Valiant: The Covenant Chronicles

[Covenant #39: The Deals of the Demon Lord]

Log Date: [2/4/12765]

Data Sources: Jayta Jaskolka, Raikaron Syntaritov

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

Dandelion Drift: Common Room

12:11pm LST

“So, lemme get this straight.” Milor says, kicking his feet up on the coffee table as he pulls his toothpick out from between his teeth. “You and Azra are old buddies from back in the day?”

Raikaron, who’s standing near the curving window of the common room, next to a portion that has been turned into a screen for this meeting, clasps his hands behind his back as he answers. “Well, I would not characterize it as such, no. ‘Buddies’ seems a bit too familiar; I would say it’s more along the line of acquaintances, or a client that you agreed to have drinks with after you finished a job. The sort of relationship where you commiserate about the burdens of your position to people that are not within your work circle, but who still understand the complexities of said burdens because they work in similar positions.”

“Oh, I know what you’re talking about!” Ozzy exclaims. “I knew a ton of people like that back when I was teaching at the college! It was usually professors in other departments, and you could vent to them without worrying about any of it making it back around to your own department. And they understood because they were professors too, just not professors in your department. Yeah yeah, I totally get it.”

“I’m glad you understand.” Raikaron nods to Ozzy. “But to answer your suspicions, Mr. Milor, you do not have to worry about me switching sides simply because Azra and I are acquainted with each other. I am here to aid your group and oversee the resolution of this matter in my capacity as an overseer of the Gathering. There will be no sudden heel turns from me.”

“Whatever you say, demon Lord.” Milor says, folding his arms. “I’ll be keeping my eye on you.”

“I’m flattered, but no need for that. I already receive enough attention from the tabloids in Sjelefengsel. The spotlight is a tiresome place to be if you spend too long in it.” Raikaron replies modestly, and I have to hide my smile behind my hand as Milor splutters.

“That’s not what I meant, you lanky—” Milor starts to grumble.

“We’re not here for witty conversation.” Lysanne interrupts, motioning to the screen that Raikaron’s standing next to. “You put us on a course for this moonworld in the Kenterbain System and still haven’t explained why, but the rest of us have noticed it’s in the opposite direction of Tirsigal.”

“Indeed, and that’s for a good reason.” Raikaron says, raising a finger and pointing it to the icy moonworld displayed on the screen. “This is Tareya, a moon in orbit around the gas giant Kerala in the Kenterbain System, the capital of the Confederacy of Original Systems. It is in the heart of COS territory, and as you mentioned, the exact opposite direction of Tirsigal. However, this is the world that Azra will be visiting soon, which will present you all with an opportunity to intercept her there.”

“How do you know this?” Jazel asks from the chair where he’s sitting alone.

“Because Sång has been doing some spying for Maelstrom and Radiance, and it turns out Azra not done with Tirsigal. She has more planned.” Raikaron replies. “She intends to acquire Andalus to further her designs, and Tareya is where Andalus is currently enshrined, according to Maelstrom and Radiance.”

Ozzy gasps. “Andalus? The Sword of Injustice? The Blizzard Blade?”

“I’m guessing, based on what Ozzy is saying, that Andalus is some sort of special weapon.” Lysanne says. “Which leads to my next questions: what is it and why does she want it?”

“Well, as Mr. Oxiris so helpfully mentioned, Andalus is a sword; particularly, it is one of the mythical element weapons that came out of Rantecevang.” Raikaron says, adjusting his glasses. “It is a blade forged from the quintessence of ice; a frost that never melts, a winter that never ends. In the hands of a mortal, it is powerful, but there are limits to its capabilities; in the hands of a hypernatural, it can be used to reshape worlds, particularly in a chillier direction. Azra wants it so she can start rectifying the damage she has done to Tirsigal.”

“So she smoked Tirsigal just so she could turn it into a snowglobe later?” Milor drawls past his toothpick. “What’s the big idea? Does she like screwing around with a planet’s thermostat for kicks and giggles?”

“Not quite, but you have struck somewhere in the general vicinity of the answer.” Raikaron says. “Azra scorched Tirsigal to cleanse it of the Collective; with Andalus, she intends to cool the planet back down so she can begin terraforming it, and make it a world that will be livable for a Ranter colony once more. That is her grand plan: the reclamation of a planet that was taken by the Collective almost a thousand years ago.”

Milor scratches at his stubble. “…now, far be it from me to side with the foxbitch on anything, but… tch, not gonna lie, I’m kinda okay with that.”

“I don’t disagree with it either, but I’m not going to let her do it if she has to keep possessing Kaya to accomplish it.” Jazel says. “I don’t care how much the Collective deserves to have the tables turned on them; I’m not going to sacrifice my mate in exchange for that. If Azra’s going after this sword on Tareya, we need to get there as quickly as possible so we can intercept her and free Kaya.”

“We are scheduled to arrive to Tareya in approximately ten days.” Dandy explains from where she’s standing on the other side of the screen. “The Drift is already traveling at the safe allowable maximum for the drive it’s equipped with. However, this time can be used to prepare for our encounter with Azra.”

“Well, we certainly need to get working on that. I’m not interested in getting rolled twice in a row.” Milor says, sitting up a bit more on the couch. “We got the hero blessings and all that jazz from the storm kitty and the sun fox, and supposedly that’ll force Azra to play on our level. But we still need a game plan. Just because she’ll be on our level, or somewhere close to it, doesn’t mean she can’t win.”

“The objective is to take her tails off, right?” I say, finally speaking up. “That’ll banish Azra back to the Maelstrom and free Kaya without killing her?”

“That’s what we have to do, yeah.” Jazel confirms. “Maelstrom warned me that doing it any other way won’t work, since she’s a hypernatural. She can regenerate too quickly, and she can keep moving her body even when you hit her with a killing blow. I suppose, technically speaking, there is no such thing as a killing blow with Azra, since she’ll survive it and regenerate within a minute.”

“So it’s tails or nothing, got it.” Milor surmises. “All other attacks will slow her down, but they won’t stop her. We’ll prolly have to run a distraction gambit — all of us keep her occupied while one of us sneaks up behind her and does the tail-trimming.”

“I can do that part. I still have an invisibility spell left over from the visit to Balmorrah, and it’ll allow me to get in close without her noticing.” Jazel immediately volunteers.

“You’ll need something that can take off nine tails at once.” Lysanne points out. “I assume we’ll have to get them all in one go, right?”

“That is my recommendation, yes.” Raikaron confirms. “If there are any tails that survive, it is likely she’ll just regenerate the others within seconds.”

“I’ll find a spell that will take all of them off at once.” Jazel says. “I’m sure there’ll be something that can do the job somewhere in the compendium.”

“Great. The rest of us will have to start arming up, then.” Milor says, sitting forward. “Blondie, you’re going to have to bring the heat with whatever knicknacks you’ve got in your magic collection. Strawberry soda, the stun rifle is nice, but I don’t think it’s gonna cut it this time around. We should probably see about upgrading you to a proper plasma rifle. I’ll see if we can source one for you once we get to Tareya. Ozzy, you got a blessing too — you won’t be sitting this one out.”

Ozzy sighs, slumping into his seat and running a hand through his thinning hair. “Yeah, I guess.” he mumbles. “I’ll, uh, see what I can do. I’ve got, got, some uh, different types of magic I can use, and I’ll, uh, brush up on those.”

“Jayta will be able to assist you all; she has my protection, and her own array of demonic armaments and abilities.” Raikaron says, nodding to me. “As an overseer, I will not be able to engage Azra directly. I can act indirectly to influence battlefield conditions, and slow down or inhibit any worshippers or minions she may have brought with her, but that is the limit of my involvement in my role as an overseer. The rest will be upon you all.”

“Oh, she’s allowed to bring friends? Well, that changes things.” Milor says, rubbing his chin. “I assume these are gonna be the cultists that brought her back in the first place? If that’s the case, two or three of us might need to deal with them while the rest of us focus on Azra.”

“Dandy and I will deal with the cultists, if there are any.” Lysanne volunteers. “The rest of you can focus on Azra.”

Milor nods thoughtfully. “Yeah. I think that’s workable. Jazel, Jayta — I’m just gonna call you two JJ from now on — you good with the four of us handling Azra while strawberry lemonade handles the cultists?”

The nicknames leave me a little confused; I’m not sure who ‘strawberry lemonade’ is supposed to be, but I nod and go along with it. “Yeah, I’m fine with that.”

“Works for me.” Jazel says simply.

“Actually, I think I might be more helpful dealing with the cultists…” Ozzy says hopefully.

“Nope, you’re with us.” Milor says, shutting that down immediately. “You’re the big mythology nerd and know all the trivia about these Ranter gods. This is your chance to put all that knowledge to use.” With that, he turns his attention back to Raikaron. “Now, we know we’re going to Tareya, but we need to know more about where we’ll be ambushing Azra, so we can start prepping our ground plan. You said this big fancy ice sword was stuck in a shrine somewhere?”

“Yes, of a sort.” Raikaron says, turning back to the screen and tilting the image of Tareya, starting to zoom in on the surface. “Tareya’s surface is sixty percent ice by composition, with most towns and settlements being located in the ice-free zones around the equator. The sword’s resting place is in the northern hemisphere, in one of the larger glacier flows…”

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

Dandelion Drift: Common Room

9:48pm LST

“…and this one’s the picture we took when we were all together during Krysmis the year before last.” Jazel says as the next picture slides across the window screen, this one a wide shot of all the of the Drifters crammed onto one of the common room couches, with Milor standing in the back. Kayenta’s wearing a modified witch hat in this one, with holes trimmed near the base of the brim to allow her silver ears to poke through. She’s smiling widely; there’s a certain sort of uncomplicated joy to the way she presents in most of these pictures. “Ozzy isn’t in this one. He was sleeping off to the side, I think, and we didn’t want to wake him up.”

“Was the hat a gift?” I ask from where we’re both sitting on the couch. “There’s no half-humans in the covens, at least as far as I’m aware.”

“Yeah. I had it custom-made for her. She liked my witch hat, so I figured I’d get one for her that her ears would fit through.” Jazel says, knees tucked against his chest and feet pulled up on the couch as we watch the screensaver slowly cycle through pictures of the crew, many of them involving Jazel and Kayenta. “That was her first Krysmis. Last year would’ve been her second, if she hadn’t been kidnapped.”

“And was this before or after you two got together?” I ask, sipping from my glass of chocolate milk.

“Before. She still thought I was too weak to be her mate at that point.” he says as the picture starts to do a disintegrate transition into another picture. “We didn’t get together until another two months after that.”

I tilt my head at that. “What’s that supposed to mean? Mate? Are you, like… married to her, or… what?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. All I know is that for her, that’s what we are. Mates. We’re together, in a relationship, sharing a room, taking care of each other, being intimate, and she’s not looking for another partner. We’re a committed pair. I’m not sure how else she would define it, or if she has a definition for it at all.”

“So it’s basically like being married.” I surmise.

Yet another shrug. “I guess. I didn’t really think about it too hard prior to this.”

Another picture fades in on the window screen, this one of Jazel lying on the couch with Kaya sprawled out atop him, both of them sleeping, legs and arms hanging off the side of the couch and a blanket haphazardly thrown across them. “Who takes these pictures?” I ask.

“Usually it’s Dandy. Since she’s a Cyber, she can just look at something and take a picture with her eyes, then uploads it to the ship’s systems over the wifi network. Because of that, you won’t see her in a lot of these pictures, since she’s the one taking them.” Jazel says.

“That’s handy.” I remark, still studying the current picture on the screen. “Don’t take it the wrong way, but I never thought you’d end up in a relationship.”

He glances at me. “Did you think I wouldn’t be able to court anyone well enough?”

“No. It’s just that you never seemed interested in it. You could’ve had any witch in the coven, but you never went after anyone.” I say, settling back against my pillow a little. “And there were plenty of witches that were interested in you, but you just kind of wriggled away from all of them whenever they tried to get close to you.”

“I’m picky. It’s hard for me to get interested in people that way.” Jazel says, looking back to the window screen. “There was no one in the coven that really interested me like that. And I didn’t want to get tied down there; maybe that was a part of it too. If I settled in the coven, I would’ve been stuck there for the rest of my life. Wouldn’t have been able to go other places, do different things, see different worlds.”

“Yeah. Makes sense.” I agree. “I didn’t exactly want to leave. But I’m glad I left and went to college offworld. It helps you see what the galaxy is like outside of the coven bubble.”

“Did you ever finish college?” he asks, grabbing his water and sipping from it.

I take a deep breath. “No. College is expensive. And the last year is the hardest, with the course difficulty. I had to start doing semesters on and off, and working during the off semesters to keep up with the bills. And the housing costs were a nightmare. I could’ve taken out a loan to get me through the last bits, but I didn’t want to go into debt, and it just… didn’t work out.”

“So is that how you got in with the, uh…” He bobs his head to one side, in the direction of the guest room that Raikaron and I are sharing. “…demon Lord?”

I press my lips together. “He… tricked me into doing something I shouldn’t have done. It’s a long story. It wasn’t right, what he did to me, but it’s… well, it’s complicated. What he did was wrong, but he honestly thought he was helping me; he didn’t mean any malice by it. He’s not like us, not mortal, so he doesn’t perceive things the way mortals do.”

I expect Jazel to remark on that in a negative way, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t say anything at all, at first, but eventually: “Yeah, I get that. Kaya’s like that sometimes; she’s just… built differently. She didn’t grow up exposed to galactic society, so she sees the civilization and everything in it differently. Sometimes she does stuff and it creates problems, but she doesn’t mean any harm by it. She just doesn’t… understand, sometimes. How the galaxy works and what the rules are for the rest of us.”

I nod, absentmindedly reaching up to rub a thumb against the thorny vine mark around my neck, and Jazel notices. “Is that how you ended up with that?” he asks.

“Yeah.” I say softly. “It’s what shows that I’m in service to him. I don’t mind it as much as I used to.”

Jazel hooks his fingers in the neck of his shirt, pulling it down and to the side until an X-shaped burn scar comes into view, just beneath his left collarbone. “I know the feeling.”

I set down my glass of chocolate milk, leaning forward. “Wait, is that…?”

“Had to make a pact with her to keep everybody else safe when she first came onboard.” he explains. “I let her feed on me, and search for some sort of soul substitute that she can feed on instead of people, and in return, she doesn’t feed on anyone else, and only takes what she needs when she feeds on me. It’s different now; the pact is barely relevant since I’m looking for a soul substitute regardless of whether or not she’s feeding on me. It was a necessity at first, to keep everyone else on the ship safe, but it’s almost obsolete now, since she’s become one of us. Even if she could feed on the others, I don’t think she would.”

I smile a little, tapping my collar mark. “Same for this, actually. I sold my soul to Raikaron, and this collar mark is there to make sure I obey him if he gives an order… but he’s only used it a couple times. Once at the beginning, to make a point, and later to keep me safe in a fight. And now that that we’re together, he never uses it. I hardly ever think about it nowadays.” Leaning back against my pillow, I pick up my glass again. “Guess Milor was right. We seem to have a preference for a certain type.”

Jazel smirks, letting go of his shirt and taking a sip of his water. “Ancient, powerful, likes trapping people in magical agreements?”

I chuckle. “Check, check, and check.”

He laughs as well, looking back to the window screen. “He treats you well, right?”

“Oh, definitely.” I say quickly. “He’s one of the kindest demon Lords in Sjelefengsel. Most other demons are just tools to their Lords, but I’m his student. And now his partner, I suppose. I help him with his duties and responsibilities, and sometimes carry out tasks on his behalf.”

“And since you work in hell, do you like… punish the damned?” he asks tentatively.

I shrug. “Sometimes. It’s not always magma pits and tridents. There’s a lot of different ways that the damned are punished, and it depends on their sins. Most of the time, I’m delivering messages and collecting on debts owed to Raikaron. There’s many people that have sold their souls to him for different things. Supernatural abilities, or more time, or that job they really wanted, or a shot at that person they really like. The list goes on and on.”

“People sell their souls for stuff like that?” Jazel says, his brow furrowing. “It just seems so… short-sighted. And I say that as someone that knows the value of a soul, considering Kaya needs them in order to survive, and she’d be killing someone and eating their soul every other month if she didn’t have me to sustain her.”

I shrug. “Some people believe they don’t have a soul. No danger in trading away something that doesn’t exist, right? And others think that whatever they’re trading it for will be worth it. They always have their reasons, one way or another. And they almost always regret it in the end.”

“Does it ever bother you?” he asks, holding his glass with both hands. “Reaping souls for him?”

“Sometimes.” I say, looking down into my chocolate milk. “There are some I feel sorry for. Some others that deserved it. At the end of the day, they’re the ones that made the choice, agreed to the deal and signed on the line. There’s no getting out of that, and they have only themselves to blame for that. And it’s not like they don’t know what the price is. He always tells them, just the same as he told me when he offered me a deal.”

Jazel nods. “I get it.” Rubbing his thumb around the rim of his glass, he goes on. “Lysanne doesn’t like how many people I’ve killed, trying to get Kaya back. And I know I should feel bad about it; a lot of these people weren’t involved in her kidnapping or responsible for it. But it’s not like they were good people, and they wouldn’t help me. Some of them tried to stop us, actually. And I couldn’t… I won’t let anyone stop me from getting Kaya back. So I’ve been doing what I’ve had to.”

It’s odd, listening to my older brother admitting to killing people. It’s just not something you ever expect to have a conversation about. “Does Mom know?” I ask.

He snorts at that. “Does she know about you and the demon Lord?”

I sigh, taking a sip of my milk. “Fair enough. Probably for the best, honestly. If she knew what either of us were up to, the things we’ve done, the people we’ve become…” I lapse into silence, lowering my glass, then going on. “You think she would understand if she found out?”

Jazel rocks his glass back and forth a little. “Think she’d be disappointed. She’d understand, but would probably be disappointed. I couldn’t really blame her, though. No parent expects their children to grow up and do the things we’ve done. Wish that wasn’t how things turned out, but…” He gives a loose shrug. “I never asked to have my mate kidnapped. You never asked to work with a demon Lord, probably. Life deals you a tough set of cards sometimes, and you just gotta do the best you can with what you get.”

I nod. “Yeah.” I don’t really have much to add to that, because that’s all that there really is to say about that.

“I thought about you, sometimes.” Jazel says, picking up the remote and clicking a button that reverts the screen portion back to the window, so we have an uninterrupted view of the biosphere cradled in the center of the ship. “Realized why you didn’t like me sometimes. Why you gave up on being a witch and left the coven.”

“It wasn’t that I didn’t like you, I just…” I search for the words to express the complicated feelings I’ve always had about this. “I just wish the coven treated me the same way they treated you. But they were never going to treat me that way, and I was just tired of always being in your shadow, so…”

“I didn’t ask for them to treat me that way, though.” He sounds vaguely annoyed, as if this was still something that bothered him. “I mean, I know that there’s perks that come with being a witchling, but… I hated witches shoving their daughters at me and people trying to cozy up to me. And you were always mad at me whenever it happened when we were teenagers. I know it was because people were ignoring you and paying attention to me, but I didn’t know what to do about that. And I didn’t ask for any of it.”

I hook my toes on the edge of the couch, getting my head around his words. “Would you have given it up if you could’ve?”

He runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. If I gave it up, I’d have to give up the magic as well, since men aren’t allowed to learn witch magic unless they’re a witchling. I’m actually good at that. I wouldn’t want to give that part up. I just don’t want all the drama and games that go along with it.” He’s quiet for a bit, then: “Maybe that’s why I left New Aurescura. Went looking for love outside the coven. I wanted someone that would see me for me, and not the fact that I was a witchling. That’s all I was to everyone in the coven. That’s all they ever saw. They didn’t see Jazel. They saw a witchling.”

It all suddenly comes into focus with that. The reason Jazel didn’t feel privileged, even though he consistently received preferential treatment back in the coven, was because people weren’t interested in him; they were interested in the role he filled in the coven. He wasn’t recognized on the merits of who he was; he was valued based on what he was. And it was hard to feel loved when you were loved for what you were, instead of who you were. I could see that easily enough in my own relationship with Raikaron — he had always been interested in who I was as a person, and had always seen and recognized my potential to grow and learn new things.

“And Kaya sees you as Jazel, not just a witchling?” I guess.

“Not at first. She just saw me as food at first. Something to mess with and feed on. But she eventually started seeing me as a person, and then after I proved to her that I wasn’t completely weak or helpless, as her mate.” he says, setting his water down on the corner table. “She came for me, helped rescue me when I was kidnapped. So I owe her the same now that she’s in the same position. Besides, she sees beyond the fact that I’m a witchling; sees me for who I am. I can’t lose that. I need her.”

“Even if you have to go up against a demon goddess to get her back?” I ask, still curious about that.

“The fact that Azra’s a goddess means nothing. She took my mate; I’m gonna get her back.” Jazel says without hesitation. “And if Azra doesn’t like that or doesn’t want to deal with that, she shouldn’t have possessed my mate in the first place.”

It’s the same stubbornness I’ve always known Jazel to have when he gets fixated on something, so it doesn’t really come as a surprise. Mom and I had always known Jazel was the type of person to fight god itself if god got in his way; I just hadn’t expected to actually see that scenario in action one day. His focus is so singular that the other dimensions of the situation — the fact that Azra’s gone on a genocidal rampage and that other hypernaturals now have a vested interest in the outcome of the situation — are either completely forgotten or entirely irrelevant to him. “We’ll get her back. We’ve got a lot of people on our side, including Azra’s parents, so that’s got to count for something.” I pause, then: “How does it feel to have deities as your in-laws? That’s gotta be weird…”

“In-laws? Oh. Yeah, I hadn’t really thought about that…”

“You think Mom’s ever gonna meet them?”

“I dunno. If they’re gods, I figure they’re pretty busy. And it would be pretty awkward, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah. Imagine a family reunion where literal gods show up to dinner…”

Event Log: Raikaron Syntaritov

The Dreaming

2/6/12765 11:22pm SGT

I am in a garden much like the one where my Dreaming tree resides.

It is late and I am finally asleep, able to wander the Dreaming. On most nights as such, I would usually pass the time in my dream garden, organizing my thoughts and memories from my waking hours. On this night, however, I plan on going on walkabout, taking a look into the dreamscapes of others within the local region of the Dreaming. And there is one in particular that I have a particular interest in — the dreams of the witch boy.

Moving through the paths of my garden, I make my way towards its edges, the Dreaming sky above me filled with the tangled black webs of tunnelspace, backlit and suffused with a violet luminosity. It has been a long time since I have seen this sky — it is a view that dream creatures only get when they are sleeping while traveling through tunnelspace, and since I spend most of my time in Sjelefengsel, it’s been quite a while since I’ve traveled on an interstellar ship in the Waking. Reaching out, I let my fingers brush over some of the tiger lilies lining this path, and as the vegetation starts to give way to a dark, desolate mesa, I pick one of the flowers as I leave behind my corner of the Dreaming.

My interest in the witch boy’s dreams was predicated not so much on the witch boy himself, but the fact that he was linked to Azra. Radiance and Maelstrom had let me know of that link, established by the pact that the witch boy had made with Kayenta, and safeguarded by Sång, who had placed a seal upon him to prevent Azra from possessing him. It was a convenient thing, at least for us; it gave the witch boy a window into Azra’s mind — and even if she was unwilling to part with information, he could still extract bits of intel from Kayenta whenever he visited her while dreaming. Normally only Jazel would be able to make use of this connection, but since it took place in the realm of dreams, and I was a creature of the Dreaming, it also served as a window for me to enter his mind — and through it, Azra’s mind as well.

So here I find myself treading across a black mesa that seems to be the middle ground where Jazel and Azra’s minds overlap. Far off, in the center of the mesa, I can see a raised rock shelf, and upon it, the crimson glow of Azra’s Dreaming presence. It’s moving quite a bit, seemingly around a prison of crystal spikes, and judging by the jerky movements, it seems like she’s trying to catch Jazel, who’s trying to evade her by keeping the crystal prison between them. Feeling decently confident that she’ll be occupied for a while, I turn my attention towards Azra’s side of the mesa, ghosting across the expanse as I go in search of something particular.

It isn’t long before I find it, in the form of the ruby blade that I saw Azra wielding when she torched Tirsigal. It’s been stabbed into the black ground of the mesa, two thirds of the clear red blade visible, and emanating a faint heat. Though I draw near to it, I refrain from laying a hand upon it, wary that doing so might alert Azra to my presence here. Some part of me is tempted to test a theory; it was known that Rantecevang’s mythical element weapons could wound people across both the Waking and Dreaming. If they had consistent presence across planes like that, then it might not be a far stretch to think that you could steal one in the Dreaming, and wake up with it next to you in the Waking.

“Look who decided to come pay his respects.”

The voice has me turning about to see Raiko sitting on a boulder behind me, dressed differently than the last time I saw her — though the knee-high boots are the same, she now has jeans, a whitecollar shirt with the collar popped, and a black jacket, trimmed in white metal, with ends that taper to sharp points on the hem. Her hair’s been pulled back into a ponytail, with only some of her bangs left to frame her face.

I raise an eyebrow. “I wasn’t aware that ghosts had a rotating wardrobe.”

“I like to reprise my best looks.” she says, tugging at the collar of her jacket. “This one was a little bit old-fashioned. Came from my years in government. Preserved the fragile sensibilities of old men that thought that any shirt with a midriff cut would disqualify you from leading a colony.”

“I see where I get my impeccable sense of fashion from.” I say, holding the tiger lily out to her. “Great-grandmother. It’s a pleasure to formally meet you.”

“If you say so. Most people didn’t enjoy meeting me when I was alive.” she says, taking the flower and looking it over. “I hear that you’re named after me.”

“The name was passed down, yes.” I say, tucking my hands in my pockets. “It’s gone through a few evolutions over the intervening generations. I am Raikaron Syntaritov.”

“Good to see I left my mark.” she says, tucking the tiger lily into the breast pocket of her jacket. “I’ll be honest, I hadn’t thought we’d be talking this soon.”

“You were expecting to talk to me?” I ask.

“At some point. I thought it’d be after the demon fox had been banished back to her tropical cage, though.” Raiko says, leaning back on her hands. “How did you manage to get in here, in her dreams? From what I remember of Kyto, that requires proximity, doesn’t it?”

“Normally, yes.” I say, glancing in the direction of the distant rock shelf where Azra is still occupied by Jazel. “But the witch boy is linked to Azra’s vessel, and because I have proximity to the witch boy, I can access his dreams, and the link as well, and through that, Azra’s dreams. It’s a bit convoluted, but it works.” I look back to her. “I suppose my question for you is — are you an echo, or the real article? I had thought that your appearance in my dream was just a vestige, but this feels like something more.”

She scoffs at that. “An echo. I should be so lucky.” Her crimson eyes stray towards the sword embedded in the ground. “I am the real thing, if ghosts can be considered real. Not a copy, not an echo. A soul trapped in a sword, as punishment for my mistakes.”

I turn back to the sword, considering it with new eyes. “You’ve been sealed within Aephero?”

Raiko gives me a flat look. “Isn’t that what I just said? I wasn’t exactly subtle about it.”

“Simply surprised, is all. I’d thought you’d long since died and moved on.” I say, considering the ruby blade in a new light now that I know it can serve as a prison for souls. It’s not surprising, just unexpected — mythic weapons often had the capacity for doing more than just being weapons, and I hadn’t expected one of my ancestors’ souls to be trapped in one of them. “I imagine the last four thousand years must’ve been rather tiresome.”

“Oh my god I was so bored.” Raiko exclaims, throwing her head back and rolling her eyes. “You cannot imagine how long I waited for someone to come looking for the damn thing. I mean, good grief, it’s a sword made out of the literal quintessence of fire, you figure someone would want to loot that, right? But no, four thousand years and not a peep until that redhead came knocking. Even if she hadn’t shown up planning to give the Collective hell, I would’ve been happy to see her.”

That draws my attention back to Raiko. “You approve of what she’s done.”

Raiko cocks her head to one side, resting it against her shoulder as she smirks at me. “I wasn’t exactly an angel of mercy when I was alive, grandson. I believe punishment is one of the best ways to teach a lesson and get a point across, and the Collective needed a reminder that conquest, no matter how slow or lethargic it is, carries a price in blood and suffering. Nobody had taught them that lesson in a long time, and they needed a refresher.” She tilts her head to the other side. “But you’re a demon Lord, aren't you. Agent of the hells, dispensary of post-mortem justice. I don’t need to tell you the value of punishment as education; you know that principle all too well. You believe in it, otherwise you wouldn’t be working the job.”

“Punishment can be used to educate, yes. It works well on an individual basis. Scaling it up to entire worlds, however, may be painting with too broad of a brush.” I say. “But it cannot be undone now. You have gotten your vengeance on the nation that corrupted your homeworld; what comes next for you?”

Raiko lets out a wistful sigh as she studies me. “You remind me of your great-grandmother. Firm and dignified, but also sensible. She was the hand that held the scales of justice, and I was the hand that held the sword. Kept me in check… even though I resented her for it sometimes. And you have her eyes… those Syntaritov eyes. Dangerous eyes.” Reaching up, she runs a hand through her hair. “What’s next for me…? I could kick my feet up and lean back, just watch from the sidelines as it plays out. Or you could do a favor for me, and in return, I can help out you and that little party of heroes you’re babysitting.”

“You married a Syntaritov, and so you, of all people, should know that owing favors is a very dangerous thing.” I remind her.

“Oh, relax, grandson. It’s not gonna be on the level of what a Syntaritov might’ve asked for.” Raiko scoffs, nodding to the ruby blade. “All I’m asking is that once the demon goddess has been put back in timeout, you take that sword and you extract my soul from it. And then you make sure my soul makes it into the reincarnation pipeline somewhere. Simple as that.”

“Simple as that?” I say, raising an eyebrow. “I have a feeling that there’s more to it than that.”

Raiko gives me an annoyed look. “If you really must know, your great-grandmother was a clever bitch, like all of you Syntaritovs are. Don’t get me wrong, I loved her for it, but our jobs and our beliefs pitted us against each other sometimes, and she knew we might end up on opposite sides one day. So she put a binary curse on herself, and guess who triggered it when they put that sword through her heart.”

The corner of my mouth twitches a little. “Victoria i morte. Sounds like something a Syntaritov would do.”

“She put it a little differently. Gjennom døden, seier. Anyway, it was her final middle finger to me. Killing her locked me into the curse with her, which — don’t get me wrong, it was very romantic — but neither of us can fade away until we’ve been reincarnated and make it through our next lives without killing each other.” she grumbles.

I struggle to keep the twitch from morphing into a smile. “And if you do kill each other, I assume the cycle repeats?”

“What do you think, genius?”

“Well, not killing each other seems like it’s a very low bar to clear. The curse doesn’t require you to be enemies or starcrossed lovers, does it?”

“It doesn’t. Not gonna lie, I was kinda hoping it would; it would’ve made things more interesting.”

“There you go, then.” I reason. “The conditions of that curse should be relatively easy to satisfy.”

“You would think.” Raiko says, pointing to Aephero. “Problem is, my soul’s been stuck in that glorified filet knife for the last four thousand years, and when you’re a ghost in a sword, you can’t be reincarnated until someone pops your soul out of the sword so it can be popped onto the conveyor belt of souls headed for rebirth on the mortal plane. And because I can’t be reincarnated, that means that Kyto’s soul is out there somewhere, waiting impatiently for me to stop dicking around so we can both get on with this mess she got us into.”

“I mean, if you hadn’t killed her in the first place—”

“Shut up! Don’t wanna hear it. I’ve had four thousand years to guilt myself over it, I don’t need you piling on. So are you gonna help me out with that or not?”

I glance at the elemental blade again. “All I need to do is extract you from the blade and get you on the road to reincarnation, and in return, you’ll help us against Azra?”

“That’s the deal, kiddo. What’s it gonna be?”

“If the exchange is simple as that, I don’t see any harm in it.” I say, extending a hand to her. “And you married into the family, so you know the expectations, and the consequences for breaking a deal.”

“Trust me kid, there’s no funny business here.” Raiko says, taking my hand and shaking it, a sparking circle of light forming around our hands before flickering out again. “Been stuck in this stupid sword for four millennia. I just want to get out at this point.”

“Understandable.” I say as I let go of her hand. “I imagine the time and solitude would wear on a person.”

“You have no idea.” Raiko mutters. “Anyhow. Time for me to hold up my end of the deal. She finally caught the boy and dealt with him. Watch out behind you.”

It takes a couple seconds for that to click through, and I turn around just in time for Azra to slam her hand into my face, grabbing it and ramming me down into the ground.

While it doesn’t hurt as much in the Dreaming as it would in the Waking, it does still hurt, and leaves me sprawled on the ground with Azra pinning my head down into the dirt, baring her teeth at me. “What is this? Does my mind look like a bus station to you all? You and that witchling think you can just come in here and wander around whenever you like?” she demands.

“I am not here to vex you, Azra.” I grunt past the hand on my face, feeling my temper rise. “I am here in my capacity as an overseer appointed by the Gathering. Calm yourself, and unhand me.”

“Oh, you think you’re hot shit now that you got a shiny new title from the Gathering?” she hisses. “That doesn’t mean you can go wherever you like. Just because we’ve worked together in the past doesn’t mean you can go on walkabout in my head—”

“For the second time, Azra, I am not here to vex you. Now, I am warning you, take your hands off me—”

“Or you’ll what?” Azra growls. “This is my mind. You play by my rules here—”

My temper snaps, and my human avatar unfolds, exploding into an eldritch wolf and throwing Azra off me as I assume my Dreaming manifest. Azra flails as she goes flying into the air, and as she falls, she twists and morphs into giant fox — but I’m already slamming a long, wiry forearm down on her by the time she hits the ground, wrapping my clawed digits around her scruff and flattening her into the dirt. She lets out a vulpine shriek, trying to wriggle away, but I keep her pinned down with a firm grip as I lower my head to study her with two of my four eyes.

This may be your mind, but the Dreaming is my home. The deep, grating rumble of my antediluvian voice sets the entire dreamscape vibrating, like plucking a cello string. You know well that I am not crass enough to delight in contests of power, but if you continue to test my patience, you will find that your dominance in the Waking does not translate so well in the Dreaming. I will not forbid you from laying hands on me again, but know that you may not enjoy what happens next time you attempt it here in the Dreaming. Are we understood?

“Whoo hoo hoo, looka my great-grandson, laying down the law!” Raiko whistles from where she’s still seated on her boulder. “That’s a bona-fide Syntaritov slapdown! I got that from Kyto a couple times whenever I pushed her too far.”

“This brat is yours?” Azra snarls through a muzzleful of dirt. “Get him off me!”

Raiko shrugs. “What do you want me to do? I’m a ghost trapped in a sword. Does it look like I’m in a position to get him off you?”

Are we understood, Azra? I repeat, leaning my weight on the limb that’s holding her down.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, I get it!” she grunts impatiently, hindlegs digging into the ground as she tries to wriggle free of the pin. “I’ll keep my hands to myself whenever we’re in the Dreaming, sheesh. But if you come any further than the edge of my mind—”

Do not flatter yourself. I am here to speak with my ancestor, and nothing more. I have no interest in the inner workings of your mind, and I very much doubt I would find edification in such exposure. I say, loosening my grip and taking my forelimb off her scruff, leaving her to squirm free. I may visit again. Next time, I expect you to take me at my word when I tell you I am not here to vex you. I take no especial pleasure in having to treat you like a child, instead of a peer.

“You better mind yourself, Raikaron.” Azra growls, prowling a cautious distance from me. “The Gathering isn’t your friend, and that title they gave you isn’t going to last forever. Don’t get used to the protection it gives you in the Waking, because they’re gonna take it back as soon as they’re done dealing with me.”

You can be assured that I am under no illusions where it regards the mercurial temperament of the Gathering. With that, I turn and begin lumbering back towards Jazel’s side of the mesa. Know that I say this as your friend, Azra: you should give up now, and return to the Maelstrom; and barring that, you would be well-served by permitting your defeat at the hands of the Drifters. The failure of the first two options would mean that the responsibility of taking you into custody would fall to me, and since I am presently in the service of the Gathering, I would have to turn you over to the Gathering, not your parents. You do not want that, and I do not want that. So do not put me in a position where I will have to do that.

Azra doesn’t reply to that, simply glaring at me as I go. Raiko wiggles her fingers at me, chirping “See you soon, grandson~”, and I continue my ponderous lumbering back in the direction I came from. While this visit had been a productive one, allowing me to build in a failsafe with Raiko, I was hoping this situation wouldn’t get to the point where I’d have to lean on it. Only time would tell whether Azra would listen to my advice, or continue pushing forward with her restorationist crusade.

And knowing how stubborn Azra was, I was pretty sure my deal with Raiko would end up paying for itself later on down the line.

Event Log: Raikaron Syntaritov

Dandelion Drift: Laboratory Deck

2/8/12765 10:09am LST

“…and the intake has been slightly higher than what was forecast. Not by much, but when dealing with numbers on this scale, even two or three percent more than anticipated equates to an extra couple hundred thousand souls. Processing is absolutely flooded; the only reason the sentencing courts aren’t packed to the gills is because of the bottleneck at the registration offices.”

“Unfortunate, but also not surprising.” I reply as I walk the halls of the Drift, speaking with Danya over the phone. “I imagine Sheol’s ordered a labor reorganization to handle the influx?”

“She gave the order a while back, yes. Any non-critical damned and contract demons that have prior knowledge or experience with data entry and record management were ordered to report to the labor board so that their skills could be assessed, and they could be assigned to either registration or the courts. Most of them are going to registration; some of the Lesser Lords have been pulled for court duty. There’s been a structured expansion of the registration offices in concert with temporary courts being opened to help with the flow of new souls.”

“I can imagine there’s been no end of grumbling from the Lords that have been pulled for duty.” I remark, glancing at some of the labs as I tread past them. “I assume personnel from our House have been conscripted to help with the surge?”

“Unfortunately yes. Mek had qualifying skills and his current responsibilities did not put him in the critical personnel category, so I had to send him to go help with clerking for one of the sentencing courts, along with a number of our demons from the Fifth and Fourth Circles being sent to the registration office.”

“Harro didn’t happen to be one of them, did he?”

“My Lord, please. Your assumption that he has the requisite intelligence needed for such responsibilities is generous, but entirely unwarranted.”

“Alas. The audacity of hope is disappointed once more.”

“Trust me, I would like him to complete his sentence and get out of our hair every bit as much as you do. After all this time, I have started to think he never will — your punishment for him was clever, but perhaps a bit too clever. He lacks the requisite introspection to recognize and reflect on his shortcomings, and he loves and cares for no one but himself. That alone will keep him trapped in his sentence indefinitely, since one of the conditions of his release is that he be able to love and care for something other than himself.”

“Well, he certainly is capable of loving and caring for other people. Just not enough to put their wellbeing ahead of his own. And in that regard you are correct; he is continually falling short of the mark needed to satisfy the conditions of his sentence.” I agree, folding my free arm behind my back. “But to give him a different sentence would defeat the purpose of his current sentence, which is to produce a changed man. You know the work we do in the House of Regret; you know we aspire to a higher standard than the ones embraced by other Houses.”

“And I believe in that ethos. But it is worth considering that there are a few souls that are beyond rehabilitation, and Harro is strong evidence of their existence.”

“Perhaps… but there were those that said the same of Mek when he came into my jurisdiction, and you see how far he has come in the last two centuries. Harro has only been in Sjelefengsel for a decade and a half; let’s give him a few more decades before we start making any judgements about his capacity for change.” I say, backpedaling when I notice that one of the labs I’ve passed is occupied.

“It will certainly be an exercise in building patience. I cannot fathom how you tolerate him, even after all he has done with the intent of specifically aggravating you.”

“Oh, that’s very easy. I simply view him as a petulant child, because that’s what he is.” I answer, peering in through the lab’s window to see the witch boy working at one of the tables. “If you’ll excuse me now, Danya. One of my newly appointed responsibilities is calling. Working with these mortals is proving to be a… curious experience.”

“Of course, my Lord. Good luck in the course of your duties.”

The call ends with that, and I slip my phone back into my vest as I consider the wall and window, then activate my manacle marks, triggering a chainlink that allows me to ghost through the wall. Solidifying on the other side, I quietly tread over his table, leaning over his shoulder to study the notebook he has open, and the witch spell that he’s preparing.

“Mmm. Flaming tentacles. Can’t say I’ve seen that particular variety before.” I remark.

He startles harshly, nearly falling out of his chair as he twists around. “Gah! Where’d you come from? How did you get in here?”

“I was getting my daily steps in. Being sedentary isn’t good for one’s health.” I answer, straightening up as he organizes the scattered ingredients on the table.

“No, like, how did you get in here, in the lab?” he demands. “Only people with clearance can get into certain parts of the ship. The lab doors only open for resident staff.”

“Ah yes, doors.” I say, glancing over my shoulder at the spiral door to the lab. “I find that doors are more like polite suggestions for those of us which can attain ingress by other avenues. The shielded rooms are really the ones that they want to keep people out of; I’m not able to phase into those rooms.”

“The door is locked for a reason!” he says impatiently, closing the black notebook he had open. “Aurescura’s asshole, you’re just as bad as Kaya was…”

“I assume she was curious as well.” I say, watching as he covers the book with an arm. “Don’t hide your forbidden magic on my account. I’m a demon Lord; I have seen worse, and I doubt there’s much in there that would faze me.”

He presses his lips together. “I’m only using it because I have to.”

“Good. That should be the only reason you’re using forbidden magic.” I say, reaching down to pick up one of the closed vials of ingredients he has on the table. “There is a time and place for everything, even the dark arts, and I am no proponent of a blind prohibition on certain disciplines. Magic, as I’m sure you’ve been taught, is a tool colored by those who use it. Even forbidden tools have justifiable uses in the correct situations.”

“You’re not going to tell the others?” he asks warily.

“I see no benefit in sowing discord among this group. I need you all to work together, not bicker with each other.” I say, giving the seeds within the vial a shake. “These are sylvan siren seeds; they are rare and generally illegal in multiple mortal marketplaces. Did you procure these yourself, or confiscate them from another source in the course of your Preserver duties?”

“Confiscated them from a black market apothecary.” Jazel says, relaxing a little. “Surprised you know what they are.”

“One of my cousins has an adopted daughter who is a siren sylvan. Besides that, I am also a student of the arcane arts, including the ones that are obscure or shunned.” I say, setting the vial back down on the table with the others. “I recognize many of these ingredients, although most of them are not traditional ingredients for Aurescuran witch magic. Is your magical system flexible enough to permit for such component substitutions?”

“Not really. Minor alterations sometimes work, but other times, the spells come out slightly changed, or they don’t exactly do what they’re supposed to.” he says, turning back to the sheet of spell paper on the table. “I started writing down how the spells with substituted components behave, just in case there’s a use case for them later. I try to test the variations before using them in the field, but some of the spells are too destructive to be tested in a closed environment like this.”

“An understandably dangerous angle to explore, testing new or hybridized ritual spells and logging the results.” I say, clasping my hands behind my back. “It may be a worthy topic of study, if you wanted to write a paper on it. I understand that the Preserver Academy has an academic interest in such bodies of research.”

“I could do more than a paper.” he says, taking his arm off the black notebook. “I’ve got enough material in here to publish an entire book. Spells that haven’t been seen for millennia or were assumed to be lost to time. But some of it’s dark magic, stuff that would be considered restricted knowledge, not accessible by civilians or the public. I’d have to trim out all of that stuff, and even then, people might ask questions about how I came across the instructions for spells that have been lost for hundreds of years.”

“Mmm. Yes, that would be a pity, wouldn’t it.” I say, mulling over the conundrum. “Compounded by the fact that all of these spells would be bound into the Aurescuran ritual system, meaning such a spellbook would have no value to anyone that’s not an Aurescuran. That is rather unfortunate.”

His expression turns wary again. “Were you wanting to cast some of these spells?”

“Hard to say, isn’t it?” I say, glancing down at him. “I don’t know the contents of that book, so I cannot say with certainty. I imagine I may have found a few spells in there that would’ve caught my fancy, but as I am not Aurescuran, I would not be able to cast them. That is your privilege alone, it seems.”

He snorts at that. “Not as much of a privilege as it might seem like, with what I had to go through to gain the knowledge.”

I can’t help but smile at that. “Then you have learned an important lesson about the cost of power. It is a good lesson to have learned.” Looking around, I take stock of the lab, noticing a terrarium full of spirit blooms, and file that little detail away for later interrogation. “On another note, I am aware that there was a conference call with your employer today. I’d assumed the entirety of your crew would be attending — was there a reason you opted out of it?”

That gets a bitter laugh out of him. “Oh, I didn’t opt out. Lysanne, Dandy, and Milor decided it’s better if I skip on those for now, because if I attend, I’m going to be giving CURSE a piece of my mind, and they don’t want me to set fire to the bridge that our paychecks are coming across.”

“Ah. You have a bone to pick with your employers, then?” I surmise.

“Yeah. The fact that they’re doing their damnedest to undermine us by refusing to help us whenever one of us has been kidnapped.” Jazel says, once more opening his notebook to the page he’d bookmarked. “They went out of their way to avoid helping us when I was kidnapped by the soul-stealing sorcerer last year, and they did the same thing when Kaya was kidnapped a few months ago. I could brush it off the first time around, but it’s been the exact same stuff the second time around, at least according to Milor. It’s like they want us to fail.”

“Hmm.” I say, thinking that over. “And in both kidnappings, CURSE has deliberately withheld support from your crew, or refused to help with the recovery of personnel?”

“I mean, yes, but they do it in a way that makes it looks like all the responsibility falls on us.” Jazel shrugs aggressively. “They’ll say it’s an ‘independent project’, which means that they aren’t liable for any of the risks tied to it, and we can’t use organization funds on it. It’s like they want to get rid of us, but they don’t want to go through the hassle of actually firing all of us, so they just avoid helping us when something like this happens.”

“Disposal through neglect, yes. I am familiar with it.” I say, tapping a knuckle against my lips and thinking it over. “I understand now why Maelstrom and Radiance said they would cover the resupply for your vessel while it was in orbit around Rantecevang. CURSE is not covering any costs associated with trying to rescue your significant other, including the travel costs, I presume.”

“Well, they covered the hospital costs after the fight on Balmorrah, when Azra possessed Kaya. And that’s pretty much the only help they’ve given us this entire time.” Jazel says. “But then CURSE ordered us to report back to the HQ. The others probably would’ve obeyed if Sång hadn’t shown up at that point to deliver the summons. We’ve been avoiding talking to them ever since, because we know that the first thing they’re going to ask is why we disobeyed orders, and we’re going to have to tell them that we plan on continuing to disobey their orders so we can rescue Kaya.”

“Which is the purpose of today’s conference call.” I deduce.

“Yup.” Jazel says, leaning back in his chair. “Which is why the others didn’t want me there. I’m guessing they’re going to try and do damage control with the administration. Doubt it’s going to work; we don’t really have any excuses for what we’ve done. I’d just come out and tell the administration that since they’re not helping us rescue Kaya, we’re not doing any more work for them until we get her back. But that’s probably why the rest of the crew wanted to keep me out of the call.”

“Likely.” I agree, still thinking it over. “But perhaps we could still listen in. I will admit, I am curious about the relationship between the Drift and CURSE; it seems rather messy and complicated. Are there any reflective surfaces in the conference room?”

“Not really. It’s in the middle of the deck rather than on the edges, so there’s no windows or anything.” Jazel says, his noise wrinkling up as he thinks. “Although, technically… the conference table itself doubles as a screen, which means it’s made out of touchglass. I think that might be the only reflective surface in the entire room.”

“Mm. I would’ve preferred a mirror or a window, but I suppose that will do.” I say, turning to consider the rest of the lab, and locking onto one of the empty tables. “You’re not using this table for anything, are you?”

“Depends. What are you planning on doing?” Jazel asks, starting to sit forward in his chair again.

“I just need some open space and a flat surface to work with.” I say, moving in that direction and reaching in my vest as I go. Digging around in one of my inner pockets, I eventually come up with a small bottle, and twist the cap off of it as I reach the empty table. “How big would you say this conference table is?”

“It’s big. Enough room for five seats on each side, and one on each end. Twelve seats total.” Jazel says, getting out of his chair and moving towards me. “What is that?”

“Scrying liquid, of the persuasion that relies on reflective surfaces to provide vision.” I say, tapping three drops of silver liquid on the center of the table, where it immediately spreads outwards, covering a far larger area than one would typically expect from three drops. “A bit of a crude tool, but it will get the job done when more elegant solutions are not available or feasible. I always keep some on hand, along with a variety of other tools.”

“And we can use this to check in on the conference room without actually being there?” he asks, watching as I hold a hand out over the pool of silver liquid. “They won’t be able to see us watching, right?”

“This particular scrying liquid is a one-way variation, yes. Two-way scrying liquid is typically used for communication, but most people would just do a video call at that point. Much easier than procuring an expensive magical solution.” I explain as the surface has becomes clear, akin to a sheet of glass through which we can see the view from various reflective surfaces around the ship. None of them have so far provided a view into the conference room, but I’m steadily cycling my way through the reflective surfaces on the deck where it’s located. 

“Interesting. Normally people use crystal balls for this sort of thing.” he remarks, the various reflective surfaces rapidly flicking by almost like channels on a TV.

“Yes, that is the stereotypical scrying apparatus. So iconic that it’s been used for brand logos for magical suppliers for centuries on end.” I say, keeping my eyes on the reflection viewpoints flicking by. “I personally prefer a scrying bowl with some scrying liquid in it, but I’ve been told I’m old-fashioned for that particular habit. I will admit there is a certain practicality to a crystal ball; you never have to worry about knocking it over and spilling a liquid, although a crystal ball will absolutely shatter on a tile floor, and it’ll do horrors to a hardwood floor if dropped from a sufficient hei— oh! There they are.”

I stop my searching and revert back a few reflections until we find ourselves staring down into the conference room from the glass table that takes up the center of it. To us, with the angle of viewing, it appears like the entire room is upside-down, though if everyone on the other other side could see us, we would look upside-down to them. Because of the angle, we find ourselves looking at everyone’s chins and the sides of their heads, with hands sometimes placed on the table and obscuring the view. A pair of boots mounted on the edge of the reflection shows where Milor has kicked his feet up on the table.

“—you didn’t mesmerize the recovery operatives, then who did?” The voice looks like it’s coming from a screen on the wall, which has been split into two portions to accommodate a man in a tight black uniform, with black hair, and a woman with red hair and a suit jacket and a tie.

“It wasn’t any of us here. None of us have any abilities, powers, or magical training that would allow us to mesmerize people.” The reply comes from Lysanne, who’s sitting on the side of the table that has Dandy on it. “This is the first we’re hearing about it, and whoever did it, it wasn’t us. We went to Rantecevang to answer the summons. We stayed to long enough to resupply and prepare for the task we were given. That’s all we did while we were there; we didn’t encounter any CURSE operatives during that time.”

“How much you wanna bet it was probably one of the angels that scrambled their brains like fried eggs?” Milor says, popping a snack mix pretzel in his mouth. “A couple of them did get sent up there to keep an eye on the ship so Dandy could come down to the surface and get her blessing from the deific duo.”

“So let me get this straight.” the man in the tight black attire says. “You want us to believe you disobeyed a direct order to return to the HQ because you received a visit from an angel, summoning you to meet with gods who have ordered you to go wrangle their unruly daughter, who has possessed the morphox, and who you claim is responsible for the torching of Tirsigal. When we send a recovery team to go bring back the Drift, you claim complete ignorance of their presence, and suggest that it was another set of angels that confounded them and left them drooling and incoherent at the Rantecevang Orbital Starport in the wake of your departure from the planet. You then proceed to evade and dodge our attempts to communicate with you for at least two weeks, leaving us in the dark as to your current whereabouts, intentions, and potential culpability in the recovery team’s predicament. And you want us to believe that you are the victims in all of this?”

“Look, I know it doesn’t look great, but there is a reason we are doing the things we are doing.” Lysanne says quickly. “We were partially strongarmed to going to Rantecevang in the first place. The angel said she wouldn’t help protect Jazel from being possessed by Azra if we didn’t answer the summons—”

“Just because you are gullible, Ms. Arrignis, does not mean I share the same deficit of sensibility.” the man in the black attire says coldly. “Were I to believe the tenth part of this tale, I would have to accept, as reality, a series of events so outlandish and unlikely as to be the property of a major young adult blockbuster, making use of a frankly insulting number of clichés and common tropes—”

“We don’t want this!” Lysanne snaps, slamming a fist down on the table. “This is not what we asked for, this is not what we signed up for when we took these jobs! You think I want to be doing this? Getting pingponged all over the galaxy chasing something that’s way above our level? I have better things to do with my time! I have decades of life I would like to live instead of risking it on exorcising a psychotic, genocidal demon goddess! This is stuff that YOU guys, and the Vaunted, should be doing. NOT. US. But we are here doing it because you AREN’T. And if you had stepped in when we had asked you to step in—”

“Ms. Arrignis—” Dandy says quickly, reaching a hand out to her.

“No Dandy, I’m going there.” Lysanne says, brushing away Dandy’s hand and standing up at this point and jabbing a finger towards the split screen. “I’ll grant that we made the mistake that started all of this, but if you all had stepped in when we asked you to, we would NOT be here right now. We would NOT have gotten to this point, but now we are here. I did everything in my power to keep the situation from getting to this point, including asking for your help, and just like you did when Jazel was kidnapped, you all sat on your hands and did nothing until it was too late. So now we are in a situation where even if we wanted to follow orders and go back to HQ, we wouldn’t be able to because there’s a DEMON LORD onboard this ship now, acting as some sort of supernatural special counsel or investigator or whatever, and he’s gonna have questions if we turn this boat around and start heading in the wrong direction.

“So here’s what’s going to happen. We are going to follow through with what we’ve been asked to do, because one, we don’t really have a choice, and two, Kaya’s a member of our crew, we’re not just gonna abandon her to being a vessel for a demon goddess. And IF we are still alive by the time this is all said and done, THEN we will bring the Drift back to the HQ. And if you want to fire all of us at that point, you are welcome to do so. But I am not going to sit around and take shit from people that have been sitting on their hands and withholding aid while we’ve been out here busting our asses trying to make this work. Is that clear?”

“Hmm.” I remark softly, folding my arms. “I hadn’t taken your friend for someone that would stand up to their employer with such force.”

Jazel shakes his head during the lull in the conference room conversation. “I wasn’t expecting it either. She’s a rule-follower — she usually sides with CURSE when it comes to these kinds of things. I guess her patience finally ran out, or she’s starting to see what the rest of us have been seeing over the past several months.”

“And what’s that?” I ask, taking advantage of the boy’s newfound openness to see what other information I can extract about the rest of the crew. I hadn’t expected him to come to trust me as quickly as he has, but I certainly won’t complain about it either.

“Basically, CURSE doesn’t have our best interests at heart.” Jazel explains. “They’ve been deliberately neglecting us at precisely the times when we need their help, and we’ve been having to take care of stuff that we aren’t qualified to handle.”

I reflect on what I know about the Drifters, recalling that one of them — in fact, I think it’s the one I’m talking to now — took down a black market baron and his top staff as part of the effort to locate and rescue the kidnapped morphox. Coupled with Lysanne’s recent tirade, I get a feeling that the Drifters are more qualified than they think they are — many of them are clearly very capable when they’re forced to take matters into their own hands. I’ve a mind to point that out to Jazel, but at that moment the conversation in the conference room resumes as the people on the screen take themselves off mute after conferring with each other.

“We understand that you’ve had a difficult few months, Ms. Arrignis.” says the woman on the screen this time. Judging by the color of her eyes and what little I can see of her canid teeth, she’s a vampire. “That being said, you have a limited understanding of CURSE’s inner workings, and the many issues that we are handling across the galaxy. Those hands that you accuse us of sitting on have been very busy elsewhere; just recently we lost a Peacekeeper in operations against the Valiant. CURSE is not sitting idle, but we do have many other commitments, and the kidnapping of a single individual, while upsetting, is a small matter against the scale of many of the other problems we are juggling right now. Part of the reason we asked your crew to return to the HQ was so that we could get a better handle on the situation, and potentially equip you with the resources needed to go rescue your friend. Of course, that was predicated on the Drift’s return to the HQ, which so far has not occurred.”

“We are willing to help, but it must be done through the proper avenues and processes.” the man in black adds. “That is part of the reason we are in this situation to begin with: your crew elected not to wait for a full background check and intelligence assessment on the Tinkerbelles, and they ran a successful con on your crew as a result. We have no intention of repeating your mistakes — we are willing to help, but it must be done correctly, so our mandate remains the same: return to the HQ for debriefing and assessment. You are welcome to let your demon lord guest know that the Drifters have been ordered back to HQ, and compliance is not optional. If it will put him at ease, you can let him know we will be assessing what resources can be allocated to the Drifters’ case to help with resolution. But the order we originally issued still stands: return to the HQ so we can get a better handle on this situation and proceed from there.”

“We look forward to seeing you all here in the next two weeks or so.” the vampire adds. “We expect regular checkins on your progress. And if we find that your crew has disobeyed orders again, the next operatives we send your way will not be a recovery team — it will be a squad of Peacekeepers.”

“We will call you again in three days to check in on your progress at that point.” the man in black says. “Do not disappoint us.”

The screen goes dark with that, leaving the conference room in silence. It lingers for a moment before Milor takes his boots off the table. “Well, blondie, if nothing else, you’ve got a spine. Good job on putting your foot down; they needed to hear that, even if they didn’t like it.”

“They will be expecting us to return to the HQ, though.” Dandy points out. “This places us in a difficult position; we are going to have to make a decision about whether or not to comply with their order.”

“Why are they so hellbent on getting us back to the HQ?” Lysanne fumes, turning away from the screen. “We’ve told them we’ll make our way there once this is all said and done; why do they keep on insisting on having us back there now?”

“It’s a number of reasons, but the first and foremost is that they prolly wanna make sure that they don’t lose the ship.” Milor says. “A Challenger-era research ship like this is a valuable asset, even if it’s not kitted out for combat. That’s likely why they sent a recovery team to get the ship back while we were on Rantecevang. Second reason is they want to get us back where they can control us — they recognize that they have lost control of this situation, and they’re trying to get it back. Having subordinates defying orders outright raises red flags in a paramilitary organization, and even if they aren’t showing it, they’re prolly a little panicked that we’re taking orders from someone other than them. Mentioning that we had a demon lord onboard prolly didn’t help matters.”

Lysanne sigh, rubbing a hand over her face. “Shit. I shouldn’t have gone off like that.”

“Prolly not, but it was deserved, blondie.” Milor says. “They needed to understand that their inaction has consequences, and you can tell they’re feelin’ it by the way they’re reacting to this. The message got across, and that’s what’s important. It may’ve been way too late, but at least they’re takin’ this seriously now.”

“How are we going to relay this to Raikaron?” Dandy asks. “We must tell him, one way or another; we cannot leave him out of the loop on this, because it will be impossible to hide our actions if we choose to comply with the administration’s orders.”

“I don’t know.” Lysanne says, pinching the bridge of her nose as she squeezes her eyes shut. “I need some time to process and think about all of this. We’re being placed between a rock and a hard place, and it doesn’t look pretty…”

Jazel looks to me at this point. “Are you going to tell them not to follow CURSE’s orders?” From his tone, it sounds like he wouldn’t be bothered by it. It’s almost like he’s asking me for permission to ignore CURSE.

“You aren’t afraid of losing your job?” I say, raising an eyebrow.

“I can always get another job. I can’t replace Kaya, though.” he says simply. “If you need me too, I’ll make the case to the rest of the crew that we need to follow your orders instead of CURSE’s.”

I tilt my head to the side. “You are an uncommon creature, Jazel Jaskolka. Like your sister, but in the opposite direction. She is uniquely malleable, but I have a feeling that even if I wanted to, I would not be able to shape you into anything other than what you already are.”

He blinks at that. “Thanks… I guess? Is that a compliment?”

“It is simply an observation. You can take it as a compliment if you are so inclined.” I say, returning my attention to the scrying liquid. “I recognized the people on the screen; I have encountered them before. They summoned me once, to ask my aid in decoding a Spark map.”

“Wait, you’ve met Tenji and Nazka? Why didn’t you say anything?” Jazel says, quickly looking back to the view of the conference room. “If I’d known, I could’ve brought you to the conference room to talk with them.”

“No need. This way is probably for the best — if they had seen me with your crew, it may’ve sent them into more of a panic than they’re already in. Demon Lords are typically a cause for concern, especially when they are rendering aid to subordinates which happen to be insubordinating.” I say, tapping my fingers along my jaw. “Tenji and Nazka, yes… the names are returning to me now. Remind me of what their role within CURSE is?”

“Tenji’s the Administrator. Nazka’s the Deputy Administrator.” Jazel says. “They basically control all of CURSE. Nazka is usually the bad cop, so Tenji can be the good cop, at least when they’ve disciplined us for things we’ve done in the past.”

“Mmm.” I say, the gears in my mind turning now. “So they’re at the top. By chance, does the name Chi Nimick mean anything to you? She was once a Challenger; went by the codename Gossamer, if my memory serves.”

“I… think so. Think she’s one of the elites at CURSE now? A Peacekeeper.” Jazel says, although he sounds uncertain. “Not for sure, though, I’ve never really followed any of that closely, and we don’t really get a lot of exposure to the Peacekeepers. They’re usually off on assignments, doing more important things. Why, do you know her?”

“I do, from quite a while back, during her Challenger days.” I say, tapping my finger in the scrying liquid. It turns silver once more, regressing back to a few drops clinging to my nail, and I carefully wick the drops back onto the mouth of the bottle they originally came from. “She owes me a favor.”

“You think she can help with this?” Jazel asks as I tuck the bottle back into my vest.

“I think I can get her to pull a few strings. Enough that CURSE will stop giving you all trouble while we try to get this matter with Azra sorted out.” I say, straightening my tie and smoothing out any wrinkles in my shirt, then starting towards the door. “Let your friends know that they don’t have to worry about the administration, and that we can remain on course for Tareya. I will deal with CURSE.”

“Really? Just like that?” Jazel says, seemingly confused by how easy it sounds.

“Indeed. Let this be a lesson to you, Mr. Jaskolka — owing favors to the damned and the divine is a heavy burden. You never know when they might call it in, and you cannot refuse them when the debt comes due.” I say with a smile.

With that, I phase back through the door the same way I came, heading back to my room so I can call in a favor that’s been twenty years waiting.

Event Log: Raikaron Syntaritov

Dandelion Drift: Guest Quarters

11:34am SGT

Deals, and games.

They are two things that the Syntaritov family is known for, and it started with the progenitors of our house, Solebarr and Kastril Syntaritov. Solebarr was known for cutting deals, while Kastril preferred to play games of chance. Together, the two of them represented the two ways by which people attain the things they desire: through willing sacrifice, or risk taken.

Solebarr’s method was straightforward: he had an unnatural talent for discernment, and often knew the desires of a person’s heart, their secret yearnings. If he felt so inclined, he would offer a person they thing they wanted, in exchange for giving him something he desired. There was variety in the things he desired; sometimes he asked for their souls, sometimes their memories, sometimes a favor to be held in reserve for later.

Being a uniquely persuasive individual, there were many that accepted his deals; many who sacrificed things of value for things they craved. Eternal youth in exchange for a soul; a new love in exchange for memories of a lost love; a moment of supernatural aid in exchange for a favor at a later date; and on and on. Very often, those that made their deals were shortsighted, or came to regret them later. And Solebarr knew they would — his deals were not just deals for his own benefit. They were intended as lessons, to educate those who lacked wisdom.

Kastril, by contrast, enjoyed games. Games which lacked strategy and were a matter of chance alone; and in that randomness was the ultimate fairness, the absence of bias, with all made equal before chance. Counterintuitive though it may have been, Kastril was the harsher teacher of the two, for in games of chance, the only thing you control is what you wager, and whether you play the game. A deal with Solebarr may have required sacrifice, but you were guaranteed your reward so long as you held up your end of the deal.

With Kastril’s games, there was no such guarantee — if you won, you would gain your reward without having to sacrifice anything. And if you lost, you would walk away with even less than you had when you began the game. Many were those who played game after game with Kastril, trying to get back what they had lost, and only losing more in the process. Emotions wagered away to regain knowledge, memories wagered away to regain emotions, and souls wagered away to regain memories, until finally there is nothing left to wager. Chance was a cruel educator, and those that played Kastril’s games often found themselves learning the value of mercy and humility afterwards.

As for myself, I chose to follow in Solebarr’s footsteps, if only because I was not quite comfortable with the level of risk that was inherent in emulating Kastril’s ways. Learning the skill of dealmaking had made me uniquely qualified to work as one of the Lords of Sjelefengsel, accustomed as I was to offering compelling exchanges to individuals in need. In Sjelefengsel, where a favor owed was binding and could be used as currency, I could be considered swimming in wealth. Most of those favors owed to me were among the demons of Sjelefengsel, but there were a few owed by mortals as well, kept on hand for the sort of occasion that I was now presently dealing with.

Taking my pocketwatch out of my vest, I pop the cover on it, revealing the six hands and crystal gears steadily ticking away beneath the glass face. It’d been a while since I called in a favor that a mortal owed me; since most of my affairs were conducted amongst the afterlives, I did not have much need for favors from mortals. Still, situations like this proved that they could have their uses, if you were willing to bide your time and wait for the right moment.

Clicking the bezel on the side of the pocketwatch, I speak the name of the person that owes me a service. It is a name I’d first encountered on the mortal plane a few decades prior, one that brings with it the memory of an elf kneeling among the bodies of her defeated comrades, sullen and refusing to yield to defeat. A prideful creature, one that would rather die than beg for mercy — but when the lives of others were on the line, one could find her more pliant than she otherwise would be alone.

In response, the face of my pocketwatch splits apart, the glass sections sliding back as the gears within tick along, retrieving the favor from the vault within that contains them. It rises up from from the depths of the pocketwatch, taking the form of a gem shaped like a purple teardrop; reaching out and taking it between my fingers, the pocketwatch begins to close up again, and I tuck it back into my pocket.

Holding the favor up to light, I take a moment to admire its form and clarity. Favors could take many forms, but were often products of the person that produced them, and as such, took the form of something the person might value. For some, this was ordinary objects; a favor from an artist might assume the form of their preferred implement, while a favor for a CEO might assume the form of one of their material status symbols, such as a wristwatch or a treasured ring. This one — a simple gem — was a curious reflection. It showed an appreciation of pretty things, but lacked the embellishment of being set in a necklace or some other piece of jewelry. Had I the time and the inclination, I could attempt an analysis of what this might say about the mental state of the person that produced this favor.

But I have neither the time, nor the inclination, so I let the favor drop into my palm and clench my fist around it, crushing it in my grip.

In an instant I’m pulled into a singularity within the shattered gem, a transposition of space and time that resolves in the consequent instant, whereupon I find myself in a more generous set of quarters. It has the look of a place that has been lived in for a while; the shelves are well-populated with mementos of different places across the galaxy, while the walls are appointed with banners that reflect the resident’s history. There is perhaps some vanity in having an official, merchandized holoposter of yourself hanging in your living room, but for a person that was once a Challenger, perhaps it can be excused.

After a moment spent taking in my surroundings, I quietly make my way over to a recliner in the corner of the living room. It looks like a comfortable affair, and the point of placement is such that one will be looking directly at the front door if they’re sitting in it. Confident that it will be both comfortable and sufficiently dramatic staging for the coming encounter, I sit down in it and settle in, straightening my tie and folding one leg over the other. Hopefully I wouldn’t have to wait for too long — there was a very real risk that I might find myself dozing off in this recliner, given the quality of its design.

But thankfully, that’s not a concern, because the moment I’m fully settled in, there’s a chirp and a click as the front door unlocks, and slides back. That same elf from my memory steps into the apartment, and while she hardly looks any older, she does have new scar across her face. I remain still, idly wondering how long it will take her to notice my presence if I remain silent; to her credit, she only makes it a few steps into the apartment before she senses that something’s not quite right, looks around again, and sees me sitting in the corner of her living room. Her mouth opens, the beginnings of a demand forming on her tongue as she reaches for her waist, and what is probably a sidearm that she keeps on her person at all times.

But then the recognition kicks in, and the words die on her lips as her eyes widen and her color drains from her face. I smile, lacing my fingers together in my lap as I feel the ripples of fear echo through the room, backed with a strong undercurrent of dread.

“Hello, Gossamer. Long time, no see. And I… have a favor to ask of you.”