CHAPTER II
Region: Ruins of Ka’tet
Planet: Exadam
System: Outer Star Rings
A wide plateau sat in the side of a mountain, an ideal spot to lay beneath the vibrant green nebulae spanning Exadam’s evening sky. Any other night, Linares thought, this dispassionate land was a perfect place for quiet contemplation. Maybe communion with nature, or re-evaluating your place in the cosmos. Any other night, one could be forgiven for thinking this land wasn’t even settled; unblemished by industrial development or space traffic.
Any other night than tonight.
A hastily assembled army camp was being turned over, tents uprooted and supplies strewn about. Barely-armored resistance fighters with bolt-action rifles were torn through by searing hot spikes from Energy Quill Rifles. They dropped to the ground as stocky, well-equipped Orovian soldiers — humanoids under layers of sharp purple scales — secured the remnants of their camp.
Linares watched the Orovians trot by from a few paces back, keeping rear perimeter. Despite her long legs and broad shoulders, she hunched inward, crossed her toned arms over her chest and tucked her chin down. In practical, scavenged plate armor, her short hair hunching over her eyes and long, sharp chin flanked by the flanges of a distinctive v-shaped plate on her chest armor, the obviously seasoned warrior and authority figure…tried to make herself look smaller. She kept her eyes forward, locked on their reason for being here:
Across the cliff-like plateau before them loomed a massive, ancient door. Over a hundred feet of smooth, flawlessly carved stone formed into a sharp geometric shape, with one seem down the middle. Like the landscape, seemingly unblemished by time or civilization.
Like the gorgeous skies, if it weren’t for the circumstances, Linares might've felt humbled by the sight.
The corner of her eye registered movement, and her gaze darted down to a fallen resistance fighter in her periphery. He dragged himself along the ground, two glowing quills protruding from his back, not fully penetrating his armor, but struck deep enough to hobble.
The paralyzed soldier looked up at her, defiance on his face. He snorted, preparing to spit on her. She did not move to avoid it. Before he could, he jolted and went rigid, like he’d been shocked, expelled the air left in his lungs with a huff, and began trembling. Linares looked to his back, where the long blade of a glaive buried itself. She followed up the glaive’s shaft to see its wielder, Venatonce, God of Hunters. The tall, powerfully built Entroph was lighter armored than Linares, befitting his role as a tracker, adorned only in a black and red cuirass and greaves. His sinewy arm grabbed the glaive, with a squelch of severing tendons and grinding bone as he twisted it in the wound. The weapon itself crawled with runes and symbols, and had a power of its own: it sent organic black veins spidering out of the wound beneath the resistance fighter’s skin, inducing a definitive and painful end. Venatonce then withdrew his techno-organic weapon, shaking out his mane of waxy hair, his large, rounded black eyes wide with excitement, a sneering grin spread across his ragged, yellowish face.
If nothing else, she thought, she was somewhat grateful that her times in the Blood Pits kept her below ground. Her bronze skin was calloused and scarred, but it didn’t pickle and putrefy from prolonged exposure to Cindreth’s toxic industrial atmosphere.
How she looked was never a concern for Linares, but having curdled, rotting skin on top of the rest of her life’s toils? It’d just be insult to injury.
Linares blinked at Venatonce, barely masking her contempt. “Enjoying yourself, big man?”
Venatonce didn’t meet her eyes, relishing in his kill. “Only the joy of doing what I was born to,” he replied in ecstasy. Linares rolled her eyes, then refocused as a few Orovian soldiers shoved down another resistance fighter, a Captain, she’d heard her called. The Captain had been disarmed and already wounded, but the Orovians threw her at Venatonce’s feet, rather than killing her properly, as a soldier was due.
“The chase, Linares,” Venatonce said slowly. His posture relaxed as he approached the Captain, barely getting to her feet. “The chase is all there is.” The Captain slowly backed away as Venatonce prowled closer, glaive loose in one hand as his other fluttered at her. “Go on,” he dared. “Run.”
The Captain looked between him and Linares, then planted her feet firm. She stood tall and spat on him, blood and phlegm slapping right into his cheek. Venatonce growled and took his glaive in both hands, but halted in his tracks. His eyes fixed behind the Captain, and Linares followed. On the edge of the cliffside, back to them and facing the ancient doors, she raised a hand.
She wasn’t as tall as Linares or Venatonce, but she held a commanding presence that the shrinking Ascendant and the feral Entroph god both lacked. Imposingly built in her own right, but more lean and panther-like — with the patience and control to match. Her raised arm held perfectly still, her hand telling Venatonce to stand down. Her skin wasn’t discolored like an Entroph, nor perpetually healthy like an Astral. Instead, her arm was a sleek and unblemished shade of charcoal grey, crawling with dark crimson tattoos of thorny vines. Unlike to her armored compatriots, she wore a sleeveless black jerkin, military trousers and boots, the look somewhere between a monk’s tunic and combat fatigues. Tails of maroon fabric hung below her belt as well, contrasting the black and lending her a regal aspect. A maroon half-cape draped over her right shoulder, long raven hair spilled over her left. When she spoke, her chest didn’t seem to move, as if she didn’t even need to breathe.
“Ancestors are curious things, aren’t they?” Atrocita said, her voice both sultry and ice cold. “They leave the grandest monuments for us to look up to…yet never want us to do better.”
The Ascendant of Undeath finally turned to face the gathered attention of her soldiers, the reverent bows of her two generals and the defiant but fledgling resistance captain. Her razor-sharp jaw, half-smile on her full lips and dark, impish eyebrows sparked an immediately exciting, suggestive charisma. It briefly got Linares all over again, even after all these years. Suddenly, she was just a confident thrill-seeker you met at the bar, a girl you’d do anything to spend a night out with — were it not for her eyes. That was where she could not hide her lineage as half-Entroph, as much as the rest of her shined. Black circles and barely visible, withered flesh curdled around her just-too-large, pupil-less orbs of swirling blood and tar. They rolled slowly onto the Captain, and her thin smile grew slightly. It was catlike and predatory, but also, Linares knew, somewhat genuine.
Atrocita was many things, but insincere wasn’t one of them.
“Ancestors want to live forever,” she went on, addressing the Captain directly. “Even Astrals and Entrophs, after tens of thousands of years, die eventually; but they aren’t content with that. No, they have to leave towers and temples to their glory, while the rest of the universe look up to them in awe,” she tsked, "I don't hold to that." Atrocita shook her head, languidly gliding towards the Captain. “Why chase love when you can attract it? Why aspire when you can dare? Why lord over when you can lift up?” The Captain swallowed, fighting her fear as Atrocita stopped right in front of her. The half-Entroph gently took the Captain’s face in her long fingers. Her expression open and reassuring as her thumb rubbed the Captain’s chin. “I don’t strive to impress. I don't chase approval. I simply am…and I am better for it,” she moved her hand to cup the Captain’s cheek. “And you can be, too.”
Linares fought the urge to roll her eyes and crossed her arms again. She kept a tighter hold on her emotions around Atrocita herself, but she’d heard this act before, predicting it line by line as Atrocita stepped aside, wrapped an arm around the Captain and gestured toward the ancient site.
“Open the relic,” she posed gently. “It’s encoded to only respond to one of your kind.”
“There’s a reason for that,” the Captain finally managed. “My ancestors trusted us to protect it from people like you!”
“And you’ve failed to,” Atrocita reasoned softly, “Because you weren’t meant to. You were meant to be here, with me, to start anew.”
“It’s my duty to die trying,” the Captain spat back.
“You were told as much,” she countered with a lecturing finger, “So you could service their hubris long after they were gone.”
The Captain finally shook free, stumbling out from under Atrocita’s arm. She staggered back and glared up at her with disgust. “I won’t forsake my father just because you are a poor imitation of yours…spawn of the Maladact.”
Linares’ stomach tightened and Venatonce’s head tipped up. The wind seemed to halt, like the air itself held its breath. Atrocita’s caring face and empathetic smile suddenly relaxed. Linares knew what came next and shifted foot to foot, looking at the dirt as Atrocita sighed.
“I’m sorry you can’t see,” she said with pity.
The Ascendant lowered her right hand and extended her fingers. Black smoke and dust swirled into her hand in a miniature cyclone, coalescing into an ornate chrome pommel, a one foot handle of tightly coiled black leather and finally extended into a long, ink-black sickle blade. The khopesh sword seemed to drip a brackish fluid as it moved, droplets constantly evaporating back into smoke. As Atrocita raised it up, the blade itself seemed to whisper dissonantly. With terrifying speed and grace, she thrust it through the Captain’s heart, the whispers forming a hiss as Linares winced ever so slightly. The Captain’s eyes bulged and she fell to her knees, coughing up blood as she up to her murderer.
“Better…to die a martyr…than live in someone else’s shadow…”
Choking out her final curse, the Captain fell over dead. After a moment, Atrocita shrugged. “And you’ll be granted neither.”
With that, Atrocita raised her left hand palm-up. This finally broke Linares’ composure, and she turned away, pretending to scan the horizon as the awful noises rose up behind her -- choking, gagging and the straining sounds of organs rolling and coiling.
The Captain's wound began to pulsate and throb. Atrocita's power over undeath revealed itself: a neurokinetic parasitic spore drifted into the Captain's wound at Atrocita's direction. The spores fell from Atrocita's hand like a drop of water, bonded with the tissue and immediately overrode the dead Captain's DNA, breaking down her cells and repurposing the biomass. Tumorous fungal lesions sprouted all over her skin, originating from the wound like signal fires answering its call. Her hijacked limbic system convulsed and rose the Captain back to her feet like a marionette. Pale green light flickered in her eyes and mouth and she moaned hollowly. Atrocita looked over her with regret.
“Open the relic, darling,” she ordered dispassionately.
The undead thrall turned and shambled towards the door. Atrocita followed, trailed by Linares and Venatonce, while their soldiers maintained the perimeter. Venatonce slowed to keep pace with Linares. Once Atrocita had a good lead, he spoke low. “Don’t think I don’t see you,” he warned Linares. “Averting your gaze when you think no one watches. Does your stomach soften, girl?”
Linares kept her eyes forward, not registering his accusation. “If you have to ask, take your best shot and find out.”
Venatonce chuckled gruffly. “I’d rather not make a mess.”
“Or be the mess,” she shot back. Venatonce growled and stalked ahead. Though he was a gifted duelist and well suited as God of Hunters, Linares was always bored by his lack of wit. His fragile ego made him easily baited, but when an opponent can barely fight back, Linares didn’t find it much fun.
They all eventually reached the relic doors, where a small altar awaited them — no, a control panel! The relic may have been ancient, Linares noted, but clearly Atrocita’s suspicions were correct: the precursors of Ka’tet were indeed much more advanced than Astral and Entroph scholars credited. The undead Captain clumsily dragged her hand onto the center of the panel and it came to life with a dull blue light. It hummed briefly, resonating deep underground before a mighty click shook the side of the mountain. Dust rained down as the massive doors gradually yawned open. Linares’ brow furrowed as she peered inside.
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The mountain was hollow. Smooth, seamless steel covered every inch of the internal cavern. No condensation, no stalagmites, no natural formations left whatsoever. Every inch was completely covered by flawless metal, but not one familiar to Linares. Too angular and stark to be Astral, but nowhere near jagged and industrial enough to be Entroph. Brutal and utilitarian, which gave even more insight: Mortal-made, likely in a time of scarcity or war.
Mortals loved their monuments, but when time was short they chose function over fashion. More than that — the technology required for this installation was centuries ahead of present-day Exadam, yet it was thousands of years old. As Orovian soldiers filed in, Linares surveyed the inner chasm and finally spoke up: “…So it’s true...”
“The lies of our ancestors crack once again,” Atrocita concurred, taking it all in with satisfaction and a hint of wonder. “The mortal's Golden Age was indeed real, and the Astrals and Entrophs covered it up. Couldn’t have the rest of the cosmos knowing that mortals could strive towards their godly host.”
Venatonce grimaced subtly. “This place is of mortal hands? Impossible,” he shook his head, “They must’ve been helped.”
“By whom?” Atrocita countered, “Who else would have imprisoned him those millennia ago? Our forebears? They were far too reverent for him. Their long lifespans and bubble of safety would keep them far from the effect of his great works, but the mortals? The mortals felt the brunt of it.”
“I’m sorry,” Linares put up her hands. “History failure speaking: what is it the mortals were afraid of?”
“Not what, sweet Linares,” Atrocita put a hand on her shoulder as she passed by her, "Whom," she corrected, moving towards a centrally placed circular dais, “There is a prisoner here. Older than all the Astrals and Entrophs…perhaps even older than my father. He…" she smiled with discovery. "He is here…”
Linares flinched as Atrocita suddenly embraced her. After a moment, the larger woman hugged back, squeezing as convincingly as possible. Atrocita pulled back and laid a hand on her lieutenant’s cheek. It would be a warm gesture if she wasn’t cold to the touch, but Linares put on the most reassuring smile she could. “It’s finally happening, isn’t it?”
Atrocita smiled back. “It is,” she pulled Linares' head forward slightly, so she could rest her forehead against hers. “All those days hiding in the shadows, slipping the Dreadlord’s watch…soon they’ll be at an end.”
“We have the lock,” Venatonce added. “Now all we need is the key."
Atrocita grabbed Venatonce by the sides of his face and pulled him into a kiss. Linares waited for a moment, but they…kept going. She trilled her lips and shifted foot to foot as Orovians set up analysis stations around the cavern, scanning the environment while two of their commanders threatened to start heavy-petting. When their tongues began dancing, Linares finally cleared her throat.
“What about that key, then?”
Her words didn’t seem to dissuade the entwined lovers, until a communicator on Atrocita’s belt mercifully blinked to life. Atrocita broke the kiss and checked the device. “Ah, perfect timing…”
An engine sawed through the air outside, pulling Linares and Venatonce’s attention. Far louder than any engine she was accustomed to outside of Cindreth, but it wasn’t choppy enough to be an Inferni Drive. It was grating and mechanical, but almost musical in its way. Atrocita strode back outside, her two lieutenants following closely. Right outside the yawning doors, they watched a ship break through the smog over the plateau.
A dark grey, tank-like chassis that spanned 30 or so meters long, bulky and blocky on the bottom, a sleek and flat flying wing design on top, with two red racing stripes along the sloping top half. It was an aggressive design, even sporting what looked like a grill toward the front, as if it were one of those barbaric fossil fuel monstrosities from less developed planets. Whoever piloted it clearly didn’t see the value in decelerating, as they soared towards the surface, the roaring engine only idling when it finally set down on the scorched surface. In fact, Linares noted, ‘set down’ was too generous — It crashed, then stood on its landing gear like a fallen drunk.
As the Orovians formed a perimeter, Linares looked it over skeptically, while Venatonce grimaced. “My lady, I still insist we don’t need these bottom feeders.”
Linares snapped out of her dubious appraisal and looked slyly at him. “What, you’re not eager to compare notes?”
He snorted. “With bounty hunters? I’m better served talking to a rabid dog.”
“Rebellion has a cost, my love,” she eased, rubbing his shoulder. “If we are found skulking about in Astral territory, our dreams are stillborn.”
“Hmph,” he huffed, folding his arms. “Very well. Girl, who are these insects?”
Linares re-checked a holographic account projecting from her gauntlet. “Going off the reports, they’re the hardest trackers and killers in the galaxy. Almost a ten thousand bounties between the six of them.”
“Paltry tributes,” Venatonce spat.
Linares chuckled. Venatonce was supposed to be the God of Hunters, but hadn’t gotten any closer to the other being Atrocita sought, mainly by virtue of the trail leading into sovereign space, and it was starting to bleed his pride.
The doors of the muscle ship hissed open, accompanied by another noise from within: music. Linares knew the instrument, but the sound was quite alien to her. Some kind of pulsing reverberating string chords, a specific instrument she knew as an ‘electric guitar,’ the melody screeching back and forth in conjunction with rhythmic chanting:
One man,
One goal,
One mission!
She’d seen troubadours accompany nobles as they disembarked from ships, but there was no band or musician to be seen — the music instead blasted from the ship’s internal sound system, carrying a crackly grain with it. The display so confused Linares that she nearly missed the lone figure strutting down the ramp.
Broad and stocky build, but posture that leaned back, unhurried and relaxed. Stacked with apelike layers of muscle, but not trained and refined athleticism like Linares or Atrocita, nor sculpted into a vain v-shape like Venatonce, he was built more like a brick wall on legs. His skin was a light sky-blue shade, contrasting the dark green scrap armor he wore, simple combat pants with an armored vest that’d been torn open down the middle, exposing his round yet solid belly and rippling, hairy chest. He looked like he’d spent weeks at a beach party on some leisure world, then washed up at low tide. His black hair was a long, wild mohawk, his cracked, mad eyes a wicked amber color. His only manicured feature was just above his lips, where a robust and perfectly maintained mustache perched over his cocksure half-grin.
The Bounty Hunter approached with a burlap sack slung over his shoulder. He stopped a few paces short of the trio with an exaggerated clack of his heels like a soldier at attention.
Linares waited, looking behind him into the ship. “Where are the other hunters? We’re expecting six.”
The Bounty Hunter chuckled and whipped the bag off his shoulder, and three severed heads toppled out.
“Smart ones went home,” he said, a smoky, irreverent tinge in his voice.
Linares stepped forward, hand darting to the mace at her side, while Venatonce sprang forward with his glaive. “Savage!” he growled.
Venatonce prepared to lunge, Linares’ fingers twitched towards her weapon, while the Bounty Hunter just raised a brow and grinned at them both…while Atrocita laughed.
“You’ll have to forgive my friends,” she finally opened, waving them both down, “They don’t appreciate tenacity like I do.” Venatonce and Linares stood down as Atrocita prowled closer, impressed smile and wandering eyes. “We’ve not met in person, have we?”
The Bounty Hunter shrugged. “Got a call, chased a job.”
“Hm,” Atrocita nodded. “Do you know of me?”
“I’ve heard a thing or two.”
“You address Ephrala-Trocita, Goddess of Undeath,” Venatonce hissed, stepping forward again. “You ought be on your knees.”
The Bounty Hunter raised his eyebrows in mock admiration. “…Welp,” he pursed his lips and nodded, “Name’s Sledger Qarnan. Sledge if ya like. Still Sledger Qarnan if ya don’t.”
Venatonce gritted his teeth at the hunter — Qarnan’s — flippancy. “Do you offer her titles insult, bounty hunter?”
“Knock it off, Venatonce,” Linares stepped up, “You’re gonna scare him.”
“It’s true,” Qarnan nodded sarcastically, “I’m real fragile.”
Linares moved in front of Venatonce and faced Qarnan. Half a head taller than him, she looked at him as directly as she could. “Do you have a lead for us, or are you just wasting our time?”
“Oh, I got more n’at,” he boasted, resting his hands on his belt, “I got eyes on ‘em arready.”
She blinked twice, her heart twitching. She hid the flash of panic that rippled inside her — Less time than I thought, she said to herself. Swallowing and reclaiming her calm, she tilted her head. “Hm. You picked that up pretty fast.”
“Ain’t no body faster, sweetheart.”
She looked him up and down, scoffing slightly. “I believe that.”
Qarnan chuckled at her insult, again throwing Linares off. Brash and disrespectful he may have been, but this man was secure enough to laugh at himself in front of three gods.
“Enough,” Venatonce nudged Linares out of his way. “Were is he?”
“I said I knew where, I didn’t say I’d say.”
Venatonce growled. “What good is a bounty hunter who keeps things to himself?”
“Well, what good’s a bounty if yer just gonna blow my ship ta pieces soon as I spill the beans?”
Venatonce stomped forward, Qarnan stepped closer to match him, winking. Linares was ready to pull the two peacocks apart when suddenly Atrocita snaked an arm around her and Venatonce’s arms. Her touch raised Linares’ skin; she didn’t even hear her coming.
“Now, now,” Atrocita soothed, gently pulling her two advisors back as she tsked at Qarnan with pouty eyes. “So untrusting. I thought we had a chemistry?”
“Trust and chemistry ain’t a package deal, yer highness. At least not in my book,” he titled his head side to side. “But hey…that book ain’t written in stone.”
Linares cocked her head at his metaphor. “What kind of books are written in stone?”
“...I dunno, not mine?”
Atrocita chuckled. “You’re a unique one.”
“One of a kind.”
“Where are you from?”
“Zoran.”
“Zoran?” Linares squinted, “There are no Zorians, their planet burned to a crisp.”
Qarnan threw her a knowing grin and shrugged. “Like I said, one of a kind.”
“Hm,” Atrocita chewed on this, studying him. “If only we could all be so lucky.”
Venatonce had taken a few steps back by now, pacing in a slow circle until he stood behind Qarnan, his jaundiced eyes boring into the bounty hunter’s back. He wouldn’t dare defy Atrocita, but it clearly burned him to see the spark between them. Linares nearly chuckled, then shook it off and approached, once again the adult in the room. “How do we know you’re being candid with us? You killed your competition and offer no proof of the trail, you could be conning us.”
Qarnan flicked his eyes over to her, nodding appreciatively. “Well you’ll just have to trust me, sweetheart. I’m an honest guy.”
She again folded her arms apprehensively. She wanted to knock his teeth out for calling her ‘sweetheart’ this much, and yet…there was no fronting from him. When he attested to his honesty, Linares strangely found herself believing it.
Atrocita seemed to take the same cue, as she nodded and offered a hand. “We have an accord.”
He shook her hand. “Half up front, half on delivery.”
“Of course.”
Qarnan grinned, winked at Linares and turned on a heel. Strutting back to his ship, he clapped Venatonce hard on the shoulder, the Entroph gritted his teeth. “I’ll be in touch!”
The three held silent until his ship and climbed back for the sky. After a few more silent beats, Atrocita looked to one of the Orovians with a radar display, who nodded to her — the ship had fully left atmo.
She sighed, rolling her shoulders back in a resting predator's fashion. “Track his ship. He’s a simple creature, he’ll fulfill his end.”
Venatonce turned to his superior. “…And after that?”
She glanced up at him with a smile. “You’ll have your fun, darling.”
Venatonce smiled back, Linares again breaking sight with the two; half afraid they’d see her mounting discomfort, half afraid they’d start kissing again. As she hoped Venatonce wasn’t watching this time, she was relieved when a scout approached her, calling out in his native guttural language:
“We found it, my lady.”
Atrocita’s eyes widened, maybe would’ve even lit up if they weren’t churning black and red pools. She strode swiftly for the mountain temple, Linares and Venatonce following close.
Deeper within, the trio found the Orovians set up around a thirty foot ring dais in the center of the cavern, pale blue light racing around its circumference. Atrocita approached the ring with reverence, kneeling down as if to genuflect before the raised bulb at the front. A slab of obsidian laid atop the metal bulb, again like some kind of blend between a religious altar and a control console. She ran her fingers across the obsidian, blue light trailing behind them as they contacted the surface. Linares watched the archaeologist and historian in Atrocita come to the surface, arts seldom appreciated on Cindreth now invaluable to their status as exiles. Often times the only way they got by was Atrocita’s intuition and historical recall.
Her long fingers explored the console a while longer until something raised from the obsidian, like a a sea of black needles. She leaned closer and her eyes narrowed, then she smiled. With a sharp yank, she pulled a flat, kite shaped crystal from the console, no more than one foot long. The temple’s inner lights dimmed, as if gasping at the crystal being removed. All luminescence was drawn into the crystal shard in her hands. The same blue light trailed along its edges, but with more flare, like a thread of blue magma.
After a moment, Linares crept closer and knelt beside her. “Is that…”
Atrocita nodded. “A shard of the Umbra Zone,” she exhaled, running her finger along the edges as if to make sure its as real. “And the seed of our revolution…”
An Orovian soldier knelt behind the two of them with an ornate case. Atrocita swallowed and delicately placed it in the case. The Orovian bowed his head, graced by her trust, and marched out with it. Atrocita finally rose back up, Linares after. “Now what?” Linares finally asked, the chamber having gone silent, like a place of worship.
“Destroy this place,” Atrocita exhaled, dusting her hands. “Leave no trace.”
“I…” Linares caught herself, then cleared her throat. “I thought you had some respect for the mortals of this age? And how they…reached for the stars?”
“Some part of me, perhaps,” she conceded, “But they reached for godhood, just like our forebears. They would’ve been no different. It’s for the best they’re forgotten. See it done.”
Linares nodded, dropping to one knee, but Atrocita darted down to pick her back up. Once more, her touch sent an icy sensation through Linares, but she let it happen as Atrocita brought her back to her feet.
“No,” she she rubbed Linares’ shoulder, “No more kneeling. Now…we wait for providence.” She trailed to the center of the chamber, between Linares and Venatonce, all her soldiers gathering as she spread her arms wide. “In time, the Astral Ascendant of War will be delivered to us, and his great fire will burn a path into our glorious future!”
The Orovians thrust their rifles up, cheering with feral abandon. Venatonce looked on Atrocita with swelling pride and infatuation.
Linares glanced between the players on her board uneasily.
She had to make this work fast.