10.35 (Pt. 2)

{This chapter is split into three parts. Ensure you are beginning with Pt. 1, not this chapter. —pirateaba}

 

(We are running a survey for people interested in working on projects with The Wandering Inn! Click here if you’re interested!)

 

<The Merch Store has made two new posters for the City of Ropes and Nombernaught! Check them out!>

 

 

 

 

 

It was the tiniest sound in creation. A chink as reality broke, and the boundary between worlds grew thin. So soft—but every being in every world heard it.

A crack in the glass, like gravity turning off just for a second. Your head turned, and everything you thought you were didn’t vanish. You were the same person—but you saw a fissure in the air, running up across the sky. And that tiny rift—if you stared through it, you could see a single figure standing there, taller than Giants, looming above the High Passes.

A white Gnoll girl glancing at you, sorrow and fear in her brown eyes. Then you saw the real world and you began running for that opening. Pulling everything behind you that mattered. Family. Your possessions. Because—your world was fake.

And the breach just kept growing wider. Thinner than a pencil’s width, too thin to break through at first. Then—wider and wider. Crowds milled in front of the gap, trying to pull it wider, trying to fit through. Killing each other to get through. Then you stood there, peeking into that shaking [Palace of Fates]. Waiting for the gap to open wider.

As your world—

—split—

—apart.

 

——

 

Roots Mrsha heard the doors in the [Palace of Fates] crack.

All of them.

It was no subtle sound, but a titanic chorus of damnation. Everyone around her clutched at their heads, screaming. The little girl listened to the final straw breaking the camel’s back and closed her eyes.

So that’s how it all ends.

She was standing in the hallway where the Dragon, Teriarch, had just burst out of the door leading to the beach world. The Painted Antinium were all around her, running after the Witch of Webs.

Behind them, the world of ten years in the future was a fractured opening in the auditorium-sized chamber where the Painted Antinium had assembled. The portal being held open had expanded beyond the door’s frame; it was a fracture in the [Palace of Fates] she could see right into.

The first [Soldiers] of Rhir emerged from the gap and stabbed the Painted Antinium recoiling from the sound of the doors breaking. Green blood spattered onto the floor, and more black-clad figures rushed forwards.

“For the Immortal King! Take this place in Rhir’s name!”

Roots Mrsha saw a banner rising, black fabric with a bright gold city surrounded by five walls, each a different color, and the banner of the Blighted Kingdom of Rhir waved in the air. Then a Painted Soldier threw herself at the [Soldiers], grappling with the flagbearer, and shouted.

“They have taken the inn! To the rear!”

The Apostle Pawn spun around. He pointed a finger, and the lead warrior of Rhir, running with a bloody shortsword in his hand, glowed, like something bright shining from within their chest.

Then they exploded. The [Soldiers] around them were covered in glowing fragments of flesh, which steamed as it came into contact with their armor; they screamed as it burned into their bodies. The Painted Antinium hacked them down, but then a second wave of [Soldiers] burst out of the doorway.

A third—the forces of Rhir were coming through in a never ending stream, fighting the Antinium, but also running away from the Painted Antinium. Into the [Palace of Fates].

“No. This can’t be.”

Someone whispered the words, and Roots Mrsha turned to the speaker. Lyonette du Marquin. She was on her feet, clutching at her ears. The [Princess] and the guests of the inn, the [Knights] of Solstice, Pyrite and the people from the beach world, were all frozen in horror.

“Painted Antinium. Take back The Wandering Inn and secure that door. Purple Smile, slay the Witch of Webs.”

Pawn’s voice didn’t waver. Even now, he simply lifted his club and brought it down—Roots Mrsha saw a Giant’s club appear overhead and smash a group of Rhir’s soldiers flat. The Painted Antinium were splitting.

One group to the beach world, one to defend the portal to their own world, the last to kill the Spider. And perhaps they could have done that—ludicrous as it seemed.

The Antinium trying to get into the world of the Winter Solstice and the beach garden, that better future that Roots Mrsha had wanted to show Zel Shivertail, were trying to get past the stream of people fleeing. Another Lyonette appeared, Mrsha in her arms, and Roots Mrsha locked eyes with the child who was her—but so different at the same time.

I am a monster who has come to steal happiness. Wasn’t that what the real Mrsha had told the girl? Beach Mrsha’s eyes were round with horror, and Roots Mrsha said nothing.

“In Her name! Defend Her inn!”

The Painted Antinium were pushing the [Soldiers] of Rhir back with faith and numbers, fighting past open doors in that assembly room where the sky shone down like their faith. So beautiful.

Open doors. Roots Mrsha’s blurry eyes focused on them. No one had opened the doors; the Painted Antinium had dutifully closed all doors after inspecting them. But now they were all open.

Just a crack. Now, one swung open wider, jostled by a falling [Soldier]. Mrsha saw a world she had never dreamt of before and a thin line in the air.

That crack—and beyond it? Something wiggled and squeezed its way through the gap that was thinner than the width of her paw. Too thin for a person to fit through.

But the glowing underbelly of the multi-legged creature with its many talons and fangs? The baby Creler slithered out of the crack and leapt on a Painted Antinium’s leg. The Soldier faltered, knocked the Creler off his armor, and spoke.

“Crelers?”

His foot stomped, crushing the glowing Creler and squeezing its orange guts out of its body. It kept twitching and biting, though, and the Painted Soldier turned.

“Crelers. There are—”

Fifteen more Crelers wiggled out of the gap in the door and leapt on the Painted Soldier. He swung his greatsword, ripping at them with his four hands, trying to get them off—

Then another dozen Crelers leapt on him, and he was falling. Both Rhir’s [Soldiers] and the Painted Antinium saw more baby Crelers emerging from the door, and the cry went up.

“Crelers. Crelers!”

Then it was three groups fighting in the [Palace]. Pawn’s gaze found the door instantly, and he pointed a finger.

“[Ray of Sunfire].”

A searing beam of light slashed across the door, turning the Crelers it touched into ash and stemming the flow a second. Pawn turned to one of his [Paladins].

“Seal that door.”

The Painted Antinium tried, but the door wouldn’t slam. There was a crack in the door itself.

“Barrier spells. [Wall of Faith].”

A shimmering wall arose, and the Crelers on the other side pressed at it, squirming, as the door grew wider. The [Priest] backed away from the door.

“Apostle! There are…hundreds of thousands of Crelers on the other end. A world of them. Something—Elder Creler. Elder Creler.”

The wall of holy light shimmered as something struck it from the other side. Pawn’s voice was rasping.

“Seal it off. Seal it and—”

Crack.

He turned, slowly, and the light of faith illuminating his eyes flickered. A second door cracked open, and the gap was wider in this door already. So wide it let a thin figure shoulder through sideways.

No Creler. But the brown armor and the lithe figure who caught herself was…familiar. She turned and pulled someone else through the door one-handed. A [Soldier] of a different kind, wearing a turban to guard against the sun, battle-worn armor, and holding a sword. Their armor was marked by a badge that Roots Mrsha recognized.

Gazi Pathseeker, from another unknown world, drew her claymore as she strode forwards, and another [Soldier] of Reim emerged. Then a familiar, huge hand and a grinning face, beaming with excitement and a lust for war that only shone brighter.

The King of Destruction’s red-gold hair flickered in the light of Pawn’s version of the [Palace of Fates], and Rhir’s soldiers and the Painted Antinium pivoted towards him.

He? He spread his arms wide and took it all in. Crelers in one door, the [Palace of Fates] around him—two armies locked in mortal combat. His eyes found Roots Mrsha, and the King of Destruction’s voice boomed.

“At last. The true war I have dreamt of has arrived. Bring the rest of my Seven and Orthenon through—now. Take this place! Don’t harm the ch—hoh!”

He ducked an arrow that passed over his head and flew into his door, and then leapt forwards, astonishingly nimble, as Gazi Pathseeker deflected a volley of arrows from the Painted Antinium. Pawn’s voice was incredulous.

“The King of Destruction? I will handle him. Focus on th—”

Then another figure emerged from the opening, and Pawn’s confidence wavered. A beautiful Stitch-woman stepped out of the door, followed by a woman in golden armor.

Roots Mrsha beheld Queravia, the Gambler of Fates. Her eyes scanned the room in a blur, then she burst into a smile as delighted as Flos’.

“[Fortify the Ground: Fortress Protections].”

She raised a hand, and barriers of stone rose; the hallway where the King of Destruction stood rose slightly, so it was above the others in elevation. Thick, red, Chandrarian stone walls formed miniature battlements, and a single figure strode forwards at the head of the emerging army.

Mars the Illusionist. She raised the shield in her left arm and blocked a glowing hammer conjured by a miracle of the Painted Antinium. Then she turned her head.

A Garuda emerged next. Takhatres, the Lord of the Skies. After him flew through the Human Archmage, Amerys, the Calm Flower of the Battlefield, and then a Fox Beastkin, whose eyes winked with mischief, humor, and compassion. He caught sight of Roots Mrsha and pointed.

“A child, Your Majesty. The child you saw.”

“Protect the child, I said! Bring forwards everyone—and widen this damn door!”

Drevish the Architect emerged last of the Seven, with Orthenon, the King of Destruction’s steward, and then a pair of bewildered children. Trey and Teres Atwood. Then Roots Mrsha understood.

The King of Destruction emerged from a world where he had never gone into his slumber. He came from a time when he had won, and his Seven had survived their war. They lined up in front of him, and Drevish sniffed.

“Skill-based architecture. I can do better. Shall I take control of it, Your Majesty?”

“As you will, Drevish. The rest of you, parlay with anything reasonable, even the Antinium. Secure that door full of Crelers, and—”

He was pointing down at the [Soldiers] of Rhir and Painted Antinium. Pawn had halted. Even the [Apostle] of the Painted Antinium hesitated, faced with the most powerful [King] and his seven mightiest vassals. Flos Reimarch’s hair actually rose in delight as he raised a sword overhead, sweeping it forwards to call a charge.

Then he blinked. Raised a hand as if trying to ward something away—

—The hallway vanished. The Painted Antinium, who had been trying to form a defensive line, recoiled, as a blank wall of stone replaced the forces of Reim. Pawn spun, and Roots Mrsha lowered the palm of her hand.

She hadn’t destroyed them; that was far beyond her. She’d merely changed where they were in the [Palace of Fates]. Pawn’s voice shook, just the tiniest bit.

“Contain the doors! We will meet his offensive—”

Crack.

This time, the Worker slowly turned as a dozen more doors swung open. Each one…his antennae drooped, and he whispered.

“…All of them?”

Then he realized what Roots Mrsha already had. The next door opened, and the forces of the Blighted Empire began fighting harder. The Painted Antinium were fighting them, the Crelers breaking through the door—and a huge, white, marble woman.

A Truestone Golem seized the first Painted Worker up in a hand. Her voice was not Cognita’s refined, precise tones, but the voice of clay itself, each word formed out of the roar of stone and rage.

“THE MASTERS OF ANOTHER WORLD SHALL DIE. LIBERTY SHALL NOT EXIST UNTIL THEY ARE ALL DUST.”

The hand cracked the struggling Worker’s neck, and the Truestone Golem flung the body back and raised her fists, crimson lines of rage snapping over her body.

 

——

 

Lyonette du Marquin hadn’t said a word as the doors split and opened. She didn’t know if she’d even been breathing. Only when a hand began shaking her did she start and inhale.

“We have to run. To the inn, Your Highness.”

Ser Dalimont. He had taken one look at the breaking doors and come to the only conclusion possible. The only sane conclusion.

“We have to close the door to the [Garden of Sanctuary]! Miss Mrsha, with me! Everyone, to the entrance! Move!”

Dame Ushar was giving orders, and the people from the beach world turned to real Lyonette as the spell broke. She pointed.

“Run! That way! Normen—”

“Knights of Solstice, hold them here!”

The Grandmaster of the Order of Solstice planted himself in the middle of the corridor, intending to halt the madness long enough for everyone to run. Everyone else just began running.

“This way! Run!”

Peggy sprinted down the corridor, and Beach Lyonette and Mrsha followed, triggering a flood of people from both worlds after her.

“Wait! Where’s Erin? Where’s Halrac and Moore—”

Beach Kevin was shouting, looking for his friends. But the wave of bodies swept him with it, and Lyonette began to run herself.

“Come on! Wait. Where’s Nanette?”

She skidded to a halt, realizing she’d lost one of her daughters. Roots Mrsha—she spun and saw Dame Ushar trying to pull the girl with her.

The Gnoll child hadn’t moved. She stood where she was, not paralyzed with shock or terror. Tears ran from her eyes.

 

——

 

Roots Mrsha merely wept, for one moment, as it all came crashing down.

This is the end. How can we save anything from this? How does anything good come out of…

She was crying. Not just for herself or her world. But for the real Mrsha.

The Mrsha who had begun it all with the best of intentions. All she’d wanted to do was dig up some roots. Then—just save someone’s life. That was all it had been. A wish on a Djinni’s lamp. Yes, you should know better, yes, you had no one to blame but yourself when the Djinni killed you.

But how many people would find the wishing spell and not bother wishing for something stupid, like immortality, gold, or power, but just to see someone they loved again? That was the entire problem with Aladdin, Roots Mrsha decided. It was a movie about a street rat who had no family, nothing to love or care for but himself. Surely, in his life, there would have been just one person.

But that was probably too depressing for a movie like that. Roots Mrsha wiped her eyes—then she lifted the staff of Warmage Thresk and felt Dame Ushar tugging at her.

“Lady Mrsha, we have to—”

Yes, run. I know. I’m coming.

She knew how to run. She was an expert at it. But Roots Mrsha only strode after Ushar as Lyonette shouted.

“Nanette! Nanette! Have you seen—”

She’s in the [Palace of Fates]. Somewhere else. She went to get her mother, Lyonette.

Mrsha wrote with her wand in the air, and Lyonette paled.

“You gave her a—”

Roots Mrsha’s gaze wasn’t flat or ignorant of her deeds. She just had no time to discuss it. Lyonette wavered.

“We have to find her. Can you make her appear or…?”

I’m trying. It’s hard. The [Palace of Fates] is breaking. Can’t you hear it?

“Hear…?”

They were following the stream of people running down the corridor, turning a bend. By rights, it should have taken them directly to the entrance of the [Garden of Sanctuary], but it didn’t.

Multiple wills were wrestling for the [Palace of Fates]. All of them wanted something.

Drevish the Architect. The King of Destruction. The Apostle Pawn. Belavierr—

And Roots Mrsha. She concentrated, and the hallways flickered—

—They were running through a familiar hallway of doors with roots sticking out of them, and Lyonette nearly slammed into a third Lyonette.

“Watch where you’re—huh?”

A younger [Princess] was panting, a little Gnoll girl in her arms. This one was smaller than Roots Mrsha, and she was whimpering. Roots Mrsha saw a Gnoll in armor put up his sword and blink as he nearly swung at Ser Dalimont. The Thronebearer stared, and the real Lyonette gasped.

“Brunkr?”

Ah. Ahh. Of course. Mrsha saw Brunkr, his Lyonette, and his Mrsha in the hallway, then a stream of Drakes and Gnolls. An [Innkeeper] shouting in front of her door.

“Hey, move it or lose it, people! Just go! Go! Whuh—is that Pisces? But I thought he was—”

The Erin Solstice of Brunkr’s world had spotted Pisces Jealnet from the world of the beach, and he stumbled to a stop when he saw her.

“Erin? Erin?”

He grabbed her, and the Horns of Hammerad from the beach world halted, along with the rest of the people who’d seen their Erin Solstice vanish. The younger [Innkeeper] was confused.

“What the heck is—huh? Huh?”

Brunkr’s Lyonette was just as confused.

“Y-you’re me! With Thronebearers? What’s going on? The door opened and we thought it was Future Mrsha with another warning, but—”

The real Lyonette was just as incredulous. Her eyes flicked to little Mrsha, and Brunkr.

“You’re me. And Brunkr. And you’re a—”

There was no mistaking the way Brunkr was holding Lyonette’s hand. The Gnoll [Knight] was panting as he glared at Roots Mrsha.

“What did you do? You said you’d leave me alone!”

The girl wrote a line in the air.

I’m sorry. It’s all falling apart. We have to get out of here.

She wondered how they’d all gotten out so fast; then Roots Mrsha saw the root sticking out of Brunkr’s world had turned into a gigantic portal, almost as large as the one in Pawn’s.

The worlds with roots in them were already open doors, so they were letting people out far faster than the others. That was something, at least.

But why was everyone coming out of their world? Brunkr’s world was open, and people were running into the [Palace of Fates]. Why?

Roots Mrsha could only assume—it was like an instinct. Like how animals fled before a wildfire, or just how fish needed water, not air.

Something was breaking down. Everything was; and when it broke, you could see what was impermanent, fragile.

This place based on Skills was conditional on the [Palace of Fates] existing. When your world trembled—you ran.

You ran and knew you were fake. Questioned everything that made you you. Lost your home. Lost your purpose and your identity.

She knew the feeling. Right now, the girl was standing in front of a door where the root growing into it was spreading.

Her door.

Roots Mrsha reached for it, then hesitated. She knew that this door led to another [Palace of Fates]; there was no way for her to reach her version of The Wandering Inn, even now. But maybe…maybe the roots would open a door back to the inn. Somehow.

If she could go back—what would she find? No mother, no inn? Just a squatting Titan reigning over a dead city?

The girl still wore the fancy red robes she had stolen from another timeline—and she regretted even that trick. Everything.

Roots Mrsha whirled away from her door and wrote in the air, as large as she could.

Run for the exit! Keep going, all of you! Don’t let anyone wrong out into the inn!

That broke the paralysis once more. Brunkr took his Lyonette’s arm and ran with her and his Mrsha, joining the stream of people racing for the exit.

The real Lyonette was panting, wide-eyed, but she turned to Roots Mrsha.

“What are you doing, Mrsha? You can summon the exit anytime you want, surely.”

Other people are hunting for it. I’m trying to keep it away from them.

The [Princess] wasn’t a fool. She cursed.

“Belavierr. Of course! Well—just take us to it, and we’ll get everyone through and close the door!”

On Taletevirion? On the others? Nanette’s out there.

The [Princess] hesitated, thinking as she glanced right, left, and then behind them. The [Palace of Fates] was being invaded in real time. How long did they have until an army was running down these corridors? 

“We’ll find them and—”

If we cut the root from the [Garden of Sanctuary], there’s no way we’ll get it back open. Rags and your Mrsha are here too. We have to get to the door and hold it, do you understand?

It was all so very clear to Roots Mrsha. Clear, impossible objectives. Dame Ushar whispered incredulously.

“They said an Elder Creler was in one of those worlds. We’re to hold the door against that? Against the Blighted Empire and the King of Destruction?”

Lyonette du Marquin’s chin rose, and she let out an unsteady breath.

“—The box. Get me to the exit and give me the box, and I can stop them. But the cost…”

She was afraid, and Roots Mrsha had an idea of what Lyonette was intending—she touched Lyonette’s arm.

Just hold that spot as long as you can. I’ll find as many people as I can and send them your way. Including Nanette. I’ll connect you with the exit.

She took several steps back, and Lyonette blinked stupidly at her.

“What? Don’t you dare! Mrsha—”

The [Princess] lunged for Mrsha, but it was too late. She vanished, and the girl stood there, satisfied.

I’m not your Mrsha, Mother. I have to find as many as I can. She turned—and someone was standing with her.

Dame Ushar had refused to leave. The Thronebearer’s face was grim.

“I’ve sworn to serve you, no matter what happens, Lady Mrsha. To the end. Bring us to Miss Nanette, and we’ll retreat to the [Garden of Sanctuary]. Agreed?”

She was a good woman. Roots Mrsha blinked up at her, then nodded. They began to run.

 

——

 

The [Palace of Fates] was truly easy to understand in some ways. It was an infinitely branching network of worlds—but it still had a layout.

Hallways had to connect to each other. You could move them anywhere you wanted, but they still existed. Right now, the hallways that connected to the outside, to the exit and the [Garden of Sanctuary], were fixed in place.

A [Princess] had made it there, Lyonette du Marquin, and she was with the [Knights] of Solstice, the inn’s staff—virtually no one else. Everyone else was trying to get to her, but the rest of the [Palace of Fates] was in flux; you had to keep running until one of the shifting hallways finally connected you to the exit.

Other beings were wrestling for control of this place, getting in each other’s ways. Of course, there was one girl with control over the exit.

Roots Mrsha. She was preventing other people from finding it easily. So therefore, it followed that if you wanted a way out, you could keep running and searching.

Or find her.

The girl burst into a corridor ahead of the group fleeing from their world—the dwellers of the world of better days. It was Kevin who nearly ran her over.

“Mrsha! Where’s the damn exit!?”

He hollered at her, and she pointed over her shoulder as the hallways flickered.

That way! But where’s everyone else?

People ran past her, but she didn’t see Headscratcher, Pyrite, Moore, Halrac—Kevin whirled.

“They must have gotten separated!”

I’ll find them. Go!

The young man dashed past Roots Mrsha, and she searched around. She was having trouble finding people in this chaos, as much as he was. She was about to turn and sprint down another corridor to find Nanette when a door opened in front of her.

Which world was this? Mrsha tensed—then a quartet of people tumbled out into the [Palace of Fates], and her heart sank.

Oh no. Not them. She’d forgotten her sins.

The Horns of Hammerad from the looted vaults of Warmage Thresk burst out of the doorway, shouting. Ceria, Yvlon, Ksmvr, and Pisces.

“Aha! I knew there was a trick to—where the heck are we? Is that Mrsha? Wh—duck!”

Yvlon threw them all to the floor as Dragonfire washed down the corridor. Mrsha glanced up; she lifted a paw, and the two roaring Dragons vanished.

“W-what’s going on?”

Pisces’ voice was shaking. Dame Ushar tried to explain to the Horns of Hammerad. She ended up just pointing.

“There’s a way out. Get to it, or you’re lost. Wait. Where are you going?”

At her words, Pisces’ eyes went round. He hesitated, looked at Roots Mrsha, then whirled and leapt back into the door where he’d emerged from.

Back into the Ruins of Albez. After a moment of hesitation, his team followed him.

“Where are they—”

Dame Ushar turned incredulously to Roots Mrsha, but the girl understood. Her eyes stung again.

Pisces was going to get his version of everyone he loved. He’d never make it from Albez to The Wandering Inn. Tears fell from Roots Mrsha’s eyes once more.

I’m sorry.

She hoped Mrsha, the real Mrsha, never had to see this. Never blamed herself for seeing these lost people. Then she felt her fur prickling. Roots Mrsha’s head snapped up.

Someone was coming down the hallways. Roots Mrsha raised a paw, and the presence disappeared—

Then the hallway in front of her flickered, and a [Witch] was striding down them again, eyes fixed on Mrsha. She flickered—vanished—

Reappeared a dozen paces closer. Mrsha backed away.

Dame Ushar raised her scroll, a gift of her new budget Skill, and a bolt of lightning shot down the corridor.

“Lady Mrsha, run, it’s—”

A jet of water struck her in the chest and sent Ushar flying. Mrsha glanced up, and a too-thin [Witch] pointed her wand at her.

Evil Nanette. Behind her…a woman who struck fear into Roots Mrsha.

Belavierr, the Witch of Webs.

“Ah. There is the reason. Leave the child alive, Nanette.”

“Yes, Mother. I get to fulfill my promise many times over!”

The [Witch of Sorrows] lifted her wand, and Mrsha tried to make them disappear again—Belavierr’s eyes paralyzed her.

“This is not the [Garden of Sanctuary], Mrsha du Marquin. I have waited ten years for this.”

Her smile stretched over her face awkwardly, and the girl saw Dame Ushar trying to get up before a wave of water swept her against one wall. The girl tried to move.

Children shouldn’t have undying monsters as nemeses. She struggled to howl, to use her powers of luck, her new Skills.

Nothing happened. Belavierr passed by the open doors, stepping under a crystal chandelier that the tip of her hat touched, and it tinkled. She peered at each and every door avariciously, and Mrsha cried out in her soul.

To the creator of this Skill. To the being who adjudicated it all. To fairness, if it existed. To Erin and this inn.

Just once, just once, give me something instead of more despair! Something to believe in. Or else she would stand in this eternal [Palace of Fates] in her soul, where the only thing that was ever good or true lay beyond a door and in a world that had never been.

Her tears rolled down her face as Belavierr bent down, and then the Stitch Witch’s head turned slightly left. She adjusted her hat again and inspected the perfect reflection of herself in the mirror.

A leering [Witch] with ringed eyes, stooping over a silently-crying Gnoll child with white fur. The image in the mirror was exactly the same.

Except for the giant Harpy, of course. Belavierr eyed Empress Sheta silently. The Harpy Queen’s eyes were huge and round, like an owl’s, and she stood stock-still. Her wings were folded around her, and her Human face was blank.

The Stitch Witch swallowed, a faintly audible sound, and it was either her divesting herself of her craft or just the moment, but there was a faint wobble of actual nervousness in her voice.

“I wish to negot—”

The [Empress] stuck her claw out of the mirror and smashed Belavierr into one wall of the [Palace of Fates]. The Stitch Witch made a faint sound as the talons dug into the marble. Evil Nanette squeaked.

“M-Mother?”

“Oh dear.”

Sheta stepped out of the mirror and tossed Belavierr with a flick of her claws. Then pointed one talon and spoke.

“[Brightstar Dragonlings of Iltanus].”

Flaming, tiny Dragons appeared and shot down the hallway. ‘Tiny’ as in still twice as big as Roots Mrsha, eyes glowing as they breathed elemental flame at the Spider.

Belavierr moved, mid-flight, twisted, and tossed out strings, which formed a cobweb that caught her. She landed, raised a hand, and shielded herself with her cloak. Then she whirled it, and one of the Dragonlings disappeared. Belavierr drew a pair of scissors and snipped another two in half, ignoring the flames.

Thin Nanette blasted the last one out of the air with jets of magic. Belavierr locked gazes with the Empress of Harpies. Sheta flicked a claw.

“[Brightstar Dragonlady Ameti’venia].”

A glowing Dragon, scales glowing with white flames, appeared in the corridor. The female Dragon inhaled; Belavierr strode away. Older Nanette screamed and ran as the Dragon exhaled, then gave chase.

Mrsha stood there as the Empress of Harpies studied her. After a moment, the vast Harpy raised her talon and gingerly poked Mrsha on the head with the barest tip of her talon.

“Do not despair. Not yet. One last time, I shall fly this mortal world and set what wrongs to right that I can.”

She waited, her feathers ruffling and raising by themselves with excitement, as the authority long lost to this world came to her.

The greatest [Empress] her species had ever known.

The girl just stared up at her.

Another immortal, come to do greatest good or greatest evil. The Empress eyed her.

“Have you been hexed by that…thing? I have never encountered the like, wearing a [Witch]’s class. Or—do you fear me that much?”

Dame Ushar sat up gasping and tried to throw herself between Mrsha and Sheta. The Harpy eyed the female [Knight] and moved her to one side with the sweep of a claw. Roots Mrsha wrote in the air.

Neither. I just wish I’d asked you questions, too. I wish I had been cleverer. I wish so many people will not die. I am so tired of my mistakes.

The [Empress]’ imperious, affronted gaze softened. For just one moment, Roots Mrsha saw someone real there, not the imposing figure. Just someone else with so many regrets…Sheta bent down, and her lips brushed the top of Roots Mrsha’s head.

“So was I. You are a fitting heir to my [Palace], after all. But not yet. Not yet. Now, there are vermin within my greatest creation, the product of my folly. Let me offer you that feather of hope, child. Run. I will clean my palace of filth.”

So saying, she spread her wings, and Roots Mrsha closed her eyes. She tilted her head up, and the wind blew around her, carrying with it the faint smells of some vast, beautiful bird, perfume, mystery, and—wonders.

Then she opened her eyes and saw the Harpy flying. Hallways spread out before her, and the running people stopped as she glided past them.

 

——

 

Bird had her bow drawn, and she was firing at the [Soldiers] entering the palace. She was oh so afraid, because Mrsha was gone and there were bad people coming, including Antinium. She had to kill Belavierr—

She stopped as the Empress of Harpies flew past the tiny bug-queen with a bow. Bird’s purple eyes couldn’t grow any wider, but she halted, bow in hand, and the last Empress of Harpies laid eyes on her first Antinium in the flesh.

Both their hearts skipped a beat. The Harpy flashed past Bird in an instant, leaving only the memory behind. A single glance.

And the two women had had the same thought.

I wonder what that tastes like.

 

——

 

Which was which? They couldn’t tell, not anymore. Two Dragons fought, tooth and nail, both bloodied and wounded. It no longer mattered which had been first.

Whichever one stood when the other did not would take it all. As it always had been. No mercy. Not for this one. Never for this one. They both knew by heart the endless crimes and sins the other had committed.

One blew Dragonfire over the other; the second raked the face of the first with metal claws. They were destroying the [Palace of Fates]. No longer speaking, but roaring at each other, as they always had been—one step away from monsters themselves.

Nothing could separate them. No pleas, no force, no magic. They were seeking each other’s throats, blood in their eyes, when a voice spoke.

At first, they both thought it was just a memory. A familiar voice, sparked by dying neurons firing at their end.

Then, a wing hit both of them, so hard that they felt it. Both Dragons gaped up, and they raised their bloody, tattered manes and saw her standing there.

Empress Sheta, the last Harpy Queen, spoke as the Dragonlord of Flames’ eyes grew round.

“What are you doing? You, of all beings—killing yourself. For what? Here? Now?”

Two voices answered her. Two old men, suddenly transported tens of thousands of years back.

“Sheta? Is that you?”

“It’s just—oh, memory of gods. Why are you doing this to me?”

One turned away. The other tried to cover his eyes, shaking his head, as if denying this. Then the Harpy spoke again sharply.

She had Magnolia Reinhart’s angry voice, the self-righteousness of someone who still believed in right and wrong and that it should matter. All the intensity of the stare of Ryoka Griffin, desperation unto madness. Rafaema’s helpless frustration, and the nobility the Dragoness always aspired towards, always above her in her mind.

Her voice rang with the thousands of lives he had known. First of all. Sheta spread her wings and shouted.

“They need you! They need me—we are unworthy long-dead tyrants of immortality, but so are so many! What is the point if we do not fight for every second we owe them? My [Palace of Fates] is breaking—filth pours in from every door. So fly, Dragonlord! Fly with me, once more and never again!”

The two Dragons lying amidst their own blood and the flames of their battle gazed up at her—then at each other. They were endlessly weary, bloodied beyond belief, and they saw their death in this breaking [Palace of Fates].

 

——

 

They were coming through the palace. [Soldiers] of the Blighted Kingdom, throwing themselves forwards in an endless stream, killing everything in their path.

The first of the larval Crelers ran down another corridor, past more doors cracking—pursuing a Gnoll [Knight] carrying a girl in his arms and trying to shield a [Princess].

He whirled—and saw a [Soldier] of Rhir aim at him and the Creler with an explosive quarrel. The [Soldier] fired, and Brunkr threw up his shield with a despairing cry.

Then there was flame. It engulfed the screaming Gnoll, Lyonette, and Mrsha, and they clung together as it washed over them, a soft, warm river of flickering red.

Brunkr’s head rose, and he saw orange fire passing in front of him—but he felt no incineration. Nor did he see even his fur catch fire.

He twisted around—and the baby Crelers were ash. The [Soldier] and the squad melted—and the Brass Dragon stopped breathing fire.

“Wh—who is—”

Teriarch strode forwards, injured, scales torn, his mane covered with his own blood, and his eyes shone. He spoke.

“Keep running. I will hold them back as long as I can.”

“But who—?”

The trio gazed up at the Dragonlord, and he turned. The bulging door of skittering Crelers opened—they swarmed out of it, a pulsating mob of flesh and chitinous legs, smaller ones in front of horrific Adult Crelers and even vaster ones thinking behind them. Alien thoughts of death and glory for their sleeping…

They beheld the Dragonlord of Flames, and their confidence turned to terror a moment before he exhaled. The Dragon lit the [Palace of Fates] up like the dawn, and the shriek of Crelers filled the air. He kept breathing fire until the very doorway was aflame and nothing but ash and fire existed beyond.

Then he kept moving. Forwards—and the [Soldiers] of Rhir saw him charge towards them, roaring. They backed up, screaming.

“Dragon! Drag—”

 

——

 

<Temporary Dimension: Alternate World 2 — “Ten Years Later”, The Wandering Inn>

 

“—on!”

The [Hero of Turns], Jospiere, had just finished clearing out the first wave of low-level Goblins and he was advancing on the frozen adventurers when the flow of [Soldiers] entering the portal abruptly reversed.

“Oh, come on, get in there and fight!”

He roared as a few burnt [Soldiers] tumbled out of the door. They froze, obviously, and the [Hero of Turns] whirled, ready to kill whatever was coming through. Or retreat and let the lower-level [Heroes] take the hit.

He came face-to-face with a Brass Dragon’s head. The Dragon had emerged from the portal, passing by the giant Antinium who was kneeling and trying to fend off the [Soldiers], despite only having one hand left.

Jospiere froze. The Dragon was motionless. Of course it was—he began breathing again.

Evacuate. I have to get out of here. Wait. What are his stats?

A sick curiosity filled the [Hero], and he checked them. Unlike a person, monster statistics popped up differently.

 

Terrium Archelis Dorishe, Brass Dragonlord of Flames (Level Rating 80+++)

Species: Gargantuan Ancient Dragonlord (Brass)

Alignment: Neutral Good

Initiative: +14

Senses: Darkvision, low-light vision, heatvision, magicvision, soulsight 10 ft, energy flow 2000 ft, aurasense…(click to expand).

Languages: Old Draconic, Elvish, Dwarvish, Goblin, Common, Latin, Selphid A’tt, Old Gnollish, High Drake…(click to expand).

AC: 47, touch 29, flat-footed 35.

Hitpoints: 524/3,523

Damage Resistance: I am the Dragonlord of Flames.

Fortitude: You, who slaughter so cavalierly, shall die.

Reflexes: Wretch. Flee and burn.

Willpower…

 

The horror of the stats page on the Dragon transfixed Jospiere as he tried to come up with some kind of countermeasure for a monster of this magnitude until he saw the red text appearing. Then—he noticed something impossible.

The Dragon was…breathing. His head rose and fell, ever-so-slightly, as he inhaled, and his eyes were glittering with moisture. But that…was impossible. Jospiere was used to helpless statues who could only move their mouths. This was like a boss with special animations.

Or—his memory flicked back to Rhir—

It was like this thing wasn’t being held by his Skill—

The Dragon lunged and bit. Jospiere flung himself away; the jaws closed over another [Hero], who screamed as they ripped her to shreds. No one could move but Jospiere.

And the Dragon.

“It’s my—my turn. You can’t—”

Jospiere was on the ground. He got up and saw his movement points draining. He stared at the Dragonlord as Teriarch spat blood and flesh to the side. The Dragon’s response was to inhale. He swept his Dragonbreath left and right, incinerating the soldiers of Rhir and the [Heroes].

“Jos! Stop him!”

One of the [Heroes] shrieked, but the [Hero of Turns] was backing away. He retreated out of the inn, and the Dragon followed, knocking down the walls. Jospiere saw one eye flash, and a claw rose.

“[Disintegration Ray].”

He fired the spell at the [Hero of Turns], and Jospiere’s nerve broke. He turned and ran, screaming, as the Dragonlord appeared on the hill. The Brass Dragon set upon the [Soldiers] of Rhir, attacking them with impunity as their leader fled. Jospiere was at the teleportation mages, screaming at them to teleport him, and deactivating his Skill. He stumbled as everyone unfroze and looked up.

He saw a Dragon upon the hill, maw open, aiming pink flames towards him. The [Hero of Turns] shrieked—and Dragonfire covered him.

He burnt and screamed as he died. Reinforcements from Rhir appeared on the ground too late amidst glowing ash and halted as they beheld him.

The Dragon was howling up at the sky, a challenge to the Empire of Rhir. He spread his wings as the people fled past him and pointed.

The Painted Antinium gazed up at him and ran for the portal as the second wave of the Blighted Kingdom began falling from the sky. Too many [Soldiers] to count, and [Heroes].

Always [Heroes]. But this time…the Dragonlord’s eyes burned, and a hundred [Heroes] appeared in front of ten thousand riders armed with magic and steel.

Ready to slay a Dragon. Then, they saw him raise one tattered wing, and salute them. A simple gesture that transformed him from a mighty beast of war to—what?

Then, the Empire of Rhir hesitated, and their [Heroes], children of another world, came face to face with the truth behind the stories.

No mindless, savage Dragon stealing [Princesses], but a wounded, old warrior who spoke like a poet covered in sins and pride. An intelligent, merciless hero of days that had long since passed, promising them death if they advanced.

The Dragon’s eyes glowed, and he greeted the greatest empire of this world as he lowered his wings and set himself against the door.

People were still fleeing Liscor. Antinium, Drakes, Gnolls, Humans—many were coming via the portal stations. Hold the line. He had to hold the line.

“Slay the Dragon!”

An officer screamed those words, as they had and always would, and for the barest moment, they saw him smile. He whispered as he inhaled cool air through his burning lungs and turned it to fire.

“[Meteor Storm].”

Then he swept the Floodplains of Izril with flames, leaving scars that would not heal. Buying fragments of time.

Then, as if struck by a thought, the Dragonlord of Flames glanced right at a figure crawling into the inn—an old man with his worthless, irreplaceable hoard of treasures. Under an invisibility spell.

The Teriarch of this world gave him a mute, haunted, disbelieving look. Shame and cowardice ran through him as he crawled through the broken wall of the inn, fleeing. The true Dragonlord let him go.

This world contained the might of Rhir’s Blighted Kingdom at its worst; armies of [Soldiers] and [Heroes] armed with magic stood before him.

But every world was collapsing. The [Palace of Fates] was yet worse.

 

——

 

<Temporary Dimension: Alternate World 1 — “Better Days”>

 

Now, they were all coming for the feast, just as predicted. Anyone could predict it, really. When a feast lay before them, the pestilence would come. Roaches and rats; viruses feeding upon the healthy.

Gods.

The first of them was the God of Magic, who had once been said to be the most knowledgeable of all the foreign deities who came to this place. Master of so many magics and arcane secrets. He had weaved the first spells of this world into being.

He had escaped the Last Box of the Gnomes—in this realm, at least. So long as the [Palace of Fates] endured, so would he. So Emerrhain revelled in it.

The God of Magic laughed at the little man trying to hurt him. He picked himself up off the ground, and he was split from shoulder to groin by a blow that had cleaved his flesh apart; he shouldn’t have been able to stand, but the pieces rose without regard for mere physicality, the torn muscles and structure, and reknit.

The Fraerling, Niers Astoragon, stood on the roof of The Wandering Inn; what remained of it. The roof was damaged and afire. The city was blowing alarms, and everyone was fleeing out of it.

Towards that portal in the air, held open by Ishkr. The inn was breaking.

Erin Solstice was gone. Niers Astoragon had seen her die, and he did not know who this man was. For once, he wasn’t questioning why or who or how this had come about. He was just…focused.

Kill him. The God of Magic took a step forwards as the galloping of hooves grew louder; Centaurs were racing around him, firing arrows, shouting. Half of the forces who had come with Perorn Fleethoof to Izril after the Meeting of Tribes.

The other half were dead. Wiped out. Or worse—eaten. Niers saw Emerrhain point a finger at him and snapped.

“Interception.”

He didn’t move. The ray that shot from the dead god’s finger was like a writhing snake made of orange light. It pierced the walls of magic that rose to stop it, honing in on Niers; a consuming, unstoppable spell—

Until a pair of Centaurs galloped past the God of Magic and the rope they’d strung between them clotheslined the God of Magic across the stomach. The spell disappeared as the God of Magic’s concentration broke. Niers saw Emerrhain’s eyes bulge; then he went flying. Quite far; the rope might have literally snapped him in half if he were actually flesh and blood.

“—Not alive at all. Closer to a Golem. The damage gets through, but it doesn’t matter. We’re not hitting him; it’s like fighting a supreme Djinni. Captain Basal. Take him away.”

The God of Magic was trying to stand back up from where he’d been hurled down the hill. He was functionally immortal; if you touched him, you faded away. He could cast magic that Niers estimated at Tier 6+ without limit.

A classic, immortal foe. But one with two weak spots the Fraerling had observed. The first was that he still had a body that could be moved by objects, if not people. The second was—he was hungry. He kept eating people, consuming them with a touch.

He wanted the civilians fleeing Liscor. He wanted Niers most of all; whether that was ire towards the Fraerling or Niers’ level, who could say? The Fraerling watched as the Centaurs drew back, and the Lizaur, Captain Basal, galloped forwards.

The half-Lizardfolk Centaur never hesitated. He swung past the God of Magic, and a second Centaur lassoed the cursing Emerrhain, then passed the rope to Basal. The [Linebreaker Captain] looped the rope through a harness on his back and galloped away from the inn. Dragging the dead god across the Floodplains like a bag of straw.

That bought them a few seconds. Niers Astoragon turned his eyes away from the god.

“Move them out of here. Faster.”

The stream of people fleeing Liscor was the entire city’s population, and he’d seen them coming from Esthelm too.

Fleeing. Of course they were. They had seen the portal in the skies and realized this reality was fake. But an entire city’s worth of people were pushing, shoving, running, trying to flee.

Casualties in the thousands already. They’d never evacuate the city in time. Niers saw a group speeding up the hill towards him and knew who it was.

Perorn Fleethoof was racing towards the inn with Centaurs not assigned to the battle group. Many had children on their backs, and the [Strategist] was lending her speed Skills to the fleeing people. They streamed into the inn as she cantered to a stop, breathing hard.

“Niers! It’s all falling apart! We have to get them out of here! Faster! Our company—they’re trapped on Baleros!”

Trapped on Baleros far from the door, she meant. Niers thought of his Forgotten Wing Company, all his designs, his efforts, and it was all hollow. He spoke, staring off into the distance.

“Get through that door, Perorn. I’m placing you in command of everyone left alive. There’s a war in there. I’ll slow this bastard down. Close the door, if I don’t, after five minutes.”

Five minutes. The [Strategist] opened her mouth to protest. Then her head surveyed the inn.

Less than four hundred Centaurs were stringing more pieces of rope between them, preparing [Wall of Earth] spells, even long lances or spears, to deal with this foe. Her mercenaries, Fleethoof’s Gales, were gone.

“Hurt him. Nothing’s actually hurting him. Damage shield…but I swear, I saw him flinch, just once. When was it?”

Niers Astoragon was sitting now, one leg dangling off the roof. Erin Solstice was dead. He’d never gotten a chance—no. He’d never taken it.

“I don’t think I had a shot, anyways. But I enjoyed it. I should never have come here.”

Slowly, he rose to his feet and saw a figure appear on one of the hilltops in the distance. The God of Magic.

Captain Basal was gone. Perorn had known him for over a decade and a half. She drew an arrow, and Niers whispered.

“Run away, Perorn. I don’t need you here. Everything on this board is disposable. I think he can move between worlds. So there’s no point to even closing the door. But wasting his time?”

Oh, yes. They could do that.

“Come now, I thought the, what, ‘God of Magic’ was better than that! A single Centaur can drag you around like a sack!”

Niers Astoragon projected his voice as Emerrhain faced him. This time—he saw the spell coming and leapt for cover.

The roof of the inn exploded as something struck it. It seemed like a Dragon, but not one that Niers was familiar with. A roaring, Drathian-style Dragon, a long, sinuous, and elegant serpent with a mane and wide eyes, made of jade-green energy.

When the Fraerling rose, he saw a hole through The Wandering Inn. Screams. The spell had torn through the Centaurs and people fleeing. He could see Ishkr holding onto the root on the second floor of the inn, clinging to one wall as if trying to hold the dying inn up. Tears were running down the Gnoll’s cheeks.

“Secure that room. Ramp up there—run, Perorn!”

She was still hesitating. That honest second-in-command. Foliana’s adopted daughter, his finest student. The Fraerling tasted blood in his mouth, but he was grinning. That manic smile of the monster of Baleros.

The Titan. He didn’t want to send her off like this, but it didn’t matter. Niers twisted and sat up.

“Niers to Chaldion. Niers to Foliana. Do it.”

The God of Magic was already here. He appeared with a sonic boom of air, and the explosion and speed of his movement hurled the Centaurs around him through the air, already dead from the shockwave. Then he stepped forward, hands raised, and just—touched—the line of people fleeing from Liscor. Walked past them under the effects of a [Haste] spell, consuming the people as he harvested them.

Did it hurt? Was it healing him or giving him energy? What was he, a Seamwalker? A Vampire from the old texts? Niers didn’t know.

He wished he did know that it was agonizing, that the victims of this Emerrhain were suffering. That terrible knowledge would make this next part…the Fraerling’s head rose.

…A bit lighter on his conscience.

It didn’t matter. The Titan smiled like a weary traveller seeing the embers of a distant, warming fire. Perorn’s head rose as the skies swirled overhead and the winter clouds lit up like the dawn.

The first bombardment spells fell out of the sky, sent by Pallass. Then came the Forgotten Wing Company’s magic. All their long-ranged weapons. Every failsafe and last-resort measure they’d stolen from their foes, bought, or found.

All of it raining down on the Floodplains of Liscor. Not on Emerrhain’s position, no.

On Liscor. Liscor and the Floodplains, burning a line straight towards The Wandering Inn. Niers saw the first firedrop touch down over the column of fleeing civilians. Then someone seized him up in a fist.

“Niers!”

Perorn. The Titan didn’t even glance at her; he was watching the God of Magic’s reaction. The gloating figure looked up as the first spell fell, confused. Then one kicked him into the air. It didn’t harm him, but when he sat up, he seemed genuinely surprised. Then—annoyed.

Carrion being deprived of its meal.

“Starve it of its food. Get out of here, Perorn. That’s an order.”

The Titan saw a spell hit Liscor’s walls and crack them. Perorn dropped him. She backed away, and Niers got up, brushing at his lapels.

“This is Niers Astoragon, the Titan of Baleros. If you have anything or anyone to save—run. The rest of you, with families too far or who have lost it all—hold this ground with me.”

He glanced right and left. Then saw someone try to murder him.

Spearmaster Relc leapt for Niers, screaming, and one of the Centaurs intercepted him. The Centaur took a spear to the flank, leg, guts—two more charged into the Drake, and Niers turned away.

“Retreat!”

The bombardment had two effects. It cost the God of Magic his prey—and it broke the will of the defenders to keep fighting. Someone else hurled an oath at Niers.

Earl Altestiel was being dragged back by Belchaus. Till this moment, the Lord of the Dance and Earl of Rains had fought with bitter resolve. Tears streaked down Altestiel’s face.

Erin Solstice was dead. And so was Queen Geilouna. The Bedtime Queen hadn’t had a chance. Altestiel would have fought to the end—Niers raised a hand.

When he turned back to Liscor, he saw only armageddon. Ash and light—and a single god standing amidst the destruction. Walking towards him with an admiring expression.

Of all of it—that hurt Niers most of all. But the Titan just pulled a spare hat from his bag, fixed it in as jaunty a manner as he could upon his head, and strode forwards.

Alone.

Perorn galloped back, and the defenders of the inn, Altestiel, the guests ran. Niers Astoragon strode down the hill towards the God of Magic.

He had something to say. Men like him always did.

“A fine gambit, little Fraerling. You would have made a fine champion for a God of Destruction. I am Emerrhain. Take my hand and witness my great works.”

He extended one hand, and Niers saw him for what he was. The Titan’s image of Emerrhain was of a Human man with spectacles, robes of a scholar or [Mage], and a matching face, someone in their late middle ages, grey in his hair, but dignified, educated.

But if Niers thought a different way—he could see a Drake with the exact same profile, or a Centaur, a smiling Selphid.

Emerrhain was just an idea, and he flickered from form to form. Niers could see him thusly, because the one thing the God of Magic would never turn into was…a Fraerling.

It was beneath him. Well—Niers smiled tightly, it was just as well.

If he’d turned into a Fraerling, Niers would have had someone kick him. The Titan spread his arms out.

“After all that, do you think I’d bend over and present my ass for you, you worthless piece of Creler turds? Had you any spine, you’d have fought someone on your level. I recognize a coward when I see one. A man of my stature is good enough for you.”

The God of Magic’s eyes narrowed at the retort. Oh, yes. He was trying so hard to be grand. Imposing. Not desperate.

“Fraerlings. Fitting heirs to the Gnomes. I have escaped the last trap of your glorious mentors, ‘Titan’. Now, in every world, your species will bear the consequences. So too will Erin Solstice. I have ret—”

A pillar of earth punched him off the ground, and Niers saw the God of Magic cartwheeling through the air. The Titan grunted.

“Shit reflexes on that one. Good to know.”

He turned his head; almost everyone was gone. The inn’s people, what few survivors from the bombardment there were—only Ishkr and those without anything left to lose remained.

Centaurs. Balerosians all, grim-faced, covering Perorn’s retreat. Barely more than three dozen; even the others had run rather than stay in this doomed world.

“Ishkr! Hold that door open for three more minutes, then get out of here!”

Niers roared at the Gnoll and saw Ishkr’s head turn towards him. Then Niers glanced right and left.

“Tarath, you bastard. You’re supposed to go with Perorn.”

“Someone’s got to buy time for our treasured commander to flee. Looks like that god-thingy is up and mad, Lord Astoragon. How’re we gonna put him down for good?”

The lieutenant’s eyes were shining wetly, but the [Soldiers] around him were all waiting for the Titan’s words. They had faith in him, even now, that he could harm this bastard.

Niers smiled at all of them, committing their faces to memory. He saluted them.

“Thank you. And I’m sorry.”

“Just give the orders, Lord Astorag—”

One of the Centaurs raised an axe, cheering—then a puzzled expression crossed his face. He recoiled a step, reaching out for Niers…

And vanished. In a flash of light. Tarath spun, cursing, to the God of Magic, but it wasn’t Emerrhain; he was getting on his feet, red-faced. The Centaur realized who had done it and turned to Niers.

“[Castling the Pieces].”

The Titan of Baleros teleported the Centaurs around him, all except Tarath. Sent them across the world, trading places with…he gazed up as the first of their replacements shimmered into being.

“General Diomedes. You made it.”

The Cyclops was kneeling, and his eye fixed on the ruined wasteland around Liscor, then on Niers.

“You’ve burnt a city to ash, Lord Astoragon. The same as the Goblin King, eh?”

His smile was faint. His eye threatened annihilation. But the Titan merely tipped his cap to him.

“I was never different from the Goblin King. I just respected more rules. That thing will eat the world. Look. If you want to run, give me three minutes of battle. Understood?”

More people were appearing. General Gloriam and his best bodyguards, every Named-rank adventurer or champion Niers had—

The Seer of Steel. Last of all was a Squirrel Beastkin woman, who appeared with a weary sigh.

“Never thought I’d see the end of a world. Mm. I don’t like him. What’s his favorite food?”

“Hello, Foliana. Us.”

The woman drew her blades, and Three-Color Stalker peered at the God of Magic, who had halted, seeing his foes.

“Yuck.”

The God of Magic looked delighted as he spread his arms grandly.

“A veritable feast, Lord Astorag—”

General Diomedes lifted a throwing axe from his belt and threw it. The God of Magic had erected a barrier spell of some kind, but the shockwave from the gigantic metal axe hitting his barrier still knocked him head over heels. The Cyclops followed it up with a beam of magic from his eye.

“PUSHING THE FOE APPEARS TO WORK. YOUR ORDERS, LORD ASTORAGON? MY PEOPLE ARE TELEPORTING HERE. CAN SOME OF THE DULLAHANS BE SAVED?”

The Seer of Steel observed calmly. He turned to Niers, and the Titan shrugged.

“The door’s closing in three minutes. All of you, get out of here. But we’re hurting that thing first. You’ve brought the weapons? It’s authority or faith. The bastard killed the Painted Antinium from afar. He only flinched once—when Queen Geilouna slapped him.”

“AH. I SEE. THEN WE HAVE A CHANCE.”

The Seer of Steel produced a gigantic mace from his bag of holding and hefted it. The Hammer of the North; an heirloom of Dullahans. The rest of Niers’ forces brought out weapons of similar nature.

The Titan of Baleros had no such weapon himself; the Fraerlings may have had kingdoms or that kind of system of governance, once, but such weapons were locked away in the vaults of their cities and had not the legacy he suspected they needed. So he just stood there on the hilltop, dirt crunching under his boots as he gave orders.

And walked. The Titan drank a little flask, and then he was growing, for a few precious minutes as big as one of the Tallfolk. He trudged away from The Wandering Inn. Counting.

One minute.

Two minutes.

After two and a half, he gave a single order and counted who made it. The last to reach the door was Foliana. She glanced back at him, and he waved, jaunty. She pulled herself through the door, fur shredded, and Niers saw the Gnoll, that brave [Server], hesitate—then pull himself through as well.

The portal didn’t close, despite Ishkr ceasing to hold onto the root.

“Damn. Thought not. Something’s gravely wrong.”

Niers Astoragon sighed and kicked at a clod of dirt. His feet crunched over cooling glass, and the air blew only hellfire around him. Spells were still raining down; it appeared like the end of the world. The Floodplains was a burning wasteland, a crater.

Appropriate. The Titan turned as a figure halted.

Emerrhain was wounded. He seemed like the same, imperious God of Magic, only now he had taken the form of a Fraerling, like Niers, tall and commanding, some Architect of the cities. Two Fraerlings masquerading as Tallfolk with the Signim running through their veins.

Pretentious cowards. Niers’ lip curled as he swung around. Yes, the God of Magic looked unharmed, but he’d taken some damage. However slight.

In the distance, The Wandering Inn collapsed, and Emerrhain swung his eyes to the portal, then set them on Niers again. Vexation was in his icy tones.

“You have won a small victory, delaying me here, [Strategist]. You were even willing to sacrifice yourself to delay my entry into that place for a few moments. Tell me, did you love someone I slew that much?”

“The [Innkeeper].”

Niers’ voice was light, and he was relaxed as he reached for a weapon at his side. A sword, enchanted, sharp—Emerrhain’s eyes swung towards it, then up towards Niers.

“Ah. How amusing. You would have done better to cut your own throat, however. Your soul is more nourishing than a thousand of the others.”

He was still trying to pretend he was cultured, intelligent, not just a monster wearing the skin of decency. Niers pitied him.

The Titan was covered in ash and sin. He couldn’t stop smiling, and perhaps that unsettled the God of Magic. Or, perhaps, it drew him towards Niers for these precious moments, even now. As if he wanted to impress mortals.

“Out of curiosity, how much would you say a ‘soul’ is worth? Is mine worth more than taking a blow like the one the Seer of Steel gave you?”

The God of Magic’s lips twisted, and he hesitated, then answered with a sneer.

“It reaches parity, depending on the blow. But this delay costs me little. The doors are open. There are endless worlds to feast on.”

“If someone doesn’t stop you. The key is doing more damage than you take. Or delaying their advance.”

Niers agreed absently. He fiddled with something in his ear—an earpiece and spoke into it.

“You hear that, Perorn? Starve him out.”

“Yes, Lord Astoragon. Orders received. Fight well.”

Niers tossed the earpiece down and stepped on it, more for show than anything else, since it was too well-enchanted to break. He had the small satisfaction of seeing the God of Magic’s face grow slack. Then his head turned, and an invisible Centaur reappeared and cantered towards the door. She fired a single arrow; it flashed past Emerrhain’s face as he flinched.

Then Perorn Fleethoof fled into the portal. Wordlessly, the God of Magic turned back to Niers.

“Oh come now, you don’t think I gave all my orders verbally, did you? Within hearing distance of the enemy? I saw Ishkr let go of the root by accident when you first cast magic. He was trying to seal the door just now, not keep it open. A shame. I outmaneuvered you with all the pieces I had. But I just didn’t have a way to take you off the board.”

The Titan rolled one shoulder, sighing, like a grandmaster conceding defeat against an inferior opponent for reasons out of his control. An expert yielding to a blind, crippled, idiot child simply because he had only a single pawn against an entire chess board’s worth of pieces.

The God of Magic stood there, humiliated, then pointed a finger.

“Like Gnomes, your kind will suffer for this. Vanish, little Titan.”

He tried to cast a spell, to immobilize Niers, or to just erase the little Fraerling.

Nothing happened. Emerrhain stared stupidly at one finger, and Niers lowered his own finger.

“[Battlefield: Even Ground – No Magic, No Luck, No Skills, Only Strategy]. Not much use when I wanted the Seer of Steel to send you flying. Now, it’s just us. Show me what you can do without your little tricks, coward.”

One last barb lodged under the God of Magic’s skin. He strode forwards, magicless, but still able to destroy at a single touch. And Niers wasn’t that fast, even with Signim.

The Fraerling twisted back from the grasping hands. Emerrhain was so casual; he reached out with a smile. The Titan pivoted and slashed across the God of Magic’s throat and heard a chuckle.

His blade cut through the throat and did no damage at all. Niers glanced down at his shortsword and raised it bitterly, putting his other hand to his belt, reaching into his bag of holding. The God of Magic lunged for him, grinning, and Niers stepped back, dropped his shortsword and hit Emerrhain in the face with a wooden club.

He felt the God of Magic’s nose break and heard the cry of genuine, shocked pain. Niers almost kicked him as Emerrhain stumbled, then caught himself, and the [Strategist] followed the blow up with another to the back of the head.

He would have continued pounding the downed god, but Emerrhain rolled away, and stumbled to his feet, clutching a bleeding nose. It healed instantly, but Niers knew he’d felt that.

“How…?”

The Titan raised Pawn’s club. He’d gotten it from the Antinium as the [Priest] had fled. Then the Titan was laughing, a bastard and a monster facing another on the broken ground.

“Come on, you immortal little shit. There’s no dignified victory to win. Just me in every world! Come on, you coward, you—”

Emerrhain leapt at him, and the Titan of Baleros kept laughing in his face until those cold hands touched him. Then the world melted away, and he saw that face as he—whatever Niers Astoragon of this world was—became part of it.

Trapped in a wall made of souls, transmuted into the bones of a god. Subsumed into an idea. But the Fraerling’s last, eternal vision was of that frustrated, bloody face. A pathetic little man.

Just like him.

 

——

 

The God of Magic emerged into the [Palace of Fates], chasing the fleeing people. He looked from door to door, moving into the one closest to him with a snarl. They were all coming, now.

The dead gods, and there was nothing that could stop them.

Not even other gods.

 

——

 

<Temporary Dimension: Alternate World 2 — “Ten Years Later”>

 

His name was Tolveilouka Ve’delina Mer, and he had killed eighty-nine of the Blighted Kingdom’s soldiers in secret.

It wasn’t his real name, of course. It was the name he had chosen for himself, instead of the lost, pathetic mortal boy he’d once been.

You got to choose who you wanted to be, that was the secret. Had his life been wholly happy? Of course not. But he had enjoyed those days with his master. A master he’d chosen to serve. Call him a dog, Pestilence’s Hound, a servant to a monster. Whatever you wished.

He had never asked for anyone to understand. His only judge was himself.

The undead, wearing a half-Elf’s remembered face, stood in silence. Not literal silence. A Dragonlord was roaring as he fought the armies of Rhir. A city was blaring warnings into the air, and people were screaming and running for the inn as the faithful of the Painted Antinium defended it.

—But it was all quiet for Tolveilouka. He gazed up and spoke.

“Master…? Lord Zacheales? Z-Zach?”

He used that silly nickname that woman had given his beloved master, and even if it would have earned him scorn and the Putrid One’s ire, the half-Elf would have welcomed it. For he knew he would never hear that voice again.

The Putrid One was gone. How, the Revenant didn’t know, but Tolveilouka felt his absence. He had wondered, for ages, if his master were truly dead. But the true disappearance of the Putrid One’s Skills, his authority, was undeniable.

Gone. And with him…the Painted Antinium around the inn, locked in combat with Rhir’s soldiers stumbled. Many fell. Some died on the spot, and Tolveilouka heard a cry.

So she had died too, that [Innkeeper] they believed in.

Both at once. He did not know where; the lands of the dead, perhaps. But Tolveilouka knew who had done it.

A Crone was cackling as she appeared in the Floodplains of Liscor. A withered woman, who appeared to him like a half-Elf ancient beyond aeons. But, simultaneously, like a rotted corpse with no true species.

A dead thing that terrified him, for she stood above him, above his master, above all beings of death. Part of him longed to obey her every command, but he did not move.

For it was she who had killed his master, he knew.

Kasigna, the Crone, had triumphed. She raised her withered hands skyward, and they were suddenly realer than before. She stood before the Painted Antinium, and something broke in their hearts and minds.

An idea died. In the [Palace of Fates], Apostle Pawn stumbled and fell to his knees. He turned his head, and that center of faith that had driven him cracked. His faith did not disappear. But the being to whom it belonged did.

“Erin?”

The Crone had been victorious. But her triumph had a cost. Tolveilouka saw the aged woman wipe at one cheek, and there was blood that ran from her body. Divine blood from a cut along one cheek.

She removed a shard of metal and tossed it to the ground; the blade of a kitchen knife vanished, like an idea. Then she began striding up the hill, towards the living.

The Dragonlord breathed flames at her, trying to stop her approach. But she walked through the flames with the power of the divine in her.

Towards the door leading out of this world.

Tolveilouka made no move towards her. He lay down and curled up. His soul, which had done battle with Dragons and the greatest warriors of his time, had no more will to continue.

Not until someone kicked him, at least.

It wasn’t a hard kick. The half-Elf stirred and sat up. He was hidden from sight; even the [Heroes] couldn’t see him. Nothing should have found him, save perhaps the Crone, but she had already left through the door; even the Dragonlord hadn’t been able to slow her.

A foot kicked him again, and the half-Elf spun with a snarl.

“Who—?”

Then he saw her. For the first time ever. He had stood before her mere shell so many times. Pondered erasing her. But he had never seen those lips frozen in that unchanging smile move.

Not until now.

Erin Solstice stood there, and she was no more alive than he was. She was…shimmering, like a half-remembered thought. A dying idea.

The Goddess of the Painted Antinium lifted a hand.

“I’m sorry. I lost. She took it all. My friends. Your master. My…faith. I couldn’t stop her. I didn’t understand the rules, and she’s old. Something from beyond the dawn of time, an elder God or something. I tried.”

She wore the bitterest expression he had ever seen. Tolveilouka reached out a hand, and the dying fragment of the Goddess of The Wandering Inn flickered. He could have erased her with a single gesture, as he had longed to do so often.

He didn’t. Instead, the Revenant, the finest creation of the Putrid One, lowered his hands.

“My master?”

“He tried to help me. I’m sorry, Tolve. She ate him too.”

“I know. I felt him go. Did he have any last messages for…?”

The Goddess opened her mouth to lie, and he turned away when he saw the truth in her eyes. The painful truth he had always known. In her way, she had cared more about him than his master did.

“Tolveilouka Ve’delina Mer. I couldn’t stop her. I’ve let them all down. Pawn. Everyone who matters. I’m sorry.”

She stumbled forwards, and she was fading away. She clung to his shoulders, and he felt her touch on his skin, a mere thought. The young woman whispered in his ears.

“Would you…hear my last request, servant of the Putrid One? In his name and mine?”

He bowed and whispered through a hoarse throat.

“Command me, my Master.”

She smiled as she let go and stood before him once. Then she pointed.

“Find that Crone. Make her suffer. Kill all of them, and protect everything you can.”

She asked it of him, another impossible, onerous task. But for once, the half-Elf knelt, and his smile split his face. He knelt and pledged it with all his heart.

“Thy will be done.”

He thought he heard a laugh, rueful and ashamed and relieved—then a sigh. When he raised his head—

She was gone.

The half-Elf knelt a moment longer, for that aggravating Goddess he had never understood. Then he rose and followed the Crone into that [Palace of Fates]. His task was heavy indeed, he realized.

The Crone was not the only one.

They were all coming.

 

——

 

“Oh, Mother. Oh, fate. I am bitter, for I am here again.”

A woman with a blade spoke from the middle of the [Palace of Fates]. She appeared as a door burst open and Crelers flooded into the [Palace of Fates]. The world that Teriarch had scorched had only been temporarily cleared of Crelers. An entire planet’s worth of vermin was still there, and now an Elder Creler crawled through. Or rather, parts of it; one leg filled the entire hallway, which had to widen to accommodate the horror.

(In the name of They Who Slumber. Eradicate it all! Conquer this place! Infest and destroy! Destroy!)

The Elder Creler was first of a vanguard to find what this portal was and slaughter all who lay before it. It came from a world where the Creler Wars had been lost. Vast towers of sacrifice rose in a land devoid of life, and an army without limit flooded around its legs, lesser Crelers shrieking victory.

Not quite the same as those given the right to level. But did they have souls? A hand touched the scrabbling leg, and the triumphant mind of the Elder Creler turned to confusion. Then fear.

It evaporated. Cauwine made a sound and spat. The Goddess of Last Stands shook her head.

“Unworthy of joining my pantheon of souls. A foul little dream conjured by one of my kindred. Vanish.”

The flood of Crelers slowed as they saw a being they could not comprehend. She swung her sword—and the door shuddered, then collapsed as she cut across it.

Screaming—a world twisted around the cut, then was dragged into the cut in reality.

Sundered. Cauwine turned from the door and strode across the [Palace of Fates]. She halted, as a hallway filled with [Soldiers] appeared before her, and a voice boomed.

“This is the war I have dreamed of! Forwards, my Seven!”

The King of Destruction was leading his armies across the [Palace of Fates], and his rampage was one of the most successful—his [Soldiers] fought or captured people and monsters from every world. They were cheering as his Seven cleared corridors, hunting for the exit.

The Goddess of Last Stands’ eyes brightened as she locked eyes with the King of Destruction. When he spotted her, Flos Reimarch’s eager face became, for a moment, apprehensive.

“…Hold. That is—I don’t know what that is. Be cautious.”

Amerys pointed a finger at Cauwine and fired a bolt of blue lightning. Cauwine cut the bolt in half, then in half again, so fast that the crackling shards of electricity ground themselves along the hallway in explosions of light and sound. She walked forwards, open-armed for the King of Destruction.

“Ah. A worthy soul. Take my hand, oh King Reimarch. You and I…are so similar.”

“Protect His Majesty!”

Another world’s Orthenon barked, and arrows flew towards Cauwine. She cut them out of the air, so idly that someone lifted a sword.

“Stand back. She’s mine.”

Mars the Illusionist advanced, and Cauwine beamed at her. A delighted smile—and a guilty one all at once. For the Illusionist had no chance of besting her.

The goddess only stopped in her walk towards Mars when she was halfway there. Then she wrinkled her nose, as if scenting something incredibly foul even to her—and the dead goddess whirled.

“You? How did you…ah, Deviy. You have met a fouler end.”

Mars blinked behind her helmet, then twisted. She shouted—and Orthenon whirled and stabbed a figure behind him that had appeared without a word.

His halberd sunk deep into the staring figure’s head, cutting into the image of a handsome, dancing man. Or…someone who had once been that. A figure more graceful than the Lord of the Dance, a handsome diplomat, entertainer, and God of Passions—

Just stared at Orthenon as half of his face sloughed away. The King of Destruction’s steward wavered.

He was staring at a corpse. A true corpse; the left side of Laedonius Deviy’s head was empty. There was something inside his flesh. Not just one—the dead god reached out, and his arm extended and touched Orthenon.

The Steward disappeared with a cry of horror, and the King of Destruction paled.

“Orthenon? What is—”

Takhatres grabbed him and the King of Destruction reappeared a hundred paces away as the Seven backed away from the second foe.

Cauwine eyed the being whom she had known as Laedonius Deviy. She brought up her sword in a guard.

“Two…no, three. You, who wear his flesh. Do you even understand what you are?”

“I—I—IIIIIIIIIIIIIII am Deviy. Deviy. Dancer of…beloved…orship me? Hurts. Hungry.”

He spoke—with three voices, all in one, and Cauwine saw the King of Destruction’s army turn their attention towards this thing instinctively. She took a slow step back herself.

“If there is anything in you, Deviy, present your neck and I will end your suffering.”

The figure swayed, unresponsive, then it lunged for the King of Destruction. With a curse, Cauwine reached for Mars.

Both missed, but struck other [Soldiers] instead, eating their souls. Then the two dead gods were fighting, taking souls, trying to deprive each other of sustenance. Cauwine stabbed Laedonius through the heart and jerked back as long, wet fingers emerged from his chest, twisting for her. She danced away, then spun, and both she and the God of Dance were pursuing the rest of the mortals.

Flos Reimarch and his forces were in full retreat, even as he howled curses and promises of vengeance for Orthenon, his Steward. But the King of Destruction saw no victory in fighting the dead gods directly.

“Regroup at our door! Get me every [Mage] you can find and figure out what harms them!”

He was wild-eyed and snarling. The King of Destruction ran with the others, away from the two dead gods—and straight into the arms of a third.

A bearded man stood in the hallway, imposing, nearly as broad-chested as the King of Destruction. His eyes? More imperious still.

Tamaroth, the God of Rulers, had returned.

He stood just around the corner of a hallway, and there was nothing beyond him. None of Reim’s [Soldiers]—they had run straight into Tamaroth’s open arms. The rest of the Seven saw the threat and tried to dodge instantly.

“Your Majesty!”

Mars leapt left and pulled Drevish with her as Takhatres saved Gazi, Amerys, and Tottenval. Queravia recoiled as Tamaroth’s fingers reached greedily for her—

Flos Reimarch thrust his Gambler of Fates aside, and the God of Rulers touched his face. Laedonius Deviy and Cauwine saw the King of Destruction freeze as Tamaroth laughed. Flos’ face went pale, and his emerald green eyes drained of color. His head fell back—then snapped forwards.

He headbutted the God of Rulers with such force that Tamaroth went stumbling backwards. Then Flos’ eyes rolled up, and he collapsed into Mars’ arms.

“How…?”

The God of Rulers flexed his hands, confused—Reim’s vassals didn’t wait.

“Run! Hold them back!”

[Soldiers] charged the God of Rulers as his Seven carried the King of Destruction away from the three gods. The souls around the God of Rulers were consumed, and he strode after the fleeing army and King of Destruction, then halted.

“Cauwine. And…ah. Deviy.”

The two dead gods stopped, as surprised to see Tamaroth as he was to see what had become of the God of Dance.

“So you’ve returned.”

The God of Rulers seemed unchanged from his long banishment from this realm. Yet Cauwine could tell how exhausted he was, behind his façade.

Exhausted, yet he had acquired some strength as well. He bore the traces of another reality upon him. If he was here, then so was Norechl. Tamaroth’s tone betrayed nothing as he nodded to her.

“How could I not? This is my world, Cauwine. Do not interfere with my task.”

“Then shall we dance for it, God of Rulers, Father?”

She lifted her blade, swishing it between Deviy and Tamaroth, and the other two dead gods hesitated. She was the strongest here by far, but if both fought her…

“A truce once more. It does nothing to fight amongst ourselves while Emerrhain, Kasigna, and Norechl advance themselves.”

Tamaroth proposed the idea. Cauwine’s lips twisted.

“A second feast for us. I am here out of necessity, though I am ashamed.”

The other two ignored her. Tamaroth strode forwards, feeling at his forehead, as if that moment of defiance bothered him more than seeing what had become of Laedonius Deviy.

“This world belongs to us, and all within it. Do you weep for your sword when it breaks, Daughter?”

She sighed.

“Do you not, Father?”

Then they were hunting through the [Palace of Fates].

All six of them, the Crone, Tamaroth, Cauwine, Laedonius Deviy, Norechl, Emerrhain, the eternal, the divine. Dead gods.

The Maiden continued to watch.

 

——

 

An Empire of Rhir. Worlds fallen to Crelers. A victorious nation of Demons holding Rhir. A world where Sariant Lambs had become the overlords of everything.

Any reality you could imagine. All the doors were slowly imploding, unleashing beings desperate to—live.

Some of them foul, some of them innocent. But only the doors with roots in them had formed openings wide enough to let groups exit.

The Blighted Kingdom’s soldiers had stopped pouring into the [Palace of Fates], but the ones already here were intent on killing everything they saw. They were fighting and dying, but a group of the fanatical [Soldiers] had found the entrance to the [Garden of Sanctuary].

 

——

 

“Go through! Go!”

The real Lyonette was evacuating everyone she could. She turned and screamed at a Gnoll who leapt through the door.

“Ishkr!”

“Lyonette! I’ve got Laken and the [Witches] above, along with Relc, Valeterisa, and Rheirgest’s people. What can—”

The [Server] took one look at the breaking [Palace of Fates], heard the roaring in the distance, and stopped. Lyonette grabbed him.

“Get me the box! Get me the box and tell them to evacuate the inn—now! And send me Liska!”

“L-Liska?”

She shoved him; there was no time. Ishkr raced back up the ropes leading into the [Garden of Sanctuary], and Lyonette whirled.

“We have to hide this hallway. No one gets out who isn’t—right. Understand? Hold this line!”

She was speaking to the Painted Antinium from the future, the Knights of Solstice, her Thronebearers—everyone who could fight. They nodded, moving down other corridors, and Lyonette saw several vanish.

The geography of the [Palace of Fates] was ever-shifting, but she understood there were still rules. There was only one hallway that was an exit. Therefore, anyone trying to escape had to come here.

She didn’t have Mrsha’s powers; the [Princess] couldn’t reposition people, only move hallways if they were empty.

If someone reached this place—they had to be removed by force. And those soldiers of Rhir were already here.

“Your Highness! Down!”

Ser Dalimont caught the first bolt on his shield, and the explosion nearly took his arm off. He backpedaled, swearing; men and women in black armor had their enchanted crossbows and had formed a line down one hallway.

“Bad, bad guys! [Fireball]!”

Peggy pointed a wand, and a [Fireball] made the [Soldiers] take cover.

“The box! Get me the box! Keep them back!”

Lyonette was screaming. The inn’s staff were firing spells, using scrolls—magical equipment, bought with the inn’s vast gold reserves. But they were up against warriors from the future, who weathered the spells like they were Tier 1 magic. Then a hand touched Ser Dalimont’s shoulder.

“Leave them to us. Knights of Solstice—charge!”

Ser Normen shoved Dalimont back. He didn’t know what was going on, but the [Grandmaster] knew his job.

The inn’s in danger. This time, we have to hold them back. Jewel, Antherr, Vess, Durene, Ama—they were already wounded from fighting the evil Nanette and the Painted Antinium.

And Rhir’s [Soldiers] were using enchanted weapons from the future. Normen raised his shield as the [Soldiers] focused on him. He charged, mace raised, shield covering his helmet—

The first bolt took him off his feet, and he landed on his back. Normen stared up at the ceiling and felt like someone had ripped his arm off. He sat up and saw his arm was attached to his body.

That was good. But the Demas Metal shield was warped and on fire.

So was he—not his own green flames, but covered in an inferno.

“Normen!”

Antherr yanked Jewel back as the [Grandmaster] of the Order of Solstice sat there. Normen was burning—but he barely felt the heat.

[Greater Fire Resistance]. If it hadn’t been a fire-based bolt—he tried to move his shield arm.

“Charge. We have to get into…”

The [Soldiers] of Rhir were advancing. Durene raised her tower shield and screamed as another bolt blew it to bits. The impact sent the [Paladin] stumbling backwards, and Normen realized they didn’t have the defensive Skills to survive another volley.

But Lyonette was right behind them. If they retreated into the [Garden of Sanctuary], they might live, but all of the people here would come through.

Charge. The [Grandmaster] tried to stand. He counted.

Seven [Soldiers]…no, eleven as four more came around the corner. Sixteen. Twenty-one—

“Don’t damage the way out! Melee weapons! Take that door for His Majesty!”

The forces of Rhir switched to blades as the Order of Solstice tried to make a defensive line. Half a dozen [Knights] against…Normen staggered to his feet and saw Ser Dalimont taking a spot next to him.

“Don’t retreat until they’re all dead. Our fire never dies!”

He lifted his mace high and heard the roaring in his ears. Not ready. They were never ready—so they fought. Like Embraim.

Fight and die and hope next time…there was such a bitter taste in his mouth, and Normen turned his head to tell Jewel, or someone else, to retreat. One of them should live.

Instead, he locked eyes with two yellow pupils and a grim, green-scaled Drake’s face. He was wearing armor, and you could have taken him for a [Knight]…but Drakes didn’t have [Knights]. The huge Drake didn’t fit the class either. There was a grim aura of command about him. A sense that you were standing next to a wall. Like Normen had his back to the Walled Cities.

He…knew that face. This was the [Palace of Fates], after all, and everything was possible. But even so, Normen gazed at the face of the Tidebreaker, Zel Shivertail, in astonishment. Then the Drake clasped his shoulder.

“Brave. But sometimes you fall back. Not this time, I suppose. Get ready. [This Line Won’t Break]. [Unit: Lesser Magic Resistance].”

Suddenly, Normen’s unsteady feet were firm as a rock. He felt something rush through him as the Drake strode forwards, putting himself next to Normen.

“How…?”

Vess breathed, and Zel swept his eyes left and right.

“Where’s Mrsha? She promised me a door. All I see is a disaster.”

Lyonette du Marquin had suddenly forgotten everything and everyone. She breathed as her chest constricted in joy and agony.

“Zel?”

He smiled once, the awkward smile of a lonely, tired [General]. Then the Drake turned to Normen.

Even if they didn’t recognize him, the Rhirian soldiers had recognized the high-level Drake on instinct and slowed. Zel called out to the futuristic soldiers.

“You have one chance to surrender! Lay down your arms and you won’t be hurt!”

“Are you insane, whoever you are? They outnumber us three-to-one!”

Ama hissed at Zel. Her undead cat pawed the ground as she tried to animate more skeletons. Scottie the Scout Skeleton rose into the air, reborn, and lifted a rock. Zel Shivertail eyed Ama, then turned his head to Normen.

“You always offer the enemy a chance to surrender. Genuinely, with no bravado or ill intentions.”

“Because of honor?”

The [General] bared his teeth.

“No. Because it makes them wonder if they should.”

Then, Ser Normen wished he’d actually met the General of Izril and had a chance to learn something from him when the Drake was alive.

No time like the present. He hefted his mace and saw the [Soldiers] of the Blighted Kingdom hesitate. They brought up their crossbows again, and Zel Shivertail’s eyes narrowed.

“Don’t let them fire. Charge!”

He exploded forwards, running at the [Soldiers], and the Heartflame Breastplate burst into flames. They fired their crossbows at him, and Normen shouted. He saw Zel Shivertail’s claws slash, left-right, so fast—

The enchanted crossbows snapped in the air as Zel’s hands tore through the magic, destroying the bolts before they could activate. He emerged from the storm of projectiles like a dancer, pivoting past a crossbow bolt, breaking all the ones in his way.

An unstoppable wave that crashed into the first [Soldiers]. His claws pierced leather armor—he slashed through a throat and grabbed a sword, tearing it out of another [Soldier]’s grip.

His claws. His hands were proof against magic. And what did the [Soldiers] have without Rhir’s superior enchantments and armor? Just their lesser levels, training, and strength. A [Soldier] tried to bury her shortsword in Zel’s side, and his other claw slashed across her face. The Drake kept moving, and he had fought more battles than they had. Then the [Knights] of Solstice were at the [General]’s back, hacking and cutting, fighting with the [Soldiers] of Rhir.

Normen’s mind was a blur of concentration and reaction. Smash his acid-covered mace into a face. Use his Skills. Pivot—see one of Rheirgest’s summons leap onto the back of a [Soldier] who hurled it off, only for Durene to pick the [Soldier] up and throw them into a wall—

Then Normen was panting, and Zel’s voice was in his ears.

“They’re pulling back. Reform!”

Their first battle won. The Order of Solstice caught themselves, and the Tidebreaker saw the hallway full of [Soldiers] vanish. He grunted in surprise.

“Hallways keep shifting. Lyonette, do you have—?”

He turned, and she was crying at him. Weeping openly as the [General] stood there, but Zel Shivertail only threw her a smile for all her failed plans and broken promises. He seemed almost…relieved. Then he turned and barked.

“Magnolia! Get your people over here! Lieutenant Gershal, here!”

More people were emerging from his door. A very surprised [Lady] locked eyes with Lyonette du Marquin, and Normen exhaled as a nervous man brushing pieces of cheese from his face came stumbling after them.

“What a glorious end to it all.”

The words popped out of his mouth, unbidden, and Zel snorted.

“[Knights]. This isn’t the end. Just the beginning. They’ll be back. Hold this line.”

He put his back to the exit to the [Palace of Fates] and waited. The real monsters were coming.

 

——

 

Az’kerash, the Necromancer of Terandria, had lost Bea. Then Ijvani. Devail was gone; he’d been eaten when something had tried to climb out of a door. A Seamwalker.

His children were dying or dead, and he was just…running.

Nothing mattered. He wasn’t real. The Necromancer felt cold, empty, and his connection to his mortality was dying. He had left Pisces behind. Left the world to be devoured by that thing calling itself Emerrhain.

To live, he would do anything. Bathe in the blood of his homeland. Leave worlds to die.

He just wanted to live. That was the nature of the other beings he ran into, almost literally. The [Necromancer] stopped his [Flash Steps] and raised his rapier reflexively. On his fingers was a [Deathblast] spell, and he aimed the tip of one glowing finger at a panting, wide-eyed…Dragon?

“You?”

The Dragonlord of Flames nearly exhaled on the Necromancer, then the two stopped. Az’kerash’s mouth worked.

“You can’t be the one I—”

“Another Necromancer? I—I woke up and saw the portal.”

Another Teriarch spoke, his voice strained and confused. The Dragon must have fled his world. He whispered.

“I left it all behind. I want to live.”

I want to live. One of the greatest beings living, a force that had checked the Necromancer’s ambitions time and time again, said those words so pathetically. It struck a chord, and the Necromancer lowered his blade.

“A truce? I cannot find my way out. It is being hidden. A truce—then we shall discuss matters.”

The Dragonlord’s eyes flickered uncertainly. These two immortal beings wavered, then he dipped his head.

“I—yes. Until we escape.”

They turned, feeling the wrongness of the moment, but desperation had made stranger bedfellows. Then another voice interrupted them.

“Will you truce with me, Necromancer, Dragonlord? I too wish to live.”

Both twisted around, and Az’kerash saw the tall [Witch] walking towards them. Then his blood did chill, and he beheld the Witch of Webs. She seemed—pained, and he saw trailing strands of power behind her. As if she’d ripped pieces of herself out to get here. But she was still…

“Ally with you, Spider? Heartstealer? I—”

Teriarch snarled, then the Dragon’s face turned guilty, and he glanced right and left, down these endless corridors, and they all listened to the sound of reality shaking. Az’kerash was the first to speak, his mouth dry of spittle, his body a corpse. His soul fleeing in shame, leaving only the Revenant. The undead monster.

“I…agree. To live, I will destroy everything. I am the Necromancer of Terandria in the end. So be it.”

He reached for his chest and pulled something out of it. A twisting, writhing piece of him—his conscience? His heart?

The Necromancer crushed it in one hand and felt—calm. He forgot why he was so ashamed. The Dragon gazed at him with lost, empty eyes, and the Stitch Witch plucked something from the air and tucked it under her hat.

“A valuable thing indeed. I will weave it if we live. This is my daughter. She may live, or she may not. Let us go.”

Belavierr carelessly raised one fold of her robes, and Az’kerash realized she had been hiding a terrified young [Witch], too-thin and aligned with water magic. He gazed at the Nanette of the future and thought she would make an excellent undead. No other emotions stirred in his heart.

“Let us go, then. Someone is holding the way out shut. There are worse things than Seamwalkers entering this place. Together, we can force the way closed open. Kill everything in our way.”

The Dragon hesitated—then he dipped his head. The three most powerful beings in the [Palace of Fates] turned to go—and someone stood in their path.

An old woman.

The Crone.

The moment he saw her, Az’kerash recognized her as kith and kin to the one who had destroyed his world. Even the undead being felt a thrill of true terror—and he had to resist the urge to kneel.

This being rules me. He almost did kneel; the piece of him that would have resisted her was gone. But Belavierr hissed at them.

“There is nothing there. No magic, nor anything else. This is a corpse. Back! Do not let it touch you! The mice have escaped their cage.”

Mice? The Necromancer did not understand the reference, but the Crone merely smiled. She was an old woman, malice in every line of her smile.

“I am Kasigna, and thou art mine. Come.”

Like a child reaching for the largest sweets in the [Palace of Fates], she stretched out one hand, and the three immortals reacted at once.

The Dragonlord blew flames. Belavierr conjured a pair of scissors that flew forwards and snapped shut across Kasigna’s body. The Necromancer pointed, and a wave of death-magic swept down the corridor.

Kasigna walked through all three attacks, a grimace on her face. As if that had hurt her—but only in the way touching a too-hot piece of metal might. Her eyes were locked on them.

The immortals turned and ran, throwing spells and magic and flame back at the dead goddess. She was moving faster now, walking like Belavierr—each step eating away ground, taking her far further than they should have.

In fact, the striding Stitch Witch peered over her shoulder and saw Kasigna walking after her. The two were matched in casual stride—then Belavierr began to jog, uncertainly, as if she had forgotten how.

Too slow. Kasigna caught her arm. The Goddess of Death smiled, then her face grew confused. She halted a second, and Belavierr’s arm unspooled, bits of fabric and thread undoing themselves, turning to ash—the Necromancer saw Belavierr stumble, then begin to truly run. Her right arm fell to the ground as Kasigna eyed the bits of fabric and thread she had collected.

“Clever. For a mortal.”

She resumed her chase. Belavierr, now sprinting away, was regrowing her arm—it sprouted out of her body, reknitting. Az’kerash…doubted he could perform the same trick. So he ran faster, trying to get ahead of Teriarch. Despite his size, the Dragonlord was running fast.

Kasigna kept chasing them, ignoring the rest of the souls in the [Palace of Fates] in favor of this banquet. She was faster than they were, despite all their magic and Skills, and all three immortals realized one of them would die, despite their alliance.

Belavierr glanced back again, then put out one foot calmly. She tripped Nanette—and the thin Witch of Sorrows went sprawling.

“Mother! Mother?”

She fell, and Belavierr didn’t look back again. Kasigna passed by the cowering [Witch] without a backward glance, and Belavierr sighed.

Annoyed.

She left Nanette behind, and then they were peeking over their shoulders, trying to gauge when to turn and fight—when a sound interrupted the chase. A rumble—a quake in the [Palace of Fates] that made everything shake worse than before. Then Az’kerash realized it was no earthquake, but a voice.

A roar.

Undead or not, the Revenant halted in a moment of true apprehension and memory. He knew this presence. Az’kerash whispered.

“The Goblin King.”

Teriarch and Belavierr turned towards him, and he swivelled—Kasigna herself had halted. The Crone’s eyes flicked right.

“That one. Agh.”

To his astonishment, she curled one lip, then spat and retreated. The three immortals eyed each other, then spun from one threat to another. The roaring grew louder, and then—he was there.

An armored figure walking down the hallways, covered in gore, crimson light shining from a battered helmet. Az’kerash did not recognize the form he took, but he knew the presence.

They had all met him in one of his many forms. And they remembered it as he halted.

 

——

 

Eleven years ago.

The Necromancer of Terandria knelt, panting, disbelieving, before the single Goblin. His rapier was broken, and he was—outraged.

Outraged. This couldn’t be possible. He had clashed with the world’s greatest warriors in life, and in death, he was so much more…

He tried to rise, but the Goblin King pinned him with a glance. Velan the Kind…no, there was something else behind his gaze. His Goblin Lords were sitting or squatting behind the King and his small army.

So few Goblins had come south with the Goblin King. He didn’t need more. The Goblin King swung his arm, and another of Az’kerash’s undead was destroyed. The Necromancer raised one hand.

“Truce. Truce. We have mutual enemies.”

He croaked and saw that gaze assessing him. Weighing the odds of just…annihilating him against the benefits to be gained. The Goblin King spoke.

“Very well. Offer me…weapons.”

Weapons? Why did he want weapons? Az’kerash gritted his teeth. If it meant buying his life and a chance to reach the Walled Cities—he turned to his undead, which had borne the spoils of his wars in Terandria. He began to negotiate, but even he found it hard to meet that unblinking stare. Something beyond death itself terrified the Necromancer.

 

——

 

The Dragonlord of Flames emerged from his cave and found the Goblin King there. The Dragon came ready for battle—and death.

There were only fourteen Goblins here. Teriarch felt insulted as he counted them. But one…one was a Goblin Lord.

Tallis Stormbreaker. The power of an [Archmage] in his eyes—a [Shaman], though. The Dragonlord inclined his head.

“You are the Goblin King once more. I presume you have come to claim my life?”

That being had come for vengeance, it seemed. Or to plunder the Dragon’s treasure. Either way, Teriarch had resolved it would cost Velan.

However—he did not hear the familiar voice coming from the noble-looking Goblin who stood, wearing merely robes. A [Healer]’s clothing. Indeed, the Goblin King was covered in sweat.

Agonized.

Velan the Kind raised his head from where his retainers were supporting him and rasped.

“Not him. I am him and not. I am…Velan. I have a favor to ask you, Teriarch of Flames. I know you from his memories.”

“A favor?”

Teriarch was on-guard, expecting a trick, but Velan wearily shrugged the hands of his friends off him, and Teriarch saw how many damned scars the Goblin had. His body was impressively honed by alchemy and medicine, even Drathian techniques. But he was…

“It is just me. Just—me. For now. I have blinded and kept him back.”

Kept who back? Teriarch knew Goblin Kings could be rational. He had even conversed with the Goblin Kings—briefly—seen the havoc they wrought. But never had he seen this kind of opposition. His mind flickered to conversations he’d had with Mauri, with the other Dragonlords.

Their legacies. If I help him perpetuate more death…

What did this one intend?

“—Speak. I am listening.”

Warily, he took a step into his cave as the Goblin King asked him for a favor, then pointed towards the salvation of Goblins or damnation delayed. The Dragonlord’s eyes wavered as he followed the finger.

Up. Towards the High Passes.

 

——

 

Belavierr raged. She screamed and howled curses in the face of the laughing little Goblin as the Goblin Lords held her back.

Sóve, the Island Queen, just cackled in Belavierr’s face, enjoying the Stitch Witch’s wrath. The [Witch] hissed at her.

“We had an agreement. You have breached it. I will have your eyes for it, Goblin King!”

“This thing? Nah.”

Sóve lifted something in her claws. A contract between them, sealed with blood, promising Belavierr the greatest of riches for her services. Souls and power and—

Sóve shredded the contract with her claws, and Belavierr’s eyes bulged out of their sockets. Impossible! Impossible! Nerrhavia had made that contract herself!

The Goblin King appeared merely amused as she brushed the pieces of the contract away.

“No contract exists that I cannot break. Flee, little [Witch]. Before I slaughter you.”

Belavierr was surrounded by the Goblin King’s warriors, and her contract was dust. Helplessly, she pointed a finger at the Goblin King.

“You—I shall remember this. You I ban from my services.”

A [Shopkeeper]’s only resort, a pitiful little oath. Those uncaring eyes swept over her, and a claw motioned her away.

“Leave, [Witch]. Until I have need of you.”

The Stitch Witch hesitated, then fled. Rarely had anything ever bested her thusly. She tried to plot vengeance, but to what end? What did you take from…

That?

 

——

 

“You.”

Three immortals breathed the word at the same time, and the Goblin King halted. He had a sword on his shoulder. His eyes swept over the Dragonlord of Flames, the Stitch Witch, and the Necromancer of Terandria.

He ignored all three of the legends of the world. The Goblin King reached out—and the Crone halted. She tried to backpedal, then caught herself, and then extended her hand.

Her fingers touched the Goblin King’s chest. His gauntleted hand took hold of her cheek, and they stood there.

The Goblin King didn’t vanish. The Crone licked her lips, and her voice, when it came out of her dry mouth, was suddenly uncertain.

“You. Do I know you? The heart of you. Have I met…you?”

All his madness. His eternal rage. It was suddenly gone from the Goblin King’s voice. When he spoke, Belavierr, a version of Teriarch, and Az’kerash heard the King of Goblins who had never been. An ancient, even fond voice. Aged beyond belief, and a child’s tone.

“No. Your kind never cared to meet us on those simple shores. I know you, Three-In-One. Goddess of Death. They called me the Goblin King. I watched you die.”

She stepped back, or tried to. That gentle hand tightened on the Crone’s head. She clutched at his arm.

“Then bow. We—”

The Goblin King’s hand became a vice. He turned and shoved the Crone’s head through the wall of the [Palace of Fates].

Casually. So slowly and deliberately, but with such inexorable force that the wall of the palace would give—or the Goddess of Death’s skull.

The wall cracked inwards, and the Crone began to struggle. The Goblin King pulled her head out of the crumbling masonry, and she pointed a finger at him.

“Die, thou monst—”

He slammed her face through another section of the wall and leaned out of the way—a ray of blackness flashed past the three immortals, who ducked. The tip of the ray pierced Teriarch’s metallic mane and turned his hair black and dead—the ray bored through a hallway in the [Palace of Fates].

The Goddess of Death’s flailing arm produced black razor blades that slashed through the air around her. The Goblin King let the Crone go, and she stumbled to her feet. She took a step backwards.

He ran her through the chest and twisted the blade. The Crone’s eyes bulged in her head.

She disappeared without a word, and the Goblin King regarded the spot where she’d stood.

“So they are here. As I was promised. This place is feeding them. I must collapse it, then. Once I find the exit.”

So saying, he sheathed his blade and turned, as if nothing had happened. Az’kerash stared at the spot the Crone had been. His eyes slid sideways to Teriarch, and they shared the same thought.

Was this madness or safety, joining forces with…him?

The Goblin King focused on the immortals at last, and his voice was distant as he spoke. Uninterested in them or their memories.

“I am following a white Gnoll child. Tell me where she is, then stand aside or vanish.”

He didn’t recognize any of them. That stung their prides most of all. Teriarch opened his mouth, fire glowing in his throat. Belavierr lifted a hand, needles between each finger. Az’kerash flicked his rapier up.

The Goblin King’s hand tightened on the hilt of his sword, but he did abort his swing. The being behind that helmet seemed to weigh the foes in front of him and—hesitated.

So did they. Az’kerash was standing behind two legends of any world. He felt confident they could best the Goblin King…mostly confident. They could escape him if they had to.

The Goblin King was not invincible. Rather, he was eminently mortal as his many deaths proved. The right arrow in the right place could slay him if he didn’t dodge or defend against it.

The problem was that he could do…almost anything. The impossible could be realized through his countless Skills and abilities. This battle might cost the lives of at least one of the three, and they had not escaped their worlds just to die. In fact, his defeat of that Crone proved this was a golden opportunity.

The Goblin King might rage against the world, but he was no fool. That glowing gaze passed over the three immortals, and he lowered his blade and spoke.

“I seek answers and an exit. These things that wander the halls. Kasi—that woman. Things that should stay dead. How many are there, and where is the exit?”

The three immortal’s heads turned, and Teriarch coughed smoke into one claw.

“We seek the exit as well, er, Goblin King. As to those beings…we have no answers. We are all fake beings of manufactured worlds.”

“You are. Not I.”

He seemed amused by their antics, and part of the Necromancer longed to attack just for that. But the Dragonlord merely growled.

“Be that as it may. There is an exit, clearly. None of us can find it. Someone is holding it from us. Will you join forces with us? We will all perish here if this Skill vanishes.”

Belavierr and Az’kerash held their breaths as the Goblin King considered the offer. Would he take it? The figure glanced right, left, and then spoke.

“I agree.”

That was it. The Necromancer let out his breath, and the undead Revenant bound another spell into his fingers. Then—he felt confident he would survive.

The Goblin King, Belavierr, the Dragonlord of Flames, and the Necromancer of Terandria. No army, no force in this world could stand against them. The Goblin King pointed one finger down a hallway that shuddered into being for him.

“Erase everything. Forwards. [March of Annihilation].”

He was using Skills on them! The Necromancer shuddered—then felt the power invigorating his body. Reluctantly, he turned—and saw a corridor of fighting figures.

Painted Antinium. Soldiers of Rhir. Fleeing people leaving their realities—he realized the Goblin King had pointed them through the most crowded of places in the [Palace of Fates] on purpose.

He was smiling behind that helmet. The three immortals hesitated—then charged. Belavierr spat a mouthful of water, which became a roaring sea of filthy water that swept down the corridor. Teriarch exhaled, and the water became poisonous steam. The Necromancer pointed and laced it with death-magic.

The Goblin King exhaled and blew the spell forwards.

[The Tempest of the Six Wyrm Queens].

Life melted in front of them. The four beings strode forwards, the hallways scoured of life. A platoon of [Soldiers] was frozen where they stood, staring at the devastation and melted ground—Belavierr flicked her fingers and showered them with deadly enchanted needles. Az’kerash fired a [Deathblast] spell at the Painted Antinium.

“That way.”

The Goblin King took them left at an intersection, then left again. When he took them left a third time, Teriarch gave Az’kerash a side-eye—but they didn’t emerge into the same corridor as before. They were advancing down a long hallway filled with open doors and little roots emerging from some of them.

“Run! Run! It’s—”

A group of adventurers, the Horns of Hammerad, had returned with a small group of people, a caravan from their world of merchants and [Guards]. They caught sight of the Goblin King, Necromancer, Belavierr, and Teriarch and froze.

“Oh shit. R—”

Ceria lifted her wand, and Az’kerash struck her with a [Deathbolt]. The Revenant watched her collapse and heard a howl. Pisces caught Ceria, and the Necromancer touched his chest.

He felt…nothing.

“Good.”

He lifted a finger and spun. A second Ceria Springwalker, this one adorned with magical objects, fired at the same time as he did.

A frost spell froze the Necromancer solid—he struck her with a [Deathblast], and she collapsed.

The Necromancer cracked out of the ice spell a moment later, and the Archmage of Frost, Ceria Springwalker, sat back up as her amulet and circlet flashed. She rose to her feet—backed away.

The Goblin King’s head swung right and left as the Horns of Hammerad dragged the fallen half-Elf and Pisces back.

“Someone is hiding the exit from me. Two children. Mrsha. They cannot. That way.”

There was an odd note in his voice when he said that word. A microsecond of hesitation? The Necromancer saw the Goblin King waver, then raise a hand. He pointed, and another hallway opened up—and the Necromancer heard voices beyond. Panicked and loud.

“They’re coming! Your Highness! Don’t—”

A single figure appeared down the hallway and halted. Az’kerash lifted a finger as Belavierr produced a needle fit for a Giant. The Goblin King held up a hand.

“Lyonette?”

The [Princess] stood there with something in her hands. A…box. The Necromancer pointed his wand at her and paused. Someone spoke.

“Hold. My [Dangersense] is going off.”

The other three beings turned. Belavierr had held up a hand. She was eying the young woman from afar. Then she yanked something out of her robes.

“My tapestry of death shows me a burning death. Avoid.”

Teriarch hesitated, incredulous. The Necromancer eyed the [Princess], who was far too low-level to challenge any of them. The Goblin King raised a dagger to throw—then they thought about what Belavierr had just said.

Belavierr, the Stitch Witch. They all glanced at her, and the Goblin King took a step back. He pointed right.

“Around. That way.”

They just had to bypass the corridor the [Princess] was holding. The four immortals strode right and passed shattering doors.

The [Palace of Fates] was dying. Now, the doors were letting through everything. Air, sunlight or moonlight, depending on the time in the other worlds. Voices, begging for the portals to open.

Water. The [Necromancer]’s feet splashed through water leaking through one of the doors. He could see the beleaguered defenders of the exit now. His eyes focused on one of them.

“The Tidebreaker of Izril. Be wary of him.”

Zel Shivertail turned his head and froze as he saw the Necromancer aiming a wand at him. This time—Az’kerash swore he wouldn’t underestimate the general. Half his level or not—

The Goblin King was beginning to run down the corridor, a roar building in his throat. The [Princess] was running, trying to cover this hallway—but she was too slow. A little Goblin girl was standing at the door.

Asgra was guarding the way out of the [Palace of Fates] with a dagger, trembling in fear. She saw the Goblin King running at her, Belavierr striding forwards, and a desperate Teriarch shouting at her to get out of the way, and she didn’t budge.

It was all ending.

Someone had to bear the consequences, right?

Right. Just not children.

The Goblin King roared, and the [Necromancer] ran, wand glowing with a spell meant for Asgra. The two of them passed under the ceiling, shaking as pieces broke loose and came crashing down, dust sifting down, cracks forming around each and every door.

Water splashed underneath their feet. Seawater, if you wanted to be accurate. And then there was fire.

The Goblin King ran through a wall of glowing, pink flames, and the Necromancer saw a searing, bright line of flames a second before it coated him. He spun, trying to dodge—but the flames swept over him, and the Stitch Witch halted as the fire struck the Dragonlord of Flames in the side.

All three immortals caught in the blaze didn’t react at first. It was just fire. They—

The Necromancer tried to extinguish the flames with a [Void Room] spell, which sucked the oxygen out of the air. But the fire clinging to his skin didn’t go out. It didn’t matter; he was undead. It didn’t hurt.

It shouldn’t hurt.

But it did. The flames crawled over his skin, and the undead felt something burning. His…soul. What remained of it was aflame, and the undead had torn out of the piece of him that had been Perril Chandler and thought it made him stronger. But all that had done was reduce how much there was left, and the rest of it was being consumed.

Pain. Agony. He began to wail, a high-pitched scream of agony, worse than he’d ever felt. He flailed, trying to pull it off him—and the Necromancer burned. So did the Dragonlord of Flames. He screamed in shame and agony; the flames could not physically damage his scales, but they hurt. They burned with his every cowardice, his failures, his regrets. He collapsed, roaring, and Belavierr backed up a step.

The Goblin King had frozen. Flames were covering his armor, and his head had swivelled left and halted. The Stitch Witch was suddenly…afraid.

“Maviola El? That wretched [Knight] of flames?”

Her death at Riverfarm was suddenly flickering around her. A memory of fire. But who…?

She saw a door open, and more water poured out of it. An ocean’s worth of it—and a woman stood there, barely alive, smiling with a hat full of flames burning on her head.

“Grand Design? I’ve made my choice. [My Life, be Thou My Fire].”

The [Innkeeper] emerged from her door and strode into the [Palace of Fates] as Asgra lowered the dagger with its glittering edge. Lyonette came to a halt, and every head—everyone—turned to look at Erin Solstice.

The woman’s eyes were blazing hazel. The immortals took a step back.

The Necromancer whispered as the flames revived a candle of his mortality. His shame.

“The [Innkeeper].”

The Dragon rose, panting, eyes locked on her.

“The living flame.”

The Stitch Witch retreated.

“My death.”

The Goblin King’s voice was soft.

“…Erin?”

She threw her head back and cackled with laughter. The woman, the [Innkeeper], the [Witch] had no idea who they were, save for the familiar, armored figure and the stranger behind his eyes.

She didn’t care. She took a breath and blew a stream of flames of every color down the hallway.

Az’kerash emerged from the flames, running and tearing at the fire upon him, screaming. The Dragonlord was roaring as he fled, and the Goblin King—he threw up a hand.

“I killed you once. I shall do it again and silence his voice forever.”

He strode forwards as the Stitch Witch fled so fast her shadow stood there for a second before it caught up. The laughing [Innkeeper] ceased breathing flames at the Goblin King and leaned against one wall.

She could barely stand.

She was dying. Pieces of her skin were sloughing off and burning away.

The Goblin King lunged for her—

—And a ship ran him over. He smacked into the bow of a gigantic ship as it roared down the hallway of the [Palace of Fates], and the wave of water engulfed the Goblin King and hurtled him down the corridor.

[Bound Ship: The Wandering Ship]. The [Innkeeper] watched as the Goblin King was pushed down a hallway, and vanished as the [Palace of Fates] rippled. Then Erin took a few steps towards the door and stumbled. She nearly fell flat on her face, and someone caught her.

“Erin? Is that…”

Lyonette du Marquin held her up, the Box of Incontinuity in one hand, face white as she gaped down at the dying [Innkeeper]. Erin Solstice rasped.

“Not yours. I’ve come to make amends. Leave them to me. At least, one of them. I need a knife.”

Unconsciously, Lyonette reached for her belt pouch, but she didn’t have one. She helped the [Innkeeper] up—and someone stepped forwards.

Pyrite handed Erin a spare kitchen knife, and she met his eyes.

“Hey, stranger.”

“Hey. I’m Pyrite.”

She beamed at him as the flames on her hat burned, blue and pink and…

“Nice to meet you at last. Lyonette? Get everyone out of here. Where’s Mrsha?”

“I don’t—I don’t know where—”

Erin caught the [Princess]’ arm, and then she was right here. The [Innkeeper] that Lyonette hadn’t seen since the Winter Solstice. Her eyes shone, and she spoke to Lyonette like the woman was a child. Perhaps like she had spoken to Mrsha.

“I know it’s scary and falling apart. It’s always like that. You have to figure it out. Okay?”

She met the eyes of the [Princess], and her gaze turned, searching across the [Palace of Fates] for the child trying to hold it together, and Erin’s eyes were so very tired and weary. But then the [Innkeeper] winked at Lyonette, and the fire on her body blazed like the sun before it set.

“I’ll handle one of them.”

The [Palace of Fates] shifted—and the [Innkeeper] locked eyes with two running figures. Belavierr and Teriarch. The two immortals froze.

The [Innkeeper] charged at Belavierr, and a gigantic figure hit the Dragonlord of Flames like a freight train. Empress Sheta knocked the Dragonlord of Flames off his feet and shrieked at him.

“What are you doing, you coward?”

“Sheta?”

This Teriarch froze—and Belavierr recoiled.

“I wish to negotiate—”

“Nope.”

The [Magical Innkeeper] shoulder-charged into the [Witch], and her hat ignited Belavierr. The Stitch Witch started screaming, and Erin stabbed her with the kitchen knife.

They vanished, rolling and stabbing at each other down a corridor. The [Innkeeper] was—laughing. Then, Lyonette took a deep breath.

“Hold this spot. No matter what! We just have to throw them back. The Necromancer…”

Her eyes swept around the [Palace of Fates], and she stood there, thinking. The Box of Incontinuity was like a threat. Best never used so you could keep using it, again and again. But if she had to…before Lyonette could decide, another figure stepped forwards. Another weary champion.

“Leave the Necromancer to me.”

 

——

 

The Necromancer of Terandria had extinguished the flames at last. He was creeping down the hallways, prepared to sneak out of this insane [Palace of Fates]. He didn’t know where the Goblin King was, but he’d seen Teriarch hit by the largest Harpy he’d ever seen.

His confidence in victory was decreasing by the second. He was the Necromancer. He was…

The Necromancer rounded a corner and halted. He was a Level 78 [Undying Lich]. But he was wounded, bereft of his minions and—a coward who’d run and fled.

That mattered. It meant he was weak.

A trio of figures were waiting for him down another hallway. Az’kerash halted uncertainly, then relaxed.

Just three men. Or so he thought at first. He eyed the three ordinary men…then his eyes narrowed.

One of them was leaning against a wall, looking exhausted. The silver-haired half-Elf pushed himself off the wall. He was talking to the others.

“—know where Teriarch is. We have to stop this one. Understand? He’s not going to be easy.”

“There are three of us. How dangerous could he be? The Tidebreaker bested him.”

Rhisveri Zessoprical snarled, but his eyes never left Az’kerash’s face. He was sweating, but he made fists and hopped left and right like an amateur boxer. The man in the back just adjusted his tie.

“The Tidebreaker was always stronger than his levels. No one can stop him but us. Remember—he always comes back.”

Viscount Visophecin’s eyes glowed faintly as the Necromancer lifted his rapier, no longer sure he was facing mortals. Taletevirion and Rhisveri exchanged a glance out of the corner of their eyes. The Unicorn nodded as he drew a sword.

“He’s undying. And he’s a Gold-bell duelist.”

That was all he said, and Az’kerash slowed and drew a rapier himself. He did not know why—only that he suddenly wished for his mortality back, his gift with the blade that came from his living half.

The Unicorn was pressuring him. And then other two—Rhisveri’s tattered shoes pressed down on the hallway’s floors as he lowered his head. The Viscount took a position behind him, and then Az’kerash realized none of them were ordinary, mortal men.

The Necromancer of Terandria hesitated—then he shrieked, an undead’s unearthly wail, and [Flash Stepped] forwards. Viscount Visophecin fired the first [Midnight Shard] spells; the [Necromancer] evaded each one and saw Rhisveri leap at him.

He ran the Duke of Ailendamus through the heart and heard a scream—and Rhisveri seized him. The Necromancer’s eyes widened.

A magical body. What is—

The Duke headbutted him, and the Necromancer stopped thinking for a second. His body activated on autopilot; a [Deathblast] blew Rhisveri off him, and he lunged.

He stabbed the Duke four times through the chest, so fast that Rhisveri’s body jerked back like a ragdoll—then the Necromancer realized he’d forgotten Taletev—

The Unicorn’s glowing blade stabbed Az’kerash, and Taletevirion rammed him up, off his feet, into the ceiling as the blade extended. The Necromancer fell down as Viscount Visophecin shot a hole through his throat. A gleaming sword slashed him across the face, chest, leg—

The wounds closed in a second, and the Necromancer grabbed the sword, screaming with genuine pain. The Unicorn refused to let go of his weapon so Az’kerash tossed the Unicorn down the hallway, and the [Necromancer] pointed a finger.

“[Deathb—]”

Movement at his back. The Necromancer spun, and Viscount Visophecin stepped out of his shadow. The Necromancer fired the [Deathblast] spell point-blank, and the Lucifen’s Warform took it. The grinning skull of his face opened in a snarl—then he struck the Necromancer across the ground, snapping his neck. The Necromancer got up, his neck snapping back into place, and Rhisveri and Visophecin crashed into him.

They were punching and firing spells point-blank, trying to keep him from casting magic. The Necromancer howled in frustration. The Unicorn was running at him, and Az’kerash tried to focus on him, but his spellcasting was—impeded—

Duke Rhisveri kept punching him in the head.

 

——

 

The Goblin King was fighting with Rabbiteater. One of them wanted to go back and slaughter everything. The other—refused.

The armored figure staggered through the [Palace of Fates], away from the exit, until he came upon another battleground.

Painted Antinium were kneeling on the ground. Curled up. A motionless [Apostle] stood there, the illumination of his faith winked out.

“Gone.”

The Goblin King began to murder them, scything down the Antinium nearest him, uncaring of who or what they were.

He didn’t like the glimmers of faith they possessed. Pawn saw the Goblin King and tried to lift his club, but his faith was fractured.

“Gone. She is…”

He came out of his trance as the Goblin King drew a sword and swung it at him. The [Apostle]’s club met the sword—and the Goblin King recoiled slightly as thunder rolled down the hallway.

The Painted Antinium gazed up as Pawn stumbled back a few steps. When he raised that old club, there was a cut in it. But the glow was back in the Antinium’s eyes.

“Our goddess has been slain. We are all damned, and I am first of them, for I failed to guard her. There is no penance great enough. But other Erins live. The way is not yet broken. Most importantly—who? wHO dId tHIs? They die.”

The Goblin King halted; he studied the Antinium and swung his sword again, almost experimentally.

“[Cleave the Mortal World].”

Pawn’s club met the blade, and this time, the blow tossed him down the corridor. He rolled, head-over-heels, and came to a halt—but he was alive and rose as more [Paladins] got to their feet. The Goblin King shook out his wrist.

“What class is this? I do not like it.”

He didn’t understand, and it unsettled him. No…he vaguely remembered this class.

From the origin of everything. Those who worshipped them. His rage began to intensify as he lifted his sword again.

Then someone stabbed him in the side.

It was such a shock that the Goblin King barely recoiled in time as red blood ran from his wound. Even distracted, Rabbiteater’s armor was proof against all weapons. But a Worker, a mere Worker, had drawn his blood.

He beheaded the Worker and stepped back as the Painted Antinium turned their wrath on him. Pawn’s gaze found the Goblin King like the beam of a lighthouse.

“Kill this one first. Then find Erin Solstice and guard her.”

The Goblin King snarled as he drew his blade in earnest. But his head kept swivelling. There was something else in the [Palace of Fates]. He had run into one of them.

They should not be here. The girl was right. But how? And where?

Where…were they?

 

——

 

Belavierr’s lungs kept filling with blood. The knife pierced her flesh, and she was burning. It was her eyes.

One of the many rings faded away as the [Innkeeper] held her.

A resplendent woman, covered in the gifts of the Immortal Tyrant, made a soft sound as she sat in the middle of a ritual circle. She blinked down at the flames covering her and tried to rise. Then she felt at the red stain spreading from her chest. She tried to stand again, fell, and began to crawl forwards.

Then the flames burnt her away. The [Innkeeper] kept stabbing, and Belavierr tried to conjure a nightmare to kill this dying woman. But her craft was gone. Then Erin Solstice seized one of the trailing threads coming from Belavierr’s very essence.

The Witch of Webs blazed and ran, shrieking. She was—

Dying. She tried to back away, and the woman was at her throat. Burning with every emotion she had ever lived, cackling.

Belavierr lost one life. Then another as black fire coated her face, blown from the [Innkeeper]’s mouth. She was so close—the other immortals were distracted. The Goblin King was missing.

Something—Belavierr ran into a group of strangers, who broke around her, shouting. She sensed the [Innkeeper] stop, and the Spider desperately tore the flames off her. She raised a ruined face that began to reknit, and saw the [Innkeeper]’s eyes focus on something other than her face for one moment.

The band of warriors halted uncertainly in the face of the blazing [Innkeeper]. One of them bowed ostentatiously, eyes locked in instantaneous admiration and love for the dying woman.

“Hello. Innkeeper Solstice. We are allies, it would appear. May I introduce myself? I am—”

The Naga wriggled forwards, ignoring his Gnoll bodyguard, Iert, who threw out a wary arm. Belavierr sensed the black flames around the [Innkeeper] deepen. The Spider hesitated, then scuttled back as Erin Solstice inhaled.

The Naga of Roshal had a moment to blink and recoil, then the [Innkeeper] breathed a wave of hatred’s fire over him and the servants of Roshal. Their door began to burn, and a screaming Gnoll burst out of the flames and slammed into the [Innkeeper]. She stabbed Iert in the side, the chest, then the face as the Spider fled her deadly foe.

A chance. Luck be mine.

She had only a few moments to gain distance between her and the woman, but it was enough. The Spider scuttled around a corner of the [Palace of Fates]. She knew the [Princess] with the box would be guarding the exit, and there was great danger in this place. Six dreadful mice.

But the Witch was not running aimlessly. She advanced through the corridors and found her quarry, who froze, again, when the Spider pounced.

 

——

 

There had to be a solution to all this. She had to think of it—but there was no time to do it. Yet in her heart, she knew that she had to find it. Somehow. But she just kept running—trying to save the pieces.

Roots Mrsha found the Redfang Five from the world of the beach running through the [Palace of Fates]. Or rather—trying to drag one of them with them.

“Headscratcher! Come on!”

Shorthilt turned and gave the Goblin Lord of Sorrows a slap to the face. But Headscratcher barely reacted; he was stumbling forwards, being carried by Numbtongue and Rabbiteater.

Erin was gone. Their Erin was…Shorthilt reached out, and the one-armed [Blademaster] from his world tried to haul the Goblin Lord faster.

“Pekona, Octavia, Garia, Snapjaw—they’re out there. Please, Brother. Run!”

Headscratcher’s head rose, and he managed a few more steps, but the Goblin Lord was covered in blue flames. He fell to one knee, dragging Rabbiteater down with him, for all the [Champion]’s strength, until Mrsha ran forwards.

Everyone! This way! I’ll take you to the exit!

The Redfang Five saw Roots Mrsha, not their Mrsha, dashing forwards with Dame Ushar. They hesitated. Headscratcher spoke, kneeling on the ground.

“No point. She’s gone.”

“Fight. You have to fight.”

Rabbiteater was hissing in his ears as he tried to lever Headscratcher up, but the Goblin Lord of Sorrows just regarded Mrsha.

He saw her own grief, like a leaden weight in her chest, and gave her a bleak smile.

“You’ve lost everything too. What’s the point?”

Roots Mrsha halted and composed herself as another panting figure caught up with them.

I’m going to run until I stop for good. Come on. Someone needs you. Another Erin. If we’ve lost everything, we have a duty to let no one else lose what we have.

That…worked. Headscratcher found the energy to push one leg up, and he half-rose. Then his face became another mask of humorous despair.

“And you, Numbtongue? You’re as hopeless as I am. What strange world is reality for you to be as sad as I?”

For a moment, the Redfang Five thought he was talking to their Numbtongue, who pointed at his face, mystified. But then they all turned and saw—the [Sybarite Soulbard].

The real Numbtongue, who stood, brotherless, his Dragonblood crystal sword in hand. He was badly scorched across his upper torso, and he had light cuts on his arms. He panted for air as he came face-to-face with the five Redfangs.

His beloved brothers, all together. While he was…

Numbtongue! There you are! Come on!

Roots Mrsha was relieved to see him. She dashed over, grabbed his hand, and pulled. Numbtongue jerked, and he took a few steps forwards.

“Come on. I’ll…get you out of here.”

He reached out for Headscratcher, but didn’t manage to touch the Goblin Lord of Sorrows. Headscratcher pushed himself to his feet, and they regarded each other. Numbtongue’s eyes were filled with a silent agony as he looked at his other self and his living brothers. Headscratcher took a few steps forwards. Then he whispered.

“Why are you so sad?”

The [Sybarite Soulbard] reached out to take one of Headscratcher’s arms, and bit one lip, like someone trying to keep something bubbling up in him from coming out. But then he spat it out, words like black bile from deep inside.

“You’re dead, brother. And she doesn’t love me. She doesn’t care for us. Not you and me.”

His eyes flicked to Rabbiteater, and the [Knight]-[Champion] blinked in confusion as the other Redfangs turned to him. Beach Numbtongue’s face was confused, but Headscratcher met the hurt, angry eyes of his brother from reality.

Without a word, he shoulder-charged Numbtongue into one wall of the [Palace]. The [Soulbard] managed a shout and one punch—then the two were hitting each other, though the Goblin Lord’s fists were ten times heavier than the real Numbtongue’s.

Stop! Stop fighting, you fools! We have to go!

The other four Redfangs and Dame Ushar tried to separate the two brawling Goblins, and Roots Mrsha was about to rush forwards, despite the risk of them falling on her and squashing her, when she felt all the hair on the back of her neck stand up again.

Oh come on. Doesn’t she have anything better to do? Roots Mrsha whirled.

The Witch of Webs ran towards them, trailing smoke and screaming.

Real Numbtongue and Beach Headscratcher stopped fighting instantly. They whirled, and every Goblin present charged the Witch of Webs. But she was so—

Badarrow’s bow snapped as he tried to loose an arrow. Rabbiteater’s charge at her turned into a sprawl as his armor and clothing inside of it fell to pieces. Beach Numbtongue’s guitar strings snapped across his chest. Shorthilt managed a slash which glanced off Belavierr’s clothing, too hard for him to cut—

Belavierr swept past Headscratcher and then slammed into his arm. She recoiled as his body shifted only slightly. She dodged right, trying to go around him, and he seized one arm. She slowed—turned—

The real Numbtongue stabbed Belavierr in the side, and she blinked down at the Dragonblood crystal sword embedded in her. Belavierr’s cheeks bulged; a spider crawled out of one eye socket, and she belched a wave of black spiders over the [Sybarite Soulbard]. He fell back, cursing, and she raised a hand.

She struck Headscratcher in the face with an open-palmed blow that cracked the floor he stood on. But the Goblin Lord of Sorrows didn’t move. He drew his axe and buried it in her shoulder, wrenching the blade deeper into her flesh.

One of the rings in Belavierr’s eyes dissolved. She recoiled—now needles were striking the Goblin Lord from head to toe, trying to force him off her. But he refused to let go. The blue flames coating his body were a shield, a weight upon the world.

The Stitch Witch pulled, and he refused to let go.

“Brothers. Get her.”

The first person to stab Belavierr in the back was actually Dame Ushar. She twisted the blade, then tried to yank Belavierr’s throat back and cut it. The Stitch Witch’s head flopped back as Ushar managed to saw through all but a flap of it, and the head spoke, upside-down.

“Do you think I have not seen this before? You—that burning woman—one single trick.”

Shorthilt slashed the rest of Belavierr’s head off, and it landed on the ground, continuing to speak up to Headscratcher. He refused to let go of the body, still straining to get away, as Rabbiteater, Badarrow, and both Numbtongues kept stabbing it.

“Thy strength is in grief. A trick. I have seen it before, many times, Goblin. Suffer.”

Get back!

Roots Mrsha wrote the warning too late. She was at the outskirts of the desperate fighting—she saw Belavierr’s head open its mouth and speak:

“[Grip of Lost Souls]. [Pure Despair]. [Wave of Apathy].”

The grey wave that burst from Belavierr’s head seemed to suck the color out of the air. As it struck all the Redfangs and Dame Ushar, rotten hands, spectral and transparent, rose from the ground and pulled everyone down. Everyone—including Headscratcher.

The Goblin Lord of Sorrows fell to one knee as the blue flames upon his body grew threefold, becoming a suffocating blanket that dropped him to his knees. He tried to hold on, but Belavierr’s body broke his grip contemptuously, then picked up her head.

She put her head back on like someone putting on a hat and drew a line across her throat. The flesh stitched itself together, and Roots Mrsha stood there.

Ushar? Numbtongue?

The [Knight] was lying on the floor, whispering, her grey-black, short-cropped hair trailing over her blank, staring eyes.

“Doesn’t love me. Doesn’t remember. Just a dream. Just a dream. Nothing matters.”

She was utterly consumed by the three spells that Belavierr had cast. The real Numbtongue was no better. He was kneeling, covered by hands that drove his head against the ground.

Roots Mrsha would have run or gotten help, but Belavierr was on her like a flash. She seized Mrsha by the throat and smiled.

“Hello, little key to the exit. Charm against flames, mine.”

She turned, casually, her weapon against the burning [Innkeeper] in hand. Headscratcher whispered.

“Stop.”

Belavierr was holding Mrsha up like a shield. The Stitch Witch’s eyes flickered right and left, gauging the strength of the Redfangs. Headscratcher was trying to rise, but his flames were dragging him down with each hand that clung to him. Roots Mrsha saw faces, empty eyes of the dead.

Redfangs. Garen himself. Goblins she only knew from Numbtongue’s stories. Leftstep. Bugear. Hundreds, clinging to the weary Hobgoblin.

Despite it all, the Goblin Lord of Sorrows was trying to rise. So was the real Numbtongue. The two highest-level Goblins strained, and Belavierr’s voice was silky, once more the cunning negotiator.

“I will not hurt her. Let me pass or she will suffer. Once I reach the exit, I will let her go. This, I swear upon my cr…my hat.”

She took a step forwards, still seemingly wary of the downed Redfangs, who had taken one of her lives. But they were all pinned. The lonely Numbtongue most of all. All his brothers were gone or dead. He couldn’t get up, even as his exhausted gaze found Mrsha.

Belavierr smirked, then whispered to the struggling, kicking girl in her grip.

“There is nothing but your failed dreams and nightmares here, you foolish child. You should have never opened these doors to begin with.”

Roots Mrsha was struggling to breathe; she jabbed her wand into Belavierr’s left eye, twice, as hard as she could, and the Stitch Witch didn’t even blink. So instead, the girl wrote in the air, snarling silently in defiance.

You’re the fool, Belavierr. This place is made of stories. I haven’t found a thousandth of all the ways it can break my heart, nor the moments that will make me smile. It’s in the blood of The Wandering Inn. There will always be hope and wonder just around the corner. Even for you.

Her eyes were on her Numbtongue, even if he wasn’t…hers. That brother who had helped raise her. Begging him to rise.

He could not. He was trying, but there was no spark, no fury and goodness that could see him fight any foe. Not like she remembered.

But please. 

The [Palace of Fates] continued to shake as the doors opened. There was a snarl—and Belavierr’s gloating cut off as she sensed more intruders.

The Witch of Webs swept around, daring the corridors of desperate worlds to produce the miracle the girl was so convinced existed. Belavierr’s eyes swept left and right, and she raised a finger as more figures poured out of a side passage. But it was just undead.

Bounding figures in foul rags, filthy and emaciated. Ghouls, fighting with each other. Belavierr sneered as one of them bounded towards the downed Goblins. She gave Mrsha a triumphant smile. You see? No miracles.

Just monsters.

The undead were fighting at the entrance to the hallway. One of them came straight for Belavierr and Mrsha.

The bounding figure leapt on Belavierr, and Roots Mrsha tensed, waiting for the claws to bite into her flesh. But the ripping fangs and the clawed fingers sank into the Stitch Witch’s arm instead.

The Stitch Witch blinked as the figure bit her and drew blood, despite her magical robes. She tried to shove the snarling creature away from her, but the panting, lithe creature just kept slashing until Belavierr put up a hand.

Panting? Ghouls didn’t breathe. Then Roots Mrsha saw two bright, yellow eyes fix on her—and the figure dropped, crouched—then leapt up until its feet were level with Belavierr’s chin and kicked the Stitch Witch.

That sent the Witch of Webs tumbling backwards, and her grip loosened on Mrsha. No—not just because of the impact. Mrsha rolled away as an arrow sprouted from Belavierr’s arm.

Shot from afar. The bounding figure leapt—caught Mrsha—and rolled to her feet in one motion. Yes…her.

She placed Roots Mrsha down on the ground, and she smelled of blood and desperation. Fear and rotten breath. But those eyes that fixed on Mrsha were unlike any undead in the world. Even Toren. And—the girl realized that all of the fallen Redfangs had frozen when they saw her.

The Ghoul—no, monster—no—the strange being leapt on Belavierr again as the Stitch Witch snarled. And the final clue was right there.

A bracelet of flowers hung from its wrist. One came loose as Belavierr hurled the strange creature away, and she struck the floor and rolled to all fours. Headscratcher’s head rose, just an inch, and his sweat-matted dreadlocks parted as he stared at that twisted face.

He saw no monster. But a memory that had not faded, just like the blossom that fell before him. A simple thing grown by a young woman with a single class.

A [Florist].

The Ghouls that had been coming down the corridor were gone. Dead—as the Stitch Witch hissed in genuine confusion, another arrow struck her. She snapped a finger, and a bow broke in the distance. Then the warriors who had followed the [Florist] dropped their bows. They charged.

The Redfangs saw them running, a singleminded rush towards the enemy, that familiar, suicidal charge. A grin on every face.

Goblins. Three of them were Hobs. Three were regular-sized Goblins.

Not the five Redfangs that Mrsha knew, but a motley crew of six.

Numbtongue’s head rose, and the hands pulling him against the floor, made of his grief, his deep apathy and despair—all of it left him. He forgot it all as he focused on those faces.

Six Goblins.

Leftstep. Justrust. Grunter. Bugear. Orangepoo. Patchhelm.

They halted for a second, in confusion, when they saw the foreign Hobs pinned to the ground. But then—each one focused on the [Florist] fighting the Witch of Webs. Then they followed their leader from the world where they had lived, and so had she.

The Goblins charged with a familiar howl on their lips.

“Redfang!”

Belavierr didn’t know these foes. They did not know her; they fought for the sight of a child held in the grip of a monstrous [Witch]. She hated that kind of busybody the most.

Just like the Singer.

Belavierr backed away, conjuring a rain of needles, but someone seized her before she could unleash them on the Goblins and Human woman. Belavierr gazed into a [Goblin Soulbard]’s wild, tear-filled eyes, and he threw her across the ground. The tall [Witch] staggered and caught herself—then raised a hand.

The Goblin Lord of Sorrows swung his axe into her arm and cut off her wrist. The hand detached in a line of unravelling thread, and Headscratcher howled in Belavierr’s face. She backed up another step.

Numbtongue ran her through the side again. He was on his feet. They all were. Belavierr’s eyes bulged in disbelief. She retreated further, casting more spells.

“[Complete Hopelessness]. [Drain Emot—].”

Shorthilt stabbed her in the eye with a sword, and she fell back, flailing at them now.

They just kept attacking, Goblins filled with too many emotions for her magic to eradicate. The [Witch] took a stumbling step backwards, striking at Headscratcher, Leftstep, and Rabbiteater, and someone tapped her on the shoulder.

“Hey, buddy. You forgot about me.”

The Witch of Webs whirled, and Erin Solstice tossed a jar of acid into Belavierr’s face. Then she snapped her fingers, and the grey flame of mercy coated the Witch of Webs.

The screaming [Witch] backed away as even the mad rush of the Goblins halted. The [Innkeeper] tackled Belavierr, and her eyes found Roots Mrsha’s. The Gnoll girl’s eyes filled with tears.

“Get them out of here.”

They disappeared as another of Belavierr’s lives burnt away, and then—everyone was panting, catching their breath, and Leftstep was windmilling his arms. He’d nearly run straight into the puddle of what he was pretty certain was acid. He began to take a step forwards, overbalanced, and someone caught him.

Leftstep took a big step backwards and turned.

“Whew. Thanks.”

He met the eyes of a foreign Hobgoblin, a handsome fellow with a goatee of all things, which looked stupid, but fit him—Leftstep focused on Numbtongue’s face, and his froze.

“No problem, brother.”

Numbtongue looked the Hobgoblin up and down, the thinnest Hob he’d ever laid eyes on. Thin—but he had a rapier in his hand he held like a master. And his feet.

He had on magnificent sandals, master-crafted and expensive.

But why sandals? The answer was…Leftstep just liked them.

Leftstep. Numbtongue’s hand was shaking as he took it off the other Hobgoblin’s shoulder and stood there. Lost for words.

Redfangs, twelve of them. Two Numbtongues. The rest of them…they understood what was going on. Of course they were here.

These doors contained every world. But this one? This…Patchhelm sat down, a regular-sized Goblin with a mithril helmet, and Rabbiteater tugged off his own [Knight]’s helmet.

“Patchhelm?”

He took a step forwards, then halted. Unable to go forwards and confirm this painful, beautiful dream.

Everyone was silent except for Dame Ushar and Roots Mrsha. The panting Thronebearer was wiping at the tears on her cheeks.

“Lady Mrsha, are you alright? Did that fiend hurt you? Watch out—”

That last bit was because the lanky, ragged figure of the [Florist] had crawled towards Mrsha. On all fours—she did resemble a Ghoul in many ways.

Too-thin, as if she’d starved, raw muscle standing out just under her skin. But she seemed…tougher than even average Ghouls, and her mouth and jaw were pronounced. Toothy. She was filthy from battle, and her ‘clothing’ was terribly ragged. Ushar bared half her sword and hesitated as the Redfangs, all of them, glared at her.

The [Florist] flinched back, but then the young woman’s yellow eyes seemed to shine with…something more than feral rage. She pushed herself up onto two legs and opened her mouth. She spoke, clumsily, haltingly, like someone trying to remember an unfamiliar language.

“H-helo. Im naaauut a monstr.”

The six Redfangs from her world formed up around her, wary, and Roots Mrsha hesitated.

I know you’re not. Who are you?

The [Florist] recoiled as the wand traced the golden letters, and the other Redfangs drew their weapons. Roots Mrsha blinked at them and realized—none of them could read. Perhaps not even the [Florist] in her state.

The Goblins and the…not-monster drew backwards until a figure picked something up off the bloody ground.

Headscratcher.

He held up that little flower, and it said everything. Leftstep’s suspicious expression became one of faint recognition, and his eyes found Badarrow’s bow, traced the curve of the [Sniper]’s nose. Focused on Headscratcher’s dreadlocks. Grunter, the biggest Hob of them all, carrying his notched axe, breathed a word.

“Headscratcher?”

“Brother.”

The two Goblins approached, sizing each other up. Reading each other’s scars, like an unfamiliar book. Then they clasped arms. The other Redfangs approached and recognized each other.

Justrust pointed at Badarrow’s face.

“You…Badarrow. Where your bow?”

“Broke.”

Badarrow kicked his bow that Belavierr had snapped. Justrust instantly pulled his own shortbow off his back. Badarrow took it, flexed it once.

“This sucks.”

Justrust punched Badarrow in the arm, then hugged him. The Numbtongue of the beach world peered at a Goblin who had a sling of something horribly foul.

“…Poo?”

Orangepoo lifted his sling filled with, well, his namesake and offered Numbtongue a hug. The [Bard] hesitated, then swept him up in a huge embrace.

The [Florist] knew them all as well. Her eyes found each of the Hobgoblins, finally cottoning onto the realization of who they were. Then she blinked water from her eyes. A monster’s tears.

Monster? Roots Mrsha had never met anyone like her. She had never seen someone who had gained a class that changed…so much. But she did know this woman.

He had told her stories of the [Florist] who had become a person to the lonely Goblins, after all. And it was he who stumbled forwards, a man haunted by ghosts who had run into one more.

The real Numbtongue. He halted in front of the [Florist], and she flinched away from him, as if his respectable dress, his guitar slung over one shoulder, the air of civilization that clung most strongly to him made her fear being shunned or attacked. But the Goblin [Soulbard] merely opened his mouth and croaked.

“Hello.”

The [Florist] froze, and then she croaked back.

“Helo. i knw u. Rigt?”

“Yes. Can I…touch you?”

She hesitated again, then nodded, and Numbtongue slowly put his arms out. He enfolded the [Florist] into a hug against his chest, and he whispered, voice thick, as his hands touched her hair matted with blood.

“Hello. I’m Numbtongue. One of him. I wanted to tell you, while I still have the time…how beautiful you are.”

He embraced her so long the other Goblins began to get annoyed, all eleven of them. But then Numbtongue let go and gazed down at the faintly blushing [Florist].

When he turned, Roots Mrsha stood there, smiling. Numbtongue eyed her questioningly, and the Gnoll girl just wrote in the air.

Stay together. Head towards the way out.

“What about you?”

Headscratcher turned from the [Florist] and remembered the other Erin, fighting Belavierr. He broke away from the other Goblins, but Roots Mrsha just waved him on.

Get to the exit. Bring them there, then find the people from your world, if you must. But go, go.

The Redfang Five and the Redfang Six, plus the [Florist], were left standing there as Dame Ushar strode after Roots Mrsha. Another Goblin took a few steps forwards, and Numbtongue turned around. He reached for the [Florist] and caught her clawed hand.

“I have to find the rest of my family. Then, introduce you to them.”

He met the [Florist]’s eyes, and she nodded. Then the [Soulbard] was running, this agonizing, beautiful, painful palace shaking around him. And he asked of it only one thing.

This time.

This time…

Let the [Florist] live. Her and all the others.

 

——

 

The [Florist] and eleven Goblins reached the entrance to the [Garden of Sanctuary], and the small army of people standing there almost attacked her.

“Monster! F—wait, wait, there are Goblins!”

Zel Shivertail roared, and then heard what he’d actually said. The [Florist] flinched, but the sight of the Redfang Five sent their version of Lyonette and Mrsha running forwards.

“Headscratcher! Pyrite went out to search for people from his world! You have to help him!”

“We’ll do that. We—we saw Mrsha. And Belavierr. And this is our friend. Protect her, please.”

The Goblin Lord of Sorrows stumbled forwards, gesturing to the [Florist], and he saw that everyone who had reached the [Garden of Sanctuary]’s exit was still in the [Palace of Fates]. They were here.

Holding the door. Or waiting for the people they loved. The real Lyonette du Marquin ran towards Headscratcher.

“You saw my Mrsha? Where? Where?”

He pointed and had to explain that she had vanished along with Numbtongue. Lyonette sagged.

“If you see her—bring her back! Please!”

It was Zel Shivertail who gave orders as the confused Redfangs milled around.

“If you can fight, you’re with me. Classes! Is—that an ally?”

He pointed at the [Florist], who cowered. Orangepoo promptly began to swing his fecal slingshot menacingly, and Zel Shivertail eyed the Goblin. But then the [General] growled.

“She’s got a Blood-something class, doesn’t she? I’ve seen [Soldiers] with them. Just stick with us, and don’t attack until you hear the order given, understand?”

He pointed, and the Goblins and [Florist] saw how many corridors Zel was attempting to control. There were seven; the hallway that led to the [Garden of Sanctuary] had three connections on one side, four on the other.

The fact that Az’kerash, Belavierr, and the Goblin King had failed to reach this spot was a small silver lining in a magical hurricane. Zel Shivertail had fought off everything from an angry Truestone Golem to an army of evil slimes. But he had a feeling that the big players were starting to emerge.

He strode back into position and growled at a panting Courier.

“Report.”

Valceif Godfrey, the Ryoka Griffins, and other Couriers had run through the [Palace of Fates]. The young man’s sweating face rose, and he rasped.

“There are multiple worlds of Crelers—the cracks are getting big enough to let Adults through from some of them. The one good piece of news is that they’re killing each other. Aside from that—I saw the King of Destruction’s world fighting, but he was barely on his feet. They’re coming, fast. So are those soldiers from Rhir—the Painted Antinium are fighting everything they can see. Those were the worst worlds so far.”

“Got it. Take a break, then keep checking the corridors closest to us. I need more fortifications! Can we get anything from the inn?”

Zel roared at Lyonette, but she was preoccupied with that damn box she claimed was better as a feint. Or as a weapon of last-resort if an army or horror reached them. Valceif rasped again.

“General Shivertail, the only thing keeping the armies from reaching us is that Harpy and the Dragons. But they’re falling back.”

Zel Shivertail swung around.

“—What Dragons?”

He’d seen only one, and a Harpy had taken it out. Valceif blinked at him. He counted on his fingers.

“I think I’ve seen—six?”

 

——

 

The Dragonlord of Flames stood against the forces of Rhir as long as he could. But there were so many. They kept sending their [Heroes].

He blasted them with Dragonfire until their morale broke, and they ran screaming and burning, all their enchantments and levels availing them not. But they wanted that door.

They knew it was their only salvation, and they had too many [Soldiers]. They boiled up the hill, firing arrows and magic, and his scales were already ruined from multiple battles. He held his ground as citizens from this Liscor streamed past him, teleporting here in their desperation to flee.

How long did he buy? A minute? Six? Not long, then his back was against the portal. He could feel it there, calling to him. Safety, if only for a moment.

The Dragonlord of Flames refused to run. Not this time.

Not in front of her.

He howled and swept his breath across the ground. It lashed over the flinching figures—and baked over shields made of frozen time itself. The Dragonfire faded away—sent into the past or future—and the Dragonlord felt an oppressive chill on his bones.

The Blighted King had appeared. With him, hundreds of [Heroes] and his most powerful armies. They filled the Floodplains.

Their counterfire pierced his armor and knocked him flat. The Dragonlord tried to rise and saw the shafts of ballista bolts and arrows lodged in his scales. They refused to fall away, and he realized—

Magnetic tips. Which was useless against brass, but the other enchantments did work.

Gravity-enhanced lead munitions. They were weighing him down. Dragonslaying weapons used against the heavy Metal Dragons of the past.

They never forgot, the mortals. The Dragonlord tried to pull himself up and collapsed. His ‘good’ leg couldn’t support the weight. So he curled around the portal, determined to at least deny them that.

The first of the [Soldiers] arrived on top of the hill as more arrows fell, heedless of friendly fire, determined to slay him, and he tried to breathe fire on them—and had no more flame left.

Hot, I rage, he had once told Rafaema. A fire that grows only more intense through a battle until it goes out.

At last, he’d met his limit. The Dragonlord lifted a bleary face towards the first running figure and bared his teeth, to snap and bite until the last. Then someone spoke from just over his back.

“The situation appears hopeless. I suggest we retreat.”

That voice was irritating. Pretentious, deep, and too artificially scholarly. The second voice was even worse, because it was identical, but even more preachy.

“As do I, good sir. Just as soon as we remind this rabble of their place.”

The real Teriarch glanced up, and two vast Dragons’ heads peered down at him. He thought, for a second, he was staring at a two-headed Dragon or some kind of horrific Hydra wearing his face. Then the two Dragonlords stepped into this reality.

“More Dr—”

The two other Dragonlords of Flame exhaled, and the flames tore a hole through the remnants of The Wandering Inn. Below them, the army of Rhir hesitated, but the other Teriarchs just seized the real Dragonlord.

“This way, you fool. I would have retreated; this isn’t a defensible position.”

“Yes, quite. Oof. He’s heavy—”

They dragged him through the portal and back into the [Palace of Fates]. Teriarch lay there, then his head rose.

He saw two far healthier clones of himself standing there, one of them overweight and sluggish, newly-emerged from his cave, the other annoyingly trim.

“How…? We have to defend that spot!”

He almost went back through the portal, but one of them bit his tail and dragged him back.

“Impossible. We’re being overrun. Regroup. We’ve lost track of the Goblin King, and there’s six…dead things running around the [Palace of Fates]. This is one world.”

“They have hundreds of [Heroes]—”

Teriarch snarled, and the other overweight Teriarch lifted a claw.

“I just saw what I strongly believe to be an Ancient Creler waiting to get out in the wings of one of the worlds. I suggest we are all doomed and should affect a fighting retreat, like I did during the Battle for Sal-Korqaxx against the Nagatine Empire.”

Teriarch just stared at his other selves and realized only now how terrible it was to be in his company. The fitter Dragonlord, who was somehow more insufferable, chuckled into one wing.

“Aha. That’s quite rich coming from myself. Because as I recall, the Battle of Sal-Korqaxx was rather disastrous. Setting fire to random parts of the jungle and hightailing it out of there is not, one would argue, good ‘strategy’. But then, I’m merely the Archmage of Scales of Wistram. Active Lecturing Professor, 7th Circle, Suprima Magica Thaumaturge, Suprima Enchanter, S. Evocator, S. Abjurator…I have a scroll of my titles. Unlike you two, who would be employed as…?”

Teriarch ignored the ‘Archmage of Scales’ and panted at the overweight one.

“Why are you here? This is your world. I saw you run for it.”

Why the sudden change of heart? That Teriarch, the same one who had allied with Az’kerash and Belavierr and the Goblin King, coughed into one claw, and even the pretentious Archmage of Scales hesitated and lost his superior expression. They chorused.

“Sheta, of course.”

Oh. Of course. It was a fact that in many worlds, the Dragonlord of Flame would be alive. It was his nature. And so long as he was close to the real Teriarch, across his many incarnations—

He would never forget her. 

The Harpy Empress was rallying them. The three Teriarchs might have continued talking, but one of them snapped.

“They’re coming through the portal! Tactical retreat!”

He spat another jet of flame through the portal, then backed up, cursing, as Deathslayer Arrows struck the wall behind the portal. In fact, even the wounded, real Dragonlord was already run-limping away at great speed from the mortal peril behind them.

The army of Rhir followed after, and the three Dragonlords were flying now. Well, two of them while one limped fast as he could.

“Where is Sheta?”

“Trying to stop the damn Crelers!”

 

——

 

The King of Destruction had armies all entering through his portal. He could draw on multiple continents’ worth of soldiers from the world in which he had actually conquered everything.

However—he was forced to abandon his position out of necessity. The doors were continuing to open, and it was abundantly clear to him that he might well soon be in a position where his single world might be facing multiple worlds’ worth of monsters or enemy armies.

Crelers, if nothing else.

His veteran [Soldiers] had hacked apart the many threats coming out from the doors, including Crelers. They had minced larval Crelers, Juveniles, Adult Crelers—

The first Elder Creler destroyed half of Takhatres’ tribe, and the Lord of the Skies was covered in the blood of his people as he stumbled back towards the camp that the King of Destruction was recovering in.

“It—thinks. Half my warriors stopped breathing when they got near it. It’s leading them like a [General]. We can’t get close. And it’s not alone. There’s at least one more squeezing itself out. And something bigger’s there. Flos. All Seven of us have to battle them or…”

The King of Destruction sat up weakly and felt at his chest. The hand of that—strange man—had nearly killed him. But he’d survived rather than being erased like his people. He rasped.

“We have to find the exit. We push. Form a defensive line. Collapse the damn hallways, or just fill them with stone. Slow the Crelers down. We assail the exit. Move, and keep an eye out for those—things!”

Queravia interpreted the King of Destruction’s orders through her command of the battlefield.

“Strike groups. We will lead the one with His Majesty. Keep forming them and sending them from this position. Drevish, where’s the exit?”

“I’m trying. There’s…too many people fighting for it. Myself? And—it belongs to someone. A girl. Two girls?”

The Architect was sweating as he tried to make the right hallways appear, but he had more control of the [Palace of Fates] than most. The King of Destruction forced himself to his feet and drew his sword.

“For Orthenon. If you find that bearded man—gut him! Go!”

His [Soldiers] stormed down the hallways, meeting with the Crelers, the Painted Antinium, the forces of Rhir in battle, trying to hold the hallways. But they were all in pursuit of the same place as everyone else.

The way out.

On their way, the King of Destruction’s vanguard ran into the Elder Creler. The wounded [King] looked up and spoke.

“Huh. It’s got a lot more eyes. They get uglier, it seems.”

The Adult Crelers were the size of multi-story houses and could spit deadly projectiles that ripped steel in half like paper. They had huge, clawed legs like a spider, but far more than eight; they reared up with an upper body much like a Centaur, and their only weak spot was a softer underbelly with that orange intestinal jelly.

But Adult Crelers had begun to harden and protect their underbellies with ‘ribs’ of claws. Adult Crelers were living hatcheries as well; Creler eggs lined their insides and they could birth them by the thousands given enough time. Their tearing, primary mandibles could rip apart the largest chariots with ease, and they thought and led their lesser brethren.

Elder Crelers were the completed version of Adult Crelers. Instead of the two giant eyes and the smaller ones hidden along Adult Creler bodies, they were the size of castles. Small castles, but still.

They had hundreds of eyes bulging across their heads, each one swirling with amniotic liquid—the eyes were both ocular nerves and Crelers mid-gestation. Until their birth, the Crelers were optical nerves for the vast being.

And the Elder Creler was encased in that armored chitin, tripled in thickness, that coated their bellies down to their tails. The many-flanged, poisonous spikes of the Elder Creler’s long tail dripped poison and destruction behind them, and they were almost sluglike on their rear, only it was armored flesh instead of slugs’ mucus bodies.

But the most notable change was their heads and their brains. They glowed with light, even within the dense chitin. Intelligence, so devastating that the psychic energy leaked out of the Creler’s brains.

Brains. Flos Reimarch counted one where the head of the centipede-like Creler’s brain would be in most creatures, hidden by those countless eye-eggs, and another in its abdomen. A third lower down in its midsection where it met the legs.

Each brain pulsed, and he heard a voice in his head, twisted as it was, as an army of its children stormed towards his people.

(Eat and devour, children. Leave the mightiest among them alive; infest and bring them here. These worlds shall all break and be remade by the will of She Who Sleeps. That one. Bring that one to me.)

The minds actually picked the King of Destruction up and began to carry him down the hallway until the King of Destruction concentrated his aura. The Elder Creler’s control over him faltered, and Amerys shot a stream of lightning bolts into the Elder Creler’s chest.

The spells didn’t even move it; half fizzled out before striking chitin. Amerys swore under her breath, and the King of Destruction rasped.

“Retreat.”

“Your Majesty, we can take it! We have to—”

Mars was ready. She was a Level 70 [Vanguard] in this world, and her sword made the nearest Crelers flinch away from her, but the King of Destruction just snapped at her.

“Retreat. There’s another one behind that Creler!”

In any other time, he would have relished this combat for his world-spanning empire. But not now.

(Send the children forwards. Do not pursue. Find the exit. The white child made of luck.)

The Elder Creler was evidently of the same opinion; larval Crelers swarmed after Reim’s soldiers, and the Adult Crelers fired their spikes at the King of Destruction’s forces, but they too held their ground.

“Queravia. Pull every Tier 7+ spell and relic out of our armies and erase them.”

The King of Destruction hoped they had enough. He had to find the exit and collapse the Creler’s world. No matter the cost.

How many of my subjects will I damn if I close the doors on them? The King of Destruction shoved the thought away. He didn’t have to choose—yet. All Flos knew was that he had to secure the exit or all was lost. He had one advantage over the Crelers: Drevish. The Architect pointed, and at last, the right hallway appeared.

The King of Destruction saw a single Drake [General] and a motley line of warriors between him and the exit. The [Princess] raised the box in her hands and said something, but the King of Destruction had no [Dangersense].

“Charge!”

His warriors stormed towards the Drake and the [Knights]. Flos himself followed Mars as she surged into combat.

The Tidebreaker met her with the [Knights] of Solstice, one world’s versions of the Horns of Hammerad, Liscor’s Watch—Redfangs, a [Florist].

He was brave, that Drake, but he didn’t have a chance. Not against Mars. She slammed into Zel Shivertail, and the strike force engaged the [Knights]. Their leader, swinging a mace covered in green flames, took a spear to his chest.

Their armor meant nothing. The Tidebreaker slashed at Mars, tearing apart her illusions, and she drove her sword into his shoulder. He was fast.

“Keep them alive. I need answers.”

The King of Destruction halted a [Soldier] about to impale Normen in the air, and he watched the [General] deliver a glancing blow to Mars’ helmet. She performed a zigzag cut that opened up his chest in a spray of blood.

“Surrender, or I might not have a chance to let you live, warrior.”

Zel Shivertail’s only reply was to leap at the King of Destruction. A bolt of lightning from Amerys blew him off his feet—he leapt back up, and the King of Destruction whistled.

“Who is this fine [General]? The Drakes had no one this good when I took the continent. But then, they kill all their heroes before they even reach battle.”

He favored the panting Tidebreaker with a sympathetic smile. The Drake twitched; something about Flos’ words hurt him more than his wounds from Mars. He took a step forwards, slowly, blood rushing from his scales, and Flos lifted a resigned hand.

“His arms, Mars. Hurry.”

He glanced over his shoulder. That Creler army was coming. Mars whirled up her sword, then twisted. Queravia’s voice snapped. The Stitch-woman rolled a pair of dice into a golden bowl floating at her side.

“Flank attack! Watch out!”

She actually pre-empted the strike to their flanks such that Reim’s forces were already pivoting and setting themselves when it came. Which was a mark of her level as a [Strategist]. The charging rank of Drake and Gnoll [Soldiers] stormed at the King of Destruction’s forces—then vanished.

Flos blinked—then the hallway on his other side flickered, and the wave of Drakes and Gnollish [Soldiers] hit Reim from their unguarded side. Queravia stared down at the snake eyes she’d just rolled.

Then a flaming arrow pierced Amerys’ barriers and struck her in the shoulder. Flos reached out and caught a second one before it could strike Amerys, dropping the flaming arrow. His head turned, and the second Drake [General] blew him a kiss.

“Strategy, darling, depends on the terrain. Get them! [Company, On Me]! [Charge of the Earth Dragon]!”

General Sserys of Liscor shot forwards, ahead of the combined army of the Walled Cities, and a company of warriors appeared next to him in the middle of Reim’s formation. Simultaneously, a second group of Drakes appeared from the same flank he’d feinted from and hit the King of Destruction from both sides.

Who is this? Flos and his forces were fighting on every side as the laughing [Spear of the Drakes] drove straight for his chest. The King of Destruction peered up as Sserys stabbed at him with a spear—

Mars kicked the Drake off his horse. Sserys landed, rolled out of the way, and his breastplate ate a second cut from the [Vanguard].

“Uh. Hells, she’s—”

The third blow tossed him all the way out of the ranks of his soldiers. Sserys skidded two dozen feet and stared down at the gashes in his armor. His eyes narrowed.

“Take out the King of Destruction! Get clear of that woman!”

Liscor’s army pressed in, but Amerys was firing bolts of lightning nonstop, and Queravia’s orders reformed their lines. The surprise attack became a desperate melee—a second Drake was fighting on the other side.

“Sserys, we can’t beat them!”

“Shut up and fight, Shivertail! All forces, charge! We won’t get a second chance!”

 

——

 

Zel Shivertail broke out of his trance when he heard the first voice. He turned and saw a Drake fighting with a pair of steel claws on the other side. He was smaller—not by much, but he looked centuries younger.

A younger Zel Shivertail was cutting up Reim’s soldiers on the other side as General Sserys tried to overwhelm the King of Destruction. But the level difference was too high.

“Reform. Fall back. Drevish, keep this corridor open. I want all our forces present.”

The King of Destruction retreated, and the soldiers cheered. Zel, the older Zel, recognized them. Liscor’s rough and rowdy mercenaries, forces bearing the emblems of their Walled Cities.

This was the alliance of Izril during the first Antinium War! This was the army that had pushed the Antinium back, the Gnoll tribes, Walled Cities, even Humans from the north!

And there he was, in the prime of his life, his thirties. General Sserys, the [Spear of the Drakes]. He mounted his horse again and cantered over to the young Drake arguing with him.

Zel Shivertail.

“Oh.”

Sserys was grinning; his blood was up, and he’d just given the King of Destruction a bloody nose. He spat.

“Damn. Was that Mars herself? She kicked the hell out of me. Come on, boys and girls. Reform! Let’s get them!”

“Sserys, we can’t. They were far higher-level than we were!”

“Nonsense! We won’t get another shot. Follow me!”

The [Spear of the Drakes] was galloping already, ignoring the younger Zel’s shouts. He…was always like that.

Sserys is a jerk. Roots Mrsha’s voice echoed in Zel’s ears, and he grunted.

“Yes. He really was. A thoughtless, brave—”

The Tidebreaker stuck out an arm as Sserys rode past him. He clotheslined the greatest [General] of the Walled Cities off his saddle and wished it didn’t feel so good.

Sserys’ eyes bulged as he halted in midair, but his horse kept going. He landed on his back for the second time in as many minutes, and stared up at the ceiling.

“General!”

Every [Soldier] leveled their weapon at the older Zel; he just rolled his shoulders as his younger self leapt forwards, shocked. They locked eyes, and the younger Zel Shivertail recoiled.

“What?”

“Hey. Who’s this tall drink of Amentus juice? And is he on our side? Because if he’s not, someone stab him.”

General Sserys shot to his feet, sword drawn and wary, but he eyed Zel up and down in a very approving manner. The Tidebreaker rolled his eyes.

“Oh, please, no.”

Never meet your heroes. Or your dead lover who looked different when you were older than he was. He folded his arms, wincing as it opened his cuts.

“Don’t be an idiot. You heard—him. The King of Destruction has you dead to rights. He’s only retreating to get his forces in order. You always find a brilliant opening and strike while the iron’s hot. But then you think you’ve got the entire battle won, you gigantic idiot.”

Every mouth around him opened as the Tidebreaker dressed down General Sserys of Liscor. The other Drake recoiled, and his eyes narrowed with his spitfire temper.

“You must be from another world, because I would have fed you your own tail if you mouthed off to me like…wait a second.”

He glanced at his Zel, then the older Zel Shivertail, and then his eyes widened.

“Wait. That little brat said…”

“Fall back. Get your forces around the door.”

Zel grabbed Sserys’ shoulder, and his heart leapt as he felt worn steel and sensed Sserys bristling. The [Spear of Drakes] opened his mouth, then swallowed.

“But the—”

“I’m the ranking [General] here. Fall back! Form the Pirissen Line, here!”

Zel Shivertail roared, and the soldiers around him hesitated—then streamed into position as Sserys nodded slowly. The Drake followed Zel, and then the younger Zel flanked him. They gawked openly at Zel.

“You’re…the real Zel Shivertail?”

The younger him managed after a while, and Zel smiled. He met Sserys’ suddenly nervous gaze.

“No. Just another Zel. The real one’s dead.”

“Oh. As that girl said. I died in the Antinium Wars, then.”

Sserys’ voice was unnaturally calm, and from the way the younger Zel twisted around and his mouth opened in shock, it was clear that he hadn’t been told. The Tidebreaker nodded, his eyes searching Sserys up and down.

“That’s right. Now I’m holding the door to reality. Are you going to help me or invade the world beyond for a second chance? Because you can run, but if you do, they’ll all come through.”

He nodded at the scattered bodies of Reim’s forces, the soldiers of Rhir, and everything else he’d battled thus far. Sserys searched his face, then strode forwards.

“Maybe after. But this isn’t the moment. So you’re the poor bastard I left to carry all the Walled Cities, huh? How’d that go?”

“I’m a pariah, and I was serving Magnolia Reinhart. What do you think?”

Zel snapped back. He was—angry. He didn’t want to be. He wanted to be elated, to embrace Sserys, to collapse into his arms and say all the things he hadn’t managed to. But he was just angry now, at this strange miracle. Sserys drew closer and peered up at him.

“How old are you? Forty? Damn. You look it. Twenty years later and I’d be fifty…what, did they blame you for my failures?”

Zel felt his heart thudding painfully in his chest, far more than the slashes Mars had inflicted on him. He rasped.

“What? No. They thought I was you. Then they realized I…was you.”

“Me? Oh. Me.”

Sserys’ eyes flickered, and he saw it. He always did. He was an idiot who couldn’t dance to save his life, who made huge tactical fumbles, who was arrogant, impulsive—and who could pick out a single needle of victory in a swamp. He knew their people.

“You poor bastard. Why do you think I’m just the [General] of a no-name, backwater city on the edges of civilization? Just like me? The Hero of the Antinium War, they’re already calling me. And that’s my fate and yours.”

“Yes.”

There was a look of such profound sympathy in Sserys’ eyes that the anger in Zel’s body drained away. He wanted to ask—did it happen to you? And he realized of course it had.

It must have. Sserys was talent in a bottle, but he was the [General] of only Liscor’s army when the Antinium War had struck. Every Walled City should have snapped him up when his talent was obvious. But he hadn’t ever left Liscor.

They understood each other, then, twenty years too late and both of them dead. But even then, it made him feel…so much better.

He had never been alone. General Sserys glanced at the [Soldiers] from the Walled Cities, who were stealing peeks at this older version of the Zel Shivertail they knew. Then he stood on his tiptoes, because even in boots, he was shorter than Zel by a bit.

“Well, if I’d known that, I’d have done this at one of our big speeches. There. Give them something to think about. Mwah.”

He kissed Zel Shivertail swiftly on the lips, and half the Drake [Soldiers] dropped their weapons in a clatter like thunder. The Tidebreaker heard nothing at all. He touched his lips, and General Sserys turned. He grabbed his version of Zel and gave him a longer kiss, bending him over at the waist, raising one arm, as the [Knights] of Solstice, Lyonette du Marquin, and the Drakes and Gnolls of Izril watched.

Sserys waved his free arm for applause, then gasped for air as he straightened. He turned and gave Zel Shivertail an expectant look. A smile without any regrets.

The General of Izril slapped him across the face.

Gently.

 

——

 

Lyonette du Marquin saw the slap. The Tidebreaker slapping General Sserys, both of them in the flesh before her. An impossible, iconic moment.

But the image of General Sserys french-kissing the Tidebreaker of Izril would be the scene that lingered in Lyonette du Marquin’s memory—forever.

Not just her. Everyone from the inn stood there as General Sserys swore and tried to punch Zel back. Lyonette breathlessly strode forwards.

“Excuse me—”

“Who’s this? Your replacement for me? Or just some random [Princess]? Begone, woman, we have a war to fight.”

The Tidebreaker, the older Zel and the younger one, both put Sserys in a headlock in what looked like an action of pure reflex. Lyonette swallowed.

“We have a problem, gentlemen. The Crelers. They’re coming. And multiple armies, not just the King of Destruction.”

She pointed, and all three Drake [Generals] looked up. Sserys swore and shaded his eyes.

“…Are those Dragons? Fuck, they’re running.”

Pink flames were blasting down the corridors as the Dragonlords of Flame retreated. There were four of them, but it didn’t matter.

The Blighted Kingdom was on the march, and King Othius the Fourth was surrounded by a vanguard of [Heroes]. The King of Destruction was also returning with every [Soldier] he could spare—but both groups paled in the face of the third wave sweeping down the corridor that had expanded to accommodate their numbers.

Crelers. An endless swarm of them, and like mountains of contempt, three Elder Crelers were advancing slowly down the corridor.

Three terrible mind-voices echoed towards Lyonette, and she felt sick to her stomach.

(The First of Spawns comes.)

(It comes.)

(Despair, for annihilation emerges.)

The First of…three Elder Crelers were bad enough. The sight of that army had General Sserys issuing orders, all his mirth forgotten.

“Battle lines. I want every [Soldier] coming from our world on here, at a sprint. We’re holding the line and evacuating everything into the exit. There’s no winning against three armies. Get out of here, Miss [Princess]. Civilians first. The rest of you bastards, get ready to die! Drakes don’t run!”

He raised a spear overhead, and the army around him roared as they set themselves against three corridors of foes. But the odds—

The first Deathslayer Arrows just erased a group of Drakes hunkered behind a [Wall of Stone] spell. Rhir’s army was firing them at everything it saw, the Dragons, the Drakes, Crelers—everything.

They were from the future. They had levels and technology on their side. Sserys’ army was from the past, no matter how important a moment it had been.

“I have to do it. I have to…oh, Eternal Throne have mercy on us. Everyone, go through the door. I—I need some people to help me, but—Ser Dalimont? Find Mrsha and bring her back. Both of her. That’s an order.”

Lyonette du Marquin felt terribly afraid as she lifted the last and final option up. The Box of Incontinuity was so small, and yet when she opened it and stared at the empty space within, she saw the end. Of herself, everything.

I’ll do it. 

“Is this woman crazy? Listen, get out of here before I throw you—”

General Sserys didn’t understand the significance of the box. He was organizing the people around him.

The Horns of Hammerad, the Redfang Six, the [Florist]—a version of Sinew Magus Grimalkin—all of whom saluted the smiling Drake.

They were all afraid and ready to run. Lyonette didn’t blame them. Her hands shook so bad she nearly dropped the secret weapon as she pulled it out of her bag of holding. The younger Zel caught sight of it and backed up a step, then reached out to prevent it from falling.

The [Princess]’ eyes clouded with tears. She had to do it to save as many people as she could. But she realized the truth and whispered.

“I don’t want to die. Not yet.”

She opened the Box of Incontinuity, and a hand grasped hers before she could put the secret weapon inside and close the lid. A cheerful, too-loud voice boomed in her ears.

“No one wants to die, girl. Who thinks like that? And why are you acting like this field’s lost? Seems to me we have the advantage.”

Lyonette had never heard the voice before, but the crushing grip and overwhelming presence—and stink of sweat—nearly knocked her off her feet. She stumbled, whirled—and locked eyes with a woman around her height, who had a slightly gap-toothed smile.

She was…well, not hideous. On the contrary, she was rather beautiful, but in her own way, not from thousands of hours of obsessive work. Queen Ielane would have corrected that gap in the teeth by any means, and this woman had not a hint of makeup on her ruddy cheeks that said she could and did drink.

Her chin was too strong. She was straight-backed, but not elegant. Her hair was a dull brown, without luster or conditioning—what you could see from under her helmet—with a long nasal guard that covered the bridge of her nose.

Oh—and she wore armor that was clearly matched only for the fit of it, not presentation, and her voice was far too loud. She slapped Lyonette on the back.

“Chin up, get some armor on, and put that back until there’s no risk of friendly fire. Who’s in charge here? Ah, nevermind, it’s me.”

“Wh—who are you?”

Affronted, Lyonette lowered the box and slipped the secret weapon into her bag of holding, and the [Queen] raised one eyebrow like a champion.

“Queen Marquin, ‘the Radiant’, at your service. Or Queen Marquin of the Single Breast, beloved heroine of Cyclops; I like that one more. And you are?”

Lyonette’s mouth opened, and nothing came out of it. She squeaked, and Marquin eyed her, then turned.

“Knight?”

Ser Dalimont’s mouth was wide enough to swallow Apista, but her inquisitive tone instantly made him lock his back and bow.

“Ser Dalimont of the Thronebearers of Calanfer at your service, Your Majesty!”

She laughed in his face.

“Just salute me! Thronebearers? That’s a stupid name. Almost as—did you just say Calanfer? That’s what I was going to call that new nation they just gave me.”

Her head turned, and she blinked at Ser Dalimont. Then at Lyonette. The [Princess] stuttered.

“T-t-t-you can’t be. You’re my great-great—how?”

Queen Marquin stuck a gauntleted pinkie in her ear and swivelled it around.

“Well, I was minding my own business with Mauri when a little Gnoll girl, cute as someone else’s button, opened the door I was in. Mind you, there was already this damn crack—but she had this root thing, and she said you needed my help.”

Mrsha. Lyonette spun.

“Where? Dame Ushar should have brought her back!”

“I dunno about any ‘Dames’. There were a bunch of Goblins with her, but eh, fair’s fair, everyone hates Crelers. I never saw what the fuss was.”

Marquin laughed. Lyonette’s eyes went wide, and she spun, but the [Queen of Radiance] clapped her on the shoulder. Her eyes were on the Creler army.

“No time to waste. Looks like three armies, and one’s filled with Crelers. Elders. Three of them. Mauri’s not going to slow them down long.”

“Mauri? Who’s Mauri?”

Lyonette was thoroughly confused. She knew the lineage of her entire royal family and all their Lightheralds and figures of note. No one in Calanferian history had ever been named ‘Mauri’.

Queen Marquin unhooked a mace from her belt and pointed it forwards.

“That’s Mauri.”

Lyonette heard a roar—and a hallway opened as one of the Elder Crelers shambled forwards. It turned—and the largest Dragon she had ever seen, covered in scars and green scales, crashed into the Elder Creler. It screeched, and Lyonette swore she heard it think-say the equivalent of ‘oh shit’—

Then there was Dragonfire. A trio of Dragons flew past the Dragonlord of War, breathing flames—each of a different color—and Lyonette gasped. Teriarch was flying next to two other Dragons, one with a mane like seaweed, blue-scaled like an aquatic sapphire, and the other as pale as ice, eyes flashing with rage.

“Those would be our Dragonlords. They’re buying us an opening. We don’t have long.”

The ambush had taken out one of the Elder Crelers, and the other two were reeling from the Dragonfire, but it hadn’t even dented the wave coming at them. Marquin strode forwards, and Lyonette went with her.

Even if it was Rhir’s hells itself, she would have gone. And this was, well, this was close enough.

“I—I—I’m your great granddaughter many times over. Your Majesty, I’m Lyonette, the 6th Princess of Calanfer.”

“Dead gods, who has six [Princesses]? That seems like a terrible burden on the mother. You must have fallen out.”

The First Queen of Calanfer was only thirty years old, Lyonette realized. And she had a horribly pithy mouth! She spat onto General Sserys’ boots as the Drake whirled.

“Who—”

“Fall in, Drake. I’m in charge here.”

“Excuse me? What did—”

Marquin kept striding, and she pulled everyone in her wake. They abandoned their positions, men and women of every species, and Lyonette kept babbling.

“I’ve been trying to live up to you. Well, to anything. I don’t…I don’t know how you did it. I’m barely a [Princess]. I don’t know what to do. I can’t even keep my daughters safe. How do you do it?”

The Queen of Radiance came to a halt in an intersection where she had a view of Rhir’s forces, the King of Destruction, and the Crelers. A Deathslayer Arrow blasted past her head, and her hair flew around her face. She turned and gave Lyonette a smile.

“How should I know? Having a kid? That fucking terrifies me more than war. You’re looking pretty good for a descendant of mine. Properly royal. But you need more confidence, armor, and a louder voice. That’s all.”

“Huh? Why a louder…”

A roar drowned out Lyonette’s question. The King of Destruction was shouting.

“All those who don’t wish to die, stand aside! I shall not slay you! I am the King of Destruction!”

The ranks of Rhir’s army parted, and the Blighted King raised a hand from his throne. Lyonette could barely see him, but she felt a strangely sickening presence as well as his authority roll over her. Even stronger than Marquin’s—he stank of death defied, but also power.

“I am the Emperor of Rhir and the salvation of this world. Stand down and join my army of [Heroes] or be swept aside.”

Not to be outdone, one of the Elder Crelers also thought-voiced its will.

(The end of your existence has—)

“I am Queen Marquin the Radiant! Foe of Crelers. You spineless cowards—what are you doing? The doom of Rhir is upon us! To me! To arms! To war!”

Marquin’s voice drowned out the King of Destruction, the Blighted King, and even the thought-voice of the Elder Creler. It was so loud that even with fingers jammed in both her ears, Lyonette was deafened.

The advancing forces of Rhir halted. Queen Marquin stood there and raised her battered, enchanted mace. She slammed it on her metal shield.

“Here we are! Again and again, you motherfucking shitspawn. In every world! In every place! You die! To me, I said! If you still breathe and remember honor or courage, to me!”

Someone shouldered past Lyonette, and she turned and saw a grizzled warrior from Marquin’s world. Another woman, who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Queen of Radiance. She had a sword in her hand, and she was slamming the pommel against her own shield. Then someone shoved Ser Dalimont aside, and they formed a line down the hallway.

The same warriors who had fought Crelers off their continent, Humans, men and women, half-Elves and Dwarves sprinkled among them, doing the same thing. Striking their weapons or fists against their armor.

The clash of metal filled the air. Thum-thum-THUM. Thum-thum-THUM. There were less than a hundred of Marquin and her bodyguards from her world, but she just stood there and beckoned.

To the forces of Rhir, who looked to their Blighted King and to her, facing down their mortal enemies. To the King of Destruction, who stood frozen with his vassals.

“Until the sun burns out! To me, to me! Not one step back! Come on, what are you waiting for!?”

The [Queen] whirled her mace around in the air, then glanced over her shoulder. The clash of metal on metal grew as General Sserys and both Zel Shivertails joined her. The [Spear of Drakes] wore an admiring expression mixed with annoyance that he wasn’t in charge. But he struck a sword against his arm, and the Drakes and Gnolls filled the hallway.

Then—the [Knights] of Solstice joined them, and the first [Soldiers] filled their ranks. Lyonette saw [Soldiers] bearing Rhir’s symbol stepping into line, staring at the Blighted King in the distance—then gazing at Queen Marquin’s back.

She heard what sounded like a gigantic sigh—and then the King of Destruction pointed towards the Queen of Radiance, and his army pivoted.

“Against the Crelers! To that [Queen]!”

He roared, and his army was streaming forwards. So were the forces of Rhir, ignoring the orders of the Blighted King. The Queen of Radiance never looked at either [King]. She only had eyes for the Elder Crelers, who wavered as they projected malice at her. She blew them a kiss, then gave them the middle finger.

“You, step back, great granddaughter of mine. You’re not ready for the front, not yet.”

She turned to Lyonette and winked, and the [Princess] stared up in awe at Marquin, though they were of a height.

“But how?”

She wasn’t the highest-level person here. Nor the most charismatic person that Lyonette had ever seen. She certainly had it and a powerful aura, but—Lyonette felt like she had met a true [Queen] for the first and only time in her entire life. Marquin turned her head and gestured to the people around her.

“It’s not hard. People know what’s right and wrong. They always have. Only, cowards and the self-serving always sing as loud as they can. All you need is to be the loudest voice in the room reminding them of what’s right. Loud voice. See?”

She winked at Lyonette, then took hold of the young woman’s shoulder and pushed.

“Go get your daughters. We’ll hold them off right here.”

She raised her shield as the first Elder Creler spat projectiles across the hallway, and barriers of magic rose to stop it. Lyonette du Marquin ran and glanced back over her shoulder. She saw Marquin raise that mace higher, and the [Princess] wept, then kept running faster.

Then—she believed she’d see her daughters again.

 

——

 

A wave of Crelers poured down on the mortals, a sea of legs and biting mouths. The Adults and Elder Crelers spat annihilation at them. Nothing should have survived that first moment of battle, let alone the [Queen] they aimed for.

Queen Marquin’s aura filled the [Palace of Fates] with a glorious light that had echoed in the memories of her people for six thousand years. A brave light, so much more beautiful than the mere celestial light of the Eternal Throne.

The shards of chitin dissolved before they could touch her. She met the first wave of Crelers and threw them back, mace swinging with a hundred arms, and the Tidebreaker and General Sserys were fighting in her wake, holding back the tide of Rhir’s hell.

The conflict drew everything into it; the King of Destruction’s forces, the army of Rhir. Even other worlds of foreign beings hesitated—then a group of the freed Truestone Golems plunged into the midst of the Crelers down one of the other hallways, killing the horrors. An army of Selphids wearing the bodies of living mortals did the same.

Crelers. One of the ultimate threats. A unifying force. What kind of being would flee in the face of such things? Or even worse…

The Blighted King couldn’t ‘run’, because he lay on that palanquin that kept his body fresh and protected him. He was screaming orders.

“The exit. To the exit, you traitors!”

Only his most loyal bodyguards were with him. His armies had surged into the fighting, and King Othius’ supporters hesitated—then shouted for the [Heroes] to cover their advance.

The [Heroes] were running. Triander, the [Hero] armed with lightning and his glowing twinblade, fled rather than fight his way into that glowing sea. They passed under the shadow of vast wings.

The Dragonlord of War was atop an Elder Creler, separating it from its comrades, savaging the monstrosity. The Elder Creler was stabbing her with all its legs, cutting her with its mandibles and biting—blood ran down her scarred flesh. She didn’t care.

She was laughing. The other three Dragonlords who’d fought in the Creler Wars—Teriarch, Khetieve, and Aeitendeske—flew around the two brawling figures, shouting at Mauri to get back so they could breathe their flames over the foe.

Aeitendeske—the last Dragonlord of the Wind, his scales pale like ice, his eyes shining copper and viridian. The air that blew around Mauri invigorated her and gave her speed, a sweet scent at odds with the odor of blood.

Khetieve exhaled water that healed her and poisoned the Elder Creler; Teriarch’s fire turned it to steam that burned only his foe, a righteous fire. And Mauri ripped off a chunk of the Elder Creler’s flesh and spat it out.

Larval Crelers squirmed in her mouth, trying to eat their way into her insides and consume and infest her. They squirmed—then realized they were melting.

Her very blood was acid so intense it was burning the Elder Creler. It was dying now, and it tried to use its mind to addle the Dragonlord’s or force her off it. It projected an explosion into Mauri’s face: compressed air and fire.

It blew part of her face off, and she beamed at the Elder Creler through a ruined cheek that showed the insides of her mouth. She dug her claws into the Elder Creler as it tensed all its legs to impale her—

The Dragonlord of War became a noxious fog, a miasma-cloud laced with fungal spores from a bog of legends in the shape of a Dragon. The poison cloud covered the Elder Creler—then exploded.

Mauri emerged, reforming out of the fog, as the blast ripped off half the Elder Creler’s legs. It even knocked down the other Dragonlords.

“Mauri! Watch your attacks!”

The Dragonlord of Waves roared as the explosion sent him tumbling across his back. He was upon his feet in a second, snarling at the Dragonlord of War. She was running on all fours towards the Elder Creler, unwilling to give it a second’s reprieve. They had to take all three Elder Crelers down fast.

Something else was coming. Khetieve raised a claw to cast a Tier 7 spell in support of his fellow Dragonlords and stopped.

His scales, which shone like opals, blue and green and purple, the iridescent colors of the sea, beautiful despite the soot and blood clinging to them, abruptly lost all color. The Dragonlord froze—tried to pull away as he saw a tiny figure standing next to him.

He had a moment’s time to cast a spell, and he did. The Tier 7 spell formed, aiming at the smiling man, but Emerrhain waved a hand, and it disappeared.

“Coward. Kindred, beware—!”

The Dragonlord of Waves rasped—then dissolved. Aeitendeske’s head turned as he banked around the fallen Elder Creler.

“Khetieve? That’s not his invisibility. What—?”

Mauri aborted her charge and slammed left, snarling, sprawling on her side with a desperate leap. The dying Elder Creler thought-spoke once.

(Are you…my God?)

A twitching hand touched its leg, and the Elder Creler tried to recoil, but Laedonius Deviy’s broken voice replied.

“N-n-n-not yours.”

The Elder Creler vanished. Teriarch’s head swung incredulously as he picked out two tiny figures.

“Watch out, Aeitendeske!”

The Dragonlord of Winds was quick, but he was still a gigantic figure. His wings opened, and he swept left, around the leaping swordswoman, Cauwine.

Straight into the grip of Tamaroth. The God of Rulers seized the Dragonlord of Winds as he hung in the air, defying gravity, and Aeitendeske tried to bite him, then exhaled a gale of wind that would have torn stone to pieces.

It did nothing at all, and the Dragonlord of Winds tried to pull away—then vanished.

Mauri got to her feet as she beheld four beings around her. The woman, Cauwine, landed as Teriarch backed away from Emerrhain, breathing flames that the God of Magic blocked with a spell.

“So that’s what that child warned us of. Worse than Crelers. Hah.”

She spat acid onto the ground and bared her teeth. The four gods were advancing on her, but three halted when Cauwine swept her sword out.

“She is mine.”

“One for each.”

Tamaroth agreed, though clearly annoyed. Emerrhain and Laedonius Deviy turned to Teriarch. The Dragonlord of Flames spread his wings.

“Mauri, retreat!”

He leapt into the air and turned. The Dragonlord of War did not. She was staring down the Goddess of Last Stands, seemingly aware of how fast her opponent could move. Mauri snarled once.

“I know it’s rich, coming from me, but have you no decency? Or are you the like that would ally with Crelers, coward?”

Cauwine wore a wry, bitter expression as she saluted Marui with her sword.

“We devour even their souls. It’s nothing personal, brave warrior, and I do regret it. But we are all yet incomplete.”

The Dragonlord of War’s head rose, and she averted her gaze from her unworthy foe.

“Spoken like a beast, not a warrior. Come, then—”

Cauwine darted at Mauri; Laedonius Deviy had been sneaking up on the Dragonlord of War from the side. The God of Dance slammed into the ground as Mauri stabbed him through the chest with a claw. The talon detached from her body as she whirled on Cauwine, Dragonbreath burning in her throat.

“Bleed for me.”

She fought for a minute. Then—snarling and biting—

The Dragonlord of War vanished.

 

——

 

Thousands of souls were clashing in the midst of battle. Bright, glorious ones growing stronger as the system of Isthekenous rewarded them for their deeds. Even Crelers had a soul, though they had no bargain that allowed them levels.

—They vanished, not by spell, blade, or Skill, but by the touch of those six. The King of Destruction was riding into battle against one flank of the Crelers when he saw the horde of squirming horrors swirling, then scuttling away, as if trying to escape…something.

“Hold! Call off the charge!”

He tried to halt the momentum of his soldiers, but they were striking at the foe, distracted. The first of Reim’s [Soldiers] attacked a fleeing Adult Creler, and the house-sized foe disappeared before her greatsword could even hit it. The woman recoiled—and the Crone’s fingers plunged into her chest, through her enchanted armor.

She disappeared, and the King of Destruction locked eyes with the Crone a moment before she leapt towards him. Straight through his [Soldiers]. They evaporated in front of her, and his horse reared as the King of Destruction tried to ride past her—that moment was all it took.

His steed dissipated even as Flos Reimarch tried to leap away, and the Crone struck him. They hit the ground, and the King of Destruction punched the old woman, her eyes glowing with the power of the grave. Once, twice—with such force that the hallway shook. But his strength was already sapped by Tamaroth. He raised another fist—then an expression of terrible resignation crossed his eyes.

He faded away. The Crone rose, and that glow in her eyes grew. Her authority, her very essence mended a bit more.

“Your Majesty!”

Mars had seen it all, and she tried to behead Kasigna. Her blade actually left a cut along the Crone’s neck—she leapt backwards as the Crone reached out for her.

“He’s…”

The Seven stood there, and then the warriors threw themselves at the Crone as Queravia shouted.

“No! Fall back!”

She whirled—and a line of Draugr materialized out of the air behind her. The Crone snapped her fingers, and a second rank of them appeared, cutting the Crelers off in the other direction. She teleported—reappeared behind Queravia, and the [Gambler of Fates] tossed one of her dice down.

“You cheat at your game.”

The die bounced and rolled onto the ground as she grew pale. The Crone didn’t dignify her with an answer.

Then there were only six of the Seven left, and Kasigna swung around, a touch faster, a moment realer. It was…so terribly unfair.

 

——

 

The dead gods were storming through the [Palace of Fates], harvesting souls. They were faster now, using the tricks of their respective domains. Emerrhain’s magic, Cauwine’s nimble swordswoman’s grace, Kasigna’s power of death—

A touch could consume all but the most powerful souls. It was indeed not fair; they were hunters without anything to fear here.

One of them made a game of it. Yes, that one who was forgotten even by its kin, at times.

Norechl, the God of the Lost, did not pursue the Dragonlords or the countless souls in the midst of battle. It had its own power it had taken after it had been forced to flee this world. So it hunted what it pleased, what gave it meaning:

Ryoka Griffin. Every version of her from every doorway it could find. The lost god was fast, like a hunting shadow, and it chased the Wind Runner—six incarnations of her.

Two Ryokas flew with the power of the wind, three more ran, one biked—thirty-two Ryokas were already gone. Consumed.

First, their loved ones. Then the Wind Runner herself. Each incarnation of Ryoka Griffin was missing two fingers on her right hand. The surviving six gazed back, some screaming curses at Norechl, the others just running, a weapon in hand for the last.

The God of the Lost leapt—and then there were five. It only halted as one of the Ryokas skidded to a halt.

“Sammy! Run!”

Their chase had taken them back towards this Ryoka’s world, and a pair of boys stared up at the God of the Lost as it reached for them. House Veltras’ [Soldiers] were consumed as they tried to protect their young [Lords]—Tyrion Veltras was already gone.

“Stop! It’s me you want!”

One of the Wind Runners held her arms out, and the others cried at her.

“You idiot, run!”

Norechl had forced this choice again and again. It ignored the Ryoka pleading with it, reaching for the two boys. Sammial had fallen as he tried to turn and flee.

First them, then you. So it hurts more.

There was no logic to Norechl’s actions beyond malice. No great gain, except that it found satisfaction in this. Except that it thought the Wind Runner mattered, even these false incarnations of her.

The God of the Lost lifted the idea of a hand towards Hethon as the older brother shoved Sammial back. A wispy, intangible limb as twisted and wrong as its cousins in the Seamwalkers.

Norechl touched flesh, and its grip recoiled. An outstretched hand was shielding Hethon’s face. The Goblin King’s armor was ruined, exposing a sliver of green flesh on his arm. But the armored figure—refused to be consumed.

“There you are. God of the Lost. Do you know me?”

Norechl did. It tried to back up with a suspicion of the future. Not again—

This time, the Goblin King seized the God of the Lost with one hand before ramming his sword through its body. He swung Norechl around as it tried to claw at him, then hurled the dead god into a wall—then slammed into it.

There was no care for anything around him. The Goblin King had only saved Hethon to spite the dead god. His charge would have killed the boy had Ryoka Griffin not carried him and his brother to safety. She was running with her other incarnations—Norechl was trying to get away too.

The Goblin King ripped the God of the Lost’s head off its body. Then he saw both pieces trying to run. He swung his sword through Norechl’s chest and grunted.

“This hurts you not enough.”

It was true; his sword and his strength were damaging the God of the Lost, but not in any mortal way. But it still—hurt—

The Goblin King picked up both pieces of Norechl and strode down the [Palace of Fates]. The God of the Lost was clawing at him, tearing his armor and flesh, and the Goblin King hesitated—then tossed both pieces of Norechl down the corridor.

One piece of the God of the Lost hit Emerrhain in the head. The other knocked Tamaroth off his feet. The God of Rulers shoved Norechl’s torso off him as he whirled.

“Who dares—ah.”

“Five of you? Disgusting. Die.”

Tamaroth raised a palm, and the Goblin King’s lunge crossed the long distance. His sword’s tip pierced Tamaroth’s hand and bone and stabbed into the God of Rulers’ brain, just past his nose.

The Goblin King twisted the blade, and Tamaroth cried out in pain. True pain as the ghosts of Kasignel had once inflicted upon him. All the mortal agony of a blade twisting itself through your head—the tingling shock of metal turning the grey matter in your head to mush.

—But it was just one layer of who the God of Rulers was. His core nature was authority, rulership, that of leaders. Like the Goddess Erin—the Goblin King was assailing his mere body.

Tamaroth’s face re-knit as he jerked off the Goblin King’s sword, recoiling.

“The Goblin King. His soul would be a prize ind—”

Emerrhain was lifting a hand when he lost it, then his head. The Goblin King stepped sideways, a [Carrying Step] that let him sweep one sword up and lop off the God of Magic’s wrist, then his [Vorpal Sword] cut off the God of Magic’s head with a soft snicker-snack sound.

Emerrhain’s wide eyes bulged in outrage a moment before the Goblin King grabbed his head and threw it into Laedonius Deviy. The broken God of Dance had been stretching his arms out to ensnare the Goblin King.

“[Eyes of the Twin Sun]. Burn.”

A pair of searing fireballs winked overhead, and the Goblin King tossed them at the four gods, Tamaroth, Emerrhain, Deviy, and Norechl, struggling to repair themselves and get away. They burned hot, bright, and screamed—but the Goblin King sensed it.

Mere flesh burned. The Goblin King…remembered this, and he concentrated.

The flames baking Tamaroth’s body took on a different nature. Suddenly, the bearded man was still aflame, still burning—

 

—And a King sitting upon a throne glanced down at the fire engulfing his seat of power. He jerked, trying to put them out—

 

A nomadic chieftain sitting on his horse in front of his cheering, whooping tribe turned as a wildfire burned across the plains he called his home. His eyes widened as he raised a weathered hand—

 

A flag waving over an imperium’s seat of power began to smolder and burn. Flames eating away at the fabric stained with the colors of nation and country—

 

Then the God of Rulers felt true pain. He screamed as the seat of his power diminished, and the Goblin King grunted.

“Yes. Just like that.”

He concentrated and raised his sword—like the headman’s axe, like the falling guillotine—and understood. This is how you died.

But not enough. He had to be a thousand ideas. A thousand ends to the idea of rulership. The next blow struck at Tamaroth, but it hit the wrong target.

Norechl, instead of the God of Rulers. The God of the Lost recoiled, and a thousand versions of it wavered—then rebuffed the sword-strike.

The wrong idea. The Goblin King tried to follow the first slash up, but Norechl raised a claw, and the Goblin King dodged—

Something. A scar of oblivion crossed the hallway and removed the air, the walls, and everything around it. It remained, a crescent of annihilation, as the Goblin King kicked Norechl away from him.

“Kill it! Kill—”

Emerrhain raised a hand, and the Goblin King pointed at him.

“[Flesh to Stone].”

The God of Magic turned into a statue, and a fist smashed his face to pieces. Like the breaking of a monolith inscribed with knowledge. The foundations of a library caving in—

Not enough layers of destruction. The screaming God of Magic still clawed at his face.

“Fight! Or—”

Tamaroth, Deviy, and Norechl were trying to get away. The God of Rulers had conjured his own sword to battle the Goblin King. But he was outmatched. He struck like a swordmaster, and the Goblin King slid around him with contemptuous ease.

[Lightspeed Reaction]. [Weapon Art: Titan’s Cleaver]. 

He had Skills. They had not. The God of Rulers lost ninety percent of his body, and the Goblin King focused. He stabbed the God of Dance and locked eyes with Laedonius Deviy’s twitching face.

“—What are you?”

“D-dance. Love. Passion.”

Deviy whispered as his face bulged. The Goblin King reached out a hand and ripped the face off. He stared at what was inside and shook his head.

“No. Mere force will do.”

He tore a squirming piece of Laedonius Deviy out of the God of Dance’s infested insides and crushed it in one hand. It screamed. Deviy screamed.

The gods were trying to get away. The Goblin King turned slowly, and at last found the figure who’d been walking around the edges of his battle. He swung his sword, the [Vorpal Sword] humming.

Cauwine parried the slash. The Goddess of Last Stands locked eyes with the Goblin King.

“Not I, not so easily.”

“Hmm.”

He pivoted on one foot, then flashed across the ground towards her. Six Goblin Kings appeared, cutting, locking blades with Cauwine in six different spots—the afterimages dispersed, and she reappeared, drifting backwards, eyes alight with joy.

The Goblin King raised his sword, hesitated—then disappeared. A pinpoint of air rippled, and a miniature black hole swallowed him. Cauwine’s delighted smile morphed. She spun to the God of Magic, who lowered his finger with a sneer of contempt.

“Emerrhain. That was my—”

The five dead gods flinched as the Goblin King exploded out of the black hole spell. His armor was badly rent, but regenerating. This time, even Cauwine lost her confident smile.

“—The Goblin King was never supposed to be that strong.”

Tamaroth backed up a step. The Goblin King pointed a finger, and a dozen bows appeared and shot arrows; but the God of Rulers threw out a hand, and the walls of a castle rose, blocking the way to him. Then the first soldiers appeared, summoned beings like Kasigna’s Draugr.

Emerrhain unleashed another spell, a wave of insects that could tear apart even Adamantium. Laedonius Deviy and Norechl both spat pieces of their body onto the ground, which bulged and grew.

Cauwine lifted her blade, and the Goblin King considered his foes.

Too many. Too powerful. Against one, he might end them—but here?

This place must end. They’re still incomplete, fleshless. But not for here and they’d fade away under even sunlight. 

He turned and strode away from the five dead gods. They hadn’t expected that. Cauwine frowned, then shrugged.

“I doubt I could best him easily.”

She whirled, and Deviy backed off as well, but Tamaroth, Norechl, and Emerrhain were out for blood. They pursued the Goblin King as the armored figure teleported out of the way of the insects and whirled his sword, deflecting a rain of arrows the God of Rulers tried to strike him with.

Then he was heading for the exit. The dead gods pursued him one corridor, then broke apart. Devouring souls faster, desperately, like locust swarms before there was nothing left.

Not even he could stop them. Not yet. The Goblin King walked with the same mission he had always had. If the swarm was too numerous, too difficult to kill, you destroyed the fields. You burned the crops.

The world.

 

——

 

Perhaps it was all hopeless. The Crone was cackling as she stole Drevish next. If even the Goblin King couldn’t harm her—then a being like Mars was helpless. She was trying to protect the rest of her comrades as the undead kept rising, cutting off the rest of the Seven’s escape.

Draugr—powerful undead conjured with the flick of a finger from the Crone. Any [Necromancer] would envy her contemptuous power.

Of course, it was all one kind of undead, however powerful, and so the Crone lacked creativity, art. She was, like the others, a common pretender to understanding what undeath was.

—But powerful. So it was hopeless. There was no way to beat her. Not for the beings made of the [Palace of Fates] Skill. The Crone was surrounded by her undead as she backed the remaining five champions of Reim into a corner of the hallway. A truly horrific monster pushed past the undead next to her, and Mars pointed her sword at it, then the Crone.

“A glorious [King] is gone, and with him, a dream that swept our world. He will be avenged.”

The [Vanguard]’s voice was heavy as she raised her shield. The Crone halted, amused.

“A man. I did not even know his name. I have beheld the end of a million kingdoms. That one’s name is already dying. So tell me, mortals. Did it even matter?”

She waited with a hint of genuine curiosity, leaning upon the memory of a staff, a leering Crone judging the living, the soon to be dead. Mars was silent for a moment, trying to muster the right words, for she had little gift with them. The rest of the remaining Seven struggled for a response to encompass their entire lives, their hopes and ambitions and failures and struggles—with mere words.

They hadn’t been here before, you see. But someone else had had a moment to think about it, and so he spoke.

The undead monstrosity, the being of bloated flesh and plagues, who stood above the Draugr as if they were mere toys, opened his rotten lips. Tolveilouka Ve’delina Mer whispered in the Crone’s ear, and she felt a shiver run down her spine.

Déjà vu.

“My master was called the Putrid One. Did he matter? To me, he did. So here is a final, parting gift from the Goddess of the Inn and him.”

She twisted around, and he kissed her on the forehead this time. Then he impaled her through the chest with the crimson katana. A Dragonslayer’s blade.

The Crone staggered. She raised a hand and touched his flesh. Tolveilouka gasped—a tiny piece of his body came away and sloughed to the ground, and the Crone’s eyes went wide. Then he punched her.

A piece of the undead, regenerating Revenant’s fist fell to the ground, sacrificed. In return—Tolveilouka saw the Crone hit the ceiling and bounce off it. She struck the ground and rose, visibly unharmed.

He felt satisfaction nonetheless. The Revenant swung his arm and destroyed the Draugr standing around him. The others fell to their knees as he looked at them. Then his head turned to Mars and the rest of the Seven.

“What are you waiting for? Flee, mortal filth, and remember the Putrid One saved you.”

He cared for them not at all, but if it spited the Crone…Mars burst into action, sword cleaving apart more Draugr as the rest of her comrades fled away from the Crone.

“You again. Kneel.”

The Crone pointed at Tolveilouka, and he faced the Goddess of Death and all her authority. His body buckled, and he felt the urge to obey her, this being of supreme death.

But she was not his master. Either one of them, so the bloated warrior refused. He strode forwards and swung his sword towards the Crone. His blade sheared into her flesh, and she snarled.

“Kneel!”

She touched him again, trying to absorb his soul. Tolveilouka mercilessly cut that piece of him away, sacrificing it. He backed up as an arm fell from his body—and another sprouted from his shoulder, a withered limb that expanded and putrefied before her eyes.

“I am Tolveilouka Ve’delina Mer, woman. I do not crave your name. My master is the Putrid One. Remember that.”

“Filth. I am the Goddess of D—”

His hammer of a fist struck her into the ground. The flesh fell apart, and Tolveilouka spoke.

“My master is the Putrid One and Erin Solstice. I am Tolveilouka Ve’delina—”

He ducked an arc of white energy that emerged from her hand. She reached out, and her grasping fingertips missed him as he pirouetted back. Nimble as a dancer. Vast as a behemoth.

He buried the katana in her chest again.

“—Mer. Remember their names. Mine is Tolveilouka—”

She shrieked as she leapt at him, too fast to dodge; his flesh fell away, and the half-Elf beamed at her as he emerged from his rotten body and leapt aside. His flesh fell away, and he was panting, sweat beading on his body. But then he began to puff up like a rotten tumor bursting, and his katana rose.

It was hopeless. But that was not why you fought. The Crone howled at him, and the half-Elf roared.

“I AM TOLVEILOUKA VE’DELINA MER, YOU WORTHLESS WOMAN! REMEMBER MY NAME!”

The Crone refused to answer him. Refused to remember that name among the countless worthy foes she had forgotten and damned to oblivion.

—But the Maiden swore she would remember it.

 

——

 

There she was, not above it all in any physical sense, for she was nowhere. But watching. Just as she had been from the start.

Kasigna’s other half. The Maiden. She beheld it all.

Dead gods. The [Palace of Fates], collapsing. The doors were all open now, and mortals poured forwards, fighting for that exit. Because their worlds were collapsing. Coming undone.

The Grand Design could not hold this place together. Reality itself was trembling.

Worlds opening, and souls fleeing them. No matter what the Grand Design thought…the Maiden saw them as what they were.

Souls. An endless multitude of them being devoured by her kindred or lost to the void.

The Maiden thought it was so bitterly…wrong.

Ironic? That Isthekenous’ work should create so many lives and waste them? Perhaps, but mostly—wrong.

You see, she wasn’t down there, not like the Crone, consuming powerful souls and growing in strength. She wasn’t like Emerrhain or the remains of Laedonius Deviy or even Cauwine, who had come out of necessity to maintain her advantage. Tamaroth and Norechl had even returned, empowered from their flight out of this reality.

What had they brought with them? She could sense it upon them, traces of the world beyond. Plans, no doubt.

“Does it matter? Do you not see the pitifulness of this, my older self?”

Kasigna the Maiden was tired of it. She couldn’t have said what it was that had changed her perspective. Losing the Mother—being defeated at the Solstice. Her conversations with Zineryr, all of it.

“How incredibly petty we must seem to you. We were desperate. ‘We wanted to live’. That is the eternal refrain of all beings, from the smallest mortals to we of the divine. We are all, in the end, the same to you.”

The Goddess of Death reigned over all souls in the end, but she addressed her…betters. Not superiors, not in any hierarchy. Death was not part of any of that.

They were merely so much more than she in every way.

If you had forgotten them, in the chaos of it all, well it was easy to forget. Until one of them stood next to you, you forgot them.

Death. The intruders into this reality from beyond. No longer a dozen, oh no. All of them were here.

They stood, the guardians of the afterlife, the guides, the final judges and bearers of souls. She now saw part of why they were here.

A grinning skeleton with a scythe.

A smiling young woman wearing an ankh.

A doctor with a crow’s mask.

A judge holding a set of scales the size of the universe.

A blank-faced office-worker taking notes on a typewriter.

A knight in black armor, sword unbloodied, armor covered in gore.

Tʜᴇ Dᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏғ Rᴀᴛs.

Psychopomps. Escorts of souls. Ideas. Whatever you wanted to call them, they had always stood apart from gods. They frightened even the divine, for someone had to be there when gods died.

But why so many? Perhaps, the Maiden thought, because they saw the same thing she did. She addressed them and the Grand Design, if it was listening. It was trying to hold the breaking reality apart. Kasigna saw the mortals below, versions of Erin Solstice, different Mrshas, the living—and the dead.

“I have always believed there was only one chance. There was never a way out of my afterlives save for true rebirth into the endless cycle. Never any exceptions, not for anyone. It is wrong to revive the dead. What would that mean for the living? It devalues life itself!”

She clenched her fists and then regarded her hands.

“I forswore myself at the Winter Solstice. I broke my promise…no, I broke it long before that. I…died. I was bested, and still, I clung to life without the dignity to leave. Tens of thousands of years I lurked in the shadows, devouring souls. I compromised my own lands of death—destroyed it all, for what?”

She raised her eyes to the Deaths, then gazed down at the gloating Crone.

Are you not ashamed? The Grand Design’s question echoed in her mind, and the Goddess of Death answered.

“Yes. Yes, I am. This should never have been allowed to happen. Once, I was a fair judge of life and death. So let me judge this.”

She swept a hand over it all and focused on two beings. Mrsha and her first doppelganger from the [Palace of Fates], Roots Mrsha.

One was being carried through the [Palace of Fates], a red bandage on her side, and the other ran through the [Palace of Fates], trying to save all she could. When the [Fatebreaker Child] looked up, the Maiden met her eyes.

“It was not her fault. She should never have had the power to do this. If any mortal had the power, they would try. It never should have been possible. It is the trick of the Faerie King—! But more than that, it is the failing of our creation. You see that.”

All this death. The souls of the dead weren’t going to Kasignel or Hellste or Diotria. They were going…nowhere.

At first, they flowed into the Kasignels of their worlds, but those places were breaking apart and half-formed. These cloned people were going nowhere. Souls—dissipating. Being unmade.

Zel Shivertail stood before the people he had known, a dead man—a copy of him, both real and unreal, and it was wrong. The Maiden clenched her hands until the memory of blood ran from her veins. She whispered.

“It must end. All of this. I see why you are here. I beg a favor of you.”

She turned and knelt before them. It was not twelve she beseeched, nor a hundred. It was…

Multitudes.

From countless realities in countless forms. A skeleton, female, dressed in long, colorful robes held a globe in one hand, a scythe in the other. Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte’s skeleton head gazed down at the Maiden.

A fisherman peered up from his wooden boat, the afterlife shining through the eyes of the timeless sailor upon the sea of souls.

Judges. A jury of Deaths of every kind, every species. Every time and place—the Maiden shivered as she abased herself, bowing.

“I beg…a boon of you. Let me set it right. I have no right to ask it, save that I once earnestly strove to honor you, to honor my task. Let me end it all. I shall redeem myself. I crave only one thing. A fitting tool.”

She had never been a warrior. Never learned the art of weapons, though she had battled with gods. But she needed one now.

She was afraid they would not answer her, find her plea and intentions worthless—but then one of them smiled. A figure moved and offered her what she sought.

The bloody knight lifted his sword and planted it in the ground before Kasigna. Then another Death stepped forwards, and the fisherman offered her the rod with which he trawled the worlds.

Then more came.

They offered her their tools. A pair of hand-scythes from a grinning wolf. An hourglass, from another. A pair of withered shears to cut the strings of life—

A few of them offered her a combine harvester.

The Maiden stared at that last one—then reached out and chose a fitting tool. She lifted a reaper’s scythe in her hand, the farmer’s tool. She ran her hand down the blade, then bowed.

“Thank you. I shall not dishonor my station further. Now…”

The Maiden took a breath as she backed away from that congregation, who watched her every move. She swung the scythe, clumsy, and realized she had never performed this role.

She had been the Goddess of Death so long…but never the one who did the dirty work. Never the reaper woman. It humbled her.

The Maiden stood in the middle of nothingness, and the Grand Design fled her.

 

——

 

In the [Palace of Fates], the Crone raised her head.

Tolveilouka Ve’delina Mer was falling to pieces in front of her, unable to sustain himself. She reached out, and plucked his soul from his body, and the Revenant vanished with a sigh. A single piece of flesh fell to the ground, and the Crone reached for it, but it squirmed away. She did not pursue it. Instead—her head rose.

“What…are you doing? Me?”

She gazed towards that spot in oblivion, and drops of Kasigna’s blood ran down the handle of the scythe and fell into nothingness.

Kasigna the Maiden, the Goddess of Death, stood there, head bowed.

Then it came up, and she gazed down at herself. She swung her scythe.

Kasigna, the Goddess of Death.

Kasigna gasped in two voices. A cry—and the Maiden’s eyes shone in triumph, redemption, and sorrow.

Kasigna, the Goddess of Death.

The Crone screamed. She began shrieking and clutched at her chest as she howled at the Maiden.

“What have you done!?”

The Maiden spoke, her voice calm, as she cut away the very aspect of herself with a blade sharper than ideas. Her authority, her very nature, both for herself and the Crone. Sundered forever.

“We have lived too long, my beloved self. We do not deserve it. I have made my choice. I shall end it all. This palace, this tragedy, my foolish kindred—and you.”

She pointed down into the [Palace of Fates], and then the Maiden smiled like a grinning skull. Her voice was louder than everything else, the final punctuation at the end of reality. The proper voice of the reaper.

“Dᴇᴀᴛʜ ʜᴀs ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ғᴏʀ ʏᴏᴜ, Kᴀsɪɢɴᴀ.”

The Crone’s mouth opened, and she backed away. Then the Maiden leapt downwards into the chaos of it all.

The Crone fled, screaming.

Dᴇᴀᴛʜ ғᴏʟʟᴏᴡᴇᴅ.

 

 

 

 

Author’s Note:

The other day, I had a conversation with my brother. It was about things on a bucket list, and skydiving came up. It’s one of those things I might want to do in the sense it’s an experience I think I should have in my lifetime, but I don’t really want to.

He didn’t get it because he’s an outdoors, thrill-seeking maniac who climbs mountains for fun. Skydiving is just scary to me. I don’t like heights. I don’t like falling, either.

Skydiving sounds more appealing to me, right now. Hand me a parachute and a plane, and if it meant the chapter was written well, I’d jump in a second. Because with skydiving, the worst that can happen is you hit the ground too fast.

With this, you can ruin a good story, do characters a terrible disservice, and you only get one chance. There’s a quote in Abarat, an audiobook I listened to when I was younger. It describes a man ‘waiting for his ship to come in’. It’s stuck with me for over a decade but I think we’re all waiting for our ship to come in.

For the ball to drop, to see where the die lands. No one knows where the dice will fall, not even me. I know where I hope it will, but the execution of writing and editing the chapter—you only get one chance. I have said it at every major volume chapter. From Skinner till now.

That’s the terrifying thing about writing chapters and posting them one-by-one, but also books. You only have one chance. I could go back and erase it all if it fails, but I’ll remember it, and so will you. So will the story, in a sense.

You have to wait for the last few chapters to come out, and then you’ll be able to judge what happened. I’ll keep writing, tweaking, revising, but the events have still written themselves out as I thought of them. Wish me luck, and I’ll see you next chapter. I’m almost done.

—pirateaba

 

 

Goblin King of Traitors, Florist, Oom, and more by Chalyon!

Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/chalyon

 

Erin and Altestiel’s Marriage Drive by Mio!

 

Halrac Valentines and Cannonball Ceria by AVI!

Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/0avi0

 

Mars Comic by Lanrae!

 

Delivering Bad News by Spooky!

Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/spookyspookyowl

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/spookyowl.bsky.social

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/spookyowlart

 

Apostle Pawn and Evil Nanette by Brack!

Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/brack

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Brack_Giraffe

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/brackgiraffe.bsky.social

 

Elia by Kalabaza!

 

Evil Nanette by Gridcube!

 

Dustrag by Kuro!

 

Yazdil by Rabadaki, commissioned by Rumina!

Rabadaki: https://vgen.co/Rabadaki

 

---

Previous Chapter Next Chapter