Chapter 137, 1/2

Wind flowed north to south across a prairie of vibrant green grass that spanned horizon to horizon. Far to the south, well out of sight, the blue ocean lapped against tall cliffs. Wind rushed over that dark edge, to fall down to the waves far below. A couple of blips to the east, the South Eastern Tribulation Mountains formed the coast of Nelboor.

To the west, laid the target.

This was a good spot to start the walk into Eralis, the first city of the Songli Highlands. They didn’t want to just blip into the middle of town, after all, and the border was a lot more nebulous than Erick, and everyone else, had originally thought.

Magenta light flashed.

Erick, Jane, Teressa, and Poi, stood atop tall grasses. There were only two Ophiel visible, and both of them were bright magenta. Both of them were on Erick’s shoulders, though neither looked like they usually did. One resembled a hunched-down bird, with a single pair of wings, and only two eyes; there weren’t more eyes hiding under the wings, either. Ophiel was getting better about keeping himself hidden by being out in the open, but he was very energetic, bouncing up and down as he was wont. This was probably to counter the other Ophiel, on Erick’s other shoulder. That second Ophiel resembled an unmoving decoration of magenta feathers and magenta eyes. Perfectly still; perfectly disguised as yet another part of Erick’s magenta [Conjured Armor].

The hopping Ophiel got a bit too excited, though, being in a new place. He twittered in happy violins. He fluffed out his wings. A few extra eyes appeared then disappeared from his forehead.

Erick playfully tapped him on the forehead, saying, “Careful now. I saw your extra eyes.”

Ophiel whistled in guitars and flutes, then solidified himself back to two eyes, two wings, and a bird-like body. He chirped in fiddles, which was like a guitar and violin at the same time; an uneasy happiness. He was still getting the hang of these new forms, but it would take time.

Erick said, “It’s okay Odin. You’re doing great.”

Both ‘Odins’ chirped in conspiratorial harps. And then shoulder Ophiel squirmed, fluffing out in several extra eyes to make up for the lack of eyes elsewhere. Both of them chirped again, asking for approval.

Erick said, “Shoulder-Odin can have extra eyes and a few extra wings, sure. Mobile-Odin only gets two, though. Shoulder-Odin has to pretend to be jewelry.”

More harps—

Jane was already walking west, plowing through the tall grasses, flattening them with her conjured boots. She called back, “Daylight’s burning!”

Teressa and Poi followed.

Erick caught up, saying, “We got time, Julia.”

Julia smiled as she walked backwards, still easily flattening the grasses in her path, saying, “Eralis is hours away, Elias.” She looked to Teressa. “He could have gotten us closer, for sure. Right, Tiffany?” She asked, Poi, “Probably a lot closer, eh, Paul?”

Tiffany said, “I don’t want to appear in the middle of some place where I’m not supposed to be, and neither do you, Julia. You’d at least have the chance to pass off as a normal resident. I cannot.”

“Tiffany is right.” Paul said, “We walk in from the outside, and hope we don’t hit a roaming clan or soldiers. Hopefully, they won’t instantly attack, but we’re kinda naked out here.”

A lot of things had been left behind. Paul’s guard armor was left behind, since that was very clearly ‘guard armor’. Tiffany’s, too. But both of them had their backup, [Conjure Armor], which would work just fine. All of them wore [Conjured Armor], in fact. Tiffany’s was slate-grey and blocky and covered her entire body, with a helmet that fully covered her head almost like a dome. She could see through it, of course, but when the time to fight came, she would use her impeccable mana sense, more than any visual sense. Poi, for his part, was very blue, wearing a meticulously-conjured fullplate that was thicker than most any Erick had ever seen on a person. It was still weightless, but it looked uncomfortable. Poi had insisted that it wasn’t, but Erick—

Erick— Elias, caught himself.

Paul had insisted that his armor wasn’t uncomfortable, but Elias— Yes, his name was ‘Elias’ right now—

Paul said, “We’re going to mess this up so quickly.”

“Ohh!” Julia walked with eyes forward, calling out, “It’s gonna be fine, Paul! Believe in Clan Phoenix!”

“Yes, Paul.” Elias repeated, “Believe in Clan Phoenix.”

Paul groaned.

Elias asked, “Are we sure there’s no Phoenixes?”

Julia laughed, saying, “They’re here now!”

With a sigh, Paul said, “There are all sorts of elemental birds. Fire birds. Ash birds, too. Water birds. No birds that self-resurrect, though… Maybe some undead birds do that?”

Tiffany said, “There have to be undead birds somewhere. My money is on Quintlan, inside those lich kingdoms.”

“Phoenixs might not exist, but Thunder Birds exist. They’re called Tribulation Birds, though, and as you might have guessed, they’re all over the Tribulation Mountains.” Julia thumbed backward, to the east, saying, “They mate and nest in the South East Tribulation Mountains but they make their actual territories all over the entire scattered Tribulation Mountains of Nelboor.” She added, “I read that the royal family of the Songli Highlands has the Thunder Bird as their Clan symbol.”

“How do you even make monsters?” Elias asked, “How would you make a Phoenix?”

“Blood Magic, Elemental skill or Mana Altering —not sure— and [Husbandry] secrets,” Tiffany said. “[Husbandry] is a very deep spell.”

Julia said, “The resurrection part would be difficult. If anyone could do it, the Life Binder could.”

Paul said, “If such a bird existed, it would be hunted down with extreme force. We should not talk about that sort of monster, anyway. If any conversations go that way, just call it a Thunder Bird Variant that turns to ash when it’s weakened and comes back as fire to enact vengeance, or something.” He stressed, “[Resurrection] does not exist. All the spell does is make cannibal monsters.”

“But the spell does exist.” Julia said, “Politically, it doesn’t. But it does.”

Poi gave a disapproving sigh.

Erick said—

Dammit.

Elias said, “—

Paul said, “You’re literally never going to be able to get your mind to think of us as our names, Elias.”

Tiffany laughed. “I’m having a lot of trouble, too.”

“We just need time.” Julia said, “We can do this.”

Erick asked, “But no last names?”

“We’re not nobles.” Teressa said—

Dammit. Her name was ‘Tiffany’. Tiffany.

“—We’ll be surname-phoenix, if anything.”

Elias spoke aloud part of their story that they had come up with, as though he was recollecting, “Those nice summer months watching the wheat and rice turn gold in the shadow of the North Tribulation Mountains. While our uncles and aunts protected us from the larger threats, we went out and killed the small things to keep our land safe.”

“It was a nice time while it lasted.” Tiffany smiled, saying, “But alas, young scion Elias Phoenix’s dalliance of 20 years ago came knocking; named Julia. Thus he was disgraced, and forced to abandon his home. Luckily, his two retainers decided to go with him.”

Elias frowned. “I’m not exactly comfortable with… parts of that.”

Julia happily continued the story, saying, “But he can regain his position through alliances and power and bringing prestige back to Clan Phoenix. Meanwhile, his daughter can also prove herself in the Clan’s eyes, by being a positive influence on her father’s quest to regain his Clan position.”

“How about we just want ties to better clans? None of that other stuff.” Elias suggested.

Paul laughed, then continued the story, “Meanwhile, Paul is on assignment to ascertain the validity of his master’s—”

“Do they really use the term ‘master’ here?” Elias asked.

Paul smirked, and continued, “Yes, they do. Anyway. I’m here to ensure that things go well. I want to get back home but I can’t without Scion Elias.” He added, “The other term they use is ‘Scion’, but that denotes a much higher class of Clan. Do you want to try that one?”

“Ah. Probably not,” Elias said.

Paul said, “The second we meet other people, they’ll likely choose what you’re called, anyway. Don’t get hung up if they call you ‘master’.”

Tiffany continued the story, “Meanwhile, Retainer Tiffany is just here to kick ass and have fun—”

Julia laughed.

Tiffany continued, “But more practically, because of some political game her parents are playing that is way over her head, and also to get rid of her. She must return in triumph alongside Master Elias, or remain away in disgrace or die in a gutter; it matters not to Clan Phoenix.”

“You’re much more valuable than that, Tiffany,” Elias stressed.

Tiffany smiled. “And that is why Tiffany is here with Master Elias. Where else would I be?”

“Meanwhile…” Julia took the lead, saying, “Julia was raised by Demis over in Kal’Duresh, in Glaquin, but when she turned 16 and matriculated, her adoptive parents told her the truth of her parentage. She went to Nelboor and found her father in their village in the North Tribulation Mountains, in the Tempest Forest, though we don’t talk about where the Clan actually is. There were problems then, and there still are, but she just wants the stability and power of being in a Clan.” Julia said, “My goal is to put Clan Phoenix on the map and to usurp my father’s place, but I need a lot of resources and contacts.”

“See? Now that’s just hurtful, too.” Elias said, “I never would have abandoned you.”

Julia smiled, nodded, and said, “And I am finding out that you didn’t. I was actually taken from you. We already had our fights about all of that when I came to Clan Phoenix last year. Which is why I am happy to finally be around you. Working together to gain a place in a Clan!”

Tiffany said, “Hear, hear! So let’s get to town and start drinking! Ale fixes everything.”

“This is going to fail, so fast.” Paul said, “So very, very fast.”

Elias ignored Paul and said, “I already scanned a lot of that part of the Tempest Forest. We’re going to tell people that we’re from around there, but not exactly where. We don’t want to fail this because someone got a bright idea to actually look for our Clan.”

Paul glowered, like a spoilsport. “That’s only one of the ways this is going to fail.”

Elias waved him off. “No one talk about anything too exact, anyway. Openly lie.” He added, “Except, we are Clan Phoenix. That’s not a lie. Just a lie… in the eyes of the legality of Nelboor.”

“Ha!” Tiffany scoffed, “The ‘legality of Nelboor’. People invent towns all over this shitting place, claiming any and all trashy things they want to claim. In that same tradition, we are Clan Phoenix, by the very act of claiming to be Clan Phoenix. That’s literally all it takes. Lying about the location is normal, though.” She shrugged. “Far as I heard.”

“It’ll show up as pink on a truthstone,” Paul said. “Half-truth.”

Julia said, “One truth is that we have very little money on us. Dad’s still technically rich, but they won’t let him access it, which is true, in a sense. They kicked us out with whatever we could pack, but no valuables. Told us not to come back unless it’s at the head of a parade of money or power.” She added, “We chose to try for the power route.”

“They didn’t leave us completely bereft.” Elias said, “We have our rings, which are proof of our Clan’s backing.”

Though the rings were solid bands of diamond and encased in platinum rain ‘silver’, they now sported covers made of Deep Sky Silver, tooled to look like wings and eyes and with little flame motifs.

Everything else had been buried back at the beach, inside a sealed stone sphere fifty meters down; adventurer’s badges, guard armor, clothes, everything except the essentials, which included Erick’s eye dyes and a few other things which could fit on their persons. Any of them could find the location with a simple [Teleport]; that spell would place them directly above the proper spot.

Tiffany said, “So the first order of business is to make some money! Can’t adventure for it, though— By the way. I just decided I came from adventurers. That’s how I know how the star-ranking system works, if we happen to visit a place that uses that. We shouldn’t, though.”

“Ah. Good idea.” Julia said, “I come from adventurers, too. Or rather, raised by. Didn’t you know I’m actually the next in line to be Young Master of your Clan, since my father is the Clan Scion? I found out several years ago, hence this journey. Too bad the Elders don’t like me.” She added, “I left Glaquin well before all that Particle Magic business.”

Tiffany said, “You’ve got a long way to go if you ever want to be respected by those old Phoenix Elder bastards.”

Julia said, “Hopefully the Songli Highlands have opportunity. I heard they oversee this whole area, keeping the peace and making prosperity.”

Paul said, “We should cut the chatter, now. We’re still hours out from sight of civilization, and this is the territory where we’ll be attacked, for sure. Elias sticks out like a flamboyant fern.”

Tiffany laughed. “Pink is a good look!”

“I like it.” Elias defended his [Conjured Armor], which was a breastplate and gambeson ensemble, with shoulders for Odin to rest upon and an open-faced helmet. “It lets Odin easily disguise himself.”

Julia said, “We were never going the Stealth-route, anyway. But yeah. Let’s talk about what we know of this place; Eralis.”

Erick paused, as he just realized something.

He said, “Maybe I should have picked a different name. Elias and Eralis… Too confusing.”

“Not too late.” Paul said, “But the window is rapidly closing and you’re already messing up names. You could just live with it.”

“No, no. I’ll change.” Erick asked, “How about Ezekiel?”

“Now there’s a proper demi name.” Tiffany said, “I never heard it before, but that hardly matters.”

Paul said, “Okay. That’s a good one. Better than Elias, actually. A lot better.”

“Ezekiel it is,” Ezekiel said.

Julia shrugged. “Whichever. So! About Eralis?”

Ezekiel said, “Let me just erase all of the [Witness]able land we just walked through…” With a few quick casts, he layered the previous lands they had walked through with [Sealed Privacy Ward]s, and then he popped those spaces. Those spaces were now retroactively non-visible to all mana senses, and [Witness]. “Okay then.” He started, “The big thing they have are the Void Walls. Each of the three cities that count themselves part of the Songli Highlands have these same magical constructs. They’re this massive anti-magic effect that restricts [Teleport] and a dozen other spells, and they’re the reason that the Songli are powerhouses. Very hard to attack them. It’s a highly populated land, too, with…”

They had gone over a lot of this stuff already, but more preparation rarely hurt anyone. Julia interjected her own research, which was monster-based, which would give them some good leads to find some monsters to kill for parts and rads and thus money. Tiffany knew rumors and a few stories, though she didn’t put much stock in any of them now that they were on the ground and Ezekiel had seen what he had seen through Odin. Paul spoke of tactics that they were likely to face off against, whenever they ran into the inevitable privateers roaming the prairie. At that, the whole conversation turned to tactics and powers and all of that.

Ezekiel listened, but he also repeated his name to himself a few times.

Ezekiel. Ezekiel. Ezekiel—

Most of Odin flew high in the sky, as invisible and as intangible as light could be. Ezekiel did not have any ‘invisible’ Odins directly around him, for magical Sights were a concern, but they still made good high-flying scouts. He wasn’t sure when, exactly, he’d need to reign them in and cut Odin down to two or three, but they were not at that necessity right yet.

And because there were so many Odin still in the sky, looking out for problems, Odin pinged him.

Ezekiel checked on the ping.

Ezekiel interrupted the information rehash, saying, “Contact. Ten kilometers ahead to the left.”

Julia, Tiffany, and Paul, all smoothly transitioned to focus.

“Scratch that.” Ezekiel said, “At our 10 and our 5. The party ahead had seven people, according to Odin’s memory. Now Odin sees three ahead of us, and four— Three behind us. One went invisible, or something. One kilometer out, both parties.”

Tiffany conjured massive grey gauntlets over her armored hands, doubling their size, as she happily said, “The welcoming committee for Clan Phoenix!”

Ezekiel quickly flickered his desire for certain information through Odin and Odin responded. Ezekiel said, “Reviewing some memories, our greeters were not at their ten-kilometer position ten minutes ago. They showed up in the last four minutes.”

Julia asked, “Probability of attack?”

Paul said, “Extremely high. They likely prepared for anyone who came through here, but we were the ones to fall into the trap.”

Ezekiel reviewed his spells, rapidly deciding which ones were good to use, and which ones would give away his true—

Tiffany perked up. “Oh! Do you see the trick, Ezekiel? Blades of prairie grass that are not all grass. We walked through a field of them.”

Ezekiel, suddenly mad at himself, spat out, “But I was look—!”

An Odin turned on [Mana Sight], since Ezekiel’s mana sense was not good enough to see what—

Oh yeah. Ezekiel paused, ever so briefly. Those grasses were not entirely real. They were barely magical, too. Ezekiel guessed that they were actually normal grasses, but with thin lines of magic on them; [Alarm Ward], or something similar. A neat trick. He had been watching for [Alarm Ward]s, but not such fine ones. Mostly, though, he had been looking out for large magics, larger than a person’s head. [Force Trap] and the like. The small shit had escaped him.

He scowled at the grass. “How did I not see—”

“I didn’t notice them either,” Tiffany beamed, as she smashed her gauntlets together, and roared, “Come on out, little shits! Take your beating!”

Paul said, “At least they didn’t have a chance to set up the field against us. I was worried more about that, then any— Guy to the left, invisible.”

Ezekiel was just about to call that out, but instead, he handed out magenta-silver [Animadversion]s to everyone, using four Script Seconds for 2800 mana, total. Paul took his shield, first; it slipped through the air like passing off an intangible cloud, to slip around Paul’s left arm. Julia got the second one. Tiffany, the third. At that same time, each Odin cast their own twisted pink-silver shields that then hung over Ezekiel’s shoulders like pink pauldrons, before each Odin took to the air, giving up their disguises.

A red, flaming spell came from the invisible guy, a hundred meters away. It was not a simple [Fireball]. It was like four [Fireball]s at once. Not quite a [Grand Fireball], but it was clearly meant to injure, and kill.

Ah. Yes. This was a fight. No parlay. No attempts at anything non-lethal. Ezekiel guessed the [Large Fireball] would do at least a thousand points of damage; and that much again over the course of a few seconds. Most people only had 600 Health or 600 Mana.

Odin moved to intercept the [Large Fireball], to bash it away with his thorny silver shield. The [Fireball] detonated on everyone, anyway, since it had likely reached its maximum distance just as Odin touched it; or maybe it was triggered to explode as soon as it touched anything at all.

Fire and heat billowed across the land. Whatever parts of the spell touched Ezekiel and his people, just kept on billowing a bit, until that fire flopped onto the ground. [Animadversion]’s reflection extended to the whole person, after all.

The land burned. Ezekiel’s magenta [Personal Ward] took damage, flickering bright in the burning air. Everyone’s [Personal Ward]s took damage; even Tiffany’s, and her grey spell was barely anything at all.

And though the ground burned…

This was completely livable. Oh, sure! It was not comfortable. The fire hurt. But it didn’t hurt bad. This was like being in really hot sunlight. Ezekiel wondered for a brief moment if he could just walk through flames, now. He probably could!

And then came [Large Fireball]s 2 through 7, from every one of the attackers, and then came the attackers themselves. Pink reflections barely bounced the flaming spells before they exploded. The attackers barely cared that their spells bounced. Some of them didn’t even dodge the bounce; they didn’t seem to care that they were now on fire. One guy who was now flaming with blue fire, laughed. He was almost upon Julia.

Time slowed, and yet, it did not, for Ezekiel had turned on [Hunter’s Instincts]. Suddenly, the battle seemed less like he was frantically responding to a horror, and more like he was casually planning how to extricate all of his people from this current problem.

The forward three attackers were incani. The backward three were human. The invisible person was a harpy. None of that mattered, it seemed. Erick was briefly glad that incani and humans seemed to be fighting alongside each other. Too bad this small collection of enlightened souls were trying to kill them.

Fire burned and boomed all around, and then the greeting party offered up a welcoming of steel.

Two humans from behind suddenly accelerated, and slashed at Paul. One with a sword, glowing oozy green, held by a woman; the other with a saber, glowing brighter green, held by a man. Paul somehow worked [Animadversion] to catch both attacks, the spell flickering with bright pink thorns as it smack smacked from one attack to the next, rapidly blocking both [Strike]s with perfect [Interception]. [Strike]s reflected.

Bright green ooze reflected onto the sword woman’s arm, rushing up the limb, over the green [Conjured Armor] to soak into the joints in her plate armor. The stench of melting flesh filled the air as green gasses briefly jettisoned from every crack in her armor, all the way up into her helmet and chestplate.

When the man’s green saber impacted pink thorns, green flashed backward, becoming disco-rays of decaying magic that splashed against the man, burning holes right into his green conjured armor.

Both of the cloying green spells suddenly stopped as both of those people aborted the rest of their attacks, backing up just as fast as they had come forward. The man healed himself and then the woman, as both of them rushed away, but not out of sight.

Ezekiel realized that maybe they did not strike to kill, but to severely injure?

No. That was giving them too much credit.

Their Decay Magic seemed to be frontload-type Decay, and they had struck with the entirety of their own killing power. [Animadversion] had thrown all of that power right back at them. They might have already burned through all of their Health. They certainly would have died if they hadn’t canceled their own damage over time effects.

Other than that, Paul was doing just fine.

Three seconds had passed since the battle was joined.

Ezekiel barely paid attention to Julia or Tiffany, except to see that, yes, they were clearly in control of their own fight against three incani. Julia flickered out with a short sword, deflected a non-elemental [Strike] with her own [Animadversion], and easily drove back her attacker, while Tiffany played with her single attacker, goading him into attacking her own shield of pink spikes.

The goad worked. The man barreled forward, not allowing Tiffany to dictate the flow of battle. They fought.

Julia fought two-on-one.

Both of the women were doing fine.

Ezekiel had his own problems.

Was Paul okay?

He briefly wondered if it was right to worry about the man, for Paul was more about soft-power than direct firepower, but he was also a highly competent fighter who had taken care of his own dual attackers in a single moment, while everyone else was still combating everyone else. After this was over, Ezekiel would not have been surprised to find out that Paul had subtly manipulated the two attackers into harming themselves with maximum power. That’s what the Mind Mage did in combat, after all.

Ezekiel’s own designated dance partners had not engaged him yet, for one simple reason.

In rapid progression, the battle shifted, as the attackers realized those shields were damn fucking powerful. Ezekiel enjoyed that feeling, briefly, then he started dismantling the attackers with just as much precision as the rest of his obviously more competent team.

Paul already knocked two people out of the fight, after all!

Those two people were currently staring at them from fifty meters away, but they weren’t currently fighting—

The invisible harpy blipped, getting right next to Ezekiel. The third human, coming from behind, was already next to Ezekiel with a spear pointed at his heart. The two decaying humans suddenly blipped right next to Ezekiel, their swords not glowing this time, but aimed at vital parts nonetheless.

Ah. Four on one. They wanted to kill him fast. Everything else had been a probing strike.

Bird Odin blasted the two on the left with [Merciful Suffocation], spitting ten curls of magenta-gold air that wrapped around the attackers and flowed into their mouths, dealing damage with every breath.

Shoulder Odin blasted the other two on the other side with the same spell. It struck both, but bounced off of the invisible person; a shockwave reflected. [Merciful Suffocation] then bounced off of Ezekiel and Odin’s own reflective spells, too, then struck the invisible person, soaking into their body. Ezekiel did not know what was happening there. The spell had bounced, but what were the criteria for a bounce? Did a stronger reflection denote how a spell was bounced? Or did the invisible person only have a single bounce to their own reflection? Or what?

This had literally never come up before. He had not studied this interaction before.

Ah. Well. They say that you never know how good your preparations are until you have to use them.

Ezekiel dumped a hundred mana into [Slowing Bolt]’s Variable cost, which was more like 2000 mana with all of his modifiers taken into account, causing a zippy pink cloud to pulse from his chest, as Ezekiel had not bothered to point at the guy with the spear. Pink mist washed over the spear-holder. The attacker stopped, completely, but his momentum carried him forward to plant into the ground. Ezekiel stepped to the side to avoid the crash.

As Ezekiel moved, causing the decay mages to retarget him, Paul, Ezekiel guessed, caused the Decay mages to trip on their own feet and fall to the ground, too, as Ezekiel slammed his gauntleted fist into the face of the invisible attacker. He could have done a lot more, but he wasn’t willing to blow his cover for something like this and only a single second had passed. Each Odin was already casting even more [Merciful Suffocation]s at every target they deigned to hit, so they were already doing everything Ezekiel wanted from them.

That punch was not the first punch Ezekiel had ever thrown in his life, but it was the first thrown with the intent to injure.

The invisible person tilted their head, ever so slightly, taking the blow to the side of their invisible helmet, instead of to their nose. But Ezekiel still had 81 Strength. This attacker was obviously expecting a caster. They were not expecting warrior-levels of power.

The attacker’s head moved several inches more to the side than they expected, but the attacker was still, barely, able to follow through with their own plan. An invisible sword came up toward Ezekiel’s groin, aiming for the space under his armor. [Animadversion] easily caught the imperfect blow, moving faster than anyone had time to blink. Mirrored-pink spikes grew larger, catching the attacker’s attempt at a disemboweling. Blood erupted from the air around the attacker’s invisible arms.

In his next Script Second, Ezekiel threw another 100 mana [Slowing Bolt] at the stronger of the two incani attacking his daughter. The incani dodged. They even put up their own shield to block the spell. The ethereal, inexorable mass of pink light passed through the shield and conjured armor around the attacker, hitting the incani, freezing them, causing them to unbalance and fall to the burning prairie grasses.

Odin was still laying down the [Merciful Suffocation] on every single attacker. Pink-gold smoke-like crescents layered upon everyone that was not Ezekiel’s team.

Julia took down her attackers. Tiffany wiped the ground with her single foe, which might have been what they were expecting. The attackers had thrown a sacrificial fighter at the 3 meter tall orcol, hoping to keep her busy while they took out the rest of the team.

That plan had not worked.

Ezekiel began putting people into Stops, but he was not willing to test the reflection of the invisible person again. If he [Stop]ped himself… That would be bad.

He needed to test what how reflections worked more than he had—

No. Wait. He had read about how multiple reflections interacted before. He had talked to Sizzi Zago at length about reflective magics! Ah.

He was just panicking, a little.

Okay. Crisis solved.

Paul moved to take down the invisible person, pulling his own sword from the air and smashing down on the attacker. A half a second and four hammer strikes later, which was two hits more than necessary, it seemed, the harpy went down. Their concealment spell faded, revealing an unconscious harpy woman with red feathers, blood seeping out of her conjured armor.

Ezekiel continued to put people into Stops. The fight wasn’t over, but it was close. Now they just had to secure their victory.

Which they did.

And then they secured their victory even more as Paul listed procedures for containing downed enemy combatants, and everyone moved to enact his words. Ezekiel was glad for that. As the adrenaline finally ebbed, he felt a cold seep into his body, racing up and down his spine.

Julia banished the flames all around them with a few [Flameshape]s. Tiffany grabbed the stragglers who were further out of position and brought them closer. When they were all down, and closer, Ezekiel cast a strong [Mana Drain Ward] atop them, and then a [Health Drain Ward]. All of them were Stopped, so maybe they didn’t feel the itchiness, or maybe they did; Ezekiel found himself not actually caring if they were comfortable.

It was an odd feeling.

Ah. They could have died. Yeah. That could have happened.

These people were out for blood.

… He canceled his [Hunter’s Instincts]. The world sped up. He breathed.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Pink-gold air and pink mist layered atop their seven attackers.

Ezekiel took a moment to recall the interactions of reflection. Generally, the more power there is in a reflection, the more resilient it is. Lesser reflections will simply break under constant reflecting. His own [Animadversion] was very high powered. Whatever the harpy had been using was low powered.

The harpy had lost that reflection contest.

[Animadversion] would likely break if numerous spells targeted the parts of him that the shield could not directly reflect, but the shield itself was the strongest part of the spell. Having a reflection contest against the shield, itself, would likely result in the opposite party losing that contest.

Ezekiel calmed down, thinking about magic. He stepped away from the line of sleeping killers. So did everyone else.

Julia asked, “They’re still in their armor?”

Paul suggested, “Ezekiel?”

“Right.” Ezekiel already knew what they meant by that. He began casting several spells, designed to strip targets of protections. He should have done this already, but he was a bit flustered.

[Ward Destruction] was first. Seven of those. Then came [Force Breaker]; [Conjure Armor]s popped like so much broken spellwork. [Prismatic Breaker] was just to get rid of the other small spells Ezekiel saw, though he could not tell what those were, exactly. When he was done, the seven people were naked save for underclothes, Stopped, and stripped of all normal defenses, as well as surrounded by a lot of [Merciful Suffocation]. Ezekiel had Odin switch off of that spell as he finished stripping them.

He asked, “What do we want to do with them?”

Tiffany said, “We’re taking all their stuff, obviously. I see gold, jewels, rings. A lot of it is marked, but it’s still worth something. No papers or badges or anything like that, though.”

“Expected worse.” Julia added, “A lot worse.”

“Those fireballs would have cooked us alive if we were normal people. [Animadversion] is a very strong spell. All of them had reflections. None of you noticed except for Ezekiel, and only with regard to the harpy.” Paul sent, ‘And we should start talking like this.’

Ezekiel felt another chill.

‘Who are they?’ Julia asked.

‘That was a fast fight and I hear nothing from them now, but I think they were just uncommon bandits. We would label them Hunters, but they call themselves a minor Clan. They’re based in a small city north of here, but they lay traps like this all around in odd places.’ Paul frowned. ‘That’s a common tactic; laying traps in the prairie. Walking into the city will not be as easy as I expected.’

‘We can do this to more people if they need this done to them.’ Ezekiel found his backbone again. He sent, ‘How would this have gone if they were a clan, or soldiers?’

‘Um… No functional difference. Hard to say. There were a lot of thoughts in that fight.’ Paul sent, ‘But that’s not really important. What’s important is that these people have done this before. They had prisoner drain-collars waiting for us for when they took us down. With our resources locked down, they would have tried to torture us for information about where we came from, and then they would have tried to ransom us to those people. When that failed, they would have killed us, and they would have saved your death, Ezekiel, for their leader, since they would have suspected you of being the most leveled person here. Near the end, they began to suspect that they have fucked up royally; maybe literally ‘royally’. And that brings us to this: Do you want to try to listen to them explain away their guilt and possibly get away? Or should we execute them now?’

It felt like it was the middle of winter, for some damned reason. Ezekiel shivered.

And then he decided.

“… Odin sees the collars in a pile, just up ahead. That is proof enough...” Ezekiel said, “I’m grabbing them now. I will… Allow these people their last words. They have acted like Hunters, and so they get the same treatment.”

Tiffany nodded. Paul approved.

Julia said, “Good.”

Ezekiel moved to—

Wait.

There was another way. He touched his magenta breastplate, holding his hand over the spot where the Silver Star laid hidden, upon his chest. There was a way to not need to kill them.

Ezekiel offered, “The alternative is that I could bless them.”

A warm wind blew across the prairie. Grass rustled under the sun. No one spoke.

In the distance, Odin fluttered down from the sky and grabbed a bag dropped on the ground. He blipped over to the team, and dropped the bag of assorted drain collars in a great jumble of clangs and scratches. The thin bag ripped open, spilling out rusted iron circles, each with thorns on their interiors. They looked as though they could never be cleaned, no matter the effort anyone could put to the task.

And still, no one spoke.

And then someone did.

“No.” Poi said. “In death, they will have their sins judged by the gods and their fates sealed by their own hands. Giving them their final words is enough. There is no need to change who they are.”

Teressa scoffed at Poi, then said, “Killers should not get as much deference as Paul thinks they should… Bless them, then kill them. Maybe they’ll be able to understand what they did wrong when they meet their makers.” She said, “But if this is about being squeamish about killing them, then let me take this responsibility, and don’t give it too much thought.”

Jane said, “Justice demands a swift and uncruel answer. My instinct is to say that your artifact should only be used against the worst people. The ones that harm everyone. But…” She paused.

While Erick thought, he had Ophiel slip collars around every person, locking them into place with the provided screws and clips; they weren’t the most secure locks. These people obviously didn’t plan to need to use them for very long. Necks bled, but not too profusely.

Poi said, “If you use that Crystal Star here, you will be using it against literally everyone you meet.”

Jane turned to the man. “Would that be such a bad thing?”

Poi went stock still. Jane eyed him, then turned away, to look at the sleeping killers.

Teressa... just watched.

Erick saw two possible futures stretch out before him. Two ways in which the Crystal Star of Empathy changed the world forever.

One, where the world was happy and prosperous and everyone sang hand in hand, which was completely fictional and so delusional of him that he almost slapped himself. And the second, where he was hunted down by people he respected, like Silverite, and now Tenebrae, and others, for sure, because he had gone too far, because he had… He didn’t know? Likely gone into every prison the world over and forcibly changed the souls of every single person therein? The only problem with that, was that there weren’t many prisons in the world. Mostly, lawbreakers either got exiled, or murdered, depending on the local laws and the whims of the magistrates.

So the idea of going into prisons and ‘fixing everyone’ was a fiction, because that was literally not how the world worked. But...

He would find the leaders of the Incani and the Humans, and Bless them with Empathy, ending the Quiet War.

He would find every bandit leader in the world, and change who they were, at their core.

He would turn the ‘common bandit’ into a thing of the past.

Maybe the ‘new common’ would become someone who talked to the people they were about to rob, to speak about taking only a bit of gold for ‘safe passage through a land’, instead taking lives and everything else attached to those lives.

War would end, because Erick would make it end.

It was such a wonderful, terrible, awesome, horrible idea. A dark bloom of laughter called to him in his mind, to change the world to his liking, for his liking was better than what had come before, for he was a better judge than anyone else who had ever existed on Veird.

And he knew, instantly upon having those thoughts, that he was wrong to think those thoughts. He tore himself away from that dark part of himself.

He breathed deep. He watched as killers trickled blood onto prairie grasses. He felt, as his Crystal Star weighed upon his chest, a burden, an opportunity, an option.

For didn’t even the lowliest criminal deserve the chance at redemption? Didn’t everyone deserve a second chance, especially if that second chance would actually change who they were, at their very core? The Blessing of the Crystal Star was not some mind-game, temporary thing. It was a true change. It was soul magic.

It was the chance at true redemption.

Erick chuckled, nervously. “Ah. I don’t like this part of the path.”

He didn’t expect to want to press that button so much, either. To rid the world of problems with a single spell, spread so wide, as Jane had said when the topic of [Cascade Imaging] and [Luminous Beam] came up. It would be so easy.

Just step over the line and do it.

Do it right now—

Poi’s voice broke through, “They’ll know they were soul-mutilated. Maybe not today. Maybe not for a long time. But they’ll recognize the shift in their own soul soon enough. They’ll see how they aren’t able to get back up after a loss, and go out and kill some other people who aren’t able to defend themselves as well as us. They will discover what was done. They will know divinity changed them. Do you want to blow your cover so soon? Do you want to walk down that path?”

Teressa frowned at Poi, saying, “You have no place to tell him that, no matter your rank in this unit. Adjust yourself.”

Poi’s eyes went wide. He looked away and gasped as he stood straight, a sudden pale descending upon him. “I have overstepped. You are correct.” He looked to Erick. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“You’re right, though.” Erick said, “Silverite said that soul magic is a slippery slope. Best not to fall down that path this early. Let the gods judge them.”

“No,” Jane said.

Erick startled, and looked to his daughter.

Jane stared at her father, then at everyone else. “You’re all overthinking this. The options are to kill them, or to make them better people. There’s no reason to think that changing who they are is a bad thing.” Jane stared at her father, saying, “Do it, and don’t look back. Or, if you need to have a line you won’t cross, then only do this to those people who personally try to murder you, which every one of these people tried and failed to do.” She stressed to her father, to Poi, to Teressa, and, it seemed, to the very mana itself, “This is not a dark moment; don’t make it one. This is righting a small part of the world into something better.”

Poi cut in, “The problem is not here. The problem is in escalation. When does the solution not become soul-control, once soul-control is on the menu? It’s the same problem of [Mind Control]. When does the evil action that’s used for good become just another evil action?”

Teressa sighed, but said nothing.

Jane said, “I already said when: when they come after us directly and they could obviously use some empathy. Besides! We’ll never see these people again, either way, but if they’re Blessed, then they might do some good after doing all the bad they’ve done. Do you see those collars? You don’t even need to tell me that they’ve done wrong! I can see it already.”

“You have this concept of Free Will.” Poi said, “You understand the need for this. Why is this a hard concept for you?”

Jane said, “Because we had jails to lock up the bad guys. Not everyone should be free, but since there’s no jails here, except for jails of the mind, then we should use these ‘jails of the mind’ against those who deserve such treatment.”

Poi went dead silent, not giving a flicker of emotion away as his face became a hard mask.

Teressa looked on.

A minute passed.

Erick said, “I’ve decided.”

Poi looked to Erick. He nodded. Teressa crossed her arms.

Jane asked, “What are we doing?”

“In what is likely stupid, but the only way to be sure: I’m giving them a choice.”

- - - -

He woke up, stripped of everything. A bubble of opaque pink Force surrounded him—

“That damned pink demi basta—”

The man touched his neck, and the collar that he had used on so many other young brats dug into his skin. His status read zeros all across the board. He was fucked. Royally fucked, maybe. He pressed against the capsule in his groin— There was a dimple in his inner thigh; already healed over. God damned scions. They even took his emergency potion! What the fuck was a scion doing out here!

The man called out, “If you’re alive and you can hear me, shit-for-brains! I’m gonna kill you! You hear—”

A voice asked, “Accept soul mutilation so that you will never work this line of terror against anyone else ever again, or die right now.”

He froze. He paled. He would have pissed himself if he hadn’t gone minutes before the alarms tripped, and a target of opportunity had appeared.

… Ah.

He was royally fucked.

These were the threats made against him, then.

Ah.

The man went cold. A resolve formed, quick enough.

The voice asked, “Your choice?”

“Death!” He said, “I choose death, and when I get to Hell, I will raise up armies to visit horrors upon you for all eternity! I will contact my sisters and brothers and my whole clan! They will summon me, and I will descend to this Melemizargo-fucked abyss and destroy everything you love!”

The world tilted.

He felt nothing. Not the pricks of the collar around his neck. Not the feeling of his hands, or his legs. He caught sight of his body, as he fell to the right. The body fell to the left.

He died.

- - - -

The incani chose death. The humans, who were not, chose death. The ‘harpy’ chose death.

The harpy was not actually a harpy. Erick noticed her truth imprinted upon her soul, as if her words weren’t convincing enough. She was incani. She had just Hunted the harpy and had taken her form. Recently, too. Erick had a hard time hearing her rant. Upon hearing the harpy’s words, and what he had heard from the rest, he knew that none of them were who they appeared to be.

Erick had encountered people like this before.

Poi apologized, for giving wrong information based on surface thoughts that were not entirely correct. These people were not going to try to ransom Erick and everyone to the fake Clan Phoenix. If these people had won the fight, Erick, Poi, Jane, and Teressa, would have been dead, and then their bodies would have been used for other, terrible purposes.

Erick’s first introduction to Nelboor had not been Clans, or Soldiers, or being found out as the Archmage Erick Flatt, or being ostracized or worse for appearing to be adventurers. His first introduction to this continent had been the same plague that had afflicted all of civilization, one that he had purged out of the Crystal Forest, and helped to kill within Treehome. A plague of body snatchers.

A plague of Hunters.

- - - -

They burned the bodies and slagged the collars, and then Erick erased the site of their questioning from the manasphere with a few casts of [Sealed Privacy Ward]. He did not erase the site of the battle. If someone came looking around here, they would see what had happened, but they would not see the full outcome.

In a moment of paranoia that even Teressa considered unfounded, Erick went and had Ophiel erase most of their walk from where they had landed on Nelboor, to here, back when they had talked too openly about too many things. He had already done this, but he wanted to be sure.

Erick walked on, toward Eralis, surrounded by Teressa, Poi, and Jane, feeling numb.

- - - -

Ten minutes of walking later, Erick broke the silence. “What a fucking mood swing.”

Teressa said, “Didn’t think Hunters would be our first introduction to Nelboor. And so close to civilization, too. I said it before, and I’ll say it again: Nelboor is a shit continent.”

Jane said, “I forgot these types of people even existed. Dad killed all the ones around Spur.”

Erick suddenly felt like all the energy had drained out of him; but he kept walking forward, barely breaking stride. He was being weak again. He thought he was past this.

He would never be past this.

“And those answers…” Jane scowled. “It’s like they weren’t even prepared for their own deaths. Like Hunting people would never have rebounded on them.”

“That’s the disconnect of the mortal condition, for ya. That’s just how people can get through the day.” Teressa said, “Living next to monsters… Living next to war and death. You can only think that ‘it could never happen to me’, or else you’d go crazy. Because it does happen to you. It happens to your neighbors, and your family, and yourself, eventually.”

“I guess that’s true,” Jane said, mollified.

Teressa said, “And yet… That harpy…” She shivered.

Poi spoke up, his voice strong, and sure, “We just met some killers, is all. People who have abused the good works that were given to us by the gods. We will surely meet more, in the future. That’s all that was. Cherish that we had the power and the luck to drive off the darkness, and that we did not lose ourselves in doing what had to be done.”

They walked on. A warm wind blew across the prairie.

Time passed.

Poi said, “… That’s what my sister used to say. It’s served me well for many years.”

Jane focused forward, on the path ahead. Teressa glanced backward, toward Poi, and then away, toward the horizon. Erick just thought, and considered, and weighed, as he walked; [Mana Sight] active on one Ophiel, [True Sight] active on the other, and with Yggdrasil’s eye trailing behind, watching.

After a minute, Erick said, “Your sister sounds like a smart woman.”

Poi looked away for a moment, then turned back, and nodded.

Ah. His sister was dead.

Poi did not break stride, though his breath halted, briefly.

They walked forward, across the prairie, no one looking at anyone else. If Poi wished to talk about his sister and all of this morality stuff later, then Erick would listen, but he would not bring up such a subject here, or now.

Jane broke the silence, “We should have just killed those Hunters after we subjugated them. Soon as we found out what they were.”

“I agree,” Poi said.

Teressa said, “Right about that.” She frowned. “I still can’t get that harpy out of my mind.”

“They were all Hunters.” Jane said, “She just reveled in it more than most.”

Erick said, “I thought they were humans and incani working together. I would have liked to have believed that. You know, even if they were on the other side of the battlefield.”

Poi said, “Yeah… That would have been...” his voice trailed off.

Jane said, “They were all incani, and those ‘humans’ were just part of their recent… conquests.”

The wind blew.

Erick wondered if—

Poi spoke up, “All of you are messing up your names, and it’s driving me crazy.”

Ezekiel said, “Shit.”

The same time that Tiffany said, “Dammit! I can do this!”

Julia chuckled, then laughed.

Tiffany was not far behind with her own laughter. Ezekiel chuckled.

A gloom seemed to pass, like the breaking of a dawn.

Julia, “Thank you, Paul.”

“No problem, Julia.”

Tiffany asked, “How much further till the first villages, Ezekiel?”

“Just over the horizon, Tiffany.” Ezekiel said, “Half an hour. Then a few hours till the city itself. We have to cross the delta, but we should arrive at Eralis in the afternoon, unless something else happens.”

“We have lots of money now.” Paul said, “I would like to find a nice place to drink a lot of liquor.”

Tiffany happily shouted, “Damn fucking right!”

“The good stuff too. No beer or ale.” Paul continued, “I can [Cleanse] myself afterward, but I would like to get piss drunk in the shortest amount of time possible, unless it appears we will not be able to.”

Tiffany laughed.

Ezekiel put on airs, declaring, “I will arrange such a treat for my loyal people! Drinks for the unrepentant spy for the elders of Clan Phoenix. Drinks for the party girl. And drinks for the daughter I didn’t know I had till last year!” He put on a stern face, saying, “But do not forget why we are here.”

Julia happily asked, “And why are we here, honored father?”

Ezekiel said, “To reclaim our place and power in Clan Phoenix, filial daughter!”

“And to drink!” Tiffany said.

“And to drink,” Paul repeated.

“And to get drunk!” shouted Julia.

- - - -

Fields of grain stretched across the world, with dots of houses here and there amid the waving gold, except they were not just ‘dots’. They only seemed like that because of the distance. They were actually sized like minor mountains.

The people out here did not build small. They built for defense. The only thing small about this furthest farm around Eralis was the small wall that encircled the entire compound; fields, buildings, guard towers and all, to delineate where occupied territory ended and the prairie began. Those guard towers placed all down the wall and in the centers of the fields were more appropriately sized to the mansion beyond; they were each at least twenty meters tall, and thick as extra-fortified lighthouses.

Guards were everywhere. Farmers were everywhere.

Like a dark mirror to a similar arrival, a year ago and half a world away, Ezekiel and Julia were watched as soon as they crested the previous hill and exposed themselves to the civilization growing before them. As they got closer, just minding their own business, Ezekiel waved at the staring guards. The people in the tower —a few humans, wearing steel armor— did not wave back.

Ezekiel led the way south, around the field, giving the short wall a great lot of distance. He had seen a road down this way, and they were close to it.

Soon enough, they found that road. It just ended, right there, before it got too far past the northern farm. Despite being in the middle of near-nowhere, the edge was meticulously maintained. Grasses grew from the prairie, but did not touch the road, while the road itself was ten meters wide and lined with white stone. The road was perfectly flat, like someone had scraped the world with a planer, and it was the best way to walk forward to Eralis, so that’s what they did.

Their new path brought them closer to the guard towers of the northern farm than Ezekiel would have liked. The farmland wall was only ten meters north of the road. Ezekiel heard, as much as saw, the guards atop those towers talking about them, as they walked past.

It was either stay on the road, or cross through the other farmland on the south side of the road, which also had towers and guards, though fewer than the farm on the north side. They were threading their first needle, it seemed, and there was no way out but through.

Ezekiel sighed.

Julia observed, “They’re all looking at us.”

Tiffany said, “This is the road to Eralis. We’ve every right to be here as anyone else.”

They walked for five more minutes before they could not. They stopped.

Several guards lined the road in front of them, along with one woman who stood out front. She seemed in charge, and wore black, spiky armor that would fit the style of any villain in any of Julia’s stories that Ezekiel had ever seen. Ezekiel blinked his mana sense active, and looked past her completely smooth helmet. No horns. Pale skin. Human coloration, mostly. Probably human. None of the guards with her seemed anything other than human, either.

But the guards in the tower to the south were all incani; their horns were prominent, their armor utilitarian, but slightly ornamental. They looked down from their tower, not bothering to make themselves look like they weren’t there to specifically observe the confrontation on the road.

The woman on the road stepped one step forward, toward Ezekiel, and spoke in Ecks, “You will now be questioned under a truthstone. Fail to give the right answers or attempt to flee, and you will be dealt with accordingly, as is our lawful right as a Border Clan of Eralis.”

Ezekiel stepped forward, but maintained a five meter distance between them. “We will be happy to answer anything that is not a problem for us to answer, and we will do so right here, and now.”

The woman nodded, curtly, then raised her head to the right, barely. A man stepped forward with a box. He opened the box, exposing a clear jewel. A truthstone, no doubt.

The woman commanded, “State your names.”

“No.”

The woman paused again.

Ezekiel said, “We will not be interrogated unduly. That I am deigning to answer anything at all is a gesture of goodwill, and a desire to make this as quick and as informative as needs be. Ask your important questions.”

The stone glowed blue.

The woman said, “Strange accent you have there. Where are you from?”

“Far away.”

Blue stone.

The woman seemed to relax. “Do you have any designs on this land?”

“Allies, information, the secrets of the Songstresses, but not if those desires would make me enemies.” Ezekiel asked, “Do you have any of that which I seek?”

Blue stone.

The woman had paused when Ezekiel mentioned ‘Songstresses’. Several people, on both sides of the roads, went still.

The woman sighed. Ezekiel could tell that she had been looking for something in particular in his answer, and that she did not get it. The guards on both sides had been Scanning them since this whole confrontation started, too. Maybe the woman had gotten her answers from those scanning people, for the scanning man right next to the woman had lingered their magic in a few conspicuous places, like the small bag of loot that they had taken from the Hunters, and held open a telepathic connection between himself and the front woman. The Hunters didn’t have much gold, but they did have rings and gems, most of which had already lost their enchantments, but all of which looked personal.

Ezekiel asked, “Is there something you are looking for in particular, with all your mostly-invisible Scanning magics? Maybe I could help.”

The scanning people on both sides startled.

They scanned harder.

The woman weighed something in her mind. Then she asked, “Do you meet any people out the way you came? Anyone at all?”

“You already know the answer. I see you talking to someone through [Telepathy], and the Scanning man to your left gazed upon the rings and jewels that we collected as spoils of that encounter, and his gaze locked for several moments. I wasn’t able to tell exactly which interested him so much, though. His Scan was too broad.”

The woman in black gave no hint that Ezekiel had struck at the heart of the matter, but others had. The incani guards to the south all seemed to sour at once. The human guards to the north turned hateful, all at once. Most of the humans’ ire was thrown directly across the road, toward the tower full of incani guards. Only a few humans still looked down at Ezekiel, Tiffany, Paul, or Julia.

This was momentary.

In the next second, the crowd focused on Ezekiel. Hands tightened on sword hilts. Mana swirled.

Ezekiel needed to defuse this. He angled backward, saying, “The small bag of loot.”

Tiffany handed him the bag and the crowd drew back from open hostilities. It seemed that neither side knew where Ezekiel’s loyalties laid, and they were mostly content to watch, until watching became untenable.

Ezekiel put his empty hand forward and down, conjuring a waist-high pillar with a shallow bowl on top. The guards on all sides stiffened, but did nothing. Ezekiel spilled the bag’s contents onto the pillar. Gold and silver rings glinted in the light, along with a few loose rubies and sapphires. Three pearls were adorned with lettering, of which Ezekiel was not able to read.

“Taken from Hunters, as you have all likely guessed.” He asked, “Is there something in particular you seek?”

Anyone could have heard a pebble drop.

The guard woman spoke, “All of those are spoils from Hunters who have been attacking our lands and the lands of our allies for months. All of it was taken from us. We wish it all back.”

Blue stone.

“What will you give us in return?” Ezekiel said, “It is only right that we get payment for eliminating a threat.”

“What do you want?”

“Directions to good places to stay in Eralis. Pointers for contacting the Songstresses without angering them, for I know not the protocols of this land. Some of this loot that we rightly took from people who don’t deserve it; enough for a night in a good inn. A gold equivalent would be acceptable.” Ezekiel looked from the incani guards, to the human guards, and the human woman standing in front of him. “To know if this is some Quiet War aggression, and to know how to stay out of it.”

Blue stone.

The woman lifted her head, just a bit. Her tone bordered on disbelief, “Quiet war agg—”

One of her fellow guards, the Scanning Man, spoke, “He has a Silver Star. He won’t believe us.”

The atmosphere shifted to something lighter, something that was happening around Ezekiel and his people, instead of to him and his people. One human up in the nearby northern tower even began to chuckle, as he stared hatred across the road, at the incani in the other tower.

Ezekiel heard him whisper, “Not on their side, then.”

Another one whispered, “Not on anyone’s side.”

The woman silently straightened her gaze at Ezekiel. She spoke more easily, but louder, and no less forcefully, “Please give us what was taken from us. In exchange, we can give you food for the night, and a welcoming to our home, and tomorrow, we can escort you to the city—”

“Don’t believe her, Scion!” The incani guard in the other tower called out. “They kill demis, too.”

The woman, unperturbed, said, “We kill those who take from Clan Grey Cloud, no matter their species. And I’m demi myself. Half of us are.”

The truthstone had not shifted from blue this entire time, though it had grown brighter, then dimmer, then brighter again.

Ezekiel stepped aside from the pillar, attempting to divorce himself from the situation, saying, “Thank you for your offer of hospitality, but I am not getting involved in this. I’m sorry for your loss. Upon further inspection, these are obviously tokens of successful Hunts and they should go to the loved ones of the deceased. We’ll have nothing to do with this.”

The woman stiffened, then nodded. She gestured backward. Her people swung off of the road, toward the north, unblocking the way. They backed up to the short wall of the northern farms, to stand next to the tower.

The woman remained at the edge of the road, and said, “The Quiet War has nothing to do with any of the issues that you walked into, foreign Scion. This is just a blood feud between Clan Grey Cloud and Clan Red Lotus, and it has been for a long time. Clan Grey Cloud apologizes if we have given an incorrect impression, and we extend, again, an offer of hospitality for the night.”

“Apology accepted,” Ezekiel said. “But we will not spend the night here. I don’t need reimbursement for killing the Hunters, either.”

The woman said, “Then I must ask now, as rude as it might be: Did you see a pair of humans that looked like me?” She touched the black helmet of her conjured armor, dissipating it.

… Ah. Yeah. Ezekiel did not need to have her remove her helmet, but now that she brought attention to it, Ezekiel mana sensed through all of the people present, again, just to ensure there wasn't some trick.

There was no trick.

He had seen two people that looked like the woman. She had pale skin, bright eyes, distinctive red glints in her hair, and a deep sadness upon her face. She was likely somewhere in her thirties. Ezekiel connected everything about her to two of the human-shaped monsters that he had just killed, back there on the prairie.

He said, “I am sorry for your losses. The Hunters who took the bodies of your relatives are now dead, and the bodies burned to ash. Apologies if that is not your custom.” He looked to the Scanning man, saying, “I’m sure your man can follow our trail, if you must. We left the battlefield intact.”

The woman’s face did not betray her emotions. She reconjured her helmet, then she reached over and closed the lid on the box that contained the glowing blue stone. The man that held the box stepped back.

She bowed. The rest of her people followed suit.

She stood, saying, “Thank you, Scion. May Clan Grey Cloud know your affiliation?”

“Clan Phoenix.”

And in that moment, it was true. The stone glowed blue inside its container, though only a few people here saw that blue glow.

“Clan Grey Cloud thanks Clan Phoenix.” The woman said, “Clan Grey Cloud wishes to impart some knowledge to Clan Phoenix, if you would hear it.”

“Go ahead.”

“The Songli Highlands accepts wayward Clans and those seeking the Songs all the time, but if you have trouble finding a path forward, for your service today, Clan Grey Cloud will assist. We are a minor Clan under Clan Star Song. Our word will carry weight with them, if you wish to be known through us.” She added, “And the Quiet War is a poor reason to start a fight around here, foreign Scion. Those who do so are punished rather ruthlessly by more than a few major families, including Clan Star Song and Clan Void Song, two of the major powers of the Highlands. Both are filled with either demi progenitors or sympathetic humans and incani. We do not revere Koyabez as much around here as we could, but parts of his will are upheld by most.”

“I am glad to hear that. More than you might guess.” And he was. Ezekiel decided, “I will find my own way forward, but if I have trouble, I will keep your words in mind. What is your name? Does your name carry weight?”

“Shuu Grey Cloud. My name does not carry as much as some, but it is not tarnished.”

Ezekiel nodded. Then he looked to the Scanning Man.

The Scanning Man said nothing. Ezekiel could tell he was important, though, based simply on the fact that the clothes he wore under his armor were wildly more expensive than the armors of everyone else in the gathering.

Ezekiel ignored the Scanning Man.

The woman in black armor bowed again, along with her fellow guards. The Scanning Man did not bow; not since he was found out.

Ezekiel walked on, past the demi woman and the man who was some sort of boss to her, keeping to the center of the road, followed by Julia, Tiffany, and Paul. The four of them passed between the two feuding Clans, following the road to Eralis. He did not speed up, but he did not break stride, either. Soon, they were out of the range of crossfire.

- - -

After the foreign Scion walked away, Shuu raised her head. Through the sightless gaze of her full-face helmet, she stared at the incani guard on the tower opposite the road. Even though he hadn’t done it himself, that man had surely killed her brother and sister, and he would pay, eventually. She just needed to prove his involvement.

As the foreign Scion disappeared beyond the hills, and propriety allowed her to go about her business, she checked on several missives she had already sent out. To her left, the young master [Teleport]ed away, likely to give his own report to the elders, or to do whatever he wanted to do; it was not for the likes of her to gainsay his decisions.

One minute later, Shuu was at the site of the battle. She was too late. The people she had sent ahead could only stand there and explain their failure.

The young master of Red Lotus’s farms had beaten her to the stab, for of course he had; he had likely checked in on the Hunters the very second the foreign Scion had entered the sight of Red Lotus with his bag of retrieved ‘trophies’.

All that was left at the obvious battlefield were burned grasses, and nothing else. When the people she had sent ahead had arrived, the entire space was already in the process of being scrubbed by a large-scale red magic that flashed and sparked with lightning and shadow. When Shuu arrived, even that much was gone.

She had nothing. Nothing to fight the Red Lotus in Clan Court. Nothing to prove guilt, or to start an official inquiry. [Witness] was not admissible if the area to be [Witness]ed was gone, and no bodies meant no proper burial. The magistrate would not listen to her testimony, or even care about the retrieval of signet rings and identification pearls. They would see this whole event as Grey Cloud having a fortuitous encounter, and happily close the book on this current iteration of the Red Lotus and Grey Cloud feud. The Greater Clans wished for prosperity, more than they wished for justice.

They would just tell her, “So what if a few people died on the borders to murderers and thieves! You’re the Border Clan! That’s what you signed up for when you took this power. If you didn’t want it, then give up your power to Red Lotus, and abandon your ancestral homes!”

They tell all the Border Clans as much, almost every time a Border Clan brings up a claim against another.

Shuu’s rage flamed higher.

Her anger almost landed on the foreign Scion and his disregard for the dead. Burning the bodies! Who does that!

… Foreigners do that. Shuu understood her anger and she calmed. The foreign Scion knew not what he did. It was not his fault that this happened. And besides that…

That man could have killed them all.

Shuu changed plans. She would send a missive to Clan Star Song if the young master allowed her to do so, or if he didn’t already send one himself, which he probably had. They might not be able to use the wandering Scion and his small fragment of a Clan to directly combat Red Lotus’s encroachment and devilry, but when you see a man walking around with that much power, you stand up and pay attention, or you would soon find yourself dead.

Hopefully, Clan Red Lotus would be the one to receive that death.

Except…

Shuu would still send those missives. But she decided that it would be for the best if she never dealt with that foreign Scion ever again. He seemed like a reasonable sort, so she let him walk on, unimpeded. He and his team had killed seven high level Hunters, after all.

They looked like they could kill several hundred Hunters, if they wanted. Shuu had never seen such perfect reflective shield magic.

Ah. Yes. Don’t reach for the heavens, Shuu. They will smack you down.

Shuu returned to the Clan House and went over the trophies.

She had no proof that the Hunters who had plagued the Clan for the last year were actually bought and paid for by Red Lotus, but she knew of the Hunters themselves. Shuu counted trophy rings from Clan Grey Cloud, Clan Ward Stone, and several others, each of them from other Outer Clans responsible for the border, each of whom had been approached by Red Lotus to ask them to sell their farms, and their bases of power along the border. There were even identification pearls from Clans she did not recognize.

No trophies from Red Lotus, even though there should have been some in there, if the Hunters had been hunting evenly. In this circumstantial way there was some proof that Red Lotus had been hiring Hunters to disrupt the borders, to take over through force what they could not achieve through diplomacy and merit.

But.

Circumstantial evidence did not matter.

If only they had had the bodies! They could have beseeched the Court Necromancer to call back the souls of the dead…

The foreign Scion didn’t want that, though, did he? That’s why he burned the bodies, perhaps? Or for some other reason? Koyabez was against necromancy for its part in the Quiet War, so perhaps that was why…

But! If only he hadn’t burned them! She could have gotten to—

Shuu’s anger rose, but she clamped it down. She wished to say goodbye to her sister, at least. If she had the body, she could call back the true owner, for one last farewell.

But...

She could not go against a Scion, even if he wasn’t from around here, especially if he was actively looking for allies, for whatever reason. With that shield of thorns upon his arm that was packed with enough ambient reflective magic to stave off even the young master’s senses, and rings of true power upon the hands of every one of his, admittedly, uniquely poor-seeming people? He was likely both a great Warder, and a walking calamity.

So, as the grand-elder used to say, ‘Ignore the dragon buying drinks at the bar, and calmly make your way to the exit.’

It was good advice.