263, 2/2

Caa spreads her wings wide as she gazes upon the crystal world below, and she loves everything about this new form. Her wings are translucent blue. Her scales are the color of the deep ocean. Her claws and teeth are the rending black of absolute pressure. She is a match for the crystal spires and the black night overhead and even the glowing clouds and sunlight below.

She is one of the most beautiful things in this land, aside from the giant black dragon that is her newest boss, floating beside her, scanning the world with his myriad of senses. He is handsome enough. Erick and Shadow will be joined in love eventually. It is a wonderful thing to bear witness to, and from so close of proximity that Caa enjoys as Shadow’s Second. Whatever happens with this ‘Quilatalap’ on Veird and Shadow-the-Creator will either prove to be the most delightful thing that Caa will have witnessed in her long life, or a disaster of great proportion.

Holy Mother Caa is delighted by this new future of hers at House Benevolence.

She is less than delighted with these two disgraceful returners, Geraz Hydaki and Daria Lys. They had been two great lovers born in the middle of their cities’ lives, to families that were intertwined long before this man and woman were motes of Fate on the horizon. That horizon passed ages ago, and now these returners are back, killing their people in ritual death.

It is, perhaps, another declaration of love to an age long ago, being written once again and in new ink, on new pages.

For it is easy to see the love that Geraz and Daria still share with each other. It is easy to see the love shared between their two cities, too, for the cities of Hydaki and Lys are a double mountain top, joined by a great thickness of a bridge between the two. That bridge is wider than it is long, by far, and on that crystal bridge stand the delinquent returners.

All around the delinquents are corpses.

This has not been a fight at all. This has been a ritual killing.

Geraz wears white robes covered in red. He holds a sword that is almost as tall as himself. Daria wears white robes covered in red. She holds a sword that is almost as tall as herself. The swords are white crystal. The swords are both ceremonial, and useful. Perhaps they are even more useful in this case because they are ceremonial.

They were the swords that Geraz and Daria used to kill themselves an age ago, to take away the Contracts that had plagued their cities. Those Contracts of Wraithborne once again plague their cities, and a whole lot worse than before, so it is only fair that those swords come out to play once again.

Caa turns her serpentine head, focusing on the grey pillars of light rising from both cities. The pillars of Wraithborne are not central, but they are prominent. She focuses her senses in ways that are both unfamiliar and rapidly becoming familiar to see through kilometers of crystal buildings, to look upon those Wraithborne facilities. They are preparing for war.

This is expected.

Caa is preparing for war as well.

If Caa had been alone, if she had not had larger goals, then perhaps she would have drowned those places in dragonfire. Gods know that every single returner had similar thoughts in their heads. Most of them were able to tear themselves away from such action, but not all. Some of the returners that came to the Celestial Observatory had even torn themselves away from that edge of despair and death.

But Geraz and Daria.

They gave in to the impulse.

And now, Erick and Caa are here.

Caa observes.

Erick lands on one side of the grand bridge between the two cities. His great wings span the entire length of the bridge and more besides. He pulls his wings in and merely glares.

Caa lands on the other side of the wide bridge. She is still small, comparatively, but she is large enough to demand attention.

And down below, Geraz and Daria stop their ritual murder.

And their victims stop walking toward them to cleanse themselves of their taint.

Erick lightly declares, “At least you’re not on some sort of rampage. That is what I expected to see when I heard of your attack on this land. So what is all this?”

Caa knows that Erick knows what all this is. Everyone does. Erick gives them the chance to speak anyway.

It is rather Benevolent of him.

Caa would have rather picked up the delinquent returners and dealt with them elsewhere, but Erick is building reputation so it makes sense to have this out in the open. Caa cares not for reputation. This is why Caa has chosen to align with Shadow more than Erick. Shadow is Shadow. Erick is Erick. The two are similar enough to work together, but the way they do things is worlds different.

Geraz pulls his anger back a fraction, and says, “We’re cleansing the taint of this land, Ascended Flatt.”

“And these people are walking into your blades willingly?” Erick asks.

“Of course not!” Daria says, allowing her righteous anger to flow freely. “But that is the problem with Contracts, and one that must be shown to people over and over again! We still have divine rite over this land, for that is who we are and your magics could not take away who we are, and so!” She yells at the people who had stopped walking up to be killed, “Fulfill your duty to Lys and die to the blade of your ruler!”

It is, perhaps, a twisting of the demands that these people’s specific Contracts demand of them, but it is not an exaggeration, either. They have a choice in how they fulfill their Contracts, of course, but that choice is to die to the demands of their cities, or to be Sundered for their insolence.

It is no true choice at all.

And so, a soldier of Lys, terror in his eyes and urine in his drawers, walks forward.

Erick knows not to interrupt, for that would Sunder the soldier. Many others know the same thing, which is why this event is proceeding as it is proceeding. And yet…

Erick says, “There are better ways to do this, Daria Lys. There are ways that would actually save your city from this degradation, rather than harm your own people.”

Daria Lys strikes the soldier of Lys, splitting him from thigh to shoulder, her crystal blade carving right through armor and magics. She roars through her tears and a man dies. “These bastards went to Wraithborne! We killed ourselves and trapped ourselves in the Dead Waiting Room for centuries! And for what! For these bastards and the children of bastards to grow fat on the gifted Evils of Wraithborne!”

Geraz roars out, “The only reason this works at all is because of those damned Contracts! They only have themselves to blame! Them and their parents and everyone that allowed the small Evils into their lives because it allowed them to ignore the needy and the pained in the valleys all around!” He commanded a soldier of Hydaki, “Come and taste the Evil edge of the Contracts you took to live your life of ease!”

The soldier walked forward, though to call him a ‘soldier’ was perhaps a stretching of the word. He was rotund and sweating and dressed in finery. A noble of some sort.

Geraz cuts him down.

Erick said, “This is not the best way to do this, for all these people are bound by Contract to your cities first, and then to Wraithborne. When they come back from the Waiting Room there will be calls for Wraithborne to amend the Contracts, to disallow what you are doing right now, and in doing so your homes will get in bed with Wraithborne even more.”

Erick is likely watching all the noble and otherwise houses of Hydaki and Lys at this very moment, where nobles and kings of the current age rage at Contractors, demanding amendments, and those same Contractors demand more power in these cities in turn. All of those people are arguing around the facts that Erick has just laid out in such plain language. A few of them stop arguing, and look at the people across the table from them, and arguments turn crueler. Erick is watching them, and they are watching Erick.

Daria and Geraz do not care for the greater politics at play at the moment. And yet…

Do they understand what they are doing is only causing harm to all around them? Including themselves?

Caa thinks they do.

Daria screams as she cuts down another man who was unwilling and unable to defend himself. And then she screams again, saying, “I know!”

Geraz breathes out. “I know.” His sword, once held at the ready, now dips. “We know.”

Erick says, “I need more people to become Soul Mages, to truly bring back those from the grips of Contract into new bodies, like you have right now. You two have a strong connection with each other. You would be a good Anchor and Seeker pair. We’d just need to get you a third, and there are lots of people back in the House who wish to do for many others what I have done for you two, to bring you back out of the clutches of Contract. I would have you work in that way to solve this problem in a much better way.” Erick shrinks down to be merely human, and yet draped in the finest glowthread, his human-shaped form seeming as great as his draconic self in those glows. He walks forward, and then he is there, meters from the bloodshed, his feet soaking in red. “But you must stop this bloodshed.”

Daria breaks down and starts sobbing in her pain.

Geraz’s face is a mask, but tears still mar his visage.

Caa finds herself agreeing with Erick’s stance of turning problems into their own solutions. To make the killers into resurrectors? Into dangerous soul mages, themselves shackled by utmost morality? It is a cruel, yet honest sort of judgment.

Caa imagines that Erick is seeing his actions in a kinder light.

Both ways of seeing are likely correct.

How Daria and Geraz see their circumstances is a fact unknown to Caa. All she knows is that they agree to move on.

Caa was merely an observer this whole time, and that was fine. She appreciated when words were enough.

But soon, words would not be enough.

– – – –

Tris had no idea how he had ended up here on Reincarnation Island, working with former kings and queens and Talents and more, all on this crazy dream of eradicating Slaver’s Den and Malevolence and beckoning Wraithborne to become not-Wraithborne anymore…

Well.

That is not true, he reminded himself.

He knew why he was here, slotting tech to tech and bolting together this capacitor and that black box learner of this awakening engine.

Tris was doing some basic techwork for House Benevolence, for while this place was filled with kings and queens of forgotten ages, they didn’t know shit about tech… Which was pretty much true of all ages, Tris supposed. As he connected more wires to more wires and otherwise, Tris wondered how today had happened, yet again.

He had come to Cascadio’s Cavalcade in a mid-life crisis of faith about how he was going to pay for his son’s and wife’s medical treatment when all the jobs down in Lower City Sestey were drying up and moving across the river. He had expected a direction change in his life. For Cascadio to guide him to some new land that had some incentives to move there, where medical facilities could actually heal his son Kerbo and his wife Aliandra of The Rot, instead of dripping healing to keep Tris on the line for yearly payments.

Those yearly payments were breaking his back.

Those yearly payments were trying to get him to sign bigger Contracts.

And so, he had come here to the Cavalcade, and found himself wandering over here, wondering what all the big bubble of magic was on the horizon. When he got there, the bubble had popped, and then there were dragons and void flier elves and other impossible existences, and then a guy on Reincarnation Island had seen Tris and asked him if he wanted a job.

Tris had not even said anything to the man before that moment, but then he said ‘yes’, and now he was here.

Working on a machine that no sane person would ever let some random guy work on.

But. Like. Tris was pretty sane, and yeah, this was a good job and he could do it when most other people couldn’t. And the benefits of this job were already showing themselves.

Kerbo and Aliandra were over there, eating sandwiches with some person who was giving away free food. And they were healed, completely. The doctors at Lower City Sestey had said that they couldn’t be healed like that. But there they were, his son and wife, healed, and even in new bodies. Their son was 13 and healthy which would give him back his youngest years of life which had been lost and twisted by The Rot. Aliandra was 25 again and looking more beautiful than ever.

Her laugh was the same, and wow did Tris miss that wonderful, chiming laugh.

Tris had a new body, too.

He was 25 again.

Just.

Wham!

Here you go! 225 years of your life back! Have fun! And oh yeah, can you make this ungodly expensive, strategic-resource, and dangerous machine for us? What? You’re not sure? But of course you can do it!

We trust you.

Tris still didn’t know how he felt about that, except that Kerbo was probably going to be getting a brother or sister soon, and for multiple reasons—

“I think you need this next, right?” said one of Tris’s new ‘co-workers’, a woman by the name of Lokketalon who was a void flier with 4 bright white wings. She set down a flux battery that looked to be made out of silvercarb. “I think this one will work… Or at least that was the impression I got. I’m sure you’ll make it work. What do you need next?”

Tris was still taking in the battery sitting on the grass beside him. It was, perhaps, the most expensive battery that Tris had ever seen, and he had worked on warpships before, where space was at an absolute premium. With a disbelieving voice that was rapidly becoming his normal voice, he asked, “How much did this cost?”

“Like 150,000 resons or something stupid expensive, but Erick wants this thing to be indestructible and truly working well, so there you go.”

Tris had to take a moment.

He looked at the awakening machine he was cobbling together based on the diagrams and such provided to him by Overseer Ta’Kamoil and based on his own tech experience of being 150 years on the job… This shit was already at 4 million resons because most of the parts were illegal or impossible to acquire because to get those parts you would have to deal with Talents and maybe even Powers, so the 4m price tag was really more like 45m for most people.

The whole thing took up barely ten meters worth of space so far, but it was about as complicated as a full warpdrive engine…

And it was coming together as easy as slotting pieces into pieces.

That part was really getting to Tris.

All of these parts were not meant to fit together like puzzle pieces. They were all different tech that barely played well with each other on a good day.

Tris muttered, “I have no idea how come this thing is coming together so well.” With some easy sarcasm, Tris asked, “Say? Can you put that battery right there, in that slot in this machine that it looks like it can go right into, and that I don’t have to actually mangle to make it work? Because of course I don’t have to mangle anything to make anything work anymore. Of course you got a battery that perfectly slots into the space I made for it, even though it shouldn’t, because all I asked for was a power supply number, and not material or size or… And with silvercarb I don’t even have to worry about waste heat.”

Lokketalon smiled wide, and then put the battery right into the slot that Tris did not know he was making for the battery, saying, “I know! Isn’t it great! We’re all pretty sure it’s some sort of intrinsic Fate Magic—” The battery clicked into place. A little ‘ready’ glowed upon the drab silver surface of the battery. “Yup! Fate Magic. So what’s next on the list?”

Tris took a moment. He said, “Some base metal fabrication for the final touches—”

“Ah! That’s what I’m here for,” said a guy behind Tris.

Tris turned.

Normally, Tris would be worried.

Nothing was worrying him right now. “Hello, Overseer.”

Lokketalon smiled, affected a deep, kinda-sarcastic bow, and said, “Welcome to our project, oh wondrous Overseer Ta’Kamoil.”

“You cut that shit right now, Lokketalon,” Overseer Ta’Kamoil said, smiling as he said it. “I’m only the Overseer because I’m slightly more politically minded than you.”

“And you are welcome to it!” Lokketalon said.

Ta’Kamoil chuckled as he looked over the awakening machine… He blinked. Tris saw his eyes flicker and glow as he did whatever magery that mages usually did to look at stuff below the hood. And then Ta’Kamoil pulled back, nodding. “Yup! I don’t know about most of that, but it looks like you followed the directions to me. I didn’t even know something like this existed, but I guess it’s common in the tech side of Margleknot?”

“Fuck no it’s not common… uh,” Tris said, realizing he had let his usual way of working escape his mouth. “Uh. I mean. No, sir.”

Ta’Kamoil smirked a little. “But it will work?”

“Well… Theoretically.” Tris said, “I put all the parts together and there’s a bunch of checks that are checking out… A little too well, if you ask me. But I guess that’s magic for you? I’m not really one for magic, but I can certainly know when I’m around it… some of the time— Anyway! Yeah. I guess? We need a pair of big plates of mana-fused metal tuned to the power you want to awaken in the person who steps between those plates. Then we hook those plates up there on those slots, one on each side, and then the person steps into the machine and we turn it on… Well…” Tris shrugged. “The person standing between the plates awakens their aura? Mana sense, too; whatever the heck that is. I usually work on warp engines and this stuff is a whole lot different, but the level of tech is the same. Seen about 12 of these before. Each of them was heavily guarded on account of how easy it is to power people… Never got to step in one myself.”

He certainly thought about it before, though. About stealing into one of those facilities and giving himself some real power. No easier way to gain power than to actually gain power. Plus, having mana means you could pay Margleknot for resons and actually have money for once in a damned while.

He’d have been found out within minutes, though, and not just because of security cameras and shit like that.

He’d have been found out for much more basic reasons.

“… Anyway.” Tris said, “And that’s really it. Just need some Benevolence-infused metal— I assume that’s what you want, right? This is House Benevolence, yeah? Gotta make people Benevolence-flavored. Anyway. I’m sure the metal’s got a name but I don’t know it.”

Lokketalon and then Ta’Kamoil both realized something as they heard Tris talk.

“Right!” Ta’Kamoil nodded. “I know why I am here, now, and that is to go get Erick.”

As the Overseer walked away, toward the other side of the island…

Erick was already walking this way, and he was almost here.

He just looked like a dude.

A tall dude, for sure. Big horns, too. Kinda handsome, Tris guessed… He glanced over at Aliandra and saw her looking at Erick. Tris turned back to Erick. Yeah. He could see it.

Anyway.

Erick said, “I heard. So let’s do this.” He waved a hand at the machine and some illusions appeared in the transmission zone; two big silver plates perfectly fit to the hookups, yes, but also some extra plates on the floor and some weird little tuning tines here and there. “That look about like what the machine needs, Tris?”

None of this felt real today, so Tris had no problem saying, “More metal isn’t a bad thing and I’m not sure what the little tines are for, but yeah.”

“It’s for grounding,” Erick said, “I expect people to zap the ground and nearby areas when they awaken.”

“Ah.” Tris said, looking over the machine. “Then yeah. There are alterations we could make to the machine to better allow for lightning… Of course I already grounded the whole thing ten times over… or more like 4.”

“It’s for lightning that creates plants.”

“… Can’t rightly say I’ve ever dealt with that sort of problem, sir.”

Had he said that with too much irreverence? Probably. This was probably a very big point in Tris’s new career in House Benevolence, but nothing felt real right now, so he was probably flubbing it some.

Erick simply smiled and touched a button on his shirt, making two buttons in the action. Two buttons rapidly became four, and then eight, and then Erick held the buttons with pure power, turning that metal into a little ingot, which became another ingot, and then four, and then eight. He continued with more and more bits of metal, doing the impossible of making magical metal just like that, but which Tris had already seen happen, and which he was seeing happen right now, so he couldn’t really deny his own sight, could he?

The guy was pulling metal out of nothing, as though it were a parlor trick and not something truly memorable. It was real fucking metal, too. Not a fae trick.

All the while, Erick easily said, “Everything probably feels really weird to you right now, Tris, but you’re going to go far here. You just needed a little bit of help to get on a better Path in life. You’ll be fine.”

Tris felt his heart beat hard.

The guy wasn’t lying at all, was he.

In the moments, Erick had installed the panels he had said he was going to install.

And then he pressed the button to turn on the machine. A holographic readout came online exactly as it should have… which was strange. Usually these machines kinda broke and needed to be repaired a few times before they started actually working.

Tris mumbled to himself, “Of course it works the first time you turn it on. What’s another miracle on the pile? Not much, that’s what.”

Erick looked at the menu for a while.

Ta’Kamoil and Lokketalon looked at the screen with Erick.

And then Erick looked to Tris. “What do all these buttons do?”

For a very weird reason, Tris found that question immensely enjoyable. FINALLY! Things made sense again. All these mages didn’t know shit about tech. Yes! Here now was something that made sense.

Tris gestured to the buttons on top, saying, “Those are the ones to determine power output and the ones on the bottom are the harmonics for the soul and you usually start at low power, which is a combination of that button and that button and then you increase until the person in the machine experiences an Awakening Event. You usually have to cycle through the soul resonance buttons to find something that works. When the Awakening Event occurs, then the machine spits out some basic ideas of what magics the person might be good at. That black button turns it off.”

Erick smiled at the screen as Tris spoke. “Ah! Yes. That makes sense now.” And then he poked at the holobuttons and the machine hummed to life. Tiny white sparks jolted from the tines Erick had put on the metal plates, leaving tiny green spots growing on the metal. Erick looked at the plates. Then he pressed the black button to turn it off, saying, “There appears to be a drain on the mana in the metal?”

Tris said, “That’s the problem with these machines. You gotta get new metals all the time, which is why the people who have one of these machines don’t let just anyone use them. That readout there on the screen tells you about how many uses you can get out of the machine based on the power inside the metal plates. It’s the most expensive part of the machine, because it’s not easy to get mana-infused metals… for most people.”

Erick looked over the machine as Tris spoke.

Ta’Kamoil and Lokketalon did, too.

Erick said, “I can solve that problem in multiple ways, and a few of which might be permanent solutions, but I’ll do it this way for now.” And then he bloomed with light, and suddenly ten copies of the metal plates of the chamber appeared on a stack a little bit aways from the machine. “There we go. Replacement parts. Easy peasy.”

Tris stared, mumbling, “Easy peasy.”

Erick smiled, “This will be so much faster than training people to unlock aura control and mana sensing. Ahh! This is good. It’s almost like people getting the Script back home for a time. You want to go first, Tris?”

Tris’s eyes went wide. “… You’ll let me use it?”

“Of course! I’m sure you could benefit from the mana production, aura control, and mana sensing that this machine can grant a person, right? You have no normal training in that way, do you? Otherwise it’d take you years to learn normal magic, and we don’t have years.”

Tris still couldn’t believe the events of the day. “I could use all of that, sir!”

Erick smiled. “Hop on in, then.”

Five minutes later, Tris’s world expanded.

Everything seemed even less real than before, and now he could shoot little jolts of white sparks from his fingers and make mushrooms at a touch. They were pretty tasty mushrooms, too.

Later that evening, Tris lay with Aliandra in their new bed in their new home, while Kerbo slept in his very own room beside their own. Dinner had been a whole bunch of fresh meat and nice vegetables and mushrooms. He stared at the ceiling, holding onto Aliandra with one arm, her breath warm on his chest.

He held his other hand up, into the air, in the dark. Reaching for something he could barely touch. A fingernail on a ledge. A thought struggling to escape his tongue.

Tris felt warm and safe for the first time in a long time. He still didn’t understand any of it…

But sparks of lightning glittered in the black, illuminating his fingers and his new life, and it was good.

– – – –

Querkooda had been a simple elven boy in his youth who had not known that he was different until much later in life.

But when he was young, he was no one special. Like many of those born in the Good Lands, and like all of his brothers and sisters, Querkooda had been born with the rather basic ability to See Evil. When he wished for fun, Querkooda did what any village boy did. He went out and killed Evil. It wasn’t till his adult years that he realized how simplistic a thing it was to kill someone based on their use of Elemental Evil, and how oddly he had been raised.

And yet, knowing the oddness of his homeland made him love his people all the more. They were simple. They were Good. Not a single child wanted for anything at home. Not a single grandparent went to their death without a family to surround them, either around their bed, or around them in battle. Not a single brother or sister or cousin was left to fend for themselves.

But eventually, Querkooda distinguished himself from his peers, and he rose through the ranks to become a General for the Armies of the Good Lands. No longer was he solving border skirmishes, but instead he was protecting the realm. He was making decisions to rescue people. He was breaking Evil slavers and killing Evil lawyers and demolishing the wrongdoers of the world.

It was a good life.

During his time as General of the Downspire Flank, Querkooda had developed his shared ability to See Evil into something a lot more unifying. He shared Sight and Knowing with his troops, and they all acted with the power of the entire army because of him. Because of him, the Downspire Flank saved the realm more than once. Because of him, Wraithborne went after him the most of all.

And all the while, Wraithborne Contracts ate at the realm.

Eventually Querkooda fell to those very same Contracts. In a final act of Sacrifice, he turned his ability to Share with his people to absorb all the Contracts that his people had been poisoned with, allowing them to escape.

And then he spent several millennia in the Dead Waiting Room, living a life of nothing, while occasionally ripping and tearing any Evil that he found.

It had been a bad death.

And now he was alive again.

And he was a dragon, too.

And his ability to See Evil… was not really that anymore at all. He was still figuring out that part of himself.

But he still Knew Evil when he saw it.

When he went to the declaration of war meeting with his King to see the Evil of Slaver’s Den, he did not need to know who they were beforehand to know them as Evil.

Querkooda wanted to kill them all and sunder their souls.

It would be improper in many ways and the Fae Enforcers would attack him if he sundered anyone at all… And yet…

Querkooda sat in his rather stuffy elven form, with his curling white horns upon his head and his fingernails probably too claw like, scratching softly at the armrest of his chair, while an open stretch of stone separated House Benevolence from the Evils of Slaver’s Den. They were in the Non-Combat Zone at the moment, because this is where one went to declare war, because meeting in any other sort of land would have been a disaster for any number of assassination reasons. This was not Querkooda’s first experience with this land, with this sort of situation.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

The Non-Combat Zone was the same basic grey stone room in a nothingness, like always, and the evil was Evil, like always. This was the Apparent King’s first time here, though, and he seemed to approve of Margleknot’s way of doing at least this much. ‘A place to talk to the enemy, safely? What a grand idea!’

These talks never really worked, in Querkooda’s opinion, but it was still Good to have them.

Erick was on his left, in a similar chair to Querkooda’s own.

Shadow was further left, also in the same sort of chair.

Querkooda sighed a little. There was a time for talking and a time for doing, and though Querkooda could See the benefit in doing this… It still felt like they were giving too much face to slavers.

And yet, Querkooda reminded himself, it was Good to give the enemy a chance to prevent bloodshed.

And yet, Slavers ought to be murdered swiftly, not spoken to, like they were somehow still people. Evil gave up the right to call itself ‘people’ when it took in that Element. These things sitting before House Benevolence were no more than raw materials to be reincarnated into something better.

But they had only been here for 10 seconds so far. Perhaps Querkooda was being hasty?

Probably not.

The three people on the other side of the open space were perhaps some of the worst Evils Querkooda had ever known, and he had known a lot. Perhaps they were not the most powerful, for all of the most powerful Evils went to Wraithborne, but Slaver’s Den was still Slaver’s Den.

Captain Shackle sat in the center chair. He was a void flier man of black armors and black wings. He was responsible for world-sized raiding parties that captured people and soul shackled them to slavery. He deserved to be Sundered, and if Querkooda ever caught him on Layer 1, or outside of Margleknot, that is what Querkooda would do.

Underling Chains sat to Shackle’s right. He was a half-eldritch thing of metal and flesh, and this part of him here was just the smallest part of his body, sent here because he needed to be here, to be at this meeting. The majority of him was strewn throughout all of Slaver’s Den’s many Intakes and cities. He was their mass security force. Killing him was easy. Keeping him dead? Another matter entirely.

Underling Walara sat to Shackle’s left. She was a demon of sex and death who delighted in breaking people to make them into compliant slaves. Despicable.

None of them would surrender at all.

All of them would have to die.

Querkooda bore witness to this farce of a meeting and hoped it ended soon. He was not the only one. Erick felt the same way. He only did this because it was right to do, as Querkooda kept reminding himself.

Querkooda respected attempted Good… Even if Erick wasn’t all about Good.

Benevolence was close enough… Probably.

Shackle spoke first, “We will kill you all and sell your disembodied souls to the highest bidders.”

Ah! Good. This farce was going to go swiftly.

Querkooda approved.

Erick smiled softly, and said, “I appreciate your candor. In the interest of being forthright myself, I ask you to surrender completely, and I will ensure that you are free to go after a reincarnation. I offer this opportunity to all of your people, as well. Any takers?”

Walara giggled, saying, “Can I have him before we sell him, Shackle? I want to break him.”

“Of course you can, dear,” Shackle said.

“Excellent. I am now free of guilt.” Erick stood, saying, “We’re done here.”

Shackle and his party stood. Querkooda and Shadow stood.

They departed the Non-Combat Zone.

When they were once again standing on the grassy surface of Reincarnation Island, Erick breathed deep and appeared lighter, as though a weight had fallen, this was because a weight had fallen.

Querkooda recognized that look. He said, “It is always easier to go into battle with enemies that are merciless.”

“It is,” Erick said, nodding. He rolled his shoulders, and then asked, “So that Non-Combat Zone was interesting.”

“You said that before, as well,” Querkooda said, “But I have a hard time believing that you had nothing like this on Veird.”