Krane saves me from an intense moment of awkwardness by taking the lead after we briefly pause at the gate. Sempiternus expected to be guided to the Spider District. I expected to be guided to the Spider District. The expedition would have ended then and there and I would have probably reset the loop in utter embarrassment after looking competent for all of an hour. Fortunately, my ever reliable minion takes the lead. He has ‘obtained’ Depths guild data, somehow, and is willing to explain more.
The good thing is, we have privacy courtesy of my soul. I just use telepathy so we’re not overheard while the mercenaries array themselves around us to defend my VIP arse.
“I’m surprised the shallow Depths are not, shall we say, public domain?” I note.
“Every smuggler, sect, or ruling organization has maps ten districts deep, sometimes more, but they are unwilling to share it. The station shifts around regularly when the flesh golems pull deeper districts closer to the surface for maintenance. Some passages are open, others are closed.”
“And they don’t share what they learn?” I ask, a bit surprised.
“The golems will tell you that they share what they know. I am disinclined to believe them. I agree that they have no way to verify what ancient horrors they will unearth before the district emerges, and yet one must wonder how they even learn of the damage they claim they must fix. Those strange beings will not share their map, so we depend on explorers like the guild. They, of course, would prefer to be paid for their trouble.”
“I see.”
There is a pause while we approach the next gate and I am once more requested to open it. I’m feeling pretty proud of myself because my presence allows the expedition to take a shortcut, while without me, they would have had to go through a permanently open gate a district away. One of the mercenaries is suddenly attacked by a pack of unfortunate fliers that underestimate how reactive the mercenaries are. The beasts are cut down in seconds.
“Attacks grow in strength the deeper one goes,” Krane explains. “Sometimes, one of the beasts that lurk in the depths will climb up into the shallows, then Elders must hunt it before it kills too many people.”
“I hope we don’t come across one.”
“If we do, you may try another route,” Krane says with stoic determination.
We exchange a glance. He means, after we die horribly.
“Well, you didn’t get killed by beasts in the previous loops.”
Krane gives me a gaze of pity. His scarred fingers reach for the broken horn on his wizened head.
“I did not use shortcuts, nor were we fifty.”
“Isn’t there safety in numbers?”
Krane goes thoughtful.
“You may not leave your house for a single pastry, but what if you were offered a feast?”
“Ok. I don’t like the metaphor. Point taken anyway.”
We cross another district without issue, this one covered in bioluminescent mushrooms tended by weirdly peaceful insects. Larger specimens lie in wait at the edge of the more sizable patches, but we ignore them as they ignore us and our journey continues.
“You are much weaker than I expected,” Krane says after a while. “No offense.”
“I get that a lot. And none taken.”
“I expect you are still at the beginning of your path?”
“Yes. It’s my first time trying this.”
Krane grows wistful for a few steps, but then a bitter smile tugs at his lips.
“Have I survived any of your attempts so far?”
“Never.”
“Good,” he says, surprising me. “That is how it should be.”
His bared soul radiates honest confidence. It doesn’t feel like self-destructive defeatism or masochism. Rather, I feel… conviction. He’s a believer. That scares me a little.
“You’re not mad? That I am using you?” I ask.
“I cannot be used without my consent, so no. It must be done. I believe what you’ve said and came to the conclusion that my redemption and Endelith’s salvation may only be achieved through you. I merely ask that you call upon me once more. It can only benefit us both.”
“How does it benefit you?”
He shakes his head in silence. One of the nearby mercenaries gives us a curious look.
“I will explain later. As you said, we are still early on the path.”
The next district is eerily quiet. We are attacked mid-travel by a monstrous creature as long as a car which attempts to drag mercenaries away with serrated claws. I feel it coming, however, and manage to warn them in time to get in formation. The slain beast has the body of a fish, the arms of a lobster, the legs of a horse, and a head that’s half mouth which would be horrible in itself, but the beast is also shockingly pink and smooth like a toddler’s ass.
“Some gene modded reject,” Sempiternus spits. “We’ll see more of those as we go further down.”
Marvelous. I watch a medic patch up the carved arm of one of the mercenaries. She winces in pain, but otherwise remains quiet. This is suffering I caused, in a way, which makes me wonder about the ethical aspect of attempts. Every time I try something, I cause more pain. Some who might have lived shall die. In a way, every loop has a cost that is borne by others because of my decisions. A part of me realizes that I simply have no choice but to try, and yet… But no. I should focus on the moment rather than touch that Gordian knot.
“I, err, you actually advised me not to try this,” I still tell Krane that ‘night’ while we eat rations around a magical fire. “You said I should just focus on growing strong.”
Krane contemplates the fire in silence for a long while.
“And yet you ignored my advice. Do you know what I was before I became an avatar?”
“Err. I know you were a criminal.”
“I was a war criminal, Steve. Before that, I was just a general. You elect to ignore my advice because your heart cannot bear the thought of the suffering the explosion will cause, yes?”
I nod.
“If you come to me for absolution, I will tell you that I can never offer it. Absolution is never an easy path, or I would not have become the avatar of Redemption. What I can tell you as a retired leader of men is that suffering is inevitable. I led, knowing some of the warriors under my command would scream and die following the orders I gave. There is but one way to accept this without callousness or madness: You must make the most out of everything. I will likely die in a few weeks, as will many of us. Only you can make our deaths not go to waste. Learn as much as you can, prepare as much as you can. This is your duty.”
“Oh.”
“Do you not believe you can do that?”
He sounds so serious.
“I believe I have no other choice. It’s not the last time I will attempt to, or succeed at stopping them. So yeah. I’ll learn.”
“Good.”
I sigh, then I grab my staff to practice.
***
The deeper we go, the thicker the ambient energy is, to the point it stays at the back of my head like a persistent hum. It also blinds our scouts which forces me to sweep our path with my soul, sometimes catching the elusive presence of some ambush monsters. Most leave us alone.
The higher level of mana makes it much easier to practice ‘disguise presence’ though I still cannot use the technique reliably. At night, I use soul syphon to try and reach second awakening, but it’s very clear I will not succeed before the end of the month. I still get a lot of practice out of it.
The districts, or compartments, grow darker the deeper we travel though we try and stay around depth 5 as much as possible. Some passages are fully closed, the lock unresponsive. Some give off such a strong feeling of dread to the scouts that we skip them entirely. Once we come across an ancient section slotted haphazardly between two mundane districts during one of Enderlith’s many reshufflings. It takes me an hour to finally open the gate, and then we come across a massive palace shining a shocking white silver, as if the stones had been carved from the moon still soaking the distant sun’s light. Our little convoy ambles along the sides of elegantly carved fences in contrite silence, cowed pilgrims walking under the shadows on a titan while searching for the hidden star reflected in those hauntingly polished stones as beautiful as princely curtains. Not a single word is exchanged until we have all exited the place only to realize we’re missing one person. Sempiternus vainly asks for volunteers to search for them. No one wants to return to the castle. Not even I.
We are almost there when I find something that calls to me. This district doesn’t even feel old. The architecture matches the reign of Vrok, Archon of Retribution and the previous ruler of this dump. It’s one of those districts currently sinking so that another may rise from the annals of history. What draws me speaks to my soul like dirty nails gripping the sleeve of a passerby. What it lacks in power, it makes up for in eery attraction. I need to look. I may not like what I see, but I will hate what I imagine even more.
It reminds me a little of the abyss, though it certainly doesn’t feel nearly as depraved. Alright.
“We need to make a detour,” I tell Sempiternus by my side.
“What do you mean, a detour? We’re almost there.”
“I need to check on something I noticed. Five blocks to the side.”
“Listen here. We signed a contract. That doesn’t mean you can order me around.”
Krane comes to back me up while the leonine man stands his ground and his mercenaries halt around us.
“This wasn’t planned,” he insists when I don’t react.
“I’m going to check it out,” I tell him. “You can rush the spiders and the bombers with the tonal locksmith hidden in your pocket, or you can set up here to rest and prepare for an hour or two. Either way Krane and I will be having a little walk.”
Sempiternus crosses his lean arms over his chest. A low growl emerges from his closed lips.
If this were me from eight cycles ago, I would have felt nervous.
“You don’t even make the top ten of most horrifying assholes I’ve met recently,” I regretfully inform him. “Have you ever fought an aberrant?”
I shiver. The memory of the skin prism echoes through my mind, surging from the depths of denial until I remember it. The dark beneath our feet, at the southern tip of this star system’s axis like a mouth to hell. There, waiting for me. The abyss. THE ABYSS.
“Steve, you’re leaking,” Krane whispers.
His hand rests on my shoulder.
“Oops, sorry.”
“I do believe we need a break,” Sempiternus says after a short pause. “Or rather, you do. Just open the gate first so I can send scouts to the edge of the district.”
“Acceptable.”
I’m getting a lot of practice with the gate cracking. As we go deeper, the musical phrases grow in length, yet the childish melodies mean I know within five notes if a cipher will work or not. It still takes a bit under an hour for me to handle this one. I don’t mind. It’s fun.
The gate opens on a desolate corridor criss-crossed by thick ropes of webbing shining a sickly white in the lights of our torches. The round form of a flesh golem rests in a nearby cocoon, its chestnut-like upper torso reduced to bones.
“Ehm. Good luck with the scouting,” I tell the mercenaries.
I leave Sempiternus to issue additional orders. Krane and I walk back through familiar streets now empty and desolate, their inhabitants long since gone. Unlooted pieces of furniture can still be seen from mostly intact windows. This is a fresh corpse of a city we have found ourselves in.
Our destination catches me by surprise behind a street corner. Suddenly we have left homes and small shops to the solemn shell of a temple. Smooth walls shine a shocking carnival of colors in the light of our lamps, reflections of an illusion of life. There are intense blues, ominous reds, happy yellows and dull whites drifting across stone, never twice in the same spot. I resist the urge to play with the reflection while we walk towards a monumental entrance.
Two guardian statues stand on either side of a stone slab that marks where the door should have been, quietly guarding over the abandoned structure with canine patience. I am shocked at how close the nearest store is, barely twenty paces away across a pedestrian street decorated with benches and the dry soil of empty tree spots. I find the explanation on the austere pediment.
“I can’t read it,” Krane whispers.
I share his sense of reverence. The temple has little in common with Law’s dens, cold monuments to order and its apparatus. This one is more humble, more approachable, but no less threatening for it. The dogs remind visitors that the people inside have fangs.
“It’s an old script version of Ten-Sah, very close to the original language of power.”
Krane’s caterpillar brows climb to his horns.
“Can you read it?”
“Temple of the Purifiers,” I translate with perhaps just a bit of smug pride. Hey, I deserve it.
“Ah, I knew this was familiar,” Krane says.
He nods to himself.
“They were gone before I landed. Is what you are looking for inside?”
“Seems that way. I don’t think we can get in though.”
The slab doesn’t have any visible lock. Since I’m not ready to give up just yet, I place my hand against the cool surface and push mana into it. Hidden engravings light up like a circuit. As expected, there is a mana reader thing inside, same as with my apartment. I don’t think it’s keyed to me though.
“Keep doing that. I think it’s working,” Krane whispers with excitement.
“I don’t think it’s going to be that easy,” I say, but I keep going anyway.
“Mellon,” I joke.
The light rises to a warm shine. A timid star dawns on the dead street, radiance bouncing off the floating dust, turning it to dancing gold sparks. The air smells fresher. Quietly, the slab splits open in the middle, revealing a vast atrium beyond.
“Huh.”
“How?” Krane asks with suspicion. “You could not possibly… unless… what are your affinities? If I may ask.”
“Just this time I’ll tell you.”
I find his groan immensely gratifying.
“It’s star. Star and flesh.”
“That might explain it. The doors to the temple are always open to prospective acolytes.”
“That might be it.”
Our steps echo in the silent room. We ignore a welcome counter, the call guiding me to distant corridors. All of the gates inside open with just a hint of mana, even those heading down, and down, past bars and sentry posts. The filthy nails on my soul devolve from a tug to a persistent scratch.
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“I feel something,” Krane says. “Something foul.”
We find it in a room at the bottom of a well surrounded by dormant glyphs of warding. The source of my growing unease is a monolith, small enough to fit at the back of a small truck and made of a strange dark stone as bulbous as the trunk of a marsh-infesting tree. The bloated stone writhes at the edge of my vision. Characters adorn its blasphemous surface. They feel somewhat familiar, as if I’d seen some of them before. Or at least characters of the same writing system… but where? I can’t recall.
“I don’t know what those say,” I inform Krane, my voice breaking the silence.
I shiver at the thought we might wake something up. Whatever force kept the pillar under control has broken over the centuries, and now the structure bleeds vileness through the air. It’s only a matter of time before it erupts like pus from a boil. It might not be this year, at least not without outside help, but it will.
“Perhaps the seal could be repaired?” Krane suggests.
He inspects the chains. I am unfamiliar with that type of magic, but I don’t believe they could do their job unless they were maintained by a group of people.
“You and what army?” I ask.
Krane winces. Ok, poor phrasing after he just told me he used to be a general before his fall.
“Sorry.”
“No, you are correct. Well, you have guided us here. Now what?”
“Give me a moment.”
I do not recognize the spindly glyphs on the obelisk’s surface, but the good thing is: it’s a language. And I’m extraordinarily good with those — thanks Chronos. I write everything in my soul book and as I reproduce them, I get the impression that those are sentences. Unfortunately, the sample size is too small.
“Another mystery for later.”
Once I’m done, we leave the basement in silence while the scraping against my soul retreats to a dull noise at the back of my head. I believe the obelisk bears investigating, just, not now.
“Should we head back?” Krane asks.
“Not yet. The purifiers were star affinity experts. Maybe there is something left.”
And indeed, there is. A bit of exploration reveals archives — sadly emptied, but I find stellae on the walls of a training room detailing basic techniques in Ten Sah.
Jackpot.
“Give me a moment while I write these down,” I mumble excitedly.
There are eight spells, or basic techniques described there separated by steps of complexity with the easiest two being just light and light beam. I don’t understand some of the more advanced terms, but it will be immensely useful later. This is a great haul.
“This expedition won’t have been for nothing after all,” I whisper.
Krane radiates approval. He guards me while I finish, then we do one last round looking for more loot. We find none. The purifiers packed up thoroughly when they decided to leave, or at least I think so.
“You reckon they left or someone chased them away?” I ask.
“No traces of violence, no impact, no debris. I believe they left on their own,” Krane confirms.
We return to the mercenaries. The excursion took a bit under an hour. By then, Sempiternus’ people have created a camp complete with tents, and a map on a looted table. The lion man calls for us as soon as we return.
“My scouts have returned from the Spider District.”
I nod, waiting for him to elaborate.
“It’s filled with spiders.”
You don’t say.
***
I run behind Team 1 at a dead sprint. Strands of silk fly above us, backlit by the baleful orange of torches, billowing in smoke-stained wind. The stench of smoke is overwhelming. A black-haired mercenary woman leads the path with a rock drill that tears great swaths of webbing but all around is silk, above is silk, and I am trapped in a liminal hell borne from the nightmares of an arachnophobe. I don’t know how long it takes for us to find the bunker down. This one is pristine, unlike the cracked wreck we found earlier with its gates torn open by monstrous strength. I find the tonal lock next to a small door. Take out the tool, listen, and get to work.
I feel creatures on the left, quickly approaching. My soul extends to share this with the others who form an arc around me. I hope I held my disgust back. It would be easier if they didn’t feel so much like people.
Team 1’s experienced mercenaries engage the spiders as soon as they jump from the webbing. Even if I try to focus, I can’t. I see them, hybrids of humans and arachnids, here a shockingly pink leg, there a tan torso made almost gray by the sunless depths. A pale eye, filled with tears of rage reflecting the fire of our torches. And the spiders charge with abandon and screeches of wordless fury only to die on the blades and spells of my guards. The music plays and I can’t hear it. I can’t hear it over the cries of pain. None of the human parts look like they’re a day above eight years old, for humans. None of the voices either. The childish melody slips from my soul, torn by the cacophony of massacre. It sounds like we’re slaughtering an orphanage. And still they come and still they die. Looks like Team 2’s diversion only bought us a couple of minutes. They should still be holding the gate out.
I don’t think it will matter. There is a lull while the dying echoes of the last spiders find answers around us. A deep bellow shakes the ground, maybe a kilometer to my right through centuries of dried gunk.
Focus. The music again. This one is not as difficult as expected. Four phrases. I open my soul book with shaky hands so I can take notes.
Krane’s hand grips my shoulder like a vice.
“Focus. We’ll get you the time you need.”
His tower shield covers the entirety of me and somehow, the noise quiets. There is just me, steel behind, and steel in front. I can do this. I must do this, or the suffering of the mercenaries will be in vain and the world around us will die in purple fire. I luck out with the first phrase as the cipher is the second on the list. The second phrase sounds familiar.
“Wait, that’s almost like…”
I flip a page. Cipher 17. I used it just yesterday, and it only works with phrases that go up and down a lot. I try it. It works. Third phrase. Outside, the battle has resumed and the smell of grilling meat has replaced that of burning silk. I hate that it’s making me a little hungry. Adult voices join the chorus of agony. People are dying and I’m stuck on this FUCKING-
No, no. Focus. Third cipher is an unfamiliar one but by now I know the first few ciphers almost by heart. The fourth phrase uses the first cipher. Lucky. My fingers slide over the song key with a confidence I don’t feel. The melodies merge together in a harmony that silences even the din of war.
I am pushed inside. My face hits cool stone but I don’t scream and I don’t move. Metal slams shut behind us. The screams stop. Silence returns. The air now only smells of dampness.
We’re safe.
Sempiternus takes the lead without a word, without pausing. I believe we are short two people though no one comments. His torch leads the way down a narrow set of stairs curling down a central pillar. The walls are bare stone held by crumbling concrete, showing no signs of collapse despite the years. We head down, deeper and deeper. Armored boots clang strangely in the silence, the sound reverberating ad infinitum. The world narrows to the back of Krane in front of me, and the breath of the drill mercenary behind me. And then, we find it. The passage abruptly opens on a vast room with a ceiling so high I cannot spot it. Stone pillars surge into the darkness at regular intervals, a petrified forest supporting an unseen sky. I feel lost, until I notice that some of the lights down there are not ours. I spot more details while Team 1 fans around us. The room is far more vast than I first realized, but some of it must be lower past a balustrade on our right overlooking a deeper space from whence the sounds of working people comes, dulled by distance and the damp air. Front and to our left, I see bedding accompanied by the smell of cooking food and unwashed bodies.
‘We must find the bomb,’ I send to the rest of the team.
‘Eliminate the sentries first,’ Krane sends back, with a grudging acknowledgement from Sempiternus.
I follow the group at some distance. The drill mercenary stays by my side while Krane takes the lead. I catch glimpses of a basic camp through a gap in the pillar forest: lots of personal effects and tents strewn haphazardly over a relatively open patch, with some farther in the distance. A portly man works over a cauldron, his back to us. Others sleep, or lay listlessly. I hear the animalistic grunts of a couple making love hidden behind a pillar. The constellation of their souls reeks of deep-rooted terror mixed with a nihilistic kind of hope I don’t think I’ve ever felt before. The desperate mix sickens me.
The mercenaries move in like shadows under Krane’s merciless guidance. The Avatar of Redemption moves from bedding to bedding, snapping necks while Sempiternus slices throats with every gesture. I feel a sense of alarm from one of the corners but before the bomber can think to scream, a knife-wielding mercenary silences them. It takes only a few seconds for the third awakenings to slay everyone.
We’re not facing soldiers, I realize when I approach. Those are civilians or, at the very best, gangers. They’re too thin, their weapons too varied and too shabby. It doesn’t explain the terror, but it does explain hope. Those are people who won’t be missed: victims of the Year of Judgment. The bomb is, perhaps, their only opportunity to matter. Or maybe I’m wrong. I feel strange with the ceiling so high above us and the bomb so near, like I’m standing over the edge of a precipice. The vertigo of power and opportunity leaves me cold and sweaty from the nerves alone. The thing that killed me so many times and those who wielded it are so close now. Actually, I can feel something, a pulse. I look right, towards the balustrade.
Krane wordlessly stalks forward until he reaches the edge.
‘I think this is it’.
I quietly join him. Feverish excitement floods my mind because I agree. The balustrade overlooks a basin of deep water and beyond, a flat expanse of ground occupied by two dozen people banging on metal to build a large cart with more material and strange contraptions spread beyond. The light comes from crystals but also a shockingly purple radiance leaking from a strange structure occupying the center of the space. I do know what soul bombs are supposed to look like, and it doesn’t matter in the slightest because I could have told what this thing was, and what it could do, merely by existing in its vicinity. The bomb is massive, easily five meters across, which explains the large cart. It consists of two hollow hexagonal shapes fused together, looking like someone slammed two copper dishes together to trap the mother of all wasps. An archaic control panel serves as a lock and detonator while sliding windows would allow someone to have a glimpse of the contents if they were utterly suicidal and eager to find an interesting way to end their miserable existence. I couldn’t throw a stone that far and despite the distance, the lightest caress of this purple light fills me with a deep sense of dread, of wrongness. The soul in there must be absolutely massive and powerful beyond words. And it is furious. Mad with pain. More importantly, the bombers are readying themselves for transport, which means that the bomb must be ready.
How can I even disarm such a thing? No, more importantly, who the fuck managed to trap something like that in the first place? What is this?
“I knew I smelled blood,” someone says.
I couldn’t have jumped higher. The voice is cheerfully conversational. By the time I turn, there is fighting all around us but two people are not moving. The first is a young man hanging from a nearby column with the power of his legs alone. He has short blond hair, a rosy complexion and blue eyes so clear they look washed out. His smile illuminates a round face full of boyish charm, the kind I would expect from my smoother students. He wears dark, fitting clothes like I would see in the streets of the Needles.
I didn’t feel him coming. I can’t feel his soul.
The second person who doesn’t move is the drill mercenary. The boy has one hand clamped on her arm, the other on her throat, choking her, and he’s pulling her apart. Her shoulder is already torn and bloody, skin stretched past its limit with tearing red muscle oozing blood underneath. A silvery tendon hangs like a string across the wound. The horrifying gap freezes me as does the woman’s pleading eyes and her mouth open in breathless supplication. In the background, the mercenaries fight against a force I can tell they’re struggling with, but no one interrupts us.
“I am so curious!” the young man exclaims.
I clamp on my terror and when that doesn’t work, I pull my soul back in and somehow, it helps. I suddenly have control over my emotions again. The drill mercenary’s still alive somehow but I don’t know how or if I can help her. I brought soldiers here. I can’t fight this.
“Oh?”
He disappears. He was there and now he’s gone. I take a step back, focus my soul in a tight beam as I pull the defender and cycle it. I don’t think it will help. He’s not going to give me time to aim. My back hits the balustrade. One of the mercenaries is screaming in pain, facing a beautiful woman with white hair. As she twists to dodge a spear, I see a third of her face is actually melted by an acid scar. She doesn’t dodge the next blow. The spear hits her square in the chest but it is the suffering mercenary’s chest that erupts in a shower of blood. She laughs. Innumerable piercings and rings click as she dances away. Two more mercenaries scream in pain.
I yelp. My hand hurts. It hurts so much. There is blood on my coat. I grab it, feeling something wrong. Something missing. I freeze time by reflex but there is nothing to be done except appreciate that I’m short a body part. The time freeze allows me to keep up with faster people but only to an extent and here I’m so outclassed I have few options. The boy reappears, holding the tip of my index.
“You’re easily distracted. Are you an avatar as well? You feel like one.”
Krane grabs the white-haired woman by the throat with gritted teeth. Sempiternus charges her with twin blades but before he can stab her, Krane holds him back.
“Don’t!”
The woman squeals in delight while more mercenaries fall, paralyzed by agony or taken down by superior numbers. Krane twists on himself and throws the girl who squawks a hearty laugh as she flies over the balustrade to the basin below. It grants the surviving mercenaries some breathing room. Blades, spears, and staves crack and clang with impact. Some spells fly, killing and burning. I feel the young man is going to strike again so I briefly freeze time to prepare that perfect twist to the side. The boyish man misses but grabs my throat anyway. I just can’t follow him, good instincts and preparations or not. And then Krane is here, and I am free. Sempiternus tears through the resistance as he screams.
“Fuck this. Contract or not, we won’t make it. Get out, everyone.”
“Oh no, leaving so soon?”
The young man jumps down from a pillar. I don’t need to extend my soul again to feel Sempiternus’ terror. The young man easily deflects his strikes with bare fingers.
“Oh, you’re really scared.”
One of the bombers rushes me. I dodge under a hasty strike and plant the Defender point range into his flank. The discharge disables him but now a desperate woman jumps at me with a knife. I jab her in the nose, wincing from the pain, then I use her momentum to send her over the balustrade, but there are more and more people rushing us. And then I’m airborne and falling, red droplets trailing behind me in a crimson drizzle. Krane is here.
We land at the edge of the basin, taking off at a dead sprint. The white-haired woman races down from nearby stairs but she catches a thrown tower shield in the flank and flies backward with a moan of pleasure. Krane drags me to the bomb. His tower shield returns to his hand.
“Listen closely. The blond is the Avatar of Malice.”
I pause. Far above us, someone chuckles. Krane grabs my head so I look directly at him.
“The white-haired woman is the Avatar of Pain. She can inflict agony and redirect damage upon others. The Avatar of Malice is the leader here. You can’t face him. He’s one of the Twelve.”
I know what he means. Malice is one of the twelve major gods of Enderlith below Time and Space. I’ve already met Law’s servants. War almost destroyed the station.
“Learn what you can about the soul bomb. I’ll hold them back.”
The Avatar of Pain returns with a giddy laugh. Something splashes in the basin. Leonine hair blooms in a halo around the ball of Sempiternus’ head bobbing in the cold water. Malice’s champion jumps down on light feet. He’s not even disheveled.
“Get started, Steve.”
The overwhelming unease spikes so near to the bomb. It takes all of my self-control to inspect the device. Its coppery metal feels warm to the touch, barely holding. I have no idea how a soul bomb works but I can at least do my best to draw the bomb itself in my soul book with my bloody fingers, then the control panel’s many keys which all use archaic Ten-Sah. Maybe someone will make sense of this. I identify a basic mechanical display apparently made of shifting sand enchanted to act as a rudimentary screen above the keys. I can’t find any more markings. I feel sick and light-headed by the time I’m done. It’s fine, Steve, that knuckle will come back.
Don’t think about it.
I turn to see Krane kicking the white-haired avatar in the belly, smashing her back into a faraway wall. Malice’s own expression has twisted from innocent glee to a more twisted excitement bordering on rage. It’s like watching a marble mask crack to reveal rotten meat underneath. Krane is bleeding from his cheek and shoulder though he held on well.
He will not win this.
“Are you done?” he asks.
“Yes! We should run a—”
Death count: 10
Loss count: 1
Qualia points acquired: 120
New total available: 2731
Instant Death (mercy kill): 1
Identified and faced the Avatar of Malice: 10
Identified and faced the Avatar of Pain: 5
Achieved significant progress with tonal lockpicking, growing closer to understanding the station’s true nature: 100
Various trainings: 4
***
Chronos smiles politely. I hold back a curse.
“Krane killed me! He killed me… Oh, I never told him I could reset the loop at will.”
He got me good. I really didn’t see it coming, which was the point, I suppose. Krane made sure I’d be spared whatever Malice’s champion had in store for us. Ugh, what a despicable little man. I would shiver if my emotions were not so muted. I still couldn’t feel his soul by the end, but just the childish glee of his smile when he pulled the drill mercenary apart… I really don’t think I should get eidetic memory any time soon.
I look to the side, to the growing pile of my corpses and find the one missing part of his finger. Well, the others are dressed differently. And yeah, Krane tore off the upper part of my head with the edge of his shield. Damn. Clean hit.
“What a lad.”
I lean back in the comfortable chair. I suddenly have a cup of black tea in my hand with just the right amount of milk, judging by the color.
“Thank you Morag, you’re a dear.”
She plants a straw in her own cup. I swear they know exactly how to get a rise out of me, and yet, between the dulled emotion and the calm of Chronos’ space, I relax. This place is safe. In here, I am surrounded by friends. Enderlith is no longer the blood and shit whirlpool of choking mercenaries gasping for air, of burning webs and spider children screaming while we slaughter them, of filthy faces fighting us out of despair, of pain, and the immense weight of that captive soul. Here, Enderlith is but a puzzle to be solved.
It’s just a shame I don’t have what it takes to solve it. It’s not close. It’s not remotely anywhere near close, in fact. I absolutely don’t see a single path to success for even the first step towards unfucking this biblical radioactive dumpster fire of a shitshow. Disaster, unpreventable disaster, has occurred, and shall occur for the foreseeable future.
I’m done.
I am absolutely fucking done.
“That’s it,” I tell them after a while. “That’s it. I give up. I can’t do anything. I can’t even find a way to stop the very first of this dump’s uncountable calamities. Millions will die again and again because of my weakness and I admit, I accept, I confess, that I can do fuckall to stop it. I can’t. I just can’t.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. Emotions are supposed to be dulled here, no?
“I can’t. I’m lost. All this shit is beyond me. It was always beyond me, but I guess I didn’t even know how far everything was so I have to make sure first. And now, I am certain. So, I need to do as Krane says. I’ve got no choice. I accept that I can’t help them as I am now. So I will change what I am now. I will scrabble for every bit of power and knowledge I need to win this, atom by fucking atom if I have to.”
I take a sip of illusory tea because this is the absolute state of my life and tea feels like the only valid option right now.
“Fuck, I missed tea.”
“Bad things are better with a hot drink, I find,” Chronos says with a soothing voice.
“And what about you? No snark?”
He shrugs.
“The situation does not call for it. Next time, perhaps?”
The cad.
“I need to develop a monopoly on horrible time-related puns.”
Chronos gasps in mock outrage, a fist rising to his immaculate suit.
“You aim to take over the God of Time himself? Morag. The peasants are revolting.”
The eldritch woman sighs, sounding once again as if her lungs were airport terminals.
“I told you to warn me when that happens. Smite the heretic, my dutiful ally,” Chronos orders.
Morag points and my tea disappears. The horror!
“I ask for mercy, oh great ones,” I shamelessly beg.
The tea mercifully returns. I do not hurry to finish it, nor do I feel the need to plan or buy skills. I know what I must do. But first, I finish my cup and then I have another. This is a two cups of tea situation.
I’m going to see Kimera. I need to know if I can use flesh magic to reform myself at the start of every loop. I suspect it will not be easy, but if there is one affinity that allows someone to reform their body, it’s that one. It’s time to stack these lifetimes effectively. After a final nod of encouragement from myself to myself, I allow myself to stand up.
“I’m ready,” I say. “Send me back.”
End of Book 1