the side of the
Juggernaut's head. With a loud screech, the creature was blasted off of the ground and flung a dozen feet
away, where it tumbled and rolled to a silent stop even farther away.
Lucciana smirked confidently at her opponent's sudden loss of backbone at the Lizardman's yell. When it
recovered and lunged for her, she spit the rigid stem from her mouth and into the eye of the creature. As
it stumbled back, she planted her bo down and behind her, stopping another Juggernaut's attack in the
process, and lept forward to kick the stem farther into the creature's eye.
It swung wildly, hitting nothing but air. Lucciana spun around its desparate thrusts and thwacked it across
the back with her bo, then flipped the staff around in her hands and drove it blunt end first into the
creature's spine. Though it continued to jaw and move its head about on the ground, it was paralyzed... at
least, for now.
Serkesh felt a point in his kidney, and turned to see that a Juggernaut had stabbed him cleanly in the
back. The Lizardman laughed loud and hard as the creature tried furiously to penetrate his thick hide,
then nearly jumped in fright as an explosion of fire rocked the creature's left temple. It spun and dropped,
Tearn charged another Fireball spell, and Kiwi fluttered in front to protect the Felpurr from the next attack.
The cut in the Faerie's chin slowly faded as she heard Belcanzor chanting behind her. She turned to give
him a thumbs up, and without looking, pushed aside the slice of a Juggernaut behind her. She ran up its
arm, then flew under it to hyperextend and break its elbow joint from the other side. Finally, she kicked up
the limb to jab the creature in a pressure point just inside its armpit.
Shss exchanged parries and thrusts with the Juggernaut in front of her, with the laugh of her brother and
explosions of Fireballs distant in her mind. She skirted and danced around Juggernauts reaching from the
shadows as Kiwi and Serkesh began making short work of them, with her eyes only on her opponent.
Even when a Juggernaut managed to impale her through the left shoulder, right where her armor
stopped, she simply ignored the grievous wound and closed in. Had she not been wearing the protective
gear, she later thought, she shuddered to think what the Juggernaut might have hit, instead.
Finally, an opening. She ducked under its quick thrust and sliced one of the Psispear's hooks into its
neck, then engaged the electric globe at the end. As the Juggernaut twitched and screeched in pain, she
lifted its great body into the air, then flipped it on top of a cowardly Juggernaut striking from the shadows
to her left.
She held them there until the Psispear was almost completely out of juice. Then, she unhooked the
Juggernauts, flipped the weapon over and drove the enchanted spearhead through both of their flying
bodies. She left it impaled inside them, then spun around backwards and tripped a third Juggernaut to the
ground.
Kiwi was there to meet it when it got up, driving both of her elbows into the back of its skull. Just as soon,
though, she darted out of the way to avoid Serkesh's flat-side axe swing to its jaw, and the Juggernaut
bounced down the road with tiny yelps. "Nice!" she shouted out, then flipped over Serkesh's head,
planted her feet on his back, then launched towards the next Juggernaut heading for an exposed
Belcanzor.
Tearn watched her come slowly at the creature, and at the other one approaching from just ahead of her.
It reached its arm back in preparation to strike the busy Faerie... and she was going too fast to stop
before it would get her! He growled and strode forward, extended his claws, then furiously raked them
across the Juggernaut's beady eyes.
"You will not touch her!" he roared, putting his leg out to trip the beast. When it fell, he put his left foot
atop the beast's back, then held his right paw out and conjured a fan of pointed Whipping Rocks to lash
into its head. The stones dug deeper and deeper until its head was nothing more than a pile of goo,
joining the Juggernaut on the ground that Kiwi easily dispatched with a one-two punch.
When the battle ended, the party gathered together to check and lick its wounds. Belcanzor went from
person to person to close nicks and cuts, and heal the large wound in Shss' shoulder. Everyone breathed
heavily from the sudden effort, until the Bishop grinned and waved his hand among them; their fatigue
was eliminated by his Rest All spell.
"Nice work..." Tearn started... until he realized someone was missing. "Oh, hell..." he grumbled, and
pushed Serkesh aside to get a view of the battle Vi had started with the plants.
It was a battle she had apparently ended, to his great relief. Blood trickled from her forehead, and she
had red streaks on her body where the vines had whipped and beat at her, but she had a confident smile
on her face as Lucciana helped her limp back to the party. "One more," the Ronin called out breathlessly,
and Belcanzor broke away from Shss to tend to her.
Vi coughed and hacked as she spoke. "Gods, those things smell," she wheezed, even as she smiled.
Belcanzor quickly began to clear the red stripes and cuts from her body with waves of his hands.
"I know..." Lucciana, her nose scrunched up, answered. She waited until Vi could stand on her own, then
took several quick steps away to take a few deep breaths of clean air. While she was there, she plucked
another stem from the ground and stuck it in her mouth, happy to taste a rush of sugar from the end that
helped to alleviate at least some of the rancid smell.
Shortly after, the smelly, sweaty, jittery party continued down the long and winding road towards Trynton.
The trees got more densely packed as they travelled on, most likely a result of their distance from Arnika,
and a lack of any pressing need for monster-guarded lumber.
Thankfully, as the sun rose in the sky, the shadows that spread through the increasingly tall grasses and
towering trees shrank, leaving little opportunity for more of the Juggernauts to hide effectively.
In fact, as a fully visible mob of adventurers headed down the road, most of the vines, four-legged tusked
beasts and smaller versions of the Juggernauts left them alone. There was certainly strength in numbers,
but even moreso when the fight was fair and in broad daylight.
After a few more hours of travel, Vi slowed from her position at the head of the party. "Watch this," she
said, gesturing ahead of them.
The road forked in four directions: behind them, directly ahead of them, and out to the left and right
around two grassy hills. Atop the hills were several trees with leaves of red, green and brown.
The sun was starting to set as they approached, splashing the sky into striking bands of red, orange and
purple. Ahead, they could see small groups of the leaves flutter down on the wind, scattering across the
road ahead of them and through the grasses. The wind blew calmly, keeping them comfortably cool from
the rays of the sun above, and carried the leaves in random and beautiful twisting patterns around them.
"Very nice..." whispered Belcanzor, with a tingle running down his spine. Serkesh wrapped his massive
arms around Lucciana, Shss and the Dane, then widened his eyes in pleasure. Even Tearn looked mildly
impressed, though he did his best to hide his face in his brown robes. Kiwi giggled at the obvious facade.
They travelled for a few more hours, stopping at another fork in the road only a few hours away from the
beautiful hills. "About two thirds of the way there, guys!" Vi promised. She pointed south. "Just down there
is the cemetary where many of the Arnikan greats are buried. Trynton's just a day's walk over... um..."
She squinted her eye through the darkening fields to the distant walls of the cemetary. "What is it?" Tearn
asked.
Vi hummed thoughtfully, and furrowed her brow. "Do you guys see something down there?" she asked.
"A light of some kind, maybe..."
Shss translated for Serkesh, and he squinted and scanned as best he could. "I see! Yes!" he yelled.
"What that?"
The Fighter widened her eyes. "Shike, (Ghosts)," she hissed. Serkesh returned her look, then gripped his
axe with a toothy smile. "I crush good!" he pronounced, then stalked down the road to the graveyard.
"Why exactly are we going to a place where dead people like to hang out?" Tearn asked. It seemed he
was the only one with reservations; once Vi and Serkesh started their confident way south, the others
began to follow.
Lucciana gestured after them with her bo. "Come on, fuzzball," she said. "He'Li said Marten came down
this way to Trynton... maybe he didn't make it all the way."
Kiwi tapped the side of his head. "That means we could have a little present waiting for us down there,"
she said with a smile, and Tearn shrugged. "All right," he conceded. "We've faced worse than a bunch of
Ghosts."
The very atmosphere around the cemetary was in stark contrast to the sights of nature that they had left
behind. It might have only been the bright moon above contrasting with the dark and foreboding
graveyard below, but there was something not right with this place.
It was constructed simply enough: wide paths cut off by short, but lengthy, stone walls wound around in
the cardinal directions, keeping the graves safe from the trespasses of anything too short and stupid to
know how to jump over them. There was also a chain running along the tops of the walls, along with
spiked crosses that held them up. The wind eeriely swayed and clinked them with every tiny draft.
"I'll take point," Belcanzor said.
"Are you sure?" Shss asked. She squeezed his hand in concern, even as she gripped her Psispear in the
other.
The Bishop looked back at her and the party, and winked. "Please..." he said smugly, "the undead are my
forte." Shss smiled and squeezed hard enough to make him yelp in pain; the smugness fled from his face,
and was immediately replaced with embarrassment.
There was a rushing up ahead, like the sound of the wind... only tempered with a soft moaning. Belcanzor
signalled everyone down, and when they had all huddled behind one of the three foot tall walls, he
peeked his head around the corner to see the source of the sound. "It's haunted, all right," he whispered.
"And they're coming this way."
"What are they?" Lucciana hissed.
Belcanzor squinted his eyes and ran them along the group of Ghosts coming towards them. "A woman...
and three little fuzzy guys with spears," he whispered back. "They're extremely pale, almost transparent...
really low power. I'll take care of them easily."
Vi peeked her head out slowly, then immediately pulled back. "Trynnie," she whispered. "As cute in Ghost
form as they are in the flesh." Belcanzor hushed her, to her mild annoyance, then waited until the Ghosts
were merely feet away.
When they were in range, he suddenly stepped out and pointed a single finger at them. "Begone!" he
shouted. The Ghosts' faces and bodies melted in an instant and exploded in bright flashes of light... and
before any of the others had the time to get up and charge, they were gone.
"See?" he asked. "Easy stuff." Tearn clapped him on the shoulder as he passed.
As the seven passed over the place where the Ghosts had died... again... Belcanzor stopped, halting
Shss with him. Without a word, he knelt down, kissed his left index and middle finger, then pressed them
to the ground, muttering something in a language she could not understand. When he was finished, he
rose solemnly, then quickened his step to join the others.
Serkesh took point next, kneeling as low as he possibly could as he approached two great metal gates.
Of course, his kneeling brought him down to the easily visible height of everyone else, so there was little
point in doing it at all. Still, it seemed the best course of action.
He signalled for everyone to follow him into the graveyard, behind a couple of large headstones made of
solid marble. As she hunched behind one and looked about, Lucciana couldn't shake the feeling that at
any second, a hand would burst from the earth beneath her and drag her underground with it. She
pledged to someday find out how to make her imagination tangible, so she could then beat it to a pulp
with her bo.
It didn't take a scout to see the undead creature up ahead. A tall Mummy, with scythes for arms and
wrapped in dirty old bandages, marched back and forth along the entrance of a great mausoleum. Oddly
enough, it seemed to be protecting the tomb, rather than shambling aimlessly like most Mummies did.
"I got this one," Vi said, and aimed her Frontier Phaser straight at the Mummy's head. She eased the
trigger back until it screamed forth a searing hot laser, which instantly penetrated the embalmed
creature's skull and came out the other side.
It stumbled mindlessly for a second or two until Vi darted past it, her White Sword flashing through the
Mummy's torso. It immediately exploded into a cloud of dust and fluttering, dirty ribbons, which seemed
ill-equipped to hold a creature of its size.
As the others approached, she covered her mouth and waved them away. "Might not be a smart idea to
walk through the dust," she said from behind her hand. "Give yourself a good twenty feet or so." Her
friends complied, and soon enough, they were all standing at the entrance to the undead tomb.
The skeleton of something long dead and humanoid, thankfully unmoving, lay on the steps, as if it were
crawling for the inside before something got it. All eyes, however, were on the open door leading into the
humble crypt, where a writhing and moaning skeleton wrapped in an old black shroud hung on a rope,
suspended above a pit of molten lava.
Everyone's weapon was out as they approached, but the creature was held fast as it muttered and
twitched insanely. More than a few of them felt pangs of pity eclipse their fear for the suffering being... but
Tearn was not one of them. He reached into his robe and removed a bottle of solid blue liquid, then
unstoppered the top. "Stand back," he ordered everyone. "I'm gonna douse it..."
"Wait," Vi said, stepping towards it.
"What are you doing?!" Tearn demanded. "Get away from that thing!"
The eye-patched girl just waved him away. "It's trying to say something," she said. The skeletal creature
lunged as far forward as it could towards her, trying to take a bite of her ear or anything else it could sink
its teeth into. All the while, it muttered strangely. "AMI TERAM, MELIK, MELIK, MELIK, MELIK..." the
corpse jabbered endlessly.
Then, suddenly, it shook violently and stretched farther than Vi thought possible, almost on top of her with
its clacking teeth biting down. She just as soon felt herself being pulled back by an unseen force, behind
the party, where she saw Tearn push his paw violently towards her. When the paw fell to his side, the
pushing feeling left, and she stumbled into Serkesh's body.
"Wait!" she shouted, but Tearn didn't listen. He threw the potion at the corpse, and it shattered on impact.
Luckily, as the ghoul writhed and screeched in pain and sent glass shards flying about, the Felpurr was
quick enough to throw up a Missile Shield to keep them from harming his companions. The shards that
were headed for them struck an invisible barrier of air at the entrance of the tomb, and collected in a pile
at the top of the stairs.
Finally, the ghoul roared one last time, then sank into the lava below. Its cry eventually died out, and soon
stopped echoing among the headstones around them and the mountains beyond.
The feeling around the graveyard, strangely enough, slowly began to change with the creature's death.
After a few seconds had passed, the atmosphere around them started to feel lighter, more airy than
before.
Whatever hold the ghoul had on the spirits of those who rested here... was now gone.
"I had it covered," he said, turning back to Vi. "Are you all right?"
She shook her head in disbelief. "Yes, but..." she said.
"Good," Tearn interrupted. "Any information we could have gotten from that thing was immediately
suspect, given how hard it was trying to kill you, and how nuts it was."
Vi sighed... she hated to admit it, but he was right.
"However," he continued, pointing into the tomb, "there's a little something at the back of the tomb we
could check out..." After the Missile Shield died down, they all saw it: a brown chest striped with black, its
contents unknown.
Tearn pointed to each side of the tomb's entrance. "Take cover," he ordered, and raised a paw to the
chest. When everyone was safe, he flicked his wrist upwards to pop the lid, then spun to the safety of the
wall next to him.
A dozen daggers flew out the entrance of the tomb and landed harmlessly on the grass of the graveyard.
"Thought so," he said, then kicked on a quick Levitate spell to fly over the broken glass, and to the
goodies in the chest. Everyone was ready to move from their positions of safety, but aside from a little
rustling, no sounds of battle or danger came from within.
"What is it?" Lucciana asked. She heard Tearn snort derisively, and smirked at the coming statement.
"Two weak healing potions, a pile of rocks and some lame horn," he called back, then emerged to set
each of the items on the ground outside. The seven crowded around in a circle, thoroughly depressed.
"Any of these look like the Destinae Dominus?" Tearn asked Vi.
She shook her head. "No tablets, no," she said.
Kiwi lifted off of Tearn's shoulder to kneel by the horn. "This might be something," she said. "Hiromi..."
She stopped, then swallowed hard. It was still too soon for her... but she forged ahead nonetheless.
"Hiromi and I heard of something like this back on Llylgamyn. It was supposed to call a ghost to give us a
boat ride," she explained, then was surprised to hear herself giggle at a sudden memory. "Smitty was
pretty mad when he found out we lost it..."
Vi knelt and picked it up as Tearn shook his head. "He can probably tell you as well as I that this horn's
cursed," she said. "It makes the user go insane... and it would take a magnificent musician to handle its
power."
Everyone looked amongst themselves, though for some reason, all eyes stopped on Lucciana. She
raised her hands in a surrendering gesture and said, "Don't look at me. I failed my shamisen and koto
classes." With a smirk, she added, "Partly the reason I studied the sword..."
"Well, that was a colossal waste of time," Tearn said impatiently, then turned away from the group. In an
instant... and with a nudge from Kiwi... he relented. "But entirely necessary, I suppose. If we hadn't come,
it would have bothered me all the way to Trynton. Shall we rest up?"
A chorus of laughter followed him as he walked away. "Shut up," he grumbled. "I've been walking all day,
and I'm tired. We all need a good night's sleep."
Just north of the now cleansed graveyard, the party set up camp. Belcanzor set up a special alarm, the
same one he had the previous night. A Shadow Hound quietly patrolled the outskirts of the campsite,
ready to howl at a moment's notice should something come too close.
Vi lay next to Lucciana, recounting days of her rebellious youth with Myles and He'Li under the stern
watch of Lord Braffit. The Ronin fell to sleep on these tales, lying next to the Lizardman with a slight
snoring problem. His arm was above both her and Shss' heads protectively, even though his sister and
Belcanzor were cuddled rather cutely and quietly next to him.
Aside the promising bishop, Tearn and Kiwi silently slept, Kiwi's welfare on Tearn's mind, and the fate of
their lost friends on the Faerie's. And aside them, full circle, was the ever excited but perpetually isolated
Vi Domina. Eventually, even she succumbed to the bliss of sleep.
Trynton
Day 6
The sun had risen high above them when they arrived in Trynton, and it was every bit as beautiful as Vi
described it. A literal wall of trees divided the entrance to Trynton's dense forests and the much clearer
road between it and Arnika, but even then, she was easily able to point out the hometown of the Trynnie.
The tree was absolutely massive, reaching up so high into the darkening clouds above that everyone,
including Serkesh and Shss, lost sight of the canopy before it could visibly end. "They live up there, in the
rafters and branches of the tree, high above the reach of even the most persistent of predators," Vi
explained. "Kind smart for 'prey,' huh?"
They crossed an arched, wooden bridge over a calm river into the most dense part of the forest. There
were trees everywhere, complete with chittering bugs and chirping birds that made the lush green and
brown around them even more beautiful.
Shss and Lucciana were at the front, and stepped into a grassy clearing. When she was sure it was safe,
the Fighter beckoned for Belcanzor to come. Surrounded by so much beauty, she couldn't help but kiss
him on the cheek as he came by.
Serkesh burst from the trees then, clapping both of them on the backs with a hearty laugh, a gesture that
almost knocked them off of their feet.
Vi, and Tearn with Kiwi on his shoulder, came next. "Almost there," she said.
"Good, 'cause Tearn's feet are getting tired," the Faerie replied.
Tearn flicked her playfully with his paw. "I don't need you to complain for me, kid," he laughed, and she
giggled in response.
Suddenly, Serkesh and Shss both simultaenously looked to the trees ahead of them. There was no
sound, no movement that made them think something was there... it was more of a feeling, a sense of
overwhelming malice. Before they had time to react, a blur darted out, darting straight for the Lizardman.
With a loud thwack, the blur was stopped. Lucciana held her bo down on top of their new opponent's
weapon, holding it to the ground. The weapon was a black Psi Rod with four hooks... and the opponent,
was a T'Rang.
Nine feet tall, spidery black gown, four claws and sinister eyes next to clacking mandibles. It was Shritis
T'Rang... the very same T'Rang who had driven his poisonous stingers into Shss' body and nearly killed
her.
Only this time, Lucciana was not even close to losing control. She held his Psi Rod on the ground as the
birds fluttered in terror from the trees around them, and the sun shone warmly down.
The T'Rang Assassin slithered backwards and dislodged his Psi Rod from underneath her bo staff. "You,"
Lucciana said calmly, with her voice bordering on happiness. "Why are you here?"
Her companions advanced on both of her sides, but she stretched her bo out to the right and blocked
Tearn and Kiwi with her arm on her left. "Hang on. He's mine," she said with a grin, and advanced alone.
Shritis hissed a laugh. "And who are you, prick-ear?" he asked. "Sssome war orphan out for vengeance?"
She merely chuckled. "My name is Lucciana. As for who I am..." she said, as her face grew even paler
and her canines grew into the tiniest of points through her smile, "...you've been given enough clues to
figure it out for yourself. Shall we duel?"
Serkesh scratched his head in confusion, but Shss simply patted his shoulder comfortingly. "Sshsha sha,"
(Everything's ok)," she assured him; Lucciana knew what she was doing.
At that moment, though, she noticed another T'Rang slink from the shadows towards the Ronin and
Assassin. Before she could impale and stun the helpless T'Rang, though, Shritis himself stopped him.
The nine foot Assassin hissed something in his native tongue, which the other T'Rang responded to by
backing off and sitting under a nearby tree. He took out a book from his brown robe, then peered through
his spectacles to calmly read.
Shss sat down as well, and soon enough, everyone else followed her lead. Belcanzor and Serkesh still
seemed concerned for the embattled Ronin, but the other four knew her well enough to know that even if
she needed help, she would never accept it during a duel.
Not only that... she was tough enough to take care of things on her own.
I hope, the Fighter thought grimly as she watched.
Lucciana used the downed bo as a vault and flung her body forward and up. She kicked Shritis in the jaw,
as one of his stingers stung her leg and injected it with a paralyzing agent.
The T'Rang hissed with a mandible click of arrogance, and slithered to where the girl had tumbled to a
stop. Surprisingly, she continued the fall with a surprising roll of her own, then stood up only feet away
with her back to him.
"Imposssible..." he hissed.
She tossed her black hair backwards and turned to face him. "What, you think I've been sitting around
doing nothing since we last met?" she asked through the stem in her mouth.
Shritis' eyes went from the Elf, to Shss and her weapon, then back again. He laughed aloud. "I remember
you..." he said. "The Guardian weakling whosse friend I killed."
Lucciana cocked her head to the side and looked at him strangely. "Wrong on all three counts," she
replied. "My friend is fine... and I certainly seem to remember someone else fleeing into the night. Did you
forget to mention that?"
Shritis pointed both of his stingers at her menacingly. "And here we are again," she continued. "Different
weapon, but the same outcome... except it'll be done in fifteen seconds instead of thirty this time..."
The T'Rang hissed warningly. "Then come and get me," he challenged. "Or are you all talk?"
With a shrug, she ran towards him, spun, and wheeled her bo around in a wide, vertical arc towards his
head. Shritis caught the attack between two of the hooks on his Psi Rod and twisted, sending the bo out
of the girl's hands.
Lucciana pushed his staff down with her right hand and jumped with a left-handed uppercut into his jaw.
As he recoiled from the blow, he whipped the base of the Psi Rod around and clacked her across the
temple.
Despite how brutal the strike was, she was still standing. He flipped the Psi Rod around in his claws and
jabbed two of the hooks into her body, then flicked the buttons to activate the electric current.
The girl chuckled confidently, then grabbed Shritis' left claw. As the current coursed through her body,
and into his, both of the titanic fighters saw sparks and lights dance in front of their eyes.
Shritis let go of the buttons and pushed the girl over, who rolled out towards her fallen bo and stood with it
held calmly behind her. The purple welt on her temple slowly returned to the color of her skin, and the
tears in her robe soon revealed white skin, rather than deep red cuts.
The Assassin relaxed his arm and pointed his Psi Rod away from him. "Done already?" he asked.
She took a deep breath and pointed her bo at him. "Just giving you a chance to rest," she replied.
He reached out and beckoned the girl to him with an arrogant smirk. "The great Sshritisss T'Rang
expectsss no quarter, and givess none," he hissed, then slithered forward, with his Psi Rod's hooks
gleaming in the sunlight. Lucciana backflipped and swept her bo upwards, barely missing Shritis' body by
an inch.
As he advanced and thrust, she backflipped and swept, neither managing to catch the other with even the
most faint of blows. Over and over they continued the bizarre dance of flips and thrusts, until they pushed
out of the trees to the edge of a tall cliff, which looked out over the ocean.
"She'll be ok, right?" Belcanzor asked.
Shss looked after their retreating bodies, then nodded. "She took him down pretty ferociously last time,"
she said. "If there was going to be trouble between them, she would have gotten injured by now."
"Really, though!" the Dane insisted. "What if she dies?"
She looked away and sighed. "That T'Rang... he might have been the one to start that whole mess with
the Bane King emerging, the Rattkin..." Belcanzor looked at her strangely, so she elaborated. "Shritis
almost killed me," she explained. "I was a step away from death's door when Hiromi helped bring me
back... and I don't think Lucciana forgave herself for allowing it to happen."
He stopped her. "Wait... Bane King? Rattkin? There's a lot I'm not getting here..."
The Fighter nodded. "It would probably be better if she told you herself," she said. "But needless to say,
this fight is something she needs... to prove to herself that she can be of use to us, and to make it up to
me, I guess." She looked to the cliffs before she continued. "Though I should have told her... I'm the one
who owes her so much more."
Heavy stuff, Tearn thought to Kiwi. She nodded... and soon noticed the other T'Rang looking at them. She
waved at him, and a strange cloud next to him, with a friendly grin, but the T'Rang simply looked back
down at his book without a response.
Lucciana kicked out a loose rock on the edge of the cliff towards Shritis, then pushed forward at the same
time. He used his Psi Rod to knock the stone away from him, but took her bo in his chest almost at the
same time. She quickly swung it out and up, then thrust down powerfully onto his robed shoulder.
He shot his right claw out and into her side, raking her ribs as he stung outwards towards her neck. The
girl dodged to the side as she kicked the sharp claw away from her, but lost her balance and started to
teeter over the side of the cliff.
Shritis swept his Psi Rod behind her legs, stung her twice in the chest, then pushed her over the side with
both of his free claws. She cried out in surprise as she disappeared over the edge and out of sight.
Breathing heavily, the T'Rang carefully slithered to the edge and peered over to watch her final moments.
Suddenly, a blast of fire struck him full on in the eyes. He swung his Psi Rod out wildly with an angry
shout, recovering just in time to see the now floating girl lunge forward with her bo thrusting for his neck.
She didn't expect him to recover so quickly, and flew straight into nothing. Shritis stung her again as she
passed... and they both soon noticed that her movements were starting to slow considerably; his venom
was starting to take effect.
Lucciana's Levitation spell wore off and she dropped to the ground. She heard wind rustling behind her,
and wasted no time in jumping forward to the nearest tree, and into the safety and cover of its branches.
"I thought you wanted to ssettle thiss, weakling!" Shritis shouted, slithering into the trees after her, and
sliced through the tree she had taken refuge in with a single swipe of his Psi Rod. It fell to the ground,
while her shadow lept into another tree just beyond her.
Just need a little time for the poison to wear off... she thought hurriedly. The T'Rang sliced through the
trunk of the tree she was now in, and as it teetered, she lept to the next.
Through the forest, Chief Gari of the Trynnie came forward, adjusting his once intimidating mask. Now, it
served simply to mask his nervousness at speaking to these two outsiders. "Stop!" he shouted. "You will
cease this battle at once! You are hurting the forest, and... agh!"
He cried out as a metallic ringing sound filled the air, then the tree holding the slim shadow next to him
toppled down towards him. He squeaked in terror as he dove to the ground, just barely avoiding being
crushed by the massive trunk, when another tree slowly tipped and fell towards his head from the left. He
scrambled to his feet and fled back into the forest, intent on getting at least a hundred other Trynnie
behind him before trying diplomacy again.
The battle continued through many more slices, thrusts and shocks that left both combatants drained and
wounded. At last, they stopped before one another, breathing heavily, but not letting their eyes off of the
other.
Shritis' body was burned, bruised and battered, and he leaned on his Psi Rod with the sheer exertion of
the seemingly endless fight. Lucciana sat on the ground across from him, cuts on her cheek, chest and
legs that were not healing with the same gusto that they first had.
"You've improved, prick-ear, conssidering you fight with a sstick," he hissed.
She grinned. "And you... well, you're about the same," she taunted.
Shritis slowly drew forward with a chuckle. Lucciana noticed that he seemed to feel quite sure of himself,
though considering the amount of damage he had taken, it seemed unlikely that his arrogance was
anything more than empty bravado.
Shss appeared suddenly at her side, making the Ronin take stock of the injuries that kept her from
hearing her friend's approach. "We should really get going," she said to the now paler Lucciana. "You
know the Dark Savant isn't going to wait for us."
After a deep breath, Lucciana nodded. "Yeah, I think I taught the roach a good enough lesson."
On that, Shritis suddenly slithered forward and was on her in a second, then burrowed his black
venom-dripping stinger through her chest, directly into her heart. It hurt, a lot, but...
She immediately jumped and decked him in the jaw with surprising force, and he withdrew his stinger and
stumbled backwards. He dug his Psi Rod into the ground again to catch his balance, then seemed to...
somewhat dizzily... prepare for a sudden rush.
"Ah ah ah," Lucciana simply scolded with impressive bravery, but a telltale wince; she hadn't moved. "Not
that it hasn't been fun, but we've got more important things to do right now."
Shritis looked confused, but simply spread his claws out slowly. "Sso it will be you who runss after all," he
goaded.
She laughed. "Nice try," she replied. "We'll finish this later." She waved her bo at him, already showing
splotches of blackness on her face from his poison.
The T'Rang bellowed something in his alien tongue, and his brown-robed companion closed his book to
join the towering Assassin. They continued into the forest together, and Kiwi caught the smaller one's
attention again. "See you jokers later!" she said with a mischievous grin.
The sword-wielding T'Rang made a face only an exasperated old man could make, and along with Shritis
and the odd cloud at their side, pushed through the trees towards the western edge of Trynton.
"Are you ok?" Shss asked Lucciana, with her hand on her shoulder.
Her friend nodded. "He injected some of his poison into my heart," she said, but before anybody got
worried, she added, "the Bane King should take care of it soon enough, though."
She felt a warm hand on her neck, then a pulse of energy that travelled down her spine, into her chest
and through her entire body. The black splotches on her face began to disappear before everyone's eyes.
"Just in case," Belcanzor said with a wink and a smile. Lucciana bowed in thanks, then put her arm
around Shss' head and drew her close.
"Thank you too, sis," she whispered in her ear, and kissed the Fighter on the cheek. Then, just as quickly,
she let the Fighter go and took point. "I was holding back," she bragged. "I could have taken him down at
any time."
Shss, her body tingling with happiness, took Belcanzor's hand in hers and followed with a great smile.
Lucciana wished immediately that she hadn't gone first, though, when a trio of spear-wielding Trynnie
appeared and threatened her with cute growls. The four foot tall Trynnie were fuzzy from head to toe,
their heads round, and their eyes a deep, innocent black. They wore only brown shorts to cover up, and
their feet ended in three cute, fuzzy toes.
The Ronin resisted the urge to pat them each on the head as Vi came up beside her. "Trynnie!" she
exclaimed.
The less-than-brave spearmen backed off, just before a Trynnie in a large and scary red and black mask
approached. He hunched forward, as if trying to get a better, but still cautious, look at her. "Vi?" he finally
asked in a squeaky voice.
The eye-patched girl grinned and nodded, then gestured to the Trynnie as she looked back at the other
six. "It is my pleasure to present the esteemed Chief Gari, ruler of Trynton," she introduced him. "Come
say hello, guys!"
Two Professors
Trynton
Day 6
"...and that's about it," Vi finished.
The short and masked Trynnie Chief, Gari, remained still, digesting the story piece by piece. "Uh huh..."
he muttered. "It's a good thing you came with these people Vi, or I might not have believed any of this.
We've had trouble enough with you visitor from the stars, sliding on in like you own the place and wading
through our most sacred boughs, to deny you entrance..."
Vi looked up from the hollow trunk of the massive tree to the branches above. It didn't seem like there
was a war going on... "What's up?" she asked.
Gari shook his head and sighed. "The Cosmic Lords must be having a slow month," he said. "I know
picking on the Trynnie is a universal pastime for them, but it looks like they're trying to top one another
now. First, the giant Rats show up... with their even larger breeders... and take over the highest bough."
Shss winced. They couldn't have possibly found their way here... she thought.
Lucciana's stomach flip-flopped at the thought of meeting them again. The last thing she expected to see
was the race of people that had suffered so deeply at her hands, with nothing to offer as penance... aside
from her very life.
Still, if that is what they desire... she thought, who am I to object? How many thousands have suffered,
died because of me?
Shss watched her friend, not knowing what to say as Gari continued. "The Rapax are on the move, the
Rynjin are antsy about something, big bugs are trying to sneak in... are we Trynnie truly that evil, or that
tasty, to constantly throw warriors of every race at our beloved tree?"
He sighed. "I suppose it doesn't concern any of you," he said quietly. "If you're looking for Marten, I would
advise heading to the Seventh Bough. The Shaman is there, and he should know where the lost Higardi
and the Destinae Dominus are."
Vi put her hand on the short Trynnie's fuzzy shoulder. "We'll stay and help if you need us," she offered.
Tearn rolled his eyes. Between guard duty, and trying to pick the lock that protected the treasure that held
the map that pointed to the monster that guarded the tablet, or whatever inane quest this planet had for
them, they would never find the artifact in time.
To his relief, Gari shook his head. "It would take an army of far greater than seven people to fix our
problems," he said. "I have hope that the Cosmic Lords will take pity upon us and bless us with one, but
for now..."
He gestured into the hollow tree trunk with his scepter. "Go on in," he said. "Fuzzfas should be in his
shop, just after the elevator. He'll tell you how the Seventh Bough works." He paused slightly, then looked
among every person present. "We may be a little high strung right now, but try and enjoy yourselves."
"Thanks, Chief," Vi said, then headed in, with Serkesh, Kiwi and Tearn right behind.
Belcanzor was about to follow, when he realized that Shss was not beside him. He turned to see that she
and Lucciana both remained just outside the tree trunk... and the tension in the air between them was
enough to tell him that something serious was going on.
"Are you sure?" Shss asked. "Even if it means you'll be killed, you'll go?"
Lucciana took a deep breath, let it out, then nodded. "If that is what it takes to make up for what
happened... I will abide by it," she flatly replied. She started to walk into the tree when Shss stopped her
with an outstretched arm. "I can't just sit here and watch you kill yourself," she said.
The Ronin patted her friend's supportive hand. "Thank you for being there for me," she said, but gently
shrugged her hand off. "But if you could feel their pain and terror, the feelings they had just before they
died, I'm sure you wouldn't be so ready to stop me. Their screams haunt me to this day."
She steeled her will and slowly drew forward, inches closer to her possible death with every step, like a
prisoner walking to her execution. "I'm ready," she said in a calm voice.
The Trynnie carved a long and winding path through the tree trunk that supported their home in the
clouds. They lit the dark and humble passage with the same ingenuity that helped them create a home
above the reach of their natural predators: they captured and fed tiny, glowing green bugs within glass,
which in turn lit the tree in a soft emerald glow.
A pair of the tiny and fuzzy creatures walked towards the group with spears in their paws. They smiled
and flipped their weapons around to point them safely behind their backs, then wound around a table
covered with beautiful vases, flowers and a wooden dish. The table was actually a large log sliced neatly
in half, another gift of the natural world that the Trynnie so revered.
One by one, the party wandered the confusing network of ladders, narrow passageways, dead ends and
archways in the great tree trunk. Serkesh went first, though his great size seemed to put a lot of undue
stress on the poor ladders. Once he reached a higher level, though, he was able to reach down to quickly
help the others up. Shss, Lucciana and Vi jumped up and straight into his beefy arms, but Belcanzor,
Tearn and Kiwi found flight a lot more convenient.
Nearly an hour passed as they navigated the confusing trunk. Just as they came into a large room with a
couple of dusty barrels stacked in the corner, and a large rope that led straight up to the lower branches
of the tree, there came a distant rumble.
The party exchanged looks, gripping their weapons, when the rumble was followed by a dull hiss from all
around them. They all relaxed... it was simply rain.
Serkesh grabbed the rope and gestured to the others. "Come, come!" he urged them, pointing to the shaft
above the rope, then patting his back. "Go... come!"
"Who first?" Vi asked the Lizardman, gesturing at herself and the others. Serkesh spread his arms wide,
then turned around with a toothy smile.
She knit her eyebrows in disbelief. "Are you kidding me?" she asked.
Shss chuckled and jumped on the Lizardman's back, then wrapped her arms around his neck. "Come!"
Serkesh said again, flexing both of his biceps. Lucciana shrugged and took up a position to Shss' left,
placing her left hand on Serkesh's arm and wrapping her right around his neck. After some apprehension,
Vi did the same on the Lizardman's right.
Once he felt them all on his back, Serkesh began to climb with surprising speed. Belcanzor's eyes went
slightly wide as he called up after them. "Be careful with her, Serkesh!" he said worriedly. Kiwi waved and
grinned at the two spellcasters still on ground level, then shot up and past the crowd of climbing
frontliners to the finish, and first place.
"And to think, it would only take a few weeks of practice to learn how to Levitate consistently," Tearn
yelled up after them, as he and his unofficial protégé swirled air from their bodies and into their feet to
chase up after them.
Branches rose up from the trunk of Trynton's largest tree like twisting castle spires, and planks of wood
secured by guardrails wound around the thick wooden boughs. It was raining up here, just hard enough to
make itself clearly heard, but soft enough to offer a soothing wash of raindrops, rather than lances of
water that stung the eyes and dampened the spirit.
Just before he put his hood up and over his head, Tearn shook lightly to dry the matted fur on his face.
"So cute!" Kiwi said from his shoulder.
Ahead of them on the winding planks, a trio of tiny spear-wielding Trynnie were doing much the same.
With shakes from head to toe, water droplets splashed over the edge to the forest below, and onto the
sides of the tree trunk next to them. Tearn purposefully ignored the Faerie's comment, suspicious that she
might have meant him, instead of their short hosts.
A short distance beyond and to their right, they found the first sign of Trynnie dwellings. Vine-covered but
solid wooden houses were built upon the more steady, lateral branches, and offered warm shelter for the
ingenious Trynnie. The trio the party had seen before made their drenched way into the nearest house
with relaxed, happy chitters to the warm confines within.
After a few careful minutes of travel over the slippery wooden planks, the party unofficially split up into
three groups, each enthralled by something near to them. Kiwi and Vi looked on with smiles at a
multi-tiered fountain just a few feet away, as the rain added its own natural flavor to the waters from
above.
Belcanzor and Tearn, as would any inquisitive spellcaster, wondered what magics allowed a green flame
in a wooden brazier to continue burning while the rain splashed upon it so diligently.
Finally, Serkesh, Shss and Lucciana stopped at an odd break in the guardrail, marked by an arch that
read, "Marten's Pagoda." Whatever was here before, it had clearly collapsed or been removed... however,
as the three leaned over to see the forest below, there was no sign of wreckage or fallen trees there.
At the end of the soaked path of wooden planks, the seven arrived on a wooden platform just big enough
to hold them all. It was held up by a multi-knotted thick rope that went up into the sky, and was attached
to a great boulder on the other end. "Everyone on," Vi said, then ushered everyone onto the steady
platform. "I've seen the Trynnie move bigger things than Serk here."
Once everyone was safely aboard, and with nothing more than a "Hold on!" as a warning, Vi tugged on a
tiny stone attached to a rope in front of her, and the platform lifted into the sky.
Serkesh in particular seemed more than wary at their rapid ascent. Belcanzor chuckled and patted his
shoulder, causing the Lizardman to wrap his arms around the guardrail behind him in fright. "You big
scaredy cat," the Dane said, and with a light glow of his head, sent an identical message into Serkesh's
mind. "You've flown light years of distance, and have been miles above the atmosphere, and you're still
afraid of heights?"
The Lizardman squinted his eyes shut and breathed deeply. "I ketna! (Shut up)!" he hissed. With a simple
sigh, Belcanzor took pity on the scaley warrior, then waved a glowing hand to remove his sudden fear;
Serkesh relaxed noticeably.
When the elevator finally stopped at another path of wooden planks high above the ground, Vi clapped
the Lizardman on the shoulder as she walked by. "'Up' is a relative term," she teased, feeling especially
amused when the Lizardman insisted on being the second one off of the elevator.
They continued around several more massive branches, taking fleeting glances at the scenery below.
Distant vines walked in groups through the trees, as wingless bird-like creatures stayed far out of their
way.
The strengthening rainstorm brought a fresh wind that rustled the leaves and branches of the trees below
and the branches around them. While it elicited feelings as diverse as calming nostalgia to Vi, subdued
terror from Serkesh and amazement from Shss, not a one of the seven doubted the sheer beauty of the
scene.
The path cut straight through a vertical branch just ahead. Inside, there was the earthy, mixed smell of
wood and rain, together with the eerie green light given off by one of the Trynnie bug-lanterns. It was an
unearthly experience, to be sure... one that was promptly shattered by a sudden explosion to the south.
It took only seconds before the scrape of wood, ringing of metal, buzzing of magical energy and a dozen
heavy footsteps marked the sudden charge of the seven to the source of the sound: a tiny shop, which
was marked with a large blue feather hanging out front.
"Fuzzfas!" Vi screamed as the rest simultaneously read the sign above the feather: "Fuzzfas' Potion
Palace."
Fuzzfas' "palace" was hardly a place built to entice customers. It was dimly lit, cluttered from wall to wall
with drooping plants, feathers, bones and other ingredients, and its proprietor didn't look like the type to
broker a formal deal with a customer.
Like the other Trynnie they had seen, Fuzzfas was a short and furry humanoid creature. Unlike the
others, who mostly had brown or tan-colored fur, he was almost completely black, from his fuzzy head to
his once green pants.
Vi burst out laughing, a cue for the rest of the party to relax and sheathe their weapons. The Trynnie
blinked his black eyes slowly, then coughed a great puff of soot onto the shards of glass on a gigantic
table before him. She carefully stepped around the larger pieces on the ground to give the Trynnie a big
hug. "Sorry, sorry..." she said happily. "Are you ok? I thought something bad had happened to you."
"I'm... ugh... fine, I guess," the deep-voiced Trynnie responded.
"I though for sure that after nearly a decade of working, you would have perfected your little art here..."
she commented, then looked around. "Still haven't spruced the place up either. How do you expect to turn
a profit in a heap like this?"
Fuzzfas, without looking at her, dramatically placed his paw on her chest. "And who asked..." he started,
pushing her back a step, "...you?"
Still the same ol' Fuzzfas, Vi thought happily. "The same one who has asked you every time she came to
see you, fuzz face!" she said.
The Trynnie narrowed his eyes at her. "There was only one girl I'd let... who did you say you were again?"
he asked. Vi spread her arms wide, and a glimmer of recognition passed across Fuzzfas' eyes. "You're..."
he started, then his eyes glazed over once more. "Nope, I lost it. Never mind." Vi hmphed, then crossed
her arms over her chest.
"Anyway," he continued, "Gari's guards told me we'd have some extraplanetary visitors up here wanting
to know about Marten... I guess that's why you strangers are here. Hate to break it to you, but you missed
Marten by a good, oh, hundred years or so."
"Actually, we're just looking for something he had," Tearn said from in front of the Trynnie's messy table.
Fuzzfas turned to him. "Eh? Who's that?" he asked. "How many of you are loitering around here,
anyway?" He shrugged. "Oh, well. I don't even own this place... just the stuff in it." The party exchanged
looks, wondering if this Trynnie really could help them. "Think if I answer their questions they'll leave
sooner?" the Trynnie muttered in a clearly audible voice.
"That's the plan," Lucciana said.
"'kay then," he responded. "Any Trynnie will tell you where he went off to. And since I'm any Trynnie, I
guess I'll be the one to spill it: he went to Marten's Bluff."
Belcanzor nodded. "Makes sense," he joked.
Fuzzfas ignored the tired comment. "The Bluff is southeast of here, through the Swamp," he explained.
"After he eluded the HLL there, Marten left for... who knows where. The T'Rang live in the Bluff now, so it
might be difficult to track him down with all of them slithering around."
"So where are we supposed to go?" Shss queried.
"The Shaman would know," the Trynnie replied. He seemed to be growing more agitated with every
successive question. "He spends most of his time on the Seventh Bough. Unlike the six physical boughs
of Trynton, though, the Seventh is a place only your mind can visit." He stooped low and began to
rummage under his table. Glass clinked on glass, and something spilled before he stood back up and
placed a bottle of purple liquid on the table.
"When you reach the gateway to the Seventh Bough, swig this down with a mouthful of Zuzu petals from
the Rising Elms, a little temple just past the zoo," he explained. "The Shaman will then tell you everything
you need to know."
Tearn shook his head and snatched the bottle from the table, grumbling, "The treasure that holds the map
that points to the monster..."
Kiwi hugged his furry head. "Oh, come on!" she said. "You don't think this is fun?"
"Maybe if I were twenty years younger, kid," he said with a noncommittal grunt, then nodded at the green
leaves on Fuzzfas' table. "Might want to keep those things away from the bones on the wall," he warned
the Trynnie. "And use a little less of the red stuff in your next brew."
"What would you..." Fuzzfas started, then blinked in wonder. "Hey, maybe you're on to something," he
admitted under his breath.
"Where's the gateway?" Lucciana asked.
The Trynnie focused entirely on his concoctions as he answered. "Follow the signs," he replied, with the
inflection of a tour guide answering a question for the thousandth time.
Vi waved as the party took their leave back into the comforting rain and slick wooden bridges. "When this
is all over, I want to come back and make a real visit of this," she said. "Until then, Fuzzfas..."
He continued with his potions, following Tearn's instructions. "Fare thee well, stranger," he replied.
Once outside, they got a better look at their surroundings... with combat no longer dividing the world into
things to avoid, things to protect and things to kill. A beautiful temple stood on the eastern side of the
wood bridge on a particularly thick trunk. A rushing fountain outside added a welcoming touch to the
building, made only more relaxing by the beautiful garden of blue flowers outside, and the ornamental
vines hanging inside.
A flutter heralded the arrival of the temple's caretakers into the rain: five red-haired, yellow-skinned and
brown-winged Faeries in black boots... almost as naked as the day they dripped off of their mother tree
like dewdrops. "Welcome to Trynton Sanctuary!" a girl bowed in mid-flight. "Come and take a long rest
among nature's beauty!" another offered with a great smile.
"Hi, sister!" a boy Faerie said to Kiwi, then flew forward to embrace her. He squeezed slightly, then all at
once, pulled back. "Where's your hair?" he asked.
"I cut it off," Kiwi explained, and the boy blushed and looked away. "You're pretty," he said.
He must be really young, she thought. "Thank you," she said. "You're a handsome little tyke yourself! And
you're almost as big as I am."
The boy grinned and put a hand behind his head. "Saaaapaaaa!" a girl's voice called from within the
sanctuary. "Come on, let's play!"
"Coming!" the young Sapa yelled back, then waved at Kiwi. "Come see me again, ok?" he suggested.
Kiwi nodded with a smile. "It's a promise!" she answered.
Shss beckoned onwards. "We appreciate your offer," Belcanzor said politely, "but we should be going. I
look forward to coming back someday." The Faeries bowed silently and merrily flew back inside, their
eyes on the children as they carefully adjusted and re-hung the vines within.
A fair amount of time had passed traversing the bridges winding the branches of Trynton before the party
began to show signs of fatigue. Tearn was the first to bring it up: with the high of battle wearing off, and
so much travel behind them, it was only a matter of time before it began to affect their reasoning and
combat effectiveness.
It was agreed that they had to stop somewhere shortly. After following a group of a dozen Trynnie, some
armed with throwing spears on their backs and other with the more traditional thrusting ones in their
paws, the party came to an alleyway of sorts between two buildings. Next to two open barrels that had
collected a fair amount of rainwater, the party came to rest in an empty alcove with a sturdy roof above it,
and made camp.
Two very calm hours passed... or at the very least, it was relaxing for a certain very sleepy Felpurr; Tearn
leaned up against the wall behind him, snoring ever so lightly. It didn't take long for him to fall asleep...
though he was not even fourty yet, he was beginning to feel the weight, tedium and exhaustion of a long
and hard life. In fact, more recently, he had begun to feel a man of sixty or older.
Vi and Serkesh stayed next to one another to watch the rain come down, and the kind and dripping
Trynnie patrolling the rafters for trouble. The eye-patched girl felt right at home with the hospitable
creatures, though her partner in warmth was still rather uneasy being up so high. The sudden movements
up and down had stopped, though, and the Lizardman was beginning to feel more comfortable... as long
as the steady wooden planks continued to remain steady.
On the other hand, Lucciana was wrapped in a pain that she had been able to explain away, set aside
and even outright ignore for the past three years. The only time that the memory of the Rattkin slaughter
inevitably and unfailingly reached her was in her dreams at night... it was a cry from her soul never to
forget what she had had a hand in perpetrating, no matter how much time had passed, and no matter
how many people had moved on from the incident.
When she did fall asleep under the hissing rains of Trynton, it was a time of shifting, agonizing memory...
and it was painfully evident in her contorted facial features and sudden jerking movements against the
wall of the alley. With every memory that floated back into her heart, she spasmed ever so slightly,
remembering the pain she had inflicted... and on the same token, experienced herself.
Belcanzor and Shss sat across from her, the Fighter's head on the Bishop's shoulder. He didn't know
what was going on, and didn't want to unduly pry. If Lucciana had wanted to tell him what was going on,
she would have... but at the same time, even with the beauty of the rain and rustling trees around him, he
couldn't help but feel a tight, painful clenching in his stomach for his love, and her good friend.
Shss watched her friend's fitful sleep in silence. She still did not know what she was going to do if and
when they met the Rattkin... if Lucciana was dead set on making it up to them in any way possible, could
she possibly stop her? If she knocked the Ronin out and dragged her along with the party, the dreams
certainly would not stop... not to mention that it would effectively kill their friendship, and she would
probably just journey back to Trynton anyway.
But if she just let the Elf go, even if the Rattkin demanded her life or worse, what kind of friend would she
be then? Lucciana's nightly terrors might end, but at what cost?
As the hours dragged on, Shss did not take her eyes off of the Elf. They had been together for nearly four
years... and Lucciana was the first friend she ever had who wasn't bound by ties of blood or proximity to
be there for her.
She couldn't help but feel that atop the rafters of Trynton, these might be their last few hours together. It
both warmed her heart to be together with her good friend with the beauty of Trynton around them, but
even moreso, it gripped her heart like cold and unforgiving hands that they might soon part.
Kiwi carefully and quietly flew up and off of Tearn's shoulder. He snorted and smacked, but did not wake.
She fluttered the air around her to get Vi and Belcanzor's attention, then mimed her hands in walking and
goodbye motions. I'm going to take a walk, she thought to them through the pantomime. Vi nodded, and
Kiwi flew slowly out into the rain and down the rafters into the heart of Trynton.
What surprised the Faerie the most, as she flew through a hollow branch and past the glowing, green
buglight, was a lack of longing and fright at being seperated from her friends. All her life, she had seldom
been away from someone: first it was her mother and siblings, then Master Jang, Hiromi, Smitty, Janus...
and now Tearn. There was always someone there to be with her and remind her that she was not alone.
Now, as she flew into the Trynton Zoo, she realized the wisdom of Master Jang's words... what did it
matter if she were by herself in a physical sense now? She smiled as images of the many people she had
met floated back into her mind... those she had lost to death, those she had lost to distance, and even the
six tired and snoozing sleepyheads behind her: they were all with her now. Even if dimensions, physical
or otherwise, separated them, they were all here.
It was a wonder to her how she could have missed something as important as that.
With a chuckle, she wondered if she had understood the words of Master Jang's teachings, but not the
wisdom and experience associated with them. Talk about high Intelligence and low Piety, she thought.
"Please, you have to help us!" a voice suddenly came from all around her. Kiwi quickly looked around the
little zoo for the source of the plea.
The voice came from a tiny dwelling for the attractions there, a Y-shaped path of wooden planks that
started from where she had entered, and branched left and right around several zoo exhibits.
To her left, a great four-legged beast pranced around his cage. He had light and dark brown fur, and his
long tusks looked mean enough to impale Serkesh himself... but he felt like a gentle creature, proud to be
the main attraction of the zoo. "Bobo," as the sign named him, probably wasn't the one she was looking
for.
In front of her, a trio of very mean, green-scaled alligators slept in a shallow pool of water tinged red with
the raw meat that was their lunch... probably not them either. When she looked to the cage on her right,
though, she quickly saw them.
Much like the caretakers of the Trynton Sanctuary, these brown-winged Faeries were also intelligent,
naked beings, and similarly yellow in color. "Get us out of here!" they pleaded. "They kidnapped us!"
Kiwi felt a brief sense of fright, knowing that if the Trynnie imprisoned innocents like this, they were
capable of much more.
Not a second passed, however, before her fright turned to curiosity. Her head glowed briefly as she
closed her eyes... then just as soon opened them again. She smiled as she said, "Liars."
With that, she fluttered left past the other zoo animals, towards a very tall wooden temple on a large
branch in front of her. The Faeries behind her protested, some weakly and innocently, while others
catcalled and insulted Kiwi from behind. She chuckled... it was a little too obvious now.
In front of the pillars that held up the great ceiling of the Rising Elms temple, a tiny garden of fronded,
leafy green plants grew from little planters. Kiwi lost herself in the middle of two of the more shallow ones,
looking out on the falling rain, and down into the dense forest below.
She sighed, feeling peace overcome her entire being. You're really out there, aren't you? she thought to
herself, then slowly smiled and nodded. Of course you are, she continued. I don't need to have you next
to me to know that.
A few more minutes passed, and Kiwi felt a nap sneakily creep up on her. Before the darkness could take
her, though, she swore she could feel the light and slow caress of something on her cheek.
It was raining, and the raindrops were sliding down her tiny body... but this felt much more warm and
inviting.
She woke a few hours later, when the sun was beginning to set and the light rain was nothing more than
a drizzle. The lack of light, coupled with the wind and weather, was beginning to make the experience a
little uncomfortable.
"C'mon, kid, things might be getting ugly in a second," Tearn said.
Kiwi turned and looked up at him, where he held his shoulder out for her to sit... but to his surprise, she
shook her head. "I'm getting a little flabby," she said with a grin. "I'm gonna fly around for a little bit."
He took the lie at face value, but felt nothing but pride for the girl who had changed so much since he first
met her. Without missing a beat, he beckoned into the entrance of the temple where the others were
waiting. He put a single digit to his lips and snuck behind them, then led her inside.
The foyer was small and empty, and wound left to a tiny archway that looked inside. Kiwi peeked around
the corner and saw a peculiar sight: four tree-men... she didn't know what else to call them... stood inside
with curved staves in hand. They looked like men, but were made entirely of leaves and twigs, and they
groaned oddly as they walked among the trees and in front of the blue-flowered fountain inside.
Vi quickly swiveled her way through the rest of the party to walk around the corner and into the temple,
waving as she entered. "Evening, guys!" she said. The Saplings stopped their marching and turned to
face her. "Can you spare a Zuzu petal or two? We need some for the Sev..." she started.
The Saplings groaned and hunched over, and green light suddenly washed over all of their bodies. The
once soft leaves that made up their forms hardened as their Body of Stone spells enveloped them. Then,
with another collective groan, they heading straight for her with their staves ready to strike.
She dodged the first one's thrust, then walked into the second's before it had enough distance to work up
enough speed to injure her. The staff touched her body gently and Vi slipped past, then through it to the
fountain behind them.
With another groan they came forward again, where her pistol was waiting. She placed her left hand on
top to steady it and her right index finger on the trigger, then pulled it fast and repeatedly. The pink lasers
spilled and spat out of the barrel into the first Sapling's chest, burning a hole straight through it as the rest
of the party hurried into the room.
"Just like we practiced, lover boy!" Tearn shouted, and he and Belcanzor's bodies began to glow with a
rainbow swirl. Vi lunged forward, holstering her Frontier Phaser, then unsheathing the White Sword in an
instant. The Saplings around her target beat at her with their staves, but she was too quick for them to get
a hit in.
She sliced the sword through the open hole that she had blasted in the first Sapling's chest, then spun it
around to sever the creature's upper torso from its body. Once she had cut through the two leafy binds on
either side of the chest hole, the Sapling exploded into a pile of leaves that fluttered to the ground all
around her.
Just as they cleared, she saw that the two spellcasters were finished. "Look out!" Belcanzor shouted. Vi
immediately tucked and rolled forward, just as a swirl of rainbow lights fired out of a pair of outstretched
paws and hands. The lights streaked and danced into the two outside Saplings, bouncing between them
and the one behind them, back and forth with a screaming, whistling sound that pierced the temple's calm
atmosphere.
After the Magic Missiles had finished darting between the three Saplings' bodies, the rest of the party
came forward. Lucciana jumped and clacked her Zatoichi Bo on the left Sapling's rod, then leaned far
back to dodge a counter-attack swipe aimed for her head. She held the bo vertical and blocked another
strike, and easily twisting the Sapling's staff around and out of its hands.
It looked at its hands, then at her, just as she poked the bo into its stomach. After she whipped it up and
into its leafy head, she tossed the bo from her left hand and into her right, then blasted the creature with a
sudden Energy Blast into its neck from her left palm.
The leaves exploded onto Serkesh, who stood above the body of a fallen Sapling that struggled to get to
its injured feet... but before it had a chance, the Lizardman stomped down on its head. The new leaf pile it
swished into seemed a lot less interested in standing and fighting than the tree-man it once was.
Kiwi caught the final Sapling's staff in two hands, then pushed it back into the tree-man's face. It was
quick, though, and bashed it back down upon the brave Faerie with a guttural groan. Immediately after,
she spun out of the way and spin kicked the staff into the opposite wall, where it shattered into a
thousand splinters.
"Up top!" she shouted, diving under the Sapling's body and kicking it into the air. It went up a good ten
feet before gravity took hold and began to pull it back down, but Kiwi flew up and nailed it hard in its stony
stomach, sending it even higher. She kicked, punched and thrust the tree higher and higher to the fifty
foot ceiling, until it was almost high enough to be flattened against it.
The Faerie spared a glance below her, where Shss had flipped her Psispear over to brandish the black
spearhead at the bottom. They exchanged a knowing smile, and Kiwi shouted, "Ready?"
Shss nodded. "Anytime!" she replied, holding her weapon high.
With a shout, Kiwi blasted above the Sapling and axe kicked it directly in its lower back. It rocketed back
down to the floor in a powerful spin, groaning its odd groan all the way down, until it impaled itself on
Shss' Psispear. The Fighter swiftly spun her weapon around and pointed the spearhead and the Sapling
to the ground, where she drove both into the wooden planks below her.
Its leaves exploded outward for several dozen feet, coating the entire temple with a light green carpet of
the Sapling's natural body. Kiwi came down shortly after, as she gestured to the tree behind her with the
blue Zuzu petals growing all over it. "Who wants to do the honors?" she asked with a wide grin.
Serkesh laughed hard. "I keshta, Keshketka!" he said aloud... and Shss widened her eyes in surprise and
amusement.
Kiwi smiled, but looked confused. "Huh?" she asked Shss.
"He says you should have the honor, Kiwi," the Fighter explained, then chuckled. "And you've just been
named according to Lizardman tradition!"
The Faerie flew over to the tiny tree in the back of the temple and plucked out a blue flower. "Yeah? Who
am I?" she asked, barely able to contain her curiosity and excitement.
"Keshketka," Shss said, as Serkesh cheered and raised his axe high. "Literally, 'Strong No Weapon,'" she
explained.
Kiwi flung the petaled blue flower to Tearn. It flew perfectly towards him, spinning on its curved petals like
a whirlybird flower into his paws. As he pocketed the plant, he couldn't help but smile at the suddenly
much more extroverted Faerie.
Serkesh flexed his right bicep and shouted a battle cry. Kiwi flew next to him and mimicked the same flex,
and yelled a shout of her own.
A tinge of personal pride at his involvement with her change... was overshadowed by another key fact in
Tearn's mind: as much as he had worked to help her, the credit truly rested with Kiwi herself. It was her
own strength and courage that brought her to this position; indeed, in her words, it was her own "burning
spirit."
More than satisfaction in his own role in her transformation, Tearn swelled with pride at this girl who had
been through so much, and yet still managed to come out on the very top through nothing more than her
own determination.
"What's up?" Kiwi suddenly asked him.
Tearn shook from his thoughts to see everyone staring at him in wonder. "N...nothing," he said. "Just
planning our next move." He pointed to the northwest. "I thought I saw a couple signs outside pointing the
way to get to the Seventh Bough."
Shss pointed her Psispear in the direction of his paw. "Shall we go grill us a Shaman, then?" she asked.
Everyone began to clear out, with Lucciana and Shss at the rear. The Fighter winced... she was so
caught up in the moment of battle, that she had forgotten what should have been troubling her.
The faster they met the Shaman, the closer they would be to meeting the Rattkin. And then...
"I'm sorry," Shss said. "I didn't mean it that way."
Lucciana turned, a cool grin on her face. "I know you didn't," she answered. "Let's let this time be one of
laughter and peace." She took a deep breath, with a faraway look in her eyes. "I don't want the others to
be tainted by pointless worry and needless apology, either... all right, sis?"
Shss nodded, but couldn't bring herself to show any pleasure at the Ronin's decision. "Thank you,"
Lucciana said, and the two joined the rest of the party out in the night.
The party had to keep their wits about them as the rafters grew more and more convulted, even with
signs to guide them. The planks broke off to the left and right, then again into two more paths, which led
to what seemed like the main residential area of Trynton. While the previous houses had been sparsely
placed on the branches of the great tree of Trynton, and at least one was a shop rather than a domicile,
here was an exciting bustle of activity.
It seemed that every house they passed was filled with the chitters and laughter of the native Trynnie,
safe and warm from the rain and cold outside. At that moment, more than a few of the party wished they
could trade places.
Through another hollowed-out vertical branch and up a long ramp sat the destination they were looking
for: the Fourth and Seventh Boughs. While the Fourth Bough was a very real, very tangible branch that
was almost as big as the Trynton tree itself, the Seventh appeared to be reachable from inside a grand
temple. The open-air temple sat fully level and proud on the bough, its great door ajar, welcoming the
seven in.
"'No magic allowed?'" Tearn read from the sign next to the entrance. It was a magic dead zone... he could
feel it. He glanced at Belcanzor, then back into the temple as he extended his claws. "Guess we'll have to
do this the old fashioned way..." he muttered.
"And that's why years of martial discipline trump a few weeks of magical study," Lucciana teased.
Tearn looked at her in mild annoyance. "Oh haha, topknot," he grumbled.
She flipped her medium-length hair at him. "Doesn't work anymore," she smiled.
He shrugged. "Have it your way, lush," he conceded, then immediately barked a laugh despite himself.
Lucciana joined him in a chuckle, and after the two punched their fists together, the Felpurr clapped her
affectionately on the shoulder.
Serkesh and Vi led the way in. "Careful," the girl said. "This door was always locked when I came to
visit... and it's not always to keep things from getting in."
In the center of the temple, a four-pillared gazebo made of lumber from the surrounding forest sat in the
middle of a gentle pool of blue water. The rain drizzled down and sent ripples throughout the little fountain
with delicate ripples.
Outside the wooden perimeter surrounding it, freshly cut and carefully tended grasses blew in the breeze,
waving silently before three labelled doorways. On the left was what they were looking for, the gateway to
the Seventh Bough. Ahead and to the right were the respective entrances to the Pagoda Archives, and
the Pagoda Armory.
Only the Armory was protected from random entry by a thick wooden door. The massive slab of wood
didn't look like it opened easily, and the entrance was additionally marked by a scary mask with two
spears crossed behind it just above the door. The meaning of "danger lurks beyond here" was clear.
"So who's going to take the plunge?" Belcanzor asked.
All eyes went to Tearn, who had the sudden and unfortunate honor of being the bearer of the two sacred
Bough ingredients... but he shook his head. "If something goes wrong, I'll know how to treat
alchemical-induced poison better than any of you." He gestured to Kiwi. "The kid might not have the
stomach for it..."
"Excuse me?" Kiwi protested, with her arms folded across her chest, and her best angry face forward.
"Sizewise," Tearn explained.
"Oh," she laughed, shyly putting an arm behind her neck.
"On that note, Serkesh might be too big," Shss said and translated for her brother. "The petals and the
drink may not have enough juice to go through that much Lizardman."
Serkesh shrugged. "Guess that leaves the big girls," Vi surmized, then quickly added, "no offense," to
Kiwi.
"Taken," the Faerie replied with a grin, "but we'll discuss it later."
Shss looked between Lucciana and Vi. The former shook her head almost imperceptibly. She must want
to be lucid when... Shss thought, but couldn't bring herself to see it through to the obvious conclusion.
Even though Vi looked ready to go, Shss would have none of it. "All right! Looks like it's up to me," she
announced, and quickly silenced the eye-patched girl with her right index finger. "You know this planet
better than the rest of us," she said, "and you know that makes me much more expendable than you.
"Besides," she added with a grin, "I'm the only one of us three who hasn't died yet. I don't want to miss
out."
"That's not funny," Belcanzor chastised her.
The Fighter chuckled. "Sure it is," she replied confidently. "Partly because I know you guys will be there to
help me if something goes wrong, but mostly because of one simple fact..." She beckoned to Tearn, who
reached into his robe and handed her the blue Zuzu flower and its purple Mystery Potion companion. "...I
intend to live forever."
"Still..." he protested.
Shss stepped forward, squeezed him to her and kissed him on the top of his bald head. "Such a worrier,"
she said. "That's why I lo..."
Suddenly, she blushed beet red, then coughed uncomfortably. "Heh," she chuckled nervously, as she
was met with the collective raised eyebrow of a curious group of friends and family... and a very purple
Dane. "Wasting time, and all that," she said. "Let's press on."
The smell of a deep forest of growth, decay and boundless life wafted through the small hallway, and
permeated the entire area around them. The physical home of the Seventh Bough was here, though it
better resembled a spacious greenhouse enclosed by walls of wood than a temple of any sort.
Flowers of every color, shape and size were planted in two gardens on either side of a path leading to a
flight of stairs. At the top, glowing lights of green, not powered by bugs in this case, sat atop wooden
stakes set into the ground.
Shss' footsteps echoed as she stepped across the wooden floor and up the stairs. She felt the
unmistakeable sense of being watched by thousands of invisible eyes, but she felt not the slightest tinge
of malice from any of the unseen observers.
At the top of the stairs, there was only a simple sign that read, "The Seventh Bough." If there was a
definite place to consume the enigmatic ingredients given to her by an even stranger group of Trynnie
and Saplings, this would have to be it.
She rested her Psispear on the floor, then held the petals in her left hand, and the potion in her right. The
others looked at her with simultaneous looks of anticipation, curiosity, and dread for what might happen to
her.
After a final look among them, she took a deep breath and said, "See you in a bit, guys..."
The flower was bittersweet, like a particular root from her swamp on Llylgamyn that released a sugary
taste when suckled, and she began to feel lighter with every tiny bite and swallow of the blue plant. When
she was finished, she felt lighter than the air around her, as if a single thought would carry her up to the
roof high above, and out into the atmosphere.
The drink tasted more like a kind of fruit juice than anything else. It was a sweet taste that washed down
the delicious texture of the flower in a heavenly embrace of flavor, and with every gulp of the wonderous
potion, a little more of her surroundings dropped away. Everyone disappeared one by one... Kiwi, Vi,
Tearn, Lucciana... until there was only her brother and her love remaining.
She smiled goodbye as the Lizardman slowly faded away, followed very slowly by Belcanzor, who took
twice as long to eclipse into darkness as the rest of the party. When he had finally dropped away, and the
world itself had gone black, she felt no fear.
All at once, the world snapped back into focus. Once it had returned, though, she noticed that her friends
were no longer there. But in her state of stupified awe, the question as to where they had gone was not a
pressing issue... they were gone, and that was enough to know for now.
Slowly, a darkness swirled and coalesced into a short shape before her. It was a Trynnie, wearing a red
and black mask that extended a foot above his head to almost past his waist.
"Welcome to the Seventh Bough, seeker of destiny," the old and grey-furred Trynnie said in a shaky
voice. "I am Shaman Das, spiritual leader of Trynton, and I will be your guide on your journey for truth."
Shss blinked. "Hi," she greeted.
Shaman Das nodded slowly. "Greetings to you as well, Rain Child," he said. "Come, walk with me."
As he beckoned behind himself, the walls of the temple dropped away to reveal a vast meadow spreading
out before her. A beautiful range of distant purple mountains wound for hundreds of miles below and
away from her, rising up among grassy plains and warmed by the beautiful sun above.
They were on a cliff, looking out over a vast forest sitting on the edge of a winding river. She was
surrounded, permeated by the feeling of connectedness and oneness with nature, and every plant and
creature that called it its home.
The Shaman stepped weakly forward and sat on the edge of the cliff, and dangled his little legs over the
edge as he watched the waters of the river glint and flow under the sunlight. Shss turned to sit at his side.
"Do you like it?" Shaman Das asked.
Shss nodded. "Yes," she replied. "Where are we?"
The Trynnie laughed weakly. "You partook of the sacred ingredients, and have arrived quite skillfully at
the Seventh Bough," he explained. "Though your body remains at rest, and watched over ever so
diligently by your friends, your mind is here now. This is, after all, a place only the mind can experience."
"Oh... ok," the Fighter responded in a daze. A soft wind blew over both of them, though it carried with it
not a chill, but rather a caressing feeling, not unlike an embrace between reunited friends. She slowly
looked down below her in mild confusion. "I was... supposed to do something," she struggled to
remember. "Or was it... ask something? I don't know..."
Shaman Das patted her on the shoulder. "The first time to the Bough will have that effect on just about
anyone," he said, "hence the need for a guide. I believe you came to ask me about Marten, and where the
Destinae Dominus currently lies." Shss nodded slowly, but still wondered if that was what she came to
ask.
"Luckily, this two part question has one simple answer: they are in the same place," Shaman Das
revealed. "The Sea Caves are a natural network of caverns on the northeast edge of the ocean, just
below the Ascension Peak mountain range, and the volcanic home of the Rapax. It is here that Marten
fled his namesake Bluff from his Higardi pursuers, and came to his final resting place. You will find both
Marten, and the prize which he stole, in these caves."
The revelation was enough to shake Shss somewhat from her stupor. "We'll find 'him?'" she asked.
"Wasn't the Destinae Dominus stolen over a century ago?"
He nodded. "Yes, it was," he replied. "Did you know that the Destinae Dominus contains all Knowledge?
Past, present, future, every action that has been or will be taken, every thought of every being who has
ever, or will ever, exist. It is the curse of all-knowing that befell the Higardi thief, Marten, driving him
completely insane with all of the knowledge of the universe pressing on his unready mind.
"You should know from your time on Llylgamyn," he continued, "that people, by nature, are divided
between conflicting emotions and experience: love and hate, strength and weakness, things known and
not known. As Xorphitus the Wizard was split in two due to his wish to learn all that here was to know, so,
too, was Marten divided in half. I believe you have already met the 'why' and 'how' of him."
Shss tried hard to remember, but nothing was coming. On her struggle, Shaman Das continued. "Do not
concern yourself with him now... or of thoughts of the other two artifacts. As we speak, I feel that they are
already on the move. If nothing else, you must take this with you, dear Rain Child..." He paused, making
sure he had her full attention. "It is your destiny to seek out Marten and secure the Destinae Dominus for
its role in the coming Ascension. The fate of Marten himself... is on the shoulders of another."
With great effort, trying hard to set aside the beauty around her, Shss put the pieces together. "Our
destiny is to find the Destinae Dominus..." she said, biting her lower lip in concentration, "...which is with
Marten, in the Sea Caves."
"Very good," Shaman Das said happily. "And just in time, too, for it appears your physical body is on the
verge of waking." Shss looked around, and noticed that the beautiful landscape was slowly morphing into
the familiar shapes of the temple, its gardens, and her friends sitting protectively around her.
The Seventh Bough whirled about her as Shaman Das spoke one last time. "Before you go, there is one
final thing I must tell you," his voice came from all around her. "You must protect your treasure with all of
your heart and soul. Lean on your friends, and especially the young Belcanzor, in these times of difficulty.
Its very existence will be a beacon of hope to many."
As the Bough spun around her, then faded into the walls of the temple and the faces of the people around
her, Shss wondered what power her treasure could possibly have over anybody. The Psispear was a
pretty cool weapon and all, but nothing anybody else couldn't make with a little insight and hard work.
Clink. Shss laughed as the world came back to her. "Is that the sound that coming back makes?" she
wondered, when something metal rolled slowly on the ground above her head, then stopped when it hit
her. "Oh..." she said, realizing something had dropped behind her.
"Are you all right?!" Belcanzor asked with worry in his eyes.
She smiled. "Of course!" she insisted. "I've never been anywhere more beautiful in my life!"
Lucciana looked at her in disbelief, then knelt down to retrieve the object that appeared when Shss
awoke. "A helmet..." she said, turning the tiny grey skullcap over. She shrugged and tied it to her sash.
"Help me up," Shss said, taking Serkesh and Vi's hands.
"What happened?" Kiwi asked.
The Fighter brushed herself off, then spoke with an excitement she couldn't contain. "I met the Shaman...
on this amazing cliff... by a sunlit river and wide forest... oh, God, it was beautiful!" she gushed. "You all
have to try it! I mean, when we have time and all, but we have to come back!"
Tearn cleared his throat loudly. "Marten?" he asked.
She took a deep breath and calmed. "Oh. That," she said without interest. "He and that troublesome slab
of rock are in the Sea Caves. Northeast side of the ocean. But anyway...!"
As she related the wonders of her journey to her brother and Belcanzor in a hurried mixture of two
different languages, Tearn led the way out of the temple. He felt somewhat down... if the Seventh Bough
was as interesting as she said it was, perhaps he shouldn't have been so gung-ho on passing the buck to
her for the sake of being a lookout. Whatever, he thought. Can't change the decision now... no use crying
about it.
Jealous? Kiwi asked in his mind.
Tearn made no effort to hide anything. Yeah, he replied, and after a quick look back at the animated
Fighter behind her, she responded. Me too, she thought.
As they exited the Seventh Bough temple and made for the door, Serkesh stopped, raising his head and
looking around him. He growl-hissed slowly and put his hand on the large axe on his back. "Shss, O ne
kasha, (Shss, I hear enemies)," he hissed.
Shss' smile faded in an instant, and she quieted down to try and detect what had alerted her brother...
...There it was, plain enough, now that she was less focused on her extraordinary experience: the sounds
of a struggle coming from the Pagoda Archives. Neither of them had any idea how long the sounds had
been going on, but it was clear from the pained shouts that someone needed help. Without a word, the
siblings darted forward with their weapons out towards the distant battle.
The hall wound around the corner, then down across a swinging bridge and into the Archives themselves.
The room they entered looked like a tornado had ripped through it.
Splintered wood had broken off of a destroyed shelf, joining shattered pottery and pieces of paper on the
floor. There were red blood splatters on the walls and floor... and the cries of pain grew ever louder as
they passed through the destroyed room.
Without a second's hesitation, the two burst through a side door, and into the main repository of Trynton's
archived knowledge. Though the battle had yet to spill into the thick scrolls and stacks of parchment on
the wooden desks in this room, it was nonetheless fully engaged.
Beside the body of an impaled and clearly dead Trynnie, another spear-wielding one with mangy brown
fur and wild eyes was fighting with a large, demonic creature in plated Samurai armor.
The brown-skinned and horned Demon traded swipes and thrusts of his curved blade with the desperate
Trynnie's spear, which despite its amazing ability to strike more times than the eye could see, was still no
match for the larger creature's mass and skill with a blade.
The Trynnie suddenly and clearly missed a deadly thrust, prompting the larger being to dodge to the side,
with a clear opening to counter-attack. He spun around to behead his tiny opponent, and as the Trynnie's
life flashed before his eyes, the Demon's blade rang soundly off of Shss' Psispear.
Before he had a chance to react, Serkesh shouldered him in the gut towards a large hole in the corner
floor, looking down almost a mile to the ground below. The Lizardman knocked the sword out of the
creature's hand, then grabbed him around the throat, holding him over the pit.
The Demon growled furiously at Serkesh, who responded with a shrieking hiss easily twice as loud. The
horned creature was immediately shocked into silence... but remained stunned for only a second.
Before anyone could do anything, he opened his mouth and spat a spray of stinging alcohol into
Serkesh's eyes. The Lizardman dropped the creature through the hole despite himself, holding his
burning eyes and crying out painfully. "Serkesh!" Shss screamed and ran to his side, then looked down at
the falling Demon as she comforted her brother with an arm around his waist.
The Demon fell quickly, tumbling end over end, until he was surprisingly engulfed by a brilliant flash of
swirling white light. When it disappeared, the creature was gone as well.
Serkesh wiped the booze out of his eyes as the others arrived behind them. Belcanzor immediately
rushed to the Trynnie's aid, laying glowing hands on him that closed his wounds and replenished his
strength in an instant. Once the spells were complete, the Trynnie pushed the Bishop out of the way and
knelt at his friend's side.
"Hokada..." he whispered, dropping his spear. "No... you said you were going to come with me, to take
care of those Rapax bastards! Get up!" He shook the other's body violently, as if force alone could bring
him back. "I can't do this without you!" he screamed.
Without a word, Belcanzor knelt beside the fallen Trynnie's body, and placed his hands on it. The mangy
Trynnie looked at the Dane with a mixture of confusion, anger and sadness, working his mouth to form
words that would not come. Unfazed, Belcanzor closed his eyes and whispered, and his hands glowed
brighter with every passing second.
All at once, the faint light burst from the Bishop's hands and into the Trynnie's body, forming into a bright
pillar that shot through the ceiling and into the sky. After a few moments of muttering and breathless wait,
the Dane felt the presence of the departed Trynnie returning to his body.
Unlike others he had brought back from the dead, this one was more than willing to return from a place of
infinite rest and healing to the harsh reality of life on the physical plane. The Bishop used a little of his
own inner energy to form a tether between the body and the spirit, joining the two together.
The spirit was more than helpful, going exactly where he directed him to, and the process of resurrection
was complete not long after. The light dimmed... and the corpse began to move.
The fallen Trynnie's eyes fluttered. "C..." he whispered, and the mangy Trynnie grinned broadly.
"Hokada!" he exclaimed.
Hokada spoke quietly once more. "C...arry... me..." he whispered. "Rap...Rapax..."
The mangy Trynnie knelt quickly at his side and tied his spear to his friend's back, then hefted him up and
onto his own. Then, he walked his friend and weapon to a shadowed table next to them.
"Hey, be careful," Belcanzor warned. "It'll take a while for the sickness to wear off." The mangy Trynnie
said nothing, and merely grabbed a large red piece of cloth, a cape, from the shadows on top of the table.
"Who are you?" Shss asked.
Finally, he spoke. "Rimi," he said. "The two of us have business at Rapax Castle." He wrapped the cape
around his friend and himself, and the two disappeared into thin air.
"Thank you, strangers..." his voice came from the spot he was last seen standing, and shortly after,
everyone heard the sound of rapid footsteps heading out of the room.
***
Shss' high from her experience in the Seventh Bough was thoroughly and resoundingly crushed by the
time they reached the tall, vertical branch leading to the Sixth Bough. This high up, the very canopy of the
tree of Trynton was visible among the clouds.
The infested bough, the highest one in Trynton... there was no doubt that it now stood before them.
The others looked happy enough, not knowing what it meant to be standing here. Belcanzor was
weakened, but proud of his role in helping the driven Rimi and his ill-fated friend, Tearn and Vi were
plotting the party's course to the Sea Caves, Kiwi and Serkesh were laughing as the Faerie tried to teach
him the silly names she had made for her moves...
Shss and Lucciana stood in the middle of it, the only two aware of what was going to happen. As the
others crossed a sturdy bridge to the hollow, trunk-like branch beyond, Shss waved them on. Somewhat
confused, the other five nonetheless continued up a ladder to the top of the hollow branch anyway,
waiting by the suspension bridge that would take them into Rattkin territory.
"I don't want you to do this," Shss confessed... and before the Ronin could speak, she added, "Even
though I know why you want to. But... isn't there another way?"
Lucciana sighed, and spit her stem over the railing to the trees below. "I've been thinking about it since
we left Guardia," she said. "If I found a better way, I would follow it in a heartbeat. But..."
The two stared into one another's eyes. So much needed to be said, but neither had the heart to say any
of it. Shss didn't bother to look away as she began to cry, her lower lip quivering. Lucciana, ever the
strong one, was surprised to feel the sting in her nose, the moist and salty drops of tears sliding down her
cheeks.
At the same time, each of the young women stepped forward to embrace the other with the desperate
strength of a final farewell. The second they let go, that would be it. The wind blew across them, waving
Lucciana's hair and the feathers on Shss' Psispear as it passed. The rain hissed and dripped down onto
their clothes, silently watching their goodbye.
"I love you," Lucciana whispered.
Shss choked a sob back, squeezing her friend tighter. "I love you, too," she said in as strong a voice as
she could muster. The rain fell around them, the sky dark and unforgiving... and then, they broke apart.
The Ronin took the mysterious helmet from her sash and handed it to Shss. "You'd better take this," she
said, as Shss tied it to her own side, "but more importantly..." She slowly removed the Amulet of Life from
her neck, the very same amulet that Hiromi had worn three years ago. "Take care of this for me," she
gently asked of her friend.
Shss took the amulet and placed it around her neck, where her own amulet clinked against it. Then, she
placed Belcanzor's on top to keep Hiromi's from standing out too obviously.
"When you guys Ascend... you can give it back to her," Lucciana said, smiling sadly. Shss nodded, and
side by side, they walked silently through a thick and hollow branch... to the bough that led to the end of
everything.
Thunder rumbled in the distance as Lucciana pulled Shss up and into the hollow branch. Everyone there
was quiet, wondering silently why the two had stayed behind for several minutes. "Just getting some
battle plans straightened out," Lucciana lied. Most everybody accepted her words as truth, or didn't
conspire to pry.
Tearn, though, watched the two walk by with discerning eyes, and a deadly serious look on his face.
Outside, a wooden bridge connected their current branch to another vertical one, and a final bridge later,
the Sixth Bough was in sight. This bridge, though, was only connected solidly on one side by a strong
rope. The other had either rotted away, or was cut to keep unwanted outsiders from entering.
Tearn and Serkesh ferried the others over the broken bridge with a well-placed spell and jump, however,
easily surmounting the barrier between them and the Rattkin.
The rain slowed to a drizzle, then stopped as they entered the Sixth Bough. Unlike the well-kept and
inviting boughs of the rest of the Trynton tree, this one was overrun with hanging plantlife that had not
been cut, and the support rope holding the planks around them looked frayed to the point of rot. The
Rattkin either had no interest in safe housekeeping, or were not planning on being here very long.
As the group walked past an empty house with a door busted off of its hinges lying inside it, the sounds of
chittering started to come from all around them. Though there was nothing but flashes of movement and
shadows to accompany the sounds, even the most dense among them could feel the eyes of the Rattkin
following their every step.
The party climbed down an old and moss-covered rope to a series of wooden planks that twisted in and
amongst themselves, leading this way and that to abandoned houses and outright dead ends. "Where are
we going?" Belcanzor asked. "Shouldn't we be getting back to the ground?"
Lucciana kept walking ahead of all the others. Shss turned around briefly, just long enough to say, "You
guys don't have to come if you don't want to. She's saying goodbye."
Kiwi balked. "What?!" she asked loudly. "Why?!"
"The Rattkin...!" Tearn realized.
Shss swallowed and nodded, turning around to trot after her friend, and Kiwi felt a clenching in her chest.
"Oh, no..." she whispered.
Vi ran after the two. "Wait!" she called out.
Belcanzor and Serkesh, feeling left out, could only share in their mutual confusion. "What's going on?" the
Dane asked.
In response, Kiwi closed her eyes, then her head began to glow. A sudden torrent of horrific images, lifted
directly from the memories Lucciana had shared with her so long ago, assaulted their minds in an instant.
Only a second passed before they had heard the whole story, of the Bane King, the possession, and the
ensuing slaughter. Serkesh immediately took off in a full sprint after his new friend, refusing to believe she
would be leaving so soon. Belcanzor and Kiwi quickly followed.
Lucciana could feel the presence of the leader of the Rattkin, Don Barlone', a malevolent feeling that got
stronger with every step she took. He had taken residence in a grand manor at the bottom of the bough,
which was suspended by several dozen ropes and a wide wooden base. When she entered, she saw that
the inside was filthy, covered in rotten furniture and table scraps from a hundred bloody meals.
She made no attempt to hide her approach. Her sandals clicked noisily on the wooden ground through
the dark halls of the once beautiful mansion, until she stood outside a large door that was bolted securely
shut. The burning, buzzing feeling of dangerous proximity to the Don was the strongest here; there was
no doubt that he was inside.
Shss stood next to her supportively, trying desparately to hold back her desire to knock the Elf out and
carry her bodily out of what would be her assured death.
She succeeded... and Lucciana knocked twice on the massive door. Soon after, the door bolts slid open,
and the Ronin slowly pushed the portal open.
Inside a neatly kept room with grain and water barrels stacked in the corner, and a table made out of cut
and polished tree trunk in the middle, a pair of Rattkin Razuka stood poised and ready to ward off the
expected attack.
Before they could strike, two furry paws came from the shadows to hold back the two dagger- and
sword-wielding figures to its right and left. Then, it stepped into the light.
It was Don Barlone'. He was much thinner now, with his tatooed and muscled body dressed neatly in a
black business suit and slacks, but his right eye was almost completely closed shut by the scar Lucciana
had given him on Guardia. He was holding in one paw the curved Dongfu blade that had once scraped
dangerously at the end of her katana, and in the other, he held himself up with a gnarled brown cane.
Shss recognized it immediately as the staff that helped ol' Blienmeis, the blind Rattkin, move about on
Guardia. Seeing it in the Don's paws now, of course, begged the question of what had happened to the
old thief.
"The Vampire," Barlone' spat in a hoarse whisper as the rest of the group arrived behind her. He looked
among them with cold, dead eyes. "And an entourage..." He snarled a deadly snarl of rage and warning.
"Don't think you've caught us unprepared this time. I've trained every day of my life for the moment you
would come back to finish the job..."
The shirtless, black-panted Rattkin at his right side stepped forward, brandishing a black Vorpal Blade
dripping green poison. Tattoos of thorned roses coiling around deadly blades covered his furry torso in its
entirety. "Say the word, Don, and I'll skewer this pig for you," he hissed.
Barlone' looked Lucciana up and down without a word. At any moment her eyes could go black, her skin
would pale... and it would be all over. When he knew that the change would soon come, he would give
the definite word.
The tattooed Ratsputin took the Don's lack of response as an order to stay alert, but to take no action,
and did as he was tacitly asked.
Lucciana, motionless up until now, slowly brought the Zatoichi Bo out in front of her... then placed it on
the ground. She lowered herself to her knees and bowed her head to the floor. "I have committed an
unpardonable sin in murdering so many of your people," she said solemnly, with her face to the floor. "I
offer you my own life as penance for what I..."
"Like hell you will!" Tearn suddenly shouted from behind her, grabbing Lucciana's arm and roughly pulling
her to her feet. "Nobody's going to get anything from this idiotic sacrifice of yours! Pick up your damn bo
and let's get out of here!"
Lucciana said not a word in response. She tugged her arm out of Tearn's paw and knelt once more,
placing her knees and shins on the ground and folding her hands in her lap.
As she lowered her head and closed her eyes, Tearn reached out to grab her again... but he didn't get the
chance. At the same time as Shss took the Felpurr's arm and pulled him back towards her, she saw a
flash of light emanate from the white-shirted, brown-panted Rattkin to Barlone's left. Suddenly, they were
no longer in the mansion... or rather, no longer in Trynton.
"What the hell are you doing?!" Tearn roared, pushing Shss away from him. "We..." He stopped, looking
around; they were now on the outskirts of the forest of Trynton, overlooking the Swamp. He swore loudly.
"We're outside... dammit, we're outside!" he shouted, then rushed for the large tree of Trynton as he
kicked on a quick Levitation spell. "If we hurry, we can get to her before anything happens!" he shouted.
Serkesh and Kiwi simultaneously grabbed each of his feet. "What's your problem?!" he yelled at the two,
but the first sight he caught was an extremely upset Shss with tears running down her cheeks.
"You don't get it, do you?!" she yelled. "Lucciana chose to give up her life, in exchange for what she did
on Guardia! This isn't kidnapping, or murder... it's a choice she made for justice's sake!"
"Justice?" Tearn asked in disbelief, kicking Kiwi and Serkesh away from him and dropping to the soft
grass below. "You think exchanging a life for a life is justice... especially considering the circumstances
we're in right now, or even what the whole universe may soon experience?!"
Vi answered before anybody else could. "All of us are here by choice, regardless of what the universe is
going through," she said.
"And it was her choice to pay for what happened in the way she is right now," Kiwi added sadly.
Serkesh nodded, and prepared to grab the Felpurr if he tried to take off again. As painful as it was for him
to admit, Lucciana was an adult, and perfectly capable of making her own decisions.
"Are you all insane?" Tearn asked angrily. "You think this is a matter of freedom? This isn't about her
wardrobe, or taste in weaponry! This is her life... this is her damn life! If I made some idiot decision to
throw myself off of a cliff for no good reason, I'd expect all of you to stop me before I chose to do
something so stupid!"
"The reason..." Kiwi whispered, then closed her eyes and sent the very same images she used to explain
to Belcanzor and Serkesh what was going on, straight into his mind. Tearn snarled, grabbing his head,
trying desparately not to see and feel the memory of thousands dead at the end of a blade in his very
paws. When the mental assault was through, Tearn emerged shaken...
...but entirely unchanged.
He shook his head in disgust. "I've misjudged you all," he said. "You aren't insane." He narrowed his eyes
until they were mere slits. "You're a bunch of cowards," he spit.
As he brushed past the remaining members of the party, Shss spoke up in a wavering voice. "I didn't want
her to go!" she said between sobs. "I felt the exact same way that you did just now, only I didn't have the
courage to speak up..."
Tearn stopped just a few feet away. "You're right... I am a coward. I couldn't save her," she continued.
"But there's something about her that you don't know... something nobody but she and I know: every
night, while everyone else went to bed and dreamed of the coming battle, family and friends, hopes and
desires for the future... every night, Lucciana revisisted the deaths of every person she had ever killed."
He remained motionless with his back turned to everyone, not saying a word. "Can you imagine?" Shss
asked. "Never knowing a moment of peace... every day a constant reminder that you were alive because
of the thousands that were not? Every night filled with the memories of pain and suffering you inflicted on
others... Stop to think for one second what it would be like to be in her shoes, and why she would make
the decision that she..."
Shss suddely stopped. She had never before seen the sight in front of her, and it stunned her into silence.
Though his face was turned away from them, and he kept it as quiet as possible, Tearn's body was
wracked with sudden, violent sobs. He reached the sleeve of his robe to his face, wiped, then let it fall to
his side. "We were the same..." he choked out.
He shook his head strongly. "No... no, we weren't the same," he corrected himself. "Because she didn't...
she didn't deserve it..."
Kiwi quickly flew to his shoulder, but Tearn, sensing the movement, covered his head and face with the
hood of his brown robe, then began to walk the dirt road that led to the Swamp.
This time, it was Kiwi who was there to support him, to be by his side when he needed her the most.
"God..." Tearn choked, "...goddammit! She was so beautiful... her spirit, her strength... everything about
her..."
Kiwi cried on his shoulder as she held his head comfortingly, and the rest of the party picked up and
followed them into the Swamp.
A broken and defeated Tearn marched on, a man who had lost everything he held dear to the whimsy of
an indifferent universe. He hung his cloaked head weakly, still feeling Kiwi's protective arms around his
neck.
"What the hell are we going to do now?" he whispered in utter defeat.
Part 2 - Worlds Collide
One Down
Arnika Road
Day 5
"Stop!" Sparkle hissed, and pulled her two companions backwards. The two Umpani didn't question her,
and backed up on the road cutting through the small valley. Sparkle scrambled up the side of the valley
and off of the road, to the top of the short rise on the eastern side. She lay as flat as she could, pressing
herself on the cold grass with the Umpani on her left and right.
Arnika Road descended from Mt. Gigas through a natural valley, hardly twenty feet in height on either
side, and cut through a few creature-infested caves and some sparse groupings of trees.
Until they came into contact with the beast grazing peacefully ahead of them, they had seen little in the
way of potential hostiles; Sparkle was a good enough Ranger to slip them past the few wandering groups
of walking vines and roaming bandits that they had seen.
Saxx was confused as to why Sparkle would find the beast so intimidating. It sure as hell looked fierce
enough... a bull-like furry creature that was five feet tall, ten feet long and with tusks long and seemingly
sharp enough to impale the largest of Umpani.
But still... "Girl, that thing's no closer'n a mile away," Saxx said from her right side. "What harm could that
li'l feller do us?"
Sparkle was adamant, though. "Don't ever mess with the Hogars!" she whispered. "They may look calm
enough when they're eating, but they threaten really easily...!"
Colonel Gruntwrapper spoke from her left as he stood. "We'll keep that in mind... thank you, Sparkle," he
said.
The Trynnie tugged on his green pant leg, but it was too late. Her stomach knotted when the Hogar
suddenly looked up from the grass it was chewing and turned its head furiously in their direction. "Oh,
Gods above..." Sparkle said in barely subdued terror. "It smelled us."
The Hogar turned completely towards them, then charged with frightening speed.
Dammit... Gruntwrapper thought to himself. I should have known we were upwind from that thing...
"Both of you, get back!" he ordered, then he waved his Blunder Buss in the air to draw the Hogar's
attention. It had already cleared half the distance between its grazing spot and their location. "I caused
the problem; I'll take care of it!" he insisted.
Saxx shook his head, knowing how far the Colonel had come in the past few years... he was a completely
different man than the cowardly Lieutenant he remembered. The Bard stood, then pressed his sax to his
lips and began to blow a soothing melody, one that had calmed even the most rowdy of drunks in the
Roadhouse.
The Hogar immediately switched direction and aimed for Saxx before any of them knew it. When it was
only five hundred feet away, Gruntwrapper began blasting at its body with everything his Blunder Buss
could give it. Blood popped out of the many wounds his gun opened in its haunches, but it seemed to be
doing little to slow it down.
Saxx played his haunting melody to the very last second... when the Hogar impaled him on its left tusk,
then dashed the Umpani into the ground as it continued its charge.
"Saxx!" Gruntwrapper screamed. This can't be happening again! he thought, plugging the Hogar with his
useless bullets. Rhallick, Gromo, the others... and now you?!
Scant seconds later, the Hogar was out of gun range, with his good friend still run through on its tusk.
When the Hogar struck him, Saxx hit his last note with a loud and high squeak, then bellowed in sheer
pain. After it ran with him for a few seconds, and with his instrument still in hand, he slid himself off of the
beast's tusk and rolled painfully to a bleeding stop.
The Hogar skidded to a halt a few hundred feet out and turned around with fury in its eyes. It pawed the
ground, snorting and looking at the Umpani it had downed. Then, with a mighty bellow, it charged forth
with its great feet ready to trample him.
When the shock wore off, something finally registered in Gruntwrapper's mind: the blur that was at his
side and running after the dying Umpani and enraged Hogar, and now leaping over Saxx's body.
PFC Sparkle, her hand axe in her left paw and right clenching into a fist behind her, met the Hogar before
he could reach the unmoving Saxx. When it was only a dozen feet away from her, she stopped, dug her
heels into the ground and jumped into the air.
The Hogar ran straight into her waiting axe as she sliced up its face. As soon as it had veered off course
towards the side of the valley, Sparkle flipped and flung the hand axe into the lower tendon in its back left
leg. It stiffened and dragged, and took the rest of the beast down with it. After it ran its face into the soft
earth of the little hillside in front of it, it struggled vainly to pull its now trapped tusks out.
Sparkle, descending from her leap, twisted her body and unslung her bow from her side with her left paw,
while she withdrew an arrow from the quiver on her back with her right.
This arrow was two full inches longer than the others, and solid white. Her Peacemaker... the only one
she owned, and a gift from the Trynnie Shaman should any dire situation befall her.
She nocked and fired it just before she hit the ground in a crouch. The arrow struck true, entering the
back of the Hogar's head and exiting its struggling mouth. Its body shook painfully for a few seconds, then
it slumped over and died with a sad groan.
Sparkle dashed over to its fallen body and tugged the arrow out of the hillside, along with a nearby
fan-shaped green plant and the grass around it.
Gruntwrapper was already kneeling over his friend, holding his rough hands over the large hole in Saxx's
stomach. "Least the Saxx man can... go out playin' a song... eh, Colonel?" Saxx struggled to say, even as
Gruntwrapper dug through his medical kit for something to help.
The Colonel covered the Bard's wound with a large bandage, but he was fading fast. "Don't you dare talk
like that, soldier," he ordered.
Just before Sparkle scurried to his side, Saxx coughed, then smiled. "I'm retired, boy. Can't order me
around anymore," he whispered and laughed, before his expression slowly grew serious. "But ya look
out... for this girl now, ya hear?" he whispered. "Ain't nobody else I'd trust to it, either."
The Trynnie pressed the grass to Saxx's mouth with a grin. "You can do it yourself," she said. "Eat this."
Saxx obliged her, chewing the bitter weeds with a disgusted face. "Not my idea of a last meal, darlin'..."
he said.
She ignored him, and looked to her CO. "Move the bandage," she told Gruntwrapper, then held up the
fanned plant in her paw. "This'll be a lot better for it." Though the Umpani looked skeptical, he knew
nothing short of a miracle would keep Saxx alive.
When he took his hand away, and blood issued forth from Saxx's stomach once more, Sparkle
immediately put the plant over the wound. The wounded Umpani made no sound of protest, though it
looked like it should have been excruciating.
"Hey..." he said, opening his eyes wider. "It's a li'l tingly, ain't it?"
Sparkle grinned. "And here comes the best part!" she exclaimed.
Saxx's jaw went slack as the healing effects of the herbs went to work. His ruptured organs closed and
healed, the hole in his stomach shrunk until it was barely the size of a fingernail, and his breathing
steadied and became less ragged.
"Mighty me," he said, "ya sure do have a couple tricks up your sleeve, don't ya, darlin'?"
Sparkle shrugged. "You want to survive like the Trynnie do? You gotta know a few things." She looked
around them, noting that it was starting to get dark. "He'll need time to rest..." she pointed out.
Gruntwrapper helped her take Saxx up on the eastern hill of the small valley and gently laid him down on
the grass. "We'll camp here, and set out tomorrow morning," he said.
***
Saxx breathed softly in his sleep as Gruntwrapper watched the dancing flames of the campfire. Sparkle,
seated across from him, was busy sharpening her axe and making sure the Peacemaker was ready for
another round of combat in the future.
Gruntwrapper watched her silently for some time, forming the exact words he wanted to say in his mind
before he said them aloud. Finally, he decided, breathed in deeply, and spoke. "You saved his life," he
said.
Sparkle looked up from the ever ready white arrow and bowed her head humbly... and the Umpani looked
at his sleeping friend. "I've known him since I was a pup like you," he said. "Always there to listen to this
problem or that, never got angry... never judged."
He looked back at her. "And when that beast ran him through and stormed off, I saw the only person I
have ever looked up to being carried away, as well." The Colonel paused as Sparkle blushed and stared
at the campfire.
"I can safely say now," Gruntwrapper continued, "that that number has doubled." Sparkle bit her lower lip
in embarrassment, and he cleared his throat. "That's all I wanted to say."
Sparkle let her sharpened hand axe down to the grass next to her. A moment of comfortable silence
passed between them as they watched the flickering campfire, before Gruntwrapper spoke again. "So
why are you in the IUF, PFC?" he asked. "You got something against the bugs, too?"
She shook her head. "No," she replied. "I came to get training from the IUF so I could help protect my
people from our many enemies."
Gruntwrapper snorted. "Doesn't seem to me like you need any training..." he pointed out.
She smirked. "Well, we'll see about that!" she answered. "I may be able to handle beasts well, but people
are an entirely different matter. They think, they act unpredictably... in other words, they're smart."
The Trynnie sighed softly. "And right now, we're in danger from attacks by three different races... all of
them against us," she explained. "Those barbaric Rapax trying to take over our home from the trunk up,
the sneaky Rats trying to take it over from the branches down, and those fishy Rynjin coming around and
trying to make food out of all of us.
"All of them have at least some brainpower to coordinate their attacks, and let me tell you, we're getting
really tired of it."
The Trynnie dug her paws into the grass below her and ripped a few blades from the ground. "People call
creatures eating creatures the 'Natural Order of Things,'" she said derisively, then looked into
Gruntwrapper's eyes. "But what happens when the prey gets smart?" she asked. "When we can feel pain
and terror and apprehension that any moment, some hungry jerk's gonna come walking around and
stuffing one of us in its mouth?
"It stops being natural... and it starts being war." She gestured towards him, then clenched her paw into a
fist. "And I agree with Chief Gari that if they won't stop attacking us because we focus on our defenses,
then it's time to start taking the battle to them."
Gruntwrapper nodded in deadly serious agreement. "It's time to start giving the predators the same dose
of fear they've been giving us for centuries," Sparkle stated. "And that's why I joined the IUF: to protect
my people... by terrorizing the three R's' men into leaving us alone."
The Umpani cracked his knuckles and smiled. "I like you... a lot," he said proudly. "The next time we meet
the General, I'm going to mention this to him. We may not be able to offer you any experience you don't
already have, Sparkle, but your people can benefit from an alliance with the IUF.
"We can provide men, resources, anything you need to take the fight to these 'three R's' with the best of
the best at your side," he promised. "Of course, the presence of our men there should be enough
deterrence to keep them from even looking at you funny. In today's IUF, at least, the show of power is
much more important than its use... more peace, less mess."
He backpedalled slightly. "That is, if General Yamir gives the go-ahead," he added. "But I'm sure he
wouldn't let you down."
Sparkle nodded. "I'm sure Chief Gari would agree, too!" she said emphatically. "Once we get to Arnika,
I'm sure we'll meet someone who can send word to Trynton about the idea!" She clenched her fist tightly.
"The Umpani and the Trynnie forever!"
Arnika Road
Day 6
The chirping of songbirds and refreshing wind of the calm and sunny day... didn't fool Sparkle for a
second. "Lots of bandits crawl these roads," she warned her two companions.
As if in response to her caution, four heavily armored men with dark hair and sharp daggers in their hands
rose over the hill in front of them. In the middle was a woman with a hooded purple robe, pointing at the
three companions with a suddenly glowing hand.
Colonel Gruntwrapper advanced with his Blunder Buss held tightly at his side, staring angrily at the
would-be bandits. Despite his threatening demeanor, however, the bandits still kept coming, stepping
lightly forward as if they had all the time in the world. Before Saxx or Sparkle had a chance to react,
Gruntwrapper's Blunder Buss was out and booming pellet after screaming pellet at the group.
Four loud booms, four suddenly headless men. One in particular walked nauseatingly forward for another
step, then collapsed onto his chest with the others on the ground. The hands of the woman in the middle
stopped glowing, and she backed up a step.
"Run," Gruntwrapper ordered.
The cloaked woman scrambled backwards and tripped over the outstretched leg of one of the dead
bandits, then fled and disappeared over the hill behind her.
"And to think," the Colonel said as stepped over two bandit bodies, "soon enough, this power will belong
to you and yours."
Sparkle nodded. "You bet!" she said.
Saxx shrugged and continued walking with them. "I miss somethin', kids?" he asked. Sparkle and
Gruntwrapper laughed in response, leaving the older Umpani much more confused than he had been
only seconds ago.
They travelled the worn road in the tiny grassy valley for several hours, taking rests when one or more of
them needed a break from the constant marching. Though the road was flat and even, the hikes were
non-stop and hours-long on the road to Arnika. Good opportunity to get some exercise, Gruntwrapper
thought, but if it weren't for that blasted Savant frying anything hovering more than a hundred feet off the
ground from orbit, we would have been at the city yesterday.
The receding light of the day's hike splashed shadows across their path from the few trees that took
lonely root on either side of the road. And just before sunset, they found the gates of Arnika, a large
archway split in half by a bulky pillar in the middle.
"Finally," Saxx said with an embarrassing wheeze. "Ya kids are too full'a energy for an old man like me...
now let's find a bed somewhere 'n rest our weary bones."
Gruntwrapper led them into the courtyard, where stone fish statues calmly trickled beautiful blue water
into a great fountain. In the center of the fishes, the statue of a naked woman with her arms across her
breasts smiled a welcoming smile.
Saxx laughed through his tired sweat. "Nude girls, huh?" he chuckled, then clapped Sparkle on the back.
"Might proper welcome, I'd say. Got a feelin' I'm gonna like this town."
The Colonel continued around the fountain and through a second archway. "All right, that's enough," he
said. "Don't go out of your way to offend the locals now. Let's find the Mook and get a reading on that
device, then report back."
The city of Arnika, for being a municipality under the boot heel of the Dark Savant, didn't look to be as
somber and devoid of hope as any of the occupied towns Saxx had seen in his long life.
Between the humble stone buildings and through the cobbled streets, people walked quietly, attending to
their business as if nothing could be the matter. In fact, if it weren't for a few groups of the metallic,
spike-armed Savant Troopers wandering along with the smooth-skinned Higardi, Arnika might have
seemed to be the portrait of a quaint and quiet city.
Gruntwrapper tried to push Saxx and Sparkle behind the archway of the city's entrance before the
Troopers saw them, but it was too late. The machines all simultaneously turned their heads to look at
them, walked towards a nearby intersection...
...and as each of the IUF's soldiers gripped their respective weapon in anticipation for a fight, the
machines turned right and walked on without a word.
Even more surprising, the fair-skinned Higardi women in sunflower yellow dresses who walked the same
street, towards the dangerous machines, simply stood to the side to allow them to pass. They talked and
laughed happily, and bowed slightly as they calmly passed the confused group. "They're taking the
occupation rather well," Sparkle commented in wonder.
"Keep your weapons hidden, or at the very least at your sides," Gruntwrapper ordered. "If the machines
are programmed to respond to hostility, that's the last thing we want to offer." Sparkle and Saxx complied,
hiding their blades as best they could under her leathers and his uniform.
Gruntwrapper holstered his gun at his side and led them onwards past a group of men in plate armor and
grey helmets. Black streaks marked the underside of each of their eyes, and though their faces were
deadly serious as they passed, a few nodded respectfully as they passed. The men gripped the maces in
their hands tighter as they caught sight of the patrolling Savant Troopers, but made no move to engage
the machines. "HLL," Sparkle said quietly to the others.
A large building labelled "HLL HQ" stood imposingly strong to the west. Its entrance was adorned with the
metallic busts of two proud unicorns, which glinted impressively in the little light that shone upon them.
Sparkle's instincts took over as she happily stepped forward to touch the glittering statue.
Almost immediately, a green light shot forth from the entrance of the building and bathed her body in a
paralyzing glow. Once it had travelled from her head to her toes, then back again, it disappeared back
into the lens it had streamed from. "SCANNING..." a voice spoke from the building.
"NO HLL IDENTIFICATION. ACCESS DENIED," it proclaimed.
Gruntwrapper grabbed Sparkle's shoulder and literally threw her behind him, waiting for anything to come
pouring out of the building to attack them.
When nothing came, he sighed and turned towards the Trynnie, who was lying on the ground after being
so callously tossed. He reached down to help her up. "What are you doing? I said no hostile actions!"
Gruntwrapper shouted.
"Relax, chief," she responded as he pulled her up. "This is the headquarters of the Higardi Lunar Legion...
like the Higardi police. They usually keep the front door open for visitors, but I guess not since the Savant
came."
Gruntwrapper sighed. "All right, I apologize," he said. "Just warn me the next time you're going to go
touching something that talks..."
Haha, score! He didn't even notice... Sparkle thought.
"...or shines," the Colonel finished with a suspicious eye, and the Trynnie blushed. Caught after all, she
thought.
Past the HLL building, a large field of grass where children were running and kicking a ball around spread
out for a half-mile. None of the young Higardi seemed to mind the presence of the Savant Troopers in
their town as much as they did the current score of their game.
They also did not seem frightened by the looming tower off in the distance, past a stone wall that had
been smashed half to pieces by something very big, and very powerful. "Oh, lordie..." Saxx said, wiping
the sweat from his brow. "The reports were true..."
At the very top of a grassy plateau, the black Tower of the Dark Savant thrummed with a rhythmic low
pulse of electric throbbing, a sound the Higardi must have become quite accustomed to since the Savant
had arrived. Four curved spires reached from each of the Tower's corners to the zapping, purple energy
at the top of the main structure, and the entire structure was held in place by twenty foot tall metal blocks
on three of its sides.
Sparkle tugged on Gruntwrapper's sleeve. "What, what? What is it?" she asked.
He pointed at the structure while he spoke. "The Dark Savant put that Tower up soon after he arrived
here in Arnika a few months ago, is what the locals tell us," he explained. "And the Savant himself warned
the Higardi that if they attemped to Ascend, the Tower would be put to use."
"And do what?" she asked.
Saxx exhaled and scratched his horn. "Whole planet goes up in a ball'a flame, darlin'," he said. "Least,
that's what happens if ya believe the Savant's story."
A shiver went down the Trynnie's spine. "The whole planet?" she asked incredulously. "He can't do that!"
A sudden thought struck her. "Hey, wait a second!" she exclaimed. "If we go messing around with the
Mook's Ascension device, we could be putting this whole planet at risk! We gotta go before we cause any
trouble!"
Saxx put a hand on her shoulder. "I know what ya mean. 'N I understand your concern, little'un," he said.
"But listen... if this 'common man becomes God' Ascension thing is true..."
"It is," Sparkle cut in.
The Umpani nodded in agreement. "Since it's true," he continued, "don't ya think losin' the whole universe
to this psychopath is worse than losin' a planet?
"Now, nobody wants him takin' out Dominus 'n all the people on it," he continued, "but now that you're a
member'a the IUF... ya gotta stop thinkin' locally, 'n start thinkin' universally." He waved his hand over the
town. "This ain't a struggle for Arnika, or Trynton, or even an entire galaxy anymore. We lose this one, we
lose everything. Ya with me?"
Sparkle nodded slowly; he had a point.
"We're all men and women of the universe now, not just Umpani, Trynnie, or Higardi," Gruntwrapper
added. "Unless we stand united against the Savant, even if it means putting all we know at risk, we're
gonna lose everything."
His face softened. "I know it's asking a lot, to put your people on the line in order to keep the Ascension
from the Savant," he calmly continued. "If you want to go back to Trynton, I won't stop you. I'll just tell
Balbrak you were KIA, and you'll be given a proper memorial service back at the compound.
"But we're going to get this device, not only for our sake, but for the sake of every living being in this
entire universe. If you can understand why we're doing this... come with us. Please."
Sparkle thought back to all the people she knew on this planet, Trynnie or not. Chief Gari, the Shaman,
Madras, even Higardi like the charming Myles and the fesity He'Li. To lose them all to the Savant's Tower
would be...
The Dark Savant, a mysterious figure she had never seen before, suddenly appeared above the image of
her friends, cloaked in darkness. She saw a universe of suffering, of torture, murder, slavery and
savagery, any number of outcomes from a being who would resort to genocide to get what he wanted.
They were right... she would accomplish nothing at home when there was so much to lose out here, in a
place where she could make an actual difference. She nodded emphatically. "I understand," she said.
"But let's be very careful, ok? I don't want to be the one to make the Savant kill everyone." She sighed.
"Whether he pushes the button or not, I'd still feel it was my fault for making him do it."
Saxx hugged her with one powerful arm. "That's the spirit, darlin'!" he said proudly. "I knew ya'd make the
right choice. So let's get goin'... 'n soon enough, when all's said 'n done, we'll give the black heart a
whuppin' he won't forget."
Night had fallen unnoticed when they left the Savant's Tower behind. Gruntwrapper beckoned the others
towards the city's center, where a great stone statue of Phoonzang proudly reaching towards the sky
stood. "We'll be as careful as we possibly can, Sparkle. You have my word," the Colonel promised.
As they stepped in front of the statue surrounded by a tiny pool of water, the group was suddenly
surprised by a being who looked, as much as he felt, that he did not belong in the city. The plainly
dressed Higardi civilians, the well-equipped HLL police force and the machines that represented the Dark
Savant were one thing, but the masked figure dressed in black was in an entirely different class than all of
them.
Though he did not make eye contact with any of the three, Sparkle felt that if they made the wrong move,
the frightening Ninja could rip their lives from them within seconds. Thankfully, though, he walked south
along the cobbled road without a word, and the Trynnie let out a pent-up breath. "Scary..." she whispered.
"All right, here's what we'll do," Gruntwrapper, said as if the Ninja had not worried him in the slightest.
"We'll split up and ask around about the Mook, then meet back up at this statue in twenty minutes. Got
it?"
Saxx and Sparkle nodded. The Colonel began to walk towards an inn he saw to the west... and almost
bumped into a busty woman with long brown hair in a ponytail, who was wearing a blue shirt, white dress
and round glasses.
He stepped aside and bowed slightly in apology, and she stalked past him towards the "Bank of Arnika"
without a word. Gruntwrapper looked back at his two charges, noting that Saxx was following the woman
with a slight smile.
"And for the love of Urrhina, stay out of trouble," Gruntwrapper ordered them.
The older Umpani shrugged. "Who you talking to?" Sparkle asked.
The Colonel turned his back on them and started for the inn again. "Both of you," he replied, before he
went inside.
Saxx chuckled, then turned to Sparkle. "I think I'll go scout out the bank, if you don't mind, darlin'," he
said.
With a wary look, she said, "Don't forget that we're looking for the Mook, ok?"
"Who forgot?" Saxx asked calmly, then backed into the bank with a sly smile.
Sparkle waved and went east towards the weapon and armor shop. The Higardi armorer here was old
and losing strength with every passing year, but Sparkle had seen many examples of his amazing
craftsmanship.
The shop was unlit and thrown into post-sunset shadows, lit only by the glimmer in Sparkle's eye as she
looked with near-drooling excitedness at the rows of shiny weapons behind the counter. Even total
darkness couldn't keep the Ranger from something so deliciously bright.
She hopped the counter and reached for the first shiny shield with happy paws. With impressive silence,
she took the golden ward from its place on the shelf and held it in front of her.
There was a shifting to her left, where the shadows were the thickest. "Who is there?!" a very deep voice
shouted.
The Trynnie wasted no time in silently putting the shield on the ground and jumping the barrier once
more, crouching behind it and hearing something really heavy plod up. The figure grumbled as it
approached her position. Now or never, she thought. "Hello!" she proclaimed, jumping up to the counter
and pretending she was too short to have been seen.
He was the very image of her nightmares, far from the older Higardi she expected to see... small but
intelligent eyes, horns coming from his head, and rough brown skin covered by a dirty white shirt.
"Rapax!!" she exclaimed, lept backwards, then drew her bow and fired at the creature in a smooth motion.
The Rapax caught the arrow in his bare hands, then sought immediate cover behind the pillar next to the
counter. "What did you do with the man who worked here?!" she demanded, busting down the door
behind her and taking cover in the back room.
"He is dead... as you soon will be," the Rapax promised her.
"You killed him?!" she yelled, and fired another arrow at the stone wall behind the counter, hoping the
arrow would ricochet and strike him. It hit the counter, instead.
"He died some time ago, of natural causes," the Rapax said from the darkness. "I merely moved here to
fill the needed role of armorer."
On his words, Sparkle's mind was reeling with many different thoughts at once. Is he telling the truth? But
he's a Rapax! I've never heard of a good one, but... this is why I need training for smart targets! I always
mess up like this...
"Well, what are you going to do now, little Trynnie?" the Rapax asked in a condescending voice. "I am
certain that you have business to attend to, and you are squatting quite belligerently in mine."
The Trynnie lowered her bow from its ready position. "How can I believe you didn't kill the armorer here?"
she asked.
She heard a snort. "How can you believe that a Rapax could come to Arnika and kill a man, all without
someone linking the arrival and subsequent murder?" he responded.
He had her there. "I'm coming out, but don't make any funny moves," she warned him.
Slowly, with her bow and an arrow pointed at the ground, she peeked her head from the small room she
was hiding in and came out. Unsurprisingly, he was much less cautious, and proudly so; he appeared so
suddenly, that Sparkle almost fired her bow at the ground in surprise.
As she stepped forward, a simultaneous feeling of both terror and fury enveloped her. The Rapax's
sneering face was a testament to his race's arrogance and selfishness in constantly raiding her
hometown of Trynton... at the same time that it scared the life out of her.
She put her bow to her side, but kept the arrow in her right paw, ready to nock at a moment's notice... she
wouldn't be taken by surprise again. "I am Antone," he introduced himself calmly. "I run the armory here in
Arnika. If you have nothing you wish to buy or sell, or no further threats to make, I suggest you leave
before the HLL comes and complicates matters."
In truth, Sparkle needed to switch out her regular arrows to something more powerful... she could only do
so much making her own ammo from the trees and rocks of Dominus. Her eyes swept Antone's
backstock with her adjusted vision.
"Hurry, if you will, I am closing..." he said, tapping his hoof impatiently.
"Do you have any arrows?" she asked. "I want the strongest you have."
Antone reached behind him and took a pack of painted white arrows from the shelf, placing them on the
counter. They looked almost identical to the Peacemaker in her quiver, but were much shorter and
thinner.
"Precision Arrows," he said. "Powerful enough, and always strike true... you do, of course, have
something to pay for this?"
Sparkle didn't usually carry money with her, preferring to live off of the land, but she did have something
else. "Can we trade?" she asked, and Antone huffed as she continued. "A bottle of Fuzzfas Fizzer for the
quiver?"
Despite himself, the Rapax licked his lips. The Fizzer was one of the strongest, most delicious bottles of
booze he had ever tasted... and he relished raids on Trynton that allowed him and his comrades the
spoils of the Trynnie brewery.
"Done," he said, and pushed the quiver at her. The Trynnie and the Rapax exchanged their goods without
violence, and stood back from one another as Antone uncorked the bottle.
"You're not such a bad guy after all," Sparkle admitted.
The Rapax downed a good half of the bottle before he spoke. "You speak with such conviction," he
replied. "When the Rapax King puts his plans into action, his most loyal subject will be leaving this
disgustingly peaceful town and joining him with pleasure."
"Plans?" Sparkle asked.
Antone scoffed. "What, do you think I will tell you our plans, simply because you asked?" he queried
incredulously. "You will find out soon enough... and if you are not dead by then, you will have the
opportunity to put those arrows to good use."
Sparkle grinned. "We'll have some surprises waiting for you, be sure of that."
"More rocks and sticks?" Antone asked with a laugh.
The Trynnie nodded in response. "Something like that..." she promised cryptically, then left the armory.
***
"Oh stop..." a woman said, and giggled.
"Now I'm serious, girl," Saxx's voice came next. "Ain't a part'a my story I embellished upon... 'cept maybe
the size'a the thing."
The woman laughed, long and hard, when Colonel Gruntwrapper and Sparkle rounded the corner of the
bank's entrance and stepped inside. It was brightly lit by many lamps on the walls, and the polished floor
beautifully reflected the wooden ceiling.
The Umpani almost felt sorry for tracking in the dirt that scuffed the floor's reflection. He beckoned to
Saxx. "I got a lead," he said. "Let's go."
Saxx nodded at him, then took the hand of the woman with glasses that they had all met before. After a
brief kiss on the back of her hand, and much to her delight, he said, "See ya later, darlin'." Finally, he
crossed the shining floor and joined the other two at the entrance of the bank.
"Thought I told you to stay out of trouble," Gruntwrapper sighed.
"Ain't nothin' wrong with tellin' a few heroic tales'a T'Rang Queen stomps to get 'em trustin' ya," Saxx
responded. "She didn't know about the Mook after all, though."
"Yeah, well, they're up north by a crashed ship, in the old town hall," Gruntwrapper said. "Stay alert; we
don't know what kind of people they are. Let me do the talking."
After several minutes' walk through the alleys and open fields of Arnika, they came across the still
smoldering wreck of a massive spaceship, its back end ripped open and lit by flames that just refused to
die. It had crashed straight into some poor person's house, a place that Sparkle hoped was empty or
abandoned when the ship had ditched.
Gruntwrapper gently pulled her away from the wreck and pointed at the building right next to it. It was
boringly square and had no markings, save a flowing red banner that simply read, "Town Hall" in golden
letters.
The three walked over the grassy entrance and past a decorative tree to see a closed, square-shaped
metal door, which did not open at the Colonel's insistence. He looked around for something to flick or trip
it open, when a strange creature suddenly appeared to his left.
Actually, it was a transparent green hologram of the creature, but it was so real that it almost looked alive.
In a slightly echoing voice that belied its lack of life, the hologram spoke. "The United Mook Alliance
welcomes you to the Town Hall, and to Arnika!" it spoke. "I am a holographic representation of our leader,
Screg. We are peaceful explorers from the planet Trea, and wish only to study in peace. We mean you no
harm."
Gruntwrapper stood tall as he addressed the figure. "Can you understand me, or are you automated?" he
asked.
The hologram eeriely focused its eyes directly on the Colonel. "I am programmed to answer basic
questions and give information regarding our purpose here, or simple background of the Moo..." it started.
"All right, that's great," Gruntwrapper interrupted. "I am Colonel Gruntwrapper of the Imperial Umpani
Federation. This is Brigadier General Saxx, retired, of the same," he said, with a gesture towards the
other Umpani, "and Private First Class Sparkle," he finished, with a nod to the Trynnie.
"We have reason to believe that you have a certain device that is involved in the Ascension," he
continued, cutting to the chase. "Is this true?"
The hologram nodded. "Yes, the star map is in our possession!" it replied. "You are quite knowle..."
"Then please tell your leader that the Umpani wish to broker an alliance with the Mook," Gruntwrapper
said quickly. "I believe we have much to offer one another."
"One moment, please," the hologram said, then disappeared.
Gruntwrapper crossed his arms and leaned up against the wall, ready for a long wait, when the hologram
suddenly reappeared just as quickly as it had left. "The Umpani..." it said. "Your military is well known
throughout the universe, even to us. Tell us... what would make such an alliance beneficial to our
respective people?"
The Colonel noticed the sudden change in the hologram's answers... someone was talking to them
directly through it now. "With all due respect, I do believe speaking about this inside would be
appropriate," he said. "We have travelled far, and are carrying very sensitive information that we wish to
share only with you."
The hologram nodded. "Very well, then," it said, and the door in front of it opened. "Please accept our
greetings and enter at your leisure."
When the hologram disappeared, Sparkle elbowed the Colonel in the side. "Nice going, chief," she said
with a wry grin.
He shrugged. "We're trained for this kind of thing..." he said humbly. "It's nothing special."
The towering, grey-furred yeti-like Mook leader, whose figure mirrored the hologram outside, was just
around the corner of the bare metal entrance to greet them. Though he was tall, and had large muscles
that were barely concealed underneath his metallic black uniform, he approached them with a kindly,
warm smile.
"Good evening," he said, shaking Gruntwrapper's hand. "It is my pleasure to welcome the representatives
of the Imperial Umpani Federation. To be quite honest, this is my first meeting with a member of your
esteemed race."
The Colonel nodded. "I can say much the same, sir," he said, then turned to the other two. "I'm going to
speak with Mister Screg in private, if you don't mind. You two head to the bar and relax for now."
Screg interrupted. "If I may, Colonel," he said. "If you are as tired as you say, you are free to stay and rest
in our humble compound here for as long as you need."
Gruntwrapper bowed his head slightly. "Thank you, Mister Screg," he said.
"Please," the Mook said, and gestured the Colonel to a room in the back.
"Make nice, now," Gruntwrapper said to the others, then followed Screg to the back room. "Now, with
such a dangerous item in your possession, it would only be a matter of time before the Savant found
out..." he started, before the door closed behind the two and the compound went silent.
"What an operator," Saxx said.
Sparkle hushed him, then gestured around the compound, then to her own ears. The Umpani nodded and
motioned to a table next to them, where they sat and finally relaxed after their exhausting travel.
The Trynnie looked around the bare room, noticing finally a few things that easily got her avaricious
attention. She smiled as if in a trance, with her eyes on a shiny medical scanner on the floor several feet
away.
"Whatcha doin', darlin'?" I would be careful, if I were you, two distinct voices came to her at once. The first
was Saxx, wondering why she had stood up from the table. The next seemed to be directly spoken into
her mind, followed by a whirring coming from the corner of the compound.
An open elevator descended from the upper floor, carrying a second similarly dressed Mook with much
lighter, blondish-brown fur to the ground level. He was as tall as Screg, but looked quite a bit weaker.
That is not exactly polite. I do my best to keep in shape, the calm voice spoke in Sparkle's mind.
"Hey!" she exclaimed as she realized what was going on. "My mind is private property! I'll thank you to
stay out of it!"
The Mook looked at her skeptically. "You are right," he admitted. "It is as much private property as the
scanner I left so carelessly on the ground here." Sparkle blushed, and said nothing.
He bowed deeply, and Saxx stood to greet him. "I am Urq, field explorer for the UMA expedition here to
Dominus," the Mook introduced himself. "It is my pleasure to meet you."
"I'm Saxx, 'n this here's Sparkle," the Umpani greeted, shaking the Mook's hand.
"A pleasure," Urq repeated with a nod to each of them. "If I may be so bold... what is it that our guests
would ask of us humble Mook this day?"
"Our leader's in there with your strappin' boss man, tryin' to work out the nicities between our people, ya
dig?" Saxx asked.
Urq nodded. "I do indeed dig, Saxx," he replied, "which brings me to a request I have of you."
The Umpani raised his head in interest. "As you know, the Mook are peaceful explorers," Urq continued.
"Like me!" Sparkle proclaimed.
He nodded slowly. "In a slightly broader sense, but yes, like you. We Mook wish only to further our
knowledge of the universe through study and observation," he explained, "which is what brings us to
Dominus." He gestured towards the ceiling, towards the east. "Some time ago, our moon began emitting
a strange collection of gamma particles, which gave way to lunarquakes, then finally... an eruption.
"An object was ejected then, from our moon to our planet. After we recovered it from the impact crater, we
did extensive studies on its nature and purpose."
Sparkle waved her paw at Urq. "The Chaos Moliri, huh?" she asked.
"That is exactly it," he replied. "The legendary globe, that is said to contain the infinite potential of
Change, was on our moon. Not only that, but the device contained a map... a map that led us straight to
this planet, where we see a fascinating ritual taking place. Apparently, our device is one of the three that
makes the Ascension possible."
Who would have thought the bigfeet would bring something so precious back to Dominus? Sparkle
thought happily, but just as suddenly remembered the Mook's ability to hear her thoughts. He didn't
respond, but whether he was not reading her mind, or just forgivingly mild, she didn't know.
"And this request'a yours?" Saxx asked.
Urq inhaled deeply, as if it took great effort for him to ask. "This planet, as a result of the Dark Savant's
arrival... or simply because of its natural tendencies towards violence... is much too dangerous for a
single Mook to explore on his own," he explained. "As such, I request that you allow me to accompany
you, to provide me protection as I seek to learn more of this planet."
Saxx shrugged. "Fine by me, but we'll have to run it by the boss to make sure," he answered.
Urq smiled, and looked at Sparkle. "Are you comfortable with this decision as well?" he asked.
"If you keep your thoughts out of mine, we'll do just fine, I think. Explorer brother," she added with a smile.
The Mook nodded. "I do thank you both. Please, join me upstairs, where I have prepared beds for the
both of you," he said, to which Saxx nodded happily. "Sure know your manners, boy," the older Umpani
said.
Urq nodded as they joined him on the open elevator. "It is the Mook way, after all," he answered.
Arnika Road, approaching Northern Wilderness
Day 8
Saxx quickly reversed his opinion of the polite Mook, just hours after they set out for Mt. Gigas with the
Chaos Moliri in Gruntwrapper's possession. The boy was a non-stop bellyacher, and today was no
exception.
"This rain will prove quite an impediment to my research. My visibility is low," Urq complained, for the
hundredth time since breakfast. It was hardly more than a light shower, and along with the tiny droplets
that splashed up to wet their hot, tired feet, was actually very soothing.
A might fine time to take a walk, Saxx thought, and tried instead to concentrate on the hypnotizing hum
that emanated from the device in Colonel Gruntwrapper's pack.
The Chaos Moliri contained the force of Change, or so it was said. Right now, the older Umpani really
wished it could "Change" Urq's location to back in Arnika. For some reason, he felt that if he asked nice
enough, the little pink globe would respond dutifully.
"There are a trio of giant wasps approaching from the north," Urq warned them. "I must be protected.
Please do not allow them to harm me."
Gruntwrapper sighed audibly and unholstered his Blunder Buss. The wasps made the mistake of buzzing
madly towards him, and with two thunderous blasts from his double barrels and a quick arrow from
Sparkle, the three wasps were bested.
"I apologize, but if you could keep the sound of your weapons from interfering with my work, I would much
appreciate it," Urq said as he checked his scanner for more readings. From behind him, Sparkle made a
choking gesture with her paws and gave his backside an enraged face. Saxx caught her little act and
chuckled.
"Almost to Mt. Gigas," Gruntwrapper repeated for the tenth time, like a mantra that came true if it was
spoken enough times.
"Yes, it will be ample opportunity for me to examine your people in detail... and later, those of other
locales," Urq replied.
Gruntwrapper sighed again. "Next stop is probably Rapax territory... or maybe Bayjin," he said.
"Or Trynton?" Sparkle asked. "We gotta see if the Trynnie and Umpani can work together!"
"Way ahead of you," he answered. "I met a Trynnie in the bar in Arnika, a kind little fellow who knew your
Chief's assistant. He'll bring the matter up to him and your Chief, and we'll all discuss it soon enough...
apparently, you guys have some kind of long range portals we can send small groups of men through."
Sparkle whooped. "All right!" she exclaimed. "Duty, Power, Victory! We're gonna whomp some Rapax
butt!"
"Excuse me," Urq said, immediately playing the literal wet blanket to the group's celebration.
"Yes?" Gruntwrapper asked with barely restrained annoyance.
"I have no need to study the lands of the Rapax or of the Rynjin," the Mook responded. "They are
dangerous creatures, and I do not wish to place my life in jeopardy any more than I already have. I would
hope to visit Trynton, or the Swamp and the lands beyond it."
Suddenly, Gruntwrapper stopped and turned to face him. "We're not going anywhere near the Swamp,"
he asserted.
"Why is that?" Urq asked calmly.
"Because the bugs live in and around that fetid stink hole," the Colonel explained, "and the IUF is still
debating the commitment of troops to battle with the T'Rang."
Urq bowed. "Then I do believe we are at an impasse," he said. "We should return to Arnika, where I can
continue my studies in peace."
Gruntwrapper scoffed. "We're not walking all the way back to Arnika," he stated. "If you want to go,
nobody's stopping you. But we are going to Mt. Gigas, reporting an accomplished mission and turning in
this device."
After a moment's pause, the Mook stopped and folded his arms across his chest. "That device belongs to
the United Mook Alliance," he said. "I will ask that you return it to us now."
The Colonel stomped one mighty elephantine step towards him... and Urq backed up a pace. "Your
leader gave us the Chaos Moliri because the Dark Savant would eventually find out where it was, and kill
all of you to get it," the Umpani said, almost heatedly. "It is safer in our hands, where we have men to
protect it.
"If you want to take it through a beast-infested road, with the Savant's scans just waiting to pick up the
device and lock his weapons onto your cowardly skull, you have my full permission," he continued icily.
"Otherwise, shut the hell up and follow us to Gigas. Do you understand?"
Urq nodded silently, and Gruntwrapper led everyone up the road to the forested wilderness of the fields
just south of Mt. Gigas. When the mountain finally came into view through the cloudy afternoon sky, with
the rain beautifully falling before it, peace slowly came back into his heart.
"Finally home..." he said tiredly.
Beyond the Sea
Mt. Gigas
Day 8
Saxx waited with Sparkle and Urq in the corner of the small open hallway outside of Balbrak's office.
Though the fort at Mt. Gigas was as busy as it had always been, with many rushing Umpani heading in
and out of the office to fill out reports and receive new orders, a respectful line built up when the troops
realized who was inside.
Not only was it Colonel Gruntwrapper speaking, but he had returned from a meeting with the Mook... and
with the device in hand, rumor had it.
Sparkle shifted impatiently. Waiting around was never her strong suit; doing something, anything, was
more preferable to her than waiting around for things to happen.
At the same time, though, her head bobbed downwards again and again as sleep threatened to overtake
her, whether she was standing or not. She was dead tired...
Saxx leaned against the smooth, cool metal wall and fiddled absent-mindedly with his sax. Though he
didn't dare play the instrument with such an important discussion taking place between the Colonel and
the Sergeant, he could tell just by the subtle rush of air through the instrument where certain adjustments
needed to be made.
"This wait will place quite a strain on my ability to research," Urq complained.
Saxx rolled his eyes. "Hush up, boy," he replied. "These things take time, and all your grumblin' ain't
gonna make it go by any quicker."
Gruntwrapper gestured all throughout his report to Balbrak. Sparkle saw him spread his arms out,
describing something big, then skewer a finger through the air. Then, he pointed at her and her two
companions.
Balbrak moved his eyes to follow the Colonel's description. She couldn't be sure, but Sparkle thought she
could detect the faintest nod of respect from the Sergeant before he established eye contact with
Gruntwrapper once more.
Finally, after a few more minutes of quiet discussion and, from Sparkle's perspective, pantomime, Balbrak
nodded and turned towards the file cabinet behind him. He took out several pieces of paper, placed them
on his desk, then saluted the Colonel from the brow. After Gruntwrapper returned the gesture, the two
walked out to meet the rest of the team.
"You've done some fine work, all of you," Balbrak said. He opened his hand towards Sparkle, revealing a
black card with the symbol of the Umpani and the number "5" on it. Aside from the lack of dried blood, it
was almost identical to the "3" card she received earlier... but with one crucial and distinct difference: her
picture was on the front.
She didn't know how they got it or when, but there it was, clear as day. "This will get you in to see the
General," Balbrak explained. "It's an honor to be called in to see him, especially when you're just a
Corporal."
Sparkle's eyes shone in surprise as she took the card from his hand, then gave him her old bloody one.
"A... promotion?" she asked in disbelief.
Balbrak nodded. "Don't get used to it," he warned. "You're gonna have to bust hump to get to the next
rank... everything up to now's been a cakewalk."
Despite his words, she smiled and chuckled silently... she knew that was his way of saying, "I'm proud of
you." She saluted him in the Umpani style, and he quickly responded in kind, then turned to look at
Gruntwrapper. "I've got a ton of work to do. Brief the kids... and the old man... on your way up," he said,
then ushered the next Umpani in line into his office.
Urq joined the two Umpani and the Trynnie on their way out into the night air. "Where will we venture
today, my friends?" he asked.
Gruntwrapper stopped, looked briefly at the ground in thought, then faced him. "As a ranking member of
our new allies, I would like you to debrief Sergeant Balbrak on your current situation," he said
diplomatically, "and offer support for any dialogue between our people."
When the Mook seemed reluctant to leave, the Colonel cleared his throat. "Article... 1215-7B of the IUF
code establishes the need for an official translator or ambassador between the IUF and its affiliated
allies," he explained.
Immediately, Urq perked up. "If you require my skill in that area, I would be happy to oblige," he
answered. As he bowed and stepped back into the office, Gruntwrapper turned and walked up the steps
leading into the mountain compound.
Sparkle noticed a quickened step in his movement. "Really?" she asked him sleepily.
The Colonel looked behind him to see Urq's back turned to them, then beckoned the other two after him
hurriedly. "He's selfish, short-sighted, a whiner, and not particularly pleasant to be around," he said as
they rounded the corner and entered the room housing the massive EWAXX computer. "In other words...
politics would be the perfect place for him."
Saxx smiled and shook his head, but Sparkle looked confused. "I don't get it," she said, but eventually
gave up through her sleep-addled haze.
The three entered the elevator, and the Trynnie placed the card in the activation slot when they were all
inside. Immediately after, the elevator roared to life and shot up the mountain. She felt proud as she stood
expertly still, and did not so much as stumble an inch when it took off.
The elevator stopped suddenly not long after that, and the doors slid open. "So what's going on this
time?" she asked.
The Colonel shrugged. "The General asked to see us... and when he calls people in by name, it means
two things," he explained. "That he trusts those soldiers to do what he asks, and what he asks is no walk
in the park."
Saxx put a hand on her shoulder. "Never get a feel for the dawn to dusk hustle'a the IUF 'til ya join it, eh,
Corporal?" he asked.
"You said it," Sparkle replied, and yawned slowly. "Do we get to sleep anytime soon?" she asked.
Gruntwrapper led them out into the rocky caves of Mt. Gigas, guarded by the friendly Umpani in red that
she had met just a few days ago. "Of course," he promised, "but we're gonna get briefed first. Just a
couple hours, ok?"
She nodded, and as the Umpani greeted them once more, she noticed that all of them looked much more
somber and grim than they had before. "Saxx," the one from before said. "You guys are here about the
missing UTU team, aren't you?" he asked.
Saxx shrugged. "Got no clue, boy," he said. "We're going to see the General about a mission soon, but
we don't know any more than that."
The Umpani guard looked out the door leading into the depths of the Gigas caves, and then back to the
older musician. "Word has it that we lost the entire team... a good ten men out there," he said.
The Bard sighed deeply. "Let's hope they're just late to report back..." he replied, then took his leave. The
group of three ventured down the inclined and uneven rocky passages of Mt. Gigas, past crates filled with
equipment and buzzing lights positioned at even intervals above them.
With each passing minute, Sparkle felt more and more of her consciousness falling away from her. She
slipped into brief seconds of microsleep, experiencing a fleeting view of the world that disappeared and
reappeared in a completely different area time and again... vision that could only come from long periods
without rest.
As time went on and they reached the great cavern where the spider had wrapped and prepared to feed
on the Trynnie just days ago, she noticed with sleep-deprived apathy that the bouts of microsleep were
starting to last much longer, and were happening much more frequently.
At last, Saxx took pity on the poor girl. After offering Gruntwrapper the sword from his back, he knelt down
in front of her. All pretense of strength and pride was dropped from her mind as she collapsed onto his
back, and fell asleep on the spot.
The aged Umpani hefted the light Trynnie up and continued silently alongside the Colonel, neither of
whom could stifle the smile at this previously unseen side of the Ranger.
***
Sparkle groaned on Saxx's back. Someone was being really noisy...
"Looks like she's finally awake," a man's voice said. The Trynnie sleepily opened her eyes and looked
around the room, which appeared to be dug right into the mountain and held up by five pillars. Rows of
filing cabinets, and a desk with a flashing monitor on it, removed all doubt that this was an office.
The Trynnie's eyes settled on an Umpani before her... then up, up and up into the long horned face of the
gargantuan being. His blue jacket and black slacks were formally pressed and impeccably clean. A sword
bigger than two of her was hung diagonally off of his back, and a pair of ceremonial pistols sat in holsters
on either of his hips. The card pinned to his breast had no number, but rather a smaller version of the IUF
symbol. Under the piercing gaze of his picture, his name was printed plainly for her to see: Yamir.
Despite being in the presence of the Umpani General, Sparkle was too tired to work up an effective
greeting. She smacked her lips and groaned quietly again. Yamir hmphed in amusement as she drifted
off to sleep again.
"I apologize, General," Gruntwrapper said from Saxx's side. "It's been a few days since we've had any
decent rest. We wanted to get here as quick as possible before the Savant found out what we were
carrying."
Yamir glanced to the side at one of his locked filing cabinets, where the pinkish-purple globe of the Chaos
Moliri rested until more suitable lodgings could be prepared. "It's all right," he answered calmly. "I know
we're asking a lot of you soldiers to be taking on so many duties. If the Savant weren't shooting our ships
out of the sky so effectively, exploring this entire planet would be more like... exploring the backyard.
"Anyway, let's get this briefing over with so we can get you soldiers someplace dry to sleep.
Commander..." he said, ushering the Umpani at his side forward. With a quick nod, he silently brought
forward three folders stuffed with papers. He glanced at Saxx and his furry luggage briefly before he gave
just a single one to Gruntwrapper.
The Colonel took the file and opened it. As he flipped through, he saw that most of the information was
single data sheets on almost a dozen Umpani, complete with pictures. Each one stared back at him with
the no-nonsense looks of combat veterans who had seen their fair share of battles.
"Stine, Glumph, Marno," he read as he continued through to the end of the list, where his orders were
stated quite plainly. He knew several of these people, and not just by name...
"'Meet with Sergeant Rubble and gear up. Discover evidence of the UTU team's fate,'" he read. "'Escort
any survivors back to Mt. Gigas. If the threat posed is too great, or the team cannot be located in
sufficient time, report back for new orders.'"
Yamir sighed deeply. "I have to tell you, I am worried to death about them," he admitted. "They left a
week ago, and were supposed to have been back about the time you met up with the Mook in Arnika. But
as you can see... they're still missing."
Gruntwrapper looked up from the report. "How many are going with us?" he asked, but the General
simply gestured at him and his team. "It's just you three," he replied.
The Colonel furrowed his brow in confusion. "I know, I know," Yamir said. "But the difference is that you're
going in there strictly as a Recon team. Get in there, find out what happened, and get out. Any
engagement with the enemy is under your discretion... and I don't have to tell you that your survival
comes before anything else. If it gets too hot, we can wait a few days until a few outstanding teams come
back, then we can get you some proper backup."
"But by then, the team might have succumbed to hunger, thirst, the elements, wounds..." Gruntwrapper
realized.
Yamir nodded grimly. "It's a great burden to be pushing on you," he said, "but I wouldn't trust this to any
other officer under my command... especially after knowing of the legend, and the gifted rookie, that you
have with you."
Saxx hummed with amusement. "Aw, boss... ya don't have to put it like that..." he said modestly.
"I'm serious, Saxx," Yamir replied. "Were it any other of the greats serving the Colonel, I would have
waited longer to ask. We're lucky to have you back with us."
The older Umpani shrugged. "Ya know me," he said. "Can't stay away from the IUF no matter how hard I
try. Retirement's just a temporary thing..."
"Despite that," Yamir continued, "I want you both on high alert for this one. The underwater caves still
haven't been locked down and cleared of hostiles, and you might run afoul with the Rynjin somewhere in
there. Turn the page," he ordered Gruntwrapper. The Colonel flipped the sheet bearing their orders over
to reveal the equipment assigned for their coming mission.
"That's the new model underwater gear we have waiting for you," the General said. "The team we're
sending you after got the protective version, so they'd be ready to fight. Yours was built solely for speed."
"I understand," Gruntwrapper answered, and along with Saxx, snapped to attention with a salute.
Yamir returned it, then went around his desk to sit in front of the computer there. "Get some rest over at
the NCO Barracks, then head out as early as you can tomorrow for UTU training," he ordered. "Rubble
will direct you from there."
The two nodded, then turned and left the office. Sparkle remained asleep as they weaved between
stacked crates of old files and heaps of Muskets, into the protected outer cavern of the General's office.
Small points of orange light stared out at them from every inch of the large cave's ceiling and walls. Each
one was, in fact, the shining indication of a laser defense grid. The cavern would normally be covered
from end to end with a practical wall of orange lights that could rip through flesh in an instant.
Saxx shuddered to think of a sudden accidental flip of a button, or an insufficient time limit for them to
cross through the cavern of eerie lights. Then again... they probably wouldn't be alive long enough to care
if the beams were suddenly engaged.
Sparkle muttered and smacked from his back. "My first time takin' a nap in the NCO Barracks," Saxx
quietly said to Gruntwrapper.
"It's an excellent rest, I can assure you," the Colonel responded. "Though I think it would be best to give
the fluffiest bed to the Corporal here..."
The older Umpani gently hefted Sparkle up on his back and chuckled softly. "She certainly goes all out
when she sets her mind to somethin'," he said. "If her people are as dedicated as she is, this war's as
good as ours."
They walked for just a few minutes before the metal door barring entrance into the barracks stood before
them. Gruntwrapper swiped his card in the reader at its side, and the door slid slowly up into the ceiling.
The NCO Barracks, unlike the general sleeping quarters at the foot of the mountain, had fewer beds that
were spaced much more comfortably apart. They were well-kept and beautifully made, with large white
pillows and fluffy blue sheets tightly tucked into the matresses.
Saxx put the Trynnie down on a bed and unfurled the sheets on the much larger one next to her, then
gently carried her over and tucked her in. Though she protested quietly in her sleep, she didn't wake. He
and Gruntwrapper found their own beds next to her, and the world quickly went dark.
Mt. Gigas
Day 9
"All right guys! Time to wake up and get going!" Sparkle insisted, shaking each Umpani roughly.
Gruntwrapper groaned softly, but after a few seconds of silent protest, finally stood. Saxx remained in the
bed, snoring, as the Colonel started to collect his gear.
Sparkle shook him again. "Come on! We've got work to do!" she urged. Finally, he opened an eye and
smacked his lips, then slowly rolled himself off of the comfort of the NCO bed. He went a little too far, and
landed on the metal floor with a loud thunk.
The Trynnie ignored his pained muttering and turned to Gruntwrapper. "So what are we doing, anyway?"
she asked. "I think I missed the briefing."
Gruntwrapper stared down the barrel of his Blunder Buss as he replied. "We're heading into the water
caves to find some missing soldiers," he explained.
She grinned with a confused look on her face. "Underwater?" she asked. "What are we going to do?
Swim out a few hundred feet to scout, then come back for air?"
The Colonel stared blankly at the wall for a second, trying to figure out what she meant, when he
remembered where the girl had grown up. "Of course not," he replied. "We have machines that allow us
to breathe underwater."
All at once, Sparkle scratched the back of her neck in embarrassment. "Heh... I suppose if you and the
Higardi can make ships that travel the stars, making water into air wouldn't be that hard of a trick...
"Well anyway," she continued, "Let's get going, shall we?"
After a few minutes, Saxx and Gruntwrapper finishing packing, then they all headed to the barracks' exit
together. "Once we get briefed and suited up at the UTU training ground, we're heading straight into the
ocean," Gruntwrapper said as they walked down the large and tall cavern. "I want you both on guard for
anything that..."
Sparkle interrupted him. "Wait... the soldiers didn't get lost in the Mt. Gigas underground lake?" she
asked.
"No, darlin'," Saxx answered with a shake of his head, "we're swimmin' out the underwater tunnels that
lead from here to Bayjin."
Bayjin? she thought. Her breath caught in her throat before she was able to speak. "W... we're going to...
to the Rynjin's island?" she asked in a wavering voice.
Saxx and Gruntwrapper exchanged a look; they had forgotten about her people's history with them. "Not
to fight," the Colonel assured her, weaving around assorted IUF crates and clutter littering the cave
around him. "We're going to find out what happened to our boys, and bring either them, or information on
their whereabouts, back here. About the only thing we'll see down there is a bunch of fish."
Sparkle bit her lower lip, and her spine tingled in fright. "That's what worries me..." she admitted.
Gruntwrapper sighed silently, more out of concern than exasperation, as the group came upon the
entrance to the UTU training grounds.
Clearly, it wasn't much more than a cool name. The grounds were just a very large cavern sitting on the
edge of a pool of water, one that narrowed into a tunnel that led down and into the depths of the Mt.
Gigas water caves.
A large, raised metal structure housed the UTU's gear and documentation on the western edge of the
cavern. A ramp of solid steel wound up and around a single light, which was raised on a tall pole that
illuminated the entire area, and led up into the UTU storage room.
On the edge of the pool of water, the gruff Sergeant Rubble himself was busy tinkering with a
long-barreled Musket in his hands. It looked like he was trying to put some kind of attachment on the side,
one that held short, sweet-smelling brown sticks. One of them was in his mouth and lit at the end, and the
Umpani puffed a great plume of smoke as the group came forward.
"Well, well!" he said with the smoking stick bobbing at every syllable. "So this is the rescue team, huh?
Looks like our boys'll be back in no time. Come on, step up here and get acquainted with our little
beauties here..."
He put his Musket down on the rocky floor next to a pile of bizarre devices, which looked like oversized
grey horseshoes with a few widgets attached to them. Two handles jutted out in front, and curved out of a
mouth-sized circular device that had a small crystal at the top. A second pair of metal bars wound out the
back of the device to end at two cylinders, side by side.
Rubble picked out three of the shinier ones from the bunch and gave them to each of the soon-to-be
rescuers. Finally, he picked one up for himself. "It's simple, really," he said, putting the circular device in
his mouth. When his voice came again, it boomed out much louder than before, and echoed around the
cavern with a new strength.
"This here's the part that sucks the air out of the water so you can breathe it. We call it 'The Gills.' This..."
his voice roared, as he held the two upturned handles, "will be the two 'Urrhina Help Me' handles, or
'Uhms,' that you'll be needing when you press this."
He put a thumb on top of each of the handles, then turned around to emphasize the two cylinders jutting
out from his spine. Sparkle looked at the same place on the handles in her paws and noticed two buttons
on top of each. "You have two 'Shift Buttons.' The right will blast you through the water, the other turns on
the light. Any questions?"
"Yeah," Saxx chimed in. "These don't look like they'll stop a sharkbite or any other critter out there from
makin' a meal of us. What do we do if we run into any hostiles?"
Rubble barked a laugh. "You're joking, right?" he guffawed. "That's what the Shift Buttons are for. There's
nothing in the water on this planet, or any other, that can outrun IUF ingenuity!
"Besides," he continued, "it's not like you can swing a sword or shoot anything when you're down there.
The UTU sends out its fastest, smartest and highest endurance soldiers... because there's no way to fight
down there!"
"And our gear?" Gruntwrapper asked.
"Cap it up," Rubble replied, gesturing towards the structure at the top of the ramp. "We've got some extra
water lockers and bags if you can't bear to be away from the Buss for too long."
The Colonel nodded and climbed into the structure, and began to rustle and rifle through the containers
there. Sparkle shakily capped her quiver shut in anticipation of the coming journey.
Rubble snorted. "What's the matter, soldier?" he asked the Trynnie, who looked strangely at him. "You're
shaking," he pointed out. She hadn't even noticed, but he was right. "Don't let the caves bother you too
much, 'cause the ocean's gonna be a lot colder than this!"
"Oh," she said, and did her best to calm down. "Yeah, thanks, I'll be fine."
Gruntwrapper returned with a long, airtight locker in hand, attached to his waist by a short chain. "You
guys ready to move out?" he asked, with a particular eye on Sparkle.
"As I'll ever be," Saxx said through the voice amplifying breather. Despite herself, Sparkle nodded and
joined the older Umpani at the mouth of the pool of water.
It got incredibly dark very quickly in the water, and her knees almost went slack before she caught
herself. Her mind wheeled with the images of tentacles, claws, webbed fish hands, any manner of
monster or beast that was just waiting to reach out and grab her the second she put a single boot in the
pool. Who knew what dangers were just out of sight and waiting for her?
Saxx seemed to notice her trepidation and stepped into the pool first. He pushed the button on top of the
left handle, and a very bright and wide beam of white light erupted from the crystal above the breathing
device. Wherever he looked, the beam followed faithfully.
He looked towards her, far enough down to keep from shining the beam in her face. "I'll take point," he
said, and walked into the water. Seconds later, his head dipped beneath the surface, and only ripples
remained to mark his passage.
Sparkle breathed deep, then put a single boot into the cold water before her. No fear, no fear, no fear,
she repeated in her mind. After a second's hesitation, she put the other boot in. She stepped forward
once, twice. The water poured over and into her boot, matted her fur to her body.
Nothing reached out to grab her. She took another deep breath and continued forward until the water was
up to her waist.
She looked back to wave Gruntwrapper over, and saw a peculiar exchange taking place. Rubble looked
deadly serious, a far cry from his usual masculine, near-mockingly jovial demeanor, and put something
very shiny into Gruntwrapper's rough grey hands.
The Colonel took the item with a simple nod, and put it into a secure pouch at his side. Sparkle's fear left
her for just a moment, and was replaced with a mixture of desire and jealousy. Why does he get all the
nice stuff? she thought, before he marched towards her with sudden speed.
He ushered her forward, wading into the water right behind her. "Here we go..." she said, then engaged
her light and dipped her head under the frigid waters.
Immediately, she wildly darted her head about with her light beam illuminating every last dangerous inch
of unexplored, shadowy ground.
Nothing but plants and rocks. Her heartbeat slowed as her light stabbed and converted the small pool
from a body of Rynjin-infested water to a harmless haven of kelp. Saxx's light shone out from the tunnel
leading south and into the water caves, and he waved her forward.
The Bard turned and pressed the button in his right hand, jetting forward quickly and down into the tunnel.
It might have been too fast, Sparkle reasoned, by the way he scraped his legs on the bottom of the rocky
passage. When she carefully engaged her thrusters and dropped down next to him, though, he seemed
to be fine.
Gruntwrapper followed close behind, and the three simultaneously brightened the large underwater cave
with their three wide and powerful light beams. Sparkle's beam in particular moved faster than the others,
scouting more in her fear of the unknown.
Saxx's comforting hand on her shoulder made her look him in the face in fright, practically blinding him
before she looked away quickly. "Ugh... careful, darlin'..." his voice came from the amplifier.
"Sorry," she said as his eyes adjusted back to the shape they were before. She noticed happily that his
hand hadn't left its comforting position.
"Not so bad, though, is it?" he asked, and she laughed nervously. "Not at all. It's kind of relaxing," she
lied.
Gruntwrapper pointed down a wide tunnel, a rocky path with a very smooth and sandy floor and tinged
blue by the water around them. "We'll start down there," he said, then pushed the Shift Button. Sparkle
and Saxx followed their fearless leader down the dark and rocky path.
The group rocketed through the network of caves, past large clam beds, dangling and waving green kelp
and strange, large red mushrooms that grew out of the sand. The only fauna they ran into after several
minutes of travel were schools of tiny, harmless fish that darted away in fright at their approach.
Sparkle's lights reflected off of their silvery bodies, and splashed beautifully around her. As time went on,
she was able to appreciate more and more the beauty of the caves, and focused less on their potential
dangers.
Even more than familiar experience granting her this feeling of calm was the companionship of the two
men beside her. No matter their strength or capabilities, it definitely felt better to travel in these lonely
caves with someone else accompanying her.
Having spent her life on a solitary journey throughout the wild with nothing more than the dim beasts as
her companions, Sparkle hadn't really noticed until now how lonesome and boring that kind of life had
gotten. Her fighting skills were top-notch... but in hindsight, she felt she might have missed out on
something important by spending all those years alone.
In a sudden rush of euphoria, she spun in a daredevil circle with a quick blast of her thrusters. Saxx
laughed through his amplifier, but Gruntwrapper was not so amused. "Are you all right?" he asked. "Did
Rubble give you a defective one?"
She shook her head no, and the Colonel made a face. "All right," he conceded, "but if your machine has
any more trouble, you switch with me. And that's an order."
Sparkle smiled and nodded, and they continued on their way. "It's strange that I was ever nervous about
this," she said, blasting forward and ahead of the group. "This is really fun!"
All of a sudden, though, her mood was immediately dampered when she caught sight of a glint to her
right. "Wait..." she said, and boosted over to it. With a deep sense of dread in her stomach, she cleared
away the sand from the item and unearthed it as Saxx and Gruntwrapper caught up to her.
It was an IUF dogtag, attached to a chain and showing signs of having been gnawed on. It read, "Sgt.
Vesk."
"This..." Sparkle stammered, "...something got them?"
Gruntwrapper swore, and looked around them suddenly. In the distance, he immediately noticed a group
of large, long-tentacled squid blast out of the tunnel in front of them on jets of ink. Thankfully, they kept
their distance and pushed through the water to the tunnel they had just come from.
Sparkle watched them for a little bit before another glint caught her eye. "Over here," she beckoned, and
pointed out a sack of Musket balls that had spilled out onto the sand below. She pointed farther down the
tunnel, where discarded equipment appeared more and more frequently as they travelled on.
"Somethin' happened here..." Saxx pointed out worriedly. They swam past a splintered Musket, a few
throwing daggers, more Musket balls... until finally, the gear suddenly stopped. The three shone their
lights down the dark tunnel and along the rocky floor, walls and ceiling, but saw nothing. No sign of the
team, their gear, or of anything that might have been involved with their disappearance.
"Stay tight," Gruntwrapper ordered them. The three ventured down the tunnel slowly, lights moving to and
fro and keeping any area from being dark for too long.
Sparkle noticed them first. "There," she pointed down the tunnel, where five very faint lights slowly
approached them. She waved her paw at them. "Over here!" she screamed out. "We're here to rescue..."
Gruntwrapper grabbed her arm and shoved it down. "Hey!" she shouted, but he silenced her with a look.
"They're not ours..." he replied. "Look how dim their lights are compared to ours."
He was right... in her excitement, she didn't see that the orbs were dangling and weaving as if they were
attached to something long and away from the body, as opposed to the lights that stood still near their
mouths. The Colonel stepped in front of the two, bodily blocking them from the coming group of lights. His
eyes narrowed as he tried to make out exactly what they were.
Suddenly, the lights simultaneously glowed extremely bright, and approached with lightning quickness. As
they approached, and right before he went mad, Gruntwrapper realized that the lights were attached to
long tails at the ends of five sharp-toothed and long-bodied black sharks.
The three were suddenly bombarded with images of death, horror and impending pain that sent them all
to their knees. Psi Sharks... Saxx realized as the first swam forward with its jaws open, staring at him with
solid white eyes and ready to bite his head off with a single chomp.
And the first part of fightin' a Psionic attack... is to realize the nature of the attack, he thought to himself.
The Umpani Bard spat the breathing device from his mouth and replaced it with the mouthpiece of his
saxophone, then let his fingers fly across the instrument, and blew a jazzy tune that stopped the sharks
dead in their tracks. Slowly at first, a small pocket of air pushed the water around it out and away from the
middle of the school of sharks.
Then, picking up speed, the air pocket spread out to envelop the fish and the UTU's newest members.
The Psionic attack suddenly dropped from their minds, as quickly as the fish suddenly dropped from
Saxx's newly created bubble of air. From the space where water had once been and now atmosphere
currently ruled, the Psi Sharks dropped to the sandy floor and flopped about helplessly.
Gruntwrapper roared, and his amplifier strengthened the cry and echoed it over the entire bubble. He
stomped down once, twice, three times on a trio of the Psi Shark's bodies, crushing them under his
massive foot.
As Saxx kept one hand playing his sax, he unsheathed his sword and plunged it into a fourth one's head,
as Sparkle grabbed the final one and threw it up into the air. The Bard took the sax from his lips and
quickly jammed his breather back into his mouth. "Mighty me..." his voice boomed, just before he drew his
sword and sliced the shark neatly in half. He returned it to its sheathe on his back, just as the air bubble
collapsed. "...that was beautiful."
The rushing water threw their bodies about in a rough swirl, but they righted themselves soon enough.
"Guess we found our culprits," Saxx pointed out, with crushed and sliced fish parts floating around them.
Sparkle shook her head. "If that's the case... where are the bodies?" she asked. "Or at least the
dogtags?"
Gruntwrapper nodded. "She's right," he said. "We've got one dogtag here. We keep going until we find
nine more, or the bodies to go with them."
"All right," Saxx agreed. "But I'd be willin' to wager those beasties spooked our boys good. We better go
find 'em quick." Their new objective set, the group continued on in search of the ill-fated group of UTU
explorers.
Mt. Gigas Water Caves
Day 10
After hours of jetting through the twisting tunnels, a night of floating, relaxing rest and several more hours
of exploration, Gruntwrapper was about ready to call it quits. They had travelled for several hundred miles
already, and aside from the trail of gear they found by the Psi Sharks, they had no further leads to finding
the lost team.
They were going to need a lot more manpower than he or the General thought to search these caves...
and on top of that, he was really getting sick of eating his meals through a straw.
Just as he was about to announce the order to withdraw, though, they came across a peculiar sight: past
almost a mile of hanging kelp, the Mt. Gigas water caves opened into a very large, very extensive cavern
that spread as far as they could see in every direction.
Even their lights were just barely powerful enough to shine to the bottom of the several thousand foot
drop, from where the water caves ended and this great cavern began. They didn't need their lights at this
stage, though, because unlike the tunnels they had just come from, there was no ceiling here.
They could see the top of the Dominus sea from here, and the sun shining down brightly from above.
Gruntwrapper was glad; he was about to go stir-crazy in these enclosed little passages with no reminder
that somewhere out there, there was still a planet... not just endless caves and water.
"What a drop..." Sparkle commented, pointing down at the groupings of rocks and tall kelp waving in the
current of the ocean. "Do you think the UTU team came through here?"
Gruntwrapper shrugged. "Who knows?" he replied.
She scanned the large cavern, sweeping her eyes across the places she could see... when she suddenly
stopped. "Oh, no..." she whispered, but her voice was amplified into a large betrayal of her fear.
"What is it, darlin'?" Saxx asked.
Sparkle pointed out towards a grouping of rocks, and the pile right next to it. "Can't you see?" she asked.
Gruntwrapper squinted, but the salt water had long made it difficult to make out even his own team
clearly.
Without a word, Sparkle jetted over the great cavern and descended to the rocks. As they followed and
drew closer, Saxx and Gruntwrapper suddenly realized with revulsion what she had seen.
Scattered among the large and jagged stones were the jumbled bones of several Umpani. Gruntwrapper
ground his teeth together and shook his head in disbelief, but began the grim task of counting skulls
nonetheless.
"Look here, at the end of this one," Sparkle said, indicating a leg bone stuck in the sand: the end was
shattered and splintered into fragments. "Something snapped the bone, either by crushing or biting it...
something really big."
Saxx knelt at the largest collection of the bones and stroked his chin thoughtfully. He closed his eyes, and
said a little prayer for the departed.
For half an hour, they scoured the nearby vicinity for any signs of life or death. They found no survivors,
but no matter how hard they looked and how much they debated about different skull fragments
belonging to different Umpani, the consensus was always roughly the same: eight total dogtags, eight, or
possibly nine, shattered skulls.
"We're one short," Gruntwrapper summed up, and Saxx nodded. "Whatever took 'em out could still be
carryin' the last in its belly," the older Umpani pointed out.
"It doesn't matter," the Colonel replied curtly. "One way or the other, Marno and Glumph are still out there.
We're not going back without their tags in my pocket, or their butts right behind us. Is that clear?"
Saxx raised his hands in a "calm down" gesture. "I'm not sayin' we leave without 'em, Colonel," he said.
"I'm just lettin' ya know where it all stands right now."
Gruntwrapper breathed deeply, then shook his head. "Sorry," he said in a beaten voice. "I know what you
mean, and I know neither one of you would suggest turning tail and running. It's just..." He sighed. "They
were good men."
He looked between both of them. "Our objective now is to find out what happened to those two, and find
whoever or whatever's responsible for this," he said. "Engagement with the perpetrator is at my
discretion, but as it stands now, this mission is search and rescue... nothing more."
Sparkle and Saxx nodded. "So where to?" she asked.
Together, they turned to look at the powerful jet of air rushing from the rocks just behind them, to the tall
cavern walls that wound around the entire area. There were other tunnels around them that led to other
places, including one right near them. "Let's check out the shallows up here," Sparkle suggested, with a
gesture to the open cliff wall above her. "The survivors might have taken shelter up there."
"All right," Gruntwrapper replied, and jetted up to the opening. "Follow me."
The other two complied... when a low groan suddenly enveloped the entire underwater cavern. It lasted
for ten straight seconds, the howl of a beast who had just woken up and needed breakfast.
The Umpani Colonel clenched his hands angrily. It can only be the sound of the one responsible... he
thought.
He followed the sound to the center of the great canyon, shining his light through the gloom of the ocean's
depths. Sparkle and Saxx joined him in piercing the darkness, but saw nothing other than endless
expanses of sand.
It was the monster's eyes that gave her away. Her scales were pitch black, absorbing the light of their
beams and giving the illusion of an underwater canyon that went on forever. When her eyes reflected the
light back into Sparkle's eyes, though, it removed all doubt as to her existence... at the same time that it
was too late to run. Nessie! Sparkle thought in fright.
The behemoth sea monster, as big as an Umpani warship or the trunk of Trynton's tree itself, bared her
pointed, glimmering teeth as she opened her mouth wide to swallow them. "Run!" Sparkle screamed and
jetted backwards. The three righted themselves immediately and blasted for the safety of the shallows to
the west... but the Trynnie spun in place as she tried to get her bearings and see where her friends had
gone.
By the time she realized where it was she was supposed to go, the sea monster inhaled the ocean water
in front of her with such a powerful vacuum effect, that Sparkle had no chance to get away. Within
seconds, she was caught in the current, and spiralled straight into the creature's mouth.
Gruntwrapper and Saxx, from the safety of the shallows above, suddenly noticed that they were missing
one. In a panic, they both looked down at the monster in the depths below, seeing only the reflection of
her cruel teeth in the light. The teeth parted and she let forth a gurgling belch, then disappeared as she
closed her mouth and threw her entire body into darkness once more.
"Sparkle!!" they screamed in unison. Gruntwrapper went blind with fury. "You bastard!" he screamed, and
before Saxx could stop him, the Colonel unsheathed the sword from the Bard's back and blasted forward
towards the spot he had last seen the creature.
Still recovering from sucking in so much water, Nessie was slow to meet the angry Umpani's sudden
attack. Gruntwrapper launched straight into the creature's forehead, burying the very large and very long
sword to the hilt into it.
A sudden but subdued sound, like a muffled peal of thunder, filled the water around him. Saxx joined
Gruntwrapper with his sax in hand, when Nessie groaned pitifully and crashed her great head to the sand
below. It kicked up around her then settled slowly, and despite the readiness of the two Umpani to fight
her, she didn't move any further.
"What happened?" Saxx asked. "What was that sound?"
In all honesty, Gruntwrapper was just as confused. He furrowed his brow in confusion, then slid the sword
out of Nessie's skull. The creature made no move or sound of protest, but oddly enough, he heard a grunt
come from her throat.
He held the blade at the ready, floating silently as another grunt came from inside the creature... this one,
however, sounded louder and more high-pitched than the previous one. "Hey, get me outta here!"
Sparkle's undeniable voice came from inside the creature.
Gruntwrapper's mouth worked around the breathing device, but no sound came. "That you, darlin'?!" Saxx
asked happily, and swam down to Nessie's closed mouth.
"Yeah!" Sparkle said from inside, almost making it look like Nessie was speaking. "I'm gonna shoot her
jaw up from inside... you guys push too, ok?!"
"All right then, on the count'a three!" Saxx called out, and took a position at the left of Nessie's jaw.
Silently, Gruntwrapper floated to the right.
"One, two... three!" the Trynnie shouted, and pushed up at the roof of Nessie's mouth from the darkness
inside. Gruntwrapper and Saxx grabbed the beast's lips, and slowly but surely, her maw opened wide
enough for the Trynnie to slip quickly out.
Saxx rushed forward and embraced her. "What happened?!" he asked loudly. "Are ya ok?"
She nodded. "Yes, I'm fine!" She made a face at the sea monster. "Looks like I gave old Nessie a bad
case of indigestion though..."
Gruntwrapper floated next to her. "What did you do?" he asked, deadly serious. Sparkle bit her lip and
looked away, as if afraid to speak. The Colonel cocked his head to the side and crossed his arms over his
chest.
I'm not going to get out of this one... she realized. She took a deep breath, then prepared to confess.
"Well, um... you know that shiny thing that Rubble gave you earlier?" she asked. Gruntwrapper closed his
eyes and sighed, knowing exactly where this was going. He patted his pocket, feeling the sudden lack of
a bulge where the Thermal Pineapple had been.
"Well, you know me," Sparkle said sheepishly. "I love shiny things, they love me. Apparently, they don't
like Nessie so much, though." She pointed towards the monster's back end. "I figured if I was going to die,
I might as well spend my last minutes in her stomach with something bright and beautiful... so I turned on
my light and looked over the little gadget.
"But..." she continued, "when I pulled out the little pin on the side, I was reminded of this little device my
friend Madras made! I figured if it looked like a grenade, it probably worked like one, too." She shrugged.
"So I threw it at Nessie's one end, then swam like a mad Trynnie to the other!"
Gruntwrapper slowly drew forward to her. He opened his arms slowly, as if beckoning her into an
embrace. Sparkle smiled and waded towards him... when he smacked her on top of the head.
"Ow!" she said, holding her head painfully. "What was that for?"
The Umpani shook his head in disbelief. "Stupid... stupid fool!" he exclaimed. Sparkle shrank back. "Do
you know how powerful one of those things is?! A single Pineapple can level entire cities, kill millions...
wipe out an entire army in a single blast!"
Sparkle looked away. Gruntwrapper reached his hand out again, and as the Trynnie winced and prepared
for a second blow, the Colonel placed it lightly on her cheek. He stared into her eyes. "You scared the life
out of me, Corporal."
She didn't say a word, and he shook his head again. "I'm... glad to see you're all right," he said, but as her
look very slowly changed to one of relief, he immediately switched gears. "But if you pull another stunt like
that, I'll see you discharged myself. Are we clear?"
When she nodded emphatically, he dropped his hand from her cheek. He floated upwards on his
thrusters and gestured towards the western shallows. "Come on, we've still got work to do," he stated.
The shallows were much closer to the surface of the ocean than Nessie's cavern. The majesty of the
underwater world was laid bare to all of them, showing off a brilliant array of multi-colored plants, fungus
and glimmering fish through the sun's bright assistance.
They turned off their lights and moved close to the sandy ground. Sparkle still shook from her
experiences just moments ago... not only had she come down into the ocean where her people swore
was nothing but death, but she had actually faced down the leviathan Nessie in the process... and
single-handedly killed her.
There was nothing in the world that could stop her now.
Bayjin Shallows
Day 11
They entered a larger part of the shallow and open water, where a long, sunken wooden galley lay silently
on the sand below. None of them could be sure with the way the sun was playing reflective tricks on
them, but there seemed to be tiny orbs and clouds of light hovering about the ship, like protective spirits.
None of them paid the sight any more attention than they needed to and continued on to another open
area, one which made Sparkle's skin crawl. So we came to Bayjin after all... she thought.
At the entrance to the island of the fish-men, a large Rynjin with a dangerously large right claw stood
watch at his homeland's entrance with three smaller Rynjin, who had only tiny hands to defend
themselves. A slave master and thralls, she reasoned, if I know their culture well enough.
They were scaled beasts with finned heads, webbed hands and toes, and large underbites. They were as
at home on land as they were in water, but a much larger threat to face down here where they had
weapons, and the three IUF soldiers had few options to pursue as countermeasures.
Gruntwrapper floated forward with his hands in a peaceful gesture. "Greetings from the IUF," he said.
Sparkle shook her head violently. "No... they're not gonna listen!" she insisted, but the Umpani kept on
regardless. "This is the first meeting between our people... I want it to go well," he replied.
To anything but her surprise, and with a guttural cry, the larger Rynjin ordered the smaller ones forward
as he swam forward with his claw outstretched. "Boy, that was the biggest mistake you'll ever make..."
Saxx said to the fish-man through his mouthpiece, then replaced it with his sax.
Before the Rynjin could react, an air pocket opened around them and their prey before they could attack.
Still, they continued forward in a loping run, the thralls jumping and kicking out while the slave master
swiped viciously at Saxx.
The Bard continued to play, and dodged and absorbed blows as best he could while Gruntwrapper and
Sparkle entered the fray. Gruntwrapper grabbed two thralls' heads and cracked them together, and as
they slumped to the ground, the third jumped and kicked him in the jaw.
The Colonel backed off as Sparkle fumbled with the top of her quiver. She finally got it open and grabbed
an arrow with a twitching paw... then accidentally dropped it along with several others. She swore and
reached for another as Gruntwrapper grabbed the punching thrall by the wrist, then picked him up and
flung his body at the slave master.
The larger Rynjin sliced the thrall across the back painfully, but non-lethally, then drew forward... just as
Sparkle nocked the arrow in her bow. With one look from the large fish-man, though, she panicked and
drew the bow too tight, firing the arrow out of the air pocket and into the water above.
Confused, the Rynjin growled and stalked forward towards the delicious Trynnie, when Gruntwrapper
punched him across his large, snaggle-toothed jaw. His eyes rolled in his head as he dropped, and Saxx
gently let the air bubble collapse before replacing his mouthpiece.
"What happened, darlin'?" he asked Sparkle.
She breathed heavily into her mouthpiece, her body shaking. "I... I'm sorry," she stammered, closing the
top on her quiver and gathering up the errant arrows. "I told you I'm no good with smart targets... they're
so unpredictable, and I never know how to engage them."
Saxx crossed his arms over his chest. "Is that it?" he asked.
Sparkle nodded. "Yep," she said. "That's why I need your guys' training, to show me how to fight
intelligent beings. Beasts are ok, but..."
"Ya don't need to tell any fibs around us, darlin'," Saxx interrupted, causing her to look at him with a
confused look on her face. "What do you mean?" she asked.
He laughed sardonically. "'Gettin' trainin'?' 'Unpredictable enemies?' It ain't nothin' but a cover, 'n ya know
it," he replied. "I ain't lived as long as I have by bein' no fool, 'n that includes keepin' my ears open. I may
not have been here long, but I know ya Dominus folk seem to think the Trynnie ain't the brightest bulbs in
the closet."
"Yeah? So?" she asked.
Saxx sighed, sending bubbles up and around his cheeks. "Darlin', do ya know why people talk to each
other when they fight?" he asked. Sparkle shook her head no. "When people fight... I mean people who
can think 'n reason 'n feel... the battle starts with the mind," he explained. "Ya got yourself two people with
equal skills, equal mass, everythin's on even footin'. So how do ya tip the scales in your favor?"
Sparkle remained silent. "Ya get inside their head, darlin'," Saxx explained. "Ya make 'em think they're
weaker than they are, or that what they're fightin' for is worthless. Ya end the battle in their heart before
ya stick your sword through it.
"Now, the way I figure it," he continued, "you 'n every other Trynnie have been buyin' into this 'Trynnie are
fools' nonsense... hook, line 'n sinker. It's no wonder ya fight beasts so well, but the smart ones give ya
trouble: you've lost the battle before ya even started."
"But it's true!" Sparkle insisted. "Trynnie are predisposed to thievery! We get distracted by shiny objects
and always lose out to all the mean creatures that are way bigger and smarter than us!"
Saxx blinked, then looked at her with disbelief. "That your opinion, or the opinion'a your folks, your kin, the
other people 'round here?" he asked. "Tell me, who was the one who saved my life from that nasty
Hogar? Not only put an arrow straight through his skull, but knew how to care for the hole in my
stomach?"
Sparkle shrugged. "Survival instincts... anyone can learn those," she countered.
"How about the one who put her sense of duty before her fear of the unknown in the ocean?"
Gruntwrapper asked, and Sparkle blushed. "You noticed?" she asked.
The Colonel nodded. "Of course, I noticed," he said, "even though Balbrak told me that you said it's your
job to notice things. I know for a fact that you do a damn fine job sensing motives in others, and scouting
out hostiles that me and Saxx don't even come close to seeing.
"But," he said with his index finger raised, "you sure do a piss poor job of noticing your own strength."
After a deep, bubble-inducing breath, he continued. "Everyone has their own demons to deal with.
Sometimes, we make hasty decisions that put others at risk." He paused slightly. "Sometimes we aren't
the people we want to be, and good friends die because of it... but the second you surrender to your
weaknesses and call yourself defeated, no Rynjin needs to do anything to take you down. You've already
done yourself in."
Saxx nodded. "Ya came to the IUF for trainin'?" he asked. "Well, take this lesson to heart: always put
yourself a hundred times higher than your enemy, 'n ya always come out on top. The second ya lose your
confidence, ya lose the battle."
Sparkle let their words sink in, as much as she tried desparately to fight them off and explain them away.
Deep down she knew they were right, but she couldn't possibly admit it after years of following the same
path... if she really was that smart, all her screwups would be hers and hers alone to be responsible for.
She trailed behind the two Umpani as they jetted towards the entrance to Bayjin, thinking of the difficulty
of that kind of life. Without her supposed stupidity to welcome her and explain away her faults... there
would just be her.
The sun began to set as they reached the entrance to the Rynjin island home. A stone and bamboo ramp
led up and out of the water, framed on top by the ribcage of a long dead creature of the sea.
Gruntwrapper motioned the other two to stay behind him as he jetted up the ramp and slowly poked his
head out of the water.
He let the mouthpiece fall out of his mouth, and pantomimed for the others to do the same. "No sense
giving away our position with any loud voices just yet," he whispered. The other two nodded, and reached
the top of the ramp together.
The ramp turned into a long bridge suspended over the water, to a small stone temple adorned with many
drawings of different sea creatures. Though they were idealized, and had much larger heads or claws
than would normally be found in nature, Sparkle thought for sure one of them resembled Nessie.
Gruntwrapper looked over the sea and past the temple to the island of Bayjin, which was crawling with
thankfully distant Rynjin, and noticed that the temple appeared to be empty. He waved towards it, and the
three dashed along the bridge to its internals, with the Colonel carrying his Blunder Buss' water locker at
his side.
Inside, more pictures depicting clawed, fanged and finned creatures awaited them, painted in such a way
as to make their eyes follow the soldiers' every move. A large clam shell sat in the center of the stone
temple, and inside it sat a blue potion of indeterminate effect.
Another bridge jutted out of the temple and led straight to the island, where Gruntwrapper could see the
Rynjin congregating by the hundreds around something in the middle.
He squinted his salt-stained eyes as the Rynjin weaved back and forth, making tiny holes in their ranks
and revealing the scene little by little. When a sudden break appeared, it didn't take a Ranger to see what
was going on: an injured and weak Umpani, his body held down on the sand by several Rynjin at each
limb, stared angrily at a tall T'Rang holding a hooked electric rod next to his body.
Even if he wasn't nine feet tall and wearing a spidery black Assassin gown, Gruntwrapper recognized
Shritis' gleeful, insectal face instantly. He saw the same ghoulish joy just prior to the moment that this
very T'Rang took his eye.
A shorter T'Rang wearing glasses stood next to him. They seemed to be conversing about something, but
who knew how long it would be before they turned their attention to their captor.
Gruntwrapper burst out of the temple and onto the bridge, prompting both of the T'Rang's stingers to point
in his direction before they even turned to see him. Rynjin cried and croaked out from every direction, and
soon, the entire army of hundreds was surging forward on the bridge and from the sea to take his life.
"UMPANI!" Shritis hissed, and slithered behind the large group of Rynjin to meet the severely uneven
challenge.
The Umpani Colonel unclicked the latches on the water locker without taking his eyes off of the advancing
army. When they were undone, he yanked the top up and threw the container into the air. His Blunder
Buss twirled out, and before it fell to the ground, he caught it by the stock, aimed towards the first of the
Rynjin, then began to shoot.
The locker hit the ground with a clatter as he popped two Rynjin's heads off from several hundred feet
away, and his gun screamed for more. The ones in the water arrived first, bursting out from the ocean
and jumping for his body. He kicked the water locker up and into the first Rynjin's chest, where it struck
the creature heavily, then bounced back onto the bridge.
The Rynjin on the left slashed for his throat, but Gruntwrapper backhanded him across the jaw with his
considerably longer reach. Before he could react, though, two more jumped at him from the sea on his
right.
A pair of arrows stuck straight through both of their necks, and their lifeless bodies thumped harmlessly
off of Gruntwrapper's muscular chest. He spared a quick smile at the proud Trynnie behind him, who was
nocking another arrow as he turned away.
Several Rynjin's heads glowed at once, then screamed forth a torrent of Psionic spells that threatened to
turn his brain to jelly. Saxx's music suddenly filled the air, though, and the spells streaked and bounced
harmlessly off of an invisible bubble around the Colonel's body.
Gruntwrapper suddenly roared, pounded the bridge with his great foot, then charged forward with a fierce
battle cry. The Rynjin line faltered as his Blunder Buss roared again and again, exploding them one after
the other, and sometimes in pairs, as his bullets screamed through one head to pop off another.
He reached the first fish-man and dipped his head low, impaling the Rynjin on his horn and throwing the
fish-man's struggling body over his own head. The next fearless Rynjin lept for him and scratched for his
throat, but failed to penetrate the Umpani's tough hide.
With a meaty fist, the Colonel socked the powerless fish-man, then shot his body as he slipped into the
waters next to the bridge. A green pool welled up as another Rynjin jumped out at him, but who was
immediately dropped by a barrage of Sparkle's arrows.
His Blunder Buss roared again and again, filling the otherwise idyllic island of Bayjin with clouds of green
blood mist. Without warning, a Rynjin slipped past the Colonel's defenses while he was busy with the
ones behind him, and bit into his leg.
Not a second later, Gruntwrapper kicked the Rynjin away, then brought his foot down upon his head. He
exploded in a cloud of green, just before the Umpani shot his body for good measure. Another Psionic
spell skittered over the protective bubble and shot away into the atmosphere.
Little by little, though, the Colonel was being forced to back up. The Rynjin were dropping like flies, but
swarming like bees. Eventually, Shritis himself pushed through the lines of Rynjin, and stood before
Gruntwrapper with a maniacal grin on his mandibled face.
"Nowhere to run, little toadbelly..." Shritis hissed as he slithered before them. Gruntwrapper backed up
another step and into Sparkle and Saxx. The Rynjin stopped advancing, Sparkle stopped firing, and
Gruntwrapper and Shritis stared one another down.
"You wouldn't happen to have another one of those things on you, would you?" Sparkle asked in a
whisper.
While she spoke, a Rynjin swam to the edge of the bridge and reached his webbed and clawed hand for
her leg. The Trynnie immediately put her nocked arrow straight between his eyes. "Don't even blink, fish
face," she said confidently.
I guess... there's no choice, Gruntwrapper thought. Slowly, he reached into his vest and withdrew his only
other Thermal Pineapple. He couldn't stifle his grin when Shritis' confident face suddenly turned icy at the
sight of the small yellow device, and its deceptively cute green fronds.
"You know exactly what this is," the Colonel said in a deadly tone. "And you know what it can do. What
you probably don't know... is that this model's twice as powerful as the one used on Guardia."
Shritis hissed angrily. "Desssperate fool," he spat. "Iss thiss the only way you can defeat the great
Sshritisss T'Rang?"
The Colonel shrugged and smirked. "Maybe," he said. "But don't think I won't use it. It will be delicious
payback for what you took from me." He twitched his scarred eye to accentuate his point.
The T'Rang hissed in anger, but did not approach. "Then it appearsss we are at a sstandsstill..." he
admitted, but Gruntwrapper shook his head. "Not exactly. Give us the prisoner, and we'll be on our way,"
he offered.
"Treacherouss hog!" Shritis exclaimed, then brandished his hooked black Psi Rod. "You will sslaughter us
the ssecond you are clear!"
"We came here for our lost men, nothing more," Gruntwrapper assured him. "No mention of us fighting
the T'Rang. But if you aren't going to believe us, perhaps we can end this now..." Without another word,
he put his finger in the pin on the side of the Thermal Pineapple.
The T'Rang hissed loudly, then called something in the Empire's tongue to the T'Rang behind him.
Gruntwrapper, sensing a trap, kept his finger right where it was.
Thankfully, the other, bespectacled T'Rang simply sent the Rynjin surrounding the Umpani prisoner away,
then let him go. When he realized who it was, Gruntwrapper greeted him. "Glumph!" he called out. "Are
there any others with you?"
The red-eyed Umpani stumbled past the line of Rynjin, pushing one standing in his way into the sea. "Not
a damned one!" he shouted back with renewed energy. "All of them were eaten by that big fish monster,
and the IUF goes ahead and leaves me to die alone! Finally decided to take a look after a week of
waiting, did you?!"
Gruntwrapper ignored him. "Get him his underwater gear and a weapon," he ordered Shritis. "And if I find
out you tampered with either one, I'll be back with the Pineapple." The T'Rang Assassin stared angrily,
but seemed to abide by the decision with a terse hiss to his companion.
Moments later, after disappearing into a bamboo hut on the shore of the island, the bespectacled T'Rang
came forward with the underwater breathing gear and a large sword, then handed them to Glumph. The
Umpani yanked them out of the T'Rang's claws, and made a mock charge at him with a condescending
grin. The bug, impressively enough, didn't even flinch.
Glumph stomped forward to join Saxx and Sparkle. "Now I feel REAL special," he said sarcastically.
"They sent a kid, an old man and a gimp to come get me? You bet I'll have a word or two with that
Yamir..."
Saxx narrowed his eyes at him in response. "You hush up," he ordered the Sergeant. "It's not too late to
leave ya here with your friends." The angry Umpani glared at him, but said no more.
"It iss done," Shritis hissed, and Gruntwrapper nodded. "And we leave without further violence," he
replied, backing up slowly.
The T'Rang Assassin watched them with narrow, angry eyes as they returned to the temple behind them.
"Thiss issn't over..." he warned. Sparkle saluted him mockingly, and the four donned their breathing
devices, went through the open temple and swam down the ramp, back into the ocean.
Despite his attitude problem, Glumph was an amazing Fighter. Even with water an obvious deterrent to
effective melee fighting, the bulky Umpani Sergeant still managed to slice his sword through the water
with enough force to slice his enemies in two.
In particular, a group of exceedingly ugly tentacled man-frogs that accosted them just before Nessie's
cavern met a terrifyingly black-blooded end at the end of the berserk Umpani's blade. The others didn't
even have time to react before Glumph set upon the Depth Dwellers, and the water around him went
black with the creatures' blood.
When it cleared, and Saxx prepared to make an air bubble for them to fight in, only a heaving Umpani
and floating body parts remained. Gruntwrapper wondered offhand how an Umpani so monstrously
powerful could have lost to Nessie, or been imprisoned by the Rynjin.
Then again, Nessie was bigger than a thousand Umpani, and the Rynjin were an army versus one.
Attitude and strength or not, they were big enough differences to explain what happened down here. The
Colonel doubted that even a hundred sword-wielding Umpani could have downed that great monster of
the sea.
Sparkle strode forward with a new confidence, apparently taking the two Umpani's advice to heart. Her
aim in Bayjin was impeccable, and Gruntwrapper immediately noticed the difference between this girl and
the one who scanned the veritable wading pool in Mt. Gigas with panicked glances and a bright light.
Saxx was as cool as ever, taking his several brushes with death in stride. Even now he kept the group
laughing and calm, Glumph included, with tales of his heroism in the heyday of his IUF career. Every
team needs a man like him, Gruntwrapper thought with a smile.
Mt. Gigas
Day 12
Eventually, they finally reached the winding and narrow tunnels leading to Mt. Gigas, and emerged into
the UTU training grounds one stronger than when they had left. Glumph was debriefed after he had
suitably calmed down, and for the first time in a long time, Colonel Gruntwrapper, Corporal Sparkle and
Brigadier General Saxx, retired, found themselves off duty, with nothing but a few days of relaxation
awaiting them.
As with any tour with the IUF tended to go, though, vacation was the last thing fate had in mind for the
tired soldiers.
The stomach of every Umpani in the camp knotted in sudden fear and surprise when the alarms rang
from every building in the compound, piercing the night sky like shrieking bats. All of them had been
trained to recognize this as the indication of something very serious and dire, from enemy invasion to
impending orbital bombardment.
The alarms were never sounded without due and just cause, and today was no exception. Sparkle exited
the barracks to the cold outside, and rubbed her eyes tiredly. Saxx soon joined her, with a dozen
confused Umpani... and a slight stagger... from the Roadhouse.
"What's goin' on now?" he asked in confusion.
Two to Go
The Swamp
Day 5
The ground was still covered with the mushy remnants of long dead logs, brown leaves and the liquidy
stench of fallen rain. Creatures were visible in the daylight all around them, from the millipedes and wasps
that Tantris saw a few days prior, to giant ants and frogs that he had not seen before.
Nonetheless, Shritis led them straight around, and in some cases through, the hostile insects and beasts.
Tantris made sure to keep near him as Jick followed, for the black spider-gowned leader of all T'Rang
Assassins was well known to the cowering and scurrying creatures... he had taken enough of their lives to
frighten away most of the varied beasts and bugs without a fight.
Tantris noticed that the ghostly Higardi Jick had begun to lag behind a little, until he had come to a
complete stop next to a dark and drooping tree. "What is it?" the T'Rang hissed wonderingly.
"I... don't know," Jick said, though his mouth did not move. "I feel a bit dizzy."
Tantris hmphed. "You do not even have a head to feel dizziness," he commented. Jick didn't respond, but
instead looked around, with his body slowly fading in and out a few times.
"There's something about this place..." he said, looking around again as he squinted his eyes.
Shritis stopped, turned around and joined the confused Samurai and Ghost. "What is it?" he demanded
impatiently of Tantris. "There is nothing here. All the creatures fear the very sight of Shritis T'Rang."
Tantris spread his claws out. "He seems distracted," he said simply, prompting Shritis to stalk off without
them. "He is not our concern!" he shouted. "Let him be distracted, and stop wasting time! Now, come!"
The Samurai joined the angry T'Rang before things got any worse, and beckoned Jick after him. After a
final look around the gloomy Swamp, the Ghost joined them.
Outside Trynton
Day 6
They marched without sleep through the night, until the first cracks of dawn appeared through the thick
canopy of brown branches and leaves behind them. The western edge of the Swamp, little by little, gave
way to greener grasses and even a few trees of a narrow valley as they approached Trynton. It was the
home of the Trynnie, thieving scoundrels not unlike the Rattkin on Guardia, the Watchers had reported.
Just as the dirty and wet brown soil of the Swamp met the lush grasses of Trynton, the three came into
contact with a Swallower, waiting at the entrance to Trynton as if he were standing guard. Essentially, it
was a pair of ten foot tall legs and an even bigger head... with a very large mouth. Shritis had killed a few
prior to this mission, though he had seen entire T'Rang Watchers gulped up in a single bite of the great
beast. Thankfully, most of the unlucky T'Rang were still alive when Shritis stung the creature to death,
then opened its belly shortly thereafter.
Jick floated between the two T'Rang and towards the creature, when the Swallower suddenly noticed
their presence. Shritis readied his Psi Rod as Tantris called up arcane words of power, but at the same
time, the Ghost drew away from them and into the Swallower's body, and he slowly faded away.
The Swallower stopped, twitched, then blinked. Shritis stopped and stared at it, and Tantris scratched his
head with one of his stingers. It didn't move, and they didn't either, until the creature slowly opened its
large mouth. It shouted something vaguely word-like... something like, "Ei ai!" Then, it began to bounce
back and forth on each leg as if it were dancing.
Shritis hissed angrily, and slid forward with his Psi Rod's hooks suddenly under and in the Swallower's
neck and jaw. He flipped the twenty foot tall creature over his head and dashed it into the side of the
valley wall.
"Stop messing around!" he ordered Jick. "We are here to get that device from the Mook and to keep the
Savant from Ascending, do you understand?!"
The Ghost's wispy cloud body emerged from the dead Swallower and took Higardi form, looking at the
ground sadly. Shritis pointed at him. "I swear, when I find a way to kill you... again... I will, if you don't stop
this nonsense," he hissed. "You serve the T'Rang Empire, or you stay out of my way."
As the Assassin drove north towards the largest tree in the forest, the home of the Trynnie, Tantris
slithered forward to meet the sullen Ghost. "You should allow him the opportunity to kill or spare anything
we meet," he suggested. "We are his support, and nothing more. Getting in his way will only enrage him."
Jick looked after the Assassin. "No kidding..." he replied.
Tantris beckoned after him. "That being said, keep that possession ability at hand," he suggested.
"There's no telling when we may need your unique strength." Jick nodded... and just before he turned his
back to the Ghost, Tantris said, "I, for one, respect it."
Jick's body brightened for a second, then returned to normal. Though he didn't... or couldn't... smile, the
emotion was clear enough.
Trynton was a dense forest of lush green trees, and patrolled by groups of the furry Trynnie. Almost all of
them were shirtless, wearing only tan pants that cut off at their very short knees. Their black eyes were on
either side of their head, and focused warily on the approaching group as they gripped their spears.
The eyes of prey, Shritis thought. He hissed warningly at the Trynnie, and they quickly scurried away.
Finally, Trynton itself came into view: the trunk was at least as big as a small city, and its branches
reached higher into the morning sky than any one of them could see. All around it, curious Trynnie guards
stood tall and proud, ready to repel any attempt at invasion of their tree.
Shritis approached them, and they immediately turned to face him with their spears brandished
menacingly. The Assassin clicked his mandibles together and hissed a laugh, but before he could lunge
forward to take their lives, Tantris clasped his shoulder.
"We cannot afford to make more enemies," he said calmly. "Shall we see how far diplomacy can take us,
before we resort to violence?" Shritis hissed angrily, but knew that the older T'Rang was right. He slowly
lowered his Psi Rod and backed up a step, allowing Tantris to parlay.
Tantris spread his two pairs of claws outwards in a peaceful gesture. "I am Tantrisss T'Rang,
represssentative of the T'Rang Empire," he said in the Galactic Common tongue. "May I ssspeak with
your leader?"
The Trynnie chittered excitedly amongst themselves, and one ran into a hole in the trunk of the tree.
Moments later, a more imposing Trynnie emerged, but his aura of (somewhat jittery) strength was
certainly not because of his diminutive size.
He wore the same clothes as the rest of the Trynnie, but his face was hidden behind a tall mask of red
and black paint that made him look much more menacing than his adorable face would have been
otherwise.
Shritis, however, was not impressed. In fact, he found the Trynnie's attempts to look frightening rather
amusing. "I am Chief Gari of the Trynnie, leader of Trynton," he spoke in a squeaky voice. "You may
speak with me."
Tantris bowed in response. "A pleasssure," he replied graciously. "We are merely travellersss who wissh
to passs through your grand city, if you would allow uss the honor."
Chief Gari nodded. "If that is all you wish, then you may pass," he said as he gestured beyond him, then
followed up with a relieved sigh. "And here I was thinking you were allies of the Rats..."
At the merest of vague descriptions of one of their mortal enemies, Shritis perked up immediately, then
pushed Tantris aside. "You, Trynnie, what did you jusst sssay?" he demanded.
Gari backed up a step despite his supposed position of power. "Uh, I er... was just talking about the Rats
who infested our upper boughs..." he stammered.
The Assassin looked blissfully happy. "Desscribe them," he ordered, and Gari complied, out of fear if
nothing else. "Well, they're a little taller than we are, dress kind of funny, and keep saying something that
has us all confused. What is it again?" he wondered.
"Barlone'," a nervous Trynnie leaning against the tree said aloud, and the Chief nodded. "That's it,
Barlone'. Non-stop... it's like a battle cry, or a mating call, or something."
"Take usss to them!" Shritis ordered, making more than a few Trynnie jump in fright. Gari crossed his
arms over his chest, looking more like a Chief than he had a few seconds ago. "Hey, are you sure you
aren't working for the Rats?" he asked.
His confidence inspired his men to regain their composure and stand protectively in front of the entrance
to Trynton. "How dare you place usss on any level near those filthy creaturess!" Shritis spat. "They have
ssstolen a vesssel from the T'Rang Empire, and they will pay dearly for their crime!"
Gari scratched his head in confusion. "So... you don't like them either?" he wondered aloud.
"They are thievesss, sscoundrelsss that have taken advantage of the T'Rang!" Shritis hissed. "With your
asssisstance, we will kill them... painfully."
The Chief motioned to the northeast, at a very large tree just next to the one holding Trynton. A pair of
Trynnie rushed to it at his insistence, and climbed up the trunk as quickly as they could.
"This tree will lead you straight to them!" Gari insisted, then bobbed his head happily. "I knew I saw
something good in you!" he fibbed.
The pair of Trynnie in the tree fiddled with something on a platform jutting out of the tree trunk, and a rope
suddenly fell and dangled from it. Shritis gripped his Psi Rod tightly and motioned towards the rope, then
slithered towards it. Tantris caught up to his side as the two Trynnie on the platform above beckoned
them excitedly. "Do we have time for this?" the Samurai asked.
Shritis held his Psi Rod in one claw, and grabbed the rope with his three others. "Punishment comes
before all other duties," he hissed. "The Mook device will not be going anywhere."
Claw over claw, Shritis climbed the rope to the top of the platform as Tantris faithfully followed. Jick
floated up next to the Samurai, staring at him as if he had something he wanted to say, but didn't quite
have the courage to follow through.
The platform was built just outside of a small, hollowed-out portion of the tree trunk, which looked as
much as it smelled sharply woody. The Trynnie had further dug a hole up and into the bark, and left a
rope dangling down from it as well. Shritis wasted no time scrambling up it, thoughts of the Rattkin's
covert strike fanning the flames of ire in his deep black eyes.
Just prior to the T'Rang leaving Guardia, when their people were in disarray after the death of the Queen
and the flight of the Dark Savant, there was a mass exodus of ships from Nyctalinth. One ship in
particular, the Nargisst, was scheduled to make its descent to pick up the last of the T'Rang Watchers
and Keepers before heading for Dominus.
It was a large supply ship and nothing more, carrying many outdated tools and weaponry. The cargo was
slated to be ejected from the ship to make room for the drones who would board soon thereafter.
Except... when it arrived, a powerful and heavily numbered band of Rattkin suddenly struck from the
shadows, killing the T'Rang left guarding the station, the ship's crew and several of the T'Rang waiting to
board.
They were young and inexperienced T'Rang, the entire lot. The Empire ordered their strongest and
smartest out first so they would be the first to meet up with the Dark Savant; it was only natural that the
Rattkin would choose the last ship to attack.
By the time the T'Rang realized what had happened, and had managed to overpower a straggler Rattkin
Razuka through sheer force of numbers, it was too late. Under interrogation, the Rattkin gleefully
revealed their perfectly executed plot.
Razuka spies stole a copy of the T'Rang port logbook, then plotted the best time to strike through
continued observation of T'Rang drone movements and tactics. For what reason they did this he would
not reveal, even after his interrogation, torture, and subsequent death. The Rattkin seemed impervious to
pain.
The Nargisst cloaked, and the Master Ship lost track of it shortly thereafter. The only thing they had been
able to do was name their current Younger Breeder ship, the newly christened Nargisst, after their stolen
craft in memorium.
But now... Shritis thought. They thought they could steal from the T'Rang and get away with it... and now,
they would realize their mistake. The Assassin reached the top of the rope with Tantris close behind him.
They were now atop the large tree, among its long and twisting branches.
The Trynnie constructed rafters suspended by long ropes, which were attached to the branches that
wound around and through the trunk of the tree. It was a natural home built high above the reach of their
obviously numerous predators.
The morning sun had just started to rise in the east. Light flickered through the leaves and branches
around them, and made the high and ingenious home of the Trynnie an even brighter spectacle to
behold.
"Amazing," Tantris said as he climbed up to the top. "The Watchers reported that these creatures were
almost devoid of cognitive function. And yet... this tree is astoundingly defensible."
Jick appeared at his side, fading out slightly again. "I've been here before," he said quietly as he looked
around. "Why... do I remember this place?" He put his ghostly hand to his stomach, then slowly let it drop
to his side.
Shrits ignored him and pointed to a primitive, open-air elevator ahead of them without a word. It was
attached to a large rock counterweight, and manipulated by tugging on a stone attached to a long rope
that freed the weight.
Without waiting for Jick, the Assassin pulled on the rope and sent them rocketing to the highest rafters of
the bough. In contrast to the fresh wood and polished underbelly of the tree below them, this bough's
wood was rotten, moldy and covered in hanging strings of green plantlife.
Shritis heard a squeak. A familiar squeak...
He waved a claw behind him at Tantris, and the thankfully silent Jick stopped behind them both. He crept
forward and peered over the wooden railing of the rafter to see exactly what he wanted to see.
Long-snouted, nose-twitching, floppy-eared, dagger-wielding, ship-stealing Rattkin! There was no doubt
about it... they were the plainly dressed thieves that had kicked the down and injured body of the T'Rang
Empire, walking the rafters of Trynton as if nothing was the matter.
Shritis ducked low behind the banister and slithered forward around the rafters to a point where he could
drop to the Rattkin's level. The two thieves had not noticed him yet, and walked ever so calmly from a
large house between two very big tree trunks.
The house was sitting hundreds of feet above the ground on a great wooden platform, and was a bustling
center of Rattkin activity. The pair of Rattkin that Shritis had seen were just one of several groups that
patrolled the rotting rafters of Trynton. They all looked about nervously, as any prey animal would.
Without waiting for the others, Shritis lept down and weaved forward with blinding speed. Around another
small house and down the rafter he slithered, until he was almost atop them. Before he struck, though,
their conversation made him pause.
"...know that Don Barlone' won't be happy about this," the Rattkin with brown fur said in a low voice. "We
were supposed to have control of the Fifth Bough two days ago, but we're barely keeping this place out of
the hands of the wasps."
"Well, stop making it sound like a failure and try to..." his facially scarred companion started, when he
suddenly felt the back of his neck prickle. He slowly turned... and eventually, came face to face with the
nine foot T'Rang and his shorter, and ghostly, companions standing behind him.
The Rattkin's mouth jawed, but no sound came out. To see a T'Rang after what they had done was bad
enough, but nobody messed with Shritis and lived to talk about it.
"What's wrong with you?" the brown-furred Rattkin asked and followed his companion's frightened stare,
only to suddenly join him with his own similar expression of sheer terror.
Shritis clicked his mandibles together. "Rattkin..." he hissed as specks of saliva dripped down the sharp,
clacking extremities and onto the wooden slats below. His stingers stiffened and pointed at each of the
terrified rat-men, holding them in place like a pair of staring snakes.
The Rattkin's knees wobbled, but they were both too frightened to take a step back. By now, other groups
had noticed the T'Rang's sudden arrival, and were fleeing in all directions. "Where... isss... Barlone'?"
Shritis asked slowly and menacingly.
The Rattkin simultaneously shot a hand at the large house just behind them. Shritis hissed happily, then
slithered between them. As Tantris and Jick joined the Assassin, the two Rattkin breathed audibly in
relief.
Then, without warning, Shritis' stingers shot out of his back and punctured both of their spines, injecting
their foul black poison into each of their bodies. The Rattkin's eyes rolled back in their heads and they
slumped forward, dead.
Jick looked at them briefly, noticing quite plainly that neither Shritis nor Tantris seemed to care about their
sudden deaths. But without a word, he continued after them.
Inside the little house, tables made out of sawed-in-half logs held plates of half-eaten meat, still on the
bone. The entire room smelled of rottenness, filth and excess, which only got more pungent as Shritis
followed the smell and the excited chitters of Rattkin down a long and dark hall.
He turned two corners, following the everpresent stench until it was almost unbearable. Then, after
slithering straight into the open room to his left, he came face to face with the leader of the Rattkin
Razuka himself, Don Barlone', and two of his deadliest bodyguards.
He was not the same pudgy Rattkin that Shritis had heard tales of on Guardia. The new Don Barlone' was
thin, but still dangerously well-muscled. His eyes were the same deep pits of cold darkness, ones that
had seen more people killed at his request than the combined number of people others had merely met.
However, Barlone's right eye was now almost closed shut by a scar running from his forehead to his
cheek.
The Rattkin wore a formal black suit, tie and pants and held himself up with a brown cane, and if not for
the curved Dongfu in his other paw, he might have looked stately. "Shritis T'Rang..." he said in a deadly
whisper. "What brings you to Barlone'ton?"
"I think you know," Shritis replied as he drew forward, prompting the other two to slip in front of him to
block his path. The first was a wild one holding a dagger, wearing a white shirt and brown pants and
standing to Shritis' right.
The one on the left was a much more sinister shirtless one, whose tattoos of thorned roses twining
around blades covered his chest and some of his arms, and who brandished a black sword that was
dripping green poison.
"Now, now, Ratsputin... Milano... let's not make our guest feel unwelcome," Barlone' whispered. The two
Rattkin dropped their weapons to their sides and stepped away from their leader, but remained firmly in
Shritis' way.
The Assassin hissed a laugh. "You think treating the mighty Sshritisss with ressspect now will undo the
crime of your theft?" he spat. "You musst have losst a fair portion of your mind along with your belly, rat!"
Barlone' remained as cool as ice. "Say what you want, Assassin," he said softly, "but I have some
business with you, to make things equal... bury the hatchet between us. You interested?"
The T'Rang finally stopped approaching and chuckled. "Very well," he hissed, "amusse me before I
ssslice you in two."
With a knowing smile, Barlone' continued in his usual whisper. "Let's cut to it, then," he suggested. "I
know you aren't here to get back any ships, or to bother with the furballs downstairs. You're here because
of the Savant... and the Ascension."
"What do you know of the Ascension, outsiders?" Jick asked from behind Shritis. The T'Rang hissed in
annoyance as Barlone' eyed the Ghost suspiciously.
The Rattkin paused briefly, then spoke again. "Nothing, except that you need a certain something that the
Savant has, something he took from Guardia a long time ago," he answered.
Tantris lowered his head in sudden interest. "You ssspeak of the Assstral Dominae?" he asked.
"Yes, that's it," Barlone' answered. "And we are willing to get it for you... for a price, of course."
Shritis chuckled again. "And what price would that be, thievesss?" he asked. "T'Rang weaponry? Another
ssship? Perhapsss you want to go home and leave the game of the Godsss to oness with real power?"
"90,000 gold pieces," Barlone' said flatly.
Shritis stared in disbelief. "That'sss it?" he asked. "A fraction of what I carry could pay your price."
The Rattkin crossed his arms slowly. "Listen, bug," he said, suddenly angry, "the Dark Savant robbed us
as badly as he robbed your oozing, filthy kind."
Shritis hissed angrily and started forward, but Tantris grabbed his shoulder. "Please, calm down, Shritis,"
he said in their native language. "Let us hear what he has to say. This could work to our benefit..." The
Assassin shrugged Tantris off, but deferred to the older T'Rang's judgement once more.
"He asked us to keep an eye on you," Barlone' continued. "That much I'll admit... we were your
watchdogs. But when time came to pay his dues, he simply up and left. That's why we stole your ship,
why we're on this planet, and why we offer you this opportunity to come to a mutually beneficial
arrangement."
Tantris turned to him. "Ssso what iss it that you plan to do, exactly?" he asked.
Barlone' opened his mouth to respond, but instead began to cough as he clutched the right side of his
chest. It was a throaty and sickly fit of hacking, followed shortly by a small trickle of telltale blood on his
lip.
"Damn Vampire witch..." he said as he held his chest even tighter. The Rattkin in white, Milano, withdrew
a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the blood from his boss' mouth. "I apologize," Barlone'
continued. He took a deep wet breath, and began again. "The only Savant-held place we have access to
is that Tower of his in Arnika. You know, the bomb.
"We've been casing it for some time, waiting until the Savant inevitably comes out," he explained. "We've
heard rumors that time is soon, so we gotta make this deal quick."
He looked among them. "In short, we get our money, you get the prize you've been looking for, and the
Savant gets nailed," he summarized. "Everyone gets what they want and goes home happy... revenge
and fun times are had by all. Now, can I count on that payment when we get the globe for you?"
Sent out for one of the devices and coming home with a pair of them... Shritis thought. Absolutely perfect.
"Fine. We will return sssoon with your money, Rattkin," he promised. "Crosss uss or fail, and you will
ssuffer my wrath.
"Tantris," he called, then beckoned out the door. The three slithered and floated past dozens of frightened
Rattkin, back up the rope and to the elevator leading to the lower floor of the tree.
"I don't understand," Jick said as they rode the elevator down. "You promised the Trynnie that you would
take care of their problem... but now we're working with their enemy."
Shritis ignored him, so Tantris spoke in his stead. "Negotiations are a complicated issue," the Samurai
explained. "Please, reserve your judgement for when they are finally complete."
They descended the two ropes to meet a crowd of confused Trynnie. In silence, Shritis led his group
around the base of the great tree and to the west, where the patrols were a lot less thick.
The sun had long risen, and warmed the ground with a feeling pleasant to any other race, yet
uncomfortable to the T'Rang; it would only end up drying out their bodies. Jick hoped that they wouldn't
run into any more suspicious Trynnie demanding why he and two T'Rang were skulking about the forest.
The people they ended up running into were a far more different and varied party than he had anticipated.
It started when Shritis suddenly stopped in the shadow of a giant tree, pulling Tantris down with him. "A
snap," he hissed. Tantris strained to hear, and for a minute, there was nothing but the sounds of chirping,
morning insects and their own breathing.
Then, he heard it, far off in the distance. The Samurai silently thanked whoever was listening that he had
someone as intuitive and alert as Shritis beside his blade, rather than in front of it.
Slowly, in the grassy clearing ahead, a strange collection of creatures appeared from the dense forest
behind them. First and foremost were two females, one larger and darker-skinned in impressive, metallic
armor, while the other was almost as fair as death itself, and in white robes bunched up at her knees and
elbows.
Shritis clacked his mandibles together in interest when he saw their weapons. The pale and pointy-eared,
stem-chewing one's large stick was of little consequence, but the dark one wielded a four-hooked T'Rang
Psi Rod with what looked like a spearhead at the base. It looked very familiar.
Before he could place it, even more creatures came into his view. The dark one stopped and motioned for
another to come, a bald and blue-skinned Dane in purple and blue robes littered with yellow moons and
stars.
While she kissed his cheek nauseatingly, a brute of a Lizardman stomped into view, wearing nothing
more than a brown loincloth. On his back was strapped a two-handed axe that looked big enough to
crush a lesser man... solely by carrying it. He clapped his hand on the dark and blue-skinned's backs and
laughed heartily, with enough force to unbalance the both of them.
Next, a fair-skinned and dark-haired Higardi, a girl he recognized as Vi Domina herself, wandered into
view. She was still barely dressed in a small metallic brassiere, stockings and undergarments, and had
her usual combination of a White Sword and Frontier Phaser at her sides.
As if this gaggle of freaks could not get any stranger, a brown-robed cat-man with a tiny blue Faerie on
his shoulder brought up the rear. They were talking silently until they saw the commotion, and shared a
laugh together.
The dark one and the Lizardman both suddenly turned serious and whipped their heads towards Shritis'
exact position. We've been spotted... he realized, and they began to excitedly whisper to one another.
The Assassin didn't hesitate, and suddenly burst out of the shadows with his Psi Rod buzzing and
screaming for the Lizardman's blood. Once the big one fell, it would be all over.
Suddenly, his advance was stopped. A large, wooden thwack cracked through the air, and birds fled from
the nearby trees, rather than face the source of the sudden sound.
The T'Rang Assassin slithered backwards and dislodged his Psi Rod from underneath the pale one's bo
staff. In a brief second, he caught a face that was not instilled with the usual terror a target of the great
Shritis T'Rang usually displayed, but rather with surprise and disbelief.
"You," the white-robed girl said calmly, with her voice bordering on happiness. "Why are you here?"
Her companions advanced on both of her sides, but the pointy-ears stretched her bo out to the right and
blocked the cat-man and Faerie with her arm on her left. "Hang on. He's mine," she said with a grin, and
advanced alone.
Shritis hissed a laugh. "And who are you, prick-ear?" he asked. "Sssome war orphan out for vengeance?"
She merely chuckled. "My name is Lucciana. As for who I am..." she said, as her face grew even paler
and her canines grew into the tiniest of points through her smile, "...you've been given enough clues to
figure it out for yourself. Shall we duel?"
Tantris watched the Elf lunge forward with a powerful thrust towards Shritis' body. As she drew closer to
him, it looked like she left her side wide open, and he slithered forward to capitalize on the vulnerable
spot.
Shritis didn't even turn around as he plunged his Psi Rod down on top of her bo, and it thrust into the
ground. "Stay out of this," he ordered the Samurai. Tantris knew better than to argue with him, and simply
shrugged as he slithered to the shade of a tree behind him, and reached into his robe to take out his book
on magic.
The Elf's companions conversed amongst themselves, but did not move to offer assistance. Tantris kept
a part of his attention on them as he cracked open the tome, and calmly turned the page to where he had
left off.
Lucciana used the downed bo as a vault and flung her body forward and up. She kicked Shritis in the jaw,
as one of his stingers stung her leg and injected it with a paralyzing agent.
The T'Rang hissed with a mandible click of arrogance, and slithered to where the girl had tumbled to a
stop. Surprisingly, she continued the fall with a surprising roll of her own, then stood up only feet away
with her back to him.
"Imposssible..." he hissed.
She tossed her medium-length black hair backwards and turned to face him. "What, you think I've been
sitting around doing nothing since we last met?" she asked through the stem in her mouth.
That cocky pose, the vampiric look... wait a second, he thought. That was my Psi Rod!
He laughed aloud. "I remember you..." he said. "The Guardian weakling whosse friend I killed."
Lucciana cocked her head to the side and looked at him strangely. "Wrong on all three counts," she
replied. "My friend is fine... and I certainly seem to remember someone else fleeing into the night. Did you
forget to mention that?"
Shritis pointed both of his stingers at her menacingly. "And here we are again," she continued. "Different
weapon, but the same outcome... except it'll be done in fifteen seconds instead of thirty this time..."
The T'Rang hissed warningly. "Then come and get me," he challenged. "Or are you all talk?"
With a shrug, she ran towards him, spun, and wheeled her bo around in a wide, vertical arc towards his
head. Shritis caught the attack between two of the hooks on his Psi Rod and twisted, sending the bo out
of the girl's hands.
Lucciana pushed his staff down with her right hand and jumped with a left-handed uppercut into his jaw.
As he recoiled from the blow, he whipped the base of the Psi Rod around and clacked her across the
temple.
Despite how brutal the strike was, she was still standing. He flipped the Psi Rod around in his claws and
jabbed two of the hooks into her body, then flicked the buttons to activate the electric current.
The girl chuckled confidently, then grabbed Shritis' left claw. As the current coursed through her body,
and into his, both of the titanic fighters saw sparks and lights dance in front of their eyes.
Shritis let go of the buttons and pushed the girl over, who rolled out towards her fallen bo and stood with it
held calmly behind her. The purple welt on her temple slowly returned to the color of her skin, and the
tears in her robe soon revealed white skin, rather than deep red cuts.
The Assassin relaxed his arm and pointed his Psi Rod away from him. "Done already?" he asked.
She took a deep breath and pointed her bo at him. "Just giving you a chance to rest," she replied.
He reached out and beckoned the girl to him with an arrogant smirk. "The great Sshritisss T'Rang
expectsss no quarter, and givess none," he hissed, then slithered forward, with his Psi Rod's hooks
gleaming in the sunlight. Lucciana backflipped and swept her bo upwards, barely missing Shritis' body by
an inch.
As he advanced and thrust, she backflipped and swept, neither managing to catch the other with even the
most faint of blows. Over and over they continued the bizarre dance of flips and thrusts, until they pushed
out of the trees to the edge of a tall cliff, which looked out over the ocean.
"Is this really ok?" Jick asked Tantris back in the forest. "I thought we were supposed to go meet the
Mook and get the Chaos Moliri, but here we are killing more people that have nothing to do with us."
"I do not know," Tantris answered. "Those two seem to have a history. Knowing Shritis, it is probably not
a good one either."
Jick remained quiet for a brief time, before a sighing sound came from him. "I get the feeling I joined the
wrong side," he admitted.
Tantris looked up from his book. "Outsiders like you have no right to judge," he replied. "This entire
universe consistently insults, fears and attacks the T'Rang with no provocation, with few exceptions."
He paused slightly. "You presume to judge an entire race based upon the actions of one?" he asked. "A
lone T'Rang who happens to be the high Assassin of all T'Rang... whose very job is execution?"
Something stirred within Jick. An executioner... "Feared... by everyone?" he asked, to Tantris' confusion.
"I don't know why, but something feels... I don't know..."
Tantris remained silent, then looked back down at his book. Jick watched the two battle on the edge of
the sea, slicing and sweeping faster than he could clearly see. "I can't help but notice that for all his
blustering on wasting time, Shritis has side-tracked us from the objective at hand more than either of us
have," the Ghost commented.
The Samurai nodded. "In that I agree," he admitted. "However, I would not bring it up to him for obvious
reasons."
After a few more seconds of reading, he warily glanced up at the five strangers who had opted to sit this
fight out, along with Jick and himself. The Lizardman and the blue-skinned boy were the only ones who
looked concerned, glancing up from the party's discussion to see what was happening. The other three
looked relaxed, and spoke with smiles and calm gestures.
The Faerie on the cat-man's shoulder suddenly caught Tantris' eye, and waved with a friendly grin.
Tantris looked back down at his book without a response.
Lucciana kicked out a loose rock on the edge of the cliff towards Shritis, then pushed forward at the same
time. He used his Psi Rod to knock the stone away from him, but took her bo in his chest almost at the
same time. She quickly swung it out and up, then thrust down powerfully onto his gowned shoulder.
He shot his right claw out and into her side, raking her ribs as he stung outwards towards her neck. The
girl dodged to the side as she kicked the sharp claw away from her, but lost her balance and started to
teeter over the side of the cliff.
Shritis swept his Psi Rod behind her legs, stung her twice in the chest, then pushed her over the side with
both of his free claws. She cried out in surprise as she disappeared over the edge and out of sight.
Breathing heavily, the T'Rang carefully slithered to the edge and peered over to watch her final moments.
Suddenly, a blast of fire struck him full on in the eyes. He swung his Psi Rod out wildly with an angry
shout, recovering just in time to see the now floating girl lunge forward with her bo thrusting for his neck.
She didn't expect him to recover so quickly, and flew straight into nothing. Shritis stung her again as she
passed... and they both soon noticed that her movements were starting to slow considerably; his venom
was starting to take effect.
Lucciana's Levitation spell wore off and she dropped to the ground. She heard wind rustling behind her,
and wasted no time in jumping forward to the nearest tree, and into the safety and cover of its branches.
"I thought you wanted to ssettle thiss, weakling!" Shritis shouted, slithering into the trees after her, and
sliced through the tree she had taken refuge in with a single swipe of his Psi Rod. It fell to the ground,
while her shadow lept into another tree just beyond her.
She is getting desparate... turning tail and attempting to flee, he thought excitedly. She's mine... The
T'Rang sliced through the trunk of the tree she was now in, and as it teetered, she lept to the next.
Through the forest, Chief Gari of the Trynnie came forward, adjusting his once intimidating mask. Now, it
served simply to mask his nervousness at speaking to these two outsiders. "Stop!" he shouted. "You will
cease this battle at once! You are hurting the forest, and... agh!"
He cried out as a metallic ringing sound filled the air, then the tree holding the slim shadow next to him
toppled down towards him. He squeaked in terror as he dove to the ground, just barely avoiding being
crushed by the massive trunk, when another tree slowly tipped and fell towards his head from the left. He
scrambled to his feet and fled back into the forest, intent on getting at least a hundred other Trynnie
behind him before trying diplomacy again.
The battle continued through many more slices, thrusts and shocks that left both combatants drained and
wounded. At last, they stopped before one another, breathing heavily, but not letting their eyes off of the
other.
Shritis' body was burned, bruised and battered, and he leaned on his Psi Rod with the sheer exertion of
the seemingly endless fight. Lucciana sat on the ground across from him, cuts on her cheek, chest and
legs that were not healing with the same gusto that they first had.
"You've improved, prick-ear, conssidering you fight with a sstick," he hissed.
She grinned. "And you... well, you're about the same," she taunted.
Shritis slowly drew forward with a chuckle. In his body, he conjured up the most deadly and potent of his
poisons, a mixture that left him as drained as it left his victims shriveled husks. The poison that felled a
Godzylli on Guardia, and would kill a Vampire here on Dominus...
The dark-skinned girl appeared suddenly at her side. Shritis was surprised he hadn't seen her coming; he
was more injured than he thought... "We should really get going," she said to the pale girl. "You know the
Dark Savant isn't going to wait for us."
After a deep breath, Lucciana nodded. "Yeah, I think I taught the roach a good enough lesson."
On that, Shritis suddenly slithered forward and was on her in a second, then burrowed his black
venom-dripping stinger through her chest, directly into her heart. It's over, he thought with a smile.
She immediately jumped and decked him in the jaw with surprising force. He withdrew his stinger, then
stumbled backwards as the world spun. He dug his Psi Rod into the ground again to catch his balance,
expecting her to rush forward and finish him.
"Ah ah ah," Lucciana simply scolded with impressive bravery, but a telltale wince; she hadn't moved. "Not
that it hasn't been fun, but we've got more important things to do right now."
Shritis looked confused. She must be putting on a brave face for her companions, he thought, then
spread his claws out slowly. Who am I to deny a dying girl of such admirable strength her last request? he
thought. "Sso it will be you who runss after all," he goaded.
She laughed. "Nice try," she replied. "We'll finish this later." She waved her bo at him, already showing
splotches of blackness on her face from the poison. He had seen it many times before... her heart would
stop soon enough.
"Tantris!" he bellowed, then brushed past the colorful collection of characters on his left. "Let's go!" The
Samurai looked up as he closed his book, joining the towering Assassin on his continued journey through
the forest.
The little blue Faerie caught his attention again. "See you jokers later!" she said with a mischievous grin.
Tantris made a face only an exasperated old man could make, and along with Shritis and Jick, pushed
through the trees towards the western edge of Trynton.
'Finish this later', Shritis thought with a loud, hissing laugh. "It is already finished..." he hissed aloud.
Arnika
Day 7
Night treated the city of the Higardi well. The fountain at the entrance of the town lit up beautifully under
the bright moon, the stones and roofs of the houses and stores in the town center shone mystically, and
the entire town was comfortably chilly for the two T'Rang and their ghostly companion.
And yet, it was all lost upon Shritis. They stood outside the entrance to the town hall where the Mook had
made their residence. He pounded the wall of the stone structure in anger as the green hologram of the
Mook leader disappeared.
"THE UMPANI?!" he shouted. "YOU ALLIED YOURSSELVESSS WITH THE TOADSSS?!" He slammed
the locked door of the town hall again and again, but there was no response from inside.
The hologram of the large, furry and yeti-like Mook reappeared. "The United Mook Alliance welcomes you
to..." it started on its usual greeting.
Shritis wheeled on it. "Hand over the Chaoss Moliri, and I won't kill every lasst one of you," he said
dangerously.
"Shritis..." Tantris warned as carefully as he could, but the hologram looked as cheery as ever as it
responded. "The Chaos Moliri is no longer within our possession," it said. "Following the alliance with the
Umpani, a team led by the Umpani Colonel Gruntwrapper has taken it for safekeeping. Is there anything
else I can...?" it started.
Shritis sliced his Psi Rod through its transparent body, accomplishing nothing more than making the
image fuzz a little. "If there is no further help I can provide, I will now return. Thank you," it said, and faded
away.
The T'Rang Assassin turned and pointed at Jick. "You," he ordered. "Go in there and see if they tell the
truth." Jick cocked his head to either side, then walked through the wall.
Only seconds passed before Tantris heard a slight commotion inside. Remembering his own reaction to
Jick just days ago, he could only imagine what kind of surprise the scientific Mook would have to such a
close encounter with the supernatural.
The Ghost suddenly burst through the wall and gestured after him, down the cobbled street. The two
T'Rang followed him quickly. "What is it?" Shritis demanded. "Where is the Chaos Moliri?!"
He merely shrugged. "Not in there," he replied. "All I saw was an empty stand where it might have been."
Shritis swore as he continued. "It's a pretty small place, so I don't think I missed anything either," he
continued.
Tantris sighed and decided to play peacemaker. "Shritis," he said, "there is still the Astral Dominae. Let
us return to Trynton and speak with the Rattkin."
"Or we can torch this compound and see if these creatures are lying..." Shritis hissed, before he slithered
towards the town hall.
Tantris stopped him. "Z'Ant said no violence!" he reminded him. The Assassin swore again, but relented.
He turned back towards the entrance of the town, slithering towards the great white statue of Phoonzang
in the center of the city.
Before Tantris and Jick could follow, a commotion off to the east stopped them: down the road and in
front of the Arnika Marina, an older lady in an orange dress and a similarly colored headscarf was
struggling with a Savant Trooper, who was one of five heading into her shop.
"Don't ya dare do anything to my property, ya pieces of junk!" she exclaimed. "I been 'round here longer'n
any'a ya been alive! You ain't got no right to..."
All of a sudden, one of the Savant Troopers pushed her to the floor with its spike-tipped arm. She fell to
the ground with a grunt as it continued on, but she soon stood and went after the machine again.
"We have to help her," Jick said, but Tantris only slithered after Shritis without a word. "It is not our
problem," he replied coldly. "She would not do the same for us."
Jick looked after Tantris as he drew away, then without hesitation, blasted down the street towards the
old woman. His body disappeared as he neared the Trooper closest to the woman, and the machine
suddenly stopped.
She grabbed its arm and socked it in its hard metal face, then pulled her hand back in pain. "Stand back,
ma'am," the Trooper boomed from its voicebox, turning its head towards her. "I will handle this." The
woman, mouth agape, did as she was told, as the machine bent forward and stalked into the shop.
Inside the crate-filled and dusty Marina, the Trooper took a running start and sliced one of the four
remaining machines through its back, digging its spike-arm around and thrusting the machine to the
ground. The other three turned without pause to drive their arms into the traitorous machine. Wires and oil
sprayed the floor of the Marina as they slashed and pierced it to pieces.
The machine in the middle suddenly stopped, looked around, then pulled its spike-arms out of the
Trooper in front of it. Immediately after, it plunged both of them through the heads of the two Troopers on
either side of it. Both of the machines shook violently, then exploded in a pair of blasts that shot gears,
wires and oil in every direction. The last Trooper walked outside calmly, just as the older woman was
walking in.
"Almost finished," it said. It stepped back inside and out of her view, then without warning, it raised both
of its arms and shot them straight up and into its own head.
She heard the explosion from outside. "What in the hell..." she started, when a Higardi Ghost stepped
through the wall. "You did that?" she asked.
The Ghost nodded. She laughed at his non-descript face, like something out of a child's cartoon. "You're
not frightened?" he asked, without moving his mouth.
"How can I be, with all the crazy things goin' on lately?" she replied. "But I will thank ya for takin' them
Troopers out. Don't know how I can repay ya, though, seein' as how you're dead'n all..."
He shrugged. "I don't need anything," he answered, then looked behind her at someone who had just
arrived. The woman spun around to see a multi-clawed, stinger-waving, mandible-clacking T'Rang
standing there in silence.
Jick floated past her and brushed by Tantris silently. The Samurai watched him as he left, towards the
center of town, then turned back to the woman.
"Got somethin' on yer mind?" she asked.
Without a word, Tantris reached into his spidery brown gown and took out the grey pistol Sadok had
given him. The woman backed up, thinking he was meaning to kill her... when he flipped the gun around
in his claw and handed it to her, grip first. "Thiss will be mosst effective againsst the Troopersss..." he
hissed.
Slowly, she reached out and took the gun from him, looking over the long-barreled, cream-colored gun.
When she was finished, she lifted her head to him. "Thank you... thank you kindly," she said sincerely.
Tantris waved his claw at her. "I don't need your thankss," he said. "But remember thiss gesssture of faith
and friendsship from the T'Rang Empire. We will be expecting good relationsss in the future."
She nodded and waved as the T'Rang turned and left, before she went back into her shop. Not much for
beatin' 'round the bush, she thought. I like that.
Trynton
Day 9
Milano Calzone, bodyguard to the Rattkin boss Don Barlone', coughed up blood onto the black gown of
the Assassin in front of him. The tall creature looked down at him like he was nothing more than an
insect. He withdrew the hook, and the Rattkin slumped to the ground.
Ratsputin's tattooed body was facedown only feet away, and not moving. Just behind him, an Elf in
tattered white robes was shackled to the wall, and covered in all manner of sores, cuts and welts. Dried
blood covered her pale face, and travelled past the folds of cloth over her chest in thick rivulets. She
wasn't moving.
Barlone' jumped over Ratsputin's body with his Dongfu ready to disembowel the T'Rang, but was
immediately stung in the chest by both of the great Assassin's stingers. He dropped to a knee, and the
dongfu fell out of his paw. With extreme effort, he looked up into the condescending face of Shritis
T'Rang. He clacked his mandibles together, then beat the Rattkin boss across the face with the butt of his
Psi Rod.
His head shot backwards and he hit the ground, and the Astral Dominae rolled down his leg, straight to
the towering form of Shritis. "You... double-crossing..." Barlone' struggled to say. First the Umpani, and
now this...
Shritis leaned down to pick up the globe containing the power of Life. The air hummed with the sheer
power of the mystical green globe... and the T'Rang felt a surge of power as he wrapped his claw around
it. "Double crossss?" he asked as he put the globe in his spidery black gown. "You promissed usss the
Assstral Dominae in exchange for cassh, and here you are."
He pulled out a brown sack that jingled as he tossed it at the Rattkin's body. It struck Barlone' heavily in
the chest, and he grunted as it bounced to the floor and sat there. "100,000 gold piecess..." Shritis hissed.
"More than you asssked for. Conssider thiss generossity, along with your prior treachery. The T'Rang
Empire iss asss rewarding to itss benefactorss, asss it iss cruel to itss betrayersss." Barlone' winced, then
faded into unconsciousness.
Tantris began to hear the sound of charging, screaming Rattkin outside. "They are coming," he said. Jick
backed away from both of the T'Rang and slowly faded from view.
"Then let them come," Shritis responded, and slithered out the door along with Tantris. They brandished
their Psi Rod and katana, nodded at one another, then advanced.
On the ground floor, inside the base of the tree which held the city of Trynton, Chief Gari suddenly cried
out in surprise as a body struck the grass just outside the little burrow. He cautiously drew forward to the
creature, who had a ridged tail and plain black and white clothes... when another dropped from the sky.
His face was pointed towards Gari with a lifeless stare. Rattkin!
"Chief?" a Trynnie asked from behind him. Gari jumped in fright, but calmed himself as best he could
before he turned around. "Yes?" he asked, with a frightened waver that he couldn't help but squeak out.
"Are you going to sign the alliance papers between us and the IUF now?" he asked, holding out a piece of
paper and an inked feather pen to the Trynnie leader. The Trynnie Chief took them from his young
attendant, when a very loud thud that shook the very tree itself almost knocked him from his feet.
"What was that?!" the young Trynnie exclaimed. Gari walked to the entrance of the tree to investigate,
and immediately saw the hulking corpse of a Rattkin breeder, easily ten times the size of a Trynnie,
staring up at the sky. Her chest was gruesomely punctured several times.
"Um..." he said, looking at the now dead source of Trynton's most recent troubles. "If we sign this... then
the IUF's enemies become ours, right?" he asked.
"Yyyyyy..." the Trynnie behind him started as he scanned the document, then finally found the section he
was looking for. "...es," he finished.
Another loud thump shook the foundations of Trynton, and the younger Trynnie made a frightened face.
"We'll, uh, wait an hour or so," Gari decided.
Atop the boughs of Trynton, Shritis wiped the blood from his Psi Rod's hooks on the Rattkin beneath him,
and watched the last of them fleeing into the scattered houses atop the rafters in stark terror. Tantris
came to his side. "Where to now?" he asked.
"Marten's Bluff," Shritis answered.
Tantris looked at him wonderingly. "Even though we didn't accomplish our mission?" he asked, but Shritis
simply clacked his mandibles together in glee. "Who needs an alliance with those gullible giants when we
have this?" he asked, taking the Astral Dominae out of his robe and looking at it with shining black eyes.
"Months of warfare, years of strife, and the deaths of a Queen and so many of our kind... and the prize is
finally ours," he hissed in awe. "Umpani Chaos versus T'Rang Life. It seems... appropriate for the coming
battle."
We Survive
The Swamp
Day 9
Shritis was delighted, an iota away from childish giddiness. The Astral Dominae... a prize not even a
rogue Queen and an entire army could procure, and he had acquired it in mere weeks. Z'Ant had chosen
the fulfiller of the Empire's will well.
He admitted, begrudgingly, that Tantris may have played a role in this. Had the Empire not had his expert
diplomacy on their side, war may have sparked with the Trynnie. The Rattkin may have shut themselves
away, or run and hid. Shritis would not have made the bargain, the thieves would not have gotten the
globe...
The Ghost he couldn't care less about. He had been nothing but a bother and a fool the entire journey,
and he was glad he had latched his pathetic, co-dependant self on Tantris rather than on himself.
Especially with no way to dispel the specter as of yet, he felt he might have gone mad putting up with the
insufferable presence of the wailing idiot.
Thankfully, after enacting the Empire's justice on the Rattkin, Shritis had not seen smokey hide nor stringy
hair of the cloaked, transparent being.
Though the Swamp was thrust into darkness underneath the night sky, and the sounds of croaking,
skittering and screeching could be heard all around them, he had no fear. As usual, when he crossed
through the wet and dangerous lands of the Swamp, there was an invisible hundred foot bubble around
the Assassin that no creature dared to penetrate.
"The tree..." Shritis hissed as they entered the hollowed-out trunk of a massive tree; they were almost
home.
He turned his head to make sure Tantris was still behind him. The bespectacled T'Rang was there,
outside of the trunk, but his own head was turned and looking out to the north. "What is it?" Shritis
demanded. "We are nearly home."
When the Samurai did not respond, Shritis slithered next to him to see what had enthralled him so
completely. It took a second to see through the veil of darkness, but eventually, the Assassin saw the tiny,
glowing figure off in the distance. Occasionally, it would pass behind a fallen tree or thick underbrush and
disappear briefly, almost as if it were an illusion, but seconds later it would reappear when a clear view
presented itself.
"Tantris!" he shouted. The Samurai jerked his head to the right, as if being yanked out of an enchantment.
"Ignore the phantom and follow me! We must report to Z'Ant."
Tantris shook his head. "Go ahead, Shritis," he said. "I must say goodbye."
Shritis scoffed. "Very well, do as you please," he conceded, then turned south towards the entrance to
Marten's Bluff. It simply means that I will receive all the reward for this outing, he further thought.
The Samurai slithered quickly through prickly bushes and around trees, doing his best not to lose sight of
the distant Ghost. However, it seemed no matter how hard he pushed forward, Jick was just out of reach,
and consistently at the same distance.
After minutes of pursuit, Tantris suddenly lost sight of him, and stopped between two trees covered in
moss to get his bearings. The sounds of the Swamp's wildlife seemed to close in around him, getting
louder as time passed. Though he was no warrior in the realm of the great Shritis, and several feet
shorter than the Assassin was, the creatures of this Swamp would be most foolish to think him weak and
unprotected.
He finally waved his stingers in resignation and turned back to the south... where the Ghost was standing
silently and ominously. Without missing a beat, and with no fear in his voice, Tantris asked, "You are
going?"
An unmoving mouth and echoing voice responded. "Yes," Jick replied.
"Very well, then," Tantris said. "Good luck." As the Ghost floated to the north, Tantris spoke once more.
"Where are you going, if I may ask?"
Jick shook his head slowly. "I don't know," he admitted, "but there's something up here... something very
familiar."
Tantris felt a tugging from within him, as if he might almost miss this otherworldly being who had been his
constant companion for several days. He didn't know why he asked what he did. "Are you still judging
us?" the Samurai inquired. "Do you not understand our methods... or do they continue to confuse you?"
"Don't get me wrong," Jick's haunting voice came from all around the T'Rang. "I don't hate you because I
dislike your methods."
He paused, floating ever northward. "I despise you because I agree with them."
As the Ghost floated towards the river that divided the Swamp in two, the Overmind's voice came to
Tantris. Excellent work securing the Astral Dominae for the Empire, Tantris, she congratulated. Come
home so we may direct you further.
Tantris' body directed him after Jick. Though it almost seemed as if he were not in control of his actions,
the Samurai was neither frightened nor surprised as he followed. Something peculiar is occurring near the
bridge, he told the Overmind. I will investigate and report back as soon as I am able.
Something... "peculiar?" the Overmind asked.
Yes, Tantris replied, a... calling, I suppose you could describe it. I will have more information soon.
Northern Swamp, Entrance to Bayjin
Day 10
The morning sun began to drive back the gloom of the Swamp, and turned it into more of a light
depression. Tantris followed his shrouded companion for several hours, even though it was clear that he
was not waiting for the Samurai to catch up.
However, when they reached the entrance to the caves leading to Bayjin, Jick stopped. It was here where
the beach on the northern edge of the Swamp was closest to the island of the Rynjin, and where only a
few hundred feet away, an underwater cave led straight under the ocean to Bayjin.
"This place..." the Ghost whispered as he looked around himself, but Tantris saw nothing unusual. A
gentle incline of rock led up and into the small valley where the caves began, and it was usually guarded
at all hours by a contingent of Rynjin fish-men.
Today was no exception, as the T'Rang saw one of the bipedal, scaley, loping brownish-yellow creatures
with fins on his head and a mean underbite march along the top of the rock. He was too well hidden to be
spotted by such a minimally intelligent creature, but he knew that if the Rynjin caught sight of him, his
friends would not be far behind.
Jick's body faded away slowly, then came back into view as he shook his head and stumbled forward.
"The sand..." his voice whispered. "And the ocean. I know them... don't I?"
Slowly, his shrouded head turned up, then caught sight of the Rynjin patrol walking along the top of the
rock face. His body faded away, quicker this time, then returned brighter than ever. His body gave off
such a powerful light, that it was impossible for even the dimmest of guards to miss the sudden increase
in luminosity.
Not to Tantris' surprise, the sentry noticed. He croaked a loud cry behind himself, and eight Rynjin
appeared from the other side to see what had surprised their leader. They were all barely five feet tall and
looked rather scrawny... except for one Rynjin in particular, who was not only two feet taller, but whose
right arm ended in deadly silver talons.
They cautiously descended the rock face as Tantris tried his best to hide himself even more behind the
tree in front of him. He knew Jick would be fine, but he was still flesh and blood.
"Yes, I remember now," the Ghost said, as the light penetrating his body brightened with every passing
second. It got so bright, that Tantris had to eventually look away. "But... no, it can't be..." he continued.
The T'Rang could feel his terror, his anguish, his self-loathing, as if it were he himself who was the source
of the torturous feelings.
"A slaver? A torturer? A murderer?" Jick asked. His body's light began to envelop everything. "I didn't
serve him... in exchange for my own safety, did I? No... is that why I never passed on?"
Tantris covered his large black eyes with his free claws. "Jick?" he whispered barely loud enough for even
himself to hear.
Despite that, the Ghost heard him. "No... no, that's not my name," he said.
The light began to dim, until the T'Rang finally saw the non-descript Higardi Ghost kneeling on the wet
Swamp ground, as if he were heaving from a stomach he no longer possessed.
"My naammme... isssszzzzhhzhhhh..." he gurgle-hissed, until Tantris could no longer understand what he
was trying to say. At the same time, though, while Jick's attempts at speaking the language of the Empire
was resoundingly butchered and unable to be properly deciphered, he continued with a throaty gurgling
that, as he listened, the T'Rang eventually could start to make out.
Before the curious T'Rang and the now frightened Rynjin guards, Jick's body stretched and compacted,
until it was a shapeless mockery of the shrouded Higardi he was before. Slowly, his body took on a more
animalistic appearance... clothes melted into scales, his right hand extended into a great claw with long
talons, and his feet stretched out into clawed and webbed feet.
As his transformation continued, and even before it had finally completed, the T'Rang realized what he
was becoming. Much like a few days ago, when Jick became a ghostly mockery of Tantris himself, Jick
was changing into the very image of the people he had come into contact with.
This time seemed different, though.
The metamorphosis completed, and the new Jick stood... not as a simple reflection of those he thought or
wished himself to be, but as the very image of the towering and clawed being he was prior to his death.
Jick was a Rynjin... and he had come home.
The living Rynjin sentries before him backed up slowly, sure that this was a sign of their impending
demise. As the Ghost turned his head slowly towards Tantris, farther around than any living being should
have been able to, they turned and fled up the side of the rocky hill.
"Brgrk jkgrahkak grrrgk..." he gurgled in his native tongue. Nonetheless, the meaning of the phrase was
evident to Tantris, an instantaneous series of pictures in his mind that changed the nonsensical string of
growls and clicks into a definite idea: "The Slaver shall set them free."
The Ghost... Tantris thought it unfair to call him by a temporary name anymore... then suddenly snapped
his head towards the entrance of the Bayjin caves and blasted over the hill, an inch off of the ground.
Stunned for only a second by the bizarre series of events, Tantris finally felt lucid enough to follow him
over the ridge.
The smaller Rynjin sentries were cowering there, in the shadow of the swampy valley, while the larger
and clawed one swiped into the Ghost's body with a frightened croak. His arm passed right through, and
the Ghost continued into the dark cavern at the other end of the valley without pausing.
As Tantris slithered down the bowl of the mountain ridge into the small valley, the smaller sentries
immediately noticed his approach. Nine against a Ghost was apparently out of their ability to fight, but
nine versus a lone T'Rang seemed well within their desire to pursue.
They lumbered forth in unison, lean muscle and slicing claws reaching for Tantris' gowned body... and he
sighed. "Very well, then," he said.
Two Fireballs slowly conjured at the tips of both of his stingers. As they reached a sufficient size, and the
Rynjin were almost atop him, Tantris prepared to fire them forward. His katana Stinger was ready for any
who managed to survive the first...
DO NOT HARM THE LITTLE ONES, a voice suddenly shouted in his mind. It was surely not the
Overmind, for she always communicated in words.
In fact, what Tantris saw was an image of a T'Rang with both pairs of claws crossed over his body, then a
blade slicing through skin, then the image of a small T'Rang Younger.
The meaning was clear enough. Tantris aimed the Fireball pairs towards the ground in front of the Rynjin,
and exploded them at the fish-men's webbed feet. The smaller Rynjin were thrown violently into the rocky
cliff to his left and to the ground to his right, but though they were flung and scorched by the powerful
blast, they were still visibly breathing.
The larger Rynjin, however, burst through the licking flames and into Tantris. The T'Rang sliced Stinger
from his left claw and up the Rynjin's side, where the sentry suddenly stopped it with his long and
powerful talons.
As the Rynjin punched with his left, though, Tantris slid backwards, then pierced the Rynjin's arm with
both of his stingers. The fish-man bellowed in pain and dropped his arm to his side, where the only
movement it made was to swing uselessly back and forth.
Pressing his advantage, Tantris slithered forward and grabbed the Rynjin's clawed arm with two of his
own, then brought Stinger up before the fish-man's chest. Before the sentry could retaliate or pull away,
Tantris twirled the blade around and removed the Rynjin's claw from his arm with a neat slice.
The dismembered claw dropped into Tantris' free left claw, where the T'Rang grasped it, then plunged it
into the Rynjin's own belly. He didn't even have time to register the unbearable pain of the wound before
Tantris mercifully removed the Rynjin's head from the rest of his body with a quick slice of his katana.
He didn't waste any time slithering past the collapsing body before the little ones had a chance to recover
and come after him. At this speed, gliding along the wet and slippery ground perfectly suited to T'Rang
physiology, they would not have the opportunity to retaliate anyway.
"Wait!" he called out, but was unaware if the Ghost could hear him. He had been moving very fast when
Tantris last saw him, and the T'Rang doubted if his voice could reach the phantom... but he reasoned that
his emotions might travel where his cries could not.
If the Ghost heard him, he didn't stop. Tantris slithered past drooping trees into the dark cave, a moist and
dripping windy path leading straight under the ocean. The rocky walls were slimy and wet, and the ground
was squishy and covered in dead leaves. The T'Rang slid straight through with little difficulty until, much
to his dismay, the damp ground gave way to sand.
He made a disgusted face and groaned softly as he waded through the fine particles; he could feel them
sticking to the base of his body with every push of his snake-like torso. Luckily, the cave dipped low now
and again, where pools of water collected in shallow pits and allowed him a brief, cleansing respite from
the sand.
For twenty minutes, he slithered through the sand and pools of water, calling out vocally and mentally for
the Ghost to respond. He received no answer as the cave's sandy floor suddenly angled upwards in a
steep incline, then opened onto the island of Bayjin.
As far as he could see to his left and right, the sand moved between the ocean, and a dense thicket of
trees. If deductive reasoning served him, the beach probably wound all the way around the island, and
surrounded the trees like a sandy moat.
The trees were tall, and their green fronds broad and wide. The forest they comprised dotted and
surrounded the island around a range of tall mountains that shot out of the center of the island. The
Rynjin's home was beautifully layered in rings of sand, flora and rock.
Up ahead, Tantris saw the image of the Ghost floating down the beach and out of sight. Please wait, he
thought again. I merely wish to know what is happening, and assist if I can. When the specter didn't stop,
the T'Rang slithered forward over the rough and nauseatingly fine sand after him.
After a few minutes of travel under the hot sun, Tantris broke for the trees off to his right. The appearance
of the Rynjin mob before him was sudden enough to have appeared out of thin air, and if they weren't as
solid as he was, the Samurai could have sworn that they were all as without form as the Ghost himself.
Tantris inhaled sharply when he saw the Ghost float straight towards their ranks. By and large, they
seemed to be the variety of Rynjin more suited for battle, the ones with the large claws for right hands. A
few assumed bewildered defensive stances at the approach of the Ghost, but most of them scattered and
ran into one another at the approaching vision of hell.
Overmind, Tantris thought. An army has amassed upon the island of Bayjin. He scanned the beachbound
army of fish-men with black eyes filled with concern. They may have looked disorganized, but... It
appears that the Rynjin have become a threat that can no longer be ignored.
***
Rynjin slavers clawed and sliced at one another, never sure whose eyes would turn cold and empty
before he suddenly turned on his former comrades. It was the Ghost, leaping from body to body, then
ripping into the former friends of the ones he possessed. When the mortal shell was rendered immobile
by a dozen gurgling Rynjin's attacks, he simply left the body and took another.
Once his energy began to run low, and over thirty Rynjin had met their ends by the talons of those he
controlled, the Ghost began the second phase of his plan.
Tantris was there to assist for this part, gathering the beaten and weakened Rynjin slaves in the caves on
the southwest side of the island. He remained in a pool of brown T'Rang goo that made his presence on
the sandy ground much more tolerable, despite the hot sun that seemed to set slower the more Tantris
insisted it leave.
Next to the goo, he used brief but searing arcane flames from his stingers to cauterize the more nasty of
the slaves' wounds, and brief flashes of ice and warmth to soothe their bruises, cuts and other injuries. He
regretted now for the first time his inability to heal, but as a Samurai and a wielder of a very non-T'Rang
weapon, he had always learned to make do with what he knew.
They sat and leaned against the cave walls, emitting croaks and gurgles of pain mixed with an overall
atmosphere of wonder and confusion. Though they came from different worlds, Tantris could still feel their
many questions as they placed their beady eyes upon him.
Who is this creature? Why is he helping us? Who is the Ghost, and what does he want with us?
Tantris didn't know why he was helping these beings, who had meant nothing to him just days ago.
Moreover, it was neither his nor the Empire's desire to ever help anyone, save the T'Rang.
Perhaps it was a sense of loyalty to his short-lived companion... Tantris waved his stingers morbidly at the
unintended pun. Maybe there was something to gain from all of this, much like assisting an old lady might
provide an alliance between the Empire and the Higardi. Somehow, he felt it went deeper than that.
Nonetheless, with the Ghost leading more slaves to their salvation on the edge of Bayjin, and the
pandemonium among the Rynjin slowly calming, Tantris realized that these thoughts were a luxury he
had little time for. In the end, it was all up to doing what he felt was right.
By the time the Rynjin Ghost returned, hunched over and claws opening and closing as if needing to tear
something in half, there were over five hundred Rynjin slaves scattered in and around the cave. Some
needed immediate medical attention, others looked about in confusion, while others watched the Ghost
arrive with wonder-filled eyes. After a few seconds, the latter group saw the biggest increase in wondering
membership.
As the Ghost gurgled in the native Rynjin tongue, Tantris noticed that far off in the distance, the clawed
Rynjin had composed themselves, and were steadily marching forward to take back the ones stolen from
them.
"Grrgrlrak. Shhhrk brgrarr," he said to the assembled group, then turned and floated back towards the
advancing Rynjin. His flight was much slower than before, and accompanied by the slightest dimming of
his phantom body before it returned to normal.
The Samurai understood his message with little difficulty, even if it hadn't been accompanied by the
mental pictures: "Flee. I will fight." The slaves didn't need to be told twice; the stronger ones helped up
the more injured among them, and they started down the caverns towards the Swamp, and hopefully their
freedom.
"You are weakened," Tantris said to the Ghost's back. "What will happen to you if you push yourself
beyond what is capable?"
This time, the Ghost answered him. I will disappear, the mental images told the Samurai.
The T'Rang steeled his resolve, stood, then slithered out of the delightfully damp and cold cave, and out
into the annoying sunlight. "You are not going alone," he stated. Surprisingly, at the T'Rang's honest
pledge to his cause, the Ghost made the most imperceptible of changes to his speed and allowed Tantris
to catch up.
"Hold," the Samurai said as he drew to his friend's side, and the Rynjin Ghost complied. From his floating
perspective on the beach, the Ghost could see the bulk of the Rynjin slaver army ahead of him, quite
possibly only ten minutes away from reaching their position.
Overmind, please instruct any T'Rang in the Swamp not to attack the Rynjin emerging from the
underwater cave, he thought. They mean us no harm.
They mean us no harm, the Overmind told the high T'Rang Assassin. Shritis hissed in impatience, but
removed his Psi Rod's hooks from along the Rynjin's neck and placed the weapon firmly back at his side.
The frightened, tiny fish-man backed up with a gurgle into his friends behind him.
"You ssshould be thankful that I had not arrived a moment ssooner, whelpss..." the T'Rang hissed, then
slithered forward. The Rynjin backed up through the damp cave and fled to the mouth leading to Bayjin,
assured that any beating from the slavers would have to be infinitely better than facing the stinger-waving,
mandible-clacking monsters before them.
"TANTRIS!" he yelled, his loud voice echoing and booming through the cave, and propelling the scared
Rynjin even faster away from him. He swept forward, leading a contingent of twenty of the Empire's most
deadly Assassins through the cave.
When he arrived at the exit, Shritis was surprised to see the even battle lines that had been drawn
between the two factions of Bayjin. On one hand, there were him and his group of Assassins emerging
from the comfortable cave.
Directly in front of them, several hundred cowering and injured Rynjin looked in a panic between his
group, and past Tantris and a Rynjin specter to an army of easily a thousand of the clawed fish-men. This
faction looked quite a bit more powerful than the pathetic creatures on the Assassins' side.
Shritis scratched his head with one of his stingers as he approached the Samurai. "Did I miss something
here, Tantris?" he asked in a calm voice. The Rynjin before him scattered and backed up as the Assassin
spoke.
"This is the army I spoke of," Tantris said as he swept his upper right claw towards the line of Rynjin. He
glanced at them with mild disgust, then turned back to the Assassin. "Slavers... come to reclaim their
property."
Shritis clacked his mandibles together and scanned the line of enemy Rynjin. The bulk of them had
dangerous claws for right hands, but he noticed that the front line of the army was composed mainly of
the tiny-bodied Rynjin, much like the ones who were frightened of him now.
They were numbered, and all seemingly deferring to a much larger Rynjin held upon a great chair in their
midst. As the Assassin's eyes narrowed in concentration and suspicion, he noticed that the fish-man was
not particularly... "all there..." for lack of a better term.
Although clearly a creature of importance, a wise man or a chief of some sort, the Rynjin's head rolled
back and forth as if he had no control over himself. He jawed with no clear desire to communicate, and
his eyes rolled around in his head, focusing on nothing in particular.
The Assassin blinked slowly before his eyes rested on Tantris. "So?" he asked.
Tantris' stingers stopped waving about without purpose, and stood rigid and still. "So?" he repeated back,
then pointed both of his right claws at the army. "They are coming to enslave, and possibly torture or kill,
these Rynjin before us. How can you not care?"
Shritis waved his stingers dismissively. "It is a Rynjin problem," he said. "Let the Rynjin handle it."
Tantris balked. "You cannot possibly believe an injured group of a few hundred can fight off the
battle-trained offense of a thousand!" he exclaimed.
With suspicion evident in his eyes, Shritis shook his head. "What has gotten into you, Tantris?" he asked.
The army behind them drew ever closer, only about three minutes away now. "To ask that a T'Rang throw
his life away defending someone not of our race, with nothing to offer in return... it is vomitous to even
consider."
He turned and pointed towards the cave entrance. "Come, we have other things to do," he said to every
T'Rang around him. But as they collectively started for the entrance, Tantris reached out all four limbs to
them. "Wait," he said.
They did not stop, so Tantris slithered towards them. "Do you not grow tired of our Empire's isolation?" he
asked. Thankfully, a few of the Assassins slowly stopped to listen, despite Shritis' insistence that they
leave. "How much longer can we possibly survive on our own, without contact with other cultures that can
temper and evolve our own?"
More than a few stopped and turned; he had touched a nerve. Shritis wheeled angrily on him. "You will
come with us now, Samurai," he ordered icily.
Tantris ignored him. "It is no secret that the Empire, and our culture, have found an ungrowing niche to
settle ourselves in," he continued. "We have become incapable of change, even begun to stagnate like a
still and moldy lake. And what do we have to show for our stubborness and protectionist ways?
"Suspicion, hostility, an Empire always on the brink of war with those we do not know... and at war with
those we despise," he proclaimed. He swept his right claws in front of him emphatically. "People have no
right to judge us based upon how we look... and there will always be those who view us as nothing more
than what our appearance tells them.
"But does that give us the right to act so without mercy and compassion?" he asked. He sighed as Shritis
drew closer and loomed over him, with the Rynjin scattering at his approach. Tantris bravely looked up
into his cold eyes. "I have been debating this for some time now, and I am ashamed for every time I have
returned kindness or pleas for help with a cold rebuke..." the Samurai admitted.
"I am your superior, and I will not ask again..." Shritis hissed.
Tantris backed up, and placed his left claw on the shoulder of a Rynjin slave. "If the universe will not
extend a hand of understanding to us, then we must be the bigger race and offer it, instead... time and
again, without fear, or hesitation, or anger for the misunderstandings that plague our dealings with other
cultures."
Shritis lowered his Psi Rod menacingly at Tantris, placing one of its hooked blades against Tantris' neck.
He tellingly glanced up at the Rynjin army, almost upon them, then back at the Samurai. "If you will not
comply with my order," he warned, "I will consider it an act of treason against the T'Rang Empire."
Tantris raised his head proudly, then slowly turned his back on the Assassin. "You will do as you must,"
he said calmly, "but I will not abandon these people. If you will strike me down, you may do it as I face
certain death... without fear, and without hesitation."
The stronger of the Rynjin slaves stood and joined the Samurai and the Ghost, hunched over and
suddenly bravely ready to meet the army's advance.
The Ghost's transparent body seemed to glow ever clearer, and retained this new image longer than any
previous time his form had brightened.
The Rynjin slaver army gurgled and screamed with bloodlust, reaching forward with grasping claws for
the ones who had escaped.
Tantris' stingers stiffened as large Fireballs formed at their ends, and he hissed a roar of battle so mighty,
that even a few of the approaching Rynjin winced in fear.
And the civil war began to rage.
The Ghost was the first to act, rocketing out and into the body of an enemy Rynjin slave, who was running
forward to meet the deserters. To Tantris' surprise, though, the Ghost compelled the smaller Rynjin to run
straight into the trees to his left and knock himself out on one of the tree trunks.
Tantris fired the Fireballs over the line of Rynjin slaves and into the slavers behind them, then slithered
forward as the Ghost ran another slave off of the field. He was relieved to not feel Shritis' Psi Rod slicing
through him... into the body of the traitor he had become.
I see... the T'Rang thought as an opening in the Rynjin ranks appeared behind the deserting slaves. The
first of the Rynjin slavers set upon Tantris as the T'Rang ducked left, spun and sliced the Rynjin's legs
from beneath him. He backed up, continuing the katana's motion backwards and into the gut of another.
The enemy Rynjin slaves jumped on him, punching and kicking him as he fell to the sand and the battle
washed over him. Tantris knew they were being compelled to fight, and felt reluctant to kill them... but if
this kept up...
The slaves on his side dashed forward, and amidst spinning kicks and thrusting punches, cleared enough
of the advancing slavers to reach the embattled Tantris. One by one, they plucked off the squirming and
beating slaves on top of him, finally allowing the T'Rang room to fling off the last slave and rise to meet a
half dozen slicing slaver claws.
Tantris swung around in a circle and dismembered three claws, before two others plunged into his
abdomen. He darted a stinger into each one with a pain-inducing agent, and the Rynjin quickly withdrew
with howls of pain.
Pressing his advantage, Tantris sliced his claws to his left and right, darting his stingers around and into
exposed Rynjin bodies as his Stinger rang dangerously through the air. A few seconds of the T'Rang
whirlwind of cutting blades and claws was enough to have the slavers spread out and allow the Samurai a
circle of respite. It was barely ten feet in diameter, but it was something for now.
The line was too thick to see through on every side. Every second that passed was a blinding series of
quick jumps and strikes by the slavers into the circle, and his body. He held them off bravely for minutes
on end, cutting, spinning and stinging every hint of movement towards his body.
On the outskirts of the surrounded T'Rang, as possessed slaves continued to run from the battlefield and
dash their heads against rocks and trees under the Ghost's direction, the slaves and slavers fought
violently. The freed slaves jumped and kicked at their advancing enemies, reducing their disciplined
charge into a chaotic surge of flying Rynjin bodies. Scaley, meaty webbed feet and fists slammed into the
slaver's faces, and croaks, gurgles and yelps accompanied the sounds of rent and beaten flesh.
The advance of the freed slaves lasted only seconds before the slavers had gained the upper hand. With
superior numbers and strength on their side, the slavers made short work of their adversaries with
vicious, raking claws across their injured bodies and faces. The slaves still on their side reluctantly beat
into their brothers and sisters... bones cracked and bodies struck sand with heavy piffs as the insurrection
was finally put down.
In moments, dozens of the slaves were facedown on the beach, breathing slowly in their
unconsciousness. Even more were lying in sand stained green with blood, dead. The distinction between
those who fought for and against the slavers was now gone.
The last hundred of the freed, fighting slaves lept and spun with kicks and punches at the slaver ring. One
in particular kicked a slaver magnificently across his underbite, but it wasn't enough to knock the taller
one out. The slaver shouldered the little one in the chest and impaled his neck with razor sharp claws,
ending the brave Rynjin's struggle, and his short life.
Shritis and the Assassins remained motionless on the edge of the large ring of Rynjin around Tantris.
They stared without feeling as the slaves and slavers traded furious kicks and swipes, and warriors from
one side or the other dropped with pained croaks and dying gurgles to the sand below.
The increasingly beleaguered Samurai's movements slowed to the point of near motionlessness. All the
T'Rang Assassins could see, though, was the wall of Rynjin moving slowly inward to close the circle
around him. Clearly, the fish-men were winning.
Tantris cut weakly down a Rynjin's reaching claw as the sting of two other claws simultaneously raked
along his back and plunged into his torso. He spun and sliced out with his right claw and stung wildly off
center, succeeding only in unbalancing himself and stumbling into the Rynjin behind him.
Someone kicked him in the back of the head and the world went painfully white for the briefest of
seconds, then another Rynjin bit down on his right claw, and yet another kicked at his abdomen. Tantris
stung in a panic in every direction, keeping the Rynjin at bay for now, but he knew he couldn't keep it up
for long.
He heard a croak above him, and looked up through eyes stained with the green blood of he and his
enemies: lifted above their heads on a simple bamboo chair was a Rynjin of obvious importance. His
eyes rolled around and his head slumped forward as he croaked again, and the Rynjin holding him above
their heads knelt to allow him closer access to the T'Rang. Two slash marks bit deeply through his chest,
leaving a pair of ugly scars.
Tantris felt a renewed energy surge within him at the sight of this crippled, disgusting being, and stood.
To his surprise, Stinger suddenly seemed to have a mind of its own, and began slicing faster than he
thought possible.
The katana swiped through the air so fast, that the area a few feet in front of him went almost solid with
the sight of the flashing sword. Rynjin parts flew into the crowd with sickening squishes, and Tantris
hiss-shouted a monstrous battle cry.
The Rynjin drew forward nonetheless, and renewed their assault. Tantris' body was soon opened with
twice the amount of wounds he had before, and he had not even begun to dent the guards standing
between him and the Rynjin leader.
He was finally spent. His stamina drained, grievous wounds covering his body that reduced his body and
spidery gown to tatters, Tantris slumped down to the beach with a painful grunt. I tried... he thought,
hoping he sent a clear enough message through the pain of the Rynjin rending his flesh. You must know
that I tried...
The Rynjin leader's rolling eyes closed, and his head began to glow. It was clearly a Psionic spell, though
the light jumped and skipped about his head chaotically, rather than in a uniform charge of power. The
Rynjin around Tantris scattered and offered him the large circle as before.
Darting energy swirled about the leader's face, and finally coalesced into a solid ring of light around his
head. Tantris let his battered body sag into the sand and prepared for the strike. An explosion thundered
in his ears, and he welcomed death... as an old friend who had been by his side all along.
...
...
...
Is it supposed to hurt this much when one dies? Tantris thought. I am certainly going to have to discuss
this unfortunate fact with the spirits here when I meet them...
He listened to the sounds around him. Is this when I see my life flash before my eyes? Will my departed
Queen come to welcome me into the hereafter? ...Why are there Rynjin in our afterlife? For that matter,
why did the explosion sound from behind me, instead of inside my skull?
Tantris slowly became aware of the sensations he had blocked out in his last moments of life. Flames
behind him, a rush of air beside him... and now, the world was dark. Slowly, he raised his head to see a
great form standing between him and the Rynjin leader, blocking out the sun.
"Shritis?" he asked as he looked around him. A large swath of the enemy ring around him had been
charred and blown to bits, he noticed. The sounds of the world suddenly flooded in like the spirits
themselves adjusting the world's volume.
The T'Rang Assassins sliced and stung their way through the charred and struggling bodies behind him,
slowly but surely making their way through the line of Rynjin to Tantris himself. When the Samurai looked
back towards the nine foot T'Rang, he was surprised to see something coming very quickly towards his
face.
Keesh! the bottle broke in his face, and the shards of glass and the liquid contained inside exploded into
his face, and ran into his mouth. As Shritis dropped his claw at his side, the pain spiked in Tantris' mind,
then suddenly subsided. A healing potion...
"Show me..." Shritis hissed, and roughly yanked the Samurai to a standing position. The Rynjin behind
him closed in, but stopped immediately when Shritis' lightning quick stingers pierced several of them in
the span of a few seconds, and they collapsed in blackened, mushy heaps.
The Assassin slithered to the side and behind the Samurai. "Show me this understanding you have
cultivated..." With that, he crossed over the charred bodies of the Fire Bombed Rynjin, leaving a telltale
trail of brown goo on them as he moved.
As he exited the ring of fighting, and crossed his many claws over his body while he observed, Tantris
held his katana at the ready. His stingers waved menacingly at the Rynjin approaching around him, even
the ones he did not see with his own eyes.
He hissed menacingly at the Rynjin before him. "Shall we continue, then?" he asked. More than a few of
them croaked and gurgled in fear, then knelt to the ground with their webbed hands over their heads.
Tantris took this as a sign of surrender, and ignored specifically those Rynjin as he slithered forward into
the renewed fight.
Together, the Stun Rod-wielding T'Rang and the remnants of the Rynjin slave rebellion drew forward into
the tall and disciplined line of Rynjin slavers. The renewed offensive by a small squadron of monsters was
bad enough for the ones loyal to the Rynjin Chief, but when the slaves that had not joined the rebellion
began to spin around and attack the ones they previously served, the line of slavers seemed suddenly
less confident in their success.
On the western edge of the front, a crouching slave suddenly turned on the Rynjin behind him, kicking
into his left knee and breaking it. The slaver dropped to his other while a freed slave jumped onto the
body of the tiny Rynjin below him, then springboarded off of him and onto the slaver's back.
As he broke the slaver's neck with a twist of his webbed hands and launched off to attack another, the
newly energized and bolstered slave rebellion lunged into the line of slavers with varying degrees of
success.
A dozen feet away, a slaver beat a smaller Rynjin down into the sand before two more jumped onto his
body and pushed him to the ground. Just behind them, a slaver clawed into a small Rynjin's belly, when a
T'Rang Assassin pushed the little one off of the slaver's outstretched claws and drove the stun orb into his
belly.
He slithered forward with the Rynjin, electrifying his scaley body and pushing him into another, and
another. The line of Rynjin shook under the effects of the powerful shock as the T'Rang dipped a claw
into his black gown, then flung a Fire Bomb into the ranks of slavers behind them.
Amidst explosions, potions that blew up into showers of jagged rocks like mystical grenades, the beating
of tiny, scaley fists on large, muscular chests, and claws and hooked rods swiping in every direction,
Tantris came face to face with the Rynjin leader and his entourage.
The Ghost appeared above his head, reaching desparately into the leader's mind to possess him.
Whether because of the leader's inherent strength, or more likely a lack of reserve strength in the Ghost's
wispy form, though, he was unable to take over. The surprised Rynjin standing under their leader
suddenly backpedaled and scattered from the ghostly visage, dropping the leader to the floor.
"It is fine!" Tantris shouted, slicing a Rynjin across his chest and blasting a quick Fireball from his stinger
into another on his right. "You have done enough. I will finish this."
Without warning, the Rynjin around the leader knelt to the ground and covered their heads with their
webbed hands, one by one. Only a few of his more loyal Rynjin remained to impede Tantris' progress, but
they were cut down by quick flashes of his sword in mere seconds.
Finally, Tantris slithered forward and stood over the leader's twitching, eye-rolling body. The Samurai
tiltled his head in pity at one who once commanded a legion of loyal Rynjin, and oversaw a brutal
civilization of captivity. Now, he was neither taller, nor even as stately, as the cowering Rynjin around him.
Fearing a trap and on his guard, Tantris placed Stinger on his neck, careful that the Rynjin's jerking
movement didn't cause him to kill himself on the sharp blade. "You are beaten..." the Samurai stated.
The din of battle calmed, and the Samurai looked around to see that the war had effectively ceased.
Proud and powerful T'Rang Assassins formed a line interspersed by Rynjin slaves, all of whom stood
over the bodies of cowering Rynjin. Behind them, Shritis watched silently.
A whoosh of movement made Tantris look back towards the Rynjin leader, where the Ghost stood over
him. Without a word from the Ghost's mouth, the pictures came clear to the T'Rang's mind.
We could not stop him, he said. It is not our way to speak or wish ill of the ones who rule over our people.
Thus, if change comes, it is by the hand of those who would benefit from their new position... from unjust
rule taken by force. It took a single revolution led by an unscrupulous Rynjin to set the entire line of
Chieftains down a path of increasingly murderous and barbaric rulers, one assassination after another.
He gestured towards himself with his talons. I was once a slaver as they were... and gratefully accepted
my position at birth, with this claw as proof of my advantaged birth. I happily whipped, beat and killed lazy
or unruly slaves, knowing the inherent difference between us. It took my death to realize the evil I had
perpetrated under the guise of tradition and culture.
"So because your people refused to change, you continued the painful path of least resistance? What will
you do now, follow this quivering mass of jelly again to preserve your base ways?" Tantris asked, poking
Stinger into the leader's neck.
It is not up to me anymore, the Ghost responded. My time in this universe is at an end... but I hope that
my final actions may have had some beneficial effect for my people.
Tantris sighed as the Ghost turned and walked through the bodies of crouching, former slavers. "What will
happen to you now?" he asked.
The Ghost's body began to dim. ...One act of selflessness cannot erase a life of sin, he said in Tantris'
mind. The victims... my victims, are waiting for me...
Slowly, sadly, the Ghost faded from view, until he was nothing more than a silhouette... walking among
the ones he had known so well in life. And then, he was gone.
The slaves from both sides slowly came forward, pushing between and among the slavers as the
Assassins remained firmly in place. Though the slavers knelt in submission, all of the T'Rang knew that
the chances of this all being a ruse was exceedingly high.
"Thank you, brothers," Tantris called to them. The Assassins said nothing, but Shritis spoke for them. "We
don't need an excuse to protect ourselves," he replied. "Better to eliminate an opposing army through civil
war, than risk more T'Rang lives than necessary through direct conflict."
The Samurai noticed the briefest of glances from many of the Assassins to the cold-hearted Shritis.
Clearly, more than a few know of the problems facing our people, he thought to himself. It is a shame you
have yet to realize.
He broke from his thoughts when the first slaves arrived around him. They formed a fan shape around the
T'Rang, who was holding his sword to their leader's neck... and for a second, Tantris thought they would
attack to prevent the death of their leader.
Instead, they all knelt and covered their heads as the slavers did, until every one of the many hundred
Rynjin around him, slave and slaver alike, bowed to the Samurai in like submission. It was overwhelming
to be so honored for an act that Tantris now considered so natural... to help someone in need.
He leaned down and grasped the arm of the Rynjin closest to him with his two right claws. The little
fish-man did his best to keep from establishing eye contact, but after a few seconds of Tantris' continued
grip, curiosity got the better of him.
The T'Rang's eyes were solid black, but the Rynjin detected strength and compassion there, emotions
that were universal in feeling.
Shritis waved the Assassins through the cave and back to Marten's Bluff. "Inform the Overmind that the
situation has been contained," he said. "I will remain with Tantris and the beasts until we are finished." He
stopped the nearest Assassin with a pair of claws.
"Not a word to her about his treachery," he warned them all. "Leave that to me." The T'Rang nodded in
unison, then slithered through the cave as they made their mental report.
The cheers died down, and the smaller Rynjin hurriedly pulled Tantris towards the village on the northern
side of the island. To his confusion, they also picked up and helped their former leader on their trek. They
cannot possibly be considering placing him in power again... the Samurai thought in dismay. What a
waste of lives...
Together, along with the excited slaves and largely deferential and silent Rynjin slavers, the two T'Rang
made their way up the beach. The Rynjin chittered and croaked excitedly amongst themselves as they
walked up the beach, and the Overmind's voice came into Tantris' mind. The situation has been defused,
then? she asked.
Yes, Tantris replied. Though their leader has not yet been dealt with. If only I could understand what they
were saying...
There was a pause before her response reached him. You are in contact with them now? she asked.
Tantris looked down and saw the small Rynjin beside him, still holding onto his right claw. I am, he
thought. A few seconds later, he felt energy course through his body and through his claw, presumably
into the chittering Rynjin next to him. He didn't seem to notice.
New Chief... new Chief... new Chief... a voice repeated over and over in his mind.
Tantris breathed a sigh of relief. They weren't putting the other in power again... perhaps they brought him
along to stand trial, or to punish or execute him.
As the western edge of Bayjin ended at the ocean, and the beach cut sharply east, Tantris saw two
equally intriguing sights: to the west, the sun was slowly setting and dipping into the ocean, where purples
and reds of magnificent hue splashed and wavered across the rolling waters.
To his right, before the trees, a crashed spaceship bearing the markings of the Higardi was buried deeply
in the sand. Whoever had been in the ship had long since fled or died, however, as the back end of the
ship was open, and had been invaded by beach.
The inside was utterly bare, aside from the encroaching sand. Tantris drew slightly closer to it, seeing
nothing that could possibly tell him what this ship was or why it had crashed. Before he could look further,
his movement was suddenly impeded by something buried in the sand below him.
Tantris leaned down, his claw still grasped by the Rynjin beside him, and unearthed a black box from the
beach. It contained similar markings as the buildings in Arnika, and whoever had scavenged the ship had
apparently missed it. He placed the box in his brown robe and continued along with the Rynjin.
In the last half hour of daylight, they reached the Rynjin village of many huts constructed out of bamboo
and stone. The Rynjin at Tantris' side suddenly animated and ran into one of the huts, emerging a few
seconds later with a handful of jingling metal.
He gurgled and croaked excitedly, pointing at the metal in his hand, then at one of the huts in the center
of the village. Tantris slithered forward and took the tags from the Rynjin, holding the small chain to let the
wafer at its end spin slowly around in front of his eyes.
"What is it?" a suddenly present Shritis hissed from Tantris' side.
The Samurai, not frightened and not missing a beat, clicked his mandibles together. With a single breath,
he simply replied, "Umpani."
"What does it say?!" Shritis demanded, ripping the dogtags from Tantris' claws.
Tantris spread his claws. "I do not know," he admitted, "but these are identification tags present upon all
members of the IUF." He looked at the hut that the Rynjin before him gestured wildly towards. "It appears
our wards have captured one of the toads themselves."
Shritis hmphed. "And what of this much vaunted 'understanding' you have nurtured for those not born of
T'Rang?" he asked mockingly.
The Samurai slithered after the Rynjin. "The Umpani are not ones to be reasoned with," he spat. "They
are nothing more than beasts, monsters incapable of understanding as simple a concept as compassion."
Shritis clacked his mandibles together in pleased agreement, and followed.
The Rynjin slaves moved in en masse to pull out the struggling captive, a large and powerful,
grey-skinned and horned Umpani brute. His red jacket clung over clearly showing ribs, and his dizzy
attempts to fight the fish-men were both telling of his hunger and thirst from many days of captivity.
"I'll... kill you all!" he wheezed, rather weakly for an Umpani of his size. Tantris pointed to the center of the
ring of huts, near an old and charred campsite where a large fire once burned.
The many Rynjin crowded around, slaves and slavers alike, as almost a dozen of them jumped atop the
Umpani and held his limbs to the sandy beach. Tantris drew forward to finish the job, but Shritis pushed
him out of the way. "I will take care of this... 'Chief,'" he said with a look of pure glee upon his face.
In the name of goodwill... and keeping Shritis from killing Rynjin in a rage... Tantris relented. As much as
he wanted to plunge his poisonous stingers into the Umpani, just before he disembowled him, the lives of
the Rynjin came before his own desires.
Shritis slithered between the assembled Rynjin, who were busily shifting to get the best view of the
proceedings. "Oh ho ho..." the Umpani laughed as he shook his head derisively. "I can't believe it'll end at
your staff, you damn bug... figures you'd attack a man when he's down, or had his back to you!"
The T'Rang clacked his mandibles together gleefully. "Moral sssuperiority?" he asked with a hissing
laugh. "Where you're going... you'll no longer be in a possition to feel sso sssmug."
"Enough!" Tantris shouted. "Finish him, now... or I will!"
Shritis cast a glance at him. "Quiet, Samurai! You're ruining the best part," he hissed, with a face that was
clearly savoring the moment.
Suddenly, his grin faded, and his stingers pointed to the north. Tantris followed the movement to a distant
Rynjin temple, which was connected to the island by a bridge and jutting out of the middle of the ocean.
The Rynjin cried and croaked out from every direction, and soon, the entire army of hundreds was
surging forward on the bridge and from the sea below to attack the group that had arrived. "Umpani!!"
Shritis hissed at the pair of toad hogs and their small and furry companion, then slithered behind the large
group of Rynjin to meet the severely uneven challenge.
The larger Umpani with a scar over his left eye unclicked the latches on a water locker at his side without
taking his eyes off of the advancing army. When they were undone, he yanked the top up and threw the
container into the air. An IUF firearm twirled out, and before it fell to the ground, he caught it by the stock,
aimed towards the first of the Rynjin, then began to shoot.
The locker hit the ground with a clatter as he popped two Rynjin's heads off from several hundred feet
away, and his gun screamed for more. The ones in the water arrived first, bursting out from the ocean
and jumping for his body. He kicked the water locker up and into the first Rynjin's chest, where it struck
the creature heavily, then bounced back onto the bridge.
The Rynjin on the left slashed for his throat, but the Umpani backhanded him across the jaw with his
considerably longer reach. Before he could react, though, two more jumped at him from the sea on his
right.
Shritis watched the small and IUF jacket-covered Trynnie at his side fire two quick arrows straight through
both of their necks, and their lifeless bodies thumped harmlessly off of the Umpani's muscular chest. "Kill
them!" the T'Rang screamed, forgetting entirely about the Umpani behind him. Luckily, the Rynjin holding
him down were still there to keep him from escaping.
The Assassin slithered forward as several Rynjin's heads glowed at once, then screamed forth a torrent
of Psionic spells into the IUF attack squad. The other Umpani, the one in red, began to blow on a brass
instrument in his hands, and music suddenly filled the air. The spells streaked and bounced harmlessly
off of an invisible bubble around the scarred Umpani's body.
The scarred Umpani suddenly roared, pounded the bridge with his great foot, then charged forward with a
fierce battle cry. The Rynjin line faltered as his firearm roared again and again, exploding them one after
the other, and sometimes in pairs, as his bullets screamed through one head to pop off another.
He reached the first fish-man and dipped his head low, impaling the Rynjin on his horn and throwing the
fish-man's struggling body over his own head. The next fearless Rynjin lept for him and scratched for his
throat, but failed to penetrate the Umpani's tough hide.
With a meaty fist, he socked the powerless fish-man, then shot his body as he slipped into the waters
next to the bridge. A green pool welled up as another Rynjin jumped out at him, but who was immediately
dropped by a barrage of the Trynnie's arrows.
His firearm roared again and again, filling the otherwise idyllic island of Bayjin with clouds of green blood
mist. Without warning, a Rynjin slipped past the Umpani's defenses while he was busy with the ones
behind him, and bit into his leg.
Not a second later, he kicked the Rynjin away, then brought his foot down upon his head. It exploded in a
cloud of green, just before the Umpani shot his body for good measure. Another Psionic spell skittered
over the protective bubble and shot away into the atmosphere.
Little by little, though, Shritis saw that they were being forced to back up. There were simply too many of
the Empire's new wards for a pathetic squad of three to handle. Eventually, the Assassin himself pushed
through the lines of Rynjin, and stood before the IUF attack squad's scarred leader with a maniacal grin
on his mandibled face.
"Nowhere to run, little toadbelly..." Shritis hissed as he slithered before them. The Umpani backed up
another step and into his two companions. The Rynjin stopped advancing, the Trynnie stopped firing, and
Shritis stared down the behemoth Umpani. Their nametags clearly showed their pictures and names, but
the Assassin didn't bother looking; they were all the same to him.
"You wouldn't happen to have another one of those things on you, would you?" the Trynnie asked the
scarred one.
While she spoke, a Rynjin swam to the edge of the bridge and reached his clawed hand for her leg. The
Trynnie immediately put her nocked arrow straight between his eyes. "Don't even blink, fish face," she
said confidently.
Shritis hissed dangerously. "One of those things?" he thought in confusion.
His question was answered when the scarred Umpani slowly reached into his vest... and withdrew a
familiar yellow object with deceptively cute green fronds atop it. The Umpani grinned slightly as the
T'Rang's face suddenly went from unabashed confidence, to sudden worry.
"You know exactly what this is," he said in a deadly tone. "And you know what it can do. What you
probably don't know... is that this model's twice as powerful as the one used on Guardia."
Shritis hissed angrily. "Desssperate fool," he spat. "Iss thiss the only way you can defeat the great
Sshritisss T'Rang?"
The scarred Umpani shrugged and smirked. "Maybe," he said. "But don't think I won't use it. It will be
delicious payback for what you took from me." He twitched his scarred eye to accentuate his point.
The T'Rang hissed in anger, but did not approach. "Then it appearsss we are at a sstandsstill..." he
admitted, but the Umpani shook his head. "Not exactly. Give us the prisoner, and we'll be on our way," he
offered.
"Treacherouss hog!" Shritis exclaimed, then brandished his hooked black Psi Rod. "You will sslaughter us
the ssecond you are clear!"
"We came here for our lost men, nothing more," the Umpani replied. "No mention of us fighting the
T'Rang. But if you aren't going to believe us, perhaps we can end this now..." Without another word, he
put his finger in the pin on the side of the Thermal Pineapple.
The T'Rang hissed loudly. "Bring their worthless ally here now!" he yelled to Tantris. "And hurry!" Shritis
kept his eye on the Umpani's finger, still dangerously placed inside the ring of the Thermal Pineapple,
then flicked his attention back and forth between it and the captive Umpani behind him.
Tantris let the Umpani prisoner up, and he came proudly forward to meet up with the desperate IUF team.
"Glumph!" the scarred Umpani called out. "Are there any others with you?"
The red-eyed Umpani stumbled past the line of Rynjin, pushing one standing in his way into the sea. "Not
a damned one!" he shouted back with renewed energy. "All of them were eaten by that big fish monster,
and the IUF goes ahead and leaves me to die alone! Finally decided to take a look after a week of
waiting, did you?!"
Shritis gripped his Psi Rod tightly, sensing that betrayal was soon to come. "Get him his underwater gear
and a weapon," the Umpani ordered. "And if I find out you tampered with either one, I'll be back with the
Pineapple." The T'Rang Assassin stared angrily, but called out to Tantris to comply once more.
Moments later, after disappearing into a bamboo hut on the shore of the island, the Samurai came
forward with the Umpani's underwater breathing gear and a large sword, then handed them to Glumph.
The Umpani yanked them out of the T'Rang's claws, and made a mock charge at him with a
condescending grin. Tantris didn't even blink.
Glumph stomped up to the others. "Now I feel REAL special," he said sarcastically. "They sent a kid, an
old man and a gimp to come get me? You bet I'll have a word or two with that Yamir..."
The Umpani in red narrowed his eyes at him in response. "You hush up," he ordered. "It's not too late to
leave ya here with your friends." Glumph glared at him, but said no more.
"It iss done," Shritis hissed, and the scarred Umpani nodded. "And we leave without further violence," he
replied, backing up slowly.
The T'Rang Assassin watched them with narrow, angry eyes as they returned to the temple behind them.
"Thiss issn't over..." he warned. The Trynnie saluted him mockingly, flaring anger in Shritis even more
hotly than before. And with that, the four donned their breathing devices, went through the open temple
and swam down the distant ramp, back into the ocean.
Shritis looked at the sea, until even the ripples that signalled their retreat were gone. Then, without a
word, he shot an angry glance at Tantris before he slithered west, back towards the caves which would
take him to Marten's Bluff.
Tantris' attention wasn't on the departing T'Rang; it was on the many hundreds of pairs of eyes that now
looked upon him. The Overmind was no longer translating their excited growls and gurgles, but he could
feel the expectation of a new Chief weighing down upon his shoulders... at the same time as it lifted him
with the responsibility that these people now placed upon him.
He called mentally for her assistance. With the help of the Overmind and a more-than-eager-to-please
Rynjin, and in the fading light of the coming night, Chief Tantris made his first speech to the people of
Bayjin.
Marten's Bluff
Day 12
It was still dark in the early hours of the morning when Tantris finally returned to Marten's Bluff. He came
to offer Z'Ant his report on the situation in Bayjin, but nothing short of utter chaos awaited him.
Before he took the elevator down, he had found it strange that the Overmind suddenly stopped
responding to his greetings... but she sometimes struggled with many reports at once, or needed a lot
more sleep than usual.
When an hour went by without a reply, he had to assume that there was either something so dangerous
going on that the entire population of T'Rang on Dominus was screaming for her attention, or she was
dead. Either way, he arrived at the Bluff exhausted, and ready to battle whatever was threatening them.
Perhaps the Umpani...
At the bottom of the elevator, T'Rang battled and slithered around their adversaries... the combined
population of Ghosts that had heretofore been peaceable, annoying at their worst.
One Higardi Ghost in particular screeched a banshee's howl as it lunged for Tantris through the air, and
he instinctively sliced Stinger through its body.
Surprisingly, the katana cut into the phantom and sliced its body in half. Its lower and upper torso
suddenly glowed white, and the Ghost exploded in a bright flash. Similar flashes of light flared all over the
grand hall of the underground compound, at the same time as some T'Rang beset by too many of the
spirits dropped and aged decades in mere seconds at their touch.
"Tantris!" a T'Rang screamed as he approached. It was D'Rang... Z'Ant's personal bodyguard. "They went
insane just before the turn of the day! We have to stop them!"
The Samurai slithered and sliced through a pair of Ghosts before him as D'Rang thrust the blunt end of
his Psi Rod into another. He then tripped the earthbound spirit and drove the pair of hooks and the rod's
globe into its body, but it exploded and disappeared before he could engage the stun.
"What happened?!" Tantris demanded, but D'Rang shook his head in confusion. "I don't know...!" he
admitted, then broke away to tackle a Ghost advancing on Z'Ant's window. "You have to find out what's
going on!" he screamed as he pushed the Ghost into the wall, where it exploded into mist. "We can't hold
out forever!"
Tantris scanned the room quickly, seeing the exploding lights of Ghosts and hearing their wails mix with
the T'Rang's battle cries... they all seemed to be flooding from the entrance to the lower levels. He
slithered forward, beheading a Ghost as he cried, "D'Rang and three others, protect Z'Ant! The rest of
you, come with me!"
The T'Rang drove back the Ghosts they were dealing with, just before another wave hit them. The
Samurai was surprised to see that one of them appeared to be the wailing spirit he had sliced in half just
a minute ago. In any event, there were just too many of them...
"Forget it... remain where you are!" Tantris said as he slithered through the door. "Do not let them touch
Z'Ant!" The T'Rang behind him obliged, and the Samurai stepped into the hallway of rushing, floating,
wailing specters.
Over the metal grating he oozed past the waves of spirits, slicing around, down and about with every
push forward. Lights screamed and exploded all around him as the Ghosts disappeared, but it did nothing
to stop their continued advance.
Tantris rushed down the hallway and around the corner to where nourishing green sludge flowed along
the floor. An old Ghost emerged from the liquid and reached for his throat with a deathly wail, but Tantris'
stingers were quicker. They struck into his body over and over, a dozen times before Stinger swished and
plunged through the Ghost's heart.
Through the explosive light, Tantris slithered into another room where T'Rang Assassins, once present
only to guard the Younger teleporter, were now battling for their lives against hordes of specters. "Retreat
to the main room!" Tantris ordered them. "Z'Ant needs your help!"
As he slithered through the door on the other side of the metal room, half of the Assassins made for the
door leading to Z'Ant while the others kept the Ghosts busy. Little by little, the phantoms broke through
the Assassins' defenses, even toppling and aging two in the process... but by and large, they managed to
make it out and back towards their leader.
Just beyond another walkway covered in sludge, Tantris steeled his will, then slithered through the door
leading into the Younger teleportation room. It was from here that newly birthed T'Rang Youngers were
transported from the ships bearing T'Rang Queens in orbit around the planet. Once they arrived, they
were sent off to work and train throughout Dominus through the teleporter down the hall. The metal door
fanned out with a whir, and he prepared himself to see aged and dying Youngers amidst a mob of
moaning Ghosts.
Instead, around the glowing orange light that heralded the arrival of new and willing T'Rang life, Shritis
and a pair of his cruelest Assassins stood in a circle around the glowing teleporter entrance. The nine foot
T'Rang threw a bottle of blue water at the opening door, but Tantris caught it before it could strike him.
"Fine time to show up, Samurai," Shritis hissed. "They're coming from the lower levels, near the
Overmind. If you have not helped her and stopped this within ten minutes, I am coming after you." He
swiped his Psi Rod through the air, even though there was no spirit coming... but when the hooks
reached the apex of their arc, a Ghost burst through the wall and filled the air where his weapon swung,
then exploded into a burst of light.
"You are not coming?" Tantris asked, slithering towards the old trail of brown goo leading out from the
teleporter.
Shritis hissed in exasperation. "Z'Ant ordered me to protect the Youngers," he said. "The rest of the
Assassins are below with the Overmind. Don't make me question the validity of his orders... get going,
and don't waste that Holy Water!"
Tantris nodded and hurried out the door as a Younger appeared in a flash of light, just as the walls
exploded with Ghosts bent on taking his young life. Shritis threw another bottle of the blue liquid at the
wailing beings, which shattered on impact and coated them, prompting another round of hissing strobes
from their dying lights.
He hurried past the cobwebbed stone hallway outside and up a flight of wooden stairs. It suddenly got
very quiet, and the Samurai found himself slowing for an expected assault by the unearthly beings.
But it did not come. He slithered carefully but quickly through the Bluff's storage area with none of the
Ghosts in sight. There were several old crates alongside the walls of the moldy and old stone hallways
and the center storage area, layers of very old spiderwebs wherever he tread, and the old arrow trap that
had long stopped functioning... but no Ghosts.
Finally, Tantris found the stairs leading into the lower levels of Marten's Bluff, where the T'Rang were
currently conducting research on developing a new type of rod, and where Z'Ant himself lived. Two fires
on either side greeted his approach, burning from within great metal cauldrons.
On the bottom level of the Bluff, the walls were made of the same old stone that made up the rest of the
fort, but with a T'Rang twist: underneath the metal grates beneath Tantris, rivers of green sludge ran
tantalizingly out of reach before they could be processed and distributed to the T'Rang for consumption.
Nonetheless, the Samurai did not let the appetizing goo distract him from getting to the Overmind, who
was standing watch in the Power Room. Up ahead, where the hall ended and ran to the left and right, a
literal river of Ghosts poured down the passage to attack Z'Ant from behind.
Tantris hissed warningly, and threw the bottle of blue liquid out and into the intersection. It exploded on
the ground and sent blue liquid-mist up and into the Ghosts, taking them down in multiple bursts of light
before they had a chance to regroup and attack.
He slithered forward, slicing Stinger up, around and through the Ghosts. Overmind! he screamed. Are you
well?!
Help! the answer came immediately, along with a mental layout of the lower levels of Marten's Bluff. She
was just ahead of him!
Tantris ducked and cut through the Ghosts until there were none left to stand in his way, but knew full well
that they needed only seconds to reform and strike again. He slithered around the corner and saw her
there, the ten foot tall, long and slug-like T'Rang Queen who served as the Dominus Overmind.
Around her, loyal Keepers fought unto the last to keep the Ghosts from swarming her, but the battle
seemed to be slowly turning in the Ghosts' favor. "Inside there!" she screamed vocally. "They're coming
from the Power Room!"
Tantris swept forward and past her without a word atop the running river of sludge, where the fanned
metal door leading into the Power Room waited. As he approached, it whirred and opened to let him in.
He went inside, just as one of the Keepers spoke up. "Wait, why didn't it open for..." he started.
Then the door closed, and Tantris was thrown into almost complete darkness and silence. There was
nothing visible in the room when he first came in, except for the main control console, but that fact didn't
take down his guard; he knew what the Ghosts were capable of.
Two large, transparent viewing windows on his left and right crackled, buzzed and hummed with blue
electricity, and splashed a minimal amount of light to the center of the room. As the voltage raised and
lowered, it likewise shifted the light in the room, sending Tantris' vision back and forth between "nearly
visible" and "blind."
For a time, there was only the buzzing. No Ghosts, no cries of pain from the T'Rang outside, nothing but
Tantris and his own thoughts.
And then, a single Ghost faded into view. "Welcome, Tantris..." the old and robed Higardi intoned, his
voice echoing on the walls around him.
"Who are you?" Tantris asked. "Why are you attacking uss now?"
The Ghost bowed apologetically. "I am Marten..." he said. "Or I should say, I am half of the one who was
Marten. In a minute I will be whole again... and I will once again know all..."
Tantris shook his head. "I do not undersstand," he admitted, but Marten waved his hand in a clear "it's not
important" gesture. "It is all right," he replied. "The important thing... is that you must kill me before I come
to know all again."
On the T'Rang's confusion, the spirit continued. "Man, by nature, is a divided species... whether he be a
Higardi, a T'Rang, or any other living being in this universe. When I stole the Destinae Dominus from the
Higardi, the artifact crafted by the Cosmic Lords to hold all Knowledge, I knew not that a universe of
Knowledge would split me in two: one Marten to know the half of it, the other to know the rest."
"The artifact!" Tantris interrupted. "Where iss it now?!"
Marten shook his head. "The others have it. All of the artifacts are in the proper hands, and the race for
the Ascension will be over soon. I know this, and so much more... Knowledge filling me as we speak..."
He knelt to the ground and clutched his head. "You must kill me before I know all again... I will split in half,
and the 'other' will be free to hunt you once more..."
"What do I do?" Tantris asked hurriedly.
Marten reached his hands to his chest, and slowly, a ghostly heart appeared within, thumping with an
undead rhythm. "Ever since I stole the Destinae Dominus, I knew it would be you, Tantris..." the Ghost
whispered. "I knew you would be the one to end my nightmare. Please... kill me..."
Tantris raised Stinger and drew forward, placing it on Marten's chest... then cocked his head to the side
inquisitively. "If you know all... then you know already whether I will do thiss or not," the Samurai realized.
Marten looked up at him. "Yes," he answered simply.
The T'Rang nodded. "Then I will not fight desstiny," he said, and thrust Stinger into Marten's heart.
Though his face showed the pain of a man about to die, again, the feeling that washed most over the
Ghost's face was one of long awaited relief, peace... and release.
Tantris stood with his sword in Marten's heart, seeing nothing happen for a short while.
Then, a tiny light appeared at the spot where his blade and Marten joined. It grew and grew, until it ate
Marten's chest, then Marten himself, Tantris, the walls, the electricity... and eventually, the entire Bluff
itself.
One by one, the Ghosts stopped and exploded into bursts of light, most of their own volition, some
through the sudden counter-attack of hundreds of battling T'Rang. The lights lit up the entire structure like
a celebratory display of fireworks, until finally, there was nothing left but the terrifying memory of the
Ghosts that once inhabited Marten's Bluff.
From the Night
Mountain Wilderness
Day 9
The Rapax owned the Mountain Wilderness.
It wasn't official or anything. There were no signs that declared this Rapax territory, no settlements of any
kind. Aside from the sparse dotting of trees across the countryside, the only living creatures who called
this place home were all fire-breathing Scorchers, a few Demons and Undead, Sprites and the like.
But still, anybody who knew anything about Dominus knew that the Rapax were always here in full force,
with their patrols covering every square mile of the wide valley between the mountains, and on the
lookout for any potential invasions.
The Rapax Rift was just to the east, a fiery hell from which Al-Sedexus, the Rapax Demon Goddess,
watched over her proud and noble people. Long ago, when the Rapax were not quite the force they were
today, the Higardi had trounced them utterly and pushed them into the volcanic lands on the edge of
Ascension Peak.
Little did they know how the Rapax would not only build a fortified settlement there, but would in time
begin to thrive. And when the power of Al-Sedexus, lover of all Rapax, was discovered and unleashed
from the Rift, the power of the horned creatures was essentially solidified.
Under her, the Rapax developed into a broad-shouldered and massive race, with an army strong enough
to someday sweep the world. For now, the raids were centered mostly on Trynton and the delicious
Trynnie who dwelled there, simply to keep up appearances. But they were only days away from the
eventual conquering of Bayjin, Marten's Bluff, then Trynton and Arinka soon thereafter.
The Dark Savant would have his Ascension, his lordship over the Cosmic Circle. And in exchange, the
Rapax would have the world.
Even now, the Rapax King and his army were just south of the Rift at the Away Camp, preparing for their
coming strike on the Rynjin. How the two Rapax who now patrolled the Mountain Wilderness wished they
could be there now, but they were busy defending their castle from any opportunistic strikes while the
bulk of their force was out.
It was here in the early morning that they stumbled upon a most curious sight.
"Ahahahaha!" Al-Nybud laughed derisively. "Look at this guy..."
The horned, brown-skinned Demon in silver plate mail gestured with his long and curved Flamberge. His
brother cautiously approached, then knelt next to the fallen body of a masked man shrouded in black. He
lay facedown on the grass, his arms and legs bent at impossible and obviously broken positions. His
purple-inked chestplate clinked slightly as he looked up the high face of the mountain, then back down at
the man. "He appears to be quite deceased," he said.
Al-Nybud scoffed. "'Appears?' He fell off of a mountain, brother Sexus," he said. He laughed again, then
added, "If he's alive, I'll eat my sword."
His brother chuckled. "I'm still waiting for the other three times you promised to devour it, but never did,"
he said, to which his brother smirked. Luckily, Sexus wasn't the type of Rapax to demand the promises of
a joking bet... like every other Rapax he had ever met.
The two were actually half-brothers, and one needed only look as far as their names to know it. Their
father, the Samurai Nybud, had fathered Al-Nybud with their beloved Goddess, Al-Sedexus. The child
was given the honorary title Al- as proof of his birthright.
Later, a tryst between Nybud and a Rapax Concubine produced Sexus, whose name was given, instead
of inherited.
Their father never really paid as much attention to Sexus as he did to Al-Nybud, which was probably the
reason the two had taken such different paths in life. Al-Nybud became a Samurai and followed in every
inch of his father's footsteps, while Sexus followed the path of the Mage.
At the same time, though, Sexus dedicated a portion of his studies to the use of the Rapax Mageblade, a
curved sword usable only by the most dedicated of magic users. The brothers Nybud became a
swordsman with emphasis on magic on one hand, and a magician with emphasis on swordsmanship on
the other. What their father did not provide in terms of affection for the both of them, the two freely offered
one another.
"Doesn't hurt to check, though," Sexus continued, then drove his Mageblade into the shrouded figure's
side. It slipped in quickly and pierced straight through his back, but the figure didn't move as his black
garb darkened from the sudden welling of his blood.
The Mage put his cloven hoof on the fallen Ninja and yanked his blade out of his side. No sooner had he
wrested his sword away from the vacuum effect of the deep thrust into the dead man's body, blood spilled
out in an ever-growing pool at his feet.
Al-Nybud laughed again. "Guess that rules out the 'appears' now, doesn't it, brother?" he asked, then
walked over to the body and put his Flamberge against the Ninja's covered neck. "Twice to make sure..."
he said.
Strangely enough, he didn't draw his sword along the Ninja's neck. Sexus scratched his chin thoughtfully
at his brother's hesitation. "Something the matter?" he asked. Al-Nybud bit his lower lip as he shook with
pent-up excitement. He inhaled deeply, but said nothing.
It didn't take a mind reader to know what he was thinking. "You want to see what's under the mask, don't
you?" Sexus asked.
Al-Nybud grinned and nodded. "I've never seen any of these Assassin types without their bindings," he
said. "Before we go and ruin him permanently, I gotta know: is it to conceal their identities, or just
because they're so hideous?"
Sexus put his hand under the Ninja's collar, then began to pull his cowl out. "Either way, he's Human," he
answered. "His face will be wretched no matter whose standard of beauty you adhere to..." He pulled the
mask up over the man's neck, then his chin...
He suddenly let go, and the tight mask snapped back onto the corpse. Al-Nybud's sword was on the
man's neck in a second. "What? What is it?!" he asked hurriedly.
Sexus waved his right hand at him. "It's all right, it's all right, calm down..." he assured. "But before we go
and defile this man's corpse any further, look at this..."
Al-Nybud placed the point of his sword into the grass, and watched as Sexus lifted the cowl once more.
This time, Al-Nybud not only saw what had startled Sexus, but felt a cold shiver up his spine when he
recognized the tattoo on the man's neck.
Two red scalene triangles, sitting side by side, with one point on the outsides and two close together on
the inside. His eyes... the Dark Savant's eyes: this man served the Savant.
"Holy... mother!!" Al-Nybud screamed and jumped back. "Do something about the cut I gave him, quick!!"
Sexus nodded, and ripped a large enough hole in the black garb over the Ninja's bleeding side to expose
the wide and bleeding sword wound. He placed his hand over it and superheated the dead man's skin,
which cauterized the wound rather pointlessly.
Al-Nybud breathed a sigh of relief, but still looked extremely shifty and nervous. He looked up the
mountain, then behind himself at a dirt road, and a small grouping of pine trees. "Do you think he can see
us now?" he asked in subdued terror.
Sexus exhaled slowly. "Maybe..." he admitted. "Which makes getting this man back to the Rift our top
priority." He looked over at Al-Nybud, who stared at the ground in shock. "Brother!" the Mage yelled.
Al-Nybud shook himself back to reality. "We can bring him back at the temple," his brother assured him.
"Here, you take his right arm, I'll hold his left."
The Samurai nodded, and after sheathing his sword on his back, knelt at the Ninja's side. Sexus clapped
his hand on his brother's shoulder. "You know as well as I do that the Dark Savant forgives honest
mistakes, as long as we are pentitent, and dutifully obey him," he added comfortingly. "Do not worry. We
will be fine."
The two brothers hefted the corpse up between them and began to drag him back towards the Rift. After
a few minutes of travel through the grassy clearing before the great cliffs of the Ascension Peak mountain
range, it became clear that this wouldn't do.
"His shoes keep falling off..." Al-Nybud pointed out.
Sexus nodded. "I will carry him," he said, hefting the Ninja on his back and trotting forward as if nothing
was burdening him.
"You'll be all right?" his brother asked, and Sexus smiled. "Of course," he answered. "A Rapax Mage
does not spend his entire day studying books and conjuring the arcane." He sped up, almost at a full run.
"Best me a single time at our daily run, and you can speak of me needing help..." he added.
The two brothers ran through the grassy fields, by many towering rocks and trees that gave the valley at
least some semblance of personality. One ring of stones in particular had always been a mystery to the
Rapax, where arcane blue symbols had been drawn on six stone faces, all directed towards a boulder in
the middle.
By the time the sun had just reached its apex and began to dip over the distant mountains to the west, the
brothers had reached the outskirts of the Rapax Rift. Now and again, they would pass parts of the rocky
wilderness where lava bubbled in shallow pools on either side of the well worn road.
The sudden blast of heat was a welcome change to the rest of temperate Dominus... which was a climate
that was pleasant to almost every creature save the Rapax. Fire was their sanctuary, a sign that the only
place where they were welcome was nearby.
But there were others who adored the lava as much as they did.
Scorchers... just three of them, but enough of a presence for them to think they had a chance to kill and
eat the ones who had dared to near their impromptu home. Sexus actually envied them their position,
between two particularly active pools of lava that spilled forth a steady and blazing hot wind.
They were serpentine, rough-skinned brown creatures with long bodies that ended in tails, but not legs.
Their arms were long claws, and they used them primarily in their odd slither-drag movement, but also to
capture and tear apart prey.
Their name came from their odd physical makeup that allowed them to breathe fire for defensive and
hunting purposes. It was probably rather convenient that the same tool that they used to subdue prey
could also be used to cook it.
Unsurprisingly, the hostile creatures screeched and stood when the two Rapax came by, and unleashed
a triple torrent of heated flames, without any seeming provocation on the brothers' part. Not only did the
Scorchers live just about everywhere the Rapax did, their mix of sheer stupidity and hostility towards the
horned population of the Rift made extinction a very real possibility for them.
Sexus stood still to bodily block the fan of fire from reaching the Ninja on his back. While his own plate
mail would simply heat up from the attack, he didn't want the clothes of the Dark Savant's servant bursting
into flames.
Al-Nybud was not in a similar position. He unsheathed his sword and charged the Scorchers, but slowed
when the flames licked across his armor and body. "Feels nice..." he sighed happily, then took his merry
time approaching the three hostile beasts.
When he finally stood before them, their flames had long lost the intensity that they had begun pouring
out with. Soon, the heat of the lava around them overtook their heated breath in terms of sheer power.
Al-Nybud sighed, shrugged, then stomped his cloven hoof on top of the head of the first Scorcher.
It died instantly under the crushing attack. The fire in its body had no place to go with the Scorcher's
mouth closed so tightly, and churned and built in its body until they exploded in a burst of red flame and
goo out its back end.
The other Scorchers, oblivious to the position they were in, continued to breathe their ever-weakening
stream of flames at the unimpressed Rapax. He kicked the next under its broad chin and into the pool of
lava behind it, and amidst its dying screeches, twirled his heavy Flamberge in a single hand and through
the body of the final one.
Its flames cut off in tiny embers from its nostrils and mouth, then it slumped to the ground, dead.
Someday, they might learn to stop striking at the planet's strongest race. Maybe.
***
Warmth... that was the first sensation he had upon waking. He could not hear, nor see, anything around
him... something he was not accustomed to. He always had enough of his senses available to take stock
of what was going on before, but not now.
It was so warm. A fire, something burning bright above him was bathing his body in a comforting aura of
security. He couldn't even feel his body, but he could feel that soothing light above him.
He was somewhere dark a short while ago. Pitch black, nothing to see, hear, feel... just absolute
darkness. But he was still there, just the tiniest bit of consciousness present. Not enough to care about
where he was, what had happened in his life, or what kind of person he had been. Just enough to know
that wherever he was, he was going to be sleeping there for a long, long time.
There was no judgement there... no happiness, sadness, or anger, no thoughts of suffering, injustice,
clients, kings and despots... there was just darkness, and sleep. It was heaven.
Now, it seemed he had traded one heaven for another. Sleep was no longer the balm that would cover
his many wounds; it was a gentle flame that encompassed his entire being, kept him from remembering
the life he had lived.
Sadly, his senses slowly began to return to him. Whereas another might have welcomed being pulled
back from the dead to once again sense the world that they had departed, he wanted only to give it all
back and return to the bliss of an inch above nothingness.
The air was heavy with the scent of sweet nectar. He could feel two people holding him in a standing
position, one under each arm. Slowly, he became aware of a hum, which crested and sank in tune with
the feeling of warmth on his body. The warmth above him, lighting his body, was probably an electronic
device of some sort.
A blast of wind struck his face as someone appeared in front of him. It was a shocking feeling he had not
felt in a long time... a signifier that someone had taken his mask.
They had taken more than that, he came to realize. His clothes were much looser than the tight black
garb he usually wore, and his hanging head was crowned by a helmet of some sort. As he slowly opened
his eyes and looked down his body, he saw that he was dressed in some sort of ceremonial red robe.
"Are you awake, my love?" a woman's silky voice asked from above and in front of him. Whoever she
was, either a platform... or unnatural height... made her voice descend from very high up. He slowly rolled
his weakened head back and forth, and the yellow-horned red helmet slipped off and clattered to the
ground with the movement.
Elson, unmasked and vulnerable before the Demon Goddess Al-Sedexus, slowly raised his head to
reveal a face that few had ever seen uncovered.
His short, dark brown hair was matted with sweat, and conformed to the bowl shape his cowl and the
helmet had created. Errant strands poked out at odd angles here and there, leaving him with a very
unkempt appearance.
His skin was long since tanned brown, almost black, from where the slit in his cowl had been. The rest
was a color somewhere between dark and fair, and his jaw and neck were dotted with stubble. His dark
brown eyes stared neutrally at the very tall and fair Goddess before him, scanning her from her horned
head, white eyes and broad, brown collared neck, down her bare chest and clawed hands to the blue skirt
that offered her body at least a little modesty.
Al-Sedexus stared at him with a pleased look on her face. "You are quite handsome, for someone not of
Rapax blood..." she purred. Elson slowly opened his mouth and tried to say something, but his vocal
cords would not cooperate. He uttered nothing more than a soft wheeze.
"Shall I find something to heal him, mother?" someone asked from Elson's right side. It was then that the
Ninja noticed, as much as he felt, the massive Rapax on either side of him, holding him steady so he
would not fall... or still so he would not strike.
The Demon Goddess shook her head slowly, not taking her piercing, solid white eyes off of Elson, and
smiled. "He will be fine," she said silkily, then calmly waved her claws at the two Rapax. "Leave us."
Sexus and Al-Nybud gently let Elson down onto the inclined platform beneath them, and into a kneeling
position on the red carpet there. The Ninja exhaled painfully and winced, feeling something tear in his left
side. Warmth ran down his ribs, and he knew immediately that it was his blood. It was only he and the
Goddess now.
Defiantly, he tried to raise his head and stand, but he could not muster the strength... but he was able to
see where he was. He was on an altar with four curved spires in each corner, all bending towards a
yellow light suspended directly above him. It was from this light and a bright, swirling vortex above it that
the warmth came so pleasantly.
It was a tall chamber, but short in width and length. The walls were draped with red banners bearing the
mark of the Rapax: three diagonally horizontal lines, with another slashed vertically through them.
And there, at the top of the altar, was the Goddess. She blinked and spoke slowly, relishing every word
with an excited, borderline orgasmic hoarseness. "You serve the Dark Savant?" she asked him.
Even if Elson wanted to answer, to betray any of his former client's information to the woman, he lacked
the strength to do so.
She took a step forward and knelt to press her face to his, flooding his body with a sharply pleasurable
feeling that was as indescribably blissful, as it was much, much too close. Elson turned his head away
from the kiss that made him feel so unprotected, and vainly tried to move his body once more.
Al-Sedexus looked childishly hurt. "Oh... you don't like me?" she asked.
After a slight pause, he felt his strength returning to him. The injury in his side even felt like it was closing,
and soon enough, blood had stopped flowing from it.
He turned back to her. "If you're going to kill me, do it now," he croaked.
She pouted at him. "Very well," she said mercifully... then smiled; the look sent chills down his spine. "But
first, you have to do something for me..." she whispered.
The Ninja made a disgusted face. "You can do whatever you want with my body when I'm dead," he
grunted. "You don't need a soul for that kind of game."
Al-Sedexus put her claw against his cheek, then ran it slowly down his skin. "But it is your soul that I
crave, above all else..." she said through her smile.
He weakly pushed her hand away with his own. "Forget it," he said icily, then stood up quickly from his
kneeling position. The world spun and he lost his balance almost immediately, but before he fell
backwards and broke his neck, he shifted his weight forward and fell into the half-naked Demon Goddess'
body.
"Yes...!" she cried out, and wrapped her arms around him. "This is where you belong, my lover!"
Elson struggled to escape her grip, but she was abnormally powerful. "Let... me go," he ordered her, but
she did not relent. Cut me down... help me escape this corrupt universe... he begged in his mind.
"But there is so much for you to experience here...!" Al-Sedexus said excitedly, and embraced the Ninja
all the harder. He realized in anger that she was reading his thoughts. "That's it..." she groaned.
"Embrace this world, your emotions, your carnal desires..."
He struggled to escape her grasp as he felt her probing his mind, bringing back images of all the corrupt,
dangerous, murderous people he had killed. He lived his entire life again in those brief seconds, when
she settled and focused on a more recent memory.
Elson couldn't see what it was, even though it was his own past... and residing in his own mind. Surprise
overtook him when his head, buried in the Goddess' chest, suddenly began to slide down as if being
pulled along with her sinking body. He drew back to look at what was happening with fury in his eyes.
But in a single second, his anger melted away.
No longer was Al-Sedexus an eight foot tall woman with horns and claws, but a stunning, athletic beauty
with long, soft blonde hair. She was naked from head to toe, but Elson's focus was entirely on her blue
eyes, and that familiar, haunting face. His mouth worked for several seconds, before he finally had the
presence of mind to sum up his mixed confusion, shame and disbelief with a single utterance.
"Jan-Ette?" he asked.
She smiled and pulled his robed body on top of hers without a word, and let him cover her on the
carpeted altar underneath the glowing yellow light. His memory got hazier with every second that passed,
and he remembered only brief snippets of what happened in that room.
His body... warm all over. Her hands on him... and through it all, her delicious moans rang from the altar
and echoed off of the walls of the chamber.
Rapax Castle
Day 13
The next he knew, everything was crystal clear. His memory, his body... he was even in his black Ninja
garb and cowl now, which showed no sign of the tears or stains that he thought would surely still be
present.
He was in a domed room of stone with four exits in every cardinal direction, and he was sitting in the
corner in front of a bed of hot coals. A large book sat on a pedestal jutting out of the middle of them.
"Welcome, fellow Templar," a voice said from his right. Elson shot a glance to its source, a horned Rapax
in a purple robe who looked at the Ninja proudly. "You have been chosen by the Goddess Al-Sedexus to
become one of us, a Templar Rapax. You should feel honored that she has offered this honor to an
outsider such as yourself."
Elson stood slowly and looked about, confused. A pair of Rapax came from the doorway straight ahead of
him, one with a large sword slung off of his back, and the other with a curved blade at his side. The larger
of the two, in silver plate mail, waved emphatically.
"Hey, brother!" he shouted. "You're all right, it seems." Elson looked behind him, sure they must be talking
to someone else. These couldn't be the murderous Rapax that the Dark Savant had spoken of... but
nobody else was around. "Yes, you," the slightly smaller one clarified.
The purple-robed Rapax gestured towards the large book in the bed of coals. "As your name has been
written in the book, so, too, are you a part of our people, now and forever," he proclaimed. "Your
accomplishments are ours, our strength, history and treasure yours. However..."
As he continued to speak, Elson moved to the closed book. All at once, the book opened and turned by
itself, displaying hundreds and hundreds of names on a single page, until the Ninja's questing eyes
stopped where one in particular rather literally jumped out at him. Inked in blood that had long since dried,
his name and title were squashed between several dozen more: "Elson Sewi, Fiend of Nine Worlds."
To his disgust, the name Larbond suddenly appeared at the end of the list. Another initiate had been
brought into the fold... but as soon as he had read the name, the book slammed completely shut.
"...ese three things," the robed Rapax continued. "You must never turn on a fellow Rapax, for we will
respond to such hostility in kind. You must always remember that you belong to her as we all do, as
husbands, wives, daughters and sons."
Elson looked at his gloved hands, turning them over, feeling something not quite right about himself. It felt
like... power. A point of perfection, the knowledge that he could tear any creature in half with his bare
hands, if he only held fast to her love.
What did that Demoness do to me?
"And always know that she watches over you, as she does every other Templar..." the Rapax continued.
"Should you ever need her help, she is in the Rift, awaiting the love and service that only you can give."
Elson suddenly felt sick. "Are you well, brother?" the smaller of the two armed Rapax asked, but he
caught himself as he remembered his manners. "Ah, I see," he said. "This must all be very new and
confusing for you. Allow me to introduce myself... I am Sexus, and this is my brother Al-Nybud.
"Al-Adryian has just explained to you the few things we ask of a Templar," he said with a nod at the robed
Rapax. "Do you under..."
"Why did you bring me back?" Elson suddenly demanded, stunning Sexus into silence. "Who asked you
to bring me here, much less throw me at the mercy of that woman, in exchange for a life of indentured
servitude?!"
Al-Nybud slowly realized what had happened. "You didn't fall off of that mountain," he said. "You..."
Sexus raised his finger to stop him. "I know it must be difficult coming to terms with who you are now," the
Mage said, "but you are Templar, the highest order of Rapax, whether or not you choose to accept it.
Give it some time, and you will learn to love life as one of we privileged few, and work alongside us for a
better future for our people."
"Forget it," the Ninja spat. "I am sick of being the cosmos' garbage collector. This whole disgusting
universe is beyond saving... and frankly, you can all go to hell along with it." He strode threateningly
towards them through the doorway between them... when Al-Adryian said the words that would
irrevocably alter the course of his life.
"Have you even met your daughter yet?" the Rapax asked him.
Elson stopped immediately. The world seemed to cave in on him, then expand and cave in again in a
dizzying cycle. When he had sufficiently gathered together his senses, and the world had stopped
shaking, he turned back towards the greeter of the Rapax Templar.
"My... daughter?" he asked in dizzying disbelief.
Al-Adryian gestured towards the north, into a tiny alcove where a stone portal sat with the floating and
transparent image of a mountain in the middle of it. "She should be with the Rapax Army on Ascension
Peak right now," he explained.
Something stirred within Elson, a feeling that not only was the Rapax telling the truth, but that he could
feel the presence of the very same person he was talking about. Without another thought, he turned to
the portal and dashed towards it. "Wait!" he heard Al-Adryian yell. "Al-Sedexus will not..." But it was all the
Ninja heard before he jumped through.
Sexus and Al-Nybud looked at one another. "It is time..." the Mage said. His brother nodded, then led the
way out.
Elson was suddenly standing in a dark cave with a skull-crossed wooden door in front of him. Without
hesitation, he pushed the door open and walked out onto the Ascension Peak mountain range, lit by the
warm light of morning.
It was strange... the second he was through the portal, he felt her. She was here, as the Rapax said,
somewhere far to the north. Her very presence called to him, eliminated every other desire for
self-destruction, judgement, punishment, every emotion he would otherwise have felt at this stage in his
life.
Suddenly, his entire being was painfully racked with the feeling of a thousand needles stinging him over
every inch of his body. He slumped to the ground and cried out helplessly under the high sun, as his
mind's eye was suddenly overtaken by the naked image of Al-Sedexus.
Where are you going, my love? the image asked him. You are Templar now... you serve and love only
me...
Despite himself, the shadowed image of the daughter he had not yet met flashed into his mind.
The image laughed. She is merely one, she said. We can make more! Now come back to the castle... I
need you here...!
Elson struggled against the needles that struck at his body, then stepped one painful step after another
on the mountain. Each step he took away from the portal was a thousand times more painful than the
last, but regardless, he trudged on despite the unbearable torture.
Come... pleasure me... satisfy me... Al-Sedexus cooed in his mind. He felt a desire for her body, one that
he had never once felt for any woman before, overtaking his mind. His body longed to be next to hers,
letting her pleasure him... but his mind was stronger. Despite the monumental physical torture, and his
body's betraying desire to return to the Rapax Castle, he moved ever onward.
But minutes later, it was gone. The pain, the image, the desire, it was all gone.
Elson dropped to his knees and hugged his chest tightly, coughing hard. He had never felt such agony in
all of his life, even from the most professional of torturers...
Had it continued much longer, he was not sure if he could have made it all the way to where his daughter
was. He would have had to turn back, abandon her, leave her to her own fate with no involvement of his
own.
Elson suddenly laughed, as white hot anger overtook him. "How very ironic that you watch the same evil
take root in my heart that you allowed to spawn in the ones who created me... and in both cases, do
nothing," he said aloud, knowing only the Gods above could hear him. He stood, then dashed up the
rocky slopes.
His laughter slowly stopped, and he looked furiously to the sky. "Was one abandoned child not enough for
your sick pleasure?" he hissed. "Do the cries of the helpless warm your blighted hearts?"
He continued on in silence, feeling relief with every step he took that was not suddenly racked with the
pain of longing, physical torture. After a time, another thought struck him, and he shook his head
morosely. "Almost as ironic as climbing the same mountain that served to end my life..." he mused, "...for
a feeling as misguided as..."
As what? He wasn't sure. Compassion, sacrifice, love... no, they were all utter lies. People feigned
support for one another, until they were sure they would no longer get payment on the time, energy and
money spent on those they used. Once other people outlived their usefulness, they were tossed aside,
ignored, and eventually forgotten.
Jan-Ette...
Her face floated back into his mind, full of hope that she would see her ancestors soon. No, I did not love
her, Elson knew for sure. She was a charge, a ward, nothing more. She was a mere object, a thing that
the Savant pointed at and said, "Protect her..." So I did.
I followed orders, but she meant nothing to me... in the same way that all the other people I have freed
from corrupt monarchs and despots, slave cartels and malevolent leaders of small villages meant nothing,
he thought. It was always about revenge, punishment that "they" refused to hand out in their infinite
wisdom and power.
A short while passed before he came across a large army of Rapax, marching ahead of him in a large,
rocky canyon. They moved slowly around a large fountain depicting a female Trynnie, Higardi and Rapax,
each looking in a different direction. Faintly, he could hear the sounds of fighting off in the far, far
distance... and was surprised to see an Umpani warship rocket towards the sounds of the distant battle.
Rapax Archers in studded leather turned as Elson approached, but greeted him with uncharacteristic
smiles and waves. "Welcome, Brother Templar!" they all greeted and clapped him on the back as he
walked by. The Ninja had no idea how they knew, but it disgusted him to hear their words nonetheless.
He picked up a faster pace as more and more of the thousands of Rapax turned to greet him with their
revolting camaraderie. Soon enough, he was moving too fast to touch with friendly pats on the shoulder,
and then too fast to even speak to before he was out of earshot.
Elson let the feeling of his daughter's presence guide him like a beacon. With every step closer to her, the
magnetic pull between them grew stronger and stronger. He wondered if she were running towards him,
too, dashing for the father she never knew.
Or perhaps she was fleeing, and it was only he who was so much faster.
It took him a good while to get past the large army of Rapax through a very tall and rocky canyon, all the
way to the valley where the distant battle was now close enough to see.
Hundreds of weaving ships, some large battleships but mostly smaller scouts, shot through the air in
loops and dives as they shot streaking lasers into the two armies below and at one another. On the
eastern edge of the great rocky valley, thousands of red-jacketed Umpani lined up and blasted their
Muskets into a line of slithering, spellcasting, rod-waving, brown-garbed T'Rang.
It seemed evenly matched between the two. There was a definite line between one and the other, where
Umpani sword met T'Rang staff, and thousands of combatants flailed at one another with steel and rod to
find a weak point in the other's armor.
A few of the Umpani remained on the edges with guns in hand, shooting into the places where T'Rang
had neglected to erect a Missile Shield to deflect the bullets. One Umpani in particular, a scarred man
with one eye and wearing a blue jacket, was having quite a bit of success in blasting his insectal
adversaries, despite his injury.
Among the brutish Umpani, some T'Rang had found their way in to slice, shock and rend their lines to
shreds. One was a three-clawed T'Rang with a mighty Psi Rod, and the other was a bespectacled T'Rang
with a deadly blade in his lower left claw. The Umpani around them didn't stand a chance.
But even then, Elson's mind was focused entirely on the feeling that guided him behind the lines of the
stalwart Umpani. They were so engaged in the battle with the T'Rang that they didn't even notice he had
passed. It was poor judgement on their part, for if they were his targets, Elson was sure they would all be
dead before they knew what hit them.
The Ninja dashed harder and faster than he thought possible for hours, pumping his legs as hard as he
could up a steep, inclined rocky canyon, and past dozens of dangerous creatures. When night began to
fall, he was still running.
Three-headed black snakes turned to spit green poison at him from their hissing mouths, missing by a
mile. Demons breathed fire from their mouths, and hit nothing but the mountains in front of them. Flying
serpents dove from the sky with bared fangs ready to poison and kill him, but ended up striking the
ground instead. The darting shadow that was Elson was through and past the beasts in no time at all.
Without fear, he climbed the slopes of Ascension Peak, feeling the presence of her call beckoning him
stronger with every second. It thrummed in his ears like the engine of a ship, throbbed in his body
alongside his beating heart to a single rhythm.
He climbed for literal miles up the slope, both vertical and lateral, when the explosions began to rock the
battlefield behind him. He looked up briefly to see that the Dark Savant had finally struck back, and was
peppering the ground and the ships in the sky above with streaks of white and yellow lasers.
He didn't envy the Umpani and the T'Rang forces for incurring the highly unusual, mass-murderous wrath
of the Savant. He had seen it before, and it was never a good thing to see.
It was with this dismaying thought, through the sun setting over the peaks of the mountain range, that he
saw her: an angel slowly revealing herself in a shining stream of light.
She was tall, though not as towering as her mother, had similar brown horns coming from her head, and
her arms, long and thin like Al-Sedexus', also ended in claws. But her skin was more fair, and she wore a
grey skirt and halter top with a broad, pointed collar around her neck.
When she turned in his direction, and before her face was thrown into shadow, he saw her beautiful eyes
for just a brief second. Solid like the Goddess'... but deep brown like his, through and through. He noted a
hint of sadness in them, before he could see no more.
She sighed and looked back at the grand white blocks that led up between the row of pillars, which held
up a smooth entablature before the Peak's face. An even paler girl and a black Dragon, both standing
atop the blocks, looked around in confusion.
"What do we do now?" Elson's daughter asked her two companions.
Ascension Peak
Day 13
Nobody knew. What could they possibly do at an open-air temple with no discernable entrance?
A row of columns ran left to right along the mountain's descending face, and held a massive entablature
above it. This archway dwarfed the three behind it, which were each sequentially higher up the mountain
than the one before it.
In front of each of the three smaller, ascending archways, a series of three large marble blocks were
stacked twenty, fourty and sixty feet off of the ground. The top of each of the tall blocks was cut evenly
from left to right in even horizontal bars.
At the very top of the blocks was a mysterious entablature that led nowhere. Bela and Rebecca took turns
walking through it, around it, on top of it... but nothing happened. There were no hidden buttons, no
latches, nothing. The setting sun shone dimly down on the steps of stone, and the three confused figures
that now stood there.
"What do you think?" the pale, winged, dark-haired Rebecca asked her brother Bela.
The black Dragon shrugged. "I suppose it has something to do with the artifacts on this planet," he
wagered, "but without our ship or clues to work from, we certainly cannot waste time scouring every cave
and dwelling on the planet for them..."
As he trailed off, she hummed thoughtfully, then looked back down at Al-Elson. "If we can't find anything
up here, we should make for the nearest town and start grilling the locals," she suggested.
After one last cursory inspection of the arch at the top, she started back down the blocks... before she
stopped short. Al-Elson, and the silver snake that occasionally coiled around her body, were staring at
something on the ground before them, but the columns were blocking their view of whatever it was.
Arms folded, the Demon girl was glancing about the old and boring rows of columns and blocks and other
yawn-worthy nonsense, letting the others do their inspection. The only thing she knew about this place
was that they needed the artifacts to enter, but as to where they were... only Marten and the Cosmic
Lords knew for sure.
Slowly but surely, she became aware of a prickling sensation on the back of her neck. She ignored it at
first, thinking it to be a twitch of boredom that was simply trying to amuse her as she waited. But as the
feeling grew into a full tingle that ran up and down her spine, she started to pay more attention to it.
The silver snake hissed and coiled around her, then paused on her back. The tingle in her spine grew into
a ringing in her ears, then a sense of warmth... the feeling of something unseen, but in dangerously close
proximity to her. Someone was behind her.
She turned slowly, arms tensing to rend the air before her if she felt even the slightest movement from the
sudden visitor. Her head swept the columns of the temple, the rock face beyond it, then finally the slope
that led down the mountain... to the person standing there.
Her eyes narrowed at the strange being. If the black-garbed and masked man were standing in the shade
of the canyon, it might have been impossible to see him. But for some reason, he had decided to stand in
the glow of waning light to reveal his presence, but not his identity, to her.
He stood with his arms at his side, not making a move of hostility, nor of welcome and peace. She tilted
her head to the side suspiciously, with her arms over her grey halter top. Her snake coiled around her
waist, then over her shoulder, hissing dangerously.
They stood like that for a few scant seconds, joined in a strange moment of mutual discernment as each
scanned the other from head to toe like a dangerous enemy... or the unfathomable reunion of two souls
long separated.
Her snake hissed as the Ninja suddenly moved. He slowly raised his gloved right hand... and placed it at
the back of his head. Wordlessly grabbing a fistful of his cowl, he gently tugged it from the pinching collar
that kept it secured.
Over his unsmiling lips and sharp nose the cowl went. Al-Elson unconsciously itched a non-existent itch
on her own slightly pointed nose, as the cowl continued over his deep brown eyes, then past his
forehead. Where the slit in his cowl had been, she noticed immediately the uneven tan there; in contrast
to the light golden tinge the rest of his skin had taken on, it was tanned almost black around his eyes.
Finally, he pulled the mask up and over his scalp, and his dark brown hair fell out of the constricting bind
that had held it in place for so long. The man let his arm slowly hang down to his side, then dropped the
mask to the ground without a word.
"Who...?" Al-Elson started.
Almost immediately, she stopped. The man's strange actions, the way his chin ended in a gentle point
and continued up into high cheekbones... just like hers... it all fell together at once. Literal flames of angry
light blazed in her brown eyes as she realized who this man was.
Her snake hissed loudly, as if in understanding and sympathy to what Al-Elson saw in him: the one who
abandoned her, the one who had helped bring her into this world solely for his own selfish pleasure, who
thought nothing of the torment a half-breed would have to face... just so he could have a scant few
minutes of sex-induced bliss.
She lunged towards him, her claws out and ready to slice him to ribbons. "How dare you show your face
to me!" she screamed. Bela and Rebecca immediately flew down to see what was the matter, but they
were too late to reach her in time.
He watched her come towards him in veritable slow motion, honed by decades of non-stop training in the
movements and attacks of others. Automatically, his mind swept through the dozens of actions he could
take to counter her charge: a feint and a kick into the back of her knee, a leap backwards at the last
second followed by a jab to her larynx, grabbing her outstretched arm and breaking it at the elbow,
slipping behind her and snapping her neck...
But as she stepped inside the invisible twenty foot circle around him, the space where no object, no trap
and no man was free from analysis by all of his senses... the Ninja knelt to the ground. A look of mild
surprise worked across her face, but she did not slow, and it was the last thing he saw before he closed
his eyes and bowed his head towards the ground.
One of her claws raked across his face while the other impaled him straight through his chest. Blood
began to fill in his left lung as he felt his strength begin to leave him, and he spit saliva tinged with blood
onto the ground. Helpless, he slumped forward onto her arm.
"It's your fault!" she yelled. He felt the snake slither onto his body and bite him all over his chest and
arms. The puncture holes flared painfully as the serpent's poison entered him and found entrance into his
arteries and veins.
However, the Ninja's focus was not on the injuries he was sustaining. Remorse and shame overwhelmed
him before the pain ever did... but beyond the poison, the dizzying loss of blood and the girl's angry
shouts, was a tiny, warm feeling in the deepest recesses of his heart. It was the knowledge that if his
death would serve to ease his daughter's pain, even in the slightest, he knew he would gladly offer his
body a thousand times over for her to rend and obliterate.
Suddenly, the snake's strikes and the slashes across his face ended. Almost immediately, they were
replaced by the feeling of something very long and sharp running under his chin and along his neck, and
the furious but retreating screams of his daughter.
"Let me go!" she yelled over and over. The Ninja tried to open his eyes, but managed to barely crack
open only his right; his entire left side was paralyzed. The pale and black-haired girl in the dark blue
duster had his daughter's claws behind her back, and clamped her snake to her own body with one of her
large, powerful black wings.
It was clear that his daughter would break loose in a matter of seconds. He did not want a bystander,
much less one of her friends, hurt as a result of his arrival. "Do as she asks," he tried to say, but managed
only to gurgle a nonsensical series of croaks between hacks of blood.
The Dragon behind him relaxed his talons on the Ninja's throat, but kept them firmly in place; he was no
longer a threat.
"What did he say?" Rebecca asked, struggling to keep Al-Elson still.
Bela knew exactly what he said, as much through his own excellent hearing as through the Ninja's
slumped and defeated demeanor, but he shook his head in false confusion.
"Please, calm down!" Rebecca shouted at Al-Elson, but it just made the horned girl struggle even harder.
"What's going on?!"
Finally, Al-Elson pushed Rebecca backwards, sending her sprawling onto her backside. However, she
didn't continue forward to finish the Ninja. The siblings had saved her life, and she at the very least owed
them an explanation.
She looked down on the Ninja, who was struggling to retain consciousness, with barely restrained fury.
"This coward... this disgusting wretch... is my father, Elson," she spat.
Bela almost let go of the Ninja in surprise, but caught himself. "How do you know?" he asked.
Al-Elson took two very deep breaths, then slowly drew forward to the Ninja. Rebecca rose to stop her, but
the silver snake hissed at her warningly.
"Please wait..." Bela pleaded, as she put a razor sharp finger on Elson's cheek. The Demon girl sliced a
shallow and painful cut from his ear to his chin and said, "I know, because I have all of the memories that
my father and mother carried when I was born three days ago."
Rebecca balked. "You're... only three days old?" she asked incredulously.
Al-Elson ignored her. "I may not have your memories up to the point of my conception," she hissed at the
Ninja, "but I know why my whore of a mother brought men into that hall..." Her breaths grew more excited
and angry with every word she spoke. "You... you both created me... simply as a byproduct of your
twisted, tawdry affair!" she exclaimed. "And when you were finished, you both left me to fend for myself in
that cold and hate-filled castle, not caring one whit about what would happen to me!"
She glared at Bela. "Drop him, now!" she ordered him. "He knows just as well as I do what he's done, and
his kneeling here is proof enough that he wants what I intend to give him: a slow and painful death!!"
Elson bobbed his head, as if he was trying desparately to nod in agreement through his many injuries.
When his body suddenly got a lot more heavy in Bela's claws, however, the Dragon knelt down to see
that he had, in fact, fallen unconscious. Rebecca stood and turned her head from the sad sight.
The Dragon dropped him to the ground. "I understand," he said, then pointed to the top of the marble
stones. "If we are going to find the entrance into the Circle, we will need to understand how the other
temples work," he continued, as if the Ninja's fate suddenly meant as little to him as it did to their new
companion.
"I agree," Rebecca said, following his lead. "We'll investigate the other temples and be back sometime
tomorrow morning." She glanced at the Ninja's bloody body. "Do with him as you will."
The two fluttered their wings and took to the sky, finding precious footholds on the high peaks around
them. Within minutes, they caught sight of one of the other temples, and had flown out of sight.
Al-Elson knelt, and watched his body rise and fall slowly with sputtering, difficult breaths. He looked
wretched enough as it was, but she knew that in his unconsciousness, he would feel none of the pain she
wished to inflict upon him.
She bided her time.
***
The sun set and threw the world into darkness, but it did not serve to hide his body from her vengeful
eyes. During the many hours, she sat on the rocky ground and stared at the father she never wanted to
know, who was inexorably half of who she was, and what she knew.
She briefly, guiltily admired him for his endurance, surviving as long as he did with such serious wounds.
But even moreso, she mentally wrung her claws in glee knowing the torture he would face when he finally
awoke.
During this time, she had ample opportunity to review his entire life, and filled her mind with the memories
of his many atrocities. She dismissed the things that could possibly shed a positive light upon him; they
certainly didn't reflect his true character. This man was a murderer, with the blood of thousands on his
hands, and he now had the sin of abandoning his only child on his soul.
She felt that he had had a tinge of remorse for his life just before his death in the Mountain Wilderness...
which she found odd, if nothing else than for the feeling's sheer lack of power. With his memories a part
of her own, she felt equally responsible for his crimes and for his life... but if she were in his position, she
would have offed herself much sooner.
The one thing she couldn't understand was why. Why did he decide to kill so many? Why did he take all
of those jobs, serve such equally bloodthirsty people, and carry out murder in their names? What did he
gain from it?
Looking back on the bits and pieces of his memory she took from her own mind, it was clear he enjoyed
slaughtering people. She felt her pulse quicken as his did, her mind wrap around kill shots and fighting
techniques that he had developed, the crack of bone and screams of pain as people died in his gripping
hands and striking heel...
But that question lingered, and it wasn't until he finally began to stir that she got her answer.
Elson groaned, unable to move any part of his body now. The cold of the air around him told him that the
sun had already set, but his world was dark with eyelids that refused to open. When Al-Elson grabbed
him by the hair and pulled his head off of the ground, though, he felt it: this was no dream.
"Open your eyes," she growled at him, but try as he did to comply, he could not do as she asked. He
groaned softly as the tear in his chest tugged and began to bleed again, but he hadn't the strength to do
any more.
"I said, open them!" she shouted, putting her claws on his eyelids and forcing them open. "I want to see
the lights fade from them when I... when..." she trailed off.
When she scanned her memories, then played back the images of every person her father had killed, she
was accustomed to the many feelings of success from a battle. She felt excited, proud, more free when a
job was completed. She was a murderer, a cold-blooded Assassin who killed because she was told to do
so.
The man whose life she held in her grip was not the same one of her memories. Her memories held this
to be a man who relished in killing, whose eyes flashed in excitement, and whose body flushed with pride
at every one of his successful kills.
But the man before her... his eyes were empty. They were the eyes of someone who had lost everything,
someone who felt his own destiny was worthless. They were the eyes of a man who wanted to die... and
once she realized this, tiny tears ran slowly down her cheeks.
She let his eyes close and let go of his head. Elson dropped hard to the ground, facefirst, and coughed
weakly into the dirt beneath him. Within moments, the dizzying loss of blood overcame him, and he was
silent once more.
Al-Elson laughed grimly and stood. "You think I'll forgive you just because you're remorseful now?" she
asked his body. Her snake coiled around her body and hissed quietly. "Maybe I should just let you live, if
it pains you that much."
Elson remained silent. "Of course, that doesn't exclude torture," she added. "I'll make you feel a thousand
times what I have since you abandoned me." She walked a few steps away, but kept her hate-filled eyes
on him at all times. She sat, then resumed her watch. "If only mother could be next..."
Ascension Peak
Day 14
The night turned into the calm and quiet purplish-red world of the earliest morning, a time when most
creatures clung to the last hours of sleep before the sun's rude awakening. However, from then until the
sun had risen high on the horizon, the siblings were hopeful and high in spirits.
Rebecca and Bela had just returned from scouting the Temples of Life, Knowledge and Change, with the
recent memory of the massive explosion in the night sky still fresh in their minds.
Al-Elson was in the same kneeling position as before, only now she was sleeping just feet away from the
slumped over body of the Ninja. A small pool of blood formed at his mouth and chest, coming together
near his collarbone.
"I guess she went through with it," Rebecca said. "Good for her." Bela gave her comment neither praise
nor condemnation. "Too bad we need the artifacts to activate all those temples," she continued.
Bela nodded as they flew down towards Al-Elson and her dead father. "Once we collect our companion,
we will journey immediately to the nearest town," he said. With a nod, he added, "By air, of course."
Rebecca chuckled, but grew deadly serious when the two came within earshot of the horned girl. She
struck the ground hard and let her wings drape over her body, then stood slowly. "It was a bust," she
proclaimed. Al-Elson awoke sleepily, and rubbed her eyes as she sat up. "We'll need to track down the
artifacts ourselves."
The Demon girl nodded, then stood as if nothing was the matter. "All right," she replied. "The nearest
places to check... that aren't filled with Rapax, that is... would be the Umpani to the west, and the Higardi
south of them. Either one should have some of the information we need."
A moment of silence passed between them. In that time, Bela thought he could hear just the faintest of
sounds coming from the black-garbed body beneath them. He blinked several times, moistening his dry
eyes from the windy flight, to make sure he wasn't mistaken.
He wasn't... the Ninja was breathing. "He is still alive?" he asked, just to make sure.
Al-Elson shrugged. "Fitting punishment for a suicide: continued life," she said flatly. "Let's go."
Rebecca screwed her mouth up, but said nothing. Bela stepped over Elson's body and stood before
Al-Elson, who climbed into his outstretched, powerful arms. With a few flaps, the three were back in the
air and headed south, with Elson's body getting smaller by the second.
They weren't in the air long before Rebecca noticed something. "Wait," she said, with her eyes on the
temple below.
She and Bela hovered a hundred feet off of the ground, and Al-Elson looked down from the Dragon's
arms. "What?" she asked. "Don't tell me he got up already." The Vampire girl shook her head, and
descended to the entrance at the empty archway.
Al-Elson saw it then, through the low light: the first of the marble blocks, with the even horizontal cuts atop
it, had risen from the ground in ascending height towards the archway at the very top. Only one had risen,
but it was clear that it formed the first of three parts to a grand staircase.
The two descended, and Bela let his passenger down. "What happened?" he asked. "Who did this?"
"I don't know," Rebecca admitted, and cautiously began to climb up towards the next marble block.
"Those cuts... they were just markers for stairs," Bela suddenly realized.
Al-Elson froze, and Rebecca turned around slowly. "You just..." the Demon girl started, "...realized that
now?" Rebecca finished. The former rubbed her forehead in exasperation, as the latter chuckled and
stepped up the next step.
Bela spread his claws out in front of him. "What?" he asked innocently.
He was interrupted as the ground shook, and the next block suddenly rose in sequence to make the next
set of stairs. Rebecca steadied herself with her wing on the pillar next to her, and Bela took Al-Elson a
foot into the air to keep them steady. When it stopped, they all ascended as high as the stairs would allow
them.
"Try stepping on each of them, see what happens," Rebecca suggested. The three moved in disarray
from step to step, kicking loose pebbles and searching for hidden switches for almost an hour.
It wasn't until all that time had passed, when the ground shook a final time. The last marble stone rose,
and the final stairs began to rise to the surface.
"On your guard," Al-Elson warned, and her mystical snake coiled into a ready position around her
shoulders, pointed towards the empty archway above. The fifth to last stair rose and stopped, then the
fourth, the third...
Bela and Rebecca were at her side when the final stair emerged and stopped just below the archway.
Suddenly, a bright flash of light filled the world around them... then just as quickly disappeared.
Al-Elson dropped her protective arm from her eyes to reveal the portal that now swirled in the archway: it
was a beautiful spiral of blue and purple that spun in a circular motion from the center, and she could
clearly see the early morning sky behind it through the gaps between the swirls.
"This is it," Rebecca said in awe. "The entrance to the Cosmic Circle..." Bela added. He climbed the stairs
as quickly as he could.
"But how did it open?" Al-Elson asked as the Dragon stood before the portal. He turned back to her with a
broad grin on his face, a happiness she had never seen in any other being before in her short life.
He beckoned them up. "I... really do not care," he replied. "I only know that the place I have studied...
dreamed about my entire life... is right here! Let us not waste another minute in discussion!" With that, he
turned back to the portal, stepped into it, and disappeared in a flash of light.
Rebecca and Al-Elson dashed immediately after him, knowing full well how a prize like the Cosmic Circle
was probably guarded. "Always was a brash one when it came to stuff like this..." Rebecca muttered, and
the two strode into the portal after him. In two flashes of light, they also disappeared.
Below, with his hand on the pillar at the base of the steps, Elson stood with a small rivulet of dried blood
running down the corner of his mouth. His vision wobbled and wavered through the small slit in his right
eye, but he knew he had seen them make it through the portal above.
With one side of his body completely paralyzed, Elson began the painstaking process of dragging his
bleeding form up the steps of the temple, and into the portal above.
Shift and Stir
The Swamp
Day 7
It was a rough night for everyone.
The plan was simple: they were going to get through the Swamp to the Cathedral, where friends of Vi
were waiting. Once there, they would have at least two stable allies and a portal back to Arnika, where
Anna of the Marina could help fashion or repair a boat for their use. Once they were safely at sea, it was
a simple sail out to the Sea Caves where they would find Marten and the Destinae Dominus, the first of
the three artifacts needed to Ascend and bring back their fallen friends.
To have the good news of a solid lead on the artifact come just hours before Lucciana's death of
atonement was too much of a coincidence. The Cosmic Lords, Gods, God, whoever... had to be laughing
at them right now. There was no other possible explanation than a jealous lot of corrupt and apathetic
higher beings, whose sheer arrogance in their position as rulers of the stars caused them to joyously
thrust hardships into the heart of the brave, egalitarian party.
At the very least, that was the thought running through Tearn's mind. The time would come for him to pay
for the innocent Rawulf that he had killed on Llylgamyn. He knew that... and it was why he understood the
reason why Lucciana chose to do what she had done.
But just because he understood why, it certainly didn't mean he had to like it.
There was a burning desire tucked away in the deepest, darkest chamber of his heart. What he did not
tell the others, and what he did not form into words for himself just yet, was that once they had found the
Destinae Dominus... he was going back to Trynton. If he found even one shred of evidence that she had
suffered or been abused in any way before she fell, he would burn the entire bough down. He didn't care
what happened to him after that... he had seen hell. It was his life.
That girl... he hadn't realized until she made her decision to stay with the Rattkin how alike they were.
How could he have let her suffer alone as she had? Perhaps his paws were full with Kiwi and the whole
business with the Dark Savant, and he hadn't had the foresight to realize.
Whatever the case, she was gone... and he was filled with nothing more than all-consuming regret. The
desire to save Lucciana from a suicidal decision was barely won over by his respect for her clearly
tortured choice... but even now, the case for each was being fought in his mind as violently as the
previous day. It was too late now, but he couldn't stop torturing himself over whether or not he had made
the right choice.
Kiwi slept quietly on his shoulder, as these thoughts and many more troubled his soul. He did not get a
wink of sleep along with the rest of the party, here in the tall tree that was hollowed out to allow a dirt road
to continue through. However, as the dawn approached, he was too beseiged by his own mind's attempt
to come to grips with what happened to notice two of his companions slinking off into the wet, brown
Swamp.
Vi heard something strange just outside the tree, some kind of croak-cough that might have belonged to
one of the poison-spitting Viper Frogs who lived in the Swamp. Tearn and Belcanzor's Shadow Hound
would have woken the party up if it were hostile, though, so she ruled the thought out.
When she looked around the hollow tree trunk, see saw that most everyone was still asleep: Belcanzor
and Serkesh were laid out on the road, Kiwi was sleeping on the shoulder of Tearn, and the Felpurr was
leaning against the bark with his hood up and convering his face.
There was only one missing. Quietly, she stood and walked out onto the wet, brownish grass, which was
covered with the squishy remnants of old leaves and plants. Shss was there, only a dozen feet away,
leaning against a droopy tree whose dark green fronds almost touched the ground. The Fighter's back
was to her, and she held a hand against the tree as she retched onto the ground below.
Vi approached with a step loud enough to inform Shss of her arrival, but quiet enough not to startle her.
The Fighter coughed one more time, wiping her mouth and leaning up against the tree. "Are you ok?" the
eye-patched girl asked.
Shss nodded weakly. "Yeah," she answered. She looked off to the west, in the direction of Trynton, but
her nausea had passed.
"Is this about Lucciana?" she further asked.
"Yeah. Maybe," Shss replied. "I've actually been feeling pretty sick for the past couple of days," she
admitted. "This whole business with the Rattkin... it just didn't help matters, is all."
Vi walked to her side, and put an arm around her shoulders. "You've been barely clothed since I've known
you," she said. "Hides and a shirt, and now armor that starts and stops all over you! It was just a matter of
time before you caught something."
Shss eyed Vi from head to toe, from the thin metallic plates over her breasts and see-through stockings,
to her big pair of black boots. "Hey, don't look at me like that," Vi protested with a laugh. "I haven't been
sick a day in my life. You trace your lineage back to a Cosmic Lord, and I'll stop bringing up the concept
of a jacket."
The Fighter smiled through another wave of nausea, one which passed quicker than she expected.
"Tch... just another thing to hinder my movement, and something for the enemy to grab onto to press their
advantage," she explained.
Vi nodded at the black locks of hair descending from her head. "And this?" she asked.
"Uh..." Shss stammered. She had her there.
"The untamed look..." the eye-patched girl commented. "For a certain someone?" she asked with a
knowing smile.
Shss chuckled and rubbed the back of her neck. "If anyone asks..." she started.
"I know, I know," Vi interrupted. "Fight with the body, think with the head. It's all about tactics, right?"
"Right," the Fighter laughed.
A moment of silence passed between them, until Vi sighed, then spoke. "We can bring her back, you
know," she said. "She'll just be the third person we bring back after the Ascension, along with that
handsome giant and the munchkin. My promise to you now is what it's always been: we'll get them back,
together."
Her confident smile faded as she received no response from her friend. "Did I overstep myself?" she
asked.
"No," Shss answered. "It's just... what if Lucciana doesn't want to come back? Knowing what she's gone
through, what if she decides to remain wherever she is? Hiromi said the first part of resurrection is
willingness on the soul's part..."
"...And knowing how rough life was for her, she might choose to wash her hands of it," Vi realized. "Not to
mention if we did force her back against her will, it would be along the same lines as dragging her away
from the decision she made with the Rattkin."
Shss nodded. "I can see why you're out here," Vi continued. "But I'm sure everyone else is thinking the
same thing. You don't need to fight this alone."
The Fighter clapped Vi on the shoulder and hugged her with one arm. "Thank you," she said simply,
pressing her head to the eye-patched girl's.
"I know it's no consolation..." Vi started, with her arm around Shss, "but whether we bring her back after
the Ascension, or she chooses to remain only in our minds and hearts... either way, whatever choice she
makes... she's free."
"I know," Shss whispered.
***
The assembled party of six travelled down the rocky path through the Swamp, by pockets of stinking
swamp gas, and through skittering packs of spiny insects.
Shss felt suddenly homesick for the first time in a while. Her family and the villagers were still safe and
happy, according to Serkesh, but what she wouldn't give to see them for just a few minutes. They might
be surprised by her many changes.
Luckily, with their knowledge of travel through lands such as this, the Fighter siblings were able to easily
lead them through the more prickly and hostile denizens of the Swamp, easing them around poisonous
plants, and away from the many venom-spewing creatures who lived here.
As they all knelt and passed under the trunk of a long dead and fallen tree, which had snapped in half
after it fell on a large rock nearby, Kiwi finally broke the silence. "So why are we going east, when we
should be heading back to Arnika?" she asked. "Someone fill me in because I'm..." She looked down at
her comfy position on the Felpurr's shoulder. "...Tearn's getting tired," she corrected herself. He bucked
his shoulder up in response, but she held fast with a giggle.
"We're going to the Cathedral, which is atop the highest mountain in the Southeast Wilderness," Vi
explained. "Once our intrepid mind walker Shss here," she said with a smile and nod at the Fighter, "let us
know we had to get to the Sea Caves, I knew there were only two ways to get there: the first involves a
long trek north of here. We'd need to go through Bayjin, first, then underwater through the sea for a
couple miles, past some rocky tunnels and a couple water spouts... then up and into the Caves
themselves."
"Aside from the 'underwater' part, what's so bad about that?" Belcanzor asked.
Vi whistled and shook her head. "You don't mess with the Rynjin," she said. "Psionic, barely intelligent
fish Monks live there, ones that eat just about anything to survive... including each other. I'm sure Kiwi is
more than a match for them in any contest of martial arts or spellcasting, but they've got quite a sizeable
army up there."
She shivered suddenly. "If we manage to get past them to the underwater caves, there are the Psi
Sharks, who can liquify your brain and rip off a limb with a single thought and bite." She looked to the sky
and began counting off on her fingers. "There are rumors of a sea monster down there that's big enough
to swallow all of Arnika... the Depth Dwellers have about a thousand tentacles that have dragged easily
that many sailors to a drowning death... the water's frigid at night and we'd be risking hypothermia... not to
mention we'd have to hold our breaths for a few days straight... there are..."
"All right, all right," Belcanzor interrupted her. "Bayjin is out. So what's the other way in?"
Vi turned around and pointed at him. "By sea!" she said with a smile. "East of here is a Cathedral where
friends of my parents used to live: Auntie Claire, an incredible Mage who can portal us straight back to
Arnika, and a man they used to call the Scythe."
She laughed. "Good ol' Uncle Scythe," she remembered. "He'd always be the one to catch me and the
other pirates, and the one to send me straight back to Braffit..." After a brief time of reverie, she
continued. "Anyway, it's just a name," she further explained. "His weapon of choice was his namesake,
though he hardly ever used it for anything but harvesting grain. I know we can count on his help."
"And he won't be mad after the stuff he's seen you do?" Kiwi asked.
Vi shook her head. "That was years ago," she replied. "It's been over a decade since I last went
freebooting out on the sea with Myles and He'Li. Before I left this planet with the Dark Savant seven years
ago, Uncle Scythe was one of three men who have ever held the title 'Father' for me..."
"So... Claire portals us back to Arnika, we get ourselves a boat, and find an artifact!" Kiwi summed up
happily. "I'm with you!"
Vi grinned widely. "I can't wait to introduce you all to them," she said. "I'm sure they'll be more than happy
to lend a hand in the coming conflict, too. I hope nobody minds."
After Shss finished her hushed translation for Serkesh, he seemed overjoyed. "More friend!" he bellowed.
"Vi friend... more friend!"
Suddenly, Shss grabbed Vi at the head of the party and pulled her to the ground. "Everyone down!" she
hissed, then scrambled for the cover of a fallen log in a pile of dead leaves. Kiwi made a face when she
saw the bugs and creepy crawlies worming around the dead piece of wood, but an icy fist clenched over
her heart when she saw what had troubled the Fighter.
Ahead, a Savant Trooper covered in dirt and mud stepped jerkily over and around several scratching
plants, muttering in a strange, monotone voice. "R...RF... bzzz *fzzt* repa-repa... warning..." it crackled
loudly from its voicebox.
"Looks busted..." Tearn commented, an observation made even more poignant when the Trooper tripped
over a small rock and crashed to the ground. Almost humorously, but more pathetically, it appeared to
continue walking as if it were still on solid ground.
The movement shook loose a pink potion in a sack of netting at its side. The potion bobbed up and down
on the soft, squishy ground, splashing around inside its transparent container in little swirls. "Require...
require... repair, locate NAS-81," it spoke, walking its legs through the air. "NAS-81 found. Location:
left extremity quad... resetting loca-loca-loca... bzzzz. Require repa-repa-repair..."
Slowly, it got to its feet, then continued its mindless trek through the Swamp. Serkesh took his axe from
his back and slowly stood, but Tearn stopped him. "Wait," he said, holding his paw out. Shss translated
as the Felpurr spoke. "Normally I'd be all for smashing that thing to bits," he said, "but think of what we
can learn from it. About the Savant, his plans, the Ascension..."
Shss hummed in thought. "You've seen how tough those things are," she said. "Remember when we had
to take out the crowd of them when we rescued Vi? It was brutal."
Tearn nodded as he pointed at the slowly retreating machine. "I remember very clearly," he said, "but it's
only one this time. Plus, it's damaged. What can it possibly do with me and lover boy ready to blast it?"
She conceded the point, but Kiwi brought up another. "How are we going to help it?" she asked. "I don't
think a spell's going to cure its wounds."
Vi nodded in agreement. "The problem doesn't seem to be physical, either... unless you plan on coaxing
the information out of it with a soothing bath of conjured water..."
Belcanzor went purple and looked at Shss in embarrassment. The Fighter shook her head and mouthed,
"I didn't say anything!"
"Didn't you hear it?" Tearn asked. "It was looking for something to repair itself, located on its 'left
extremity.'"
Kiwi raised her hand. The Felpurr looked at her and said, "It means leg, kid." Almost immediately, she
sheepishly lowered it with an innocent grin. He sighed, and patted her head affectionately.
"So that potion on its leg is the antidote?" Shss asked. "And it's so broken that it either can't see, or can't
use it?"
Tearn nodded. "Talk about a tantalizing torment," Vi commented, then shrugged. "Well, I'm all for it, if you
two keep the thing covered while we fix it."
The decision set, Belcanzor and Tearn rose and followed the machine at a cautious distance, alowing the
four melee fighters to creep up behind it. They all looked among one another, debating who should
approach.
Kiwi took the decision out of their hands. "Hey, need some help?" she called out.
At her voice, the Savant Trooper turned slowly, almost losing its balance and falling straight onto the pile
of organic brown mush below it. It stumbled to catch itself, and though Kiwi felt the air crackle with
electricity from her left where the spellcasters were waiting, she was glad that they had the presence of
mind not to attack just yet.
"Mas... Master!" the Trooper called out in monotone. "RFS... RFS-81 requires repair."
She held her hands up peacefully, slowly flying forward. "Ok," she said. "I'm going to get the pink stuff
from your hip. Just stay still and don't hurt me, all right?"
The machine suddenly stood ramrod straight, not moving a single joint... outside of involuntary spasms of
uncontrolled electric current running through it.
Kiwi could feel the eyes of everyone on her as she approached the large bottle of pink liquid. She
fluttered back suddenly when the Trooper shook its left spike-arm at her, but the rest of its body did not
move; it was just another reaction. The Faerie let out a pent-up breath and drew forward again, then
worked the potion out of its netting.
"NAS-81 located. Apply to..." the machine started, then shook violently. "Resetting location. NAS-81
located. Apply to..." It shook violently again, then repeated the same set of commands like a mantra.
Kiwi flew around it, looking it up and down for something that might serve as an entrance for the strange
liquid in her hands.
Finally, she gave up. "Where do I put it?" she asked.
On her question, the chestplates of the sputtering, fitzing machine hissed open to reveal a potion
neck-sized hole where its heart would be. The machine continued its circular mantra of endless torment,
as Kiwi unstoppered the bottle and pressed its mouth to the Trooper's mechanical heart.
Immediately upon sensing the arrival of a foreign substance into its body, the Trooper's body stopped
convulsing and shut down, and its head drooped down. Kiwi poured the entirety of the syrupy goo into the
machine's heart cavity, until she had upended it all inside. When she fluttered backwards and brought the
empty bottle with her, the machine's chest cavity, sensing no obstruction or further forthcoming aid,
closed tightly with a slow hiss.
The party advanced to form a semicircle around the strange machine, wondering what would happen.
After a few minutes passed, Kiwi felt a twinge of guilt. "Do you think I killed it?" she asked, but nobody
responded. Taking a life in self-defense was one thing, a difficult thing, but poisoning a weakened foe
who might not even be a foe was just...
A shiver went down her spine as the Trooper slowly raised its head to look directly at her with empty,
mechanical black eyes. Her body tensed and prepared for a sudden charge, ready to deflect and counter
its attack in a true warrior's challenge.
Tearn and Belcanzor formed electrical charges in their paws and hands, waiting for one wrong move to
enact that last force of will that would unleash their arcane energies.
Vi trained her pistol on its head. Shss and Serkesh pointed a respective electric globe surrounded by
hooks, and the flat of a massive axe towards it.
And amidst this open display of hostility, the Savant Trooper spoke. "Greetings, Master. How may I
serve you?" it asked. Its pupil-equivalent whirred inward, then back out in a spiral pattern, like it was
focusing on her. "Master, it is my duty to inform you that you have diminished in size since we last
met."
It was hard to explain, but the Trooper seemed a lot more... extroverted than its previous incarnations.
Shss had seen first-hand the lack of adequate communication skills the machines aboard the Savant's
ship had had, and each of the Guardia veterans knew that the Guards in New City had just enough of a
vocabulary to make only demands and threats.
"'Master?'" Kiwi asked. The rest of the party mentally smacked their foreheads, but the machine didn't
seem to mind. "The Master. The Dark Savant. God. The all-powerful, the all-knowing. This unit
serves you dutifully."
The Faerie smiled and nodded. "And who are you?" she asked.
"Class A Savant Trooper, battle ready. Primary functions include recognizance, destruction of
obstacles in the Master's way, deletion of those conflicting with the Master's primary goals," the
machine answered.
The Faerie laughed, the only one of the six who didn't suspect a sudden ambush. "No, no!" she giggled.
"What's your name?"
The machine stood completely still, as it had been since it started talking, while it spoke. "Apologies,
Master," it answered. "Savant Trooper class RFS-81, serial number 3B52..."
Kiwi raised her hands to stop it. "RFS-81," she said. "That will be your name, ok?"
"Affirmative," the newly christened RFS-81 replied. "How may I serve you, Master?" it asked.
All of a sudden, Tearn spoke up. "First of all, you can tell us about these 'obstacles' and 'goals' you spoke
about," he said.
RFS-81 remained still. "Ignore," it answered. Tearn growled, to which Kiwi snickered. "It's ok," she said.
"You can take orders from anybody here like you would from me." A thought struck her. "Oh, and if you
need to stretch your legs or anything, you don't have to stand completely still anymore."
The Savant Trooper swivelled its head around from Belcanzor to its right, to Serkesh on its left, as it
slowly moved its limbs to keep the grease and oil flowing between its joints with slight whirs. "Personnel
added to memory banks. Confirmed update to highest level of security clearance," it said finally,
then wasted no time delving into its stores of knowledge. "Obstacles before the Master are varied:
mountains block trade routes. Politicians block change. Armies block Ascension. Obstacles must
be removed for the Master to be successful."
"Who's highest on the list right now?" Vi asked.
"Currently, the armies of the Umpani and of the T'Rang stand in greatest opposition to the
Master," RFS-81 revealed. "While negligible, their combined power could prove an annoyance. To
Ascend with certain success, the Master will seek an alliance with the Dominus-based Rapax
Empire."
"What?!" Vi exclaimed. If the Rapax and the Dark Savant come together... there'd be no stopping them!
she thought.
RFS-81 made no attempt at stopping to allow her time to digest the new information. "Other obstacles
are too minor to mention, and far below the power of the Dark Savant."
Shss smirked. "Glad to hear ol' dome-head thinks of us so highly," she remarked.
"What are the Dark Savant's goals here on Dominus?" Belcanzor asked.
"Ascension," RFS-81 replied. "No further information."
Shss hummed in thought. "So where are the other artifacts?" she asked.
RFS-81 stood silently for a moment, then spoke. "A power signature resembling that of the Chaos
Moliri was detected in Arnika. Attempts at narrowing the scans are ongoing."
The party looked amongst themselves. "We'll check it out when we get back from the Cathedral," Vi
suggested.
"The Destinae Dominus lies with Marten," the Trooper continued. "Further investigation will prove
difficult, as the T'Rang now occupy the Bluff in which he once hid. To minimize casualty, the
Master has adopted a policy of patience and observation for the time being."
"Yeah," Tearn replied icily. "I'm sure the welfare of the T'Rang is his very top concern."
RFS-81 continued, undaunted. "The Astral Dominae is in the hands of the Master. There it will
remain," it said.
Kiwi nodded. "Thank you, RFS!" she said, and the Trooper bowed. "It is my pleasure, Master," it
replied. "Shall we depart?"
She was about to answer in the affirmative, when a crackling sound made her look to her left. Tearn built
up a static charge in his body, one that would very shortly electrocute the Trooper. "Wait!" she exclaimed.
Almost immediately, Tearn's body stopped tingling, and he looked at her in confusion.
"Oh, I see how it is," Vi muttered. "I tell you to hold up a second with the graveyard Ghost and you fry it...
but one word from the cutiepie and you're suddenly a pacifist."
Tearn ignored her. "You can't trust this thing, kid," he said. "It works for... you-know-who. Who knows
when something will go wrong in its brain and it'll suddenly turn on one of us... on you?"
Kiwi fluttered to the top of the machine's warm metal head, and lay down belly first upon it. "Aw, c'mon!"
she protested, hugging it. "Can't I keep him?"
After a deep breath, Shss spoke next. "He's got a point," she said. "There's also the question of what any
potential allies might think when we come trotting up to their doorstep with a Trooper in tow..."
"Guilt by association?" Kiwi asked with a pouty face. "C'mon... the change of an entire population begins
with a single man! Give him a chance."
Shss was convinced that shades of Hiromi were beginning to emerge from the brave Faerie. Even now,
the Priest was having an incredible effect on each and every one of them. She nodded emphatically with
a smile.
"First of all, it's not a man. It's a machine," Tearn replied. "Anything resembling morality in it was
programmed, not learned, and by someone we all know is capable of kidnapping and murder."
Kiwi looked down RFS-81's forehead. "You're not going to hurt us, are you?" she asked.
"RFS-81's primary function is the protection of the Master," it replied. "RFS-81 is not programmed
to harm others unless in defense of the Master and the Master's allies, against those deemed
hostile to the Master, or under direct orders from the Master."
The Faerie looked up, satisfied, at the rest of the group. "See?" she said, triumphant, then looked back
down at the Trooper. "From now on, everyone's your friend unless one of us says different. Is that clear?"
she asked.
"Understood," it replied. "Wiping list of enemies clear. RFS-81 will strike only in defense, or under
direction, of the Master and the Master's allies."
"I'm telling you, kid," Tearn protested, "this doesn't smell right."
On Shss' translation, Serkesh nodded, but Belcanzor seemed less convinced. "Shss and Kiwi are right,
sir," he said to Tearn. "We can't let our prejudices blind us to an ally with power like this machine's."
Tearn shook his head and made a face. Sir? he thought to himself.
Vi nodded. "And we might be hurting a little for help after..." she trailed off. To avoid leaving the party in a
morose and undecided state, Kiwi followed up with a projected thought to the more organic among them:
And if he makes a wrong move, I'll rip his head off, she thought to everyone with a smile atop the robot's
head.
Tearn and Serkesh were aboard immediately with a smirk and a loud cheer. "That's more like it," the
Felpurr answered. "Let's get going."
As they started out again, Kiwi patted RFS-81's head. "So what kind of moves do you know, Rufie?" she
asked.
"RFS-81 class Savant Troopers are skilled in many styles of martial arts," the Trooper answered. "I
combat your enemies in the exact manner that you have programmed me, Master."
Kiwi widened her eyes in surprise. "Martial arts?" she asked in sheer, uncontained interest.
"Yes, Master," RFS-81 replied.
"We should spar sometime!" she replied energetically. "Maybe we can learn a thing or two from one
another!"
"Impossible," the Trooper responded. "I serve, I exist to prevent you from engaging in unclean acts
that do not befit a god... including fighting. Shall you need something removed, or destroyed, you
need only ask."
The Faerie hummed skeptically. "We've beate... er... I've seen Troopers like yourself go down rather
easily in Arnika," she answered. "You might get a little in over your head if you go by yourself! You can
count on all of us to help!"
"Forgiveness, Master, but the Troopers of which you speak are vastly inferior to myself," RFS-81
answered. "Class B Savant Troopers, used for defense of occupied towns, are constructed for
peacekeeping purposes only. RFS-81 Class A Savant Trooper is designed for diplomacy,
infiltration, interrogation and annihilation."
Tearn cleared his throat. "Are you sure you have your... 'hands full,' kid?" he asked without looking at her.
"Yeah," Kiwi giggled. "The other ones were pushovers. I'll believe Rufie's tough talk when I see it!"
They had to be much more careful as the sun rose higher and filtered through the canopy of droopy trees
in tiny streams of pinpointed light. Though the commotion was easily twenty miles away to the north,
there was more than enough of it to waft through through the chirps and croaks of the Swamp's denizens
to the ears of the party.
When Tearn's eyes suddenly opened wide after he cut off his Wizard Eye spell, everyone knew
something was up. With his permission, Kiwi read his mind and transmitted the image to the rest of the
party: Rynjin. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of the snaggle-toothed fish-men croaked and gurgled and shifted
just outside the cave entrance that led under the sea to their island.
Vi whistled. "I've never seen them so agitated before," she commented. "If I didn't know any better, I'd
swear they were getting ready to assault Trynton... or something happened to spook 'em good..."
Shss bit her lower lip and shook her head. "Either way," she started, "We're not going through there,"
Belcanzor finished.
"Do you know anything about freaky things going on in Bayjin?" Kiwi asked her new metallic friend.
"Negative, Master," RFS-81 answered.
"All right," she said. Her head began to glow. You better keep an ear out, she thought to Serkesh. Who
knows if they may be slinking around here.
Serkesh saluted her in response. "Ok, Keshketka," he said aloud, much to Kiwi's delight.
***
After hours of travel, the Swamp was looking a lot less dangerous in a skittering, chittering, biting and
poking kind of way. When the sun set, only Serkesh was able to see adequately in the inky darkness. It
was amazing how quickly the lights had gone out across the dark Swamp; now the danger was a cold,
patient one, ready to strike and lash out at a moment's notice.
He kept them mainly near the trees, and was thankful to see them get much more dense towards the
eastern edge of the fetid, dead land. Apparently, Trynnie logging extended only so far, especially
considering that at their size, the fuzzy little guys made better lunch than they did woodcutters here.
It was with a sense of relief and hope that they came across a quaint, two-storied cottage with a garden of
green stalks bearing blue flowers outside. Barring a chance encounter with another hollow tree, Serkesh
thought their only beds for tonight would be squishy leaves surrounded by poisonous insects.
"Well, would you look at that," Vi said. "I can't believe ol' Crock's house is still around. I would have betted
good money that the giants ants or the golems would have knocked it down by now..."
Belcanzor sighed happily and put his arm around Shss. "I guess that means we have a place to stay
tonight, if you know him so well!" he said hopefully.
Vi laughed, a bit nervously. "Not... necessarily," she replied. "If he's still as, um... 'distrusting' as I
remember him, it might take some negotiation to score us a couple of beds." Shss raised a nervous
eyebrow at her, then quietly tucked Belcanzor's amulet away in her breastplate.
"We'll let you go first," Tearn suggested, ushering her forward. "Break us to him gently."
She winced. How exactly am I going to do this? she thought, but went inside the little cottage anyway.
The small foyer was still as messy as she remembered it. The floor was cluttered with old potions, some
empty and some full, and a dozen weapons of various sharpness and age. Some crates were in the
corner, no doubt filled with all manner of disgusting swampfood that gave the old man his sustenance. All
in all, the entrance was an accurate reflection of not only the old man's mind, but his body, as well.
"Crock!" she called out. "Are you here?"
There was a cluttering and a crashing from around the corner, where the main floor of the cottage and
most of the old man's possessions resided. His room was in the back and up a floor. "Who'zere?" a
grumbly voice roared from within. "Donchu make no sudden movements, now. Come in nice'n slow er I
might jes stick ya and eatcha like that frog I caught pokin'..."
He stopped his rambling as Vi pushed through the old spiderwebs clinging to the entrance. A dirty table
and stacks of crates stood to the side of the quaint cottage, and the floor was a liberal spread of worthless
trinkets, dirt and gunk from the Swamp that had clearly been tracked in, but never cleaned. She smiled,
and Crock put his dagger on the cluttered counter before him.
"Oh, 'ts you," he grumbled. "Haven't seen ya in, what... over ten years, musta been. Ever since you'n the
rest of 'em hung up yer eyepatches'n joined tha rest'a 'em Higardi out west'a here..."
The old man's hair looked as pale and unhealthy as his skin, cut close, but dirty and unkempt. His brown
shirt and blue pants were covered with so much dirt, it called into question whether their colors were
natural, or just came to look that way after a little too much travel in the Swamp.
Vi waved. "Yeah, it's been a while," she said.
Crock grunted. "But this ain't no social call, is it?" he asked gruffly. "Whaddaya want?"
She took a deep breath, then let it out. "I... that is, me and some friends of mine, need a place to crash for
the night." Crock growled in exasperation, and Vi held up her hands in a peaceful gesture. "Just one
night," she insisted. "Please?"
He sighed. "You'n yer damn li'l girl act screwed me outta more'n one bag'a gold, ya know that, doncha?"
Vi smiled innocently. "Fine," the old man relented. "How many'a yer friends we talkin' 'bout here? And
don't tell me ya brought in any'a them filthy Tee-Rangs with ya. Dirty roaches track that slime all over tha
place..."
"No," Vi said, waving everyone in, "but please keep in mind, this is for a universe-saving cause..."
As everyone walked in one by one, Crock's face darkened from suspicious, to angry, to utterly livid. When
Serkesh came in last, the old man exploded.
"Get them filthy demi-humans outta mah house, ya li'l backstabber!" he shouted, pointing directly at the
Lizardman. "Tha snake, tha stray, tha bug, tha 'bot... 'n tha popsicle, too!"
Anger flashed in Tearn and Belcanzor's eyes, though Serkesh and Kiwi tried their best not to laugh next
to the silent RFS-81. Shss just looked confused.
Fire danced in Tearn's paws as he spoke in a deadly tone. "What did you call us?" he asked dangerously.
Crock stomped around the counter and approached him, where Vi held him back. "Ya gotta lotta nerve
comin' inta my house and tellin' me what I can'n can't do, furball!" he yelled.
Tearn calmed, but only slightly... he had a point. "Come on," he said to the others. "The millipedes outside
are better company than this idiot."
Crock looked disgusted as Vi spoke. "Please, just let them stay in the foyer," she said. "They're all good
friends of mine, and I know you wouldn't turn down good people in need."
The old man stood silently, breathing deeply and turning over the request in his mind. He shook his head.
"Fine," he finally relented, then shouted out to the front. "Y'all kin stay in tha front, but doncha step one
dirty step inta mah house!"
Vi patted him on the shoulder. "Thanks," she said, then started out for the front to join the others.
Shss, however, didn't follow. "I don't understand," she said to Crock, who was heading out the back door
to his bed upstairs. "Why are you treating my friends so cruelly?"
Crock stopped, then looked up towards the ceiling, breathing deeply. He looked like he was on the edge
of screaming, but was trying hard to keep himself in check. "Ya wanna talk cruel, li'l lady?" he asked.
"Fine, I'll tell ya 'bout cruel." He turned around. "Les talk about a boy, who was teased fer no damn good
reason, jes 'cause'a tha way his teeth were all crooked... by his own people'a all things."
He shook his head in disgust. "Les talk about a boy, whose parents took tha rod ta 'em fer nothin' more'n
spillin' his milk on accident. Ya wanna talk cruel? Les talk about a hundred broken bones 'fore tha age'a
ten, li'l lady, all on'a count'a him bein' too weak ta defend hisself."
Shss winced at his words, but held her tongue.
"But maybe tha distant past ain't too much ta yer likin'," Crock continued. "Maybe we kin talk about them
Rapax dogs, always tryin' ta skewer that boy jes 'cause he looks different than they do. Or maybe them
Trynnie, always shuttin' that boy out'a their secret li'l club, 'cause'a tha way he looks'n the way he ain't
able ta express hisself all that well."
Vi and Shss' faces flushed. The former had never heard what had happened to the old man so long ago...
but the latter had never heard of anything like this at all. "Your... your own parents...?" Shss asked,
startled.
Crock scoffed. "Born in tha luxury'a love, were ya?" he asked. "Can't wrap yer mind 'round somethin' as
simple as yer own parents hatin' tha livin' guts outta ya?"
Shss slowly shook her head. "My parents... everyone in my village saw family as more important than
one's own life..." she started.
"Lucky you, then," Crock interrupted. "Ya people're always quick ta cast yer aspersions on tha kind'a man
I am, jes cause'a tha way I think. Well, let me tell ya somethin', missy." He spat on the ground. "This
damned world'n everyone in it's made me tha punchin' bag. T'ain't never been a single creature'r beast
that's ever treated Crock with tha respect he deserved... not once.
"I been rolled by every race ya kin imagine, mistreated far before tha time I went'n became tha man I am
today," he continued. "And all ya people kin do is tell ol' Crock ta 'Give 'em another chance,' 'n 'Don't let
hate consume ya,' 'n all that other rubbish.
"Well I'm here ta tell ya this: you'n yer kind, yer friends, yer enemies, t'ain't never been a person who ain't
mistreated Crock fer no good reason. The world's spent tha better part of a century hatin' ol' Crock fer
who he is... now it's Crock's turn ta hate tha world fer all tha pain it's been'a givin' him!
"Spend yer night here, then get tha hell out!" he shouted.
As he wheeled around and angrily ascended the stairs, slamming his bedroom door behind him, Shss
backed up slowly into the corner next to the entrance to the foyer. She was stunned into absolute silence,
trying to come to grips with what he had said as Vi walked over and sat at her side.
"That can't happen, can it?" she asked Vi. The eye-patched girl only blinked in response. "People can't
hate their children..." Shss continued, shaking her head in disbelief. "Right?"
Vi didn't know what to say... but in the end, no words were necessary. Through the doorway to the foyer,
a blue hand extended and put itself in Shss'. Belcanzor looked into her brown eyes, setting her mind
temporarily at ease. Through the archway, the two sought refuge in one another's arms.
At the exit into the Swamp, Serkesh looked down on the two with his arms folded. He knew there would
come a time when she might have to move beyond the boundaries of the village to find herself. It just
never occurred to him that the inevitable conflict between the morals of a tiny population out in the middle
of a swamp... and the morals of the world at large... would be a million stars away.
The Swamp
Day 8
Early the next morning, the assembled party ventured out into the brightly lit Swamp. The clutter in the
foyer of Crock's house had made it quite difficult to sleep.
The rest they got there, however, easily beat sleeping on high alert in the middle of that tree, where every
minute of every dream was filled with the subconscious tension of a battle that could start at any minute.
Shss knew as well as anyone that when people got to a certain age, regardless of their race, they simply
would not change. Still, there was a part of her that wanted to stay with Crock, to learn more about the
person he was and the things he had experienced, and to offer any help that she could with his clearly
traumatized life.
But the reality of the situation was just as grim as Crock's tale. There was a universe out there to save,
and they could waste no time in securing the Destinae Dominus.
More importantly... she was a Fighter, not a philosopher, or a wise woman. As with any other person, all
she could do was share her own experiences with him, and offer a sympathetic ear in return. In the face
of Crock's problems, however, she knew that mere words would be woefully inadequate to offer him
solutions, or even solace.
The restful night allowed her to sort through the problem of her own inability to help, with the acceptance
that she was doing all she could. Were she lucky enough to be a mother someday, it would be from her
own positive upbringing... and aversion to the negative example given by Crock's family... that would form
the relationship between her and her children.
The universe changed for her that night, no longer a place of those born good and born evil, and the
eternal struggle between them. She understood now why men like the Dark Savant and women like the
Queen of the Amazulu were the way they were; actions never came from a vacuum.
That being said, understanding was only the first step to her. The next was to deal with the problems that
others presented her, her friends, and those who could not defend themselves.
The next step was to fight.
She took a deep breath of the sharp smell of the Swamp, and steeled her resolve. She could not help
Crock, but if she gave up now, she would not be able to help anybody.
"Are you ok?" Kiwi asked her from atop RFS-81.
She nodded. "Yes, thank you," she replied, with her hand still in Belcanzor's. The Bishop had certainly
come a long way in the past few days in terms of shyness. "We'll make it, won't we?" she said more than
asked.
Kiwi smiled and nodded emphatically. "You know it," she said confidently.
"The Swamp should end pretty soon," Vi said, shielding her eyes from the sun and looking ahead through
the dense cluster of trees. All of a sudden, a great grin worked across her face as she nodded. "Yep,
there it is!"
She pointed ahead at a valley of rock with stone arches hanging overhead. The party passed underneath
them, and the fetid and brown squish of the Swamp soon gave way to a much greener valley, surrounded
by orange cliffs of mountain and rock on either side.
The very first thing they saw was a group of trees, not hanging and dark green with the near-poisonous
nutrients of the Swamp, but rather lush, full, tall and proud. They were a mixture of many different colors,
some turning red and brown and shedding leaves that wafted down lazily on a light breeze, some clinging
to the last fleeting days of the thick and green months of summer.
A dirt road wound through the canyon. In contrast to the one leading from Arnika to Trynton, this one
looked as if it had not been used in quite some time. Where mostly dirt and stone ruled the path between
the cities of the Higardi and the Trynnie, stubbly grass poked up all around the road here. Sometimes, as
they continued under the soothing warmth of the sun, the grass would get so thick that they lost sight of
where the road was going.
"No worries, no worries," Vi, their constant guide, insisted. "It's right up ahead... see? Told you! There's
the path."
The Southeast Wilderness was so calm that just for a moment, the party forgot about everything that had
happened with the Dark Savant, Lucciana, Crock, Hiromi, Janus, and every other tragedy that had
befallen them in the past few years.
Ever the one to keep an upbeat mood exactly where it was, Vi excitedly pointed out the forked path
ahead of them. "Here it is!" she exclaimed. "Right to the relaxing fountain, then left up the mountain to the
Cathedral. I wish we had time to rest over by the waters, but... you know..."
The party took the path to the left. A paved and partitioned mountain path cut steeply upward and around
the peak ahead of them... a strenuous, but not impossible, climb. Kiwi looked worriedly down at RFS-81,
whose flat feet seemed able to easily slip on an errant pebble, but was surprised to see it stalk up the
mountain faster than any of the others.
Eventually, the dome of the Cathedral came into view. A spiralling design punctuated in the middle by
blue crystals, not unlike some strange alien DNA, wound up towards the very top of the dome and out of
sight.
Vi could barely contain herself. "Been a while, has it?" Tearn asked the excited girl.
She nodded and smiled. "Put it this way," she said. "Once Uncle Scythe and Auntie Claire join up, it's all
over."
Finally, the climb was over, and the mountain path continued away from the highest peak and down a
curved path to a valley below. The view from this point was breathtaking. "Shss, look at this!" Belcanzor
exclaimed, pulling her to the edge of the fenced path. A beach extended for miles and miles on the edge
of the sea below them, and its waves lapped soothingly against the shore.
Shss' heart fluttered along with the Bishop's. It was an amazing sight to see the ocean go on for such a
distance, especially as the sunlight glinted off of its surface so beautifully. Serkesh snuck up behind them
and placed his beefy arms around the both of them, hissing in delight.
"Wait, wait," Kiwi told RFS-81, who immediately stopped. "Look at that, Tearn!" she said, pointing in the
opposite direction of the three very enthralled people behind her.
The Felpurr joined his tiny ward, and was ashamed to admit that the view was quite impressive. A vast
orchard of apple trees and fields of yellow wheat and grain extended for miles below them, nestled in a
green valley between the curving path they were standing on, and the mountains around them. It would
only take a simple flight to snag one of the fruits, he reasoned, then dismissed the idea. It was stealing...
and completely out of character.
"Interesting," he said coolly. Kiwi didn't buy it for a second.
Vi beckoned everyone after her, and the party continued on. Brown and blue arches decorated with
hanging crystals were placed every hundred feet on the winding path, for an entire mile all the way to the
bottom. It was an impressive welcome for travellers paying a visit to the mountain Cathedral.
Several minutes later, they were at the bottom. A six-pillared brownish-orange gazebo offered a place for
a weary traveller to rest, as well as offering the incredible view of the nearby ocean, the grasses to the
east, and the mountains and orchards behind them. Sparing only a moment for sightseeing's sake, they
continued on to the south, up the next mountain path that would lead them straight to their destination.
It was a two mile hike to the very top of the mountain, where an even clearer view of the Cathedral was
presented to them. Vi was practically bouncing with delight when the rainbow-colored stained glass
windows came into view, which looked into the grey bricked house of the Gods.
Finally, she couldn't take it any longer. In a full sprint, she disappeared around a bend before them,
calling out, "Uncle Scythe! Auntie Claire!"
Everyone else saw no choice but to follow, and dashed after her. RFS-81 hunched forward, its joints
whirring as it charged up the path and clearly outpaced the rest of the group. Kiwi waved teasingly at her
slower companions, then pointed up the mountain. "To the top, Rufie! Full speed!" she yelled.
"Affirmative," RFS-81 replied.
The Trooper immediately put on the brakes when the two reached the summit. Kiwi's mood was
immediately dampered when it stood next to a motionless Vi, and the Faerie saw the look on her friend's
face. It was a look of disbelief and confusion, and with only a cursory glance, Kiwi could tell why.
There were two statues in front of the Cathedral on two long slabs of stone. At least, they might have
been statues, though each was now almost nothing more than a giant pile of jagged stone and rock chips.
Judging from the shape of each smashed figure, Kiwi mentally put together the two hind legs of the
nearer statue, and the decapitated and horned horsehead of the distant one to bring up the image of a
pair of unicorns.
Two braziers, the distant one burning and the nearer one not, stood behind the former unicorn statues. Vi
stumbled forward as if in a dream. "Unc...le?" she whispered, then sped up into a trot. Finally, as the party
caught up, she broke into a run into the marble entrance of the Cathedral.
As she passed under the likeness of a large lion's head, RFS-81 beeped and whirred suddenly.
"Warning. Danger," it said. "Detain her immediately."
Kiwi shot off of the Trooper without a second thought, grabbing Vi's arms and pulling her back outside.
"Let me go!" the larger girl protested, struggling vainly against the much more powerful Faerie.
"Lady Vi, Master, please remain here," RFS-81 insisted from behind them. "It is not safe from this
point on." Before anybody could hold it back, it strode alone into the Cathedral.
"Stop it, quick!" Tearn yelled, then ran after the retreating machine. The party charged into the entrance of
the Cathedral, but it was too late: RFS-81 was making straight for the crowd of people at the end of the
large church.
The Cathedral's interior was grand, tall and wide, and constructed of polished marble. Ornately carved
pillars stretched from the floor to the very top of the hundred foot high ceiling, which also impressively
featured holy symbols and runes of its own. Twisting around the second pair of the three rows of massive
pillars, spiral staircases wound up to tiny study areas where Monks might have once pored over ancient
texts of holy import.
At the very end, under a beautiful, pentagonal window of rainbow-colored stained glass, a vision out of a
church's nightmare stood assembled and ready to fight. Six women in hooded purple robes marked with
eerie red symbols chanted ominously, three on the left and three more on the right. A pair of eight foot,
armored skeletons with curved horn helmets and holding swords longer than Serkesh was tall stood
silently between them.
In the middle of this odd army of the otherworld was a pale woman. She wore black robes cut at her
cleavage and around her thighs and biceps, and was as beautiful as the horned helmet on her head and
the curved metal talons on her hands were deadly. She planted her black boots firmly on the ground
below her, and as the sound echoed throughout the entire Cathedral, she issued forth a sharp cry.
And RFS-81 was charging straight for them.
Huddled behind the wall next to the entrance into the Cathedral, Kiwi needed only a few seconds to take
in the scene and decide her course of action. But before she lunged into the fray all by herself, Tearn's
paw completely enveloped her mouth and chest. "Don't go rushing off for no good reason like that!" he
hissed.
Rufie did... and he's in trouble! Kiwi thought back to him. We have to help him!!
"Do we?" Tearn asked. Kiwi broke out of his grip and wheeled on him in stunned disbelief, but the Felpurr
indicated the Cathedral in front of him with a nod of his head. When the Faerie turned back to see what
he meant, she fell hopelessly in love.
The six purple-robed Cultists immediately charged several different spells and launched them at the
approaching Savant Trooper, no doubt aware of the machine god it served. Ethereal rocks, embers and
balls of flame, sharp crystals of solid ice, a piercing cone of sound, every spell that the women cast on
RFS-81 struck it on different parts of the body... and immediately bounced and reflected off of it in every
direction.
Fireballs exploded into the marble wall with the hissing remnants of Iceballs. The Whipping Rocks
scattered in a dome around the Trooper and dropped to the ground in a clatter; the Shrill Sound spell did
not even affect it. The women looked amongst themselves in confusion, but at a barked order in a strange
language from the black-robed woman in the middle, they all began to simultaneously cast anew.
"I couldn't have stopped it even if I wanted to..." Tearn realized upon seeing the spells bounce off of
RFS-81's special metallic body.
Kiwi was not interested in the arcane, or in the sudden lightbulb that went off in the Felpurr's mind. The
object of her affection had just gone to work.
The skeletal, helmeted Death Lords swung their massive blades down at the Trooper, who merely raised
its spike-arms to block the blows. The sheer size of the swords should have caused them to slice cleanly
through RFS-81's arms, but they stopped upon them with loud, metallic clangs. RFS-81 whirled its arms
around and pushed the blades aside, then closed in.
The Trooper impaled the exposed spine of the one with its left arm, then twisted around and up the
undead creature's body. At the same time, it kicked out its metallic foot into the right one's shin, then
pulled its arm out of the first Death Lord's spine.
Then, as the second armored skeleton fell on its injured leg, RFS-81 lept onto its good, armored knee,
and began punching its exposed spine with lightning quick speed. One two, one two, the Trooper's body
whirred as it sliced into the Death Lord's backbone, then hunched low and jump-sliced up and into its
bony chin.
RFS-81 landed a few feet before the carnage as the Cultists seemed to finish their spells. Its scans
indicated that both of the Death Lords had been sufficiently incapacitated, and the strong magical
readings it got off of the other seven women indicated that they would be no further threat.
The black-robed woman barked another order, and a beeping sounded in the Trooper's head. It wheeled
left to focus its wide, blurry vision on the distant shadow quickly approaching.
Straight ahead, a tall and muscular creature wrapped in cloth strips emerged from a dark hallway before
it. The thing looked almost the same as the Mummy the party had encountered in the graveyard just days
ago, but this one's eyes seemed more sad than soulless.
Still, it bellowed a gurgling cry just before it charged towards the Savant Trooper, fury overtaking its mind
at the order of the black-robed woman.
At the same time, a flash of light overtook the room as the Cultists finished their spells. When it had
dissipated, and RFS-81's sensors were no longer blinded, it calculated a sudden multi-thousand percent
increase in threat. There were Elementals all around him, from bulky man-shaped gusts of air with
tornadoes for feet, to ones that were over ten feet tall and made completely of fire, water and stone.
The Elementals, the Mummy and two suddenly recuperated Death Lords formed a circle around the lone
Trooper. RFS-81 felt no fear; it had not been programmed for such frivolity. There was only the
assessment of threat... and the life of the Master and the Master's allies that took precedence over any
and all desire for self-preservation.
The Death Lords unleashed visions of murder, skeletons, blood... visions that overwhelmed RFS-81's
memory banks, at the same time that it completed the microsecond scan to realize the nature of the spell:
Death Wish, an instant kill spell known only by the most powerful of fallen Priests and Bishops that would
have killed it in a second.
If the Trooper weren't inorganic, that is.
A Fire Elemental clubbed down at the Trooper with two fiery arms, which RFS-81 blocked with
criss-crossed spike-arms. It sliced its arms like scissors along the Elemental's beefy limbs, then rushed
forward to elbow it in the chest.
Almost immediately, the tall Water Elemental Lord stomped towards and down onto RFS-81's body. It
pinned the Trooper to the ground only briefly before RFS-81 shook the Elemental's foot violently off of its
metallic chest, then lept to its feet and spin kicked the tower of water in the thigh.
All at once, the Death Lords and Elementals around the Trooper cut and stabbed, punched and kicked,
pushed and stomped all over the outnumbered machine. RFS-81 dodged past an Earth Elemental's fist,
slicing its spike-arm into the wrist of the Air Elemental. Then, it spun through the air, calculating damage
as it fell atop the smaller Fire Elemental and pierced its throat with both arms. The Elemental exploded
into a blanket of flame, while the nearby Death Lord cut down on RFS-81's back with its large sword.
The Trooper noted a slight penetration of the armor along its back as it pushed upwards off of the ground
with its arms, then unbalanced the Death Lord as it pushed itself up and into the air. It kicked backwards
at the Water Elemental's right knee, then slipped behind it, placing its metallic right leg in front of the
Elemental's watery one and pushing hard. The tower of water fell and impaled itself on one of the Death
Lord's swords, then exploded into a shower of water.
RFS-81 blocked and countered its remaining foes in sequence for a good couple of seconds, before
sheer numbers overwhelmed it. The Mummy in particular was quite successful, taking a powerful kick to
the head and slice into its ribcage, before smashing RFS-81 across its head with a wrapped, meaty arm.
The Trooper spun through the air into the arms of the large Fire Elemental, which wrapped its
superheated arms around the machine and melted it slowly from the outside.
A pink laser suddenly shot through the Elemental's head and burned a hole straight through, and it
disintegrated into a shower of smoldering flame which enveloped RFS-81 completely. The Trooper felt
itself being lifted out of the devouring soup of fire and into the wall next to it, where a ball of light shot
straight into its body.
Belcanzor kept his fingers crossed that his Heal Wounds spell would work, and was relieved to see the
Trooper's wounds begin to close over with the sudden appearance of new metal.
"What have you done with Uncle Scythe?" Vi screamed, pointing her Frontier Phaser at the black-robed
woman.
But when she got closer, she nearly dropped the pistol in disbelief. It can't be... she thought, when the
cold woman turned, and they got a good look at one another's faces. "Auntie Claire?" she asked, already
knowing the answer.
A pair of Fireballs came straight at her from two separate Cultists, but Vi was too stunned to do anything
about them... or even notice.
Tearn shot fire through his body and into his paws, and erected a quick, transparent red Fire Shield
before her just as the spells arrived. It held under the strain of the first spell, but he had to cast it too
quickly to give it power enough to stop the second. While the shield collapsed, and the second Fireball
screamed forward for Vi, Serkesh tackled her from the side.
The spell whistled past her and exploded near the entrace. The Lizardman cushioned Vi's fall with his
own body, then jumped immediately to his feet. The Mummy and a small Elemental of wood and rock
took notice of him, and slowly drew forward. Serkesh wasted no time hissing a battle cry, then turning his
axe sideways and rammed the flat end into the Elemental's body.
The Elemental sailed away from the force of the blow... but Serkesh felt something else approaching from
behind. When the Mummy lashed out to strike him, he continued the spin on his axe to lop off the thing's
head.
"NO!" Vi screamed at him. Thankfully, the surprised Lizardman purposefully spun wide to miss the
creature. As reward for his abundance of self control, he got backhanded straight into the far wall and
saw stars.
The Mummy lost interest in the downed Lizardman and advanced on a stunned Vi, who was still sitting on
the ground.
"Uncle Scythe!" the eye-patched girl yelled at the undead creature. He may have been wrapped in cloth,
but she could not mistake that build, or those eyes, for anyone else. The man he once was was long
gone, though, and he reached out to choke the life from Vi in a rage-filled haze.
Kiwi heard a rocky thud from her right, and saw Serkesh follow through on a mighty swing that sent an
Earth Elemental flying. At the same time, she saw a Cultist gathering blue energy in her hands, energy
that was taking the form of an ice lance pointed at Shss. As the Fighter was engaged with not one, but
both, of the Death Lords at the same time, she knew that her friend had no room to dodge.
In an instant, the Faerie flew backwards a foot, then screamed forward into the flying, man-shaped pile of
rock and dirt that the Lizardman had struck. She nailed the thing squarely in the chest, and it altered its
path from out towards the spiral staircases, to right on top of the Cultist. Both of them slammed into the
wall behind them, and the purple girl fell unconscious amidst a spray of pure earth.
Kiwi flew down and past the Death Lords to join RFS-81, just as both bashed their swords on Shss'
Psispear. She twisted the weapons away from her and jabbed the glowing orb into the nearest Death
Lord's metal armor, engaging the shock on full blast.
It didn't even faze the thing; it swung back with its massive blade, a swipe that Shss was only barely able
to avoid the brunt of.
Instead, it cracked along her jaw and sent her spinning backwards, when the other Death Lord impaled
the back of her thigh with its own blade. It pulled the sword back, intending to withdraw it and finish her,
but Shss hooked her leg around it. The Death Lord pulled her entire body back towards it, where she slid
off of the blade and climbed onto the eight foot monster's chest.
It slapped its free hand across its body, but missed her completely as she swung behind it and onto its
back. There, with one hand holding the Death Lord's shoulder, she rammed her Psispear spearhead-first
into the thing's neck, as something bright and blue exploded just above her. The thing screeched terribly
as she landed painfully on her bad leg on the ground, and hobbled as fast as she could away from the
other skeleton.
She heard its sword clang on the marble floor as she dodged to the side, then felt a warm liquid pour over
her body. The pain in her jaw and neck, along with the wound in her leg, disappeared in seconds. "Get
'em, babe!" Belcanzor yelled from a dozen feet away. "I won't let anything happen to you!"
Shss smiled and nodded a thanks as she felt a rush of air behind her. She lept forward as the Death Lord
swiped its sword down upon her again, breaking the marble floor cleanly open and sending rock chips
everywhere.
She sprinted up its sword and spun the spearhead of her Psispear in her hands. When she got to the hilt
of the blade, she jumped, then sliced cleanly through the Death Lord's bony neck.
Its head popped off and rolled to the ground, and its entire body collapsed in a heap below her. Once she
reached the ground, without looking, but fully knowing, she raised the hooked and globed end of the
Psispear above her, then caught the other Death Lord's swing just before it cut her in half. She engaged
the stun again, but this time, the electric current ran up the sword and into the creature's exposed hand,
darting through its entire body.
Once it summoned enough strength to pull its sword away, Shss jumped onto its legs, climbed up its
back, and snapped its neck. The Death Lord joined its companion in a crumpled mess on the floor.
"Don't hurt him!" Vi croaked, even as the Mummy's hands were around her neck. She saw Tearn charging
up something in his paws, sure that whatever it was, it was meant to hurt her dear Uncle Scythe.
"I don't..." the Felpurr started, but was interrupted by another barrage of spells from the remaining five
Cultists. He threw up Fire Shields, Ice Shields, even all purpose Element Shields around every member
of the party... but the second he did so, two more spells arrived to threaten their lives.
He roared in exasperation, then took a bottle of clear, healing liquid out of his robe. As he put up another
Ice Shield behind Shss and the Death Lord she was fighting, and an explosion of ice shards immediately
destroyed the barrier, he threw the potion into Vi's back.
It shattered on impact, and the glass shards dug into her skin. Vi cried out in pain, but the feeling was
immediately replaced with a healing warmth that spread over her back and neck, then pushed the shards
of glass out of her body.
"Uncle... Scythe..." she said, her pleading eye looking into the Mummy's own. "Please... don't kill me!"
It didn't stop; in fact, it tightened its grip. "Remember me!" Vi pleaded, even as she lost consciousness. A
Fireball and a torrent of Whipping Rocks exploded on two of Tearn's shields above her. "Remember me...
da..."
And then, she was out.
Immediately, the Mummy released her with a grumbling croak. Images it couldn't comprehend fired
through its mind... the memories of a life it never had, people it never loved. But then, why would they be
there?
It grabbed its head and knelt slowly at her side. "......lia," it groaned. It blinked, shaking its head violently.
"Vi... talia..."
Kiwi found RFS-81 in the middle of combat with another, taller Earth Elemental. "Rufie!" she exclaimed.
"I'm here to help, so follow me!"
"Affirmative, Master," RFS-81 relented, against its own better programming. The word of the Master
trumped all, after all.
Kiwi struck out with her left hand into the Elemental's featureless face, and dodged before it could swat
her out of the sky. At the same time, the Trooper struck its left arm out and into the Elemental's thigh,
twisting and ripping out roots and rock from its bulky leg.
The Faerie one-two punched the Elemental in the chest, then headbutt and open-palm struck it in the
solar plexus. At the exact same time, she saw RFS-81 slice into its leg twice, then headbutt and ram its
own metallic body into the thing's leg. The combined assault blasted the heavy and powerful being into
the wall behind it, where it was reduced to nothing more than a pile of dirt.
In tandem, the two spin kicked in a subsequent flight and jump into the remaining Air Elemental.
Simultaneously, the two ducked low over a powerful clap of its arms and punch/sliced into each leg, then
flew/jumped up its body with a spinning uppercut. Each Monk finished with a driving fist/spike into the
Elemental's torso, and the sudden blast of wind it left behind nearly thrust the Faerie painfully into the wall
behind her.
RFS-81 caught and held her close to its body until the wind died down, then released her. "I love you,
Rufie! You're awesome!" Kiwi cheered happily, holding her tiny hand out to the machine. The Trooper
mimicked her action, and the two slapped their hands of pointed metal and blue flesh against one
another.
Serkesh yelled and charged forward, shouldering the Cultist in front of him in the chest. She let out a loud
"Oof!" and cracked her head on the floor, sliding to an unmoving stop against the wall behind her. In a
rage at the ones who had been trying in such a cowardly and gleeful manner to kill his friends and family,
the Lizardman bellowed a roar of pure rage as a pair of Fireballs exploded into his chest.
They did nothing more than blacken him. He held his axe out to the side and tensed his muscles as he
strode up to the Cultist in front of him, preparing to knock her head off. At the sight of the rampaging
Lizardman, though, the girl cried out in fear and suddenly dropped to the ground, with her hands over her
ears. "No, please!" she screamed, shaking in terror.
Serkesh's heart quickly melted, and he breathed in deeply. Finally, as the girl looked up to see why she
wasn't dead yet, Serkesh grabbed her by the robe and picked her up. Her frightened eyes eradicated
what was left of his anger into nothing more than pity, and he flung her into the Cultist behind her. Though
she fell heavily on the other, it wasn't enough to knock either one of them out.
Still, he figured they got the picture.
Serkesh looked over at the other two, twenty feet away and off to his left. He hissed loudly at them, and
the two spared a split second glance at one another before they bolted for the front door. As they passed
Tearn, he held his foot out and tripped the both of them, conjuring air in his body and flooding it into theirs
to put them to sleep.
As Vi slowly regained consciousness, she looked up at the Mummy standing over her, into his beautiful
blue eyes, and smiled. "You remembered," she whispered, as Shss cautiously came to her side and
pulled her up. The Fighter eyed the Mummy warily as the rest of the party came forward to join them.
"Who... what is it?" Belcanzor asked in barely hidden disgust.
Vi bit her lower lip, as if she were on the verge of tears. "This is..." she started, fighting her tears with a
sudden cough, "...this is my Uncle Scythe." She walked forward, placing her hand on the Mummy's
wrapped face. It made an odd sound, what sounded like a pleased rumble from its throat.
Tearn upended a vial of foul, acrid green liquid straight into his mouth, bringing looks of disgust from Kiwi
and Serkesh. When he was finished, Kiwi seemed particularly happy to remain atop RFS-81's head,
rather than on the shoulder of a guy who's breath probably smelled like Bobo's cage in Trynton.
"Tea," the Felpurr explained. "Gift from a friend." He turned to Vi and the Mummy. "What's the deal?" he
asked. "Is this who you said was going to take on the Savant? And what was with the icy welcome?"
Vi shook her head. "I don't... I don't know," she admitted. "The Scythe... Uncle Scythe was Human. And
I've never seen the Monks dressed in those weird purple robes, or in the black..."
A common thought raced through all of their minds at once. "Hey, wait a second," Shss said. "Where did
that other one get off to, anyway?" She looked at the piles of dirt and bodies on the floor and near the far
wall, but saw nothing...
...until the woman was suddenly standing in the middle of the Cathedral before all of them. Shss had only
enough time to see a wicked smile race across her face before everything went blindingly, burningly red.
The Nuclear Blast spell incinerated the bodies of the Death Lords standing next to her, and Tearn had
barely enough warning to put up the most basic of Fire Shields, before the blast wave enveloped them.
It was hardly enough to reduce the shock. The bodies of the Mummy, the Cultists and everyone in the
party were picked up and flung in every direction.
Serkesh and Tearn smacked into the wall near the entrance, joined shortly by Kiwi and RFS-81. Vi and
the Mummy were pressed hard into the wall next to them, only to be dropped hard to the ground when the
blast wave gave way.
Shss and Belcanzor were sent straight up, but slightly at an angle away from everyone else. The Bishop
used the last of his energy to Levitate Shss to a slow and safe descent to the ground, before his skull
cracked into the wall next to him, and everything started to go dark.
"Auntie! Stop this!" Vi pleaded.
Claire laughed, grinning widely and evilly as her voice thundered along the walls of the Cathedral. "I am
the Sorceress Queen," she giggled maniacally, slicing her arm talons together and sending sparks onto
the floor below. "I am the anchor by which the Void will lay claim to this world. Your sacrifice shall be the
beginning of a new era for this pathetic universe! The Ascension belongs to no-one but the Void!!"
Belcanzor looked through his wavering and darkening vision at the woman standing there, charging a
spell to cleanse the entire Cathedral of her enemies. Panic clutched his mind as he ran through his
encyclopedic knowledge of spells to find the best for this situation.
Unfortunately, nothing seemed strong or prudent enough, especially given his current state.
That said, he recognized her robes even through his painful haze. The Black Gown of Death, altered to
unashamedly show off her slim body, and one that granted considerable power to the one who wore it.
The cost was supposed to be an enchantment that slowly drained its owner of life, but apparently, these
were either cursed in a much different manner, or...
Cursed...?
It hit him then: it wasn't a spell he was looking for to turn everything around, it was a skill... a skill that
every Bishop learned on their very first day of schooling.
Belcanzor painfully lifted his hand towards the woman, and before he blanked out, he muttered just a few
simple words under his breath.
Claire, the Sorceress Queen, was laughing in giddy triumph when she put the finishing touches on her
final Nuclear Blast spell... one powerful enough to kill everyone in the Cathedral, and quite possibly level
the structure itself.
Then, something completely beyond her understanding happened: her clothes fell off.
"What...?" she started. Vi immediately jumped to her feet and tackled the woman she once knew to the
ground... the woman who tried just seconds ago to kill them all, but who was now dressed in only her
undergarments.
Claire's dark eyes glared out as she struggled to rip her curved metal talons into Vi's vital organs, but the
eye-patched girl was simply too strong to push off. As the others painfully got themselves up and helped
Vi hold the insane woman down, she spat and swore all manner of vicious words and threats and each
and every one of them. In such a rage, she had not nearly enough focus to complete a spell as complex
as Nuclear Blast, much less accurately form and aim a simple Fireball.
Vi's tears slowly rolled down her cheek and onto the woman's face, which seemed to only further enrage
her.
"I'll go check on the others," Tearn said, leaving Serkesh, Kiwi and RFS-81 to hold her down. Shss was
kneeling at Belcanzor's side, hugging him tightly. She looked up pleadingly as Tearn approached, and he
smirked. "Relax, lover girl," he said gently, "it just looks like a concussion. Nothing a little Alchemical
mixture can't fix up..."
"Master, magic is fleeing the female's body at an extraordinary pace," RFS-81 informed everyone.
Kiwi looked at both of the woman's hands, one held down by her and the other by Serkesh, but neither
seemed to be preparing to blast them with anything. As the minutes passed on, the woman struggled less
and less, and her eyes lightened from solid black into a brighter, more Human shade of grey. They were
filled with terror now.
She looked around in a panic. "Where am I?" she asked. "What happened? Who are you people?!"
Finally, her eyes began to focus, then settled on the girl sitting atop her. She squinted, as if she might be
hallucinating. "Vitalia?" she asked in disbelief.
Vi smiled and nodded through her tears, and a tiny laugh of relief escaped her. She took Claire's horned
helmet and pulled it off of her head, revealing her short white hair.
"I'm back..." she whispered happily.
***
After several minutes of healing, recuperating and recovery, the former Monks turned Cultists were
likewise shaken from the same power that held Claire. The six of them removed their hoods, each a bald
girl who had once worked in the Cathedral as simple scholars.
Now, they scrubbed and swept the mess that the Elementals and Death Lords had left behind... under
Tearn's very close scrutiny.
"The Black Gown was recently discovered in the same crypt that houses the shrine to the ancient
weaponsmith and hero, Cierdan," Claire explained to the twitchy party, each with their hands on their
weapons in readiness.
Her back was to the wall, with a semicircle of the party around her. The Mummy stood silently behind
them, but fully in view of Kiwi and her ready companion, RFS-81. "Since Sy was using the Ebony armor
he made and left here... and to great effect with the bandits and the Rapax I might add... we figured that
the Black Gown could do the same for me."
She shook her head. "How wrong we were," she said softly. "Neither of us knew it was cursed..."
Belcanzor interrupted her. "You could have tested it first!" he insisted. "It would take a simple Identify spell
to tell you what the gown is capable of!"
Claire nodded. "I know... but how were we to know that something buried with the great Cierdan would be
capable of such horrors?" she asked. "Even his records call the gown 'sister gear' to the Ebony armor he
forged."
Vi stroked her cheek. "It's all right, Auntie," she said. "What happened after that?"
Claire winced. "After I put it on... I was somewhere else," she remembered. "It was full of hatred, sadness,
pain... I couldn't see, couldn't feel or think... there was only the pain, everywhere, all around me. I don't
remember a thing that happened in the Cathedral, or anywhere else, until just a few minutes ago. As far
as I know, I've been in that sea of torture for the past several years."
"So something took control of you," Tearn said, joining the party with Shss and Belcanzor, who were
holding one another's hands tightly.
"It said something about being the Void, and claimed it was going to take the Ascension for itself." Claire
breathed in deeply, then found the courage to look into his eyes. "Thank you... for stopping it," she said.
The Felpurr hmphed. "It was on our way," he replied. "Which reminds me... we need a portal to Arnika.
We were told you could send us there."
"Anything you ask," Claire replied, closing her eyes. Suddenly, she cried out sharply, and her eyes
fluttered open as she sharply inhaled. "No!" she screamed, causing Serkesh to brandish his axe.
Vi blocked Claire's body with her own. "Wait!" she insisted. "What's wrong?!" she asked in a fright.
Claire shut her eyes tight. "I... I was making sure of the portal's destination," she whispered. "It doesn't go
to Arnika anymore... whoever had my body, they set it in the Void... oh, Gods, I can still see it now! Don't
make me go back there!"
Tearn grabbed her shoulder and shook her from her terror. "You're not going back there," he assured her.
"Just open the portal to Arnika so we can be on our way, all right?"
Belcanzor sighed. "Don't you know, sir?" he asked, then remembered something. "Oh, that's right... you
trained with the older style of magic."
Tearn looked at him in impatience and mild annoyance. "What?" he asked.
Knowing the kind of reaction he would probably get, the Bishop winced. "Portal spells... one portal per
one person," he explained.
The Felpurr shut his eyes and sighed. Figures... he thought to himself.
Just as soon as Claire calmed, she animated again. "Sy!" she yelled. "Where is Sy?! Don't tell me I...!"
Vi looked among her friends, as if she desparately wanted to have someone else tell her... but she knew,
of course, that only she could do it. Without a word, she stood and gently ushered the Mummy forward, to
Claire's great horror.
"No..." she whispered, standing slowly. "Sy? What have I done to you?"
The Mummy, no longer under the influence of the Void, lumbered forward and enclosed Claire in a great
hug. "Co...ld," he rumbled, and tried his best to smile under the wrappings. Claire choked a laugh despite
herself, a woman in her undergarments being warmed by a great and gentle Mummy.
Suddenly, she turned serious. "Sy, everyone, please accompany me to the crypt. There may be a way to
restore my beloved to life... and there is something I wish to give you," she said with a nod to Shss.
Though she was surprised, the Fighter followed the two, carefully, with Psispear in hand.
"What about the gown?" Belcanzor asked. Claire stopped, and spared only a single glance at the
crumpled clothes on the floor behind her. "Burn it," she stated, then continued down into the crypt.
As Shss pulled him along, Belcanzor turned around briefly to look at Tearn. "Sir?" he asked.
Tearn nodded, raised a paw to the malicious Black Gown of Death, and torched it with a single thought.
He couldn't be sure, but as the red flames turned black on the cursed clothes, he thought he heard the
sounds of distant voices crying out in pain.
The crypt was small, with a pair of stairs descending down to the left and right to the main area. There, a
coffin bearing the prone figure of a large brute of a man lay under a small gazebo of stone. Three large
stone statues of holy men, one who looked suspiciously like Braffit, stared faithfully and protectively down
upon it. Around the crypt of polished marble, pieces of black armor, along with a large black sword, were
scattered about.
Claire started for some scrolls in a receptacle at the bottom of the stairs, then thought better of herself.
"The notes that may help my dear Sy are in there," she explained, "but I have held you poor people up
enough as it is." One by one, she gathered the pieces of armor together, until the complete set was sitting
before her. "Miss," she said, indicating Shss, "I want you to be the one who wears the Ebony armor."
"Why me?" Shss asked.
Claire waved her hand among the others. "The set will resize itself to its owner, but judging from the way
you're all dressed, I assume you are the most skilled with wearing protective armor," she explained. "And
whoever made your current equipment, who I am guessing was a Rapax, has placed an enchantment on
each of the pieces to break on contact with any Rapax blade."
The Fighter looked at the pieces of armor she was wearing in disgust and shed them on the spot, until
she wore only her traditional animal hides for a top, and Lucciana's donated pair of white shorts for the
bottom.
Belcanzor stepped between the two. "Hey, wait a second," he said. "How do we know you're not just
trying to get more people to join this Void cult of yours, and starting with Shss? That armor could be just
as cursed as that gown was!"
"It's not," Tearn and Vi said in unison. "Uncle Scythe himself wore this armor," Vi explained, "and I already
checked the pieces myself. They're clean," Tearn finished.
Belcanzor looked suspicious, but allowed a very excited Shss to take the pieces of black armor and put
them on one by one. The boots, the greaves and mail, the pauldrons and gloves... they were all
exquisitely crafted. "They hardly weigh a thing," she said, testing the grip on the black gloves.
"Don't let that fool you," Claire said. "You'll find nothing better to protect you from either a blade or a spell,
short of journeying to Rapax Castle itself. And this armor comes without an easily exploitable weakness
attached to it..." she added.
Tearn sighed. "I suppose that means we'll be walking back to Arnika," he said in exasperation.
Claire hung her head. "I am sorry," she said softly. "I did not mean for any of this to happen... and I would
have to return to Arnika itself to set another..."
"Forget it," the Felpurr said, waving his paw at her. "I know you weren't responsible. You should stay here
and take care of the Mum... Scythe, if you know of something that can help him. I wouldn't know where to
begin."
Vi cleared her throat. "Um... on that note..." she started.
Kiwi looked suddenly sad. "You're staying?" she asked.
Vi bit her lip, then slowly nodded. "I want to help Auntie Claire and Uncle Scythe get everything back to
normal," she started. "Not just because I know them so well, but because..."
Belcanzor hummed in agreement, and sudden realization. "...if the Void ever got another foothold through
this Cathedral again, we'd be looking at a second Dark Savant to take care of," he said.
The eye-patched girl nodded. "I'm sorry, everyone," she said softly. "Even after my promise..."
Tearn shrugged. "You have to do what you have to do," he answered. "The five of us..."
"Six," Kiwi interrupted, patting RFS-81 on the head with a smile. Tearn looked at her, then sized up the
Savant Trooper. "Yeah..." he conceded, turning back to Vi. "It'll be tough without you, but iron man here
can pick up the slack."
"I thank you, friend of the Master," RFS-81 said.
Vi giggled. "I suppose he will," she said. "I'll work hard with Auntie to get Uncle Scythe back to normal.
When it does happen... I'll see you all at He'Li's, ok? Don't consider me out of the running just yet!"
Shss saluted her. "Not for a second," she said with a smile. "We'll save a piece of the Savant for you."
***
When the party returned to the gazebo at the foot of the mountain, it was already dark. It was also too
difficult to resist the temptation to rest, considering the trial they had just been through.
Shss and Belcanzor sat on the bench outside of the gazebo, watching the waves come in for only a short
period of time. It wasn't long before the Fighter took the initiative, and softly kissed him. To his surprise,
the sheer feeling of ecstasy outweighed any feelings of shyness or embarrassment within him. Serkesh
smiled a toothy smile and turned away, leaning up against one of the pillars beside the two.
Tearn sat with Kiwi on a different bench, holding the Faerie tightly in the biting cold. She was not dressed
for this kind of weather in her tiny blue vest and shorts, but he knew she was probably too strong to care
about a little drop in temperature.
In all honesty, it was Tearn who shivered, even with a thick coat of orange-yellow, black-striped fur and a
robe to protect him. He had recently begun to feel his age, and he suspected it had little to do with the
events on Llylgamyn, Guardia or Dominus.
RFS-81 stood silent and still, ever the faithful guardian and sentry to its Master and allies. Every once in a
while it would beep or whir when it detected something potentially hostile, but would seconds later return
to a steady and uneventful scan.
They had quite a hike before them, a hike that Tearn in particular found rather bittersweet. Yes, they had
to retread the same ground they had just covered, but the silver lining was brighter than even the sky was
dark right now. The path would lead them straight through Trynton... and with Belcanzor and his spells on
their side, Lucciana would not be far behind.
A shiver of hope went down his spine. He had a lot to talk to her about, things he should have said a long
time before. By this time a few days from now, Trynton would be bloodied with the bodies of any who had
hurt her, and she would finally be back with them.
The feeling of hope was short-lived, however. At first, the shapes seemed to be just blurs from tired
minds, dancing at the edge of one's vision, but as harmless as any other hallucination. Everyone saw
them, but it wasn't until they began to look at one another to confirm their existence that they suspected
something might be up.
By then, it was too late. By the time they realized that something was sneaking among them with a high
powered Chameleon spell, their spells began to launch. The fluids in their bodies ran cold, and even
RFS-81 found it impossible to move under the constant barrage of Freeze All spells. Without even a
chance to cry out for help, the party was silently and efficiently under the complete control of their
numerous captors.
The Rapax.
The Tournament
Wilderness Clearing, Southeast Wilderness
Day 8
His throat was hoarse from all the shouting... and even now, his temples throbbed painfully with every
heartbeat. They must have known how much he hated the roach, who was sitting a mere ten feet away in
the shadows of the chilly night, to put the two so close to one another.
Sure, they were separated by this prison of wood... not to mention having the guards just a heartbeat
away, should there be any trouble. But that didn't make the sight, or the proximity, of the thing any less
bearable.
They were funny things, rumors. Rodan judged situations, people, races and nations based upon
experience, and nothing less. Hell, it was the reason he hated the T'Rang so much. He had seen
first-hand what the bugs were capable of, seen so many friends, and even his father, die at their diseased
claws. And sitting this close to one of them was a daily reminder of the evil they were capable of.
But the Rapax were a different story entirely. For some reason, when Rodan heard the tales of their
cruelty from the Higardi, he knew instinctively that every word was true. Sitting here in this cage in his torn
black jacket and pants, and a few arms' length away from his most hated of enemies, was enough to
verify that.
And yet, even as they tortured and beat him, demanding to know the layout of the Umpani defenses, their
numbers... there was only one thing on Rodan's mind: the black-gowned and collared T'Rang resting just
across from him. He stared at the thing, trying hard to focus through the darkness to see what it was up
to.
The Umpani had exhausted himself threatening and screaming to tear the bug to pieces over the past few
days; it was only his burning rage and desire for revenge that kept him going now. It kept him safely
warm, since the Rapax had only provided their prisoners a tiny, sheetless bed for comfort in the two cell,
two story prison.
Each of the cages was atop a large tree trunk, joined by a ten foot path of wooden planks. The only way
to get up to the prisoners was by a swinging metal ladder to the side of the path, which the Rapax used
on a daily basis to get to the two. The interrogations were conducted in the prisoner's cells themselves,
probably to intimidate the other into speaking as the beatings grew worse by the day.
If they had known the wicked smile and pleased shiver that ran down Rodan's spine every time they
broke the T'Rang's claws, sliced into its body and beat it to within an inch of its life, they might have been
more discrete in their interrogations. Remembering the T'Rang's pain kept the Umpani lucid, as they
broke its talons and thrust poisoned blades into its snake-like torso.
The T'Rang shifted in the shadows. Rodan let a low growl escape from his throat, knowing that it was
probably clinging as desparately to its life to enjoy the Umpani's own pain. "The great Drazic T'Rang will
not perissh ssso eassily," it said, in a voice low, calculated and powerful.
Its butchering of the universal common language, and its defiance at their predicament, only served to
further enrage Rodan. He ground his teeth, and his heartrate quickened.
"Yesss, I am sstill alive," the T'Rang hissed. It leaned up against the wooden bars of its cage door. "And
you are sso very powerlesss to do anything about it, Umpani..."
Rodan clenched his hands into tight balls, but refused to explode again. The resulting exhaustion would
make it less likely that he'd survive tomorrow's questioning.
The T'Rang drew its head through the wooden bars, into better light. "I revel in your sscreamsss,
toadbelly," it said. "They delight me, in much the ssame way that draining your treacherouss kind of their
lifeblood doess." It hissed a laugh. "When I get out of here, I will make ssure that you are quite lucid...
asss I drain your body of blood, drop by drop."
When Rodan spoke, it was with a voice harsh and ragged from the hours of threats he had rained down
upon the disgusting roach. "Three hours..." he croaked. The T'Rang sneered, then sat back in the
shadows. "Every next thing you dare say to me will add another. I will break out of here, or the IUF will
spring me loose... either way. I will break every bone in your body... I will rip off every one of your
festering claws and ram them down your throat."
The T'Rang chuckled. "Your IUF hass abandoned you, asss your people have abandoned your honor," it
hissed.
Rodan punched the floor of his solid cell, but a vocal outburst was cut short by his ragged throat. "Four
hours," he managed to finally grunt. "We're not like you. Unlike the Empire, we never leave a man
behind."
"Who are you trying to convince, Umpani?" the T'Rang asked. "If thiss iss an attempt to conssole
yoursself, do not bother. Dayss of ssilence from your cowering General are proof enough that your IUF
caress nothing for you. I wait breathlesssly for the day I hear hiss gurgling, hopelesss sscream asss I rip
hiss life from him..."
Rodan crawled forward, and wrapped his right hand around the cell door. He smiled. "And I hope it
sounds something like the one you made earlier today," he croaked. "Five hours."
It laughed a confident laugh that turned Rodan's feelings of superiority immediately into barely restrained
rage. Before he had a chance to come up with something better, though, he heard a commotion from
somewhere below.
Strangely enough, the sound of armored hooves thudding on grass was much louder and more plentiful
than he had anticipated. The interrogators usually came in groups of two or three, but seldom more than
that; this sounded more like a small mob.
There wasn't enough light to see, though. His interest piqued even more when he heard nothing from the
T'Rang across from him... as if it, too, were enthralled by what was going on below. I would kill for their
night vision right about now, Rodan thought.
Suddenly, there was a flash of blue-white light, and both Rodan and Drazic shielded their weakened and
dilated eyes from the sudden brightness.
When it dimmed, several sparks of torch fire were visible below, and served to faintly illuminate the scene.
The long horned Rapax King himself was there, a seven foot giant of a creature wearing glimmering
armor of pure silver, with a flowing red cape wrapped around it. He was with what looked to be his entire
royal guard, probably somewhere around a hundred of the horned, brown-skinned brutes, each carrying
their deadly naginatas, flamberges and other assorted two-handed weapons... but all in a single meaty
hand.
Rodan's heart went cold when he saw the source of the previous explosion of light: the Rapax's torchlight
flickered off of his large, transparent domed helmet, but illuminated nothing of the man inside, save his
two triangular red eyes.
He clenched his robotic right glove as electricity darted and zapped along it, but his organic left one was
calmly left at his side. His massive, metallic grey frame was dotted by purple jewels along his chest and
blue slits in his large boots, all of which glowed and dimmed as if in accordance with the god's eternally
beating heart.
The Dark Savant. A thousand questions raced through the Umpani's mind. Why is he here? What do the
Rapax have to do with this? How close is he to Ascension? What the hell is going on?!
As if sensing his thoughts, the Savant turned his head ever so slightly towards the cages above him,
training his red eyes on the two prisoners. Despite themselves, both Rodan and Drazic shrank back ever
so slightly.
"Welcome, dear ally, to the Rapax Away Camp!" the Rapax King's voice boomed.
Rodan's jaw dropped. He may have been injured, and his hearing not quite what is should be... but he
distinctly heard the King use a very, very frightening term to address the Dread Ruler of Galaxies. "We
stand ready for the battle tomorrow against the Rynjin. After their paltry island has been crushed, we shall
move upon the T'Rang, then west to Trynton and beyond!"
His assembled guard cheered loudly, and the King smiled. "We will pave the way for your Ascension,
lord, and take this planet for ourselves with your blessing! Nothing under or from the stars will stop this
union between us!"
The guards cheered again, but were immediately silenced as the Dark Savant spoke. "The T'Rang will
be punished for their disobedience, as will the Umpani," boomed the Savant. "And if the
Umpani-Trynnie alliance comes to fruition, Trynton will be similarly dealt with."
He slowly looked back down from the prisoners above, directly at the Rapax King. "You are my
representative to this planet," he proclaimed. "You will offer these people the choice of obedience
to me, and the cessation of all hostile acts and plans... or their immediate deaths. Attack an
obedient nation such as Arnika, refuse to accept a nation's surrender, or fail to even offer the
choice, and I will know."
The Savant slowly turned his head to look among all of the assembled Rapax. An uncomfortable silence,
entirely on the army's side, passed, and nobody dared to speak. "Forget yourselves for a single
second," the Savant finally said, "and I will lay you and your Empire low. I will be watching... and
you have been warned."
Another flash of light, and the Savant was gone. The Rapax King looked up into the darkened sky, and
laughed deeply and loudly. "The world will be ours!" he exclaimed. His men cheered once more, though it
was clear that the ones who raised their voices in victory seemed to treat it more as a formality than an
actual show of pride and celebration.
If the King noticed, he didn't show it. He and his entourage shuffled away from the grassy meeting area
and back down to his command tent.
Everything Rodan knew about the conflict was sudddenly turned upside-down.
The general plan was simple, though the specifics were quite involved: the Umpani would scout Dominus
and find the artifacts. They had done most of the former, and were working hard on the latter, last he
heard. At the same time, they would eliminate the T'Rang, the lesser of two threats, then confront the
Savant himself at the Cosmic Circle.
But now, with the Rapax in the picture, everything felt like a lost cause. It was a new feeling to him; he
had been raised on the heroism, and personally experienced the reality, of Umpani military superiority
over all other nations that had ever stood against it. Even Guardia was nothing more than a minor
setback to him... a leader for a leader... something the IUF would recover from in no time at all.
With the strongest force on the planet below, the strongest ship in the galaxy above, and the absence of
air support or reinforcements very clear, though, Rodan felt suddenly powerless. There was something
the IUF could not do, and it was win here on Dominus... where the stakes were the very highest they had
ever been.
It was with hat in hand, and bile in his throat, that Rodan spoke after several minutes of contemplating
these facts. "What's your name?" he asked his once sworn enemy.
The T'Rang must have been having similar thoughts, for when he spoke, his speech was not filled with
the usual barbs and overt threats that usually characterized the dialogue between them. "I am Drazic,
high asssasssin to the T'Rang Empire, and right hand to Z'Ant himsself," he introduced himself.
Rodan took a deep breath. "I am..."
"Master Tracker Rodan Lewarx, sson of the infamousss Hector," Drazic interrupted. "Yess, I know."
The Umpani snorted. "Must have done a stint as a Watcher. All right," he said. "Since you seem so clued
in to what's going on around here... try and guess what kind of a proposition I have in mind."
***
The birds were chirping outside, and the sunlight was warm on her skin. It was clearly morning, but Shss'
world was utterly dark. Her breathing was hot and heavy, and not travelling much farther than a few
inches from her face. When she tried to reach up and feel what was covering her head, she realized that
her hands had been bound behind her.
She groaned and tried to sit up, feeling the rope tight around her ankles as well. You're the last one to
wake up, Kiwi said in her mind. Everyone else is here, and alive.
Shss stretched her muscles, remembering her flesh going cold the previous night and being carried off by
the horned Rapax. Where are we? she asked.
I don't know, Kiwi replied. Tearn's tried to scout around with his Wizard Eye thing, but they put some kind
of collar on him to drain his magic. We're stuck here until..."
All at once, the Faerie suddenly stopped speaking.
"Kiwi? Kiwi, are you all right?!" Shss asked from under the black hood.
Shhh, her friend responded. Something's going on outside.
Shss quieted, then probed the area with her expertly trained hearing. Aside from the birds above, which
suddenly got a lot more noisy now that she was focusing so hard, there was nothing else, aside from the
footsteps of many heavy creatures outside.
Then, she started to hear it: voices. Far off and faint, but voices nonetheless. She strained to make out
what they were saying.
"...us out to the Savant!" an angry young man's voice exclaimed. "'Don't go here, don't attack there.'
When has the Rapax Empire ever stood for nonsense like this?!"
There was a roar, then another voice, older and deeper, spoke. "Hold your tongue!" he shouted. "The
Dark Savant will hear you!"
"Even now, he trembles before the might of the machine-man!" the younger one's voice faded, then
boomed, at uneven intervals. He was turning around, addressing a larger audience, Shss surmised.
"Nothing on this planet has ever stood against the Rapax Empire, and no man from the stars will ever fare
any better!" he yelled. There were murmurs of approval from the surrounding men. "The Rapax Empire
has never, and will never, bow to anyone but Al-Sedexus!"
At this, there were uproarious cheers. "Come, brothers!" the younger man roared. "We strike out for the
castle to bolster our ranks, and then we take the Ascension for ourselves!"
The resulting show of support was enough to shake the very ground Shss was sitting on. "Long live the
Prince!" "For the Empire!" the men shouted. As several minutes went by, hoofbeats of marching soldiers
mixed with many excited cheers, growing fainter and more distant by the second.
"We will sort this out at the castle, men. But first..." she heard the older man say... but after that, the entire
area became completely silent. Try as she did, Shss could not hear anybody say or do anything more
outside.
What was that all about? Kiwi asked. I only felt a lot of happy minds out there... I'm too scattered and in
the dark to get a definite lock on any one person...
Shss responded, even as the sound of footsteps rang loudly in her attentive ears. It sounded like... a
revolt, she thought back.
Something wooden, very close and to her right, squeaked and crashed against something heavy, then
Shss felt rough hands pull her to her feet and push her outside of wherever she was. She immediately
tripped to the ground on her bound feet.
"What's going on?" she asked from underneath her hood. "Who are you?"
The hands grabbed her and hefted her over a shoulder. From the sound of his footsteps below, she could
tell he was very big. "The King wants you," the gruff man barked. Shss heard other men walk by her into
the room she was in, and begin to heft out the others like heavy sacks of wheat.
After a brief walk, the gruff man dropped her on her rear to the grass below. It was almost soothing to be
on the cool ground, but was utterly destroyed by her searching and fear-stricken mind. One after the
other, she heard four heavy thuds next to her, along with a tiny girl's voice that simply said, "Oof!"
Her heart lept when she heard Belcanzor's voice. "Shss! Are you ok? Where are you?!"
That's all of them, she thought. "Here," she said, calmer than she felt.
"Reveal them," a man's powerful voice called from just a dozen feet away. Rough hands yanked the black
hood off of her head, flooding her unready eyes with the hot morning sun. When they finally adjusted, she
got a good look around.
First of all, her friends were fine. Serkesh, Tearn and Belcanzor were on their knees, looking around in a
similar fashion. RFS-81 was lying on its side and not moving, apparently awaiting orders from its Master.
The Master's wings were tied down and her arms and legs bound with fishing line, but that didn't stop her
from hopping closer to the rest of the party.
"What the hell is going on here?" Tearn demanded of a brutish Rapax in chain mail, armor which was
emblazoned with a pair of purple wings on its chest. The horned creature did not speak, and merely stood
at dutiful rest with his naginata at his side.
The six of them were in the middle of a clearing surrounded by high orange cliffs, and behind and in front
of them sat a large purple tent. The one behind them was empty, as seemed to be the case with the
several white and grey ones farther behind it.
Outside the tent in front of them, though, stood a regal Rapax in silver armor that was draped in a red
cape, and he was holding a six foot, two-handed sword... in one hand. He looked among them intently, as
if he were looking for something in particular.
"You open! You open!" Serkesh demanded of him. "Let us go, we haven't done anything!" Belcanzor
added.
Tearn lowered his head as his eyes became deadly slits. "Release us now, and I won't burn your entire
camp to the ground," he growled.
The regal Rapax raised his head, took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "Cut their binds," he ordered
his men. "Remove the drain collars from the cat-man and the blue one in the starry robes, and see to their
injuries."
Shss watched as one of the soldiers sliced neatly through the ropes around her hands and feet, then
waved his hands over her injuries to close them. Similarly, all of her friends were being freed and treated,
and both Tearn and Belcanzor were offered rainbow elixirs of unknown effect.
The Felpurr uncorked the bottle and licked hesitantly at the liquid. His eyes went briefly wide, then he
upturned the container and downed the entire thing in seconds. The difference was immediately
noticeable: his body was now so full of arcane energy, that he seemed to buzz from head to toe. At his
insistence, Belcanzor recovered his magic, as well.
"Thank you for letting us go," Shss said. "We meant no ha..."
"I am the Rapax King," the regal Rapax interrupted, and waved his arm around them. "And this is all that
remains of the army loyal to the Empire, and to the Savant." The party looked around, seeing the briefest
of nods in the muscled and disciplined Rapax around them.
Shss looked back at him. "We have some places we need to be, now," she said. "We'll be on our way, if
that's all right."
The Rapax King looked at her incredulously, then burst out laughing. "What's going on?" Kiwi asked from
atop RFS-81's head.
"Rapax King. Race: Rapax," RFS-81 recited from its memory banks. "Leader of the considerable
Rapax army. Opposed to all other sentient life on Dominus. Ally, highly dangerous."
With a brief giggle and a crack of her knuckles, Kiwi asked, "'Highly,' huh? In relation to what?"
"Certainly not to the Master," the Trooper responded. Kiwi kissed its cold metal head. "Ex-actly!" she
replied.
The Rapax King spoke again. "You will be on your way, will you?" he asked. "After so callously
trespassing on our territory?"
Tearn crossed his arms over his chest. "I wasn't aware of any signs on the way labelling this place as
yours," he replied.
"Ignorance is no excuse!" the King roared. "The Dark Savant himself has placed this planet under his
jurisdiction, and as his allies destined to inherit the planet upon his Ascension, that makes this wilderness
our property!"
"Well then, where are we allowed to go?" Belcanzor asked.
The Rapax King turned slightly to address him. "That depends," he started, walking towards him. "Do you
pledge to obey the Dark Savant, and me as his representative, until the day that you die?"
Tearn bristled with annoyance. "That certainly depends on what you're asking," he replied. "If you're
talking about thievery, kidnapping and murder for you own twisted goals, you can count me out."
Kiwi nodded. "Me too!" she added.
"What the Master decides, I decide," RFS-81 finished.
A chorus of agreement from the rest of the party brought a surprising smile to the King's face. "So you
refuse to join us, to convert or kill the Rynjin?" he asked.
Tearn spit on the ground. "Don't make me repeat myself, beautiful," he answered.
The Rapax King nodded slowly, his smile widening. "Very well, then," he said, then looked among his
soldiers. "Then I now declare the Tournament... officially begun!" he proclaimed.
His soldiers raised their weapons in a unified cry of support. Kiwi and RFS-81 held their fists and
spike-arms out at the ready, Tearn and Belcanzor readied some nasty spells, and Shss and Serkesh
went back to back to prepare to disarm any Rapax that came too close.
"Now, now," the King said, pointing above them, "I need only give a single order to aerate every last one
of you."
Shss looked up slowly, and noticed what she had missed before: all around them, in tented towers fitted
with large wooden spikes at the base and top, were manned by dozens of archers all around them. Each
had their bow pulled taut and ready to release a barrage of arrows, even as the Rapax King's now raised
hand threatened to lower just the few inches necessary to end their adventure here and now.
"Please don't... you don't need to do that," Belcanzor implored. He slowly walked between Shss and the
bulk of the archers to her left to block their impending shots.
The King nodded. "I did not think so," he replied. "Now, let me explain the rules: there are six of you, and
one of me. It hardly seems fair for all of you to attack me at once... but it seems even more cruel to pit you
amongst yourselves for the honor to take me on in single combat. So let us compromise, shall we?"
Tearn balled his paws into angry fists as the King explained. "I will allow you to duel me on the outset,
provided you come one at a time," he said. "Break this rule, and my archers will see to your
'disqualification.'" He laughed. "Knowing how outmatched you little ones are to the power of the mightiest
Rapax in the land, though, I'll offer you an additional caveat: as I have healed your wounds at the outset
of this Tournament, so will I refuse any and all aid from my men for as long as the Tournament lasts.
"In addition, I will brook no interference from you, boy," he warned, pointing at Belcanzor. "No support
spells, no healing, no resurrection of the dead. This is singles combat, one-on-one, and honor will see it
through."
"This is ridiculous!" Shss protested when she finished translating for Serkesh. "What do you have to gain
from something so stupid?"
The King smiled, then closed his eyes, as he might have done to a child who just asked a foolish
question. "First of all, it is a reward to those few of my men who still know where their loyalties lie," he
said, with a look among his remaining fifty or so men. "A magnificent test of strength and skill, by their
King himself."
His smile quickly dropped, and he suddenly became deadly serious. "More importantly, as with all things
in life, this is about honor," he said. "Honor is strength. Those who are weak have no honor, and do not
deserve life. If you are strong, this Tournament shall prove you worthy to continue to live... and indeed,
re-affirm your existence."
"Oh, please!" Kiwi shouted. "Honor means doing what's right, even if it means not fighting at all,"
Belcanzor added.
The Rapax King narrowed his eyes. "Of course it is," he said. "Which is why the morally superior pacifist
always defeats the warrior, am I correct? Their honor makes them inherently better, and thus they
overcome even the strongest of foes."
He half-smiled at their lack of response. "You have no idea of the true meaning of honor, little ones," he
sneered. "By your definition, it was we peaceful and 'honorable' Rapax whom the Higardi drove out of our
home centuries ago... in a dishonorable landgrab. History shows the achievement that 'honor' brought
that day."
He shook his head in disgust. "Your grasp on the concept is inherently flawed," he rumbled. "One who is
morally strong will always lose to he that is physically strong. The truly honorable one is the one who is
still alive at the end of the struggle, and to survive is to trample the broken remains of your weaker foe.
"The 'honor' of which you speak is simply morality, which is subjective. Strength is absolute and
empowering, as is honor itself. There is no division between the two; they are one and the same."
Tearn shook his head. "You've taken your people down a dangerous road," he said in a calm voice,
tinged with pity.
The Rapax King ignored him and signalled to his men behind the party, who stepped forward with
Serkesh's axe and Shss' Psispear. They placed the weapons at they party's feet, then withdrew. "So, who
will be first?" he asked.
No sooner had Shss finished her translation for Serkesh, he lifted his axe off of the ground and lifted it to
the sky. "I go, hornman!" he shouted confidently.
Kiwi cheered. "You're in trouble now, you big meanie!" Serkesh smiled a toothy smile at her, then hefted
his axe onto his shoulder. "O angen rash eo, gen oi ta, Keshketka, (I'll kill him quick, then we'll move on,
Keshketka)," he hissed.
"How do we know you aren't just going to have your archers shoot us when the big guy's about to lop
your head off?" Tearn asked suspiciously.
The King bowed slightly. "You have my word, as the ruler of the Rapax Empire, that they will only shoot to
punish rule breakers," he promised.
The Felpurr scoffed in response. "Yeah, that and five gold will buy me a hammer..." he muttered.
Serkesh stomped forward, with his massive axe in a single hand. The King stood proudly with his large
sword in his own. "We go!" the Lizardman shouted, and charged with an outside slice that could have cut
several men in half. The Rapax King smirked briefly, then whipped his armored left arm out to stop the
axe in its tracks, before it could build enough momentum to break through the metal.
Then, in a show of speed that belied the weight of his weapon, the Rapax King thrust his sword at
Serkesh's thick hide. The Lizardman looked confident as the sword approached his chest, sure that the
natural armor that was his scaley body would stop the sword before it could do any damage.
That look of confidence quickly turned into a mask of pain as the King's blade sliced into, then through,
Serkesh's body. It exploded out of the Lizardman's back in a shower of blood, severing his spine as it slid
through with ease. The King lifted his body up in an unreal show of strength.
Serkesh was dead before he was even whipped off of the blade, onto the grass below.
"Serkesh!!" Belcanzor yelled, paralyzed with surprise and fear at his sudden death. Kiwi put her hands
over her mouth. "No..." she whispered in complete shock.
Tearn's breath quickened in anger as Shss ran for him. "Geni!! (Big brother)!" she screamed, already sure
of his fate before she knelt at his side to see his open and lifeless eyes.
She didn't even have time to cry before sheer rage overtook her, and she lept at the King with her
Psispear screaming for his life.
In her haste, she left herself wide open for the King's attack. He spun around and sliced his sword neatly
across her throat, and a spray of blood shot out and stained the vile King red. The Fighter stumbled back
a few steps and dropped her weapon, holding her bleeding neck with both of her hands. She tripped over
Serkesh's body and fell onto the grass, and the world began to spin.
Belcanzor's world tilted in sudden shock. He wasn't even aware that he had run to her until he was at her
side and dragging her away from the man who had slit her throat, archers and arrows be damned. "Hold,"
the King said to his men, his hand in the air as the Dane dragged her back over to the others.
"No..." he whispered, his tears falling on Shss' jerking body. Her eyes looked around in all directions,
trying to focus on what was happening. "Just hold on, baby!" he cried, his hands glowing around her
wound.
The Rapax King pointed straight at him. "Complete that spell, and my archers will kill the both of you!" he
shouted.
Belcanzor ignored him. The glow in his hands grew stronger, and the Heal Wounds spell was on his very
fingertips.
Shss reached up and grabbed his collar, staring straight into his yellow eyes... then shook her head.
You're only going to get yourself killed, she thought.
Knowing the gesture would be futile, Belcanzor let his hands dim. He held them over hers, helping to
staunch the loss of blood as best he could. He looked up at the King in sheer rage, but could hardly see
him through his tears.
Certain that the action wouldn't cause the King to give the order for execution, Kiwi and Tearn rushed to
Belcanzor and Shss' side with RFS-81. The five remaining members of the party huddled together for
added security, from the King and his ready squad of archers. "Don't die..." Kiwi begged the Fighter.
"Please, don't die..."
Slowly, Tearn ran his paw down Shss' cheek, trying his best to comfort her. It was not only Kiwi who had
a place in his heart; the young Fighter was as much a part of this extended family as any of the others
who had journeyed with him.
"Bravery has its own merit," the King hailed the party. His guards looked upon them without emotion,
showing neither appreciation nor disgust for what was transpiring. In fact, the Tournament seemed more
natural to them than anything else, an event as common and everyday as birds in the sky or bugs in the
brush... and they showed about as much emotion to the fight as they would to any everyday event.
"But without strength, even courage is a meaningless gesture; even animals know this," he continued.
"You have devoted your lives to weakness, and have thus chosen dishonor. Have any of you the power
necessary to finish me?"
Tearn slowly took his paw away from Shss' face, then turned his head to see Serkesh's large and
forgotten body lying before the Rapax King. A single tear dropped from his eye as he reached his paw out
to hold Kiwi and press her tiny body tight against his chest. He hung his head as he covered hers
completely with his paw, feeling her shivering sobs shake his body.
Kiwi, he thought. The Faerie stirred and tried to look up, but Tearn held her fast. Don't move. They might
see the light around your head if you do. Kiwi nodded twice, then buried herself as deep as she could in
Tearn's robe.
"Who is next?" the King demanded, growing impatient. "If you refuse to fight, I will declare this
Tournament over, and you will all die anyway. Take a stand and show me your strength in honorable
combat!"
We're going to kill this guy, Tearn continued, as Kiwi began transmitting his thoughts to the other
remaining party members. The kid, iron man and myself will strike in tandem. Lover boy, you keep an eye
on your girl here and protect her at all costs. We're going to need that Resurrection power of yours when
this is all through, and I don't want to risk your life in this assault.
He squeezed Kiwi tighter. Now, here's how it's going to go down... he began.
The Rapax King watched the party silently, wrapped in their mutual weakness and sorrow. Finally, he
could take no more. "You have ten seconds to choose your next challenger, then I will order my guards to
eliminate all of you." He looked to the towers to his left and right, assured that his archers were ready.
"Ten, nine..." he began.
"Shut your mouth!" Tearn shouted, then let go of Kiwi.
The King nodded. "The Mage?" he asked, then shrugged. "I suppose it is a better choice than the small
one, or the healer, or even the traitorous machine you have there." He beckoned the Felpurr forward.
"Come," he ordered.
It was a certain gamble, but the best idea he could come up with. Tearn stepped into the middle of the
blood-stained arena of grass and closed his eyes, raising his paws slowly upwards. In truth, it was all just
a show to keep the Rapax occupied as he subtly placed Missile Shields around each of the party
members, to keep any arrows from getting through.
Finally, when he felt that everyone was protected sufficiently by the invisible swirls of air, Tearn lowered
his paws, then slowly opened his eyes. The King was standing there, bloody sword at his side, and
assured of his win in this match. The Felpurr reached into his robe, grabbing exactly the potion he was
looking for. "Now!" he roared.
The party closed and averted their eyes as Tearn flung the potion at the Rapax King's face. When it
struck him, a bright burst of light shone throughout the entire Wilderness Clearing, blinding the King and
nearly every archer present. He roared in shock and pain as he heard the Trooper whir forward, then
called and waved for his archers to eliminate his deceitful opponents.
Arrows rained down on the three, bouncing and deflecting off of the invisible swirls of air that moved to
block anything from approaching too rapidly. At the same time, Tearn raised the King off of the ground
with a single paw, arcing the Rapax through the air and straight above him with a Levitate spell. As the
King moved, his other paw unleashed a powerful cone of jagged rocks, ice shards and swirls of rainbow
light, all of which penetrated his armor and dug into his body.
Kiwi flew up and around his body, placing well-timed and forceful punches and kicks all over him with all
of the energy she could muster. The strikes bent his armor inward, carrying with it all the force of an
attack on an unarmored and defenseless man. She disarmed him with an axe kick to his sword, which
lodged blade first into the ground seconds later.
"What's going on over there?" Rodan asked. All he could see over the mountains was a distant and blurry
brown shape hovering in the air and a blue streak zipping all around it, while Rapax archers fired around
the fray.
From below, a torrent of multi-colored lights and rocks shot up and into the shape, though what they could
possibly be, he did not know. "I cannot ssay," Drazic admitted, leaning against the bars of his cage for
support as he watched.
Rodan grinned. "I knew the IUF would come," he said.
The King's blood dripped onto the ground in a straight line, finally culminating in a shower that dripped
onto Tearn's robes and face, and filled him with a pleased sense of satisfaction. This was the King's
honor in action... this was strength.
From a treacherous tag-team of sorts, but it was strength, nonetheless.
Kiwi nodded at Tearn, then spun and cracked her tiny heel across the Rapax King's cheek as Tearn
released his Levitate spell, and sent the Rapax spiralling down into RFS-81. The Trooper impaled his
falling body with its spike-arm, then immediately threw him to the ground. The machine followed the
King's roll to a stop a few feet away, then jumped and buried its leg in the King's throat. "Good," RFS-81
said.
Suddenly, the King wrapped his hands around the Trooper's metal foot, then twisted. The machine ripped
itself out of his grip and spun through the air, landing gracefully on its feet several feet away amidst a
swarm of useless arrows. "Bad," it said. Seeing this, Kiwi shot forward to continue her furious assault on
the recovered King.
Faster than any of them could see, the King was on his feet. He stumbled blindly towards the sound of
RFS-81's whirring limbs, fists swinging wildly. The Trooper dodged the first wide blow with a simple step
back, then ducked low and slashed its arms across the King's armor. The silver ripped open in thin
slashes that began to bleed out almost immediately.
Kiwi arrived then, both arms outstretched, and rammed the King in the spine. His chest bent outwards
from the sheer force of the blow and flew straight into a spin kick, courtesy of RFS-81, then landed on the
ground next to his sword. With the King prone, Kiwi arced up, then blasted into his neck.
It was enough force to break through solid rock, but his neck did not give. All at once, she heard
something whistle behind her, and felt the air grow instantly cold. She darted upward as an ice lance from
Tearn's paws flew past her body and towards the body of the Rapax King.
He stood so fast, that it was almost as if he had teleported to his feet. The King whipped his hand out,
grabbed the ice lance from the side and spun. Using the frigid spell's own momentum, and before
anybody could do anything, he flung it straight back at Tearn.
The Felpurr's eyes went momentarily wide, just a split second before the ice lance buried itself completely
through his skull.
"Tearn!!" Kiwi screamed and shot forward to his falling body. Before the Felpurr had even slumped to his
knees, the Rapax King rolled forward on the grass, pulled his sword out of the ground and whipped it into
Kiwi's tiny body.
A sick crack pierced the air, echoing off of the mountain face and around every person present, as Kiwi's
neck snapped under the sheer force of the blow. Her wings went slack and she fell, dead, to the grass
below.
Shss gurgled weakly, unable to do anything more than watch as her two friends... her family, were cut
down before her.
RFS-81's eyes flashed red, then it hunched over and charged forward to kill the King. It buried both of its
spike-arms in his back, then lifted the massive creature up and over its head. The King laughed
confidently and forced his weight forward and down, and after returning to the ground, lifted the Trooper
above his own head with his back hunched forward.
After dropping his sword on the ground, the King reached behind him and grabbed both of the Trooper's
arms, then snapped them off at the elbow joints. RFS-81 fell to the grass below and struggled to get to its
feet, when the Rapax calmly turned and sat on the struggling Trooper's back, then placed his hands
around its neck.
"Eliminate... exterminate... vengeance!" RFS-81 repeated over and over, just before the King ripped its
head off with a single twist. The archers, seeing the sudden threat over, immediately stopped firing.
After the King stood, he held the now lifeless Trooper head in his hands, then faced it towards him. "Defy
the Savant, and such is your punishment," he bellowed, then threw it to the ground. It rolled for a few
seconds, then stopped just feet away from Shss and Belcanzor, with its everpresent neutral black eyes
and triangular mouthpiece frozen as still as they were in life.
The King ripped both of its spike-arms from his back and threw them next to the Trooper's body, then
retrieved his sword. "So this is how you fight, outsiders?" he asked the two remaining members of the
party. Shss spat blood on the ground in front of her, half because she was choking, the other out of sheer
spite. "Impressive... but you are not even in the same league as a Rapax."
Belcanzor squeezed Shss' hands one last time and stood, hands in balled fists at either side. The King
bowed and held his sword out, struggling to see through the Blinding Flash that the Felpurr had thrown
into his eyes.
"So, it is up to another spellcaster to topple the King?" he asked, seeing spots. He nodded and smiled.
"Since you play by the rules, I will not seek the healing aid of my men for our battle. You may enter
combat with the injuries your duplicitous friends have inflicted upon me."
The Dane looked down at Shss, with his head glowing slightly. I love you, baby, he thought with a brief
smile, then raised both of his hands to the King. Shss screamed out mentally for him to stop, run, do
anything necessary to keep himself safe and escape with at least his life intact.
Instead, his hands suddenly glowed with all manner of painful, jagged, dangerous and debilitating spells
crackling, whirling and flaming to life.
His mind ran through everything he had ever been taught on Guardia, and here on Dominus. Lightning
streaked out of his hands in a dozen twisting arcs of red and blue, running all along the King's armor and
into his many wounds. The King stepped a step closer as Belcanzor's entire body glowed red, then set
the King's very blood ablaze. Still, the King came a step closer, then another.
Jagged shards of ice, a glowing spell that caused the King's brain to begin hemorrhaging blood, another
that removed the air from around his head so he couldn't breathe, Belcanzor fired everything he could
think of into the Rapax King... but he still kept walking forward.
Finally, as the Bishop prepared one last Boiling Blood spell, the King grabbed him, then put his hand over
his mouth.
Belcanzor bit at the King's fingers, struggling to escape, but it was of no use. The King tossed his sword
aside, then lifted the Bishop up with his hand, grabbed his legs with the other, then brought the Dane
down on his outstretched knee.
His spine snapped. All at once, he lost all feeling in his legs as the Rapax King dropped him, twitching, to
the grass below.
The King hummed thoughtfully. "I didn't think this was going to be so easy," he said. "If I had known how
weak you creatures from the stars would be, I would have allowed you to take me on all at once." He
shrugged and walked a few steps away to retrieve his sword, and end their misery.
The Dane crawled on his hands, dragging his body over to and on top of Shss. Though he was paralyzed,
and most likely seconds from death, he allowed himself a smile as he looked into her eyes one last time.
"Thank you..." he whispered. "Thank you for everything... for loving me, changing me, making me the
man I am today. I will always love you..."
He closed his eyes and put his hands over hers on her neck, and they began to glow brightly. The King,
noticing the sudden light behind him, roared in anger. "I ordered no support!" he shouted. "Archers! Kill
them!"
On his order, dozens of arrows shot into the Missile Shield around Belcanzor, bouncing and deflecting off
of it in every direction. Even as it broke, and the arrows began to whistle and scream into his body,
Belcanzor kept his eyes closed, and his concentration on healing Shss.
"Don't..." Shss whispered, as the warm magic ran through her body and closed the cut in her throat.
Belcanzor's body shuddered with every arrow that pierced him, and blood began to trickle from his mouth.
The light in his hands dimmed as the spell completed, and his life slipped away. He shuddered a final
time, then went slack atop her.
When his final breath escaped his lips, Shss' world dropped away. The images of her dead friends
flashed in her mind... Serkesh and the hole in his chest, Tearn's face staring, horrified, into nothingness,
with the ice lance sticking out like a horn. Kiwi's snapped neck, RFS-81 in pieces... and now, her beloved
nothing more than a light weight on her body, with dozens of arrows sticking from his back, and his blood
all over her.
There was no sadness, no anger, just a complete lack of feeling.
The Rapax King watched as she gently rolled his body off of her. She was completely healed, but her
face was turned away and hidden from him. Without a word, she stood, then walked forward to kneel by
her weapon. She reached down and grasped it firmly with her face turned towards the ground, away from
the assembled Rapax.
The King waved his attendants forward. "Servants, bring me healing," he called out. "It is only fair, if the
girl has received the same."
She breathed calmly as she stood, then turned her back to him... and silently began stripping her armor
off, piece by piece. It wasn't until one of his Templar Knights waved his hand before the King's eyes that
he realized what she was doing... probably going to ask for a quick death, he reasoned. As the King
upended a couple of clear liquid healing potions, Shss dropped piece by piece of her armor to the ground.
The King's wounds had just closed as the girl lifted the Ebony breastplate over her head, then dropped it;
the pair of amulets around her neck clinked against one another with the effort. He briefly wondered if she
would remove her hide halter top or her clinging white shorts, and was slightly disappointed when she did
not.
He waved his attendants away. "If you wish a clean and painless death, I shall grant it, girl," he said.
"Kneel before me, and it shall be instantaneous."
To his mild surprise, the girl actually did kneel, but kept her face turned away from him. He nodded as he
walked forward. "Very well. If you wish to preserve your pride, I will take your life like this," he proclaimed.
He stopped when she laid her weapon on her lap, placed her hand over one of the four hooks next to the
yellow globe, then surprisingly broke it off with a powerful snap. When she raised the curved hook to her
face, he scoffed. "Suicide is the ultimate dishonor," he said grimly, then raised his blade to behead her.
Instead of slitting her own throat, though, the girl began sawing through the long locks of dark hair on her
head. One by one, she sliced through the thick braids and dropped them to the grass next to her, until
only a scant minute later, her hair was an irregular mess of curled and curved roots with no apparent
rhyme or reason to them.
"What are you...?" the King began to ask, when the girl turned her head around and stared him right in the
face... and the very intensity of her brown eyes was enough to make him back up a step.
She was calm and utterly without emotion, but within her now lay a strength too terrible to deny. She put a
knee on the ground and stood slowly, her eyes never leaving his. She slowly swiveled her weapon
around until the three-hooked, orbed and non-lethal end rotated, then finally faced behind her. The King's
eyes ran from the globe's end, all the way down the shaft to the enchanted black spearhead on the
other... that was pointing directly at him.
There were no bodies lying anywhere in Shss' field of vision; the Dark Savant and his Ascension were not
even noticeable points in her mind. Her past and future were distant memories, and regret and sadness
fled completely. There was only the Rapax King, looking slightly worried, in front of her.
But there was one more thing, a deep and small spark of rage that she had never known was there, much
less tapped into before. Her brother and her parents had told her about this phenomenon, a trait unique to
those Lizardmen who followed the path of the Fighter. Shss had never thought it important, as she was
not biologically a Lizardman... but here the flame was, even now.
Without a single ounce of fear within her, Shss' mind made contact with that tiny spark. The resulting
eruption of rage was so powerful, so pronounced, that it felt like a physical rush of pure enmity that
flooded every part of her body. She hunched over, grasping air with her left hand as she pointed the
Psispear at the King with her right... and unleashed a long, hissing shriek that exploded from her very
soul.
Shss had unleashed the Berserk fury of the Lizardman.
In their cages, Rodan and Drazic looked at one another with sheer disbelief at the frightening sound.
"That's... not from the IUF..." the Umpani said. Drazic nodded slowly, and stood to try and get a better
look over the mountain.
The Rapax King took another step back as he barely parried her thrust at his heart. Something was
seriously wrong with this girl, and her intense eyes sent an unfamiliar shiver of fear down his spine. She
plunged her weapon into the ground and jumped like an insane animal into his face, scratching at his
eyes and headbutting him squarely in the nose.
Before he could bat her off, she lept backwards and kicked him across the jaw, then flipped to the ground
and yanked her Psispear out of the ground. She lunged, sliced and whipped the polearm in precise
swings and thrusts through the holes left in his armor by RFS-81. Every attack he couldn't parry stung
and burned painfully, leading him to believe that the spearhead was probably poisoned.
Her heavy weapon was a blur of motion. As the King's vision wavered from the poison, and his moves
became slightly more clumsy, more and more of her strikes got through. She completely neglected her
defense, and he managed to get a few clean hits off on her left shoulder and knee, but the injuries did not
even slow her down.
Finally, she pierced him cleanly through one of the armor slits and plunged the Psispear into his chest,
then ran his impaled body straight into his command tent, where she stuck him on one of the wooden
supports with a slavering, dangerous hiss. Once he dropped his sword in sheer agony, she held him up
with a single foot, pulled the Psispear from his bleeding gullet, then impaled him again and again on the
weapon.
The support quickly gave way, and the tent collapsed around them. The archers began to fire into the
falling cloth, not caring who they hit as long as they killed the girl who most likely would be coming for
them next.
All of a sudden, there was a tear in the fabric. They held their fire as a figure shot up and out of the fallen
tent: it was the Rapax King... but he was horizontally impaled on the girl's weapon, and struggling vainly
to get loose.
Shss rose out of the tent, holding her Psispear utterly still as the life slowly bled from the Rapax King.
With the cloth no longer blocking her view, she saw the bodies of her friends, family and gentle lover lying
prone and silent in the field of blood before her, and rage overtook her again. She shrieked in terrible
delight as the King's warm, red blood ran down her Psispear and onto her hands.
The archers began to fire in sheer terror, wildly and even into their own King. Shss hissed in anger and
brought the Psispear down, spinning it and the King around and flinging his body into the nearest tower.
Her unreal strength propelled the Rapax straight into his own archers, and he took arrows the whole way
before he struck the tower, then collapsed on the railing above. Seconds after Shss scaled the ladder into
the tower and began piercing the life from the archers there, the King slumped over the side, then fell with
a great thud at the base.
Wasting no time, every other archer immediately abandoned their post, sliding down their ladders and
breaking for the safety of the treeline just outside of the clearing. Their naginata and flamberge-wielding
cousins, heretofore silent and surprised at the death of their King, immediately joined the panicked flight
out of the valley.
The Rapax King reached to the sky, calling out for his ally, the Dark Savant, to come and help. His heart
lept when he heard a thump in the grass a few feet away, but he wondered briefly why there was no flash
of light to accompany his good friend this time. A shadow passed over him, but he had not the strength to
turn and see his lord.
When he realized it was the girl, and not the Savant, he was completely overcome with a single emotion:
it wasn't fear, or anger, or anything else to do with his impending death... what filled the Rapax King, was
the all-encompassing feeling of regret.
"Were... they right?" he asked, just as Shss raised the spear end of her Psispear to the slit near his heart.
"Have I... ruined our great nation... by allying with the Savant?" The Berserk Fighter slipped the
spearhead into the Rapax King's chest, and he felt his life begin to rapidly slip away. "Forgive... me, my
son, my... dar...ling... wife..."
Shss breathed heavily, covered in the blood of both her enemies, and her now dead companions. As the
Berserk feelings of rage began to slip away, she dropped the Psispear on the King's body in disgust, then
trudged heavily over to the nearest body... of her brother, Serkesh.
She knelt at his side and stroked his cheek, expecting him to roll over and declare everything a joke at
any second. Her face screwed up in sorrow, and she began to cry. The flames were gone... and with the
King dead, she was left with nothing.
Many minutes went by, before she was finally lucid enough to put her thoughts into words. "You... always
looked out for me, didn't you?" she asked in a wavering voice. "Until the very end..." She knelt down and
kissed his forehead, then stood to look at all the others.
"Kiwi, Tearn... and RFS, too... you all fought for me," she whispered. "You could have flown away, and
none of them would have been able to touch you. But..." She paused slightly. "Thank you," she
whispered, with tears streaming down her cheek.
Without another word, she walked over to the body of Belcanzor, then turned his face towards her. He
looked... peaceful, lying there alone on the grass. She had seen this face only once before... it was the
calm look that he had had after the night they spent together at He'Li's.
She choked back a sob. Even before he died, he was thinking about me, she realized.
She leaned over and put her arms around his neck, squeezing as tightly as she could. The wind rustled
across her bare body, and ruffled Tearn's robe and fur several feet away. She held Belcanzor close, as
he had done for her before he died, protecting his body from the cold he could no longer feel. She cradled
him, and rocked back and forth as the tears continued to fall. Memories of her friends went by as time
slowly passed, along with the feeling of how unfair the whole situation was.
Hiromi spent her life to help everyone around her, especially Lucciana, she remembered. And then she
gave it to protect all of us. She took a deep breath. And Janus... what a cold guy. Who would have known
he was such a good person underneath? I'm sure he and Hiromi are together now, wherever they are.
She smiled. I remember the way you burst out of that fish, Kiwi. We were all worried that you were gone,
especially Tearn. I've never seen such a look of relief on his face than the moment you came back to us...
and I know that boundless energy of yours kept everyone together, even when things were at their worst.
Lucciana and Tearn... soldiering on despite your endlessly bad karma. Did you know how strong it made
me feel, to be near the both of you? she wondered. There were times when I felt like things were at their
end... and then here comes a cocky Elf, or a snide Felpurr, to turn the entire mood around.
Serkesh, too... you always inspired me to try harder, to become the person I am today. It was because of
you that I was able to see and do so much. Thank you...
Shss stroked her love's head. "Do you remember in the Dane Tower, just outside of the Fireball gates?"
she asked. "I was so exhausted. I wanted nothing more than to be done with the whole ordeal and leave
with my friends. And then, I turned around... and I saw you. You looked scared then, but I think I know
why."
Her tears dropped onto his face as she smiled bittersweetly. "It was the same reason that I tried hard to
keep from shaking. That moment was the first time I had ever fallen in love, and I think you rejecting me
scared me even more than that Demon did," she laughed. "But... everything worked out, didn't it? Vi and
the Mook brought us together, and we shared that beautiful night at He'Li's. Everything was perfect."
His silence hurt her deeply... a firm reminder that he was gone. "I promise you. I promise you all that I
won't give up, even if I have to go it alone," she stated. "I'll find a way to Ascend... and I'll bring all of you
back, somehow." She looked down at her chest, and gently stroked the necklace Belcanzor gave her. "I
won't forget you... any of you," she whispered.
The blood in her hands made her fingers extra slippery. The yellow-framed purple jewel slipped and
moved to the side, revealing the necklace Lucciana had given her: the gold and red Amulet of Life.
Her eyebrows knit together at a sudden memory. Then, all of a sudden, Shss' pulse raced, as she
remembered a conversation Hiromi had had with Lucciana on Guardia...
"One charge, and one life to return," she had said. A smile raced across Shss' face as she hastily pulled
the amulet up and put it in her hands. "Of course... of course!" she shouted happily. "Hiromi... you're
going to save all of us!"
Carefully, she placed the amulet against Belcanzor's chest, even as she held his hand, and waited for him
to stir with life... as Lucciana had so long ago.
She waited for several seconds, but nothing happened. No pillar of light, no movement... nothing. Her
heart fell. "Return to life!" she commanded the amulet, but again, nothing happened. "Work, dammit!" she
screamed, pushing the amulet hard into Belcanzor's chest.
After minutes of racing the amulet around his body and chanting as many phrases as she could, Shss
gave up. If it had any power at one point, it was long gone now.
Tears returned to her eyes at the cruel joke fate had played upon her. The amulet slipped from her hands
as her body went slack... and the brave Fighter closed her eyes, then gave in to her painful exhaustion.
"...ight down there!" she heard someone say.
Her eyes bolted open and she looked around quickly, but saw nobody. "Well, what do you want me to
do?! Will them up to me with my mysstical powerss?!" another very deep voice hissed.
They were coming from somewhere beyond the mountains. She instinctively tapped into the flame in the
deepest recesses of her soul, knowing that if there were any of the King's Rapax still alive, they would die
very painfully in just a few seconds.
Shss gently lay Belcanzor down on the grass and stood, then put the amulet back around her neck and
dashed into the mountains ahead of her. With inhuman strength and agility, she bounded straight up the
cliff wall and shrieked as she homed in on the conversation. Almost immediately upon hearing her, the
two strangers ceased any and all discussion between them... but it was too late.
"Oh... crap," Rodan said as he spotted the backlit figure crouched on the nearby mountainpeak. Without
hesitation, Shss bounded from the mountain to the second story of the tree trunk prison, landing directly
between the Umpani and the T'Rang.
When she realized that they were prisoners as she and the others were, she immediately returned to her
senses. "...Sorry," she apologized, rather unconvincingly.
"It iss quite all right," the T'Rang hissed calmly and politely. "But would you mind letting uss free?"
The Umpani nodded emphatically in agreement, but Shss crossed her arms across her chest. "Who are
you?" she asked, with clear disinterest.
"Forgive me," Drazic replied, bowing slightly. "I am Drazic, Ninja, loyal to Z'Ant and the T'Rang Empire."
Shss shook her head when she didn't recognize the name, so Rodan spoke next. "I'm Rodan Lewarx,
Master IUF Tracker," he said. "Both of us were captured by the Rapax about a week ago, and we've been
in this torture camp ever since. They wanted information to damn the rest of Dominus, but we gave them
nothing!"
She pursed her lips in thought. "Rodan?" she asked, trying to remember the name. "Oh... you're the one
my friends left in New City," she realized half-heartedly.
Rodan happily pointed at her. "One and the same!" he replied. "Now that we're all caught up and cozy,
you have to let us out of here... if we don't get word to our leaders soon about the alliances, the Savant
and the hornheads will win for sure!"
Shss looked at him strangely. "Alliances? As in, plural?" she asked.
"Yesss," Drazic said from behind her. "We musst warn Z'Ant and General Yamir of the pact between the
Rapax and the Dark Ssavant... and inform them that if the Umpani and the T'Rang are to win thiss coming
war..."
He paused. How traitorous the others would consider this kind of talk... "That the Imperial Umpani
Federation and the T'Rang Empire musst band together to ssurvive."
Shss sighed. "Whatever," she muttered. She calmed and searched her soul for the Berserk flame,
knowing its power would let her tear these doors right off of their hinges.
But try as she did, she was not able to feel its warmth any longer. Even recalling Belcanzor's death, or
pretending that the King's men were still around was not enough. Either the feelings of rage were not
enough... or she had experienced a once in a lifetime event for the first, and final, time.
All around them, they all suddenly began to hear strange chittering, croaks and hisses. With the Rapax
gone, along with any potential threats from other living creatures, it seemed that nature was returning to
the Wilderness Clearing.
Stark terror ran through Shss when she realized that the bodies of her friends might make a meal for the
witless beasts.
That terror turned to sheer anger, but not enough to recall the power she wielded moments ago. She
looked furiously between the Umpani and the T'Rang... and an idea began to form in her mind. "I will
release you," she hissed, "on two conditions." The two nodded rapidly in response.
"First, you do NOT fight one another once you are out," she growled.
"Done," Drazic quickly replied. "You have my word."
Rodan nodded. "Mine as well," he said. "This all goes beyond the war, and I'm not going to jeopardize the
IUF for petty vengeance. What's the second condition?"
Shss looked between the both of them. "A task," she replied. "Down the hill, you will find the bodies of five
people: a Lizardman, a cat-man, a Faerie, a Savant Trooper... and a young man in purple and blue robes.
Bring them up here, and until you are certain that their bodies will not be harmed, you will not leave."
Rodan nodded quickly. "Ok, ok!" he said. "Just hurry, all right? The keys should be right below us. One of
the idiot hornheads dropped them before someone bombed the camp a few minutes ago."
Shss jumped backwards to the ground a dozen feet below, landing in a crouch. The keys were exactly
where he said they would be, and within a minute, she had unlocked the cages.
"Get down here, now!" she barked at the two above her. Then, she dashed through a few of the wooden
fences that the Rapax had erected down the mountain path, until the clearing was in full view.
Rage filled her when she saw a red bird-like creature on two large and thin legs, pecking at Tearn's robe.
She charged it, tackling it and tumbling to the grass as she choked the life from it.
The bird squawked and struggled, until Shss angrily snapped its neck. She looked around and found
every body, every piece of RFS-81, and most importantly, Kiwi's easily devoured corpse... all accounted
for. The Umpani and the T'Rang hobbled down to the bodies, helping one another on the way down.
Creatures began to surround Shss and the corpses. A large, three-headed black snake slithered forward,
while a group of the bird things trotted forward with clear interest. "Don't let any of them touch my friends!"
she shouted, then ran for the entrance to the clearing.
"Wait... what are we supposed to do about them?!" Rodan yelled after her. "We're not exactly in peak
condition here!"
Shss screeched angrily, the sound driving all of the creatures back a few steps, then turned briefly back
towards them. "Go in the damn tent and scavenge some equipment!!" she yelled, then ran out of the
clearing and into the Southeast Wilderness.
Rodan obeyed her without a second thought. She'd make a fine officer in the IUF with a voice like hers,
he realized.
"I will remain with the bodiess while you acquire ssome gear," Drazic said, with all four of his claws out
and ready to rip apart anything that got too close. "I require only healing..."
The Umpani slowly shook his head in disbelief; it was remarkable that people still practiced martial arts in
the days of laser pistols, Blunder Busses and rocket launchers.
"Wish I had my gun..." he muttered, as he dove into the wreckage of the King's tent.
***
Shss was hunched over, sprinting as fast as she possibly could over the grassy plains of the Southeast
Wilderness, weaving through the trees and past creatures that were nothing more than a blur to her.
A group of Savant Troopers and a metallic orb briefly accosted her. "Halt, in the na..." it was able to get
off, before Shss lept over the entire group and continued on her way.
Her lungs and legs exploded in protest at the constant exertion, but Shss' mind was simply on her goal.
She followed the sounds and fetid smell of the Swamp, until she found where they had entered it just
yesterday. The Cathedral stood on the distant mountaintop, out of sight, silently watching her progress.
Over rocks and past venom-spitting bugs and giant skittering ants, she hopped and dashed and flung her
body at incredible speed. With no armor or weapon to encumber her, she was much more vulnerable to
attack... at the same time that she was too fast to strike. Though tears stung her eyes and blinded her
vision, using subtle shifts in the wind as clues, she was able to avoid collision or attack at every turn.
Then, in the dead of night, she reached the place that she was looking for.
The Swamp
Day 9
Crock heard something burst into his shop downstairs. He assumed at first that it was some overzealous
creepy-crawly, or maybe one of those Tee-Rang things trying to steal something valuable for who knew
what reason.
Then, he heard someone screaming in an out of breath voice. "Crock!" a girl yelled out. It wasn't Vi, so he
brought his dagger down with him. "I... need your help!" she wheezed loudly.
When the old man came down from his room, he saw the dark girl from before standing there in
substantially less armor... and a lot less hair. He noted that she had positioned herself just inside the
foyer, and had not come in.
Her respect for his ground rules was probably the only reason he didn't rush her on the spot. "The hell do
you want, darkie?" Crock spat, brandishing his weapon. "I told ya one night only, and here ya're 'gain. Ya
hard'a hearin' like them demi-human pals'a yers?"
Shss clasped her hands together, pleading with him. "I'm sorry to trouble you again," she said, "but I... my
friends..." She bit her lip to stop from breaking down on the spot, and the old man sighed in impatience.
"What?!" he demanded.
She turned her head away. "They're dead..." she whispered.
Crock barked a laugh, but it wasn't one of derision. "Oh, I see how it is," he grumbled, shaking his head.
"Treat ol' Crock any way ya see fit, but send 'em the dregs ta take care of, eh, Lords above? Yer funny.
Yer damned funny, ain...?"
The look on her face stopped him mid-sentence. That look of pain, hopelessness, of having lost
everything ever held dear to an apathetic world. He had seen it often, every morning in fact, before he
smashed his mirror into a million pieces over fifty years ago.
It had been a long time, but the look had never left his mind for a single day of his life.
Still, what the hell do I owe this world... or anyone in it for that matter? he thought. He looked around, as if
at invisible intruders. "So what now, ya damn hypocrites?" he yelled. "I guess this makes us even?!
Hundred plus years'a torture, and now everythin's all forgiven, ain't it?"
He smashed his fist on his counter. "Well, ya can go ta hell fer alls I care!" he shouted. "I'll hate ya and
every damn man, woman, child, animal, demi-human'r anythin' else that draws a selfish breath'n this
Godsforsaken rock... 'til tha day my rotten body's cold'n dead! Ya hear me?!"
He shot an angry look at Shss. "As fer you, darkie..." he growled, then crossed his dagger hand across
his chest.
With a backhanded fling, he tossed it at her. Shss closed her eyes and prepared for death, certain she
would see her love on the other side...
The dagger stopped with a thunk, to her side. She turned to see that Crock had buried it in a crate sitting
next to her, which was filled with a large assortment of shiny trinkets, weapons, armor, books and other
goodies. She turned back towards him in confusion.
The old man's hand was still out to his side, where it had been when he threw the dagger at her, until he
slowly let it fall. "Gold'n red ammy," he grumbled. "Only one in there." And without another word, he
turned and went up the stairs, back to bed.
Shss' heart raced as she literally dove into the crate, pawing and pushing aside its contents until she
found an amulet, almost an exact replica of the one around her neck.
This one, though, was shining brightly.
Tears of happiness welled in her eyes, but the feeling was immediately replaced by the worried dread of
whether or not the Umpani and the T'Rang had lived up to their end of the bargain. "Thank you so
much...!" she shouted up to the second floor, and dashed out the front of Crock's house.
"Close tha damn door!!" she heard his angry voice explode from inside. With a teary-eyed smile, she did
as she was ordered, and began her long and painful run back to the clearing, where her friends awaited
her return.
Wilderness Clearing
Day 10
Kiwi's eyes fluttered open. The sun was bright and directly above her, so she couldn't tell who had their
hands on her. She had no idea that the hereafter felt so tiring... but she had had a difficult, albeit quite
short, life.
She smiled weakly. "Master Jang?" she whispered. "I missed you..." She closed her eyes and rested her
head on the grass beneath her. "I... I'm kind of tired now... so, I'm just gonna... rest..."
She felt a furry paw stroke her tiny body, and giggled. "That tickles, Tearn..." she protested weakly. "We
have an eternity of time to catch up before our next lives, but I'm tired now..."
Despite her protests, Tearn placed his gentle paw under her head, to give her a fuzzy pillow. "C'mon, kid,"
he said, "you keep snoozing, and you won't get the chance to see me blow that Rapax's body into tiny
pieces."
With a start, Kiwi opened her eyes. "Huh?" she grunted, squinting to see whose hands were restoring life
and strength to her body. The culprit leaned forward, blocking out the sun.
It was Belcanzor, and he was sitting next to a very alive Serkesh... the one she had clearly seen
practically ripped in half by the Rapax King.
"What happened?" she asked, as his spells returned energy to her body. "We're alive?!"
Shss, who looked positively tired, and whose hair was nearly gone, leaned over the Dane's shoulder with
her arms around him. "Yep," she said as-a-matter-of-factly. Belcanzor raised his glowing hands to touch
her face, but she shook her head. "The others, first," she whispered.
He nodded, and laid his hands upon Serkesh. The Lizardman put his hand behind his head and stroked
the back of his neck. "I die first..." he said sheepishly, and the others laughed. Tearn patted his shoulder
weakly. "Don't worry, big guy," he said. "We won't hold it against you."
Kiwi calmed and sat up. "So... what happened?" she asked.
Everyone looked at Shss, who merely kissed Belcanzor on the cheek. The Faerie's eyes went wide.
"You... soloed that guy?" she asked. The Fighter nodded, with a happy smile on her face. "How?" the little
one asked.
"Doesn't matter," she calmly answered. "Now that you guys are back... it's not going to happen again."
Kiwi looked at her in confusion, but shrugged and accepted the explanation. "What happened to your
hair?" she laughed. "It was so thick and full before, and now it's all... scraggly."
Shss grinned and shrugged. "I... don't remember," she said. "After I killed the King, I saw it was gone."
Suddenly, a thought struck Kiwi. "What about Rufie?" she asked. Tearn winced and shifted, and Kiwi's
face fell. Her mouth worked, but nothing came out for a few seconds. When he finally looked away, she
finally found the nerve to speak. "We can... bring him back, right?"
Belcanzor hung his head. "I can't re-attach severed body parts... I don't know of any healer who can, even
on an organic person." The Faerie shook her head in disbelief, but Tearn held up a single digit. "Here's
the good news, kid," he said, and reached behind himself to pick up a hidden object.
Kiwi recoiled in shock as he brought it forward... it was Rufie's head. "Oh my God!" she screamed,
stepping back a step in horror, then rushed forward just as quickly. "Rufie!"
"Yes, Master?" RFS-81 responded. Kiwi jumped in fright, not expecting it to still be talking. "You're alive!"
she shouted, hugging its metal cheek tightly.
"I am, Master," RFS-81 replied. "Even dismemberment will not keep me from protecting you. I
regret to inform you, however, that my combat efficiency has dropped by an estimated 99.9%."
Kiwi hugged it tighter, crying in happiness. "I don't care... as long as you're still alive, Rufie..." she
whispered.
Tearn nodded at it. "According to Belcanzor, he went down fighting," he said.
"Both of those spikes... right through that King guy's back," the Dane explained. "If it had teeth, it probably
would have bit him, even after its arms got ripped off."
"Really?" Kiwi asked RFS-81 with a broad smile.
"If such equipment were a part of my base model, I would have done so," the Trooper answered.
Tearn rubbed its metal head affectionately. "Forgive me for ever doubting you, iron man," he said. "If we
can find a way to put you back together, you will be a permanent member of this team... with my
blessing."
Kiwi cheered. "Yeah!" she shouted, to a chorus of nods from those around her.
"Your words please me, Master and the Master's allies," it said. "Allow me to accompany you, and
provide whatever information you may require on your journey. My scans are still operating at
80% efficiency."
Belcanzor removed his glowing hands from Shss' shoulders, and she felt stronger than she had in several
days. "Let's get going," she said, standing and pulling her love to his feet. She snapped her fingers. "Oh,
one more thing, Kiwi," she added. "We haven't introduced you to our new companion."
The Faerie followed Shss' eyes to the post of a nearby tent, where a frightening figure stood: it was a
Rapax, but much more slender and feminine.
She had her arms crossed over a silver breastplate outside of her flowing red dress, and solid white eyes
under large and curved horns. She slowly stepped towards the Faerie, who narrowed her eyes in anger
and flew up a few feet, ready to strike.
"Easy, now," Tearn said. "She's as opposed to what the King and his goons were doing as we are." Kiwi
relaxed, but did not relent.
He passed his paw between them. "Kid, this is the Queen of the Rapax."
Family
Southeast Wilderness
Day 10
Shss, Belcanzor and Tearn were feeling the heat as they walked along the beach. Though the Dane
could take off his heavy robes and throw them over his shoulder at any time, Shss and Tearn were stuck
in a respective suit of armor and fur.
At the very least her hair was much shorter, albeit extremely messy, and the sun didn't bother her as
much as it could have. Serkesh seemed to be in heaven.
"So what do you want from us?" Kiwi asked the Rapax Queen. "Why did the King lock you up, anyway?"
She sat on Tearn's shoulder, staying close to the severed head of Rufie in the netting slung on the
Felpurr's back. The machine looked uncomfortable... but then again, its face never changed; she was
probably putting her own exhaustion and the heat sympathetically upon it.
"He imprisoned me because I questioned whether joining the Dark Savant was a good idea," the Queen
explained in a low and gruff voice. "I thought we should be happy enough with our home and the
Mountain Wilderness under our control, but the King wanted more. He started invasions into Trynton,
started kidnapping Umpani and T'Rang scouts and conducting his interrogations..."
She shook her head in disgust. "Then, he got it in his head to inherit the planet once the Savant took the
Ascension. The way he was going... it was going to be less like invasion, and more like genocide."
Tearn hmphed. "The King was saying something about the Higardi doing much the same to your people,"
he remembered.
The Queen nodded. "The victims become the victimizers," she replied. "I'm sure you know how that
goes..."
Kiwi pursed her lips before she spoke. "So why are we going towards the Rapax Castle, knowing what's
waiting for us?" she asked. "We may kick serious butt, but I doubt we can take on an army."
"I agree," Shss spoke up. "Even at a full sprint, assuming we don't stop to fight or rest, it'll probably take
around four days to get back to Arnika. By then, who knows what will have happened? Your castle is in
the complete wrong direction, and I'm not sure what you expect us to do over there."
The Queen dismissed their complaints with a wave. "Well, don't worry about the danger," she said. "The
line of succession may pass to my son, and I may have been ousted, but I'm still the Queen. My people
haven't forgotten all the things I've done for them; they won't harm me, or any I call allies."
"And we can trust you, because...?" Tearn asked, unassured.
"You people can use magic," the Queen replied. "Read my mind and see for yourselves."
The Felpurr looked at Kiwi on his shoulder, who closed her eyes while her head began to glow. After a
brief wait, she opened them again. "All right," she conceded. "So what are we going to do over there?"
"Well," the Queen continued, "my son also opposes the Savant, and he now controls the army that my
husband put together."
Kiwi still looked confused. "Oh, that's good," she replied. "So what's the problem? The enemy of my
enemy and all that, you know?"
The Queen stopped, and looked at her strangely. "You do know that the Prince is going to Ascension
Peak to battle the Dark Savant, right?" she asked. Kiwi nodded, and the Queen balked. "The Ascension,"
she repeated slowly. "The path to godhood that the Savant has claimed for himself."
The Faerie smiled and nodded patronizingly, and the horned Rapax Queen took a step back. "Oh. You
don't know about the Tower," she realized.
Belcanzor immediately put it all together, and winced. The Queen took a deep breath, then looked among
the party as she spoke. "That's only one of its functions," she explained. "It's also a bomb. Some say it
will destroy Arnika, others say it could destroy the entire planet."
Shss' heart went cold as she translated for Serkesh. "It's the price for disobedience," the Queen
continued. "If anybody tries to Ascend without his express permission, he'll blow it."
"And that includes your son, doesn't it?" Tearn realized.
"Yes, it does," the Queen replied. "Which is why we have to get back to the castle and try to reason with
the Prince. If he doesn't listen..." She paused. "I would suggest a coup d'etat, but in my son's case... if we
can't convince him with words, it may just be better to let him pass."
"Still, that leaves the problem of us being a long way from home," Belcanzor started.
The Queen nodded. "It does, but there is something else you don't know," the Rapax Queen replied. "In
the royal quarters in the castle, there are two teleporters. One I had erected to tip off the Higardi and the
Trynnie about impending invasions from my, shall we say, 'exciteable' lesser half."
Tearn crossed his arms over his chest. "That's good for us," he said. "What's through the other?"
A smirk flashed across the Queen's face. "The Tower control room," she answered confidently. "As allies
to the Savant, we had a teleporter installed in the King's room case of trouble. If you want to disarm the
Tower, you either go through my bedroom... or through the Black Ship itself."
The memory of a parade of Savant machines aboard the Black Ship, multiplied by a factor of a hundred
should they somehow manage to attempt a direct assault, flashed through Shss' mind. "Good thing we
ran into you, then..." she commented, relieved that they wouldn't have to fight through all of that. "So we
can take the Tower portal straight back to the castle, and the other to Arnika?"
The Rapax Queen shook her head. "No need. The Tower has its own portal out, which will lead you
straight out into town. It's how they get the machines they manufacture aboard the Black Ship into Arnika
in the first place."
Tearn waved his paws at everyone. "All right, all right," he said, "we can discuss step ten once we're
finished with step one."
"Stopping the Prince," Shss finished the thought, holding her Psispear ready with a smile. "Shall we?"
They padded across the beach for a good hour in the blistering heat, until they all began to see
something unusual: some sand was kicking up from the beach in a small dust devil. The tiny tornado was
only partially visible by the few grains of sand that swirled along with it. The sand whirled a little higher
with every passing second, though from the size of the devil, it seemed like it would die out soon.
Suddenly, there was a bright flash of white light just above it. Its source was a bright wheel of spinning
white, hovering a few inches off of the sand in front of them. From the brightest point in the middle, a
backlit shadow flew out to land delicately on the beach. Kiwi squinted hard. "Vi?" she asked.
The light only had to dim slightly for her to realize that it wasn't Vi, or anybody else she knew for that
matter: it was a dog-man with thick brown fur, wearing a white robe. Though she had never seen a
creature like him before, he seemed vaguely familiar.
"Oh, drat," the young dog-man spoke. "Did I miss the Savant already? My Locate Person spell said there
was only one Rapax in this area, and I was hoping it would be the King." He sighed. "I suppose I'll have to
find information on the Ascension somewhere else."
Tearn stepped forward, with a quickly growing flame dancing in his paws. The dog-man cocked his head
to the side and widened his eyes in surprise. "A Feplurr? Here?" he asked, then looked at Tearn's paws.
"What exactly are you doing, Mister Felpurr?"
With a dangerous growl, Tearn formed the Fireball into a dangerously hot, sizzling white sphere. "Ridding
this planet of a murderer," he spat.
The Rawulf smiled. "The war is over, Mister Felpurr," he replied. "There is no need for this."
The Fireball flared in Tearn's paws, a thought away from screaming into the Rawulf's body. "That trick
only works once, dog!" he shouted. "Your white-robed extermination squads are known to all, even
among those Felpurr who haven't been stung by your secretive murders of my innocent people!"
"Really?" Kiwi asked, her head glowing, but soon knit her eyebrows in strain. "You're blocking me," she
said to the Rawulf. "What are you trying to hide?"
With a smug smile, the Rawulf shrugged his paws in a display of innocence. "My thoughts are private," he
stated. "My refusal to share them is not indicative of any wrongdoing. I am merely here to investigate the
Ascension under orders from the United Clans of Rawulf."
"Liar!" Tearn shouted. "You butchers never act alone... and the Rawulf Clans have not been united for
centuries!"
The Rawulf turned to his orange and black-striped adversary. "Things change," he replied. "Such as the
enmity between our people, and the current structure of the Rawulf populace. And who are you that
would know so much about me and my people, anyway?"
The Felpurr narrowed his eyes viciously at the Rawulf. The flames in his paws were every bit as hot and
bright as the one inside him now, and they clutched and licked at his insides with barely contained
anger... flames which once more threatened to consume his very soul. He spoke in a hiss, an almost
inaudible syllable, but still loud enough for the Rawulf to hear: "Tearn."
Upon the mention of the name, the Rawulf's smile immediately dropped. "You," he growled. "You have
some nerve slinging accusations about my character, knowing the pain you have brought upon my
people."
Tearn snarled in response. "I don't need to justify my accusations to one who murders children, the old
and the sick... because their senile seers gave a simple order," he accused.
The Rawulf bared his teeth as he spoke. "Say what you want about our ways, Felpurr, but your people
are just as bad as ours," he shot back.
Tearn allowed himself a smirk at the typical Rawulf debate tactic: when proven wrong, dodge and equate.
"Then let's leave it at that, shall we?" he growled, then fired the Fireball at his most hated of enemies.
It exploded on a quick Element Shield from the Rawulf, but his fur was still badly singed from where many
of the embers managed to make it through. Kiwi and Shss moved forward, but Tearn pushed them both
back with his paws. "Stay out of this! This is my battle!" he yelled, then ran in a wide circle along the
beach, with lights dancing in his paws.
"Warning," RFS-81 said from the netting over his shoulder. "Fireball."
Sure enough, the Rawulf conjured a quick series of red lances and whips of flame that shot out at Tearn's
body. The Felpurr threw up several layers of Fire Shield between him and the sea of fire.
The ocean seemed to physically waver from the sheer heat of the many flames, and turned bright red as
each wave of the spells splashed into and collapsed the first of the Fire Shields Tearn had erected.
However, after the shield collapsed, the Rawulf's fire spells simply rammed straight into another one.
There were simply too many layers for the spells to pass through, and with a pair of shields still left
between the two, the Rawulf's spells were already out of steam.
"I'm going to show you what they felt like!" Tearn screamed. "I'll show you the pain that you and your ilk
inflicted on my family when you gave those repulsive orders!"
From his paws, lances and jagged shards of ice spilled out in a wide cone. The bulk of them flashed
straight forward into the Rawulf and exploded in brilliant flashes of light on his Element Shield, but the
dog-man was too preoccupied to notice the fringe lances that wove their way around and into his sides.
The Rawulf screamed in pain and dropped to his knees. Tearn felt vindicated, alive, superior... a feeling
he hadn't felt in years. All thoughts of his friends here and the ones he had lost, Llylgamyn, the change
his character had taken over the past few years... quickly fled him.
There was nothing but his screaming family, the wolf rider... and his vengeance. As he charged up a
Fireball to burn the Rawulf from the inside, he looked upon his enemy in shock and anger: the ice lances
had fallen out of the Rawulf's sides, and his wounds were closing before his eyes.
He silently cursed himself. Of course... like lover boy, this Rawulf was a Bishop, trained to heal as well as
kill. In the Rawulf's case, however, he had had more than enough experience carrying out his secret
kidnappings and executions to make the mid-card, "jack of all trades" loss of power problem a
non-existent one. Even as Tearn coated the vile dog with flames that could melt steel, his body simply
healed right over the wounds.
The Rawulf grinned evilly. "With lackluster power like that, Tearn, it's a wonder one of our Bishops hasn't
burned you alive by now!" He stretched his paw out, and before Tearn could stop him, a flame exploded
in the Felpurr's face. Everything went red and white, then black, as the Felpurr was struck blind.
He clutched his face in pain... and his friends quickly had enough. But once they moved forward to slice
the Rawulf in two, the enemy Bishop merely raised a paw to them, and they were all suddenly and
painfully pushed back and into a row of trees behind them.
"Tearn!" Kiwi yelled out, clutching her head from where it had smacked into the bark behind her. "Hold
on!" The world was spinning, but she vowed to hurt this Rawulf, badly, for what he had done to Tearn and
his people.
Tearn reached out with his mind, finding the Rawulf directly in front of him with a Wizard Eye spell.
"Warning. Fir... Ice... Whip... Acid B... overload, overload..." RFS-81 said as it tried to name the spells
being prepared on both sides. Several dozen feet away, Kiwi struggled painfully to sort out spinning friend
from foe ahead of her, but was stopped in her tracks by a sudden and brilliant display between the two
spellcasters.
Each one casted every destructive spell they could think of at the other. From the Rawulf spilled burning
fire and jagged ice, swirling around and around a torrent of bright mental energy that shot from his mind.
Tearn responded in kind, with a jet of jagged rocks, rainbow Magic Missiles, snaking flame and a dozen
spears of ice erupting from his paws. As they twirled and danced towards the Rawulf, the Felpurr reached
into his coat and began throwing potion after potion straight after them.
The multi-colored, bright lights of a dozen spells screaming and whistling and flying between them was
hypnotizingly beautiful, in the brief second that Kiwi forgot they were all meant to kill the other. The
explosions brought her straight out of her stupor and she flew forward again, trying to get her bearings.
When the wave of spells struck Tearn and he screamed in unholy pain, his spells had just barely buried
themselves in the Rawulf.
Neither spellcaster had bothered to put up a single ward of protection, hoping that a full frontal assault
would leave the other too incapacitated to strike back. It turned out that they were both right: the Rawulf
struck Tearn full on in the body, leaving him crumpled and broken on the beach, with his robe and body
still smoldering from the violent spellstrike.
On the other hand, when the Rawulf took the brunt of Tearn's much more powerful spells, in addition to
the explosive chemicals in the Felpurr's Acid and Fire Bombs, he did not fare any better. The chemicals
dug into his white robe and ate at his flesh, along with the jagged pieces of broken glass that had
embedded themselves in his face and body.
What Tearn made up for in murderous strength, however, the Rawulf made up for in healing power. In
seconds, the chemicals and glass were sliding out and away from the dog-man's body, and he was
standing slowly with a wide grin on his face, and few wounds to speak of.
"I did not know you were also an Alchemist, stray," he chuckled, with paws glowing bright. He began to
laugh as he continued. "Did you not think I would be prepared for something like this? Perhaps you have
forgotten that the Order studies from all books of magic... and that includes spells from other worlds!"
As the Rawulf raised his right paw to him, Tearn painfully struggled to his feet, then reached into his robe
for a healing potion. To his surprise, he felt intense heat radiating out, like every one of his potions was on
fire.
A second later, one of them popped... and when he felt the chemicals dribbling down his body, he knew
that the Rawulf had destroyed one of his Acid Bomb potions. This isn't possible! he screamed in his mind.
I'm the only one who should have the power to break these potions! Even Guardia's most powerful spells
couldn't generate this much heat!
Kiwi had almost arrived, with her fist reached back to slug the Rawulf in the face. Tearn watched in horror
as the dog-man looked at her and lifted his left paw, energy crackling around it, to eliminate the Faerie
with a single spell. "Death spell! Master, run!" RFS-81 warned.
Tearn wasted no time. He waved his left paw beneath his feet, and his right to his companions.
He was suddenly in the air, powered by a Levitate spell. At the same time, he thrust Kiwi back into the
injured pile with the rest of the party, and well out of range of the Rawulf's Death spell. When the Rawulf
finally looked back, Tearn was already on top of him.
The damage was done. Potions and bombs began popping, raining their juices on top of the Rawulf as
they ate through Tearn's robe. "You may have to re-learn the basics, boy," Tearn snarled.
The Rawulf struggled to push Tearn off of him, but he was too weak; there were just too many liquids
eating into his body to heal at once. "NO!" he screamed.
Tearn closed his eyes. Kid, if you can hear me, I want you to know something, he thought. Kiwi looked on
helplessly, hearing every word, as the Felpurr's spell kept her rooted to the spot. I have never been more
proud of someone than I am of you. You've come a long way from the little girl I saw on Llylgamyn... The
Faerie shook her head slowly, helplessly.
If you see the Ronin before I do, he finished, tell her that I understand... and I'm sorry.
"For the Master," she audibly heard from the Savant Trooper, even as the message only took a second
to be heard in full. Serkesh and Kiwi's eyes went helplessly wide as Shss and Belcanzor covered theirs...
just before there was a bright flash, and then a large explosion, between the Felpurr and the Rawulf.
The sound echoed all around them, through the trees and off of the mountains around them. Birds flew up
and out in every direction at the sudden shock, and for a moment, the world was nothing more than a
high-pitched ringing.
When it had finally cleared, both Shss and Belcanzor were holding one another, and turned away from
the carnage. Serkesh, eyes fully open, was watching every second.
There was very little left of the Rawulf but a charred corpse and scraps of white cloth, after Tearn's
potions, spells and the resulting explosion had enveloped him. The Lizardman stood, then ran forward to
the body.
As Kiwi silently drew up next to him, Serkesh kicked the Rawulf's corpse, growling slightly. It wasn't
getting up again... as these magic types seemed used to doing. He looked at Kiwi, floating next to him,
and his heart broke.
She was shuddering, her lip quivering in terror and sorrow. When Shss and Belcanzor came up behind
her, the Fighter's world tilted in disbelief.
She's already been through so much, she thought, while Belcanzor knelt next to the body. This can't
happen, not now...
Kiwi looked on the verge of tears as she hugged her body tightly. She was whispering something, and
only when Shss strained to hear did she finally make it out: "I will be strong... I can get through this... I can
survive by myself..."
Serkesh suddenly widened his eyes. "No dead! Live!" he exclaimed. Kiwi looked up at him in hope,
brushing away her tears. "What?" she asked.
He rubbed his forehead and furrowed his brow, turning over the words Belcanzor had taught him in his
mind. "Sssss..." he hissed, trying to remember the words.
Eventually, he just looked helplessly at Kiwi and Belcanzor, but his face brightened when he saw Shss.
He put his meaty hand on her head and ruffled her messy hair, pointing at her excitedly.
"Hair...?" Kiwi wondered aloud, then made the immediate connection. "Fur! Tearn, the furry one, right?"
she asked. Shss swatted Serkesh's hand away in annoyance, but she seemed just as interested.
"Yes, yes! Furry man live!" Serkesh insisted. "And... and..." He furrowed his brow again, then hissed
something to Shss. "'Metal man,'" she translated. "He means RFS-81..."
Serkesh nodded emphatically. "Yes, yes! Furry man, metal man live!" he shouted.
"How do you know?" Kiwi asked, her eyes wide and full of hope.
He looked confused again, until Shss hit his shoulder. "I na A, Serkesh! (Just tell me, Serkesh)!" she
insisted.
"O kan kesh sei! Un hash shao! (I saw a bright light! It was above the furry man)!" Serkesh hissed, but
Shss looked at him in confusion. "Sshse? (What do you mean?)" she asked.
Serkesh grew impatient as Belcanzor and Kiwi looked at each other in hopeful confusion. "Anke ket hash
shao rashshao! Eo ta genke! (The furry man's body isn't here! He went someplace else)!" he insisted.
Shss' eyes widened. "There's hope," she said, turning and taking Kiwi's tiny shoulders in her hands.
"Serkesh saw a light before the explosion, just above Tearn. He seems to think that since Tearn's body
isn't here, putting two and two together... he might still be alive."
Kiwi's face fell. She gently shrugged Shss' hands off of her shoulders. "There's no body because there's
nothing left of him from that explosion... which was the cause of the light," she said. She looked among
the three of them, but kept her focus on Belcanzor for a half second longer. "Thanks for trying to cheer
me up, guys, but..."
The Dane stood, with his right hand clutched strangely at his side.
All of a sudden, and without warning, Kiwi's facade of strength suddenly cracked. "This can't be it!" she
exclaimed, then knelt down and beating at the corpse of the Rawulf. "It's all your fault, you dirty dog! Your
people kill his family, and now you come back to finish the job?! I hate you!!"
Serkesh reached down and put his great hands around Kiwi's body, keeping her from hitting the Rawulf's
body anymore. She swore loudly and broke down in his hands. "Why us?" she asked, her face buried in
her hands. "Why is it always us?"
"Ssss, Keshketka..." Serkesh consoled her.
She sobbed as he walked her away from the scene. In his hands, her body visibly slumped. "I'm sorry in
advance to whoever else dies because I'm here..." she whispered.
After Shss finished her translation for Serkesh, the Lizardman held her close, whispering, "Ket, ket..."
Shss followed closely, keeping her consoling hand on the Faerie's back.
Next to the large hole where the body of the Rawulf Bishop lay, Belcanzor sighed. The Queen watched as
the other three walked off without them, and after a few seconds, the Dane let out a pent-up breath. As he
did so, the tattered brown robe that he had been magically concealing since the explosion came slowly
back into view.
"So you chose compassion over truth," the Queen said. "It might not have been necessary, though."
Belcanzor nodded. "It was difficult holding the spell until I was able to get closer," he explained. With a
sigh, he continued. "It was a portal spell for sure, that flash..." he said. "But even if he did manage to get
through it... he couldn't have survived that blast." The Queen squeezed his shoulder, then went to follow
the others.
He remained for just a few seconds longer. "Why didn't you let us help you, sir?" he asked, tears welling
in his eyes as he looked into the pit. He closed them, shaking the drops loose onto his robe, and took a
deep breath. "Do you even know how..." he started, his voice cracking. "How much I idolized you? How
much that girl needed you? How much... we all needed you?"
The Dane solemnly knelt at the crater to leave Tearn's tattered robe there, out of sight from the girl he
obviously cared for, but far enough from the charred corpse of the Rawulf to keep from dishonoring his
memory.
Then, he stood, and ran to catch up with the others. Serkesh and Shss were looking back at him, fully
aware of the deception he had carried out, and doing their best to keep Kiwi focused away from it.
Maybe the pain of having lost so many friends and family in such a short span of time made her immune
to their effects. Perhaps it was because she had truly become stronger, and Tearn's final words served
only to reinforce that fact.
Kiwi leaned more towards the latter, for she knew if Tearn had not been there for her... and indeed, if
Janus or Hiromi or Master Jang had not, she would not be the person she was today.
In any event, as the party passed through the dark and narrow mine through the mountain and into the
Mountain Wilderness, Kiwi was not content to merely hide in Shss' armor, Belcanzor's robe or Serkesh's
fist. She had made so many friends on this journey, seen many amazing things and accomplished more
than she ever could have in the forest on Llylgamyn. She began this journey on insistence from her
teacher, continued it as loyalty to her friends...
And now, she would finish this journey, in honor of their memory. What Hiromi, Janus, Lucciana, Tearn
and Rufie could not do to stop the Savant... she would do in their stead. Her spirit was fused with the
strength and confidence each of her fallen friends had offered her, and she would not let them down.
With that in mind, though, it didn't make the reality of the situation any less grim, or the pain of their loss
any less poignant. With every person they lost, this quest to take down the Savant was less and less
likely to succeed.
Even worse, in Kiwi's mind, the death of the man who had been closer to her than any other felt less
painful than it should have been. If she did survive this, she knew that the steel armor that surrounded her
heart and mind now would not be the easiest thing to get rid of.
"Kiwi," Shss said, stroking her back. "I don't claim to know exactly what you feel right now, but I think I
understand. I know you've had a lot more pain in your life than anybody here, but I know what it means to
lose a sister. Two of them, in fact."
The Faerie nodded. "I know," she replied quietly.
"That's why," Shss continued, "I want you to know that I'm still going to keep my promise. Until the end,
little sister... I will be by your side until the very, very end."
"Tearn promised the same thing..." Kiwi answered.
Shss patted her gently. "Tearn's promise?" she asked, smiling. "I dare you... I dare you... to tell me,
knowing how stubborn that fuzzball is, that he isn't menacing God Himself with an ice spear to get back
here with you... with RFS guiding him every step of the way!"
Belcanzor caught her eyes with a comforting grin. "It's ok to let loose on us, Kiwi," he said. "Serkesh and I
may be new to this party, but it doesn't make us any less your friends!"
Serkesh widened his eyes and hissed supportively. "All of us are here to Ascend, and to stop the Savant,"
Shss continued, then backpedalled. "Actually, you know what? To hell with godhood. Once we reach the
Cosmic Circle, we're going to get our friends back... then we're all going home."
They walked on for some time in silence, with the Queen remaining a step or two away from the party.
Not knowing what else to say, Shss and Belcanzor took a step away from the Faerie. Shss kissed the
Dane on the cheek and hugged his head to her, knowing how painful it was for the young Bishop to have
lost his mentor so suddenly.
Serkesh walked at the head of the party with Kiwi in his hand, and patiently allowed her as much time as
she needed to grieve. Every sniffle and cough from the tiny Monk echoed off of the rocky walls of the
mine, and though it embarrassed her to no end, the Lizardman felt nothing of the sort in return.
Kiwi finally, thankfully, spoke. "It hurts, bad," she whispered. Everyone remained quiet as she continued.
"In the past few years... Tearn, Janus and the others have taught me how to stand on my own two feet.
But it doesn't make their... deaths... any less painful." She bit her lower lip. "Rufie, too..." she whispered.
"He was so brave..."
Shss nodded, and put a hand on Kiwi's back. "There's a difference between living and surviving," she
said. "I don't think for a moment that any of us ever wanted you to live for the sake of life."
She smiled. "Don't think that I haven't noticed the changes in you since we first met, 'kid,'" she said
proudly. "I know you can live without having others by your side now, however miserable that may be for
anyone.
"But," she continued, "that doesn't change the fact that we're here right now. You don't need to reject us
now to keep from losing us later. Don't soldier on by yourself... no matter how strong you are... when you
have good friends who are willing to fight and die for you here, and who are with you now."
Kiwi smiled and nodded. "I'll do my best," she answered.
As they exited the mine, they emerged onto the rocky path leading into the Rapax Rift. The Queen,
respectfully silent since Tearn's death, finally spoke and pointed ahead of them. "There they are," she
said.
Ahead of them, in the grassy field dotted with tiny pools of bubbling lava, was the Rapax army, thousands
strong, and heading straight for Ascension Peak before them. Even as she spoke, dozens more flooded
in from the east, where a pair of red and blue banners marked the entrance into Rapax territory.
Every one of the disciplined soldiers bowed slightly at the Queen as she and the party passed, and not a
single one of them troubled the intruders... as she had promised they wouldn't.
"Are we too late?" Belcanzor asked. "If the Prince is at the head of the army, we'll never be able to hurt
him with all these soldiers milling about."
The Queen continued to lead them forward, whispering back, "If he's not gathering more soldiers in the
castle, we can still disarm the Tower from there. Come on!"
The path to the Rapax Castle went through a rocky valley between two ash-covered cliffs. The party
could already feel the heat from the volcanic interior of the Rift beyond as they came face to face with the
man-made entrance: a giant snake head, carved out of the mountain itself, and flanked by a pair of
intricately designed red and blue Rapax banners.
Serkesh made a face as he took point and walked into the disgusting thing's mouth, but the Queen
expressed quite the opposite sentiment: she seemed to be almost overjoyed at the prospect of finally
being home. When everyone finally got to the back of the snake's head, the view of the Rapax Rift
through the stone fangs was just as hotly felt as it was seen.
The blast wave of heat was unbearable, especially with the sun directly in their faces, and was emanating
from several rivers of lava ahead. In addition, through tiny caves filled with superheated and glowing rock
to the left and right, the road wound around the lava and out of sight.
The Rapax Queen breathed deeply of the hot and sulfurous air. "It's good to be home..." she said.
As if in response to her sentiment, there was a scream from her left. It was a deep and guttural cry of
fright and pain, and issued by a large Rapax in burned and holey black clothing with soot and burn marks
all over him. On his arm was the mark of twisting and rising flames, some sort of tattoo.
When he entered the rocky clearing ahead of them and saw a party of four strangers looking down on
him, he shrank back briefly in fright.
But the second he saw the Queen, he lunged forward at her and knelt at her feet. "Please... you must
help me," he pleaded, dirtying her red dress with his pawing fingers. The Queen looked down on him
without remorse, as a nightmarish creature emerged from the lava before them with a loud and echoing
bellow.
The ten foot being seemed to be made entirely of molten rock, except for the golden bands around its
wrists and neck. Its right arm was longer than its left, and shaped like a giant, irregularly shaped club.
"PUNISH..." it roared, stepping forward with a blast of heat so powerful that Serkesh gathered everyone
behind him to block the blistering swelter.
The Rapax Queen looked down upon the pleading Rapax. "What is your name?" she asked, and after a
sooty cough, the Rapax answered. "Rafe, your majesty," he wheezed.
The Queen took a deep breath, trying to remember if she had heard the name. As she pondered, the
creature behind the frightened Rapax approached slowly, step by step, dripping lava onto the ground. "I
do not know you," she admitted. "Lava Lord! What is this man's crime?"
Impressively, her words alone were enough to stop the creature from taking another step. "TREASON..."
the Lava Lord bellowed. As it spoke, a tiny drop of magma dripped onto the rock below and ate into it with
a hiss. Rafe whimpered, and Kiwi's heart broke. "Maybe we should..." she started.
"Against whom?" the Rapax Queen interrupted, addressing the Lava Lord.
When it did not reply, and instead took a step forward, the Queen sighed, then reached into the bodice of
her dress. Without hesitation, she removed a dagger with a golden handle and a solid white blade, then
flung it backhanded straight between the Lava Lord's eyes.
It roared loudly, grabbing its head and flinging lava in every direction. Serkesh gathered up each of the
five in his massive arms and jumped through the snake head, back into the Mountain Wilderness. He did
his best to keep his body between the Lava Lord and the others, but there was no need. The few flecks of
lava that did come in their direction stopped and ate harmlessly into the ground inside the snake head,
but came no farther.
When its dying echoes faded, Serkesh stood and pulled everyone to their feet. As they cautiously
travelled back to the clearing, Belcanzor demanded, "What in the name of all that's holy was that?"
The Queen shook her head in pity. "Well, it was the creature that the Rapax Empire used to take care of
spies, intruders, murderers and the like," she explained. "Since he's only loyal to the King, and since the
King is loyal to the Savant... I had no choice."
Rafe bowed low and touched his forehead to the ground. The party watched in earnest as the flaming
tattoo on his arm slowly disappeared as he spoke. "Thank you, oh, thank you, my Queen!" he exclaimed.
"I was next to be executed for crimes I did not commit. There is no Rapax who is more dedicated to our
Empire than I, and yet..."
The Queen put her hand on his horned head to quiet him. "Be calm," she said. "Under whose authority
were you to be executed?"
He looked up at her with frightened eyes. "Al-Sedexus..." he said. The Rapax Queen's face suddenly
turned into a mask of pure disbelief, while her mouth slowly opened in surprise. "The... the Demon
Goddess has ordered this?" she asked incredulously.
Rafe nodded and squinted his eyes tightly shut, remembering the cold eyes of the one who had ordered
his death. The sheer sight of the seven foot, muscled Rapax, grovelling at her feet for help and mercy,
was enough to convince her.
"Get back to the castle, Rafe," she ordered him. "Do not join the Prince in the assault on Ascension Peak;
seek out the Hall of the Initiates and have them treat your wounds." Rafe looked overjoyed at her words,
and with a bow, fled through the cave to the right and out of sight.
"What's going on?" Kiwi asked.
The Queen stroked her chin thoughtfully, and said, "Al-Sedexus is the one who granted our people the
strength and will to survive when the Higardi pushed us here, into the volcanic rift. We would have died
had she not bestowed her wisdom and enchantments upon us. Through her guidance, we have thrived in
this harsh environment here, and have grown strong enough to erect our castle and stand on our own
feet."
She narrowed her eyes and made a low growl before she continued. "She has always yielded to the
power of our Kings in the past, never asking for more than nightly consorts, and for all Rapax to worship
her as our Demon Goddess," she said. "But it seems now, with the King dead, she wishes to take our
Empire for herself. I do not know if this means the Prince has allowed her rise to power... or more likely,
he is not aware... but this does not bode well for our people."
Belcanzor looked slightly disgusted. "So your people are the descendants of a Demon?" he asked.
The Queen looked at him. "Some of us are," she said as-a-matter-of-factly. "Others are born of two
Rapax parents. Generally, descendants of our Goddess are treated with higher regard than those born of
lowly soldiers or concubines." The Dane looked at her oddly, but held his tongue.
"Looks like there's going to be a change in plans," the Queen muttered.
"What do you mean?" Kiwi asked, even as the Queen led them to the edge of the lava river... but she
waved the Faerie away. "It is not your concern. It is a Rapax affair.
"Anyway..." she said, gesturing with her hands around the Rift, up and down and in circles as she spoke,
"the bridge is out, so we'll need to take a longer route to get to the castle. First, we'll need to walk through
the magma caves to the right of here, then past the rope bridge, then past the cells where we keep our
more violent offenders. After that, we cross a couple more bridges, slide down the cliff face to a pair of
double doors beyond, then up a few flights of stairs past the meditation halls.
"Finally, there will be a portal on the other end of a long hall that will lead us there," she said, pointing to
the other side of several rivers of lava, "where the castle is."
Kiwi fluttered to her side, following her eyes to their very close destination. "There?" she asked, pointing
to the rocks on the other edge of the distant river. The Queen nodded.
The Faerie shrugged and flew over the lava, clearing the half hour walk in an impressive ten seconds.
Belcanzor chuckled, kneeling in front of Shss and letting her climb on his back. He pushed air into his feet
and flew them over to the waving Faerie.
"Or we could do that," the Queen conceded. Serkesh swept her up in his arms, and she cried out in
surprise as the massive Lizardman got a slight running start, then lept them straight over the lava. Her
stomach flip-flopped, but she was surprised when she felt the gentle landing he provided them.
When Serkesh bared his teeth in a large smile at her, though, she was more than happy to get out of his
arms and away from him.
Her heart suddenly quickened as she heard a voice in her mind, a voice that each of them heard very
clearly. Come to me, a silky woman's voice ordered them all.
The party suddenly felt themselves being pulled to a set of marble doors built into the wall of a cliff, where
above them, a metallic Gargoyle was hunched protectively over the entrance.
The Queen knew what would happen, even before the thing suddenly came to life. It spread its wings
wide and roared as its claws sprouted talons of pure, blue lightning. It lept down as it screeched for blood,
then flew forward to take the lives of the non-Rapax before it.
The sight of the creature coming down was enough to shake the party from its hypnotic walk into the
underground temple, but it was Serkesh who moved first. He swept forward as the Gargoyle dropped
down, then took his axe from his back as his adversary reached its claws back to strike. Then, with a
circular swing from behind him, to down, around and straight up again, Serkesh sliced the Gargoyle from
its groin to the very top of its head.
Before it even had a chance to attack, the metal guardian split in half and fell to pieces around Serkesh.
In as cool a style as he could, the Lizardman replaced the axe on his back and turned to everyone else
with his arms folded across his chest.
Kiwi started laughing loudly. "What was that?!" she asked through her tears.
"El Dorado, the guardian to the temple of Al-Sedexus," the Queen explained.
Kiwi laughed even harder. "No, no!" she exclaimed. "What was it doing, coming down with that giant
'RAWR,' all dramatic and everything, and it can't even take a single hit before it drops?!" The pieces of the
metal Gargoyle shot out sparks, as if in annoyed protest, which made her laugh all the harder.
Even Shss and Belcanzor couldn't help but laugh at the all show monster, especially when Serkesh put
one foot atop one half of the Gargoyle's head and flexed proudly. The Queen shook her head in
impatience and walked past the Lizardman, down into the temple. "I'll take care of this," she said quietly.
"You four have your celebration up here until I get back."
When Kiwi was finally able to compose herself, she smiled and looked into the skies above her. "You saw
that, right?" she asked. Despite the lack of any clear response, she nodded happily, then motioned for the
others to follow her as she flew after the Queen. "Come on, bodyguards," she said. "The Crusaders, plus
more, still have work to do!"
Shss, delighted to see Kiwi in such high spirits, was more than happy to follow.
The downward slope into the bowels of the temple, disgustingly enough, resembled the spine of some
long dead creature. At the very least, the four of them hoped it was only made to look that way... a long
support beam, like a dark spine, went all the way down the hundred foot path, with smaller beams at the
top and sides like long vertebrae and ribs.
Their footsteps echoed as they went down, which only grew louder when they reached their destination.
White columns with blue bases and inscribed with runes held the large oval temple up, and in the middle,
a multi-windowed dome shone down orange and black light through the stained glass. Under the light, in
the middle of the temple, the Rapax Queen knelt before a creature they assumed was Al-Sedexus
herself.
She was very tall and fair, her head horned like the Rapax she birthed, and her eyes pure white. Around
her neck, a broad brown collar stretched out sideways like shoulderpads, but did nothing to cover her
bare breasts. Her arms were long and clawed, and hung at the sides of a long blue skirt. Though it did an
adequate job of covering her from the waist down, and only allowed a slight peek at her right thigh from
the side, it did nothing to cover her swollen belly.
A silver snake coiled around her body from out of nowhere, winding around her breasts and belly, then
around her back and out of sight. Even more disturbing than the sight of the mystical snake that had left
as soon as it had come... was the fact that Al-Sedexus, the Demon Goddess, was pregnant.
From the peeks that the Queen snuck at her belly, Kiwi got the feeling that this was not a Rapax she
would be giving birth to.
The Demon Goddess moaned deliciously. "Dear Queen," she purred, "have you brought these...
strapping lads and ladies for me?"
The Queen remained motionless, her head towards the ground, as she spoke. "I am afraid not... I merely
wish to show them to my husband's room," she replied. "I will provide you with adequate sacrifice as soon
as I am able, my Goddess."
Al-Sedexus' eyes flashed. "You plan to take them through the portal, to dismantle the Tower?" she asked.
Though the Queen's face flushed, she did not betray that emotion. "Yes," she replied simply, and
Al-Sedexus smiled. "Do not worry, my loyal Queen," she said silkily. "I do not care who is allied with you,
or betrayed by you, as long as I continue to get my sacrifices." She pouted. "The Prince seems to prefer
the company of his Concubines more than me," she added.
"I will speak with him," the Queen replied meekly. "By your leave..."
On Al-Sedexus' delicious laughter, she rose and walked out of the room, keeping her head low and in the
direction of the Demon Goddess. "Perhaps we have time for a tryst?" the tall, horned deity asked
Serkesh, gesturing towards her body.
Serkesh grinned stupidly, just before Shss smacked him. "And before you ask," the Fighter said, pointing
at Belcanzor, "he's taken." The Dane backed up a step as Al-Sedexus tilted her head to one side.
"Perhaps," she moaned. "But perhaps you and your winged friend would like to discuss this privately,
after you are finished with the Queen?"
Shss raised a curious eyebrow. The Demon Goddess began to laugh, then spun and disappeared in a
sudden flash of light. The Fighter rolled her eyes at Kiwi, who merely shrugged.
The Rapax Queen led them out of the temple, and through a partition of stone between the pair of cliffs
that went up and into the Rapax Castle. The gate was open and there were no archers atop it, which
might have been strange, had the Prince not been calling on every available man to go to Ascension
Peak with him. In fact, as they began the trek up the wide mountain path, the very first of the Rapax
soldiers began pouring down in lines of ten.
"Everyone get near me," she ordered. "Keep your hands on me at all times. If they think you're intruders,
you won't last three seconds up there."
Obligingly, the party formed a Rapax-Lizardman-Dane-Human chain, with a bonus Faerie on the Queen's
shoulder. Thankfully, as the disciplined Rapax wielding swords, bows, spears, chains and just about
every other weapon under the sun passed, they offered the party nothing more troubling than nods of
greeting.
Outside the Rapax Castle, the grounds were swarming with activity. The Queen led them through breaks
in the Rapax line to corners of rock and wall, where they slowly pushed into the castle itself. The grounds
were two-storied, ten foot walls separating the balcony where archers usually patrolled diligently for any
intruders on the ground.
Another break formed, and the party walked through the main entrance into the courtyard, which was
flanked by two large pillars under a large red banner of a gleaming gold Rapax. They barely managed to
make it a hundred feet and into another corner where two walls met, before they were almost trampled by
another line of Rapax soldiers. This one was much longer than the previous ones they had seen, and
took several minutes for the lines to finally thin out enough to allow them to continue on.
Finally, they reached the front gates of Rapax Castle, just before the last throng of Rapax soldiers burst
out the door. The party took a position on the more northern of two staircases leading to the second floor
on either side of the door, and waited for the Rapax to finally pass.
Shss shook her head in disbelief; she had no idea how they were going to sneak by this many Rapax,
much less take them head on. There must have been thousands of them...
The line of Rapax finally and mercifully ended, and even after waiting for a full minute, only a few more
seemed to trickle out of the open gates. It seemed the entire Rapax army had finally left the castle, and
was well on their way to taking on the Dark Savant himself. The Queen sighed and shook her head, then
continued into the internals of the castle she thought she'd never see again.
Their flesh began to crawl when they entered; everyone was gone. The large and impressive Rapax
Castle was as silent as a tomb, with only the ambient sound of distant, trickling water slicing through the
air. The entrance was poorly lit and somewhat messy, with open barrels of stinking meat and water inside
them.
However, once they entered the main hall, the true splendor of Rapax creativity was revealed: the walls
and ceiling were high and made of solid, polished stone. On the roof was a strange wooden structure that
spat water out in delicate streams to its left and right, collecting in two marble fountains on either side of
the room. Statues in the perfect likeness of slender female Rapax in long robes held their hands out over
the fountains, as if welcoming the clear water with stately pride.
In the back, and indeed all over the castle, rocky statues in the shape of crescent moons held floating
yellow orbs that splashed light in every direction. At the very end of the massive hall, two doors leading to
other areas led off to the left and right, while a small and open storeroom of crates and supplies lay
ransacked directly ahead.
There was a piercing cry from the distance, one that was too far away, and which had echoed too much,
to make out clearly. The Queen spared only a quick glance to the others, then led them through a winding
series of red carpeted hallways, and into the main Rapax dining area.
They had only a moment to take in the long dining table covered with meat scraps and hurriedly pushed
out chairs before the cries came once again. They were coming from the meat storehouse, and were now
close enough for the Queen to make out clearly; once she knew the nature of the one who was making
them, she slowed to a trot, then stopped completely in front of a tall fireplace.
"You don't want to go down there," she warned, standing next to the dying embers of the fire.
Nonetheless, the others went down anyway.
Inside, hanging aside meat of indeterminate origin, was a mangy brown Trynnie. He was naked with his
back to them, and was hanging by his ankles and dripping blood into a drain just beneath him. A Rapax
wearing a blood-stained white apron and black-tinted goggles held a cleaver next to the dead Trynnie,
seconds from dismembering or skinning him.
Instead, Kiwi rushed forward and socked the butcher in the chin, sending him spinning into the wall next
to him. With a sick crack, the Rapax was out like a light, and fell into the pool of blood beneath him. She
breathed heavily as her three friends rushed to her side.
"What are you doing?" Shss asked, when Kiwi thrust her tiny hand at the Trynnie's body. "Tell me you
don't remember him..." she said, then flew back up the stairs.
Shss couldn't place the Trynnie's face exactly, but he did look familiar. When she heard Kiwi shouting
upstairs, she led the other two back up to see what was going on.
"What kind of sick culture do you people have here?" Kiwi demanded of the Queen. The Rapax remained
silent as Kiwi unloaded, and the others uncomfortably gathered around the Faerie. "That Trynnie was
alive a second ago, and you just stood here while that guy killed him for food! Did you even care that he
was screaming for help?!"
The Queen remained unfazed. "Do you routinely rescue butterflies from the grasp of a spider?" she asked
plainly.
Kiwi raised her hands in disgust. "Yeah, I do!" she shot back.
"Even if it means the spider might starve to death?" the Queen asked.
"There's a HUGE difference between a butterfly and a Trynnie," Kiwi replied angrily. "Neither one of you is
a beast; you can both think and feel and reason and live and do all the things the other can! How can you
stand there and pretend like you don't feel anything?!"
The Queen shrugged. "Because I don't," she stated. "The Rapax do as they must to survive, whether it
means executing our enemies, or taking beasts for food."
Kiwi balked. "Beasts?" she asked incredulously. "I saw this Trynnie not four days ago, and he was
anything but a beast!"
"Beast with a brain," the Rapax reiterated, unrelenting. "Same as you, same as me. The strong survive
and devour the weak, and live to birth strong descendants. It's the way of nature... how do you think you
got to be where you are today?"
With a tiny, angry fist raised, Kiwi fought the urge to pop her one. "Why you callous, insuff...!" she began,
then stopped. Suddenly, she turned completely around, narrowing her eyes as a curious sound filled the
air. It wasn't so much the loud, echoing clank of metal that got her attention, though... it was the familiar
thoughts of someone she thought was dead slowly retreating from her.
It felt like the Rapax King was here.
Deadly serious, the Faerie flew down the hall and into a great audience chamber, where passageways
led off in several directions to other parts of the castle. To the north, a pair of red carpeted stairways led
up to the second floor, and between them was an impressively large, raised altar with what looked like
curved tusks situated at its base and at the top. A pair of flames blazed in large bone pits on either side of
it.
It was easy to imagine the Rapax King giving a speech from the top of the structure, or even from the
second floor, with a hundred screaming Rapax soldiers responding with mighty cheers below.
In this great meeting area, a lone Rapax was making his way towards the entrance of the castle. The six
foot and heavily muscled Rapax had the silver armor and large sword of the Rapax King, but the cloak
draped around his neck was royal blue, rather than red.
Kiwi quickly scanned the creature's mind, an action that prompted him to immediately stop and look
directly at her. He was familiar for a reason: it was the Rapax Prince, and he had just rounded up the last
of his followers for his assault on Ascension Peak.
The Rapax Queen was at the Faerie's side first, but immediately shrank back from the sight of her son.
"Get out of my head, bug!" he demanded in a gruff voice that cracked ever so slightly. He looked at the
Queen. "And what are you doing here? You were supposed to be locked up for plotting my father's
death!"
When Shss, Belcanzor and Serkesh arrived, the Prince's face changed from one of confusion, to one of
sneering condescension. "Oh, it's the collaborators," he said in disgust. "Emissaries of the Dark Savant,
no doubt, judging from that Trooper you were with."
Kiwi took several short, angry breaths, then addressed the Queen. "Tell him what will happen if he does
this," the Faerie ordered her, not taking her eyes off of the Prince.
After a few seconds of silence, Kiwi threw a look over her shoulder. The Queen backed herself into the
wall, refusing to make eye contact with the Prince. "Tell him!" she shouted, but the Queen just closed her
eyes and remained still.
"As cowardly as ever... Queen," the Prince spat the last word. "Now out of my way, I have an army to
lead."
As he started for the hallway before him, Kiwi flew forward to block his path. "If you try to Ascend or attack
the Savant, he'll blow this planet to pieces," she warned him.
The Prince ignored her and prepared to slice her in half, but just as suddenly backed up a step, then
looked around the audience chamber. "Where's the machine... and that cat thing you were with?" he
demanded. "Waiting in the shadows to strike when my back is turned?!"
On Kiwi's wince, he chuckled haughtily. "My father killed them, didn't he?" he said more than asked. She
grit her teeth angrily. "What did you do, question his ways?" the Prince asked, then laughed. "Did they
scream for mercy before he ran them through? Just desserts for those who put their lives in the hands of
the Savant!"
Kiwi's breaths grew quicker, her head swimming in rage. "Not another word," she hissed, balling her
hands into fists. The Prince raised his sword and pointed it at her throat. "Or else what, bug?" he
demanded. "Are you going to take me on? I have time to deal with a few Savant spies before the battle
for the Ascension begins. I must warn you, though, I am twice the warrior my father ever was!"
The Queen suddenly spoke up. "It's true... just let it go!" she warned. "My husband was never a fraction
the warrior my son is! If he won't be convinced, just let him pass!"
Kiwi didn't listen... she simply raised her fists before her in a clear challenge to the haughty leader of the
Rapax. "You do not want to do this," she warned in a dangerous voice. "Not here, not now. And especially
not with me."
"Keshketka!" "Kiwi!" Serkesh, Shss and Belcanzor called out, and watched as her body burned nearly red
with sheer anger. The Prince leaned back slightly, clearly intending to rush her. "You will not take anyone
else from me!!" the Faerie screamed as the Prince attacked.
In a rapid blur of motion, the Prince spun and sliced laterally along Kiwi's torso. Using the very wind that
the Rapax's sword kicked up, though, Kiwi fluttered up and rode the rushing air current straight into his
cheek. All at once, she unleashed every ounce of latent qi in her body, and with nothing but the memories
and strength of her friends in her mind, she focused everything into a single kick.
Her strike wrenched the Prince's neck suddenly sideways, and his entire massive body went flying into
her friends to her left. Shss thought quickly and hooked the Prince's body with the two of the three
remaining hooks on her Psispear, and as she slammed him into the wall next to her, engaged the stun.
He didn't jerk, twitch or fight in any way; he was already out. Shss removed the hooks from his body and
dropped the Prince directly on his head.
The Queen scurried back a few steps, as if the very sight of her son was more frightening than a ten foot
creature made out of volcanic rock. Kiwi breathed heavily, and felt her mind calming already.
After a moment of silence, the Prince groaned and unsteadily got to his feet, just to see that the big lizard
had taken his sword. He was too disoriented to be angry, but clearheaded enough to hear the Faerie
speak to him. "You're a boy," she said with a shake of her head. "Just a stupid, stupid little boy... playing
war."
She took a deep breath and waited for the Queen to look at her. "The Tower," the Faerie said simply. The
Queen took one last look at her son, then nodded and led the party up the stairs to the second floor.
Belcanzor waited at the base of the steps. "What about the Prince?" he asked.
Shss shook her head. "How long do you think the loss of a leader is going to keep the Rapax from
storming the Peak?" she asked. "It didn't take more than five minutes for the transfer of power from King
to Prince to be complete."
He quickly understood what she meant... when the Rapax couldn't find the Prince, his second... or third,
or fourth... in command would immediately lead them all up. And if they wanted to keep the Rapax army
from making the Savant blow the Tower... the best course of action to take would be to head for the
Tower itself.
But still... "I'll be right up," he said, then knelt at the Prince's side. The Rapax looked at him angrily, but it
didn't keep Belcanzor from wrapping his hand around his neck. He closed his eyes as his hand glowed
softly, then visualized the Rapax's vocal cords going slack in his mind's eye.
"Think twice," he said as he finished, "before you insult the memory of my mentor, or my friends, again."
The Rapax Prince tried to shout the most vile things he could think of as the Dane walked up the stairs,
but his voice simply would not respond. Humiliated and enraged, he picked himself up and hurried out of
the castle to lead his men to battle.
***
After a strenuous and confusing number of twists and turns through the poorly lit stone hallways of the
second floor of Rapax Castle, the party and their guide were atop the roof of the structure.
Curiously enough, the Rapax had erected an open-air zoo here, complete with caged animals from every
corner of Dominus. Directly ahead of them was a caged brown creature that was little more than two legs
and a giant head. It was sleeping now, snoring mightily from its great maw. Far ahead in another cage
was a brown, three-headed snake that watched their every move as they neared.
Finally, to their left, a group of short, screeching, fire-breathing creatures with long, serpentine bodies and
claws were safely behind an enchanted cell, one that kept their flames safely inside the confines of their
amply large housing.
Shss sighed. "What now?" she asked in dismay, gesturing ahead at a female Rapax in a purple dress
approaching them. She had a hand holding a long spear at her side, which which was wrapped at the tip
with a large piece of red cloth.
The Queen shook her head. "Don't worry, it is simply one of the Prince's Concubines," she assured them.
Indeed, the Concubine offered no resistance to the Queen or her guests at all. However, with a smile, she
did briefly stroke Belcanzor's young cheek as she passed, even as she did not miss a step in her stride
while doing so.
The Dane felt a tingle run down his spine at the touch. He immediately suspected some kind of
enchantment or poison, but none of his quick healing spells had any effect upon him. It was simply a
touch of odd affection.
When he turned to speak to the woman, however, she was gone. "We're almost there," the Queen said,
and Shss pulled a confused Belcanzor back into the party.
Once they had exited a hallway tinted mystically blue, they were in an area sitting in the shadow of the
walls at the very top of the castle. The sky was open and blue above them, and a gentle wind caressed
their worn and sweaty bodies.
Kiwi, at the Queen's side, saw her smile briefly as they passed a tiny swing and a sandbox. The Rapax
pushed the swing absent-mindedly and watched as it slowly swung to a stop.
"I was never there for him," she said, then took a deep breath. "My husband and I... I guess it was to be
expected. We had an Empire to run, tens of thousands to rule over. Who had time for something like a
child, like family, with so much to take care of?"
She sat down on the swing and rocked herself back and forth. "Even now, my son is nothing more than a
stranger to me," she confessed. "I can't bear to see him, to advise him, to be the support now that I
always should have been." She looked among everyone. "In truth... I'm afraid of him. Afraid of the man he
has become... and angry because I know it's our fault that he is who he is."
Kiwi held her eyes on the Queen during her slight pause, surprised that someone so callous towards the
lives of murdered "prey" could be so distraught over anything else, including something that hit closer to
home. She assumed that the woman was as cold as her attitude suggested she was.
The Queen took a deep breath, let it out, then stood. "The portal is downstairs," she finally said, then led
them down a brief staircase to the great wooden door that led into the King's room. On the walls were
hung trophies of great tusked heads, scaley beasts, every kind of animal imagineable. Off to one side
was the open door leading into a large bedroom, complete with a huge and extremely comfortable-looking
bed.
In the corner, the Rapax Queen felt along the wall until she found the hole she was looking for. It was
small, almost imperceptibly so. When she had finally felt its presence, she reached into her bodice and
withdrew a key. It turned easily in the hole, and a wooden rack leaning up against the wall next to it slowly
swung open to reveal a tiny closet behind it.
She gestured them in without a word. Serkesh, Belcanzor and Shss went in first to see the eight foot
portal of solid marble, complete with decorational red spires on either side, looking straight into what
looked like another world... part machine, part organic.
"You ready, Kiwi?" Shss asked.
The Faerie remained just long enough to speak to the Queen in her mind. We are all the sum result of the
choices we make, she thought to the Rapax. I didn't know that until recently. We can choose to take pity
on ourselves as we regret the past, or choose to move on and try to make the best of it. Either choice is
as right as you make it, as long as you don't hurt anybody else in the process.
The Queen did not say a word. You've already done more than enough for us, Kiwi continued. And I think
it's proof enough that you can move on, if you want. She nodded as she withdrew into the closet, then
joined the others in going through the portal. Press on with all you have, Queen, Kiwi said. Retrospect just
doesn't become you.
When she was sure they were gone, the Queen retired to her bed, then stared at the ceiling in deep
thought for several minutes. She drifted off to sleep without realizing it, and awoke some time later to the
odd sound of a castle in complete silence. At that moment, it felt like she was the last person alive in the
entire universe.
Then, with a sudden and resolute feeling, she knew what she had to do.
In her dresser drawer next to her bed, she removed a glowing amulet, a direct, telepathic link to her
personal Assassins. She held it tightly in her hand as she held it to her forehead. Brothers, she thought, I
have a task for you.
Rapax Castle
Day 13
The air was heavy with the syrupy sweet smell of the Dark Nectar, the red, viscous fluid that called
Al-Sedexus from her home in the Rift, to the sacrifical chamber in the Rapax Castle. Sexus, high Rapax
Mage and mercenary for hire, placed the empty bottle at his feet. He gripped his curved Mageblade
tightly, knowing the ramifications of what he and his brother were about to do.
He looked at his half-brother Al-Nybud, son of Al-Sedexus and their father Nybud, and nodded. His
brother returned the gesture, holding the tip of his Flamberge on the altar below him. They were armed,
armored... and ready.
A small vortex of black and blue swirled at the top of the spired altar, covered with the stains and
splashes of Dark Nectar, old and new. Laughter filled the air as Al-Sedexus' crouching body slowly
appeared from within the middle of the vortex, with her arms across her chest.
When the vortex disappeared, she slowly stood and let her arms down to reveal her body, slender and
bare. When she opened her pure, white eyes to them, Al-Nybud was momentarily filled with a profoud
sense of unconditional love.
Duty overcame him just as quickly, though, and he killed the feelings before they could take firm root.
Al-Sedexus smiled. "My handsome little boy," she said to Al-Nybud, then looked confused. "Where are
your brother's robes? Do you intend to bring a sacrifice without the proper attire?" Her eyes glowed ever
so slightly as she spoke.
Al-Nybud fought, tooth and nail, every enthralled and loving emotion he had for the Demon Goddess.
"Yes, mother," he said, raising his sword, "I have brought exactly that."
Al-Sedexus chuckled, then laughed fully and loudly. Before Al-Nybud could react, the Demon Goddess
whipped out her claw, and sliced Sexus neatly in half.
"Brother!" Al-Nybud screamed, just before she impaled him and lifted him up with unholy strength. He felt
his life being drained from him by the second, and he weakly dropped his sword.
The Demon Goddess brought his body close to hers, then hugged him as she would a young child. "Oh,
darling..." she whispered, "did you really think you could hide your thoughts from me?"
Al-Nybud was too weak to reply... and the world began to spin as he felt his blood boil in his very veins.
After mere seconds in his mother's embrace, the Rapax suddenly exploded into chunks of meat and
blood under the sheer heat and pressure of her Boiling Blood spell. The Demon Goddess hummed, her
voice echoing all over her audience chamber.
Suddenly, in a single instant, that humming turned into a screech of sheer pain. Something was stabbing
into her back, faster and harder than she thought possible.
Behind the furious vibration and lightning fast thrusts of the enchanted Trynnie spear, a red cloak slowly
unwound itself, and fell off of the Rapax Concubine's shoulders. She shouted in fury as the spear pierced
the back and spine of the Demon Goddess faster than the eye could see. Wounds opened by the dozen,
the hundred... the thousand, in her back, and the Demon Goddess thrashed and screeched as she
slumped forward into a bleeding, dying mess on the ground.
"Conc...ubine..." she hissed. "Why...?"
The Concubine pierced the Demon Goddess' back with the spear, pinning her to her altar. And over the
Demon Goddess' ear-piercing death scream, the Rapax spoke. "I have not hidden my thoughts from you,
Goddess," she cried, tears streaming down her cheeks. "You stole my children from me..."
Al-Sedexus finally stopped thrashing, then lay still under the Trynnie spear. At the exact moment that she
died, her body lifted into the air and begun spinning. It turned slowly at first, but once it had picked up
enough speed, a bright light exploded throughout the room... and then, she was gone.
The bright light remained above the Concubine for several minutes as she knelt by the halves of one of
her three sons. She cradled him in her arms, as the last of Al-Sedexus' fading screams were swallowed
up by the remorseless stones around her.
True Blue
Savant Tower, Arnika
Day 10
A slight rustle of wind massaged the top of Belcanzor's bald head, just before the sounds of scraping
metal and a distant explosion rocked his senses. His focus was entirely on the control panel before him,
but he didn't have to look to know that it was a Savant machine of some kind that went flying above him.
"The star... moves that purple and orange one, right? No, wait..." he muttered.
"Baby, hurry it up!" Shss shouted, ducking her opponent's slash for her neck.
Savant Slashers... Not a bad ring to it, she thought, driving the globe of her Psispear into its torso and
pressing the button to engage the stun.
Belcanzor waved at her without looking, then pushed each of the four symbol-bearing buttons on the
Tower control panel. "Which is it... square? Circle? Maybe the triangle will..." he grumbled.
Each of the four buttons moved a certain pair of the pylons in the pit below. There were eight pylons in all,
colored green, red, purple and yellow. He figured that once they all retracted into the wall, or were all
extended, that it would do... something. He just hoped that it wasn't the self-destruct mechanism he was
activating.
He felt a tingle of electricity in the air to his right. Before he had a chance to see the laser from the Savant
Gunners aiming straight for his temple, Serkesh was between it and the Bishop. The laser dug a shallow
burn in the Lizardman's massive chest, who hissed in pain just before he charged forward to lop the
Gunner's head off. Belcanzor could swear that the machine backed up a step from the rampaging
Lizardman, even though he doubted they were programmed to feel fear.
Kiwi was happy... maybe ecstatic was a better word... that she could fly. While Belcanzor could easily
cast a Levitate spell, and was even now on the dry, metallic plates in front of the control panel, Shss and
Serkesh were mired completely in the muck on the floor of the Tower. It seemed that from the base, to
hundreds of feet above where the ceiling finally appeared, that the entire place was coated with a thin
layer of slime.
She didn't claim to know a lot about the magic that allowed ships of solid steel to traverse the stars, or to
allow hollow tubes of metal to spit fire, but it didn't take a mechanical genius like Vi or Bela to tell that this
Tower was at least partly alive. The biometal fluctuated like the domed and omnivorous slimes of
Llylgamyn or the Cruds of Guardia, only as a single, thin mass.
Thankfully, she was several feet above it; she'd rather face a hundred of these machines than spend one
second touching the goop below her.
The Savant Slashers whistled their bladed spike-arms through the air, trying to slice just a single piece of
her flesh. Unfortunately, Kiwi moved so fast that they could barely pick her up on their scans, much less
get in a hit.
Kiwi grabbed one of the Slashers' heads, then spun. The machine in her hands whipped around and
kicked into the others, whose bodies spun and smashed against the gooey walls and floor of the Tower.
Again, one of the Slashers she struck flew in a corkscrew for Belcanzor and the control console, but the
Dane was quick enough to duck before the machine scraped along a few of the buttons, then dropped
into the pit below.
"Hey!" he shouted.
Kiwi winced as she pulled her Slasher's head off, then dropped it into the goo. "Sorry...!" she yelled back,
blocking another of the machine's downward swipes with a retreating forearm, then twisting its arm
behind its back.
Luckily, Kiwi's flying Slasher seemed to have hit the control panel's sweet spot. A few seconds after it had
flailingly smashed the buttons on the console, and the pylons below had shifted, the lights in the Tower
suddenly shut off. "No, wait... you did it!" Belcanzor shouted. "The Tower's been disarmed!"
Just to be sure, he conjured a Fireball in exactly the manner Tearn had instructed him... with control as
key. When it was finished, he felt an intense sense of pride as it cleanly entered the control panel before
him and melted its internals... no backfire, no fizzle.
"Let's go!" he shouted.
Shss took a Slasher's strike on her Ebony chestplate, then pushed it bodily back. As it stumbled
backwards, she ducked and swept her leg under it, sending it crashing to the goo below. She whipped
her Psispear around and drove the spearhead through its body, twisted, then lept over the goo to get to
Kiwi.
"Enjoying yourself?" she asked, looking among the piles of twisted metal at the Faerie's floating feet. Kiwi
turned around and smiled sheepishly, pausing only to backhand a Slasher behind her that got too close.
Shss beckoned down into the pit, where Belcanzor was floating quickly down.
He looked at the retracted pylons with narrowed eyes. "That was... easy," he said, with his brow furrowed
in confusion. "Way too easy." He gently set himself on the metal platform fifty feet below them, and took in
the new scene around him.
On the bottom level of the Tower, the lights were still on. According to the Rapax Queen, the portal to
Arnika had to be somewhere down the path ahead of them, through about six inches of the rolling goo.
He briefly debated whether he had enough of the strength of air within him to Levitate over it all, but
thought better of it... he might need the power for something else later.
The lights down here looked like the giant, triangular white sclera of some unseen monster's eyes,
complete with thick red veins. Belcanzor imagined the iris and pupil rotating into view to look at him, but
thankfully, his imagination seemed more effective at scaring him than the Savant's twisted engineering
skills.
The rest of the twenty foot octagonal area's walls was covered in the same veiny biometal as the second
floor, and a single path with a tall roof led south and wound left, out of sight.
Kiwi fluttered down as gently as he did, in stark contrast to the sudden thump of both Shss and Serkesh
to his left and right. The brother and sister pair landed in a crouch and immediately rolled safely forward
into the goo in perfect tandem. Neither seemed to be concerned with the pinkish-brown slop that now
covered their bodies; rather, they were more interested in getting Kiwi and Belcanzor away from the hail
of laser fire than now followed them from above.
The Dane winced and lept into the goo, with shivers of disgust running down his spine at its unforseen
warmth. Kiwi chuckled teasingly as she floated by and darted down the tunnel ahead of them.
Instinct took over as the blue lasers of the Savant Gunners above Belcanzor fired into the goo behind
him, and he sloshed forward after the other three. Disgustingly enough, he looked back to see the
shivering muck waver and vibrate at the spot the lasers hit, like it was crying out in pain.
"Ah!" Kiwi screamed, then bolted back down the path. Serkesh and Shss charged forward and around the
corner, where a beast unlike any they had seen before was chasing the Faerie.
The thing was easily thirty feet tall, just short enough to chase Kiwi through the hallway. At the same time
that it was clearly a living being, with pale white skin and glowing red eyes, it was also part machine. This
was not metallic armor that covered its legs, chest and shoulders... it was skin. It was standing guard in
front of the green, sparkling teleporter that would hopefully take them back to Arnika.
All debate of what to classify the Savant Behemoth left the front line fighters at the mere sight of its
weapon: two dozen feet of solid wood, with ten feet of a solid steel pointed on one end, and another
curved blade on the other that resembled a large pickaxe.
As it barreled down the hallway, Belcanzor immediately flooded his body with the feeling of fire. His head
glowed, wrapped in a halo of red, and he placed both of his hands against one another, pointing at the
Behemoth's head. When the spell was completed, a twirling rainbow of multi-colored lights flashed,
popped and screamed into the thing's mind.
The Behemoth roared under the painful pressure of the Prismic Ray spell, and was suddenly afflicted with
all manner of confusing sights and sounds. Belcanzor had guessed right; it was alive, at least partly
organic. The Behemoth swatted at invisible flying creatures, saw its sight come and go at the drop of a
hat, and felt an underlying sense of sheer terror and nausea.
Wasting no time, Shss and Kiwi jumped onto its metal wrists and pulled its weapon down and low to the
ground. Serkesh roared and lunged forward, grabbing the massive, bladed staff, and engaged the
struggling giant in a contest of power over the enigmatic weapon.
It was a dead heat. With Shss and Kiwi keeping the Behemoth from moving its arms, and Serkesh's
hands firmly on its weapon, nobody was going anywhere.
The Lizardman thought quickly, and planted his feet in the gooey ground. With a mighty roar, he pushed
the creature as hard as he could, sending it, Keshketka and his sister through the glittering portal
together.
Arnika
Day 11
The sun had long set over the city of Arnika, thrusting the entire city into the blackness of night. This used
to be the time that only prowlers, thieves and murderers, however few they were, stalked the clean
streets of the town of the Higardi. It was the time that the dregs of society used the cloak of darkness to
hide their activities... and the time that the greatest police force that the galaxy had ever known, the
Higardi Lunar Legion, confronted those evils.
Now, with the coming of the Dark Savant, the HLL was faced with a threat on two fronts: the burglars, the
killers, they were all still there... but now, so were the Savant Troopers. The Savant claimed to have only
a peacekeeping force here, but the HLL did not believe him. The reports of the machines executing
known murderers and rapists were downplayed, explained away, or not even released.
It was only the innocent people who were injured or killed by the machines that the HLL was concerned
with. After all, it was their job, as the police, to protect the innocent of Arnika, and punish its guilty. The
Savant had no right to step into Higardi affairs and dictate who lived and who died, especially considering
how little he knew of their people... and how he clearly killed with seemingly no regard for who was truly
guilty.
Even the murder of a dozen thieves did not excuse the Savant's machines from killing one innocent
person... and it was for this reason that the HLL now stood ready to fight against their occupiers.
For Arnika to continue as it had been since the Savant arrived would be inexcusable. Their duty to the
good people who lived in this city remained a solid one, and now, a group of the HLL's ten best and
brightest were now lined up, maces in hand before the Savant's Tower, staring down a group of a dozen
Savant Troopers.
Before they even had a chance to begin this clear rebellion against their spacebound occupier, there was
a flash of light. Just as it began to dim, the sounds of four distinct screams of rage filled the air, followed
by a large thud and several loud explosions. The HLL jumped back as the light finally faded, and were
overjoyed at the carnage before them.
He'Li's helper, the Lizardman Serkesh, had fallen out of the sky on the chest of one of the Savant's
gigantic minions. Together with a dark-skinned girl on one of the creature's arms, and a Faerie on the
other, they had landed on and crushed the bulk of the Savant Troopers that the HLL were about to
confront. The Behemoth roared as the jagged points and fiery explosions of the machines beneath it shot
into its back.
Not one to take any chances, Serkesh took advantage of the Behemoth's pain, ripped the heavy weapon
from its hands and drove the spiked end into its heart equivalent. The creature immediately stopped
struggling as Serkesh struck a bundle of nerves in its chest, and killed it instantly.
The HLL quickly moved in and mopped up the remaining Troopers, bashing their metallic heads in with
unrestrained ferocity.
Belcanzor stepped through the portal last, and with a flash, was standing outside of and next to the
Savant's black Tower. The Behemoth was still there, but with all three of his companions standing calmly
atop it, he knew that the battle was over.
Shss rolled off of the beast, got to her feet and helped the Dane down the slope from the Tower. He
smiled, and at seeing the twenty foot weapon in the Lizardman's hand, his eyes grew slightly wide.
"Wow... think he'll keep it?" he asked.
Serkesh easily lifted the weapon with both of his hands, but when he transferred the weight to only one,
strain was suddenly evident in his face. "Very big," he grunted, then dropped the heavy polearm onto the
Behemoth's chest.
With a wave, Kiwi bolted away from the HLL towards He'Li's bar. "Sorry about the mess!" she called out,
and the others ran after her.
Down the darkened roads they ran, under lights that alternated between too bright to see, and damaged
from some very recent battle. When they finally reached the middle of town where the temple, bank and
other important parts of the town's nerve center lay, Kiwi was already coming out of the bar.
"A woman named Anna has a Marina northeast of here," she said breathlessly. "If we hurry, we can catch
her before she goes home!"
Belcanzor scratched his head in wonder, breathing hard. "Where's she off to in such a hurry?" he asked.
"The Destinae Dominus has been sitting in those caves for about a hundred years. It can wait another
day while we rest, can't it?"
Shss started in a full run after the excited Faerie, then looked back at the Dane. "Once we find it, we'll
only be two artifacts away from Ascension!" she explained.
Belcanzor hummed thoughtfully, then suddenly knew what she was getting at. "Two artifacts away from
getting Sir Tearn and the others back," he realized. The thought gave him a sudden burst of energy, and
with a loud cheer echoed by Serkesh, he found himself running almost as fast as the swift Faerie in front
of him.
Shss felt her mood elevate at the thought. Janus, Hiromi, Lucciana... they'd all be back. Kiwi certainly has
an infectious personality, she thought with a chuckle.
"Aaaannaaaa!" Kiwi called out loudly at an elderly woman, who was walking away from her to a row of
houses to the south. Her grey hair was covered with an orange headscarf, and was the same color of her
simple dress. She wore a green shirt with sleeves to her elbows under the dress, and a white apron over
it.
She stopped in the middle of the road under a streetlight, put her hands on her hips and shook her head
towards the ground. "We need your help!" Kiwi continued.
After a deep sigh, Anna looked up at the sky and spoke with her back to the Faerie. "What is it with ya
people?" she asked exasperatedly. "I spend sixteen hours a day in that Marina, and not a single person
shows up. But once I close down for the night, I suddenly get customers askin' me for favors."
She turned around just as Serkesh, Shss and Belcanzor arrived... and made a face. "'Customers' was
right. Ain't any'a ya got any concept'a 'store hours?'" she asked.
Kiwi shook her head strongly. "No, no, you don't understand," she said. "We just need to borrow a boat
and leave right now. We'll take care of the rest!"
"Where ya headin' off to, kid?" Anna asked.
Kiwi closed her eyes when the old woman addressed her so, and smiled briefly before replying. "The Sea
Caves," she replied.
Anna let forth a single, high-pitched laugh. "Hoo! All the way over there?" she asked incredulously. "Ain't
nothin' over there but the wreck'a my husband's boat'n a bunch'a them crabs. Tell ya what," she said,
shooing them away with her hands. "Ya'll come by tomorrow at daybreak when I'm open, and we'll head
on over there together. It's about a two week journey from here to there'n back again, and I'm headin'
over there anyway."
When she turned around and started back for the houses, Kiwi flew quickly in front of her to block her
path. "You don't understand," she said. "If we don't get there before the Savant does, then we'll..."
"Wait a second," Anna interrupted. "What's this whole trip got to do with the Savant?"
Kiwi looked over the old woman's shoulder at her party members. Belcanzor and Shss nodded in unison,
and the Faerie returned the gesture. "The Destinae Dominus is buried there, along with Marten," she said.
Anna crossed her arms over her chest. The Faerie looked at her friends for help, but they just shrugged
helplessly. "We, uh... need the Destinae Dominus for the Ascension. To save our friends," she added,
though Anna still seemed unconvinced. The older woman cocked her head to the side. "Mm-hmm?" she
asked, expecting more.
Kiwi bit her lower lip, thinking fast. Just when Anna seemed ready to leave without another word, the
Faerie suddenly smiled. "And to stick it to the Savant," the Faerie said with an evil grin.
The old woman nodded emphatically. "Now you're talkin'," she replied. "Get yer gear together... we'll be
there by tonight." Shss looked at Belcanzor with a smile, and mouthed, "Tonight." He chuckled, and the
three followed Kiwi and Anna to the older woman's shop.
Inside the Marina, Shss pulled the other three aside in the corner, next to a large stack of crates. She
sighed with a bright smile. "Finally, some good news," she said, while Belcanzor gently rubbed her neck.
"So what's our next move after this?" he asked.
Shss looked among all of them, translating for Serkesh when she could. "Remember what the Master's
good friend told us," she said, as she rubbed Kiwi's head with a pair of fingers. The Faerie batted weakly
at her hand in mock annoyance. "The Chaos Moliri is somewhere in this town... or at least, that's what the
Savant believes."
"And if there's anything I know about that guy, he keeps good intelligence," Kiwi added with a shiver.
"So after we press the locals for some info and find it," Belcanzor continued, "that leaves only one more to
find: the Astral Dominae."
Shss nodded. "Which means we'll need to take a trip to the Black Ship at some point in the near future..."
she concluded.
Serkesh clenched his fist in anticipation. "Crush bubble head, take! Easy!" he assured them. Shss patted
him on the shoulder, happy that the brute was still content to look out for his little sister, especially
considering the danger.
Anna came back then, with a ring of keys in her hand. "Let's get goin', aliens," she proclaimed, then led
them outside.
On the docks just outside the Marina, the wind blew coldly around them, and carried with it the clear, salty
smell of the open sea. Anna had lived and worked so closely to the ocean for so long, that she
considered no other type of air to be clean.
Even so, after decades of breathing it, she never got used to it. Every trip on the open sea was as
relaxing as the last... and until the day she joined her husband in returning to its welcoming waters, she
would never tire of it, and never stop breathing it.
Serkesh grumbled in dismay when he saw Anna's vessel. "Boat die," he stated. Indeed, the ship looked
like it had seen better days... the sail was sliced into tatters and had several burn marks and holes in it,
the wood looked like it was beginning to rot, and the deck had taken on quite a bit of water.
Anna stopped, looked at the boat, then shrugged. "Yeah, them Troopers went'n sank the thing when they
found out I was sellin' weapons to the townsfolk," she explained. "I guess it was a warnin' 'fore they
torched my Marina... or me, for that matter. I learned my lesson 'bout bear baitin' that day."
"So how are we going to get to the Sea Caves?" Shss asked.
Anna smiled. "C'mon, girl," she answered. "You think a woman of the sea like me's gonna have just one
boat lyin' around handy?"
The Fighter shrugged. "Guess not," she admitted. "So where's the other one?"
Anna pointed out onto the water. On a small, grassy island in the middle of the large and gated harbor
was a stone tower, much taller than it was wide. The very top was pointed towards the sky, and just
beneath its ceiling was housed a dim, rotating yellow light that could be seen through a glass window.
"That there lighthouse's been up'n runnin' for who knows how long," Anna said, before she snorted in
disgust. "With the Savant terrorizin' the planet, ain't much use keepin' the lights on for boats that're too
afraid to be sailin'... but we keep it on, all the same."
She looked among the four. "Any'a ya got that there, uh... magic mumbo jumbo in ya?" she asked. "I ain't
feelin' up to a swim at this freezin' temperature. Maybe if I was a little younger, ya know?"
Belcanzor nodded, then knelt in front of her. "Climb on, miss," he said, and hooked his arms around her
legs. As Kiwi flew to the door leading into the lighthouse, Shss raised an accusatory finger at Belcanzor.
"Watch those hands, love," she teased, then grinned and lept onto the island with Serkesh.
"Hey..." the Dane started to protest, but she was already gone. He lifted himself and his passenger up
with a Levitate spell, and floated them over to the island.
"She's yer sweetie, ain't she?" Anna asked him.
Belcanzor nodded, without a hint of shyness. "Yes," he answered happily, and Anna chuckled... it had
been a while since she and her love had seen adventures of their own here on Dominus.
When they landed, Belcanzor gently let the older woman down. "You said you were married?" he asked.
"Will your husband be joining us?"
Anna nodded. "'Course he will. He's been with me on every voyage, right here," she said, tapping her
chest, "ever since he crashed his boat up on them Sea Caves."
Belcanzor blushed. "I'm... sorry. I didn't know," he said.
"Sorry for what?" the old woman asked, then shrugged. "I don't miss 'em, 'cause he never left. I make
trips up to the Sea Caves to pay my respects to his boat now'n again, though."
Shss tapped the Bishop on the chest with the back of her hand and gave him a disapproving look. He, in
turn, winced in weak apology.
Anna unlocked and entered the lighthouse, a dark spire with a winding staircase that led up to the light
above. Belcanzor immediately followed the older woman with a conjured ball of light in hand, for which
she was visibly grateful. She slid her hands along the stone wall until she found a catch, pushed a hidden
button, and a door in the staircase opened to them.
The island that held the lighthouse was actually a very well disguised underground port for Anna's secret
ship. The island's underside was not grass and dirt, but rather a large metal dome that concealed the
wooden dock beneath it. The boat here, though resembling its sunken sister ship above, was clearing
missing its mast and sails... and for that matter, any other visible means of propulsion.
"All aboard'n below deck," Anna ordered them. Shss and Kiwi smiled at one another; Wikum's Powerboat
was just as unimpressive as this one appeared to be, just before it carved through the rough seas like a
finely sharpened blade.
Unlike Wikum's Powerboat, though, Anna's boat was loaded. The party's collective jaw dropped as they
took in the sight: the hold was stocked with all manner of preserved meats, fruits and grain, barrels of
water, weapons of all kinds...
Anna smiled as she descended into the hold with them, clapping her hands on Shss and Kiwi's shoulders.
"Ladies, gentlemen..." she said with a pair of pats, "help yerselves."
With a mighty cheer, the party dug into the barrels and crates, retrieving a veritable feast from within. As
they enjoyed themselves, Anna, resigning herself to being the head of this little expedition, made for the
bridge just behind her.
She pushed a few buttons, and the ship began to hum and throb as the engines started up. She pushed
the throttle forward and took the wheel, gently bringing them out of the dock through an underwater cave,
until they were a few hundred feet out to sea. At last, she pushed a button on the console to engage the
intercom. "Seal up the goodies'n hang on, kids," her voice came to them. "We're goin' topside."
Then, after allowing them a courtesy ten second wait, she ordered the ship to surface.
Above the water, a dark brown shape suddenly burst out of the sea and exploded to the surface,
splashing waves and spray in every direction. The water ran down the deck through tiny dips and
grooves, and straight back into the ocean.
Once the ship was more moist than drenched, there was a whirring sound that emanated from below
deck. All at once, the wood split apart and a mast shot upwards, ramrod straight, and white sails flowed
down it. Behind it, a large fan raised itself out of the deck and began to spin impossibly fast, blowing wind
straight into the sails. They caught the draft immediately, as another machine on the back side of the ship
emerged from the wood, and began kicking up water from the sea.
Inside, Anna looked over the readings one last time. Everything seemed to be working perfectly... after
all, she and her husband had made the vessel. "Isn't that right, darlin'?" she asked, then kissed two of her
fingers.
She pushed the intercom button again, and spoke to her passengers just behind her. "Ya'll better hold on
to something," she warned them, as the nose of the ship slowly and slightly raised out of the water. "The
first couple'a minutes can be a bit rough."
After nearly an hour of feast and stories of their adventures here on Dominus, the party was about ready
to call it a night. Anna laid out a blanket for Shss and Belcanzor... two for Serkesh... and after running out
of sheets, advised the tiny Kiwi to "shack up" with someone warm. It took a while for the other three to
stop laughing at her annoyed reaction.
The party settled down on the rolling waves. Conversations grew shorter and quieter, until there was only
the sound of the sea outside. Serkesh lay splayed out on his back on the floor, next to the delicious smell
of the preserved meats in the barrel next to him. Kiwi lay on her side on the Lizardman's chest, with one
of his blankets covering her up to her neck, and him up to his collar bone. The two slept soundly.
Shss breathed deeply in sheer relaxation, cuddled up in Belcanzor's arm around her. She chuckled
slightly. "What's up?" Belcanzor asked.
She took another deep breath, then spoke. "The last time we were all on a boat together... it was just after
Hiromi and Janus died," she whispered. Belcanzor squeezed her comfortingly. "We were so full of hope
then, like we are now," she continued. "The Astral Dominae was in our hands, everyone was going to
come back, everything seemed to be going so great."
She closed her eyes. "And then... just a little bit later, the Dark Savant took it all away," she said. "He was
going to kill Vi... we had no choice."
Belcanzor nodded and kissed her forehead. "I know," he answered. "I wouldn't have done any differently."
Shss put her hand on his chest. "I know you wouldn't," she whispered. "But... it still feels like we gave up
our two friends to save someone we barely knew. Of course I would still have chosen Vi, if I were given
the choice again..."
She snuggled up closer to him. "It just reminds me that hope can be taken away so easily and so quickly
like that," she whispered. "Who's to say that this boat ride won't end the same? The Savant waiting for us,
demanding an item... a life." She paused, then sighed. "I'm just thinking out loud, don't mind me," she said
at last.
"Well, I'll tell you what's different this time," Belcanzor responded quietly. "You've got your brother on your
side this time... and Kiwi's a lot stronger now than before, right?" He squeezed her again, and smiled.
"And of course, you have me, too," he whispered. "I'm not going anywhere, ever. Even after we stop the
dome-head, Ascend and get your friends back... I'll still be by your side."
Shss' nose began to sting, and a single tear dropped from each eye. "I know you will," she whispered,
looking him in his yellow eyes with a smile. "Ever since the Rapax King... when you shielded me to save
my life... I knew you were dedicated to me in a way that only my true love could be."
In silence, they looked into one another's eyes, searching back and forth between the two bright windows
into the other's soul.
Finally, Shss closed her eyes, leaned forward and kissed him softly, deeply, holding nothing back.
Belcanzor held her tightly and stroked her short hair, feeling the immeasurably beautiful sensation of her
warm body against his. She moaned ever so softly as they finally pulled away, if only for air.
Shss smiled broadly, so brightly that he could see it, even in the low light. He grinned stupidly, his old
shyness returning for a brief second. "O ai i," he whispered.
She chuckled. "Close enough," she whispered back, then pulled him close.
Sea Caves
Day 12
BOOM!
Serkesh's eyes flew open, and he was on his feet in a second. "Whoa!" Kiwi shouted as she rolled off of
his chest and painfully onto the ground. She winced and rubbed her shoulder as Serkesh scooped her up.
"Sorry. I forget," he said.
Kiwi giggled. With a response like that, how could she be mad?
"Guys, we..." she started, then looked strangely at Shss and Belcanzor. Their bare arms were wrapped
around one another, and they were both snoring softly under their blanket. "Lazy..." the Faerie muttered,
then fluttered down to sit on Shss' chest as Serkesh stalked up the stairs to the deck with axe in hand.
She tapped the Fighter on the side of the face. Shss muttered and smacked, then cracked an eye open.
She turned beet red, then threw a quick glance at Belcanzor before turning back. "Uh..." she stammered
with a sheepish grin.
Kiwi smirked and raised her eyebrows. "Explosion upstairs," she said, tapping her cheek affectionately.
"When you have the time... come on up!" she added teasingly.
On deck, and in the magnificent light of sunrise, Anna was leaning against a large black cannon pointed
out to sea. The wood beneath it was differently colored from the rest of the deck, leading the Faerie to
believe that Anna had hidden it underneath for when it was needed.
Smoke rose out from the bore as the old woman shook her head. "My oh my... that bat is beyond stupid,"
she muttered.
Kiwi looked out onto the dark, early morning sea, where a giant bat with leathery wings, easily the size of
the entire ship, screeched a pathetic whimper as it flew towards a distant shore. "Every time I come up
here, the same one drops down on me, tryin' to tear up my ship again'n again," she explained. "And every
time, I feed it a cannon ball. Yet, it never learns."
She shrugged. "Anyway," she continued with a gesture to the shoreline, "here we are. Better tell the other
two that we're gonna beach soon."
Though Kiwi mentally spoke to Serkesh with clear images of going below deck, the Lizardman remained
standing at the bow of the ship. She shrugged. "Looks like Serkie's gonna stay up here and watch the
landing," the Faerie told Anna, then winked. "I'll keep an eye on him."
Anna raised her hands in ambivalence. "All right, then," she conceded. "Just watch yerselves when we
get there. We're pullin' up directly on the beach." She descended the stairs, and caught sight of the two
lovers still under a blanket. "And ya two better stay out'a trouble!" she yelled. "Ya may be young, but it
don't mean that ol' Anna won't slap ya one if ya keep misbehavin'!"
Kiwi giggled, and took a seat on Serkesh's shoulder, whose eyes were wide in happiness and wonder as
they quickly approached the shore of the Sea Caves. There appeared to be a whole network of caverns
in the mountains above the shoreline, judging from the sheer number of entrances and exits that dotted
the cliffs from end to end. It was probably difficult for Keshketka to see, but even in the low light, the many
caverns were clearly visible to him.
We have a lot of scouting to do, Kiwi thought to him. Serkesh smiled a toothy smile. "No," he replied
audibly. "Bezer use magic! Easy!"
The Faerie laughed. Everything's easy when you're around, big guy, she thought happily. Serkesh
cheered and flexed the shoulder Kiwi was sitting on, almost sending the Faerie flying off of him and onto
the deck. You just need to learn a little self control! she added, gripping his arm tightly.
True to Anna's word, the ship only slowed as they approached the shoreline; it didn't stop. When they got
within a few dozen feet of the beach, Serkesh braced his legs for a sudden impact.
The ship ground through the soft sand below and beached itself on the shore, just as the Lizardman
jumped off of the bow to land in a safe and tucked roll on the beach. This time, Kiwi was firmly and safely
in his cupped hands when he landed.
"You rule!" Kiwi laughed, and held her tiny hand out. Though Serkesh slapped hers with more force than
he needed to, the Faerie was more than ready to block his strength with an equal amount of hers.
Seconds later, Belcanzor, with Shss and Anna in each arm, came floating down to meet them. When they
were all on the beach, Anna spoke first. "I'll be a little ways east'a here, payin' my respects to my
husband's ol' baby," she said. "Ya need me, feel free to holler."
Shss looked concerned as she walked away. "Will you be all right?" she asked.
Without turning around, Anna reached into her dress and pulled out a grey pistol, pointing it towards the
sky. "I'll be just fine," she assured them. "Ya guys bring me back somethin' nice, too, ya hear?"
"Thank you!" Kiwi called after her, then gestured to the mountains around her. "So... where to, Belkie?"
she asked the Bishop.
He didn't answer, and seemed to be too busy looking into Shss' eyes to notice. The Fighter smiled and
gestured with her head towards the Faerie. Belcanzor followed the movement to an impatient Faerie, with
her arms across her chest, and grew suddenly flustered. "Huh? What? What's up?" he stammered.
Serkesh shook his head as Kiwi spoke. "Destinae Dominus? Marten? Come on, I don't want to be the
brains of the group," she said. "It's tiring."
With a grin and a slight blush, a light passed over Belcanzor's eyes. He cast a quick X-Ray spell to see
through the mountains, and the legions of giant, shadowy roaches, huge crabs and other assorted nasties
patrolling the caverns.
Interestingly enough, in a cave not too far from them, he saw the transparent outlines of shrouded Higardi
Ghosts, and a dual-layered barricade that led to where they now wandered. He hummed as he followed
the path from the Ghosts back to the beach. "Let's see..." he said, walking along the beach to the east.
He pointed ahead at a distant hole in the mountain face. "If we go up here, then we'll be right in front of
the Ghost room," he said.
After Shss translated for Serkesh, he looked somewhat worried... after all, the last few times they had
faced Ghosts, it took magic to sever their physical ties to this world. "Osha uiku rash eosha? (Can we kill
them?)" he asked.
Shss nodded, briefly reliving a terrible memory. "Ash," she replied confidently. "Uiku rash."
The sandy slope led up into a dripping cave, where water dripped from the roof and into tiny pools of salty
water around them. It was quiet... as a tomb, Belcanzor's imagination finished. He stifled a laugh...
sometimes, his mind had a way of frightening him with unneeded worry and unseen danger... and at other
times, it just tried too hard to be taken seriously.
He pointed ahead at the wall ahead of them, and Shss laughed. "Are they serious?" she asked.
Brick and mortar, surrounded by natural cave rock. If they intended to keep the place hidden from prying
eyes or would-be treasure hunters, it was hardly convincing as a cover. But if they were simply trying to
stop anyone from getting inside, it was more than enough to keep out most people.
Then again, they weren't most people. "I crush!" Serkesh exclaimed. Kiwi and Serkesh bowed and swept
their hands forward, graciously inviting him forward. With a roar, the Lizardman ran shoulder first into the
wall, smashing it into pieces as he careened through.
Belcanzor ran in first to the small chamber, and the large metal doors it was concealing. With a slight
chuckle, he put his glowing hands on the dizzy Lizardman and restored him to perfect health and
strength. "Nice work," he said, and when his spell was complete, he patted Serkesh on the back.
Kiwi whistled at the portal, clearly impressed. "This'll be a bit tougher to take down," she realized.
Belcanzor nodded. "Looks like it's about a foot thick," he added.
After Shss translated for Serkesh, the Lizardman and Kiwi exchanged toothy smiles. "Guess that means
this door's gonna get tag-teamed..." she said with an evil chuckle.
On the other side of the door, in a large cave that had not been disturbed in a hundred years, two muffled
shouts echoed off of the walls: one large and guttural, the other high-pitched, but nonetheless ferocious.
There were two loud thuds, the sound of screeching metal, and the double doors that had protected the
cave for so long were now warped and lying on the ground.
A flash of light came from the source of the noise. "Thanks, Belkie," the tiny voice said, followed by an
appreciative hiss.
And then, the source of the noise visibly pushed through some old spiderwebs, and into the large and
wide cave on cold sand.
A dark girl in black armor with short hair, a blue-skinned, bald young man in blue and purple robes, a
green-scaled and muscular Lizardman in a brown loincloth, and the bald and blue Faerie, in similarly
colored vest and shorts, sitting on his shoulder. Their appearances did not matter; the only thing that
made a difference was that they were alive.
The Higardi Ghosts, men and women alike, poured and floated out of the side caverns to attack the
party... and Belcanzor grinned. "All according to plan..." he said, then pointed at the Ghosts. "BEGONE!"
he shouted.
Three of them immediately disappeared in flashes of light, while two more, suddenly paralyzed, skidded
to a halt in front of them.
As Kiwi blasted down on the first and Shss pierced the back of the second with her Psispear, Serkesh
moved on ahead to confront a distant shadow. The Ghosts continued to attack, one after the other, as
Belcanzor did his best to dispel them while the two girls kicked, thrust, punched and sliced through their
bodies with little effort.
"Serkesh!" Shss called out, when another pair of Ghosts reached forward to drain her life with their
smoking hands. She lept back and kicked one in the chin, driving the spear end of the Psispear into the
other's chest, and they exploded into flashes of light and smoking mist.
The Lizardman stood before the great shadow, axe at his side. His sister was well trained to scout out
potential game and hazards in the swamp, but even she had her limits as a Human. Clearly, this creature
wanted to wait until they were exhausted fighting all the Ghosts behind him, when it would sweep in to
easily end their lives. Then again, perhaps it thought the line of Ghosts would hold, and so there was no
reason to approach.
Whatever the case, it emerged from the distant shadows into the light of a burning torch next to it,
revealing its ten foot body to the brave Lizardman. As the light cast itself over the armored skeleton's
blindingly white bone and large sword, it waved its hand in front of it.
Serkesh was confused at the gesture, but paid it little mind... little realizing that the Keeper of the Crypt
had just waved away the Ghosts prepared to strike Serkesh from behind. Without question, the specters
bowed, then attacked the other three intruders.
"We fight! Come, come!" Serkesh urged the armored skeleton, focusing his intense look on the empty
black space in his adversary's helmet where its eyes should have been. They didn't seem so tough when
Shss fought two of them in the Cathedral, and he saw no reason why he couldn't take on a single one
now.
With the briefest of nods, the Keeper glided forward... almost as if it were flying... with its large, glinting
Spectral Sword flashing in a wide arc for Serkesh's body. The Lizardman lept back and sliced his axe
upwards and into the sword, knocking it far above the Keeper. Then, he closed in and hacked cleanly at
its exposed spine, hoping he could sever it with one mighty blow.
Serkesh's axe stopped on the Keeper's spine, seemingly doing no damage at all. He ducked as the
massive skeleton swung its sword for his neck, then drove forward to shoulder the Keeper to the cold
sand below. Once he was sure that the armored skeleton was flat on its back and helpless, Serkesh
jumped with his axe high above his head, then on top of it.
A loud, metallic crack sounded throughout the entire cave as Serkesh's axe rang off of the skeleton's
helmet. Once again, not even a dent fractured the metal casing, and the Keeper pushed Serkesh off of its
chest with a twist of its body.
Once Serkesh was back on the sand and had regained his footing, he had just enough time to raise his
axe to block a deadly swing from the Keeper. Unfortunately, the Lizardman's grip on the axe was not
strong enough to counter the sheer force of the blow, and his weapon went flying out of his hands and
into the shadows. Serkesh watched in horror as it rang off of the rocky wall a hundred feet away.
The Keeper rose up, with its Spectral Sword at its side... this was it. Serkesh widened his eyes and stood
tall, balling his hands into ready fists in front of him. He grinned a toothy grin, then roared a hiss so loud,
that even the Ghosts behind him were startled into momentary paralysis. Shss and Kiwi, with a unified
smile, pressed their advantage and slice-beat four of them into smokey submission, before the others
even realized what was happening.
Strangely enough, the Keeper did not press forward to impale the Lizardman. Instead, it slowly turned its
head to see his forgotten axe in the corner, then raised its Spectral Sword into clear view. Finally, in a
surprising move, it flung its own weapon to a spinning halt in the sand next to Serkesh's axe, then
hunched over with its gloved hands out.
Serkesh hissed, spittle drooling from his mouth. "Shaaaa!" he praised his opponent, then stalked forward
to grab the Keeper's hands.
The two titans pushed at one another with every ounce of strength they had. At first, the Keeper's feet
began to slide through the sand as Serkesh gained clear advantage. Then, redoubling its efforts even
further, the armored skeleton pushed back with such force, that Serkesh himself began sliding back
towards the Ghost melee behind him.
Suddenly, the Lizardman ducked down to unbalance the Keeper. As he was preparing to shoot his head
up and into the skeleton's body in a massive headbutt, though, it jumped to the side, taking Serkesh with
it. With its hands still in his, the Keeper swung Serkesh around for three complete turns, then let him go.
The Lizardman smashed into the hard rock wall behind him, then facefirst into the sand. The Keeper took
slow steps forward towards its downed opponent, who struggled to his feet.
A glint of light made Serkesh look off to his right: sitting there were the Keeper's sword and his own axe,
both in arm's reach. The Lizardman glanced between the weapons, the skeleton, then his sister and
friends fighting off in the distance.
They were handling the Ghosts with such skill that they almost looked bored. With a final glance at the
nearby weapons, Serkesh knew that it was likely he could get one of the weapons before the Keeper
could do anything about it... very likely.
Nonetheless, Serkesh stood and charged the skeleton, unarmed, with nothing more than his body and a
ferocious cry to aid him.
Just a split second before his meaty fist met the armored skeleton's exposed thigh bone, the Keeper
wrapped its great hand around his throat. Serkesh grunted, struggled for all he was worth, but there was
no breaking the hold.
The Keeper nodded ever so slightly as it lifted him off of the ground. Then, with its other hand on
Serkesh's back, it prepared to slam him into the ground... and possibly break his neck.
Serkesh kicked the side of its helmeted head. The helmet spun completely around, leaving the Keeper
either facing backwards, or in complete darkness. Either way, once it dropped the heavy Lizardman,
Serkesh crouched low to the ground, then buried his shoulder in the Keeper's spine.
He lifted the skeleton up and onto his shoulders, noticing that for some rea