LotS/The Story/Fade to Gold/The Four Kasans

The Four Kasans

"Who's Erebus the Black?" Telemachus says.

"A dragon," you say.

"Huh?"

The faces around the Silver Shadow's mess room are pretty much as you'd expect. Telemachus stares at you from his perch atop the counter. The prince's eyes widen and dangling legs stop kicking the air when he realizes you're not joking. Ragnar puts down the donner kebab he bludgeoned out of the food printer, ignoring the glistening stream of grease and chili sauce which bleeds across the table's smooth surface. His grunt has a distinctly interrogative note to it. Ali's leaning against a bulkhead some distance from the others. The pyrokineticist mutters something under her breath, which your aural implant translates into an internal monologue about your sanity. Lu Bu's in the middle of the room, upright, shiny, and stalwart, as though awaiting a military inspection. Yet his gleaming metallic visage somehow manages to convey disbelief, along with a vague suggestion that you may've been hitting the whisky too hard. Talia and Screaming Barracuda look up at you. The Piscarian sits back in her chair, booted feet up on the table, and plucks at the guitar resting across her lap. Opposite her, Talia's fiddling with one of her pistols -- perhaps about to shoot in self-defense if Barra starts playing. The two of them already heard a similar explanation during your trip back to the Shadow. But based on their expressions, that forewarning didn't inoculate them against incredulousness.

"In the sense that Talia's a dragon?" the robot says. "He belongs to an organization or species which merely takes their name from-"

"No," you say. "In the sense that he's a big scaly monster with wings."

Your friends look at one another. The wordless dialogue which passes between their gazes makes the blood rush to your cheeks. Ragnar breaks the awkward silence, first with a snort then with his gruff voice.

"This is the guy who kicked you through a window on Blackpool?"

"Yeah."

"The one we saw on the vid?"

"Yeah..."

"He didn't have wings."

"I know, but-"

"And he wasn't that big," Tel says, because this is apparently 'act like [Player's Name]'s a small child or a dangerous lunatic' day.

"He did have scales though," Talia says. "We all saw what he looked like under that mask, on the vids from Wu's trap."

Those images, shot from different angles, replay themselves in your mind. Automated weapons ravage fabric and metal, shredding it with their fire. And all the while Noir stands there unharmed.

"That bint with the funny eyes did say he was Erebus the Black," Barra says. "Me and Talia heard her too. But [Player's Name] here'd just kicked the crap out of her in some kind of brain fight, and then those ninjas-"

"Sian operatives?" you say.

"Whatever... Then those ninjas stuck her full of chems. She was as wrecked as a Drekchester club girl. Surprised she didn't say the wanker was Father bloody Christmas."

"Trust me, if I had a choice, I'd rather pick a fight with Santa instead."

"You're certain she was telling the truth?" Lu Bu says.

"Yes. I was in her head just a moment before. And those chems Zhao Chen's people put in her weren't for fun. They're for extracting info."

"And Wu Tenchu's agents know their craft... Then are you sure this Erebus the Black is a dragon?"

You can't help cracking a smile. What kind of a universe is it where that's one of the things you can cling to with unshakeable faith? But here you are...

"Crazy dragon stuff, remember?" You tap the side of your head. "Erebus was the first dragon my ancestor killed. I know his name as well as I know yours."

Ragnar shrugs. His huge shoulders rise and fall like shifting boulders. He tears a chunk of naan-wrapped meat from his kebab, and masticates it as he speaks.

"That punch of yours... We know you're not psionic. Or you weren't before you... Before. People keep calling it 'chi', but that's just an old Chinese word for 'crap we don't understand'..."

Lu Bu seems to wince. Ali grins, and her tattooed flames bloom like a dozen laughing mouths.

"So if you say it comes from special dragon blood," the Niflung continues, "then sure. We know you're not crazy. Because if you're crazy, what does that make me or Talia?"

The gunslinger glares at him for half a second. Then she smiles.

"He's got a point," she says. "You're the sane one."

"You lot need to meet more people..." Barra says. "Sane one my arse..."

The Niflung picks up his kebab and takes a huge bite. He munches for a few moments, as though waiting for dubious meat, fiery sauce, and pure fat to nourish and lubricate his brain.

"And if you've got a dragon blood punch that kills everyone it hits..." Dark meaty slivers and white chewed up chunks of naan toss around his mouth like wreckage from a downed vessel. "...and Noir just catches it, then maybe he's got dragon stuff inside him too. Just more of it. You don't have scales. And Wu's scans said he was part human, part something else."

He shrugs again, and focuses his attention on the remainder of his meal -- oblivious to the stares and the ensuing silence. Apparently Noir hit you so hard that you've entered an alternate reality where Ragnar's the logical one...

"He... He has a point," Lu Bu says, perhaps pondering much the same thing. "If one accepts certain notions as plausible, the rest does flow from there."

"Regular aliens don't survive gunfire like that," Talia says. "And they sure as hell don't just dust themselves off after getting a nuke to the face. Fine... He's a dragon."

Despite everything that's happened, all the loss and lunacy, your friends' nods and words of acquiescence give you some small measure of satisfaction.

"So how do we kill him?" Ali says. She stares into space the second the words leave her mouth. "You? Don't be stupid! If he can take a nuke, what're you guys gonna... Shut up!"

She coughs, meets your gaze again, and continues.

"Like I was saying... How can we kill him and save Alexa?"

And just like that, the pleasant feeling ebbs away.

"I don't know," you say.

"You said your ancestor eliminated him," Lu Bu says. "How was that achieved?"

"I saw a glimpse of that battle. She and her warriors attacked Erebus outside a walled town. I think they killed him with swords, spears, arrows..."

"A nuclear bomb didn't work," Talia says, "and you want to shoot an arrow at him?"

"In videogames..." Telemachus says.

"Thanks, Tel, but I don't think [Player Name] can beat this guy by leveling up a few times or finding a +5 sword of badassery."

The prince glares.

"In videogames, there's always someone who knows how to kill the monster. Or maybe a book. You just talk to them, or read it, and get the info."

"This Dragon-Rider..." Lu Bu says.

"Wait," Ragnar says, "did she kill dragons or ride them?"

"Both," you say.

"Sounds like a conflict of interests..." Ali says.

Lu Bu makes a noise which sounds very much like a cough, and manages to silence them.

"She may know more about this subject," the robot continues. "Things you weren't able to glean from your dreams... visions..."

"Delusions..." Ali says.

"Can you talk to her?" Tel says.

"I... I don't think so. Last time, I just watched. I saw things happen but I couldn't do anything. Same as watching a holo-vid. But..." Your brow furrows. Your brain tightens, clenching like a fist. "That British pilot... It seemed like he knew I'd touched him. He smiled. I think he sensed something was there. Something on his side. And Medea... The elf with the harp... She saw me. I don't know... Maybe there is a way to talk to the Dragon-Rider?"

Screaming Barracuda beams.

"Let's give it a try!" she says. "And if it doesn't work, at least you'll all get a free gig out of it!"

From the looks on their faces, the others would rather fight the dragon.

"Kalaxia," Emera Tresc said.

"Kalaxia..."

The greeting was softer, more subdued, than the grandmistress had ever heard it. A whisper in the darkened room. Her gaze drifted to the empty space at the table, the void between the holographic heads which floated above every other seat. For years she'd wondered what could be more perturbing than the glare of those cyan gemstone eyes. Now she knew: their absence.

"Brothers and sisters," she said, "you've all heard."

That, at least, was a small mercy. News of this magnitude spread throughout their network like a raging inferno. And thank the wyrm-mother for that. Emera couldn't begin to imagine how she'd have revealed it, beneath Noir's burning azure slits.

"Victoria..." Bonderbrand said. His eyes, normally so kind and avuncular, were hard and bloodshot. She realized with a start that he'd been crying. "A direct descendent of the prophet Judith Ashdown. A woman who spent decades serving Kalaxia, and guided each and every one of us. Our sister... Our mother. Murdered! Murdered in her own home!"

His jowls quivered, like those of bulldog about to growl, bite, and rend.

"Murdered by the traitor's blood!"

His body was invisible, but Emera sensed Bonderbrand's big fist hammering down on his desk. Its impact shuddered through her body.

"[Player Name] must die!" the professor said.

"She must and she will," Noir said. His elegant, well-spoken voice was as composed as ever. The second voice, though... That growl... It chilled her more than Victoria Ashdown's glare ever had. "But for now she hides from me. She fears another confrontation, after our last encounter."

"The damn coward!" Bonderbrand said.

"[Player Name] has friends," Multheru said. The Quiskerian's oral tentacles fluttered in front of his face like the fingers of a clawing hand. "People she loves as we loved Lady Ashdown. And we know how vengeance twists her heart. That's how we'll lure her into the open."

"Yes," Noir said. His azure eyes blazed. "When she emerges from hiding to attack us, we will have our opportunity to destroy her."

"Her allies are powerful," Emera said. "Some of them have fleets and armies at their command. You saw what he brought down on the Centurians. We can't hold off an assault from TALOS, or the Novocastrians..."

"Then we will strip those allies from her..."

The Emergent

"She just sings, and it triggers these... episodes?" Lu Bu said.

"Yeah," [Player's Name] said.

Ali thought it sounded like a load of crap. Psychic music? Trips through time and space? That was the sort of thing she heard from people with more chems than blood in their bodies, right before they jumped off a roof or used a blaster barrel as a lollipop.

We think it sounds smart.

"Oh, well if you think it's 'smart', that changes everything, doesn't it?"

Yes, let's have sarcasm. Because sarcasm's always helpful...

"Shut up!"

All of a sudden, Ali became aware that every eye in the mess room was on her -- and that her words had coincided with the first strum of Screaming Barracuda's guitar. That must be why the Piscarian was glaring bloody murder at her...

"Sorry..."

"Keep playing, Barra," [Player's Name] said.

"Bet that's the first time anyone's ever said that," Ali murmured.

We love her music! It's amazing! Way better than the stuff you sing in the shower.

"You just want me to argue..." She glanced around, making sure no one with an aural implant was watching her whispering lips. "...so they think I'm crazy."

It was worth a try...

"Men of Kruna, stop your drinking,
What the bloody hell're you thinking?
Can't you hear the foemen slinking,
On the battlements?"

Everyone looked from the Piscarian to [Player's Name] and back again. The singer's eyes were closed. Her green face bore a serenity that was almost holy -- the radiant expression of a worshipper uttering a prayer or exalting heaven with her hymns. [Player's Name]'s eyes were open, but glazed over, staring into nothingness. The Sian hero's brow furrowed. Her mouth pursed, forming a hard, straight line that trembled a little at the edges. And because Ali was so busy watching, it was a moment before she noticed that her flames weren't talking anymore. They were... humming?

The tune vibrated through her blood, hot and heavy but not unpleasant.

"You're on fire!" the boy said.

Orange-yellow tongues danced on her shoulders, moving and flickering with the music, as though singing along.

"It's okay," she said. "They... I... It's okay."

This song! We know this song!

"How?" Ali put her hand over her mouth, pretending to stifle a cough. "I've never heard it."

We don't know. But it's old. So old...

She sighed. Just what she needed... More crazy mysteries.

Last time, you let the song guide you. Barra's or Medea's. Perhaps it was both... Drawing you through history, showing you what it wished. That made it easier. Now you're a swimmer fighting against the tide, crashing and splashing through sensory oceans, bombarded by sights, sounds, smells -- in volleys too vast to comprehend.

Have to focus...

The Dragon-Rider... Need to find the Dragon-Rider...

Your brain's on fire, burning with intent. In the distance, worlds away, your muscles tense and tighten like lumps of steel.

Come on, damn it! The Dragon-Rider!

You try to hold her in your mind, latching onto the images you shared beyond the veil. The two of you alone in the darkness.

"Dragon-Rider... Kasan!"

Multicolored waves explode around you, bursting, blooming, and settling. The shapes it forms are blurry, indistinct. A universe seen through the eyes of someone who's glugged all its alcohol. But it's sharpening by the moment.

"Dragon-Rider?"

You yell the name, hoping against hope that someone will hear it. That you'll find the hero amid this psychedelic haze. That she'll cry out to you in turn, voice bright with recognition. That she'll have the answers you crave.

Instead, there's a groan...

"Men of Kruna, grab a bludgeon,
Lest you earn the nobles' dudgeon,
And get thrown in the dungeon,
You bloody drunken sods!"

The plan had sounded just as ridiculous to Talia as it had to everyone else. But now, watching Barra play, seeing [Player's Name]locked in that... trance? Seeing was believing. Whatever was happening in [Player's Name]'s head, behind that twitching face and its glistening beads of sweat, it was something big. Because she knew how strong the captain's mind was, and Durlin looked like she was fighting hard every step of the way.

"Talia!"

"Huh?"

She looked round, at Telemachus. The prince pointed. Talia glanced down.

"Oh! Thanks..."

The gunslinger grabbed her communicator and went out into the corridor. With the music flooding the room, filling it with guitar and voice, and her eyes locked on [Player's Name], she hadn't even heard it ring.

There was no name on the display. Wu Tenchu's agents seldom used them. They had symbols instead, and she recognized this one. She tapped a button, deactivating the device's audio systems, usurping them with her implanted tech.

"Chen?" She spoke sub-vocally, rather than trying to fight against the music.

"Talia, we've broken the encryptions on some of the materials we found in Victoria Ashdown's home. There were layers of neural encoding, so we were forced to... shall we say, perform improvised surgery? I'm transferring everything we've decrypted so far, but-"

He swore in Chinese.

"What's wrong?"

"Another call. It's from Prime Minister Fan. One moment..."

Dark... Everything's dark...

Can't move. Arms, legs... Trapped beneath impossible weight. Muscles weak and useless. Mountains pin them down, grinding and crushing.

Dust... No. Not just dust. Bigger, heavier pieces among the particles. Niggling hardness in eyes, nose, mouth. Mixing with warm, sticky blood. Choking her. Can't lift a hand. Can't wipe it away.

Oh God! Oh God! Buried! Buried alive!

That realization's a lightning bolt, flashing across her brain. She struggles, tugging at powerless limbs. She has to battle her way loose, claw through the dirt, free herself from the grave! Wait... The... grave?

No... No... That doesn't make sense.

Can't panic. The Phaeton Project taught her better than that, damn it.

"Moxie's strength, Professor Helios' flames, Billy Stopless' teleportation..." The Abyss' eyes are pieces of sharp steel, gleaming in the darkness of his hood. "That's not why they win. It's because of their minds. Their willpower. If they panicked, if their mental fortitude crumbled, all their abilities would be as worthless as guns without firing pins."

Desperation's a time for clarity. Because clarity, awareness, cunning... Those keep you alive. So she thrusts everything else aside. The bloody grit in her mouth and in her eyes don't matter. Distractions. Just distractions.

She isn't in a grave... That was just disorientation. Sensations triggering and nourishing imagined fears.

Oh... She remembers...

The insanity of the past three days floods back in an instant. Flashpoints around the globe. International threats, drawing the big-hitters away. Sending the Genesis Squadron to the other side of the world. And then the prison breaks... Dozens of villains, let loose on Culverton. All the work of this mysterious 'Gorgon'.

Three days without sleep. Fighting battle after battle. Smashing scores of Daddy-O's bots, subduing the Emergents he'd turned into puppets with his tech, then taking on the deranged cult leader's massive war machine. Trading blows with the Mad Confectionist, plummeting into the vat of molten caramel that would've drowned an entire block. Trying to stop the Variables from conjuring up the Formula with their sinister mathematics. Trying and failing, then going toe-to-toe with the transdimensional juggernaut himself.

Pain. Exhaustion. And then... Sunder.

The bastard threw a school bus. God! The kids! No... Empty. It'd been empty. And he'd missed. Hit the building instead... Brought it down.

Rubble. That's what it is. Not graveyard dirt. The building's shattered innards, trapping the Emergent's weary, battered body.

She grunts, flexes her muscles.

No... Too weak. Too worn out. Nothing left.

Ugh... Killed by Sunder? The ridiculousness makes her smile through the agony. Of all the villains she's faced, it's that stupid, musclebound moron who'll get credit for the kill.

She begins to sigh. It emerges as a groan.

Death... She isn't afraid of it. The reaper lurks in the shadow of every hero who puts on tights or a mask, just waiting for the day speed, strength, and powers won't be enough to save them from destruction. She wonders if death knows the Abyss. They probably go to the same tailor...

She tries to laugh, but just groans again instead.

The city... Who'll protect the city? All those people...

Something dances across the darkness of her eyelids. Death's come. Well, she'll look the bastard in the face. She fights against her heavy lids, struggling to lift quivering flesh. Dust and dirt sting her eyes.

Nothing. Nothing there...

"Dragon-Rider..."

The words rustle in her ear. Not just words... A name. She's heard it somewhere before, hasn't she? But...

"Dragon-Rider!"

Someone's in here with her! In the rubble!

"Help!" The word comes out as a tiny rasp. It's all she can manage. "Help..."

"Kasan!"

This time the voice is even closer. Inside her head, thundering through her consciousness, drumming against the walls of her skull. A psychic?

"Who's... Who's there?"

It's easier to speak now. Strength flows through her limbs, replenishing empty muscles. Someone's trying to help! It isn't over! Hope pours into a weary mind, washing away despair, fatalism, and surrender.

She isn't going to give up! Not with this stranger watching!

"Kasan!"

"K... Kasan..." the Emergent says. The word's meaningless, perhaps a war cry from a foreign language or exotic martial art. But it's good on her tongue. Deep and powerful.

She growls. Then she roars. Then she rises.

Shattered masonry groans, scrapes, and shifts. Chunks of stone fall and crash. And sunlight blankets her in glorious golden waves.

She steps forward, boots scrabbling on the debris, on the jagged rocks that scatter underfoot, and almost loses her balance. But she stays up. She wipes blood and filth off her face.

"Help!"

"Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!"

Voices cry out, drenched with terror -- as though they've absorbed everything she's just sloughed off.

A man and woman in police uniforms back away from an advancing goliath -- a hulking brute with metal skin. Their guns tremble in their hands. Because both know their bullets will have no effect. As the villain stomps towards them, fists raised to crush their skulls, they know they're doomed.

"Sunder!"

"Huh?"

Tommy Tungsten looks over his shoulder. Behind him, the dusty, disheveled Emergent jumps down from the rubble and grunts. The hero gestures at the devastation, at the crushed and crumpled carcass of the school bus.

"That all you got?" she says.

Then she charges.

Sunder's eyes widen. The villain stumbles round to meet the attack, to face the glowering foe who looks like she's just fought her way out of hell itself.

"Oh, fuc-"

The tackle puts Tommy Tungsten down. Hard. The street cracks, breaking under his bulk. Winded, groaning, he stares up into the hero's eyes. And whatever he sees there makes him scream.

"I surrender! I-"

The first punch shuts him up. It might be the eleventh that knocks him out. The Emergent battering him with fists and elbows doesn't know. She hits him a few dozen times more, just to be sure.

She stands, and gives her unconscious enemy a kick for good measure. That feels good. Victory courses through his body, rich, warm, invigorating. It won't last. Adrenaline and the thrill of battle never do. But for now, in this moment, she feels stronger than she has in days.

The Emergent looks back at the toppled building. At the debris which was almost her tomb. There's no sign of her mysterious savior, the psychic who touched her mind and inspired her to continue. But she'll solve that mystery later.

She nods to the grateful cops, then runs towards the sounds of distant commotion. There are still villains on the loose in Culverton. And Gorgon's out there somewhere, perhaps watching this very minute -- celebrating the atrocities all these machinations have inflicted on the city.

There's more work to be done before the hero can rest.

Her hands clench into fists.

"Prime Minister Fan," Zhao Chen said. "To what does a humble operative owe this honor?"

Zhilan Fan stared at the face on her screen. She was almost certain Chen was being impertinent, but it was impossible to tell. The agent's features were impassive, inscrutable. Just like those of the man who'd trained him. That thought made her glance around the room -- the office which had been Wu Tenchu's sanctum within the imperial palace -- as though she expected to find the mandarin watching her from the shadows. Mocking her with his unfathomable cunning.

"Where are you?" she said.

"Forgive me, but it isn't customary for an agent to reveal such information over this channel, as-"

"I order you to answer me!"

"Very well. My ship is in Novocastrian space."

"I've spoken with the new minster of intelligence, and he authorized no such operation."

"I exercised the level of autonomy which your predecessor granted me, for situations where I deemed it necessary to act swiftly in the empire's interests."

"From this moment forth, you have no such autonomy."

"Master Wu felt-"

"Wu Tenchu's methods led to a nuclear explosion in our capital!"

Not a single muscle moved on Zhao Chen's face, yet Zhilan Fan could have sworn she glimpsed a flash of anger.

"Operative Chen, you will offer no further assistance to Jian [Player's Name]." This time his features did twitch, and Prime Minister Fan allowed herself a smile. Wu's people weren't the only ones with sources and secrets. "If you learn of the Jian acting outside the law, and bringing the Sian Empire into disrepute, you will inform your minister at once. Is that understood?"

"Yes."

"Dismissed."

Zhilan Fan terminated the connection, and opened another. A monstrous reptilian face appeared on the screen. Two cyan eyes glared at her.

"It's done," she said.

"Thank you," a woman's voice said. "You'll find our friendship far more pleasant than Wu Tenchu found our enmity..."

Remembered By The Sea

She heard you! This woman in the superhero costume heard you! That thought reverberates through your mind, echoing with every punch she rains down on her enemy's metal face. You'd suspected that this turning point in human history, an age when superpowered beings battle in the streets, would be a prime place for the Kasan blood to shine. And here's the proof.

This hero.

Your ancestor.

She stands up, leaving her enemy motionless on the ground. Sunder's chest rises and falls. The villain's still alive. Apparently you and this forebear have very different ways of doing things. She believes in the criminal justice system. You prefer to shoot people in the head or punch their organs out.

"Nice work," you say. "My name's [Player's Name]."

She looks around, and for a moment you think she's about to answer. But she just looks at the rubble.

"Dragon-Rider?" you say.

She turns away and runs off.

"Kasan!"

Your shout follows her down the street, but she doesn't look back. If she hears it, she gives no sign. Disappointment niggles at your stomach. Part of you wants to chase after her, yell in her ear, and try to reestablish that severed connection. But other thoughts spiral through your mind. Theories and possibilities.

When the world starts to disintegrate, you don't resist. This isn't where you need to be. It's not the time or place you'll find the answer you seek.

But maybe being here's given you an answer...

"What've you guys got?" Talia said.

"Just a diary," Ragnar said.

"Any diabolical plans?"

"Yeah... But they're from the nineteenth century. Judith Ashdown?"

"Different Ashdown," Talia said. "The one we killed was Victoria. It's her plans we want. How about you, Tel?"

"These ones look important," the prince said. "I'm trying to break them open with that brain scan thing Zhao gave us."

"Get up there and start attacking!
All their skulls need a-cracking!
Spill their guts and crush their nuts,
Let not your violence be lacking!"

Barra's song drifted in through the open doorway, and seemed to hover above the little room where the three friends sat, surrounded by physical and holographic screens. Talia didn't know how many times the Piscarian had sung her way through that thing by now. But she found herself whistling along, and wondered if she'd ever get the tune out of her head.

"She talks about some places here," Talia said. "Maybe a few of the cult's churches... temples... compounds... Whatever cults have."

"Find a good one," the Niflung said, "and I'll go there with my axe. That'll get them to their dragon god faster than praying..."

The gunslinger continued to flick through the pages in front of her, whilst glancing at another display where an AI whizzed through the files in a blur of text and imagery -- stopping now and then to toss something of potential interest her way. She'd rather have had Lu Bu's computerized brain on that task. But when she'd gone back into the mess room after speaking with Chen, the robot had remained still and silent. As entranced as [Player's Name].

Probably analyzing the song, or their friend's vitals, or something. Either way, she hadn't tried to snap him out of it.

"Mycroft!" Tel said.

"Huh?" Talia looked up.

"This one's about Professor Mycroft."

"The bastards want his research?" Ragnar said. "He's got experiments that'd blow up a battleship!"

"No... It's about everything he's done with [Player's Name] and us."

"Oh, hell..." Talia got up. "They're tracking the captain's friends."

"That can't be good..."

"Start making calls. We need to warn people!"

The gunslinger dashed out of the room, into the passage. Towards the music. She needed the rest of those files broken. Right now.

The bracing, briny tang of sea air reaches you first. Next comes the loud, heavy whisper of tides washing against cliffs. Scent and sound paint their picture -- one so crisp and clear that they might be depicting a place you've known since childhood. When the world coalesces in front of your eyes, vision only superimposes itself over what's already there in your mind.

Morning light softens the sky. It brushes the roof and walls of a humble rustic dwelling, strokes the grass stretching across a cliff top, and casts its blanket over the woman who lies near the edge. Dark blood shimmers.

Dead? No. When you crouch at her side, there's life in her eyes. But they're the last lingering threads. Crimson flows from the gaping wound in her torso, carrying the rest of it away.

She blinks. That darkening gaze latches onto you, but there's no hope written in those orbs.

"Kasan," you whisper.

"Yes," she says. Her voice is soundless. Its volume has poured from the wound amidst the blood, spent on the ground. But you hear it anyway -- conveyed through something more potent than your aural implant. It quivers in your soul.

"I know you..."

Images spin through your consciousness. No, not just images. A story. This woman's tale. One that's echoed down the ages, as much a part of your own as the Dragon-Rider's.

She's crossing the sea, voyaging to a country from whence enemies once banished her glorious family. There's a smile on her face and a hero's crest on her shield as she stands at the prow. She's coming to liberate her ancestral homeland. Yes... That's what she believes. She'll save the kingdom and make its grateful populace celebrate her family's deeds once more. So noble, so naive. A master of war and weapons, might and magic, but dreaming like a child.

Fate is on her side at first. Her blade cleaves flesh, and protects innocent lives by the dozen. Does she revel in slaughter a little more than she should? Are her ears too keen to hear people cheer her name? Perhaps. But a bold hero can be forgiven for such things.

Foe after foe falls before her. She battles her way to the frozen north, where she shapes your fate and the fates of all who came before you. She drinks from the goblet, just as Medea revealed. And your power comes from this one moment. When red droplets dye the snow, and the Kasan blood mingles with that of the blue drake.

This hero doesn't stop there. She's inscribed her destiny on the future, on the universe itself, but it isn't enough. She continues her quest, her saga. She triumphs over countless enemies -- among the living and the dead, on Tor'gyyl and even in the depths of hell. A magnificent victory on purple plains marks her zenith. But then...

"You're a murderer," you say. "A liar and a betrayer."

Death, suffering. Crimes beget crimes. Bloodshed begets bloodshed. Fire and slaughter. She's no hero. This woman, whose heritage burns in your veins, is savage, wicked, abhorrent.

"Oh?" Again her voice sounds in your head, though her lips barely tremble. "You judge me? You?"

And then you feel her phantom fingers for the first time, rooting through your memories as you rooted through her.

"You've murdered worlds," she says. "Massacred more innocents in a second than I did in a lifetime. Listen to them! Listen!"

Screams. So many screams... A million. A billion. A trillion. Numbers that crush your soul with their magnitude. Men, women, and children. Shrieking as they die. Shrieking as you kill them.

"You don't understand! They..."

"Hide behind excuses in your own head," she says, "not in mine."

You try to pull away, to break the connection. You have a mission. You're searching for the Dragon-Rider! You can't waste your time here! Can't...

"Look," she says.

And the rest of her tale flows. Beyond the arrogant sneer and murderous blade, and all those baser things that marred her soul. A woman wanders the world. She walks unknown, under a false name. Her shield is blank now, for she doesn't believe herself worthy to wear the dragon and the pitchfork. There's no glory in her heart. No yearning for praise or immortal fame.

All across the kingdom, wherever her weary footsteps take her, people call out for help. Floundering in the ripples of her war. And she helps them. Her strength, her skills, protect the innocent and punish the wicked. Years pass. Years in which she strives and struggles each day for redemption.

But redemption doesn't spare her from justice. Her long-ago crime dogs her steps, and in the end a blade spills her life into the grass.

"I'm sorry," you whisper.

The woman's lips twitch. She manages a faint smile. And then she's gone.

But the screams still echo, long after the land and sea disappear.

"Any statement, Lady Hollister?"

The Novocastrian MP sank into the hover cab's deep back seat. Soft material embraced her, soothing her muscles. Not for the first time, she wondered why a cabbie had more comfortable seating than the grand parliamentary chamber. Probably because his customers paid, instead of being paid, for the privilege.

"Lady Hollister?"

She wallowed in luxury for a moment more, gazing out of the window at the Victorian-esque mansions down below, and composed her thoughts before answering the voice on the phone. When dealing with tabloid journalists, it was best to take a deep breath -- rather than spitting out the stream of profanity which first came to one's tongue.

"Lady Hollister, would you like to comment," the woman's voice said, "on the record?"

"Certainly. Edmund Rochester deserves to be hung, drawn, and quartered for his extortionate expenses claims. And if he gets those just deserts, he'd better hope my party remains in power -- because if his lot get in, and enact their idiotic healthcare reforms, he'll end up with the kind of surgeons who put people back together with hammers and rusty nails."

"Thanks!"

The MP smiled and put her phone away. She was looking forward to hearing Rochester whine about that one in the chamber tomorrow.

"Hey," the Snuuth cab driver said, "you're that politician, aren't you?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so."

"Can't you do something about all these bloody immigrants? Coming to our planet, disintegrating our women..."

Lady Hollister sighed, sank further into the seat, and let his babble transform into white noise. It was a trick she'd learned from her predecessor, who'd used it whenever he had to deal with a constituent. She was rather more selective herself -- but employed it here without a qualm. The cabbie would get his xenophobic rant off his flabby chest, she'd get some peace and quiet, and everyone would win.

Thus she sat and smiled until the cab descended, landing in front of her townhouse amidst a gust of swirling leaves.

"...should just blast them all into the sun," the Snuuth said.

"I'll be sure to write a green paper about it."

Lady Hollister swiped her credits, exited the cab, and went up the broad stone steps leading to her front door. She leaned into the facial recognition scanner.

"Welcome home, ma'am!" the automated voice said.

The door opened. She stepped inside, and the entrance sealed itself shut with the comforting click of electronic bolts -- locking out the world. Giving her a little peace and privacy. At least for ten seconds, before her phone rang. The Novocastrian aristocrat rolled her eyes and pulled it out of her pocket.

"Bloody journalists..." She glanced at the screen before putting it to her ear. Her tone and expression changed in an instant. "Prince Telemachus?"

"Lady Hollister!"

"What's wrong?" she shuffled off her heels and walked into the living room. This sounded like the beginning of a conversation which required brandy. "Is [Player's Name] all right?"

"Yeah, but..."

A soft, muffled footstep whispered on the thick carpet behind her. She turned, her butler's name on the tip of her tongue.

"...we think you're in danger!"

"Yes," she said. "I rather think I am..."

Lady Hollister groped for the pistol on top of the liquor cabinet. The flames were faster.

The Dragon-Rider

Flames. An inferno, raging within triangular eyes and the gashed mouth of a horrific visage. Glimpses of hell -- fire and torment blazing behind a face which would become a symbol of festive fun, distorted and diluted by the great collective unconsciousness of racial memory. Pure malevolence masquerading as amusement.

Terrible heat scorched Lu Bu's sensors, threatening to melt his mechanical mind. Cries of anguish swirled among scattered thoughts. The shrieks of long dead people from a long dead world. And through it all, celebrating pain, drinking their fear even as he sowed it, Jack rode across the nocturnal landscape. Green flames streamed behind him, painting the darkness in emerald hues. The fiend's laughter reverberated through the robot's chassis.

"Lu Bu..."

His name... Spoken by that slash of a maw. Impossible. But wasn't this all impossible? These sights and sounds, and-

"Lu Bu!"

• Tap* *Tap *Tap*

The universe rippled.

• Tap* *Tap* *Tap*

Clouds of haze bloomed from each impact in concentric circles, obscuring the scene and its demonic horseman -- thickening until the image was almost indiscernible.

"Lu Bu!"

The music returned. Screaming Barracuda's words and tune rang through his audio systems. The fog pulsed, dispersed, then gathered -- hardening into a different face and a tapping finger.

"Talia? What's..."

"We need you," the gunslinger said. "Now!"

She tugged his arm. Lu Bu followed her, into the corridor and a nearby room, his mind still sparking and flashing with strange notions. But Telemachus' words dispelled them.

"Talia!" The prince looked up from his screen, with eyes so large they seemed to consume his face. "Something's happened to Lady Hollister!"

"Not just her," Ragnar said. The Niflung growled. "Look..."

He tapped a button, and a new holographic projection -- bigger than the others -- popped up over the table. A feed from an interstellar news channel.

Even Lu Bu's voice joined the profanities which followed.

"My producer's telling me we have an urgent report from Mindy Mazmarth on Novocastria," the smiling anchorman said. His teeth flashed like white neon lights. "If this is about the expenses scandal, Mindy, I think that story's as old and tired as your face is under that megaton of makeup someone must've bombed it with..."

The reporter's video feed popped into existence, annexing the top right quarter of the picture showing the smug presenter in the studio. Perhaps it was the look in her eyes. Maybe the pallor of her face. But the anchor's smile faltered, and the edges of his lips twitched.

"No time for your crap, Roy. See that house?"

The camera pulled back from Mindy, revealing more of the street behind her -- where men and women in shining panoplies stood alongside tanks and personnel carriers, forming a cordon. Further down the road, other armored figures, these ones dressed in red, were directing water cannons' powerful streams through the broken windows of a grey stone building. Tongues of hissing smoke flitted out like exorcised spirits.

"That belongs... belonged... to Lady Hollister, the Novocastrian MP. Official sources haven't confirmed it yet, but we're hearing she was murdered -- burned to death with a flamethrower!"

"Jesus, Mindy! That's rough politics, even by parliamentary standards! Do we know who did it? A disgruntled voter? A member of the opposition?"

"None of the above, Roy! Centi Priders put out a broadcast claiming responsibility. And get this: it looks like they transmitted it while their assassin was murdering her!"

A graphic popped up in the bottom left corner of the screen. There was a black Collective emblem, which flashed and emitted little droplets of blood. Words appeared beside it: 'Centurian Slaughter!: Outrage on Novocastria!'

"Lady Hollister was an outspoken ally of the Centurians," Roy said, "and-"

"Enemy! She was their enemy! Fire that teleprompter guy. Or better still, learn to do your goddamn job!"

The anchor's smile crumbled, but regenerated itself an instant later.

"Of... Of course!" he said. "Who could forget Lady Hollister's passionate speeches in parliament, urging the Novocastrians to aid the Sian Empire?"

"The Prider broadcast blamed her for the genocide of their fellow Centurians, Roy. And they say she'll just be the first. They're threatening bombings, shootings, and..."

"You ask me, Mindy, those Centies are just sore losers! So they got massacred... Big deal! Don't those jerks realize the news cycle's moved on?"

"Roy, we-"

"Now, back to the dancing platypus..."

"If you cut me off, asshole, I'll cut your balls off! Breaking news! We have breaking news!" She tapped her earpiece. "Edmund Rochester's been stabbed! He was at a community meeting in his constituency when word spread about Lady Hollister, and a voter stabbed him!"

"Typical! Someone kills a politician, and suddenly everyone wants their fifteen minutes of murder-fame..."

"We're hearing that the attacker called Rochester a Centi-lover!"

"They have a point, Mindy. According to the tele... From what I recall, Rochester was one of the loudest voices against Novocastria getting involved in the Sian-Centurian War."

"We're already getting word of more attacks! The military's being deployed!"

"Damn. Looks like we won't need that platypus after all!"

A castle looms above you. Towers rise beyond the geometric preciseness of its crenellations, fingertips brushing the black vault. Constellations adorn the deep, dark sky between them -- crisp and clear. Diamonds decorate the heavens. They twinkle upon this grand edifice which is more home than fortress, warm and welcoming despite its sturdy stone.

High overhead, flicking light softens the gloom within one of the windows. And you know, certain and unwavering, that this is your destination. For a second or two you work out how you'd scale the wall, or else enter elsewhere and find that chamber among the halls and corridors. Old habits die hard. Especially ones like corporeality.

Instead, you let your consciousness drift. Or allow the world to reshape itself around you. Whichever happens is of no consequence. What matters is that you find yourself inside the room, beside the heat of a crackling log fire, gazing upon the woman who lies asleep in her bed.

So old, so frail... It's almost inconceivable. The great hero, the mighty warrior whose muscles wielded steel and split scales... But time is no respecter of men. And for those who survive their battles, who escape the thousand violent deaths which try to ensnare them, this is where the road ends. Not amid glorious carnage or tragic sorrow. In beds which hold weakening flesh, where peace and comfort are all you can hope for.

You sigh. And her eyes open. Keen, intelligent eyes. Your relief is warmer than the fire. Her mind is still there. Age and infirmity haven't worn it away.

"Do you remember me?" you say.

"I..."

She frowns, multiplying the grooves and wrinkles on her forehead, and stares at you for some moments.

"We met in the dark, didn't we?"

"Yeah. When we were lost."

"Strange... I'd forgotten. Old age perhaps?"

"I think those were memories we weren't meant to have, from a place we shouldn't have been."

"Have you come to say goodbye, like everyone else?"

"I've come to ask for your help."

"Oh?" She smiles, and coughs. It's a harsh, wheezing sound that shakes her chest. "I'll go get my sword..."

"I have to kill a dragon. One you know."

"All the dragons I know are dead, or my friends."

"It's Erebus."

"Again? He was always a troublesome one..."

"How did you kill him?"

"Mostly with swords, axes, arrows..."

"That's what I thought. But... A friend of mine used a weapon on him. Something more powerful than a million blades or bows. And it didn't even scratch him. I was hoping there was a secret. Something you could tell me."

"I'm sorry... I wish Lucian was still alive. He wrote a whole book on how to kill monsters. Maybe he'd have known how to help you."

"Lucian..."

You see another man, this one dressed in red and green robes as though he were a priest of some kind. Stacks of dusty books surround him, tottering with the weight of ancient scholarship. He smiles in delight as he dashes an inky quill across a piece of parchment, setting down his thoughts for future generations to ignore.

"When and where did he die?"

"Five years ago, in Drunsdorf's cemetery."

"He died in a cemetery?"

"His apprentice said he wanted to be alone there, at the end. There was someone he wanted to see..."

Images float from the Dragon-Rider's mind to yours, clear as a holo-vid. A quiet, somber place full of old gravestones and older crypts.

"I think I can find him," you say. "But I don't know if I can talk to him."

"You're talking to me."

"We share blood. My ancestors can hear me, when they're..."

"When we're near death, and the veil begins to part."

Of course. Just like the woman on the cliff. Seeing into your mind as you see into hers.

"Yeah. But Lucian..."

"Try. My story was bound to him, and he was bound to my story. Maybe he'll hear you."

She glances at the window. And her hearing must be as good as it ever was, because it's a second before you detect the faint sounds of quick, agile hands and feet scrabbling up stone. You glance at the Dragon-Rider, but she doesn't seem alarmed. Not even when a face appears over her window sill. A pale, beautiful face, framed by scarlet hair.

"Your window isn't warded?" Fangs glisten between the woman's lips.

She springs into the room, landing on the thick carpet without a sound.

"No one wants to kill me anymore," the Dragon-Rider says. She sighs, and it became a splutter that makes her chest shudder and the vampiress wince. "I've outlived all my enemies. Most of my allies too. But not all..."

Her hand emerges from under the cover. She glides across the room and takes hold of it.

"It's been a long time, Mina. If I'd known I'd get to see so many old friends again, I'd have gone to my deathbed sooner."

The Dragon-Rider looks at you. Mina follows her gaze, and you wonder what the vampiress, this being who lives beyond life itself, will see. But she stares right through you.

"And some of you came so very far..."

She gives a faint smile, and then the world fades away.

Professor Bonderbrand's gaze swept the grid of projected screens. Each showed a different news channel, and the situation on Novocastria dominated them all. His jowls quivered.

Incitement was so simple it was almost frightening. If you knew where to apply force, news networks, social media channels, and sundry other pulleys allowed you to move star systems. All it had taken was a few crimes, coupled with a handful of threats. Momentum took care of everything from there.

Some Centi Priders had decried the assassination of Lady Hollister. The movement's most notable leaders claimed their people had nothing to do with it. But enough Priders posted gleeful messages, reveling in their enemy's death, to inspire revenge attacks. Retaliation from aggrieved Priders had followed as naturally as day follows night -- but so much faster. Riots grown in the blink of an eye.

The chaos wouldn't last long, of course. Novocastrian troops were already locking down flashpoints on their various worlds. But tensions and fears of further terrorist attacks would simmer long afterwards. They'd keep their troops on high alert. If [Player's Name] reached out to any remaining Novocastrian allies, she'd find precious little help available.

Bonderbrand was satisfied.

And this was just the beginning.

Lucian's Last Lesson

"They've got a file on Kess too," Telemachus said.

"Do they know where she is?" Talia said.

"No. They lost track of her after she left."

"Warn her anyway."

"We should be out there," Ragnar said, "not sitting here!"

His brawny arm slashed through a holo-screen, throwing ripples across a picture of Lady Hollister. The back of the Niflung's fist met the wall with a deep, metallic thud, and left faint imprints in the bulkhead.

"I know!" Talia said. "But what're we going to do? Fly around the galaxy and hope we get lucky? We don't know who they'll hit, or where!"

"Precisely," Lu Bu said. The robot's eyes shone and flickered, rivers of data flowing between his thoughts. "When we locate suitable targets of our own, that will be the time for violence."

Ragnar glared, but he continued with the rest of them -- scanning through the files, placing call after call, like the galaxy's most murderous telemarketer.

"Wilex!" Talia said. She glanced at the communicator's display. "You're on Plerna?"

"Ah, Talia! Yes, I'm here for the twentieth century science-fiction convention. But if you need me, I-"

"Do you have any battle bots with you?"

"No... I don't take them on holiday. Though maybe that would be an interesting psychological experi-"

"You need to get back to Capek."

"What's happened?"

"[Player's Name]'s got these cultists after her, and they're-"

"Do they wear masks with cyan eyes?"

"Yeah..."

"I thought he looked suspicious. I'm being followed."

"Are you still at the convention? With people around?"

"No. I was walking back to the hotel when you called."

"Do you have a weapon?"

"Yes!"

"Good. Then-"

"It's in my luggage."

"What?"

"The rest of us don't shoot people every day, Talia! I only brought it to-"

"Get back there fast, lock the door, and grab the gun. I'll... Hang on. Guys! Do we know anyone who's on Plerna right now? Wilex needs support!"

Telemachus' small hands sliced and swept through a series of screens, sending each one flying into oblivion.

"Got someone!" he said. "It's... Oh..."

The prince groaned.

Whispering winds rustle among the last leaves clinging to the dark branches of autumn trees. A few fall swirling, and join the rich gold carpeting the dirt and grass around the gravestones. It's a serene place. Cold and quiet. Silvered by the moonlight, as it illuminates forgotten names.

Are the words English? That should be impossible. But you can read them, just as you've never failed to understand anyone during these voyages. Most sound German. Hans... Fritz... Astrid... The names of dead men and women, outliving an entire world. That thought only adds to the tranquility which drifts through the cemetery like a gentle mist.

You wander for a few moments before you see him. A man in thick robes and cloak, sat on the ground with his back against the iron door of an impressive granite crypt. He's slumped forward. Long hair, the same color as the moon, falls in front of his face like a veil. You're too late. He's...

"Huh?" The scholar stirs. His nose penetrates the wall of hair first, followed by the rest of his old, wizened face. For a second his dark eyes are young, bright, eager. Then he sighs, and the spark dies away. "Forgive me. I thought you were... I'm waiting for someone."

"You can see me?"

He glances up at you, and his eyes flicker once more.

"Yes... I thought you were a ghost. But you're not, are you?"

"No." You reach towards him, and let your thoughts flow.

"Ah... A traveler from afar." The faintest of smiles creases his face. "I'd have enjoyed meeting you when I was younger. But now... Mysteries and curiosities seem rather inconsequential, when you're about to cross that final threshold."

"You don't seem shocked."

"My friends and I saw so many wonders and horrors. I fear very little would shock me."

"The Dragon-Rider said you could tell me how to kill Erebus."

"Erebus?" His eyebrow twitches. "Then perhaps I was mistaken..."

"You killed dragons with swords, pikes-"

"A cricket bat."

"Yeah... But in my time, he survived being nuked." You focus on a mental image, conjuring up the hellish inferno of atomic fury. "Nothing we have hurts him."

"Fascinating..."

"It's not so 'fascinating' when he's killing your friends."

"Quite... Quite. I was merely thinking about something Roland once said. He believed that a sword, even one without enchantments, could contain what he called 'the magic of its forging'. I mentioned this to a fellow scholar some years later, and she had an interesting theory. She suggested that our world is inherently magical -- that even the things we call mundane contain a sliver of eldritch power. Including our weapons, from a hero's axe to a lowly bandit's dagger. Of course, without conducting research into the matter, I can only speculate. But..."

"Magic?"

"Do they still make magical weapons where you come from?"

"No..."

"Ah..." Lucian darts through your memories, young and quick in that strange place beyond the flesh. "Here's something."

She lifts the chest's lid and throws it back. You both lean forward, to feast your eyes on the object which lies within. It's a sword, its sharp steel edge somehow contriving to gleam even in the gloom. The shape, the design... You've seen this weapon before.

"That sword," you say. "I recognized it."

"One of Roland's old blades. Either Rogar's Dream or the other one. I could never tell them apart."

"The pirate woman... One of my ancestors. She found it."

"Do you know where it is now?"

"No."

"Ah, a pity. But..."

Another image blazes across your shared consciousness.

"What about this one?" Lucian says.

"Yes!" Your laughter rings among the graves. But it dies an instant later. "Erebus... Noir... He's stronger. Faster. A better fighter. Even with that thing, I..."

"You can't defeat him?"

"I... I don't think so. But... Magic..."

"Yes?"

"I have an idea..."

"Whenever the Dragon-Rider said that, someone or something usually died."

"I'm counting on it. Thank you."

"My pleasure. One last lecture."

The scholar smiles, sighs, and exhales. His head slumps. You blink, startled. All that vivacious loquacity of a moment ago, snuffed out like a candle. And Tor'gyyl goes with it. Fading. Disintegrating.

But just before everything vanishes, there's a faint voice. Little more than a whisper on the wind.

"Hello, Nina."

Wilex ran the last block. He sprinted down the street, panting, cursing himself for his lack of exercise or cybernetic lungs. When he arrived at the hotel's glass doors, the remainder of his breath deflated in a relieved gasp.

"Doorman..." he said.

"I have a name, you know," said the burly man in the purple blazer.

The Chief Assembler glanced at his nametag.

"Door-Man?"

"It's pronounced 'Door Hyphen Man'. Makes me sound like a superhero."

He laughed. Wilex glared.

"Just a little joke, sir."

"Listen, someone's after me. If a man with a mask tries to get in, keep him out and call the police. He's trying to kill me!"

The doorman held out his hand. Wilex frowned. But he pulled out a card and swiped it over the man's palm sensor.

"Thank you, sir." He smiled as the tip registered and added itself to the daily tally displayed on his wrist. "I'll make sure you don't get murdered."

"Thanks..."

Wilex went inside. He looked over his shoulder as he crossed the lobby, and his gaze remained fastened on the entrance while he waited for the elevator. But no one came along by the time the doors dinged open. He stepped into the mirror-walled box, pressed the button for the third floor, and reactivated his communicator.

"Wilex? What's happening? Are you okay?"

"I'm safe, Talia. I just couldn't run and talk at the same time."

He gave a start and leapt back when the doors opened, then reddened at the maid's look of surprise, before shuffling past her cart.

"We sent backup," the gunslinger said.

"Oh?" Green light flashed from an ocular scanner. His door opened. He locked it behind him and walked across the small lounge. "I don't think that'll be... necessary..."

The Chief Assembler froze.

The masked man got up from the armchair. Cyan lights blazed.

"Wilex? Wilex!"

Talia's voice came from far, far away. He tried to answer, but his voice was far away too.

"Men of Kruna, with blood splattered,
Leaving corpses dead and battered,
Have all wretched foemen scattered,
Now let's have a drink!

Men of Kruna..."

"It's okay, Barra," you say, as the mess room hardens around you. "I'm back."

The singer blinks, and flames sputter on Ali's shoulders, amid the fading echoes of her last chord.

"Looks like the others pissed off," Barra says.

She stares at an open doorway with narrow eyes. Talia and Telemachus' voices float through it like invading armies, capturing the territory ceded by the vanished song.

"Lucky them," Ali says. "Find what you wanted?"

"Yeah..."

You exit via the opposite door, leaving their questions hanging in the air behind you, and jog down the passage. It becomes a sprint. You race through the ship, descending into its belly. Eagerness propels you between a parting barrier's halves before the gap's wide enough to admit you without banging your shoulder.

There might be enough weapons, armor, and assorted gear in the Silver Shadow's cargo hold to equip a small army. Just glancing around in here is enough to rekindle memories of all the adventures which brought them into your possession. There's the Twisted Steel battlesuit, the armor you and your friends built on Hyperia -- which saw you through those grueling matches in front of screaming crowds. And here's the knightly panoply you wore in the Novocastrian parliament whilst kicking the crap out of their war-shy politicians. The Blue Phoenix Crossbow that brought down the gigantic Crush Colossa. The training rifle Illaria gave you when she broke you out of your cell on the Child of Heaven. Your past, written in metal and fabric.

Sometimes you meditate in here. You sit and let the past wash over you, with all its glory and its pain. Drinking everything in. Remembering. Laughing or blinking away the tears. But not now. This time you head for one of the racks and pick up the object you and Lucian glimpsed together.

The double-bladed sword lay hidden inside the rock of an asteroid, until you battled a Besalaad warrior and excavated it with blaster fire. It's a weapon Wu Tenchu referred to as one of the mysteries he'd never be able to solve. But you've solved it for him. You know where it came from, who once wielded it, and what it can do. You know its name.

Talia was wrong.

You did find a +5 sword of badassery.

A burning cyan ocean crashed down on him. Titanic waves swept him away, chilling his flesh instead of immolating it, drowning and devouring. Sucking him towards a swirling, twisting, rushing whirlpool that could've swallowed a city.

No... Not a whirlpool...

The blazing water came together in an explosion of spray and an immense roar. Came together and rose up, shooting into the sky and giving birth to monstrosity. Chief Assembler Wilex shrieked. The dragon laughed. Then its mouth, a maw bigger than the Milky Way itself, descended to consume him.

"Rautha's here, bitches!"

"What?"

Wilex's mind spun. The world spun too. And it wasn't a world of cyan fire and galactic dragons. It was a hotel room.

The man in the featureless mask was staring at the door. Wilex's head snapped round, following his gaze. The portal was still sealed. But there was shouting and screaming from somewhere beyond it.

"I'm here to save you, Wilex!" a voice said.

"Who the hell's Wilex?" another said. "And get your hands off my girlfriend!"

"Girlfriend? Oh... Wrong room!"

"I'm in here!" the Chief Assembler said. "I'm-"

Agony tore his mind. Cyan flames flooded the universe, destroying stars, planets, and...

"Rautha's here too, bitches!"

This time the hotel room snapped back into focus in a split-second, amidst the groan of buckling metal and smash of splintered wood. The masked man stepped towards the doorway. His eyes flashed. But something else flashed too -- a big green bolt that fizzed past Wilex, bathing him in its heat, and detonated with a whoosh and a wet splat.

The masked man was no longer masked. Or headed, for that matter. Behind the cauterized stump of his neck, roasted brains and fragments of charred skull painted the wall with brand new art. His body crumpled.

"This better be the right room..." A tall, muscular man in a dark blue jumpsuit stood in the doorway -- surrounded by the debris of the last thing to stand there. "Wilex, right?"

"Yes!"

"You okay?"

"I... I think so."

"Then grab your stuff. I'm getting you back to Capek Major."

Multheru's howl pierced the room. The sound was bizarre, high-pitched. No human being would have recognized it as an angry roar. But a psychic would've shuddered, or fallen to their knees.

The appendages above the Quiskerian's mouth writhed and thrashed -- flapping, flailing. His acolyte's death shook inside his skull. But something rattled around beside it. Knowledge. The thing the man had pulled from the Chief Assembler's mind, and cast through the ether before the blast took his head. His final deed. One last act of loyalty.

"Hail Kalaxia..."

His oral tentacles slowed into a series of soft, undulating pulses. His eyes glittered. They had what they needed.

Sapphire

"How old's this thing?" Telemachus says.

He leans over the conference table. Slashes of steel gleam in his eyes, exquisite and potent. Screaming Barracuda does the same. She keeps her guitar braced across her body like a shield, caressing its strings. Even Ali seems impressed. Long tongues of flame curve from the pyrokineticist's shoulders, almost as motionless as she is.

"When these blades were forged," you say, "there was no human life on Earth."

The prince's hand moves towards the weapon. He hesitates, fingers freezing inches away from ancient steel, and waits for you to nod before he touches it.

"I still like my chainsaws better."

"Fair enough."

The doors slide open and the other three join you, fanning out around the table. Talia moves next to Tel. Her hand rests beside his on the sword. Lu Bu's still and stoic, but his eyes seem to shine brighter as he inspects the weapon. Ragnar just grunts. The Niflung's augmented muscles are practically shaking with the urge to unleash violence.

"All done?" you say.

"Yeah," Talia says. "No one else has been hit yet, but everyone's ready for it. I even tried to call Zhilan Fan. Some secretary guy told me she doesn't have time to speak to 'churlish athletes'."

"Hope the Kalaxians get her," Tel says.

"You lot know assassins," Barra says, "superheroes, pro fighters, and a whole lot of tossers with guns..."

"Right," Talia says.

"But if Bob can't stand up to Noir without this thing..." She points her guitar at the sword. "...what'll they do if he's the one who goes after them?"

Your gaze locks with Talia's. That possibility didn't escape you either.

"I called him," the gunslinger says. "He said he'll do it. He's crazier than we are..."

"Maybe. But if he keeps Noir occupied, we can do this."

"Then when do we start killing?" Ragnar says.

"Soon. Lu Bu..."

The robot presses a metal finger against the table. Its surface comes to life, empowered by his touch. A facade of varnished wood melts away -- surrendering to a soft bluish light that spreads until it's consumed everything except a narrow border at its edges. Holographic projections bloom into existence above. Images of planets, people, and buildings swarm in different sizes and levels of clarity.

"I've confirmed several locations," he says. "I believe these are the places most important to the cult."

"Which do we hit first?" Ali says.

"All of them," you say. "You'll carry out a synchronized assault, and take them down before warnings spread and they can clear out."

"You'll carry out? Us? And where'll you be?"

"With the angels."

"What do you think?" Assembler Ytrechi said.

She waved her arm in a dramatic flourish, whilst toggling between her cybernetic eyes' direct view of the people in front of her and the secondary ocular displays which allowed her to view herself from cameras hovering all around the factory. The latter satisfied her. Decorative gears shimmered in gold and silver on the fancy uniform they'd made her wear. Her smile, which she'd practiced in front of the mirror for almost an hour, beamed with an appropriate blend of friendliness and pride.

Caroline Ytrechi would still rather have been in her lab. She'd become an engineer to build robots, not pimp them. But the Grand Fabricator's word was law. Thus she favored the men and women with just the right tooth to lip ratio, and pretended she wasn't intimidated by the varied multitude of medal-festooned military uniforms and dubious stares.

At least they weren't all staring at her anymore. At least half had directed their gazes and dubiousness at the formation of robots assembled between the immense machines behind her.

"They're shiny," a woman in the green of the Sian Empire said, "I'll give you that."

A couple of the others laughed. Engineer Ytrechi forced herself to feign amusement, and broadened her smile instead of flipping the woman off.

"Let's hear it then," a short man in purple said. "What'll these tin soldiers do for us?"

"Ah, yes..." Caroline coughed. "In the past, several of your militaries have expressed their doubts about deploying autonomous robots on the battlefield."

"Damn right we have! This morning I took a crap-"

"Um... Congratulations?"

"...and my smart toilet told me I needed to change my diet! We argued for twenty minutes! Our commanders put up with enough insubordination from flesh and blood troops. They don't need it from machines too!"

"Exactly! That's why the model you see behind you is only quasi-autonomous. They have all the firepower and advanced targeting systems of our regular battle bots, but they'll follow whatever instructions you give them. Just watch..."

She plucked a small cylinder from her belt and tapped it twice. A paper-thin screen slid out and locked in place.

"Unit 94512-A," she said, "dance."

Information flashed across her device in streams of green and white. Some of the generals chuckled. Others stared, confused or bemused. Caroline sighed. She'd specifically told her assistants not to select 'the robot' as their designated dance routine. Yet there the bot was, jerking its limbs in a fashion which made a mockery of its advanced engineering.

"Unit 94513-C, run three laps around the-"

The display flashed red. Caroline Ytrechi had a second to read the words, 'Chief Assembler Override', and another to wonder what the hell was going on. Then the shooting and screaming started.

They didn't last long.

"...at this facility," Lu Bu says.

"Then that's where I'm going," Alison says. Her nostrils flare, and her eyes burn fiercer than the fire framing her face. "I don't care what you think!"

"We... We have no objection. In fact, I was about to suggest that myself."

"I wasn't talking to you." She sighs, and swats at the flame on her right shoulder. It flinches away like a whimpering dog.

"In any event, that..."

Lu Bu pauses, arms frozen in mid gesticulation.

"What's wrong?" you say.

"I just received a message. A recall notice. I'm supposed to return to TALOS space."

"Bet it's just spam," Barra says.

"I don't believe so."

The projections above the table scatter, giving way to a screen marked in one corner with a news station's logo (some kind of walrus, by the look of it). A familiar moustached face glares out at the room.

"Francois Dupont," you say. "This can't be good."

"Damn," Talia says. She points at the word 'LIVE' which hovers in the opposite corner to the corporate emblem. "For a second there, I thought they were going to say the Kalaxians had killed him."

"We're not that lucky."

"The Alliance of Lambda Omicron systems," Dupont says, "claim that the massacre was the result of sabotage. Rest assured, the finest law enforcement agents at the UHW's disposal will investigate, and no guilty party will escape from justice..."

The secretary-general's eyes seem to bore into yours. You feel an intense desire to punch him in the face, but it evaporates when the second image appears alongside him -- footage of battle bots' weapons blazing away inside a factory. Their gunfire doesn't leave corpses; it scatters chunks.

"...But until these investigations are completed, TALOS must withdraw all their battle-capable robots to their own territory, to avoid the risk of further atrocities."

Lu Bu deactivates the feed before a grinning newsman can offer his inane commentary on that pronouncement.

"Kalaxians?" Ragnar says.

"Undoubtedly," the robot says.

"What're you going to do?" Telemachus says.

"Disobey his instructions, of course."

"Well done, Multheru," Emera Tresc said.

"Kalaxia granted us the victory." The Quiskerian's finger-like tentacles stroked his mouth.

This time all the holographic heads at the table wore looks of grim satisfaction. Even Noir's eyes seemed to burn soft with pleasure instead of blazing in eons-old wrath.

"Yes," he said, and Emera wondered if he'd read her thought. But then his head turned, gazing at something beyond the projection's scope. "Bob has already responded. A challenge, scattered across the void. One he must have known would come to my attention. He invokes the name Erebus."

"He knows!" Emera said.

"Good. Then he understands whose hands will destroy him."

Noir's face disappeared, leaving blackness in its wake.

"If Bob's aware of our brother's identity," Bonderbrand said, "he may know other things."

"Yes," Multheru said. "Each of us should prepare for-"

The Quiskerian hissed. His head snapped round, tentacles swinging and grasping.

"Intruders," he said.

Bonderbrand swore.

"Here too," the professor said. "A breach."

"Wyrm-mother watch over us," Emera said. "Kalaxia!"

"Kalaxia!" the others chorused.

Darkness usurped their places one by one, and Emera was left alone at the table. She turned to the woman in the doorway.

"The vault," the grandmistress said. "I have to-"

"Take Kalaxia's treasures and keep them safe," the woman said. She turned away and stepped into the corridor. "Our enemies will burn."

It's wet.

"I know," Ali, said.

We'll take care of that.

"Thanks."

Heat grew in the middle of Alison Haelia's body, turning her abdomen into a fireplace which spread flowing warmth throughout her body.

"Your bike's got heating?" Barra put her face near Ali's ear, yelling the words over the splashing rain and churning wheels. Her arms tightened around the pyrokineticist's waist.

"No! But I do..." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Don't roast her."

Of course we won't! We want to hear her play!

Ali grinned. Steam billowed from her skin and swept behind the speeding motorcycle -- phantom flames or a ghostly, tattered battle standard flapping away across the countryside. This was one Screaming Barracuda gig she wouldn't miss for worlds.

"No going nuts when we find Alexa."

But we don't like those things inside her.

"I don't care. If you hurt her..."

Fine! But you'd better let us burn other stuff.

"Yeah..." she said.

A fence appeared on the horizon, high iron railings like a rack of black spears ready to arm a medieval horde. Some distance beyond them, nestled amongst picturesque oaks and firs, was a broad grey building. The rain streamed from it in dozens of miniature waterfalls, making its windows weep.

"...there'll be plenty to burn."

"Are the children safe?"

Emera's mind moved instead of her lips, casting the question through the vault's thick walls.

"Yes, grandmistress." Varner's dark, round face appeared in her consciousness alongside his voice. "We've evacuated the living quarters."

"You should go with them."

"Is that a command, Emera?"

"No, but-"

"Then I'll stand with the others."

Emera Tresc's hand hovered above the panel. Her gaze roamed across the armored display cases -- a geometric forest of glass and steel, precise and stalwart atop every cyan tile of the checkerboard floor except the one at its very center, which contained the terminal. Some of these treasures were prized for their history and antiquity: gold ornaments from ancient Mycenae; a volute krater decorated with red-figure hoplites who knelt before a drake; a Quiskerian idol; a fine silver swordstick, adorned with sapphires and light blue tourmalines. Others held power that pulsed through the glass and made her flesh tingle. Especially that pile of jagged bone fragments, resting on azure silk...

Her duty was clear. The words uttered by her predecessor echoed in her brain. Preserve the artifacts, escape, and assess the situation when she was safe. Those were the protocols.

"Kalaxia," Varner said.

"Kalaxia," a dozen other voices chorused.

"Kalaxia," Emera said. "May the wyrm-mother watch over us all."

She pressed her palm down, and cried out.

Sound... An inconceivable, devastating avalanche. A sonic bludgeon of raw noise... No. Not noise. Music. Music powerful enough to bring down the heavens, split the planet in half, and-

The vault door clunked into place. Silence punched her brain, and it was a second before the shock settled into relief. That song, that terrible song, was gone. The room's physical and psionic shielding had blocked it out.

"Her..." Emera said.

She leaned against the terminal, grasping it with whitening hands. There was nothing she could do. The sequence was already initiated. And though there was no hint of movement in this protected chamber, the grandmistress knew she was already hurtling through the underground passage at immense speed -- towards the hidden launch hatch.

The treasures would survive. She would survive.

Emera Tresc could only pray to Kalaxia that her brothers and sisters would survive too.

"So you noose you're mega, You noose you're some hot drek, You baino into Drekchester looking for some creds."

Yay!

"Really? You like the Drekchester theme song? She only chose it because that thing's practically a weapon already!"

So are we!

"We sure are..."

"Kalaxia!"

The voices from the end of the corridor were louder and clearer than the music, admitted by the aural filters which shielded her from the ultra-amplified guitar and voice. So were the bursts of gunfire. Bullets sprayed in aimless arcs, while the two women in azure and cyan jumpsuits tottered and staggered like slapstick mercenaries.

A torrent of flame engulfed them, silencing their shrieks in the same instant they began. And Ali felt confident the pair preferred immolation to hearing Screaming Barracuda play.

"You noose that we'll all phobe you, You noose that we'll back down, Well, chummer, you'll get rumpled right into the ground!"

It's catchy!

"So's Space Pox. I don't like that either."

She continued down the passage, between walls painted in sumptuous and soothing shades of blue, glancing into each doorway she passed.

Left!

"I know!"

Ali ducked back behind the wall. A burst of luminous plasma fizzed through the entrance and disappeared into the room opposite. Its heat tingled on her cheek.

"I saw him before you did!"

Liar!

"You're mega back where you bio, They noose you're some hot drek, But on our streets you're just a prosser who's going to get wrecked!"

"Just burn him!"

Only if you admit-

"Fire! Burn! Now!"

Okay! Okay! By the way, this wall we're hiding behind doesn't look very...

"Drekchester! Drekchester! We'll rumple you for fun! Drekchester! Drekchester! Then we'll wreck your mum!"

"Yeah..."

Ali dropped low, amid a blast that drowned the music and rained little pieces of debris down on her. The pyrokineticist glanced up at the hole in the wall. She hated it when they were right.

"Barra! Stay back!"

But the Piscarian was still a dozen or so yards behind, gyrating as she played.

"She's dancing. She's actually dancing."

"We'll twock out all your organs, and kauf them in the slums, Kauf them to some street-scavs who need to fill their tums! Then we'll get some chems and snuff them up the schnoz, And leggie how we taught this scav just what mega was!"

We should dance too!

"Kill that guy first!"

Another shot shook the wall, blasting a second gaping hole at chest height. It really didn't seem like a good time to pop up from cover. So Ali clenched and unclenched her left fist.

The jet of fluid arced above, through the room's impromptu windows. Her flames chased it -- whooshing and roaring. She swept the stream back and forth, letting the end of parabola play across the unseen interior. A scream rewarded her. So did the sound of flesh charring to a blackened crisp, and the succulent scent of roasting meat.

"Hark! I hear the foe advancing, Barbed steeds are proudly prancing, Helmets, in the sunbeam glancing, Glitter through the trees. Men of Harlech! Lie ye dreaming? See you not their falchions gleaming, While their pennons, gaily streaming, Flutter to the breeze?"

Hurray! A new song!

"It's the same tune as the one from the ship... And what's that stupid accent?"

Welsh.

"How could you possibly know-"

Ali sighed. She'd argue about that later. The pyrokineticist got up, glanced at the burning wreckage, and rounded the corner.

"From the rocks rebounding, Let the war-cry sounding, Summon all at Cambria's call, The haughty foe-"

"Barra?"

She began to turn, to find out why the Piscarian rocker had stopped playing, but movement drew her eye. Ali pivoted and aimed a flaming hand at the woman striding down the corridor. The breath caught in her throat. At the edge of her vision, she'd just caught the blue jumpsuit and a splash of long red hair. Now... She let out a laugh.

"Alexa!"

Something's wrong!

"Alexa?"

Something's wrong! Something's wrong! Something's wrong! Those things inside her, they're-

"We've... We've come to..."

...different!

"Ali..." Alexa halted a dozen paces away, and her eyes seemed to lose their focus. "Yes. The things inside her... Monsters... They murdered our brothers and sisters!"

"Alexa, what-"

"I like my new name better too..."

Her gaze hardened and sharpened once more, locking onto Alison. Azure flames blazed around her hands.

"Emera calls me Sapphire."

Screaming Barracuda sprawled on her back and groaned. Everything was blurry, apart from the pain throbbing in her jaw. It wasn't the first time she'd been punched whilst playing. Probably not even the seventh. Numerous assailants floated around her swimming brain, shouting abuse and insulting her music. Wankers...

"Piss o-"

The word died on her lips, as two cyan lights burned away the haze. A masked face hovered above her. Fingers grasped her throat -- squeezing, crushing, killing.

She clawed at him with her left hand, grabbing and slapping at the smooth hardness of his mask, trying to gouge those cyan slits. But his face was impenetrable. Strong and invulnerable in the center of her darkening vision. Invincible.

His face was. The rest of him wasn't.

Screaming Barracuda's right hand did a little squeezing and crushing of its own. But not on his neck.

The cultist's groan was higher than hers had been. His grip loosened. She struggled, twisting and slithering her body beneath his, until she could pull one leg free. The Piscarian rocker drove her boot heel into his chest.

He floundered backwards. Barra's hand scrabbled on the floor till it found the neck of her guitar.

The man howled, still falsetto, and lunged.

Wailing Doom cracked him in the side of the head. And despite her detractors' comments to the contrary, her instrument really did hurt much more when applied externally.

Screaming Barracuda kicked the crumpling weight aside, got up, and gawped at the two women who appeared at the end of the passage -- battling in the middle of a two-tone inferno.

Waves of fire crashed together. Blue and yellow met like rival oceans waging war. Long burning streams snaked from the beautiful apocalypse, slashing at both pyrokineticists' faces and outstretched arms. But other flames flashed across their flesh to intercept them. An incendiary aegis blocked each one, roaring defiance. Alexa Haelia's eyes glared from amidst her azure conflagration. Molten murder seethed in their fiery depths.

Those blue things want to kill us! They're... Unicorn!

"What?"

Unicorn!

Ali turned her head. And if they were crazy, so was she. Because a burning blue horn was pointing right at her chest. Her flames rushed around to intercept it. But fire or flesh, real or delusion, the unicorn smashed into her like a speeding truck. Ali flew across the corridor and thudded against the wall.

"Ugh... Show off..."

She lay on the floor, pain echoing through her bones. Alexa... Sapphire...

That's a stupid name! It's a pun! We're not going to be beaten by someone whose name's a pun!

...walked towards her. The woman's eyes glowered hotter and bluer than the serpentine tongues lapping around her body.

"You were right," Sapphire said. "The unicorn worked... But there's something better."

The animal rose up on its hind legs, goring the air with flaming hooves. Its body surged outward, expanded like an inflating balloon. Expanded and shifted -- twisting, changing. Masses of fire lashed out from its back and stretched into a pair of pteropine wings.

A dragon! It's a dragon!

"I know!"

Ali braced one hand against the floor and raised the other. Yellow tongues flickered across her fingers, ready to flare and fly. But Alison Haelia felt like a woman standing on the roof of her house, about to try blowing back a hurricane.

We'll handle this!

"How?"

We have an idea!

"But..."

We saw it in the song!

"I don't... Hey!"

Fire gushed from her fingertips. But not at Sapphire, or her grow-your-own dragon. It stopped in the air between them. Stopped and grew, spreading and shaping. Clay giving birth to a sculptor's dreams. The amorphous mass settled into a humanoid form, fashioning head and limbs. Flames softened into features.

"That's... me?" Ali said.

No. You don't have pointy ears...

The dragon roared. Pyromancer Elyssa smirked, and tossed a fireball at its face.

"Again?" Screaming Barracuda said.

She rolled over, got her hands under her, and pushed herself up -- lifting her bruised face from the floor. Which tosser had punched her this time? Whoever the bastard was, her ears were bloody ringing from the... the... punch.

No, not a punch...

The Piscarian sat back on her legs, trying to shake the cobwebs from her head. Wailing Doom lay beside her. She picked it up and hugged it to her chest. Fingers twanged across its strings.

"So she shot him in the face! Just shot him in the fa-a-a-a-ace! Yeah, she shot him in the face! Oh, oh, oh, in the fa-a-a-a-ace!"

The familiar lyrics and tune wrapped themselves around the universe and crammed it back into order. Barra stood up and stared at the aftermath of Armageddon. The remains of furniture and interior walls lay before her in a melted, mangled mess. Hot, dusty stench filled her nose.

She'd been lucky. The room she'd dived into had been at the edge of the destruction, otherwise her publicist would already be busy setting up the Screaming Barracuda holographic post-death tour.

"Ali..."

Barra glanced at the door to the passage. But at this point entrances were fairly optional. She walked across the room instead, stepping over rubble and subdued patches of fire, and through the next, until she came to the smoking, blackened corridor.

"Yeah..." a voice said. "That... That... worked..."

"Ali? Is that you?"

The musician stood above the supine woman, whose face and charred clothes were almost as dark as the walls.

"Yeah..."

Barra's eyes narrowed.

"How do I know it's really you?" The Piscarian grasped her guitar by the neck and hefted it overhead like a battleaxe. "That other bint looked the bloody same!"

"Short hair! Look!"

"Yeah? Maybe it got burned off!"

"Crethnerith."

"Oh, screw you." Screaming Barracuda lowered her weapon.

"Alexa?"

Barra looked around, turned back to Ali, and grimaced.

"Ali... She's... I'm sorry."

The pyrokineticist said nothing for some moments. She clambered to her feet, wincing as she moved her limbs, and didn't meet Barra's gaze.

"Let's get outside," Ali said at last. "Then I'll burn this place to the ground."