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Chapter Text

The Ferryman yawned as he came into existence once more. He floated a few centimeters off the ground, subtly showing how powerful he truly was. He felt that today was just any other day of being summoned. Get brought into the Luminant, smite the poor fool that summoned him or lose and give them the worst reward that he could come up with, and go back to sleep.

He stared at the unassuming figure before him, a slack-jawed Etrean with the most basic hairstyle he could think off, wearing nothing but a simple white tunic with some dark blue pants. "Oh, it seems one of you land dwellers has finally decided to wake me up." He couldn't even say it with his usual bombastic personality, he just felt so drained. Always the same routine with these people... "Well, squirt, what do you want?" He glared at the Etrean, hoping to make him leave through intimidation alone.

"S-so I heard Krulians can shapeshift..." The Etrean began, before he was rudely cut off by the Krulian he was talking to.

"Well that's quite rude isn't-" He stopped, processing the question. Strange, usually they always asked him what his name was despite the fact that he was practically hated by all in the Luminant. "Pardon me?"

The traveler gulped. "Someone told me Krulians could shapeshift and... and I was wondering if..." He looked off to the side, clearly not wanting to continue this line of conversation.

Cruel as the Ferryman was, he capitalized on this weakness immediately. "And? Finish it, I've got places to be." A lie, but one he told with years of practice. Gods damn these humans and their boring repetition.

"Can you become a- uh woman? Ferry...woman?"

Singlehandedly the worst thing he had ever heard. The Ferryman pondered this. "I can, but it'll cost you." He tried not to grin while saying this. Finally, something different for once. Might become the new norm for him soon, but he would be damned if he didn't take this opportunity. "I'll need you to wager me your life! You lose, I send you back to where you came. You win, and you can tell me and show me all of your carnal desires!" He was suddenly regretting saying the last condition, but whatever! This was just an Etrean with no armor and a simple sword. Couldn't be that hard.

The Etrean was beaming when he heard this. Must've been quite a perverted little fellow. "DEAL!"

He lost. Well, she lost. The wager they made meant that she had to be female for the duration agreed upon, which was... 7 days. A whole week of Gods-know-what. The only saving grace was that he wasn't nearly as much of a degenerate as she had first thought, so that would mean the obvious might never happen. Hopefully.

Good thing that she was bisexual.

She snapped back to reality, looking down at the scrawny little Etrean who was somehow able to defeat a Krulian horror with no equipment. Who was now holding her hand, and acting like it was the most romantic thing in the world.

"So, does this mean that I get to call you Ferrymommy, or-"

This was hands-down going to be the worst fucking week of her life.

Chapter Text

Washing up on Minityrsa was arguably the worst thing that could've happened to him today. All because he fell off the boat while they were sailing to Etris.

He groaned. At least he wasn't being torn to shreds by the Etrean Royal Guard. Still, this was Minityrsa, which meant lovely things trying to kill him with each step he took, such as Brainsuckers, Ministry Necromancers, Frostdraw Songseekers (which had somehow ended up on Minityrsa with him) and Snow Knights, at least from what the rumors said. He thankfully hadn't encountered those yet, which was good since he wasn't trained for such otherwordly foes.

After successfully sneaking past the ungodly amount of Necromancers wandering the island, he had found a frozen lake with a Hive Construct facing away from him.

Running at speeds he'd never known he was capable of reaching, he soon fell down into a valley. It seemed empty enough, no Brainsuckers here at the very least so he assumed it was safe. Reducing his pace to a leisurely stroll, the clueless Flamecharmer soon made his way to a rock in the middle of the valley.

He thought nothing of it until white smoke appeared on the rock, revealing a black Felinor posing rather suggestively on it. He blinked twice, not expecting this development, never having heard of a mantra capable of invisibility or teleportation. And why was she smiling at him? So weird.

"Hey! It's cold up here, don't you agree?"

The man nodded, not really thinking anything about this question. Shouldn't she arguably be warmer than him though? He was just wearing the standard Authority uniform, and she was wearing a seemingly comfortable cloak on her person.

"All the more reason to warm ourselves up with a game." Her smile widened as she said this.

He backed away. "Oh, nononono! How about we don't?" He grinned at her nervously from behind his helmet. He really didn't want to know what kind of "game" this Felinor freak had in mind for him...

She frowned slightly. "Hoho, you don't get a choice in this! Either we do the game, or you're freezing to death out here. What'll you choose?" She changed her pose a bit, lying down on the rock instead while glaring at him accusingly.

"Fine!" he snapped. "What game do you have in mind?"

She rolled her eyes, mumbling "So rude," under her breath. "The game has two rules. First, my words are absolute, and lastly, no killing." She sat up, dangling her legs on the edge as she stretched her arms. "People come up here all the time, wonder why they're always so disappointed to see me, everybody loves games, right?"

"No," he bluntly replied. "No they don't."

The Felinor puffed. "You're no fun. Anyways, I'm Aelita, and let's begin, shall we?"

She got on her feet. "Cast a mantra. Any mantra!" As he brought his arm up to cast the one mantra that his superiors let him use, she quickly added, "Not at me!"

The fireball in his hand quickly flew the opposite direction, as he not-so-impressively threw it behind him. She nodded, despite not really finding it that interesting of a sight. "Alright, now let's make it a bit more difficult."

She disappeared, only to reappear a few moments later closer to him. Then another, and another, and another, until the area was full of her. He looked around, bewildered at this Felinor's power. "What the-?"

"One of these is me," her disembodied voice said. "I want you to stick near a fake for this one."

He took a wild guess, standing near one of the Aelita clones. She fluttered her eyelashes at him innocently, before disappearing followed by the rest of her clones save one. "Not bad," she remarked. Then she disappeared, and reappeared again. Multiple times.

"I hate this," he groaned, as he took in the sight of the clones again.

"Oh come on, live a little!" She laughed, her voice coming from every direction despite none of the clones' mouths moving. "Anyways, let's see if you remember what I look like."

Not knowing what was in store for him, and simply wanting to go home, he stood near her. Or at least, what he thought was her. The eyes were a little weird, but it was probably-

"Well, that was disappointing."

The last thing he saw before falling a dozen feet into the Starswept Valley was her utterly dismayed and almost chiding look.

As he whimpered from what was probably several broken bones, he heard her disembodied voice one last time. "Next time, pay attention to my eyes, okay?" He then passed out.

He woke up back at Fort Merit, thinking of his encounter as nothing more than a strange dream until he realized that he couldn't move, and that his limbs were in casts.

"Fuck."

Chapter Text

"What are you doing?"

The Etrean craned his head to look at his fellow Guardsman. "What does it look like?"

He shrugged. "That you're losing it?"

"Haha. No, I haven't. I'm trying this new thing, it's called smoking." He took the burning stick out of his mouth. "Don't understand the appeal behind it, but it's kind of interesting."

The Guardsman frowned. "Did you just pick up a stick that you saw on the ground?"

"Yup."

The stick was promptly taken out of his hands and thrown into the sea. "That's gross. You're gross. Don't... don't do that." He rolled his eyes. "You new blood are something else, I swear..."

The first Guardsman watched as the second walked away. Then, when he was sure that nobody was looking, he took another stick out of his pocket, lit it with a nearby fire, and put it in his mouth.

"Sure tastes funny," he remarked.

Chapter Text

Weird... The Duke seemed awfully pale today.

The Vesperian walked forwards to meet the Duke, noting his haggard appearance and his unfocused gaze. "Uh..." Was this some sort of trick? The Duke didn't really seem that dangerous, so maybe his friends were wrong when they were warning him about the guy...

He was ignored as the Duke began his seemingly usual routine of monologuing before he fought. "S-so you're the one running about, tripping my alarms." He brought his arms up, as if mocking the adventurer. Instead, he seemed more like he was about to faint halfway through the motion. "Care to explaaain yourself?" He ground his teeth, clearly not wanting to make a fool of himself during his finest hour.

"The Lord Regent wants me to retrieve the..." He trailed off, noting that the Duke had, in fact, collapsed and was now lying in a crumpled heap on the floor. "...the Forge- are you okay?"

No response. He lightly nudged the Duke's head with his little stick leg. Nothing.

He looked around the laboratory. There were tubes containing people lying in suspended animation around him, it was... surreal. Horrifying, to be quite frank. But... he didn't come here to save these people, he was here for the Forge. Which probably wasn't anywhere around here, if the Duke really did find out about his break-in minutes before.

Instead, he gave into his more selfish desires, and began to search the seemingly unconscious Duke's coat. "Ooh, that's a pretty nice dagger... shiny gem..." He fished out a golden spear with a pitch-black blade at the end. "How'd you fit an entire spear into your coat?"

Still, the Duke gave no response. Shrugging, the Vesperian got up and made his way out of the laboratory.

A few minutes passed.

The Duke's head shot up, revealing a very dried up Celtorian face. Not quite the fine specimen he used to be.

"I NEED. POMARS-!" He wheezed, ringing his bell as his face met the ground once again. Hearing the thumps of his stone constructs, he reached his hand out. "Fetch me Pomars..."

The golems walked off with no questions asked about this strange order from their master. If he desired sustenance, they would give it to him.

They later returned with their arms full of the stuff. Without even looking, the Duke grabbed as many as he could and began to bite into the lifesaving juicy POMARS that he so craved.

Sensing that their objective was complete, the golems walked out of the chamber, leaving the Duke alone with his beloved fruit.

Chapter Text

This "Isle of Vigils" was quite the interesting location. Not that interesting compared to everything else, of course, but still has its own charm.

Must've been because it was a backwater. Nobody ever went here. He could feel the wind blowing across his face... what remained uncovered, anyways. Why did these guards always have to wear these cloaks? Humans were so strange. And yet they had the gall to call his three belts "impractical"... pah.

Anyways, he had decided to do a little "trolling" as these young whippersnappers would say and (somehow successfully) kidnapped the guard observing the pond. He then took his appearance, and, after a bit of exploration, found the Maestro of this fine establishment.

The Maestro gave him a surprised look. "Stratos? What brings you here?"

"Stratos" put up his best scared-shitless face, and went absolutely ballistic. "Maestro, you must hurry! I have heard of grave news! The Lord Regent has gone mad!" Alarmed, the Maestro stood a little more straight. Good, it was working. "He's destroying Etris! We must save our people!"

The grizzled Etrean nodded. "Very well, then. I'll alert every member of the Vigil Guard. We will vanquish Lord Regent, if he truly has betrayed our people." He ran out of the room, not seeing the smirk on "Stratos"'s face.

Oh, if only you knew about what the Lord Regent was really up to...

They had soon managed to gather a sizeable amount of sloops, and had set sail for Etris, taking the speed gate to the right of the isle. After only several minutes, they had arrived at their destination. The Maestro did not bother stopping at the docks, instead hopping off the boats and swimming to shore with the help of his mantras. The Etrean guardsmen present were quite confused at the sight of this fine Etrean running into the town, trailing water behind him followed by a dozen temple guards.

"What the heck is up with them?" One guardsman asked.

His friend shrugged. "Beats me. Must be them checking up on us."

"Yeah, probably."

The Maestro and his guard stormed into the palace, somehow managing to elicit the emotion of surprise from the usually stoic Royal Guard. "Wait, stop-!" One of them tried to get in the way of the Maestro, only to fall on his arse when the Maestro did not break his stride.

The Lord Regent was understandably confused to see this gaggle of cloaked men gather before his throne. Rarely did he ever give anyone who angered him mercy, however this was an exception, as this was the Vigil Guard that was facing him.

As such, instead of killing them all, he tilted his head quizzically and said, "What seems to be the matter, Maestro Evengarde?"

"You have betrayed our people, Lord Regent," he growled, pulling out Galadriel and pointing it at the man on the throne. The Royal Guards moved to stop him, however one motion from Lord Regent made them wait, and see where this was going.

Lord Regent began to sweat. "Now why would you say that?" The Vigil Guard was not something so easily replaced, and he truly did not want to kill them all if he could help it. Especially with the blow it would give to his reputation...

"Stratos told me that you began to murder our people en masse! Their homes are burning, their corpses strewn about! You have made a mockery of Etrea, and I will not stand idly while such blasphemy-"

"Maestro Evengarde?" One of the Royal Guard tapped him on the shoulder, directing him outside. "I think you need to pay a little more attention."

"-What."

Etris... was completely fine! The townsfolk were walking, speaking as was normal for their routine, he could hear the blacksmith in the distance and see Polis at his usual spot by the tree. "Why didn't I notice this before- how didn't-"

"It appears that you have been deceived," The Lord Regent deadpanned.

Indeed, "Stratos" was curling into himself, laughing madly as he took in the flabbergasted expression on the Maestro's face. "GODS! You- you idiots actually believed me-" he burst into tears from how hard he was laughing at the sheer idiocy of the Vigil Guard. "You morons really didn't notice all the strange looks the people were giving you!? Or the fact that there was a suspicious lack of smoke?!"

He shed his disguise, revealing himself to be... the Ferryman! "I must say, that was quite a show," he snickered, wiping a tear from his eye. "But, I must bid you farewell. I have only so much time to do what I want," he laughed.

The Maestro, put it simply, was furious! "Krulian scum!" He snarled, throwing his weapon at the Ferryman, who promptly dissipated into purple sparks as his laughter echoed around them. "I'll get you for this, Ferryman!"

Chapter Text

"Eh? Wh- who the hell are you guys?"

The three ominous, blindfold-wearing men tilted their heads in almost-perfect unison. Creepy.

"We are... travelers, of course! We simply wish to... buy some of your finely crafted firearms." The seemingly lead "traveler" stepped forward, towering over the guard. He was not intimidated, but... he was a bit worried for the merchandise. His life was nothing, anyways. Their precious explosives, gunpowder, and other materials they use to create their guns? Not nearly as worthless.

He bit his lip. "Suuuure, let's get you customers into our castle! I-I'll lead the way, alright?"

The three men followed him inside without so much as a word. He wiped the sweat off his brow as he led them to a secluded area of the castle, presenting them with a closed box. "EMERGENCIES ONLY" was written on the side of it, albeit somewhat faded with time.

"W-well?! Open it!" The Celtor gave him a sharp glare. "I MEAN- here, I'll do it for you!" He stepped in front of the Celtor, crouching down to undo the clamps.

He glanced behind him, noticing that two of the cloaked men were facing the exit, likely to guard him...? Oh, this was a stick up.

Turning back to the contents of the box as the Celtor blocked his view, he gave a nervous laugh as he found just what he was looking for. "Oh! You guys are gonna love this!"

Click.

The guard whirled around, and with an almost impossible speed, aimed the revolver at the Celtorian weirdo's head and pulled the trigger.

As his brains splattered the two freaks who had now turned to face him, he cocked the hammer again, aiming at the Etrean and firing off another shot. He went down before he could even pull out his knife.

Before he could do the same to the last robber, he was tackled to the floor and stabbed by the Vesperian. Before he could finish the guard off, he was smacked across the face by the revolver's handle, causing him to fall off the guard as he reeled back from the sheer force of the blow.

The guard got up, dropping the revolver in favor of grabbing the box with his two hands. He immediately gave an agonized yell as something sharp embedded itself into his thigh.

Turning around, he came face to face with the cockroach trying to kill him. He then yanked the knife out of his leg, eliciting another scream from the guard. The burglar then began walking towards him, slowly, like he was trying to draw out the murder.

"W-wait!" He dropped the box, kicking it to the Vesperian who effortlessly stopped it with one foot on the lid. "Please! I'll suck you off if you don't kill me!"

He stopped dead in his tracks.

The guard nervously got onto his knees, preparing to lose every ounce of his dignity just to survive-

"I'm not a guy."

His face fell. "W-what? You mean I've been fightin'- and losin'- to a girl this whole time?" He was shook.

Instead of entertaining him with an answer, the woman knocked him out with one strong left hook.

The guard was never seen again, and the crate was never recovered.

Chapter Text

A trio of Ignition Union fighters stand near one of the shores of Summer Isle, not really having anything to do since the guards haven't found them yet. They were mostly just goofing around, while their leader was trying to figure out what to do now that they were on the island.

A Ganymede walks up to them, almost automaton-like in its stride and lack of unnecessary movements. The Capra with the darksteel greatsword notices him, tapping one of his comrades on the shoulder before pointing to the insect.

The three Ignition Union fighters approach the Ganymede, who stood in place as they gawked at his indecency.

The Felinor scratched his head. "Need something, mate?"

"Need something," the Ganymede repeated, without any of the emotion that the Felinor put into the question. "Mate."

One of them, an Etrean, laughed. "Wash day tomorrow. Nothing clean..." He snapped his fingers in front of the Ganymede, noting how he didn't react to any stimuli. "Right?"

"Nothing clean." The Ganymede was still staring off into space. It was a bit hard to tell since his race's eyes looked more like symbols. "Right."

The Etrean and the Felinor exchanged a look while the Capra snorted. "This strange fellow seems to be lost. Perhaps we should send him on his way, preferably-"

"Your clothes." Their heads snapped to the Ganymede. "Give them to me." Somehow, the calm ocean breeze no longer felt so comforting. "Now."

Two falchions found themselves out of their sheathes. The Capra's easygoing expression was replaced with the icy gaze of a killer. He pulled out his greatsword, slashing up at the Ganymede, expecting to cleave him in twain.

The greatsword stopped itself right between his legs. The Capra's eyes widened behind his mask, as the Ganymede retaliated with a very strong punch into his chest. It sounded far, far too wet for a punch.

The Capra opened his mouth in a soundless scream as the monster in front of him tore out a red, beating organ out of his chest. He fell to the ground, as dead as a doornail.

The remaining two backed away, not wanting to become this thing's next target. Somehow, being naked overseas seemed like a much better fate than whatever this creature would do to them if they didn't comply.

The Felinor threw his coat off, slowly undressing himself as the Ganymede watched. The Etrean took a step back, preparing to bolt if the absolutely humongous Ganymede chose to kill them anyways.

Wordlessly, the Ganymede took the clothes off of the ground and began to put them on. The two unlucky survivors of the encounter chose this very moment to run away as far as their legs could carry them, leaving the dead Capra and his greatsword behind.

The Ganymede finished dressing itself. He scanned the area around him, before looking down at the greatsword. Recognizing it as a weapon, he grabbed it by the hilt and slung it on his back in one swift motion. Unburdened despite the weight of it, he then stomped off elsewhere, leaving the body behind.

Chapter Text

The Vesperian stared at the man sprawled out on the floor in front of her. "So you're saying that you can't build a gun because you're just a guard?"

"No- I mean yes!" The unfortunate guard just barely dodged another stab that was meant to go into his thigh. "Will you please stop trying to use my leg as a knife block!?"

He backed up against a wall, knowing that he was trapped and that his attempts to escape would be futile. "How do you even expect me to build a gun? No anvils, no materials; if you wanted to get someone to build guns for you, you should've gone for the blacksmith!" He grit his teeth as she stepped on his (wounded) leg. "What even happened to the crate that you stole!?"

The scout watched on, impassive. "Sent to Minityrsa. It took me some effort to keep you alive, and I intend to get my money's worth, as you war profiteers would say." She cupped his chin with her hand, forcing him to look up at her unmoving chitinous mask. "So, tell me. Why should I keep you alive?" He gulped as a shiny Krulian knife appeared just below his cone of vision. "What's stopping me from slitting your throat and leaving your corpse to rot?"

Weighing his options, he decided... to push his luck. "Wouldn't you know that? You're the one who kidnapped me..."

A few tense seconds passed.

He was roughly pushed to the ground, causing him to hit his head against the hard stone wall. As he rubbed his head, still disoriented by the pain, she took the opportunity to lean in and whisper into his ear.

"The others won't be as lenient as I am. So tell me what I want to hear next time. Tell me everything that a lowly guard like you would know about the castle and the isle." He glanced at her, realizing how uncomfortably close she was. She returned his gaze, as if that wasn't the most awkward thing in the world to do to your prisoner. "What are you waiting for? A kiss?"

She stood up, backing away from him. Admiring how quickly she stunned him into silence, probably. And without any parting words, she left him alone in the abandoned building.

When did my life come to this?

Chapter Text

The guard stared at the sharp tip pointed squarely between his eyes. "I hate this island," he grumbled to himself.

The Navaen Nutsucker in front of him put the spear away, realizing that he was bound and not a threat. "Who captured you?"

He elected not to answer that question. These squatters would kill him anyways.

An older Gremor appeared in the doorway, looking at the nomad before noticing him. "You. Homelander. Get up." The elder approached him, boring a hole into his head with how intensely he was staring at him. "Your legs are not bound, that much I can see. Get up."

The Celtor shut his eyes, trying to calm himself down before he did something really stupid. "My leg got turned into a knife block." He then opened his eyes to see the confused looks of both nomads. Sighing, the exhausted guard decided to elaborate. "My leg got stabbed several times and now I can't use it without screaming in agony."

The elder nodded. "Very well then." He grabbed the younger nomad by the shoulder, dragging him away from the guard before talking. It looked like they were talking, anyways. Probably trying to figure out what to do with the guard.

While they were both not directing their attention to him, his eyes wandered to the nearby revolver. The Vesperian lady decided to leave it lying around, probably because he couldn't use it in any way that mattered. He looked back at the two nomads, who were still talking to each other. It would be so easy to get to the gun...

The two nodded to each other. Not good.

The spear nomad turned to him, slowly raising the spear as if he was about to throw it...

The elder dropped to the floor, his throat slit and his life leaving him. Surprised, the other nomad turned to face off against the interloper. Her, his mind supplied. He could use this distraction.

While the two were busy duking it out, he crawled to the revolver, less like a dignified marksman and more like some gods-damned worm.

Oh, look. A conveniently sharp piece of the wall jutting out was right next to him.

He grinded his bindings against the edge, succeeding in both freeing him and cutting his back. He bit his lip, ignoring the pain as he grabbed the revolver with both hands. He cocked it, aiming it at the nomad with inhuman speed and firing.

As the nomad's brains were reduced to a pink pulp, he aimed at the Vesperian, who was now looking at him with an emotion that he couldn't discern. Fear? Apprehension?

The answer hit him around the same time as the Vesperian, who had taken advantage of his reaction (or lack thereof) to send him to the ground with that dark attunement. Before he could try and get her off of him, he felt the familiar point of a Krulian knife on his chest. He stopped struggling, giving her mask a nervous smile as she wrenched the revolver out of his grip with her free hand.

A few tense seconds passed. When she was sure that he wouldn't try anything, she slowly got off of him, letting him breathe (and regain his dignity). "Idiot," she snidely remarked as she holstered the revolver. "And here I was thinking that I had finally tamed you."

He slowly got up... and was promptly pushed against the wall by the weird Vesperian. "Stay here," she said, before taking her hand off of his chest and walking somewhere into the building. Likely to get more rope.

It was a hard knock life for him.

Chapter Text

The Celtor guard stood diligently, watching as yet another unfortunate soul got vaporized by a lionfish's beam. He gave one of the nearby guards a look.

Do we kill it?

His comrade shook his head.

No. They'll deal with it.

He glanced back to the lionfish, which was now patrolling the area for more food. The lionfish seemed to notice him, but didn't actually try to attack him. Curious.

I don't think anyone's gonna come and kill it.

The other guard's shoulders shook in silent laughter.

You doubt these dead men and women too much. Eventually, someone's gonna fight back and kill this annoying pest.

He tilted his head.

Isn't that our job?

The guard that he was talking to looked up.

Maybe you're right... however-

An unholy scream rang out in the city. Another poor fool got caught by a Watcher. He groaned, as well as someone who had punctured lungs could anyways. All these years of being in the Depths and he was only now starting to regret joining the Celtorian guard.

'Join the guard,' my mother said. 'It will help our family,' she said. 'Do it for your nation,' she said. Well, we have an undead guard, I have a dead family, and I'm part of a dead nation. Just great.

He was tapped on the shoulder by his comrade, who was giving him a sympathetic look.

We all have dead people. That's besides the point though, we should really be dealing with those angels when that unfortunate moron inevitably leads them to us.

Bright yellow lights began to come around the corner. Speak of the devil.

One Adretian man with a haggard look ran past the guards, not even giving his distractions a passing glance as he ran all the way back to the entrance.

The two guards turned to face their adversaries. Two angels. One looked like a thin, formal man, carrying his spear like it was a mere walking stick. The other appeared to be a woman (he had to momentarily remind himself that people in the Depths were rare enough as it was, females even moreso) a rather well endowed one at that, with a well toned figure carrying her spear like a proper warrior.

His friend must've noticed, since he felt someone jostle his arm with their elbow.

Don't get any ideas, Edward. They are unfeeling murderers. It's our duty to remove them from our city.

Edward shook himself out of it.

Right... right.

The undead Celtorian guard braced himself... and nothing happened. His eyes bulged out of their sockets (and with how rotted he was, it was probably for the best that he had his helmet on). He gestured to the angels.

...You're not going to attack?

The male laughed. As in, he actually laughed. Since when did angels actually vocalize anything?

Why would we? Our quarry has left, you glorified zombies aren't worth it, and this is our city too. Why attack you ancient guards when we can just sit back, and wait for the next hapless fool to run into us?

His comrade wasn't having any of it, judging by his angry body language.

Oh, quit trying to convince us. We know your kind, pretending to be diplomatic just to turn around and stab everyone in the back when they're not looking. You're not fooling-

Edward walked over to the female angel, already back in his trance-like state.

Edward? Edward! Don't- His friend hissed, as much as a rotting corpse could. Don't have a tryst with one of these things!

The wiry angel laughed even harder.

Ah, mortal fools. Anyways, I'll be standing around, just... relaxing, I suppose. Have fun, you two! He looked at the other guard. Er, three!

And with that, the man (if you could even call an angel that) left. His friend immediately turned around, walking back to his post without another word, no doubt not wanting to see how this little endeavor would go.

Now that they were alone, and now that he was close enough to see the beauty of this particular angel in detail, he was at a loss for words. How does he continue this? How does he start a conversation? He's spent the last fifty years down here for gods' sakes!

Mercifully, the angel decided to break the ice first.

What is it that you desire, guard?

And in his lovestruck mind, he embarrassingly had only one answer.

You.

Very well then. Follow me.

The angel beckoned him to one of the nearby buildings, abandoned yet still lit for some godsforsaken reason.

...Maybe being in the Depths wasn't so bad.

Chapter Text

Navaen man, Navaen man,

Doing the things that a Navaen can

What's he like? It's not important

Navaen man

Is he a sod or is he a prick? When he's in Summer does he get rest?

Or does the rest get him instead? Nobody knows, Navaen man

Authority man, Authority man,

Authority man hates Navaen man

They have a fight, Authority wins

Authority man

Luminant man, Luminant man,

Size of the entire Luminant man

Usually blind to smaller man,

Luminant man

He's got a watch with a minute hand,

An epoch hand, and an era hand

When they meet it's happy land

Powerful man, Luminant man

Person man, person man,

Hit on the head by a stronger man

Lives his life with other broken men,

Person man

Is he distressed or is he not blessed?

Does he feel that it's all pointless?

Why come up with person man?

Desensitized man, person man

Authority man, Authority man

Authority man hates person man

They have a fight, Authority wins

Authority man

Chapter Text

Alastir looked at the wanderer in front of him. He feigns an expression of nonchalance, as if someone bringing him the population of two towns in the form of roughed up villagers (and a nomad, he notes with slight amusement) was completely normal and just a small favor.

"...You've... done a lot," he stammered out. Gods, how was he supposed to react to this? His respite didn't have enough space to house two dozen people, nor could it sustain them for more than 2 months. It was already starting to get hotter in here with how many people were in the same room together.

The wanderer nodded. He then sat down, legs crossed, likely expecting Alastir to tell him something. Again. The Adretian man gulped. "I-I really don't know how to thank you- I've given you all of the useless equipment I found around this place-"

"Tell me about the sword on your back."

The pathfinder tensed. "I told you, I can't speak about-"

The Ganymede's hand shot out, grabbing Alastir by the arm. Alastir jolted from the sudden movement, momentarily trying to get his hand free. What was wrong with this man? Couldn't he just leave Alastir (and his two dozen refugees) alone?

"Why do you refuse to speak about the Hero Blade of Lightning strapped to your back?" Oh gods, he knew. "Why do you hide it?"

Deciding not to test the patience of the mass of muscle before him who likely had enough strength to break his arm with one hand, Alastir sighed. "...Fine. I'll tell you."

Satisfied with his answer, the nosey thug in front of him released his arm, allowing him to rest it against the rock behind him. Looking around to make sure that nobody could eavesdrop, the Adret leaned in and began to tell his tale.

"I was a member of the Authority's Shock Corps. As an Authority Interrogator, I was involved in the usual bad business that nobody wanted to do. I was good at my job of making people break under pressure, mainly because of my skill in my attunement. I was one of the best at it. One day, I made one important prisoner spill everything he knew about the Legion's forces in the Western Luminant. I made him spill much more than mere information after I was done getting everything that I could from him."

The Ganymede, stone-faced as ever, interrupted his story. "You tortured him to the brink of death?"

Alastir looked to the side, ashamed. "It was a necessity in the Shock Corps. A few more minutes of interrogation usually saves the Authority from unwanted trouble in the frontlines. We made them tell us everything, and then we beat them so harshly that they couldn't even walk out of the interrogation room. We made sure that they couldn't be a threat in their malnourished, abused bodies. Better that we keep them alive in cells to keep track of them, than send them to the Depths and have them appear somewhere completely different, in an area we didn't have control of yet."

"Anyways, as I was saying. After what seemed like another day of being a torturer, I was given the chance to serve on the frontlines. Maybe even in a position of command. I took it. Why wouldn't I? If I was proficient enough in Thundercall that my words alone could shock the opposition, what did I have to fear out there? It was a promotion compared to my position at the time, and back then, I wanted that promotion along with the opportunity that it gave me. The opportunity to deliver death to all that opposed the Authority."

He gave a sardonic laugh. "It was horrible. I thought that the history books would prepare me for the experience of being a common soldier. I was wrong. The smell of rotting corpses followed me everywhere I went. I..." He noted the unchanging expression that the Ganymede wore. "Hm. My apologies, I was just... getting carried away. What were we talking about again?"

"The Hero Blade," the wanderer said, with no inflection.

"Right, that. After personally leading two different charges into the fray and slaughtering a few Centurions, I found myself lost. I was cut off from everyone else. I didn't want to risk running back out and coming face to face with a grand javelin, so I explored the area a bit. And I found the sword. It was just lying there, as if waiting for me. I could feel the power of the Song thrumming in it, intensifying as I drew closer to it. The first time that I picked it up was one of the strangest experiences of my life. I felt as if I were, forgive me for the blasphemy, a god."

"I charged back out, emboldened by the power of gods in my hand. I couldn't remember much after that, but from what little conversations I recall, it was a bloodbath. They apparently had to restrain me since they still needed prisoners. I was so manic, so bloodlusted due to the sensation of my very self being drawn into the sword that I was killing them all. If I had gone on my rampage unopposed, I likely would've been demoted or branded a fugitive for wielding such an unknown power."

Alastir sighed. He had hoped to forget his past. "Alas, even with my exploits, my higher-ups had still deemed me a liability and a traitor. To this day, I still don't know how I betrayed them. All that I did was find a bright yellow sword with unknown markings and use it to the best of my ability..." Gods... why did this have to happen to me? "The Authority was scared of me. I was terrified of them. I was but one man in a vast luminant controlled by the best of their forces. The first chance I got, I snuck onto a ship headed to the East. And that's how I ended up here."

The Ganymede nodded. "How did you become a Royal Pathfinder for Erisia?"

Oh, for fuck's sake-

He had just spilled this blasted stranger his life story, and he wanted more!? The bastard!

No, no. Calm down. He had to keep his anger in check. Besides, everyone was asleep. He didn't want to wake the people under his care. My care, he thought. The irony of a former torturer guarding weaker, helpless stragglers in lands foreign was not lost on him.

Alastir coughed. "Perhaps another time," he said, just barely keeping his vitriol below the surface.

Without so much as even a "Thank you," the snail got up, turned around in one smooth motion and walked out of the respite, barging through the planks like they were nothing.

The pathfinder found his eyes starting to close now that there was nothing to do to keep him awake. What a strange Ganymede, were his last thoughts before falling asleep.

Chapter Text

The Voice of Sequestration cooed at the little Celtorian baby in front of her. "Look at them! Simply adorable, how could anyone leave them unattended down here?" She cupped them in her hands, letting them poke and prod at her face as a toddler would.

Voice of Sequestration: totally a mom(my)

"Somebody please get this little brat off my leg before I do so myself," said the Voice of Odium. He groaned as the insolent little thing slobbered all over his feet. Where was Sequestration when you needed her?

Voice of Odium: pale king-tier parenting

"Yes, crush these impudent beasts beneath your feet! Use the power you have over them and-"

The Voice of Enmity yelped as he heard footsteps approaching from behind. He kicked the thresher away, even though it was already neutralized by the child. Said child was also wielding an enforcer's axe, which he plucked out of their hands and quickly hid in his trench coat as he spun around to come face to face with the woman of the haphazard household.

"You better not have been pitting them against monsters."

The Voice of Enmity wiped the sweat off his brow. "I would never-!"

Voice of Enmity: sees the baby as entertainment, has to be reined in by Sequestration

"DON'T TOUCH THAT," the Voice of Authority ordered as he grabbed the child and (gently) carried them away from one of the cages. "NAUGHTY LITTLE THING YOU ARE."

The infant laughed as the man clad from head to toe in steel began to tickle it.

Voice of Authority: strict but surprisingly nice (Sequestration is tells him how to deal with kids)

"Now, you want to parry both swings. It looks hard, but these beasts aren't as strong as they look once you learn their patterns-"

The white glowing door/barrier was shattered into a billion shards as a large woman stepped in, furious at the Voice of Solitude for attempting to train the child (again!) despite them being too young to even understand what they were saying.

The person in the golden dress smirked as they ushered the child away. "And now, you'll learn how to run as fast as you can! Be sure to use all that I've taught you to evade this new foe-"

"Solitude!"

Voice of Solitude: Sarah Connor from Terminator 2. Tries to teach everything that they can to the child at a young age to mold them into the perfect warrior. Enmity approves

Bonus:

"Oh, gods below."

Odium had never hated his life as much as he did now. 

The arena was filled with children. Children on the cages, children trying to climb the pillars, children making a mess of things as they always did.

"Sequestration, where did all of these human offspring come from!?" 

Chapter Text

The elevator reached its destination. It had a lone Celtorian on it, and they seemed to be unarmed (for the most part). The Voices' collective curiosities were piqued. Were they planning on using their bare hands to beat the trial?

"Oh. Another one," the Voice of Odium sneered. "Repulsive. Can I finally kill-"

"It must be crushed in honorable combat!" The Voice of Enmity yelled. "Look at it! Simply begging to be pulverized by a creature of the Deep! Let's send in an Enforcer-"

A sweet, honeyed voice giggled, interrupting Enmity. "So stubborn! Why must you always try to escape your cage?" The Voice of Sequestration inquired. "Is it not ornate enough for you? Must I make it a little more... comfortable, for your liking?"

The young man blushed. He blushed. The Voice of Odium's nonexistent eyes widened at the sight. "Yes," he stammered out, before revealing a bouquet of corals and other Depths fauna shaped to look like flowers. "I- I- erm- I mean-"

"My, my..." the Voice of Sequestration purred, either in awe at the audacity of this mortal and deciding to humor him... or because she was genuinely considering it.

"THE CONDITIONS ARE FULFILLED. YOU ARE TO LEAVE." As the Celtor stood there, slack-jawed and dissipating into white wisps that slowly began to ascend, the Voice of Authority added, "DON'T TRY THIS AGAIN."

The Voice of Sequestration groaned. "Must you always ruin my fun?"

"YES," Authority bluntly replied.

Chapter Text

The Etrean smiled politely as he watched the man wearing the uniform of the Ignition Union walk in. "Ah, hello. I see my friend let you in."

"You are to return the books that you took from the library in the Isle of Vigils."

He blinked. So blunt. "Kelsius sent you to grab some books?"

"Affirmative," the ridiculously fit Ganymede replied. How socially inept could one be? Then again, of course he sent a blockhead to pick up his beloved books. Typical Authority thug, always relying on brute force.

"But may I ask why you're here?" He gave it a coy look.

"The books," it responded. It was like talking to a primitive automaton.

The Etrean yawned, pretending to look disinterested. "Of course, of course! That's why you're here, but... have you ever stopped to consider why you're doing this?"

It didn't reply. Khan saw this as an opportunity to press on. "You're working for a murderer, you swine."

"Irrelevant. In a broken world, everyone has killed at least once to survive. Your logic does not hold up." It seemed to scrutinize him despite having an almost-impossible to decipher expression, if you could even call it that. "The books," it repeated.

This brute was really testing his patience. Time to cut to the chase, he supposed. "You act as though your actions are of your own volition, but even now you show yourself to be a mere servant. Did you really think that any of your choices were of any consequence?" It, frustratingly, nodded. Know-it-all brat. He had to try harder. "Worry not, little swine, your true masters will soon wake."

He stood there, confident that they would obey and let him leave.

The Ganymede was still awake, weapon still slung on its back, and rather annoyingly not using it on itself right now. Khan hurriedly tapped the wood behind him, a signal for Sentinel to come rushing to his aid. The Ganymede still stood there, still staring at him, still not under the effects of his charisma. Needless to say, he was a tad bit afraid.

"The books," it said again, still in that monotone voice. Sentinel appeared behind it, a barrel in his hands before he smashed it down over the servant's head. It didn't even flinch. It turned around, emitting a menacing aura as its hands closed into fists.

Now was a good time to run, he thought. He hurriedly moved to the side, immediately running into an outstretched arm and getting clotheslined by it. As his consciousness began to fade in and out, he was dimly aware of two things. First, how it somehow knew what he was doing and how unbelievably strong it was (seriously, running into that arm felt like running into a big, beefy metal pole!). Second, how it was clearly not human, because what sort of human would be able to effortlessly throw Sentinel into the ceiling without breaking a sweat?

The Etrean was beginning to regret not picking a different place to hide in when the thug knelt down, reaching out to him. "The books," it said again. "Now."

"Ah, excellent work!" The librarian smiled warmly as he gave the Ganymede their reward. "As a token of my thanks, please take these cards of mine. Perhaps you'll find some use for them?" The Ganymede studied the cards, before pocketing them in his jeans (Kelsius was somewhat jealous of them for having such a fine pair of pants). "And feel free to browse through any of the books here."

The man looked around, before revealing a bag of notes in his hand. A very, very large bag of notes. Kelsius' eyes widened. This would benefit the library so much!

"I want every book that you have on history, and books on how to become sturdier."

He sputtered, "O-of course! Just- let me find some-" He vaulted over the counter, running to the shelves and looking for what they just asked for. "I'll- I'll be back! Just wait there, please!"

They nodded, standing there and still holding out the large bag of notes.

Chapter Text

The Felinor dug around in the chest below deck, his nocturnal eyes scanning the seemingly empty pit of darkness until he found something he could use. He swiftly turned around, having grabbed what was needed and making his way back to the fight above him.

He saw one of his fellows being slowly beaten back by a pair in purple cloaks. Frowning, he took out one of the bottles, yelling, "Envy, get back!" Before tossing the unknown substance at the feet of both sailors. Immediately, they staggered to the side, the sound of glass breaking evidently startling them and causing them to focus their attention on him instead.

They promptly got hit by the next few bottles, sending one to the ground while the other stumbled around, as if drunken and dazed, out of their mind, even. The Knife looked down at the faded labeling on the potion.

WIT SMASHER (DO NOT DRINK) was written on it in big, bold letters. He looked back up at the Etrean sailors, one of whom was drooling all over the deck of the ship while the other had made their way to the taffrail to relieve their stomach of its contents. Briefly, he felt a pang of sympathy for the two of them, if only because of how genuinely embarrassing of a display it was.

Hearing the clanging of weapons, he turned to the ship that they had attacked, spotting his captain fighting the last sailor. Without hesitation, he threw another potion at them, the bottle smashing into the back of the Etrean's head and leaving a colorful cloud that encompassed both fighters.

Cannon fire was exchanged. Cannon fire was silenced, as both ships had destroyed each other's cannons in the first few minutes of the attack. The captain jeered at the Etreans on the other ship. "Ooh, look at me! I'm an Etrean sailor, all bark, no bite!" He paused, as if thinking. "Well, not that snakes can bark anyways! Or bite! Ahahaha!" The captain laughed madly, completely unaware of his Etrean counterpart standing on the sails of his ship before flying forwards, propelled by the wind and his battleaxe.

Before his weapon could make contact with the pirate, the man immediately got into a stance, a bubble coming out of him that encompassed the Etrean and caused him to slow to a near halt. One of the Knives calmly walked over to the sailor, wrenching his weapon out of his grip before smacking his face with the handle. The bubble disappeared, and the Etrean, regaining his prior momentum crashed into the wall, knocking himself out.

"It's like these vipers get more incompetent every time we see them!"

The pirates were losing, surprisingly. The captain wiped her face with a gloved hand. She looked back at her crew worryingly. The Etreans certainly wouldn't leave them alive if they got their hands on the Knives. Not after being humiliated so thoroughly in their own Luminant. She looked back at the ship pursuing them. Credit where credit was due, those sailors were surprisingly competent. It was a miracle that she and her crew had escaped them alive.

I need another miracle.

She looked at the speed gate. It led to three diverging paths. Songseeker Wilds. Not an option, as if she were foolish enough to square off against those mad attunement worshipping cultists. Etris. Suicide. Minityrsa. Uncharted island, snows eternally... unfortunately her best bet. She sailed into the gate, hoping that the Etreans were worse at controlling their ship than she was after all of her injuries.

The wind rushed past her hair. She paid it no mind. She had keep sailing straight. Statue. She gave it no more than a split-second glance as she sped past it. The speed gate was now visible on the horizon. I have to keep sailing!

She risked a glance back to her crew. No Etreans, thank the gods. And just as quickly, she turned back to the speed gate, which was now almost directly overhead. She sailed to the left as the her ship left the confines of the highway, no longer boosted by the Ignition Union's strange technology. Almost immediately, she heard the Etrean ship slow down behind her as well. Still, she kept her nerves and kept. Sailing.

The snow began to pick up out of nowhere. She ignored it.

The shoreline appeared. She sailed past it. Minityrsa wasn't a good place to stand their ground and fight, even worse if they were marooned there. But beyond the frosted hellscape... was their sanctuary. She just had to... keep...

She had been sailing for several rather tense minutes now. The Etreans were still, annoyingly, hot on her tail. Were they suicidal? Probably. But their wounded pride had likely given them the strength to carry on. It would kill them, but they probably knew that. They wouldn't go down without dragging her and her men with them.

She was aware that she had lost a lot of blood by now. Maybe that was why everything felt so disconnected and so smooth and unnatural and wrong. One moment, she was holding a steering wheel. The next, it was a fruit cake. She liked cakes. Maybe it was edible, and maybe she could sustain herself off of it. It wouldn't be long before it political however. Objects that were not alive but were good quarrelers, even if you had to eat them to prove your point. They dug a hole into her eyes though, and then they buried a dead brainsucker in it. (She was dimly aware that her grasp on everything was slipping.)

The sky was gray, the wind howled eerily, and the Etreans were still chasing her. Despite the madness of it all, she felt relieved. Finally, she thought as she let go of the steering wheel and shambled down the steps to meet with her crewmen. They both gave her unsure looks. She searched her pockets as she saw bubbles in her peripheral vision. The Voideye shimmered in her hand. Both men took her hand in theirs, and in a few moments, they were gone.

Still the Etreans chased, eager to bring the pirates to justice. They never found out that they were chasing a group of ghosts until after their vessel was wrecked by a whirlpool right in front of them. And by then, it was too late to turn back.

They sunk.

Chapter Text

He saw a bottle on the nightstand. He grabbed it, sitting up in one quick motion and gulping down the contents of the bottle. It didn't taste like anything. Of course, dead people probably didn't have working tongues, but it was still a bit disappointing to find out that the same applied to him.

The man looked over his shoulder, at the sleeping figure on the bed. He was surprised that she was still asleep after he probably jostled her legs or something equivalent to that, though he attributed it to angels just being heavy sleepers. He never really knew that they needed to sleep or were even capable of it, but it was nice to know, he supposed.

Actually, he was impressed that they managed to sleep at all. The city was surprisingly chaotic — and loud — most of the time. Souls trying to kill each other off permanently, monsters attempting to get their next meal (and paying dearly for it), gods forbid, the Watchers spotting someone literally every 30 minutes (he had counted; that was the longest they had gone without releasing that gods-awful scream of theirs) and...

Edward yawned. He wasn't really in the mood to go back out there, not when she was right here and made for much better company. He gave one last look out the window, spotting a jellyfish the size of a house wandering the streets, before going back to the bed and going back under the covers.

I wonder if we can... he yawned, dream...

And so he went back to sleep.

Chapter Text

"Hm, this breeze is nice, isn't it?" the Lord Erisia said to the chamber full of people around him — well, not people, more like drones, but they were still enough like their former selves for him to talk to, so here he was, doing just that. He glanced at one of his subjects, before making his way over to them in a single bound. "You know, I've always admired some of you common folk for what you are."

The servant didn't move. He smirked. "Some of you are simply so... beautiful. I can't describe it in any other way. The way you squirmed when my instruments poked and prodded at your very mind, the way you still tried to pry me off as I-" They shuddered, ever so slightly. He wouldn't have noticed it earlier, but now that he was practically breathing down their neck... "Oh? Does my recollection of your inception make you... uncomfortable?" he mocked.

They were trembling now, and in the corner of his vision he swore that he could see the others give them wary glances. So they're all tainted. He would have to deal with that later, but for now... perhaps a little fun was in order. He rarely got to enjoy himself anyways, always working day in and day out for the good of everyone... surely they could forgive him for being a tad bit selfish, just this once.

He placed his hand on their shoulder. They jolted, going still immediately. "I truly did enjoy it when you were all... normal. Still clueless as to how doomed we all were, still basking in my glory, as you are now." He studied them, watching them like one of those blasted things from the Depths did in the city that they took over. "I can see that you're still as fit as ever. Maybe you retained enough of your memory to keep training, even after I've put your soul to better use elsewhere." He grinned as they began to sweat profusely. Tainted.

The Lord of the island leaned in, whispering into their ear. "You can move now."

But they didn't. Still keeping up their charade of being mindless. Being empty. He knew better, they all knew of course, but they still did it! How foolish.

His smile disappeared. "Move. I know you're alive." They didn't heed his order, proving that they were in fact tainted! Didn't they see that disobeying him could only be done if they still had a fraction of themselves left? "True mindless servants don't ignore my instructions when I say them," he said out loud. "All you're doing is making things worse for yourselves," he continued. "Now, I won't repeat myself again, Freya. MOVE!"

The servant finally stumbled forwards, likely surprised at the fact that he still knew their name even after all these years. They turned to face him, hands held up, as if they deserved his mercy after all he had done for them. The other servants had still kept up appearances. No matter, he could always break them later. For now, however... "All of you, leave." Before the Adret could make a break for it, he pointed at them, causing them to freeze in pure unbridled terror. "You. Stay. Here."

As all of the other servants went out of the door, he approached the Adret. They winced as he grabbed their arm roughly, pulling them up and on their feet. "You and I are going to have a good little talk, does that sound good to you?" He gave them a reassuring grin as he said this.

They didn't respond as he dragged them to a table, only giving a whimper as he sat them down and took out a notepad.

Chapter Text

The Hive guard chuckled as he handed the note to the tied-up snake in front of him. "Read-" he snickered, "-this, read this."

They weren't as amused. "I'm tied up, how am I supposed to hold that?"

"I told you to read it, not to hold-"

"Well then why did you hand it to me!?" They snapped.

"Look, just read it!"

They studied the writing on the parchment. "It's... what the fuck is this?" They looked back at him. "Is this a joke?"

The Vesperian nodded. "Read it!" He made a move, as if to unsling his cutlass. "Or else."

"Prick," they mumbled, before studying the paper. "Uhhh..."

The other guards were enjoying the show as much as he was. The other prisoners thought it was funny too, judging by how some of them were stifling their laughter while others had looked away to hide their expressions.

"I'm sorry for being white?" Their eyes widened. "Hey!"

The prisoners burst out laughing while the guards cried tears of joy upon hearing what the note said.

The Etrean groaned. "I shouldn't have gone to Aratel."

Chapter Text

He groaned as the knife was jabbed into his leg again, his nails digging into the palms of his hands in an attempt to distract himself from the pain. He looked at her, eyes wide and lips pursed as she glanced at him, apathetic to his plight. "Stop," he gasped out. She twisted the knife. "STOP!"

She pulled the knife out of his leg. He sighed, relieved (but still in pain) and now losing... gods know how much blood at this point. She dug around in a container behind her, whatever it was, he didn't know nor care, and pulled out a fruit salad, which she proceeded to force down his throat despite his obvious discomfort with it.

He swallowed the salad (if you could even call it that!) and leaned against the wall behind him. "...Why?" he croaked, despite his exhaustion.

The cultist looked at him, stone-faced as always. "Because I can," she answered, putting the knife away and sitting down next to him, likely to observe her handiwork as she always did. She was sizing him up like a- a piece of meat... it sickened him. He liked her company, regardless.

Sleep was beginning to take him back down. He welcomed it. She wouldn't torture him if he was asleep, some sort of weird morality or whatever the fuck you could call it. Code of honor? He doubted that, considering how she was willing to make him suffer even when he told her everything she wanted to hear. He rested his head on her shoulder, trusting her and her alone with his life.

If anyone had the right to kill him, it should be her, he thought. What a woman...

He wasn't awake to see her peck him on the forehead, nor did he see her place her arm over his head and pull him to herself.

Beneath the mask, the Vesperian smiled to herself. Mine.

Chapter Text

He gave a lopsided smile as she carved out another symbol on his leg. He screamed as she continued turning his leg into some sort of messed up pie. (He was dimly aware that this was not a good way to ease the pain) He ignored the wayward thought as he shrieked silently, nothing came out of his lips since he was out of breath, it was painful, it hurt, he was okay, and she was satisfied.

"This hurts," he wheezed out.

She replied, "I know," and kept doing it. He should've put that revolver to better use when he had the chance. He didn't know what he quite meant by that thought, but it was too late now, wasn't it? No turning back. Not that he could. He does not sob, since that would make her feel bad, and he didn't want to ruin her moment by being so melodramatic.

Were those footsteps? He briefly considered warning her, but he couldn't even tell if they were real. They sounded pretty far-off though, so maybe it was another skirmish with the Union thieves trying to steal their food their gunpowder, I'm slipping-

This was how the people down there felt, huh? False hope, false hope everywhere, at least here I know it's real, it fucking hurts but it's real and that's good enough for me

She snapped her fingers in front of him, drawing his attention. He looked at her, curious. She returned his gaze, tilting her head curiously. The footsteps were getting louder, was she suffering his insanity too? He wasn't alone. We're suffering together! If she didn't like him, then she would've left, but she's here, and that's proof enough for me.

The woman in black swiveled around, unsheathing her dagger before hesitating. Inexplicably, she gave him his gun. The revolver? Why? And then she untied his hands. He understood. She cared after all.

And without a word, she turned back to the entrance, waiting for the danger that was definitely there, and not in his head, and if I go down there while like this, I'm going to not live another second, and he watched as she fought with another blue man like him. Blue. Blue guard, Summer Company, THEY WERE HERE!

Well, of course they were, it was an abandoned outpost of theirs, but wow, he wasn't expecting that development! He should. He should. He.

Pursing his lips, he aimed the revolver at the fight in front of him. He cocked the hammer, even as the pain made his arms quiver. He didn't want to. They were all not his enemies, and the fight was getting worse, he had to act now or lose everything or else all of this torture was worthless, she was just protecting him-

Protecting me, he thought. That was why she gave him his gun back, and his hands, oh he missed how the trigger felt behind his index finger, he was in control this time, finally, freedom, freedom. His hands began to steady. He put the mechanism to his eyes, using it as some sort of sight, and relaxed.

You want me to protect myself?

Just as easily as before, he pulled the trigger.

A hole is formed. Through the hole, you can see the smoking barrel of freedom. Looking at the hole from the other perspective, you can see that rest is now feasible. The hole is still there, even as the body hits the floor and as the utensil for torment is dropped by its bearer, who is now no longer a threat. Compatriots are now tending to your lacerations, even as your mind becomes misaligned and you don't hear anything that they're saying.

They are talking, you are not hearing, you are safe, you are free, you are unconscious.

Chapter Text

You wake up to skies of green, no Sun too,

You see things blue, for me and you,

And you think to yourself

He doubled over, vomiting his stomach's contents (mainly fruit salads, much to his utter disgust). "Oh, Gods," he retched. This can't be happening. I got rescued. I got tortured. They rescued me too late... His face scrunched up in understanding. Fuck.

The guard got up, looking around the surprisingly beautiful Celtor Wastes. He paused. Wastes. This place was simply doing wonders (NOT!) for his sanity. He had to get out of here.

He stumbled into someone else on the way to the slope gate. A very familiar someone else, one that he wished he wouldn't see so soon, or at all, actually. Before she could even turn to face him, he had pulled a revolver out (this isn't even my gun, how did it get into my holster) and aimed it at that mask. Neither of them moved. She wasn't pulling out her knife. In any case, I'm not falling for any of her tricks again.

(Ironically, dying felt like the best thing that could have happened to him. It cleared his mind. He wondered if the same applied to her, though you probably couldn't fix crazy.)

"You're not shooting me," she carefully observed. He didn't grace her with a reply.

Crazy bitch. Not even certain death could scare her straight.

He shook the unusually aggressive thoughts of his head. She wronged him, yes, but that felt a little too angry, even for him. Must be insanity creeping in. He was on an invisible timer, and he was currently wasting precious seconds mugging the cultist that tortured him.

Hey, I could probably use her... "help".

Didn't like the sound of that, but fine, he supposed. "Let's not kill each other down here," he began, through clenched teeth.

She cut him off almost immediately. "You're the one pointing a gun at me-"

"Only because you're the reason that I'm even down here in the first place!" He took a deep breathe, and was promptly assailed with the smell of salt. "Look, how about I- how about we pretend that we're allies for the time being to escape the Depths? Sound like a good deal to you?"

He (im)patiently waited for her answer. A few seconds passed, and he swore that he could hear the cogs turning in her head. After a short while, "Yes."

"Good. Now follow me," he said, looking around them as he stepped in front of her (she thankfully did not try to stab him in the back yet). "I think I can find a good route into the city."

He trudged along the wet sand, despising how it felt on his boots. At least his temporary "ally" was dealing with the same problem. That made him feel just the tiniest bit better about being in the underworld. They entered the gate. No monsters in sight, thankfully. The guard standing nearby gave her a curious look, likely recognizing the cultist getup.

The Summer Company grunt was somewhat worried, if only because of the fact that he was associated with her and might be declared as an enemy. He grabbed her arm, pulling her along as he ran deeper into the city (where more guards were).

At least, he could see the entrance into the cathedral in sight. The gate was open, someone must've gone through the effort of ringing the bells for everyone else. He hoped that they made it out.

He climbed up, noticing that the guards were thankfully uncaring of his presence. He sighed in relief. So far, their luck was good.

They immediately pulled out their trident spears, and one glance behind him told him everything he needed to know. So far, my luck was good.

He didn't want to kill these poor bastards, and he certainly didn't want to waste the time nor the effort in fighting them off either. So instead, he settled for shooting their kneecaps off with his revolver, already having it drawn as soon as he was on his feet again. The guard closest to him dropped, hissing in pain through a waterlogged throat. He quickly aimed at the other guard and shot his knee, sending him down as well.

Everything from the past few days (Don't you mean months? the sane[?] splinter of his mind supplied; he pushed it away immediately) came rushing back to him. Mainly, how he used four bullets in the surface, and now, two down here. I'm out. They were trained to use their Ether to substitute for real bullets if necessary, but he'd run out of Ether faster than he could with bullets.

Kicking the guard in front of him to make sure he stayed down for the time being, he aimed the revolver at the second guard as he cautiously made his way into the cathedral with the P.O.S. trailing behind him. Of course, they don't know my gun's empty, so might as well use that advantage while I can. As he ran into the cathedral elevator (which was conveniently waiting for him them) and pulling the lever, he slid the cylinder out and let the empty bullets fall. Or while I need to.

The elevator went up, leaving the his two would-be enemies behind. He let himself relax. As the room appeared, he braced himself. "Here comes the hard part," he said, mostly to himself.

It stopped moving. He could feel the trepidation building up inside of him.

"Great, more of them," one of those voices hatefully spat out.

Another voice, more feminine, cooed. "Oh, little ones... you mustn't leave your cage..." And for a moment, he grew somewhat hopeful. A sane voice? "Though it is simply adorable to watch you struggle," it giggled. Never mind then.

"Sounds like someone I know," he muttered, glancing to the cultist. Despite actually being slightly taller than him, she shrank ever so slightly under his scrutinizing gaze.

"These ones are fit for crushing," a more masculine voice growled. "I shall relish in scraping their remains off of the floor."

Fit for crushing?

The first voice sighed, clearly more worn about this than the rest of his peers. "Make it quick... Just looking at them makes me feel sick."

I'm probably imagining this, thought the guard.

An armored monstrosity appeared, immediately pulling him to it and raising a hefty looking greataxe. I'm not imagining this. He sidestepped the blow that would've cleaved him in half, aiming his gun at the thing and firing. It didn't even flinch, and he just wasted precious Ether. He immediately backed out the way of another strike, the big mean thing glaring at him as he fired into its face to no effect.

Thankfully, the absolutely mad Vesperian decided that now was a good time to lodge her knife into the thin slit between its neck and collar, apparently causing it to switch targets, now trying to grab her and likely throw her off. Putting aside his personal feelings for the despicable woman, he ran up to the monster, lodged his gun into its "mouth", and fired.

It jerked, trying to grab him but being distracted by her stabbing the knife even deeper into its neck. He fired again. It went slack, forcing him to pull his gun out and jump back to avoid being crushed by the murderous suit of armor. Likewise, she had also jumped off, giving the monster one last look before it disappeared, fading to white ash.

"...you've got to be kidding me," the first voice from earlier returned.

The second voice didn't say anything, though he could feel a vague sense of anger directed towards the both of them.

"THE CONDITIONS ARE FULFILLED," a completely different and more regal voice intoned. "THEY ARE TO LEAVE."

The female voice giggled. "Be seeing you soon, my lovelies..."

As he felt his very self return into its place in the surface, he gave the creepy voice one parting word. "Weirdo." And he turned to give the cultist one (hopefully) final look, only to see that she had already disappeared.

.

.

.

.

.

.

He shot up. He patted himself down, feeling no injuries. He checked the bullets in his revolver. No bullets. It happened.

He looked at the Vesperian, seeing her get up as well. He schooled his face into a neutral expression. He returned her stare when she turned to look at him, expression as unreadable as always.

"I..." She trailed off, uncharacteristically unsure. Then, silence.

Not even gonna apologize, huh?

His free hand balled up into a fist. "If I ever see you again I'm not gonna hesitate to put 'nother bullet in your head," he ground out. The man then walked past her, heading back to the castle. He didn't want to hear whatever she had to say in response.

Chapter Text

Edward rushed forward to help his brethren. He surveyed the scene. What could have possibly attacked these two? Everything was too clean for some wild animal, so his next best guess... but the angels said they wouldn't attack them. So...

What exactly attacked you? He directed towards the waterlogged Celtor.

They ground their teeth. Some mercenary scab with the ugliest blue uniform known to man. Had a Ministry scout with him, I've no clue why he's helping her...

Blue uniform... those Summer Company people. He regularly found them wandering the city, trying to get out after dying on their own island. Their security must've been quite lax, since a lot of them ended up drowned. They didn't use any proper weapons, instead plagiarizing off of the older layer's technologies. He inspected the wound on his friend's knee. Something small seemingly tore right through it.

I think he was being tricked. If we see him next time, maybe try communicating with him? We could reason him out of it, Edward proposed.

The guard laughed. As if I'll let him off the hook so easily for shooting my gods-damned knee off and kicking me on the back of my head. I'm going to kick his arse. And this was why Edward elected not to tell him about who the blue man was, if only to make sure that he didn't attack innocents in the process.

He nodded. Sure, I suppose. I can't stop you. He got up, waving them goodbye before walking back to his house. Err, he couldn't really tell it was his house. He wished that they didn't put all of their personal belongings away, it made it harder to tell whose house was whose. And he certainly didn't want to barge in on some drowned... love. He coughed. Somehow.

Opening the door, he saw a massive shadow cast on him. He looked up, seeing a lionfish fight a group of drowned people. It was getting beaten up badly. He wondered if he should interfere.

The lionfish fired another blast of what he assumed to be superheated vomit, almost vaporizing one of the fighters. He immediately went inside and closed the door behind him. If they wanted to go look for trouble, he wasn't inclined to stop them, nor was he too interested in joining them in the afterlife as they inevitably fell to something in the Depths.

...Hm. It was a slow day, and he didn't really feel like sleeping. But he'd already done his guard duty and he didn't feel like going on another patrol just to get attacked by a looter trying to see if he would drop anything valuable. Maybe the windows would offer something nice.

He went upstairs, glancing at the angel before making his way to the window and looking outside. He couldn't see much, but it sounded like pure chaos, as it always did. In the distance, he could hear a megalodaunt roar, probably a trial or another unfortunate duo of Divers. The familiar shing-shing-shing of those terrapods, slicing men into ribbons with their sharp legs. He yawned as he saw a massive crab crawl across the street, chasing a plainly clothed Etrean.

Losing his interest, Edward made his way to a nearby chair. He sat down, recounting his life so far. It was all he could do to keep himself entertained down here.

Chapter Text

The peacekeeper cooled himself with a piece of paper, the cool air against his face making him smile a bit. He felt relaxed, all things considered. "Wow, this breeze is great, right?"

The prisoner doesn't respond.

"So, what's keeping you busy these days?" he asked.

Still, they don't respond. They look down, hiding their face. He didn't seem to notice.

"Some weather we're having, huh?"

The gentle breeze that was cooling him off stopped. "Please. Please let me go back to my cell," it begged. "I'm so tired..."

The peacekeeper didn't care. "Keep blowing, Etrean trash."

They let out a few hacking sobs. The wind picks back up.

He continues fanning himself. 

"Wow, this breeze is great, right?"

Chapter Text

She stared at her own clothes. They were... effective. They were horrible. They were made of such fine materials, and she was about to discard them. And for what? Her mask would be recognized. She could never go home again. Not that Minityrsa was a good home by any means, but... it was familiar. And now, she couldn't step foot on it.

Good, a more vehement part of her mind supplied. I don't want to go back to those ways. Dying was arguably the best thing that could've happened to her, she had a (somewhat) clean slate and the Ministry wouldn't care about a single scout mysteriously never reporting back, they'd assume that she died from unknown causes and that would be the end of it.

But that still left the question of what to do with the cloak. It was a good cloak, tattered and dirty but good. It did its job. It was effective. It labeled her as pure evil, which she used to be (and likely still was).

I need a different outfit, the pragmatic side of her said. The side that kept her alive for so long, that kept him from killing her off, once and for all. As long as she was never seen again. And yet here she was, defying his last request order to her.

She sat down, thankful that she hadn't taken the lower half of the outfit off yet. It wasn't as recognizable, and actually felt rather comfortable to wear. Speaking of.

Only four choices, and one of those I can't pick unless I want to die. Nomads. Absolutely not, their robes are so loose that they might as well be going out nude. Those Ignition Union people. And get shot by the Summer Company for wearing their enemy's colors. Brilliant. The Summer Company. Get outed as an impostor and summarily executed.

She had to get something more... common. Even if it wasn't as effective. Dammit.

She could hear fighting nearby. Cautiously, she peeked out of the corner, spotting a person in a red uniform losing their head. Her eyes widened behind her mask. Not because of the violence, oh goodness no, she was perfectly fine with that. But those clothes...

The Ignition Union fighter spat on the corpse. "Scab," he said to it. Damn adventurers, always trying to suck up to the Company. They didn't even make any good weapons. Why, the Union did everything much better.

He was too busy stroking his faction's ego to stop the Krulian knife from slitting his throat, nor was he able to stop his assailant from pushing him to the floor, making sure he died without seeing who attacked him.

The body twitched below her. She slowly got up, looking around to make sure that nobody was nearby to see her so vulnerable.

She hurried over to the corpse in the red uniform. Without even an ounce of hesitation, she

The blacksmith cocked his brow when he saw the woman-who-was-wearing-almost-nothing-on-her-top-oh-Gods-why approach him. In her hand was a black cloak and a red, stained tunic.

"What do you want me to do with this?"

She cleared her throat. "I need you to... combine these. See if you can somehow merge the cloak with that uniform." This was despite the fact that he wasn't Jarvis. Combining things together wasn't his modus operandi, but... he could do it.

"Mmm, alright. Normally, people go down there to smelt things together, but Jarvis only works for single armor pieces. This? I'm much better at combining whole threads-"

"That's nice," she interrupted.

He frowned, but understood what she meant. Do your job.

So he did. He did his best to combine the two, asking her what she wanted it to look like ("I want it to resemble the uniform," she had said) and doing his damnedest to make it work. She watched.

"Phew!" He wiped the sweat off of his brow, though more began to trickle down his face in spite of it. "There you go, ma'am. Your very own... err... uniform." She took the clothes in his hand. Finally, I don't have to look at her face specifically.

The cloak was a darker red than it used to be, with the strange blue hue of the cloak mixing with the reds of the tunic to create a strange, dark purple color.

"It's perfect," she replied after a few minutes of studying it.

"Glad to hear it. 300 notes, that took a lot out of me."

She began fishing in her pocket, eventually pulling out a bag of notes that conveniently said 450. He grabbed it, opening the bag to check if it really was enough.

5 minutes later and he had counted it all, handing her back the extra notes. "Glad to be of service, milady." He nodded.

Wordlessly, she went outside. Not even thanking him. The blacksmith sighed. At least I got some notes out of that, he thought.

The Vesperian made her way around the castle, ignoring the glances that the guards gave her as she walked around aimlessly. She had worn that amalgamation of a uniform though, so maybe they were more disgusted at how odd her clothes were. She didn't care. Nobody could recognize her as a Ministry scout anymore.

"Excuse me, where's the inn?" she asked an Etrean guard, making her voice higher (and more cheerful) than usual to mask it. So far, it was working well.

He gave her a curious look. "Oh, it's just by the island over there. You should be able to swim there if you're willing."

"Thank you," she replied, leaving before he could question why she was wearing a pair of grimy pants.

The inn was a surprisingly calm place, she mused. Despite being on the most chaotic set of islands in the luminant, it was surprisingly tame save for the occasional Ignition Union member stumbling into the place, only to get chased out by the guards.

She sighed, before taking a swig of whatever it was they served here. It felt bitter. She didn't mind, it was sustenance, and she needed it. It was good at making her lose her thoughts.

Paying the barkeep (she assumed that the red clothed woman was a barkeep), she stumbled out of the inn, trudging along the path. She sat down, leaning against the fence, looking up at the sky. It felt good, not having any worries, even if it didn't last.

Did I forget anything? She asked herself. She patted herself on the head, feeling something soft and shape-y on it. No, I'm not forgetting anything.

"I know you've had a very bad few weeks, but I need you to do something."

The Celtor groaned as his friend (opportunistic bastard that he was) gave him another set of responsibilities to deal with ("It'll distract you," he said. "Help you recover!"). "What is it?" he said, looking at him as he did so.

The Adret scratched the back of his head. "There's some weird lady going around, blacksmith said she went in wearing nothing but her pants and something covering her chest, then she made him fuse a weird black cloak-"

He shot up. "Black cloak? What was she wearing?"

"Dark purple uniform that looked like a hive drone uniform with some dirty green pants... and a bicorn." His friend looked at him. "You okay?"

He thought about the question. "Yeah, I'm fine. Where is she?" He relaxed, leaning back on the chair.

"Guards said she was at the inn, getting drunk or some shit. Why?"

The Celtor smiled. "Oh, just worried. I think she might be a tad bit unstable, and I'll need to check her out for myself. Y'know, since we're all so tied up." Unstable. Hah.

"If you say so. Good luck, Colt."

Colt nodded, retreating back into his own thoughts as he replied, "Likewise, Darnell."

The Adret Darnell left. Colt placed a hand on his own thigh, digging his fingers into it.

Unluckiest guard alive, he thought.

Chapter Text

She stares at the humanoid squid thing in front of her. It stares back, waiting for her to move. "Let's fight," she said.

It didn't respond, bringing its hands up and balling them into fists. She grinned.

She belts out a stream of lightning that latches onto the squid monster, shocking it repeatedly even as it tries to do something. It succeeds, and the mantra stops affecting it as blue smoke comes out of its shoulders. She frowns.

It flips into the air, before lunging at her with a kick. She parries it, retaliating by punching it in its eyes. It perseveres, throwing a few punches at her that she parries. It kicks, and she blocks it, not having expected it.

Before it can follow up with another attack, she kicks forwards, electrocuting the beast and knocking it back. It runs at her, jumping into the air before kicking down at her. It lands, and she staggers back, just barely managing to parry the following punch.

She stomps on its toes (it didn't seem to have any though), stunning it long enough for her to land a few more punches before it parries the fourth. It seems to throw a punch, before stopping and punching with a different arm. Still, she manages to block it, retaliating with a thunder kick that stuns it again, letting her pummel its back with a few strong punches.

It elbows her, before stomping on the ground and sending her flying with a blast of blue energy. She flips backwards, stomping down just as her feet touch its head. It clutches its head, letting her summon another stream of electricity that continually shocks it, finally causing it to fall on all fours. It pants, seemingly exhausted.

Frankly, she was also tired. "Good fight," she said in between breathes. It looks up at her, before giving her a thumbs up and collapsing. She promptly follows its example by leaning against the nearby wall, breathing heavily.

That was a good way to train myself, she thought before passing out.

Chapter Text

They stared down at the waters below, watching the waves crash against the rocks and feeling it seep into their clothes. They hated it, but what was there to do here?

Their reluctant companion (who was at fault for their predicament) was doing the same, just staring into the bottomless sea. They drummed their fingers on their knees.

"So, what made you think it was a good idea to tackle me into the waters?"

The nomad looked off to the side, grimacing. "I do not know," she tersely replied.

"...I'm not surprised," they sighed.

Something was moving the the tattered edges of their cloak around. They glance down, spotting the hand playing with it, as if its wearer wasn't sitting right here. They look up at the nomad, who seemed blissfully unaware of the face that they were giving her.

Finally, she turns to look at them, notices their expression, and draws her hand back to herself, gazing at the waters as if it never happened.

Despite their conditioning, they felt the faint edges of a smile begin to tug at their face. They quickly school it back to their default, emotionless expression. Can't have the nomad seeing their weakness.

"You smiled," she said, in an almost inquisitive tone.

They roll their eyes, knowing that she can't see them. "Brilliant observation," they scoffed.

The ambient sounds of the sea acted as the silence between the two.

A formerly lost thought returned to the forefront of their mind. "How do we sustain ourselves here?"

She twirled a part of their cloak around her finger. "Pray that we make it off this rock before we starve," she suggested.

They were starving. They both likely didn't have much time left on the surface. Seemed even the optimism she had shown finally waned after weeks of no sustenance. At least I'm not alone in this conundrum.

"If I die..." they began, before trailing off. "At least it'll be with a... a f-...." They ground their teeth. Losing my composure... weakness. Intimacy with an enemy of the Ministry...

The nomad smiled at them, soft and reassuring. "A friend? I suppose it's too early to call you that, but... companions, maybe." She wrapped an arm over their shoulders, and it took every fiber of their being to prevent themselves from flinching.

They relaxed. They knew how horrible this world was, but to be taunted with a promise of rest? Of warmth and happiness? It made it all the more obvious to them, and Gods below did it hurt. 

...That said, she did seem rather sincere about it despite trying to kill them days (how long has it truly been?) prior, at the war profiteers' island. Perhaps it would do them well to trust a foe, just this once.

Chapter Text

He grinned madly. "Fellow nobles, this is Freya! She's one of my servants!" He pumped his fist into the air.

Nobody said anything. The blindfolded people in front of him didn't dare move a muscle or even so much as twitch. They all just stood there, awkwardly waiting for the next order (which they likely hoped was something related to being as far away from him as possible). The Duke's eye twitched.

"Alright, now get out. It's time for me to be alone, with Freya." He watched as they all walked out of the room, his smile widening when one of them gave him a small glance. They quickly ran out after the others.

He watched as the door closed on its own.

The Duke calmly grabs a table with both hands as Freya looks on, terrified in her own subdued way. He turns to her. He opens his mouth.

"I HATE YOU!" He raised the table over her head, and she watched, helpless despite having control of her body. "I FUCKING HATE YOU!" The table went down, smashed onto her skull, and Freya fell to the floor, unthinking.

The Lord of Erisia took a deep, calming breath. He dusted himself off. "My apologies. I think I went mad for a second... Where were we?" He glanced down.

Freya briefly contemplated trying to stab the Duke with one of the table's splinters, then herself. Or just herself. She stands up. She says nothing.

"What?"

The Adret stares intensely at the Duke. If he wanted his damn charade of normality so much, fine! He could have it then, along with all the unpleasantness that came with it.

The Duke looked incredulous. "Are you mad at me???"

The servant says nothing, seemingly glaring at him.

The Celtor tsked. "T'was an accident. I don't know why you're so pressed over it," he muttered, adding a flippant shrug to the statement. The gall.

"I got- something disturbed me, alright?" He spoke to her as if she were a child. "Am I forbidden from being nonplussed now?" He adjusted his glasses. He sighed. "You always do this. Always. Simply irritating to deal with." He looked away, giving her the shoulder.

She reached her hand out to one pointed splinter, before stopping. Self-control... She stood straight once more, saying nothing.

Chapter Text

She stirred in her sleep, feeling the chilling winds beat against her body. She slowly opened one eye. Her breath caught as she laid eyes upon a familiar black cloak.

“No,” she said weakly. The Celtor said nothing. Instead, she surveyed her surroundings. An icy hellscape with life just barely managing to get by. She wasn’t-! This couldn’t be… she swore she was at the Summer Company’s island, not back here. “I can’t be…”

The other scout took a step towards her. Instinctively, she scampered back, hitting a wall as the scout continued to advance, eyes locking with his as she reached for a knife that wasn’t there. She patted her waist down, feeling nothing but her own clothes. Looking back up, she noticed that her knife was in his hand, she didn’t know how but she knew.

In one swift motion, he stabbed the knife deep into her chest, eliciting a pained cry from the Vesperian as he grabbed her by her hair and brought her closer to his face. The Celtor’s stoic mask slipped off for the briefest moment.

“Traitor.”

He twisted the knife…

And the Vesperian jolted awake, eyes madly flicking around as she immediately reached to her knife before stopping. Nothing but the distant sounds of skirmishes and the lively conversations taking place in the nearby inn. She was safe. She was still on the Summer Isle.

She wanted to cry.

Instead, she held back the tears (of what, she didn’t know) and focused on getting a hold of herself. Deep, calming breaths. She needed to find a way to live here without getting found out by the Ministry.

She grabbed the fence behind her, slowly getting on her feet…

“Me-wow! Is that the latest Felinor fashion?”

She nearly crushed the fence in her grip as she turned to face the speaker. He looked like a generic adventurer. Ugly mismatched gear with scratched up clothes and a cheap weapon on his back. He was reading from a book that she couldn’t quite see the title of.

Glancing up to her, he said, “So, how’s work?” The insincere and obviously practiced question made her skin crawl. Briefly, she entertained the notion of fighting him, but it didn’t seem worth gaining the ire of the Summer Company for one lousy adventurer.

“Hey Hivekin, can I bug you for a moment?”

Unhesitatingly, she ran towards him and drop-kicked him off of the edge of the cliff that he was standing so close to. She enjoyed the screams he made as he fell into the water, hopefully dead. Getting up, she brushed herself off as she grabbed the book that he dropped. How to make friends. She snorted, then looked around before pocketing the book and walking back to the inn. The Gremorian guard gave her a wary look before going back to the book in his hands.

Giving a curious glance at the bell above the doorway that rang when she stepped inside, the Vesperian soon landed eyes on the innkeeper. The one that I paid after drinking , she thought, with a tinge of embarrassment since she never got to find out if she really was the barkeeper.

The Gremor noticed her, giving her a slight smile as she (the scout) approached. “Hello!” She brought her arms out, gesturing around her. “Welcome to my inn! Well, you already were here before, but I feel like you weren’t sober enough to remember,” she said with a laugh.

“So you’re the barkeep as well?” The Vesperian responded, making sure that her voice sounded higher than it actually was. The false cheerfulness seemed to make everyone else think her an idiot, which she was all too happy to perpetuate as long as it kept eyes off of her. “I kind of forgot…”

“Oh, no no! It’s okay, I’m also the barkeep and you paid me the correct amount anyways. So,” she leaned in, “You wanna stay here? It’s just five notes, don’t worry.”

Sighing, the Vesperian checked her pocket. She still had some notes. Taking out five, she handed them to the innkeeper who happily took them out of her hand and put the notes away, grinning in response. Were she a more “normal” person, she’d consider it adorable. Instead, she simply bowed her head and walked away, deciding to figure things out on her own.

Climbing up the ladder, she stared at the few rooms that were available. She picked the furthest one, opening the door and finding a nice, clean, empty room. She stepped in, placing what little belongings she did have on the floor and sitting on the pathetic excuse of a bed (granted, at least it had cushions), thinking to herself.

She closed the door. She lay on the bed, thinking to herself. 

Minutes later, she dozed off, falling into a (thankfully) dreamless sleep.

Chapter Text

"I have essentially been banned from Etris," the Etrean in front of him said. The Lord Regent resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Around him lay his royal guards, bound and relieved of their weapons and helmets. He could always kill him instantly, but he decided to humor this madman and see what he had to say before being sent back to the Depths.

"I say banned, although technically, I am enemy of Etrea." The Lord Regent said nothing in response. "But my status as an enemy of the Etreans will not be lifted, until I have paid some corrupt guard a few hundred notes and return all the gale stones I stole from the guardsmen. I would rather die than do that."

The Lord Regent held his tongue, just barely suppressing a laugh at the sheer gall this Etrean had, to give such a bold speech to him and his guards.

"I should at least know exactly what I did wrong!"

"Killing every guard that refused to give you a gale stone?" asked one of the royal guards. The Etrean walked over and kicked him in the face, then just as calmly walked back to the Lord Regent.

"-If I am required to acknowledge that my actions violated the Etrean law." He shook his head. "What rules, you sons of bitches?" The guards were in an uproar. The Lord Regent felt personally offended, and wished to remove him immediately. "Was it extortion or murder?"

"Murder!" cried the guards. The Etrean chucked a rock at one of them, knocking him out cold. He turned back to the Lord Regemt.

He smirked. "And I'm not giving back those gale stones, nor am I paying your crooked guards. I'm not acknowledging that my actions were against Etrea." He grinned, unsheathing his commoner's sword. "Up yours, woke moralists! We'll see who-"

An obscene amount of tendrils made out of the shadows strung him up, hanging him in the air briefly before pulling him and his insides apart. The Lord Regent scoffed as his mutilated remains began to bleed everywhere, dirtying the throne room.

"Pick yourselves up, and remove this ingrate — or what's left of him — from these premises. Let us never speak of this again."

Chapter Text

The guard looks at the distance, seeing nothing. He sighs, scratching just to the side of his collarbone. It itched. It also felt really damn good to scratch the scales off.

"Boring day, huh?"

He looks to his left, seeing a fellow Etrean guard stare him down with a mischievous look. He replied, "Yep." The second guard walked over, now standing beside him. "You just gonna stand there or what?"

The guard shrugged. "I guess. Hey, I've got a pretty dumb thought, wanna hear it?"

"Sure. Hit me with it," he said.

"Why is it that every race has a different version of 'ow' or something like that? We hiss when we're hit, the bugs go 'tk!' when we stab them, the cats meow for some reason, and uhhh... I forgot."

The first guard put a finger to his chin. "Huh, good point. Never really put much thought into it." He could hear someone walk up behind them. Ignoring it, he continued, saying, "I guess we've just got different thought processes or something? Must be a race thing."

"Maybe you're right."

The two stood there, not really doing much after their conversation ended.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned, seeing a friend of Etrea. "Ah, hello there. What is it?"

The Gremor gestured with his hands (word around the town was that he was a mute) and pointed towards him. The guard took a few seconds to process what he meant by it. "Ah! You need gale stones, correct?" The Gremor nodded in response, giving a slight smile as the Etrean took out two green, strangely shaped rocks and handed them over to him. "There you go, friend of Etrea! Happy travels."

The two guards watched as the Gremor bowed his head before walking off, into some place outside of the city. They both turned to look at each other. "Well, that was lackluster," remarked the second.

"I mean, it was the least I could do, wasn't it?"

"Fair, I suppose."

They both stood there, in silence once more.

A third guard walked over to them, holding some sticks in his hands. The first guard arched his brow as he approached. "Why're you..."

He gave them two sticks each. Reluctantly, the duo took them. Then, another Etrean, this time an adventurer, approached unannounced, lit the end both of the sticks on fire, and left.

The second was just about to chuck the stick as far as he could when the third held his hand up. "Don't! It's a new thing, it's called smoking." He had a stick in his mouth, the end of it also on fire. The two guards watched, baffled. "You should try it!"

"Absolutely not," muttered the second guard as he blew the burning end of his stick out and threw it away. He left without another word.

The third looked at him, expectant. Pleading. The guard sighed. "I suppose there isn't any harm in trying new things," he mumbled, putting the stick in his mouth. It felt like biting on wood, which, technically, he was doing, as he was certainly not about to let it rest on his tongue.

The smoking guard beamed at him, then ran off, likely to advertise this new discovery. Once he was out of earshot, the first guard spat the stick out into the sea below.

"Yuck."

Chapter Text

Eylis took the megurger out of its wrapper, taking a big bite out of the sandwich as she looked around her domain. Well, her and the Voidmother's domain, but she found that pretending it was all hers really helped sell the "I'm-your-leader-and-you-will-obey-me" schtick (and the Voidmother helped her with that too!).

The Voidmother's strange, ethereal voice filled her thoughts again. "Now what exactly are you eating?" she asked, the feelings of curiosity-wonder-envy flowing through her as her mind intersected with the Voidmother's... being, or lack thereof.

Envy, she thought.

"Oh, just a megurger. One of those strange new foods from the New World. Or was it the old one? Probably stole it from them. Anyways, it tastes... good? Feels a bit off, must be the meat they used." She shrugged, scarfing down the rest of the meal. Not that anyone would ever dare to mention how uncouth it was to her face. "What's gotten you riled up?"

After a brief pause, the Voidmother responded, "Nothing." Eylis arched her brow. Slight embarrassment seeped through the bond. "Perhaps, I'm jealous of your... ability, to still feel things, to taste things, to walk around even if it's in the confines of a dream. I have no body, no form, no shape, no physical identity. You..."

Eylis' expression softened. "You know, we could at least still..."

"Talk to each other?" The Voidmother laughed. "Yes, I suppose we could. You are a welcome break from my self-imposed duties..."

The somber atmosphere was soon replaced with a more lighthearted one. Eylis grinned. "Oh, of course." The Canorian woman huffed. "And don't be so hard on yourself, I wish I had as much control over this place as you did. Having a body but nothing to do with it isn't all that cracked up to be about, you know..."

The Voidmother didn't respond, but the feelings of relief-gratitude-gratefulness washing over her told Eylis that the being took her words as the facts that they were. Such a good couple they made, such a lucky coincidence that they had all the time in the world with each other too...

Chapter Text

A child of Navae walks into the bar, taking a seat and ordering a drink for himself. He sips quietly, thinking about nothing in particular. The door opens again.

In walked a man in a blindfold and a black cloak, sitting down next to the Gremor and also ordering a drink. He grabs the cup and takes a swig, despite supposedly not being able to see. The nomad squints at him.

The cultist notices him, placing the cup back down and reaching to his hip.

Noticing their intentions, the barkeep says, "And remember, no fighting in MY establishment." He had a sword nearby just in case as well.

Frowning, the cultist stops reaching for his knife. The barkeep nods, satisfied. He goes back to cleaning the empty cups left behind by his patrons.

A peacekeeper stumbles in, trailing blood and clutching a wound on his side. He sits down, almost falling off the chair as he does so. "One cup of blood, please."

The bartender takes out a cup. Using his sword, he slits the palm of his hand and lets the blood flow into the cup. He slides it to the peacekeeper, who just barely manages to catch it with his hand. He takes off his helmet with the other hand, placing it onto the table before chugging down the red liquid.

The cultist watches with surprise. The nomad looks on with disgust. "What's wrong with you, homelander?" inquired the nomad.

The peacekeeper doesn't answer, finishing his drink and placing the cup back down. Then, he seems to realize who the two men in front of him are. He stares at them, not moving a muscle.

The door opens a fourth time. An Etrean walks into the bar, humming to himself as he sits down next to the peacekeeper. The other three turn stare at him, bewildered as his sheer ignorance.

Sighing as he slides another glass to the Etrean, the bartender repeats, "Again, no fighting in my bar." The Etrean finally notices the two men staring at him, almost crushing the cup in his vice grip.

Chapter Text

The Lightborn stares at him, face scrunched up in pain as another finger of his is cut off. "Why are you doing this?" he asks, fighting through the pain of having ones own digits slowly be removed by some sick, twisted non-person.

"Well, obviously, I need to become higher." The Etrean looks at him, his posture oddly relaxed despite his delicate work. "I don't know how to explain it to you. They said I needed to capture a child of the stars and cut their fingers off, weird as that might sound." He presses the knife against the Lightborn's pinky. "In any case, you're here now, so why not?"

His prisoner grits his teeth, hissing as the knife slowly cuts through his skin, then his bones, and then it's over. It's over. He breathes out, acutely aware that he must've lost a good amount of blood through all this. "Why are you even wasting your time on this? Whatever the fuck this is-"

Something scaly smacks him across the face, eliciting a pained cry from the captured glowmale. The same hand that hit him grabs him by the chin, forcing him to look at his captor's unnaturally pink eyes. "I don't care about what you think. This'll work, you've just gotta have faith, baby." It (because how could this possibly be a person?) lets him go, allowing him to stare at his fingerless right hand.

They're covered in his own blood, the cuts are strangely clean as if this un-man has had experience, but it just looks artificial enough for him to know that this isn't natural talent. Something's lending it its strength, its sick, twisted wisdom- The pain in his left hand distracts him. He screams as he feels another finger go.

"I mean, at this rate you're gonna be useless to me, but what the hell am I right? I'll just feed you a few more fruit salads, wait a few days, and we're good to go again."

Chapter Text

He paces around the ruins of the building, drawing a line in the dirt with his sword. He always liked being an adventurer. To be free of any and all responsibilities except for the ones you chose to hold to yourself... He enjoyed it.

The young twenty-something year old sits down, having completely forgotten whatever it was he was planning on doing. He drops the sword, setting it aside for a moment to recollect his thoughts. Hands to his head, he shakes it, as if that would jog his memory.

Ah, he remembered now. He remembered how much his siblings would tell him that this was a bad idea, how they went along with him for the ride anyways, and how they all-

Stop. He presses his fingers against his forehead. Don't think about them.

But, they're dead now, aren't they? They can't hold him back anymore. Nobody can. Any ties he had to his old life were gone. His good for nothing siblings (who used to cook his food for him and help him organize his clothes), his parents (who brought him into this world), everyone else...

He trembles from where he is sitting. What's wrong with him?

Breathing in, he reaches for something, anything to help him get rid of these thoughts. He takes ahold of a hilt, his hand traveling up until it finds a comfortable grip on the handle and brings it back to him.

I should just- I should probably stop now, but- what am I even going out into this world for anymore?

A traitorous part of his mind whispers something into his ear. He blocks it out. It doesn't stop whispering. The sword slowly points accusingly at him, and he knows what it wants him to do.

Kill myself? Sure, I'll do that, he thinks.

He hesitates. What would his siblings, who he led to their deaths, say if they saw him like this?

Do it, he surmises. He plunges the blade deep into his neck, gurgling words that he soon lost the meaning of as the metal pierces his brain. He thinks of nothing as he slumps over, dead by his own hands.

Chapter Text

She stares into the wall, thinking of some random things. After all, she wasn't truly mindless, so why bother with the act at this point? It was practically an open secret between her, the Duke, and every other not-mindless servant in the manor.

One thought leads to another. She scrunches up her face, knowing she likely wouldn't like the answer to this. If he decided to even entertain her with an answer, of course.

She opens her mouth, a silent question traveling through the space between them. The Duke turns to look at her, expression as unreadable as always. She gestures with her hands.

The Celtor looks away, hiding his face from her. She can't tell if it's out of shame or disinterest, and she finds that she doesn't want to know which one it is.

"I," he begins, after a brief pause. He pauses again, looking at some of his equipment on the tables nearby. "Why do you want to know?" he hisses. Normally she would let such a question slide, but she knows that there's more than he's letting on. There always was, of course, but this is the only time she decides to press the issue.

She glares at him.

His hands ball into fists, and for a moment she's worried that he might actually go through with his plan of lobotomizing her. But no. His fists unfurl into hands again, and he slumps over. The madman in front of her doesn't nearly look as mad as he was just days ago, he almost looks like his old self again, in fact. He takes a deep breath, as if mulling over his answers.

"No, I didn't kill them," he scoffs, as if he expected her to ask that question (she was). "Why would I- look, what little morals I have left aside," he pauses for effect, turning to face her with his arms outstretched before continuing, "They are the last remnants of the people on Erisia. If they want to get themselves killed so badly, fine. At least it'll help the ones that survive grow into actual warriors and whatnot."

"Right now though, they're not a threat to me. What can a few descendants of unlucky families here do against someone such as I?" He grins wryly, as if it's all some sort of sickjoke. "And their bodies, so weak. Children wouldn't make for such good mindless drones when it comes to physical labor."

She feels repulsed. Rare was it that someone could ever disgust her in her broken state, but of course this pathetic excuse of a man had to prove her wrong-

"Their souls could work for the golems," he mumbles. "Although that still leaves me with a useless, dead body that no longer grows-" Suddenly, he recoils, bringing his arms back to clutch his face.

He stares at her in disbelief. Did she just-?

The servant stands in front of him, palm outstretched. Face molded into a disgusted frown that somehow makes her look more terrifying than she actually is. The palm that struck him curls into a fist except for the index finger, which then points at him with such vitriol that he instinctively takes a step back.

"...Well, in any case. I didn't kill them, if that's what your worried about." He stands straight again, remembering who he is. He is the one with the power here, not her.

Still, she doesn't seem to remember her position beneath him. She does put her hand to her side, though she still stands strong, as if expecting him to fight back. (Which he should, but oddly enough, he doesn't feel it in himself to strike her down and put her back in her place.)

Seconds pass by, with neither person moving nor saying anything to each other. The Duke wordlessly turns back to his work, pointedly ignoring the way that her gaze bores a hole into the back of his skull. Eventually, she relents, sitting down and staring at the floor, tracing patterns into the dust that had gathered from years of neglect.

Chapter Text

The gloved hand easily wraps itself around the armored man's neck. He desperately claws at it, even biting it at one point. It doesn't save him. He stops moving.

The hand effortlessly tosses his limp body into the sea, where it floats, then slowly drifts away. The person that the hand is attached to scoffs to himself. He walks around the deck, sidestepping any bodies he may encounter with disinterest. He makes his way below deck, immediately seeing multiple crates of amethyst pendant earrings, all miraculously untouched.

He runs over, hearing something- no, someone. Pushing both crates aside with each hand, he stares at the bloody mess of an Etrean right in front of him, kneeling down on the floor and looking at him like a wild animal.

Do I know this one?

The Etrean suddenly hugs him by the legs, spouting gibberish that he could barely understand the meaning of. Finally, he pauses for a second, making some disgusting retching sounds accompanied by blood spurting out of his mouth. "Did you kill the raiders?" he managed to get out.

Pursing his lips, the Ferryman looks to the ceiling, then back down at the Etrean. "Yes. What happened here?"

"Raiders kept attacking your shipments." The Etrean seemed almost comfortable in his presence, which was quite strange. Suicidal, even. What's wrong with this man? "Finally managed to figure it out, huh? Is that why you're here?"

"In a way." The Ferryman shrugs. "I have decided to venture out to the route that these ships usually take to Boatman's Watch. A risk I will commend you for taking, by the way." And what a lucky coincidence that was. He found out what happened to his earrings, and he even had a survivor. "And... do I know you? You seem rather familiar."

The Etrean slowly breaks out into a grin. It looked... off, with how injured his face was. "Remember that time you became a female for a week?"

Gods below, please no.

Seeing his expression, the Etrean slowly nodded. "Yep. That? Was-"

The Ferryman grabs him and sets him on his shoulder. "Let's just get back to Boatman's," he said, scowling. Of all the people he could've ran into... At least he had his earrings, after missing shipment after missing shipment. Dealing with the Etrean again was just something he would have to deal with.

Chapter Text

The man stares into the campfire. The harsh orange glow was pleasing to look at, to lose himself in. He looks back at the piece of meat he was roasting over the fire, reminiscing.

He pulls the sword back, then, hesitantly, bites into it. Felt good. He didn't know how quickly, but he ate it all. His friends would be mad... if they weren't currently being eaten by him right now.

Was this worth it? his last, sane splinter whispers. Did you even have to kill them?

Well, yeah. Wouldn't agree with him otherwise. He always made the hard decisions for them; what was one more?

He was just about to take another bite out of the meat when something slashed his throat open, and he knew no more.

Chapter Text

He grumbled to himself as the mantra failed to cast again. His instructor laughed. "Should've listened to me when I told you how to do it," they said.

Turning to glare at the instructor, you mumble something that was probably racist under your breath. "How am I supposed to do it, then?"

"Casting mantras is a simple matter of focusing on what you want to do. You are trying to cast a Gale mantra, yes?"

You nod. The instructor thinks for a few seconds. "Think about the air." You do just that, getting into a stance as you focus on the target dummy in front of you. "Now imagine that air gathering into your hands."

Something flows into your hands as you follow their instructions. "And focus on the target in front of you, and release that energy."

You shot your hands out towards the dummy, miniature clouds firing out of your hands and into it, flinging it into the wall, breaking it into pieces.

Wiping the sweat off of your face, you hear the instructor clapping.

"Good job, you've finally cast Air Force. Onto the next mantras?"

More mantras... sounded fun. "Of course," you answer.

Chapter Text

"What the fuck is that?"

You stare at the green thing marching towards you, a glowing yellow shotel in its hand and a mask not too dissimilar from those that the songseekers wore adorning its face. It stops a fair distance away from you, before pointing the blade at you menacingly.

Unable to control yourself, you laugh at the sheer absurdity of the sight. "Is this some sort of- HAH- new trial I'm supposed to beat?" Composing yourself once more, you prepare your alloyed Ignition Union greatsword. "This is gonna be ez-pez."

A glowing purple sphere encompasses you and the mudskipper. You struggle to hold your hefty greatsword up, barely managing to parry the mudskipper's spinning attack as the yellow blade slides across yours, the sparks instantly traveling to the ground and disappearing.

Gods-damned gravity bell...

The mudskipper's mask slits begin to glow a dreadful white. You hear a droning noise.

I-is that a fucking Sightless Beam on a muds-

Whatever you were thinking of, it was swept away by a beam of pure light, along with the rest of your head.

You are, somehow, acutely aware of the mudskipper dancing on your corpse before it all fades to white.

Chapter Text

You stare at the gleaming blade that was pointed squarely between your eyes. You ask, "Why?" in disbelief.

The royal guard seems to contemplate for a moment. "You are a fugitive in the eyes of Etrea. Your void will not sully the grounds of Etris any longer."

Before she can strike the killing blow, something metallic strikes against her armor. She swivels around, katana already prepared to parry the next attack, which it does, before making a quick cut towards the upper left. Your eyes widen as your friend — he was supposed to be in the Voidheart, why was he here? — slowly fell to the ground in two separate diagonal halves.

"I did everything your Lord Regent asked for!" you shout, as she turns back to you with a bloody katana. There was a whaling knife on the ground, your friend's weapon. You intentionally avoid looking at it. "Why? I thought- I thought I was a friend of Etrea!"

"Stalling," says the royal guard, slowly raising the katana once more. It was like she was trying to draw out your execution. You slowly scoot around her, and she follows your movement, eyes watching you and only you.

"You don't have to do this," you lie.

The royal guard slowly shakes her head. It is at this moment that you grab the whaling knife and jam it as hard as you can into the thin gap between her helmet and her armor, tackling her to the ground at the same time.

She struggles, the katana falling to the ground as she grabs at your wrists, even as you push the knife deeper into her neck. Letting go with one hand, you raise it, form it into a fist and slam it down onto the butt of the knife.

Finally, the royal guard stops struggling. Almost on instinct, you cut her neck open with the knife to make sure.

When it's clear that she's fully dead, you pull the knife out, now caked in blood, and slowly wipe it against the hem of your coat, making sure that as much blood as possible is wiped clean off of it.

Once you feel that it won't slide out of your grip anymore, you holster the knife and, after giving the corpse of your friend one last mournful look, stagger to a boat that you know is nearby. "I'll never return to this damn island," you angrily mutter to yourself.

You sail away.

Chapter Text

The Etrean stares into the eyes of his lover, his beautiful Adretian bolt who came from the heavens to grace him with his visage. He had a helmet on, so he couldn't see his face, although the rest of him... the footsoldier grins.

Wrapping an arm around his close friend from the opposite side, the Etrean leans against the other man, feeling him place his hand over his and lean on him slightly as well.

"This breeze is great, isn't it?" he quietly said.

The Adret is silent for a few seconds. "Yes," he answers, "Yes it is."

Both of them stay like that for a while, standing near the edge of the cliff, watching everything happening below... ignoring the sounds of battle that continued well into the night.

He drummed his fingers on his leg, humming to himself a song of Etrea. 'We should probably find somewhere else to hide," he muttered.

"I agree," came the reply, and off they went to find a different, more secluded area to spend their time together, with no interruptions to their peace and quiet.

Chapter Text

He muttered something to himself as he formed a current between his hands, doing his damnedest to heat his palms without the gift of Flamecharm. He cursed when the slight yellow glow faded away, and when the tingling his palms stopped. "I can't believe this shit," he snarled. Who would've thought that being gifted with the power of the heavens above would be a drawback down here?

The man wanders around the wastes. He knows there's an exit, but he can't find it at all. He can barely see anything through his helmet as it is, relying solely on the sounds of his own boots crunching on the sand and the roars of monsters near and far to figure out his location. And it's not exact either, he can't be precise. He isn't some gods-damned superhuman who can figure out his location on the map on a whim.

It felt so cold, deathly cold, it wrapped around him and wished to drag him deeper. Muttering feeble praises to the his fellows still on the surface, he tries again, forming another stronger, more electrifying current in his hands. He focuses, even as the current tries to literally kill itself right in front of him. He doesn't relent, pressing his hands together as if to compact the electricity into something more dense, more real, with no space for energy to escape.

The ensuing explosion, contained within his hands, is strong, to say the least. It throws him to the seafloor and dazes him, he swears that he sees things that shouldn't be there and his eyes stung and his mouth tasted like sand even with the helmet protecting his face, and it all felt like it was sideways. His perspective, he meant.

He takes his helmet off, sand spilling out of the three slits on its face along with blood and seaweed. He feels sick. He vomits into the ground, away from the helmet because Alsin forbid he have any more disgusting things to deal with on his potentially last journey until he died.

Wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his coat, he slowly puts the helmet back on and continues on his journey, having learnt his lesson of never experimenting outside of Authority-mandated mantras. I suppose there was a reason why we were only allowed to use two mantras at a time, he thought. Oh my superiors, please forgive me for this transgression if I ever make it back into the surface...

There was a ray of hope for him, though. He could see the massive gates adorning the sunken city itself, the safe haven (as safe as one location could be in the Depths) and the slope that told him everything, and the guards, long dead and rotten still on their usual posts, acting as protectors for a nation long dead, and acting as living landmarks for those who were still alive.

He ran into the city, ecstatic at the idea of freedom from death, a last-second salvation.

Chapter Text

She stalks through the ruined prison, eyes scanning the area for any survivors, anyone left willing to fight. Seeing nothing, she moves along, keeping an eye out for any corpses in the way as she does another sweep of the hallway she's passing through. Empty, empty, empty. She was about to call it quits when she heard something that vaguely sounded like a voice talking to another one nearby.

Immediately, the Ganymede hides behind the corner, gun raised and finger on the trigger, waiting for whoever this was to enter her line of fire. The voices don't come closer. She can just barely parse them out from how faint they are, but they're there, and she knows that. She taps her head, checking communications. Nothing. These people were either keeping this conversation between themselves, or weren't part of the Kingdom at all.

Finally, the voices come closer. She tenses, expecting them to come right around the corner with their rifle spears raised, but the footsteps never reach her. They were close enough for her to somewhat clearly hear them now, though. She can understand them this time.

"What about those Etreans? Shouldn't we try to fight back? For the Authority?"

The other voice scoffs. "What Authority? The one doing its damnedest to pretend it never declared war on the Etreans in the first place? The one that's currently being invaded by these snakes?" They sigh. "Pathetic. How are you still this naive? We're losing. Well, they're losing. The best we can do now is run from them, and pretend that we were never here. We were never part of the Central Authority, we're just pathfinders-"

Something stomps down on the cold, hard floor of what used to be Fort Merit. "I'm not abandoning my comrades to face certain death against the Etreans, witchcraft or no witchcraft! I'll stand with them, and-"

"And you'll die with them?" came the sardonic reply. "I'm giving you a chance to escape that certain death, you nationalistic fool! Anyone who isn't part of the Kingdom is done for! They'll kill us all, especially for what we've done to them. We don't stand a chance against their technologies. We... need to run."

The first voice mumbled something under their breath. "I'll never abandon the Authority," they growled, before walking away.

She was so engrossed in their conversation that she almost forgot "walking away" meant that the voice was actually walking towards her.

Almost. As soon as the dented helmet of the Authority peacekeeper comes into view, she aims the pistol and pulls the trigger, blowing a hole through the already worn metal and the peacekeeper's head, creating a small red cloud as they fell to the floor, dead. She hears a pained, almost guttural angry cry. She felt the static before she saw the blinding yellow glow behind her.

Swiveling around, she parries the mace with her arm before smacking the man, aiming again and shooting him in the arm. He drops the mace with a hiss, clutching the red spot on his already-red coat. He looks up at her, then backs away, as if in surprise. "You?" he says with disbelief. "You're not one of them-"

The Ganymede kicks him to the floor, aiming at his head, and waiting. No use in wasting ammunition on someone who didn't pose a threat.

"Why did you- why did you shoot him-" he sputtered, before seemingly composing himself. He shook in what seemed to be anger. "Why are you- you're working for the Etreans, you're wearing their armor, you have their technology, why are you working for them?!" He moves towards her, as if to try to beat her to death in his pathetic state.

She fires again, this time catching him in the chest, the bullet punching a small hole through his archaic armor with almost no effort and putting an end to his misery.

Before the body even slumps to the floor, she's already looking around, scanning the area for any more of the Central Authority's men. Seeing that nobody else was alive, she moved to the next area, to see if there was anyone else left.

She wasn't really a part of the Kingdom of Etrea, but the opportunity to use one of their suits and steal the equipment of their dead soldiers was simply too good for her to pass up. Besides, she could likely sell some of it away for a hefty price, and slink back into the shadows with her spoils of war, without any of the consequences that usually came with it. It certainly paid off to be a pathfinder in these times, provided that you were at the right place, of course.

And one of those places just happened to be the ruins of Fort Merit.

Chapter Text

The person stares at the empty parchment, pen set aside, still thinking. They impatiently drummed their fingers against the table, muttering vaguely encouraging phrases to themselves as the paper stares back, judging them with an eye that didn't exist, that wasn't drawn into it. The Gremor snapped their fingers, as if it would magically give them some inspiration for what they wanted to do, what their brain was egging them to do.

Unable to come up with anything, they groan to themselves, pinching the bridge of their nose as they closed their eyes and tried to focus. It felt like there was an empty space where their thoughts should have been, where ideas were meant to flourish and wink into existence, like something was actively dampening their flow of creativity. Like a brainsucker to an unattended cerebrum, their very essence was being sapped out by some unknown thing that they couldn't perceive, because it was distracting them from that task.

...Task. Right. They wanted to- they needed to write something, to create anything. They ball up their hands into fists and squeeze as hard as they can, as if their nails digging into their skin would magically cause all of their ideas to burst forth like a waterfall leading into a lake, or a river that led into the open sea. They open their hands, vision graced with nothing but the marks on their palms and sheer emptiness.

Slamming their head onto the table, the Gremor shouts in pain as something goes through its mind. Not an idea, unfortunately. Only pain. Only that it hurt. They get back up again, giving themselves a moment to regain their bearings before focusing back on the task at hand. They rub the sore part of their head as they look at the paper, willing something into life. Anything would work, they just needed inspiration.

Instinctively, they reach down to their leg and begin scratching. They scratch and scratch and scratch, even as their fingernails begin to fill with dead skin and as it starts to hurt, to bleed. They only stop once they realize that it isn't doing anything. They look down at their newly wounded leg.

Looking back up at the paper, the Gremor hesitantly grabs the pen, before putting it to the empty white space and taking a deep breathe. Exhaling, they begin to draw a five-fingered appendage with digits that pointed into five different directions on the paper, before ceasing contact with it. They stare at their handiwork. A sloppily drawn hand, barely recognizable as human stares back at them, beckoning.

Smiling slightly, the Gremor draws a shape with five pointed ends on top of the hand, where the wrist should be, before moving the pen down to the hand itself and drawing two halves of an ellipse, squashed in such a way that, when they connect the ends to each other, it resembles an empty eye. They draw a single dot in it, one that was looking right at them before coloring the dot in and leaning back to analyze what they have made again.

A grasping hand, fingers pointed in five different directions, a five-pointed star in the space where an arm should be, and an eye inside the hand itself, one that looked right through them and told them what they needed to do. They nod to themselves, putting the pen to the paper a fifth time and drawing a small symbol below the hand.

"వ."

They clicked to themselves, putting the pen below the paper and leaving it be as they walk out of the room, having finally found their idea that they had for so long searched for. The eye in the paper stares at the ceiling, unmoving and unblinking. The fingers continue to grasp, this time unified in their goal, as they reach for the symbol written beneath them.

And the star glows a faint colorless green.

Chapter Text

The megalodaunt roars at him, claws already outstretched in preparation for his death.

The adventurer is not one to be dissuaded, however. "It's sharkin' time!" he says, running towards the mighty beast with his sword out.

He is promptly hacked into three separate pieces by a single claw swipe from the megalodaunt. He can only sputter and choke on his own blood in response before the walking shark stomps him dead, sending this unwary adventurer to the Depths below.

"These pathfinders get even dumber the more we see 'em," muttered one of the observing bandits.

Chapter Text

The guard stood there, doing his duty long after his death. He drummed his fingers on the handle of his spear, eyes tracking the movement of a juvenile in an oversized coat walking towards him. He didn't act, not yet, seeing as how this young man was barely a threat to a trained soldier of Celtor.

"Plbbbt!" The young man blew a raspberry inches from his helmet. The guard stopped drumming his fingers, stiffening slightly as the boy pranced around him, making an ass out of himself. He shook his head slightly as the boy waved his hand in front of his helmet's slits, impatiently tapping his foot to no avail, as the boy made a move as if to slap his arm.

Both of their thoughts were interrupted with a loud roar, as something stalked out from behind the buildings and rushed towards the young man. The young man rushed behind the guard, hiding behind him as the megalodaunt paused in front of them, before swiping once, aiming for the boy and only the boy.

The guard parried the strike, sending the megalodaunt's digits flying back with a loud clash. Bewildered, the beast took a step back, before remembering itself and leaning down to bite the young man's head off. Immediately, it was forced back by a spear being lodged between its jaws, the guard holding it remaining almost completely still, needing not take a single step in order to act.

Now angered, the megalodaunt raised a single foot and brought it down on the both of them, intending to crush two pests with one stomp.

It roared in pain, reeling away and falling onto its back.

The guard had stabbed his spear right through its foot, using its momentum in order to drive the blade even deeper in. He held the spear (which was still stabbing through the beast's foot) in an almost bored demeanor as the monster slowly got onto its feet, growling as sand and rocks poured into the wound. Slowly, it backed away, still facing the guard, almost as if it was wary of being injured again.

He didn't stop watching it, even as the boy behind him made a run for it while uttering a quick "thank you" to his back. The megalodaunt looked like it was about to give chase again, only to turn around and skulk off into the other parts of the city, having lost its prey. The Celtor hummed a few sea shanties from within the confines of his worn down mind, satisfied with having done his duty even after his death.

The others may have lost their spirit, their diligence to their job... but I haven't. Not yet.

Drumming his fingers on the handle of his spear once again, he let the sounds of Celtor drown everything else out...

Chapter Text

He trudged along the path, knowing that the inn was nearby. He was going to kill her, he swore to the gods he was going to tear her a new one- that came out wrong. I’m going to send her to the Depths again? Yeah, that sounded better.

Something was wrong though. Where the fuck were the guards here?

The shouting nearby immediately told him something was wrong. His leisurely pace turned into a panicked run as he sprinted right into the fray-

Oh, fuck me.

He saw Trig lying against the wall next to the door of the inn, baring his teeth in pain as he clutched his crimson-stained shoulder. Two brown coats were standing in front of him, one with a bloodied messer drawn while the other looked into the inn. But there’s supposed to be a third one-

Colt rolled to the left, hearing the massive blade smash into the ground that he was standing on not even a second ago. He got up, drawing his revolver in the same moment and pulling the trigger. Catches the bastard right in the ey- no, wait, he parried it.

He takes a step back, dodging a swing from the side that would’ve not-so-cleanly bisected him and sent the upper half of his body flying into the sea. He cocks the gun again. Footsteps behind him. Making a decision in the heat of it, he aims his gun behind him and blindly fires once, hearing something- no, two things falling to the ground behind him, accompanied with a startled shout.

This course of action, naturally, leaves him unable to retaliate when the heavy Union fighter swings at him with that damn sword again. He does manage to sidestep it again, but the wind whipping at his face told him just how close he was to dying right now.

Risking a quick glance behind him, he sees something sprawled out in the bottom of his periphery, immediately registering it as the bastard trying to sneak up to him. What he does focus more on, however, is the other messer-wielding maniac sprinting towards him with their sword held like a lance.

They’re gonna try and sandwich me between them, he realized. And he could already hear the swordsman preparing to swing again, and he would definitely not miss now.

Breaking out into a sprint, he bolts past the Ignition fighter ( holy shit that messer nearly snagged my satchel ), ignoring the shouts of the greatsword-wielding menace that ambushed him, before managing to reach Trig, who is staring at him with surprised eyes. He says nothing as he grabs the other man, dragging him into the inn (the door was open) and shutting the door, locking it.

Of course, they would break in, but he didn’t care about that right now. Holing up in this inn was better than trying to fight them out in the open, gods knew what those backstabbing thieves would do to the people inside once the guards were taken care of — but he didn’t care about that right now.

“Trig!” He set the man down, making him lean against the counter for support before studying his wounds. “What happened? Why are there Ignition Union goons this close to the inn?”

The Gremor gives a flat look. “I.. don’t know. Think they’re getting bolder just this once, but-”

Something was trying to kick the door open. Swearing, Colt ran to the backdoor and shut that too, locking it. He runs back to Trig, grabbing a conveniently placed fruit salad that was on the table and feeding it to the man.

He makes the mistake of looking up, of looking around the inn. He didn’t know what he was thinking. Maybe someone could help him fight off the Union’s men here. Maybe he wanted to figure out a way to turn the inn into their very own killzone.

Whatever idea he was thinking of, it was swept away in a sea of black and red and navy blue. He stares at one particular Vesperian in a bicorn and the ugliest uniform he had ever seen, their hair fixed in a ponytail and their mask’s eye slits angular and happy and mischievous and looking right at him-

As gently as Colt can, he sets the fruit salad down and clasps his hand around the handle of his revolver, slowly standing to his full height and aiming the revolver, before pulling the trigger and blowing out the brains-

of one Ignition Union fighter, when had he gotten in front of him?

The guard watches with slightly subdued shock as the body collapses in front of him, the messer forgotten, the door having been broken down — when did they get in?

Looking around, he realizes that the other Ignition mook was dead, having been impaled by their own greatsword. The violent fashion in which he had died — why didn’t Colt notice? How didn’t he notice this at all?

He is acutely aware of all the eyes on him. Colt doesn’t drop the revolver, but he does slowly take his finger off the trigger and aim it back down. Wait, his mind says. Trig.

Whirling around suddenly, Colt looks down at a perfectly fine, if still somewhat-injured Trig, who is looking around him with just as much surprise as Colt is feeling right now. He mumbles something to himself, before looking up at Colt with a somewhat irritated expression. “What?” he says.

The guard doesn’t answer, instead choosing to look at where the innkeeper should be.

The innkeeper looked disinterested, a stark contrast to the mood he usually saw her with. Colt squinted at her. Why would she be so calm in the face of- whatever. Maybe she had a sword or something for this, self-defense wasn’t unheard of for the civilians of the isle.

He looks back at the tables, at the regular people looking at the carnage with varying degrees of surprise, shock and disgust, and at the Vesperian who was in the middle of hiding a knife behind her back, whose mask was staring at him again with that damn mouthless smile

Before he knew it, his arm shot up, instinctively sliding the hammer back before

-his hand pulled an invisible trigger, nothing shot out of the nonexistent gun in his hand, he looked like a fucking idiot- she was still sitting there, as if just waiting for him to take the shot

He grabbed at his holster, feeling the revolver sitting snugly in it. Scowling, he drew the gun and

Colt reaches to his hip, pulling the revolver out, feeling something was different. Ignoring the panicked and surprised cries of the pathfinders and the hand tugging at his leg, he looked at his weapon from the side. The trigger was literally broken off. “Damn,” he muttered. “Was a pretty good gun, too.” And, as if remembering something, he drew the arm holding it back, before chucking the revolver as hard as he could at

“Colt.”

He looks at the Gremor innkeeper, who was staring him down with set jaws and pissed off eyes. “I won’t beat around the bush. Why are you trying to kill her?”

The Celtor looked down at her. I could kill her , an angry and hateful part of his mind spat. Who the fuck does she think she is? But that would go against the Company. It was already hard enough to get anyone willing to stay in this chaotic mess of an island for more than a week. She was too valuable to dispose of.

He sighs, pushing that spiteful part of his mind away for now. “Why do you care?” he retorted. “And do you have anything to do with those Ignition mutts dying, and my gun breaking for no reason?”

She doesn’t answer. Acutely, Colt is aware of the people watching their exchange with unrestrained curiosity. He slowly looks at them, seeing that the thrice-damned Vesperian was still sitting there, still watching him as if he hadn’t- as if she was safe- AS IF SHE WAS PROTECTED IN THIS FUCKING INN

Turning back to the innkeeper, he sweetly says, “Why don’t you let me deal with this? She’s my business.” The innkeeper looks at him, still angry.

She shook her head. “I’m not letting you murder one of my tenants,” she hissed.

“Well, guess you’ll be happy to know that she’s a Ministry scout , and by the Summer Company’s law, that makes her a criminal,” he hissed back. “You’re not very bright, are you?”

No answer. He grins widely, all teeth and too forced and too unnatural to be genuine. “Let me. Deal with her,” he intones, and only now does the innkeeper step aside, expression full of conflicting emotions. He resists the urge to scoff at her, she couldn’t have possibly known , before walking over to the Vesperian.

The people around him give him a wide berth, a clear path to this- this- I’m too angry to even think of any insults about her-

He absolutely enjoyed the way that she tensed up once he was right in front of her. “Come with me-” I can see that knife you’re about to pull out- He brought out his revolver, trying to pull the trigger when he realized that fucking innkeep somehow broke the mechanism without me noticing and she’s about to attack oh gods

He flinched, expecting a slash that never came. His eyes frantically darted around, dark room dark room I’m not alone I’M NOT ALONE his eyes focused on a white mask in the darkness. He was about to lunge at her when he realized that the innkeeper was right there, watching them both.

“Why- how did you-” he sputtered, the absurdity of his situation only now dawning on him. “Why am I here!?”

The Gremor’s purple eyes bore into him. “I want you both to tell me what happened.” She looked at the Vesperian. “And you. I know you’re not really a pathfinder. I need the whole story.”

“Pah! Therapy session, real fucking cute,” he sneered. “I’m not ever airing it out to you, ever. And especially not with her around.” He huffed. “And I thought I told you I never wanted to see you back on this island. Why are you still here !?”

The Vesperian shrank back, reaching to her hip only to realize that the knife wasn’t there. She straightened herself, shuddering slightly as she spoke her next words. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go-”

“Some excuse that is,” he laughed. No mirth in it, of course. “So you go against my last wishes to you before I leave, I made the mistake of sparing you, and you repay it by-” he cut himself off, shaking his fist in rage.

“I’m s-”

“DO. NOT!” he snapped, slamming his fist onto the table. “I don’t want your fucking apology, I want those months of my life you spent torturing me taken back!” He shook his head furiously, making sure that every last tear was gone when he continued. “I want you to suffer, just like me. It’s only fair, right?” he laughed again.

The innkeeper looked between them, clearly uncomfortable. Not that Colt cared about what she thought. “The Company’ll hear about this,” he growled under his breath.

“It won’t come to that,” muttered the innkeeper. “Hopefully. You can both settle this,” she added. “Without killing each other.”

Colt had half a mind to try and strangle her, but she would probably use whatever power she had to throw him against the wall or something. He settled for glaring at her instead.

“I… thought that was how you showed love,” mumbled the Vesperian. Colt looked back at her, expression carefully neutral as she spoke. The woman took a deep breath. “I- you keep them, right? You care for them and- and leave your mark on them, so that even if you die they’ll remember-”

“Stop,” he weakly said. “Just.. stop, please. Gods, you’re just as deranged as I remember.” His face held none of the anger it had seconds before. It was just… morose. “I don’t know what kind of lessons the Ministry ‘taught’ you, I don’t know your sad story,” he scoffed at that, “and I don’t think I want to. Look, just- ugh.” He sighed, averting his gaze and grasping at his leg.

“That’s not how love works,” the innkeeper began.

“Oh, fuck off, will you?” Colt growled, grounding his teeth as he looked up at the interloper. “Wh- this doesn’t concern you! Stop being some sort of ‘hero’, stop trying to be some paragon of good, stop all of it! Stay out of my goddamn business, you naive imbecile,” he groaned. “Just… let this be between me and her.”

The innkeeper stays silent for a few seconds. Then, “At least you’re not killing each other.”

His eye twitched. “Don’t tempt me.” Then, he remembered his conundrum. “Where are we, anyways?”

“Her room,” replied the innkeeper casually. As if she hadn’t just admitted to putting him in her home-

Colt felt sick. “I hate you all,” he growled. “And if you think this is gonna make me kiss her or some fucked up shit like that, I’ll kill you.”

“I understand.”

This innkeeper has gone insane-

“In any case, I’ll let you both talk your problems out-”

“No!” he whisper-yelled, grabbing her by the legs. “Don’t. Don’t leave me alone with her. You wouldn’t be that dumb right?” he laughed, then stopped when he saw that she wasn’t doing anything. 

He grasped her by the feet, desperation evident on his face. “Please, I’m sorry, I’ll never shittalk you again, just please don’t leave me with this crazy bitch without my gun-”

The innkeeper looked conflicted. “But… I also took her weapons. There’s nothing in this room she can use to hurt you.” She gives a small, soft and encouraging smile. “And I’ll make sure to interfere if anything goes wrong.” She turns to look at the Vesperian. “You’re not protesting?”

“I deserve this,” came the quiet reply.

“The fuck you do! You don’t deserve to do whatever you want to me,” he said angrily, though there was still some nervousness in his voice that he couldn’t fully stamp down.

The Vesperian tilted her head. “I was thinking something more along the lines of you doing whatever you wanted to me ,” she said.

Colt stilled. This was what he wanted, right? He shook his head. “I’m not you,” he spat. “I’m not some fucked up cultist who doesn’t know what love is, I’m not some maniac who- who stabs- where are you going- hey!” He reaches out, right as the door closes and the innkeeper leaves him with her. Alone. Again.

He turns to look back at the Vesperian while scampering back, onto the bed, as far as he could from her.

The Vesperian sat there, legs crossed, clearly tense, but oddly serene. “I… suppose that’s alright,” she mumbled. “You can have the bed.”

“No, this isn’t what this is about-” he began, but then cut himself off, realizing what this meant. She’s not going to- I’m- she can’t do anything…

Well, better safe than sorry, he supposed. “Alright, stay there,” he said, tone commanding and authoritative. “I… erm… shit, forgot what I was going to say, uh, just- just don’t do anything.”

She nodded. As uncomfortable as this made him, he would find a way through this, he supposed. And at least the innkeeper might keep her word. Might.

Darnell would come fetch him if he didn’t report back, anyways. He allowed himself a sigh of relief. So I’m not totally fucked, at least.

Chapter Text

"Oh Navae, Goddess Navae, please guide me..." the nomad mumbled, dragging himself with an arm into a crevice beneath one of the caves. He blabbered incoherently to himself, trying to organize his thoughts as his very life bled out of the wound in his abdomen. "Navae, please help me..." he uttered, desperation evident in what little movements he was still capable of undertaking.

He shut his eyes, tears welling up. "Please, Navae, I can't die, my journey can't end here, I have so many people left to return to..." He silently cursed the Ministry scouts under his breath, how they seemed to pop up everywhere and how they killed his mentor, how they killed everyone from his tribe, how they were... the reason he was bleeding to death on an isle owned by warmongers.

Opening his eyes, he saw nothing but endless rain outside, not a person in sight nor earshot. He took a deep breath even as his body shook, hands closed together, fingernails digging into his knuckles as he began to feel even more like he was lying on empty air. "Help, help me, help me..." he repeated, to no avail.

"I can't survive in the Depths, I'm not ready yet- please-" He was interrupted by another jolt of pain shooting through his body.

Dropping the red bandana in his hands, he gulped. He should have never suggested ambushing those Ministry scouts. It was all his fault, wasn't it? If he wasn't such a battle-hungry fool, his mentor would still be alive, he wouldn't join him in death... join him... join him? He could... perhaps he could do that.

Thinking about anything felt like hours to him. Maybe he should just accept it.

Reluctantly, he ceased his struggles. He ceased his suffering. "Navae... guide me," he said, feeling the Depths wrap around his soul and finally drag him down, body going limp and eyes losing all life in them.

The last thing he felt before being plunged under was a comforting, soothing female voice, and a warm presence in his head, before his thoughts went out like a star in the sky.

Chapter Text

He struggled against his bindings, watching as the bandit in front of him knelt down, expression placid and weapon cast aside. Wisely, he said nothing, even as the bandit took out a book and began to read it in front of him.

"Do you feel a void in your life?"

The man stopped. "What kind of a question is that? No, no I don't. Why aren't you killing me?"

Still not looking up from the book, the bandit replied, "Because we've learned that our material wealth here is nothing compared to the glory that awaits us in the Fifth World. We're trying to enlighten you, like this book has enlightened us." He smiled, eyes still trained on the page. "Care to join us?"

"I don't have a choice, don't I?" he snarked.

Nodding, the bandit read from the book again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And with each reading, his desire to fight back slowly eroded into nothingness, as he saw these people for what they were. Friends, obviously. Fellows.

Someone untied his bindings. Looking behind him, he saw a female Gremor clad in white robes — not the usual attire of a bandit captain, though he'd accepted their oddities by now — look at him with an indecipherable face, long hair cast cast aside as she grabbed him by the chin and forced him to look at the preacher again.

He allowed this to happen. It was his fault for not listening the first time, at the very least she was polite enough in correcting his error.

The bandit from before looked at him, eyes there but not truly holding meaning. He read the passage again, enunciating every word in almost agonizing detail. "Now, imagine a place where your desires are made real. The Fifth World," he says, with such reverence that he could almost see why these bandits — no, not bandits, fellow intellectuals had changed the meaning of their group so quickly.

"It is the cosmos twisted in the shape we wish for! It was never that, not at all, but we can make it so." He looked close to tears. The man found himself sympathizing with his plight. No more dangers, no more horrible fates that awaited them down below. They could truly live life the way they were supposed to. "If this world is a tight suit of armor, the Fifth World is a cloak that provides full freedom of movement. We will never truly move until we are in this Fifth World."

Wiping the tears away, he said, "Do you understand us now? We are only trying to bring about salvation for everyone else." He placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "You should be helping us," he added.

He knew the correct answer. "Of course, five-named brother." A smile that never truly reached his ears wormed itself onto his face. He welcomed it. Emotion was a thing of this world. He would leave it behind, soon enough. "Just tell me what I'll have to do."

Chapter Text

He looked at the doorway. He could leave, he should, but he was too weak. And yet, he wanted out. He wanted away from this dreadful place and go back to his job at the Company, where his comrades were waiting for his return with likely open arms.

Taking a single step, he cursed as a twig broke beneath his boot. Nothing, yet. He took another step. The soil crunched beneath him. He took another step, then another, as he slowly shambled to freedom, away from the outpost.

Unfortunately, it was not to be. He heard shadows gather next to him in less than a second, turning around as a cloaked Vesperian formed from the compressed inky blackness gathering together. Instinctively, the guard took a step back. She wasn't doing anything, not yet. Not yet, his mind repeated. "Please," he quietly said.

Shaking her head, the scout made her way to him in two strides. In his panic, he had taken several steps backwards, almost falling over at one point before he managed to press himself against the wall behind him, supporting his weight. He looked to the wall he was leaning on, then the chair he was restrained to, and then the Vesperian, who had taken another stride and was now standing in front of him, mask to face, torturer to prisoner.

His fingers dug into the cracks of the wall behind him, his mouth a thin line and eyes wide with fear and trepidation. The scout tutted, grabbing him by the sling on his ruined uniform and slowly, gently(?!) dragging him to the chair, ignoring his protests and his hands desperately clawing at her arm.

"Hk!" The guard was unexpectedly tossed back onto the chair, the wooden, shoddily repaired chair (which was clearly not meant to be used at all since the wood felt strange beneath him) creaking under his weight. He couldn't muster anything more than a few quiet pleas as she easily restrained his hands behind him again, tying the knot together before making her way back to his front, facing him once more.

He was aware of how he looked at this point. Gods above, he was a mess. However, it was the least of his worries at the moment.

Taking out a short, gleaming blade from her hip, the scout leaned in close, knife held with such precision that it was impossible to believe what the results of her work truly looked like, truly felt like — which was white hot, drawn-out agony. "Please, I swear to the gods-" began the guard, only to cut his sentence off with a pained scream as the knife cut through what little cloth remained on his legs and his newly-healed flesh.

He shut his eyes, feeling the tears streak down his dirtied face as the knife traveled along his leg, opening the wound that it had created until it felt like his insides were on fire, he could feel the air seeping in, the blood pouring out, the knife on its unrelenting journey of agonizing-

"STOP!"

The knife slowed to a halt as he took several moments to recompose himself, breathing heavily, hunched over, if he had opened his eyes he would've seen how close the hilt of the knife and the arm holding it was to his face, he was too drained to figure it out, to do anything else.

"Please..." he rasped out.

A single hand cupped the right side of his face, deftly wiping the tears away with its middle finger. For a moment, the guard allowed himself a moment of reprieve, of rest. He almost leaned into the touch, desperate for anything that wasn't mind-wracking searing pain shooting through his body.

He was brought out of it by the knife slightly moving, the hand that wasn't on it in the moments prior making its presence known. "You need this," the low voice of the Vesperian said. "I hope you can understand my reasons for imparting these gifts to you," she whispered. And as quickly as it ended, the knife began to rend through his nerves again, he screamed and cried and thrashed in the chair, opening the wounds even more, making it hurt more, the hand that was previously cupping his cheek held it firm, keeping him in place

And Colt woke up with a slight jolt, a single breath interrupted as he looked around, taking in his surroundings. His eyes wandered until they zeroed in on a single Vesperian, sitting next to the door in a corner far from him, mask tilted down to the floor and clearly asleep.

Shifting in his covers, he left a single eye uncovered by the blanket, trying to let merciful sleep take him away again. It's just a nightmare, he thought to himself. I'm still alive.

A single, more terrifying thought was bouncing around the confines of his brain, keeping him from falling back asleep.

She's still alive.

Chapter Text

He yells at the sky, uncaring of how he was acting like an ass around his guildmates. He suddenly stops yelling, feeling guilty for ignoring the chastising of his fellows who only wanted what was the best for him.

"I'm sorry, man, I don't know what came over me," he said, giving his friends apologetic looks.

He shrinks away from their gazes, pursing his lips as he tried to figure out what to say next. "Look, I jus- can we go back to fishing? Please? I love fishing. You know how much I love fishing?" He looks back at them, seeing their expressions soften again. "Yeah. Like that. Let's go back to fishing, mkay?"

Taking out several fishing rods, he tosses them over to where his guildmates are sitting. Without looking to see if they grabbed them, he cast his line out to sea, humming a tune to himself as the sounds of the waters take his mind off of things.

Something tugs on the rod. He grunts to himself, reeling the line back with as much force as he could muster. "Got one!" he exclaimed, pulling the catch out of the water... and revealing a wet, soggy boot. He sighs to himself as he takes the boot and throws it away. "Nevermind. Fuckin' boot. How about you guys?"

He laughs in response. "Oh, don't worry. You'll all get your catches soon enough. Maybe you'll even get something that isn't seaweed this time, hehehe."

The man casts the line out to sea once more. He is the only one of the group to do so.

Four fishing rods sit beside him, accompanied by four empty spaces where a person would sit.

Chapter Text

He watches with bated breath as she walks around the room, grabbing a mirror from the table next to him and inspecting herself in it. Scooting away, he eyes her warily as she cranes her head around to look at him.

Chapter Text

She stares at the innkeeper. “So, what’s the guard outside doing?”

“Huh?” the innkeeper replied, surprised at her question. “What do you mean?”

“He does nothing but just stand there and sometimes read from his book,” she said. “He’s so…” What was the word that she was searching for? “Cold.” Like ice and snow; like Minityrsa. Like she was made to be, before all this went down. She stamps those rogue thoughts down, banishing them to the recesses of her mind. “What’s his problem?”

“Trig is alright… I mean, he’s not really that mean once you get to know him.” The Gremor lazily takes a sip from her redd juice. “He just has his own way of existing, you see? He’s really out of the way, and I appreciate that about him. No offense to the man. I’m okay with him.” She tilts her head. “So, why ask?”

The Vesperian coughs into the sleeve of her coat — not that she needed to, she had a mask anyways — and mumbles something awkwardly. “I’m just curious is all,” she mutters. “What’s he even reading from?”

The innkeeper shakes her head. “Not really our business to pry, is it? Anyways,” she yawns, “you should probably head to bed. I like our little talks, but you seem to do nothing but talk and talk all day long.”

Tensing, the Vesperian frowns slightly behind her mask. It must’ve been obvious in her body language, because the innkeeper immediately backpedals, saying, “Hey, calm down. I’m just joking with you, I like you. You’re nice, friendly, and clearly have a lot on your mind. I’m glad you’re speaking about it with me. Just worried that you might end up staying late doing nothing but making small talk with me. It’s okay, we both won’t die from a few hours of simply doing our own things, in our own little bubbles. Just like Trig.”

“Yeah,” she replies. “Just like Trig…”

She… was liked? That felt like a strange sentiment, however it was one that she welcomed. Attachment… even as brittle and as pathetically small this one was, it felt… good to have, good to be a part of.

She liked this newfound attachment to this innkeeper.

“You’re right, I’m gonna go back to bed. Good night,” she says, giving the Gremor a small wave as she makes her way to the ladder.

More thoughts to ponder as she tried to convince herself that she was safe (because she was) enough to have a good night’s rest, a proper, full night of sleep instead of waking up over the smallest sounds that were almost inaudible to all but her.

Thoughts that she kept returning to as she looked at Colt’s sleeping form lying down near her. So close. She could sleep against him, he had no power to stop her from doing as she wished.

But she didn’t want that, did she? Deep down, all she had ever wanted was love. But love was selfless. Something that you couldn’t, shouldn’t force someone to give you. And this was not love. This was her old obsession, coming back to rear its ugly head, haunting her and telling her she wanted him. (She did, of course, but not like this. Never again. )

She shook her head. She shut her eyes, tuning out anything that somehow still made sound at this hour of the night. She would respect the Celtor’s wishes, and perhaps earn his trust, if such a thing were ever possible. And she would try her best to love him, as a normal person, and not as the hollow, mad shell of a woman that the Ministry had carved her into, after siphoning out everything that made her her and feeding what was left with their rhetoric, to do their bidding.

A new beginning. She just had to make use of it.

The Vesperian finally fell asleep, several minutes after Colt had already done so. Her dreams were indecipherable, as always. She never paid much attention to them anyways.

Chapter Text

Her chest burned. She screamed silently in pure agony as the pain raced through her body, into her brain, and then through her body again. “Poisoned daggers,” sneered the figure beside her. “You know, the Ignition Union must’ve really been terrified of you to put out such a high price on your head.”

She was kicked to the floor, even as she writhed in agony, unable to do anything as the assassin forced her to look at him by nudging her head with his boot. “Damn. You’re fucked up,” he laughed.

The Celtor felt her vision fading. The Union… being sent down into the Depths three times in a row. The Union… being murdered for simply changing factions. The Union… The Union…

The voice in her head finally spoke up again. If I were you, I would use that power you had to kill him. He’s a lowly mercenary, it sneered. The man walked around her, and she could barely see the smug grin on his face as he watched her eye track his movement.

“Now, I don’t know what you did to severely piss the Union off, but I don’t care. Seems that you’re just free notes.” The assassin spits on her, turns, then walks away, out of sight.

GET UP.

But I-

She feels that weight in her chest slowly go away. But I’m still poisoned-

GET. UP! Are you going to let this pathetic whelp take you by surprise and send you back down?

Saevus fell silent as she pondered the deity’s words. And besides, you’ve been slacking off on the amount of souls you’ve been claiming for me. Wouldn’t it warm your little human heart to send this bastard down, right into my grasp?

She slowly but silently got to her feet, hand wrapping around the handle of her greatsword as she staggered to the assassin, whose back was still turned to her.

He works for the Union, the voice whispered. The ones that were the reason for our meeting in the first place. You should take this opportunity and exact vengeance, it crooned.

I… She raised the greatsword, high above the man’s head. …will.

“Huh?” He noticed the shadow of the blade over him, turning around as she swung it down. “What the-?”

Seeing his face, along with the rest of his torso cave in from the weight of the greatsword was, admittedly, very satisfying to Saevus’ many eyes. The shock in his lifeless eyes, the mouth opened in astonishment even as it was split into two.

The way his two halves fell apart, much like a fruit’s exocarp was amazing. It felt so invigorating to finally kill someone after so long, especially someone who very much deserved it.

Despite the voice lacking a face, she could somehow tell that it was smiling as it whispered into her ear once more. Good little flame, see how gratifying it is to take the life of another?

While she was not inclined to agree with it, just this once, she could see what little sense its point made. She gave a shaky grin as she wiped the blood off of her face.

“Yeah,” she whispered to herself. “Yeah, I do.”

Chapter Text

The Luminant’s Best And Worst Races

Written by a proud citizen of Etrea.

Greetings. I am Red Kanreshi. You may know me for my reviews on Lance Leshi’s food, in which I (respectfully) called his tastes good, but not quite. They were passable, but they got old rather quickly after only a few more meals. To summarize that review, I said his food was mediocre. However, because he was a fellow Etrean, I felt inclined to show him some benefit of the doubt.

Moving on, this paper will illustrate just what I think of each race in this Luminant. I am aware that this may be a contentious topic to cover, but as a loyal citizen of Etrea, I feel that it is my duty to show everyone my perception of these various near-humans.

First of all, Etreans. Etreans are easily some of the most civilized people in this world. A well-functioning kingdom, a strong military and naval presence, and beautiful scaly skin. To rule this Luminant is our species’ birthright. Without the influence of the Etreans, nothing in this Luminant would ever come to be.

Now, let’s move on to another common race. The Celtor. The Celtor are swindlers, but they are kind, evidently having been humbled by a great tragedy in their nation’s past. At least, if they even have a nation. Now, all that seems to be left of them are Pathfinders, or soldiers working for other factions. The Celtor are a merchant race that sail the seas in pursuit of riches. I believe them to be fellow survivors in this world, and I believe it to be beneficial to have them in the Kingdom of Etrea as merchants, sharing our rich culture and traditions throughout the world. And despite their hideous markings, they seem to look well enough that you can look past it.

And for my last favorable pick, the Canor. The Canor, while serving the Authority en masse, are a loyal race that seem to have their very tenacity bred into them by their forebears. Strong, if somewhat dimwitted and slow, they will be more than happy to serve whoever catches their eye until the end of their lives. They will make fine additions to the Etrean military should they be allowed to work as conscripts. However, their accents may make it a hassle to communicate quickly in battle.

Finally, the races I believe to be repugnant stains on the Luminant and the rest of the world by extension. As I am going from the best to worst, I shall start off with the Gremor. The Gremor are led by a whore named “Navae”, though it would do you well not to call her that while they are listening. They worship her with such fervor, even though she has made no moves to actually help them in their futile attacks against the soldiers of Etrea and their kin being spirited away by pirates. They are nothing more than unenlightened tribals who believe themselves to be touched by a higher power. Treat them with pity, for they are clueless about their true place in this world.

The Adret. A civilized, but heretic race, in the sense that they worship technology over nature. Already, they have begun to introduce new, foreign subversive ideals into our world, spreading their mechanical cancer at the edge of our Luminant and trying to take over the island of Aratel. They are the antithesis to the Etreans. While it may get me in trouble, I must say this: Letting the Adret into our city may be a miscalculation. How else would the Authority be able to launch raids on our land? Who could be feeding them information? Perhaps it’s that soon-to-be Diver, hiding a surprising amount of cunning behind that airheaded front she puts up. Maybe it’s the barber, always so kind to give us free haircuts, but secretly using our talks and his friends in the town to gather information, to feed them to the Authority and tell them when to strike. The Adret are not to be underestimated, as they are nearly the Etrean’s equal in terms of superiority by blood.

The masked menaces. They come in two forms. The Capra, an eerie and secretive race that may carry information no one wishes to learn about. Wearing the skulls of dead animals as their “faces”, these guarded witches and shamans will be unnecessarily cryptic about everything you ask them about, never once being candid about anything. Do not trust them.

The second form of these masked thugs, the Vesperians. Insects, literally. They wear masks to hide away their alien features from the world, but I have seen enough. We have one in our town, Polis, it calls itself. It claims to love Etris as it is its home. I know better. This bug wishes to gain favor with our kind, so that we may not dispose of it like the trash that it is when the time comes. It represents his race, in my eyes. Opportunistic, and with the facade of being intelligent, rational creatures. Their own natural armor makes them hard to kill, but there’s only so much a simple insect’s hide can take before it breaks. The kingdom is doing us all good by wiping them out of Aratel.

And the Khan. The yellow-like-sand, the brutish and aloof apes that they are. They learn quickly, perhaps too quickly for my liking. If there is a race tailored to finding weakness, it is the Khan. They glance at you once, and figure out your personality, two completely unrelated things. They are too intelligent, and clearly less human than the rest of us, only matched in that regard by two other races.

The Ganymede, slug “people”. They come from the Depths. They assist the insectoid Vesperians in their machinations, attempting to do something to Aratel Island, something we cannot fathom in our higher state of mind. They are alien to this Luminant, their resistance to the call of the voices below only confirm this fact. They must be purged and sent back to the Depths from whence they came. They are pure evil, their skin the color of shadows, their eyes unnatural symbols, to say nothing of their “expertise”. These things are the Depths, molded into a race and sent upstairs to do its bidding.

Lastly, the Felinor. Feline abominations, they value freedom above all else. It is easy to see why; it’s because they are thieves! They value their freedom so that they can use it to justify their unlawful acts! They pilfer when you’re not looking, selling your valuables as if they had earned it themselves through hard labor! They’re barely humanoid! Commonly seen walking on all-fours, climbing things that they shouldn’t be able to get a grip on, and their ears. They have EARS on the top of their head! How much more unnatural can you get than that? They don’t even have a faction. They’re a rogue people, and they deserve nothing but our hatred for it. Nothing but pests that barely count as a race due to their rarely-seen bipedal nature.

Chapter Text

"What the fuck?" He stared at the strewn-about corpse on the wall. "Why is Kennith dead?" he asked, looking at the royal guard who just happened to be conveniently nearby for this occasion.

"You have an audience with the Lord Regent," they stiffly responded, with a perfectly monotone voice.

The man leans to the side, staring at the katana in the sheath on their hip. He can see flecks of blood on the small metal part somehow visible between the handle and the sheath itself.

He looks back at the guard. "Your sword has blood on it."

"You have an audience with the Lord Regent," they repeated.

"Did you kill Kennith?" He thought to himself. "I thought he was a good guard."

"You," they enunciated, "have an audience with the Lord Regent."

"But why do I have an audience with the Lord Regent?"

"Because Lord Regent asked for your presence," they answered.

He scoffed. "Why did he ask for me?"

The guard shifts slightly. "Because you have an audience with the Lord Regent."

The man scratched his head. "But why?"

"Pathfinder," they said through gritted teeth, "just go to the fucking palace."

"Why?"

They pointed to the wall behind them. "Because if you don't, I'll see to it that you join him in the Depths."

They both stared at each other. "I'm okay with that."

The guard reached for their katana. Reacting immediately, the Etrean turned tail and made a run for it, sprinting away from the scene before the guard could do anything else.

Sighing to themselves, the guard sheathed the katana once more and stood there, idle. "I hate these pathfinders," they muttered to themselves.

Chapter Text

"Hey. Eres?"

The Etrean turns to look at him, his yellow eyes wide and mouth slightly ajar in a small "o" shape. "Yes, S-Sekh?" He seemingly needed to remember that they were both alone... for now.

Sekh undoes the straps securing the armor on his left shoulder, allowing it to fall to the ground. He pats his left arm.

After a few seconds, Eres nods, making his way over to his left before sitting there, resting his head against him. "Thank you," he says, lightly nuzzling against the Vesperian.

"Don't mention it," the Vesperian replies. Behind the mask, he smiles to himself as he pulls the other man closer.

Good company, he thinks, looking wistfully at the Etrean snuggling with him. Very good company.

Chapter Text

“Hey there.” The man walks over to him, seemingly uncaring of the vast size difference between them as he calmly sits down in front of him. “You seem sad.”

Brutus’ eye gives a slight twitch as he analyzes the man in front of him. “You’re not a peacekeeper,” he notes. “Why are you in my cell?”

The other man gives a slight shrug. “Dunno. I just saw this place and decided to see who was in it. Nobody else seems to be near this one, so… yeah. I got a little curious, you know?”

“I see,” he tersely answers with a snort. “In that case, you should leave.” And to emphasize his point, he loudly cracks his knuckles while looking down on him, purple eyes boring a hole into his face as he foolishly meets his gaze.

“Nah. Anyways, how’d you even get here? Your armor looks familiar, too.” He reaches out, as if to touch his centurion equipment, only to get a slap to the face as the Khan glowers at him with a barely-restrained anger.

“Do not. Test me,” Brutus growls. “And… if I tell you, will you leave?” Normally, he would beat this man within an inch of his life for intruding, but something about his demeanor makes him want to acquiesce to his demands, if only once.

“Mm mm!” The interloper gives a thumbs up. Brutus imagines the same hand in his grip, its thumb cleanly snapped off and its owner wailing in agony.

He shakes his head. “Very well. I was once an infamous Centurion on the frontlines of the Authority-Legion war, known for my great, almost supernatural strength and my inability to go down. I tore through swathes of the Authority’s finest troops on my lonesome, so great were my exploits that they had to rely on mercenaries and pathfinders just to give me a few scratches.”

The man grimaces. “So that’s how you got caught?”

“Hah!” Brutus gives a hearty laugh, almost all traces of his earlier aggression gone as he smacks the other man on the shoulder. “They wish. No, no, those attempts failed. I imagine the Authority wasn’t too pleased about having to sink so many of their notes into numerous failed ambushes.” He gives a wistful sigh. “Ah, if only I could break out of this damned Fort…”

“So… then, what-”

The smile disappears from his face in an instant. “The profligates caught a lucky break when I fell into that crater that a meteor had left behind. I had just gotten away from leading a group of other centurions to relative safety when I found myself trapped there, too high were the walls for me to scale in my exhausted state. The days scorched my skin, the nights nearly froze me to death. I was soon found by a few Authority captains who had scoured the area, perhaps looking to fall again to my strength. They encased me in a block of ice, carried me to the Fort and had the peacekeepers melt me out in this cell.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

He narrows his eyes. “Don’t give me your pity, outsider. I don’t need your sympathies, and I don’t want them. What I want is for you to leave me be. Get out of my cell. I’ve given you what you wanted, and I would be hard-pressed to extend my courtesy to you a second time.”

The man nods, gets up, and begins to walk to the exit of the cell. However, something catches Brutus’ eye. “Wait,” he says, squinting at the yellow sash just barely visible beneath his coat.

He turns, giving Brutus a confused look. “What is it? I thought you wanted me out.”

Brutus easily closes the distance between them in two steps. “I did. In fact, I was willing to let you leave on your own, up until I saw that you were one of them.” He grimaces.

“Errr… what?” The man seems to tense up at the implications of his sentence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about-”

A hand the size of his head grabs him by the face, its untrimmed nails digging into his skin as he yells and tries to pry its fingers off of him. “The next time you profligates try to dig around for a prisoner’s tale,” he says, as he begins to spin in place with the Adret still in his hand, “Don’t wear a part of your FACTION’S UNIFORM UNDERNEATH YOUR CLOTHES!”

The Adret flies into the wall at the end of the hallway at the speed of sound, almost breaking through it as he impacts the hard stone wall of the former Etrean prison. He gives a broken groan as he falls onto the floor in a crumpled heap, blood slowly pooling around him as he becomes vaguely aware of how many bones the Khan must’ve broken with that throw.

In his cell, Brutus watches with a vicious sense of satisfaction as peacekeepers tend to their maimed comrade. However, he cannot help but feel like a complete fool for trusting the Adret so easily with his story. Tricked by one of them , he grumbles to himself. The shame of it all burns.

If I ever see that Authority pig again, I’ll make him squeal .

Chapter Text

“Hehe.” The Canor next to him gives a wide, stupid grin as she incessantly pokes him in the face.

Brutus squints at her, annoyance evident in his narrowed eyes. “Who let you in my cell, profligate swine?” he mutters through gritted teeth.

Her grin just widens. “I love touching things.” And she pokes him again.

The Khan starts to see red. “Give me one good reason not to beat you to death right now, before I do just that and toss your mangled corpse out into the hallway.”

She hums to herself as she moves away from him, pacing around the cell as if the walls themselves had caught her interest. “Don’t know. Maybe the peacekeepers would poke you with their spears until you stop trying to kill me.”

He sighs. “Good point. Why are you here?” he asks.

The civilian sticks her tongue out, before licking the wall with it. It tells Brutus everything he needs to know about this profligate.

“Okay,” he says, grabbing her shirt and placing her outside of his cell. “Stay out.”

They’re both silent when they look at each other. Then, the merchant opens her mouth and begins to sing a horrible, indecipherable, probably Canorian song as she dances in front of his cell.

The noise hurts his ears. He exhales as he snaps his fingers, trying to calm himself down and maybe drown out that gods-awful racket worming itself into his skull.

Never have I desired the constant presence of those peacekeepers patrolling near my cell until now , he says to himself.

The centurion covers his ears with his big hands, although they don’t do much to block out the din of her scratchy voice. It’s a more effective torture than whatever the Authority has in mind for him.

Although, considering how desperate they get when it comes to him, he wouldn’t be surprised if they let her in for this exact purpose.

Chapter Text

"I heard you were part of the Union," he said.

Calypso's eyes widened. "Ah- now, what Union are we talking about?" She gave him the most innocent grin she could muster, though her eyes betrayed her true emotions.

"You're part of the Ignition Union." The Etrean Black Diver reached behind him, as if about to cut her down with the fearsome katana strapped to his back. "You realize I'll have to kill you now, right?"

The Adret gulped, though made no move to fight back as she shut her eyes, feeling tears streak down her cheeks. This was it, this was the end for her. She wouldn't return to the Landing. She would be killed by the person she entrusted her life to, all because she worked for a faction he despised-

"Relax," Akira laughed, "I'm fucking with you."

She released a breath that she didn't know she was holding as her eyes opened again, to meet his amused gaze as he calmly scratched his back. "If you're going to want to survive down here, you'll need to actually stand your ground if someone threatens you."

Calypso sputtered, "B-buh- THAT'S NOT FUNNY-!"

She anxiously looked to the side. "You're sure we won't get spotted?"

They had made it into the drowned city with nary a scratch. However, they still had to find the cathedral to get out of the Depths. Well, he didn't, but she did, and he agreed to help, so...

"Mmm." Akira nodded to her, brushing aside one of his bangs as he led her outside of the building that they had holed up in. "Follow my lead, stay close to me, and for the love of Alsin above try not to piss off any monsters nearby."

As they snuck through the desolate city, Calypso couldn't help but mutter, "How am I supposed to be calm about this? How are you so calm about this? We're literally in hell, and yet you seem none the worse for wear despite the horrors you must endure on a daily basis down here." She absentmindedly kicked a small rock away as she followed close behind.

The Etrean huffed. "It comes with being a Black Diver," he began, when a hauntingly familiar roar interrupted both of their thoughts and caused them to stop in their tracks. Heavy footfalls approached them, the ocean floor literally shaking as the megalodoaunt reared its head from behind one of the buildings to their left. He made an annoyed grunt. "I told you not to-" The megalodaunt's head exploded, caking them in gore and megalodaunt brains as the headless body fell against the same building it was hiding behind. "-get us into any trouble, what were you thinking?"

The Adret, having witnessed all of this happen in the span of 10 seconds, could only blink in response. "I didn't even see the sharko," she finally managed to say.

His expression softened, if only a bit as he grabbed her by the arm and continued to lead her along. "Fine. Whatever. Let's find the cathedral and send you on your way. Can't let another poor fool get themselves killed this week."

Chapter Text

Akira watched as the Adret that he had been escorting up to this point walked into the cathedral, feeling an odd sense of… unease, as he knew how sporadic the Voices could be on who they gave a trial and who they allowed back into the surface, free of charge.

He pinched his fingers together, watching as she stood at the elevator, staring at the lever but curiously not pulling it as she seemed to share his apprehensiveness about the whole thing.

Biting his cheek, he walked into the cathedral, making his way to the elevator as Calypso was about to pull the lever and be done with it. He didn’t know why he felt so compelled to personally accompany her, but…

“Hey,” he simply said, eliciting a jolt of surprise from the Adret and causing her to swivel around, to face him with confused eyes before they lit up in recognition.

“Oh,” she breathed. “Hello again, um. Akira.” She gave him a small wave, looking around them. “So, why did you… Do you need anything, or?”

The Etrean stared at her for a few seconds, wondering what horrors would await her in the trial without him to help her through it. Now, his presence would guarantee an Enforcer, for sure, but… he could manage that. He’d rather not risk being there to stop whatever was trying to maim Calypso from, well, maiming her and sending her to the Eternal Gale or some other horrid place.

She wouldn’t last five minutes down there. He sighed, walking over and giving her a look as he placed a hand on the lever. “I’m gonna help you get up to the surface, back to Miner’s Landing. Alright?”

Calypso blinked a few times, a small smile forming on her face. “But, why?” she asked, as he pulled the lever, took her hand in his, and walked to the elevator with her in tow. He could hear her heart hammering in her chest as she intertwined her fingers with his. “W-why help me?”

He didn’t answer, though he did give her a small smile as the elevator stopped at the top of the cathedral, in the same trial room he had seen so many times before. Still holding her hand in his, he gave it a tight squeeze before letting go, pulling his hand away and placing it to the katana on his back as the Voices began the same routine that they always did.

“Look what crawled up this time. It’s as if each one is weaker and more pathetic than the last,” a raspy, hateful voice sneered.

“Oh, little ones. Why must you leave your darling little cage?” Akira gave a slight roll of his eyes as a sweet, honeyed voice cooed into their ears, its sick, twisted ‘affection’ making his skin crawl. “Is it not perfect ? Why must you squander our love?”

The Black Diver spat on the floor, glaring at the statues on the walls. “Save your little act for someone who actually gives a damn about it,” he scoffed.

The air became thick with anger as a different voice cut in, “Sniveling little creature. Detestable . I’d like to see you try to run your mouth one more time, as I fold your pathetic little frame into itself with my bare hands.”

Despite their tense situation, Akira couldn’t help but crack a small, defiant smile. “What hands? You’re a voice with no body to inhabit, nothing to control. Fitting that you would be the one spouting threats, fantasizing about violence because you’re unable to take part in it yourself.”

As the anger began to build in the presence in the room, Akira went on, “What’s it like, being untouchable as a voice? Must be lonely with no one else to talk to, with nothing to do but watch over a little cathedral taken from the surface. Have any of you ever made good on your empty threats, or are you too full of yourselves to admit that you’re all as incapable as the ones you sentence to death in these trials?”

The voice from earlier growled. “Fit for crushing, and with a defiant spirit that I’ll certainly enjoy breaking. I will relish scraping your remains off the floor, along with that pathetic whelp you dragged along with you.”

An Enforcer appeared out of seemingly thin air, marching over to Akira with its greatsword already drawn, its red eyes gleaming with malice as it raised its blade to strike. Akira parried it, slashing at its waist before parrying the second strike, then trying to cut into its waist again, repeating the cycle ad infinitum until the mighty armored monster doubled over, raising its greatsword one last time, turning to face Calypso and throwing the mighty blade at her as the last of its strength faded.

Akira yelled, sprinting at the Adret and tackling her to the ground as the greatsword found its mark, embedding itself in

his

flesh.

Calypso stared at him with an appropriate amount of shock and horror, the authoritative voice barely registering in his ears as he hissed in pain, bringing a bloodied hand to his side and trying to fight through the pain.

Finally finding his voice, he rasped, “I’ll… be…. fine,” as he felt their souls be sent back up to the surface. At Calypso’s disbelieving look, he gave a bloody, reassuring grin, opening his mouth to say more when it all went black.

Chapter Text

The servant stared at the wall in front of her, tuning out the thumping in the walls as she breathed as slowly as possible. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. The thumping grew louder, before unexpectedly ceasing entirely as something hit the floor.

Closing her blindfolded eyes, the servant turned, slowly walking over to the source of the noise. She scratched at her palms as she stopped walking, staring at the unconscious form of the Duke on the floor. His head was bloodied, and the wall itself had flecks of blood on it, as if he had been… hitting it with his own skull till he knocked himself out.

The Adret stared down at him, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest as his mouth hung open, the display almost comical if it weren’t for the knowledge of who he was and what he had done. This man had scarred them all irreversibly, and now was the perfect chance to-

To what? He’ll just come back from the Depths, like he always does. He always comes back. No matter what.

She sighed. His death wouldn’t stick, and even if it did, it wouldn’t be a very good thing. With no Duke, there was nobody to control the golems, keep them in line, keep this manor relatively safe from the outside world. That was his justification for keeping them all here, wasn’t it? To keep them safe.

Perhaps, even in his descent into madness, he still cared, in some way.

The servant scoffed at the thought, but nonetheless knelt over, making sure he was mostly uninjured. Unsurprisingly, he was. All he had done was knock himself out against the wall, after all. She tentatively brought a hand to his shoulder, perhaps to rouse him from his self-inflicted slumber.

Without warning, green, glowing gale flared up, surrounding the unconscious Duke, and she quickly drew her hand back before the piercing winds could rip it from her wrist. His eyes opened, and he sharply looked at her, tensing up as if he had been expecting a fight.

When he saw that it was only the Adret, however, he relaxed, his chest falling as the shield of gale dissipated in mere moments. He stood up, dusting himself off and giving her a curious glance. “What is it?” he asked, as if he hadn’t nearly relieved her of her right hand with his blasted Galebreathe moments before.

She furrowed her brows, her displeasure evident even with her blindfold. She motioned to the wall with a tilt of her head, then slowly tilted it down, at him.

He seemed to understand well enough. The Duke chuckled. “Is that it? I’m quite alright, Freya. Though I will say that your worrying about me is almost… flattering. Do try not to touch me while I’m unconscious, I don’t like waking up to blood on my vest.” His eyes glimmered a faint green, a reminder of his tremendous power. “Now, go back to whatever it was you were doing. I have some business of my own to attend to.” He waved her off.

Grimacing as she turned away, the servant slightly shook her head as she walked away, leaving the Duke back to his own devices. Fine. If he wanted to knock himself out again, he was more than free to do so. Let him be his own worst enemy, for all she cared.

It wasn’t worth losing a limb just to check on a Lord who had long since fallen from grace. Besides, he could handle it, couldn’t he? He’d be fine.

…She felt thirsty. Perhaps there were still some pomars left untouched for her to feast on. Irritatingly enough, his experiments hadn’t stopped her from feeling thirst or hunger. She still had the same needs as everyone else.

Maybe even the others… She shut the thought down. There was no use dwelling on something she could do nothing about. They were less fortunate, and she could do nothing to help them.

Her reassurances to herself did nothing to make her feel any less responsible.

Chapter Text

The Duke stared at his ever-so-loyal 'mindless' servant, observing as she shifted uneasily in front of him. She glanced at him, as if wordlessly asking what he wanted from her now.

"Freya, dear, would you like to tear the skin off of my face?"

She shook her head, turning away from him while pursing her lips. The Celtor laughed, looming over her and resting his elbow on her shoulder as if she were an old friend. "Go on," he chuckled. "Do it."

The servant placed a hand on his arm, gently pushing it off her shoulder as she mouthed something to herself.

The Duke squinted. "What was that?"

She frowned, still not looking at him. "Mmm mmm," she vocalized.

Ignoring the fact that she could actually somewhat make sounds now, the Duke sighed, dramatically throwing his hands into the air. "Fine, fine." He huffed. "Go back to your nonexistent duties, I'll just find a different servant to do it." He turned, walking away and ignoring the vague sense of concern directed towards him as he left the servant to her devices.

Chapter Text

The servant slowly meandered over, watching as the figure at the table sat there, mostly still and unmoving save for the occasional twitch of his fingers on his open hand.

It stared, not knowing how to act. If the Duke decided to punish it for stepping out of line in an attempt to assist him...

The servant shook its head, turning and walking away from the pathetic sight. It would just get someone else to do it in its stead. So off it went, gallivanting into the manor to find some other poor servant to give their task to.

Days passed.

The servant slowly walked into the room, immediately noticing the hunched over, disheveled form of the Duke sitting by the table, alone. She hurriedly sprinted over, only slowing down once she saw that he was actually breathing and wasn't already sent to the Depths by malnourishment or dehydration or anything.

She began to raise her hand, but stopped, remembering their previous encounter. Instead, she cleared her throat, not wanting to see if he had the self-control to stop his shield from flaring up while she was in it.

His head shifted, his eye peeking out of his arm as he stared at her. "...Freya," he plainly said.

The Adret nodded to him, keeping her expression neutral as he kept his eye on her. He groaned. "If you're going to just stand there and stare at me, be gone. I'd like to be alone for this."

Slowly, she walked over, sitting on the table and awkwardly rubbing his shoulder with her gloved hand. After a few seconds of her odd attempts at comfort, he sighed. "Fine. Stay," he whispered. "It's been a long, arduous week."

The servant's eyes, hidden by her blindfold, closed at that. She knew what he really meant.

It's been a long, arduous month, and he's been slowly starting to lose his motivation to do anything. That child the Regent sent him, her presence was like a drug. She was keeping him in high spirits, and now that she was gone, her absence was like a withdrawal of happiness for the Duke.

The irony almost hurt.

Chapter Text

The Ignition Union guard leaned against her post, staring at the vast blue sea that separated Miner’s Landing from the rest of the islands in this Luminant. She huffed as she shut her eyes, the day was as uneventful as the rest. Why she was put up to this absolutely boring spot was anyone’s guess.

Probably someone that had it out for her or something. That would make sens-

She startled as a boat crashed at the docks, the sound of wood splintering immediately bringing her head out of the clouds as her eyes snapped open, staring at the source of the noise. The guard gaped at the sight before her.

A wrecked sloop rested in the waters, part of it embedded in the area of the docks that it crashed into as wooden planks and bits and pieces floated in the water. A lone figure threw themselves onto the docks, covered in blood with a massive greatsword embedded in their side.

The guard backed against the wall at the sight of the Black Diver standing to his full height. Still shorter than her, but it was menacing enough.

The bloodied man was hunched over, breathing heavily, but still he stood up to the best of his ability. His eyes seemed to glow as he stared at the guard, slowly walking over to her despite the greatsword still stuck in the side of his stomach. The Diver breathed.

She shuddered, but returned his stare, preparing to reach for her messer if he tried to do anything suspect. The Etrean’s eyes seemed to soften. “Where’s… Calypso…?” he asked.

The woman gulped, sweating bullets from his sheer proximity. “I-in the uh….. Why do you wanna know?”

His face fell immediately. “None of your business… guard. I-I’ll find her myself, th-thanks for absolutely nothing.” And with that, he turned, hobbling through the archway and disappearing from her line of sight.

Briefly, she stared at where he was for several seconds, her mind trying to reconcile with what she just saw. Then, she ran after him, to see where he was headed and what he was going to do.

And, besides, for all she knew, the guy was going to fucking bleed out before he even got past the town. She disliked the Divers, of course, but even she wasn’t willing to let someone drag themselves off to die alone…

Calypso whistled to herself as she strolled around the balcony, leaning against the fence as she admired the sight of the town below her and the vast sea that encompassed the luminant. The cool breeze on her face helped take her mind off of things.

The Adret sighed as she simply stood there, relaxing. She ignored the sounds around her, the distant mechalodaunts fighting and the elevator’s machinery creaking as it brought something up… none of which concerned her. So she just kept watching the sea.

She ignored the footsteps towards her, simply shifting her weight on one leg as she refused to look at whoever was approaching her.

“W-wait! Hang on!” one panicked voice said. Still, Calypso ignored it. “Where do you think you’re-”

A hand tapped her shoulder. “Calypso,” another, more tired voice said. She stilled, slowly recognizing its owner as she finally turned around.

A wounded Etrean Black Diver stared back at her, eyes sunken in and twitching with pain yet full of conviction. She felt her jaw drop as Akira stood in front of her, like he didn’t still have that Enforcer’s blade stuck in his side, still covered in his blood and broken bits of his armor. “Hey,” he slowly said, giving her a shaky smile.

The Adret struggled to respond, looking him up and down, and then the Ignition guard behind him as she tried to figure out how long he’d been dragging himself to the island to try and find her. “H-how are you-?” she tried to ask, failing to find her words.

The Etrean smiled, then opened his mouth. Before he could answer, he fell over with a pained groan, causing the guard following him to rush over in a panic as she fretted over the state of the Diver.

Calypso stared at him for a second or two before rushing over as well, trying to help him up to his feet and bring him to the inn to rest. She sighed as the guard helped her bring him back up to his feet by the arms, the two women slowly dragging him back to the elevator to bring him back down.

Gods below, she thought to herself. This was gonna be a mess to deal with and explain to the other Union members.

She mentally hoped Akira didn’t happen to do anything stupid before this little trip to Miner’s Landing. Hopefully, she could watch as he recovered, and then they could talk, in the safety of the Ignition Union’s base.

In the safety of the surface, in civilization. One thought led to another, and Calypso couldn’t help but wonder:

How long had Akira been down there in the Depths, forced to deal with its horrors every waking moment? Was this the closest he’s had to proper rest? Was she the only person he actually knew?

She had a lot of questions for him once he woke up. But, those could wait until he was in a state to answer them.

The Adret sat by the bed, watching as the wounded Black Diver shifted in his sleep. The greatsword had been taken out with surgical precision by the island’s resident chirurgeons, thankfully. He would live.

She held his hand, trying to reassure herself. Slowly, his calloused fingers closed around her smooth, unscarred skin. Akira, still with his eyes shut, smiled faintly.

Calypso gave a small smile of her own at the sight.

Chapter Text

Klaris stared at the empty doorway, waiting for someone to pass. Waiting for the umpteenth pathfinder to try and gain entry to the Second Layer through her. Waiting for another report of a failed expedition to go through. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

The woman’s eye twitched minutely as she slowly clenched and unclenched her fists. This heavy silence, this lack of things to distract herself with, it was getting to her.

With a sigh, she shook her head and walked off, venturing somewhere into the castle. Perhaps a stroll around the place would clear her head. Perhaps not. Regardless, that required her to do something, and she would do just that.

A distraction from how eternally-bleak her life was as a Diver was all she needed to keep herself sane.

She paused by the library, thinking she heard someone call her name. Thinking nothing of it, she took out a book, trying to read what was on it.

Her eyes gazed upon the cover, then inspected it, then gazed upon the cover again. And she inspected the cover. Then she gazed upon it a third time and realized that her little attempt to read was going absolutely nowhere.

With a sigh, she put the book back where she had found it, rolling her eyes as she heard someone call her name again. Whirling around to glare at the speaker, she opened her mouth before pausing, realizing who it was. “Mark,” she quietly muttered.

The Adretian Journeyman gave her a small wave, tilting his head at her. “Miss Llfiend. I, erm… Are you finally taking a break?” he asked.

She narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean ‘taking a break’?” And, oh, Gods she hated how her voice sounded. The lack of sleep must’ve been getting to her.

“You’ve abandoned your post.” He gave her a somewhat concerned look. “Should I get the Journeymen to stand guard and tell anyone that you’re off-duty for the time being? I mean, I already took the liberty of doing so once I saw that you were gone, but…”

Klaris cleared her throat. “Yes, of course. Do that. I’m ‘on break’. Sure.” She gave him a disapproving look. “And stop… that. I don’t need your concern, and certainly not your pity.”

Apparently realizing what he had implied, the Journeyman put his hands up placatingly, eyes widening as he replied, “No, no! I wouldn’t dare imply that you need such help, it’s just… As your subordinate, it is my duty to make sure that you are in the right state of mind to manage things.”

Slowly, Klaris blinked at him, doing nothing other than breathing as she stared him down. “...Right. ‘Right state of mind,’ of course.” She sighed, turning away. “Leave it to the nosy Journeyman to word an insult with an ungodly amount of tactfulness,” she muttered under her breath.

She could still hear him shifting uneasily on his feet behind her. With a groan, she grumbled, “Mark. Go. Away.” And with that said, the Adretian man presumably gave her back a salute and walked off, back to his little spot in the castle.

Perhaps going outside could clear her head. Klaris resolved to do just that, walking around the multitude of shelves in the castle’s library when an unwelcome presence reared its ugly, messy head of white hair.

“Miss Llfiend!” the Ganymede exclaimed, and the woman shut her eyes so as to not show that she was rolling them as he walked in front of her. “What a pleasant surprise, I didn’t expect you to take a walk around the castle, I mean I thought you were practically glued to your spot!” The madman cackled.

Klaris furrowed her brows, glaring at him as she fought the urge to strangle the imbecile and slam him against the shelves he was standing so close to. “Carrion,” she said, voice shaking with barely-restrained anger as she exhaled loudly.

The scientist dramatically spun around, gesturing to his side as if he were part of a play. “The one and only! Now, tell me, what brings you to venture around the castle at last?”

She weighed her options. If she humored him now, perhaps he would stop bugging her after he’d had his fun. If not… Klaris sighed. “Nothing, just… looking around and making sure everything is alright.” She knew just how flimsy this sounded.

The Ganymede huffed, giving her an incredulous look. “Really? Why, it certainly didn’t sound that way when you were talking to Mark!” For fuck’s sake. “What are you really doing, wandering the castle aimlessly like this? Has your sanity crumbled? I could give you a heartening remedy for the price of nothing! If you need it, of course.”

His incredible ability to run his mouth was getting on her nerves. And she’d almost worried that she was losing the ability to call forth her perpetual anger at the world. Thankfully, the good doctor decided to test her patience. “Carrion,” she began, “why don’t you go study some more of the Depths’ fauna, hm? Perhaps get high off of your own concoctions? After all, you like being on the receiving end of whatever unholy mixture you’ve brewed for the day.”

Carrion made an offended gasp, his green eyes widening as he gave her a genuinely perturbed look. “What- I was merely trying to-”

Klaris leaned in, giving him an unnerving and forced smile. “Fuck you, Carrion,” she interrupted sweetly.

The man took a step back, looking her up and down. The smile had almost completely fallen from his face. He gave a small frown, slowly meeting her eyes. “...Alright then, Miss Llfiend,” he quietly muttered, schooling his face into a neutral expression as he stepped aside.

With a derisive scoff, she walked past him, taking the opportunity to shoot him another dirty look before she exited the library. How dare they try to interfere , she angrily thought to herself. How dare they give me their pity.

Stepping outside of the castle, Klaris basked in the beautiful navy blue landscape of the Depths as she walked through the bridge and into what would be certain death for anyone who wasn’t of her caliber. She could manage herself out here, and she was free to be as brutal as she wished.

Unfortunately, the peaceful silence did not last for long. A bolt of thunder crashed down near her, and she whirled around, staring at the figure who had appeared out of literal thin air. Or water, for that matter.

She relaxed somewhat upon seeing who it was. “Akira,” she said.

The Etrean man gave her a nod, twirling the book in his hands around and securing it to his waist. “Klaris, what’re you doing out here? I thought you’d stay cooped up in that room forever.” He walked over to her, looking around them both. “Fresh air?” he asked.

The woman gave him an unimpressed look. “More like fresh water, but yes. Is it too much to ask for, to let me have some time to myself out in the wastes?” She gestured around them. “I can handle the horrors of the Deep.”

He gave her a look of his own, tilting his head as he replied, “Well, if we’re going down that route, I suppose you can call it saltwater instead. The sea doesn’t exactly…” he trailed off, seeing that his attempt at humor had only further incensed the other Black Diver. “Right. Anyways, I just want to keep an eye on arguably the most valuable Black Diver in the castle after she willingly steps out of what is relatively the safest area in the Depths.”

A faint smile tugged on her lips at the compliment. “I am the most valuable Diver in the castle, yes,” she agreed. “But that title does not come easily. I can handle myself out here, you needn’t waste your time watching me sit here and do nothing.” She gestured somewhere, to the distant cliffs overlooking the area she stood in. “You can go there and keep an eye on me, if you want to so badly. I won’t need your help, of course, but if it’ll stop you from whining about not being able to play the hero and if it’ll also let me maintain the illusion that I’m alone with my thoughts… I think I can compromise.”

Akira gave her a salute and an expression that was not quite a smile but rather close as he replied, “Fair reasoning. Of course. Goodbye, Klaris.” And with that, the Etrean man disappeared in another flash of lightning, leaving her alone once more.

Not technically alone, she knew he was watching her from the cliffs, but still.

And with that finally out of the way, Klaris looked around, letting the serenity of the Depths take her mind off of things for the time being. Peace and quiet, at last.

She just narrowly managed to dodge a trio of gigameds aimed her way as a bigger, purple one appeared out of nowhere to ruin her day. The woman gave a disgruntled ‘tsk’, pulling out her gladius as she prepared to fend the monster off.

Well, peace and quiet for a few minutes, at least. Gods-damned Depths.

Chapter Text

Chaser stared outside, ignoring the woman's reflection in the window as he felt the heat even through the glass. "Please, tell me your air conditioner works." He was burning up in here. So damn hot… “Klaris?”

The woman gave no response. Chaser glanced at her reflection, seeing her furrow her brows as she typed something on her laptop before pushing herself away. The noise of her chair moving back made him wince.

“Alright,” she muttered. “I'll turn on the air-con, and you,” she said, pointing at him, “can get off your sorry ass and help me with my work. Sound good, Chaser?”

The air in the room felt significantly colder, and the man welcomed it as he relaxed, melting into the chair. “Yup. Thanks.”

Klaris sighed. “You're welcome. Now get up. I need you to do my work for me while I prepare food.”

Reluctantly, he stood up, walking over to her laptop and sitting in her chair as the woman went off to get something from the fridge. As he laid his eyes on what she was working on, he called out to her, “Do you want to have a game of chess after this?” As much as he was not on good terms with her right now, it wouldn't kill them both to try and have some form of entertainment with each other, seeing as how they'd be working together for a while whether they liked it or not.

There was no response for a few seconds, and the man awkwardly began to type as he gave a resigned sigh. Of course she wouldn't even bother. Not that he could blame her, but it was still kind of…

“Maybe,” Klaris' voice cut through his thoughts. She stepped over to him, holding a mug of coffee in her hand as she glanced at his work, then back at him. “Finish your part, and I'll prepare a chessboard.” Blunt and formal, as always.

The man nodded, trying to keep the small smile off of his face as Klaris walked to the other table. He typed away, now somewhat incentivized by the promise of a fun game once this was all said and done.

The air-conditioner hummed pleasantly in the background as the frigid air of the room bit at his skin. If he wasn't so engrossed in what he was doing, he may have actually fallen asleep in these conditions. Still, his work called, and so he diligently kept typing.

“Think that’s enough?” Klaris asked as he leaned away from the screen.

He wiped at his eyes, turning to look at her. “Yeah. Chess?” Chaser slowly stood up, slightly towering over his colleague as she took a step back.

“Mhm.” She gestured him over, setting the board down by a table as she made herself comfortable on one of the chairs. “I’ll be white.”

He squinted at her, then shrugged. “Fair. I’ll be black.” And he sat down, watching as she made her move. The pawn in front of the king took two steps forward. “Classic,” he snickered under his breath.

Klaris didn’t respond, merely watching as he brought the pawn to the left of his left bishop one step forward. “Do you even know what you’re doing?” she asked.

“Do you?” he retorted, as she brought her queen into the fray.

“A fair argument,” she conceded, snapping her fingers as she saw him move his other bishop’s pawn out into the field. Klaris responded by bringing out her knight, watching as he then brought his bishop out into the field. “A free bishop? How kind.”

Chaser stretched his arms. “Are you going to take it?”

She huffed. “All of these questions are getting on my nerves,” she said, moving her queen into the spot that the bishop used to occupy. Only for his knight to finally move out of the line of pawns, capturing her exposed queen. “Huh.”

He grinned. “What’ll you do, Klaris?”

“This,” she replied, taking his knight with her bishop. He promptly took his other bishop out. She responded by bringing out the pawn on the other side of her other bishop one step forward, giving it a way out while mostly removing the threat that his bishop posed to hers, even though it was protected by a pawn. He brought his knight out.

She brought the king’s pawn one more step forward, threatening it. He coughed, bringing the knight closer to her bishop’s pawn. Promptly taken by her knight. Chaser brought the pawn to his king’s left out, and her own pawn promptly took it. Curiously, he brought his king’s pawn two steps forward.

The woman thought for a moment, then took his other pawn out, threatening his queen and giving her a chance to promote. “You’re pretty shit at this,” she remarked.

Chaser yawned, bringing his queen next to her knight. No response.

She gave a smirk, then brought her bishop closer to the end of the board, threatening the rook and protecting her pawn. It was trapped, with nowhere to go. Any square it could escape to, it was threatened by the pawn or the bishop. So, with a heavy sigh, he simply moved another piece.

His queen, capturing her knight and putting her king into check. She promptly moved her king out of the way. So his queen took the pawn in front of her bishop, threatening it. With a snarl, she brought the bishop out into the open, cutting his king off from one of its escape routes.

Queen to d2. She brought her rook closer to it, while still leaving it protected by the bishop. His queen, annoyingly, then went for the pawn behind the bishop, threatening it instead. Wait a minute , she thought, looking over the board. He’s already opened himself up several times to check, with no way out.

Slowly, a smile crept onto her lips. Oh, this was great.

With a small flick of her wrist, her bishop, which had been protecting the space that the pawn was supposed to go to, moved to c6, directly behind it. It was now putting the king into check. But Chaser couldn’t escape.

His bishop was too far for the king to capture, the pawn was putting the other space he could move into in check, and the bishop, still on her side of the field, was blocking his only other escape route.

It was checkmate.

“I win,” Klaris said.

Chaser gave the board a surprised look, then glanced back at her. “Huh. Good game,” he replied, a small smile of his own appearing on his face. “I actually had fun.”

She didn’t respond to his comment as she put the pieces away, folding the board and setting it aside as she walked over to the laptop. As much as she hated it, it was time to get back to work. Just another few sleepless hours in the name of science.

The laptop’s screen didn’t light up. Slowly, she turned over to Chaser. “Please tell me you saved our work before you got off.” Her voice shook ever so slightly as she said this.

Her colleague gave a shaky smile, nodding slowly as he replied, “Yeah. I did. I definitely did. I’d never forget.”

“Never,” she repeated despite not believing it, as she reached down and plugged the laptop in, slowly charging it. “I suppose this means we’ll be taking an even longer break than I imagined.” Klaris sighed as she walked over to the couch, stopping as she saw the man lie down, resting his head and legs against the armrests.

He yawned, seemingly unaware of the slightly irritated look that she gave him as she jostled his head. “Chaser. Move. I want to sit down as well.”

“Nah.”

Muttering a curse under her breath, she grabbed his head and held it up as she sat down, before letting his head drop back down onto her lap. “Aw, thanks,” he remarked, cracking an eye open and giving her a wry look. “I didn’t know you were so accommodating.”

“Chaser, I’m going to smother you with a pillow in your sleep if you don’t move.”

With a sigh, the man dragged himself till the back of his knees were resting on the armrest, his head of blue hair just barely touching her leg as he tried to go to sleep. “Thank you,” the woman muttered, crossing her legs as she rested her head against her hand. “Maybe next time, pick a game you aren’t horrible at.”

“Maybe,” he sleepily replied, letting his right arm hang over the edge of the couch.

Before he could say anything else, the steady hum of the air-conditioning and the cool temperatures of the room caused his mind to wander, and before he knew it he was fast asleep.

Glancing over at her colleague, Klaris gave a smug smirk before letting herself fall asleep as well. It was afternoon, but perhaps they could continue their work later.

After I’m done throttling him for forgetting to save it , she thought before her tiredness took her out.

Chapter Text

The Jetstriker clad in white robes huffed as she sprinted to a nearby rock, stopping to catch her breath as she wiped the sweat off of her face. These afternoon runs around Minityrsa were really starting to get to her, it seemed. That was okay, she liked being out of breath from this sort of physical exercise. Running was fun.

She looked up, hearing someone laughing to themselves nearby. Cautiously, she looked around, jumping back as she laid eyes on a black Felinor clad in black and gold laying on the very same rock she was standing next to moments before. “Woah!” she shouted, causing the Felinor to glance at her.

The two stared at each other for a few seconds, before the Celtor relaxed and let her shoulders fall. “Oh, thank Gods, it’s just you,” she mumbled, adjusting her hood.

“Hey, Alirian,” the other woman said, watching as the Jetstriker dusted herself off. “What brings you to my little game area, I wonder…?”

“Just checking things out,” the Celtor muttered. “I don’t have any new rivals to bug. None of them come to visit me after the first few times.” She sounded rather dejected. Well, she did feel rather dejected. None of them actually tried to talk to her after getting the Oath.

“Hm.”

“Anyways,” Alirian said, coughing into her sleeve, “wanna go for a race? I want to-”

Aelita held up her hand. “No, sorry. I have to go on a date with someone this week. I've been meaning to finally socialize with them and see something other than this valley for a change.” Despite rebuffing her, the other woman sounded genuinely regretful about having to do so. “My apologies.”

“Oh.” The Jetstriker scratched the back of her head. “No, it’s fine. Who are you going out on a date with, if I may ask?” Besides, Aelita? Getting a partner? The idea was mind-boggling. She always seemed too free to tie herself down to someone…

The Felinor smiled. “Have you heard of this pretty Adret woman in Etris, somewhat short with her hair in a nice little bun? She’s my date.” She flexed her claws, saying, “You know, since I can’t race you right now, I guess we can settle with a nice little guessing game. So, guess!”

Alirian sighed, crossing her arms. “I literally never set foot on Etris, so I won’t know who you’re talking about. Could you please just tell me?” she deadpanned.

Rolling her eyes, Aelita huffed as she replied, “Fine, fine. Her name’s Karliah, and she’s the most adorable person I have ever known. Every word that comes out of my mouth seems to be enough to make her shuffle in place and give me the most sheepish of expressions.” The Felinor gave a smug smile at the thought. “She’s just cute.”

“Mmm,” the Celtor mumbled. “Okay. I see. That’s… nice, at least.”

The other woman gave her a glance. “You should consider finding yourself a partner sometime, must be lonely having nobody to run with while exploring Minityrsa. It’s honestly kind of depressing watching you just wander aimlessly with nobody to talk to…”

Before she could stop herself, Alirian narrowed her eyes at the cloaked Felinor. “I’ll be fine, all I need are rivals that don’t ever visit me anyways,” she huffed, turning to run off somewhere else in the snowy island. “Thanks for the talk, Aelita,” she said, and she was gone.

Aelita sighed as she watched her depart. “Sad little Celtor,” she muttered, and then she too was gone in a puff of white flowers and smoke.

Chapter Text

With a derisive huff, the Adretian man clambered onto shore, briskly walking through the docks and ignoring the gasps of the few townsfolk that did see him depart his sloop to make his way up the mountain.

An alarmed shout reached his ears, and then the telltale rush of wind followed shortly after. He quickly stuck his arm out, and then the headless body of a guard fell to the ground next to him, scraping against it as it was carried forwards a little further by the momentum it had prior to its owner’s demise.

Not even giving the corpse a second glance, he continued to make his way up the ramp, his armor making every step heavy and forceful as he tried to conserve as much energy as possible on his journey to the town. He had a single goal in mind, and by the Gods above was he going to pull it off. For the sake of everyone else in the luminant.

As he walked through the bridge, he was unsurprisingly spotted by the trio of guards by the entrance to the city proper, and one of them turned to run off, leaving the other two to draw their arms against him and get into fighting stances.

Without breaking his stride, he spun towards them in a rush of flame, catching one of them and propelling them both into the air. Raising one of his arms, he slammed down on the Etrean in a forceful impact, creating an explosion that sent them falling back to earth… probably in more than one piece. He couldn’t tell, he was too busy thinking about his goal. That, and the distraction of the other guard was a more pressing issue.

Speaking of, the other guard was warily circling him, trying to stay out of reach of his comparatively shorter blade. He didn’t even look at them as he tossed three, tiny, potent daggers of flame at them, sending them to the ground in a heap as they clutched at where the daggers found their marks.

The determined Adret walked further into Etris, systematically wiping out any guards trying to mount a resistance against him as he slowly but surely fought his way to the mountaintop upon which the Prophet’s palace rested.

Soon, he found himself sandwiched between two forces which clearly wanted nothing more than to tear him to shreds for his daring to trespass. One particularly troublesome fighter was with the group of regular Etrean guards that were behind him, blocking his escape route. Not that he planned to escape, but still, they were taking the opportunity to throw attacks at him while his back was turned.

Polis , he thought, swiveling around to parry the greatsword trying to cleave his head in twain. With his foot, he kicked the royal guard behind him away, ridding himself of that problem for now as he focused all his attention on the Vesperian Justicar trying his damnedest to stop him. “You’re a good man, Polis,” he called out through the haze of battle and the yells of the Etrean military gathering at the steps to the palace. “I suggest standing down now, and letting me save your city. I will rid it of a great evil that has plagued your nation for far too long!”

Polis gnashed his teeth, forcing him back with a thrust of his blade. “I will not trade my town’s leader for your Authority’s dictatorship!” he yelled back, trying to disarm the Adret… literally.

With a heavy sigh, the Adret sidestepped the attack in one moment and slammed his arm down at Polis’ feet in the next, causing two explosions to erupt beneath the very ground the man stood on, sending him flying away with a shout as four Etrean guards seemingly appeared out of nowhere (actually from the Etrean guards trying to encircle him) to take his place.

Shaking his head, he turned away, getting into a stance as the royal guards charging at him (along with a few of the regular guards behind him) paused to try to predict his next move. The answer quite literally hit them with the force of a crashing boat as he propelled himself forwards in a rush of flame, knocking over anybody in his way as he reached the entrance to the palace proper.

Marching in, he kicked the royal guard that tried to greet him with a katana to the face down, not even bothering to finish them off as he strolled past them and further into the palace. He was going to fucking kill that damn ‘Lord Regent’, or whatever blasted title the Fourth Prophet was going by. He was going to pay for every damn thing that went wrong in this luminant.

A few more royal guards tried to stop him, but he quickly put a stop to their trying to stop him by palming the air in front of him, releasing a burst of flame that encompassed the constricted hallway they were trying to fight him in and setting them all aflame. As they screamed in agony, he once again walked past the carnage, marching up the ramp to where the Regent rested.

The Lord Regent gave him a curious stare as he finally paused in his march, standing before the little bitch that caused him and his fellows so much suffering over the years by completely bogging down the Authority’s efforts in the East with his machinations and manipulating of the Etreans.

With a huff, he pulled out a bomb from his pocket, and the two royal guards in front of his throne finally sprung into action, trying to cut at him from two different angles. Unfortunately, he was faster, and he rolled away, leaving behind a faint clone of flame that quickly latched onto the pair and set them on fire, distracting them for a few precious seconds as he glared at the Prophet.

Strings of darkness tried to grab at him, trying to restrain him and rip him limb from limb as he raised his hand. Deftly parrying the tendrils with one hand on his sword, he threw the bomb at the Lord Regent, who tried to bring his hands up to feebly block it as he finally broke his stoic facade for just a moment to yell in shock and anger.

And then the palace was wracked by a large explosion that destroyed most of the building.

Quickly getting on his feet, the Adretian man rolled out a few more bombs at the rubble that used to be the throne, a parting gift for any agents of the Ministry trying to recover from the blow that he’d inflicted upon them. And also a parting gift for the Regent, who had definitely survived that bomb to the face.

As fast as wind, he ran down the steps, easily dodging the Etreans trying to grab at him and attack him on his way down the mountain. And he rushed away from Etris, now left a mostly burning wreck from his rampage across the city to reach the palace.

And he sailed away from the docks, the Etrean navy’s boats too busy burning to actually chase after him as he sailed away. The Authority had won. He’d be sure to come back with a proper invasion force, no point in letting the Etreans recuperate if the Ministry would just use them against the Authority again with whatever influence they had once they had completely recovered from his one-man rampage through their capital.

Might as well finish the job , he thought as he began the long trip back to Fort Merit. Hopefully the Fourth Prophet doesn’t survive my parting gifts to him. Bastard.