Al Jessup regarded black gate with reverence, mentally counting off the days until the next predicted switch. The gate rotated destinations on a cyclical basis. Depending on the destination it rotated to, it was possible to bring things from the other side...back.

“Angelina, this is your legacy,” he said, inclining his head. Though unrelated by blood, Angelina shared his honey-colored hair and hazel eyes.

She nodded. “I know, Dad,” she said insistently.

He smiled, then bent his neck to kiss the top of her head.

---

Ten years later, Angelina stepped out of the shower and stared at the mirror, inspecting her form.

Well, I’ve never looked better, she admitted with a sigh. COTD’s boon regimen certainly worked wonders on her muscles, not to mention her complexion.

She blow-dried her hair, put on underwear, then picked up her signature peacekeeper’s brown robes off the floor. As she pulled them on, she couldn’t help but feel like a monk, even if the material hugged her curves and accentuated her long neck.

She’d been stationed away from Basalith–her old home–and sent to Jerboaland, one of the new dragonleaf metropolises. The view from her window featured a sliver of the ocean, which was filled by numerous dragonleaf boats. She could see everything from sailboats to tiny dinghies.

If she had to be honest, there wasn’t anything to complain about. Life as a peacekeeper was, surprisingly, peaceful, especially after the spearrow purge. Her main tasks were pacifying people with her kursi abilities and reporting any abnormalities to the more senior peacekeepers above her.

She had lots of time off, allowing her to continue some of her studies at one of the newly-established schools and work on accumulating PP. As one of the individuals right in the thick of COTD’s takeover, she’d also been one of the first to obtain access to boons. As a result of her head start, she had been able to invest PP early on and make a killing in returns. Over the past month alone, she’d made a five-hundred percent profit off of some three-hundred PP she’d invested in the Ukrainian Exchange.

Even though life as a peacekeeper was relatively simple...Angelina felt bitter about the current situation. She’d been brought up knowing that the Ritus Gate would be her legacy, and now...she felt like she had nothing. She was just a newborn kursi–only 18 years old!–in a sprawling city whose inhabitants had, before COTD, largely subsisted on grit. The people here were quick to recognize a new lease on life when it literally sprouted up on their doorstep, and exhibited ambition the likes of which Angelina had never seen among her American peers.

She knew she didn’t have their inner fire, and it terrified her.

But if she didn’t want to keep living the rest of her life as a peacekeeper, she needed to keep building on her initial advantage. She needed to be like the Knight, the ruler of Jerboaland, someone who had enough power to make the earth quake. Someone worthy of being in the Dragon’s retinue, someone who got to visit distant planets...

It was the only way to reclaim access to her birthright. But she definitely had a long way to go...

---

Lepochim stared down at the new report from Lisa and Bath in his hands.

“Lauretta...and Bern?” he hissed, shaking his head. “Why are they sending them to the Ukraine? There’s already a city-seed there and a flourishing new economy!”

Lepochim shot out of his chair and began pacing the room, looking indignantly out of the Spire’s windows. Bern had been proving valuable, his ability to directly jumble people’s minds at once fascinating to Lepochim on a personal level and useful as an interrogation tool. For people that were tough nuts to crack at the hands of the jerboa, Bern was an effective last resort: If people thought they were genuinely talking to their boss, or daddy, or whatever, they tended to loosen their lips.

“They can’t just send away two of my thousand-year-old kursi so casually!” he blustered. “They’re sterling assets to the operation I have going on here!”

“Operation?” a voice said from behind.

Though used to disembodied voices appearing out of nowhere, Lepochim still jumped slightly.

“Bath,” he said, turning around. The Devourer sat down on the couch, his human countenance serene.

“Go on,” he said, folding his hands. “Tell me about what you’re using Bern for.”

Lepochim licked his lips. “While you’ve been gone, we’ve been busy dealing with a...crime element.”

Bath nodded slowly. “I’m sure I’d know all of this if I had your report, but continue on.”

Lepochim’s eye twitched. Did Bath even know how long it took to put together a comprehensive report on everything that had happened? It was way too much to do in the span of a week, let alone a month. On top of everything else, Lepochim still had his usual responsibilities.

“...As I was saying, we’ve been dealing with criminal activity that has proliferated around areas where Nevis has difficulty monitoring human activity. Those parasites you made that allow spearrows to detect when people have engaged in criminal activities? People found ways to get around it days after you left.”

Bath didn’t reveal any emotion, his silence prompting Lepochim to continue on.

“It’s especially bad in sparsely-populated badlands like the western United States and sub-Saharan Africa,” Lepochim explained.

“I’m surprised you know what those places are,” Bath jibed.

Lepochim resisted the urge to roll his eyes. While he could admit to being a bit slow on learning the countries and regions of Earth, he’d become rather proficient in Bath’s absence.

“We’ve been sending in teams to deal with them, but often capture tight-lipped scoundrels who refuse to break under torture. Usually seems like they have some kind of modified painkiller boon that prevents them from feeling extreme or prolonged pain. So, we bring in Bern, and problem solved.”

“I see,” Bath said, thinking. “If you’re so keen on using Bern for interrogations, I suppose we can afford to keep him here. I’ll speak to Lauretta and see if she agrees to being split from her partner.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Lepochim was about to prepare an argument when he paused, almost not believing his ears.

Bath...actually gave him what he wanted?

“...Excellent,” Lepochim said, as though vomiting up the word. He smoothed his robes, shaking his head to regain his composure. “I’ll continue working on the report.”

Bath yawned. “Don’t bother. I think I have a handle on most of what’s happened in my absence.”

What?

Seeing his expression, Bath smiled coolly, flashing teeth. “I talked to Nevis, Lepo,” he said, shaking his head.

Lepochim flinched. Nevis? But–

“Nevis is literally made to write reports, Lepochim. Now calm down and get back to your real job.”

Before Lepochim could say a word of response, Bath vanished. He stood there for a second, expression blank.

“Damn him!” he shouted, slamming his fist against his desk.

Unfortunately for him, the desk broke.

---

Lisa flexed her fingers in anticipation of some real, knuckle-dusting action. One of the things she and Bath had discussed was the cult-city of Tollan. Back when she’d visited on her ambassadorial world tour, the city’s enormous pyramid looked eerily like some kind of sacrificial altar.

According to some rumors, that wasn’t too far from the truth.

If you’ve really taken things this far, Maya, we can’t let the situation escalate further.

Lisa understood why Nevis had alluded to Lepochim letting things on Earth get out of hand. Technically, Lisa didn’t have concrete information on exactly what Maya had been up to the past month, but she had lots of unverified tips suggesting that Tollan was out of control.

After about two hours of travel, she landed in a forested area several miles from the city. If she disregarded the creepiness of the stark, white pyramid, Lisa found the city fairly beautiful. It’s intentionally non-cookie-cutter design struck her as artistic and sensual, its sloping buildings blending into one another like waves. All featured intricate carvings and many even had stylized animal figures that appeared to melt out of the woodwork.

The intelligence from Nevis’ information collecting was correct: the city appears to be divided along three new factions stemming from Dawn faction. They all have something to do with light: Sun, Star, and Moon.

Lisa paused for a second. Wouldn’t “Moon” be a better sub-faction for Dusk faction rather than Dawn faction? She shrugged to herself. Whatever.

Apparently, one could display their affiliation to one of the factions by commissioning an animal carving on their house. This made sense, given that Tollan had grown out rather than up: each person, or family unit, had their own roof.

A feathered snake indicated allegiance to Sun, a swooping bird allegiance to Star, and a howling wolf allegiance to Moon.

Lisa noticed that the art seemed to vary a lot from house to house, with some of the more stylized carvings stumped her animal recognition skills. It’s a square with beady eyes and feathers...Or is that fur?

If they weren’t so small (relative to the oversized quasi-sapients of COTD), some of the more-realistic roof sculptures would likely pass for real animals on dark nights.

Lisa wore a scarf to disguise her appearance as she entered the city limits, planning to do a bit of initial scouting before taking direct action. As she walked through the streets, she didn’t sense anything particularly out of the ordinary. People and quasies went about their business, as could be expected.

Seeing the relative normalcy of Tollan, especially in comparison to her last visit, made her doubt the gossip claiming that Tollan was sanctioning human sacrifice. But if it was true, Lisa needed to stage an intervention.

That’s the worst case scenario, she reminded herself. She had a long list from Nevis of all the possible things going on in Tollan, ordered from most to least concerning. While first on the list was human sacrifices, second was already significantly better: clearcutting nearby forests. According to Nevis, there was still a decent market for non-dragonleaf timber, especially among people trying to spruce up their homes.

Pre-COTD, this clearcutting would be legal business as usual; now, it’s something worthy of investigation. Yet another example of the way things had changed.

The next thing on the list after that was the censorship of all forms of press. Much of the reason why Lisa was being sent in was the complete lack of verified sources and information coming out of Tollan. All they had was hearsay and gossip, complicating the investigative process.

In the span of an hour, Lisa combed through the entire city-seed; however, she hadn’t found anything worth mentioning. She’d arrived when the sun was setting, and now that the sun was gone, it seemed like most people were already in bed.

She sighed, then sat down on a public bench, the luminescent fungi overhead bathing her in blue-green light. She contemplated calling Nevis to phone in an update, but decided against it. She probably needed to do a lot more investigating during the day before she could draw any conclusions.

After no less than five meetings in Basalith followed by flying to Tollan, Lisa was a bit tired, and began to lose focus. However, she snapped to attention with a start as a large, deep-red shell stalked toward her.

What...is this? she wondered, standing up. She tried to manipulate its shell, but didn’t have enough time to do much before it was upon her.

Lisa dodged right as a monstrous hound leapt at her, its slavering jaws overflowing with teeth. Lisa wasn’t even sure it could properly close its mouth. Its bloodshot eyes glared at her, as though the dog took her dodge as a personal insult. It had bone spurs all over its body, as though someone had tried to modify–specifically, expand–its skeleton and had met with only partial success.

That red...I thought it was just mindless anger, Lisa thought. But now she realized it was something else: pain.

This poor dog has been warped, then discarded like trash. She could hardly believe her eyes. How could someone abuse the caretaker boons like this? It must’ve been a flesh shaper who took a normal dog and tried to enhance it.

How could Maya not know about this? Lisa ranted internally. Could this be why people stay inside after dark?

She frowned. But lots of people should be able to fend off a dog like this, she reasoned. This attack alone doesn’t explain what’s going on here.

As the dog charged toward her again, Lisa swallowed and tried to think about how to proceed. This dog needs to be rehabilitated. I don’t have the time; I’ll incapacitate it for now and make sure it gets care when people are up and around.

Suspicions toward Tollan rekindled, Lisa rooted the dog in place with dragonleaf and once more began to patrol the city, this time electing to fly and scout for any fast-moving figures on the streets. She had a few false alarms, such as when she touched down in front of a pair of quasi-wolves on a romantic, moonlit stroll. But after another half hour of searching, she finally found a real target.

Or, rather, the target found her.

How are these things sneaking up on me? Lisa thought, incredulous. My range covers this entire city; while it’s a bit hard to isolate individual shells in a city of this size, I should definitely be able to do so from two-thousand feet away.

And yet, a warped falcon had flown at her from behind, nearly clipping her robe as it dove past.

Something is definitely up, Lisa grumbled, using vines of dragonleaf to incapacitate the bird and lower it to the ground. And for some reason, I don’t think Maya’s to blame.