“You’re picking the people you’ll carry forward into our new world? Whatever for?”

“Because they’ll need to be survivors.”

“Nonsense. They’ll survive because we decide they’ll be spare.”

“And if one of us decides some of them are inconvenient?”

“Why would we want any inconvenient people? Get rid of them and let the remainder make more. It’s what these people are best at isn’t it?”

“We’ll be losing quite a bit of what people are good at.”

“And our world will be better off for it. All we need are numbers. The more we can control the better, certainly, but without us? Without us they will do nothing but come to the end they’ve been so happily racing towards for centuries now.”

“I still say you haven’t won that argument. And in any event, what does it matter what I do with my protectorate? We will all be sovereign over our own domains, won’t we?”

“Of course, of course. Just see that your ‘survivors’ don’t infect any of my populace with any heretical ideas. Just because we can put down uprising does not mean I wish to waste my energy or resources doing so.”

“Yes. Far be it from any of us to interfere with one another’s workings.”

– High Accessors Vaingloth and Dyrena at Dyrena’s Festival of Many Beauties before the slate of one thousand winners was announced where more than half the winners hadn’t even been contestants.

I wasn’t glowing anymore. I was hiding again. It felt natural and right and comfortable.

And I hated it.

Holding Sola’s power inside wasn’t that tricky anymore. Fulgrox is a much better teacher than he’ll admit, to the point where even Xalaria wasn’t openly critical of my abilities as a novice junior acolyte wanna-be priestess.  His praise and her concealed rather than open disdain weren’t what left my skin itching though.

It was Vaingloth.

He was searching for me. He knew I was inside his city, and he had a host of stolen divine powers to reveal me and then remove me, often with less than a heartbeat between the two.

That should have made hiding the second most wonderful feeling in the world, with only ‘running away’ being a superior choice.

It wasn’t time to run though.

And I didn’t want to.

The argument that I hadn’t really reintegrated myself as ‘Little’ would have been supported by that feeling pretty well, except for one sharp counterpoint.

Vaingloth had me back into a corner, a corner the size of the entire world. With nowhere left to run, I tend to do things like ‘grab a patroller’s knife and stab him forty or so times’.

Stabbing Vaingloth wasn’t going to accomplish anything.

Which meant I wasn’t going to be that nice to him.

And people were going to be hurt because of it.

If I was a better person, maybe I could have found a better answer. If I was a better person, maybe I would have cared to try.

Instead, I was happy to be a monster. 

Mostly because the more I focused on that, the less afraid I had to admit to being.

“Things have changed a bit since you left,” Lucky said.

It was still hard keeping up with her – damn her long legs – but the days we’d spent walking back from the Factorum had been enough for my body to regain the strength that I’d lost and then some. Sure, I’d eaten far more than my fair share of Helgon’s ridiculously good food, but I had no regrets on that regard.

Okay, maybe one regret. Zeph had very kindly indulged in only small portions of the food and she definitely deserved far more than that. Going back to the Factorum for more food would have been the obvious answer, but I knew what the right payback for her was.

I had to free Sola. 

That would make Zeph happier than anything or everything else in the world.

Which was apparently something quite a few people agreed with her on.

We stepped around a corner and onto a walkway which spiraled down the outside wall of a cavern filled with a hundred or more people. 

Our arrival was noticed immediately, but it wasn’t until Zeph came into view that people understood we were more than just Lucky and her friends returning from a simple errand.

The gasps of joy and muffled excitement shifted to quieting concern as MB entered the cave at the rear of our party.

MB, sensing just as well as I would have, that it was the object of far too much attention, sat down, brushed it’s face with one paw and let out a questioning meow in my direction.

I sent an unconcerned shrug back. We weren’t in danger from the people here, and my hope that they’d be welcoming of some monsters willing to fight on their side against the monster who ruled Mt Gloria seemed to be confirmed by the shrugs I saw in the crowd.

“How did you get all these people together?” I asked. Impressed with the small army Lucky had assembled.

“Didn’t have to do anything really,” she said. “They all found us. Or most of them did. We spread the word a bit after you left.”

“I’m impressed. I didn’t think there were this many people who’d be willing to risk becoming Kindling like this.” Given the number of people I’d seen sell out everyone around them in order to avoid being thrown into a fire portal, I had to wonder if half the people present weren’t planning to turn traitor. Lucky didn’t seem to be worried about that all though.

“Oh, this isn’t all of us,” she said. “Not by a long shot.”

“Wait, how many have joined you?” Zeph asked. I wasn’t in danger of collapsing between one step and the next anymore, but it was still nice to have her close by to catch me if I was wrong about that.

“No idea,” Lucky said. “I know there’s at least ten groups this size, but we only have contacts with about half of them. I’d  guess there’s probably as many more than we haven’t heard about because they’ve been smart enough to not draw attention to themselves.”

“That’s too large an organization to keep secret. How haven’t you been found yet?” Xalaria asked as we descended to the group floor.

“They’re not secret,” Kalkit said after tasting the air a few times.

“Not from the Patrollers. They know good and well that we’re out here. They are trying to downplay our numbers to keep the rich people calm, but it’s not really working.”

“You’re a trap then,” Xalaria said. “Bait left out by our enemy to lure us in.”

“We’re thinking more that you’re the bait to lure them in,” Lucky said.

Which was not the answer I’d been expecting. The people around us, despite having the numbers to be a small army where clearly not a fighting force.

Most were grouped in small clusters. Some were just talking, like people everywhere do, while others were listening to people reading from books of different shapes and size, while still others were mixing together food rations into ‘Hungry Packs’.

I hated ‘Hungry Packs’. The whole idea was to take the worst of the rations and ruin a bunch of at least barely edible ones by mixing them together. If you were hungry enough, they were worth eating as an alternative to dying, but just barely.

I didn’t have to even glance over at Xalaria to ask if people who were subsisting on Hungry Packs were ready to fight off Vaingloth’s elite forces. Between the children who were running around and the elderly people who were either being tended to or tending people themselves, I was pretty sure a single Inquisitor armed with a stick and a couple of rocks could wipe the place out on their own.

“You cannot stand against a Neoteric Lord,” Xalaria said. “Or is that the point?”

Meaning, had all these people grown sufficiently fed up with Vaingloth’s tyranny that they were looking at death as simply an escape?

They weren’t.

I looked at MB who’d plopped down and immediately been descended on by a pack of a dozen children of almost as many different species. They were poking and petting MB with the sort of careless curiosity that would have made them delicious snacks if MB wasn’t, you know, me.

These weren’t kids who were looking to escape their miserable lives. They probably wanted better ones, or at least tolerable ones, but they weren’t interested in checking out just yet.

No one in the cavern was.

I noticed that a moment before I noticed something far more interesting.

I wasn’t glowing.

But I could still see them. Which was pretty usual. People don’t normally stumble around in the pitch dark. When the lights go off we go to sleep. Everyone was up and about though because the cavern was filled with the usual pale and dim lighting that had characterized everyday of ever since the Sunfall.

But this lighting wasn’t flickering flame light.

It was steady

And soft.

And golden.

“Sola?” I could feel her. Not inside, or not just inside, but in the room. Her gentle warmth and little sparks of her abundant radiance. “Oh. Oooooh.”

She…I didn’t even have words for the thought I was trying to form.

She was still trapped in me, bound up in chains that I was more than willing to murder to break.

But she was here too.

Because that’s how gods worked.

What I’d done in fighting Vaingloth hadn’t just reminded the city of Sola’s existence. It had brought her into their lives.

These people weren’t rebelling against Vaingloth. They were fighting for her!

“Figured you’d notice,” Lucky said. “Took ya a while though.”

“Shut up.” It was easier than hugging her.

I went up to one of the groups who was listening to someone reading from a book. The nearest guy, a Satyr, moved over a bit and offered me a spot to sit within the circle.

He didn’t recognize because why would anyone know or care what a ratkin girl looked like, but they were all still willing to accept me into their circle.

A circle which was listening to one of the most heretical of all possible things; a book on philosophy written before the Sunfall.

Xalaria and Fulgrox were more interested in discussing strategy or whatever with Lucky, and Kalkit had more or less disappeared the moment we came into the cavern. Zeph though took a seat on the group beside me as the book’s reader resumed from the passage where he’d left off.

Apart from MB, who seemed to be a welcome relief for the adults as a distraction for the kids, the rest of use didn’t draw much attention and it was soon clear why as a steady stream of people of all shapes and sizes arrived and left without any particular fanfare.

“And so we turn to the question of divine infallibility,” the speaker, Harshant, an older Catkin gentleman read. “We take the dictates of our deities as our gospel, as wisdom granted from a source of deeper and wider perception than any we may possess. Yet, it is a wisdom which must always be questioned. Even though we walk as children and talk as children, is in questioning that we may grow to the understanding which will mark us as the adults they bid us to be. Though some may claim otherwise, the High Assessors ability to interpret the will of the gods is not meant to be the end of reason and investigation but rather the beginning, with the High Assessors themselves no more than a stepping stone we must all, in time, walk beyond.”

He put down the book into his lap and looked at his small audience.

“So are we supposed to question things? Is it dangerous? And what does this section mean now, since we don’t have any High Assessors left anymore?”

“We do though,” a chunky Ratkin lady said. “We’ve got Little. She’s out there somewhere, but she’s a High Assessor if ever there was one.”

I became painfully aware of everyone in the room who knew my name and sent the loudest, unvoiced prayer I could to Sola that each and every one of them would keep their big mouths shut.

“I’m supposed to be dead.”

“We could send you back if you like.”

“I was supposed to be Kindling.”

“You still could be.”

“I don’t understand. The Lord’s will is absolute.”

“That’s certainly what he wants you to believe. A few of us have chosen to disagree with that however.”

“But how?”

“No one is all powerful. Not even the gods as it turned out, and your little Neoteric Lord there is a pale and pathetic reflection of what they once were.”

“Okay, but if you’re rebels he would have hunted you down already.”

“He’s certainly been trying but let me fill you in on a little secret. No tyrant in history has even been able to suppress all dissent. You can’t hate everyone and not be hated back after all.”

– from a diary titled “The Testament of Those Who Refuse to Bow”, written within the first decade post-Sunfall.

 There was a welcoming committee waiting for us when we got back to Mount Gloria. I’d expected that. Hell I’d gone to a fair bit of trouble to ensure there would be one. Which is why I was surprised when it turned out that there were in fact two welcomes waiting for us.

The one I’d expected was arrayed atop the walls to the city. It wasn’t the best place to deploy troops, but Vaingloth had plenty of disposable and generally useless minions to work with so spending a few to ensure he had the earliest possible warning of our arrival was a reasonable use of resources.

Why didn’t he simply venture out and confront us in the wastelands? He couldn’t. I don’t mean he was physically incapable of leaving the city. He’d left the city at least three times that I knew of after all, but I was hardly another Neoteric Lord who required his personal touch to dispose of. Or, really, I wasn’t another Neoteric Lord with a bounty of divine power he could look forward to laying claim to. To personally venture forth and expose himself to the perils of the wastelands for someone like me would be to elevate me to a vastly greater rank of importance than even my proponents probably believed I deserved. 

He could have dispatched his troops but then what if I snuck in and found him without an army to back him up? Sure, he’d soundly beaten me the last time we met and had every reason to believe another confrontation would end just as badly for me as the first one had, but what if it didn’t? 

I’d been to the Factorum. Vaingloth wasn’t stupid, he could work out where I was returning from by direction and duration of the trip. Helgon had offered his hospitality, which Vaingloth wouldn’t have been surprised by, but the fact that I’d rejected that hospitality and chosen to return? That had to raise some dire questions. Ones like ‘what did that little rat learn out there?’ and ‘she fought that hard to stay alive, she’s not coming back here to die, but how does she plan to survive?”

I’d been worried when we left that Lucky had sold me out, but even if all of the people I knew had told Vaingloth everything they knew about me in an effort to save their own skins (which I hoped had happened if any of them had been caught), there would have been nothing in any of their stories which could have explained why I was coming back.

So was the person approaching not me then? That was far more likely than the reality. With Helgon in the mix it was impossible to rule out that I’d been replaced with something else. More than a few of the machines that had decorated Helgon’s lab were formed in the shape of torsos and heads and such. Would it have been that out of character for him to send an automata to work some mischief on Vaingloth? 

Well, yeah, it would have been. I’d talked with Helgon for a few hours and even with that brief an exposure I could tell that he had zero interest in provoking the surviving Neoterics when  he could be happily puttering about in his lab instead. I don’t think it was even that he was afraid of them. I think he just didn’t care that he was dead and found the other Neoterics to be a hassle to deal with.

But Vaingloth couldn’t count on that. Someone in his position had to always assume that if there was anywhere else near his level of power and influence that they would try to destroy him sooner or later.

Which, to be fair, I’m sure the other Neoterics were planning to do.

But me? A tiny, insignificant ratkin? He couldn’t acknowledge that he was afraid of me. That would tell the other Neoterics that he had grown weak enough that someone like me could be a threat. 

And they would happily devour him the moment they believed that.

Was that my plan? It would have been a reasonable one except for the part where I had no interest in handing the other Neoterics Vaingloth’s stored power.

That they might be incapable of taking him out was also a bit of a problem. He did know them after all and had to have some serious contingency plans in place in case they moved against him before he eliminated one or more of them.

So. No army’s beyond the gate. No going beyond the walls himself. Posting plenty of guards at the borders though? When the city was up in arms and going through one its periodic ‘unruly phases’? No one would bat an eye at that.

The wealthy of the city were probably making bets as to how quickly the whole situation would blow over and how much extra fuel for the fire portal they would reap from the “deviants” who were caught.

All of that was so obvious that I hadn’t needed to explain my reasoning for longer than five minutes and I’d had the others, and even Helgon, onboard with that part of my plan. 

The second welcoming committee though? That I had no foreseen, and, frankly, it made no sense.

“Could I interest you in a lovely tunnel into the city?” Lucky’s voice was barely more than a whisper but we all stopped dead in our tracks when we heard it.

We were still somewhere near-ish to a mile from the city. Far enough that they couldn’t make out of a lot of detail about us, I hoped, but close enough that we could have navigated by the light the city gave off.

“Who is that,” Xalaria whispered. She wasn’t holding any weapons but from her posture and the rising aura of divinity around her I could tell that was an instant away from changing.

“A friend,” I said, not bothering to whisper. What? The people on the walls were going to hear me? 

Good.

Let Vaingloth be aware that I was coming into the city and he couldn’t be sure where.

I loved that idea.

“Can we afford to disappear now?” Zeph asked.

“I think disappearing now is a miracle I may need to thank Sola for,” I said and hopped into the pit.

Not, possibly, the brightest of moves, but Lucky didn’t exactly have a hard time catching me either.

There are benefits to being Little.

I grinned at the though. No one else would appreciate the joke, and for a change I wasn’t entirely joking when I thought that.

The others followed me down into the darkness without question. I don’t think it was that they’d developed a deep and abiding trust in me. I think it momentum. We’d come this far, walking towards one of the worst foes the world had to offer. If we’d been inclined to stop, we could have easily just stayed at the Factorum.

Well, okay, that’s not exactly true. I was more than inclined to stop. I very much still wanted to run away. That I wasn’t doing so was largely because I knew I didn’t have that option and if I was going to be hunted down and murdered by Vaingloth’s assassins, I at least wanted to die at a time that was convenient for me, not him.

“You found some new friends?” Lucky said, looking more than a little surprised that I had four people with me rather than one.

“It was more than they found me,” I said. “Turns out they’re not fond of Melty Boy either.”

While I wanted Vaingloth to know I was back in a general sense, I switched back to uncommon euphemisms for him because I didn’t want him to know exactly where I was for as long as possible.

“You’ve been organizing the resistance,” Xalaria said, staring at Lucky with a gaze that seemed to be slicing her up and assigning a numerical battle value to each component she could divide Lucky into.

“We’re not that organized,” Lucky said. “Not yet anyways.”

“Really? How did you know to dig a tunnel out to where I was going to be? Or even better how did you know I was even going to back?”

Before she could answer, MB hopped down into the tunnel as the last one in.

MB’s size is basically ‘yes’. It’s big, but exactly how big is a little flexible. I hadn’t been too worried about it fitting into the tunnel, but once it was there, filling the whole corridor, Lucky and the few people she’d brought with her began to look a bit dismayed.

“And that?” Lucky asked, hedging away from me and MB. “What’s that?”

“Call it MB,” I said. “This is a friend. It also wanted to do horrible things to Melty Boy, so don’t worry. You’ve got monsters on your side now too!”

That really shouldn’t have been reassuring, but I don’t think Lucky understood that I was including myself in the count of ‘monsters’. Explaining everything to her wasn’t something that we had time for and I’m not sure I could have presented any of it in a believable fashion for someone who had never been touched by the divine like my traveling companions had.

“Can it follow us?” Lucky asked and then amended. “Can it fit through these tunnels? We couldn’t make any of them all that wide.”

“It’ll be fine,” I said, certain that MB would either fit or would make sure the tunnel let it fit. “I still don’t understand how you managed to make a tunnel this long though, and right where we needed it?”

“We didn’t make most of this,” Lucky said and began leading us back towards the city. “People have been making these for a long time. We just chose where it broke up to the surface.”

“Which just somehow happened to be where I was? This wasn’t meant for me was it?”

“It was meant for her,” Lucky said. In exactly the same manner that Zeph did when referring to Sola.

“Understandable. How did you pick where to break up? I mean your positioning was wonderful. I can’t imagine anyone could predict we’d disappear this far out from the city.”

“We didn’t. Predict where you were going to be that is,” Lucky said. “We’ve got tunnels all over the place. There are at least a hundred paths we can use to get in and out of the city.”

I toppled a bit and touched the wall.

That was a mistake. 

Of sorts.

The wall wasn’t natural stone. It had been worked by a Ratkin’s hands.

A century ago. He’d been tired and scared and angry, but he’d scrapped away at the stone I was touching, carving what little bit he could with makeshift tools and the remnants of his strength.

And he hadn’t been alone.

I’d walked back thinking I was coming to Mount Gloria to strike against Vaingloth the Neoteric Lord. I’d thought that my fellow Blessed would lend me there support but that it would be up to me to enact my plan. That I’d started things and it would fall on me alone to finish them.

I’d been wrong.

I wasn’t alone. I never had been. There were so many people who had fought back in so many ways. Who were still fighting back.

I put my hand fully against the wall and felt the echo of not one soul, but hundreds. They were gone, but the dreams they had for the future carried on.

They’re effort, our efforts, the good that we could do, it wouldn’t be in vain.

“This is madness. You would have us style ourselves as ‘Eternal Lords’ because why? Because you imagine we can overthrow the gods? The very definition of the eternal? Do you not see the contradiction? Even if this mad vision of yours was practical and not the most deranged form of blasphemy imaginable, it would still argue against itself. If that which is truly eternal can be cast down and destroyed then by what measure could you claim to be eternal when the same could as easily be done to you? No sir, I will have no part in this. You cross lines which we dare not ever even venture near! Go to the Council if you will with your evidence of my crimes if you will since I shall certainty be presenting my accusations against this insanity.”

“As I always believed you would. The others disagreed of course. They said we needed you. That you held too much sway to not be included in our little cabal. I, on the other hand, find thirteen to be an inauspicious number, so, to be quite honest, I am quite grateful you have chosen to reject the membership which they demanded I offer you. I’d been afraid for a moment there that the evidence we assembled might be convincing, but you have more conviction than I guess. Bravo, sir. That leaves us, however, with just one matter to attend to.”

– High Accessor Olmen’s final interview with High Accessor Vaingloth before Olmen’s demise of ‘perfectly natural causes’.

The trip back to Mt Gloria felt a lot less perilous than the outward bound one. As usual though, my feelings can be pretty stupid.

Oh, sure, the deadly, maddened spirits weren’t an issue, largely because I didn’t want them to be. In hindsight, that might have been a mistake, ordering them away that is. Maddened spirits have to go somewhere after all and are staggeringly good at causing problems. Since those problems didn’t immediately involve me however, it was easy to overlook them. I just knew I didn’t feel like getting pulled down into a sink hole because a mountain spirit couldn’t conceive of any other expression for the absence it felt.

Also, for as wonderful company as Zeph can be, it was even more reassuring to have three other Blessed walking along beside us. I’d suggested Helgon could, and in fact should, join us (my plan would have worked even better with him there), but, as I’d expected, he opted not to, explaining that he was “much too at home in his labs to be up for any sort of adventures”.

A glance at Kalkit and the responding shrug had confirmed that Helgon wasn’t lying, but I was pretty certain he wasn’t telling the truth either.

Which was fine. If we didn’t all have our little secrets then what kind of fun would be left for Kalkit, right?

Of course it turns out that sharing a secret doesn’t revoke it’s status as a secret if you’re still keeping it hidden from someone, which made convincing them a bit easier that my plan wasn’t as impractical as the ‘we’ll figure it out when we get there’ approach they’d had in mind.

I still suspected that Kalkit had a different, better plan in mind and was keeping it quiet in case mine fell apart, but I couldn’t help but be a surprised that Fulgrox had thought that “winging it” was the right approach to taking down a Neoteric Lord. Xalaria? Yeah, she seemed hot headed enough to rush into her god’s arena of warfare and battle without anything but a hope and a dream (apparently ‘Strategy and Tactics’ belong to some other god?), but Fulgrox was devoted to the Harvest God, and harvests take planning?

Of course, saying that my Blessed companions ‘liked my idea’ is probably a bit strong. Zeph liked it, but I think that was a little bit based on her faith in me and a lot based on wanting to see Vaingloth dead no matter what it took. If it had been Zeph’s call, the trip back would have been a lot faster too.

But instead we walked.

Not ‘flew in Zeph’s arms’. Not rode atop MB’s soft and fluffy back.

Walked. Like with our legs.

Why?

I wanted Vaingloth to know we were coming.

Normally it wouldn’t be easy for him to sense us, but it doesn’t take god-like mystical acumen to notice a tiny glow dot on the horizon which was steadily getting brighter and closer.

The glow was, of course, me. I still couldn’t talk to Sola, something Vaingloth was no doubt well aware of, but her power was in me and with Fulgrox’s help I was learning, bit by bit, how to tease it out.

Had this been before the Sunfall there would have been hundreds of schools where I could have studied how channel the gifts of grace I was blessed with. All of that practical knowledge had been lost though, and what Xalaria, Fulgrox, and Kalkit could do, they had been required to reinvent themselves from first principals.

Zeph had helped a bit too, but her relationship to the divine was starkly different from the rest of us. The power she held was a part of her, not gifted from a god, and her ability to work with it came as much from the memories of the lives she’d once lived as from any practice she’d done in this one. She understood the most basic techniques we shared and some of the fundamental mechanics, which helped with the first lesson Fulgrox had provided, but what came naturally to her were feats I couldn’t replicate any easier than I could flap my arms and fly like Kalkit could.

After a few days of practicing at all the rest breaks we took, Fulgrox pronounced me ‘not a complete disaster’ as a divine acolyte. I could tell Xalaria didn’t have as kind an outlook on my progress, though part of that was probably concern over the fact that the person leading her into battle (sort of) was about as unsuited for battle as it was possible to be.

Kalkit, meanwhile, kept their thoughts to themselves.

I kind of liked that about Kalkit. Sure, they were judging me just like the others, but unless it became a problem, I wasn’t going to hear about how terrible I was as a divine host or wanna-be priestess.

With my ‘newfound mastery of my divine gifts’ I was able to do such exciting things as ‘glow a little brighter than before and intentionally instead of just as a side effect of existing’ and ‘provide a bit of warmth in a slightly larger area though not as big as when Sola was free to work her power through me’ and, best of all,  ‘light easily flammable things on fire’! 

I have to confess that last one was pretty fun once I worked out how to do it. I don’t have a good relationship with fire in general, but that’s because fire has always been something out of my control, a tool for punishment or a meager reward for far too much labor. Being able to set things on fire myself though? Getting to choose the flame and control the burn? Hehehe. I already loved Sola, but the fire thing? Delightful. Simply delightful.

Also, it made cooking a whole lot easier.

Yes, technically none of us ‘needed’ food, but ‘not needing’ and ‘not wanting’ are two very different things, and while Helgon wasn’t willing to come with us, he did insist on packing us the tastiest selection of foods I’d ever had. 

Don’t get me wrong, raiding Vaingloth’s private garden had been a mindblowing culinary experience, but Helgon understood a couple of little concepts called ‘spices’ and ‘flavor’. 

Did I eat far, far too much of our provisions at the first meal? 

Yes.

And I will not apologize.

We were in the wasteland, and I needed strength, and on my literal soul it was so good I could not stop.

Did that wind up costing us an extra day because I was incapable of any movement until I finished digesting the five hundred meals I’d eaten in one sitting? 

Yes.

I am still not going to apologize though.

Extra delay getting Sola back. More peril for the people in Mt Gloria. The chance that a spirit who wouldn’t listen to me would decide to attack at any moment. 

All worth it.

I already hated Vaingloth as much as I possibly could but if there’d been any room left to hate him more, the fact that he was responsible for feeding me a lifetime of horrible mush instead of even one meal like the one Helgon provided? Death was literally too good for him. There could be no forgiveness for such a crime. Ever.

That first meal on the road did restore a lot of my strength too. I wasn’t exactly up for long runs or any desperate struggles but the hike back to Mt Gloria seemed a lot more viable after I’d slept and my stomach wasn’t threatening to burst at any moment.

In the back of my mind, I’d expected I’d only be able to put up the “tough” facade I’d been wearing up to that point for a few hours and then I’d be forced to have Zeph carry me for the rest of the trip. That was still tempting from time to time as we crossed the miles of silent, empty ruins, but I was going to need all her speed and strength later so tiring her out by asking her to haul my carcass over days of rough terrain seemed overly self indulgent. 

MB was an alternative too, but it was feeling as nervous as I was and I wanted it to feel like it could rely on me, since it really didn’t have anyone else.

The closer we got though, the more real everything began to feel. In the Factorum, my plan had been a fanciful daydream. With each step on the road though, I was marching closer and closer to a reckoning that had been coming since before my great grandparents had been born. 

I’m not good at reckonings.

Or marching to my doom.

Fleeing to safety? Yep. That was much more my speed.

This world didn’t have any safety to offer me though. Vaingloth could never have forgiven what Sola and I did to him. Which was fine, because he never could have forgiven me for taking her from him before that. Or forgiven anyone for possessing power that he desired even before I found her.

We were doomed, she and I, before we made any choices at all. 

And then a city had risen up and chanted my name.

That put Vaingloth beyond revenge or lust for power.

Our existence, Sola’s and mine, had become antithetical to his.  In us, people were seeing another choice for who and what they could be. Who they could believe in. 

And maybe they were wrong.

Maybe they were madder than Vaingloth was.

I could offer no proof and wasn’t about to make the claim that I knew how to lead them to something good.

I didn’t need to though. All on their own people had figured out that, however bad things could go by believing in Sola, they would still be better off than they were where Vaingloth had brought them.

People may tolerate tyranny, they may even cling to it out of fear of the alternative, but they will never prosper under it.

Vaingloth had locked us into a eternal moment of torment by taking away the promise of a better future. 

Sola, by her sheer existence, spoke of the rising of new days. 

Had Vaingloth understood what that meant, he would never have used her as a glorified crop lamp. If he’d understood what she was, he would have destroyed her and any other fragment of her he could have found.

He hadn’t been afraid of her though, and he certainly was never of afraid of me.

I hung onto that thought as we approached Mt Gloria.

Vaingloth hadn’t been afraid of me, but he was going to be.

“The experiment seems to have caused a detectable amount of damage.”

“Really? Do you think so? The shard is maintaining its authority and form. I think the decrease in power can be attributed to a lack of channeled grace alone. See, watch as I provide it with a little dram, that should perk it right back up.”

“I was referring to the Blessed, not the shard.”

“The what? Oh, the mortal vessel. Yes, yes, we’ll need someone to sweep up the ashes before the next test. Not really a loss there, our stock is quite plentiful after all.”

“Perhaps we should select the next subject with an eye towards compatibility with the shard?”

“I don’t take your meaning. How would we know that?”

“Ask them I would think?”

“A waste of time. If the test subjects could provide useful insight into the process they wouldn’t have wound up as test subjects.”

– from the voice notes of the Neoteric Lords Hanshel and Tallgrim’s first sessions with a shard of Nylssa the God of Fauns.

Complicated questions usually have simple answers I’ve found. ‘No’, for example, tends to works really great. Or at least it tends to be the right answer to a lot of complicated questions. Saying ‘Yes’ to something someone is hesitant to ask usually results in a transfer of the complications they’re facing so that said complications become your problem, and I am not a fan of either complications or problems.

“There is another piece of information you may wish to be aware of,” Helgon said, addressing the other God Blessed. “My newest interloper here is, at present, cut off from communion with the divine shard she carries.”

Xalaria, Fulgrox, and Kalkit turned to look at each other with even more concern than they’d been showing previously.

“Cut off?” Xalaria asked. Was she hoping I would contradict Helgon? Or maybe soften his warning somehow?

“Yep. She’s still there, but I can’t talk to her, and I think she’s limited in what she can do through me.” There was no sense holding that back. If they had intended to trick me into lowering my guard so they could attack, I’d rather had it over and done with sooner than later. If their intentions were more benevolent, or worst case, they needed my help, making them aware that I could do much for them would save me a lot of trouble later.

“How is that possible?” Fulgrox asked. He caught his hand before it could reach forward on it’s own. I don’t think he was intending to shake me until Sola fell out, but for all I knew that might have worked.

“Vaingloth’s handiwork,” Helgon said. “One of his standard spells.”

“Can you undo it?” Xalaria asked.

“I would need rather specialized ingredients for a working such as that I’m afraid,” Helgon said.

“Ingredients like what?” Zeph asked, her attention focusing on Helgon rather than Xalaria.

“The primary one would be my old co-conspirator’s corpse,” Helgon said. “If you could procure that however, I believe Little’s problem might resolve itself on its own.”

As answers to one of the questions which had driven me across the wasteland to this place, that one sucked.

“I see a large, Vaingloth shaped problem with that idea,” I said. “Apart from that though, I’m in favor of the idea.”

“I believe you would find nine Neoteric shaped problems with the idea,” Helgon said. “Or perhaps eight, or, for all I can say, perhaps there’s no one who would stand with that pompous fool.”

“The other Neoterics won’t stand with him, but they will scramble to claim the power he holds if he loses control of it,” Xalaria said. “It’s what we came here to speak to you about.” She was looking at Helgon when she said that which was a relief since I’d already tried to kill Vaingloth and it hadn’t gone well when I had Sola at her full power backing me up.

“Oh, be assured, I am desperately in favor of the notion as well. The practicality of it however eludes me,” Helgon said. “Sadly that is not a new issue either. The Lord of Mt Gloria may be an idiot but he is a careful idiot and quite secure in his position and power.”

“There’s no such thing as perfect security,” Xalaria said.

“Which of the Neoteric are backing you?” Zeph asked, her wary attention returning to Xalaria.

“None of them, despite any claims they might have made,” Helgon said. “Believe me, no one is in a position to compel the Neoteric Lord or force them to honor any bargains they have made.”

“Their treachery is, unfortunately, not a secret,” Kalkit said. “Their weaknesses on the other hand…”

I’d been under the impression that Xalaria as a Blessed of the God of Battle was the primary danger among the trio. I’d thought that because my brain was operating at about five percent of its usual power. Even five percent was enough to pick up on what Kalkit’s simple statement really meant.

I reached a hand down to scratch MB behind the ear and tried to convey the idea that getting on the Crowkin’s bad side was an incredibly bad idea.

Was I overreacting? Maybe. My instincts were on the side of ‘running and hiding’ as a primary defense mechanism and anyone who could intrinsically see what was hidden foiled that almost entirely. That they were sufficiently attuned to their god that they could spy the most dangerous secrets of the Neoteric Lords though told me that I might not have been overreacting enough.

“Is it to be blackmail then? That would be delicious, but also overwhelming likely to backfire,” Helgon said.

“If I told you, then it wouldn’t be a secret,” Kalkit said.

“But we did have a few questions for you,” Fulgrox said, “and for her.”

“How did you even know I’d be here?” I asked. Zeph and I had planned to head to the Factorum well before we actually left Mount Gloria. The trap Vaingloth had managed to spring on us hadn’t required that he be aware of that, or that we were planning to leave at all.

“You kept your intentions secret,” Kalkit said with a shrug of their wings.

“What? That…you can’t know everyone’s secrets all the time.” I wasn’t objecting because that seemed impossible. I’d had a small taste of what Sola could do and someone who’d had more than a week or so with their god would probably be able to share in the god’s domain a lot more than I had with Sola. What I was mostly grousing about was why anyone would ever have bothered to know anything about me.

“Not everyone, but anyone, and you became a bit more worth looking into after the entirety of Mount Gloria rose up chanting your name.”

“They.

Did.

What?”

I  had faced the wastelands, and admittedly been terrified the entire time. I had faced Vaingloth, and admittedly been less than a second from a horrible death. I had even walked directly into a fragment of the god-killing, world destroying beast, and been completely destroyed by it. You would think after all that, I would be immune to panic.

You would be miserably wrong.

“Yeah. It’s why we ran over here now,” Fulgrox said.

When he said ‘ran’ I was pretty sure he was being literal, except maybe in Kalkit’s case who probably flew.

“The situation in Mount Gloria is unique and unstable,” Xalaria said. “And you are a pivotal component of it.”

I could run but it wasn’t going to help.

Actually I couldn’t run. Even the panic gripping my mind wasn’t enough to talk my body into that sort of effort. There were no reserves of strength in my legs for the terror to tap into.

In hindsight, that was probably a good thing, but then if I had run I’m not sure what difference it would have made with Kalkit able to track me wherever I tried to hide.

“You want her to return and what?” Zeph asked.

“Finish what she started,” Xalaria said.

“What I started was ‘dying horribly’ and I have to say I’m super eager to resume that.”

“Even if it would save your god?” Fulgrox asked.

There was a hope in his eyes, as though an appeal to the divinity within me would be the magic phrase to overcome the sense of self-preservation which I clearly had only a nebulous grasp on anyways.

“Save Sola? Nope. She would absolutely not want me to die horribly for her.”

“She’s a coward too then?” Xalaria seemed to think that was her magic phrase.

I could see why. A lot of people I’d known would have jumped up to fight to disprove her claim. 

Yeah. Jump up to fight the Blessed of Battles.

A lot of people I’ve known have been idiots.

“Sure. We’ll go with that if its what you can understand,” I said. It wasn’t the right answer. I mean, I’m kind of an idiot too, and I couldn’t deny that Xalaria’s words did hurt. The thing is though? I’ve gotten used to that pain. Oh, sure, on some level I was still trying to pick a fight with her, which was just as stupid as throwing a punch would have been, but on another level I really did mean what I said.

Was I a coward? Sure. I valued continuing my own existence over almost anything. Did I rise to do the right thing when I could? Nope. Definitely not all the time, or even often enough. 

Was it more complicated than that though? Yeah. Over the years, I’d sort of accepted that it was, and with Sola believe it me, I saw it even more clearly.

I was afraid. Of a lot of things. And that fear served a purpose. Could I do the right thing in spite of it. Sometimes, and those times counted too. More importantly though, by not hiding the fact that I was afraid from myself could I keep from turning inwards and tearing myself into something really terrible? Someone who liked to hurt others for example because the illusion of power that came with perpetrating violence made them feel less helpless? 

I wasn’t a good person. I knew that. But the things I did were done for better reasons and hurt people the least that I could.

Maybe that’s not a lot to be proud of, but its who I was, and Sola loved me for it, and that was what mattered.

“What are you willing to risk then? To see your god freed?” Kalkit asked as Fulgrox laid a hand on Xalaria to stop her from taking the bait I’d thrown out.

“Don’t you already know that?” I asked, even parts annoyed and worried that Kalkit might be asking simply to be polite.

“Your motivations and beliefs aren’t secrets, not as far as my god’s domain defines things,” Kalkit said.

“But you’ll be able to tell if I’m lying, right?” Like I said, the domain of ‘secrets’ was potentially a really terrifying one.

“Most lies are design to hide something,” Zeph said. “Kalkit always catches those, but that’s not every lie.”

“That’s oddly inconvenient,” I said. “Broad enough to be annoying and yet not precise enough to use as convincing proof.”

“You are not the first people to remark on that,” Kalkit said.

“For what it’s worth, I can hear lies of all types,” Helgon said. “But, you would all be fools to trust me.”

“Noted,” Xalaria said and locked her gaze on me as though the God of Battle gave her some special insights too.

“Listen to everything I say then, and understand me. I am not willing to risk anything for Sola. Because Sola is too valuable to risk. If the only means I have of getting her back is to kill Vaingloth, then Vaingloth needs to die, but I am not going to toss Sola away, or worse back into his clutches, on a half baked plan that ‘might work if we get lucky’. I do not get lucky. Things always turns to crap, the dice always bust, everything always falls apart. So no, I am not willing to risk myself to save Sola. We’re both too valuable for that, and, much more importantly, I think I have a better answer for how to handle Vaingloth.”

“Why do we provide hospitality, and honor the blessing of the hearth for strangers? Is it in payment so that we ourselves might in turn receive safe lodging and free support when we are not secure in our homes? Is there a calculus to the giving of food and shelter such that we may have the expectation that what we give will be accounted for and returned to us coin for coin?”

“To the miserly that would seem the only fair and proper balance. To give a single coin beyond what will be received in kind is in their eyes contemptible. They do not see that in providing hospitality we invest not in our future but in the world as it is in the moment we provide for others.”

“What those consumed by greed fail to understand is that to live in a better world requires that the world be better for all. That in striving to batter down others that they might rise, all they ensure is that there will be misery for all, and solace for none.”

“And so we open our doors and make free with our table, that by giving of ourselves today, a blessed tomorrow may shine on us all.”

– from the Catechism of Tylna, Goddess of Travelers, being being struck from the official records by the First Council of High Accessors.

If there was anything that proved that Helgon was dead it was that he seemed sincere in admitting what he was.

“The plan to summon the Plunderer was one we debated vigorously of course.” Helgon’s gaze went distant and somber. “Perhaps if even one of us had brought up the right point, or conceived a convincing enough argument the rest would have altered course? Perhaps we could have avoided all that came after? I know that was beyond me – which excuses nothing I assure you, I speak only of my own failing. Dyrena though? No. I think she saw even early on what might become of things, but I think she saw too what would have befallen her had she stood in the other’s path.”

“Dyrena’s one of the other fallen Neoterics? Like you?” I asked. She had to be from the wistfulness in Helgon’s voice, but it was good to be sure. If she was still alive, then she was still a problem, and I wasn’t a fan of the problems I already had.

“Like me? No, not at all. I mean, yes, she was one of the Twelve. And you are correct, she was cast down. The first to be in fact.”

“But she’s not a ghost like you?” 

“She could be. I rather wish she was in fact. Her visits were always a delight. For me at least. She may not have gotten as much out of them. Which is perhaps why she chose as she did.”

“Chose what?” Zeph asked.

“It’s difficult to describe without equations, but I think a functional metaphor might be that she left the building.” Helgon’s left hand twitched like he was looking for one of the chalk sticks to write on a nearby board that was covered in chalk lines, numbers and symbols I’d never seen before.

“The building in this context is the world?” I asked, trying my best to follow along.

“The world, the numinous sphere around it, the conceptual volume we occupy. What you might call ‘everything’, though ‘everything’ for us is not ‘everything’ there is.”

“Because the beast, or the Plunderer I guess, isn’t part of our everything. It comes from a different everything,” I said, grasping what he was saying though I was sure I didn’t understand all the implications of what any of it meant.

“Precisely so. All Dyrena left behind was her laughter. At us. I think she must have known it would come to that. Even early on. She never stood against the plan, but her involvement was always at a remove. Most of what she did provide was commentary on disasters which we would have blundered into quite unknowingly.”

“So she could have stopped the Sunfall by letting you all just screw up?” I asked. Was that as bad as the crimes the others committed? I don’t think that kind of question mattered given the scale of the what they’d done.

“Not at all. Had Dyrena not amended our plans, we would not be sitting here as there would be no ‘here’ at all. When I say we debated our scheme vigorously, it wasn’t out of conscience or a struggle with the moral implications. Those who would have provided moral opposition were removed from power long before any open debate on the matter was broached. No, our discussions, once they became openly acknowledged as such were around the practicalities and logistics of our endeavor. No one had had ever dared what we would dare and so there was no roadmap to follow and no guarantee that our approach would yield the results we longed for.”

“And did it? Is this,” I gestured to the everything around us, “is this what you wanted?”

“I wish I could lie and say either yes or no. Were I a proper Lord like the rest I would say ‘no’, because there was still power I had yet to claim. Were I what I had thought myself to be, I would offer a resounding ‘yes’. Time without end? The chance to study and understand, to build a new world drawing upon all the lessons of the old? A path to the perfected forms and eternal states of being for all? Even cast down as I am, even with the world sunken to the state it is, even with all the dead piled upon me, I should be able to say ‘yes, yes it was all worth it’.”

“Why can’t you?” Zeph asked.

“Probably because of us.” An unexpected voice, feminine but deeper than mine or Zeph’s coming from behind my chair should have sent me jumping to the ceiling. 

I drew in a quick breath, maybe to try the aforementioned jump, but my body completely vetoed that idea. To jump one must have muscles and mine were firmly in recovery mode. My bones were in agreement too. From their point of view, they’d been reduced the elemental dust and were still unsure of the benefits of resuming a solid form.

I didn’t fight either of them for one simple reason though. I knew who was behind me.

Or maybe more ‘what’ was behind me.

“Hello God of Battle,” I said, without turning to look at them.

“Hello to you, God of the Sun,” the woman said, walking past my chair to pick up a cup of tea and sit down on Zeph’s other side. I hadn’t seen many Automatas before, so saying that this woman was a unique blend of organic and mechanical parts didn’t mean much coming from me, but it was hard to imagine many creators who would be capable of making metal flex and flow like flesh and flesh appear as solid and unyielding as steel. If the fact that she bore a fragment of the God of Battle inside her wasn’t breathtaking enough, the artistry of her creation would have blown me away too. 

But she wasn’t alone. Along with her, two other people followed.

“The God of…Farms?” I asked, fairly certain but not entirely so.

“The Harvest,” the Orc who answered was big even by orc standards, but his voice was surprisingly soft. He took a cup of tea too, but pushed a chair back to sit on the floor in our circle instead. That still left him at roughly eye level with the rest of us, but it made him a bit less intimidating than his size would have warranted.

“Don’t worry about guessing,” the last person said. They were a Crowkin, and small enough that even I would have towered over them. They hopped onto the orc’s shoulder and settled comfortably there as though it was their right and proper perch. Since the orc held the tea cup up for them to peck a bit of refreshment from, I had to guess that was, in fact, the Crowkin’s proper place.

“Wasn’t sure you would be here,” Zeph said.

“Wasn’t expecting you would be either,” the Automata woman said. “And we wefinitely weren’t expecting her,” she nodded towards me, “though it is nice to see you both.”

“Little, this is Xalaria,” Zeph indicated the Automata, “Blessed of Battle. And Fulgrox,” she indicated the Orc, “Blessed of the Harvest. And…” she paused, turning to the Crowkin. “Do I have your permission?”

“For her?” the Crowkin gestured towards me with a wing. “Yes.”

“Little this is a Kalkit, Blessed of Secrets,” Zeph said.

“I see why guessing wouldn’t have helped,” I said. “It’s nice to meet you all, though I should apologize for not being terribly presentable at the moment.”

“You are, or is it were, a Ratkin?” Xalaria asked.

“Are. Mostly,” I said.

“You seem to have gotten a bit of…of something, um, all over you,” Kalkit said.

“And inside you,” Fulgrox said. “All inside you.”

“Is it growing?” Xalaria asked.

“I don’t think it would fall within the domain of a harvest if it was,” Fulgrox said.

“I doubt it would either,” I said. “You all seem at home here, I’m guessing you’re familiar with the beast fragment that was outside?”

“Yes. We were a bit worried to find it had wandered off,” Kalkit said.

“Worry no more,” I said. “You found us.”

“Us? Fulgrox asked to which MB opened it’s eyes, raised its head and gave a tiny wuff of acknowledgement.

The three Blessed shook in surprise.

“That’s alive!” Xalaria asked.

“And sleepy,” I said. “We had a rough day.”

“It’s not the beast though,” Kalkit said, hopping off Fulgrox’s should to get a closer look at both MB and I.

“That’s mostly true,” I said. “If you’re looking for the beast fragment though, that’s us!”

“I will get us some more tea,” Helgon said. “You may want to explain in a bit more detail Little, but I shall save you some time and…no, wait, my explanations just make everything more confusing. Damn that woman. Dyrena, I can hear that in your voice! You are quite the cruelest person I know.”

He wandered off without explaining what was up with me, or what he was talking about but I think, even with the brief exposure I’d had so far, I understood what Dyrena had said about him.

“Do you want the long version or the short version?” I asked. Did I trust them? Not really. Was I comfortable with being around this many people who could pull down miracles like melting the eyes of a Neoteric Lord when I, notably, did not have access to that sort of shenanigans? Not so much. Was I far too tired to care at this point and maybe hoping that someone would melt me down? I refuse to address such scandalous accusations.

“She’s okay,” Zeph said. “The beast fragment is gone. She and MB are something else.”

“Something else which holds one of god fragments,” Xalaria said.

“Something which you are not actually worried about, or we’d be having this discussion outside already,” Zeph said. 

I don’t pick up on a lot of relationship queues. I’ve been told that people were interested in me when I never caught the faintest hint of what people assured me was ‘flirting’. My new senses had no expanded even slightly in that direction either, and yet I could still tell that there was some kind of history between Zeph and Xalaria. 

Idly I tossed a thought towards Sola that could have been called a prayer. I didn’t expect an answer or Sola to do anything, I just wanted to share my hope with her that the two nice ladies not decide to stop being nice.

“For what it’s worth, she’s telling the truth,” Kalkit said, indicating that they were referring to me. “Which might complicate the question we came here to ask her.”

That they knew of me at all was a bit worrisome. That Fulgrox and Xalaria groaned and sagged in their seats confirmed that my day was going to continue along just like it had been going.

MB turned and wuffed, offering to carry me far, far away which was a seriously compelling idea.

“We can’t go in there, the ghosts will eat us!”

“Better the ghosts than the things that have been tracking us through the wastes.”

“But those things can follow us in here too!”

“Nah. They won’t come in here. The ghosts would eat them if they did.”

– A band of outcasts on finding the ruins of the Factorum

With no ability to change direction in mid-air, we plummeted downward, right into the spikes atop one of the buildings at the outskirts of the Factorum’s research district.

That should have been a problem

Spikes have this thing they do where they can punch large holes in places that really want to remain unperforated.

No one had informed MB of that however.

Gentle as a breeze, it landed on the tip of the spikes and bounced onward no differently than when it had leapt from solid ground.

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? I have no idea, but I can definitively say that one MB is perfectly capable of doing so.

I released my death grip on MB’s fur as it came rest outside the one building with light spilling from its windows.

Did the dead need candles to see too?

No. It turns out that this particular dead guy was simply being hospitable.

“Ah. Guests,” a tall, translucent man said from the imposing doorway to the research lab. Yeah, somehow despite the obvious fact that he was a ghost, it was the door which struck me as imposing. I don’t have a thing for architecture or anything, it was just a really impressive door. “I must now chase you off. Boo. Blrgh! Begone mortals before your souls are consumed and your eyes are pickled in brine! Hmm, oh, well, that didn’t work.”

The complete lack of effort he put into being properly menacing spoke to something but I had no idea what it could be.

He turned with a shrug and walked inside, leaving the impressive door open for us to follow.

The thing was at least an arm’s length thick. It had amazing carvings that seemed to have been organically grown by the stone.

It was also a god.

No.

I blinked and tried to work out what I was seeing.

I’d acquired amazing powers of perception. Understanding anything they were showing me however? That was a work in progress.

Zeph and MB moved to follow the ghost, but I paused for a step to work out what, exactly, I was seeing.

The door wasn’t a god. It was however strong enough to hold off a serious amount of divine smiting.

I peered deeper, expecting find a fragment of a god lodged into it somewhere, but it was free of anything like that. At least as far as I could see. 

What I was able to make out was the raw divine power the door was imbued with. The decorations were more than aesthetic too. They were prayers. Prayers that were trapping stolen power and turning it into a shield.

The last place in the world I should go was inside a research lab that was shielded by divine power, but given that I was planning to talk to a Neoteric Lord in the state I was in, I couldn’t really be accused of making anything like “good” decisions.

“Sorry, I got distracted,” Zeph said, appearing at my side and offering me her arm for support.

I took it.

I’m not proud.

Or at least not proud enough to reject help when my were legs feeling like they were going to buckle any second.

“The door’s not…”

“I know. It’s supposed to be consecrated to the god of war, but it’s more than that.” From how Zeph spoke, I had the strong sense that she hadn’t been consciously aware of that until her most recent time seeing the door.

That MB didn’t care could have been reassuring, but I had no idea what its perspective on divine energy was like since that I don’t think I’d had much to contribute there. Maybe it though of the research lab like it was made of tasty food? Probably not but the thought amused me enough that I walked in without paying the sacred structure much more mind.

“Oh no. Intruders. Invaders. Whatever shall I do?” the ghost said, putting his hand to his forehead like he was going to faint. “Offer you some tea perhaps?” 

He gestured to a table that was otherwise cluttered with books but had a small area pushed clear for a tray with tea cups and a pitcher on it.

Was taking food from the dead a good idea? No. Was taking food from a Neoteric Lord an even worse idea? Yes. Was taking food from a dead Neoteric Lord who had, for reasons unknown, set out seven servings of frankly wonderful smelling tea the worst possible idea one could have? I neither knew, nor cared. Not when the tea came with the chance to collapse into a big, puffy chair which had probably been holding the pile of books that was scattered around it.

MB wuffed and sat down beside me, knocking over a teetering stack of books in the process. A stray thought wandered through my mind that if he damaged them, maybe we’d have to take them away. Following that came the question of just how many of the books I could steal before it would be noticed. I figured a safe estimate was somewhere in the triple digits given how many there were and how little attention had been given to their layout, but the last time I’d stolen something from a Neoteric Lord had led to some noticeable consequences, so I reigned in my larcenous tendencies as best I could.

“You wanted to talk to us?” I asked after taking the offered cup of tea with a nod.

“Not especially,” the ghost said.

“Helgon,” Zeph said, a note of warning in her voice.

“I’m a ghost my dear, I have no wants or needs.”

“You’re awfully solid for a ghost,” I said, indicating the carafe of tea he was holding.

“It’s an improvement,” Helgon said. “Previously I was merely awful.”

“Helgon,” Zeph repeated, the warning in her tone growing clearer.

“What? It is as you surmised. I was a monster and now I am but the shade of a monster.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be the dead shade of a monster?” I asked, sensing as I did the dense currents of energy that still ran through him.

In some senses he was more alive than anyone in the room. Heck, in some senses, he was more alive than everyone in Mt. Gloria put together, excepting only Vaingloth.

“I am. Quite dead. Have been for longer than you’ve been alive in fact,” Helgon said, putting the tea down and taking the seat opposite me. Apart from Zeph there was no one to fill the other five chairs, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if Helgon had set this room up a hundred years ago and never bothered altering the layout when he had ‘guests’ over.

“I’ve seen people die. You’re not dead. You’re something else.” I was tired. And I don’t banter all that well at the best of times. 

“As are you,” Helgon said, taking a sip from his tea.

“Is that what you wanted to talk about?” I asked. “What I am? You already heard my explanation didn’t you?”

“Yes. Certainly an incorrect one, though any sort of correct explanation would fail to explain your presence here. Either of your presences.”

“What explanation do you have then? Incorrect or whatever?”

“None. You are a new thing under our sunless sky. Quite terrifying in fact.”

“You don’t seem particularly terrified.” Some people were a jovial mask to hide their fears. Some get real quiet. Helgon was neither of those people. And he wasn’t at all afraid from what I could tell.

“Again. Dead. Not much for me to worry about now, is there?”

“You can’t get, I don’t know, deader?”

“Why my dear! Are you threatening me, or making an offer?” His eyes lit up with the sort of delight that I would normally walk immediately away from. Walking was not exactly an enjoyable prospect at the moment however, so I settled for glaring at him.

“Is that what you want Helgon? I thought you were content with you ‘meager existence’?” Zeph asked.

“If Blessed Little can offer a more permanent state of demise to one such as I, I would find the option endless intriguing,” Helgon said.

“Let me guess, you’d commission nine murders from her?” It wasn’t hard to see who the targets would be given that there were nine remaining Neoteric Lords and they were afraid of Helgon enough to not mess with him despite the fact that they’d already killed him.

“Ten,” Helgon said. “If this world is ever to be renewed, all the monster should be swept from board I believe.”

“I’d need to take myself out too for that to be the case,” I said, feeling a wave of weariness wash over me.

“Don’t be silly,” Helgon said. “You say you killed a man? I and the other killed a world, and not for survival as you did, but for our own greed and ambition. You are no monster Blessed Little. You have simply been placed in monstrous situations and been offered monstrous choices as a result.”

“You say that, but you’re not exactly acting like a monster now. What do you want?”

“Almost nothing and practically everything,” Helgon said. “Not the answer you wished to hear, I’m sure, but truth at least, which I’ve been told is a rarity for my kind.”

“Why don’t you expound on the ‘almost nothing’ then,” I said. “Practically everything sounds like it would take too long to go through.”

“As you wish,” Helgon said and rose from his chair to begin pacing around the room. “What do you know of the Sunfall?”

“Not much. The beast showed up, the gods fought it, they lost, the Neoterics opened the portals to save the nine, or I guess it was twelve at first, cities.” I’d learned and worked out a bit more than that but I wanted to see where he would go with what I gave him.

“Very good. Everything wrong, just as it should be.” He picked up a book, discarded it, pickup another, placed it gently back where it was, and finally conjured a book from thin air that he seemed to be satisfied with.

“Here,” he said. “You don’t need to read it now. I’ll summarize. You may want to refer to it later for additional details however. I always find myself looking for the notes I forgot to write down, whereas the ones I have in written form never seem to leave my mind at all.”

I took the book which weighed about half what I did and let it fall on my lap. In a pinch it would make a decent shield against pretty much anyone I thought.

“To offer some corrections; first, the Plunderer did not simply show up, it was, as you surmised, summoned. The process was lengthy, and required a phenomenal outlay of effort, planning, and the slow and deliberate corruption of not only the processes we safeguarded and those were were intended to shepherd, but even the gods themselves. It was in many sense the grandest endeavor in all of history, the most sublime, and the most doomed even before it was a spark in any of our minds.”

“Why?” I couldn’t help myself even if it was a stupid question.

“We had too much,” Helgon said, his gaze growing distant. “We High Accessors. We were the intermediaries to the gods themselves. Through us the faith of the world flowed into the divine coffers. We were exalted above all other mortals.”

“And that wasn’t enough.”

“It never could be. We had so much, what else could we do but hunger for more?”

“I thought you were going to make your lab presentable for the gathering Helgon?”

“My dear Dyrena, what part of what you see is not perfectly presentable for our esteemed colleagues?”

“The part where there are no tables, no seating, and little room to stand yet somehow plenty of room for piles of whatever these scraps and gadgets are.”

“Oh. Is that what to you meant? I see.”

“And what, pray tell, did you think I was referring to when you offered to host a gathering to discuss your modifications to our grand design?”

“Well, I assumed people might object to the constructs which could, potentially, if the proper safety protocols were not followed, and if their internal constraints failed, slay everyone in the room. So I tidied those up. As you can see.”

“Tied up where?”

“Into the other room.”

“That room? The one with the unlocked door? The unlocked door constructed of, if I am not mistaken, decorative pine wood?”

“Err, yes. Do you think I should lock it?”

“I don’t know. Is that a construct I see wandering out of the room as we speak?”

“Yes. Yes it is. Um, perhaps we should leave and reschedule the meeting. We can discuss preserving the god’s essences some other time I think.”

– High Accessors Dyrena and Helgon shortly before the loss of Research Lab 13 discussing a meeting which was never rescheduled.

My first thought in reaction to learning that a god still existed was outrage. Should it have been a surprise since I was already carrying a god around with me? Yes. Yes it was entirely reasonable to find out that Night still existed. 

Why?  Because Sola wasn’t the god she’d been. 

Sola was wonderful but she was a tiny fragment of the divinity she had once been a part of. That wasn’t what Night was. Night was her entire self. Or close to it at least. 

I tried to reach out to Sola, tried to get a sense of her thoughts or even her feelings on discovering that her sister still existed. Had Sola known? It was secret worth keeping from everyone and everything. Or Sola as shocked as I was? Was she angry at her sister from hiding away from her, or drunk with joy that Night was still here, and not lost as all the rest had been?

I reached out but I just couldn’t tell.

I was going to murder the hell out of Vaingloth for his damned bindings.

I mean, probably not really. If I tried to fight him again there wasn’t going to be another surprise Zeph to save me, so in all likely I would just die horribly. 

Didn’t stop me from wanting to melt more than his eyes though.

“Can you move?” Zeph asked.

“Under my own power?” I asked. “Uh, I’ve probably got a good five or ten steps in me now. Maybe twenty if I push it.”

“Will that…that thing, object if I pick you up?” Zeph asked, clearly leery of getting within chomping range despite the fact that MB was out like a snuffed candle.

“MB? Doubt it. If anything it may want to be carried too,” I said, giving my furry backrest an encouraging scritch.

“I don’t think I can carry it,” Zeph said, alerting me that I wasn’t being clear with when I was actually answering her questions and when I was joking. 

It wasn’t my fault. I was tired.

“That’ll be fine,” I said. “It’ll keep up on its own.”

“It’s not going to stay here?” Zeph could have looked more worried but I’m not sure how her face would have managed to show it.

“It’s been alone for a long time,” I said and the whisper of a memory tickled my mind. Aeons stacking on top of aeons. Time so long that worlds form, cool, blossom with life and then die, returning to dust to start the the cycle over and over again. Time filled with emptiness. And hunger. And loneliness. “It’s with me now and I’m not leaving it.”

“You said it was you? But you call ‘it’, not she, and ‘MB’ not ‘Little’?”

“I know. That’s weird right?”

Zeph gave a stressed little bark of a laugh in response.

“No. Not at all,” she said, reminding me that, yes, she did have a sense of humor too.

“MB is more a description than a name. Mini-Beast doesn’t encompass enough of what it’s become to act as a real name, and I like MB better since it doesn’t link it as strongly to what it was. It’s not the beast anymore, so the less the beast is referenced the better.”

“It told you that?”

“Oh, not at all. It’s not so much on the ‘speaking’ end of things yet. I just like how MB sounds. If it wants another name, I’m trusting it’ll nudge me, or give me some sign, but so far it seems find with it.”

“And it’s an ‘it’? Not a person?”

“It’s a person, but, in this case, it’s still working out what that means. If it had copied more from me and recast its self to actually look like me, I’d probably go with ‘she’ because it would have made more of a choice in that direction. As a big fluffy four legged thing though, I think it’s leaving its options open while it discovers what its become and what it wants to be going forward. Again though, it’s not  telling me that with words or anything, so this could all be product of my obviously broken brain, but I don’t know, it feels right? If that makes sense.”

Zeph regarded me for a moment and I contemplated trying to get up but decided against moving under my own power as a bad idea for the time being.

“There’s not much about this that makes sense, but I am supposed to be a Fox Wind and miracles shouldn’t be that surprising.”

“I get why this one might be a little extra challenging. I think if there were miracles like this a few centuries ago, we’d be living in a very different world.”

“It feels like we’re living in a very different world,” Zeph said. “I…can I pet it?”

It was a simple request, but I could see how profoundly it proved Zeph’s first statement. Her hesitancy in approaching MB wasn’t because it was weird, and scary, and different. None of these things helped, but Zeph had a chasm of memory to cross in accepting MB’s existence. 

She’d kept her voice calm and even but her body language screamed of the trauma she’d suffered when a beast fragment had torn her apart. Praise be to my own capacity for forgetting that the time I’d spent being destroyed by the beat fragment was mercifully fading faster than I could recall it, but that wasn’t the case for her. From her posture to the shiver in her fur, I could see how the memory of how her previous life had ended was crystal clear to her.

And yet, the world was different now.

“Definitely,” I said. “Right around the back of the ears seems to be a spot it really loves.”

She stepped forward and dropped to one knee on the other side of MB’s head from me. Her first touch was tentative, but when MB shifted into it, I saw Zeph relax too. She continued for a few moments before rising and stepping back, drawing a sad little wuffle from MB in the process.

“If you don’t mind being carried, we should probably continue on,” Zeph said. “Helgon said it was important that you and he speak.”

“And since he’s been watching all of this we might as well be able to ask him questions too,” I said.

“That and he said there are some others you should meet as well.”

“Others?” The world was dead, and the Factorum had no portal given how there wasn’t anyone to, you know, feed to them. So who else could there be? Zeph’s shrug offered no clues.

The thought of ‘other Neoteric Lords waiting for us’ gave me a brief moment of panic but that was dispelled just as quickly by the fact that I could sense the remaining Neoterics and none of them were anywhere near here.

Also, this ‘Helgon’ had to have good reason to hate his peers since they’d been the ones who’d murdered him.

As much as you can murder a Neoteric Lord I guess.

Could he have gone crazy? Sure. That was a possibility, but if he was talking about the ghosts of his people or something, it would seem a little crazy given that he was something like a ghost himself.

There was only one path to getting any answers though and that ran right into the heart of the Factorum.

“If you don’t mind lugging me further, I’m good with taking it easy for a little while longer,” I said, nodding towards our destination.

“Not much lugging needed,” Zeph said. “After all you kinda Little.”

“Hah,” I said rolling my eyes at the weight joke, but then I smiled, catching her full meaning. 

I was kinda Little.

And kinda not.

But mostly Little still.

I don’t know why, but that warmed my heart a bit.

Which was weird.

I’d never liked being Little, either in the sense of being small like I was or in simply being who I was.

So when had that changed?

Maybe when I’d had the choice not to come back being me?

Or had it been earlier?

A stray though flitted through my mind and I caught myself wondering how Lucky was doing? It didn’t feel like Vaingloth was rampaging through Mt Gloria, so that was probably a good sign for her and the others I’d inadvertently converted to Sola’s worship? I hoped anyways. Sola needed the worshippers. And I could use some friends who weren’t pitched into the Kindling fires for a change.

“You ready to go?” Zeph asked.

“As much I can be,” I said.

“Will MB be able to keep up?” she asked.

I nuzzled in close to MB’s ear and whispered, “Time to go, unless you want to sleep a bit more and catch up later.”

MB was never going to have problem finding me, but if we were going to be separated, it would be MB’s choice, anything else, at least this early, would be cruel.

For as much as I was expecting MB to stretch, yawn, and go back to sleep (since that’s what I would have done). It surprised me by bounding up to full wakefulness and standing on its feet.

That, unfortunately, left me without my comfy backrest, but Zeph was quick enough to snag me before my head hit the ground.

“Okay. We’re not heading to the palace, I checked there first. Turns out Helgon likes his labs better. We’re heading to number 13,” Zeph said.

MB responded with a huff and a nod.

Then it cast its head backwards and to the side?

When I didn’t get what it was trying to express it did it again.

I still didn’t get it.

What? I said I was tired, didn’t I?

One annoyed growl-grumble and another double gesture with its head and Zeph, bless her infinite perceptiveness got what MB was ‘saying’.

“You want us to get on your back?” she asked, like that was the most obvious and reasonable thing for us to do.

MB chuffed agreeably and nodded.

“Okay,” Zeph said with a shrug, having been replaced by some strange doppelganger in the fraction of a second I’d glanced over to MB.

“Seriously?” I asked, as Zeph, swung herself and me into a seating position on MB’s back.

“Is this going to be safe?” I asked. I’d seen how fast Zeph could run, and if MB could even vaguely keep pace with her…

MB could do more than keep pace with her.

MB could also fly.

I learned that as the ground suddenly dropped away far, far below us.

Or.

No.

MB could not fly.

MB could leap. 

Could leap very high in fact, so high that the ruins were were approaching at a spine chilling velocity seemed like a disastrous place to land.

Except, of course, it wasn’t like MB could change course in mid-air. Not even to avoid a roof that was covered in spikes!