Cloaking sucks. I know it’s not real cloaking, and both Adrian and Sierra have thoroughly expounded on how much this is supposed to be irritating, but it’s incredibly counterintuitive. Though the train is largely empty, there’s still a few people alongside the conductor and whoever else is necessary to keep it going.
None of us know how to drive a train, so the option of killing everyone else is out. Plus, Sierra and Adrian told me that slaughtering innocents is “wrong” and that I “shouldn’t do it.”
Thus, I suffer in silence as the train drifts through seemingly endless sand dunes, holding my metaphysical breath and my real one alike, only allowing myself shallow inhalations to keep focus on the “cloak.”
There’s a couple dozen other people scattered along this train, but none of them are in the car we’re in, so we can talk freely. Presumably. Despite having leapfrogged so far in power, I don’t have any passive magic detection skills, so I can’t tell if someone’s eavesdropping.
Sierra, though, doesn’t seem to mind. She has a few scraps of cloth in her hand, taken from one of the more intact bodies I made back in the station, and they’ve been turning them over and murmuring to each other practically the entire time.
It has been roughly fifteen minutes since we left the station. The guy who let us on looked like he wanted to ask us questions about our general disheveled state, but Sierra paid for us and he kept his lips shut.
“Do either of the two of you want to tell me what’s going on?” I ask casually, struggling to maintain the pseudo-cloak. It felt so much easier out there on the beach, but on this train car, squeezing up next to Sierra, it’s much harder. The question of holding my power in for hours or even days is also rather distinct from cloaking for fifteen seconds, which doesn’t help.
“You’re sure about this,” Adrian says, louder. He looks up at Sierra.
“Absolutely so,” the Blue Mage replies. “Our choice of destination has been reaffirmed.”
“Whitestar,” I say, pulling on my amalgam for information. Unfortunately, the thirty-two researchers who put me together neglected to include geopolitics information in the bastard soul they glued together.
Thirty-one, now. The thought makes me smile.
“Correct,” Sierra says. “Often known as the weakest of the Seven Kingdoms, they are known for their abysmal standing army—“
“Cut the history lesson, Sierra,” Adrian snarks. “Just get to the important part.”
She lets out a long-suffering sigh. “The royal family as well as the elite noble clans are exceptions. They largely operate within a small city, the only region in the kingdom where Category 1s can use their power freely. The Halcyons you so generously separated from life are one of those families.”
“Oh, shit,” Adrian says, his eyes drawn to something at the far end of the train car.
My hackles raise, and it takes everything I can to keep myself from accidentally dropping my pseudo-cloak. “What is it?”
“Drinks!” he whoops, standing from his cushioned seat across the table we sit at. “I’ll be right back.”
I give him my best glare. Without the aura of overwhelming power blasting from my body, it’s a lot less intimidating than I would’ve hoped. He giggles, the fucker.
“As I was saying,” Sierra says, taking one of my hands in hers, “The Halcyons are powerful—relatively. Compared to, say, Marie, their entire clan is practically nothing, but they pose a true threat to people on our level.”
“I’m following,” I reply, squeezing her hand like my amalgam suggests me to. “You’re saying we need to worry about retribution? Why are we heading towards their homeland, then?”
She shakes her head. “Retribution, we could deal with. This is different. This is their collaboration.”
“Collaboration with who?” I suspect that I already know the answer.
“Cultists,” Sierra replies. “Real ones, not the initiate children you saw in the fragments beneath Ravendale.”
“Demonic cultists?”
“Not just that,” Sierra says. “They worship all manner of those who shatter the system’s framework. That means demons, yes, but it also means anomalous beings that exist incorrectly. It means Titans.”
Even the word sends chills running down my spine. Does Sierra know about the Titan Caller? Does she know what weaponry we’re carrying towards them?
I wonder, for a second, why I haven’t destroyed it.
“I suspect Aunt Marie is involved,” Sierra says, heaving out a disgusted sigh. “This has her fingerprints all over it.”
“What is this?” I ask, and the sharp question almost knocks me out of the focused state. I take a shallow breath, holding it in, and I force myself to draw away from the threads of magic pulsing through everything, even myself.
“Apologies,” Sierra says. “The Halcyons were wearing the Mark of the Dead Gods in their robes. You are familiar with the UCC, I assume.”
“Unfortunately so.” I’ve shared pieces of my story with Sierra, learning the fact that the UCC’s apparently played a prominent and negative role in both our lives.
“Marie works with the UCC, and so I hear things,” Sierra says. “Including the fact that the cult designated the Deadmarked are one of the most difficult threats to annihilate. They are a disparate group, spread across almost every nation known to us. Aunt Marie says the Coalition despises them, but I swear she’s fascinated with them. Far too much.”
“I’m back!” Adrian announces happily, plinking down a tall glass filled with reddish fluid. “Some cherry-flavored spirit for me today!”
“Adrian,” Sierra admonishes. “I am in the middle of explaining.”
“Explaining is boring,” Adrian replies, taking a sip. “Gods, that’s foul. Fucking Whitestars. Anyway, Evelyn’s going to follow anyway, right?”
“If you provide me a reason to, yes,” I say. “Sierra, you said that we were running before. Now, you’re chasing someone down.”
“That is just about accurate,” Sierra says, her eyes flaring bright. “I don’t doubt Aunt Marie will be involved. She has exacted half a blood price from me, as have the Deadmarked. I plan to return that twice over.”
“Wow, so edgy,” Adrian mutters, taking another sip. “We talking about cults? Fuck ‘em.”
Objective: Eliminate the Whitestar Deadmarked
Through your allies, you have gained a new foe. Eliminate them before they can complete their domination of the kingdom.
Reward: 25000 XP, one-time-use skill
My eyes widen. “I received an objective.”
“Is your system precognitive?” Sierra asks, raising an eyebrow. “Mine is, but it rarely offers helpful information. If you’re mentioning an objective, I assume it must be.”
“It states that the Deadmarked are attempting to ‘dominate the kingdom.’ Political takeover?”
“Useful information, but expected,” Sierra says, sighing. “There isn’t much we can do other than continue on. Whitestar is still a couple hundred miles away.”
“A couple hundred miles…” I can’t help but let a hint of a whine to slip into my voice. The improper cloak has been difficult to keep up already. I haven’t even allocated any of my attribute points for fear that it’ll make it worse.
Sierra giggles, squeezing my arm and leaning her head on my shoulder. “I know, it’s hard at first. Proper cloaking takes much longer, however, and you won’t be able to learn it in a matter of days, even in the richest schools with a tutor a hundred thousand times more than me.”
I sigh. “You’re not making it any easier.”
Adrian downs another sip, coughing. “Broken gods, this is terrible.”
“Then stop drinking it,” Sierra suggests.
“It’s not like I have anything better to do,” Adrian says. “What else you want to do, absorb skills?”
“There is more to life than advancing, and you know it,” Sierra says, rolling her eyes.
“If you say so,” I say, gritting my teeth as I continue holding the skill in.
Sierra wraps her arms around me. It’s a little awkward thanks to the position we’re in, but she manages, and a deep, soothing calm passes over my body. A cool, minty sensation sets into my bones, as if someone has taken a cool towel and placed it over every part of my insides. It’s odd, but it’s pleasant.
That descriptor seems to apply to a lot of things, these days.
“It’ll help,” she whispers. “Just stay still, and you’ll be alright.”
She rubs my back slowly, tracing circles over my spine. If I had hair on my arms, it’d be raising right now.
Sierra’s right. It does seem to help.
“Easy now,” she says, planting a kiss on my forehead. “You’re going to make it through.”
I let myself melt into her arms, putting the entirety of my focus on the cloak, and, by proxy, her. I’m not sure if this body was designed to feel attraction. It probably shouldn’t have, but there’s a spark within me where there shouldn’t be.
“Broken gods, you two,” Adrian says. “Won’t you get a fucking room?”
“They appear to lack those here,” Sierra replies, her voice drier than usual.
“Ugh, alright then,” Adrian says, standing. “I’m going to see if I can find someone to gamble with.”
“I’m running low on money,” Sierra calls, her hand not straying from my back. “Waste not, want not.”
“Yeah, yeah,” the Warrior says, stepping towards the door at the back of the train car.
Before he can open the door, though, it opens on its own. Though my position is awkward, I can see him back up a few steps in surprise. He reacts viscerally, stumbling back in full-body shock.
“Why the fuck are you here?” he asks.
“Nice to see you too, Adrian,” a gruff male voice replies.
Sierra stops rubbing for just a second. “Oh, dear.”
UCC Site-188-A
“Gods damn it all,” Rin says, not for the first time. “How did this happen?”
Sy stares at her dejectedly, flexing the prosthetic that’s replaced his left arm. None of their healers possess any skills that can restore lost limbs, which Rin thinks is an utterly stupid limitation. She’s sure that there’s those who can easily heal this type of wound elsewhere, but Rin and Sy aren’t in the privileged class of operator that get the top-tier treatments.
“We should’ve killed her when we had the chance,” Rin huffs.
“Orders are orders, Rin,” Sy says, heaving out a deep sigh. “Besides, it’s not like high command knew that she would nearly quadruple in power.”
“I should’ve decloaked,” Rin says. “You should’ve decloaked. We shouldn’t have let her go.”
“She was about to kill you,” Sy grumbles. “I saved your life.”
“Wouldn’t have needed saving if they’d just let us kill her,” Rin asserts. “And don’t tell me they didn’t know. Clearwater was sighted not two hours after we ran! You know just as well as me that command—“
“Shhhh,” Sy says, suddenly serious. “A hundred thousand eyes and een more ears, Rin.”
She sighs. “Do you know the status of the assignment?”
“Passed up the line,” Sy replies. “It’s out of our hands. The Jades took it.”
Anger flashes in Rin’s veins, fierce and bright. It takes everything she has to keep herself from activating her Timeslip, decloaking even though she knows this site is in a Category 1 region.
“The fucking Jades,” Rin hisses. “No wonder they—“
“Don’t make me remind you again,” Sy mutters.
“What are we looking at, then?” Rin says, directing her anger to a more productive outlet. “Any assignments for us?”
“Nothing at the moment,” Sy replies, clenching his fist. The bedroom they’re sharing at the site underneath Novarath isn’t particularly large, and every motion he makes with the prosthetic is loud enough to echo through the bedroom. “As it should be. Rin, you took damage that would’ve been instantly lethal on anyone else. You need time off.”
“I need,” Rin says, staring at the ever-increasing web of scars across her body, “to kill something. A bloody, demonic little bitch of a something.”
“I understand,” Sy replies, nodding. “You know there’s nothing we can do about it, right?”
Rin nods, falling back into bed.
You weren’t strong enough.
She closes her eyes.
You failed again.
She tries to shut it out.
Your comrade suffered for you.
But the voice that sounds suspiciously similar to her own won’t stop.
You are not enough.
And the hunger seizes her, an old, familiar sensation that she’s long since thought she’s defeated.
“No,” Rin says, standing up. “We have credentials. I have her trace. She can’t get away from us.”
“Rin, you can’t—“
“I can, and I will.”
Rin rises, and she almost decloaks immediately, but even the blinding hunger of failed ambition can’t damage her mind enough to do so here, now.
When she decloaks, it’ll be to kill the bitch that hurt her Sy.
“I’m going,” Rin says, beginning her Timeslip.
“You know protocol,” Sy begins. “You know—“
“I am going.”
At the last second, Sy grabs onto her arm, and he follows.
The two of them vanish from the Site. Their absence is recorded, along with everything else in the site.
Destination: The Wastelands, Whitestar Kingdom.
Magical limit: Category 2.
Zelin, Capital of the Whitestar Kingdom
“Greetings, Lady…”
“Kane. Lady Ashley Kane. It is my greatest pleasure to meet you.”
She hates this, hates all the formalities of court life. It was soul-draining in the Crowned Islands, and it’s no less boring here.
At least she can reveal her true strength here. Nobody in the Crowned Islands was even close to matching her in her Noble Archer class, let alone the original Arcane Archer that she’s held in secret for far, far too long.
“Lady Kane,” the Whitestar-native noble sitting across from her says, his eyes widening. “I must apologize. You have… changed, since you were last here.”
“For the better, one would hope,” Ashley says. “I am not quite the child I was last time.”
“Forgive me for assuming,” he replies, cutting through the customary three rounds of greetings and meaningless chatter that Ashley assumed he would stick to, “but you have come to this great kingdom for a reason, have you not?”
“I have indeed,” she replies. “Twenty-two years ago, I saved your life.”
“For which I am infinitely grateful, of course,” the noble replies. His eyes grow sharp, and Ashley recalls seeing the same emotionless, calculating look in his eyes when he killed his brother, corrupted as he was by the demons that’d sprouted in Whitestar that day. “What do you want?”
“I am following a threat to my kingdom,” she replies. “One that I have personal interest in. A demon. An anomaly. One that tore through a city-drowning demon in the matter of minutes.”
“Your kingdom,” the noble mutters, almost spitting the word. “Lady Kane, I know you well enough to know that can’t be your only motivation.”
“She was stronger than me,” Ashley admits. “Stronger than me, and less than a quarter of my level. I don’t know what happened that day, but she could’ve fought you.”
“Then why do you seek her? What is your plan upon arrival?”
“She was stronger than the me I can present in the Crowned Islands,” Ashley says. “Now, I have my true class, and I have allies.”
“Allies soon to include me, I presume.”
“If you so choose. You owe a blood debt.”
“I am an honorable man,” the noble says. “I cannot, however, accept a plan that will simply get me killed.”
“You are not the first I contacted,” Ashley confesses. “I have a tracker. Nyssa, an elf. She heard of a disturbance in Tsubera, followed by the killings of twelve Halcyon men on a train bound for this kingdom. She does not know I am coming for her. She does not know we will be waiting for her.“
Ashley extends a hand.
The noble across leans forward. The cold look in his face has redoubled, and there’s an odd flicker of desire in his eyes.
“You had my attention,” Arthur Halcyon, scion of his clan says, shaking Ashley’s hand. “Now, you have my interest.”
Cloaking sucks. I know it’s not real cloaking, and both Adrian and Sierra have thoroughly expounded on how much this is supposed to be irritating, but it’s incredibly counterintuitive. Though the train is largely empty, there’s still a few people alongside the conductor and whoever else is necessary to keep it going.
None of us know how to drive a train, so the option of killing everyone else is out. Plus, Sierra and Adrian told me that slaughtering innocents is “wrong” and that I “shouldn’t do it.”
Thus, I suffer in silence as the train drifts through seemingly endless sand dunes, holding my metaphysical breath and my real one alike, only allowing myself shallow inhalations to keep focus on the “cloak.”
There’s a couple dozen other people scattered along this train, but none of them are in the car we’re in, so we can talk freely. Presumably. Despite having leapfrogged so far in power, I don’t have any passive magic detection skills, so I can’t tell if someone’s eavesdropping.
Sierra, though, doesn’t seem to mind. She has a few scraps of cloth in her hand, taken from one of the more intact bodies I made back in the station, and they’ve been turning them over and murmuring to each other practically the entire time.
It has been roughly fifteen minutes since we left the station. The guy who let us on looked like he wanted to ask us questions about our general disheveled state, but Sierra paid for us and he kept his lips shut.
“Do either of the two of you want to tell me what’s going on?” I ask casually, struggling to maintain the pseudo-cloak. It felt so much easier out there on the beach, but on this train car, squeezing up next to Sierra, it’s much harder. The question of holding my power in for hours or even days is also rather distinct from cloaking for fifteen seconds, which doesn’t help.
“You’re sure about this,” Adrian says, louder. He looks up at Sierra.
“Absolutely so,” the Blue Mage replies. “Our choice of destination has been reaffirmed.”
“Whitestar,” I say, pulling on my amalgam for information. Unfortunately, the thirty-two researchers who put me together neglected to include geopolitics information in the bastard soul they glued together.
Thirty-one, now. The thought makes me smile.
“Correct,” Sierra says. “Often known as the weakest of the Seven Kingdoms, they are known for their abysmal standing army—“
“Cut the history lesson, Sierra,” Adrian snarks. “Just get to the important part.”
She lets out a long-suffering sigh. “The royal family as well as the elite noble clans are exceptions. They largely operate within a small city, the only region in the kingdom where Category 1s can use their power freely. The Halcyons you so generously separated from life are one of those families.”
“Oh, shit,” Adrian says, his eyes drawn to something at the far end of the train car.
My hackles raise, and it takes everything I can to keep myself from accidentally dropping my pseudo-cloak. “What is it?”
“Drinks!” he whoops, standing from his cushioned seat across the table we sit at. “I’ll be right back.”
I give him my best glare. Without the aura of overwhelming power blasting from my body, it’s a lot less intimidating than I would’ve hoped. He giggles, the fucker.
“As I was saying,” Sierra says, taking one of my hands in hers, “The Halcyons are powerful—relatively. Compared to, say, Marie, their entire clan is practically nothing, but they pose a true threat to people on our level.”
“I’m following,” I reply, squeezing her hand like my amalgam suggests me to. “You’re saying we need to worry about retribution? Why are we heading towards their homeland, then?”
She shakes her head. “Retribution, we could deal with. This is different. This is their collaboration.”
“Collaboration with who?” I suspect that I already know the answer.
“Cultists,” Sierra replies. “Real ones, not the initiate children you saw in the fragments beneath Ravendale.”
“Demonic cultists?”
“Not just that,” Sierra says. “They worship all manner of those who shatter the system’s framework. That means demons, yes, but it also means anomalous beings that exist incorrectly. It means Titans.”
Even the word sends chills running down my spine. Does Sierra know about the Titan Caller? Does she know what weaponry we’re carrying towards them?
I wonder, for a second, why I haven’t destroyed it.
“I suspect Aunt Marie is involved,” Sierra says, heaving out a disgusted sigh. “This has her fingerprints all over it.”
“What is this?” I ask, and the sharp question almost knocks me out of the focused state. I take a shallow breath, holding it in, and I force myself to draw away from the threads of magic pulsing through everything, even myself.
“Apologies,” Sierra says. “The Halcyons were wearing the Mark of the Dead Gods in their robes. You are familiar with the UCC, I assume.”
“Unfortunately so.” I’ve shared pieces of my story with Sierra, learning the fact that the UCC’s apparently played a prominent and negative role in both our lives.
“Marie works with the UCC, and so I hear things,” Sierra says. “Including the fact that the cult designated the Deadmarked are one of the most difficult threats to annihilate. They are a disparate group, spread across almost every nation known to us. Aunt Marie says the Coalition despises them, but I swear she’s fascinated with them. Far too much.”
“I’m back!” Adrian announces happily, plinking down a tall glass filled with reddish fluid. “Some cherry-flavored spirit for me today!”
“Adrian,” Sierra admonishes. “I am in the middle of explaining.”
“Explaining is boring,” Adrian replies, taking a sip. “Gods, that’s foul. Fucking Whitestars. Anyway, Evelyn’s going to follow anyway, right?”
“If you provide me a reason to, yes,” I say. “Sierra, you said that we were running before. Now, you’re chasing someone down.”
“That is just about accurate,” Sierra says, her eyes flaring bright. “I don’t doubt Aunt Marie will be involved. She has exacted half a blood price from me, as have the Deadmarked. I plan to return that twice over.”
“Wow, so edgy,” Adrian mutters, taking another sip. “We talking about cults? Fuck ‘em.”
Objective: Eliminate the Whitestar Deadmarked
Through your allies, you have gained a new foe. Eliminate them before they can complete their domination of the kingdom.
Reward: 25000 XP, one-time-use skill
My eyes widen. “I received an objective.”
“Is your system precognitive?” Sierra asks, raising an eyebrow. “Mine is, but it rarely offers helpful information. If you’re mentioning an objective, I assume it must be.”
“It states that the Deadmarked are attempting to ‘dominate the kingdom.’ Political takeover?”
“Useful information, but expected,” Sierra says, sighing. “There isn’t much we can do other than continue on. Whitestar is still a couple hundred miles away.”
“A couple hundred miles…” I can’t help but let a hint of a whine to slip into my voice. The improper cloak has been difficult to keep up already. I haven’t even allocated any of my attribute points for fear that it’ll make it worse.
Sierra giggles, squeezing my arm and leaning her head on my shoulder. “I know, it’s hard at first. Proper cloaking takes much longer, however, and you won’t be able to learn it in a matter of days, even in the richest schools with a tutor a hundred thousand times more than me.”
I sigh. “You’re not making it any easier.”
Adrian downs another sip, coughing. “Broken gods, this is terrible.”
“Then stop drinking it,” Sierra suggests.
“It’s not like I have anything better to do,” Adrian says. “What else you want to do, absorb skills?”
“There is more to life than advancing, and you know it,” Sierra says, rolling her eyes.
“If you say so,” I say, gritting my teeth as I continue holding the skill in.
Sierra wraps her arms around me. It’s a little awkward thanks to the position we’re in, but she manages, and a deep, soothing calm passes over my body. A cool, minty sensation sets into my bones, as if someone has taken a cool towel and placed it over every part of my insides. It’s odd, but it’s pleasant.
That descriptor seems to apply to a lot of things, these days.
“It’ll help,” she whispers. “Just stay still, and you’ll be alright.”
She rubs my back slowly, tracing circles over my spine. If I had hair on my arms, it’d be raising right now.
Sierra’s right. It does seem to help.
“Easy now,” she says, planting a kiss on my forehead. “You’re going to make it through.”
I let myself melt into her arms, putting the entirety of my focus on the cloak, and, by proxy, her. I’m not sure if this body was designed to feel attraction. It probably shouldn’t have, but there’s a spark within me where there shouldn’t be.
“Broken gods, you two,” Adrian says. “Won’t you get a fucking room?”
“They appear to lack those here,” Sierra replies, her voice drier than usual.
“Ugh, alright then,” Adrian says, standing. “I’m going to see if I can find someone to gamble with.”
“I’m running low on money,” Sierra calls, her hand not straying from my back. “Waste not, want not.”
“Yeah, yeah,” the Warrior says, stepping towards the door at the back of the train car.
Before he can open the door, though, it opens on its own. Though my position is awkward, I can see him back up a few steps in surprise. He reacts viscerally, stumbling back in full-body shock.
“Why the fuck are you here?” he asks.
“Nice to see you too, Adrian,” a gruff male voice replies.
Sierra stops rubbing for just a second. “Oh, dear.”
UCC Site-188-A
“Gods damn it all,” Rin says, not for the first time. “How did this happen?”
Sy stares at her dejectedly, flexing the prosthetic that’s replaced his left arm. None of their healers possess any skills that can restore lost limbs, which Rin thinks is an utterly stupid limitation. She’s sure that there’s those who can easily heal this type of wound elsewhere, but Rin and Sy aren’t in the privileged class of operator that get the top-tier treatments.
“We should’ve killed her when we had the chance,” Rin huffs.
“Orders are orders, Rin,” Sy says, heaving out a deep sigh. “Besides, it’s not like high command knew that she would nearly quadruple in power.”
“I should’ve decloaked,” Rin says. “You should’ve decloaked. We shouldn’t have let her go.”
“She was about to kill you,” Sy grumbles. “I saved your life.”
“Wouldn’t have needed saving if they’d just let us kill her,” Rin asserts. “And don’t tell me they didn’t know. Clearwater was sighted not two hours after we ran! You know just as well as me that command—“
“Shhhh,” Sy says, suddenly serious. “A hundred thousand eyes and een more ears, Rin.”
She sighs. “Do you know the status of the assignment?”
“Passed up the line,” Sy replies. “It’s out of our hands. The Jades took it.”
Anger flashes in Rin’s veins, fierce and bright. It takes everything she has to keep herself from activating her Timeslip, decloaking even though she knows this site is in a Category 1 region.
“The fucking Jades,” Rin hisses. “No wonder they—“
“Don’t make me remind you again,” Sy mutters.
“What are we looking at, then?” Rin says, directing her anger to a more productive outlet. “Any assignments for us?”
“Nothing at the moment,” Sy replies, clenching his fist. The bedroom they’re sharing at the site underneath Novarath isn’t particularly large, and every motion he makes with the prosthetic is loud enough to echo through the bedroom. “As it should be. Rin, you took damage that would’ve been instantly lethal on anyone else. You need time off.”
“I need,” Rin says, staring at the ever-increasing web of scars across her body, “to kill something. A bloody, demonic little bitch of a something.”
“I understand,” Sy replies, nodding. “You know there’s nothing we can do about it, right?”
Rin nods, falling back into bed.
You weren’t strong enough.
She closes her eyes.
You failed again.
She tries to shut it out.
Your comrade suffered for you.
But the voice that sounds suspiciously similar to her own won’t stop.
You are not enough.
And the hunger seizes her, an old, familiar sensation that she’s long since thought she’s defeated.
“No,” Rin says, standing up. “We have credentials. I have her trace. She can’t get away from us.”
“Rin, you can’t—“
“I can, and I will.”
Rin rises, and she almost decloaks immediately, but even the blinding hunger of failed ambition can’t damage her mind enough to do so here, now.
When she decloaks, it’ll be to kill the bitch that hurt her Sy.
“I’m going,” Rin says, beginning her Timeslip.
“You know protocol,” Sy begins. “You know—“
“I am going.”
At the last second, Sy grabs onto her arm, and he follows.
The two of them vanish from the Site. Their absence is recorded, along with everything else in the site.
Destination: The Wastelands, Whitestar Kingdom.
Magical limit: Category 2.
Zelin, Capital of the Whitestar Kingdom
“Greetings, Lady…”
“Kane. Lady Ashley Kane. It is my greatest pleasure to meet you.”
She hates this, hates all the formalities of court life. It was soul-draining in the Crowned Islands, and it’s no less boring here.
At least she can reveal her true strength here. Nobody in the Crowned Islands was even close to matching her in her Noble Archer class, let alone the original Arcane Archer that she’s held in secret for far, far too long.
“Lady Kane,” the Whitestar-native noble sitting across from her says, his eyes widening. “I must apologize. You have… changed, since you were last here.”
“For the better, one would hope,” Ashley says. “I am not quite the child I was last time.”
“Forgive me for assuming,” he replies, cutting through the customary three rounds of greetings and meaningless chatter that Ashley assumed he would stick to, “but you have come to this great kingdom for a reason, have you not?”
“I have indeed,” she replies. “Twenty-two years ago, I saved your life.”
“For which I am infinitely grateful, of course,” the noble replies. His eyes grow sharp, and Ashley recalls seeing the same emotionless, calculating look in his eyes when he killed his brother, corrupted as he was by the demons that’d sprouted in Whitestar that day. “What do you want?”
“I am following a threat to my kingdom,” she replies. “One that I have personal interest in. A demon. An anomaly. One that tore through a city-drowning demon in the matter of minutes.”
“Your kingdom,” the noble mutters, almost spitting the word. “Lady Kane, I know you well enough to know that can’t be your only motivation.”
“She was stronger than me,” Ashley admits. “Stronger than me, and less than a quarter of my level. I don’t know what happened that day, but she could’ve fought you.”
“Then why do you seek her? What is your plan upon arrival?”
“She was stronger than the me I can present in the Crowned Islands,” Ashley says. “Now, I have my true class, and I have allies.”
“Allies soon to include me, I presume.”
“If you so choose. You owe a blood debt.”
“I am an honorable man,” the noble says. “I cannot, however, accept a plan that will simply get me killed.”
“You are not the first I contacted,” Ashley confesses. “I have a tracker. Nyssa, an elf. She heard of a disturbance in Tsubera, followed by the killings of twelve Halcyon men on a train bound for this kingdom. She does not know I am coming for her. She does not know we will be waiting for her.“
Ashley extends a hand.
The noble across leans forward. The cold look in his face has redoubled, and there’s an odd flicker of desire in his eyes.
“You had my attention,” Arthur Halcyon, scion of his clan says, shaking Ashley’s hand. “Now, you have my interest.”
