137, 1/2

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

To the west, laid the target.

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

Magenta light flashed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More harps—

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

Teressa and Poi followed.

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

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

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

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

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

Erick— Elias, caught himself.

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

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

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

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

Paul groaned.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Poi gave a disapproving sigh.

Erick said—

Dammit.

Elias said, “—

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

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

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

Erick asked, “But no last names?”

“We’re not nobles.” Teressa said—

Dammit. Her name was ‘Tiffany’. Tiffany.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Ah. Probably not,” Elias said.

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

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

Julia laughed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tiffany laughed. “Pink is a good look!”

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

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

Erick paused, as he just realized something.

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

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

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

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

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

“Ezekiel it is,” Ezekiel said.

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

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

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

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

Ezekiel. Ezekiel. Ezekiel—

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

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

Ezekiel checked on the ping.

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

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

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

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

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

Julia asked, “Probability of attack?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And though the ground burned…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No. That was giving them too much credit.

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

Other than that, Paul was doing just fine.

Three seconds had passed since the battle was joined.

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

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

Julia fought two-on-one.

Both of the women were doing fine.

Ezekiel had his own problems.

Was Paul okay?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That plan had not worked.

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

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

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

He was just panicking, a little.

Okay. Crisis solved.

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

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

Which they did.

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

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

It was an odd feeling.

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

These people were out for blood.

… He canceled his [Hunter’s Instincts]. The world sped up. He breathed.

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

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

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The harpy had lost that reflection contest.

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

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

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

Paul suggested, “Ezekiel?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ezekiel felt another chill.

‘Who are they?’ Julia asked.

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

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

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

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

And then he decided.

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

Tiffany nodded. Paul approved.

Julia said, “Good.”

Ezekiel moved to—

Wait.

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

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

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

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

And still, no one spoke.

And then someone did.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Teressa… just watched.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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