A young man stumbles into a deep, lost cavern; he seeks power and prestige, the ability to become someone, anyone, worthy of praise.

When he finds an ancient crypt adorned in jewels and precious things, he thinks himself the luckiest man alive.

And then the lich in that crypt wakes up and kills him.

That’s me. I’m the lich. Honestly, I just want to go back to sleep, and there’s no one, no ‘god emperor,’ sect, or uptight martial artist that’s going to stop me.

Prologue

I can still vividly remember the most disappointing day of my life. I was sixty, perhaps seventy years old. An accomplished wizard, a peerless researcher who had devoted his life to uncovering the darkest secrets of the arcane arts.

Nothing was beyond my reach, no subject too complex—or too dark—for me to unravel.

The nations of the world and I had reached an agreement. They would leave me be, and I, in turn, would only teleport into their keeps and stashes of hidden lore every few years.

Information, I believe, is to be shared. Mostly with me.

I was... content. Happy even, as there’s nothing like the discovery of something new, of another new piece of the puzzle clicking into place, to brighten my day.

I had been running a series of experiments, my laboratory filled with the stench of chicken blood and offal, my gloved arms covered to the elbows in experimental refuse. A normal, productive evening.

Some parts of the memory are a bit hazy, actually.  It’s been centuries, you see. I recall muttering something to an assistant, one of the many that apprenticed themselves to me on their own quests for knowledge.

The arcane sciences, you see, are art and—as the name suggests—science.

The most complex spell can be impacted by the slightest variation in application or circumstance. Truly, most of these small variables can be ignored or smoothed over with an application of will and power, but that would mean... failing.

It would be like a master painter hiding a mistake behind a fresh layer of paint, as opposed to truly understanding the purpose of each stroke that marked the canvas.

I had just pinpointed, with repeatable experiments, the reason why certain very illegal spells whose nature involved the soul and the extraction thereof would sometimes function poorly. As it turned out, the turning of the moons above did have an impact on the arcane, and I could prove it at last!

I knew that I had once more found a way to slip my name into the history books. It almost led me to missing out on the ping, on the warning flashing through my consciousness.

I had levelled up.

Grinning, I inspected my stats.

My grin froze.

The world, for a moment, chilled as confusion and uncertainty filled me.

Level: Max

Two words, right at the top of my own status screen. Nothing else. Just those two.

I would like to say that it all hit me in a flash, that my rage against the world, against the system, and against the gods, started at that very moment, but that’s not quite true.

Stepping back, I told my assistant to pack up after our experiments, and I returned to my chambers for a bit of wine and a moment to contemplate.

Seeing something at the maximum level wasn’t impossible. I had certainly gotten some stats that high over the decades. Seeing their growth stop was irritating, but that was tempered by the knowledge that I had reached the pinnacle in that one area.

But my  level ? The expression of how strong I was?

If that had reached the maximum, then there was just no more growth to be had. No more point in experimenting to gain experience. No point in combating beasts to see how their magics worked, or of studying to grow ever more powerful.

I can recall throwing a goblet of wine across the room. An uncharacteristic show of violence and frustration for me.

I think it’s understandable. I had just then discovered that one of the pillars in my life had not so much crumbled, but had been revealed to be meaningless.

This was, of course, utterly unacceptable.

In the years that followed, my research took a turn away from merely knowing the secrets of magic and of the universe. No, that wasn’t enough. Power alone wasn’t enough. Magic wasn’t enough.

I needed more. A new cause, a new reason.

First, immortality.

Through means too dark to speak of. Nations burned, fearsome creatures that terrorized entire continents were rendered down into so many reagents. Heroes rose up to fight me, misguided and full of thoughtless zeal. They made good testbeds for my further learning.

Once I became immortal, truly immortal, I set my sights higher.

I could have become a lord of sorts, an emperor of the dead. I had turned into an unsleeping , undying, and ever loyal army, but I had no interest in merely ruling.

What would I learn from observing peasants squabble in the mud? What secrets could merchants sell me that were truly worthy of my time? Why abase myself to the machinations of nobles who chased after small, pitiful things  like prestige, honour, and power, and would rather take it from others than earn it for themselves?

No. I aimed for the seat of the gods.

The clergy mocked me before they fell. Holy magic was magic, and magic was my domain.

The gods scoffed at my efforts, then cried as their celestial palaces met the ground at long last.

And then...

And then...

I watched over the world. A thousand years old. More powerful than anything in the land. My level, still mockingly only at ‘Max’, calling upon others to underestimate me.

I suppose I could have remade the world in my image. Turn it into a bastion of learning and enlightenment.

But frankly, I was tired.

At long last I decided that, for my own health, for my own self-interest, I would lay myself to sleep. Not to death , for that had been barred to me when I found Death and killed him. Not to timelessness, because who was I to allow mere  time to dictate my actions? But to rest.

I would sleep, and in some eons to come, when the universe at last reached its end, I would look upon the vast emptiness of the void itself, and demand answers.

The glowing orbs that served as my eyes extinguished themselves. My loyal servants, crafted with my love and care, laid themselves down to rest. And I slept.

And then some punk woke me up.

Chapter One - A Rude Awakening

“I can imagine what’s going through your head right now. ‘Maybe if I stay very quiet, the scary lich person won’t kill me and my friends will have enough time to come and save me.’

It’s a very quaint thought. Your friends could never save you. Though, I must admit, there is some validity to the former claim. If you stay very quiet and listen very well, you will get to live... a little longer, at least.”

***

I, like many others, enjoy a good night’s rest. Undeath never truly changed this, it only made the periods between rests that much longer.

The magical sleep I was in, the one that I chose to succumb to, was not your average rest though. It was a deeper thing, more primordial, closer to the essence of sleep than sleep itself. Magic wove itself into the concept of sleep, and rest and eternal slumber, and made it something more.

Which is probably why I was a bit miffed when someone rattled my bones and woke me up.

My eyes flickered into being and, for a moment in the darkness, all I could see was a youthful face, lit by torchlight. Inquisitive eyes lingered on me, and a hand quite rudely pressed up against my face.

I may have acted on an instinct that was a bit uncouth at that moment. My jaw cracked open, teeth parting for the first time in however long I had rested there, and words escaped my non-existent lips in a sibilant whisper.

“ Drain Life. ”

Ah, that had been a bit of a mistake.

I am aware that you, a mundane person, might not know all that much about magic. Fortunately, I am something of an expert on the matter. The only one greater than I was Zaloth, the god of magic. At least, Zaloth was greater than I until I used a nifty spell to drain his divinity, then consumed his essence to empower a.... That’s a story for another time.

Forgive me, I do tend to ramble.

Now, let me explain why that was a mistake. You see , casting, at least in the proper traditional style, demands a few things from the caster. You need gestures and motions, the right words and incantations. Often, you need the right reagents so that the magic will be imbued with unique properties.

When I cast ‘Drain Life’ I was actually casting a spell called Greater Word of Death: Drain Existence.

Quite a handy little spell. It attacked the subject on a conceptual level. I derived it from a drain soul spell I found in some forgotten tomb. The common Drain Life was an old favourite of mine, so I got into the awful habit of just using that as a shorthand.

See, it’s a mistake for two reasons.

One: it’s terribly lazy casting. Wasteful, and for the most part a bit much. It's like burning down a city because a single shapeshifter stole one of your books.

Two: the young man standing above me, suddenly faced with a point blank spell designed to remove his very existence, died rather quickly.

Had I skin and such I might have been a little distraught at all the dust falling on me as the boy’s everything turned into nothing. But the only thing annoying me was my own foolhardiness.

I could have questioned the young punk.

“Cancel.”

Reality stopped eating away at the boy’s body,  and what was left of it flopped to the ground next to my coffin.

That left me on my back, laying upon a no-doubt rather chilly piece of magic-carved stone, and staring at a cracked and time-ravaged ceiling.

As my father used to say, ‘There’s no time like the present!’

Of course, once I discovered how to stop time, I always found the saying a little facetious. It was more accurate to say, ‘There’s no time but  the present.’

Nevertheless, I set aside my ramblings and tilted my head up to see what was what. The top of my tomb had been slid aside, leaving only a passage large enough for some foolish young punk to stick his head where it didn’t belong. I corrected this oversight with a wiggle of a bony finger.

“Lesser Mage’s Hand.”

Eight ephemeral hands appeared around the lid of my coffin and slowly, carefully, raised it up and set it off to one side. The advantage of a mage’s hand, other than not having to move one’s self over to pick something up, is that it is quite impossible to pinch one’s fingers off.

A very handy  spell. Oh hohoh !

I extricated  myself from my place of not-so-eternal-after-all rest and stood up next to the body of the young man that had disturbed me.

My burial chamber was in a bit of a state. The walls were cracked, with some of those splits running right through the runes and enchantments meant to keep the place spotless. Having never been one for grand displays of wealth, any jewels and gems and golden gilding was merely there to satisfy the needs of some enchantments. There was little else in the room but my crypt and a small bench off to one side that I had once used to tie my shoes. Any jewels and gold and other such ornamentation were merely part of the magical systems keeping everything functional.

Speaking of!

Before laying myself down for the long rest, I had, of course, properly enchanted my clothes. A glance downwards revealed that these enchantments had held marvelously.

My oxfords were still shiny and new, with a neat pair of double bows atop them. My slacks though could have used a bit of ironing. They were a pinch rumpled around the hem. I supposed that my ankles were a bit bony.

Bony!   Oh hoh!  My sense of humour was quite lively , even after all this time.

I ran my fingers down my favourite tweed jacket, the one with the big pockets and the leather pads over the elbows, then inspected my button up shirt and the vest covering it. All nice and neat.

Finally, I tugged my bowtie straight and reassured myself that even after all this time, I seemed like a proper gentleman.

I was ready for a showing!

Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be any heroes charging into my chamber as I had imagined. Nor did the three-quarters of a young man by my feet seem to have many friends. There was a bag off to one side, no doubt filled with knick-knacks, and a torch lay on the ground off to the side, spitting and burning away, while casting a needless amount of light around.

A bit of a listen revealed that there was some wind coming from the far end of the room, and certainly enough, there was a fissure just big enough for someone to sneak through.

I wondered....

I snuck my fingers into my waist pocket and pulled out my trusty old stopwatch. It was a nice thing, with a simple silver case and a finely wrought chain. I wasn’t one for embellishments and decorations and such. I preferred cold functionality, and I think my watch showed as much.

I flicked the device open, and as the name suggested, stopped time.

A bit of an interesting project, that one. Fortunately, it also served as a very handy little pocket watch, and you quite literally had all the time in the world to see what time it was when using it.

A flick on one of the buttons stopped the running count that I’d set off before going to sleep. Ethereal numbers appeared in the air before me.

6.627e+10

That was quite a few seconds. Had I a tongue I would have pinched it between my teeth as I worked out the math. Some twenty one centuries and a year and change. The exact day and month hardly mattered. In all likelihood a few mega spells would have tossed the planet out of whack by some fraction of a degree and made any accurate calendar null and void.

I snapped my watch shut and slid it back into its pocket.

Two millennia and a bit.

Not nearly as long as I had intended to sleep.

I supposed I could have gone back to sleep right then and there. The spells I’d need to cast to return were a little tricky, but to me it felt like I had cast them just the night before. But that would just lead to some other young fool poking at my tomb.

No, I had some questions that needed answering. Seeing as how the only other person in the room with me had suffered from some critical existence failure I had to pursue other avenues of research and discovery.

I began with the man’s bags.

A tent, some spare clothes. A few strips of salted meat wrapped in cloth. Two glass bottles filled with water. A camp knife and flint. All the essentials someone on an adventure would need to keep a minimal level of comfort.

It was near the bottom of the bag, past a few other odds and ends such as a small shaving kit and some dried herbs in a small porcelain container—medication, perhaps—that I found the true prize.

A book!

A well bound book, even. Thumb-thick, about a handspan wide and twice that in height. The paper was some sort of vellum I wasn’t entirely familiar with. The ink seemed organic and the binding made of tightly knotted strands of leather that had been cured to remain flexible.

A well-made book. It warmed my decrepit old soul to see that education was still a priority even in this distant future.

There was, of course, a title imprinted on the very first page. One I couldn’t read!

Of course, linguistic drift was a common enough occurrence. I had seen it happen in my own lifetime. That was nothing to worry about, as there were a few more esoteric spells that could assist with that.

Out of curiosity, I opened the book and observed its language.

Written from top to bottom, judging by the strokes of... a brush as opposed to a pen? Daring. And no noticeable alphabet. A written language based on pictograms? No, not quite. I could see some repeated strokes here and there. Logograms then, or ideograms.

Strange, and fascinatingly primitive.

I reached into my breast pockets and took out my spectacles. I had no eyes, of course, so they only truly served to translate and magnify text, as well as a few other minor assisting enchantments. Notably, they were enchanted to stick to my face just-so. Living with neither nose nor ears made spectacles a unique challenge.

A Study of the 250 Steps to the Path of Earthen Enlightenment

I found myself staring at the text and wondering if my spectacles had perhaps fizzled out over time. Regardless, I flipped the pages, eyes scanning up and down and taking it all in at a glance. Soon pages were flying by.

I stood there for all of a minute studying the book and all of its text. In the end, it snapped shut with a dull thud that echoed in my little tomb.

“What did I just read?” I wondered.

It was... wrong. All wrong. Daos, and martial arts, and eating strange things to become more powerful and to open gates within one’s body? Pressure points, and the art of cultivating... something?

It was nonsense.

Had the world lost all sense while I rested?

No, no, that was unlikely. The scientific method did not die so easily, not as long as the learned continued to share their knowledge and understanding. Progress marched ever onwards.

This tripe book of nonsense was likely some trash written by.... I inspected the cover once more. The Sect of the Richest Earth.

Ah, a cult. Wonderful. I did like cults, they made for morally unambiguous test subjects.

My next objective, obviously, was to resecure  my tomb, toss the body out lest I trip on the bones the next time I awoke, and then...

And then...

Were I able to, I would have winced.

See, my foolish and quiet audience, I have a small vice.

A paltry, insignificant fault that I’ve had my entire life and subsequent unlife.

I suffer from acute curiosity. I can never leave things uncovered , and a glance into the hole leading to the world outside left me wanting to peek, to see what awaited me there.

I wouldn’t merely go out there on my own, of course. That is where my new servant’s body would come in handy.

Nothing like a bit of necromancy to get the old bones rattling!

Just a glance, then I’d return to my slumber, I promised myself.

***

Chapter Two - A Butler a Day

“Necromancy, for all that it once had a terribly black reputation before I used it to sow chaos and destruction across the world, is actually one of the more grounded kinds of magic. Not that someone like you would understand that.”

***

In order to make a proper manservant of the undead sort, there were a few key ingredients that you needed to have on hand.

First, a willing corpse.

Now, the fun part here is that all corpses are willing.

I currently had the bottom three-quarters of a corpse already. One arm was missing, and a piece of its ribcage and spine as well as the head. Some of those parts were a little difficult to replace at times. I could have just transmogrified some stones into bone, but that would be lazy.

Bones were more than just a bit of carbon and calcium, they had their own lattices and molecular structures, not to mention the complexity of marrow. The magical properties, while certainly some that could be artificially re-created, are rather unique.

Simply put, while I could have made new bones from scratch, it would have been a difficult and time-consuming affair for very little by way of reward.

“Rise.”

The body on the ground twitched. Its legs bunched under it, and with a swing of its arm, it came to a wobbling stand. A slightly skewed stand, with the one heavier side dragging it off, but a stand nonetheless.

“Right-o, follow me,” I told my soon-to-be new butler. I tucked the horridly  misinformed book under one arm and stepped on over to the crack in the wall. I had to give it to the young man that had snuck into my tomb. He must have been quite flexible to make in through the present passage.

It was a narrow and quite crooked path. I feared that I might dirty my tweed jacket  against some of the rocks jutting out of the sides, and the walls of the passage were certainly anything but smooth.

“Well, nothing for it,” I said before moving in. Fortunately, I was quite light on my feet, and very spry for my age.

When the path grew even tighter and I had to wiggle my way through, it was with only minimal difficulty.

In the end, it was far more difficult to instruct my butler-to-be to follow me, so I abandoned the corpse when it wedged itself between the walls.

The crack ended in a natural cave, one with a floor smoothed by the passage of water. For the moment, that water was little more than a trickle in the middle of a room filled with stalactites and stalagmites, huge stone pillars often meeting in the middle to form great columns.

I could see some light off to one end of the cavern, while the other side ended in a sheer  wall where a crack let water flow off into what I presumed to be an underground aquifer.

I patted down my pants as I straightened up, then stretched my  tendons  a little.

You could say that I had old bones. Oh-hohoh!

A further inspection of the cavern revealed a few interesting things. Notably, that this area had been used as a camp of sorts, at least once in the very recent past, probably more often before that.

A small fire was smoking away in a pit formed in the rocky soil. Some stones stacked around the wood kept it nice and neat. Beyond that, a stick wedged across a thinner section of the cavern had some full waterskins hanging from it, and there was a neat pile of blankets off to one side.

I was beginning to imagine a small scenario. It seemed as though the young man that had disturbed my rest was perhaps a traveller of sorts. This location had been his camp for the night, and while bored—and who could blame the man with only tripe nonsense to read—he had stumbled across an accidental path into my tomb.

The fresh water flowing past was likely drinkable, and the ventilation, while poor, wasn’t so terrible as to be dangerous to someone with lungs.

That left a few things unanswered though. Why would he go through the effort of bringing his bag with him when he had a camp?

A low growl seemed to come from the entrance of the cavern, as if in response to my query.

Turning, I found myself facing the stalking form of a great cat. A leopard I guessed. The spotted fur seemed to suggest that it was something akin to the leopard I remembered. The glowing eyes less so.

A magical variation of the common big cat?

“Observe.”

Earth Stepping Leopard of the Path of the Falling Leaf, Level 50

What a ridiculous name for such a weak creature.

The cat growled and began stalking forwards. It seemed quite intent upon eating me. An inspection of it revealed some gauntness to its skin, and its ribs showing along its side.

“Now now, kitten, I’m hardly on your menu. Go along. Shoo.”

The leopard pounced.

I sighed.

“Magic Missile.”

A bolt of bright, colourless magic formed in the air between myself and the leopard, then drew a line in the air that passed through the cat’s skull and torso, no doubt doing irreparable damage to its brain and piercing through its heart faster than it could even begin to process the appearance of the magic.

The big cat hit the ground with a dull thump and began to bleed all over.

“Well, now I know why the young man found my tomb,” I muttered to myself. No doubt he had been attempting to hide from the local predators. A good idea. The small passageway would make reaching him difficult, and any creature that tried would be in something of a bind if he defended himself while they were stuck.

None of that mattered.

“Teleport.”

The body still lodged in the crevice flopped by my feet, rolled once on the uneven ground, then tried to stand.

Teleport was one of those terribly exacting spells, where you needed to calculate every last variable, and where even the slightest failure can lead to an untimely death. Most don’t think on it  much, but seeing as how the world is round, and spinning at approximately  forty-thousand necrometers (my own unit of measurement) an hour, moving from one part of the world to another means calculating your relative speed compared to that of the planet.

There’s nothing quite as exhilarating as appearing somewhere foreign while moving at speeds that would make any bird blush.

Then there’s the differences in pressure from changes in altitude, the shift in degrees and angle when appearing over a long distance, and a host of other issues.

A long distance teleportation done poorly can mean that the mage will appear in mid-air sideways, moving at great speeds, and with his lungs trying valiantly to exit from his mouth.

Oh, and of course, one would usually rather not appear buried in stone or halfway into something else. You don’t often hear from those mages though.

Portals, inherent risks of ending up in some hellscape dimension aside, are far safer.

I rubbed my hands together and looked upon the ingredients before me.

First, a proper manservant to take care of my lesser needs so that I could focus on grander, more important things. Then, a bit of exploration and discovery.

Then, once my curiosity was satisfied, it was back to sleep.

A day or two, no more.

Deciding to get things done quick and cheap, I cleared out a bit of space with some cleaning magic (not to be underestimated, that) and levitated my butler-to-be’s corpse over. Then I glanced at my new source of meat and bones in the form of the leopard.

It would be a little unconventional, but certainly doable. And less effort at that.

Decision made, I brought the big cat over too.

Grinning as only a skull can, I pulled the lid off my necromantic powers. Magic spilled into the room. The fire that had been withering away was snuffed out, the fresh water gurgling by turned rancid, and the air stilled, becoming heavy and motionless.

My arms raised like a composer before an orchestra, and the twin glow from my eyes flickered and blazed, casting the room in shades of verdant green.

Skin peeled away, sloughing off and twisting. Muscles twitched and spasmed. Bones groaned and cracked.

“Greater Word of Death: Graft.”

The two bodies crashed together with the slap of meat on meat. Light flashed and flesh sizzled as actinic arcs melded everything together. My fingers twitched and my mind raced as spell circles formed of dust took shape in the air around me and began to fill with the precise runes and mathematical evocations needed to turn mere flesh into unlife.

The bodies, now melded, took shape beneath me. I contemplated merely restoring the human body to a whole state, but the leopard did have some interesting magical properties that could be enjoyable to experiment with.

Soon, the spell circles were eaten away by the ambient magic, and I was left standing above a body, whole and spry, with a nearly-human visage and a pair of triangular ears. A tail slid out from behind its hips and its hands and feet had a distinctly cat-like appearance that wouldn’t interfere with its work.

“Good enough for a few minute’s work,” I said.

A glance beyond the corporeal showed me the lingering remains of the man’s soul fusing quite nicely with the soul of a... female leopard? Well, regardless. I bent down slightly and pressed a hand to my new butler’s chest.

“Word of Divinity: Animate Death Butler.”

The actual, original spell was designed to create death   knights . Fearsome warriors empowered by the divine to fight for the causes of the less scrupulous gods.

I never needed knights though. On the other hand, a good butler was incredibly useful to have, so I had tweaked the spell a little over time.

Divine magic, the magic that had once belonged to the gods, swept through the cavern and warred with the necrotic forces I had unleashed. Were any mortals in the room, they would have been torn apart with the force of the conflicting powers.

As it stood, I enjoyed the nice breeze against my unfeeling bones and watched as the spark of divinity burst like a newborn star in the midst of my new butler’s soul.

The eyes of my new butler snapped open, two glowing blue orbs with neither pupils nor irises . I sensed the newly made creature scanning its environs until it regarded me. Slowly, carefully, it rose to its full height.

Half a head shorter than me , if you didn’t count the ears, and I wasn’t exactly setting records for tallness. Oh well. “I do believe I’ll name you... Alex.” A perfectly sensible name for a young butler.

The butler, Alex, blinked. “Papa?”

“Pardon?”

Alex smiled, big and bright and far too cheerful for something undead. “Papa!”

“No,” I said. “Not that.”

I may have made a mistake somewhere along the line. I was considering the steps I’d taken when Alex raised his arms in the optimal position for a hug.

“No,” I said. “None of that either. Go into the tomb over there. I think there are some clothes left in a bag.”

Alex’s arms lowered, and for a moment he looked chagrined before he scampered off.

I’d kill and remake Alex later. For now he’d be sufficient for my needs. I cracked my neck from side to side and let out an unneeded sigh. It felt good to stretch one's magical muscles after so long, even if there had been some... minor mistakes along the way.

Alex came tumbling out of the crevice in the wall, hugging a pile of clothes to his chest. “Do get dressed. I’ll transfigure those rags into something appropriate once you’re ready.”

“Yes, Papa.”

“Please don’t call me that,” I said absently. “Perhaps use one of my titles? Lord of Bones? Father of Magic?”

“Magic Bone Daddy.”

My fingers twitched. “Harold. Call me Harold.”

Alex nodded rapidly, eager to please. “Papa Harold.”

Another sigh. At least the exploring couldn’t go as poorly as this.

***

Chapter Three - A View of the Future

“Now, after all those preliminary little things, Alex, my newly made butler and I finally took off into the great unknown. It was about then that I ran into your sort of people.”

***

I never liked the open sky.

Not that I disliked it for any rational reason. I am a man of science, and I can take a moment to ponder my own beliefs and thoughts to see why I feel the way I do about certain things. Long ago, I discovered that the reason I dislike the open sky is twofold.

One, the sky, as limitless and grand as it is, reminds me keenly of the depth of knowledge that I lack. Beyond the sky is space, and there lies planets and moons and stars. New w orlds to explore and discover,  and possibilities that are, quite literally, endless. The gods once resided in their celestial homes, close to the edge of space itself, as if mocking us below with their greater power.

One day, perhaps, I would go out there and seek out a new home in the stars. I would find new purposes and make new discoveries. But that was always a distant, abstract kind of goal for me.

Two, I disliked the sky because the sunlight was too bright, the night too dark to read in, and it tended to rain on occasion, which ruined my books.

The open sky above was a blue tinged to green, the sun right overhead and as bright as ever. Few clouds, and those small and pitiful.

I lowered the hand I had placed over my brow and took in our surroundings. The area was not the lush forest that I could recall. Perhaps two thousand years had done away with the woods, or maybe some enterprising locals had cut the woods down some centuries ago.

All that was left was scrubland as far as I could see. Open fields of soft, dead soil, and a few scraggly, tough bushes. The little stream running out of the cavern passed by my feet and made its way downhill towards a thin crevice that sliced across the land.

“Looks like we have our work cut out for us, Alex.”

“Yes, Papa Harold,” Alex said.

The wise thing to do would be to follow the water. Just about every civilised group I’d found, from humans to orcs, to those high-strung elves, needed water to live, and so following a stream was often the best way to find a village, or at least a lake.

The even wiser thing to do was to cast a spell that could point you in the right direction. I raised my hand, cupping it before me as raw magic gathered above my palm.

“Mass Detect Life.”

The magic burst away in a surge, a wave that shot out and formed a grand dome that raced across the scrublands and past the visible horizon. Almost instantly, I could feel the pings of the spell going off as it encountered life. From tiny insects, to innocent mammals to bigger predators.

My eyes dimmed as I took it all in.

“Ah, I see. That way, Alex,” I said as I pointed off to our left. My magic had run across quite the gathering of lifeforms, all bunched close together. There were others, of course, but if I was going to take my time and walk, then I’d want to reach the nearest settlement before nightfall.

“Okay, Papa.”

“Can’t you call me sir?” I asked. “It would be far more dignified.”

“Okay, Sir Papa.”

You might be wondering, ‘Oh, Harold, why would you walk? Are you not powerful and capable of avoiding such trivialities?’ And you would, for once, be quite correct.

The problem with teleporting all over, or with using arcane flight or even using fleet foot spells, is that you miss out on the opportunity to observe.

There is no skill greater for the budding scientist than that of observation! To properly draw factual conclusions, one must be able to observe reality as it is.

Observation takes time, of course, and some effort. Time that I had plenty of. Not needing to eat anything, not needing to sleep, and generally being immortal, means that I have grown somewhat fond of doing things at my own pace.

Alex and I made our way uphill, then took a moment to observe the wider world revealed by our climb. It was quite desolate, with a lot of nothing for kilonecrometers around. “Well, this is dull,” I admitted after a moment.

“Yes,” Alex agreed.

“We’ll take a few samples from these bushes, maybe from the local wildlife, then be on our way,” I decided.

It turned out that my initial findings were more interesting than I had presumed. The first bush from which I took a cutting (with a small use of a cutting spell) revealed great thorns hidden beneath its leafy canopy, and branches that were thicker than I would have assumed at first glance.

There was magic in these bushes. Latent and calm for now, but present.

More intriguing yet, the magic had a certain necromantic flair to it.

A rustle farther away revealed a small rabbit bouncing along at some speed away from a dark brown fox. The rabbit obviously had a few magical tricks at its disposal, as it frequently teleported  between jumps.

Simple teleportation, of course. The least version of such magic, wherein the caster chooses a nearby area within their line of sight and thus avoids the many challenges of calculating advanced telemetry by using localized reference points to match their velocity to that of the planet itself.

I was content to observe the chase for a while, seeing the fox salivating after its prey and the rabbit deftly avoiding the fox’s teeth.

The rabbit made a mistake, one turn going too wide and leaving it to rub against one of the shrubs dotting the landscape. The plant twitched, leaves parted, and in a blink the rabbit was captured and being pulled into the bush’s branches while kicking and screaming.

The fox stopped its run and seemed quite disappointed before it scampered off.

“Fascinating,” I said.

The bush was using a simple, primitive form of drain life.

A fabricated plant, perhaps? Nature did not usually enjoy the presence of undeath, and for the most part such evolutions would be wiped out in short order. The only plausible explanation was long term growth in an area with powerful and subtle necromantic magics.

I glanced in the general direction of my tomb.

“Oh my,” I said.

“Sir Papa Harold?”

“It’s nothing,” I said. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d accidentally destabilized an entire ecosystem, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. “Do try not to touch the bushes.”

They seemed not to react to our passing, so it was quite possible that as undead we simply were not on the figurative menu. It did make for a wonderful reason to avoid the area. Perhaps that was why I had been undisturbed for so long? Why civilization had not marched its way to my doorstep.

After doing some marching of our own for some time, I unfortunately grew quite bored.

I wanted to see civilization once more! To see the progress  humanity  and the other intelligent races had made! I could imagine great spires and bountiful lands. Machines that did the work of a hundred farmers so that resources would be plentiful and the common man could spend the evenings in joyful scientific pursuits.

Two thousand years of advancement!

I wondered if the sentient races of the world had reached the stars yet, or perhaps only our local moon? Had  there been great strides in biological magics? What of the material sciences?

“Alex, I do believe we will take something of a shortcut.”

“Oh?” Alex asked.

“Indeed. Just a quick portal ahead of us. Nothing too grand. I do want to arrive while the sun is still high.”

I was certain that any proper city would have lights, of course, torches, perhaps even using harnessed lightning elementals or some arcane trickery that would allow one to work and live in the night, but I didn’t want to ruin the moment where I’d see it by arriving in the night nonetheless.

Coming to a stop in the lee of a rocky outcropping, I began to focus on the crafting of a short-lived portal. Nothing extravagant, just a small rip in space leading into a tunnel that would tear open an opposite hole elsewhere.

“Open Portal.”

A green slash appeared before us, filled with darting stars and a twisting miasma of writhing magic. I gestured within. “Go on now, Alex,” I said.

Alex nodded and hopped into the portal.

When I didn’t feel my necromantic bond with the butler disintegrate, I stepped in myself. A moment later I was spat  out the other side and collided with Alex’s back.

“Sorry, Bone Papa!” Alex said as he spun around and started brushing off my clothes.

“No need,” I said as I dismissed the portal with a gesture. “Hardly your fault. I should have waited a moment more. I might be a little eager.”

A glance around revealed that my exit portal had brought us to a rockier, hillier area. Still scrubland, with few plants in sight, and none of those dangerous bushes I’d seen before, but there was some grass and a few hardy weeds poking out from next to all the rocks.

All I needed to get my bearings was a moment, then I gestured off towards civilisation. “Well, off we go again!”

My first glimpse of any sort of civilisation came as we climbed to the top of a particularly steep hill. There was something in the distance, a small lake, with a walled compound next to it and a village beyond that. There was a quaint little water wheel, and some plowed fields all around.

Smoke rose into the sky from a few buildings, and while I couldn’t make them out from afar, I could tell that there were people moving about.

“Looks rather... quaint,” I said.

“Small?” Alex asked.

“Indeed. I was hoping for something more.” Still, it probably made sense that people would avoid building so close to such an inhospitable place. This was likely little more than a stopping point for travellers heading out, or perhaps a small village growing around a research centre.

Perhaps, once we’d been welcomed into the town, we’d find some way to travel to the next city with some alacrity. I had once contemplated creating a world-spanning gate hub that would facilitate transportation. No doubt someone had engineered something akin to that already.

Hopes still high, I began making my way down hill. “Are you looking forward to meeting people, Alex?”  I asked.

Being undead did make talking and walking at the same time somewhat easier. There was no tiring these old bones.

“Yes!” Alex said. “New Papas and maybe other people too.”

“Hmm, I’m afraid that that isn’t exactly how things work,” I said. “You should have an instinct for this kind of thing, unless I’m even rustier with undead magics than I could possibly fear.”

“Lots of new people to meet and be polite to. I can serve tea to everyone?” Alex asked.

I really would need to take a look at his stats. The way he spoke I was afraid that perhaps Intelligence had turned into his dump stat, and that was unforgivable. “Remind me to get you some items to raise your stats.”

“I’d like a nice maid outfit,” Alex said.

I blinked. “Alex, you’re a butler, not a maid.”

“Aww,” Alex said.

“Now now, no whining.” I gestured out ahead. “We have people out ahead of us. You wouldn’t want to look bad. And as for your clothes, we will find something more appropriate in-town, I’m certain. Even a backwater village like this ought to have a tailor.”

As we wound our way downhill, we slowly crossed out of the scrublands, and into an area where there was grass and proper trees. Yellowed, dying grass, and pitiful trees that seemed starved for water, but they were certainly present.

And beyond that, fields and farms and people at long last.

My bones were practically quivering with excitement.

***

Chapter Four - A Hint of Civilisation

“I’m not angry. No, no, it would take a lot more than some misinformation and society-wide idiocy to make me angry.

I’m merely... disappointed. In you, in the world you’ve created, in everyone that followed along.”

***

Our brisk walk had me passing the first few farms in no time at all.

They weren’t very impressive farms. A few homes, little more than shacks, with thatch roofs and walls made of clay bricks and thatch.  Not terribly nice to look at, and I imagined they were just as uncomfortable to live in.

These homes were dotted here and there across the hilly countryside, with emaciated barn animals grazing around them, and some fenced-off gardens filled with all sorts of plants spaced seemingly at random.

Farming was one of those things that I had never truly cared to study all that much. There was only so much playing with manure I could do for science before I would find something more lucrative to do.

The people out in those fields had wide brimmed hats made of a yellowish plant woven together, and seemed to disregard Alex and I with little more than a glance.

To be fair, we were quite a ways away from any of them, and coming from a direction with no obvious road.

I would have to see how people reacted to our undeath when we got closer.

“Look Sir Papa, a road,” Alex said as he pointed out ahead. My butler moved on ahead of me, skipping in a terribly undignified way until he landed with both feet atop a road of beaten earth. There were hints of cobbles here and there on the path, but little else.

There was a lot you could tell about a country from its roads, I found. They were the lifelines of a city, the things that allowed people to travel and thrive. Knowledge, more often than not, travelled along these paths.

To see a road so pitted and poorly made, not to mention so poorly maintained. It didn’t bode well for the intelligence of the local leaders.

I tapped my oxfords together and used a minor cantrip to clean off the muck from them and the hems of my pants. Tweed was a wonderful material, but dust did tend to cling to it rather ferociously at times.

“Let’s keep on going, Alex my boy.”

“Yes Bone Papa, Sir.”

We were just coming close enough to the town proper to make out its walls when we encountered a little group of people coming our way.

I would ordinarily have assumed them to be travellers, but their garb was strange.

Now, to be entirely fair, I wouldn’t expect something as fickle as fashion to remain the same over any prolonged period. Just in my lifetime and subsequent unlifetime  there had been great shifts in the manner by which people dressed.

The lower classed folk tended to change very little with time, but the working class, the merchant families, and those who congregated in cities, tended to have styles and phases in their choice of clothes that would change quite sporadically.

The nobility were generally far more fickle, of course.

These young men wore outfits that were downright bizarre. Long coats with trailing tails made of some sort of leather, with tall collars that circled around the lower half of their faces.  They all had longer hair, tied in intricate braids that fell to the small of their backs, and great billowing sleeves that they folded into each other with their arms crossed.

Most intriguing of all were the many canisters around their waists, only partially hidden by their leather coats.

Weapons? Perhaps vials used for collecting samples? Were these the scientists of the modern era? Their coats would certainly offer some rudimentary protection from some volatile chemicals, though their sleeves would be a liability in a laboratory.

I reached out a hand and pressed it to the centre of Alex’s back.

“Greater Word of Lexicography: Translate.”

The burst of magic had Alex wobbling a bit with his next few steps, and he turned towards me with an open question in his glowing eyes.

“A translation spell,” I explained. “So that we can be understood, and vice-versa. There’s no greater loss than that brought by poor communication.”

“So I can talk to people? I think I might like talking to people.”

“Hmm, I’ve no doubt,” I said. “Do you know how a butler should behave before strangers?”

Alex’s back straightened and he held himself differently. Taller, more noble. Even his expression flattened to one of bored interest. “Yes,” he said. “I need to be very polite to the guests of sir Papa Bone Daddy.”

“Indeed,” I said. For all of Alex’s... excentricities, he did seem to understand the role he was created for. I could endure a bit of strangeness if he was capable of handling his duties with an appropriate level of seriousness and diligence.

I made sure I was presentable myself before continuing on towards the three young men out ahead of us.

When we were only a few dozen necrometers  away the young men came to a stop. I could see eyes narrowing and postures shifting subtly as they took us in. Alex seemed to garner some attention, but not nearly as much as myself.

Ah, they could probably observe my level.  Yes, I suppose that I didn’t often appear as fearsome as my level would indicate.

“Greetings,” I said.

The men looked at each other, then one of them stepped up. “A talking skeleton, huh? You have made a grave mistake coming to the empire, undead one.”

That was informative!

Three key pieces of information jumped out to me. First, they didn’t have a way to properly observe the difference in strength between us. Second, they seemed to have some sort of prejudice against the undead—not terribly uncommon, that—and third, the region was part of some sort of empire. Not a kingdom, though that wasn’t mutually exclusive.

The form of government they had would need some further speculation, but it was hardly the time for that.

“I beg your pardon,” I said quite  politely. “My butler Alex here and I are merely passing through. We’re on the lookout for a library. Perhaps a store from which I could purchase some reading material. I assure you I mean no harm.”

“Senior brother Yan, we should take its head. The sect master would reward us, I think,” one of the young men said.

The other tilted his head to the side. “Would our poisons work on it?”

The one in the lead, the so-called Yan, nodded. “The poisons of the Four Venoms Sect go beyond just the material. Remember your dao, junior brothers.”

Were they ignoring me? That was rather rude.

Alex cleared his throat. “Please forgive us, new friends, but you seem to be under the impression that we wish you ill. That is not the case. Magic Bone Papa said so.”

I observed one of the gentlemen to the side of the group pulling his arm out of his sleeve before flicking it forwards. Two needles flew out of his grasp and moved with decent speed across the space between us, both, surprisingly, aimed towards Alex.

I carefully plucked one out of the air to better observe it, and let the other plunge into my butler. It would allow me to verify the claim that their poisons truly did work on the undead.

The needle had an interesting tip with something of a divot in it. The poison seemed to be oil-based, at least judging by its viscosity.

Oil of the Scrubpion, Enhanced Injury Poison. DC-6. 1d6+2/hour. Duration based on Con save.

Interesting. Weak, and possibly debilitating, but not overly so. And not something that I would expect to work on any kind of undead. There was more to it though, an ability that the young man had used when throwing his needles that made them more effective. Some sort of rogue ability?

“Are you well, Alex?”

My butler fished the needle out of his clothes. It had failed to pierce his skin, unfortunately, so I would be unable to see its effects on his constitution.

Oh well.

“You are trespassing on the land of the sect,” Yan shouted. It was quite unnecessary, we were hardly that far apart. “Prepare to die, undead scum!”

“For the emperor!” his chums screamed as they darted about.

Judging by the rapidity of their motions and the way they handled their weapons—mostly needles and one whip—they were quite obviously little more than children.

“Word of Power: Sleep.”

Three bodies hit the ground.

I sighed to myself. What a pointless waste of time. “Come along Alex, we should move on.”

“Should we tuck them in to sleep?” Alex asked.

I paused. There was no point in wasting any more time with these three rude young men than I had. They would awaken eventually and be little the worse for it. Perhaps they would even learn a lesson.

This region didn’t seem all that dangerous either. So close to a populated town, the likelihood of them being brutalized by a predatory animal was slight, and I couldn’t imagine there being that many bandits in such a small place.

On the other hand, I could learn much by going through their possessions.

In the end, it was common decency and the nearness to the town that decided things for me. “Let’s just keep going, Alex.”

“Okay,” Alex agreed easily.

Our random encounter completed—and no real adventure was complete without one—we continued on our way to the town, though as we approached I found that calling it a town might be something of a misnomer.

The walls, about three necrometers  high, were of mortared stone, with a small tiled roof running above them. There were a few buildings along the exterior, but most of the village... or perhaps a small city, was contained within these walls. A portion of it was atop a hill to one side, mostly a compound of sorts that had the airs of a very strange castle, with pagodas and greater walls around it.

The residence of the local nobility, perhaps?

A lake sat across from the town, and I could make out a few little boats with triangular sails skimming along the surface, some trailing nets behind them.

So, the local diet was no doubt supplemented by fish as well as what was grown in the meager farms, and perhaps some food was imported from elsewhere.

The gate we approached was guarded by two men in plain brown clothes , each holding a spear by their side. They straightened at our approach, then looked somewhat taken aback when they examined Alex and me.

“Greetings,” I said. “Do you fine gentlemen perhaps know the location of the local bookstore?”

One of them lowered his spear at me. “G-go tell the elder!” he said.

“This is all quite unnecessary,” I said. I had the impression that my words were not being received.

The younger guard dropped his weapon and scampered off in a hurry while the elder of the two lunged at me with his spear.

Alex, being a dutiful butler, caught the weapon by the haft and stopped it, and the guard, mid-lunge. “Thank you Alex. Could you please set the fine gentleman aside for now? I suspect there will be no negotiating our entry peacefully otherwise.”

“Okay,” Alex said. He cleared his throat and regarded the guard. “We are terribly sorry to intrude, good sir, but Bone Papa Harold and I need to enter your fine city for matters of business.” Alex grabbed the man by the breastplate, lifted him up, and set him next to the road. “Please don’t interfere.”

I nodded at the job well done and stepped past. At last, I was within the city proper.

Now, to find a proper disguise to avoid further complications, and to find a reliable source of knowledge, if there was one to be found.

I was beginning to have doubts.

***

Chapter Five - A Novel Idea

“You would think that, despite all the many, many faults in this civilisation of yours, people in it would still learn that arrogance isn’t the wisest course.

But no, of course not.”

***

The town was a bit of a mess.

I mean that in the kindest way, of course.

I once had a peer in the sciences who had a family, you see. I always found such things to get in the way of research and my studies, but this man found the sacrifice in time worth it for his own reasons. I don’t judge; his work was still very much acceptable.

On one occasion when I met him to discuss some facets of his research, I discovered that he had some strange diagrams in his laboratories.

These, as it turned out, were the scribbles of his children, of which he was quite proud. They were very inaccurate and poorly made, but they showed a willingness to dip into the arcane arts from a young age that made the man quite proud.

Walking around the town reminded me, in a sort of twisted way, of that memory.

There were so many signs that the small city could have been improved. They had a very basic system of gutters along the streets, yet some of their architecture hinted at actual, capable craftsmen among their ranks.

But for all the little signs of brilliance there was just so much that was wrong. The streets had filth along their sides, the people Alex and I crossed were dressed in little more than rags, the section of the town nearest the docks, the one that I would ordinarily have labelled as the slums, took up half the town.

There were so many signs that the local governance just didn’t care.

Was it a sign that there was a great amount of inequality, or stupidity in the upper ranks? It might have been too early to judge.

Upon entering the town proper, I pulled Alex to one side and half-hid behind a small outhouse near the gates and observed some of the normal townsfolk until I had an idea of how they dressed.

“Word of Deceit: Illusion”

Our new appearances were nothing too impressive. Plain, if clean robes in the local style, with minimal embellishments and a sash around the waist to keep everything snug. The locals seemed to prefer looser clothes, possibly on account of the region’s temperature.

I, of course, chose not to copy the raggedy clothes worn by the poorest citizens I saw. It wouldn’t do not to be taken seriously on account of seeming disadvantaged that way.

As for our faces, I crafted a rather dull illusion, both of us looking like middle aged men, with dark irises and just a hint of stubble. Nothing special, nothing to make someone glance at us twice.

“I believe, my boy, that we’ll find what we’re looking for nearer to the centre of this little city,” I said.

“Of course, Sir Bone Papa Harold,” Alex said. “We should also look for proper lodging for the night.”

I considered that for a moment. Neither Alex nor myself required sleep at all. On the other hand, if the local’s dislike of the undead, as unreasonable as it was in our case, was as profound as I suspected, then finding a place for the night wouldn’t be a terrible idea. As long as I had enough reading material to pass time then I would be quite pleased.

“I think you may be right, Alex,” I said.

Alex smiled up at me, his walk turning into a skip for a few steps.

The business sector of the city—I would need to learn its name sooner or later, and whether it was classified as a town, village, or small city in the minds of the locals—was little more than a curved street with perhaps two dozen shops on it. Those nearest the side of the town with the harbour were mostly small grocers and a few respectable, but small, general stores.

A smithy sat in the middle, with a few young men, apprentices possibly, banging away at simple tools. The road would have been wide had it not been for the stalls and carts where people in colourful attire were hawking their goods.

There were a lot of fish on display, but also a few places selling vials and small jars filled with products their sellers claimed were potent poisons and antidotes.

Perhaps the local economy was sustained by the sale of such things?  The examples of local technology I could see were... disappointing. It would make sense with the scrublands just outside. I was certain that there were plenty of normally vile natural venoms turned downright evil by the constant infusion of necromantic magics.

“Ah-hah!” I said as I pointed towards the far end of the shopping district. Nestled between a shop selling clothes that seemed of a nicer cut and a place that I suspected was a brothel was a small shop that had a few books on display behind a glass front. There were scrolls as well, and writing implements.

I had a bit of a habit of losing myself while perusing stationary. There was something about a grand choice in nibs and inkwells that pleased my nonexistent heart.

“I believe we’ve found our place, Alex,” I said.

I didn’t have any of the local currency—small metallic disks with cuts in their centre, from what I’d seen—but I did have a wealth of gold and jewels and other such frivolities tucked away in a pocket dimension.

We were approaching the shop when we were faced with a distressing scene.

Two young men, both in clothes cut similarly to those of the men we’d met just out of town, were standing above a young woman who knelt on the ground. Next to her, a small hound was barking and growling as it tried to defend its master.

“Give it back,” one of the boys said. “That is property of the Four Venoms Sect, it’s not meant for filth like you.”

I could see the girl gritting her teeth. “I won’t!” she said.

The ‘it’ in this case seemed to be a book that the young lady was clutching close to her chest.

One of the young men shoved the girl with the flat of his foot and glared down at her. “Idiot woman!”

No one seemed to be doing much, merely walking on, most while very actively pretending that nothing was happening.

Not that I blamed them. I would have walked on too, but there was a small issue. “Forgive me,” I said.

The boys looked up, now glaring at me as if I had done anything to wrong them. “What do you want, old man?” one of them asked.

Old man? My illusion painted me to seem like I was middle aged at most. Though, to be fair, I was a few millennia old. I decided to look past the slight. “Could you ruffians take the young lady and beat her elsewhere? I am trying to enter that shop.”

The boys stiffened up. “Are you mocking us?” One of them asked.

“No?”

“What are you saying? Huh?”

I had my illusion blink. “I’m saying you’re blocking the storefront. If you would just let me pass you could resume your fun. I’ll doubtlessly be in the shop until long after you’re done.”

One of them bristled quite needlessly. “Are you saying we’re slow?” he asked.

I... had no idea what he was talking about anymore. “No? I’m literally asking you to step aside for no more than a moment.”

“We’re disciples of the Four Venoms Sect,” the boy said.

“That’s nice. You’re also in my way.” I sighed. “Truly, if I knew it would be this much of a bother I would have snuck past. As novel as this situation is, it’s getting between me and some books.”

I paused.

“Oh. Novel.  Like a book! Oh hohoh!”

One of the young men took offense at my wonderful sense of humour and lunged at me.

He didn’t make it more than a step before Alex appeared before him and dislocated his jaw with a backhand.

The boy made an interesting gurgling scream as he flopped to the ground and clutched what remained of his lower face.

“Oh no,” Alex said. “My clothes are even more dirty now.”

“No worries. We’ll be finding you something more appropriate to wear shortly.”

“You fool!” the boy still standing said. He whipped out some needles in our general direction.

It was sloppy. Had I not acted, half of them would have flown off towards the people behind us, perhaps even hitting some unimportant civilian. I wouldn't—and couldn’t—shed a tear for a random passerby, but it would have the authorities sniffing about.

“Cover.”

A shimmering shield flickered into being between us, the brace of needles clattering against it without so much as rippling the magical barrier.

Lesser Cover was a rather poor spell, one that could stop a physical projectile easily enough, but it was not exactly a powerful spell. Perhaps I had books in mind when I cast it. It was a cover  spell after all.

Perhaps I should keep on-theme.

“ Bind.”

Ethereal chains appeared in a circle around the two young men, then snapped closed around their arms and legs and head. The one that still stood crashed to the ground under the sudden weight and the one on the ground... continued screaming. I couldn’t even block his mouth without first repairing his jaw.

“I appreciate you removing yourselves from my path,” I said as I continued on towards the store.

Something tugged at my leg.

I looked down to find that the girl had grabbed the hem of my pants and was clinging on quite tightly. “Thank you,” she said.

“Mmm, yes. You’re welcome and so on. Please let go of my pants.”

“I... you’re so strong,” she said, her face was still pressed up against the road.

“I am. Which would be a valid reason to do as I ask and unhand me.” I wiggled my foot a little.

The girl looked up, her face was quite the mess, with dirt caked on, and her overly large glasses cracked down the centre. “Please, teach me,” she said.

“No. Have a good day.”

Her hand let go and I continued on my way. The dog eyed Alex and I warily as we moved on past, not so much as growling.

The shop’s door had a quaint little bell affixed to it, announcing our entry into a wonderful world of books and paper. I almost missed my sense of smell.

There were some decorative wall scrolls here and there, as well as cubby-hole shelves filled with scrolls all neatly tucked away. Books were stacked onto desks and sitting on shelves, while some lay open and on display, usually on artfully decorated pages with grand maps and such.

The proprietor was an older gentleman who merely looked up from his reading of a tome  as we entered, then resumed his entertainment.

“I missed this,” I said to Alex. “Now. Let’s see how this place is organised. I’d usually just take one of each book and scroll, but I would rather not end up with too many trashy novels or the like.”

“How can I help, Papa?” Alex asked.

“Why, by holding the books I choose for me.”

Alex nodded at that.

The doorbell jingled again, and I glanced at the entrance to see the young woman stepping in. she had a handkerchief pressed up to her face, but that didn’t prevent her from locking onto me. “You,” she said.

“Did you expect me to teleport away?” I asked. “No, don’t answer that. Instead, go away.”

“What was that dao you used,” she asked. “How can I learn that?”

I had a sinking feeling as I met the young lady's eyes. I had just acquired a limpet.

How wonderful.

***

Chapter Six - A Limpet and Books

“I think that in those first few days—that is, the first few days after awakening—I was still operating under the mistaken assumption that strangers would act in good-faith towards someone they didn’t know.

I’ve since learned of your staggering arrogance.”

***

“That one’s no good.”

I carefully set the book down and turned my attention away from it and to the limpet.

Now, I’m aware that she had a name. Most people do. But certain people match their title and station so well, that they become it.

Such, I felt, was the case with the limpet.

“Forgive me,” I said. “But I don’t recall asking you for your opinion.”

The girl shrugged, one hand adjusted the crooked frame of her spectacles. “That’s okay. I’m just trying to help out.”

“Sorry, but what I meant was that I don’t want, or desire, your help. Go away.”

The limpet’s mouth worked, her brows knitting together as she, no doubt, pushed her thinking ability to its limit. “You’re forgiven,” she said.

It took me a moment to parse that.

“When I said ‘sorry,’ I wasn’t apologizing. It was a comment on how I feel sorry about how incredibly pitiful your intelligence is.”

The girl puffed her cheeks out and had the temerity to glare. “I was just trying to help.”

“No. You’re trying to ingratiate yourself with me in order to gain an advantageous position from which to ask me favours. Notably, you suspect—rightly—that I am in every way more powerful than you, and want some of that power for yourself.”

And now she was blushing.

The limpet reminded me a little of some of the undergraduates I’d conscripted for some research at one time or another. Just barely an adult, and still with some growing to do. Baby-faced and wide-eyed, and most of all, dumb as a rock.

“Go grind your intelligence by... oh, I don’t know, using Magic Missile on a tree trunk a thousand times, or whatever it is youngsters do to train nowadays.”

The girl nodded, then paused. “ What’s Magic  Missile ?”

I no longer had a brain, well, at least not a physical one mind you...

Mind you! Oh hoh!

Despite my lack of a meat brain, it seemed that I could still suffer from a headache. “Go away,” I ordered.

The limpet squeaked and ran off, jingling the doorbell as she went.

“She was nice,” Alex said.

“Oh, shut up,” I huffed before returning to my perusal of the books I had before me. I picked the one I’d just set down and flipped through it, reading the odd page and taking in the diagrams within. I don’t know if it was a product of my spectacles’ translation, or if the writing was really as poor as it seemed, but the limpet was correct in her assessment that it wasn’t any good.

The quality of the books I found were a little strange, to put it simply.

The bindings and materials used in their making were actually rather impressive. Not the greatest I’d seen, but the average quality was higher than I would have expected from such a backwater little shop.

The scrolls were nothing too special, just rolls of vellum and wooden rods. Occasionally they had some embellishment on their end caps, but that was all.

No, the quality of the physical parts of the books was more than satisfying.

It was the information that left much to be desired.

The history books I found were often accounts told in the forms of ledgers. Some stretched back to the start of some ‘Great Immortal Empire of the Five Paths.’ That was laughable. If it was immortal and great, I would have run into it already, and from what I could tell, its history only stretched back some millenia and a half to a point where the ‘great empire’ was little more than a single small kingdom.

Pathetic grandstanding and patriotism, probably designed to give its citizens something to be proud of while they starved on the streets.

It was disappointing to see that politics had changed little.

The history books—as dubious as I found them— were at least sensible. I didn’t doubt there was plenty of embellishment and so on, but that was almost to be expected.

No, the true cause for concern were the books on the arcane arts. That was, the lack of them.

There were no less than sixty-two guides on meditation techniques, a dozen on different martial disciplines for beginners, and a few books that looked like class skill books for different combat-oriented skills and feats.

Not one book about proper spell casting.

That was nonsensical. Even now, with just a minor expansion of my senses, I could feel some weak enchantments layered on the shop, more on the till at the back and plenty beyond that and into the city proper.

Magic was still very much used here. So why the lack of knowledge?

Some possibilities came to mind.

One. Magic had changed. This was the possibility that I suspected had the least potential of being accurate.

If magic itself had changed I suspect I would have noticed already. My entire unlife was sustained by it, and while I had hardly tried spells of every sort, I had touched upon a few of the more common schools of magic already with no noticeable changes. If magic did change though, then it was possible that certain magical knowledge was lost.

Two. Magic was guarded and kept secret. Not the existence of magic. The limpet had expressed some willingness to learn, so she had to know the basics at least. She didn’t act like someone who saw something utterly incomprehensible.

So, based on that possible conjecture, magic was known, but the hows  of magic were guarded or at least not sold to the general public in a common bookstore.

I truly disliked the idea, but I could imagine a scenario where certain kinds of magic were banned or guarded, and that eventually transitioned to all forms of magic over time. I had seen some nations banning necromancy in my day, not that a law would stop a horde of the undead from storming a gate.

Three. I was just really unlucky and someone else had purchased all of the books pertaining to magic, or this store simply didn’t sell that. Maybe there was a magic-specialist store somewhere and the owners agreed not to compete.

It was a dull possibility, but a very plausible one.

I picked up the first pile of the few books I had decided to purchase and set them atop Alex’s waiting arms. The second pile masked the butler’s face, and the third and forth pile couldn’t fit atop what he already held without impacting the ceiling, so I waved my hand and summoned a casual mage hand to raise the books off the ground.

“Greetings, sir,” I said as I approached the man by the counter.

He took one look at the piles of books floating behind me and bowed at the waist. “Hello, Master. How can Hongqi assist you this afternoon?”

Finally, someone polite! “Hello Hongqi, I wish to purchase these.” I gestured to all the books. “Unfortunately I don’t have any of the local currency.”

I noted the strange expressions flitting by the man’s face. “I do not wish to offend, great master,” he said with a bow. “But I cannot give my books away, else I would lose my livelihood.”

“Oh no no,” I said. “Forgive me, I mean that I cannot pay in normal currency, not that I wouldn’t pay. Do you accept gold bullion?” I reached into one of the pockets of my tweed jacket and rooted around the pocket dimensions within.

Pocket dimensions.... In my pockets! Oh Hohoh !

I found what I sought and pulled out a brick of gold. “Is gold still valuable?”

The man nodded very carefully. “O-of course, Master. Though I must admit that I’m not in the habit of trading in gold.”

“Give yourself a good mark-up,” I said. Greater Transmutation was one of those spells that was quite handy in making infinite wealth, insofar as any type of currency other than knowledge was worth something.

The man bowed twice, and was soon assisting Alex in setting down all the books I intended to purchase. “You will want these packaged, master?” he asked.

“That would be nice. Do add their name to the packaging. I dislike rummaging around in a disorganized heap.”

“I understand fully, my lord,” he said. Soon, the shopkeeper was carefully wrapping each book in plain paper and writing the name of the tome  with a brush and ink. He included a short description beneath that on the packaging. It was a good job.

“Tell me,” I said as I set a second golden brick next to the first. “Where might one acquire magical tomes?”

“Magical tomes? Ah, I suppose Master  speaks of books that instruct one on the use of cultivation?”

That was the second time I’d heard the word. “Forgive my ignorance,” I said. “I’m speaking through a translation enchantment. What is cultivation?” I was using a spell, but enchantments seemed more common and less likely to raise suspicion.

“It’s... ah, the practice of an art, to gain Qi and become more powerful.”

Did he mean gaining experience? Was this cultivation thing just grinding? “I see,” I said. I suspected that there was more to it than that, but I would learn more when I had the time for it. “And where could I find out more about magic?”

“The local sect would be the best place, if they’re willing to accept you. They are, ah, I wouldn’t speak ill of them. Perhaps master  would be best to hire guards, and leave his riches behind when he visits the local sect. Just in case?”

I nodded in thanks. “I’ll see what I can do,” I said. I’d long grown past the point of fearing for my unlife, but if this kind book vendor was willing to warn me, perhaps I would heed his word. I wondered if there was a cemetery nearby?

I noticed Hongqi looking past me and towards the entrance of his shop. A quick glance over my shoulder didn’t reveal any young fools looking for a second lesson, but instead the head of a limpet that quickly disappeared when she saw me staring.

“Ah, please, Master, don’t be hard on Fenfang,” Hongqi said. “If she bothers you, I will speak to her.”

“She seems unfortunately persistent,” I said.

“It must be because the master seems so powerful,” he said. “She has been looking for her own path to cultivation for some time, but with little luck.”

“Are there not goblins to murder around here?” I asked.

“Ah, well, yes?” he said. “But they are fearsome and warped by evil energies.”

I assumed that ‘evil energies’ was some necromantic power or other. Else the locals were just needlessly superstitious. “I won’t harm her, if that’s what you’re asking. Not as long as she doesn’t bother me overly much.”

Maybe I’d teleport her over the lake.

Next to a boat, of course.

Once all the books were nice and packed, I added a final golden ingot to the pile. Better to overpay and remain on friendly terms with the man providing me with my entertainment. “I think this will be my farewells for now,” I said.

Hongqi bowed once more. “It was a pleasure serving you, Master.”

“Certainly. Have a good evening.” I waved my hand and the neatly packed books warped and wavered before folding away into my book keeping dimension.

It also doubled as my accounting  dimension. Oh hohoho!

“Come along, Alex! We’ve a sect to visit,” I said. “New, or perhaps very old, magics  to discover. And one limpet to get rid of.”

“Yes, Papa Magic Bones,” Alex said as he jumped to follow me. “Are we getting clothes too?”

“Ah yes, I had quite forgotten.” I nodded along. Alex was still dressed in pauper’s clothes. Hardly fit for a butler at all.  “Books and magic first, clothes second. We do have some priorities.”

***

Chapter Seven - A Picture of the Wider World

“I must say, your people’s dedication to martial arts is impressive.

But growth in martial disciplines is linear.

Wizards are quadratic.”

***

“I can help,” the limpet said the very moment Alex and I stepped out of the bookstore.

I looked down at the limpet, taking full advantage of the added height gained by standing atop the first step leading into the shop to pin her in place.

The girl cringed back.

I, as always, had options; acting without considering was not in my nature as a man of science.

I could teleport the girl over the lake. Perhaps by casting Yeetus Annoyus—a spell developed by an old colleague to dismiss certain students of his—to fling her away harmlessly.

On the other hand, she was a local. She might know a few things about the area that I couldn’t learn through casual observation alone. I could always interrogate her now, and fling her into the lake later.

Either way, she’d get flung into the lake for annoying me, but the latter meant that I’d at least get some use out of her.

The dog next to her stared up at me, its tail between its legs and its eyes narrowed with dog-like suspicion. I wondered if it would be foolish enough to try to attack me. That would be the last thing it did while alive if it did so.

I was more of a cat person.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“I’m Fenfang,” the limpet said.

“Hmm,” I said.

“And this guy’s name is Fang,” she said as she gave the dog a friendly pat on the head.

“You named your dog after yourself?” I asked.

She nodded and smiled up at me. “Yep.”

Even I wasn’t that full of myself.  “Well, limpet, you can follow me up to that Four Venoms compound and tell me about the area and its history.”

Her eyes lit up. “Really? Is this a test?”

A test of my patience, perhaps. Oh hoh!

“Let’s go with that,” I said before gesturing off towards the far end of the town. “You can start by telling me the fastest route to get to the compound. And then tell me what happened to those two young men that were here earlier.”

The streets were still as lively as they had been when I arrived, moreso perhaps. There was no sign of the two young men that Alex and I had taken care of earlier.

“Yes sir!” the limpet said. “Right this way.” She dipped down to pick up a satchel and slung it over her shoulder. Judging by the boxy  outlines poking through the leather bag, it was filled with quite a few books.

“So... child, are you a mage? An aspiring wizard, perhaps?” I asked. If she was an adept then that would open up entirely new avenues to question her through before I tossed her into the lake.

“A wizard? Like those in the imperial court?” the limpet asked. She adjusted her glasses with the palm of her hand, then shook her head. “No. I wish. Finding that kind of path to cultivation... that would be incredible. Is that what mister is? A wizard?”

My appearance under my current illusion certainly didn’t give the impression that I was any sort of fighter. “Yes,” I said. “I am a wizard.” It even had the benefit of being true.

The limpet’s eyes shone. “So incredible! Are you looking for an apprentice?”

“I might be,” I said. Perhaps some decades down the line I would look for an apprentice. I doubted it though. In all likelihood I’d exhaust my curiosity and return to my nearly-eternal sleep before long. “Now, enough about that. Tell me about this town and this sect.”

The limpet’s mouth worked, then she nodded seriously and straightened her back. “This is Venom’s End,” she said. “How did you come here without knowing that?”

“I’m sorry, are you the one asking questions now?” I asked.

The limpet flinched. “Sorry. I’m not being a very good apprentice, am I?”

“No, you’re not,” I agreed. “My question?”

“Um, one moment!” She paused to rummage through her satchel, soon coming out with a small notepad and a charcoal pencil. “Let me just note down your questions so that I can answer all of them.”

I nodded. That was sensible.

“You’re very organized,” Alex said.

Limpet nodded. “That I am. I might have been kicked out of seven sects, but not once because I’m not a hard worker!”

“What are these sects, anyway?” I asked.

She scribbled down the question beneath the others. “Okay! First question. This town is called Venom’s End. It’s run by the Four Venoms Sect, which is in turn run by the Grand Master  Weiyuan of the Coiling Serpent.”

The limpet’s pencil scratched a line across the question.

“Question two! The two disciples were carried off to the local physician’s place. Lesser disciples need to pay for their own care, so they can’t just return to the compound.”

Another scratched-off line.

“Question three! Sects, what are they? Um... that’s a hard one to answer. I’m sure mister knows.”

“I may have an idea,” I said.

“Is... are you one of the gand masters?” she asked. “Wait, no, no questions, sorry. Right! So, the sixteen sects are all schools that teach different forms of cultivation. Some are really secretive, others are less so and will accept anyone. If you’re really good, you can transfer from sect to sect to learn all of their secrets and arts, and if you do that, you can join the seventeenth sect at the Jade Seat, or even become a Guard of the Throne.”

“You’re rambling,” I said. We were making decent time crossing the city. Venom’s End (which was an objectively terrible name) wasn’t all that big, and we had started near the centre, so our uphill trek to the compound that housed the Four Venoms Sect wasn’t very far.

“Sorry!” Limpet said. “I do that... a lot. Anyway. A sect is an organisation built around the teaching of a single cultivation art. Sometimes it will do more than that, like worship a kami, or have some duties beyond just teaching, but mostly it’s about the art and the betterment of the Empire.”

“And how do these schools differ?” I asked.

“Ah, um.” The limpet scribbled the question down. “Each school teaches a variation on the art. Of the Dao. The sixteen are all divided by element. Earth, Water, Fire and Wind. So most of their skills centre around one of those. The Four Venoms school teaches the poison arts and alchemy. The others... do you want me to go through all sixteen?”

“No,” I said. As interesting as her rambling was, it was still rambling, and I was growing tired of it. I would probably learn a lot more from the books I’d collected and was about to collect from this Four Venoms sect.

That the sect was a tool of a larger government was reassuring. That meant that they likely had a bureaucracy in place to accommodate my needs.

On the other hand, the city seemed poorly run, which didn’t bode well for that same system.

“I have a map,” the limpet said. She turned halfway around and started to rummage through her bag.

And then, because she was as clumsy as she was loud, she tripped over her own foot and went flying.

Alex dipped down, both hands snapping out and catching the girl mid-tumble. “Careful, Small Annoying One.”

“Ah! Thank you!” the limpet said. She was blushing quite profoundly as she extricated herself from Alex’s arms. “Here’s my map!” she declared as if she hadn’t nearly smashed her face even more.

I had the illusion before my face raise  an eyebrow as I took a rolled piece of parchment from the limpet and held it up before me.

“Is this thing accurate?” I asked as I took in the rough shape of the continent. It was similar to what I could remember... more or less. The sea levels might have changed, and some islands were outright missing, though that could have been due to poor mapmaking.

The main crux of the map wasn’t the locations of cities; it pointed instead to various sects across the empire. Hardly secretive if they had their locations printed on a map. Or maybe these were red herrings.

“It’s more or less accurate,” the limpet said. “I didn’t pay much for it. And I might have gotten a bit lost a few times. But for the most part, well, it got me here.”

“You’ve travelled a lot?” I asked.

“I really want to grow strong and fierce,” she said with all the strength and ferocity of a mangy puppy.

“That’s nice,” I said. “This map may prove useful.”

“You can keep it if you want,” the limpet said.

“That’s generous. Thank you.” Looking up, I found that we had arrived onto the street that led to the Four Venoms compound. It was actually an impressive place, with tall walls of fitted stone painted in stark white and capped with a tiled roof all around. The taller buildings, all with pagoda-like roofs , poked out above the walls and seemed to be in good repair, especially compared to the city around us.

Not that the area around the compound was poor. It seemed as if this was the place where the richer citizens lived.

Two young men were at the gate, both in the flowing garbs that I took to be some sort of uniform worn by the Four Venoms sect. They were eyeing us, only the top half of their faces visible over their high-collared outfits.

I turned around and looked out over the city. From the height we were at I could see all the way over to the lake where, in the distance, a few boats were navigating back to the harbour. Perhaps the fishermen returned for lunch?

“This is it,” the limpet said. “They, ah, might have kicked me out earlier this week after I failed their initiation.”

I was curious, but not enough to really ask. It wasn’t as if I intended to try and pass any sort of test here. “That’s nice,” I said. “Say, have you ever been teleported before?”

“No?” she said. “Wait, can mister teleport?”

“Obviously. Do you know how to swim?”

I would feel a very slight pang of something akin to guilt if she drowned.

“I do,” she said. “You need to learn if you want to join the Sect of the Storm Lake. They still failed me though.”

“And the dog?”

“Fang knows how to swim too,” she said.

“Brilliant,” I said. Reaching down, I tapped at her satchel and drew a quick rune into its side with a cantrip for engraving leather.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Waterproofing enchantment,” I said. “I wouldn’t want your books to get wet.”

She blinked at me in a very limpet-ish way. “Huh?”

I poked her head and touched her dog in reply.

“Teleport.”

They both disappeared quite satisfyingly.

“Oh look,” Alex said while pointing out towards the lake.

I glanced over just in time to see twin splashes near a boat and could just barely catch her distressed scream in the air.

“Good show,” I said. “And good riddance. Now, let’s go see about this sect and what knowledge it holds.”

***

Chapter Eight - A Failure of Guest Rights

“Do you know what I miss the most about the old world?

The observation skill. It used to be that nearly everyone had it, and while your level wasn’t the most important thing about you, it did engender a certain amount of caution. A low levelled person likely needed protection, a high level one deserved some amount of respect.

Nice and simple.”

***

I would like to think that I’m no fool. My max Int stat suggested as much, but that couldn’t be relied upon as a be-all end-all for deciding how smart someone actually was.

No matter how intelligent you are, you can be defeated by someone more observant, more patient, or perhaps someone who is simply more ruthless than you are.

It’s why taking things slowly and carefully, more often than not, is the best way to do things. It’s why I took my time climbing to the top of the hill where the gate of the compound waited.

“Observe.”

A Follower of the Toad Sage, Poisoner, Level 41

A Snake’s Fang, Assassin, Level 39

The two young men by the gate seemed rather cautious as we approached. Not fearful, but also not nearly as arrogant as the young men Alex and I had met so far. Their classes, Poisoner and Assassin respectively hinted at a singular purpose and fighting style.

As for their level, it was rather low. Perhaps they chose lower-ranked but more mature individuals as gate guards, or maybe the importance of the job had been impressed upon otherwise normal young men.

“Greetings,” I said as I had my illusuary face smile kindly upon the men. “My name is Harold. I’m a travelling researcher. I was hoping I could speak to the sect’s librarian, or barring that, your head of research.”

The Assassin stepped forward and gave Alex and myself a shallow bow. “Honoured guest, do you have an invitation to enter the Four Venoms Sect?”

“I’m afraid not,” I said. “I’m merely here to study the local magics. If it helps any, I can afford to pay your group for the trouble.” I fished out a smaller gold bar from my pocket, on account that gold was worthless to me, especially when compared to knowledge.

For some reason, this had the young man before me bristling with indignity. “You think you can merely buy the secrets of the Four Venoms sect?”

“If I didn’t at least suspect as much, I wouldn’t have made the offer,” I said.

“Who are you to insult the Four Venoms sect?” the Poisoner asked. It seemed as if his patience was running out. We had barely even begun talking.

“I believe I’ve covered this already. I’m Harold.” I gestured past them and to the gate. It was a decent doorway, made of some old wood and reinforced with steel studs, most engraved with serpents and wyrms.

They very obviously took their image seriously here.

“Who’s he?” the Assassin asked while pointing to Alex.

“That’s my butler, Alex.”

“Hello, I’m Alex.”

“Why does he have those ears? Is he demon-blooded?” the Poisoner asked. He slid his hands into the sleeves of his coat. No doubt he was reaching for a weapon. This was all going rather poorly.

“More like he’s part leopard,” I said. “Now, is there a procedure for entering the sect? If I can’t merely pay my way in, there must be some way to enter?”

“You are too old to join,” the Assassin said.

“I’m not looking to join,” I said. “I’m looking for knowledge.”

The two guards looked to each other and seemed to communicate something between themselves with a few twitches and shrugs. “I will get a senior disciple,” the Poisoner said. He bowed once more, even more shallowly, if that meant anything, then raced back into the compound by way of a small door next to the main gate.

“Well, hopefully that will resolve things,” I said. “I’ve never been fond of the ‘get the manager’ approach, but if it works it works.”

It took surprisingly little time for the Poisoner to return, now accompanied by a slightly older man, though he could hardly be past his mid-twenties. “Who are you to interrupt my afternoon meal and meditation?” he asked.

I had my illusion’s eyebrows rise up. “I’m Harold. Do forgive the disturbance. I’m merely here to visit your sect’s library.”

The senior disciple stood taller and stuck his nose into the air. “Why are you not bowing in apology?” he asked.

I had to take a moment to parse that. “I’m sorry, what?”

“You, peasant, have interrupted my meal for some menial reason, why are you not kneeling for forgiveness?”

Just to be entirely certain, I looked down upon myself, inspecting my clothes and making sure my illusion was still in place. I still looked like a middle-aged gentleman, not a twelve year old. “It seems that there is some misunderstanding here,” I said. “I merely want to visit your library.”

The man swung an open palm at me.

I had plenty of time to consider what to do as the slap came for my face.

I could have ended his life for the temerity of it. In fact, that was growing to be a rather favourable option. On the other hand, killing someone was unlikely to get me to see their library peacefully.

Alex caught the man’s wrist mid-swing and held it in place in an iron grip. “Please, do not hit Papa Bones. It would be very rude.”

“Thank you, Alex,” I said while the senior disciple struggled to free himself. “Now, as I was saying. I am ready to offer you and your sect some financial remuneration in exchange for the right to peruse your library. I won’t even take any of your texts out of the room, if that’s what you wish.” I’d instead use a spell to copy them for later reading. “I’m hardly without means, and I don’t want any ill will between us. Don’t make this more complicated than it needs to be.”

I gestured, and Alex let go of the man’s hand. “You... you! I will tell the upper disciples of this! You will regret it!”

I watched the man scurry off back into the compound, then turned to the two gate guards. “Are all of the senior disciples that ignorant?”

They didn’t quite seem to know what to do , so I sighed and gestured to their gate. “I’m going to enter the compound now,” I said.

“Guests must enter from the main gate only,” the Assassin said.

I had my illusion roll its eyes.

Traditions. Disgusting wastes of time and energy.

The gate was obviously reinforced with a few enchantments. Some utilitarian , to prevent rust and decay, others to make it stronger or resistant to magical tampering. It wasn’t the most impressive work I’d seen, but it was decent in an amateurish way.

The walls around the gate were completely plain. It was such a foolish mistake to make that I found myself shaking my head in disappointment.

“Enlarge.”

The walls surrounding the gate expanded a few millinecrometers in every direction, tearing apart the gate’s hinges as they remained the same size.

The entire gate thumped to the ground, then slowly, gently, tipped back to crash into the ground with a great gust of displaced air and a ground-shaking thud.

I stepped past the two gate guards who seemed somewhat uncertain as to what to do now that they had no gate to guard, and moved into the open courtyard that made up the centre of the compound.

It seemed as though the area was laid out in a rough square, with taller buildings on every corner, long, low structures along the vertices, and the far end of the compound was home to the largest building I had yet seen in the region, a four story tower with tiled roofs that stood tall and proud over the others.

Small rock gardens decorated the sides, and I noted some pads for people to kneel upon while meditating.

A large gathering of young people, both male and female, were standing off to one side in light clothes covered in sweat while an instructor paused in the act of teaching them something. His lesson seemed to have been cut short by my entrance.

I was genuinely surprised by the number of people in the sect. I had expected a few dozen at most, but there were easily a hundred out and about, and no doubt more working within the various buildings.

“Do forgive me,” I said, pitching my voice so as to be heard. “I would like to speak with your leader, if I may.”

“Him!” the senior disciple said as he pointed quite rudely at me. He was with a gathering of other older members of the sect, all around his own age save for one who seemed quite a bit older.

I hadn’t noticed at first, but now that there were more sect members around, it was hard to miss the fact that they had a visible system of ranks. The lowest seemed to be very young, all dressed in clean but unembellished clothes, many with shawls around their shoulders.

Above them were the—who I presumed to be—junior disciples. These had the familiar jackets with long sleeves and high collars. There was little variation in their manner of dress.

The senior disciples wore similar clothes, but often with faint enchantments woven in, and with more gilding and decorations. Also, they seemed to have more variations in their dress. From slightly different cuts, to unique weapons by their hips or on their backs.

And finally the instructors and what I presumed to be the equivalent of leaders and professors. They wore longer, fuller robes, split to allow for movement and with hoods that cast their heads in deep shadow.

Browns and blacks seemed to be the colour of choice, perhaps because of a lack of materials, or maybe because they wished to better hide in the local wilderness.

I was beginning to suspect that this sect was rather militarized in nature, more so than religious.

The older man that the seniors were gathered around stepped up and took position in the middle of the courtyard. “Kneel, and press your head to the ground. We will make your death painless if you do so. You will die with dignity, and at the hand of one of my more peaceful concoctions.”

I shook my head. “Do forgive me about the door. I can repair it in but a  moment. I... may have acted rashly there.”

“I did not ask you for excuses. I asked you if you wished to die easily,” the man said.

“I truly doubt any of you could manage to kill me, so please do away with the threats, I’m just here to—”

“Seniors. This fool does not respect the Four Venoms sect!” he said. “Show him pain.”

“Sir Papa Bone Harold?” Alex asked. “Should I escort them off of their mortal coils?”

I sighed. “Only if they are so rude as to assault us, Alex.”

Five senior disciples moved up, including the rude one we had met outside. I could guess what would happen next. It was rather disappointing to see otherwise talented young men commit themselves to actions like these without thought.

The entire sect  seemed to think that this was some sort of show. The younger members eagerly whispered among themselves and some juniors poked their heads out of windows.

The five arrayed before me puffed up, and one by one they called out their names and titles.

I was thousands of years old, and had literally marched armies of the undead into battles against war gods, and even I didn’t have titles as silly as these young men.

‘The Most Venomous Striking Fang of the Serpent’ and ‘He Who Erodes the Darkness with Virility’ were the ones that stuck out to me the most. I suspected that they were given such ridiculous titles as a means of instilling some humility in them. It might have failed.

“Are you quite done?” I asked.

And then they decided to make the last mistake they would commit while still alive. They attacked.

***

Chapter Nine - A Mediocre Battle

“You’d think a culture that prizes strength so much would produce strong people.”

***

The first attacks came at me from, unsurprisingly, five directions.

I waved Alex down, fearing that my new butler might not be able to withstand so many hits all at once. That fear turned out to be unfounded, but I didn’t regret the caution.

Two large snakes made of moving earth tore out of the ground and clamped around my feet, a plume of gaseous poison shot out of one man’s mouth and engulfed me, and dozens of needles clattered against my skull and jacket.

A moment later, two of the senior disciples moved into the cloud of gas surrounding me, one with a pair of long knives, the other with a pair of syringes. The latter of the two was surfing over the ground, the earth beneath pushing him along.

It seemed that this sect’s combat style relied on two things. The heavy application of poisons and venoms, and some forms of earth manipulation.

Oddly enough, they were neither as impressive as the poison-users I remembered, or as dextrous in their use of earth as a proper elementalist. A sort of worst-of-both-worlds approach.

Now that I had endured their initial assault and found it wanting, that left me with a rather serious choice to make. Should I retaliate lethally or not?

The option to kill them outright was rather tempting. They had, of course, opened hostilities first, and were violating the most basic of guest rights with no hesitation.

But killing people was generally seen as a sort of last resort. For most people, death was a rather permanent state of affairs.

I decided to take the middle ground.

“Magic Missile.”

Ten circles formed in the air behind me, then twitched as they adjusted their aim so that two were facing each senior disciple. Unlike my standard magic missile, which had a rotating, screw-like projectile and an explosive payload, these were shaped to be as blunt as possible, and were weakened so as to move relatively slowly through the air.

Ten glowing green lines traced themselves out in the air, two impacting each of the disciples and sending them reeling back as though they’d just been hit by a club.

They flew back, kicking up dust as they rolled and ended up as groaning heaps scattered about.

I tugged at my lapels, then used a minor cantrip to dislodge the earth serpents holding my legs locked. “As I was attempting to say,” I said quite clearly. “I am not here for violence. I am here for an exchange of knowledge.” A rather one-sided exchange, but an exchange nonetheless. “Please do not provoke me any further. I think that at this point, the next attack against my person will be met with lethal repercussions.”

The elder, still standing there with his cane between his feet, glared. Not at myself or at Alex, but at the young men strewn about. “Fools! Rise! Rise and defend the honour of your sect. Defeat this heathen or I’ll see you all cast out!”

Was the man an idiot?

My question turned a little more broad as the five stood up, some wincing and pressing down against no-doubt broken ribs. Were they all idiots?

As they threw more needles at me, and started the incantations to spells that I didn’t recognize, I considered dealing with them non-lethally again. Sure, I had said that I wouldn’t do so outright, but those were just words, they had little to no value.

“Greater Earthly Venom Wyrm!” one of the young men shouted as he ended an incantation and, with a burst of displaced earth, summoned a spiny serpent as big around a horse and a dozen times longer. The man seemed exhausted from the casting, but it was rather impressive work.

Unfortunately I’d seen better spellwork elsewhere, and the various poisons being flung at me were a sign that these people didn’t subscribe to the idea that attempting the same thing twice after an initial failure was a bad idea.

I wouldn’t fall for the same trap.

“Well, it seems that you lot have  a bone  to pick with me. Oh ohohohoh!”

I raised a hand and made a flicking gesture.

“Bone Thorns.”

I made sure to only target the five of them with that particular spell. It was an old favourite of mine, one that I had discovered while studying a type of lindworm that used a unique kind of bone magic.

The key component of it, as I’d discovered, was the use of the target’s own skeletal structure as a reagent. A bit tricky, especially when the target was still using that skeleton, but doable if you were able to beat their Will save.

The first step only made the target feel warm. A natural side effect of the magic coursing through their bones. Magic often had a minor thermal component when in use , releasing heat as a sort of waste energy. I disliked that waste, but in a spell that required overriding a sentient’s own innate defences, more was often better than just enough.

The next part of the reaction was often described as an uncomfortable itching under the skin. These five in particular were soon shifting and twitching, some cutting themselves off mid-attack to reassess.

And finally, the most apparent part of the spell.

Thorns made of the target’s own bones soon began to sprout out of their skin, often slicing through muscle and sinew on the way out. They grew crooked and uneven horns atop their heads, then more thorns around their faces. The spine, in particular, seemed to grow a disproportionate number of thorns. I  suspect  it’s because it serves as a central hub for the nervous system and tends to circulate a fair amount of magic when using various self-buffs and other such spells.

The thorns didn’t just grow outwardly, of course. Most, in fact, grew within the body itself, cutting into various important organs and into the target’s brain.

Within a second of the final stage of the spell going off, all five senior disciples collapsed, though they continued to twitch a little as new thorns kept growing out of them. They would make for rather terrifying skeletal warriors if turned into undead.

I cleared my nonexistent throat. “Now that that is out of the way,” I said. “Would it be possible to speak with your leader while you fetch a cleric or a bard... perhaps more than one?”

“You... you bastard!” the elder screeched.

I blinked. “They were literally trying to kill me. Did you expect me to sit back and allow them?” I waved his concern away. “Nevermind that. I can cast Resurrection myself if you want, though I wouldn’t do it freely.”

The elder was soon joined by two others who were also middle-aged and seemed to be ready to assault me at a moment’s notice. Leaders and instructors, I presumed. They seemed more indignant than angry, which was quite bizarre.

“You have insulted the Four Venoms Sect,” said the eldest among them, the one that had just sentenced his own disciples to a rather grisly death. “For this, you will die.”

“That is literally impossible,” I said. “I think this situation is getting out of hand. Perhaps Alex can prepare us a nice cup of tea and we can take a moment to de-escalate?”

All three of them started to wave their arms about, and I could feel the faint tingle of magic about to be cast.

“Or you could continue to escalate needlessly,” I said.

“Pit of Fangs!” one shouted.

The courtyard below me started to sink down.

“Lesser Cantrip: Hover.”

The earth fell away beneath me, relieving a pit a dozen necrometers  deep lined with serrated teeth spinning about the edges. Judging by the oily gleam, they were all quite poisonous. An interesting spell that . Not terribly useful in this case, but interesting.

“Blood to Poison!” another elder called out.

That just didn’t do anything.

The third elder used a sort of teleportation to appear behind me. Shadow step, perhaps? He brought a pair of long, thin knives down around my throat and into my ribcage. So much for my illusion holding up.

“What?” the man said.

“Eldritch Blast.”

The man behind me didn’t so much fly away as he flew apart.

Low constitution assassins shouldn’t remain in a fixed position like that. It was just a poor application of tactics on a battlefield where they didn’t know how strong their opponent was.

The earthen pit beneath me crumbled as the spell ended, and the elder sect member casting that particular spell switched to flinging balls of caustic goop in my general direction. I tapped the first one as it came and set it into a pocket dimension for later study. The rest I made sure to track as they came down towards me.

“Magic Missile.”

This time it was a proper cast of my old favourite. A few hundred small circles inscribed themselves in the air around and above me, then they launched a volley of glowing projectiles.

I first learned Magic Missile as a young wizard; it was one of the very first spells I used. Back then it had been a simple bolt of magic, with little control and no refinement. Over the millennia I had iterated on the design somewhat.

My standard variation on magic missile was a tightly woven hexagonal-cut arrowhead, with an unstable magical loop in its centre, and a head that twisted a bit towards the point. If the spell spun at just the right speed, the head would act as a sort of drill on impact.

The magical loop was an incomplete version of a spell called Produce Flame. A nifty little cantrip used to light campfires and occasionally used by young wizards to light a pipe to impress a bar wench.

When the initial impact of the Magic M issile resolved , the cantrip would activate, expending the remaining ambient arcane energy to produce a short-lived gout of flame.

The elder’s eyes widened as a hundred homing projectiles tore through his feeble rain of caustic goop. He reacted with alacrity, dropping into the ground and emerging some dozen necrometers  away.

If he had thought that that kind of thing would prevent my missiles from working, he soon discovered that he was quite wrong when the missiles came raining down on his new position.

The third elder paused to take in the splattered remains of his one comrade, then the burning, hole-riddled form of the other. “Um,” he said.

“Yes, running away would be a good idea,” I said.

“I cannot run! That would be the coward’s way!” he said.

“Do you need a moment to build up your courage before dying a horrible, grisly death?” I asked. “I wouldn’t mind the pause. I do want to keep things original, and that would require thinking of some lethal-but-not-too-devastating spell to use next,” I said.

“You...” the elder looked at the crowd of disciples still gathered around. I was a little surprised that they weren’t stepping in en-masse, but maybe they had some iota of common sense between them all. The bystander effect coming in handy for once. “When the Sect Councillors hear of your tyranny, you will face the most dire of repercussions.”

I cancelled my hover cantrip, seeing as how the ground had stopped trying to eat me, and landed with a slight bend of the knees. I must admit that one of the reasons I didn’t just leave myself was because, at the surface, this entire situation was morbidly amusing.

It was nice to stretch my spell casting after so long that thinking of ways to use simple spells against simple foes was rather gratifying.

I imagine it would be like a chess master playing against a child.

Maybe I should start acting like an adult in this situation.

***

Chapter Ten - A Small Skirmish

“You know, for all that the average cultivator is rather unimpressive, your little sect leaders do take things to their logical extreme. I suppose there is some value in brute forcing things until something works.”

***

I was never terribly good at reading social situations. When I was a much younger man, a mortal, I didn’t have the patience to learn how to navigate the treacherous waters of social niceties.

As I grew older and more powerful, those niceties became a secondary concern. Power acts as a wonderful social lubricant.

I’ll admit that I probably should have taken a moment to truly study the intricacies and psychology that led people to act the way they did, but that was time  I could better spend learning how to manipulate the basic building blocks of the universe, and that took a bit of priority.

I wasn’t completely inept, mind you. I always tried to maintain a certain level of decorum and politeness. More often than not, asking nicely for something would get it to you without you having to march an army to someone’s door.

All of this is to say that as the remaining elder ran away with his figurative tail between his legs, I took a moment to scan the courtyard and put my limited social observation skills at work.

The younger disciples were the ones whose reactions were the most interesting. They seemed fearful, undecided, and most interesting of all, uncertain. They were eyeing their older counterparts, and for the most part didn’t seem angry about the situation.

The older members were quite different. There was plain, unmasked anger there. I recognized it as the anger of someone whose pride had just been casually stepped upon, and who couldn’t do anything about it.

Pride was, of course, a stupid thing to have. I had a bit of pride, but it was always rooted in my experiences and my own little accomplishments, not those of a nation or group I was part of. That kind of pride wasn’t something I ever felt was earned by those who held it.

These people seemed ready to attack me, but they were held back. Perhaps they had a lick of common sense split among the lot of them.

I spun around on the tip of an oxford and walked over to Alex. “This is rather interesting, but I do hope we can move things along,” I said.

“It’s kind of taking a long time,” Alex agreed. “These people should just give Bone Papa his books.”

“Now now, Alex, they’re hardly my books. We need to earn them first. There’s nothing wrong with that. I just wish they would accept an easier method of payment than outright pain and the occasional bit of dismemberment.”

Alex nodded. “We could have made tea and talked. But they only want to fight. It’s very rude.”

“Yes, yes it is.”

A gasp ran across the courtyard, and I noticed a few initiates quickly backing up to hide behind some pillars or around the corners of buildings.

The reason for the sudden reaction was rather obvious. Someone had just stepped out into the open. He was a relatively short man, his hair shaved off and leaving his scalp bare. The man wore a pair of goggles over a mask that had a pair of tubes running out of it and over his shoulders.

Otherwise, his clothes were similar to the senior disciples. A long-sleeved jacket, with a long tail and a collar that reached all the way up to nose height.

As he moved, it was easy to make out dozens of finger-width canisters hidden under his coat, all within easy reach.

I stood a little taller and pat Alex on the shoulder. “It seems that we’ve found someone important at last,” I said. “Do be careful. If this turns into a fight it might be ugly.”

Alex nodded. “Yes Sir Bone Harold.”

I walked closer to the man. We both paused some dozen necrometers  away from each other, keeping about half the courtyard between us.

“You have killed some members of my sect,” the man said. His voice flanged bizarrely, likely a byproduct of wearing his mask.

“I have,” I said. “For the right price I could return them to you. Resurrection is hardly all that complex a spell.”

“No,” the man said. “They have died in defence of the sect. Dishonourable though their loss may be, they did die for the most righteous cause.”

That was a load of bollocks. The only righteous cause for death was in the quest to uncover more knowledge, that the next generation may be one step closer to defeating death itself. Still, if this man wanted to believe that, it was his own prerogative.

“Very well,” I said. I wouldn’t even ask to keep the bodies for research out of common decency. “I don’t know if you learned why I came here?”

“You wish to steal the secrets of the Four Venoms,” he said.

“Hardly. I merely wish to learn. I’m willing to pay, to make a legitimate transaction out of it. Unfortunately your subordinates seemed to think that this was meant as a sort of insult.”

The man nodded. “It is an insult to even try this much,” he said. “What is your name?”

“I am Harold,” I said.

“Weiyuan,” he returned. He shifted one leg forward, his arms coming up before him, each hand still hidden by its opposite sleeve. “Master of the Four Venoms Sect.”

“A pleasure,” I said. “Unfortunately I’ve never been keen on titles myself. Are we going to battle or are your motions part of some elaborate greeting?”

Weiyuan scoffed. “I will kill you, yes.”

“Ah, very well,” I said.

“Observe.”

Grand Master of the Four Venoms Arts, and the Four Daos of Inevitable Death, Weiyuan, Level 542.

“Before we begin this,” I said. “Would you mind if I set a barrier around us? I wouldn’t want to harm your disciples, or the city, for that matter.” And the books, of course.

“I would appreciate that. May I observe?” Weiyuan said.

“Certainly. It’s never too late to see some new application of the arcane. Are you certain that we must fight? I sense something of a scholar in you.”

He nodded. “Yes. You have soiled the reputation of my sect. I could not live knowing that I let such insults pass.”

“You could learn to live with enough humility that an insult or two wouldn’t matter,” I said. “It might be difficult initially, but you would certainly live longer for it.”

“You will not convince me, Harold.”

I shrugged. So be it. Raising a hand to the side, I carefully moved it through the prescribed gestures. A step I would usually skip, but if I was being observed then it could serve as a teaching moment.

“A shield from times ageless

To protect hearts courageous

Against evil, reflection

Against peril, protection

A bulwark I provide for thee: Aegis! ”

Four runes appeared in every cardinal direction, each as tall as the sect’s grandest building. They thrummed with power and glowed bright for a moment, bursting and cutting through the air around us. Each rune connected to the one next to it, forming a massive semi-transparent wall around and above us, as though we were now in the centre of a large egg. I knew that it cut down into the ground below as well, a thin slice cut apart by protective aether.

“It’s an older spell,” I said. “I never liked morality-aligned magics like that, but it is quite useful at times.”

Weiyuan eyed the barrier all around us, then turned narrowed eyes onto me. “You are more powerful than you seem.”

“Why thank you.”

“Are you prepared?” he asked.

“Of cours—”

I flung myself to the side, a minor levitation cantrip yanking me out of the path of a dragon’s head made of condensed mist and fog.

“Interesting,” I said as I settled down a little ways from the now-dissipating creature. “Made of some sort of aerosolized poison, I presume?”

“Yes,” Weiyuan said. He flicked a tiny cannister to the side, no doubt empty. “There are four paths in our sect, as you can imagine.”

I nodded. “I had presumed as much.”

“The first is the path of poisons, of knowing how to bring death by means of ingestion and subtlety. The second is the path of venom, to bring death by puncture and assault. The third is the alchemical path, to understand nature and transform it at one’s will. And there’s the fourth path, of the engulfing earth. Four daos that only the greatest of our students will ever learn.”

“You’re rather forthcoming about your skills,” I said.

“You revealed your own,” he replied easily.

That was fair. “Only the one. Perhaps I’ll show you some others.”

“That is enough.” Waiyaun said. Then he disappeared.

I tracked his movements across the battlefield by means of arcane sight, something that I used as a matter of course, seeing as I have no eyes in my skull. He was using some form of elemental manipulation to skim over the surface of the earth at rather startling speeds. In a blink he was right behind me, hands reaching out towards my chest.

I hesitated a moment before allowing his blow to hit. His fingers plunged into my back.

“First strike. Palm of Body Poisoning,” he said.

Waiyuan shifted around to my front and applied his palm, almost gently, against my chest.

“Second strike. Palm of Soul Rending.”

And with that the man appeared before me once more and pressed his hand over my face.

“Third strike. Palm of Flesh Transmutation.”

He appeared directly above me, mid-way through a leap. His arm snapped out and he pressed his hand atop my head.

“Fourth strike. Palm of the Engulfing Earth. ”

Weiyuan landed in a roll and walked away, his hands sliding into his sleeves once more.

His fourth strike sent me crashing into the ground. That was, until I set my feet and stopped my downwards movement with a minor adjustment of my own momentum.

“Interesting,” I said.

Weiyuan turned to face me. He didn’t show any obvious emotions, but I could feel some surprise radiating from him. “You lived,” he said.

“Not quite,” I said as I pulled my feet out of the ground and shook my shoes clean. “See, your four arts, while interesting, only apply to me in very specific circumstances. Your poisons are quite useless, and your soul manipulating abilities are rather wasted on me.”

“How so?” he asked.

I allowed my illusion to dissolve. “Well, the undead have a natural resistance to poisons and the like,” I said. “And my soul isn’t exactly around to be tampered with.”

Weiyuan scowled. “A skeleton.”

“A lich, actually,” I said.

“You are forbidden,” he said.

“That’s nice.” I bent forwards and brushed some dirt from my pants. I’d have to get Alex to wash them later.

Waiyuan rushed at me again. He was a clever enough man, eschewing the use of his poisons and instead creating a cloud of some sort of caustic vapours around himself that shot out towards me.

“I can use a bit of alchemy myself,” I said.

“You dare!”

I may have angered him, I thought as I ducked under a spinning kick.

“Transmute.”

The smog of caustic gasses turned into pure hydrogen.

“Create Flame.”

I stood in place as a wash of heat and fire engulfed me, and made the air in the bubble of my aegis become tight with added pressure.

Weiyuan popped out of the earth a little ways ahead of me, only mildly singed . “Wyrm Strike!”

Two serpents of stone formed in a blink and struck out towards me.

Two Frostbite cantrips cast instantly  froze them in place.

Weiyuan bit the top off one of his little canisters and swallowed the contents in a gulp. In my arcane sight, I could see his soul writhe and begin to burn. A self-damaging skill? No, he wasn’t that foolish. A sort of buff then, with a component that harmed the user.

The boost to his strength and movement speed was downright incredible, but at the cost of tearing apart the very fabric of his soul.

He wasn’t holding anything back.

“Invulnerability.”

The sect’s Grand Master  punched me.

The crackle of the bones in his fist was at once satisfying and annoying. I wanted his body to be more or less intact. “You were more impressive than I would have expected,” I said.

“I will purge your heresy from this land,” he said.

“I doubt that.”

“Word of Power: Kill.”

The man glared at me until the very end.

“Well done,” I said. “When I raise you, you will act as a wonderful book guard.”

I let my aegis dissolve and took a moment to look around me. The members of the sect did not seem all that pleased at the sight of their leader dead by my feet.

“Attack him!” one said.

And with that, they started to run my way.

I sighed. The idiocy of these people.

“Mass Teleport.”

Somewhere over the lake, some hundred-odd members of the ex-sect of the Four Venoms appeared in a flash.

“Now Alex, let’s find that library.”

***

Chapter Eleven - A Test Subject

“Do you know what really gets to me? This isn’t something I really noticed or thought about, not until I was perusing the library of the Four Venoms Sect, but, once the thought wormed its way in, I couldn’t get rid of it. You had all of the infrastructure in place to share knowledge and to uncover some of the secrets to the universe, and yet you never so much as tried.”

***

The library was split into three sections. The first seemed like an open area with a few tables and a wall full of cubby holes into which scrolls were slotted. There were a few shelves here too, with books that seemed like common reference material and dictionaries . It was more of a study hall with a few books than a library proper.

The second section, just through a sliding door, was a proper library, with rows of shelves standing tall and proud with a few thousand books on display. This section seemed to be divided into more areas, both by subject and, I suspected, by access rights.

I couldn’t fault them for that . You didn’t give a novice wizard a step-by-step guide to create an apocalypse on their first day in your library.

The third library section was hidden. Not that cleverly, but it was hidden. The far wall of the second section had a few enchantments on it; a sort of reversed Charm Person that would make someone turn away from that wall and ignore it. More enchantments were layered atop that—all illusions of one sort or another—created the impression that there was nothing to see there. And on approach, a very weak Fear enchantment would activate. I suspect that there was some trickery with pressure or trigger plates under the floor.

This third section only had a fraction of the books in the first two, but these seemed far more precious. Old texts in rotten bindings carefully preserved atop plinths. A few shelves filled with hand-written note books, some in rather poor repair. A few scrolls with golden staffs, sometimes covered in gems.

The sort of books and scrolls that no doubt held the most impressive knowledge that this little sect had gathered.

I was probably not meant to ever see these last ones, and, had the sect been more polite and more willing to negotiate, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to see them at all.

After all, I could understand wanting to keep some knowledge out of circulation, and I could be respectful towards a kind host.

But alas, that wasn’t the case here, so I got to ransack all of their knowledge.

How wonderful!

“Alex,” I said.

“Yes, Papa?” Alex asked.

I gestured around, to encompass the three rooms. “We will be remaining here for some time. I believe that I’ll need these rooms dusted and cared for, and that you assist with any visitors.”

“Dusting?” Alex asked. He seemed rather eager. “I can do that! And guests too. If they’re nice, I’ll bring them to you.”

“Certainly. If they’re not, place their bodies to the side somewhere out of the way, I’ll raise them later.”

“Okay Papa!”

I shooed him off. “Go entertain yourself, I’ll be busy for a few moments.”

Alex disappeared off to clean or mend clothes or do whatever butler-y task he found suitable. I, in the meantime, walked over to the first section, pulled a reference text off of a shelf and sat at one of the desks.

A minor cantrip to summon a Mage Light ensured that I wouldn’t strain my vision. Even with no eyes I was careful to read with proper illumination, just in case I might misread something. I settled down and cracked the book open.

I felt a bit of cumulative stress easing off my back as I scanned through tables and long winded explanatory texts.

Once I was done, I returned to the shelf and picked out the next few books, to save myself the trouble of getting up too often. Soon I was eighteen texts deep, including two dictionaries written a century apart—to keep track of any potential linguistic drift—and was enjoying myself quite thoroughly.

The process is what brought me so much joy, of course. These ‘cultivators’ obviously lacked even the faintest clue as to how the scientific process worked. It was a shame, because it seemed that they had spent countless hours repeating failed methodologies with scant results.

As I progressed further into my studies, I started to form a hypothesis. Unfortunately it wasn’t one I could test immediately.

“Sir Papa Harold?”

I looked up from my current reading—a treatise on the use of some form of ‘inner magic’ called ‘qi’ to find a shirtless Alex standing by the doorway.

He had some cloth binding around his chest, and some dust in his hair.

“Yes? And also, what are you wearing?”

“We have a guest,” he said. “They were polite.” The butler looked away and ran a thumb over the edge of the binding. “And this makes me feel nice. I’m making proper clothes from the cloth I’m finding.”

“That’s nice,” I said. “Send the guest in.”

I was flipping through a preparatory manual of sorts, one that mostly dealt with simple martial motions and a few breathing exercises. It was similar to what I’d seen some monks practice back before my long rest, though perhaps aimed at a less experienced audience.

The sounds of wet boots squelching their way across the library had me turning to look at the door.

Alex was standing, still shirtless, next to a very familiar young limpet.

She looked worse for wear. Her clothes, a sort of simple cloth robe, stuck to her body and still dripping, and her long black hair was a tangled mess. Still, she was grinning at me unreservedly. “Hello, Master,” the limpet said. “I passed your test. Also why do you look like a skeleton? Is it an illusion?”

“My test?”

She clenched her little limpet hands and looked at me with burning determination. “Yes, Master, your test to see if I was willing to become your apprentice.”

“I suspect that there may have been some sort of grand misunderstanding. It’s possible that the blame for such an occurrence rests on me. After all, as the greater intellect between the two of us, it should fall upon me to ensure that you understand things.”

“I’m ready to learn,” the limpet said.

“Hmm, yes, that’s nice. Then perhaps this lesson is one you should take to heart: I have no intention of being your teacher or master.”

“But—” she began.

“Teleport.”

I cleared my throat and returned to my text. “Thank you, Alex,” I said.

“It’s my honour, Bone Papa.” Alex bowed at the waist. “I will return to my duties.”

“Mmm,” I dismissed.

These books, which I would at the very least skim, seemed to be more focused on the martial application of the so-called four arts. It was still possible to see the bare-bones of the style though. As Weiyuan had mentioned, there were four aspects to it. The alchemical wasn’t really mentioned in the texts I was looking over, but the other three, the use of poisons and venoms in combat and the application of exceptionally simple earth-elemental abilities, were all here.

I suspected that as I moved on, I would uncover more advanced versions of these initial steps.

So the sect at least had a rudimentary system through which they could teach their students. A sort of step-by-step ladder. There were occasionally mentions of ‘breakthroughs’ and other such things that seemed to rely on feel. These felt off to me.

It was only when I reached within one of my own pocket dimensions where I stored some books that it all clicked.

There was no mention of levels.

Feats were there, certainly, if couched in different terms, and the books designed to teach some skill or another were rather obvious, but none of them mentioned the level or stat requirements.

An oversight?

No, that was possible with one book, perhaps two, but I was well into a tenth of the books with still no mention.

Purposeful removal?

Far more likely, but that begged the question: why?

The sun set long before I had read so much as a quarter of the books in the first two sections. Their treatises on the creation of poisons and certain detrimental alchemical solutions, at least, were wonderfully interesting.

It seemed that my own knowledge of the craft mostly carried over, but the existing plant life had changed somewhat. New, volatile plants now existed in the region that could be used to create wonderfully dangerous concoctions.

I made note to raid the sect’s alchemical pantry before leaving, and perhaps their armoury as well.

Someone knocked on the door leading into the library.

I looked up, noting that the stars were well and truly in the sky outside of the library’s windows, and that perhaps I should have cast a few more Mage Lights as the room was rather poorly lit with no sunlight.

“Enter,” I said.

Alex stepped in.

I stared.

My butler was now wearing an all-black outfit. A large frilly skirt that dipped down to near his ankles, and a square-cut bodice that showed off his clavicles. His arms were mostly bare thanks to the sleeves of his outfit, which were little more than lacey poofs.

He had also found a lace-covered white apron and a small ruffled bonnet. “Alex,” I began.

“Yes Papa?”

“What are you wearing?”

“It’s a maid outfit.” Alex grabbed the hems and spun around once before curtsying. “Do you like it?”

“Where did you find it?” I asked. The style of clothing worn around here did not lend itself to that kind of outfit.

“I made it,” Alex said with evident pride.

I coughed. “You... maid  it?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I bottled up my ‘Oh hohoho’ for later. It wouldn’t do to insult Alex’s skills. “Very well. Why did you disturb me?”

“We have a guest!”

“Is it the limpet?” I asked.

Alex nodded, his bonnet bobbing between his cat ears. “It is.”

I considered telling Alex to kick her out himself. Maybe dragging her all the way to the lake and tossing her in would send a clearer message. But then... “Send her in,” I said.

Alex curtsied and left the room. A minute later he returned accompanied by the limpet. She was missing the topmost layer of her dress, and a boot. She was also dripping water all over the floor.

“Welcome back,” I said.

The limpet eyed me for a long while through stained glasses. “You don’t want me as an apprentice, do you?” she asked.

“That is exactly correct,” I said.

The limpet’s shoulders slumped and she hugged her satchel close. “Oh.”

It was my turn to eye her for a moment. “Why, exactly, did you want to become my apprentice?”

She swallowed, and I could tell she was tamping down on any hope. “I... it’s a selfish reason,” she said.

“Go on.”

“I want to be stronger,” she said. “I want to be... someone. I... where I’m from, girls can’t be anyone, but I read a lot of books, and I heard a bunch of stories, and I don’t want that. The only way to be someone is to be strong and... and none of the sects that I visited want anything to do with me. I just wanted to learn. To be like the people in the books.”

“What level are you?” I asked. I could, and would, cast an Observe, but not just yet.

“Huh?” she asked. “I... I don’t know what that means? Sorry.”

A few more things clicked into place and I found myself nodding. “Do you know what the path to power is like?”

She nodded, then shook her head.

“Do you know where my power comes from?”

“I... you defeated the entire sect. Everyone’s talking about it.”

“That’s not where, that’s how much,” I said.

The limpet shook her head. “No, I’m sorry.”

“It comes from rigorous study and an academic mind. You seem to have the former, but lack the latter.”

If anything, she slumped even more. “Okay. I’ll leave, you don’t need to throw me into the lake again.”

“One moment,” I said. “I don’t need an apprentice, but I do need a test subject.” One that was obstinate and capable of enduring great pain.

Her eyes flashed, and I knew her answer before she delivered it.

***

Chapter Twelve - A Need to Experiment

"One of the greatest mistakes someone can make, is to accept the truth as being true without first testing the potential for it not being so."

***

I wanted to begin experimenting upon the limpet immediately, but Alex suggested that we wait.

At first I was curious as to why, but my butler indicated that the limpet was actually quite weak, and unable to support herself fully at the moment. She, being very much mortal and of a low level, was also extraordinarily pitiful.

A glance at the moonlit night beyond the window gave me a good idea of the time. “Very well,” I agreed. The tests I had in mind to conduct would be somewhat stressful. “Limpet, go rest. I’m certain Alex can find a room for you.”

“I can still work,” the limpet said. She was blinking heavily though, and her shoulders were drooped with exhaustion.

“No, Alex is correct in his assessment of your weakness.” I turned to my butler. “Are there any rooms available in this place?” I asked rhetorically.

“The grand master’s room is just next to the library,” Alex said. “It’s very comfy looking. I’m certain the young miss will be comfortable there.”

I nodded. “That will do.” Then I recalled something. “Oh yes, do make sure she’s fed.”

Alex nodded eagerly, his bonnet bouncing atop his head. “Yes, Bone Papa.”

I left them to their tasks and returned to my studies. Though really, calling what I was doing studying was a stretch. The science—methodology would perhaps be a better term—that the locals used was fragmented and poorly explored at best.

When I started diving into their histories, my few initial hypotheses had to be set aside. Their history was full of grandiose statements and long winded gossip about other sects, some emperor on a jade throne, and some tales about combating the undead and southern barbarians.

It seemed that there were a few key steps to the vague process known as cultivation.

I found paper and pen and took some notes, trying to break down the process into its core components.

Initially, a new cultivator (usually young and untrained) would begin to learn a martial art interspersed with training that focused on finding one’s ‘qi’ centres. There were some differences across some of the books I found. Some spoke of nodes, others of ‘wells of power,’ and other such verbose terminology for the source of this inner magic.

Essentially, they were speaking of what I commonly referred to as ‘mana’ in many of my own texts. That was a concentrated form of magic. Though the various texts I found ascribed strange impressions to this qi, from elemental aspects, to a strange yin/yang system that was never explored fully.

It seemed as if the books relied upon common knowledge to fill in some gaps. An issue no doubt born from my lack of cultural ties with their methods.

The second step to cultivation seemed to revolve around the actual cultivation of strength. This part varied wildly.

Some texts suggested that cultivation be done via the use of alchemical reagents and potions, others through nothing but hard practice and tests of power. Still others suggested and pointed to methods of cultivating that involved the study of various concepts.

Essentially though, it all seemed to boil down to grinding.

I had never been one to employ that method in my day-to-day, that is, the repetition of a single action to gain a measured and continuous amount of exp in order to level up. Instead, I always pushed and tried to learn new uses for the arcane arts, and in doing so tended to face increasingly difficult challenges which in turn aided me in levelling up.

Cultivation seemed to push towards grinding one or two specific things and growing strong that way.

It wasn’t entirely wrong, but the terminology used, and the methodology highlighted, suggested that it was highly inefficient.

The final step seemed to merely be a repetition of the second, but on a grander scale. That was, eventually changing from grinding a simple activity, to doing the same for something more complex.

I snapped a book shut and leaned back into my seat.

This was just normal level progression with a bunch of spiritualist nonsense tacked on!

It was... it was...

Well, truthfully, not the worst thing. There had been plenty of schools and academies back in my youth that had different curriculums and methods of teaching their pupils new skills. And while I found this cultivation method a bit slow and wasteful, it was no worse than some training regimens I had seen.

The so-called ‘breakthroughs’ were merely level ups, and the different daos and skills the cultivators learned were just that, skills and spells and abilities, with perhaps with the occasional feat thrown in. As a cultivator started to experience diminishing returns (really, just a side-effect for greater levels requiring greater investments of exp) they would move on to newer, more difficult challenges.

This all begged the question, why were there no concrete numbers? Where were the change-rolls, the percentages for various skills, the stats requirements to unlock certain abilities?

In all the books I’d read, there wasn’t a single reference back to the system.

I flicked my hand and opened my character sheet. Just the simplified version, I didn’t need to do a deep dive into my own stats just yet.

Name

Class

Secondary Class

Harold Potterer

Archwizard

Arcane Sorcerer

Strength

Race

Alignment

30

Eldritch Lich

Neutral Evil

Dexterity

30

Current Level

EXP to Next Level

Constitution

MAX

N/A

30

Intelligence

Hit Points

28,400

30

Armour Proficiency

Light

Wisdom

Armour Class

20

30

Resistances

ALL

Charisma

Flaws

YES

4

Affinities

Abjuration, Alteration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Illusion, Invocation, Necromancy, Wordplay

That clearly still functioned. A flick through a few pages revealed nothing amiss. As far as I could tell, the system still worked. Though I could hardly level-up to test that part of it, at least, not myself.

Perhaps the limpet would be more useful than I had predicted.

A glance out the windows of the library revealed it to be early morning. I still had quite a number of books to go through, and I had yet to touch those in the more secretive sections. How exciting!

“I’ll have to  book  some time to read the rest later... oh hohoho!”

I set a few of the books I’d finished to one side.  Alex could sort them out later, that was why he existed after all. A big stretch had some of the bones in my back—which was all my back was!—cracking and popping in a most satisfying way.

Fully limbered, I headed out of the library, then out of the administrative building entirely.

The courtyard was currently bathed in a nice orange glow, and would have been entirely quiet were it not for the brushing of a broom across the cobbles.

“What are you doing?” I asked Alex as I took a moment to eye his work. He seemed to be nearly done cleaning the entire courtyard of dirt and dust.

“Good morning, Daddy,” Alex said. “I’m practicing my cleaning.”

I eyed him some more. His maid’s outfit had a few little holes in it, and some tears near the hem. “What happened to your dress?” I asked. Was it a dress or a uniform? I wasn’t entirely familiar with the nomenclature.

“Some non-guests came. They wanted to disturb you for bad reasons and were very impolite,” Alex said. He gestured to a little shed off to one side. “The bodies are stacked next to the wood.”

“Ah,” I said. “I appreciate that. Could you bring a few of them here? Or... no, better not. I wouldn’t want to dirty the ground after you’ve cleaned it. I’ll raise them in the shack.”

Alex beamed at me and resumed his cleaning. “I’m going to go make breakfast for Miss Limpet soon, and then maybe I’ll fix my uniform if I have time.”

“Hmm,” I agreed absently. “If you find any cloth I can probably spare a minute to enchant it.”

“Thank you, Papa!” Alex exclaimed.

I ignored Alex and his eccentricities and ambled over to the shack. I noticed the limpet’s dog (the limpet’s own limpet?) and the arm it had in its jaws. Opening the door to the little shed revealed a wall covered in corded wood, some gardening implements and rakes and other such equipment, and about twenty-odd dead bodies all stacked up to one side.

I considered inspecting them one by one to find good candidates for zombification, but recalled that the limpet was with us. Zombies, as feral and dangerous as they were, were poor guards when you had living people to care for.

Mostly it was all the exposed, necrotic flesh.  They tended to attract flies, ticks, and other small insects. The rotting meat was otherwise perfectly fine. Some people believed that zombies were unclean and dangerous, but those people had never conducted proper research into the matter.

In fact, dead bodies were less likely to spread sickness than living ones. They didn’t sneeze on people nearly as much.

That left me looking at other options.  A ghast or ghoul would run into similar issues as a zombie. Mummies required materials and time to prepare. The bodies weren’t fresh enough to turn into vampires, and they tended to be temperamental. The bigger amalgamations also took time and—frankly—too much effort to make.

“Let’s go for a two for one then,” I muttered. I could still sense the lingering souls of the recently departed clinging to their bodies.

Raising a hand, I gestured to the four top-most bodies.

“Raise Undead: Will-o’-Wisp.”

The four bodies shifted just a little, then, like a gust of wind departing a bloated corpse, four small spheres of faint light formed above the bodies.

Will-o’-Wisps were, in a word, weak. But they had their uses, and they tended to unnerve some people. Also, a lack of corporality made them inexpensive to produce en-masse while still keeping the bodies they had inhabited useful.

“Move these bodies into rows,” I said. “There’s one I wish to set aside.”

The will-o’-wisps began to struggle to lift one body at a time. Their meager magics were far from impressive. With a sigh, I assisted them with a Mage Hand. I didn’t have all day to waste.

Once the one body I wished to study was tossed into a pocket dimension— that of the sect’s Grand Master , obviously—I gestured to the rest of the bodies.

“Raise Undead: Shade.”

“Raise Undead: Skeletal Warrior.”

I carefully stepped back from the puddled flesh-juice that remained as a byproduct of raising skeletons from still-fresh bodies. I didn’t want my oxfords getting stained after all. “Right, well come on, gather out in the courtyard.”

My little force amounted to nineteen skeletons, fifteen shades, and four will-o’-wisps. Not exactly an intimidating force, but I hardly needed them to be. Most people would think twice about attacking a guarded position, even if it was only guarded by low-level trash such as this.

“New friends?” Alex asked as he stepped up to my side. He was still holding onto his broom. A broom with a blood-stained handle.

“Hardly. Just fodder in case someone wishes to bother us. Can you lead the skeletons to the armoury? I’m certain they have some rare and valuable enchanted weapons tucked away. Armour too, perhaps. Get them geared up and set them on patrols. The shades can wander about, the will-o’-wisps will guide them, they tend to be more cunning than most lesser undead.”

“Okay,” Alex said before he turned to the skeletons. “Did you hear Papa? You’re skeleton sword fodders now, follow me please!”

That was one thing done. Now I only had the enviable and infinitely amusing task of devising some tests for my one and only test subject.

***

Chapter Thirteen - A Chilling Touch

“Once I get bored and decide to remake the world in my image, I guarantee that it will be a world where things are, at the very base, fair.

You will never see that world though.”

***

“Whoa!” the limpet said as she gasped at the skeletal warriors patrolling around the compound. She skipped closer to the skeleton, then stopped a few paces away to turn towards me. “Is it dangerous?” she asked.

“That would depend entirely on who you are. To someone like myself or Alex, or even the more senior people who lived in this compound, no. A skeleton of that level wouldn’t be much of a threat. To someone like you? Well, you could discover that on your own by poking at that warrior.”

I sat down on a nice little bench set to one side of the courtyard, just under the canopy of an old tree. It was a shady little area that was surprisingly comfortable.

A calm place to think.

The limpet seemed rather excited, which I supposed was only fair. There was science afoot, and knowledge to uncover!

“Limpet,” I said. “Go stand over there, in that little circle of stone.”

The limpet looked over just in time to see the ground pop up in a necrometer-wide circle not too far from where I sat. Just a minor earth moving spell to give her a place to be. Not that I needed her to stand still, it just irritated me to have the girl running all over.

“Before we begin,” I said. “I want you to tell me about yourself. Not the dull  details; tell me about what you know.”

The limpet came to a stop in the centre of the circle and adjusted her dress and the satchel which still hung by her side. Her dog looked up from where it was resting in the sun, but it soon let its head fall back down.

“Right,” the limpet began. “I’m Fenfang Fang. I was born in Fissure Llidae; it’s close to the domain of the Storm Lake sect. I’m eighteen, and I’ve been kicked out of seven sects . Oh, and this one too! My parents are merchants, so I learned how to read and write, and my dream is to become really strong even though I’m a girl.”

“Congratulations,” I said. “You missed the entire point of my question.”

The limpet blinked dumbly.

“No, nevermind.” I waved her questions down. “I need to set a certain base of knowledge before I can move on. Just answer me honestly.”

“Yes, Master!” the limpet said.

“What level are you at and what is your class?”

The scientific method called for certain steps to be done in a certain order. First and foremost, the researcher had to have a question that they wanted answered, or an observation they needed confirmed.

In this case, I suspected that the system that ruled the world in my day had, to some extent or another, changed. So far my proof amounted to a lack of mentions in the texts I’d read, but that wasn’t concrete proof.

The limpet would be my test subject to see if and how the system had changed.

“Um,” the limpet said. She adjusted her glasses. “I don’t know what that means. Sorry. Also, are you an undead for real? That’s super illegal.”

“I am,” I said. “I’m an Eldritch Lich, it’s an unnatural race. As for the legality, I don’t particularly care. Is that an issue for you?”

“No, of course not,” she said. “I can’t wait to learn all sorts of depraved and vile arts with you, Master!”

“Back on topic,” I said, disregarding her enthusiasm. “Are you aware of anything called a system? Or a method by which a person can quantify their power and abilities with hard numbers?”

“Uh,” she said. She looked ready to say no when she hesitated. “Yes? There are certain objects that allow you to do that. But they’re really rare and expensive and only the sects have them. They’re usually used to see how much a member of the sect has progressed.”

“Interesting,” I said. Enchantments existed that could transfer one’s status to parchment. But for that to work at all, it was reasonable to expect that the system was, in some way, still present.

“Observe.”

A Wandering Scholar, Fenfang “The Limpet” Fang, Level 14.

I raised a hand and tapped at my chin. The class was interesting, one that I’d actually seen before. The level was... rather pathetic. But that left her with—potentially—plenty of room to grow.

The more time and effort someone spent in a class, the harder it would be for them to switch. The class could still evolve though. I didn’t begin as an Archwizard after all. “Does your class allow for the use of spells and cantrips?” I asked.

“My class?” the limpet repeated.

Of course, if she wasn’t aware of the system, then there was no hope that she knew about her own class. I waved my hand through a prescribed gesture.

“Lesser Reveal Status.”

Name

Class

Secondary Class

Fenfang Fang

Wandering Scholar

N/A

Strength

Race

Alignment

8

Human

Neutral Neutral

Dexterity

10

Current Level

EXP to Next Level

Constitution

14

754

7

Intelligence

Hit Points

98

12

Armour Proficiency

None

Wisdom

Armour Class

10

4

Resistances

None

Charisma

Flaws

Shortsighted

8

Affinities

Rapid Learning

She did have a system then, or at least... the system reflected her abilities, class, and stats.

“What’re you doing?” the limpet asked.

I replied absently while thinking. “I’m using some skills to observe your level and stats. It seems that the system that I’m familiar with still works, but then, why can’t you interact with it?”

The limpet shrugged.

“Try saying ‘status’ while wanting your status to appear,” I instructed.

She repeated after me a few times, but nothing seemed to happen. Was she just... unable to access the system?

That would fit neatly within my hypothesis, that the reason there was such a massive shift in the culture, and a move towards Cultivation, was that the average person could no longer see or interact with their own status.

What would the cultural implications of such a change be? Was there more to it?

“Alex!”

I only had to wait a moment before a blur shot out of an upper floor window and appeared by my side. “Yes, Bone Papa?” Alex asked. He was currently wearing a skirt and nothing else. Was he working on his outfit again? I noticed the limpet’s face reddening before she looked away.

“Alex, can you view your status?”

Alex blinked. “Yes? Do you need to see it?”

“Is your spell and skill-list visible? Your achievements? Your feats?”

I saw Alex’s eyes wandering, a clear sign that he was seeing something I couldn’t. “Yes, Daddy.”

“Interesting. You may return to your work.”

Alex grinned. “Thanks, Papa!”

I hummed as I processed all of that. I still had a few things to verify before I could make even a tentative conclusion. “Limpet,” I said.

“Yes!”

“Do you know any spells?”

She shook her head, eyes wide behind her glasses. “No, Master. Spells are... well, the court wizards might know some, and some of the sect elders and senior disciples of some sects. Most abilities are martial, that’s different... right?”

“Indeed,” I said. The local understanding of spellwork was a bit backwards, with most only learning spells deep into their careers. With magic usually being exceptionally weak compared to basic martial abilities—that is, the magic that a person could learn in the space of a few years, compared to the same time spent learning martial abilities—it made sense that the focus had shifted. Even in my youth, fighters and warriors outnumbered sorcerers and wizards. The occasional bard and paladin crossed the lines between disciplines, but usually with little prowess.

“Are you going to teach me a spell?” the limpet asked. “Already?”

I nodded slowly. There were some things I wanted to see. It only made sense that class changes still functioned. But were there any changes there? Could someone like the limpet learn a modern... no, I supposed calling the spells I knew ‘modern’ was quite anachronistic upon second thought.

Regardless, could she learn basic spells of the sort I was familiar with?

I had no difficulty casting, and it seems that those I created, like Alex, functioned under the system I was familiar with.

Time to test it.

I ran through the few thousand cantrips I knew off-hand. Depending on the kind of skill she learned now, it might impact the classes she could use later, which would in turn possibly change her usefulness as a test subject.

Prestidigitation was the obvious choice, a cantrip made for beginners, but it wasn’t what I was looking for.

“We will begin with Chill Touch,” I said. “It’s a very basic spell with two components. One is verbal, the other somatic—that is, it requires a specific gesture to cast.”

I realized that I would need to severely dumb down everything. Most of the time when I had taught someone magic it was as simple as giving them some notes and perhaps a demonstration, they were usually already magic casters of some sort, but this limpet knew nothing.

“I can do that,” the limpet said.

Her confidence was adorably misplaced.

“We’ll see,” I said. “Take out your spell— ah, of course.” I reached a hand into the pockets of my jacket and rummaged around for a moment before finding a blank spellbook. It was little more than a well-made but simple tome, still blank from cover to cover. “Here.”

The limpet caught the book against her chest with an ‘oomph.’

“All spells require intense visualization and preparation in order to cast. I will be going over these for Chill Touch.”

The limpet nodded rapidly and sat down cross-legged in her little circle. “I’m ready!”

“Hmm.” I said. Her wisdom score was well-earned. “Let’s begin with the visual component. It’s always been easier to teach a spell with a practical demonstration so... you, stand over there.” I gestured to one of the skeletons guarding the courtyard, then to a spot some two dozen necrometers away.

The skeleton jogged over to the spot, then turned back towards us.

“If you practice hard enough, unlock the right feats, and become strong enough you will not need to go through the gestures and components of some spells,” I said. “Cantrips are generally the easiest to work past in this regard. But that’s beyond you for now.”

“Chill Touch.”

A ghostly, skeletal hand appeared in the air next to me and moved out towards the skeleton. It wasn’t moving at any incredible speed, just a little faster than a person could run. It grasped the skeleton and crushed a few of its ribs before stopping and hanging onto it.

“Whoa,” the limpet said. “Is the hand meant to look like a skeleton, or is that just because yours are that way?”

An interesting question! “Generally, yes. But with some small modifications the appearance of the hand can change. Usually, the caster will imagine a hand similar to their own.”

“And it’s cold?” she asked.

“No. The chill in the name is a misnomer. It actually does necrotic damage. Rotting skin and flesh away and inhibiting healing,” I explained. “I believe that part is why so many imagine it as a skeletal hand. The association with death is rather obvious on account of its necromantic origins.”

“So cool,” the limpet said. She started taking notes in her new book. No doubt wasteful and inefficient notes, but that was up to her to figure out.

“Indeed. I will cast the spell a few more times until you’ve grown used to its appearance. After that, we will cover the components of the spell.”

“Thank you, master!” the limpet said.

I gave her a skeleton grin. I did enjoy it when my test subjects were so agreeable.

***

Chapter Fourteen - A Reason to Go

“You know, I should have foreseen that killing all of the major gods would have some repercussions.”

***

It took well over three hours for the limpet to reach a level of proficiency with Chill Touch that allowed her to initiate the cantrip.

I was actually impressed.

Not so much at the speed of her learning. A proper wizard could go through the entire process of learning such a simple cantrip in the space of a few minutes at most. The fact that she wasn’t a wizard and that she was entirely unfamiliar with the workings of magic did excuse her lack of speed in that regard.

What impressed me was her resolve. She didn’t waver and she only paused my instructions to ask questions that were usually valid, even if the answers I delivered were occasionally far beyond her current level of understanding.

The limpet, still in her circle of rocks, raised her hands before her and moved through the appropriate somatic motions. There was no grace there, but she did make every sign correctly.

“Fear, from a necromancer’s touch

To remove the healer’s clutch

With strength despotic

And power necrotic

I cast upon thee, Chill Touch! ”

A hand appeared before her, no bigger than a child’s and not quite skeletal, but it glowed and gave off the faintest aura of necromantic power before it zipped across the courtyard and crashed into the skeleton serving as a practice target.

The hand grabbed onto the skeleton’s collar bone and gripped hard enough that the bone creaked.

“I did it!” the limpet said. She began to bounce up and down, arms waving as she cheered her very minor victory. “By all the gods, I’ve done it!”

My finger bones clattered together as I clapped. “Well done, well done,” I said. “You finally got the touch  for that particular cantrip. Ohoho!”

Grinning, the limpet turned my way. “Now what? Do I just continue practicing?”

“Perhaps,” I said. “I require you to level up a few times to test some things. Merely learning a cantrip probably won’t do much in that regard.”

“Whatever you need me to do, I’ll work hard,” the limpet said.

I nodded.

“Observe.”

A Wandering Scholar, Level 14.

No noticeable change. “Very well. Skeleton,” I said as I addressed the skeleton standing by. By my reasoning it was a few levels above the limpet, though it had been injured, first by my use of a few illustrative cantrips, and just now by the limpet. I pointed to the girl. “Kill her.”

“What?” the limpet said.

“The best way to level up is to face difficult challenges. Do try not to die. It would be a mild inconvenience to train someone else up to your level of understanding.”

The limpet raised her hands again and began the incantation to her one and only cantrip. She cut herself off with a squeak when the skeleton rushed at her. Alex had done a good job equipping the skeletons with bits and bobs from the armoury, so the limpet had to bounce around to avoid some blows from the no-doubt enchanted club the skeleton was wielding.

“Oh, you can leave the circle, if you wish,” I said.

“Thank you!” she screamed before darting away from the skeleton. It, of course, followed after her.

“You mentioned gods earlier,” I said. Learning that the locals, as backwards as they seemed, had fallen back onto such superstitions wouldn’t be surprising. For every true god in my time, there was an equal number of mythical persons to whom the simple would pray. Still...

“What do you whaaaa!” The limpet ducked under a swing from the skeleton. She was quite fortunate that the skeleton was hampered by its injuries, else that would have taken her head. “W-what do you want to know, Master?” she asked.

“Try casting while moving,” I said. “It should be doable. Otherwise, don’t forget that even a caster can throw a punch on occasion.”

“Right!” the limpet said.

She jumped, rather clumsily, to the side of a swing from the skeleton, then swept the undead’s legs out from under it. That gave her some space. And then her dog ran up to the skeleton and started gnawing at its leg.

I decided to allow that. It was only fair.

“What do you want to know about gods?” she asked as she ran back a bit.

“Describe what a god is, and what you know of them.”

She nodded, adjusted her glasses, then began. “Gods are the kami who have grown strong through mystical means, and who govern a domain. There’re a lot of small kami, like the kami of different lakes and mountains, but those aren’t really gods. The gods themselves are much stronger. Some of them look like people, or dragons, and they have a lot of people who worship them.”

“They’re physical?” I asked.

“Sometimes?” she said. “Um. I’ve never seen one, but some of them walk around and do stuff. There’s a bunch of them. Some people say that they met Daxrus, the traveller’s god on the road. He looks like a horse. And there’s Xephine over at the Path to Heaven sect’s temple.”

I leaned back, hands gripping the edges of the bench I was sitting on.

There were gods that remained?

That was... distinctly possible. The things the limpet had called kami weren’t entirely unfamiliar to me. Minor deities that lived around an area, or whose domain was some minor concept.

The powerful gods generally ruled over more, at least, that was the case in my day. But some of those minor gods still existed around them. Totarr, the god of foods and consumption, hadn’t seemed to care much for Qhurtarr, god of freshly baked bread.

I had dissected both of them, of course, but that was  besides the point.

Was it possible that in my time away, some deities had returned? If a mortal could resurrect, couldn’t a god? Or were these new gods just that? New gods.

Curious. Very curious.

“Is Master a god?”

The question startled me out of my thoughts. “Pardon?”

The limpet was lowering her arms, and there was currently a necrotic hand grabbing onto the spine of the skeleton she was fighting. She had cast that while I was distracted. “Are you a kami, Master? I heard that some cultivators grow so strong that they can rival the gods.”

“I’m not a cultivator,” I said.

“Oh,” she said. Her eyes widened. “ Oh! ”

I had the impression she had just reached a terribly faulty conclusion, but I put off any corrections as the skeleton, sluggish though it was, reached her and swung for her head. Her dog was still clinging onto its leg to little effect.

That didn’t quite matter. “Where can I find the nearest temple?” I asked.

If I could find a god and persuade them to answer some questions, it was possible I could save myself some time otherwise spent experimenting.

Not that I’d skip the experimenting, of course, it was just a good idea to have multiple corroborating sources on such things.

“Um,” the limpet said as she flung her satchel at the skeleton’s face. “Uh, I think the nearest temple is at the Jade Golem sect? It’s about two days’ walk west.”

I stood up. If we were going to be setting out to travel then I’d need to collect the remaining books left here. “Very well,” I said. “Do try not to die while I’m busy.”

“Yes, Master!” the limpet said.

I hesitated a moment, then reached into my pockets and rooted around for a moment. My search ended with me finding a small box filled with neatly organised books. I picked one from the pile, a small text, no thicker than my pinkie, and set it onto the bench.

“This book here has the instruction on a cantrip called Prestidigitation. If you survive, do attempt to learn the spell.”

Limpet’s smile was huge, despite the sweat marring  her face, and the hair plastered to her forehead. “Yes, Master!”

I nodded to her and walked off towards the main administration building and the library within. I was humming a happy little tune to myself when I heard a clattering from one of the rooms on the way to the library.

A curious glance within revealed Alex bent over a table where a bundle of cloth was laid out. “Are you working on your outfit again?” I asked.

Alex snapped to attention. “Yes, Daddy,” he said. “The entire compound has been tidied and dusted, the floors have been mopped, the chimneys swept and lunch and supper only require warming up to feed Test Subject Limpet. I thought... if it was okay, I could fix my dress now.”

“I see, well if it’s not interfering with your other duties.” I approached and pinched the cloth he’d laid out between thumb and finger. “ This seems to be of rather middling quality .”

“It’s not very good,” Alex agreed. “But this isn’t for Papa, it’s for me, so it’s okay if it’s not the best.”

“Hmm,” I said before applying my palm atop the material. “Are you done with it?”

“Yes, the new dress is mostly done. I only need to add the lace.”

“I see. In that case.”

“Greater Bless.”

“Greater Haste.”

“Soul Cage.”

“Elemental Resistance.”

“Greater Physical Resistance.”

“Self Restoration.”

I picked Alex’s bonnet from off the top of his head and cast the same set of enchantments on it, then added one more.

“Mind Blank.”

“There,” I said once the lightshow settled. So many enchantments woven into one outfit was bordering on the dangerous, but they seemed stable. A material of greater quality would have allowed for more, of course, but there was no point in going too far for what was essentially a uniform. “That should save you some time otherwise spent mending holes.”

“Thank you, Bone Daddy,” Alex said. “I’m going to get dressed now!”

“Yes,” I agreed. “I will need some help packing away those books I’ve yet to read and a few others that were interesting.”

“Are we leaving?”

“Yes,” I said. “We’re heading to another area, one with a sect that we’ve yet to visit. I suspect we’ll be meeting some lesser gods along the way.”

“Are we bringing the test subject?”

I tapped at my chin. Would it be worth carrying the limpet with us? “I don’t see any harm in doing so,” I said. “Bring some food and such, I suppose.”

“And the undead Papa made?”

“I suppose we can use them to carry some goods along with us. Let’s strip this place of anything valuable before we head out. It’s likely that we’ll be able to ransom some of the things we’ve collected away for favours.”

Alex nodded. “Everything will be ready for you, Papa. When do you plan on leaving?”

I considered it for a moment. I wasn’t actually in any rush. “Tomorrow morning? Travelling by daylight is far more enjoyable than moving in the dark.” No matter how much I tweaked my arcane sight, the world still felt a little too dark at night. And casting an artificial sun above me just to light my way felt wasteful.

I pat Alex on the shoulder. “Well, get to it. I’ve got some more reading to do, and a bit of organising.”

There had to be something about the gods in all of those books I’d yet to read.

I still had a few little things I wanted to uncover here, and then I’d be ready to move on.

Perhaps I should have spent some time creating a proper wizard’s tower, but it had been thousands of years since I’d been on a proper adventure. It would be nice to stretch my bones.

“Oh hohoho! This will be quite amusing,” I said to no one in particular.

For some reason, I still felt as if the world itself shivered at the idea.

***

Chapter Fifteen - A Desperate Motion

“Sometimes I wonder what the world would be like today if the prevailing culture better reflected the values I hold highest.

Honestly, that would probably not be the best for me, but I wouldn’t mind seeing that kind of world, despite the risk.”

***

I reluctantly set aside the book I was reading—a history of the Empire, though it read more like a long list of humble brags delivered by someone called the Jade Emperor—and stood up while slipping the tome into a pocket.

Alex was dusting the empty shelves, where removing all the books had revealed a few lines of dust. With a stray thought, I extinguished the Mage Lights keeping the room illuminated and allowed the light of the sun outside to bathe the room in a warm orange glow. “I do believe that it’s nearly time for us to set out,” I said.

Alex paused in his duties. “Oh? Okay, Bone Papa. Should I get Test  Subject Limpet?”

“Hrm, yes, I suppose. I’ll be waiting out by the front gate.”

Stepping outside into the chill morning was surprisingly refreshing. I took a moment to stretch a little— always important to do before setting out on a walk —then took in the courtyard. A few of the buildings had holes in them that hadn’t been there the evening before, but there were no other signs of violence.

No scattered body parts or human remains staining the ground. I suspected that if I were to look in the shed at the back I would find a few more corded disciples left there by Alex. He was surprisingly dutiful. Though... perhaps surprising wasn’t the right term for that. It was what he was made for, after all.

“ M- M aster ?”

I turned and found the limpet standing next to one of the sliding doors this sect was so fond of. She was wearing a loose silken outfit that covered her from neck to ankles with a large tunic belted by the waist. It seemed as if sleepwear had changed a little in my time asleep.

“Hello, limpet,” I said. “Are you ready to go?”

The girl blinked a few times. She had some rather large bags under her eyes. Looking up, she scanned the sky, then blinked even more. “It’s morning?” she asked.

“Quite obviously, yes,” I said.

Her eyes widened. “I forgot to sleep!”

“You forgot to sleep?” I asked.

She hugged something close to her chest—a book, I realized. “I was reading.”

“Ah, of course.” Perfectly natural, that. “Well, we’re heading out in a moment.”

The girl swallowed, her attention falling to somewhere near my feet. She shifted from side to side. “Can, can I come with you? I know I’m not very strong, and that I’m kind of dumb, but I learned a lot from you and... I’m being selfish aren’t I?”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll make use of you soon enough,” I said.

The limpet’s face reddened, but soon she replaced that with a look of determination. “If-if that’s what it takes!”

I loathed to imagine what she had misunderstood. “Go get dressed, unless you’ll be walking with us barefoot the entire way.”

“Oh, right!” The limpet ran off, feet thumping along on the strange flooring they used here until she was off and away.

I shook my head and continued my ambling voyage to the front gate. A mental call had all the remaining skeletons around the compound dropping their work to gather near me in neat rows. There were only a dozen left. No doubt preventing invaders from sneaking in had taken its toll. Surprisingly, there were only six shades remaining. The will-o’-wisps were all fine, though.

I tapped my chin as I considered what to do. Moving about with an army behind me was usually very pleasant. It was a great way to avoid a great number of bureaucratic issues. No travel papers? No problem if you had an army.

I’d heard someone say that the only two certainties in life were death and taxes.

Obviously they had never tried applying an army of the undead to those trying to collect those taxes.

The problem was that this force was too small to count as anything of the sort, and too weak to matter.

Alex soon joined me, a large backpack filled with clanking utensils and pots and I-could-only-guess-what hanging off of his back. “Are we ready, Papa?”

I hummed. “I suppose we are,” I said. “Hopefully this trip will be profitable.”

“I’m sure it will be,” Alex said.

I shrugged. In the worst case, I’d lose some time. A few days compared to an immortal life was no big loss in the end, but the inefficiency still irked me. I was aware that I should have still been asleep at that moment, and that any other activity was just superfluous. It would still bother me.

Being aware of one’s hypocrisy is important, I always found.

“What are you carrying there?” I asked. I could always stuff it away for travel.

“Food and cooking implements, as well as a few tools of my trade,” Alex said. “It’s not heavy, and shouldn't encumber me if we need to fight.”

“Very well then,” I said.

I eyed the skeletons again, then made up my mind. They’d come with us to serve as a sort of guard. Maybe the limpet could practice against some of them as we travelled.

Speaking of, the sound of sandals clacking and paws thumping the ground announced her arrival. “I’m ready!” she said.

I eyed her up and down for a moment. She was wearing a belted tunic with a large chequered shawl over her shoulders. Her satchel was by her hip and she had a book tucked under her opposite arm. She looked somewhat ready for travel, though I believe that any adventuring party in my day would have laughed her off as wildly unprepared.

It didn’t matter. “Let’s go then,” I said.

A few of the skeletons ran up to the gate that Alex had repaired and opened it up for us.

“So, where are  we going?” the limpet asked.

“To the nearest temple, the one near the Jade Golem sect,” I said as I walked past the gate. Alex was busy arranging our little force into neat rows. Shades were rather terrible at regimentation, so I wished him the best in getting them to fly straight.

“Are we walking all the way there?” the limpet asked.

“We could fly or teleport,” I said. “But I’m in no hurry.”

The limpet nodded. “We could ride with a caravan,” she said. “That way we won’t be alone on the road if bandits attack.”

I stared at her, then at the two dozen or so undead behind us.

“Oh, right, yeah,” she said. “Guess that won’t be a problem, huh?”

I dismissed her concern with a wave. “It’s a non-issue,” I said. Unless the bandits in this age were an order of magnitude stronger than the members of the local sects, then they wouldn’t be anything to worry about. Though, the idea of travelling with a group wasn’t entirely bad.

There was a lot to learn from merchants.

“Where would you go if you wanted to join a caravan?” I asked the limpet.

“Oh, that’s easy,” she said. “Most caravans leave a couple of hours after sun up, they usually gather by the merchant’s gate. I can show you.”

“How long have you been in this city?”

The limpet counted off on her fingers. “About five days,” she said. “One day to arrive, another to get kicked out of the sect, another being sad and meeting you, yesterday learning magic, and then there’s today.”

“And you learned that much about the function of this city in that time?” I asked.

She nodded. “I’m used to being kicked out of sects and cities, so I got really good at figuring things like that out,” she said. “When you’re as weak as I am, you need every advantage you can get not to be eaten by some monsters on the road or attacked by bandits. I’ve run away from three ambushes so far.”

“Lead us to this merchant’s gate,” I said. “We can hire ourselves out as guards, or at the very least purchase a carriage to escort us all the way over. It will save these old bones some walking.”

“Yes, master!” the limpet said before she darted out ahead of our little group, her dog close by her heels.

I noticed that the lively streets of a few days ago had changed a little. There were broken windows and a few destroyed carts by the roadsides, the people on the street seemed far more skittish and fearful, especially when they caught sight of us and our little squadron of the undead.

Alex flounced up to my side and stared out ahead. “There are people watching us, Papa,” he said.

“Indeed,” I said.

It didn’t take a genius to notice that some shadows were shifting in the wrong way, or that the earth occasionally moved ever so slightly off to the sides.

“Do you think they’d ambush us?” I asked.

“That would be very rude and very dumb,” Alex said. “So yes.”

I shook my head. Why did people have to be so idiotic? Sighing, I reached into a pocket and pulled out my stopwatch.

With a flick, the world went grey, leaves caught in the wind stopped mid-motion, the sky turned an off shade of purple and the air became thick and cold.

The limpet spun around, eyes searching for a cause until she spotted Alex and I, unfrozen and still coloured. “Master?” she asked.

“Just a time stopping spell,” I said. “We’re about to be ambushed and I’d rather be over prepared than under,” I said as I handed my watch to Alex to hold while I moved my hands in the prescribed gestures for an upper tier spell.

“Find Hostile Life.”

A hundred-odd figures started to glow in my magical sight. Some buried under the road, others invisible or hidden by artefacts, yet others just plain out of sight.

“Are you going to take care of them?” Alex asked.

“I suppose,” I said.

I took note of the general levels of those around us, then picked out a few targets to spare.

“Magic Missile.”

A number of missiles equal to the fools around us spawned out of the air and made it all of a necrometer before turning dusty and grey and stopping in mid-air. They were out of our timed instance.

“Alex, could you fetch that lad over there?” I gestured to a fruit cart.

My butler curtsied and flounced over to the young man I’d pointed to. The moment he grabbed onto him, the boy started fighting and kicking, though it did nothing to stop Alex from dragging him over.

He was in the standard garb of the Four Venoms sect, a lower disciple of some form or another. He would do.

“Limpet, this will be your opponent. Now, while we do have a literally infinite amount of time here, I would appreciate it if you were quick about it.”

The limpet’s face drained of blood, but she took a deep breath, tightened her fists, and nodded.

Alex flung the confused young man a few necrometers  away, with perhaps more force than necessary.

Was Alex angry at the man for the foiled ambush, or was my butler trying to give the limpet a slight advantage? Either answer would be well within the range of behaviours I’d expect from a good butler.

“You undead bastard!” the boy screamed. “You will face the wrath of the Four Venoms sect! You will be destroyed and your bones scattered and—”

While the young man spat his diatribe, the limpet got to work muttering the incantation of her one cantrip while her hands moved through their somatic gestures.

“Chill Touch!”

A skeletal hand shot across the space between the limpet and the young man with far more speed than she’d managed the day before.

Boney fingers dug into the man’s throat and necrotic energy bled into his form while his eyes went wide.

The limpet started to cast the same spell all over again.

Perhaps there was some hope for her as a caster.

***

Chapter Sixteen - A Good Showing

“I think my experiments with the limp—that is, Miss Fenfang—prove conclusively that this esoteric cultivation method is a poor substitute for actual training and a proper education.”

***

I decided not to act, instead I stood back and watched the limpet fighting for her life.

Her first two hits against the lesser disciple were fairly effective. Necrotic damage had the ability to interfere with healing via a process similar to convection but on the level of a magical weave. I suspect that that same interference would complicate some forms of ‘qi’ channelling. Not to a great extent, but perhaps enough to give the girl a needed edge.

The moment the young man’s mind finally kicked in and he realized that his opponent was the girl standing before him, he started moving at her.

She didn’t have a dog to jump between her and her target this time, the creature still frozen out of time like everything else around us.

A brace of darts flung by the boy  slowed and stopped in mid-air between them . Another advantage for the limpet.

He ducked around his needles and rushed up to the limpet who was still in the third verse of her incantation. She dropped it in order to weave out of the way of a straight punch aimed at her face.

The boy’s next attack, a sweeping kick, landed hard against the limpet’s ribs and she went crashing down to the side, then rolled out of the way of a stomp.

The limpet jumped to her feet, then flung her satchel around in a big arc that smacked the young man hard in the side with the dull thump that came from a few heavy books slapping together.

He grunted, but that didn’t stop him from punching the limpet in the side of the head.

She fell again, this time with a weak, mewling scream.

“You, you idiot!” he screamed down at her while swinging his leg back and kicking down at her crumpled form.

Was it done for the limpet?

I sighed. I would need to find another test subject.

The young man kept kicking her, and she failed to react at all, though her lips were moving. Moving to form words.

The limpet spun around, her hand coming up with her fingers set in a wide ‘V’ pointing right at the young man’s face. He glared down at her, leg pulling back for another kick.

“...And power necrotic

I cast upon thee, Chill Touch! ”

A skeletal hand appeared between them. It was the most pitiful Chill Touch I’d ever seen, with some fingers outright missing and the power flowing out of the spell so weak as to be nearly nonexistent. Its fingers, those that were there, were set in the same ‘V’ as her hand.

They speared out and rammed into the disciple’s eyes.

The young man screamed, head twisting back as the spell continued to push into his head. He managed to pry one skeletal finger away from his left eye, but that just had the other digging in deeper until it turned the right side of his face into a bloody, wet mess.

The limpet rammed a heel into the young man’s knee, sending him crashing to the ground back-first.

And then she was on him, straddling him while raising the heavy spell book I’d given her.

The book came down with a dull whump, slamming the man’s head down.

He started to scramble against her, needles flicking out of his wrists and flopping to the ground. He wasn’t nearly as dextrous now as he had been at the start of the fight.

The limpet screamed and brought the book down again.

The young man tried to block it with an arm, but letting go of the Chill Touch only made it sink deeper into his head.

Another blow, then another.

The young man went limp under the girl.

She raised her tome one more time and brought it down binding-first atop his head.

“Well done,” I said as I noted the man’s life ebbing away.

The limpet fell to the side, crashing to the ground with a sighing sob. She lay there for a moment, then kicked away from the body. She seemed weak. “Did, did I do good?”

“Surprisingly, yes,” I said. “The modified Chill Touch was a nice... touch , oh hoho !”

I moved over to the limpet’s side. “Can you stand?” I asked.

She made an uncertain noise. “I don’t know,” she said. “He kicked me a lot.”

Her leg was developing some interesting colours. I imagined her back was the same. The disciple had been wearing a pair of sturdy boots, no doubt made for the harsh terrain around this area, but suitable for fighting all the same.

“I feel dizzy,” she said.

I eyed her, then noticed the needles protruding from her thigh. “It seems you were poisoned,” I said. “No doubt nothing impressive, but more than enough to kill someone with a constitution as low as yours.”

“Oh,” the limpet said. “I’m going to die?”

“Everyone dies,” I said.

“Are you going to turn me into a skeleton? I think... that would be neat.”

I would have rolled my eyes had I any. Crouching down, I yanked the needles out of her thigh, eliciting a weak hiss, then tossed them aside before pressing my hand against her side.

“Word of Power: Heal.”

The spell was one so simple that even the limpet should have been able to guess at what it did.

“Minor Restoration.”

And that got rid of a few status effects, notably the poisons currently running through her system. The limpet flopped back down, the tension running out of her body and her eyes fluttering closed. “Thank you,” she said.

“Think nothing of it,” I said as I stood back up. I would need to verify her growth, but that could wait. “Do you think we want to take on a few more of these fools?” I asked.

The limpet’s eyes snapped open and she shook her head. I noticed that she wasn’t looking in the direction of the body next to her. Was she still squeamish?

“Very well. Alex, please close the time-piece.”

“Yes Papa,” Alex said.

The stop watch snapped shut. The world shuddered.

The hundreds of magic missiles hovering above us, locked out of time, burst into luminescence as time recaptured them, and shot out towards their targets. For a moment, there was only the sound of magic finding its mark, some spells drilling into the earth, others snapping through walls.

Then, all at once, the missiles set off their payloads and the air filled with a constant crackling, like an entire box of fire-crackers being set off at once.

Bodies slumped, and I could feel life ebbing away from every last ambusher in the area.

“Now that that’s done,” I said. “We should be on our way once more.”

Alex helped the limpet to her feet, freeing her from the assault of her own dog who seemed to be under the impression that its master being on the ground meant that she wanted comfort or some such. “I can fix your outfit,” Alex said as he touched a finger to the holes over the limpet’s dress.

“Ah, that would be nice,” the limpet said. “Thank you, Mister Alex.”

Alex beamed. “It’s my duty to ensure optimal comfort for Bone Papa and his guests.”

We continued on our way, the limpet rather quiet except for a gasp when she noticed a few corpses piled up around a corner next to homes with Magic-Missile-sized holes in their walls.

“The merchant’s quarter is right there,” the limpet said as she gestured off to one side. “And the gate is right over there.”

I followed the direction her finger was pointing in, and found that there was indeed a gate, one with a decently large courtyard around it with plenty of carts and a few carriages waiting. Men in simple garb were caring for the horses tethered to the carriages, while others were loading up boxes and other cargo for transport.

The merchants were easy enough to make out, they were the ones in nicer garb, though they were generally still quite humbly dressed. I supposed that when travelling you didn’t need to wear your best clothes.

The moment we arrived near the area those gathered there went quiet. I didn’t know if it was my skeletal appearance , the blood covering the limpet, or the dozen or so undead behind us, but something made the locals nervous. “Limpet. Go find someone who would rent out a carriage or a coach.”

“I can do that,” the limpet said with likely unearned confidence before she reshouldered her bag and ran off.

Alex paused next to me, hands folded over his stomach in the very image of a dutiful maid. He waited until the limpet was out of hearing range before talking. “She’s nice,” he said.

I considered that. “She has potential,” I admitted.

Alex nodded. “I hope Bone Daddy isn’t too mean to her.”

“Don’t get attached,” I said. “She’s still merely a test subject.”

“If Sir Papa says so.”

The limpet spoke to first one merchant, then another. There was a lot of waving of her arms as she spoke, and some wild gesturing in our direction. Her growing frustration was rather obvious, but soon enough she returned to us with a proud grin. “I found a carriage that will take us, Master,” she said. “It’s... a little expensive, but it looks pretty comfortable.”

She pointed out a carriage being hitched to a team of two horses. It was a nice enough thing, with open sides and a pagoda-like roof above it. There was room enough within for a good half dozen people. “That will do,” I said.

The limpet grinned and I wondered if she expected any more praise than that.

The merchant who owned the carriage was appropriately obsequious as he asked for a price that I suspect was highway robbery, but I didn’t blame him. If he was the only one providing something, he could set the price that he wished.

Alex handed him some golden coins from a little purse he hid in the folds of his skirts, and soon we were all aboard the coach.

The nervousness of the merchants around us, especially around the armed skeletons, slowly abated as my little army stood in tight formation around our carriage.

We were accompanied by three rather pale-faced men who sat across from us and who spent a good deal of time trembling.

The limpet placed herself next to me, and pulled out the spell tome I’d left her that explained the use of Prestidigitation.  I followed her example, pulling out one of the old tomes I’d found in the sect library and that I had yet to finish.

“Master?” the limpet asked.

“Hmm?”

“You can tell if I’ve improved, right?”

“I can.”

The limpet carefully slid a bookmark into place. “Have I?”

I looked her way, then slid my book back into a pocket before removing a notepad. Take note of changes turned  random events into scientifically valid observations. “You are aware that two small fights, even against mildly superior opponents, will not turn you into any sort of powerhouse.”

“I know that,” she said. “I’d need to do that over and over again, right? And I’d need to learn more and meditate a lot.”

“That’s certainly one way to progress,” I agreed. “We’ll see how you turn out once your class changes, if it does. I’m operating on the hypothesis that you’re unable to see the system, but that the system itself is still, essentially, functioning as it once did.”

“What’s that mean for me?” the limpet asked.

“It means that you’re moving and groping about in the dark, with no points of reference to use.”

She tilted her head to the side. “And Master doesn’t have that problem?”

“No,” I said. I didn’t see how further explanation would help anything. I marked down the stats I remembered from the last time in my notebook, then turned to her.

“Observe.”

A Warlock Test Subject of the Archon of Science, Fenfang “The Limpet” Fang, Level 16.

***

Chapter Seventeen - A Thoughtful Trip

“I wonder, sometimes, just how different this world has become.

For all the changes in culture, in the system, and even in the environment itself, there’s so much that is the same.”

***

A warlock.

Initially, learning that the limpet had changed classes and turned into a warlock, one that seemed patroned  to me, of all things, was something of a surprise.

So, as will all things that I found surprising, I buried the emotion under a pile of observations and knowledge.

The carriage soon took on a very hectic quality as I took out tome after tome and found myself leafing through millenia-old texts for little tidbits of information. The merchants accompanying us looked somewhat uncomfortable at having their laps used as table space, but the limpet and Alex, at least, didn’t seem to mind.

In fact, the limpet was grinning so wide I was afraid she might injure her own cheeks.

We were well on our way to the next city over when I had gathered enough answers from my rather old sources to at least sate my initial curiosity.

A warlock, as anyone ought to know, is a practitioner of magic and sorcery that uses the power of another to power their own magical and supernatural feats. That is, instead of understanding the weave of magic enough to manipulate it—as a wizard would—or using some inner strength to force magical phenomena to occur—as with a sorcerer—a warlock instead begs and grovels for some greater entity to act on their behalf.

Warlocks were generally one of the types of casters that I respected the least. After bards, of course.

So, what did it mean that the limpet was now a warlock?

More importantly, what did it mean that I was now her patron?

I didn’t have many texts that dealt with warlocks from the patron side of things. I’d dissected plenty of warlocks to see how their magic worked, of course, and I’d even broken some patron-warlock bonds to see what would happen, but I’d never asked someone who was a patron how their patronage functioned.

An oversight. I should have taken more time and thought things through a little more, but that was thousands of years ago.

The current situation did present some opportunities. Being that I was the one in the position of patron now, I could fully explore that side of things.

On the other hand, this entire thing might have been some sort of fluke. It would be difficult to pin-point exactly which circumstances lead to the class change being so favourable. Or at least so interesting.

“Limpet,” I asked.

“Yes Master!” the limpet jumped to reply. She was still smiling, though I idly noted that she was also blinking a lot, and her posture had shifted so that she was slumping a little more. The girl was likely tired already.

“Do you feel any different? Do you have any senses that you didn’t have previously?”

The limpet tilted her head, considering. “I don’t think so,” she said.

I also didn’t notice anything bizarre. But then, there was a lot more of me than there was of the limpet. It was entirely possible that I wouldn’t notice a magical syphon that pulled some of my power away. After all, the infinitesimally small amount that the limpet could manage was less than the amount of magical energy I lost merely as residual ‘heat’ from existing.

I slid a tome back into a pocket and leaned back so that I could properly tap my chin in thought. Classes, generally, dictated the direction of a person’s growth. They often—but not always—correlated directly with the abilities and spells that someone could master.

That wasn’t to say that a fighter couldn’t learn how to cast a spell or two with enough practice, it was just easier for a wizard to cast that same spell. Likewise, a wizard could pick up a sword and shield and go about in plate armour if they wished, they just wouldn’t be as effective as a warrior.  They could do those things, but the system wouldn't bolster their efforts since they were outside the scope of their classes' function.

So what did it mean that the limpet was a warlock in that regard?

It was a magical casting class, though one that still had a few physical abilities. Something like the opposite of a paladin, really.

Did that mean that the limpet would more easily learn spells that I taught her? Or spells which I assisted her in casting?

Something to test.

Warlocks also tended to act on behalf of their patrons in exchange for greater power. At least, so they claimed. I suspect that in reality, the act of doing something challenging is what gave them greater power. The gifts later bestowed upon them by their patron was merely a cherry on top.

I nodded to myself.

Yes, that was something else I could test. I would give the limpet some challenges, things that I suspected she could accomplish, and I would measure the differences in growth whether I rewarded her or not.

There was another thing to consider. The contract. Every mention of warlocks I had come across mentioned a contract between warlock and patron. Some of these were binding on the level of the soul, others were far more lenient to both parties.

When had the limpet and I entered into anything of the sort?

Was it when she agreed to be my test subject?

Interesting!

“You look very excited,” Alex said.

“Indeed,” I said. “This is an entirely new avenue of research.”

I turned to the limpet to ask her something, but she currently had her head leaning against my arm, her eyes closed and her breath escaping with little whistles.

I let her be for the moment. Our later tests would require that she be in good health, which meant some sleep was required.

I wondered what it meant that I could become a patron. I’d heard and witnessed some non-deity creatures becoming patrons to some warlocks. There were patrons among the fey, demons both lesser and greater, even the occasional lich.

The advantage for the patron seemed to come from the contract itself, in the sense that in exchange for sharing a modicum of their power, they gained someone capable of acting on their behalf.

“F-forgive me, sir?”

I looked out across from me where a young man was sitting, a couple of my books on his lap. “Yes?” I asked.

“Um, forgive me if this is presumptive, Master, but are you perhaps the one that, um, eliminated the Four Venoms sect?”

“Oh, yes, that was me,” I said. “Well, myself and Alex here. He did assist.”

Alex waved.

“Ah, yes, I see,” the man said.

“Why do you ask?” I wondered.

The man shifted a little. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. “I was just curious. Seeing as how we’re moving to Dolsrus , if Master intended to do the same there.” He bowed, bending in half from his seated position. “I don’t mean any offence, of course.”

“Oh? No, no I have no such intentions,” I said. “Even the Four Venoms sect was merely a bit of a misunderstanding that went too far. I do try my utmost to be as polite and accommodating as I can be.”

“Truly, Master is too humble,” the merchant said. That was a bit much as far as rear-kissing went, but merchants would be merchants. “If Master doesn’t intend to bring such violence to Dolsrus , then perhaps we don’t have anything to worry about.”

“I don’t intend to do anything violent,” I said. “I rarely do. Though I am equipped to answer to any violence that might happen around me.”

The man swallowed. “Yes, of course,” he said with a glance to the skeletons and shades currently escorting our carriage. "That’s entirely Master’s prerogative.”

“Perhaps if you told me a little about this Dolsrus city I could avoid causing any sort of issue,” I said.

The merchant bowed again. “It would be my honour to assist you, Master. Dolsrus is a larger settlement than Venom’s End, next to the Silent Lake. There is much activity there, as warriors use the city as a staging point before travelling to the south to combat the barbarians.”

“I see,” I said to encourage him to go on.

“Ah, yes. It’s a nice place to sell certain goods. I’m afraid that I only know the city from the perspective of a merchant.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “My own father was a pottery salesman. I know a thing or two about the merchant’s art.”

“That’s incredible, Master,” the man said. “Ah, right, Dolsrus is ruled by a council in three parts: the upper merchants, the priests of the Silent Lake Temple, and the masters of the Jade Golem’s sect.”

“Can you tell me anything about these priests?” I leaned forwards a little, then stopped when the limpet shifted.

The merchant cringed. “I’m afraid I cannot say much. Forgive me. The priests are very powerful. They serve the kami of the lake, and will bless a caravan for a fee, but I know little else. They are very quiet. Some say they are all mute, but I think that is an exaggeration.”

“Have you ever encountered this kami?” I asked.

The merchant shook his head. “No, I was never so fortunate, Master.”

“No bother then,” I said. “What can you tell me about the sect that rules over the region?”

“The Jade Golem sect? They are well known throughout the empire. Their art is very distinctive and impressive to behold, especially the titans that guard Dolsrus.”

“And what is that art?” I asked.

The merchant smiled, genuinely excited for once. "Ah, they made great figures and dolls that they call golems. Then, through their magic and craft, they breathe life into these so that they stand and move and act all on their own. It is like a puppet show, but many times more impressive.”

“I see,” I said. So the golems were, simply put, actual golems. That would be interesting to see. The practice wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to me. It was actually somewhat similar to creating an undead, though a little more involved.

The wizards I knew who practised such magic tended to spend long hours on their artifice, ensuring that every joint was just so, and hiding all sorts of clever contraptions within their creations.

At the upper levels, they could be quite the nightmare to face in battle. Though they did suffer a few notable weaknesses. Long hours and complex procedures to create them made the undead a far preferable choice for me.

“I look forward to seeing these golems,” I said. “And you mentioned titans?”

“Those are the personal golems of the sect elders. They are monstrously huge machines of gold and jade and other precious materials. They guard the city from the barbarians and monsters and the undea—” the merchant cut himself off with a choke.

“We’ll have to disguise ourselves then,” I said. “If it would prevent the locals from having a snit.”

Alex gasped. “Can I have a disguise?” he asked.

“You’re already dressed as a maid,” I said. “How else would you disguise yourself?”

“I could add some bows? Maybe be a princess?”

I stared at my butler for a moment. “I don’t think that would hold up to any scrutiny,” I said. “We can pretend to be merchants, or perhaps merely pilgrims. Are there pilgrims that visit this kami?”

The merchant nodded. “There are. Not as many as some other kami, but still some.”

“And which ones are more popular?” I asked.

“Ah, that would depend. There are many kami in the land of Gates. And some dangerous monster kami in the land of ashes. These wander about, and some people offer them things to obtain their safety.” The man smiled. “Of course, the greatest is the Lord Emperor.”

“Really now?” I asked rhetorically. “And where could I find him?”

The merchant’s face blanched a little. “At, at the Jade Throne? Perhaps?”

I grinned. “Maybe I’ll extend my pilgrimage that way one day.”

***

Chapter Eighteen - A Charming Entrance

“Dolsrus was a nice city. Still is, I suppose.”

***

The caravan stopped some ten kilonecrometers  away from Dolsrus, just far enough that the city was lost over the rocky horizon. The terrain here was strange, with some areas filled with grass, and others rocky, dead soil. Were the effects of my burial ground so pronounced?

The stop wasn’t anything unplanned. With so many horses and three dozen carriages making up the bulk of the caravan, it wasn’t surprising that we had to stop every so often to feed and water the animals. Not to mention ensuring that all of the equipment strapped to the carts was still in order.

While the merchants and caravaneers took their time preparing lunch or stretching their legs, Alex, the limpet, and myself moved off to the lee of a hill and sat down quite comfortably under the beaming morning sun.

The night, spent camping in a circle off the road, had been nice and quiet, and so I thought that we were due a little bit of disruption.

“Are you done?” I asked the limpet.

She had a sandwich stuffed up against her face, courtesy of Alex, of course. She swallowed the last few bites, rubbed the back of her hand against her mouth, then nodded. “I’m ready for anything, Master!” the limpet said past a full mouth.

I nodded and shifted so that I was a little more comfortable on the grassy ground. “Very well. Show me how far along you’ve come with Prestidigitation.”

The limpet saluted me. “Yes sir!” she said before moving back a step and taking a deep breath. She seemed a little nervous. Perhaps that was fair,  I was asking her to demonstrate one of the most simple yet complex spells in a fresh wizard’s arsenal.

The basis of it was actually quite simple, and very much open-ended. It was a spell that used the caster’s ability to visualise an action and press magic itself into accomplishing that action. Essentially, it was a ‘do anything’ kind of spell.

It is, of course, exceptionally weak. What the spell gains in brea th, it loses in depth. A flame created with Prestidigitation would be far weaker than one created with a Create Fire spell, and would tax the caster far more.

The goal of the spell wasn’t just to give the caster more tools, or rather a multi-purpose tool, it was to teach the caster how to visualise a spell and the way magic wrapped around to act with the caster’s will.

The limpet was learning the most basic and versatile spell there was, without my assistance. It would go a long way towards showing me how creative she could be, and would set a baseline for her abilities.

“Bending magic with the weave’s equation

Turning my mind into iron persuasion

Into this earthly plane

I bring powers arcane

And by my will, I cast Prestidigitation !”

The limpet stuck her hands out serpent quick and... a series of small lights flashed and popped in the air before fizzling out.

I clapped politely, and Alex joined me a half second later. “A successful cast,” I said.

The limpet’s face took on some colour. “Ah, well, it’s just a few lights and some noise. I can practice more. I’ll get better, I swear!”

I waved off her concern. Light and sound at the same time was actually somewhat advanced. Not truly impressive, especially not with such a long chant and the entire, unshortened, somatic component, but she was still new.

“That’s good. Continue practising.”

“Yes Master!”

“Very well, I think it’s time that I teach you another spell.”

The limpet started clapping before stopping and bowing. “Yes! Thank you Master! I’ll do my best to learn it well.”

“Hmm,” I agreed. “This spell is called Detect Magic. It, as the name suggests, allows the caster to detect magic. The hows of that detection are very much dependent on the caster’s own visualisation of the spell. I once knew a wizard that could hear magic as a sort of song. I tend to prefer visual displays myself, but there are some handy tricks that you can do with that spell.”

The limpet nodded. “I can imagine smelling magic must be useful too,” she said.

“Oh?” I asked.

“Yeah, because the, uh, light of it won’t distract you in a fight?”

I considered that for a moment, then hummed. “That’s a good idea. Either way, the spell is rather difficult, a tier above the spells you’ve been learning so far. This might be beyond your current ability to learn, though if you do learn it, it might assist you in the future.”

The limpet started toying with the edge of her shawl. “How’s that, Master?”

“Which part are you referring to? Your inability to cast the spell, or the way this spell could help you learn faster?” I asked.

“Ah, well.” The limpet shifted her foot into the grass. “Both? I guess.”

“Spells are generally segregated into tiers. These tiers are created to differentiate spells based on two factors: the complexity of the spell, and its potential to cause harm. Invisibility, a second tier spell, is hardly  an order of magnitude harder to cast than Minor Illusion, a zeroth tier spell,” I said.

The limpet pulled a notebook out of her satchel and started to scribble things in a hurry. I gave her a moment to catch up.

“The complexity factor is rather self-explanatory. Some spells require more knowledge of the arcane, more experience, and more materials to cast. Miscasting them can have far greater repercussions.”

“Got it,” the limpet said as she finished a line. She looked up, waiting for me to go on.

“The other factor... let’s call it the responsibility, is determined by how dangerous a spell is, not necessarily to the caster, but to the society around the caster. Incendiary Cloud, an eighth-tier spell, is actually relatively easy to cast. It can also destroy a small settlement if mismanaged.”

The limpet seemed to take that in stride. “I think a lot of cultivators have similar things. Some skills and arts are kept secret until a disciple proves that they have the attitude needed to learn them.”

“That’s reasonable,” I agreed. I would always be an advocate for the freedom of knowledge, but I wasn’t so foolish as to suggest giving scrolls of Armageddon to every child on the street.

Trust people. But verify that they’re not idiots.

I slid a hand into a pocket, and found the tome I was looking for using a minor Book Finding cantrip. “Here,” I said as I passed a slim notebook to the limpet. “These are the somatic and verbal instructions for Detect Magic. Learn them by the time we find some lodgings in Dolsrus.”

The limpet took the notebook, then bowed over it. “Thank you Master! I’ll do my best.”

A glance over my shoulder showed that the merchants were getting ready to set off once more. I climbed to my feet and Alex did the same while patting the grass off of his dress. “Time to head out,” I said.

Before returning to the carriage, I reapplied my Minor Disguise, turning my skeletal face and hands into rather plain examples of each. I once more looked like a rather average, if dull, middle-aged man.

A mental command had the skeletons and shades and will-o’-wisps forming up along one side. I would have the lot of them run off to hide somewhere before we reached Dolsrus.

Avoiding attention would likely help avoid problems too.

We sat in our carriage, myself in the middle with my two companions by my sides, and were soon joined by the same merchants as before.

The caravan took off with a series of shouts from the drivers, and neighs  from all the horses pulling us along.  And just like that, we were approaching Dolsrus once more.

I let my mind wander a little, enjoying the sway of the carriage over packed-dirt roads while the limpet muttered and took notes from the book on her lap.

When we finally crested a hill some hours later, I caught sight of Dolsrus out ahead of us.

The city was set next to a large lake, one grand enough that I couldn’t begin to make out the opposite shore around the curvature of the planet. I could see why it had earned the name Silent Lake. There was hardly a wave in sight, only the occasional ripple in the water, especially near the city itself.

Dolsrus was a decently large city, with tall walls all around, and some well-tilled fields beyond that. The buildings poking out from behind those walls were thin and covered in steep roofs made of what looked like beaten copper. In fact, there seemed to be a lot of copper in the construction around the city, from roofs to little copper-walled shacks next to the farmland.

Perhaps the metal was common around these parts? Interesting.

What was far more interesting were the great big statues lining the sides of the city’s walls. No two were the same. From giants of marble with huge, ungainly clubs, to refined figures of men at parade rest, their bodies covered in intricately detailed armour.

Golems, no doubt the creations of the local Jade Golem sect.

It would be interesting to see them at work, and maybe to take one or two apart to see what kind of innovation their creators had come up with.

The caravan slowed a little as it headed towards a large gate guarded by a pair of statues as tall as a common oak. Both of them towered above the road, no doubt making the people below them feel small in their presence. Their masks, grotesque faces carved in a rictus of anger, certainly aided their image.

As we finally reached the gates, a group of guards stepped out and began assessing each carriage in turn. They seemed like simple militia men, in breastplates and rounded helmets made of brass. “Travel permits?” the one that finally reached our carriage asked.

The merchants ahead of me and the limpet all reached out and found some folded documents that they handed to the guard. He checked each one with the bored efficiency of someone who had been doing the same thing day in and day out.

Then he looked at me and Alex. “Permits, sir?”

I had my disguise’s face smile.

“Charm Person.”

I was never terribly fond of that particular spell. It was far too bard-like for my liking. But, I had to admit that it did have its uses. I might have been able to avoid some issues had I been more willing to use it sooner, but there was something fundamentally wrong about changing a person’s opinion without the use of rhetoric and logic.

“I think that you’ll find that I’m perfectly within my rights to be here.”

The guard, now joined by a few of his friends, nodded along. “You’re allowed to be here,” he agreed. “What about that maid? We got reports of a person in a maid outfit attacking the Four Venoms sect. Can we see your identification?”

“You don’t need to see his identification.”

The guard blinked. “We don’t need to see his identification.”

I smiled gently. “This isn’t the maid you’re looking for.”

He eyed Alex, eyes narrowed, then looked to his companions. “That’s not the maid we’re looking for.”

“We can go about our business,” I added.

The guard stepped back after giving the merchants and the limpet back their papers. “You can go about your business.”

“Move along,” I muttered.

The guard waved us on. “Move along.”

The carriage rolled on past, unencumbered by any bureaucratic nonsense.

“Master, that was incredible,” the limpet said. “Can I learn to do that?”

I chuckled. “Maybe one day you’ll have the force to do so,” I said. “But that day isn’t today. Come on, once we’ve found a place to stop we’ll head out and look for a nice inn to stay in. There ought to be at least one nice establishment in a city of this size.”

***

Chapter Nineteen - A Mission

“For all that the upper echelons of society took a turn for the worse, the common man, that is, the normal people, merchants and farmers both, seem to be just as amiable as I remember.”

***

I will be perfectly honest.

The reason I chose to stay at the Come Inn isn’t because it was the finest establishment in the city, nor because it was the most conveniently placed. I picked it because I found the name amusing and suspected that I would get along with the proprietors.

After a quick back inn forth (oh hohoh!) with the gentleminn (I’m dying here! Hoh!) at the front desk, we were giv-inn a very nice suite on the topmost floor inn  exchange for a few bars of gold and a couple of witty remarks.

The suite had a little washroom, two modest bedrooms with two beds each, and a small office that had a window overlooking the main streets of Dolsrus. “This is very much acceptable,” I said as I finished my cursory inspection of the room.

The limpet looked to the two rooms, then back to me. “Um, is one of these mine?”

“Hmm? Oh, neither of us require sleep.” I said with a gesture between Alex and myself. “Pick whichever you want.”

“Thank you, Master!” the limpet said with one of her little bows.

“Yes yes, this is mostly just for show, and to have a quiet place to read. Speaking of which, how far along are you with Detect Magic?”

The limpet ran a thumb over the notebook I’d given her. “I’m not done reading this yet, but I think I can do it, maybe?”

I hummed, then with a sweep of my hand, created three orbs of magical energy that hovered in the air around me. One was shaped like a star, the other was merely a blue-hued ball, and the third was a cube that shifted into itself and changed colours. None of them would be visible to the naked eye.

“Practice with these. Tell me what shape and colour they are. In the meantime, I think I’ll be asking the inn-keep some questions.”

“Yes, Master!”

I patted the limpet on the head, which turned her face an amusing shade of red, before stepping out of the room. She had Alex to watch over her, in case things somehow turned for the worse and she managed to discover a way to turn Detect Magic into some sort of offensive spell.

It would also give my butler plenty of time to clean up. I’d seen the way he was eyeing the nearly-spotless room. Nearly-spotless wasn’t quite good enough for him, I suspected.

The innkeep on the floor below was a jovial man, big and rotund. Junjie was placing glass bottles into little closed-off cubbies that had the names of the ales  labelled before them. It made it so that the alcohol itself wasn’t visible until he would take out a bottle. A strange local custom, perhaps?

“Hello Junjie,” I said as I took a stool before his bar counter.

“Ah, esteemed customer, how can Junjie help? Is your room to your satisfaction? Is there anything I can do to make it better?” The man clasped his hands together.

“No no, the room is excellent. Thank you,” I said. “I just had some questions about the city. I’m, as you can imagine, not all that familiar with the place.” A glance around the inn’s main floor showed that it was rather empty. There were one or two clients at the back enjoying a mid-day luncheon, but it was otherwise quite quiet.

“Ask away, and I’ll answer to the best of my ability,” Junjie said. “Could I interest you in a drink in the meanwhile?”

“No thank you,” I said. “And you don’t have to stop your work on my account.”

Junjie nodded gratefully and continued slipping bottles into their nooks. “So, what about our glorious Dolsrus has you curious? You know, it is the fifth most populous city in all of the empire.”

“Truly?” I asked.

“Yes. And one of the richest,” Junjie said. “We are blessed to have the support of a good sect, and the priests of the Silent Lake kami keep the city nice and peaceful. No rude ruffians here.”

“I’m curious about the priests, actually. About that whole temple, really.”

“Ah yes, many  travellers stop to pay their respects. A man as fortunate and rich as my esteemed client should stop by the temple and make a small offering for even greater fortune and luck.”

Was the local deity actually capable of manipulating a person’s fortunes, or was that mere local superstition? Another thing to investigate. “I think I’ll do just that,” I said. “Where is the temple?”

“Ah, did the esteemed client come from the north, or the east?”

“The east,” I said, curious now as to where the question came from.

Junjie tapped the side of his nose. “I should have guessed then. The temple is to the north of the city. Very difficult to miss if you’re coming from that direction, as it is erected right out on the surface of the lake. If you look at it from the right angle, it looks as though it is floating. But that’s just a clever illusion. We locals remember setting the foundations under the lake.”

“Interesting,” I said. “Is there a bridge leading to it?”

“Ah, there are two temples, actually, one of which is on the shore, built into the city walls. There’s a bridge from that one to the one on the lake. You’d need to make a pretty hefty donation to visit the lake temple.”

“I see, thank you, Junjie,” I said. I tapped that counter a few times with a little drum-beat pattern, then stood up. “I think that’s it for me. I’ll check out the temple in a bit.”

Junjie grinned. “Do you want someone to escort you to it? The streets here are safe, but there are still many cultivators in this place, being so close to the border.”

“Oh?” I asked. I was still next to his counter, ready to leave but intrigued enough to stay. “I heard that they gather here before heading south, is that true?”

“Oh yes, many young masters, all ready to prove their worth for the empire and kill some barbarians. They’re very... ah, I shouldn’t speak ill of them.”

“Come now, you got me curious.”

Junjie waved a hand through the air. “They can be a little rude to us normal folk is all . Just keep your head low and your wits close and you should be fine. If you want, I can have one of the waiter boys escort you through the quieter streets.”

I shook my head, and plastered on a smile. “No, I’ll be fine, I think. Thank you though.”

I left the first floor and returned to the rooms to find Alex looking quite smug as he emptied a tray of dust into a garbage pail, and the limpet was sitting on the ground, cross legged and with sweat matting her brow.

“How did it go?” I asked.

The limpet let out her breath in a great whoosh. “I... don’t have it at all, Master.”

“Oh?”

She looked down. “I think I failed. I can see that one of them is a star, I think, and the other is... green? Blue, maybe. But the third one is beyond me.”

“Cast the spell again,” I instructed.

“To feel the world’s fabric

To know the weave most elaborate

Power dispense

And give me sense

I cast upon myself, Detect  Magic! ”

I took a gander at her being through my own arcane sight, then let out a low tut-tut. “Your somatic gestures aren’t nearly accurate enough for a perfect cast,” I said. “Pay more attention to that. One day you won’t need them, but that day isn’t today. You’re taking enough short-cuts as is. And your chant’s cadence is rather poor. Don’t emphasise the rhymes so much.”

“Yes, Master!”

I nodded and listened to her cast the spell again. She was sweating bullets as she tried to keep the spell in place, the weave just barely in her magical grasp.

“Oh!” she said, her eyes focused on something next to me. “It’s a cube? Um. It’s changing colours. Master, did you try to be tricky?”

“I’d rather think I succeeded in being tricky,” I said. “Well done, by the way.”

The limpet grinned, quite proud of herself. “Thank you, Master. Really. Thank you. I... this is.” She licked her lips and ran her thumbs over the cover of the Detect Magic notebook.

“Yes yes, whatever,” I said. “Do go bathe or something, you look sweaty. After that... ah, I suspect I won’t be around when you’re done, I’m going to be paying the local temple a visit.”

“Do you want me to keep practising? I don’t think I’ve got the spell quite down yet.”

I nodded. “Yes. In fact, I’ll give you a mission right now. Use Detect Magic on the golems by the front gate, and any other golem you see. Put your observational abilities to the test.”

“I can do that!” the limpet said.

“I would hope so. It’s hardly much of a challenge.” I turned to my butler who came to stand by my side with his hands behind his back. “Did you have anything you wanted to do?”

“Not really, papa, I’m just here to serve you.”

“In that case...” I fished in my pockets for some small gold bars, then set them on the table. “I’m certain that there are things we need. Exchange these for some of the local currency, then see about getting whatever we need for our next trip. Ah, and maybe keep an eye out on the limpet if she gets into any sort of trouble.”

Alex swept the gold away. “Yes, Daddy. I’ll spend it all wisely.”

I snorted, a strange sound to make when one didn’t have a nose. “I have enough gold and such to bury this city in a pile of it. There’s no need to be frugal. If there’s anything you want, perhaps a suitable weapon or... something for your little hobby, then feel free to grab it.”

Alex beamed. “Daddy’s the best! I’m going to buy a pretty apron. Oh, maybe a bow for my hair.” He touched his rather short hair with a hand.

“Certainly,” I said. A glance out the window showed the afternoon weather turning a bit grey, and a few specks of rain were tapping against the glass. I reached into a breast pocket and searched around until I found a coat and pulled it out.

It was a nice greatcoat made of some canvas-like material. I slipped it on and pulled up the collar. I also found a nice cap to slip on above that, though it needed a sticking charm to keep it from sliding off my skull.

“Well, I’m off then. I’ll see you two back here before nightfall?”

“Yes, Master,” the limpet said. “Also, you look really cool.”

“Why thank you, I always found this kind of coat rather fashionable.” Pleased despite myself, I waved the two goodbye and stepped out. A moment or two later I was out on the streets of Dolsrus where a light drizzle was staining the road and where people were running for cover.

The few stalls I passed on my way to the north of the city were closing up in a hurry, and a few citizens were covering their heads with jackets or wide-brimmed hats.

It was a nice rain. Tampening down the smells of a poorly planned city, and creating a sort of rhythmic music as it tapped on the copper roofs all around.

I crossed  by some people in strange garb that might have been cultivators, but they didn’t accost me, and I had no business with them.

And so, just as the rain started to grow stronger, I reached the Temple of the Silent Lake.

***

Chapter Twenty - A Limpet’s Point of View

Fenfang Fang’s Observation Log | Day Three

As previously noted, I’ve started to take notes to keep track of things around me and my experiences with magic. This is under the suggestion of my Master, Harold.

Note to self: Find out if Master has a title. Just calling him ‘Harold’ feels really underwhelming.

Like really, all the cool sects  have masters with long, complicated titles, and they’re usually a bit much, but at least the senior disciples get to say stuff like “I’m the Disciple of the Lord of Serpents!” Instead of just... “I’m Harold’s Test Subject.”

I’m not sad about it or anything, it’s just. Well.

It’s a bit embarrassing.

Note end!

Today has been a very interesting day! Master praised my progress with the Prestidigitation spell, and has begun to teach me a First Tier spell called Detect Magic. Learning that the powerful attack magic Chill Touch, is a Zeroth Tier (Master called it a Cantrip? I need to look that up) spell is a bit heady. It’s a really versatile attack already.

Master really is strong. And I’m going to be strong too one day!

One thing at a time, I guess.

Prestidigitation is a really neat spell. It’s meant to teach people how to manipulate magic, or so I’ve gathered from the notes Master  gave me to study. He doesn’t seem to want to instruct me on this spell himself, which is a little strange.

Is it some sort of test?

I think that’s likely. Master seems to like testing me. First with the whole lake teleportation thing, then with the fight with the skeleton and then the—

Anyway.

Prestidigitation has a lot of uses. It’s such a wide and versatile spell that I’m actually a little daunted by it. The notes Master gave me lists dozens  of things you can do with it, and they’re all really broad. Like ‘create a small illusion.’

So far I’ve only managed to make little lights, and some shapes, but already that’s a lot. I don’t think most sects would give any new disciple something this strong, not for a long time.

At the same time, I noticed that when I tried to recreate Chill Touch using Prestidigitation, it was far, far weaker, and a lot more taxing. Also, it imploded.

I think that Prestidigitation allows a caster to do just about anything, but really, really poorly.

Maybe that’s the point?

I’ll have to keep studying it. Master seemed impressed that I could do two things with the spell at once, so next I’m going to practice three things with it at the same time. Even if I fall flat on my face from exhaustion it’ll be worth it!

Oh, I’m sooo lucky!

Note to self: Get Master a gift for being the best.

He’s a skeleton so... actually I don’t know what to get for a skeleton. He seems to like books, but he keeps pulling out these tomes and skill books from his pockets. And gold. Lots of gold. I bet it’ll be hard to find something he likes.

Maybe a bookmark? He tends to earmark his pages, which is a sin.

Note end.

The other spell Master has been teaching me, this one with actual instructions, is called Detect Magic.

It’s awesome.

The spell is really hard to cast. Really, really hard. I kept having big headaches whenever I didn’t get it just right, and my nose bled a lot until Alex (who’s a real sweetheart) gave me little nose plugs.

Master hinted that it was a good spell to help someone learn more magic later. I guess this is the flip side of the coin to Prestidigitation.

The one allows the caster to try all sorts of new spells, the other allows them to see  how those spells work. Master’s real clever. And really generous.

Like, this isn’t just teaching a disciple the starting motions of a new martial art, this is teaching the disciple the fundamentals of how to create their own art!

At least, I think that’s what’s going on.

Detect Magic is still hard to cast, but I can manage it. Master made sure I knew how, then he gave me my first ever mission. (Not counting that one time the Ashen Forest sect gave me a mission to ‘walk really really far away from here and never come back.’)

The objective was to observe and report on the golems stationed around the city, and some of those within. I spent a long time trying to think of ulterior motivations for the mission, but in the end I think the entire goal was to have me practice Detect Magic and maybe learn a little bit about golems.

If Master  really needs to observe some golems, I’m sure he could do it himself and learn a lot about them all on his own, probably a whole lot more than what I could learn about them.

So what he was actually testing was my ability to both use this new spell, and observe things.

That’s why I went all-out today. Visiting as many golems as I could, and casting Detect Magic until I felt dizzy and a nice stall salesman gave me a free drink because he thought I was going to faint.

I even got to meet one of the junior disciples from the Jade Golem sect who was tinkering on a smaller golem as I asked him some questions.

From what I discovered, the disciples use a sort of... connected tether magic to control their golems. There’s a sort of complex core in their middle, made of all sorts of precious metals and gems that helps them manipulate the golem.

See: Red Notebook Two: Observations of the Jade Golem Sect Mechanised Warriors

I hope that my notes are detailed enough to at least impress Master  a little. I really need him to teach me more.

I probably shouldn’t confess it here, but I’m a little bit desperate. I travelled almost the entire empire looking for someone to teach me, for some sect to take me in so that I could learn and become strong.

Half of them refused me because I’m a girl, and the other half for their own reasons. Because I asked too many questions, or because I was too weak. Master is the first to really give me a chance. I can’t mess this up.

That bastard Zhu Jiao is still out there, and I can’t imagine him getting weaker in the last year or so. I need to get strong, so much stronger.

I’ve seen Master fight, at least, a little. I don’t know if I can actually call it a fight when he just casually stopped time and eliminated a few dozen strong sect fighters with just two words. That’s how strong I need to be.

I don’t know where Master intends to move to next, but I’ll follow him all the way there, and I’ll learn all I can. Even if it means not having time to sleep or care for myself.

When I learned that Master  was a skeleton, I was a bit worried. The undead are taboo, in all the worst ways. There are no fines for raising the dead. It’s an immediate capital punishment. But then, Master does it all the time. So he has to be strong enough that even that doesn’t bother him.

He’s a very mysterious man, and very knowledgeable, but at the same time there are a bunch of things that he just doesn’t know about that are common sense.

I guess that might be my chance to make myself useful for  him! I can be the one filling those gaps for him. And in exchange, I’ll get to learn all sorts of magic. Actual magic!  And with that magic I’ll grow strong enough to avenge my family.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, and I think my notes are turning a little rambly.

I suppose I should catalogue everything I’ve done today, if only for future reference.

Once I was done studying what I could from the golems, I visited the market to buy a few little things. I found a nice shawl to replace my old one. It’s black and orange, in a chequered pattern. I couldn’t find anything made of the material that Master uses for his strange suit.

He called it ‘tweed’ once. It must be a very precious and expensive material if Master  uses it. It’s no wonder that I couldn’t find anything made of it at a market. But I was hoping to find a way to match Master at least a little.

All the other apprentices I’ve ever seen tend to match their masters a bit, and I always thought that was cool. But I can’t exactly be a skeleton like Master , so I’ll have to find something else.

Note: Ask Alex for fashion advice.

Unfortunately, I cut off my shopping early because there was a disturbance in the shopping district, and I don’t think I’m strong enough to be in a real fight yet. Not for a while.

I suspect that the art that Master is teaching me isn’t the best for someone who gets caught in close range. The chants are very long, and you need to focus a lot. Maybe there’s a way to alleviate some of that?

Note: Ask Master how a caster should fight.

My quest to find a neat gift for Master will have to wait.

I ended my day by returning to our rooms at the Come Inn and practising with Prestidigitation some more. I think I’m nearing a breakthrough again, I can feel it. Master seems to be able to tell when that’s happening, so I’ll have to ask him when he returns.

I ate a good, hearty meal, provided by the nice inn- keep  who was kind enough not to charge for it (which I suspect comes from Master  overpaying him by an order of magnitude for the room).

Getting fat won’t be a problem if we keep moving about so much, though I do worry about not learning any kind of martial art to compliment my casting. Master might be able to stop time and cast powerful spells with a few words, but I’m not there yet.

Tomorrow I’ll ask Master  to teach me even more spells. Maybe some that can help with that.

That reminds me:

Note: Remind Master that my name is Fenfang, not ‘Limpet.’

And....

Note: Ask Master  what a ‘Limpet’ is.

I think it’s going to be bedtime soon. I’ll try not to get caught up reading until the sun comes up again. Falling asleep leaning up against Master  was mortifying! Having Alex fuss away at the drool on Master’s arm, even if Master didn’t seem to mind or care, made me want to crawl my way into some hole.

I still need some sleep though, at least until I learn a spell to help with that. I bet it exists!

I suppose I’ll make some final notes and reminders here, just in case I forget what to do tomorrow. Master seems to really like things that are neat and organised, so I’ll do my best to be both of those things.

For tomorrow:

Practice Prestidigitation more. Master three simultaneous forms. Learn another use for the spell

Master Detect Magic enough to impress Master

Walk Fang Fang

If given time:

Go shopping for more essentials. Master doesn’t need things, but I do, and I don’t want to inconvenience him

Learn some more martial arts

Learn some more offensive spells if Master thinks I’m ready.

And my long term goal:

Find Zhu Jiao

Kill Zhu Jiao

I think that should do for now. I’m really looking forward to tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after. I’ve never been this excited before!

Sometimes, when I have a few minutes, I just stand and smile a bunch. I never imagined that I’d be this lucky. I’m never leaving Master’s side, not until I’ve learned every last thing he has to teach me!

Fenfang Fang’s Observation Log | Day Three - End

***

Chapter Twenty-One - A Maid's Uneventful Shopping Trip

Shen Hu was a constable for the Dolsrus guard force. He was a simple man who had a simple job: keep the streets of one of the most prosperous cities in the Empire safe and clean.

Crime, especially crime committed openly on the streets, had a nasty tendency to muddle with the local economy, which in turn made the lives of the cultivators in the local sect and temple more complicated, which in turn made Dolsrus less safe.

It was a vicious circle, but one that could be stopped early thanks to Shen and his colleagues. Many of those stirring up trouble were foreigners, people from other parts of the Empire on the way to the badlands to train, or south to wage war against the barbarian hordes.

They were cultivators.

Worse, they were hot-blooded young cultivators who thought that they were the hottest shit to leak out from whichever crevice they were born in.

That was why Shen Hu and his companions were tough men, often working with the backing of the Jade Golem sect to bring the most irritating fools back down to earth.

When Shen Hu got a call about a large disturbance in the shopping district, he expected to find two young idiots with bloody noses.

Not seventeen dead and one young... person in a pristine maid outfit standing above them all.

So he did the sensible thing and politely asked the maid if she... he wouldn’t mind answering a few questions. Notably: What in the world had happened here?

***

My name is Alex, I’m four days old, and I’m a butler.

I work for my Daddy, who is made of bones and magic. He is very strong, and very stoic, but deep down he’s also very nice. I love him lots, and want to make him very proud by being the best butler he’s ever had.

Sometimes I think that I don’t quite work the right way. But Papa made me this way, so I must be okay.

Today, Daddy gave me two things to do. The first was to bring a lot of gold to someone who could change it into the local currency. That way it’ll be easier for us to buy stuff if we want to.

The other thing is to go around and shop for some stuff we need, and if I have time, for stuff that I want.

My dad dy is really quite generous that way.

So, my first stop today was to a bank, where I had to open an account, then I tried to deposit the gold I had. They couldn’t exchange all of it though, since they didn’t have enough currency. I kept what I could and, based on what the nice lady at the counter said, went to a jewellers ’ to trade in some of the rest.

I also bought a nice purse to put everything in. See? It’s this one, with the silver clasps on the sides. It’s a very big purse, and I like the black lace along the edges. This is beds lace , it’s very well made. I think it’s cute, and I can fit all of our money in it. The jeweller gave me a very fair price for it.

So, with a lot of money in hand, I decided to get to the second part of my mission, to find some stuff that we might need on our trip, and then maybe buy a few things.

I actually found a really nice scarf for Test Subject Limpet. It has a white and red  chequered pattern, just like her shawl. I think it’s quite nice, and the person at the shop found another, smaller scarf with the same pattern that the Test Subject’s dog can wear. They’ll match and it will be very cute.

***

Shen Hu raised a hand, pausing the young man's story—Shen was pretty sure the maid was a man—mid way. “I’m terribly sorry,” he said. “But I was hoping that we could get to the actual, ah, important parts.”

Shen gestured to the street where a team of officers and some helpful lower-disciples from the Jade Golem were lifting bodies onto a pair of carts.

There were a lot of bodies.

The maid blinked twice, the little ears half hidden by a bonnet twitching. “Oh, yes. I was getting to that, officer. I just thought you wanted the full story.”

Shen glanced to his notes, which so far were not all that helpful. The suspect had purchased a purse and was carrying a large sum of money. That’s all he had really gotten out of that besides the maid’s name. “Perhaps we can move along, just a little?”

“Of course.”

***

Things started to go a bit bad when I was crossing from the east shopping district to the south district. There is, as you likely know, a little road with a few drinking and dining establishments there. It’s a very narrow road, but it seems like the fastest way to get from one area to the other.

A nice shopkeep I met at a cabbage stall said that the best shops are all in the south section, so that’s why I wanted to go there.

I was minding my own business, as a good maid does, when I was accosted by three young men. One of them barred my path while his companions came up behind me. He asked me if I wanted to spend some time with him.

I told him that I was quite busy, working for my Daddy, and that I didn’t have time for that.

He asked me if I could give him a peek under my skirts, which I found very rude. Besides, I haven’t found suitable tights yet despite looking, so my legs are quite bare and that’s just inappropriate to show in public.

I wished the young men a good day and was on my way when one of them grabbed my rear.

So I dislocated his arm before moving on.

***

“Wait!” Shen Hu said. His hands were raised in the universal gesture for ‘one moment.’ “Could you explain that last part in more detail?”

“The leaving, or the dislocating?” the maid asked.

“The dislocating.”

***

The moment I felt the material of my uniform pressing in around my rear I knew there would be some trouble.

I turned and found a grinning young man with an arm extending towards my backside. I grabbed his wrist with my free hand, pulled his arm straight, and slapped him right next to the armpit with my other hand.

It’s very easy to dislocate an arm if you apply the correct amount of force in the right direction, and it makes a very satisfying sound, like tapping a dustpan next to a trash can’s lid.

I decided to smooth things over with some good manners before leaving. “Please, don’t touch my person without permission. Good day, gentlemen.”

Once that was done and the man fell into the embrace of his companions, I returned on my trip towards the shopping district.

The cabbage salesman was quite right when he said the goods there were of greater quality. The increased prices matched that, but that is of little concern.

There I found a very nice shop filled with all sorts of dresses. I’m not too fond of the flowing garments the locals wear, but some of them have very nice materials in their construction, and you can tell that the people making them put a lot of effort into their craft.

The shop was set right between two stalls, one that sells very nice umbrellas, and another sells copper pans with all sorts of shapes and sizes.

It’s while I was speaking to a nice saleswoman about the quality of the imported silk they have that I noticed a commotion outside. A glance out the front of the shop revealed a large gathering of very strong looking young men. I counted eighteen in all.

“Hey, you,” one of them said. It was the young man whose arm I had dislocated. “Come out.”

I told the saleswoman to give me a moment, then I stepped out and asked the men if I could help them.

I won’t repeat the entire discussion, because they said some very rude things. As it turned out, the young man was well connected, and he had convinced his friends to take my Daddy’s gold to pay for someone to fix his arm.

When I told him no, he was very rude and threatened to kill me. So I decided that my duties as Papa’s butler took precedent. These men were trying to steal from me, to steal from Daddy, so I killed them.”

***

Shen Hu cleared his throat. “Could you, ah, perhaps give more details there?”

“If you wish.”

***

The first young man stepped up to me and removed a small knife from his pocket to threaten me with unless I gave him all of my gold.

So, since I had the advantage of being atop the first few steps of the store, I used the high ground to my advantage, slipped my purse off my shoulder, and with a quick spin that I executed while stepping down, flung my purse into his head.

Gold is quite heavy, you see.

I don’t know if he died when the gold hit him, or when his head hit the wall of the shop on the other side of the street.

My purse will need some cleaning up. It wouldn’t do to walk  around with something covered in brain matter. It’s very uncouth.

The young men didn’t seem to appreciate this, so they moved towards me.

If I’m to be honest, they really rubbed me the wrong way.

Oh.

I’ll need to tell that one to Daddy. He likes that kind of wordplay.

Anyway. I picked an umbrella from the stall next to the clothing shop, used the tip to poke one man through the eye, then used the hook to grab another’s ankle before stepping on his knee. He started making quite a bit of noise, so I kicked him in the side of the head before stepping up into the middle of the group.

One charged me with a knife, so I pushed his arm out of the way and let him stab one of his companions in the throat, then I ducked under another man’s rather wild swings.

That was actually quite fortuitous, because the one who’d been stabbed was bleeding all over and I didn’t want to get my dress dirty. It’s still new.

The one who swung at me died when I caved in his ribs with an elbow, then I used his body by grabbing him by the collar and ramming his head into the young man with the knife’s.

I lost my umbrella when I stabbed it through the chest of a young man who tried to tackle me, which left me utterly unarmed against the eleven remaining opponents.

Some of them had knives and short swords, so I spent a bit of time ducking and weaving out of their way until I reached the stall with the copper pans.

They’re surprisingly durable pans. Very good craftsmanship.

I placed a cauldron above one young man’s head, then punched it and his head off. See, the cauldron kept the blood from going everywhere, which is good because blood can be difficult to clean.

I used a skillet to counter one very talented young man’s sword swings while I battered another with a wok. Unfortunately the wok broke after caving in his skull, so I flung it under the feet of one of the men trying to run.

He died when his head hit the corner of a stall. That was on him.

The swordsman went down when I grabbed a saucepan. Daddy made me ambidextrous, so fighting with both hands full is quite easy.

I think the last bits of the fight were very anti-climatic once I found suitable weapons. Skillets are a little blunt along the edge, but they make excellent battering tools, and blunt wounds don’t splatter blood all over.

I think there were eight men left by that time. They didn’t last all that long.

***

Shen Hu looked around in his pockets for a cloth, then looked up when the maid offered him one with a polite smile. “Thank you,” he said as he used the handkerchief to wipe his brow. “You said there were eighteen men?” he said.

“Yes.”

“We counted seventeen,” Shen said.

The maid frowned, then looked back onto the street. “Did you look in the bin by the side of the street?”

“I don’t think so,” Shen admitted.

“Well, that is where trash goes.”

“Of course,” he said. “So, would you say that all of this was, ah, self-defence? A robbery gone wrong?”

“I suppose.”

“Good, good, that’s nice, nice and clear cut.”

The maid frowned, then raised a corner of his dress. “I could have done better. I got some blood on my apron. Lace is very hard to clean.”

“I can imagine,” Shen Hu said. He decided that the entire situation was entirely above his pay grade. “Well, that’s all the questions I had. If you could give us your address in case we have other questions, that would be appreciated.”

“Certainly. We’re only here for a few days, I think, then we’ll be on our way. Can I return to my shopping now?”

Shen Hu tried to smile. “Please do.”

***

Chapter Twenty-Two - A Matter of Economics and Sacrifice

“There used to be a lot of religious organisations around back in my day. I always found them somewhat annoying, but for the most part tolerable.

See, I have nothing against organised religion. It’s the gods I have problems with.”

***

I adjusted the collar of my greatcoat as I walked through the quiet streets of Dolsrus. There wasn’t much traffic, probably owing to the fact that there was a bit of a drizzle. It was that kind of miserable, cold drizzle that people who still have skin find so unpleasant to endure.

As I reached the northern end of the city and started to walk along the road lounging the shore, I developed something of a hypothesis on why the rain was so pitiful. The lake here was quite vast, the far end obscured by the horizon. More bizarrely, it was entirely still, the water barely moving at all except to the pitter-patter of raindrops.

It was very much possible that the lake, being so still, was slightly warmer than average for a body of water of that size. Which in turn would make the evaporation from its surface all the more common.

I’d need to ask if such rainfall was   frequent.

It was thanks to this sort of idle thinking that I reached the temple within what felt like mere minutes.

The Temple of the Silent Lake had a nice compound around it, a feature I was beginning to suspect was common with more powerful organisations in this time and age. There was one large pagoda-like building in its centre, with a polished brass symbol of a lake hanging off the front, and perhaps a dozen or so smaller buildings around that.

No gates or fences, though perhaps that made sense on account of the organisation being religious as opposed to military.

The priests of the Silent Lake temple (I really had to inquire about the name of their little religion) were all men in simple habits dyed a deep blue. They walked on slippered feet and with slow, careful steps that barely made any noise.

There was an abundance of ferns and bushes around the temple which seemed to help muffle the noise of the city. They were really living up to their name, not that I minded. The quiet would make  for a nice spot to read in, were it not for the aforementioned drizzle.

On reaching the doors of the main temple building I was greeted by a young man who bowed and extended a notepad and pen  my way.

“Greetings,” I said.

He shook his head, smiled, and offered the notepad once more.

I caught on.

It seemed that talking was taboo here. Writing things down in order to communicate back and forth would be a pain, especially since I’d be using magic to transcribe everything into the local tongue, but I was a guest, I could abide by the kind of rule if only out of common courtesy.

“Greetings. My name is Harold. I’m here because I’m quite curious about the local god, and would like to see them for myself,” I wrote.

The young man, or priest I suppose, read the note and flipped over a few pages to one that had already been written on.

Greetings esteemed guest(s) to the Silent Temple of our lady of the serene Silent Lake.

We welcome you in the name of our lady, and hope that all is well with you.

Our temple prides itself on blessing and helping the Dolsrus community, and being a source of comfort and assistance to all. If you wish to obtain the blessings of our lady, you may do so with nothing more than a few small donations. The donation packages are outlined below:

Basic Donation:  Any donation below the threshold for the Standard Donation limit. At this tier you are rewarded with the gratitude of the Silent Temple!

Standard Donation:  Any donation in excess of 500 Imperial Scrip. We will mention you, in name, to the lady, that she may consider blessing you!

Premium Donation:  Any donation in excess of 2000 Imperial Scrip. You may consult with one of the senior members of the temple, and will receive one blessing of your choice a month!

Premium Jade Donation:  Any donation in excess of 5000 Imperial Scrip. The lady will bless you, your name, and your family that you may be prosperous in all the months to come!

I lowered the page and eyed the smiling priest.

This was beginning to feel like something of a joke. I hadn’t seen such a mercenary system for blessings since I’d visited the temple of Gacha, the god of greedy merchants.

I flipped back to the blank page and carefully wrote a reply. “How much would it cost to be able to see the lady myself?”

The priest shook his head and wrote out his reply in a flowing script. “I’m afraid, esteemed guest, that such would not be possible.”

There was a small podium-like desk right next to the door, likely to help those who had never written in a notepad while standing up. I placed a brick of gold on that.

The priest smiled and bowed at me. I suspect that he misunderstood. So I set a second brick down. Then a third. Then a fourth.

The priest’s eyes were starting to go a little wide when I took the notepad back. “How much would it cost to be able to see the lady myself?” I wrote again.

The young man licked his lips and glanced over his shoulder. “Your generosity is incredible, dear guest, but—” He stopped mid-way through his sentence when I added two bars to the stack. “I will speak to my seniors. One moment, please.”

I was quite proud of myself as the young man ran off. Any organisation this hungry for money would be easy to bribe, of course. And if I couldn’t bribe them directly, maybe I could pay for renovations to their temple or something like that.

I was soon greeted by a man in a far more elaborate robe who came by and bowed deeply at the waist. He had the same sort of obsequious smile as the young man who had greeted me, though there was a gleam of something nearly predatory in his eyes.

Turning the notepad around, I presented him the page I’d written on while alone. “Greetings. My name is Harold, and I would dearly like to greet your Lady in person. If you would do me the honour of allowing this, then I would be more than willing to pay a very handsome amount for the privilege. Unfortunately, for reasons that I shall not get into, I can only pay your esteemed temple in untraceable gold bars. You may verify the validity of these at your convenience, of course.”

The priest nodded along, then put on a saddened expression.

I had to resist the urge to roll my non-existent eyes as I pulled out a pair of gold bars, then another. The podium creaked under the accumulated wealth and the priest’s smile returned. He gestured to the young greeter to take the gold, something the young man had some difficulty with, and then for me to follow him.

He wrote as we walked into the temple proper. “We give offerings to our lady every evening, as the sun nears setting. It is a rare and great honour to have someone outside of the temple view this.”

I nodded in lieu of writing down my thanks.

The main temple wasn’t anything too impressive. It was a clean building, with some decorations here and there, and padded floors that made our steps near perfectly quiet, but there wasn’t anything too special about it.

I was brought to a waiting room and handed a set of instructions that I would need to follow while attending the daily ceremony.

For the most part, the instructions could be summed up as ‘remain quiet.’ That wasn’t terribly difficult for me to do. I didn’t even need to breathe, and I didn’t have a beating heart. I was quieter than most already.

It actually took some time before the priest returned. He had a long habit atop his robes now, and a wrapping over the lower part of his face. He gestured for me to follow and I did so.

We joined a procession of four more priests, all dressed similarly, though I could guess at their rank based on the amount of decoration embroidered into their clothes.

They were leading a goat along a tether, one that had its mouth shut with a length of ribbon, and whose hooves were wrapped in cloth. That didn't stop it from being the noisiest creature in the room, but it was something.

The priests moved about with the ease of long routine, then finally set out, one of them leading me after them.

We exited out the back of the temple into a foggy evening, the ground wet and the skies still grey, but the rain had stopped while I was within the temple. We marched over to the shore, to a spot where a bridge was just barely visible under the water. The priests in the lead both carried lamps that illuminated the bridge below. Handy, with the sun dipping towards the horizon.

Across the bridge was a large pagoda, seemingly floating just over the water.

I held back a sigh as I followed the priests. My oxfords were going to need to be dried out once everything was done. Likewise for the hem of my pants.

On reaching the pagoda, one of the priests pulled a large key from a necklace and slotted it into the side of the building’s front door, then he slid it aside to allow us access.

Those with lamps went in first, and soon they were sharing their flames to other lamps, lighting up the interior of the building.

I had expected a normal temple, perhaps something as simple as the main building on the shore, but the interior of this one was nearly hollow. A glance up revealed the many ceilings above, with a little light coming in from their windows.

The centre of the room was a hole leading into the lake below, with an area all around it separated by rails.

One section jutted out and down into the water. That is where the priests brought in the goat.

I was led to the side where I could watch the proceedings without interfering.

With an expert tug, one of the young men tipped the goat onto its side with a splash, then his companion brought out a sharp knife and opened the creature’s throat.

The water soon filled with a hazy red as the goat thrashed and kicked, its protests growing feeble and slow.

I was beginning to wonder if the entire thing was a farce when I sensed an inkling of divine magic starting to run through the water, water that was starting to spin, but without any noise to it.

The lake swelled up in its middle, and from that swelling rose, with the slow grace of someone coming awake, a vast serpentine form.

It was a woman, one whose nude  (and rather anatomically incorrect) upper body was covered in fine scales rather than skin, and whose head had the flattened, somewhat off-putting features of a lamia. Though, unlike the lamia I knew, this one radiated divine magic, and glowed with a faint inner light.

The air still around it, all sound ceasing.

The creature’s lower body, a long, winding serpent, wasn’t entirely visible. Most of it was swallowed by the deep waters.

It opened a pair of slitted eyes, and looked hungrily at the goat below.

I watched, quiet as the others, as the kami ate its fill.

“Speak,” it whispered once the last of the goat was gone down its gullet.

One of the priests stepped forwards and bowed before whispering so quietly that even I had difficulty hearing him. “My Lady,” he began before delivering a report that was actually quite dull. It ended when he gestured my way. “And we have a great and esteemed guest who made a wondrous sacrifice to you, my lady.”

“Greetings,” I said at a perfectly normal volume.

“You dare speak without turn!” the serpent woman said.

“I suppose I do. Though I did wait for him to introduce me, at least in part.” I let my disguise fall away. “Hello. I’m Harold.”

“Oh, shit,” the goddess said.

***

Chapter Twenty-Three - A Godly Chat

“I know this might sound a little... oh, I don’t even know what the right word for it would be. Pompous? Braggy? Ah, regardless. I can recall a time where just about every person in the world knew me, or of me.

I kind of miss that sense of instant and total respect.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t well known because of my scientific discoveries.”

***

I straightened the lapels of my jacket and gave the little goddess my best skeletal smile. “Do you happen to remember me?” I asked.

It wasn’t impossible that she did, in fact, remember me. After all, two millenia wasn’t all that long to an immortal, and while I had certainly cleared out the pantheon back in my day, that wasn’t to say that I killed every god.

I’m hardly a homicidal maniac. Just a scientist.

The goddess, and I really did need to discover her name at some point, backed away to the far end of the room, then she started to sink down into the waters around her.

“If you run away, I will have to retrieve you,” I warned.

The snake-woman paused.

Her priests were eyeing me with mixed expressions. I suspect that some of them might have been contemplating attacking me. The one with the knife that had slit the goat’s throat was tightening his hand around its handle, bleeding off nervous energy.

“Perhaps you should tell your companions here to leave,” I suggested.

“Who are you to speak to the—” one of the priests began in a low, hissing whisper.

“Stop,” the goddess said. “Stop. Just go, all of you. Leave that thing alone. It is beyond you.”

The priests backed away with all the bowing and scraping one could expect from people in their particular line of work. “That’s appreciated,” I said.

“You’re really Harold,” she said. I couldn’t quite tell, because her voice was still a low whisper, but I had the impression she was a little scared.

“I am,” I said. “No need to worry. I’m just here to ask some... questions.”

The goddess and the entire lake shivered. “You’re dead,” she said.

“Undead, actually.”

“No, the god of death, he...”

“Oh yes, he barred me from unlife, something about the undead being his domain and so on. He’s dead. Not undead, ironically enough, just plain old dead.” I waved the comment off dismissively. “If you’re wondering where I’ve been these past two millennia or so, I was asleep. I’m waiting for the opportune time to set up a certain experiment.”

The lamia backed away even more. “You’re here to kill the rest of us,” she whispered.

The twin green orbs floating in my eye sockets rolled. “If that was the case, I’d hardly be here for a chat.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What are you here for, then?”

“Just a chat. I said as much already. Please try to keep up.”

“I never did anything to you,” she said. “I’m a new goddess. The goddess of this lake. I don’t matter much. You want the bigger gods. The old ones from the before times.”

I tilted my head every so slightly to one side. “You’re quick to throw your peers away.”

“I have no peers,” she said.

“I see.” I patted down my coat. The bottom of it was a bit waterlogged, which was quite annoying as it stuck to my equally wet pant legs. “Do you have a name?”

“I am She Who Watches, Silent from the Deep.”

I looked up to her. “I said a name, not a title.”

She had the good graces to blush a little even as she puffed her chest out and tried to keep hold of her injured dignity. “I am Snek.”

“Pleased to meet you. I sense that you’re rather weak for a god. You might very well be telling the truth about being rather new.”

She bristled, her hands opening and closing for a moment before she crossed her arms and glared with impotent rage. “What do you want?”

“As I said, I just woke up quite recently. Some young fool disturbed my sleep. I noticed that a few things aren’t working as they ought to, so I figured I’d get to the bottom of that, maybe patch things up along the way. Oh, and I want to see what the current pantheon is like. The last one was a mess.”

The waters in the room’s centre shifted and Snek lowered herself a little while also approaching me. “Are you going to kill the great gods again?”

“It takes a while for gods to become great, if you even want to use that term for such power-hungry and uncivilised creatures. But to answer your question, no, I have no intention of killing any gods or godlings. Not unless I feel that the world would be a better place without them.”

Snek glared, but she relented soon enough. “You won’t kill me?”

“I don’t intend to,” I said. “And I haven’t yet discovered that you do anything too terrible. You seem to lead some fools on in order to get some daily meals, but I can look past that.”

She nodded and slid just a little closer. “When the pantheon finds out that you’re alive they will panic.”

“How unfortunate for them,” I said. “Now, I have a few questions.”

She shuddered again. “They say that is how you started the last great war. By asking questions.”

“No. I started that because I found answers that I wasn’t satisfied with,” I clarified. “Who is in charge of the current pantheon?”

Snek shifted. “No one. There’s a council now.”

“A council? That’s certainly a step up. Who’s on it?”

“No one you would know, God-Killer.”

“It’s Harold,” I said. “And I suppose that that makes sense. How many members are there in this council?”

“Seven. There are seven. I’m too small and weak to be part of it.” She looked on the verge of pouting.

“How unfortunate. And where does the council meet?”

There was a very dangerous gleam in the snake-goddess’ eyes. Like someone who had just found someone else to do all of their dirty work for them. I think she wanted to use me. Not that I minded all that much. She could think whatever she wanted.

“They meet at the top of the Path to Heaven. It’s to the northeast of my lake.” She gestured more or less in that direction then slid her arm back over the other. “That’s where you’ll want to go to get your answers.”

“Some of my answers,” I said. “I may have more questions for you. What happened to the system?”

Snek shrugged. “I don’t know. It broke.”

“Why?”

“Aren’t you the one that broke it?” she asked.

“No, actually. At least, I don’t think so.” I tapped my chin a few times and tried to think back to anything I’d done that might have broken things. Nothing came to mind.

“We don’t need the system anyway,” Snek said. “We’re fine the way we are.”

“Having a system would encourage scientific reasoning and growth,” I countered.

“That’s what made you.”

I hummed. That was a good rejoinder. Had the system been disabled—or rather, changed—to counter the possibility of another man becoming too powerful? That sounded somewhat likely.

“Interesting. Another question then, has anyone changed anything about magic? The way it works, the weave?”

Snek shook her head. “No. Not since the god of magic... not since you ate the god of magic.”

“I didn’t quite eat it,” I corrected. “And that’s good to hear.”

“There are lots of minor gods of magic, most of them stuck to a dao of one sort or another.” She stuck her head up. “Most are very weak.”

“I see. What happened to the gods after I left?”

Snek hissed. “It was ruined. The whole world. No gods to keep things in order and... and we coped. We tried our best, and now the world is okay once more.”

Hardly. “Do all the gods remember me as you do?”

Snek shook her head. “I’m new, but not that new. I was alive when you were last active, but I was small, less than a godling then. Others, the truly new ones. They appeared later, some hundreds of years later, others even more recently. These godlings will not know of you as any more than stories.”

I gave her a skeletal grin. “Good. I do like the idea of starting over.”

“You’ll be hunted and killed,” Snek said. Then she backpedalled. “Not by me. But the council? The new pantheon? They do not like the idea of newcomers growing too strong. They won’t tolerate you.”

“How unfortunate for them.” I had a few more curiosities to dig into, but having all the answers just given to me wasn’t nearly as amusing as discovering them myself. “I think I’ll be off, Snek. But I might be back, one of these days. Do try to behave.”

The goddess swallowed. “Go. Please.”

I nodded to her, set my coat on straight, and stepped out of the pagoda.

I was greeted on the bridge by a dozen priests with spears and swords, all of them glaring daggers at me.

“Mass Teleport.”

A dozen splashes sounded out in the lake some hundred or so necrometers  behind me. They probably knew how to swim, being priests of a lake goddess and all.

Now that my path was clear, I adjusted my greatcoat, reapplied my disguise magic, and hummed a little ditty to myself as I walked through the temple compound. No one chose to confront me. I reached the main streets of Dolsrus and, after a bit of reorientation, started to make my way back towards the inn.

My curiosity, far from being sated, was actually very much inflamed. I now had an excuse, an opportunity, to head out and explore this not-quite-new world a little more. And perhaps I didn’t need to wait until the end of time to recreate it as I wanted.

But that would have to be a small side project. My next stop would be the Path to Heaven, where I would hopefully be able to interrogate someone who knew a little bit more about what was going on.

In the meantime, I had a limpet to experiment on, and a maid to give my pants to. They kept sticking to my bony legs and at that moment, that bothered me more than any gods.

When I arrived at the Come Inn, it was to find the first floor of the inn rowdy and loud with eating customers and a few nearly-drunk rabble rousers. I didn’t mind the chaos so much; it was a nice nostalgic return to the days when I was one of those adventurers in a tavern somewhere.

In my rooms, the chaos was entirely different.

“Papa!” Alex said as he looked up from his spot kneeling in the bathroom. His dress was currently in the tub, and he had a brush in hand. “If you want me to clean your pants, now’s the time. I’m cleaning the blood off my dress.”

“Did anything happen?” I asked.

“Not really,” Alex said. “What about with you?”

“A rather uneventful evening, actually,” I said. “Is the limpet here?”

“She’s sleeping.”

I nodded. “I suppose we can wait until the sun comes back up before we head out. We’re going to the Path to Heaven tomorrow. I have some people I want to ask a few questions of.”

“Okay, Daddy,” Alex said. “I hope you get all the answers you want.”

“I don’t,” I said. “That wouldn’t be nearly as fun.”

***

Chapter Twenty-Four - A Time to Go

“You know, I can be somewhat sneaky at times.”

***

I eyed the map the limpet had given me.

The Silent Lake was a rather large body of water, one that we’d need to circumvent in order to make it to the Path to Heaven.

The problems were many:

Firstly, it would take some time to get there. By carriage, assuming the map was accurately scaled (which I doubted) it would take over a week.

Secondly, we would be coming from a known location, taking a known route. Our path would be predictable.

And thirdly, I wasn’t in a travelling mood.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a spot of adventure, and the travelling to and from points of interest is a big part of that. Some of my best ideas came as I rode in the back of a wagon or walked along a woodland trail.

I genuinely enjoyed travelling and seeing new sights, but this situation might call for something a little... faster.

Teleporting right to the top of this Path to Heaven might set off a few alarms, and while I was confident in my skills, I wasn’t certain if I could take on every member of this new pantheon on my own without first studying them in depth.

A mage fought by knowing their enemy and preparing accordingly. In this situation I was on the backfoot.

I tapped a boney finger to the map, then traced the route around the western shore of the Silent Lake, up around the mountains to the north, then into the path leading up to our next destination.

I had an idea.

Looking up, I took in the room at a glance. Alex was standing at attention nearby, his hands folded over his stomach and a careful smile on his lips. The limpet was at the far end of the table from me, a spoon hovering next to her mouth with one hand while she stared into a notebook, her food forgotten.

“Alex, I need a large bowl, one filled with water.”

Alex curtsied. “I can get that for you right away, Sir Papa.”

The limpet looked up from her studies. “What’s the bowl for?” she asked before noticing the spoonful of porridge she was holding up and taking a bite from it.

“I will be using it to scry ahead. We will be moving out of Dolsrus in a few minutes.”

“Oh! I’ll pack my things then.” The limpet hopped off her seat and ran over to her room, and soon things were flying into her satchel. “I need to feed Fang Fang!”

I watched her run by, take two big gulps from her porridge, then run off with the bowl.

What a strange girl.

Alex soon returned cradling a glass bottle under one arm and holding a bowl in the other. He set both before me, popped the cork off the bottle and filled the bowl without so much as a splash. “Is this enough, Papa?”

“It’s sufficient, thank you.” I dipped a finger into the water and allowed an inkling of divine magic to suffuse the bowl.

“Scry.”

The water wavered for a moment, the bottom of the bowl stretched out, as if replaced by a shifting mirror, then a kaleidoscopic reflection of the ceiling above twisted around before being replaced with an eagle-eyed view of Dolsrus from above, centered right over the Come Inn.

“Let’s see  which route is best, shall we? Oh hoho !”

I flicked my fingers forwards and the image in the bowl shifted with the motion, first moving further away from the earth, then moving northwards.

Scrying was a tricky bit of magic. Not so much the actual casting. All one needed was a bit of holy water or a crystal ball, an idea of who or what they wanted to scry and a bit of time. You could even turn normal water into holy water if you knew what you were doing, making the casting far easier.

The tricky part was controlling the scry, moving the point from which you were seeing. The sensor wasn’t tied to the plane, not in the way something physical would be. Which made moving it harder than it seemed.

Had I a tongue, it would have been pinched between my teeth as I brought the sensor over the northern shore of the Silent Lake, then moved up and over a mountain range.

The range here was bizarre, with mountains that were like great columns instead of the more triangular peaks I was used to seeing. I wondered what geological shift caused that to happen, but it was a consideration for another time.

The woods around that area were sparse, probably owing to the rocky soil, but they were still vibrant and green, a change from the Badlands just to the east.

Was it the distance from the Badlands that changed that, or was it the mountains cutting off the wind? I had so many little curiosities to dig into!

“I think I found a place,” I said as I shifted the sensor higher and took in a much broader view of the area. There was a road leading from the west, through the mountains, and to a small city that was more or less where the Path to Heaven was on the limpet’s map.

“Where’s that?” Alex asked.

“If we appear along this road here, we can simply walk to the Path to Heaven. We’ll seem like normal travellers, or pilgrims. The road leads in from the northwest.”

“Is Papa trying to avoid suspicion?” Alex asked.

I leaned back into my seat. It was actually a valid question. From what I’d seen so far, there wasn’t much that could threaten me outright, not unless the local gods mounted a concerted effort against me. Even then, I could probably escape.

On the other hand, there was a great deal of value in being inconspicuous. Being underestimated was the bread and butter of a weaker mage, and it was something that I’d always enjoyed as it gave me a favourable edge.

Also, I liked being left along to do my science, and I was running a few experiments that would work better with less interference. The limpet’s training, for one, and seeing how the world’s culture had changed.

I didn’t doubt for a moment that some ingenious people had come up with new sciences and disciplines that I’d never thought of, and I wanted to see those at work.

“No Alex, we’re not trying to avoid suspicion. We’re trying to avoid trouble,” I said. I found a nice, suitable location next to a small river and only a few hundred paces from a cleared road, then dismissed my scry spell.  “Get everything ready to go, Alex. I’ll be in the backyard.”

“Yes, Papa!”

I got up while Alex packed our few things away. He’d found a purse at some point, and a few simple cloth bags besides.

Stepping out of the inn room, I found the limpet making her way up stairs. “We’re heading out in a moment,” I said. ‘If you want to come with us, then I’d suggest getting ready in a jiffy.”

“Yes, Master!” the limpet said.

I patted her atop the head to reward her for behaving, then moved down and out to the back. The inn had a small courtyard that the owner had turned into a simple, understated rock garden with a few fragrant flowers and a nice bench.

I walked over to the patch of small rocks and started marking out a symbol in the ground using a Mage Hand. Teleportation was one of those spells where taking your time to make sure everything was done right was always worth the trouble.

Alex came down just as I finished preparing everything. “Where do I put our things?” Alex asked as he lifted one of his bags.

“Just there,” I said with a gesture towards the ring I’d made. “Are you certain you’ll be able to travel with all of that?” He seemed to have a lot of pots and pans and other such paraphernalia.

“Yes, Daddy.”

“Well, it’s your back.”

Limpet and her dog appeared in a rush, the girl’s face flushed as she ran over and her dog bounced behind her and barked as if it was a game. “I’m here!” she said.

“Good. I’m aware that you’re familiar with being teleported, but this time there’s no lake to catch your fall. Brace yourself.”

“Greater Teleport.”

The three of us—four if you counted the dog—appeared in a little wooded area. The sudden absence of city noises and the influx of bird calls and the gurgling of a nearby river was a bit of a shock to the system, as was the change in pressure. At least, it was a change to the two members of our group that were still alive.

“Whoa,” the limpet said as she swayed dizzily. She blinked a few times, then looked around. “Whoa!”

“Indeed,” I said. “Now, I do believe the road is due south from here.” I pointed in the right direction. “Shall we?”

The limpet stayed by my side as I led us down and through the forest. Her dog ran out ahead, sniffing at this and that as dogs did, and Alex took up the rear with all of our things clanging and banging and no doubt scaring away the local wildlife.

“Do you think I can learn how to do that?” the limpet asked. “Teleporting, I mean?”

“Do you remember what I said about the difficulty tiers of spells?” I asked.

The limpet nodded. “I do. And I took notes. The tier is based on the difficulty to cast, and the level of danger presented by a spell if poorly used.”

“A sufficiently accurate summation,” I said as I moved a branch out of my way. “How are you coming along with Detect Magic?”

“I’m getting there,” the limpet said. “I still need more practice before I’ve perfected it, but I will.”

“That’s a first tier spell. A second tier spell would be twice as complicated to learn and master. A third tier spell twice again as difficult. Teleport is a seventh tier spell.”

I refrained from laughing at the consternation on the limpet’s face. “That will take a while to learn.”

“If you did nothing but focus on a tier seven spell, I suspect it would take you about four to five months to learn how to cast it. Once. I don’t think you’d survive that one casting.”

“Darn,” the limpet said. “If I don’t learn just that spell, then... what should I do to get stronger?”

“There are many paths to power. You could focus on a single school of magic. That would make learning in that one speciality easier in the long run. Or you could generalise and learn a bit of everything, scaling up as you go.”

“What did Master do?”

“I learned everything I could about magic, regardless of school.”

She nodded. “Then I’ll do the same.”

“What I did wasn’t the wisest course. It worked for me in the end, but were I to start over, I would do many things differently. That’s one of the hardest lessons to learn as a scientist, that no matter how clever you are, more often than not, you’ll still never see the entire picture, and because of that, you’ll always be just a little bit wrong.”

The limpet huffed. “That’s not what I expect to hear from Master.”

“The truth?”

“That you’re not.... I don’t know. All powerful?”

I snorted. “I’m powerful, not all powerful. There’s more left to learn than I’ve uncovered. The more I discover, the more questions I have.”

The limpet nodded.

“What school do you want to focus on? Or schools, for that matter. I know all of them well enough to teach them to you.”

The limpet grinned. “What are my options?”

I gave her a skeletal grin right back. “Let’s start from the top, then.”

***

Chapter Twenty-Five - A Lesson in Schooling

“You know how the undecided tend to want to do all sorts of things? One day they want to be a farmer, the next a great scholar, the next a politician?

I never really outgrew that.”

***

We reached the road in due time and took a moment to reorient ourselves, then we were off. I estimated a few hours at a leisurely pace before we reached the Path to Heaven, or at least the city nearest that.

“Let’s start from the beginning. There are, generally speaking, eight major schools of magic. These are magics whose casting and focus tend to overlap so much that learning one spell in a school will often make learning the next easier. That isn’t to say that you can’t skip from one school to another though.”

“Like learning a dao or some advanced martial art helps you get in shape to learn another,” the limpet said.

“That’s a decent analogy, yes.” I placed my hands at the small of my back and walked on. “The schools are actually quite loose at times. They’re not a manifestation of the system—though the system does acknowledge them—or of magic, but rather an attempt by sentients to better classify and pigeonhole the esoteric. Still, they have their uses.”

“I think I get it,” the limpet said. She wasn’t looking where she was going, focusing instead on the notebook she was scribbling in. Her dog was walking by her side, nudging her with its flank so that she didn’t go off the road.

“I won’t demand that you begin with any one school, so you can choose whichever you wish. Though some are a little esoteric and rather dangerous,” I said. “And switching later is a non-issue. I would advise against studying more than two at once. That way leads to stretching yourself too thin.”

The limpet nodded. “Great! So what are the schools?”

“From the top. An abjuror, or a mage specialising in abjuration, is one that uses magic to cast protections upon themselves and their allies. It’s a school that also has quite a few spells meant to protect from more esoteric harm. Protection from Evil is a staple spell, for example. You can also stop scrying and other Divination-based attacks and even conceal your presence a little. It’s a defensive school of magic.”

“Defensive, got it,” the limpet said as she scratched out a line in her book. “I... don’t know if that’s the school for me. My goals aren’t to be safe. Not  just  safe, in any case.”

“Very well then. A conjuror or conjurationist is a mage that can tap into the magic of the plane itself in order to press the weave into other dimensions and pull things from there. Initially these are simple things. Pulling heat from the Elemental Plane of Flames and so on. Later on, with more experience, a conjurationist can summon creatures to bind and serve them.”

“That sounds strong,” the limpet said. “What kind of creatures?”

“Everything from elementals to demons. At the highest tiers you could conjure storms and magical phenomena that can be quite destructive. The cast times are long though, and the materials can be difficult to obtain for certain spells.”

The limpet nodded. “I like that one better than Abjuration.”

“Hmm,” I agreed. “Next... I suppose if we’re continuing in alphabetical order, the next school would be Enchantment.  This is a strange one. Or so I’ve always found. The school’s main ideals seem to be split two ways. Part is focused on Enchanting objects and such, that is, making them more powerful and increasing their usability. Another part, not quite as great, is focused on Enchanting people.”

The limpet frowned. “How do you enchant a person?”

“Spells that affect the mind directly are generally classified as Enchantments,” I explained. “Things like Charm Person. And Fear.”

“Huh,” the limpet said. “Okay. That sounds useful, but I don’t know if it’s what I’m looking for. Conjuration sounds better.”

“It’s a very powerful school of magic,” I said. “It’s not one for direct combat, but rather a kind of magic that can turn organizations on their heads and twist nations apart.”

The limpet eyed me for a bit. “Have you used it that way?”

“I’ve run a few experiments,” I temporized. “Divination is the school that governs the ability to perceive things. Your Detect Magic spell is a simple example. Some allow a caster to scry and see things from afar, others allow the user to predict the future. Otherwise,  it’s likely the least useful or powerful school. Don’t underestimate its utility, but it’s a school meant for those who are willing to plan things out years and decades in advance, setting up dominos and letting them play out as they want.”

“Scary,” she said.

“It is. I’ve studied the school, of course, but perhaps not as much as the others. Now, this next school might interest you. Evocation. The casting school, one focused almost entirely on pure destructive capabilities.”

The limpet perked up. “Oh?”

“Indeed. By tapping into the weave itself and twisting the resulting magic into a specific form, you can unleash a wide variety of effects. From Fireballs to Magic Missiles. It’s likely the most powerful school in terms of direct-damage abilities. It tends to be the most linearly strong school across the board, with each tier growing upon the last. There are a few utility spells in there as well. Healing abilities and such, though they’re not the greatest.”

“I like it! I think that’s the school I want to learn from.”

I could imagine the Fireballs already. Evokers tended to think that Fireball solved everything, and if one application of arcane fire didn’t work, then the solution was a second application of the same. “There are more schools.”

“Of course Master. I’m ready!”

“Illusion is similar to Enchantment, though instead of twisting a person’s mental faculties, you change their perceptual ones. Everything from invisibility, to spells designed to confuse and beguile. It’s not directly harmful, but has perhaps the greatest creative uses.”

The limpet nodded. “Got it.”

“Not interested?” I asked.

“Not enough Fireballs.”

“Of course. The next is one of my personal favourites, Necromancy. The magical science of the soul. The school has a fair number of utility spells in it, many of which revolve around getting the caster used to playing with souls and the dead and tapping into necrotic powers for good and ill.”

“You can do good things with Necromancy?”

“You can do good with nearly anything, if you’re creative enough. You can hurt people with nearly anything too, and that doesn’t require nearly as much creativity. Necromancy’s staple spells start at the third tier, until then there are a few useful abilities.”

“I think,” the limpet began before pausing. “I think I’d like to become a Necromancer.”

“There’s one other school to mention before we start anything,” I said. “Transmutation. A school focused on transformation via the application of very precise magic. Not necessarily dangerous, not until you learn that flesh is transmutable too. Certainly the school that is most likely to make one rich.”

The limpet shook her head. “I don’t need riches. Well... okay, so that wouldn’t hurt, but I would much rather be powerful.” She nodded seriously and lowered her notebook. “I— Master, can I learn more than one school at once?”

“You can.”

“Then Evocation and Necromancy. I think they’ll click together really well, and I’ll be just like Master  one day. But for now, I need to be really strong and really smart.”

I couldn’t tell if the limpet was genuine, or if she was just being sycophantic. Either way, I’d take the compliment. “There are other schools, though these tend to be small and not quite as complete.  Artificers use machines to enhance magic, and magic to enhance machines. Chronomancers can manipulate time, and tend to erase their own existence too often to create a proper school. Clerical magics are about the worship of the divine. Alchemists take simple ingredients and turn them into magical concoctions.”

“Can you teach me those too? Not now, but... later?”

“ Certainly, though perhaps only after you’ve mastered these first two. ” I tapped my chin, considering what the best step would be from this point on.

Diving headlong into teaching her about the two schools was an obvious first step, but it might impede my research. No, it would be best to give her the tools, and perhaps a lesson or two, then see how she managed to deploy these on her own.

“We’ll start with a pair of cantrips, one from each school. Frostbite for Evocation. Sapping Sting  for Necromancy.”

The limpet raced to pull out her spellbook and open it to a new page. “I’m listening, Master.”

“Frostbite is a relatively simple spell. You use the weave to mark a target, then turn the area immediately around them cold. It’s a wonderful spell to use against those unprepared for the cold, or those who are particularly weak to it. Soldiers in full plate are susceptible, for example, as are certain wild creatures.”

“Awesome!”

I rooted around and checked my dimensional bag until my fingers brushed against an old spellbook. A gesture had the limpet giving me her own, and a simple spell copied over the pages with the details for Frostbite into her book. I did the same with Sapping Sting.

“Sapping Sting is an interesting spell. It can, effectively, be used to heal yourself by sapping some of the vitality from a foe. That healing is very much temporary. The increase to your vitality will fade along with the spell. Keep that in mind while using it. You don’t want to die the moment the spell wears off on an opponent.”

“Got it.”

“The spell itself causes a mild pain and reduces your opponent’s constitution. It’s not terribly lethal, but can be used to subdue or at least weaken a foe. The components aren’t anything special, and the spell is an instant cast. It’s a good way to save yourself some pain in a hurry.”

The limpet nodded so quickly her haid bounced and bobbed.

“Well, go on, start studying.” I handed her back her notebook. “And don’t stop practising your other spells.”

“Yes Master! Come on Fang Fang!”

I watched the limpet run out ahead. I was feeling a strange sort of contentment about everything working out as they had so far. I could imagine the limpet growing into a fearsome wizard one day. She’d need to set aside some of her tendency to only think of the violent applications of magic, but that would come with maturity, I suspected.

“The limpet is a good girl,” Alex said.

I snorted. “Yes, I suppose so,” I agreed. “When we arrive at the Path to Heaven, keep an eye on her. She’s not quite ready to be caught in the collateral of a fight with divinity involved.”

“I’ll protect her, as a good maid should.”

I nodded. “Good,” I said. “We’ll have quite a bit on our hands soon enough. It would be a shame to abandon this test subject, but until then we’ll see what we can glean from her.”

“She’s nice,” Alex said. “And Bone Papa likes her because he’s nice too.”

“Hardly,” I said. “Now, give me a few minutes. I have some thinking to do.”

There were going to be challenges ahead that someone as young and foolhardy as the limpet would not be ready to face. Not by a long shot. Perhaps I could teleport her to relative safety? Unfortunately, the test subject wasn’t yet at a point where she could be considered self-sufficient.

I shook my head and set all that sentimental nonsense aside. I wasn’t here for the limpet. I was here to have a nice, agreeable meeting with the local pantheon, and perhaps to make sure that everything was copacetic.

***

Chapter Twenty-Six - A Knock at the Door

“Your gods are... frankly, a bit pitiful.”

***

The presence of divinity could be felt. It was something that even an untrained peasant could feel, though they might not know what that strange pressure over their back was.

Perhaps I should take a moment to explain what divinity actually is.

It was, at one time, a question that plagued me. I was never one to seek power for power’s sake. I wanted magic, to see and understand the spark that made life and all the wonderful things around me work. Divinity, for the longest time, was something I considered one step removed from the weave, from magic.

After all, what the gods do with their own power can often not be reproduced with magic.

Or so I once thought.

Once my curiosity was piqued and I dissected my first couple of demons and angels in a quest to understand what made them tick, I discovered that divinity wasn’t entirely separate from magic, but was a sort of offshoot from it.

An animal is an animal and a plant is a plant, but in the end, they both share some similarities and often require some of the same things to function. They rely upon each other.

Such, I found, was the case with the many gods.

Unfortunately some of the gods in my day were displeased at my poking around at their source of power and they tried to do something about it. One thing led to another and by the time I went to sleep the major gods were all gone, the heavens were barren, and the world continued to function, regardless of their presence.

Interestingly enough, I found that magic functioned, at times, across a sort of spectrum. At one end, the magics used by demons and necromancers, at the other clerical magics. But divine magic didn’t fit along that axis. It was magic, but partially separate from normal magic.

Divinity grew stronger, not from habit and practice, but from age and devotion. The more people feared or worshipped someone or something, the more power that entity could gain from that worship.

That meant that everyday things, like storms and lakes, could gain some small amount of divinity. What counted as worship was also open for debate. Often it just meant constant and frequent use of something, or a fear of that same thing.

Once I learned how to tap into the little bit of divinity aimed my way, I found it rather lacklustre. Sure, it would allow for some things that were difficult to do with normal magic, but it felt unearned.

These gods didn’t work to gain the majority of their power. It was created from power that existed already.

The road leading to the Path to Heaven was a long one, mostly hard-packed dirt, but with the occasional layer of ancient bricks below. We only crossed a few people, most of them wearing very simple garb and carrying large packs on their backs. Supplicants, or perhaps pilgrims.

We never stopped to ask either way.

Eventually we topped a hill and came into a valley between two mountain ranges. To the north rose huge pillars of stone , some topped by a few tough trees and most of them poking into the low hanging clouds.

To the south a similar mountain range, though this one not quite as impressive.

The valley ran for quite a ways with a river switching back and forth along its middle and, near the base of the northern range, a small village.

“That’s the Heavenly Path ,” the limpet said. “I stopped there once. It’s really small.”

I hummed to myself as I eyed the village from afar. It really wasn’t impressive. “What can you tell me about it?”

“Not much? It’s mostly a stop for pilgrims heading up the Path. There are a few small temples, the shared kind, and a lot of inns. But that’s about it. I think the only industry around here is making stuff to sell to the pilgrims.”

“Interesting,” I said for a lack of anything better to say. “Well then, perhaps we should change our disguises? Is there a particular way that the pilgrims dress?”

So far the people we’d crossed had been in simple garb, but I hadn’t been paying enough attention to notice anything special about them.

“That depends,” the limpet said. “Some pilgrims carry symbols of the god they want to meet, others are just here to beg for any sort of help.”

“Do the gods here offer help?” I asked.

“Sometimes,” the limpet said. “Chamomile, the Goddess of Healing, is often by the gates. She’ll heal people for free. But she travels a lot too, so it’s not every day that you’ll see her. The other gods might be around more, but it’s not like you can cross the gates onto the path so easily.”

I nodded along. “I see. Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.”

The trip down the valley was quite pleasant. There was a bit of wind keeping the air cool and fresh, and the sun was high overhead and quite bright. The slight incline of the road actually made it easier to walk.

If it wasn’t for the increasingly oppressive weight to the air I might have enjoyed the walk a little more.

The town at the bottom of the Path to Heaven wasn’t much to look at. Some three dozen homes, most with little gardens and a few with fields next to them. The centre of the town was a square surrounded on all sides by inns, and with a little fountain in its middle that seemed misplaced in such a backwater.

There were temples as well, three of them, which seemed off in a place with so few homes.

For all that the place didn’t seem entirely rich, the people we crossed on the streets seemed happy. The locals were smiling and cheerful and the pilgrims had the air of people who had just finished a long journey.

“You mentioned a gate,” I asked the limpet as we arrived in the town’s square. The mountains were quite close, so much so that they towered above the town.

“Yep. It’s that way.” She pointed northwards. “There’s a path and all, with little shrines all along it. You’re supposed to put an offering at each one to open the first gate.”

“And how many gates are there?” I asked.

“Seven. You’re not supposed to be able to go around them at all. Each one needs a donation from one of the temples in each region of the Empire.”

I considered that for a moment. The first gate opened with some meagre donations, then the next opened with something from each region. The Empire only had five, which left one last gate. “What do you need for the final gate?” I asked.

“A blessing from the pantheon, I think,” the limpet said. “I don’t know. I went to the first gate when I came here. They say it’s a really good spot for meditating and cultivating, but I just found it hard to breathe.”

I stared at the largest of the mountains, the source of the divine power I was feeling. No, it wasn’t quite the mountain, at least, not just the mountain. There was something above, near the peak. A concentration of divinity in one place.

“Alex,” I said. “Find a nice inn to stay the night. Some place  quiet. Take the limpet with you and make sure she's comfortable and such.”

“Master?” the limpet asked.

“I don’t think you can come where I’m going,” I said. “Do keep practising.”

I stepped past my travelling companions and started on my way north. The town didn’t extend all the way to the base of the mountain, but there was an easily accessible path leading to there and a few young people in monk’s garb were brushing it clean even as I walked by.

I noticed some shrines along the sides of the road. They tended to follow a pattern. A stone base with a statue above it, sometimes with an arch above it to keep away the rain. Little bowls set before them were filled with a random assortment of things, though perhaps calling it random wasn’t correct.

The walk ended when I arrived at a gate. It was a large thing, with two pillars on either side and a door made of what looked like brass over well-worn wood.  For all that it looked weak I could sense some power coming from it. Enchantments and divine blessings.

“It will open for you, if you pray to the gods and give them a little something in return for their service,” someone said.

I looked to the side to see an older monk sitting atop a flattened rock.

“Really?” I asked. “And what if I’m not fond of one of the gods?”

“Oh?" the man asked. "Who are we mere mortals to question the gods? Perhaps your lack of fondness is misplaced?”

“Perhaps,” I said. “I’ve only met one of the gods of this era. Maybe some of them aren’t all that bad.”

“Do you need guidance? We of the Heavenly Path sect are always willing to help those looking for enlightenment.”

I had one brow of my illusory face twitch upwards. “There’s a sect here?”

“A small one,” the monk confirmed. “And a peaceful one. We train not to fight, but to better serve. You’ll find no arrogant young masters here, just men and women who want to be closer to the divine.”

I could respect that much. “Interesting. I need to see the gods.”

“Do you really?”

I was going to say ‘yes’ out of hand when I considered it. Did I really need to see the new pantheon? “No, not really. But I am curious. Are these new gods worthy of the title? Will they be a threat to me and mine? How have they grown in the absence of the old pantheon and their ideals? I could go on without knowing, but not knowing something has always been... less than optimal for me. It’s the things I don’t see coming that always foil my plans.”

“Old gods?” the monk asked. “I don’t understand, the gods have stood forever.”

“No, they haven’t. In a way, some gods are more mortal than some men.” I walked up to the gate and pressed a hand to it.

“Knock.”

A loud bang, like an alchemical concoction exploding, echoed out across the region. The monk ‘eeped’ and fell backwards off his rock and the door before me shuddered and creaked open.

The gate was actually rather ingenious. There were no walls around it,  and yet I sense that stepping past it without crossing its threshold would set off dozens of arcane traps. Nothing I couldn’t survive or bypass, but that would have been more troublesome than merely unlocking the gate itself.

“Sir!” the monk said. “What did you do?”

“I unlocked the door,” I said. “I’ll be heading up now. It was nice chatting with you.”

The monk jumped to his feet, picked up a staff laying on the ground next to him, and raced over to join me as I crossed past the first gate.

Beyond it was a path made up of hundreds of steps, each one paved and dug out into the ground and leading out into the distance. I started walking.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” the monk said.

“You’ll find that making such assumptions about people will often lead you astray,” I said.

“The gods won’t permit such arrogance.”

“I’m not being arrogant. I’m coming over for a visit. If they didn’t want people to break their gate they should have installed a knocker.”

“The gods will smite you.”

I rolled my eyes. This man was lucky that there were no lakes nearby. “I can handle myself. Now, if you’re going to prattle on next to me, you can at least do so in an informative fashion. Tell me about the local gods.”

“You’re a madman.”

“No, I’m a curious scientist. It’s entirely different.”

***

Chapter Twenty-Seven - A Difficult Question

“My father wasn’t an exceptional man. But he had his moments.

He always told me, ‘Son, there isn’t a problem that you shouldn’t tackle with your wits before hitting it with your fists.’ That stayed with me.”

***

The monk grew increasingly nervous as we made our way up the Path to Heaven. At the second gate he pleaded with me to return and make offerings in apology, by the third, he was trying to warn me with some farfetched parables. By the sixth gate he was struggling to walk under the overbearing pressure of the divinity around us.

I had to give it to the man, he was quite persistent, and he didn’t threaten me a single time. I was reluctantly impressed. I would, of course, have to teleport him away before reaching the seventh gate. He wouldn’t last under so much pressure and I’d feel mildly guilty if he died caught in the collateral of any fight.

“You should go back,” I said for the umpteenth time.

“N-no,” the monk panted. He took another step, his slipper scoffing against the stone path. The more we climbed, the fewer supplicants remained on the path. By the fourth gate we were nearly alone. Now, so close to the last gate, there was no one around, just a great view of the mountainscape below and a few sparse trees that could endure the cold air so high off the ground.

“You’re going to pass out,” I warned. “Divine magic doesn’t actually have any physical weight, but rather a sort of metaphysical one. It’s not pressing down on your body, it’s weighing down your soul.”

“I... cannot let you... die,” the monk paused to swallow. “ I can intercede. Beg for mercy, on your behalf.”

I eyed the man. His robes were soaked with sweat, and judging by the musculature under them, it wasn’t from the exercise. His back was bent as though he had someone riding it, and his head was bowed, eyes partially closed.

To someone unprepared, a powerful source of divinity could be blinding, though the magic itself cast no real light.

“The seventh gate is just around the corner,” I said. “The magic will get a lot stronger on reaching it.”

“I will endure.”

I rolled my eyes. I could respect his tenacity, and he seemed to mean well, but there was a limit to these things.

“Sleep.”

The monk’s eyes rolled up and he crumpled to the ground. His breathing evened out and the tension of keeping his body standing flowed out of him. A person’s soul was far more vulnerable when asleep, but it was also less susceptible to things like the pressure around us. It was a strange thing, kind of counterintuitive that way.

A couple of Mage Hands grabbed onto the monk and lifted him a step off the ground. I’d find a nice place to set him down.

Continuing along, I rounded a curve in the path, one that was precariously narrow, with a steep drop to one side, then I found myself walking up to the final gate.

The first gate had been made of brass and rotting wood. The second iron and oak. Each subsequent gate was made of greater and richer materials. This last one was a huge edifice of jade and gold and silver, with carvings of fantastical creatures with gems for eyes and such fine detailing that some seemed to move as my attention shifted away from them.

“It’s pretty, isn’t it?”

I looked to the side.

A young woman, with pale skin and yellow hair sat a little ways to the side of the gate on a patch of vibrant grass. Her gown, a long pale-green thing with finely embroidered flowers along the hems, was pooled around her with, of all things, a tea set upon it.

“Greetings,” I said to the goddess. “I’m Harold. I presume this is the seventh gate?”

“You would be presuming correctly,” she said. “Tea? It’s freshly brewed.” She raised a pair of delicate cups, both still empty and wiggled them enticingly.

“I’m afraid I’m a bit dry, just like my humour. Oh hoh!”

She smiled. “I hope you don’t mind if I have a cup alone then?”

“Of course not,” I said. “By the way, do you happen to know what I should do with this young man?” I gestured to the monk floating by my side. He was hardly a young man, insofar as humans went, but neither of us were measuring things by the standards of humans.

The goddess frowned. “Did you hurt him?”

“No. He hurt himself. Insisting that I shouldn’t come here. I put him to sleep. He should be right as rain when he awakens, presuming it isn’t here.”

The goddess nodded, and with a gesture turned a patch of grassy soil into a bed of white-yellow flowers. “Could you put him here? It should keep him hale.”

I gestured and my Mage Hands brought the monk over and placed him onto the literal bed of flowers. “I appreciate it. I would teleport him to the bottom, but I don’t know whether some ruffian wouldn’t rough him up while he's asleep. ”

She nodded serenely. “I’ll have one of my priestesses look after him. They climb up here every evening. Will he sleep until then?”

“He should. At least until jostled. So, who are you? ”

The goddess smiled and took a moment to pour herself a cup of tea, then she sipped it lightly before answering. “Chamomile. I’m Chamomile, goddess of... this and that.”

“ Hello. I’m Harold.  Neither a god, nor a plain man. And I also dabble in this and that, oh hoh.”

Chamomile nodded over her cup. “I’ve heard of you. Not very many nice things. Are you here to kill all the gods again?”

“I hardly killed all of them,” I said. “Besides, I’m merely here to satisfy my curiosity.”

“Are you now? I think I recall the horror stories saying something similar.”

I shrugged and finally let my disguise fall. “Horror is subjective. I was merely doing some science.”

“I wasn’t there, so I can hardly argue the point,” Chamomile said. “Are you going to break past this gate too?”

“You could always unlock it for me,” I said.

“I could,” she agreed. “But I’m not sure if it’s a good idea yet. Why are you here?”

“To satisfy my curiosity, of course,” I said.

She eyed me for a long time, occasionally sipping at her tea. “I don’t believe you,” she said at last. “You might have told yourself that that’s why you’ve come, but there’s more to it than that, I’m sure. What are you curious about?”

“Mostly I want to know how the new gods are handling things,” I said. “And whether or not you’re responsible for the changes in the system.”

“I could satisfy both questions,” she said. “The first by saying that things are good now, but they haven’t always been so. And the second by saying that those changes likely were our fault, but more so yours.”

“Oh?”

“You left things in a bit of a state,” was all she said on that matter. “Are you satisfied?”

I looked to the gate, at its golden gilding and beautiful carvings. “No, I’m not,” I said. “I still wish to see what’s on the other side.”

“Why?”

I tilted my head to the side. That was a good question. Chamomile seemed decent enough. Did that satisfy my need to know how the gods of this era were? Did I need to inspect each and every one to be satisfied? How far was I willing to go to please my curiosity?

The answer, as always, was ‘one more step.’ But here I hesitated.

If Chamomile was right and the loss of the system was my fault, then perhaps I should take that as a lesson and stop interfering so much.

“How long have you been a goddess for?” I asked. It was a simple question, the equivalent of small talk. Something to let me think.

“A millennium or so,” Chamomile said. “At least, that’s as far back as my memories go.”

“Young,” I said.

“Most of us are,” she admitted. “Most of the old gods are gone.”

“Most of them?” I asked. “Are there any left?”

“One or two,” she said rather vaguely. “Some of them came together and created the Five Fonts. That allowed us to grow as quickly as we have.”

I frowned, then did a bit of mental math. In my day, the pantheon was rather fixed. Oh, sure, there was always a bit of drama between one god and another. Someone was always sleeping with someone else’s wife, or their prized cattle. Gods would do as gods did.

Still, most gods were old. Ancient. They had been around for tens of thousands of years. The current pantheon was far younger, and yet they were... from what I could tell of Chamomile, nearing the strength of some of the weaker gods of the old pantheon.

How?

The numbers didn’t quite add up. “What are the Five Fonts?”

Chamomile hesitated. She poured herself another cup of tea and drank it in an unladylike gulp. “It’s a source of divine power. The last of the former pantheon, minor gods all, came together and built the Five Fonts as a way to ensure that the next generation could grow strong in time to protect and guide the world.”

“Interesting,” I said. “And how do these fonts work?”

“Do you not have enough power?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Perhaps I do. But I will never have enough knowledge.” Perhaps that was also the answer to my question, or rather, Chamomile’s. I would only ever be satisfied when I had all of the ability to know everything, and at that point, why even bother? It wasn’t so much the knowledge that interested me, I supposed, it was the chase, the methodology, the experimentation, the solving of the complex riddles of life, the universe and everything.

 I didn’t want to know, I wanted to chase the knowledge.

“Oh hohoho,” I chuckled.

‘What is it?” Chamomile asked.

“Perhaps there is something to this Path. It made me realise something I already knew.”

One of her delicate eyebrows rose. “What’s that?”

“Oh, nothing too brilliant, I’m afraid. All these years and I’m still something of a fool. I think I’ll be knocking at that gate now.”

The goddess sighed. “There’s no persuading you not to?” she asked.

“I couldn’t live with myself if I gave up the chase so soon,” I said.

The goddess nodded. “To each their domain,” she said before she pulled a lacquered box from the grass near her and started to put her tea set away. “Give me a moment, and I’ll open the gate for you. I will warn you though, there are two other gods within. I am a peaceful goddess of tea and cordiality. These two may not take your approach so lightly.”

“Noted,” I said. “And I appreciate the warning.”

She rose to her feet, patted down her dress which had remained unstained despite lying on the grass, then she started towards the gate. “I’ll open the path,” she said. ‘You have been polite so far. May I ask that you keep such restraint going forward?”

“I will certainly try,” I said. “It wouldn’t do for a guest to be rude.”

She nodded. “Thank you.”

A touch of her hand to the gold and jade gate and the entire thing shuddered and opened with the weight of something imbued with powerful magics. It revealed a garden, with trimmed hedges and small statuaries hidden around flower alcoves. In the middle of this garden was a gazebo of sorts, with a peaked roof and marble pillars keeping it up.

I noticed benches set along gravel paths and a small pond to one side with a flock of herons staring at large koi darting in the waters.

The entire place was suffused with divine magic so thick I imagined it would be hard for a mortal to even breathe.

I wondered if this was the place where my curiosity would be sated.

***

Chapter Twenty-Eight - A Lesson in Humility

“My first two meetings with the new gods went rather well. They were, for the most part, cordial and polite, or at least respectful enough.

I suppose it was bound to happen that one of those meetings wouldn’t end so well.”

***

Chamomile walked with the swaying grace of a flower caught in the wind. She took the lead, stepping in before me and heading not towards the gazebo in the centre of the garden, but towards an open area to one side where there was shade and a few benches around a little fountain that gurgled peacefully.

“This place is rather nice,” I said.

“We try to keep it clean,” Chamomile said. “It should be a place for the pantheon to meet and discuss things peacefully. It’s not always easy to cultivate an air of serenity when domains and aspirations clash. This garden, being the way it is? That helps. Even the gods aren’t as likely to act with violence when surrounded by so much that is fragile.”

“I can appreciate that,” I said as I allowed my attention to wander across the garden. My eyes were pulled towards the gazebo. There was... something there that caught my attention, but I couldn’t for the unlife of me figure out what it was.

Much of the divinity in the air around us came from there. Was it the Font that Chamomile had spoken of?

Chamomile found her way to one of the benches and sat down with a sigh. “Do you wish to sit? The others are coming already.”

I could sense two other divine beings heading our way. One was clearly stronger than the other, but surprisingly, neither were as powerful as Chamomile. Perhaps my concerns about the strength of the new gods were misplaced. “Who are they?”

“Wan and Gong Zhu,” Chamomile said. “Gong Zhu is an honourable woman, though her appearance doesn’t seem that way at first.”

“And Wan?” I asked.

Chamomile set her little tea box next to her and popped open the lid. “I’ll prepare something to drink once things have calmed down.”

That didn’t bode well.

The first I saw of these two unfamiliar gods was a tall, buxom woman who stood head and shoulders over the hedges around us. She wore a simple crown with spade-like spikes above it, and, when she turned towards me, it revealed a pair of tusks jutting out of her overbite and a pair of beady brown eyes that scanned the area around us with disinterest.

Her dress was nice, I supposed. An embroidered robe fit for a queen, though it did little to hide her muscular frame.

The god walking next to her only appeared when they rounded the corner and started towards our spot of the garden.

He was a young man, with pale skin and bags under his eyes.  He seemed spry though, and walked with a sort of self-assured confidence that I had only ever seen matched in young men who hadn’t yet discovered their own mortality.

Before they reached us, the shorter of the two—Wan—pulled out a glass bottle from a pocket, dropped a pill into his hand, and slapped it into his mouth. Even from where I stood I could tell that the medicine was magical.

“Ey, Cham, who’s this skeleton freak?” Wan asked. He sniffed and rubbed under his nose while looking me up and down.

“Be polite, Wan,” Chamomile said. “This is Harold.”

Wan shrugged. “Harold who? Didn’t anyone tell him that the undead are taboo? Even the underworld guys have better taste.”

“I have been a lich since before that taboo existed, I’m afraid. There’s little I could do to turn back.” That wasn’t entirely true, but this young godling was hardly worth changing for. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. As Chamomile said, I’m Harold.”

“I have heard of you,” the boar goddess said. “I was there when you dealt with the god of the hunt.”

“Truly?” I asked. She didn’t feel all that powerful to be that old. Though, perhaps that was owing to her domain. Boars weren’t all that impressive, I feared.

She nodded. “I am Gong Zhu, the Queen of Boars.” She crossed her arms under her chest, both arms bulging with muscle. “Are you here to cause trouble?”

“Pfft, this punk?” Wan asked. “What, he’s some big shot cultivator? Look at him, he’s all bones!”

I’d usually appreciate the wordplay, were it not delivered in such a condescending manner.

“Wan, beware,” Chamomile said.

“Beware? Do you know who I am, flower girl?” Wan pointed a finger right at Chamomile’s  face. “Your days are numbered, tea girl. Real cultivators, they know where the real, concentrated power is at. It ain’t in tea. If you ask real nicely, I might let you take one of my pills.” He flicked his wrist and a bottle appeared in his hand. “First one’s free for you, love.”

“Interesting,” I said as I eyed the bottle. I suspected that they were an example of the medicinal cultivation pills I’d read about. Some were supposedly able to assist someone in levelling up.

Such a thing existed in my day, though they were rare, difficult to produce, and often had undesirable side-effects. It was often easier to just grind lower-levelled foes for a time.

But in a world without the system to warn someone about negative effects and without a clear path for progression, perhaps the pills became more popular. Or, perhaps, their popularity was owed to something else.

It was entirely possible that the more scientific nature of alchemy and potioneering allowed their makers to use rational methods to test their products until they reached a level of efficiency and proficiency in their creation that surpassed what was common in my day.

 “Oi, dead boy, you zoned out there?” Wan asked. He snapped his fingers before my face.

“Please don't address me that way. My name is Harold.”

“Pfft, who do you think you’re talking to? I’m Wan. The  Wan. God of pills and the good kind of herbs. You’re just some punk who doesn’t know how to dress.”

It was a good thing that I was a rational man, otherwise Wan’s commentary might have angered me a little. As it was, I turned to Chamomile, a question in mind. “Is this the quality of the gods today? I am unimpressed.”

Wan’s eyes filled with burning anger, and it’s only Gong Zhu’s hand upon his shoulder stopping him that kept him from walking right up to me.

“You want to throw down, you bony bastard?” Wan asked. “I won’t allow you to insult me that way.”

“Please stop talking,” I asked. “I do not appreciate your feeble attempts at threatening me.”

Wan freed himself from Gong Zhu’s grasp with a tug and glared. “Who are you? Cham, why’d you bring this filth into this sacred place?”

“I brought him to save us the trouble of rebuilding our gate,” Chamomile said. “It would be a shame to damage something so pretty. That, and his curiosity will only be sated by being here. I think that once he’s seen the state of things as they are, he will leave. At least, that is what I am betting on.”

She was being rather open about things. “I appreciate the honesty. I have to admit that I’m a little disappointed. I don’t know what I expected on coming here, but it wasn’t to find that the quality of gods had degraded so much that someone like that would be accepted into the pantheon.” I gestured to Wan. The other two seemed decent enough for gods.

“What’d you say about me you punk.” Wan walked over to me, brought an arm back, and looked as though he was about to poke me in the chest.

“Prismatic Wall.”

A seven-layered magical wall the size of a dinner plate flashed into existence just before Wan’s arm shot out to stab at me.

His finger passed through the first layer of the barrier and sizzled for just a moment before he yanked it back and started to jump up and down while shaking his hand.

“I don’t appreciate it when people touch me without permission. Do forgive my spell there. You should be fine. You’re a god after all.” Prismatic Wall was a handy bit of Abjuration magic. The entire school was mostly defensive in nature, which, as the limpet had discovered recently, meant that it wasn’t all that handy in some situations.

On the other hand, it was the school of magic that was best for dealing with casters and the occasional arrogant young god.

I frowned, then shrugged when I couldn’t put my finger on any more hand puns.

Put my finger. Oh hohoho!

“You bastard!” Wan said before popping an entire bottle of pills into his palm and slapping the whole thing into his mouth. “You’re going down!”

“Wan,” Gong Zhu warned.

The young god didn’t listen to the warning. I could sense the magic around him blossoming, growing far stronger in a few short seconds. It was an interesting change, but not something all that impressive.

The god ran up to me, hand swinging to slap me.

I must have had Abjuration on my mind, because I muttered two such spells in quick succession.

“Invulnerability.”

“Anti-Magic Field.”

A burst of nothing at all shot out of me and slammed through Wan. The godling’s  eyes widened as his legs went weak and his divine aura evaporated like the contents of a cauldron tipped onto a campfire.

Magic wasn’t all that the god had going for him, hence the Invulnerability.

I caught his hand mid-swing, then tugged him forwards until he fell down and was laying across my lap. “This is a rather vulnerable position,” I said. “Chamomile, would he learn his lesson if I spanked him?”

“I don’t think so,” the goddess said. She delivered it with a straight face, but there was no disguising the waver  of amusement in her voice.

“Hmm,” I hummed as I contemplated what to do next.

Wan started to push himself up, so I pressed him back down.

“Don’t leave just yet, I’m still considering what to do,” I said. “You know, you’re quite lucky that your only audience are these two women and myself. It would be terribly embarrassing if there were more witnesses to this.”

“I’m going to kill you, you bastard!” Wan said.

I stared down at the boy and let just the barest hint of my power loose. It wasn’t a spell, it was me purposefully letting go of my magic to let it permeate the air around me in a suffocatingly thick miasma of necrotic power.

Wan started to cough and splutter. “I do not appreciate threats, child. No matter how unlikely it is that someone as fragile as you could carry them out.” I grabbed Wan by the back of his neck, then stood up while holding onto him. “Your comrades at least showed a level of cordiality and politeness that I can respect. It would do you well to learn the lesson they are trying to teach you by example.”

“You can’t do this to me!” Wan said as he struggled. I couldn’t feel his kicks against my shins, but they still annoyed me.

I plucked a bottle from his hand as he tried to tip it into his mouth, and slid it in a pocket for later examination. “I think I’m quite done with you.”

“Teleport.”

Somewhere over a lake, the one next to the Four Venoms Sect, as it happened, a minor godling  appeared. I didn’t worry for him. With a head as large as his, I was certain that he was buoyant.

“Now,” I said as I sat back down and reined my magic back in. The two goddesses let out twin breaths at that. “I hope you don’t mind, but I have a few little questions. Notably, what is that Font you mentioned, and is there any link between that and the magic I’m sensing from that gazebo over there? Because between you and me, that magic feels very familiar, and it just responded to my own magic in a very interesting way.”

***

Chapter Twenty-Nine - A Bong

“You know, I probably would have just meddled a bit, poked at a few things, then after a decade or two, I would have gone right back to sleep.

I’m tired, you see. Dead tired, even, of machinations and politics and all of those boring little mortal things. In the end, how much do I really care about the people in this world, or the world itself, for that matter?

But then, you just had to steal from me.”

***

The gazebo in the garden’s centre was a work of functional art. It ’ s many pillars, all covered in delicate carvings, held up a roof that would keep off rain and sun while its open sides allowed for a spectacular view of the top of the mountain nearby and of the landscape below. I could imagine someone sitting at one of the wicker seats and merely enjoying the sight of clouds weaving around the peaks.

A stone table sat in the room’s middle, large and imposing, with a polished surface unmarred by anything. In the middle of this table sat a contraption of hooks and pipes and delicate jade handles around a central bowl.

“A hookah?” I asked. The device was decorated with little dragons and other mythical creatures holding up the various components. It certainly fit the aesthetic of the gazebo, but its use didn’t. “I wasn’t expecting that,” I admitted.

Chamomile followed me into the gazebo, her steps whisper-quiet to contrast with Gong Zhu’s heel strikes. “It’s one of the Five Fonts,” she said. “One of the most important artifacts to the gods of this age.”

“Do not touch it, Harold,” Gong Zhu warned. “You have done enough that is sacrilegious today.”

I tilted my head to the side and inspected the font closer. “Does it have a proper name, or is it just called ‘one of the Five Fonts?’” I asked.

“They’re all named. This one is called Ariel,” Chamomile said. “Are you done looking at it?”

I eyed her for a moment without looking her way with my head. One of the advantages of not having real eyes. She wasn’t fidgeting or showing any of her nervousness, but her companion was shifting enough for the both of them.

“This Font, how does it work?”

“When the gods gather, the bowl is lit using divine fire, a smoke rises into that bowl, and we take some of that essence through one of the pipes,” Chamomile said. “It’s hardly a complex process. The last of the old gods built it well.”

“And this makes you stronger?” I asked.

She nodded slowly. “It helps us cultivate our divinity.”

I pushed one of the seats by the table aside to better see the device. It was very much magically active. Something in the main segment of it was creating a great deal of power. Or, rather, if it followed the law of conservation of magic, then it wasn’t so much creating that power as it was giving off that power as a sort of waste energy.

So, what was it, exactly?

The thing throbbed, its magic pulsing like a heartbeat, one that was reaching out towards something. Towards me.

“Oh no,” I said. “Please tell me you were not so foolish as to do that.”

“Do what?” Chamomile asked.

I bought a hand up and allowed a little bit of my magic to gather by my palm. The hookah responded, pulsing in time with the magic I held. The frequency of it, insofar as magic had a frequency, matched perfectly.

“What is at the centre of the font?”

Chamomile looked to Gong Zhu, then back. “I don’t know. It was a gift to us, when our new pantheon was still very young, when we were still as weak as some of the greatest mortals.”

“So, something relatively small, that reacts to my magic, that is giving off a lot of wasted energy. Something that is fairly old, but not so old that the gods had it in my time or I would know of it.” I stared at the hookah, then gestured at it.

“Disassemble.”

A neat little Artificer spell, that. With a wave of magic, the device came apart, sections sliding out of each other, screws spinning apart, and each segment floating to the side to lay itself out in neat rows.

Chamomile gasped. “You broke it!”

“No, I disassembled it. Entirely different,” I said. A final part clicked as it landed onto the table.

It was the piece at the centre of it all, a glassy marble a little smaller than a tightened fist. In its middle was a swirling vortex of magical forces, spinning and swarming around a black point in the dead centre of the marble.

The marble rumbled as electrical jolts from its centre reached out and kissed the tips of my boney fingers. A small press of my magic soothed and calmed the roiling storm within.

“What is it?” Chamomile asked. “Why did you remove it?”

“This is a phylactery,” I said before turning it over. There were only two blemishes on the perfect marble’s surface. The numbers three and two embossed into its side. “Number thirty-two. I would need to look into my notes to see where this one was hidden.”

“A phylactery?” Chamomile asked. “I’m unfamiliar with the term.”

“Mortals have souls. It is the essential thing that allows one to touch the weave, to leave a mark in the structure of the world. It is through the soul that the system operates, and through the soul of all things that divinity is born.”

I twisted the marble this way and that, inspecting it for cracks or marks, but it seemed fine.

“When a soul leaves its physical host, the owner can be said to have died. Their memories are gone, their mind is disrupted to the point of uselessness, and their mortal body begins to deteriorate. The principles of Necromancy involve the opposite of that. Taking a new soul and planting it into an old body, or creating an artificial one to manipulate something like a skeleton or corpse.”

“Morbid,” Chamomile said.

“Magic cares little for anyone’s concept of decency.” I tossed the marble up and caught it, feeling its weight in my hand, both physical and not. “One of the paths to immortality is to take your soul out of your body and place it into a container that is a little more durable while still maintaining control of your body. It is exceptionally complex magic.”

“Is that what that is?” Chamomile asked.

“It is,” I said. “When I made Phylactery Number One I discovered that while my soul was, for the most part, within the phylactery, some of it remained in my bony old body. So why not heal it? It took decades of study into some rather esoteric magics, but soon I had restored my souls to a full state, though the one within the phylactery was mostly dormant.”

“You have two souls,” Chamomile said.

“I realized that having merely two repositories was hardly a true path to immortality. So I created Phylactery Two through Forty Two in the span of a century or so. That’s about the time that the God of Death decided to interfere in my affairs. He didn’t survive the interference, as I don’t appreciate meddlers when I’m doing an experiment. I died quite a few times during that little skirmish.”

“That, that thing, the Ariel Font, it’s one of your phylacteries?” Chamomile asked. She didn’t seem terribly comforted by the idea.

“It is indeed,” I said. “Number Thirty-Two, of the first generation.”

“First generation.”

I looked at her. "‘You thought I’d stop at just one iteration? I had ideas, ways to perfect the process and ways to improve it. Look at how much magic is leaking from this one. It’s sloppy work, signs that I didn’t yet know what I was doing.”

Chamomile licked her lips. “How many?”

“I haven’t the faintest clue,” I admitted. “I wiped my own memory of some of their creation as a failsafe against future tampering with my memories. Some went into other planes, others were launched out into the stars on million-year long journeys to distant suns and worlds.”

“So our power...”

I nodded. “Wasted energy escaping a poorly designed phylactery.” I tilted the marble this way and that. “It's safe to say you have a bit of me in you.”

“But it made us so much stronger,” she said.

“Divine beings need divinity like mortals need food,” I explained. “Or perhaps a better analogy would be that divine beings need divinity like a fire needs fuel.” I slipped the marble into a pocket.

“Reassemble.”

The hookah’s parts flew together in a twisting mass of glowing magics and within moments the Font was returned to its pristine condition. “There. All better.”

“But there’s nothing giving it power now,” Gong Zhu said.

“Get that Wan boy to add some of his precious herbs to it,” I said. “It might have an effect. Either way, I think my curiosity was satisfied for the day.”

“You’re leaving?” Chamomile said. “After destroying the font, after so casually taking away the source of our power?”

“Would you rather I stay?” I asked. “Truthfully, I’m not even angry. Taking the excess power from my phylactery that way is rather clever, no doubt required some fine tuning and decent preparation, and it shows a willingness to try something new in the face of a new situation. You’ve grown strong enough to support yourselves, haven’t you?”

“We have,” she agreed reluctantly.

“Well, there you have it. I’m taking back what is mine, and I’m not turning this mountain range into flatlands in some sort of misguided sense of... honour or injured pride or whatever. I’m just leaving. You’ll figure it out. The old gods grew with slow increments and with the occasional spot of hard work. You can no doubt do the same.”

I scanned the gazebo with my arcane sight, looking for anything else that might catch my eye, but other than a few godly artefacts tucked away here and there, there wasn’t much to pique my interest.

“On that note, I’ll be off. Thanks for the offer of tea. Do give my regards to the other gods if and when they show up.” I nodded to the two ladies, spun on a heel, and walked off.

I had a few things to think on.

For all that I’d said that I wasn’t angry, that wasn’t entirely truthful. I was somewhat impressed that someone had found such a clever use for one of my soul containers, but it still felt like a violation. Like walking home to find someone sitting in your living room, leafing through your books without permission.

I didn’t cast judgement on these young gods. Chamomile had been kind, and Gong Zhu respectful. It would be simply rude of me to return that with destruction and such.

Nonetheless, I would have to invest a little bit of time and effort into looking into the other four Fonts.

The walk down the Heavenly Path was rather nice. The sun was well on its way to setting, but the walking was easy, especially with gravity on my side on the way down. I even crossed the monk being carried by a trio of young priestesses.

Arriving at the town at the base of the mountain, I glanced around until I sensed Alex and the limpet in one of the nearby inns.

I stepped in, ignored the gasp from the proprietor on seeing my skeleton face, and moved up a staircase and to the floor where I found Alex tidying up a room and the Limpet reading on a couch.

“Daddy,” Alex greeted.

“Master!” the limpet cheered.

“Hello,” I said as I closed the door behind me. “It’s nice to see you both as well. Now, I’ve had something of an interesting evening.” I pulled the marble from my pocket and eyed it a bit before tossing it to the limpet.

She fumbled it out of the air.

“I’ll need a moment to think. I believe that in the morning we’ll be heading north. Get your sleep, limpet.”

“Yes, Master!” the limpet said as she looked between me and the marble.

***

Chapter Thirty - A Talk and a Walk

“After my little altercation with the locals, I decided that perhaps it was time for me to go look into some old things, before resuming my journey. I had something of a goal now, you see.”

***

With the morning came a tide of indecision.

What, exactly, should I tackle next?

That was a question that had plagued me often enough throughout my life. It is quite common for a man to have a dream, something they absolutely, desperately want to achieve. I had those. I had many. And for the most part I accomplished them.

There’s this incredible sense of... well, not to be too reductionist, but it’s a sense of accomplishment.

And then, as that feeling passes, it is slowly replaced by the dawning horror that one of the pillars you found your life around is no longer there. It’s not as painful as the loss of someone important, or of a great opportunity, but it’s still an ache, one that had become all too familiar to me over the millennia as I surpassed my goals.

“Papa?” Alex asked. He bent forwards and carefully placed a steaming cup of tea on the table before me. “I made you tea.”

“Thank you,” I said. “But you are aware that I don’t need to eat or drink, nor am I usually able to.”

Alex nodded. “That’s okay. I was talking to the limpet yesterday, and she said that with some gifts, it’s the thought behind them that counts. So I made this tea while thinking nice things as hard as I could.”

I huffed. “That’s quaint. Thank you.”

Alex bowed. “Anything for Bone Daddy,” he said. “Do you know where we’re going next?”

I considered the question for a moment. “I think I do. I have two destinations in mind. One is quite a bit nearer, so I suppose it will be our first stop. The city of Silvershire should be close to here, if my sense of direction isn’t completely ruined.”

“Is it a nice place?” Alex asked.

“It was, once,” I said. “But it’s not on the limpet’s map. I suspect that it may be gone now. I had a few acquaintances that lived there. Perhaps some of their work lives on. And then we can head to wherever the nearest of my phylacteries are. Especially these fonts the gods have been using.”

Alex nodded. “That’s very rude. Sucking on Bone Papa without permission .”

“Indeed. I’ll want to see if the other four also use my soul as a makeshift battery.” I picked up the tea cup and tipped it back into my mouth. A minor use of Prestidigitation had the liquid evaporate before making a mess of my insides.

The insides of my clothes of course; my body had no insides. Oh hoh!

“Brilliant!” I said as I stood up. “Now, where’s that limpet?”

“I’m here, Master!” the limpet said as she burst into the room. “Are we going to go explore an ancient ruined city filled with all sorts of strange and mysterious magics that are really dangerous?”

“Yes, exactly,” I said.

The limpet didn’t seem to know what to do with my agreement for a moment. She soon settled on grinning. “Awesome. I’ve always wanted to go exploring some deep unknowable ruins. I hear that it’s a great place to cultivate.”

“It’s far more likely that the experience gained in such a place is due to all the horrendous creatures that will try to eat you while you’re there,” I said.

The limpet shrugged. “Master’s going to be there.”

“Oh hoh, getting a bit overconfident, are we? We’ll have to see about that.” I patted down my jacket. “I think we’re going to head out now. Are you both ready?”

“Let me get my bag and Fang Fang!”

I watched the limpet run off then turned to Alex. “We’re ready to go,” Alex said. “I paid for the room, and everything is squared away. Are we going to teleport again?”

“I think we will,” I said. “Just a quick jump to that same spot in the woods where we were last time, then we can take off towards the northwest.”

Alex smiled and nodded. “In that case, I’ll get my bags. Will we be leaving from this  room?”

“I suppose I ought to mark the runes outside.”

“No magic above the fifth tier in the living room,” Alex said with a serious nod.

Some time later, the three of us, and the dog, were gathered out in the yard before the inn. We were getting a few looks from the people on the street, but I’d long since stopped caring about the opinion of passersby.

Magic pooled around the circle, and the limpet hugged her dog close so that it didn’t bounce out of the magic circle.

We appeared, without fanfare, in a wooded clearing next to a little river. “That worked well enough,” I said.

“Teleporting is so cool,” the limpet said.  “I know that I’m focusing on other schools, but one day, when I’m really strong, I want to learn how to do that too.”

“Oh?” I asked. “You can’t light people on fire with Teleport.”

“Maybe not, but I bet I could teleport rocks on top of their houses!”

I chuckled. “That’s certainly an idea. Yes, I can see that working. Though at that point you might as well use Scry or some other distant-viewing spell to cast something more efficient at your foes.”

“Can people trace magic back to the caster? Like, after the spell was cast?” the limpet asked.

I nodded. “Of course. Even you could do it now.”

She frowned, then her eyes widened. “Detect Magic!”

“Exactly. It’s a spell with some surprising utility. Speaking of, we might as well see how far along you’ve come with those two cantrips from yesterday.”

“Ah, I don’t think I’m ready yet, Master,” the limpet said. “I read the books, but I’m not done, and I haven’t practiced at all. I’m sorry.”

“I’d rather you be honest about your limits than risk a miscast in some misplaced attempt to impress me.”

“I’m sure that if I could cast them already I could impress you,” the limpet said.

I shook my head. “Don’t fool yourself. Nothing you do will ever truly impress me.”

The girl’s eyes narrowed and her fists tightened. “I’m gonna work so  hard,” she whispered before shaking her head. “Master, can you show me when you cast the spells? I want to see what they look like.”

I shrugged. “We need to cross the river anyway.”

“Huh?”

I raised a hand.

“Frostbite.”

The gurgling river next to us wasn’t all that wide. Perhaps six or seven necrometers at its widest. The shores were rough and rocky. It was, if I had to guess, a relatively young river. Likely formed as the local geography shifted about.

A corridor some three necrometers wide snapped as it froze solid into an uneven mess of jagged ice. “There. That’s the Frostbite cantrip. With a bit more power behind it than you could muster on your own right now, of course.”

“Whoa,” the limpet said. “So strong!”

“Not really. I think most competent wizards could manage the same,” I said.

“So I’ll be that strong one day?” she asked. “I can’t wait.”

“You’ll have to. The path of the mage is a slow crawl towards incredible power. It isn’t the way of the martial artist,  where a few month’s training can determine much. Learn to face each challenge with as methodical an approach as you can manage, and you will see results eventually.”

The limpet nodded. “I can wait. Waiting is easy if it means being strong enough to get what I want in the end.”

I nodded along. She had the right attitude, at least. “Let’s get going then, we’ll find some monster somewhere to demonstrate Sapping Sting.”

Alex and I crossed the frozen lake without difficulty. The limpet, being the limpet, tripped and fell three times before making it across. Her dress was quite sodden by the time she made it to the opposite shore, but she didn’t complain.

“At the pace we’re moving,” I said after nearly an hour’s walk along the shore. “We will be reaching Silvershire sometime tomorrow morning, that is, assuming we walk through the night.”

“Should we teleport again?” Alex asked.

I tilted my head back, listening to the birdsong and the wind rustling through the trees around us. Nothing I hadn’t heard before, but peaceful nonetheless. “No, I think walking is fine. What’s the point of immortality if you don’t take a moment to enjoy it now and again?”

“Father’s real wise,” Alex said.

“Once in a while,” I said. I eyed the girl huffing and puffing as she kept up with the undead pace Alex and I were keeping up. “Limpet, tell me, what would you do if you discovered that someone took something that was important to you?”

The girl frowned. “That depends,” she said. “What kind of thing is it? Is it something replaceable?”

“I suppose it is, yes.”

She hummed. “Did they really need it? Like, if someone stole from me, and what they stole was some food to feed their kids, I’d be angry, but not that angry, but if someone took my money just because they want it, I’d be way angrier.”

“I see. And if it’s something precious, but replaceable? What if someone took it and you never noticed?”

“Then I guess it’s not that important?” the limpet asked. “Is this a quiz, Master?”

“Nothing of the sort, no.” I dismissed her concerns with a wave. “Just a very old skeleton wondering what he should do.”

“So, in this situation, is it possible to get my things back?” the limpet asked.

“Yes, of course,” I said.

“Then that’s what I’d do, and then maybe I’d tell the guard about the people who took my things to begin with.”

“You’re so confident in the guard?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I’m a girl who travels alone a lot. You kind of need to hope that that guard is doing their job, you know?”

“I see,” I said. A different point of view, then, from my own. I had always had a little bit of an anti-authoritarian streak in me. “I’ll think about it. Thank you.”

“Uh, sure thing, Master.”

“You know, you can just call me Harold.”

The limpet shrugged. “You could just call me Fenfang.”

I gave her a skeletal grin. “That wouldn’t be nearly as fun.”

“Calling you Harold wouldn’t be fun either. You, ah, well, no offence, Master, but you don’t look like a Master.”

I chuckled. “I suppose I don’t. Perhaps I should grow a beard? Perhaps some long white hair?”

“And robes,” Alex said. “With a sash.”

“Oh, and a really big sword, or maybe a staff,” the limpet added.

I nodded. “Of course, of course.” I patted the limpet atop the head, then did the same to Alex.

Perhaps waking up wasn’t a terrible thing after all. I was making some very enjoyable companions—sometimes literally—and solving a few little things that might have become issues some centuries down the line.

“So, Master, can you tell me more about magic?” the limpet asked. “I can’t, ah, talk and walk as well as you can.”

“I suppose I could,” I said. “Did you ever hear the story of the two eyed king?”

“No?”

I nodded. “It was uncommon even in my day. A historical curiosity. The kingdom in question was quite small, insignificant even. A dwarven kingdom, under a mountain range far to the south. One day a strange magical gas leaked into their deep halls and soon thereafter everyone went blind.”

“That’s not good,” the limpet said.

“Obviously. One man was quite lucky though. A young scholar who knew some clever magics. He kept his sight by means of some spells. No doubt some early form of Abjuration. He soon became the only one who could see in a kingdom of the blind. Do you know what that made him?”

“I’m guessing someone important?” the limpet guessed.

“Indeed. I think, from what I’ve seen so far, that this world is one where some knowledge has faded. And soon, you might be one of the only people around whose eyes still work. I wonder, what will you do with that?”

The limpet was quiet for a long time.

It was an enjoyable walk.

***

Chapter Thirty-One - A Dead City

“The scientific method is meant to promote the learning of new knowledge and the sharing of that knowledge.

Something has gone horribly wrong if sentient-kind has lost as much as it has.”

***

We reached Silvershire the next morning.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that we reached the ruins of Silvershire the next morning.

Of the city, once a sprawling metropolis where people were stacked one atop the other because there was so little room for all the people attracted to it, there wasn’t much left. Nature had reclaimed most of the city.

The only reason I knew I was close to the city was the familiar mountainscape behind me, and the faint magical aura of no doubt buried artefacts.

“This is rather disappointing,” I said.

“Is this the place?” the limpet asked as she looked around. “It doesn’t look like much.”

That was a fair assessment. The forest here was sparse and weak, the trees few and rather scraggly looking. It only took one look at the ground to see why. For all that the city had fallen, its bricks and mortar hadn’t faded away, not entirely. There were large, suspiciously square stones all over, some large enough to be considered boulders.

“There’s not much left,” I admitted. “Perhaps I shouldn’t be entirely surprised, it has been two millennia and a bit.”

We started to move into the city, sticking to the places where little sections of the road remained. I could just make out the markings carved into the road if I searched long enough, and sometimes a few blocks of stone hinted at where a building once stood.

“This place must have been big,” the limpet said. Her voice was at a low whisper. Respectful perhaps, or fearful?

“It was,” I said. “A quarter of a million people, all stuffed into this one place. It would have been disastrous if it wasn’t for the wizards in charge.”

“Wizards ruled this place?” the limpet asked.

I nodded. “Once, yes. Wizards are men, for all that they tend to be more knowledgeable of magic. They can be swayed and bribed. But, in a place like this, I think it turned out for the best. There was a council of wizards and sorcerers and even a few of the more level-headed warlocks. They ruled over the city along with a council of merchants.”

“There wasn’t a king? Or an emperor?”

“Not really. Though the occasional mage of sufficient power would grow ambitious enough to be considered something close to that. Silvershire was a place of growth and learning. There were great academies here that would compete to discover new magic and spells, and the leaders, because of their grasp of magic and scholarly nature, were often open to experimenting and trying new things.”

I paused and with a flick of my wrist tossed aside a clump of dirt. A Mage Hand pulled out a boxy cage made of rusty metal.

“What’s that?”

“A mage lamp. They used to line the streets,” I said before letting it drop. “It’s beyond repair, I’m afraid.”

The limpet eyed the device for a moment before jogging to catch up with Alex and I. Her dog ranged out ahead of us, sniffing something here, and peeing on some historical artefact there.

“So, Master, are we going to stay here?”

“Not for very long,” I said. “There are a few things I’d like to look into before we move on.”

“Papa, there are people here,” Alex said.

I looked to my butler, then out ahead. I couldn’t spot anyone at first, then I noticed what Alex was talking about. Some of the bushes a little ways ahead had clear cut marks on them, and the plant growth over some of the stones had been tossed aside to reveal the carvings beneath.

“Interesting,” I said. I cast a minor illusion over myself, once more turning, to anyone looking at me, into a rather plain man. “Perhaps we’re about to meet some looters.”

“Not much to loot here,” the limpet said.

That was, unfortunately, a fair assessment. For all that my memories of this place still painted it as a progressive nation state, it was now little more than ancient ruins ravaged by time. “Then perhaps we are going to meet some curious people,” I said.

We continued onwards, heading more or less in the direction of the city’s centre. As we continued to climb over ruined pillars and the rubble of destroyed homes, I noticed more and more signs that we weren’t entirely alone.

There were a few scraps of cloth here and there, as well as marks and day-old boot prints in the muddier soil.

“It seems as if our new friends are surveying the entire area,” I said.

“Huh?” the limpet asked.

“Train your observation skills some more,” I said before pointing to the ground where a few prints were crossing our path. “See?”

“Oh, wow. So they went that way?” she asked.

“No, we crossed steps heading the other way earlier, and more passed in the same direction before that. They’re not overlapping, so whoever left these steps is crossing the entire city in a pattern, possibly in a grid.” I stopped next to the prints and squatted down.

The limpet looked around, then did the same next to me. “What are we looking for?”

I touched the bootprint. “Look at the size. Wide boots, with grooves under it for traction. Good for hiking and terrain like this. Not so good in a proper city. Small foot though, smaller even than your feet.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” the limpet said.

I ignored her perceived insult. “It means we’re either looking for a child, a young woman, or a member of one of the smaller races. In my time I would assume dwarven make, or gnome or halfling. It might be that someone managed to civilise some goblins and kobold, or maybe they just stole some boots.”

“That’s mighty clever of you,” a voice said from over a nearby piece of wall.

The limpet jumped to her feet, hands moving in the first motions to cast Chill Touch.

“We’re not here to hurt anyone,” I said as I looked at and through the wall. There was a lone man behind it. Young, human. Not the one leaving the marks, judging by the sandals on his feet.

The man shifted, then stood up and came around the wall. He was a tall youth, with sun-tanned skin and long hair held back in a tail. His clothes were loose fitting, but held snug by a pair of belts with various tools hooked to it. “You know, sneaking up on a cultivator is a bad idea,” he said.

“Oh? We were not the ones hiding,” I said. “In fact, I daresay that we weren’t being stealthy at all.”

The youth grinned wryly. “Alright, that’s fair. What are you doing in the ruins of Silverdust?”

“Silverdust?” I repeated.

The man nodded, then gestured around him. “This place. It’s an ancient city. And it’s a dangerous place.”

“Yes,” I said. “We could trip over some of these rocks on the roadside.”

The man snorted. “No, not that. Well, not just that. I suppose an old man might turn his ankle on some of these, and there have been buildings that just crumble apart. I’m mostly talking about the plant monsters and the goblins.”

“Oh?” I asked. “Do tell.”

Goblins had been a sort of scourge even in my day. Though they were more pest than threat. They’d steal clothes from lines and would take the yield of a farmer’s crop. Sometimes they’d form violent little bands so that a passing adventurer had something to practice on. The plant monsters could be anything though.

The boy nodded. “That’s right. Nasty little monsters. You ought to turn around, head back out the way you came. I can escort you a ways, if  you need directions.”

I shook my head. “I’m afraid not. Though your invitation is welcome, and kind even. We’re heading to the middle of the city.”

He shook his head. “That way’s dangerous,” he said.

“Papa can protect us,” Alex said. “He’s very strong. Stronger than any number of goblins.”

I chuckled. “Thank you, Alex. Yes, I think we can handle ourselves. If that doesn’t satisfy you, then perhaps you could escort us to your friends?”

“My friends?” the man asked. “I’m just a lone cultivator, taking in the sights of a place with plentiful qi.”

“Your feet are too big for these bootprints, and don’t have the marks of someone who frequently wears such footwear,” I said.

“Maybe I walked on my hands?” he tried.

I stared until he relented.

“Fine, I didn’t want to do this, but I can’t let you move on. Please turn around and go back to wherever you came from.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” I said. “See, you’ve piqued my curiosity, and now I really do want to see what you’re up to.” I looked at his belt, taking note of the tools there. “And what you’re doing with a team of dwarves. Tell me, limpet, are dwarves welcome in these parts?”

“Huh? Oh, I don’t think so. You’ll see them sometimes, near the mountains at Storm Lake and in the north, but they’re not too common outside of their homes. Cultivators tend to get into fights with them a lot.”

“They can hold their own?” I asked.

The limpet shrugged. “Sometimes.”

“Interesting. I think I’d like to meet your companions,” I told the young man.

“I never said I was with anyone.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” I said. “Don’t bother trying. Come now, I doubt you’re the one in charge, don’t you have a superior who’d rather be the one dealing with us?”

I could tell that I’d poked his pride a little, if only from the way he set his jaw and his expression flattened. Still, he nodded and gestured to the side with his head. “Come on, this way.”

The young cultivator stayed a ways ahead of us. Still, he kept to the streets and the paths that would be easier for someone unfit to cross. I think the limpet at least could appreciate that much.

She also seemed to be appreciating the young man’s physique.

I rolled my eyes and tapped her in the head. “Keep sharp. This could turn into a trap,” I said.

“Yes, Master.”

We soon reached the outermost walls of Silvershire. They had once stood tall and proud, bastions in the defence of a powerful city. Now the few trees around the wall rose higher than the crumpled remains. They were still an obvious break in the landscape though, and as soon as we crossed through a hole dug into their sides, we arrived in the inner city.

The homes here were in better shape. Some even had entire walls left. The city walls must have kept some of the elements at bay, or perhaps some of the ancient enchantments keeping the city safe had endured for longer here, nearer to the centre of the city’s power.

The young man raised his hand, a gesture for us to wait. “I’m going to go get someone. You three, and the dog, stay right there, okay?”

“Certainly,” I said.

The limpet called her dog closer and placed a hand atop its head to keep it close. “This place feels spooky,” she said. “Cold but not.”

I felt the air and nodded. “There was a great deal of death here at one time. There are likely ghosts around. Perhaps some long-lasting skeletons.”

“You’re not worried?” the limpet asked.

“I’m undead. What’s a ghost going to do to me?” I asked. “You, on the other hand, will look quite appetizing to the undead. Do keep your necromantic magic in mind and on the tip of your tongue. They’re surprisingly useful against the dead.”

“Thats strange, death  magic working on the dead.”

I shook my head. “It’s more akin to soul magic working on creatures whose souls are already bared. I wonder what happened here.”

And, as I heard the crunch of approaching boots, I supposed we would soon find out.

***

Chapter Thirty-Two - A Rocky Start

“And to think that the people not directly under your oh-so-holy leadership are still prospering and seeking knowledge!”

***

The young cultivator returned a few minutes after leaving us accompanied by two people. One was a middle-aged woman, with a pair of spectacles perched on the end of a sharp nose and an outfit of pants and tunic that showed she was willing to be out here in the wilderness.

The other was a far  shorter, barrel-chested dwarf, with a beard tucked into his tool-laden belt and eyes nearly hidden by bushy brows. “Mah! Look what we’ve got here. Couple of trespassers, mah?”

“Hardly trespassers,” I said. “I don’t think the locals mind that we’re here.”

“I’d ask you how you’d know, but I suspect that you’d spin me a tall tale,” the dwarf said.

I grinned. “I wouldn’t. I know how short a dwarf’s patience can be.”

“That’s true. Our tolerance for goatshit is low, and you’d be the height of foolishness to insult me that way.”

“It would only be a small insult to someone like you.”

The dwarf and I stared at each other.

“Hehehe,” he began.

“Oh hohoho!” I replied.

The limpet shivered. “I feel like someone just stepped on my grave,” she said.

Alex patted her head. “It’s okay. Bone Papa just met some very strange people that he likes, is all.”

I decided to ignore the pair of them as I extended a hand to the dwarf. “A pleasure to meet you, my little friend. I’m Harold of Clan Potterer.”

The dwarf nodded firmly and grasped my hand in his. “Wrench, of Clan Slate. What are you lot doing in this godforsaken pisshole of a city?”

Before I could reply, the woman cleared her throat. “Forgive me, sirs, but do you know each other? I didn’t think many humans knew how to greet a dwarf.”

“Mah, this one’s as human as I am,” the dwarf said. “All the right bits, but not the right soul.”

I turned to the lady and nodded my greetings. “It’s not my first time meeting a dwarf,” I said. “I always did enjoy their culture. Their sense of humour most of all. We are merely exploring these ruins before making our way north. We were planning on spending the night here before moving on.”

“I see,” she said. Her shoulders slumped. “Ah well, in that case, you’re welcome to share our camp.”

“Mistress Ruolan!” the young cultivator said.

“This is Apprentice Yi,” she said as if he hadn’t interrupted her. “From the Flame’s Heart sect. I’m Ruolan Chan, of the Abyssal Depths sect.”

“A pleasure,” I said. “I’m Harold, this is Alex, my butler, and the limpet.”

“The limpet?” Ruolan asked.

“I’m like his apprentice,” the limpet said with obvious pride.

The woman shrugged. “Well, alright. Come on, we have a fire, and enough supplies for everyone, at least for lunch. Maybe I’ll convince you to move on and out of the city before night falls.”

A glance at the sky revealed that it was only mid-day. “Very well, lead the way.”

We followed our new companions, Ruolan and Wrench taking the lead while Apprentice Yi stayed back a little and eyed us when he thought I wasn’t paying attention.

The camp, as it turned out, was set in the backyard of what must have once been a mansion with its own walls surrounding a nice compound. There were three tents set up in a rough triangle, and a lean-to against one of the remaining walls of the home.

A small smokeless fire burned in the middle of the camp being tended by a bare-faced dwarf.

“Hammer, we’ve got company,” Wrench said. “Where’s Tweezers? We ought to warn him before he does something stupid.”

The female dwarf looked up, a complete lack of concern on her features as she took us in at a glance. “He’s off polishing his tools by the well,” she said.

“Mah! Keeping your things clean is fine, but there’s a damned limit,” Wrench said. “Take a seat, tall folk. Hammer’s an awful cook, but the rest of us are worse.”

Hammer snorted. “You can’t even boil water right, you air-brained fool,” she said. “Welcome folk. I’m Hammer of Clan Granite.”

We went through another round of introductions before sitting down on a couple of benches laid out around the fire pit. “Do dwarves still eat rocks?” I asked.

“We don’t eat rocks,” Hammer said. “They’re carefully processed ores. Besides, we can eat what you humans eat too.”

Alex cleared his throat. “May I take over the cooking then, miss dwarf? I am Papa’s butler, so cooking should be my duty.”

Hammer stepped back from the fire she was tending. “Haven’t even added the gravel to the water yet,” she said. Apprentice Yi shuddered.

Alex smiled and stepped up after setting his backs down. He started moving in a flurry, setting aside the pot of boiling water, tossing more logs onto the fire, moving the spits to accommodate more pots, and placing a pan atop the flames which was quickly covered in a mix of butter and oil from his bag.

“So,” I asked Ruolan and Wrench who both settled in across from me. “What are two cultivators and three clan dwarves doing in the ruins of an ancient city?”

“ Mah , nothing that would interest you,” Wrench said.

“I truly doubt that,” I said. “Silvershire may be long dead, but it was once one of the world's greatest sources of new and innovative magics. Even after thousands of years, there must be something left to discover here.”

“ Mah,  you’re calling it Silvershire? That’s an old name for this place. Maybe I’ll tell you why we’re here if you do the same first,” Wrench said.

I tapped my chin. “Alright,” I said. “I had friends who once lived here. They borrowed something of mine, and I’m curious as to what happened to that thing. So I’m here to look into it. I didn’t expect this place to be so... dilapidated though.”

“Your friends lived here a thousand eight hundred years ago?” Ruolan asked. “I kind of doubt that.”

“Not everyone is as short lived as you humans,” Wrench said. He leaned forwards, elbows on his knees. “We’re here because another expedition discovered something. Something under this city.”

I nodded. That made sense. When Silvershire grew large enough, most of the big academies and research places needed more room. Growing up was one solution. Wizard’s do like their towers. But the other, simpler one, was to build down. The city was nearly as big underground as it was above.

“The undercity,” I said. Wrench’s eyes flashed. “Yes, I know of them. What are you looking for down there?”

“For now? A way around all the goblins,” Wrench said. “We didn’t think they’d take up as much of the space as they do. If we can get past that, then who knows? Ancient machines? Blueprints? Tools used by the ancestors! By my grandfather’s stones, I would give much to name my children after a new tool.”

“What’s all this?”

We turned to find a short—that is, short for them—dwarf standing by the entrance into the courtyard. He had a set of magnifying glasses on and his braided beard was scraggly and covered in twigs.

“Mah, Tweezers, you daft moron. Where have you been?”

The dwarf lifted a sachet that jangled. “Cleaning my tools,” he said.

“We have guests,” Wrench said. “A human, whatever that maid is, and this ancient here.”

Ruolan looked between Wrench and myself. “Are you sure he’s not a man?” she asked.

“Mah, of course he’s a man,” Wrench said. “Fool girl. Too damned young for your own good.”

“I’m thirty!” she lied.

Tweezers came over and plopped himself down on the bench next to Hammer. “Pleased to meetcha,” he said. “What’s the maid cooking?”

“I’m preparing two meals so that everyone will be happy,” Alex said.

“Nice,” Tweezers said. “So are you a boy or a girl?”

“I’m a maid,” Alex said.

“Right, right,” Tweezers replied with a nod. He turned to the limpet. “And you? You a boy or a girl?”

“She’s Father’s limpet,” Alex said.

Tweezers nodded again.

“What? No, I’m a girl,” the limpet said.

“You can probably be both,” Tweezers said. “Some things are like that. We have slugs back home that change between boy and girl all the time. Maybe you can be a girl and then a limpet?”

The limpet pouted.

“Wrench. When is your group heading into the undercity?” I asked.

“After lunch,” Wrench said. “Did you want to come with ? We could use the help. But we get first dibs on any tools we find.”

“No,” Ruolan said with a shake of her head. She gestured between the dwarf and myself. “You can’t allow this man to come with us. We’re already suspicious enough as it is.”

“Mah, you think the goblins down there will ask for our papers?”

“No, I think that my sect will already question my choice to work with dwarves and to hire someone from the Flame’s Heart to act as escort. Having even more strangers abroad will only make my reports worse.”

“I never did learn why you are here, Miss Chan,” I said.

She worked her jaw. “That’s cultivator business.”

“Mah, this one could bend you over his knee in less time than it takes for Tweezers over there to ask a dumb question.”

Ruolan eyed me. “Which sect are you from? I don’t feel any qi coming from you, and your companions are just as weak. The girl is barely above civilian levels.”

“Qi? As I recall, that’s physical mana. No, you wouldn’t feel much of that from me. I daresay my control is a little better than that.”

Wrench patted Ruolan on the knee. “This one’s here to snoop around and see if there's any old techniques to sniff out. But this place isn’t under her sect’s control, so she’s being sneaky about it.”

“Wrench!”

I nodded. “I doubt she’ll discover much. Silvershire predates the arrival of cultivation as a method of progression.”

Wrench nodded. “Mah, told her as much. But humans have short memories. Us dwarves, why, my great-great-grandpa was linked to the system, you know?”

“Lunch is ready,” Alex said as, with a flourish, he unveiled six plates. “For the humans, we have oil-fried chicken breast, stuffed with basil and diced tomatoes, with a fine layer of grated cheese. We have a side of flame grilled asparagus and a light salad with freshly gathered mushrooms and a pinch of lemon. I made a simple creamy dressing with some herbs and whipped milk.”

Alex handed a plate to the limpet, then one to Roulan and Yi. The latter stared at the expertly proportioned plates for a moment, looking rather dazed.

“Does... does the maid have a cooking dao?” the younger cultivator asked.

“And for our new dwarf friends,” Alex continued as he presented his other plates. “Warm shelled limestone covered in a drizzled sauce of oil and finely crushed gravel. I also made a nice side of thinly sliced potato with some obsidian cuttings for that extra bit of crunch to go with your fiber.”

Alex handed the dwarves their meals.

“I’m sorry it’s not better, I’m working with limited ingredients.” Alex bowed to everyone. “I hope you enjoy.”

Yi was already nearing the end of his plate, scarfing the food down like a starving man while Ruolan picked at her meal with a confused expression.

“It’s real good, Alex,” the limpet said. “You’re the best cook.”

Alex’s ears drooped. “Ah, thank you, L impet. ”

“So,” I asked the dwarves who were chunching away at their lunch. “What have you found so far?”

Wrench swallowed. “Mah, this and that. Nothing worth going home with. Some old casings, a few pieces of rusty steel that could be anything. We did discover one destroyed automaton down there. Looks like the goblins took it down some twenty, thirty years ago. Not much left of it though.”

“Interesting. Very interesting.”

***

Chapter Thirty-Three - A Party

“I, or perhaps I should say, we, discovered a few things in the undercity. Some very interesting things, about you, and about the last of the old gods.”

***

Once lunch was over with, the group stood up and started to prepare for an expedition into the undercity. It seemed that we had been accepted, at least as far as I could tell.

“Limpet,” I said to catch the girl’s attention. “I think this will be a good learning opportunity for you. You can discover a caster ’s place within a full party.”

“Where’s that, Master?” the limpet asked.

“Why, out of the way of anything sharp and pointy, of course,” I said.

The girl blinked up at me. “You don’t seem to respect that rule much, Master.”

“I am somewhat stab-proof, what with the lack of organs worth stabbing. You, on the other hand, are very stab-able .”

“Observe.”

A Warlock Test Subject of the Archon of Science, Level 18.

Two levels up from when I last used Observe on her. A decent, if small increase. Had it been one day or two since I last looked? A level a day was a decent rate, though early levels were generally a lot easier to gain.

A glance at the other members of the party showed that their levels were all over.

Apprentice of the Flaming Heart, level 48.

Searcher of the Abyss, level 87.

Granite Warhammer Fighter, level 65.

Rogue of Lost Marbles, level 67.

Mechanist of the Slate Tunnels, level 69.

The dwarves seemed to be very close to each other in level. A societal thing, a coincidence? Perhaps they had partied together for a long enough time that their progression was linked. It happened often enough back in my day.

The humans had decently high levels for their age. At least, for people levelling in an inefficient way.

“Papa? Should we leave our things here?” Alex asked.

Death Maid of the Bone Daddy, level 386.

I blinked away my Observe. “I suppose so,”  I said. “We don’t have anything too precious, do we?”

Alex shook his head. “Nope. Just food and things. I’ll place it so that it’s hard to find, just in case. It would be a shame if Daddy’s test subject starved because we don’t have food.”

“Indeed,” I agreed. I pat Alex between the ears in a way he seemed to enjoy, even if it crumpled his bonnet a little, then moved over to Ruolan. “What formation are you using?” I asked.

The cultivator eyed me for a moment, pausing in her work of sheathing a long blade into the shaft of a sort of walking cane. “You’re not going to take the lead?”

“You mean as a leader? No. I’ve never been keen to be a leader or anything, let alone a party like this one. You know most of the actors here, you should be the one directing them. At least, if I read the situation correctly?”

Ruolan nodded. “Yes, I’m the one in charge of the party when we go down into the depths.” She frowned a little before going on. “I can’t tell how strong you’re meant to be, but Wrench respects you, and he claims that you’re very old. No offense.”

“None taken. I am, in fact, quite old.”

She nodded. “So what can you do?”

“A bit of this, some of that,” I said with a purposefully vague gesture. “How about this. I won’t step in to help unless the entire party is at risk. In exchange, I won’t step in and do all of the work. I’ll merely stand back and observe. Alex will do likewise.”

Ruolan rubbed her thumb over her fingers as she thought. “Two things. You say that as if you could clear the path on your own.”

“I could,” I said.

“Then why don’t you?”

“It would be easy for me to do it, but I’d gain nothing from it. You and your teammates, on the other hand, could all use the experience.”

“Alright,” she said. “That’s... somewhat fair, I suppose. The other thing. You didn’t mention the... limpet. Is that really her name?”

“It isn’t. And you can do with her as you please. She’s a wizard in training. Terribly weak on the front lines. Exceptionally useful in the back. At least, she will be one day. For now she can cast a few basic spells that might help.”

Ruolan’s eyebrows rose a little. “I see. And she’s your apprentice?”

“She’s my limpet,” I clarified. “I’d appreciate the opportunity for her to learn a few things. There’s only so much that a book can teach.”

She nodded. “Fair.” The woman extended a hand my way, and I shook. “Alright everyone! Let’s get going! Wrench, Hammer, you’re at our flanks. I’m taking the vanguard with Apprentice Yi. Tweezers, you’re rearguard. Harold and Alex are staying near the back too. Consider them non-combattants for now. Limpet, you’re middle-middle.”

“Huh?” the limpet asked.

“Three steps behind me,” Ruolan said. “You can do ranged attacks?”

“Yes ma’am!” the limpet said as she jumped to her feet.

“Then focus on that. Try to hit any ranged attackers that we come against first. Otherwise, hit any adversary that looks unoccupied.”

The limpet nodded. “I’ll do my best.”

With that out of the way, we set off, returning to the too-quiet streets of Silvershire. Apprentice Yi ranged out ahead a little, jumping up atop walls and eyeing our path ahead while the rest of the group moved in a loose formation, with enough room between everyone so that a weapon’s swing wouldn’t injure an ally.

The dwarves seemed to carry their namesake as weapons. Wrench had a huge wrench that he leaned onto his shoulder, and Hammer had a warhammer which she held in both arms. It had to weigh as much as the limpet, but the woman was carrying it with ease.

Tweezers, meanwhile, was in the back, shifting from shadowy corner to corner, with his hood up and his back hunched to make him appear even smaller than he was.

“The nearest entrance to the undercity is through a set of tunnels,” Ruolan said. “Sewers I think. Some of the bigger cities in the empire have them.”

I nodded. “There should be larger tunnels than that. Like roads. They had some shops along them too. Sometimes the same shops as on the ground level, but extending down below.”

Ruolan half turned to look at me for a moment. “Those have mostly collapsed,” she said. “You’ll find spots like that all over.” She pointed to the side where a large dip in the ground hinted at the presence of a building that had caved down.

“This city used to be quite the marvel,” I said. “Not the greatest or most populous, nor even the most advanced that I’ve seen, but it was once full of life and innovation. Do any records of its fall remain?”

Ruolan shook her head. “Not really. It wasn’t anything sudden, if that helps. The economy shifted, the silver mines dried up. I think there might have been a war nearby, and some records hinted at a great schism. And then the city died over the course of a generation or two.”

“A slow death,” I said. “Perhaps that’s fitting.”

The conversation died out as we continued towards the centre of the city. The buildings were increasingly intact as we neared the middle, though that wasn’t saying much as they were still dilapidated and in a rough state.

Apprentice Yi jumped down from a pillar and jogged over to us. “The entrance is just ahead. It’s guarded,” he whispered.

“How many?”

“Three goblins,” Yi said. “Two are playing cards. Another is practising with a bow.”

Ruolan gestured for everyone to move closer to one wall, then ran ahead with Yi. Their steps were whisper quiet as they scouted out ahead.

When they returned, Ruolan looked quite irritated. “Four. There are four of them. And they have a bell near the archer. If he rings that thing we’ll be drowning in greenskins in a matter of minutes.”

“How strong are the local goblins?” I asked in a voice pitched as low as her own.

“They’re not strong. I’d give any old farmer fifty-fifty odds against one of them. The problem is that there are a lot of them.” Ruolan turned to the limpet. “Think you could take out their archer?”

“Um,” the limpet said before she set her features and nodded with determination. “I can do it.”

Ruolan nodded. “Tweezers, get ready to move in first. I want you to disable the bell as soon as the girl fires off her first spell. Hammer, Wrench, take the one on the left. Apprentice Yi, you and I are taking the two on the right. I’ll take the nearest one. Everyone on the same page?”

There were nods all around.

“Limpet, you’re the go signal.”

The limpet nodded and snuck forwards with Ruolan and Yi until they were all on the edge of a broken wall. The limpet moved out from behind her cover, then dipped down to one knee behind a large stone. Her dog crawled up beside her, low to the ground.

The limpet began to move her hands through a familiar set of gestures.

“Impede my nemesis’ flight

Turn their world to blistering white

Turn them cold

Their bodies hold

And curse them with   Frostbite! ”

I cast my arcane gaze through the wall of solid bricks next to me to see the scene as the limpet did.

There were four goblins. Two of them to the right playing a game with rough carved pieces of tree bark. One by the middle fumbling with a shortbow, and another way off on the left picking at his wart-covered nose.

The moment the limpet’s final word was out, the archer froze on the spot, white trails of seeping cold racing across his form and over the rags he wore. Still, he turned and hobbled towards the bell.

Ruolan and the others rushed out from behind cover, all of them heading towards their respective targets.

She should have had one of the dwarves moving towards the archer, just in case limpet’s spell didn’t kill him, as it seemed to be the case.

“Oh no,” the limpet said. She started moving her hands again, quick janky motions in an attempt to cast a spell in a hurry.

“Fear, from a necromancer’s touch

To remove the healer’s clutch

With strength despotic

And power necrotic

I cast upon thee, Chill Touch! ”

A ghastly hand shot out from before the limpet. It was poorly formed, and while it radiated necrotic energies, it was also leaking far too much of it. The spell wouldn’t last its full duration.

Still, the hand crashed into the goblin archer’s neck and yanked him back and away from the bell just as he was reaching out to slap it.

Tweezers soon arrived on the scene and, after unhooking the bell with an expert twist and laying it on the ground without so much as a clang, he jumped on the goblin with a pair of sharp tools in each hand.

“Well done,” I told the limpet. “That was some fast thinking in the end there.”

“I didn’t cast it correctly,” she lamented.

I rolled my eyes and patted her head. “Don’t be a fool. Sometimes an unimpressive spell that works is more important than an impressive one that fails. Your failed cast still worked. Though it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t practice a lot more.”

“I will, Master.”

“Why didn’t you use Seeping Sting?”

“Ah, from what I read, it’s better to use that if you’re going to be directly in the fight. And it wouldn’t stop the goblin from ringing the bell, not unless it somehow killed him in one go. Frostbite would at least slow him down. Chill touch would have been better as a first spell, except that it leaves a trail and it’s visible. What if he rolled and dodged it?”

“Good reasoning,” I said. “Now come on, the others have finished up. We’ll have to see how well your spells work out in cramped underground sewers.”

***

Chapter Thirty-Four - A Dramatic Run

“I’m not angry about the cultivation thing. Sure, it’s unscientific and silly, but I’m not mad. I am a little angry that society hasn’t progressed much at all.”

***

The entrance to the undercity, or at least the entrance Ruolan knew about, was tucked in what must once have been an alleyway. It was between two collapsed walls, a section darkened by a lack of direct sunlight from above.

“Wrench, Hammer, can you grab that?” Ruolan asked as she gestured to a round manhole cover. It was already partially moved off the hole it covered, a vine rope with knots tied along it dropping down into the darkness below. No doubt left by the goblins.

There was something about the vines that twigged a memory, but they were so scuffed, and tied into such a strangely braided pattern, that I couldn’t quite place them.

The two dwarves Ruolan had pointed to moved the cover back, allowing light to splash down to the bottom of the tunnel some four necrometers  down. Far deeper than most basements would be, and beneath the main layer of the Undercity, if I were to guess.

“Yi, you’re going down first,” Ruolan said.

He nodded and slid his sword back into its scabbard. It wouldn't be of much help in the tight confines of the tunnel below. The young man grabbed the vine rope and tugged on it a few times. “This thing won’t support that many of us,” he said.

“Get to the bottom, and tell us if it’s clear,” Ruolan said. “We’ll go down one at a time.”

Yi nodded, grabbed onto the vine with both hands, then dropped down and out of sight.

Ruolan turned to the rest of us. “Alright. Hammer, you’re next. Then me, then limpet and our two guests. Wrench, you and Tweezers are coming in last.”

“What about Fang Fang?” the limpet asked. She gestured to her dog who looked up at Ruolan with big dog eyes.

“He stays here,” Ruolan said. “Don’t worry, he can probably handle a few goblins all on his own.”

The limpet nodded, then got to one knee to give her dog some instructions.

A faint whistle sounded from below. Ruolan gestured Hammer forwards, and the dwarf slid her warhammer into a sheath by her hips before going down.

Soon, Ruolan descended, and then it was the turn of our little group. The limpet wasn’t in the best of shapes, but she was young and spry and made it down with little trouble. I took my time descending, my task made somewhat difficult since my shoes weren’t designed for that kind of exercise.

When I reached the bottom I looked up and called out to Alex. “It’s your turn,” I said, pitching my voice so that it wouldn’t echo down the tunnels.

Alex bent over the hole, looked at the vine, looked at his dress, then stepped into the void and came falling down only to land in a crouch at the bottom. “Made it,” he said.

Soon enough, everyone was down, and we gathered together in the rather claustrophobic tunnel. The good thing was that any sewage was long gone. The less optimal fact was that the tunnel was never meant to accommodate people. It was only just tall enough in its middle to support someone standing up, and the footing was precarious at best since the bottom was angled into a sort of trough.

I bent down and ran a finger over the ground. No, it wasn’t built that way. The bricks were worn down into a rough ‘v’ shape. Likely by decades of water flowing past it.

“Yi, lights,” Ruolan said as she reached into her little pack and removed a small metallic trinket from a pocket at the back of her belt. I sensed a faint twist of magic and a beam of light shot out of the end of the device.

A portable light of sorts? A rather simple enchantment, but surprising to see all the same.

Yi pulled out a similar device and aimed it down the opposite end of the tunnel. “No goblins,” he said.

The limpet finished muttering something, and a small ball of light appeared hovering over her hand. A simple cast of Prestidigitation, but one that cast more light than both enchanted devices.

“Hmm,”  Ruolan said as she looked away from the limpet’s light.  “Well done, kid. We’re taking the tunnel north, towards the centre of the city.” She started off in that direction, and our previous formation resumed, though it was quite a bit tighter now.

The tunnel ran in a mostly straight line. Mostly, because it curved ever so slightly off towards the side, but judging by the way the bricks in the walls jutted out, it wasn’t designed that way.

Tectonic shifts over the years? Or perhaps the collapse of other parts of the Undercity caused this area to move?

Ruolan reached up and tapped a wooden board jutting out of the ceiling. There was a crudely drawn face on it. “Goblins,” she said.

The deeper we moved, the more signs appeared that the area was infested with them. There were discarded bones left along the sides, mostly from smaller mammals and the occasional bird. Some broken tools were left to rot. Mostly poorly made spears, but occasionally we crossed singed wooden stumps that I guessed were once torches.

“They use fire for light,” I said.

“Fools,” Hammer swore.

“Master?” the limpet asked.

It was Wrench that answered. “Smell the air, kid. That sulphur-y stink? There are gases in these tunnels. The sort that would have a proper dwarven engineer evacuating the area. Fire could light it off. You’d have small explosions, but small explosions in contained spaces are a real nightmare, mah.”

“Oh,” the limpet said. “So no fire, got it.”

The tunnel came up onto an intersection ahead, and Ruolan raised a hand for us to slow down. “Shush,” she said.

I focused a little, and could only-just make out the sound of something scratching the dirt up ahead. We stopped some half-dozen necrometers away from the intersection, then watched as a pair of goblins in nothing but loin clothes moved out into the middle of the passage.  They had their heads bowed, and were focused on the ground.

One of them looked up and locked eyes on our party.

“Limpet,” Ruolan said. “Tweezers.” The woman herself started to move ahead at a dead sprint.

The limpet moved her hands in a quick flurry of motion while muttering the incantation to Frostbite.

One of the goblins stumbled back, its breath catching while icy tendrils rushed across its skin.

And then half a dozen tweezers thudded into its body as a brace thrown by Tweezers landed.

The other goblin, seeing its partner rushing off the mortal coil, and Ruolan rushing towards it, bolted.

Ruolan arrived at the intersection just as it ran off to the side, squealing loud enough to wake the dead. The cultivator disappeared for a moment, then the squealing went quiet.

“Oops,” the limpet said.

“Hardly your fault,” I said. “No one gave you a firing order, or told you which target to hit first. It's the kind of thing that you’d learn over time in an experienced party.”

“Happens,” Tweezers said as he walked by. “I’m gonna get my tools.”

The party moved up to the intersection, meeting Ruolan who was in the process of cleaning off the end of her cane. “I heard more of them deeper down the tunnel,” she said. “We need to get moving. They ran off, but I think some of them might have seen me. They’ll sound the alarm.”

As if mocking her, a distant clanging sounded out through the tunnels, metal beating on metal. “That’s no good,” Alex said.

Ruolan pointed off to our left. “Down that way,” she said. “If we’re lucky they’ll split up along these three paths and we won’t be running onto all of them.”

“We’ll be leaving prints,” the limpet said with a gesture behind us where we were, indeed, leaving prints in the mud.

“Then let’s leave them quickly. Come on. Same formation. Go!”

The distant clamour of angry goblins finding their dead comrades pushed the group into moving faster down the tunnels. By all means, we should have been far faster than the goblins, but there were a few issues slowing the group down.

Soon after moving into the tunnel Ruolan indicated we arrived at a partial cave in and had to slip through a hole one at a time.  Then, when we arrived at a fork in the path, we ended up faced with a dead-end and had to back up and use the other passage in the hopes that it would eventually reconnect to the right tunnel.

By the time ten minutes passed in the tight, poorly-lit confines of the tunnels, with only the flickering light of the limpet’s Prestidigitation and the two cultivators' bouncing lights to illuminate the path, we were running with the fastest goblins right on our tail.

Ruolan pointed out ahead. There was a small barricade blocking the bottom half of the tunnel ahead, made of bits of wood and masonry stacked up to knee-height. “We stand on the other side of that. Dwarves form a front line with me and Yi. Rangers at the back.”

We jumped over the barricade and immediately turned around.

Two dozen goblins were coming right at us. Their weapons, wooden spears, the occasional knife made from a sharpened piece of iron, and even some basic bows, didn’t look like much. In fact, I was certain that they would all die terribly dull deaths very soon.

The problem was the hundreds of other goblins behind this vanguard.

“We take these out, then keep moving,” Ruolan said. “We can’t afford to be bogged down.”

“Mah, I know, I know,” Wrench said. He moved up to the edge of the barricade and swung his wrench just as the first goblin leapt over the top. The heavy metal tool crunched as it caved in the goblin’s head.

The limpet fired a Chill Touch into the face of a goblin archer, sending it off the top of the barricade just as Tweezers’  thrown tweezers sliced the string off another’s bow and made the weapon snap apart in the goblin’s hand.

Ruolan and Yi, both taller and longer-limbed than all the others, made short work of the goblins jumping up to take the group down from above while Hammer and Wrench used the barricade as cover from which to wind up massive blows with their respective weapons.

The problem for the goblins was that they were too feeble to do much more than endure one hit from their adversaries, and too dumb to turn around and come up with a better plan.

“We’re clear!” Ruolan said as soon as the last went down. “Let’s move.”

We started running again, the limpet stuttering her way through a recast of Prestidigitation.

How many spells had she cast? Two earlier, then the light, then another at the intersection, and now four more at the barricade. Eight cantrips in a row, with some sustained over a decently long period, all of that under some stress.

She was doing pretty well.

The main body of goblins behind us caught up to their vanguard and hollered and screamed their anger.

“We need to hurry!” Yi said.

“Ay, we’re hurrying already, you moron!” Hammer shot back.

With skidding feet, we arrived at a T-junction only to run right into a patrol of goblins. Six in all.

Ruolan was quick to act, slashing the head off one and slapping the feet out from another with her cane.

Yi didn’t have time to remove his sword from its sheath , so he resorted to kicking another down.

The dwarves, Hammer and Wrench, found themselves facing off against a trio of surprised but angry goblins.

Two went down from heavy swings, but a third stabbed forwards with its spear and caught Wrench in the gut, the pointy wooden tip digging through the dwarf’s gambeson.

“Ch-Chill Touch!”

A ghastly hand grabbed the goblin by the throat and threw him back, yanking the spear from Wrench’s stomach. Tweezers jumped on it, finishing it off with a flurry.

“Are you alright?” Ruolan asked.

“Mah, got worse at the forge from being clumsy,” Wrench said as he tugged his gambeson down over the wound.

“You’re always clumsy,” Hammer said.

“Oh, piss off you beardless old hag. We running  some more, or are we staying here to die?”

Ruolan looked down the dark depths of the tunnel. “We still have some running to do,” she said.

So we continued moving.

I, for one, was having quite a bit of fun with all of the drama going on.

***

Chapter Thirty-Five - A Wine-ing Proposition

“Secrets tend to come out eventually, no matter what you do. That’s why I just don’t bother.”

***

The entire group was focused more on the path ahead than their surroundings.

I couldn’t blame them. With the surge of goblins coming in from behind, there was good reason to focus on the treacherous footing and tight quarters ahead, as opposed to taking a moment to inspect their surroundings.

If they had taken their time, I’m certain that at least some of them would have noticed the small changes in the tunnels around us.

The brickwork here was cracked and splintered, with the occasional splash of muted green poking out between the stone. There were large sections of the walls covered in black soot and signs that vines had withered away in a fire in those places.

The burns were just frequent enough that they had to be deliberate.

Of course, I don’t think any of my... party members noticed that. When they did look around it was always to focus on the horde of goblins behind us.

It was difficult to count the green skins, but I estimated that there were a little more than a hundred of them. Those near the middle of the group actually seemed to have armour and proper weapons.

Well, proper weapons by goblin standards. Rusty old swords and knives no doubt taken from passersby, cloth gambesons poorly stitched together, and a lot of armour made from thick woven mats of vine.

“Damn,” Ruolan said.

The tunnel opened up into a large room. Part of it was dipping down into a large hole in the room’s centre, while steps circled around the rim of the circular room, going down into the darkness. The little dip created by centuries of passing water led right into the hole.

A way for the sewer system to continue down a level?

“We need to go around,” Ruolan said. “Watch your steps, but keep fast,” the woman said. “If we’re caught out in the open we’ll be surrounded.”

I didn’t doubt that the goblins, some of the less intelligent—relative to their kind—would try to jump across the hole to get to us while we were descending on the other side. Ruolan took the lead and the rest of us followed.

The steps were often cracked or broken, with some sections outright missing.

A flash of Yi’s light towards the bottom of the pit revealed nothing but darkness, a darkness with a tangled mess of indistinct vines lurked.

The goblins arrived when we were on the far end of the room.

The entire force came to a halt by the entrance to the tunnel, some of them fanning out to the sides to glace and shout and wave their primitive weapons at us.

“Hold!” Ruolan said, one arm raised.

We held, stopping where we were and facing off against the goblins with a three necrometer pit between us.

None of them rushed over.

“Why aren’t they coming?” Ruolan whispered.

The goblins shifted and moved until one large specimen came to stand by the edge of the hole. He snorted, running a mittened hand under his nose as he eyed us all. The goblin spat down into the pit, then grunted something in his primitive tongue to the other goblins.

Soon a goblin came to the fore and handed him a torch.

He took it, grinned at us, and let it drop into the pit.

The flaming stick wafted and spat flickers of fire as it tumbled into the depths.

The goblins chittered and laughed as they funneled out of the room.

“Master?” the limpet asked. “Why are they leaving?”

I rubbed my thumb and forefinger over my chin as though I had a beard. “How about you give me your best hypothesis?”

“Um,” she said before looking around. “We’re kind of cornered here.” She reached out with a foot and tapped the edge of the stairs which were less than a necrometer wide. “With very little room to fight in. Maybe they know that they’d lose a lot of goblins? But they didn’t seem to mind earlier? And they could just attack from range or throw things.”

“Go on,” I said. The others were listening in as well.

“If they were clever... I’ve seen Fang Fang corner a rat once. It didn’t have anywhere to go, so Fang Fang just waited until it panicked and tried to bolt. Maybe they’ll be waiting for us to leave by the same way we came?”

“Mah, don’t reckon they’re that clever,” Wrench said.

“Yeah, me neither,” the limpet agreed. She looked down into the depths. The light from the torch was long gone. “Maybe there’s another reason they won’t go on.”

“Alright, enough guess work,” Ruolan said. “Let’s get into the next tunnel and then take five to drink and breathe and calm down a little. We might have to fight our way out if we leave now, but if we wait, well, goblins aren’t known for their patience. We could sneak past them, or fight to the exit later.”

“There’s more than one way down here,” Hammer said.

“That too,” Ruolan agreed. She pointed to the opposite end of the room, not to the tunnel we came in from, but to one a level below that where the stairs ended.

The lot of us shuffled over at a much more sedate pace until we were all in the next tunnel down. This one was, surprisingly, in far better condition. Perhaps the added depth and the lower activity had acted to preserve the passage better.

There was a lot more plant life here. Thin leaves that shifted ever so slightly when Yi and Ruolan’s lights flashed past them, and thin roots ran along the walls and floor.

I gave the walls a grin as I poked at one of the leaves. It was quite familiar.

I had always been a fan of a good vintage.

“Master?” the limpet asked.

“Go on, take a break,” I said.

Everyone took a moment to set down their packs, or lean against the walls. The limpet moved her Prestidigitation-created light high to illuminate more of the tunnel for the others, and Ruolan pulled out a detailed map and started to study it in the light of her enchanted torch.

Apprentice Yi moved in deeper into the tunnel, his light turning this way and that to scan around him.

“This place is too warm,” the limpet said.

“Mah, you should visit some of the deeps at home,” Wrench said. “There’s this one passage that breaks into a thermal. Gas so hot you can make bronze bend over it.”

The limpet smiled and shuffled closer to Wrench. “Can anyone go to the dwarf... kingdom? Is it a kingdom?”

“Kings? Who do you think we are?” Hammer said. “We’re a democratic meritocracy with a communist economy. Kings, pah!” The dwarf spat to the ground next to her.

“Oh? How does that work?” the limpet asked.

“Each senior clansman, or clanswoman—we’re egalitarian that way—gets a vote. The clan can vote for a leader, usually the people who can become candidates need to pass a series of tests to prove their competence. Then these leaders join the council of clans where rulership decisions are made,” Hammer explained.

“Interesting. Anarcho-syndicalism, with a touch more logic and common sense, I presume. Your form of governance hasn’t changed all that much in some time,” I said. “At least, from the little you’ve said.”

“Dwarves are big on tradition,” Ruolan said. “It’s a miracle tha—”

Yi screamed.

The entire group turned, just in time to see the Apprentice getting dragged feet-first into the dark, his light left on the ground behind him as he was taken away.

“Interesting,” I said.

“Let’s move!” Ruolan said as she rushed after her apprentice while shoving her map away in a pocket. The others grabbed their things and ran after her.

“This is fun,” Alex said.

“Isn’t it?”

We caught up to Apprentice Yi in very little time. The man was hacking away at something that was wrapped around his legs. Another something was winding around his throat and trying to push into his mouth even though he was twisting his head from side to side to avoid it.

Ruolan shot ahead and swung her sword around in a great arc that cleaved through the mass grabbing onto the Apprentice.

We all stopped, some of the others staring down the darkened tunnel as the vines that had grabbed Yi raced away.

“What in the heavens was that?” Yi asked as he fought out of the grip of some vines.

I came to his side and knelt before taking the vine around his throat apart and holding it up.

It was fairly thick. About the size of a man’s thumb, with some bigger bulges here and there. The end of it had a sort of mouth that was leaking a dark, viscous fluid.

“Master? What is that.”

I squeezed the tubular vine just-so, and a purplish fruit popped out of the end and onto the floor with a splat. I let go of the vine to lift the fruit up so that everyone could see it.

“Is that a grape?” Tweezers asked.

“It is,” I confirmed. “This place has a nasty infestation of tentacle grape vines.”

“What?” the limpet asked.

Apprentice Yi gulped. “It was trying to take my pants off!”

“Well, yes, that’s how these vines work,” I said. “No wine-ing.”

Wrench grinned. “Wine-ing?” he asked. “Hehehehe.”

“Ohohoho!”

Yi glared at the two of us. “You think this is funny?” he asked.

“Mah, lad, you just went through a grape but harrowing experience, it’s normal to be angry,” Wrench said while screwing his expression back into something that was almost neutral.

“Ohoho!”

“Master? Are you making wine jokes?” the limpet asked.

“Yes. These kinds of vines do make a very powerful and, at least in my day, desirable wine.”

The limpet nodded. “But Yi was almost tentacled. It’s in pour taste to joke about it.” She smiled. “Pour. Get it, like in a cup?”

I patted her head. “Well done.”

“Mister Harold, could you explain what just happened?” Ruolan said. She was eyeing the darkness with something approaching apprehension.

“Ah, yes. Tentacle grape vines were something of a local specialty. A hybrid of a normal wine-making vine and a rather violent plant that someone discovered in some deep, long lost corner of the world. The grapes do produce a very strong, magical wine. Unfortunately, the plant’s reproductive cycle involves implanting its fruit in a warm, wet body until it germinates.”

“Oh gods,” Yi whispered.

“So that’s why the goblins didn’t follow us down?” Ruolan asked.

“Presumably,” I said. “Perhaps the danger of these plants has circulated across the goblin grapevine. Ohoh!”

“Are they just vines?” Ruolan asked while ignoring my perfectly valid joke.

“Oh, no, they’re entire walking creatures. Their sizes vary a lot, and they can be quite fearsome. Fortunately, they’ll be fighting at a disadvantage.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“They want you alive.”

Yi gulped audibly.

“I decan’t think of a worse way to go,” Hammer said.

I snorted.

“Papa, should we put a cork in this until after we’ve dealt with the monsters?” Alex asked.

He earned a pat too.

Ruolan had us retaking our initial formation. It seemed as if the break was over. It also seemed as if the woman had no sense of humour as she thought our jokes were terribly crass. Still, we started moving through the tunnels, our goal somewhere ahead of us.

“Mister Harold,” Ruolan said as she scanned the walls and floors and eyed the roots and occasional leaves with suspicion. “Would you happen to know how to kill these plants?”

“I suspect I could manage,” I said.

“And would it be possible for you to do so? At least, if we seem to be overrun and in danger?” It sounded as though she was crushing her pride underfoot as she asked, but she still made the effort to do so.

I nodded. “I can do that much,” I said.

“Master should teach me Fireball one of these days,” the limpet said.

“You’re not quite there yet,” I said. “Now these vines are magical in nature. How do you think you could serve the party in this scenario?”

The limpet blinked a few times, adjusted her glasses, then snapped her fingers and started the incantation for Detect Magic.

This evening was increasingly amusing.

***

Chapter Thirty-Six - A Leaf of Faith

“It will take some time and experimentation to see whether the baseline sentients of this world can truly get by without the system holding their hand. I have so many hypotheses already.”

***

“Detect Magic!”

The limpet lowered her hands, her breathing hard and laboured as if she’d just run a marathon as opposed to merely casting a first-tier spell.

To be fair, she had been casting a lot of cantrips. Her concentration couldn’t be at its best, and I could sense that she was tiring even before casting a spell that was just short of the limit of her abilities.

She was progressing quite nicely as a wizard. Or as the case may be, warlock.  Soon she’d have a wider variety of utilitarian spells under her belt, as well as quite a few offensive ones. Her choice in schools was rather typical for someone so young.

There was always this impression that the skills worth learning first were those that could harm the most.

But magic being what it is, there are few spells that can’t be twisted into causing harm. It was often better to learn a simple and useful utilitarian spell and then learning how to apply it for violence rather than learning a spell meant for violence and trying to find a use for it in one’s day-to-day.

The limpet blinked a few times, accommodating herself to the magical vision, then she gestured for the tentacle that had grabbed onto Apprentice Yi. “Can I see that?” she asked.

Yi gave her the piece of vine still caught around his leg. He seemed quite eager to get rid of it.

“There’s not too much magic in this, but it’s there. I think... yeah, it looks like it’s fading? But there are spots of magic in it?” She squeezed the vine, then pushed a grape out of the severed end. “Oh! The grapes are magical. The vine is too, but way less so, and it fades when the vine is cut. At least, I think.”

“A good hypothesis,” I said.

She nodded. “We’ll need to test it. Maybe the vines naturally ebb and flow, or maybe there’s something else going on. But I think that the magic is just fading because it’s been cut, it’s the easiest explanation. And it means that seeing a living vine will be easier.”

She was likely correct. Still, it wouldn’t do for her to trust her own judgement. That’s not how science was meant to be. “Remember, limpet. Your goal in creating a hypothesis isn’t to prove it right, but to prove it wrong.”

She nodded. “Yes Master.”

“So, what did she do?” Ruolan asked. “I can guess what a spell called ‘Detect Magic’ does, but I wouldn’t mind an explanation.”

“I cast Detect Magic on myself. Now I can see magic. Sorta. It looks like light that isn’t really there. There’s magic in the vines, so I can probably see them in the dark.”

“I see. Good. You’re with me at the front. Yi, take the middle. Same formation otherwise,” Ruolan said.

We continued moving but didn’t make it far before the limpet gasped and pointed to something ahead. “Ah! It’s gone. There was something there but it disappeared. Is there an intersection out ahead?”

Ruolan pulled out her map and eyed it for just a moment before nodding. “There is,” she said.

“I think the vine went around it, then.”

“Let’s keep moving. Everyone, keep your eyes open. The limpet’s being helpful but that’s no excuse for you not to pay attention,” Ruolan said.

“My name’s Fenfang,” the limpet said.

“My apologies. Fenfang then.” Ruolan patted the limpet on the back, and soon we were moving once more.

The intersection came, and with it, a short passage into a large chamber with four pillars holding up a ceiling that had dozens of holes in it. They were just small enough for someone to stick their heads in, but little else. The floor rose at an angle, the lowest point right at the entrance we were using.

“Mah, any idea what this is meant to be?” Wrench asked.

I pointed to the holes above. “Those are likely drainage pipes leading off from... something above us. The water comes down here, flows down the floor, and off down the tunnel we’ve just come from.”

Hammer hummed. “We have similar things back home. Though we keep most of our piping in plain sight. Easier to fix that way.”

“Makes a bigger mess when it fails too,” Tweezers muttered.

“Quiet you guys,” Ruolan said. “Fenfang, you see anything?”

The limpet made a negative sound. “No ma’am. No sign of the vine either.”

Ruolan pointed to the tallest point in the room, where an archway stood leading off into another tunnel. “That way. We’re... what was that?”

The limpet gasped. “There’s something coming from there,” she said. “Not a vine. It’s... something else?” She turned, and I saw her eyes widening as she finally noticed the creature trailing after us and blocking our path back. “There’s another!”

Yi’s light spun around to paint the creature behind us in bright white.

The monster didn’t so much stand in the entrance as much as it merely occupied the place. After all, a pile of leaves and vines with no true distinct shape didn’t have legs on which to stand.

The monster at the far end of the room, likewise, was a heavy pile of vines and roots, with tentacles entwined through it and barely concealed by thick leaves. The thorns on the vines covering it were still plainly visible though, and it radiated its intention for the living members of the party.

“There’s just two of them,” Ruolan said. “ Yi and  I will take the one ahead. Dwarves, focus on the one behind.”

“Not quite just two,” I corrected as vines started to pour out of the holes above.

Yi shrieked and slashed his sword around wildly at some of the vines that came too near to him for his own comfort.

The group tightened up, everyone forming a rough circle with Alex and I in the middle. The centre of the room was the only area devoid of holes in the ceiling, so that was where we congregated as more and more plant monsters dropped from above or crawled out from one of the exits.

The moment one of them came too close, Ruolan slashed out at it, severing vines and roots, but her sword slowed noticeably before she ended her slash. “Tch. These bastards are tough,” she said.

“Observe.”

A Tentacle Grapist Chlorofiend, level 42

Significantly weaker than the strongest member of the party, but only a little weaker than the dwarves. And they outnumbered us quite badly.

“Frostbite!”

The limpet’s spell caught one of the plants and slowed it down, but that was the sum total of its effect on the creature. Plants could endure some pretty harsh winters. A bit of magical freezing, at least at the level the limpet could manage, wouldn’t do much.

“This isn’t good,” Ruolan said. “We should retreat back to the tunnel we came from.”

The same tunnel which was pouring out more and more of the monsters. I sighed. “Please crouch down a little, I need a proper line of sight.”

Alex dropped to one knee and the limpet dove to the ground. The others stared at them, then at me. “What?” Ruolan asked.

“Get down,” I simplified.

She complied, if only a little.

It would do. Though I would have appreciated a bit more effort on her part. I was sacrificing my own entertainment for their sakes here. Mostly because standing back and watching them get assaulted by plants didn’t sound all that terribly amusing.

“Ray of Sickness.”

The Ray of Sickness was a simple first-tier necromantic spell, one that I intended to teach the limpet soon enough. It was an offensive spell that hit a target with a concentration of necrotic energy. Not just pure necrotic energy though, but one tailored to the production of sickness and ill-health. It was a minor but important distinction.

The spell’s original casting called for a single beam of magic, tight, concentrated, and very rapid. Hence the ‘ray’ part of its name. It would generally only target one person, and be over soon enough that the caster wouldn’t have time to switch targets.

I preferred a casting that lasted longer.

A green beam sliced out, passing through one of the plant monsters, then it swept around the room, spinning all the way around in a clockwise slice that cut the monsters apart wherever it passed.

In reality that was mostly an illusion. The Ray didn’t have any cutting power, or even any physical power. The ‘cuts’ were merely a line of plant matter and flesh that rotted away and disintegrated under the direct contact with the beam. The seared flesh around those cuts would necrotize and spread the infectious sickness through the monster’s body.

It was a good spell to use in an enclosed space where we couldn’t afford large displacements of air and such.

“What in the heavens,” Ruolan muttered as she slowly stood from her crouch .

The limpet jumped to her feet and patted down her dress. “Well done, Master.”

“Why thank you,” I said.

“Mah, that was something,” Wrench said. “Didn’t like the feel of that magic though.”

“Master’s magic is perfectly fine,” the limpet said.

“It’s fine, limpet,” I said. “Some people are more attuned to life and positive magics than others. Having necromantic magic pass by so closely can make them mildly uncomfortable.”

“Oh,” the limpet said.

“That was necromancy?” Ruolan asked. She looked disgusted,  but I could see the moment where she took in the piles or severed and twitching bodies around us. She changed her mind. “Well, I suppose it worked.”

“I would hope so,” I said. “Shall we continue?”

The party took a moment to calm down. It was often difficult to change tracts from thinking you were certainly going to die, to realising that everything was fine. At least, it took some time for those not used to such, or those who were still mortal.

The limpet seemed to take it best. I suspected that she thought that I wouldn’t let her die. She was even partially correct.

“Yes,” Ruolan said. “Let’s keep moving.”

“I hope that you can take care of the next group of these monsters yourselves,” I said. “It would be tiring to be the one doing all the work.”

“We’ll do our best, Master,” the limpet said.

I nodded, then gestured ahead.

The others were all quite careful as they walked over the corpses and soon-to-be-corpses in the room. A lot of the vine-y monsters were still clinging on to life despite the sickness raging through their plant-like bodies, but that wouldn’t last.

No one complained about the smell though, which was a nice change. Usually causing someone to die of raging sickness didn’t leave them smelling all that good.

We moved at a much slower pace, with lights shot ahead and behind in search of more monsters that didn’t show up. The party had grown cautious, which was entirely fair.

And then, finally, we arrived at a section of the tunnel where a large door sat in one of the walls. “This is it,” Ruolan said.

“What is it?” the limpet asked.

“Mah, that’s access into the undercity’s undercity,” Wrench said. “Some of these tunnels are dwarf built, you know. We had some of the old plans laying about, but Ruolan here found others, some from the city’s own archive when it was pillaged a long time ago.”

“Comparing the two maps, and matching up their details is what led us on this expedition,” Ruolan said. “Because whatever is behind that door, it’s not on the official maps. But the chambers beyond were dug out for the city.”

She pressed a hand to the ancient door. It was made of stone, carved and placed just-so in an iron frame that had long ago turned pitted and scaly with rust.

“Old secrets,” I said.

“Yes,” she agreed.

“The best sort,” Tweezers added.

I gave them a skeletal grin. “Well then, shall we knock?”

***

Chapter Thirty-Seven - A Real Tool

“So many old secrets just left out to be discovered. So many signs that the world’s downfall wasn’t as innocent as it first appeared.”

***

Ruolan insisted that we open the door the proper way as opposed to knocking it down. That unfortunately involved standing back while Tweezers teased open a centuries old lock with a whole panoply of tools and oils while pinching his tongue between tombstone teeth.

That meant that I had a little bit of time to waste. The party was taking the time while Tweezers fiddled to relax, though furtive glances were still cast down both ends of the tunnels, just in case, and hands never strayed far from weapons.

Ruolan found a part of the wall to lean against while holding her light pointed at Tweezers’ back.

I shuffled closer to her. “This city, do you know what happened to it?”

She eyed me for a moment before shrugging. “The records never agree. But like I said, it kind of just fell apart. A sort of slow death.”

“And the people within it? Silvershire was once a place with grand universities and great schools, not to mention artificers and engineers of some renown.”

Ruolan gestured vaguely with her free hand. “I think that one of the big schools moved to the west. They settled down where the gate sects are located now. The artificers... I think Silver...shire fell at about the same time as a few guilds appeared. The greatest near the Storm Lake, another became the Jade Golem sect.”

I nodded. So the knowledge wasn’t entirely lost. It merely moved. Which was to say, that it fell into the hands of people with a different cultural appreciation for science and its derivatives. Cultivators seemed far keener on keeping their knowledge secret.

“What about the city’s automatons? It was once quite advanced in that regard.”

Ruolan hummed. “I know that a few survived. There’s one in the capital in a glass case. Some parts have survived as display pieces here and there. I don’t think they ever grew popular though. More of a curiosity?”

“No one saw the potential for automation?”

“Mah,” Wrench said as he inserted himself into the conversation. “We’ve got some of the old machines in our cities. Prized they are, even if we consider them a bit dated. If you want to see a proper automaton, then you need to come visit our great subterranean cities.”

“Oh?” I asked.

“Aye,” Hammer said with a nod. She took a swig from a canteen. “But the automata we have are not machines meant for normal folk to use. They’re war machines, meant to fill out the front lines, act as guards, and act as a deterrent against humans that are too nosey for their own good.”

“Do you have problems with humans?” the limpet asked.

It took the conversation in a new direction, not the one I’d intended, but an interesting one all the same.

“Mah, sometimes,” Wrench said. “The empire folk are real human-centrist. As if we want what they have. We just mind our own business, thank you very much.”

“You would imagine that a quiet neighbour would be a good one,” I said.

Hammer shrugged. “The Emperor needs enemies so that his little toy soldiers can hone their edge. A reason to pour more gold into his favourite cultivators. Rallying the plain folk against anyone that looks strange is an easy way to do that.”

“Don’t speak of the Emperor that way,” Ruolan said in a low hiss.

“Are people not allowed to criticise him?” I asked.

“He is in his position by the mandate of the gods,” Ruolan said. “Who are we to question his choices?”

“Reasonable people with reasonable concerns?” I asked. “And being mandated by gods is hardly special or worthy of all that much notice.”

Ruolan bristled, and I suspect she was about to give me a tongue lashing. Her belief in her Emperor seemed ingrained, which, as with all people who relied so heavily on something like faith, meant that any argument we had wouldn’t be of the logical variety.

Then Tweezers whistled, quite pleased with himself. “Got it!”

The door thumped, flakes of rust raining down around it as it moved open just a pinch. Dust poured out from behind it, filling the tunnel and setting the limpet to coughing until Alex quickly wrapped a handkerchief around his mouth and tied it there with a bow behind his neck.

“Let’s table that discussion for now,” I said.

“Same formation as before,” Ruolan said. “This part has probably never been explored, not as far as I know. There might be traps left. Keep your eyes open. Tweezers, you’re moving up with us.”

Wrench and Hammer worked the door open, pressing against it with their backs until it let us into a tight corridor. The one wasn’t like the rounded over-sized sewer pipes we’d been travelling through though. It was a square corridor, with brick walls and floors, ancient mage lights  hanging along the sides at even intervals all the way down to the intersection at the end.

“Careful now,” Ruolan said as she stepped ahead and led the party in. “We don’t know what we’ll be running into down here.”

The place was dusty, so much so that I saw Alex twitching by my side with the urge to start cleaning the place.

I reached out to one of the mage lights and tapped the glass bulb within.

Ruolan raised a hand, pausing the party only a few steps in. “Can you get it working?” she asked.

I tilted my head to the side. The corridor was quite dry, as opposed to the pipes we’d just left. The lights were rusted, but it was more of a patina than the deep kind of rust that would break something apart. “Perhaps,” I said.

I pushed a little bit of magic into the device and it started to buzz a moment before its bulb began to glow. The next light over, then the next, also started to buzz and flicker. “Did you activate something?” Wrench asked.

“I don’t think so, no,” I said. “The mage lights are connected. Any magic you press into one part of the connection will spread to the others.” I blinked a few times until I could see partially through the walls where the wires were passed. “Yes. the wires are still intact enough to function, but I wouldn’t gamble on that being the case all over.”

“That’s fair,” Wrench said. “Impressive construction if it lasted  this long.”

“Indeed,” I said. “This area seems more utilitarian. A maintenance passage.”

“That’s what we suspected,” Ruolan said. “Let’s keep moving.”

The corridor ended at an intersection. The passage to the right only went on for a few necrometers before ending where the entire section had collapsed, dirt and bricks left to pile on the ground where they’d fallen in.

“I suppose we’re going left,” Hammer muttered.

I didn’t know all that much about this part of Silvershire’s undercity. I had visited the shops above, and the overcity plenty of times, but this part, so deep below everything, was new to me. I had only been to one part of it, a part that I was hoping we would be able to reach.

The corridor curved around and soon we were crossing a series of rooms. The first few were small closets, with rotting cloth at the bottom and what looked like tin buckets with the dusty remains of mops within.

The dwarves insisted on removing everything and inspecting them, just in case. They left disappointed, but in high spirits even after finding nothing.

“Not nothing,” Wrench said after I commented about their discoveries, or lack thereof. “We found that we’re on the right track. Even if we find no new tools today, which would be disappointing, we’ll still have touched the tools of the ancients.”

“I wouldn’t put that much stock in having touched a mop, but you do you, ” I said.

The next few doors were more enlightening. We found a small storage unit, with what had once been shelves but were now little more than wrecks holding piles of cloth and jars and canisters. The limpet complained about the smell of the place, but Alex identified it as powerful cleaning agents.

The next room had the dwarves gasping in delight. It was a workshop.

The benches were caved in, and the things lying around were ruined, but there were still some simple tools hanging off of nails set in the walls and a few odds and ends that the dwarves huddled over.

Wrench raised one item, a hefty bit of brass shaped like a tear-drop with a hook on one end. “Lord Harold, do you recognize this?”

“It looks like a plumb bob,” I said. “Though it’s missing its cord.”

“A plum bob?” Wrench asked. He was growing excited. “What does it do?”

I shrugged. “It’s used to see if something is aligned vertically. You let gravity drag the bob down, and can see if something is sitting plumb.”

Wrench sniffled. “A plum bob! So simple, yet so beautiful. My clan will be... mah.”

“Our clans, you daft fool,” Hammer said. “We all came here together.”

“Fair fair,” Wrench said as he wiped a thumb under his eyes. “I look forward to seeing all the little Plum Bobs in the next generation of our clanmates.”

“Have you found anything else?” I asked.

“Aye,” Tweezers said as he raised a brass block. “Some hammerheads. A few rusty bits that might be part of something.”

“Gather up whatever you want,” Ruolan said. “Tools don’t interest me.”

“Mah, your loss,” Wrench said as he pulled out a folded up satchel and set it on one of the only unbroken workbenches. The others placed a few things in. The plumb bob was reverently tucked away inside Wrench’s gambeson.

The next room had me pausing.

We all paused, I think. The room was far larger than any of those we’d been in so far, with parts of the far walls caved in. There were a few pillars across the room holding up the ceiling. And between all of these, broken racks holding up the remains of dozens of automata.

The machines were vaguely human-shaped. Angular limbs rested at their sides, and their squared heads were bowed down to their chest. Some had legs, other large tracks that had crumbled apart.

“Brilliant,” Ruolan said as she stepped in. “Some of these are armed.”

They were indeed. Some had brass axes built into their limbs, others the rails for crossbows, though the strings and any wooden part was long gone. Most, though, seemed to have far more utilitarian uses, with hands and grippers.

I stepped closer to one of the machines that seemed in a somewhat passable condition and pressed a hand to its chest. A push of magic into its core had the automata twitching. Its arms tried to move, but they were frozen with rust.

Something snapped in the machine and it folded back down, dying away.

I heard the heavy breathing of those behind me and turned to see them staring. “I’m afraid that they would need a lot of attention and repair in order to function once more.”

Ruolan nodded. “That might be possible. These may well just be curiosities, but they’re ancient ones. They have some value still.”

“I can imagine,” I said.

“Let’s mark this room for later,” she said. “We can’t exactly carry these out with any ease. Not as we are. We might need to return with more people.”

“And get past the plants again?” Wrench asked.

“We know about them now,” Ruolan said. “And the goblins need to be cleared eventually. I’m certain I could petition one of the local sects to send some inner disciples to help. Worse case, I can have some from Storm Lake or the Abyssal Depths travel over. If we have a reason to come this deep, then I can’t imagine anyone refusing to finance a bigger exploratory mission.”

“Mah, that’ll be on you, I think,” Wrench said. “Shall we continue?”

Ruolan nodded. “Lets.”

***

Chapter Thirty-Eight - A Deeper Dive

“The limpet, amusing as she may be, is a bit of an idiot at times. Truly, the system gauged her correctly when it scored her wisdom as a mere 4.”

***

As we dove  deeper into the facilities under Silvershire, the overall condition of the tunnels and passages actually improved somewhat. I suspect the absence of humidity and the higher temperatures had something to do with it, though that was mostly speculation.

“Why is it so dry and hot here?” the limpet asked.

“We’re deep underground,” Ruolan said. “It’s natural.”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that, actually,” I said. “But I suspect you’re asking as a sort of rhetorical complaint as opposed to a genuine question. Do you want me to explain geothermals to you?”

“Uh,” the limpet said. “Will it help with my magic?”

“Not in any significant way, no.”

She shrugged. “Then I’m good. Could you tell me more about magic things instead?”

“I suppose I could,” I admitted. It was my favourite subject. “So far your spell list is rather simple.”

“Spell list?” she cut in.

I noticed that the dwarves and even the two humans were paying attention. “That is your list of known spells for which you have all the material and mental capabilities to cast.” The limpet nodded and I moved on. “Most of the tier zero spells you have are concentrated within the venerable school of Necromancy. A powerful and versatile form of magic, but one that does have its limits.”

Ruolan missed a step and almost tripped over nothing as she turned to face me. “She knows Necromancy?”

“Hardly. She knows two weak spells. She can’t even raise the dead yet. I wouldn’t go calling her a necromancer. Now, as I was saying. Necromancy is powerful, but it does have some key weaknesses. Notably, it only works on the living and unliving .”

“Isn’t that everything?” the limpet asked.

“Of course not. Things don’t always neatly fit onto the scale of alive or unliving. Elementals are astral beings. They’re not alive in the way a human might be, nor are they undead, for that requires something to have been alive before. The gods are technically living things, though using necromancy against them doesn’t work as well as against the average sentient. Mechanical beings, golems, magical artefacts, enchanted beings and a few others are resistant to necromancy, or downright unaffected by it.”

“That sounds limiting,” the limpet said.

“How many elementals do you run into in your day-to-day?” I asked.

She rubbed at her chin. “Okay, yeah.”

I reached down and patted her head, much to her obvious consternation as she pouted quite fiercely under the attention. I suspect it was more because I was doing so in front of others than anything else. Children.

Eventually, our path down the decrepit but mostly-intact passages lead us to a door. Not a simple one, but a massive blast door made of thick rusty steel. Twice as tall as I was, and thrice as wide, it stood like an impassable barrier before us. The golden runes inlaid into it were still intact, what with gold being resistant to aging.

“Mah, look at that craftsmanship,” Wrench said as he tugged at his beard. “Impressive work.”

“It’s a bit square in my opinion,” Apprentice Yi said.

“That’s because your opinion is both stupid and uneducated,” Hammer said. “It’s not the form that’s impressive, it’s the functionality.”

Ruolan stepped up and inspected the door without touching it. “Any idea how to open it?” she asked.

“With a crow-bar?” Yi asked.

“Mah! Hammer’s right, you’re a fool lad. Those enchantments look like they’re meant to open the door to specific people only.”

“That’s correct,” I said as I took in the rune schema at a glance. “It’s even knock-proof. If you knock it sets off that rune right there. It’s a... magnetic one? I suspect that it drops a sort of deadbolt preventing the door from opening.”

“Can we touch it?” Ruolan asked.

“You’re asking me?” I retorted.

The woman sighed. “You may have dabbled in some dark things, but the dwarves seem to trust you, and you seem to know your magic.”

“A fair assessment, I suppose,” I said. “And yes, you can touch it. See those marks in the corner there? Those would electrocute you on contact, but the links have rusted through, and I’m not sensing any magic in the places where the rune schema suggests the capacitors ought to be.”

“Mah, that means we can force it open.”

“Like with a crowbar?” Yi asked.

It earned him a look from the dwarves, which he responded to with a smug smile.

The party shifted about until the strongest members were gathered at the front and gripping the edges of the door to pull it apart. “On three,” Ruolan said before starting a count-down.

Though, if she started at one, then it was more of a count-up. Oh hoh!

They grunted and swore and generally accomplished very little.

“Papa?” Alex asked over the sound of Yi’s groaning.

“Yes Alex?”

“Can I help them?”

I considered it for just a moment. “As long as your actions don’t interfere with your duties as a butler, you’re free to do as you wish,” I said.

Alex nodded, a smile blossoming before he walked up to the door. He slid both hands in the crack between the doors, then with an almost effortless motion, tore the doorway open. “Please come in,” he said before stepping past.

The party stared after him until the last of his maid skirt disappeared into the darkened room beyond, then they rushed after him.

“What in the hells is that guy?” Yi muttered.

“Oh,” I said as I entered last.

“What’s wrong, Master?” the limpet asked, though she wasn’t looking my way. She, and all the others, were taking in the colossal chamber. We were above it, on a catwalk that surrounded the room and the large metallic sphere in its centre. The walls were braced with pillars and the floor far below covered in a few necromilimeters  of stagnant water.

A few automata were braced against the walls in little hangars, and there were alcoves in the sides where workbenches sat.

Opposite us, and behind the reactor in the room’s centre, was an automaton the size of a lesser dragon, a machine with piston arms and a mechanical head resting on its chest in dormancy.

“I recognize this place,” I said. “Though I’ve never entered from here.”

Ruolan turned my way, her light, held high above her head, was barely able to illuminate half the room. “You’ve been here before?”

“When this chamber was first built, yes.”

“That was thousands of years ago,” she said.

“Yes.”

The limpet tugged at my sleeve. “What is this place?” she asked.

“You could say it’s the heart of Silvershire. It’s a magical reactor, to power all the machines and mechanisms of an industrial city.”

“Incredible,” Hammer breathed. “We should investigate it.”

Ruolan nodded. “It could be valuable. Look at the golems. They’re armed. These aren’t workers, they’re guards.”

“And guards are there to protect things, valuable things,” Apprentice Yi said.

We started to make our way down, using the ricketty steel steps that surrounded the room. We only descended in single-file , with Tweezers at the lead making sure that each step was sturdy enough to take our weight, and occasionally indicating a step that should be avoided.

At the very bottom, we stepped onto the wet floor with faint splashes . Hammer bent down to sniff the liquid. “Not water. Some sort of coolant.”

“That’s possible,” I said. “The reactor ran hot. Residual energy tends to be warm.”

I stepped into the coolant and sighed at the thought of having to clean out my socks later. It would be such a pain, but my curiosity drove me on. I did consider a water walking spell... after I stepped into the liquid.

“Yuck,” the limpet said.

“Indeed. Don’t drink it, it’s toxic. In fact, you probably shouldn’t touch it at all.”

Wrench looked up at me. “Couldn’t you have said that before we were all ankle deep in it?”

“Would it change anything? And besides, I suspect that after a thousand-odd years, the coolant might not be as effective.”

The party more or less split up. Most moved towards the reactor, myself included, but the dwarves, after casting one look at the device, moved to the sides of the room, no doubt to see if there were any tools laying around. The humans and I, limpet included, moved towards the reactor.

The machine was a behemoth of steel and cables and pipes. Some of the later had burst, and some of the cables were frayed and the cloth wrapped around them was in tatters, revealing the copper-y lines within.

The front of the reactor was open, a square panel half a necrometer wide set aside on the ground to reveal the inner workings of the machine.

There was a smaller core within, this one open as well, like a ball sliced in twain. Within that was a small round indentation. Empty, as if something small and round had once fit this in a pad of rusting iron and lead.

I sighed, a conclusion I was nearly certain of reached at last.

“How does this work?” the limpet asked.

“There might be some documentation left,” I admitted. “Silvershire’s academics would certainly cast protective spells over their manuals and such. Even I would need some time and effort to recreate a device like this. It certainly took them years. Nearly a decade.”

I moved over towards the back of the room. There was an office there, with the remains of a few panels covered in gauges and dials. There were also a few desks. I started to root around them, but found very little of any interest.

A cabinet by the back had more to look at. After accidentally tearing the door off, I found a few books. Some in tatters, but it was possible that they could be restored with the right spells. Some were nearly intact though.

“We will be taking those,” Ruolan said.

I looked over to find the cultivator eyeing the books. The one at the top read Silvershire Reactor One Emergency Procedures  in boxy letters. “Will you, now?” I asked.

“That’s what the entire expedition was for.”

“To find the reactor?”

“To find anything of value down here. That device, that looks very valuable. I can’t imagine how much it cost to build, and if they were willing to pour so much into constructing and guarding it, it must be a tool of great power.”

“It is that,” I agreed.

“Was it a tool for cultivation? Like a nexus or some sort of qi gathering device?” she asked.

“No, just a magical engine.

“Just?” she repeated.

“Well, perhaps not merely an engine. It was the work of two of the local academies. Some of the best years of some very talented scientists were spent working on that device to perfect it. And once it ran, it changed the city forever.”

“We could rebuild it,” Ruolan said. “Not here, of course. This city is dead. But there are others across the Empire.”

I wasn’t about to step in the way of progress. I pulled out a small notebook from a pocket and tapped its spine against the covers of the more intact books. “May I keep these ruined books? There might be a way to salvage some little information from them.”

“I suppose,” Ruoland said as she took the books and shoved them in a satchel.

“Um. Master!” the limpet screamed. “I may have made a small mistake!”

I looked over to see that the limpet was stepping back from the reactor. A reactor that was starting to hum faintly, some of the wires running along it sparking and snapping.

“And what, exactly, did you do?” I asked.

“There was a hold, for a round thing, and I remembered the marble you gave me. You know, the one with the numbers on it?” She said in a hurry. “It fit perfectly in the hole, but then the thing snapped shut around it.”

“Mah, what’d you do girl?” Wrench asked as he splashed closer.

The reactor burped, then started to rumble. The room, previously lit only by the magical lights of the adventurers, came to life as the mage lights hanging off the walls lit up.

And then the automatons all around the room activated. The machines were speaking, but with their garbled, age-worn voices, it was impossible to tell what they were saying.

The huge guardian at the far end of the room had no such trouble.  “Intruders detected.”

***

Chapter Thirty-Nine - A Boss Fight

“I do tend to ramble, don’t I? Well, you’ll just need to get used to it.”

***

“Intruders detected.”

The gigantic automaton hissed, frayed wires within its carapace spitting sparks even as its eyes began to blow with the cruel red of barely restrained arcane power. The cage around the machine, holding it up and connecting it to the facility, creaked and groaned as it tore open and the automata rolled out of its moorings.

“Oops,” the limpet said.

“Well, that’s certainly something. It’s impressive that it has lasted this long.”

“Master!” the limpet said.

The other automata around the room started to move. Not all of them. Some sat in their cradles, eyes flickering and others didn’t so much as twitch. Still others fought and writhed in their harnesses, unable to free themselves.

That didn’t mean that all of them were unable to step out and ready themselves for battle.

“Mah, this day keeps getting more and more exciting!” Wrench said.

“It’s a little too exciting for me,” Ruolan said. “That thing looks too damned tough. We need to exit and regroup. Get ready to climb to the top.”

She pointed above us, to where the door we’d used to enter was.

Then the door slammed shut, followed by every other exit around the room. “Okay,” Ruolan said as her arm dropped. “That plan’s off the books.” The woman pulled her sword out of her cane. “Any ideas?”

“We fight, of course,” Wrench said.

“The lump’s got the right of it,” Hammer said. “The little ones don’t look so tough, and they’re worn out besides. We can take them.” So saying, the dwarf woman shifted her weight and brought her hammer into a low stance. “Let them come!”

“Intruders detected. Scanning!”

The guardian automata rolled forwards, stopping just behind the reactor. A panel opened in the side of its chest and a silver sphere rolled out of it. Arcane energy, loose and wild, sparked along the surface of the orb.

Intruders detected. Intruders identified. Humans: Three. Dwarves: Three. Undead: Two. Preparing counter-measures.”

“Master!” the limpet screamed.

I sighed. “Limpet, you can’t expect me to always be there. At some point you’ll need to learn how to tackle enemies, even some far stronger than you, all on your own. Use your environment and your wits.”

The limpet swallowed, then she nodded. “Right! I can do that.”

“Try your best,” I said.

The first of the automata shambled towards the party. They were humanoid, walking on stumpy legs with the uneven gait of drunkards. Their arms ended in clamps or claws or swords, sometimes with mechanisms that allowed them to switch between tools.

Wrench rammed his namesake weapon into the knee joint of the first to approach, sending it sprawling onto its side with a clamour and splash. Hammer then brought her warhammer down onto the machine’s head, crushing the rusty steel into a flattened lump.

Tweezers and Apprentice Yi focused on another, jamming tiny bits of metal into the hoses and wires visible through its armour and chopping apart the smaller hydraulic tubes used to move it.

Ruolan and the limpet, then, were the only two left to face the largest guardian.

“Anti-Organic Countermeasure One: Nerve Agent Release.”

A panel opened on the automata’s side, and nothing came out of it.

“Counter Measure Failed. Assessing Threat Level. Humans: Moderate. Dwarves: Moderate. Undead: Insignificant.”

“Now, wait just one moment,” I said. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

The automata’s head turned a little, its eyes focusing on me. “ The undead are a non-threat.”

“And how do you figure that?” I asked.

“The Elimination of a Thing Which has Already Failed to Live Once is Far Simpler than Eliminating That Which Clings to Life.”

“That’s a very rude robot,” Alex said.

“Fenfang,” Ruolan said. “Some of those spells of yours would be nice right about now. I’ll distract it!”

So saying, the woman darted ahead with impressive speed and shot into the air. With a spin, she brought her sword around and slashed towards the exposed wiring. The automata’s arm snapped up, snake-quick, and blocked her swing with a resounding ring of steel on steel.

“Frostbite!”

The limpet’s spell sent a few icy tendrils climbing up the automata’s chest. It didn’t have any obvious effects other than that. “I need better spells,” the limpet said.

“Indeed,” I agreed.

The others were so busy fending off the automata, that they didn’t notice one of them rushing towards myself and Alex until it was right atop of us.

Alex grabbed the edges of his skirt, hiked it up, then spun around and delivered a roundhouse into the machine’s chest that sent it flying across the room to explode apart against the far wall. “Annoying,” he said.

The limpet chewed at her bottom lip, eyes darting this way and that as she took in the scene. Then she snapped her fingers and took off running towards the stairs. She ducked under the swing of an automata’s claw, then started rushing up the steps two at a time. When one of them tore itself apart under her she just squeaked and kept on moving.

The guardian focused its attention on Ruolan, meeting her swings with the heavy armour above one arm while bringing the other around to try and clobber her.  “Intruder Threat Level: Moderate. Use of Heavy Weaponry: Permitted.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Alex said.

A pair of racks opened up on the automata’s back, each one with dozens of missiles tucked into them. They all flopped out, the missiles dropping onto the ground before the machine with a clatter.

“Activating Arcane Cannon.”

The automata’s arm spun around, its elbow twisting in a way that was impossible for anything organic to replicate and throwing Ruolan off of him. The warrior landed in the coolant some ways down, rolled once, then tumbled to her feet to begin running towards the guardian again.

It was a little too late. The machine’s arm rose, ports opened along its sides, and a burst of arcane energy sizzled out of it as a large hole opened at the end.

“Firing.”

“Frostbite!”

The automata’s arm twitched to the side as icy tendrils climbed across it. The arcane energy racing across the limb pressed into the magic of the limpet’s spell, and if anything, made it stronger.

The arm burst apart, nuts and bolts flying across the room as the limb crashed to the ground, just barely missing the reactor below.

“Adjusting Enemy Priorities.”

The automata started to roll forwards, its body stretching up on pistons bigger around than the limpet’s shoulders. It reached up to the catwalks where she was panting and swiped at her.

Metal rent  and tore under its one-armed assault and for a moment I suspect that was it for the limpet. And then she took off running and jumped onto the guardian’s forearm. Feet slipping this way and that, the limpet ran across the arm while waving her hands and screaming through the incantation for frostbite.

I was almost impressed.

That is, until her foot caught in a wire jutting out of the arm.

She flopped forwards, her incantation turning into meaningless gibberish and her careful gestures turning into wild cartwheeling.

The automata started to pull its arm back, and the limpet, already in the process of falling, completely failed to grab on.

She hit the ankle-deep coolant belly first.

“She’s dead,” Alex said.

“Yes,” I said. “It certainly seems like that’s the case. In a way, it’s her own curiosity’s fault.”

Alex nodded. “Yes. Too bad, I liked the limpet.”

“Yes she was rather enjoyable, in the same way a particularly sloppy pet might be.”

The limpet rolled over and coughed a few times. “Oww,” she said, the word barely audible over the clanging of the automata’s threads as it approached her.

Alex tilted his head to the side. “I’m going to go break that machine before it kills the limpet. Is that okay, daddy?”

“I suppose. I wanted her to learn a lesson about fighting foes larger and more powerful than herself. Learning that it’s likely to end with you on the ground in pain is a valuable lesson, though not the one I was hoping she’d learn.”

Alex hummed. “That’s true. Maybe she’ll learn that she should bring strong friends with her.”

I barked a laugh. “That is a valuable lesson, yes.”

Alex started walking, each step moving him far faster than most could keep up by running all out.

The guardian raised its arm, the clamp on the end spinning around so that it would crush the limpet once and for all. “ Target: Eliminated. ”

The arm came racing down.

Alex walked under it and pressed his skirt down with one hand while staring at the limpet. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t look up my skirt,” he said.

The limpet squeezed her eyes shut.

Alex delivered a swift punch into the side of the mechanical arm coming down atop her.

The metal bent and the clamp crashed into the ground a few necrocentimeters to the limpet’s side.

“I’m terribly sorry to inconvenience you, mister machine, but you are threatening Daddy’s limpet, and I don’t think that’s very kind,” Alex said.

The automaton pulled its arm back. “Reassessing Threat Level.”

“That’s nice,” Alex said.

Ruolan shot past the butler, rolled between the automata’s threaded legs, and sliced through a hose hanging with part of a rusted bracket still stuck to it. Hydraulic fluid splattered to the ground as the woman leapt up and slid her sword to the hilt between two plates on the machine’s front.

“Oh, well done Miss Ruolan!” Alex cheered.

“Shut up and help!” the cultivator said as she tore her sword out and jumped away just before the chest she’d just stabbed opened, revealing an array of fist-sized gems in complex rune-covered devices. Magic filled the gems and two of the twelve shot out actinic beams that sliced wildly across the room.

They did more damage to other automata than any of the party members.

Alex patted down his dress, bent his knees a little, then jumped out. He landed one foot onto the automata’s shoulder, then brought one leg way back. “Maid to Die!”

His toes crashed into the automata’s chest, right where its clavicle would be were it a creature. The heavy plate crumpled like so much paper and the guardian snapped back.

“ Critical Damage Sustained!”

“Maid to Die?” I repeated.

“The limpet gets to say neat things when attacking,” Alex defended.

I shrugged. It was a good point.

“ Initiating Core Self-Destruct! I’m Bringing You With Me, Mortal Scum!”

The reactor started to hiss and spit.

“The exit! Get to the exit!” Ruolan screamed.

She had good instincts. The amount of power contained in that reactor, as leaky and poorly maintained as it was, would be enough to destroy the room.

Unfortunately, it would also likely level a good portion of the remains of Silvershire too. There was no way the party would escape.

In a way, it was sort of my fault. The reactor worked by siphoning off my failed phylactery. I didn’t think explaining that to the others would comfort them though.

“Alex, be a dear and take care of the rest of the machines,” I said as I raised a hand towards the reactor. “Greater Protection From Energy.”

The spell lanced out and struck the reactor.

Casting a protective spell on a device about to explode might have seemed counter intuitive, but there was a decent justification behind it.

If the reactor worked by syphoning off energy, then converting it into a form more capable of travelling and being used into the city above, then it was likely that the self-destruct mechanism used that same overabundance of energy.

By protecting the system from the same energy it was gathering, it would no longer be able to produce or at least gather that rampant energy. Its capacitors would empty, and...

The reactor’s humm ceased, the lights in the room dimmed, and the automata still connected to the walls spun down and crashed to the ground. A few that still had batteries of one sort or another continued, but the dwarves were quick to capitalize on their decreased function.

I walked over to the reactor and tapped a finger against the core holding my phylactery. “Knock.”

The marble slid into one of my pockets.

“Well, that was a fine way to end an adventure,” I said.

***

Chapter Forty - A Final Farewell

“You might think the entire Silvershire ordeal was a rather strange and pointless endeavour, but in reality it was quite handy. I learned a few things while there, see. Those Five Fonts the new gods were so fond of. They had to come from somewhere. ”

***

Ruolan was the first to react. At least, the first to react in a negative way. The other members of the party were all quite happy when the machines trying to kill them shut off and they were left off the figurative hook.

The party’s leader, though, didn’t calm down.

The woman spun towards me, her slim blade held out with the point aiming towards my throat. “Who, and what, are you?” she demanded.

I patted my chest. “Me? Why, I’m merely a curious mind. And I dabble a bit in the arcane arts.”

Her sword spun and she set herself in a fighter’s stance. “Don’t lie to me,” she said.

“I was being entirely honest,” I said. “Perhaps I was downplaying things a little, but I do try to remain humble.”

“Mah, Ruolan, maybe it’s not the best time to be picking fights with party members,” Wrench said. I found it to be an immensely wise sentiment.

“He’s hardly done anything, and he’s far from what I would call trustworthy,” Ruolan said. “That machine, it called you an undead.  I thought you were just some travelling barbarian who dabbled in necromancy, but... are you an undead?” Her grip tightened around the hilt of her sword. “Because if so, it’s my duty as a warrior of the Empire to end you.”

“Now, now, I don’t have any bones to pick with you.  Oh hoho! ” I chortled. “But amusing wordplay aside, would it be that wrong of you to have worked with an undead? What does your little Empire have against those who challenged the concept of death and won?”

“The undead are a blight,” Ruolan said. “From the very moment of the Empire’s founding we have fought against undead hordes popping up out of every corner of the land. It’s only now that we’re able to live peacefully in most lands.” Her eyes narrowed. “Are you one of the Dread Knights?”

“A Dread Knight?” I asked. That was a familiar name.

“Even if you’re one of the undead lords, I’ll do my best to slay you where you stand,” Ruolan said.

I sighed and gestured for her to calm down. “Let me ask you some questions, then I’ll put my cards on the table, so to speak.”

The woman’s stance didn’t change, and I noted Apprentice Yi preparing himself to fight off to the side.

Further back, Alex was helping the limpet to her feet. She was soaked, of course, and in a bit of a state after being thrown around, but she didn’t seem injured. At least, not past any injuries to her pride.

“If you’re going to be silent, then I’ll begin,” I said. “What do you know about the Five Fonts?”

Ruolan blinked. “The... what do the gods’ tools have to do with.. No, I’m not telling you anything. You’re suspicious. ”

“I’m much more than that,” I said. “I suppose learning that you know of them is a hint already.”

Hammer shifted and let the head of her namesake splash into the liquid next to her. “What’s that got to do with any of this?”

I fished my phylactery out of my pocket and held it up. “This is what powered the reactor. It’s also what powers the Five Fonts. At least, one of them.” I gestured to the reactor, which was in a worse state now than when we’d arrived. “And it’s what powered this wonderful contraption.”

“The people of this city copied the gods?” Wrench asked.

“No, it’s very much the other way around,” I said.

“Did you steal from the gods?” Ruolan asked.

I shook my head. “Could you please stop jumping to the worst possible interpretation of things? It’s not healthy. For that matter, it’s generally quite unpleasant when those interpretations paint me as some sort of villain.”

“But you are undead,” Ruolan said. She didn’t sound entirely certain of that. “You said you were here when Silvershire was still thriving, and the machine claimed you were undead.”

“Yes, I’m undead. There’s nothing special about that. The undead were quite common back in my day.” Mostly because I was raising them en-masse, but that didn’t change the statistical correctness of saying ‘quite common’ at all.

Ruolan shot forwards, feet skimming just over the surface of the coolant on the ground and sword coming around with a hum to slice at my neck. It was an impressive set of moves. One a movement skill of some sort, the other an ability that, if I was not mistaken, pushed some sort of magic into the blade to increase its cutting power.

There might have been some sort of bodily reinforcement ability at play as well. The sort of thing a warrior might use to improve their physique in a pinch. Three skills deployed at once, without so much as a whisper. She had certainly practised that for some time.

I caught the end of her blade between forefinger and thumb, careful not to put too much pressure, and to absorb some of the energy in the sword. I didn’t want it snapping apart by the sudden jarring stop.

“Miss Ruolan,” I said as I held her blade in place. “I understand that there is some animosity between yourself and the undead.” My disguise fell away, and she came face to face with my always smiling skull. “Don’t let that animosity hinder your better judgement. There is no way for you to defeat me here.”

Ruolan yanked her sword back, and I allowed her to back off before turning to look at Apprentice Yi. The boy froze up and wisely chose not to carry out whatever no-doubt pointless endeavour he was planning.

“Mah, so you are a skelly then,” Wrench said.

“Is that an issue?”

The dwarf shrugged wide shoulders. “I know a few of the old sorts that would grump a lot about it. But you’ve been fair to us so far, mah.”

I nodded. I could appreciate the reasonable approach. “Thank you. I do prefer remaining undisguised if I can do so while avoiding conflict. Now, why don’t we all return to the surface? I’m certain that talking about things in the sun, or as the case may be, moon, light would be far more comforting to everyone involved.”

“Ah, I could use a sit, Master,” the limpet said.

“Mmm, remind me to cast some sort of healing on you later,” I said. “It wouldn’t do for you to slow us down with broken ribs or the like.”

“Ruolan,” Hammer said. “It’s going to be a long trek back; we can put off fighting until then, right?”

Ruolan hesitated, and I could see the emotions warring just under the surface. Some part of her wanted to fight me still. I suspect the brighter, more intelligent part was reminding her that she was utterly outclassed and stuck in a facility some ways underground.

“How can I know that you won’t turn on me?” Ruolan asked. “Turn on us? The undead always want to expand, to grow stronger.”

“Master’s not like that,” the limpet said. “He’s not interested in expanding or whatever. He just likes magic a lot. He’s actually really nice.”

Alex nodded. “Bone Daddy is a good Daddy.”

“If I had a heart, I’m certain it would be quite warm, oh hoh! ” I shrugged. “Besides, if I wanted you dead, there’s likely nothing you could do to stop me.”

Ruolan took a moment to consider things, then she carefully slid her sword back into its cane-like sheath and tapped the end onto the ground. “Fine,” she said.

“Brilliant. Does everyone have all the things they intend to carry with them?” I asked.

The three dwarves shared a look, then nodded. Ruolan and Apprentice Yi weren’t all that heavily equipped to begin with, and Alex and the limpet hardly had anything but the clothes on their backs.

“Let’s go then, shall we?”

“Mass Teleport.”

The lot of us appeared back on solid ground, just a few paces away from the camp we had left just some hours ago. A growl from the shadows soon revealed itself to be Fang, the dog paused, sniffed the air, then ran over to the limpet to beg for attention or whatever it was dogs did.

“Mah! Teleportation. Haven’t seen anything like that before,” Wrench said.

“And yet you’re familiar with it?” I asked.

“Some of the stronger dwarves who dive into old magics can manage it. Uncommon gift though, and not something used on the likes of me.”

I nodded. That was fair. Even in my day where the mages who could cast spells of that tier were more common, teleportation wasn’t something seen every day by the common folk.

“You... you could have teleported us right through the entire complex,” Ruolan said.

“And if I had you wouldn’t have been able to observe anything, you wouldn’t have been able to map out what you did, discover anything, nor would you have gained some precious experience from it all,” I said.

“I almost got tentacle  graped,” Yi said.

“And what an experience that was,” I said. “Now you have a very good reason to train up your reflexes for the next time a semi-sentient plant tries to plant its seed in you.”

Ruolan gestured to the side, and Yi subsided before moving over to the tents they’d set up. “What are you going to do now?” the woman asked.

“The reason I came to Silvershire was partially to see what happened to the city since I was last here, and to see if that device that activated the reactor was still here. Or at least, one of them. It seems as if someone removed it. Which means that it’s missing, and judging by the state of things, it might have gone missing just as the city started to fall apart.”

“What are you implying?” she asked.

“That a city as grand as this one wouldn’t just fall. Or perhaps it could, but it was certainly helped along if someone stole the thing feeding the city’s power grid. Is it any wonder that the brightest minds went elsewhere? That’s all conjecture and hypothesis, of course, baseless and without anything more than circumstantial evidence.”

“Was this city that important to you?” Ruolan asked.

The irony of being asked that while standing in its ruins didn’t escape me. “It might have been,” I said. “The thing they used in the Five Fonts, there are more of them. Now I’m wondering how many are missing. I think that’s what I’m going to do next.”

“You lost your marbles and now you want to find them?” the limpet asked.

“Oh hoh! Yes, that’s exactly right,” I said.

Ruolan relaxed. “We still have work to do here. It might be a week or more before I can report that an undead of significant power was rooting around the area.”

“I appreciate it,” I said. “But you don’t need to risk yourself on my account. I can handle myself very well. Report away.”

She nodded. “Very well. Will you be leaving now?”

I looked up. The sky was awash with stars, some flickering faintly behind the partial cover of wispy clouds. “I think we will. The night isn’t that terrible a place for us.” I looked back down to her. “You mentioned Dread Knights.”

“You’ve never heard of them?” she asked.

“Perhaps I have. Enlighten me.”

“They’re powerful undead. They speak a strange tongue, and lead bands of zombies and ghouls and skeletal warriors. They’ve attacked sects and temples and cities before, but it had been a century or more since they were wiped away by the Emperor’s might. I think the last of them are to the north, in the land of flames.”

“To the north... yes, I think that is just about where we’ll be heading next.” I bowed my head to Ruolan, then did the same to the dwarves who bowed right back. “It was enjoyable meeting you, and fighting by your side. Perhaps one day we will meet again.”

“Mah, I would hope so, ancient one.”

“Safe travels,” Hammer said.

Tweezers nodded and grinned, his own send off, I supposed.

“Alex, pick up the limpet, she doesn’t look fit for walking. Let’s head out!”

***

Epilogue

The limpet jumped off the remains of the wall and placed her hands at the base of her back before stretching up and back. “Oh, that feels so much better,” she said.

“A bit of healing can go a long way,” I said. “There are actually a few spells that touch the schools you prefer that can heal. Necromantic healing is a little... shall we say volatile, but it can’t be argued that it is exceptionally effective at keeping one alive in the middle of a life or unlife situation. Oh hohohoho! ”

The limpet blinked, then she snorted. “Oh, life or unlife. Instead of death. I get it.”

I shook my weary head and stood to my full height, hands idly straightening out the lapels of my jacket. “You should never explain wordplay,” I said. “If the listener fails to grasp it, that’s their own prerogative. But unlike any other kind of magic known to living, unliving and divine, wordplay is the only sort where true understanding actually breaks the magic apart. Not that a connoisseur cannot still appreciate it.”

“Wait, wordplay is an actual kind of magic?” the limpet asked. “I thought you just said that kind of stuff because you were... uh, you.”

“I am, in fact, me,” I agreed. “And being me, I couldn’t just let any old magic rest without uncovering all of its secrets. I have ruined the magic and charm of puns for myself. It is a fate I dearly wish never breaks your bones. Get it, breaking a wishbone?”

The limpet’s look of utter disgust was pleasure itself.

I chortled and took a moment to look around us at what was left of Silvershire. It had been a nice place once, but things changed; people, and time, moved on. Perhaps it was time for us to do the same. “North,” I said.

“North?” the limpet repeated.

Alex looked up from where he was picking away at a spot of detritus on his apron. “North?”

I nodded. “Indeed. North. I believe it’s the land called the Flaming Steppes?”

The limpet bounced a few times, settling her stuff and readying herself to move. “Yes sir. The Flaming Steppes. Home to one of the most savage and dangerous sects, and where the beast and bug men roam and fight the undead day and night. It’s a pretty rough place.”

“We’ll see what we can do to travel it in relative safety then,” I said. I doubted there would be much that could threaten me there, but a lack of humility and caution had ended more than one experiment early.

“So, master, are we off on our next great adventure then?”

“A great adventure? No, I don’t think so. I’d rather say that we’re off to find the next great peculiarity , and then we’ll see what makes it so special.”

“That sounds nice,” Alex said as he trooped up next to us, his backpack bulging and clanking with all sorts of things a proper butler needed. “Will Daddy be leading the way?”

“Naturally,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to be the second person to find something strange.”

“Then we’ll be perfectly fine,” Alex said.

Grinning a skeleton’s toothy grin, I tapped the tip of my Oxfords to the ground, then set off. “So, limpet, what do you say to a skeleton who’s too warm?”

“Uh?”

“You’re running a femur, my chap!”

The limpet groaned. “Master, no!”

“ Oh hohohoho!   Tibia honest, I’ve bone  waiting to use that one. Don’t worry limpet, I have a skele-ton more!”

“Did you just say bone instead of been?” the limpet asked with obvious confusion. “You can’t do that.”

“By the time we’re done, you’ll be breathless. I certainly have been for a while.”

“Master, please stop!”

***

The halls of the Queen’s chamber were always so strange. Strange, and alien, and yet not. They had the gold and precious stones that the humans favoured so, and yet next to these was compacted earth and the familiar warmth of bare stone.

She didn’t know if she liked the strange mix. Perhaps, were it not the Queen’s chamber, she would have appreciated it more.

“Kneel.”

She knelt. One sister to the left, a few more to the right. She hardly noticed them at the best of times, not if they weren’t competing for a mate, or fighting over a meal. But now they were there with her, and perhaps that meant that any ire the queen had would be shared.

That would be a nice change of pace.

The God Queen tilted her head back, mandibles covered in golden bangles and bracelets of priceless pearls opening wide to deposit a wriggling creature into the void beyond.

It wasn’t the god queen, the mother, who spoke, but a human man in long robes, his visage obscured by cowl and hood. “Children of the divine Queen of all that crawls and chitters, her Lady of the Blade and Sinew, and Lord over the Flaming Steppes, you have been called to serve at the behest of your divine mother.”

She shifted a little, the long blades with which her arms ended skidding ever so slightly against the jade in-laid floor. Her nearest sister twitched, a many-faceted eye  looking at her for just a moment.

“An enemy of the Empire of Man, of the Empire which rules over these lands at the sufferance of your godly Queen, has begun to make his way towards us. It is your duty, daughters of the great Mother-of-Many-Eggs, to turn this evil away.”

The man raised a hand, and magic suffices the air, making her antenna twitch as a spell formed into the image of a man. No, two men.

Her eyes refocused. A man and a very attractive woman in a strange white and black outfit? Both of their outfits were a little bizarre, but she had hardly spent that much time among the humans.

One of them was definitely dead already. An undead.

She had fought those before, of course.

“This one is named Godkiller. The Herald of the end times. The Archon of Forbidden Knowledge. The creature next to him is a companion of little import, but can be used to identify the enemy.”

The robed man took a deep breath, and then his head, and the hood encompassing it, slipped away and were both grabbed by her mother.

The Queen watched the robed body crash to the floor, and the spell he’d cast fizzled out. She crunched and chewed on the head, acids sizzling down her chins along with gobs of melting flesh. “Find Harold and kill him for me,” the queen said. “Else you will become a meal. Understood?”

She nodded. She understood, and as she had always done, she would serve her god and mother to the best of her ability. Or at least, she’d give it a try until she found the task too dull.

She did enjoy a good hunt though.

Perhaps it would be fun!

***

The End