An Unnamed Anomalous Fragment
Rin emerges into the fragment clutching her chest, gasping for breath. She can still feel the demonic corruption seeping into her skin, the way the divine light seared her from the inside out as her blood rebelled against itself. Even with all her protections, her blood boiled and her skin burned.
She is high Category 1, on the edge of breaching Category 2. Sy’s midway into Category 2. Before that—that monster tore her apart, Rin actually thought their plan was flawless. With so many Category 1s providing special skills and Simon using his domain, she thought there was no way a single demon could escape. Their intel told them that her allies were weak.
Yes, that turned out to be wrong. Yes, another Category 2 appeared, and yes, he broke Simon’s domain.
But it wasn’t him that tore Rin to shreds. It wasn’t him that stood there and laughed as Rin’s greatest attack turned against its owner.
Rin is out of special skills now. Reality Break is the only offensive skill she used, but both her Backup and Worldshift activated upon her death three seconds in. She shudders, wondering if anyone else has survived.
“How could a Category 0 use a domain?” she wonders aloud, her voice trembling. “Let alone one like… like that.”
The void surrounding her is silent.
[Perhaps Clearwater played a heavier role in her creation than we were initially led to believe.]
The intrusion into her thoughts sends her heart leaping into her throat, and she almost begins Ennui protocols before she recognizes the timbre of the voice.
“Shit,” she swears softly, running her hand through her hair. Rin unclips a particular hairpin delicately, holding it in both hands even though she knows it can survive almost anything she can.
Rin’s special skills are powerful. She can bend space and time, especially that which relates directly to her, and so she has contingencies for her death, ones that can send her hurtling into her body as it was a day ago, a week ago, a year ago.
Every last one of those contingencies has triggered thanks to Evelyn Carnelian. The demonic corruption reached so far that every backup newer than the body she had three years ago is no longer usable, and bringing back a form that old requires more power than Rin can give.
If she dies again in the next ninety-nine days, she isn’t coming back.
But even then, not everyone is so fortunate to get skills like hers. Sy, too, had backups, but no way to restore her body.
So instead…
She turns Sy’s phylactery over in her hand, then hugs it close to her chest.
[I survived roughly seven seconds past your demise.] Sy’s voice in her head is an odd mixture of embarrassed and regretful. [At least one of our associates successfully escaped. All the rest are dead.]
Rin doesn’t need the reminder. She really, really doesn’t.
[This was an unnecessary battle.] Sy sighs, taking in a deep breath. [I have suffered soul damage. It is possible I will not be restored to a proper vessel.]
Rin’s breath catches in her throat. Her Sy, potentially lost forever.
And it’s all her fault.
An unnecessary battle, Sy says. He’s not wrong, and it hurts.
The two of them were assigned by Marie Jade to ambush the Carnelian girl and send her to the bottom of Novarath. A task given, a task accomplished.
It was during their secondary containment of the Jade daughter that the demon girl had come back, taking Simon’s arm with her.
“And what did I do next?” Rin asks herself softly. She knows.
She sent herself and Sy hurtling at the demon, abandoning all pretense of it being a mission. She chased a personal vendetta.
Now, Sy is dead.
[Not quite dead.]
He’ll never walk again. An array of good people are dead, fueling the demon’s growth even further.
Rin reaches deep within herself, searching for righteous anger, the same wildfire of rage that she burst into when she first set after Evelyn Carnelian, and all she finds is shame.
[It’s okay, Rin. We all make mistakes.]
Sy might as well be talking to a brick wall.
Carefully, Rin places the pin back into her hair, ensuring its concealment. She sits down on her fragment of land, the one she personally forced into stability in this endless, floating void. She was so proud when she managed to get it.
Today, it feels like a prison of her own making.
[We work for the UCC. Death is a natural part of our work.] Sy’s voice already feels quieter. How long does she have with this remnant of him before he’s gone forever?
Rin tucks her knees to her chest, buries her face in her arms, and begins to weep.
The Wastelands
Ten seconds after my domain fades away, my soul shatters.
It doesn’t even concern me at this point. It’ll put itself back together eventually, and the amalgam’s knowledge doesn’t leave me even when the soul isn’t intact. I won’t get any new information until I reassemble myself, but between my subdued passenger and my Soulless trait, I won’t even feel the effects of lacking a soul.
Thankfully, I remembered to avoid damaging my allies. After the trial and tribulation of the past couple of days, my sense of self is stronger than ever. I didn’t lose myself at all when activating what should’ve been an impossible domain.
My access to that skill is likely going to be restricted for a good long while after this, but I won. I faced impossible odds and I won.
You cannot advance until you restore your soul.
Right, that’s an annoying part.
“Sierra!” I call out. “You there?”
The somehow still-intact pale blue sphere of force dissipates in an instant, revealing a beaming Sierra and a slightly terrified Adrian.
“Good work, new friend!” Zil booms, clapping me on one shoulder. I hear the bone fracture.
“Thank you,” I say, glaring at him as Demonic Heritage puts my shoulder back together. “Sierra, could you collect the bodies again? Thank you.”
“I have already begun,” the Blue Mage says.
Adrian looks a little green around the gills, but he manages a smile. “Thanks, Evelyn. You really saved our asses. Again.”
I wave it off. I’m not looking for praise.
“At least two of them got away,” I say. “One of them must have resurrected.”
After the fight, my kill counter went to 265, then back to 264. It took me a second to figure out why.
Zil snorts. “After that show, even I’d be shitting my pants coming back to fight you.”
“Done,” Sierra declares. “Avoid my death, and you’ll have a room full of corpses to consume.”
“You’re getting a little too cavalier about that,” Adrian says.
The room is scoured clean now that Sierra’s collected the bits of those I’ve killed. Only now that the fight is over do I realize that I’ve turned the previously golden room black for hundreds of feet, killing every one of my enemies that stayed around to test their mettle against my domain. Four bodies await me once my soul is intact again.
I have an idea for how I can accomplish the latter part.
“This isn’t over,” Adrian says, recollecting himself.
“No,” Zil agrees. “It isn’t. That may have been an elite force, but Arthur wasn’t there. He has to be guarding the Titan experiment. If we hurry, we might have time.”
“Do you know the way to the Titan?” Sierra asks.
The Titan Caller, almost forgotten, buzzes lightly against my skin from where it rests between my tight-fitting leathers and my back, a Shapeshift binding it to my flesh.
Zil grins. “How do you think I found you?”
He leads the way, and we follow.
“Hey, passenger,” I whisper. “How much of my soul can a dead Titan put together?”
You have lost sight of what is possible.
“Oh,” I say, grinning as Zil indicates another teleportation circle, seemingly the same as the rest. “I think we left that behind a long time ago.”
Zil touches a stolen key to the ground, and we disappear.
Anomalous Fragment 013-WHITESTAR
“Broken gods, Lady Kane,” Arthur says. “What happened?”
“I’ll tell you what happened,” the archer growls, stalking towards Arthur where he stands. “You weren’t there.”
“I’ve said time and time again, my powers are insufficient to redirect the flow of a battle with so many moving pieces,” he says, studying Lady Ashley Kane.
The noble is dangerously beautiful and powerful, especially for someone from the Crowned Islands, but recent events have marred her skin. One of her legs is missing from the knee down, replaced for the time being by a mana construct, the majority of her face is wrapped in bandages, and her entire body is covered in what appear to be burns at first glance but must be something else.
“You lost.” It isn’t a question.
“We did, Arthur,” Lady Kane says, spitting the word. She sighs, and the anger melts out of her. “I apologize. We were overwhelmed.”
“Overwhelmed? How? Even with the exile on their side, you outnumbered them nine to two. The other two were nigh-powerless.”
“She had a fucking domain,” Lady Kane growls.
“You’re lying,” Arthur accuses. “Our best estimate of her was low Category 0.”
“Level 53,” Lady Kane replies, growing incensed once more. “I tell nothing but the truth. She had a special skill. She overwhelmed the outsider’s domain. Nyssa is dead. Alvin is dead. Silver and Gold, those poor souls, are dead. If you were there, you could’ve—“
Arthur doesn’t want to spend time calming her. He’s a man of solutions, not of arguments.
With only her in the room with him, it’s simplicity itself to Rewind a couple seconds.
“She had a fucking domain,” Lady Kane growls.
“A special skill, then,” Arthur muses. “She will not have it again before the project is complete.”
“The project,” Lady Kane sighs, closing her one visible eye. “I hope you understand what you’re doing. I came to fulfill my obligations to my kingdom, not to participate in heresy.”
“Why not leave?” Arthur asks. “Come join me. I will grant you power beyond your wildest dreams. The Carnelian girl will be but a whisper of wind to you.”
“We are allies of convenience, not friends,” Lady Kane says. “Power tempts. The power of the Titans does not.”
She speaks disdainfully, as if she’s speaking to a man who’s ensured his own death. Arthur decides to ignore the insult.
“Yet your obligation is unfulfilled,” Arthur points out, trying another tack. “The demon walks free.”
“So she does,” Lady Kane says. “I will reassemble. I can find more people.”
“And when you find them?” Arthur asks softly. “How long will that take? Do you think she will not have her domain again by then?”
The lady does not respond to that.
“Ashley,” Arthur says, using her given name to imply familiarity, trust. “I can help you. With the Titan project, we will annihilate her, and you can return to your kingdom, task completed. I will spare no expense to see you restored to your full power.”
“What stops her from just leaving?” Ashley asks. “Nobody knows what the Blood Reaper wants.”
“She wants allies, that much is clear,” Arthur says. “She wants power. We have two surefire ways to draw her, and both can be accomplished in one masterstroke.”
The archer eyes him. It’s eerie, being stared at by a single accusatory eye, the only unveiled part of her face, but he doesn’t let it show. Nobles never do.
“I’m listening,” Lady Kane finally says.
“Two of her allies are weak, and the Titan requires sacrifice,” Arthur says. “Capturing one of them to sacrifice and one to use as bait is entirely within—“
Lady Kane turns to leave.
Arthur sighs and Rewinds his fragment once more.
“So she does,” Lady Kane says. “I will reassemble. I can find more people.”
“I wish you the best of luck,” Arthur says, saluting ironically. “You will always find my door open.”
“I wish I could say the same,” Ashley says, falling forward.
She’s out of the fragment before she can hit the floor.
Arthur sighs. Another ally lost.
A meaningless loss. He has more than everything he needs.
The Guardian of Time takes a step forward, and then he, too, is gone.
Anomalous Fragment 001-WHITESTAR
The Titan slumbers.
You are witnessed.
Its brethren refuse to let its rest be dreamless.
You will devastate.
You will kill.
You will witness.
It turns over, killing seventeen mortals in the process.
Its time has not yet come. Those who seek to make its existence so have yet to draw the power it needs to even begin awakening.
“Inome,” a mortal says. The Titan feels an insect touch its skin. “I come with an order.”
Annihilate.
Kill.
Subjugate.
The screams of its brethren tear through the Titan’s mind, but before it decides to eliminate the mortal at its side, new memories pass through it. It has only received memories a scant few times before. These are delectable and pretty, unlike the harsh screams of the others.
A female demon carrying a lesser version of a deity far lesser than the one the Titan will become.
It should be insignificant. It should be a mortal that even the nascent Titan will ignore.
And yet, the Titan hungers.
“She will come to you,” the tiny mortal croons. “And when she does—“
For once, a mortal echoes the commands of the Titan’s brethren.
Consume.
Devour.
Assimilate.
“—until there is nothing left, and you will be my perfect creation.”
Arthur Halcyon leaves the fragment unharmed.
An Unnamed Anomalous Fragment
Rin emerges into the fragment clutching her chest, gasping for breath. She can still feel the demonic corruption seeping into her skin, the way the divine light seared her from the inside out as her blood rebelled against itself. Even with all her protections, her blood boiled and her skin burned.
She is high Category 1, on the edge of breaching Category 2. Sy’s midway into Category 2. Before that—that monster tore her apart, Rin actually thought their plan was flawless. With so many Category 1s providing special skills and Simon using his domain, she thought there was no way a single demon could escape. Their intel told them that her allies were weak.
Yes, that turned out to be wrong. Yes, another Category 2 appeared, and yes, he broke Simon’s domain.
But it wasn’t him that tore Rin to shreds. It wasn’t him that stood there and laughed as Rin’s greatest attack turned against its owner.
Rin is out of special skills now. Reality Break is the only offensive skill she used, but both her Backup and Worldshift activated upon her death three seconds in. She shudders, wondering if anyone else has survived.
“How could a Category 0 use a domain?” she wonders aloud, her voice trembling. “Let alone one like… like that.”
The void surrounding her is silent.
[Perhaps Clearwater played a heavier role in her creation than we were initially led to believe.]
The intrusion into her thoughts sends her heart leaping into her throat, and she almost begins Ennui protocols before she recognizes the timbre of the voice.
“Shit,” she swears softly, running her hand through her hair. Rin unclips a particular hairpin delicately, holding it in both hands even though she knows it can survive almost anything she can.
Rin’s special skills are powerful. She can bend space and time, especially that which relates directly to her, and so she has contingencies for her death, ones that can send her hurtling into her body as it was a day ago, a week ago, a year ago.
Every last one of those contingencies has triggered thanks to Evelyn Carnelian. The demonic corruption reached so far that every backup newer than the body she had three years ago is no longer usable, and bringing back a form that old requires more power than Rin can give.
If she dies again in the next ninety-nine days, she isn’t coming back.
But even then, not everyone is so fortunate to get skills like hers. Sy, too, had backups, but no way to restore her body.
So instead…
She turns Sy’s phylactery over in her hand, then hugs it close to her chest.
[I survived roughly seven seconds past your demise.] Sy’s voice in her head is an odd mixture of embarrassed and regretful. [At least one of our associates successfully escaped. All the rest are dead.]
Rin doesn’t need the reminder. She really, really doesn’t.
[This was an unnecessary battle.] Sy sighs, taking in a deep breath. [I have suffered soul damage. It is possible I will not be restored to a proper vessel.]
Rin’s breath catches in her throat. Her Sy, potentially lost forever.
And it’s all her fault.
An unnecessary battle, Sy says. He’s not wrong, and it hurts.
The two of them were assigned by Marie Jade to ambush the Carnelian girl and send her to the bottom of Novarath. A task given, a task accomplished.
It was during their secondary containment of the Jade daughter that the demon girl had come back, taking Simon’s arm with her.
“And what did I do next?” Rin asks herself softly. She knows.
She sent herself and Sy hurtling at the demon, abandoning all pretense of it being a mission. She chased a personal vendetta.
Now, Sy is dead.
[Not quite dead.]
He’ll never walk again. An array of good people are dead, fueling the demon’s growth even further.
Rin reaches deep within herself, searching for righteous anger, the same wildfire of rage that she burst into when she first set after Evelyn Carnelian, and all she finds is shame.
[It’s okay, Rin. We all make mistakes.]
Sy might as well be talking to a brick wall.
Carefully, Rin places the pin back into her hair, ensuring its concealment. She sits down on her fragment of land, the one she personally forced into stability in this endless, floating void. She was so proud when she managed to get it.
Today, it feels like a prison of her own making.
[We work for the UCC. Death is a natural part of our work.] Sy’s voice already feels quieter. How long does she have with this remnant of him before he’s gone forever?
Rin tucks her knees to her chest, buries her face in her arms, and begins to weep.
The Wastelands
Ten seconds after my domain fades away, my soul shatters.
It doesn’t even concern me at this point. It’ll put itself back together eventually, and the amalgam’s knowledge doesn’t leave me even when the soul isn’t intact. I won’t get any new information until I reassemble myself, but between my subdued passenger and my Soulless trait, I won’t even feel the effects of lacking a soul.
Thankfully, I remembered to avoid damaging my allies. After the trial and tribulation of the past couple of days, my sense of self is stronger than ever. I didn’t lose myself at all when activating what should’ve been an impossible domain.
My access to that skill is likely going to be restricted for a good long while after this, but I won. I faced impossible odds and I won.
You cannot advance until you restore your soul.
Right, that’s an annoying part.
“Sierra!” I call out. “You there?”
The somehow still-intact pale blue sphere of force dissipates in an instant, revealing a beaming Sierra and a slightly terrified Adrian.
“Good work, new friend!” Zil booms, clapping me on one shoulder. I hear the bone fracture.
“Thank you,” I say, glaring at him as Demonic Heritage puts my shoulder back together. “Sierra, could you collect the bodies again? Thank you.”
“I have already begun,” the Blue Mage says.
Adrian looks a little green around the gills, but he manages a smile. “Thanks, Evelyn. You really saved our asses. Again.”
I wave it off. I’m not looking for praise.
“At least two of them got away,” I say. “One of them must have resurrected.”
After the fight, my kill counter went to 265, then back to 264. It took me a second to figure out why.
Zil snorts. “After that show, even I’d be shitting my pants coming back to fight you.”
“Done,” Sierra declares. “Avoid my death, and you’ll have a room full of corpses to consume.”
“You’re getting a little too cavalier about that,” Adrian says.
The room is scoured clean now that Sierra’s collected the bits of those I’ve killed. Only now that the fight is over do I realize that I’ve turned the previously golden room black for hundreds of feet, killing every one of my enemies that stayed around to test their mettle against my domain. Four bodies await me once my soul is intact again.
I have an idea for how I can accomplish the latter part.
“This isn’t over,” Adrian says, recollecting himself.
“No,” Zil agrees. “It isn’t. That may have been an elite force, but Arthur wasn’t there. He has to be guarding the Titan experiment. If we hurry, we might have time.”
“Do you know the way to the Titan?” Sierra asks.
The Titan Caller, almost forgotten, buzzes lightly against my skin from where it rests between my tight-fitting leathers and my back, a Shapeshift binding it to my flesh.
Zil grins. “How do you think I found you?”
He leads the way, and we follow.
“Hey, passenger,” I whisper. “How much of my soul can a dead Titan put together?”
You have lost sight of what is possible.
“Oh,” I say, grinning as Zil indicates another teleportation circle, seemingly the same as the rest. “I think we left that behind a long time ago.”
Zil touches a stolen key to the ground, and we disappear.
Anomalous Fragment 013-WHITESTAR
“Broken gods, Lady Kane,” Arthur says. “What happened?”
“I’ll tell you what happened,” the archer growls, stalking towards Arthur where he stands. “You weren’t there.”
“I’ve said time and time again, my powers are insufficient to redirect the flow of a battle with so many moving pieces,” he says, studying Lady Ashley Kane.
The noble is dangerously beautiful and powerful, especially for someone from the Crowned Islands, but recent events have marred her skin. One of her legs is missing from the knee down, replaced for the time being by a mana construct, the majority of her face is wrapped in bandages, and her entire body is covered in what appear to be burns at first glance but must be something else.
“You lost.” It isn’t a question.
“We did, Arthur,” Lady Kane says, spitting the word. She sighs, and the anger melts out of her. “I apologize. We were overwhelmed.”
“Overwhelmed? How? Even with the exile on their side, you outnumbered them nine to two. The other two were nigh-powerless.”
“She had a fucking domain,” Lady Kane growls.
“You’re lying,” Arthur accuses. “Our best estimate of her was low Category 0.”
“Level 53,” Lady Kane replies, growing incensed once more. “I tell nothing but the truth. She had a special skill. She overwhelmed the outsider’s domain. Nyssa is dead. Alvin is dead. Silver and Gold, those poor souls, are dead. If you were there, you could’ve—“
Arthur doesn’t want to spend time calming her. He’s a man of solutions, not of arguments.
With only her in the room with him, it’s simplicity itself to Rewind a couple seconds.
“She had a fucking domain,” Lady Kane growls.
“A special skill, then,” Arthur muses. “She will not have it again before the project is complete.”
“The project,” Lady Kane sighs, closing her one visible eye. “I hope you understand what you’re doing. I came to fulfill my obligations to my kingdom, not to participate in heresy.”
“Why not leave?” Arthur asks. “Come join me. I will grant you power beyond your wildest dreams. The Carnelian girl will be but a whisper of wind to you.”
“We are allies of convenience, not friends,” Lady Kane says. “Power tempts. The power of the Titans does not.”
She speaks disdainfully, as if she’s speaking to a man who’s ensured his own death. Arthur decides to ignore the insult.
“Yet your obligation is unfulfilled,” Arthur points out, trying another tack. “The demon walks free.”
“So she does,” Lady Kane says. “I will reassemble. I can find more people.”
“And when you find them?” Arthur asks softly. “How long will that take? Do you think she will not have her domain again by then?”
The lady does not respond to that.
“Ashley,” Arthur says, using her given name to imply familiarity, trust. “I can help you. With the Titan project, we will annihilate her, and you can return to your kingdom, task completed. I will spare no expense to see you restored to your full power.”
“What stops her from just leaving?” Ashley asks. “Nobody knows what the Blood Reaper wants.”
“She wants allies, that much is clear,” Arthur says. “She wants power. We have two surefire ways to draw her, and both can be accomplished in one masterstroke.”
The archer eyes him. It’s eerie, being stared at by a single accusatory eye, the only unveiled part of her face, but he doesn’t let it show. Nobles never do.
“I’m listening,” Lady Kane finally says.
“Two of her allies are weak, and the Titan requires sacrifice,” Arthur says. “Capturing one of them to sacrifice and one to use as bait is entirely within—“
Lady Kane turns to leave.
Arthur sighs and Rewinds his fragment once more.
“So she does,” Lady Kane says. “I will reassemble. I can find more people.”
“I wish you the best of luck,” Arthur says, saluting ironically. “You will always find my door open.”
“I wish I could say the same,” Ashley says, falling forward.
She’s out of the fragment before she can hit the floor.
Arthur sighs. Another ally lost.
A meaningless loss. He has more than everything he needs.
The Guardian of Time takes a step forward, and then he, too, is gone.
Anomalous Fragment 001-WHITESTAR
The Titan slumbers.
You are witnessed.
Its brethren refuse to let its rest be dreamless.
You will devastate.
You will kill.
You will witness.
It turns over, killing seventeen mortals in the process.
Its time has not yet come. Those who seek to make its existence so have yet to draw the power it needs to even begin awakening.
“Inome,” a mortal says. The Titan feels an insect touch its skin. “I come with an order.”
Annihilate.
Kill.
Subjugate.
The screams of its brethren tear through the Titan’s mind, but before it decides to eliminate the mortal at its side, new memories pass through it. It has only received memories a scant few times before. These are delectable and pretty, unlike the harsh screams of the others.
A female demon carrying a lesser version of a deity far lesser than the one the Titan will become.
It should be insignificant. It should be a mortal that even the nascent Titan will ignore.
And yet, the Titan hungers.
“She will come to you,” the tiny mortal croons. “And when she does—“
For once, a mortal echoes the commands of the Titan’s brethren.
Consume.
Devour.
Assimilate.
“—until there is nothing left, and you will be my perfect creation.”
Arthur Halcyon leaves the fragment unharmed.
