Dave

  “So I’ve been considering what we discussed regarding Korl, and yeah, I think I agree. After some investigation and a few guarded conversations with friends in the Spire, that is likely what it would look like if a jester tried to take over a Mimic,” Pryte said as I sat down to breakfast with him in one of the private meeting rooms.

  Pryte had some news about the competition, but as we were still waiting on Timon, he had started with another topic that had been on the back of all of our minds since finally freeing Connie. If a jester infection could do that to her, just what did it look like in a mimic? And how far spread was their infection across the Spiral?

  “And the idea that the jesters are spreading uncontrolled across the Spiral?” I asked, the bigger worry pushing its way out.

  “I avoided that topic as best I could. I think the only good answer we will get there is still only partially alive, taking his sweet time to heal in Timon’s private world,” Pryte said, just before the door opened.

  “We gotta do something about how loud you two are, or maybe just about how easy it is to eavesdrop on these meeting rooms. Some people out there are gonna take spying on us real seriously,” Timon said with a large, exaggerated yawn.

  “Morning to you too,” I replied, not sure if he was serious about the upgrades or if it was just his usual way of disrupting a topic as he entered a conversation.

  “Speaking of our guest. Now that I know what happened to him, I’ve been working on a few different ways to prod along his recovery. I might need to take a trip off-world for a bit to find someone, though. You all gonna be okay if I’m not around for a few days?” Timon asked, half a smile across his face.

  “I think we can manage a few days without you. I’ll try not to do anything overly stupid while you’re gone. Plus, with everyone almost back up to full strength, we are in better shape than we have been for a awhile,” I replied.

  Connie was still recovering. It had only been two weeks since that horrifying experience, and considering how near to death she had come, the fact that she was going to pull through at all was good news. Her soul had undergone something incredibly close to death and been pulled back from the brink. Neither Elody or Karlinovo had any idea what that would mean for her in the future.

  “I don’t think I believe you, but don’t let me be the one to stop you. The stupidest things are generally the most fun things. Remind me to tell you all about my bachelor party someday…” Timon said, trailing off into a loud laugh.

  “As much as I want to hear about that eventually, we’ve got a more important matter to discuss. I’ve got a list of the preliminary events for the competition,” Pryte replied, cutting off Timon’s laugh.

  “Now that’s interesting news. What kind of dumb performances are they expecting us to put on before they really whittle down the numbers?” Timon’s usual half focus was gone. He really was interested in this. Someday I’d understand what that mantis actually cared about.

  Pryte looked at Timon with a single raised eyebrow. “You know something, don’t you?”

  “There’s a lot of information in this head of mine, you’re gonna need to be more specific,” Timon replied, still laughing gently.

  He had been back to his old self since curing Connie. Who knew he could actually get so stressed that his laughter died? This was probably why he generally stuck around Mel. The big decisions could be left to the Cloudform, while Timon just chimed in with advice and jokes until it was time to do his part.

  “What exactly do you think is going to happen after the preliminaries to whittle us down, as you put it?” Pryte ashed shaking his head slightly.

  “Oh, that one is obvious. They do it all the time at the big faction competitions. Some sort of suppression field that pushes down harder and harder until only a certain number remain. No idea how many they want though, I’m actually surprised they aren’t doing it first though,” Timon answered.

  “Interesting. I’ve heard of something like that, but I didn’t realize it was standard practice at all,” Pryte replied.

  “Are we going to be able to handle that?” I asked, worried. It wasn’t like we had a lot of channelers. How many would even be allowed to compete?

  “Who knows, it’s all gonna be relative to the other people around you. I’m actually surprised they aren’t doing it before the prelims. Feels like they are up to something, can’t really figure out what beyond buying time against a faction war though. But these damn jesters have me sure something else is going on,” Timon answered with a shrug.

  “Let’s table that discussion until it matters. Right now, we have five events we need to get through to even get there, assuming it is what they end up doing,” Pryte said, ending that worrying line of thought.

  “Anything fun?” I doubted they would be, but I honestly had no clue what they would even want us to do.

  “Actually, yes. At least I expect Rabyn will think so. The first one is a cook-off. We are allowed to bring our own ingredients, though they will be inspected for certain mind control contraband. The big problem there, though, is that his days of secrecy are likely over if he competes in it. So that is a decision we will have to make.” Pryte pulled out a sheet of paper as he spoke.

  That I hadn’t expected. I had seen enough cooking shows in my life to guess how this would work, but the idea of something so normal was hard to compute against what everything else Spiral-related had been.

  Everyone had to eat. At least everyone I had met so far that wasn’t a dungeon core. Food had been one of the universal constants of the species I had met, so maybe this wasn’t that strange after all.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Not what I expected at all,” I said.

  “That was obvious from the look you were giving me. Don’t worry, the next four are a bit more like what you are expecting, I think. After the cook-off is a construction event,” Pryte continued.

  “What exactly does that mean? Are we competing to build houses or something like that?” I asked, wondering how many of Earth’s reality shows were about to be mirrored in this competition.

  “I’m guessing we are going to be building magical towers with some material they give us, and then seeing how long they can withstand an assault. Don’t know if it will be a special squad they use or we attack other towers, but I’ve seen both situations play out before,” Timon answered, while Pryte nodded along.

  “Interesting, there are some games like that here too, though not played out in real life. So far, the GPA might actually have a chance if they can get their hands on more channelers than just Grant,” I said.

  Hopefully, we were making the right call in having Grant act as a double agent. I didn’t see how they could possibly rival us in the competition, but they had a plan, and backers, and we needed all of that information instead of just the endless theories we had put together on what was going on.

  “I’m hoping Roberts’ and Grant’s new plans might actually put a hard stop to whatever they are up to, but yes, I agree. I don’t like the idea of what they might be able to do with these events either. I do doubt they can put anyone near the skill level of Rabyn into the cook-off at the very least. So there is that much going for us,” Pryte replied.

  “We’ll see. There is something that I still haven’t ferreted out there. Doesn’t help any that my time keeps getting taken up by other things,” Timon added.

  “No, it doesn’t, but that’s the way life works. But back to the events, the third is befriending a mana beast. Which in theory should be something we are pretty good at…” Pryte said, letting that last part hang.

  Dave knew the issue he was hitting on. Their best bets for befriending mana beasts were off chasing down jesters to rescue William. But that didn’t mean they had no one. “We do have Alpha, and they seem to have a knack for that, but yes, I get what you’re leaving unsaid there.”

  “Yeah, but that again may reveal more cards we’d rather keep hidden. We will need to find a way to hide just how connected you are with the dungeon cores if we want to try that. It’s possible we could just enter Alpha, Beta, and Gamma as their own contenders when it comes down to it. That might be enough to fool anyone,” Pryte replied.

  “Will dungeon core participants be allowed?” I knew their reputation, and I was worried that might be a whole other problem. I didn’t want to expose the cores to that level of hatred if I could avoid it.

  “Dungeon core participants are basically never banned outright from things. But for the obvious reasons, they rarely compete. It’s their bonds with you that are banned. I think we can probably make this work, though,” Pryte answered.

  “I think I’ll have to have a big talk with the three before we let them face that kind of pressure. If Mel’s reaction is anything to go by, they won’t be treated well,” I said.

  “Eh, Mel’s initial dislike will pale compared to some. So yeah, prolly best to have that talk,” Timon said.

  “Interestingly, after that, we have a dungeon event. I’m not sure if it will be a real one or a simulated one. With how many dungeons are growing out of control across the Spire, using real ones could be a good way to cut down on them. But again, we will have to be careful in what we reveal when handling one. Though Dave should have a large advantage against most of our competitors there,” Pryte cut back in.

  “That’s as good a reason as any reason to push my dungeon path. I’ve been needing to explore more of my Core Architect abilities, anyway,” I added.

  “Yes, I figure that will be one of our easier events. The last one may as well. I doubt anyone will expect us to show up with the granddaughter of Emwood Greens for an event focused on entertainment,” Pryte said, finishing the list of events.

  “It almost feels like we are being forced to reveal all our big strengths here. There’s no way that could be on purpose, could it?” I asked. My concer had grown bigger each time we hit a new secret weapon we had to go fully public with.

  “It probably is on purpose. It’s just not targeted at us alone. This lets the giant factions see who the new up-and-comers are and make some decisions on potential problems early. Long as we keep some of your more special shit off their radar, I don’t think we will put ourselves in too much new danger,” Timon answered.

  “Are we even a blip to the big powers?” I asked, hoping we weren’t. But considering Korl was here and not with them. We were something. I just didn’t know what that something was yet.

  “A curiosity, probably. No one likely sees us as a danger. That could change depending on our performance. If we manage to show up and seriously outclass the competition, we will have to play our strength down. But I don’t see that happening. There are going to be a lot of royal brats with far more access to resources than we have,” Pryte replied.

  “Pryte’s right. There’s no escaping the fact that we have Sanquar, and we threw off an invasion, but the second thing has been done before. The first really depends on who cared so much in the first place. Which is another reason we need to get Korl back on his damn feet. So, unless you have anything else you need for me, I’m gonna get going,” Timon added.

  “Anything we need to watch for with Korl while you’re gone?” I asked.

  “I’d recommend you all just stay out. I’ve got the jester and Korl locked down pretty well, so I’d rather you didn’t accidentally screw that up. If, and that’s a big if, you really need to go in there for some reason, explain everything to Quarilyn and bring her along. She’s got the best chance of understanding what I’m doing,” Timon answered.

  Pryte sighed quietly before replying. “How about when you get back, we just bring her entirely up to speed. While we are trying to keep Korl as secret as we can. I’d rather someone else have some ideas of how your prison works. I assume you still want the dungeon cores watching them?”

  “Yeah, I already gave Gamma their orders. And we can do that, probably not a bad idea. Don’t break anything while I’m gone,” Timon said, before scarfing down a large piece of pizza and heading out of the room.

  “What do you think he’s off to find anyway?” I asked once the door had closed behind Timon.

  “Could be a few things, but knowing him, that was only half an excuse. He’s got some things to do for Mel as well. Whatever plans for chaos they’ve got going, I can only guess at.”

  “Mel’s determined to find out if his son is actually dead or not. Can’t fault him for that one. And considering I doubt any of us would be alive without everything he’s done, we owe him whatever help we can there,” I replied.

  Mel had invested so much into me. He couldn’t have expected anything near what we already had, and despite that, he had still worked to help the brothers and me almost from our first meeting. We owed him.

  “I wish I had more hope to give him there, but everything I know about the Floating Empire, and his family especially, doesn’t bode well. Still, stranger things have happened to us, so anything is possible,” Pryte replied.

  When the Floating Empire burned, its cloud forests didn’t. That’s a common myth, propagated by those who destroyed them. But no, a cloud tree is far too valuable to burn to the ground, just because you want to destroy a people. Why waste the resources?

  So while the Crystalline Quasar faction’s shock forces attacked the capital city, they also sent their resource harvesting fleets to the forests. Every single tree was meticulously cut, prepped, and returned to its empire.

  What were they doing with this wood? That question still has no answer. But doubtful that it was anything good. The properties of the wood are entirely unique in their nature. The idea of those butchers using it for anything at all is just another dagger into the corpse of the Floating Empire.

  A History of Power, the Rise and Fall of the Floating Empire by Melhelm VII

  Resurrection Raid

  by Morgan Grindall

  Graves are not forever, and freedom has a price.

  Teddy is a dead woman. She wakes in the Resurrection Raid with a companion and goal - she can defeat the Nascent AI and be reborn, or die here and have her soul fed into the data stream. Except her companion isn't what he seems, and there's a tag in her profile: LIMITER.

  Cato will get out. He has failed once, and he will not do so again. The System, the Resurrection Raid itself, an endless stream of dead souls seeking rebirth; none of it will stop him. Certainly not his LIMITER.

  Teddy and Cato can work together or die divided, but the Raid always takes its due.