Chapter 228: Support Ticket

  What a mess. What an unfortunate, preventable, and heartbreaking mess.

  Kalana averted her gaze as several more body parts were picked up by a cleanup crew and taken out the hotel’s back entrance. With the sun having risen, the crews would need to operate with even more discretion so as to avoid further traumatizing the townspeople. Right now, A whole lot of them were outside the hotel, asking questions that it was either too soon or too risky to answer. In the meantime, it would really not be good for them to see the carnage that had taken place in here: a level of violence so terrible it was probably going to be another ten hours before people could start coming back inside. And even then, there would be tons of blood to scrape off the walls, and the carpets would probably need to be ripped up as well.

  “Anybody need anything?” Kalana asked, finding no takers.

  This was now Kalana’s third time coming back here since early last night, and this time around, she’d only come to ensure that the human and Elvish peacekeepers were getting all the resources needed to keep stuff here under control. Her presence wasn’t necessary, but Kalana was restless and looking for something to do. She wanted to remain productive—but she was tired, and she obviously hadn’t slept; no, not a wink since this all began yesterday evening.

  “Princess Kalana,” Trelvor whispered to her. He stood to her right, Seiley to her left. “It’s okay to get some rest.”

  “Nah-uh. This is the worst time for that. But…I do want you two to rest a little bit.”

  “Not if you don’t,” Seiley said firmly. “We’re with you all the way.”

  Kalana, feeling overwhelmed, hugged her. “I’m just so scared. And I’m so worried. About everyone and everything: Peter, Anelia, Alex, Zach.”

  “I know you are,” Seiley replied softly. “I am too.”

  Right now, the prevailing theory was that the children were still nearby: as in within 30 miles or fewer. It was believed that, thanks to Anelia’s early detection of this “bounty-hunting team,” the faster-than-expected Elvish response time had prevented the kidnappers from making the kind of escape that they had originally planned for. The current thinking was that the kidnappers were hiding in the vast, expansive crop fields and moving very, very slowly towards their goal. But so far, they hadn’t been found—and definitely not for lack of trying, either.

  From very early last night to now, her mom had put together what was being called “the largest manhunt operation ever before seen in the history of North Bastia.” And it had begun with a mobilization of every available Elf and as many human peacekeepers as they could possibly bring in. Heck, they’d even brought in Elves from Archian Prime.

  All throughout the night, helicopters with spotlights and humans with flashlights had combed the farmlands. Scent-tracking dogs had been used, too. Elvish scout teams had also been watching the main roads and were still continuing to do so, ensuring that the kidnappers would have to traipse through much less easily traveled fields.

  But Mom hadn’t stopped there.

  She’d called upon her human allies in the Lords of Justice and the Royal Roses, and the two guilds had sent in hundreds of their own people to assist with the manhunt. They’d also sent some leveled members as well, with the most significant being Alex, who had arrived a few hours ago, having flown down here from Slopes of Dal’Zarrah.

  So, yeah, the search was definitely continuing, and it was aided in part by the fact that they now knew exactly how the Guild of Gentlemen was planning to take possession of Peter and Adim. Specifically, they’d learned the precise locations of where each of the guild’s “extraction teams” would be—and probably already were—waiting on the border to whisk away the kids once the bounty hunters had made it to them.

  But this information had not come to them by acceptable or justifiable means.

  It didn’t have to be this way, Anelia, she thought. You didn’t have to do this.

  Not long after this terrible ordeal had begun, Anelia had been able to find things out from the bounty hunters who’d barricaded themselves in this hotel: things that the man they’d captured, Shawnim Dole, had not known. Shawnim, who was now in custody in the city, had been willing to cooperate, but there were many pieces of information he had not been informed of, such as the Guild of Gentlemen’s extraction plans and the traps and ambushes they were laying on their border in the event of an Elvish incursion. Anelia had found this out, but in a way that no civilized person could ever be okay with.

  How can it be okay? Kalana wondered, chest aching. How can she think this is okay?

  The atrocities…the sheer, unspeakable atrocities…Kalana didn’t know what she would do once she found the woman. Even thinking about it was enough to cause her pain. She was struggling to come to grips with an answer to the question of what justice demanded of her and what was morally correct. Because Anelia hadn’t just killed the bounty hunters in this hotel; no, she had butchered them. And even the word “butchered” didn’t really go far enough to explain the sheer, inexcusable extent to which she had violated the sanctity of life, scarring dozens of hostages for life in the process.

  Children saw her, Kalana thought, a dropping sensation forming in her stomach. They watched her do it!

  Anelia had saved the hostages’ lives: they had all made that very, very clear. They had been grateful, the hostages. So grateful, in fact, that they likely felt shame and self-revulsion at how traumatized they were. One of the crisis therapists told Kalana that the hostages would probably take longer to mentally heal due to their feelings of gratitude conflicting with their innate sense of wrongness at what many of them, including three young children, had witnessed Anelia do.

  “My princess, are you okay?” Trelvor asked.

  Kalana wiped her eyes and nodded. Her heart ached. “I’m fine.”

  It was just that she liked Anelia so, so much. Why did she have to go so far? What Anelia had done here was so bad that Kalana didn’t know how she could ethically overlook it—especially since she could have stopped after getting the information. If she had stopped at that point, things would still be bad enough, but no, she’d kept going after she’d already gotten what she wanted from the bounty hunters. The witnesses had painted a very clear picture, their bodies trembling as they recounted what they’d seen.

  Anelia, having burst in here, had started by killing eight bounty hunters more or less instantly. And in those cases, perhaps, Kalana could see a strong argument being made that she’d acted in self-defense and for the greater good. The real problem was what she’d reportedly done next. According to every witness, Anelia had cornered and then beaten two male bounty hunters, disarming them very quickly and rendering them unable to fight.

  And then…then she got started.

  Kalana had been present when peacekeepers spoke to the hostages. She’d seen them shake as they described the way Anelia had torn the men apart. And not limb from limb, either, but in much smaller pieces. She’d begun with fingers, noses, and…and genitals. They’d talked right away, telling her everything they knew. But she didn’t stop. She’d proceeded to take out their eyes and their tongue. She’d ripped off their ears. She had systematically disassembled two humans like they were built from detachable parts—all while they’d screamed and begged for her to kill them and end their torment.

  “I really hoped you’d have more to tell me than this,” she’d apparently said as she grabbed and tore and ripped the men apart. “You hurt the woman I love. You took our child!”

  Kalana herself didn’t know the full extent of what Anelia had done, because she had hit her limit once one of the witnesses described the way in which Anelia had shoved her entire hand, arm deep, up the rectum of one of the bounty hunters and had begun pulling out his internal organs from his backside. At that point, she had been unable to listen to any more of it.

  What Anelia had done was demented: it was psychotic.

  And yeah, Kalana understood that these were really bad people, and yeah, she understood that they deserved to be punished, but…nobody deserved what Anelia had done! It wasn’t just violent: it was first-degree murder with the intentional infliction of barbaric torture and live dismemberment.

  What was she supposed to do?

  I won’t know until I find her.

  After she’d finished torturing and murdering the two bounty hunters, Anelia had apparently bashed a hole in the wall rather than waste time removing the objects barricading the front and rear entrance, and after that, she’d casually walked up to a level-1 human peacekeeper on the street to inform him of what she’d learned before taking off.

  No one had seen her since.

  Denisoa was worried sick. So was Kalana. Even Mom seemed to think what Anelia had done was off-putting, and that was saying something since she herself had done some really, really bad stuff in her life. But, aside from a brief cringe, Mom hadn’t seemed to care all that much, which upset Kalana even if she understood why she decided not to make too much of it.

  Now, as Kalana exited the hotel and smiled politely at the growing crowd of townspeople, she headed once again towards Denisoa’s house, wanting to check in on the woman, who, at the moment, was inconsolable. Seiley and Trelvor accompanied her as they made their way the short distance to the woman’s home. In truth, Kalana would actually rather be searching the farmlands for the boys, but Mom needed her to stay here and look after the people in case any other unknown bounty hunters turned up around town.

  “I should be out there looking,” Kalana said, upset and annoyed.

  “Queen Vayra was very clear about us staying here and protecting the people,” Trelvor said. “Don’t worry: my father is out there right now looking for the children. He will not let us down.”

  Kalana sighed. “It’s not that I don’t think your dad’s amazing, I just don’t wanna—”

  A woman screamed. Kalana’s words cut off at once. The sound of it—it was from directly ahead. Beyond the garden that led to Denisoa’s home. A feeling of dread overtaking her, Kalana took off at a dash, Seiley and Trelvor following along beside her.

  “Denisoa!” she cried, moving with great speed as she ran directly over Denisoa’s plants and unintentionally destroyed a few in the process. Running even faster, she stormed her way up the three steps that led to her porch and then flew into her home, the front door already open. “Are you okay? Where are you? What…”

  Dashing into the kitchen, Kalana came to an abrupt halt, and Seiley and Trelvor stopped alongside her. A sight awaited her: one she hadn’t been expecting. Denisoa was sitting on her tiled kitchen flooring, a glass of what looked to be water having shattered as though dropped.

  She wasn’t alone.

  There was another person in here with her: a pretty woman in her late 30s or early 40s with black hair in a ponytail and slightly dark skin. The woman was kneeling down and seemed to be profusely apologizing. There were napkins in her hands as though she intended to help dry the spilled water and clean up the glass. Kalana, quickly assessing the situation, realized that it was a woman she actually recognized: a woman whose life she and Zach had saved, and someone she’d only seen a few times since.

  “Prila?” she asked as the woman looked towards her, even as she was using the napkin to push the glass pieces closer together.

  “Kalana,” she said, her eyes carrying the unmistakable glint of horror. “I’m so, so sorry. I did not expect that he would take me here.”

  “That who would take you here?” Kalana asked, hurrying further inside the home. She knelt down and put an arm on Denisoa’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” Denisoa said, looking terrified. “Who is this, Princess Kalana? Why did she pop out of thin air inside my home?”

  “I dunno,” Kalana said honestly. “But her name is Prila, and she’s not dangerous.”

  Seiley and Trelvor hurried forward. Each of them gently put an arm around Prila and lifted her up to her feet, though they did so in a way that looked deferential and servile. They inquired if she was okay but asked no further questions besides that. Yet when Kalana attempted to do so, they shot her a look of warning.

  “Prila, how come you’re—”

  “Your Highness!” Trelvor hissed. “This is one of the Great Lord’s concubines! You mustn’t question her.”

  Kalana felt her body seizing up. “Oh yeah. You’re right! Sorry.”

  “No, no, it’s okay,” Prila said. “Seeing that you are here…I think I am starting to understand why he brought me to this place. I’m guessing your mother is around? Can I speak with her?”

  “I will summon the queen at once,” Trelvor said, hurrying out the door.

  Kalana, still in the process of helping Denisoa back to her feet, shouted, “Wait! She’s really busy right now!”

  “This is more important.”

  Kalana knew he was right, as matters of the Gods took precedence over everything else, but still…this was a real cruddy time. But given it was Prila who’d shown up, Kalana wasn’t surprised when her mom came running into the home so fast that not even five minutes in total had come and gone by the time she arrived with Trelvor.

  “Prila,” Mom said, hurriedly approaching her. “Is everything all right?”

  Prila began to cry, alarming Kalana and her mother, too. Prila began shaking her head. “No. Things are very bad right now, Your Majesty. Something terrible has happened. I…I cannot speak of it in front of…”

  The queen regarded Denisoa. “I know this is so terribly inconsiderate after what you’ve been through. It is horribly rude to ask this of you in your own home. On my honor, I will make things right. Yet I must ask you leave us for a few minutes.”

  Denisoa nodded. “Please, make yourself at home. I need to get out and clear my head anyway.” She grabbed a winter coat, a hat, and a pair of gloves, and she walked out into the cold winter morning. Kalana felt bad for her. Someone should be with her at all times throughout this ordeal. And as if realizing this, Seiley nodded at Trelvor, then took off after the woman, holding her hand and walking with her.

  “So, what has happened?” Mom asked as Prila embraced her.

  None of them were ready for the answer.

  “Very early last evening,” she began, her shoulders twitching, “the OMP came under attack. Something attacked us: something that destroyed three of our orbital stations killing everyone on board without any survivors.”

  “What?” Kalana and her mother exclaimed at the same time. Trelvor’s face merely tightened.

  “I know how that sounds, but it’s true! It is something that is trying to hurt Adamus, but it can’t hurt him directly, so it’s trying to kill me, instead, in order to inflict pain on him.”

  “What is it?” Kalana asked, her words coming through as a whisper.

  “It’s…some kind of creature that Adamus created and angered. But even learning this, I didn’t think it would come for me, because I am nobody to it. Adamus was worried, though, so he sent me away and asked Olandrin to protect me. And that’s when it started.”

  “What started?”

  Prila wept. “I’ve been moved around from place to place all night, but it keeps finding me. I was taken to different planets, to oceans, to moons!” She began to shake and whimper. “Olandrin took me to some abandoned building on Earth, and it found me there. The shadows leapt out of the walls and tried to pull me into the darkness. Olandrin barely had time to grab me and take me to Dragon Squire, instead: someplace far in the wilderness where no one should have thought to look. But within a minute, it appeared again. And its face…oh, Gods, its face was so twisted and horrible.”

  Kalana couldn’t believe what she was hearing. And her mother seemed to be struggling to process this as well, as she held on more tightly to Prila. “What then?”

  “Olandrin took me to an asteroid with a breathable atmosphere,” she continued. “But it found us, so he took me to an entire continent of ice on Earth called Antarctica, where there is an old research station from the days of humanity. But it…it found us there, too. This was when I started to realize that I was truly in danger. Because not even Olandrin could get ahead of this monster.”

  “What kind of demon is it that not even the Great Lord, Olandrin, can ward it away?” Fylwen asked. “Are you saying it was able to pursue you against the Great Lord’s wishes?”

  “Yes!” Prila said with a pained cry. “Olandrin took me to a field in Archian Prime where it was sunny and warm and peaceful. But it found us! Within seconds, the sky turned dark, the flowers began to scream, blood rained down from above, and it appeared right in front of me with a hatchet in its hand, raised and ready to strike.

  “I was so scared. I’ve never seen such hate, Your Majesty. This thing…you don’t understand. Its lips are contorted so that it looks like it’s smiling, but it’s not. It’s like it cannot make any other expression. There is such hatred.” She whimpered. “You don’t know if you haven’t seen it. You can’t understand. The sounds it makes as it comes for you. It laughs and cries and screams.”

  Kalana looked up and into her mother’s eyes, and her mother looked back. She could tell that neither of them was sure what to make of what they were hearing. Yet Prila continued, seemingly having more to say.

  “It charged at me every time: at me specifically. It screamed at me. It told me it was going to kill me to hurt Great Lord Adamus. Olandrin kept trying to get away, but this thing followed us no matter where we went. Eventually, Olandrin took me to the ruins of an ancient city called Hong Kong on Earth, and he held my hand as we ran down the decaying streets trying to get away.” Prila shook her head and declined some water that Trelvor had brought to her. “No, no, it’s okay.”

  “You should drink,” Trelvor said. “You’re dehydrated. Please have a sip of water and then continue.”

  Prila reluctantly took it and downed several gulps as though only realizing now how thirsty she was. Then she continued, and like before, no one bothered to correct her for calling Olandrin “Olandrin” and not “Great Lord Olandrin.” Kalana wasn’t sure if she was exempt from having to use honorifics or simply too traumatized to be expected to adhere to Elvish norms. Whichever the case, Kalana found herself becoming more and more uneasy as Prila spoke.

  “In Hong Kong, it was around noon, but…but it must have been closer to midnight in your time. It found us within a few minutes, screaming and screaming as it chased after me. But unlike before, Olandrin did not run. He told me to hide inside the ruins of a once-great building taller than any in Galterra. I was so scared. I was all alone. But a moment later, I heard an explosion and saw a bright blast of light so intense it briefly turned the red, thundering sky white. But another one came right after that, and then a whole bunch of them started going off in the distance. And from where I was sitting, I could see building after building explode and become instantly incinerated. But when I say instant…I really do mean that. It was like…I…I don’t know how to describe this to you.”

  She placed her hands together, palms touching, and then pulled them apart. “The buildings, they exploded just like that. They didn’t collapse or fall. They were erased. And these explosions, they were so hot that there was nothing of the buildings left to crumble. Over and over! It was like a single ball of moving light that ravaged the city’s ruins. It went around and around. I didn’t understand what was happening at first. It took me some time to realize that what I saw was Olandrin fighting this thing: a battle between two giant powers. Every second, there was another explosion, maybe two at once, and each one was louder than the one before it. Everything was just erased in these blasts of white light.

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  “They fought for hours, flattening the entire city. And then…it just stopped. At this point, the entire world was just smoke and fire. But then Olandrin appeared in front of me, wounded and bloody. He was missing an arm and a foot. Blood was flowing out of his shoulder socket. I couldn’t believe the sight of him that way. I cried when I saw him like that. But he told me he’d be okay. He grabbed me…and then I was here—and he wasn’t. And that was when the woman who lives here screamed. And now here I am. All of this just happened.”

  Kalana froze. “And where’s this mean monster-person now?”

  Prila darted her eyes around nervously. “I don’t know. I don’t know! But it will be coming for me. It may already be here. It can come out of the walls if it wants to.”

  Kalana looked to her mother for reassurance, but there was none to be found. She seemed rattled in a way that was completely unlike her. “So this thing,” she whispered. “It may be among us right now?”

  “Yes,” Prila said, trembling. “It has followed me everywhere so far.” Prila hugged the queen even more tightly. “It’s here. I know it is. It’s here in this room, and it’s watching me, waiting to attack! It’s toying with me!”

  Kalana looked around, her hands lowering to her hips and wrapping around the grips of her sheathed daggers. “Are you sure? Do you really think it’s here watching us?”

  “Of course it is! It has been following me all night and all morning. Where else could it possibly be? Why would it suddenly stop? If not here, then where else in this universe would it go?”

  ******

  “Fucking Gods-damnit!” Zach shouted out furiously. “Landy, what the hell was that? You’re a Gods-be-damned noob!”

  Landy shouted right back at him. “IT WAS YOUR FAULT! And what is a noob?”

  “I don’t know. It’s a word my friend Jimmy uses. But wow, you fucked that up so bad. I can’t even believe it. You’re lucky Jimmy wasn’t here to see that. He doesn’t tolerate noob mistakes.”

  “I am not a noob! You made the mistake. Your fault, your fault!”

  “Bullshit! I told you to go on the sexy red-haired one and CC it so I could take care of the Orcs, and you chose to attack the Orcs with me, which let the Vixen Portal Commander free-cast on us. We’re lucky to be alive!”

  “Not true. No, no, no! Not true. You said to attack the Orcs first and that I would kill the…oh. Oh. Okay, it was my fault this time. I did not understand.”

  Zach shook his head. “Whatever.” He took a breath, held it, and then released it slowly. “Well, at least we captured another Vixen Portal Commander, and those are worth more than the Legion Portal Guardians. But damn, that little screwup just cost me four of my Orc cards. Now I only have three!”

  “We’ll farm more,” Landy said, smiling. “We have all day!”

  Zach couldn’t help but return the smile. “And all night, too. I slept so much. I’m ready to pull an all-nighter. Oh, but…” He frowned. “It gets too dark in here. We can’t.”

  “That’s okay,” Landy said, his voice feminine as he remained in control of Zach’s Vixen Portal Commander and spoke using its voice. “I’ll be busy.”

  Zach was in control of the other Vixen Portal Commander: the one he’d only just captured. Zach now had two of those cards and three Legion Portal Guardians thanks to Landy’s mistake here on the second floor. He’d come up here with five of the elite Orcs—four of which had been badly wounded—and all four had died, with only one surviving the fight. However, since he’d captured the two that spawned with the Vixen Portal Commander in this second-floor encounter area, he’d ended up with three in total, one of which was moderately wounded, the rest freshly summoned and full HP.

  “Busy? What’s that supposed to mean? Gods, tell me you’re not planning on scaring the shit out of me all night long again, because you did promise me you weren’t going to do that anymore, and I swear to the Gods, if I see ghosts flying around my sleeping bag, I’m never going adventuring with you ever ag—”

  “No, no, shut up. Fool! Stupid! I have plans tonight.”

  “Plans?” Zach asked, genuinely curious and amused.

  “Plans, plans, plans!” Landy shouted, becoming irate. But Zach was getting used to his outbursts, anger, and freakouts. And besides, who was he to judge? He wasn’t exactly Mr. Perfect either when it came to mental health. That was why he’d been so convinced he was going crazy in the first place, as it had been, by far, the most plausible explanation given his own history.

  Still, I’m so glad that everything turned out the way it did.

  As Zach leaned against the second-floor wall and waited for the three mobs to respawn, he said, “So, aren’t you going to tell me what these plans of yours are?”

  “Why would I?”

  “Well, we’re friends now, right?”

  For some reason, his Vixen Portal Commander actually dropped its rapier and flinched as though struck. Tears then fell from the card’s eyes. “We’re friends?”

  “Aren’t we?”

  The card placed its hand over its mouth. “I’ve never had a friend. Never had. Never once. Nobody was ever my friend. Never knew anybody. I can be your friend and go on adventures like Rian and Jimmy and Lienne and Olivir and all of the friends?”

  Zach shrugged. “Yeah, sure. I don’t see why not. I mean, I’d probably have a lot of explaining to do. Gods, I just hope they’re still alive. Are you sure you can’t find out?”

  “Can’t find out,” Landy said. “I can track only a few things. Already locked my targets. Don’t have the mass-scanning powers. Can’t find them or know. Never knew them. Don’t know them.”

  Zach sighed. “Yeah, all right.” Taking a seat and staring idly at the opposite wall, he waited for the mobs to respawn. Assuming Landy actually listened this time, they would hopefully be able to capture all three, which would bring Zach up to a total of five Orcish Elites and three of the stronger Vixen Portal Commanders, of which two would be under his control and one would be controlled by Landy. Then, very quickly, they could pop downstairs and capture the lone Orc on the first floor, which would bring him up to six of the Legion Portal Guardians.

  With six Orcs, three red-haired, rapier-wielding ice-mages, and his war-mount, the mobs on the third floor should be much easier today than they’d been yesterday. And if he could capture those two healers, he would no longer have to worry about using Card Dismiss to heal.

  Things were really starting to come together. “Landy, give me a high five,” he said. The gesture seemed to take on more meaning for Landy than Zach had intended, because he cried using the red-haired Vixen Portal Commander as a proxy as he picked up the rapier and hurried over.

  “So, what are your ‘plans’ for tonight?”

  “Torture the Gods,” Landy said, hate and venom seeping into his voice. “Revenge.”

  “Just be careful with pissing them off,” Zach said.

  Landy howled, screaming loudly. “They pissed me off!”

  *****

  “Are you all right?” Adamus whispered.

  Olandrin smirked. “I’ll be just fine. Thanks for caring.”

  Eilea clutched him tightly. “Brother! We couldn’t get to you. We tried! And…why are you laughing?”

  Olandrin chuckled as his arm regrew and a new foot popped out of his ankle. Adamus and sis were giving him crazy stares. This only gave him another bout of the chuckles. “Man,” he said, “I really got my ass kicked. I’ve been out of the game for too long, you guys.”

  He was lying on his back on a cot in Station 6. And wow. He just couldn’t believe how strong that NPC was. It’d projected all of its strength at him, and it had almost been enough to take him out for good.

  “You could have defeated it if you hadn’t been wasting so much of your power on protecting that disgusting harlot.”

  “My beloved, please,” Adamus implored. “Do not speak of her that way.”

  “I’ll speak of her however I want. If it was up to me, I’d feed that floozy to Landy myself. She’s going to get the queen and the beautiful, innocent princess killed.”

  “We have some time until then,” Adamus said. “The NPC appears to be playing nicely with the boy for the moment, as difficult to believe as it may be. I cannot understand its malfunction.”

  “You are the cause of his ‘malfunction,’ husband.”

  Olandrin ignored their bickering as it continued on, becoming more heated by the word. And just when it seemed like it would die down, it started up all over again. Olandrin therefore tuned all of it out. Besides, he wanted to run that fight through his mind a few more times. It was true he would’ve done a lot better without having to worry about Prila, but even having said that, for a so-called “God” to take such an ass-whooping from an NPC…it was not a good sign.

  Then again, it wasn’t that unexpected, was it?

  After all, Angelica was technically stronger than he was, too. Despite only being level-1035, she had Version 0.1 stat-scaling, which made her several times stronger than Landy. And in terms of psionic power, she could draw enough from the nodes that her overall potential likely rivaled the power output of a small star. All things considered, Angelica was probably stronger than all of the Great Ones, alive or dead, except Adamus, and even then, it was debatable.

  Luckily, Angelica was a kind and loving NPC who only hated Adamus and would never take her wrath out on innocent people, not even if doing so would hurt him. If Angelica ever went after Adamus, she would unquestionably pose no threat to Olandrin or his sister. Her violent outburst would both begin and end with Adamus. She wouldn’t harm anyone else, especially not him or Eilea. She loved them both.

  As things stood, the only reason she posed no threat to Adamus was that Adamus had always disliked her and viewed her as a “rogue object,” so he’d made sure over the years that her kill-switch was well maintained and in perfect working order.

  Without that kill-switch, she’d go right after Adamus the way Landy is. But she’d come for him directly.

  She really would, too. If somehow her kill-switch became deactivated, she would be on his ass the second she was free. She wouldn’t even waste a moment. If someone turned that thing off, it wouldn’t matter what she was doing at the time. She could be sitting around having tea, and she’d just jump up and teleport herself to Adamus for an immediate fight to the death. She hated him that much.

  “My thinking exactly, brother,” Eilea said to him, speaking in his mind and surprising him. “We should consider that an option.”

  Olandrin sat up and frowned at her. Adamus is sitting right next to you. Are you serious, Eilea?

  “He can’t hear me right now. He’s too distracted by losing several of his stations. More to the point, I like your thinking. I’ve never even considered trying to sabotage Angelica’s kill-switch. Seeing Landy this way has me wondering if we might not benefit from trying to—”

  No, stop, Olandrin thought, his frown deepening and capturing Adamus’s notice. Olandrin had to play this off by explaining he was just mad at the thrashing he’d taken. Then, to Eilea, he thought, I don’t want revenge against him. Or against anyone. Sis, you’ve got to stop plotting all the time. You’re going to drive the world to the brink of annihilation.

  She returned feelings of scorn and anger. And she clearly wanted him to feel them—and boy, he sure did. They actually burned to the point it was painful. She was literally scorching him with her emotions.

  “You lost your friends. You lost your lover. Have you lost your balls, too, brother? He tried to kill you. You would be dead in another decade or two if not for the boy, sucked into a black hole like all of those we cherished.”

  Those people we cherished, Olandrin replied, were people whose families we killed in the Great Elvish War. Don’t forget: we were all enemies at one point when this began. Adamus killed our brother. We killed his firstborn son. Daeraelia killed your first husband. Your first husband killed her sister. Her sister killed my daughter—your niece. And yet, even still, I mourned her death when Adamus tricked her and the others into flying into a black hole.

  Don’t you get it? Every time we fight, we destroy the world further. But I’m done with that now. No more, Eilea. No more! This is our last chance. If Adamus dies, you and I are not powerful enough to rebuild or repair what will remain of the system.

  “I don’t want to!” she snapped. “I want to destroy the system, not save it.”

  Gee, what a great idea, sis. Destroy the system. Genius. And uh, what happens to the weather? What happens to the planet’s core or the atmospheric terraforming nodes? I sure hope the people of Galterra can learn to breathe hydrogen after you flip the switch. And let’s just cross our fingers that all the level-1s learn not to be crushed to death by the gravity.

  “They can be moved to Earth.”

  Earth is broken and miserable. Technically survivable, I suppose, but miserable. And even if we had to make due, we can’t relocate an entire planet. Remember when Yorna tried that? And as it is now, there’s only enough vegetation to support a few thousand lives. Not billions.

  “There is an alternative way out there if we look for it. The system does not need to exist.”

  It does when it controls the orbit around the sun, Eilea! Seriously, snap out of your delusions. None of these terrestrial planets we’ve colonized were ever actually meant to harbor life, and they still aren’t. Earth was the only natural home we ever had. Even the Orc planet needed adjusting for its high methane concentration. Not that it matters since we blew that one up in the Elvish war like all the other ‘home worlds’ we created. Never forget why we created the system in the first place: because it was and still is our last chance. It’s gonna take all three of us to update it.

  “What has happened to you? Open your eyes! We are working with the devil, brother!”

  Eilea, please, listen to me, Olandrin thought, becoming a bit annoyed and even more emotional. We can still make this work…even if it requires much more effort than it used to. We still have enough power. So please, I beg you: stop plotting, sis. You will kill us all, and there will be nothing left. Moldark ruined the Earth, and we’re never gonna find another planet like home.

  He could feel his sister’s predictable disgust. “You know full well how much I despise it when you call Earth our home. Our home is Elvadin. We all agreed on that! Everyone agreed that Orcs, Gnomes, Dwarves, Elves, and humans are all distinct races that evolved separately on their own home planets.”

  Oh, God, enough of that, Eilea. Enough! Wanting that to be true doesn’t make it true and never will. Our people were grown in a lab, sis. That’s what happened. Deal with it.

  Perhaps he had gone too far, as a vein popped up in her forehead, and it was only due to Adamus studying the data readout on a terminal in his new office that he didn’t see the way she was quivering with rage.

  “The truth is what we say it is! I am not a science experiment! I am an Elvish Goddess! The Elves are not mice!”

  We were bioweapons grown in a lab.

  Eilea made a rather funny sound as air whooshed out of her lips. Adamus lifted his head from the terminal in front of them and looked at Eilea as though she were an annoying child. “For the record,” he said, “I can hear every word of your conversation. You might as well be shouting.”

  Eilea gasped. “You…but I…”

  “You are sloppy, my beloved. And Olandrin is right. We all have our differences, but the system is our final chance at redemption. There will never be another. Even if you do not agree with the rules and presentation of the system, destroying it would mean ending all life on all system worlds except for the three of us in this room. We will exist all alone for all eternity—until we either kill each other, or perhaps, if we should find ourselves with the nerve, take our own lives.”

  “And whose fault is that?” Eilea snapped. “Remind me again whose fear and paranoia led them to send all of our friends to their death! Did you know that I knew? All this time. All these years. Tell me, husband. Were you aware that I knew all along what you’d done?”

  “Naturally,” he said, whispering the word as though disinterested. “Your schemes have never risen above my notice. Well, except for the whole matter with the Jimmy boy. And I only missed that one because I never imagined you had the audacity to do something so stupid and suicidal. Perhaps there is a divine entity out there after all for us to have escaped the catastrophe that would have followed nine out of ten times as a result of such an unconscionably dimwitted act.”

  Eilea glared at her estranged husband, and Olandrin worried she might attack him. The look in her eyes was dangerous. “You never apologized. To me or to my brother. For what you did to him. For what you did to everyone!”

  Adamus again lifted his chin and regarded her. “My beloved, we are well beyond apologies at this point, are we not? This is something Olandrin realizes, but you still fail to understand. Yet you continue to scheme and plot.” He laughed mockingly at her. “You wish to use Angelica against me? You wouldn’t dare. Even if you could deactivate the kill-switch, you would change your mind at the last moment as you wondered if Angelica might lose a direct battle with me, and if I might then kill it. You cannot follow through on anything.”

  Olandrin sighed. Adamus was just such an asshole—such a piece of shit. But he was right. He really was right, and his sister was wrong. To be clear, he would always cherish Eilea. She and her protégé had saved him: had pulled him away from certain death. It had given Olandrin a second chance, and those were rare.

  But…she was so hard to deal with sometimes.

  Eilea believed she was a God. She literally believed that she was an actual deity. Of course, she wasn’t the only Great One to think so. Actually, most of them had. It’d only ever really been him and Adamus that rejected the idea of Godhood, and Olandrin had always been fine with that, really. It was fine for her to believe she was a God, just as it had been fine for all the others to think they were Gods.

  The only difference was that the other Great Ones at least acted like it. Not like a brat.

  “Eilea, stop, please,” he moaned. “I just got thrashed, and my head is pounding. Ease up for a bit.”

  “No!” she replied angrily. “I need space from both of you right now. I’m returning to Elendroth to spend the day with the children. At least they appreciate me.”

  Just like that, she was gone. And if there was one good thing about Adamus—one single behavioral trait that Olandrin actually appreciated, it was that he rarely wasted any time speaking badly about someone behind their back unless he thought it was productive to do so. Thus, as Eilea left and a brief moment of silence came over the two of them, rather than comment on what had just happened, he shifted topics immediately.

  “Rebuilding the stations will be easy now that you are back,” he said. “Recruiting new crew to work there will be the difficult part. We will need our trackers to once again discreetly infiltrate the top universities in Galterra in order to find suitable engineers.”

  Olandrin chuckled. “For someone who laments allowing Galterrans to become so technologically advanced, you sure like to rely on it when it suits you.”

  “That is a fair criticism,” Adamus whispered. “But the days when we had resources to train them from scratch are long gone. They must have a preexisting background in science to be of any use.”

  The conversation having concluded, Olandrin decided to bring up a different matter. Though it was probably not the most pressing of issues at the moment, he wanted a change of pace from the night of running and fighting he’d spent with Prila and Landy. And so, he waved his freshly regrown hand, and a white screen of information popped up in front of him with a bluish-green background, immediately drawing Adamus’s attention. “Is that…?”

  “It is,” Olandrin said. “It’s a support ticket. After more than a thousand years, someone has actually managed to put one in. A man by the name Alex Oren. Come to think of it, I actually met him once.”

  Adamus nodded. “If he is the one who has done so, then this becomes a bit less surprising. So…the OMP escalated his appeal to us? That is rare. What does he want? It must be a well-crafted ticket if he managed to avoid a final-order rejection.”

  Many, many, many years ago, the OMP would receive hundreds of support tickets a month from high-ranking guild members of every race. Sending in a ticket required an immense amount of paperwork and gold and was intentionally made difficult to do in order to avoid being inundated with spurious, stupid, and bothersome requests. For this “Alex Oren” to have sent one in, he must’ve somehow found out about them from Eilea, who had been unable to process them from her prison for the past thousand years but was always permitted to do so.

  In the case of Alex Oren, it had begun about eight months ago, though Olandrin only learned of it recently. Based on the ticket history, he’d submitted a request regarding Project Rejuvenation. Within two weeks, it was bounced back to him automatically by the system with a rejection, likely not even looked at by a sentient being.

  Whenever a ticket was rejected, the one who filed it was granted two appeals. For this, which had been labeled Ticket #1277415, the first appeal arrived five days later and was reviewed once again, this time by an actual OMP staff member, who took two weeks to issue a response; this time around, the human woman who’d handled the case—likely shocked to even see one of these tickets—had written back a personal reply.

  “You can see the reason for rejection here,” Olandrin said, pointing to the last line of the five-paragraph rejection.

  …and so, while we cannot confirm or deny the existence of any ‘Project Rejuvenation,’ even if it was as you say, Mr. Oren, what you are asking for would constitute an interference of which the Great Ones do not allow. We thank you kindly for your efforts and wish you the best during your adventuring.

  “Interesting,” Adamus whispered, approaching the information. “From what I have seen of that young man, I am guessing his second appeal was even more substantial?”

  “That’s an understatement,” Olandrin said, amused. “From what I can tell, he waited an entire month to file his second appeal. And when he did, it came in at one hundred fifty pages and included accurately sourced references from a wide range of sources, including scientific journals, professional academics, and a whole lot of philosophical texts; shockingly, he even sourced Elvish scholars from the archives only available on Elendroth. More than half of his arguments come from Elvish academics.”

  “Astounding,” Adamus whispered. “And unusual.”

  Olandrin laughed. Once again, that was putting it mildly. This was the longest support ticket in history and was comprehensive enough that it could be published, as is, in a peer-reviewed journal if not for the nature of it being so secretive. It wasn’t even fair to call it a “ticket,” but rather, an ultra-high-quality “paper.” Olandrin had laughed very hard upon scrolling down to the bottom and seeing the lengthy “Citations and Acknowledgments” section labeled Addendum F.

  “What is the nature of his argument?” Adamus asked. “I can guess, but I’d prefer you say it.”

  “Basically, he sent us a list of reasons, practical, objective, subjective, and philosophical, for why Project Rejuvenation, if it exists, constitutes interference and violates System Policy. The term ‘System Policy’ is a term he invented, by the way, but I like it. He claims that we are actually violating our own rules. And the OMP agent agreed with him, which is why three-and-a-half weeks later, the man who’d reviewed it simply sent back this.”

  He tapped the screen.

  Dear Alex Oren.

  Your points are convincing and fairly stated. I am not, however, authorized to make changes to what you have referred to as the ‘system,’ which I cannot confirm or deny exists, nor can I confirm or deny the existence of ‘Project Rejuvenation.’ I am therefore accepting your appeal and escalating it to one of the Great Ones, who will review it as soon as they are able. Thank you for your efforts, and for what it’s worth, I earned my second doctoral degree in Technological Ethics, and I found your points to be refreshing, salient, and enlightening. Perhaps, the next time I visit your friends on Elendroth, if you would so honor me, we could share a meal and talk further.

  Sincerely and warmly,

  -Vlazscen Burnindam

  Adamus leaned in closer as though mildly surprised. “The human signed his own name? And such a personalized response…”

  “I’ve been out of the loop for a long time, but I’m sure no OMP staff has ever been so moved by a support ticket,” Olandrin said. “Anyways, I’ve been busy, so it took me a couple of months before I finally got around to pulling the ticket, and it took me over a week to read his paper. That’s what I’m calling it, by the way. A paper. It deserves at least that much respect. Also, I agreed with about three-quarters of his points, too. There were some things I thought were wrong, but a lotta stuff he said was right—in my view.”

  “Interesting…tell me, what is it that he is asking us for?”

  Olandrin grinned. “He states at the very end that he’s met you once before and that the two of you had productive, respectful discourse. He says all he wants is a meeting for you to hear his concerns and his opinions regarding a way of reactivating the spawn points fairly across all of Galterra that minimizes interference.”

  Adamus’s surprise turned to what Olandrin took to be a combination of shock and genuine admiration. “That seems reasonable,” he said. “Though I am not easily swayed, none can say that I am not willing to hear opposing viewpoints and consider them when I have the opportunity to do so.”

  On that point, Adamus was correct. He may have been the most stubborn “God” ever to exist, but he was paradoxically the most willing to at least hear what people had to say. Adamus never punished people for their ideas or their suggestions, and people at the OMP were free to approach him if he wasn’t preoccupied and could easily share and debate their views.

  That said, Adamus almost never caved on anything and fought tirelessly to uphold his vision, but the fact of the matter was that meeting with someone and allowing them to make their case: that was something Adamus rarely, if ever, refused, provided the underlying reasons contained merit and were justifiable.

  “Grant his ticket,” Adamus said. “Inform him that within four weeks from now, at a time that is amenable to both parties, he will be invited to the OMP for dinner and discussion. I would be overjoyed to hear his rational thoughts on the system. I cannot promise I will agree to a single thing he says, but I am of course willing to hear him out. Also, extend that invitation to the OMP agent from station 2, as he seems qualified to contribute to this discussion. I will grant his request in the process and meet both of them together.”

  Olandrin nodded. “Got it.”

  “Now, let us return our attention to containing the Landy NPC and putting it back in its cage. I have some thoughts to that end.”