I was in a good spot all in all.

I had plenty of alone time in the middle of nowhere to practice all the new occult spells I'd stolen from Drakonis's video logs, hadn’t shown To’Orda any of my real tricks that were reserved for To’Avalis, and I was that much closer to the Icon.

Of course, my strategy wasn’t without risks. Such as being stuck in the middle of nowhere, surrounding by a deadly invisible miasma, and the blinking power indicator on my HUD slowly counting down how long I could live.

All in all, normal day for me.

The reserve power cell was full and unused, so eight hours there. And the primary had been tapped a little more than I’d hoped for in the fight and scuffling, it sat at five hours. Overall battery life of the suit: Thirteen hours.

Every single time I think the power supply is covered, I’m back on the timer again somehow. The universe always finds a way to eat my ration bars.

Journey wasn’t the only armor running on finite resources. My body was too. Air, food and water. Air was covered so long as I had a helmet on. And I was working on the water issue next.

“The filter isn’t rated for a bioweapon.” Cathida said, as the canteen was filled with lakewater. “I wouldn’t recommend taking a sip from that.”

“I got a plan.” I said, giving it a quick shake for luck once the thing was filled to the brim again.

And then I got to work making it actually safe.

Relic armor water flasks were hardy things. And they were resistant to melting down or breaking from high heat. Up to a certain amount of course, there’s always a limit. But I’d learned how to fine tune the fractal of heat and this was a perfect use case.

“Not bad, not bad.” Cathida said, as we watched steam rise up backwards through the filter. The bottom of the little bottle was glowing dim red, surrounded by flames from my open palm.

“When in doubt, double check. Triple-check when filling up from a lake in the middle of a deadly hazard zone, and finally when surrounded by said bio-weapon built to kill humans… well, I think you’d get where that’s going, oh wise hermit of the armor.”

“Peh, you want my advice? I don’t think it’s paranoid enough.”

I had to pause in my tracks on that. “Boiling water isn’t enough to absolutely sterilize anything biological?”

“Deary, think about that for a moment. If you were engineering something to kill off humans, you’d likely also plan ahead to foil some early counters. What’s the first thing general people do as a defense against infections or nasty parasites in the water supply?”

I looked over my boiling water and felt mild panic. “How did they engineer something that can survive boiling water?”

“Not the first time in history bad critters can survive in boiled water. You surface dwellers just don’t have a lot of nasties that survive in your sterile environments. Even in the golden age, nature’s already accidentally stumbled on boiling resistant pests. Journey’s got records of a thing called anthrax. Apparently resistant to boiling water. Frostbloom’s also freely living on the surface temperatures, unlike most everything else from the few times I’ve seen the white wastes up close. Journey calls them extremophiles.”

“All right,” I sighed, putting my canteen back into its place. “Was hoping to get some better use from my heat fractals against the infestation here. If this thing can survive boiling water, how am I even still alive?”

Cathida laughed. “Nothing it could do against nanoswarms. There’s limits to what biology can survive against.”

There was a way out of this mess. Kres and the Odin used fire primarily to fight off the infestation from what I’d heard. So it might be able to survive boiling water, but it can’t survive being burned by outright flames.

And the best way to test out my theory was field testing directly. I lifted my hand up, lit the fractal and let it burn across my palm, until my fingers were red hot and the very air vibrated above them. “Test the air I just purged here for contamination. Let’s see if it survives direct fire.”

A small gust of black particles flowed through my slowly dimming fingers the moment I turned off my flames, disrupted by the vibrating air just above the fingers, but sturdy enough to keep going. Results were quick. “Looks like your hunch was correct, deary. Journey’s not detecting anything in the air immediately after being purged. Just a slight lack of oxygen and some other scientific gas jargon. Burnt carbon likely. So, I take it fire’s on the menu now?”

“It’ll be something. I can at least find an old site of some kind where I can seal myself up and burn the air until it’s clean of issues. Then I’d be free to quickly eat or drink something. Problem is that’s half the issue. If Journey’s filters weren’t able to clean up the spores and boiling water also isn’t enough to kill them, I have to figure out a new source of water. Food’s fine, I can survive long past the armor when it comes to food. Water on the other hand, need that to think straight.” I gave my water canteen a shake. “Might need to rig an autoclave setup of some kind. Or find another way to raise the boiling temperature and pressure inside this without breaking the filters.”

“If only water was the only thing you needed to think straight,” Cathida huffed. “But fine, this’ll do for now. Onwards to meet your bird friends. I’m sure you’ve terrified them enough to be welcomed by now.”

It’s not that far off from here. I didn’t get To’Orda to hammer me in exactly the direction I’d need to go, but the terrain data in this direction had been sent already by the Icon, including a path to her hull.

Find water on the way, possibly some power, then get to the Icon and find a way to connect with Wrath. And I at least had to get out of this forest before thirteen hours go by, or else I'm dead.

Guessing Drakonis was having a better time than I am, given he doesn't have to worry about dying.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

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The giant’s boot slammed into Drakonis and crunched him inwards. The slam between his back and the armor itself was jarring enough to knock his breath out. His armor began to show a few dozen red warning signs, structural integrity significantly dropped. And almost in that same breath, everything went dark.

The HUD died before him without so much a glitch or distortion. Nothingness.

There was a heavy pressure around him, enclosing every inch of his body, even wrapped around his very fingers. He recognized the feeling of an unpowered relic armor.

The giant bastard must have finally caught and ripped off this other reserve cell.

“Nnnn… you are extremely annoying.” The giant groaned above him, voice muffled through the dead helmet.

“Not just ‘annoying?’ I’m fucking flattered.” Drakonis hissed back into the darkness of his helmet.

He could understand somewhat. He’d thought he’d die within a few seconds. Possibly avoid one or two hammer swings and fail immediately after. When the Feather’s plan had changed from killing him to capturing him, a longer fight was possible.

And he’d taken it to the logical conclusion. As far as he possibly could. Lionheart would be proud. Twelve hells, even the Winterscar would probably give him a thumbs up and then tell him he must have had a good role model. That little shit.

He hoped Keith was out there, already plotting. No, there was no need to hope. Plotting was just what he did. Likely he was plotting even as fell out of the air.

A scream of tortured metal started sounding all around him, crying into his ear, pounding away at his mind. Metal crunching, grinding slowly.

Then light flooded back into his sight.

In front of him, the hooded violet eyes glowed from the recesses of the white shawl the giant wore. And held carefully in two fingers was Drakonis’s mangled helmet. Half crushed, malformed, and clearly ripped off the throat guard latches.

“Latches too small.” The giant said, shrugging. “Easier to tear off.”

Drakonis tried to move his hands and feet, and the dead armor made him feel as if he was caught deep in loose sand. Nearly impossible.

“Nnnn… don’t be more annoying.” The giant grumbled.

Inspiration came to him then, in the voice of one weasely little bastard, and exactly what said weasley little bastard would do at moments like this. “And what’s in it for me to not be annoying? Give me a good fucking deal or else I’m going to make you regret keeping me captive for every second of the day.”

He could have sworn the giant’s eye twitched. Or at least the glow looked like it flickered. “Nnnn… bugger. Fine. I will ask.”

“Ask what? Or who?” But the giant simply dropped him on the ground without any thought, letting Drakonis scramble against the dead armor, trying to get himself up straight. Fucking thing felt like it had gone from moving around clothing made of dust and feathers to moving in a giant coffin. He considered hitting the manual full release triggers.

The giant didn’t answer back. Instead, he lumbered away, walking on the gravel under them, before sitting down without any grace or thought. Drakonis felt his tailbone twitch in phantom pain, as the Feather landed directly on where the tailbone should have been - had the Feather not been made of pure unbreakable metal in the first place. Legs spread apart, hands by the center, gaze far off into the distance. The hammer clunked onto the ground a moment later, hilt slamming against the side of a rock with a ring before settling down.

There wasn’t a sound from the enemy for the next two minutes, as if he was just dozing off. In those minutes Drakonis had managed to undo the arm safety latches under all the plating and with a hiss a few sections finally started to fall off. Moving his fingers when encased in dead armor felt like running a marathon. And the loss of tactile feedback that the armor simulated for him made him feel as if he was using a surface savage’s environmental suit. Or at least the saying went.

His gauntlet now freed, he’d have a much easier time undoing the other arm.

Around him, he could hear the rustle of the forest. And one crow from above. Kres had returned, watching from the top of the tree and keeping mostly quiet.

Likely the end of combat had made the area seem a little safer. Unfortunately, Drakonis didn’t know the Odin term for “Sorry” and he’d probably need to learn that one quick.

The fight from the trading post top had devolved into breaking quite a huge chunk of the dead ship, all the way until the two fighters hit the ground and continued the fight near the dead body of the Drake. That’s when Drakonis finally ran out of tricks and evasion.

Dust swirled around the Feather, taking Drakonis’s attention away from the possible allies around him. To’Orda had reached down on the ground and picked up a rock of some kind. Black motes were streaming out, looking for material to dissolve around him, and flowing back into the souvenir he’d taken.

Then the giant turned, hand going for his hammer, before he shrugged his shoulders one last time and walked over to Drakonis.

One hand stretched out. The small unpolished rock was in his hand. There were a few holes punctured on one side, leading into darkness. And nothing else that seemed off besides those.

“Nnn… negotiate.” To’Orda said, extending the rock forward.

“That’s a rock.” Drakonis said, feeling like he’d gone insane.

“A pet rock.” The rock said, voice crackling in low resolution. “A pet rock with a speaker inside. To’Orda doesn’t like to talk, and I gotta do that job for him now. You got that?”

“...Why am I speaking to a fucking pet rock.” The Deathless both asked and stated in the same flat tone.

“Because you kept rejecting my image requests, asshole.” The rock said. “And now I have a speech generator cobbled together when I could be generating images and text like I was built to. It’s all your fault.”

To’Orda nodded with a grunt.

“You’re insane.” Drakonis said.

“He’s not, just very lazy." The rock said. "And one of the other Feathers made a joke about talking to a pet rock, and To’Orda liked the idea. Of having a pet rock talk for him, not the rock itself. I could be a nice little statue or even a hologram, but no. Pet rock was the easiest possible thing to do. You understand all that or do we gotta beat some sense into you? Again.” The Feather grunted. The rock added more. “And he really doesn’t want to put in the effort on that, to be clear. You’re a royal pain in the ass. Worse than the Winterscar kid.”

“Not possible.” Drakonis instantly said. “I didn’t even hold a chance of killing you fuckers, Keith did.”

“Yeah, but we we're perfectly fine killing him. You, we had to keep alive. Big difference. Plus, To’Orda doesn’t really care if his life is threatened or not. If he dies, no more work. Just getting yelled at by our boss.” The rock paused. “He does care about his shield though. The rest? Not so much.”

“Why a fucking pet rock?” Drakonis asked again.

“Oi. Eyes down here pal, you’re talking to me. And besides what I just covered earlier, the answer is that To’Orda doesn’t wanna do this shit. Negotiating with you I mean. When he asked anyone else to do it for him, the choices boiled down to To’Sefit, To’Wrathh or the boss. The boss ain't gonna be assed about this. According to him, if you make To’Orda’s life miserable, that’s not his problem. To’Sefit, same reason. She’s just not interested in talking to you at all unless you make yourself a problem to her. Which you ain’t right now. To’Wrathh’s open to it and asking to as well, but that’s a giant fuckin’ loophole esspecially since at some point the Winterscar’s gonna come back for you. And if there’s a rock that’s got a communication link to To’Wrathh, guess what’s gonna get stolen first thing? So of course the boss shoots that idea down.”

“Tough shit.” Drakonis said.

“Yeah, it’s tough shit all right. Nobody wants to help To’Orda for anything, exhausting you know?” The giant nodded with a sad grunt, hand still holding the pet rock in front of him. “So that’s where I come in. Believe you me, I don’t wanna be doing this any more than I gotta. I’m an image generator, not a therapist.”

Lionheart had said Feathers were strange opponents. All insane in slightly different ways, but all clearly one step removed from reality. As if everything was a play of some kind.

And now he was talking to a pet rock, which was talking for a Feather who didn’t like to talk.

Well. He knew he’d signed up for strange days when he first joined Lionheart. If he had to negotiate with a pet rock, he’d do it.