The slow caress of uncertainty filled the room. It crawled all over the walls and whispered in the open pages of the documents strewn across the table.

It had been a week since the Oath of Madness had found the [August Intruder]. A week since they’d been looking for the Oath of Madness. His wife had been shoved out of whatever portal she had been in, the same with every other Gifted only a few days ago.

Chetam turned his attention to the large television in the office. The channel was set to the news where some handsome man was talking about the recent discomfort the country was going through.

You’d think people would be happy with the disappearance of portals, Chetam thought.

It had been a few days since the [August Intruder] had established their dominance on the entire world. Chetam had reached out to a few Oaths he knew that were outside the country, even in completely different continents. What he’d learnt was that while he’d initially assumed that the [August Intruder] had established their dominance on the entire country, he had been very wrong.

He doubted that there was any Oath alive who had not received the notification.

The [August Intruder] had established dominance on the entire world, and that worried Chetam. A being strong enough to have that much reach was a power that was worrying. Chetam didn’t want to control such a being or put them down. He didn’t fear the power. He simply hoped that the power was not in the wrong hands.

If they listen to Madness, they should be fine, he thought. Right?

He paused, tapping a finger on his office desk, a thick glass desk with unnecessary width. After a moment, his finger stopped tapping. Maybe Madness was not as safe a bet as he thought he would be. After all, the Oath had a reputation for being unpredictable.

He could be as honorable as he could be dishonorable. He could obey as easily as he could disobey. Madness was an Oath guided by his own principles, and from what everybody knew, the man’s principles were guided by the wind.

Chetam let out a sigh and leaned his head back against his chair. The only sound that filled the room was of the man on the news talking about how different Delving companies were looking into the cause of the portals suddenly closing and no longer opening.

Chetam could understand the reason the Delving companies were in a state of confusion. For one thing, the closing of portals to Delvers was like waking up one morning and realizing that you no longer got dry seasons.

Or there’s no money.

It made you worry. For them, it was a case of why the portals had closed. If they knew why the portals had closed then they would be able to predict if it was a permanent thing or a short reprieve from the stress.

Not knowing was always a problem.

There was also the part where the absence of portals made Delvers obsolete. What would they do now, there was no one that would be willing to pay them for just being Gifted. And most of their abilities were designed for combat purposes so they couldn’t live normal working lives.

There’s also the vultures, Chetam thought. Those who made their profit off of the gains they made from inside the portals, the weapons and minerals they got from them.

They’ll be difficult to put in check.

Chetam sighed again. This was proven more stressful than he thought. Not all good things were good things, it turned out. Even some of the Oaths were worried.

“That’s your third sigh.”

Chetam’s gaze moved to the side, specifically to the chair on the other side of his desk. The Oath of Shield sat there looking as regal as she could, which was regal enough.

“I’m groaning, not sighing,” he corrected her.

“Nope.” She shook her head. “I’ve definitely heard three sighs.”

Chetam pursed his lips, looked at her pointedly, and groaned.

“There,” he said. “I groaned.”

“Don’t be a child.”

Chetam spun on his swivel chair and calmed himself with the small touch of breeze that touched his face from the action.

“Being childish is my defense mechanism for stress,” he said when he finally came to a stop and was facing her again.

“You need a better defense mechanism,” the Oath of Shield, Ruth, said. “Your current one is not befitting of someone your age.”

“Age is just a number.”

“I bet that’s what pedoph—” Ruth clamped her mouth shut as if suddenly realizing that she didn’t want to go down that path. “Never mind.”

Chetam looked at her through narrowed lids. He considered forcing the topic, then changed his mind. Of all the evil people did, preying on children in any way to her was the gravest crime. Shield was willing to protect any and everybody as long as it did not go against the greater good—it was in her nature as an Oath. It didn’t matter what you were, she was going to protect you, regardless. But there was something about how deep seethed her hatred for any that preyed on children was that it always managed to override her Oath.

Sometimes he liked to tell himself that it was just a different manifestation of her Oath. She was the protector, and the children were ultimately the essence of the world, but he couldn’t bring himself to believe that. Ruth had hated them even before becoming an Oath.

There had been an instance where she’d forgiven a man who had conned an adult of his parents’ retirement fund. In a similar case, a man had conned a fourteen-year-old of some amount of money—Chetam didn’t know the entire story of what had really happened. Suffice to say, Ruth had brought down the hammer of judgement on the man quite swiftly.

Chetam wondered if there was anything he loved enough or hated enough to override his Oath and came up with nothing.

For her its her hatred for those who prey on the young, he thought. For War, it was her love for her children.

For a moment, Chetam wondered what would happen if the [August Intruder] turned out to be a terrible person—an unforgivable person.

We definitely can’t kill them. Maybe we’ll just lock them up somewhere they can’t escape from.

A deep frown touched his lips as the entire thing soured his mood so suddenly.

“That’s quite the scowl,” Ruth said.

“I know,” Chetam grunted.

“Willing to expand on why it’s there?”

“No.”

“An abrupt answer.”

Chetam shrugged. “An inevitable answer.”

“Fair enough.” Ruth sat up on her chair and leaned forward. “Have you gotten any feedback from any of the Oaths?”

Chetam shook his head and it was Ruth’s turn to frown.

“It’s been a few days,” she said.

“Three days.” He had been counting.

“You can’t tell me that they haven’t gotten it.”

“They haven’t,” Chetam said. His interface had basically told him so.

When he’d sent out the call to all the Oaths, he’d gotten a system message in return. It told him that his [August Intruder] had been informed of his desire to send a message to all available Oaths, and that since there were no protocols in place giving him the power to send it whenever he wished, it would only be sent after the [August Intruder] had allowed it.

So here he was, days later, with no update on the status of his message.

“Did you get it?” he asked her.

Ruth shook her head. “I just assumed you didn’t send it to me since we were the ones that talked about calling the meeting.”

“I’ve never heard of being able to send the message to specific Oaths,” he said. “Have you?”

Ruth shook her head. “I just assumed. You know, since you’re quite good at these things.”

Chetam snorted. “I know just as much as you do about our interfaces, Shield.”

As the Oath of Inevitability, he actually liked to think that he knew more. But that was just hubris, his pride talking. If there was anyone who truly knew more than every other Oath, it had been Secrecy.

Sometimes Chetam had often wondered if there was anything the Oath hadn’t known. The man had been able to learn even the secrets of a colony of ants, and it wasn’t an exaggeration. He had once seen the man stumble upon an ant hill, watch it for a few seconds, then start picking away at it. A lot of ants had died in the events that had followed.

In the end, he’d reached into the rubble and picked up a small mound of sand.

“There’s your queen,” Dark Mist, the Oath of Secrets, had said, handing it over to him. “I know you’ve always wanted to have one.”

And he’d been right, Chetam had always wanted to have an ant queen. It wasn’t some deep desire, just a passing one that he’d had once as a child after watching a show about ants on the discovery channel.

It popped up every now and again but was ultimately unimportant, a passing fancy. But it was a passing fancy he’d never shared with anyone.

Even to this day, he still didn’t know if that had truly been a mound of sand that had held the queen. After all, he hadn’t kept it.

However, he had learnt something that day. The Delvers with the SS-rank classes and the Oaths had suffered the touch of power. Secrecy had wreaked havoc on the ant hill, killing countless ants just to reach the queen because he could. Nothing more.

And Chetam had realized that that was how most of those with power treated those beneath them. Dark Mist had not done what he’d done to see the ants suffer, their suffering had simply been the side effect of his curiosity. He hadn’t been cruel; they’d simply been unimportant.

“Why didn’t you explain the situation simply?” Chetam found himself asking.

Ruth shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“Madness.” Chetam rested his arms on the table in front of him, on top of all the opened documents. “You should’ve explained what was going on to him.”

“What makes you think that I didn’t?” she asked.

“I spoke to his [Sage]. You just went in there and tried to take charge.”

Ruth paused, hesitated, then sighed in defeat. “I thought it would work.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Chetam scoffed. “Where’d you get that idea?”

“It’s Madness. By the very virtue of his Oath it stands that he isn’t necessarily one to see reason. So I went in there and hoped that if he never found out what was going on, there wouldn’t be an issue.”

“And brute forcing your way through the entire thing was your good idea?”

“War did it all the time.”

Chetam found himself suddenly growing angry. “War is his fucking wife!”

“She did it even in her capacity as Oath.”

“And what does that have to do with anything?” Chetam asked, flabbergasted. “Do you think that just because my wife and I are directors in a company that I won’t still have some level of bias towards her? For fucksake, Ruth, they’ve known each other since before they even became Oaths.”

“Hold up.” Ruth raised her hands in surrender. “Why are you attacking me all of a sudden? What the hell did I do?”

“You made an enemy of Madness, the one Oath we can’t go against without risking casualties, when you didn’t have to. What in the world convinced you to even fight him. That was the stupid thing. I’ve thought about it countless times and I still can’t see the logic.”

Ruth looked down and away. “His team was challenging my authority, talking to me as if we were equals.”

Chetam’s jaw dropped. “Pride?” he asked, stunned to stupor. “That’s your excuse? Pride. You did something dumb all because of your pride.”

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Ruth slammed a hand on the table violently and the glass shuddered. “I am not a child that has come here to be scolded, Inevitability. I am an Oath!”

Chetam glanced at the table. There were no cracks.

When did I become a babysitter? He wondered. At this point, he was always holding the Oaths’ hands. He missed when War was around, she had made it easier to put Madness in line. Now…

Now, I don’t even know.

“I’m sorry,” Ruth muttered.

Chetam shook his head. “Does it matter?”

She looked at him. “Shouldn’t it?”

Chetam didn’t know. There was a lot he didn’t know anymore.

“I invited War to the meeting,” Ruth said.

There were two new Oaths who would be confused by the presence of someone that was not an Oath, but it would not be difficult to put them in line.

“Are you hoping that she will control her husband, keep him calm?” Chetam asked.

“I was,” she replied with a touch of hesitation. “But now I’m thinking I shouldn’t have.”

“She found out what you did, didn’t she?” Chetam said with a sigh.

Ruth nodded. “She used to be the reasonable one. I thought she would understand. It was for the greater good. You haven’t stood in the presence of that thing that keeps coming out of the Chaos Runs, Chetam. We should keep thanking whatever power is out there that keeps sending it back.”

So far, Ruth was the only Oath that had been present when the monster had strolled in through a Chaos Run on account of being the only Oath that didn’t go into portals in America.

“We don’t want more Chaos Runs,” Ruth continued, deathly serious. “Anything that makes that thing decide to stay is going to be a problem for us.”

In the background, the news continued to play, the sound drowned out by its level of irrelevance. It was nothing but background noise at this point.

“From the videos I’ve seen, I believe that it’s searching for something,” he said. “How possible is it that it might have something to do with the [August Intruder]?”

Ruth shook her head. “I doubt it. That thing has been coming in since before the [August Intruder].”

“And that is where our problems lie. That is why it has been going back in.” Chetam massaged his forehead with thumb and forefinger as a realization dawned on him. “The [August Intruder has been in a portal. They probably awakened in that portal. It must’ve sensed it and has been searching for whoever it is. However, since they have not been around, it has not been finding them.”

“Too many what ifs,” Ruth pointed out.

“Got a better idea?” Chetam asked. “It’s not as if we know a lot about everything that has to do with portals or the monsters that come out of them. In fact, until this… thing showed up, we didn’t know that monsters could go back into Chaos Runs.”

“But on what grounds are you basing this hypothesis?”

“On no grounds, Shield. I’ve got nothing to work with here. We’ve never had a monster from a Chaos Run behave like this before. A monster that completely disregards the presence of an Oath outside of a portal is practically unheard of. So, on one hand we’ve got a new anomaly that is the monster, and on the other hand we’ve got the arrival of the [August Intruder]. I’d say it’s quite logical to think they are related since they’ve shown up at arguably the same time.”

Ruth paled slightly. “That means that the next time it comes, its staying.”

“I’d assume so.”

The problems just kept on mounting. What was worse was that Madness was no one’s ally. How sure were they that he would even answer the summons, if the [August Intruder] ever approved it?

What were the chances that the summons would even the approved?

There were just too many questions popping up within such a short time period. What was worse was that all the questions were important.

Chetam hated questions.

“You know you’re going to have to be punished, right?” he said to Ruth.

She shrugged. “At this point, it’s inevitable. I just hope that War still retains some modicum of her Oath in her. That’s the only way I can be guaranteed a fair judgement, something fitting that Madness will accept.”

“Maybe we should seek out that her [Sage],” Chetam mused. “The one that liked negotiating for her. Maybe he can get you a lighter punishment.”

Ruth chuckled lightly. The [Sage] had had his uses, but she’d never really liked him. “Maybe.”

Chetam paused. “What even happened to that guy? What was his name again?”

“Naymond Hitchcock,” Ruth answered simply. “And no one knows. Last time I checked, he just kind of dropped off the face of the world after War sent him to check on something in Romania.”

“Oh, I remember.” Chetam’s expression saddened. “I think I heard somewhere that he died in a car crash over there. I think some Gifted had it out for him.”

Ruth shook her head. “Quite a stupid way to go for a class as intelligent as a [Sage] if you ask me.”

“I said that I think I heard it somewhere,” Chetam pointed out. “I never said that that’s what happened. I’m ninety percent sure that I’m wrong. Naymond never struck me as the kind of guy to die easily.”

…

“This is just fucked up!” Tony swore. “I get being punished, but disbanded?! What the hell?”

Alfa said nothing, her eyes fixed to her laptop screen as she considered the events of the past few days. She was still sore about how Melmarc Lockwood’s father had overhauled everything.

She understood what he had done, her problem was with how he had done it. Although, if she was being honest, the man hadn’t done anything himself. It had all been his team.

At least she believed it was his team.

She let out a sigh and tipped her head back against her chair. A one month suspension and the permanent disbanding of her team. That was the current ongoing punishment she was supposed to be serving.

I mess up and they have to pay for it, she thought. So much for being the precinct’s prized Gifted.

It seemed no amount of public opinion could save her from the powerful. It was funny because Melmarc hadn’t looked or behaved like a boy that had come from power. He had been too timid, too simple in everything he did.

She remembered the tall boy that had stood beside her on his first day, completely out of his element. She remembered how confused and worried he’d looked when he’d told everyone that he was a [Faker].

That had not been the boy that had stepped out of the portal. He was the same boy, but he’d been different. He’d grown, she could tell. Grown in size. Worse, whatever he’d experienced inside the portal, it had changed him somehow. It had been in his eyes.

There had been something there. They weren’t haunted or tired. No. They were simply different. Where they had been curious when she’d met him, they had been assessing when he’d returned.

But there was still a touch of that sixteen-year-old boy there. She didn’t know if she was supposed to be worried by the fact that that touch of childhood remained in his eyes. She’d seen adults walk into a portal for the first time and come out completely changed and jaded.

“Boss.”

Alfa’s attention perked up and she looked at Tony. “What’s up?”

The man was scratching at his receding hairline. Not the hair itself but the hairline. Tony was the oldest of all the detectives on her team. From what she could remember about him, his parents came from Australia, but he’d been born in the country. Sometimes he had an accent when he spoke but it was so rare and weak that you couldn’t tell unless you were looking for it.

“They’re disbanding the team,” Tony said.

Alfa nodded. “I’m aware. I got the email, too.”

“And you’re not going to say anything about it?” Tony asked, voice growing hot with anger. “This shit wasn’t our fault. Yes, we share some of the blame, but they can’t just pin the entire thing on us. It’s not our fault that a felon was working with us. They were the ones that pushed him on us. Naymond was the one that led the kid into trouble.”

“And I signed off on it.”

Tony frowned. “Like I said, we share some of the blame. But I think this is too harsh of a punishment.”

Alfa wanted to laugh. Her team got disbanded and they all got suspended with pay for a month. As far as she was concerned, they were getting a vacation.

She was suspended and was getting no pay. For how long? The email didn’t say. In fact, the email had gone the extra mile to inform her that she would be facing a disciplinary committee at a date of their choosing, putting her in a state of limbo.

The disciplinary committee usually set a date to see you, so the fact that a date wasn’t set had her feeling like it had something to do with appeasing Melmarc’s parents somehow.

The powerful really do get special treatment.

If it had been some random kid to some random parents, all this chaos wouldn’t be happening. They would’ve given her a slap on the wrist and sent her on her way. She wasn’t saying that it was the right thing, she was simply reflecting on the inequality of things.

“Take your vacation happily, Tony,” she said to her detective. “Go be with the family. Have a nice time. You’ve got what? A daughter?”

“Two boys and a girl,” Tony corrected.

“Well, I was half right,” she said with a sigh. “Go be with them. play catch with your boys, let your daughter put make up on your face and braid your hair.”

Tony gave her a pointed look and her eyes went up to his hair. His receding hairline wasn’t the only problem with his hair, he was also slowly balding.

Alfa shrugged. “Then let her put a wig on it. Just go be with folks, Tony.”

“And the team?”

“You’re being disbanded not fired. You guys will still work in the same building, you just won’t answer to me. If you want to say high and shoot the breeze, I’m very sure you guys can figure a way out.”

Tony frowned. “It’s not like you to give up, boss.”

Alfa let out a tired breath. “I’m not giving up, Tony. I’m taking my punishment.”

“This was all Naymond… Mostly Naymond.”

“And I was the leader. I was the one in charge of him. I should’ve put him in check.”

“Still a tough punishment.”

“We got a kid stuck in a portal, Tony!” Alfa paused when she caught the detective bristle at the sound of her voice. So, she did her best to calm herself. “I know I’ve been composed about it, but that doesn’t make it any less terrible. He survived, yes. But we still got a child stuck in a portal. Anything could’ve happened to him. He could’ve died.”

“But he didn’t.”

“But he could’ve.” Alfa ran a hand through her hair. “That he survived was merely a stroke of luck. We were lucky. I’ve been inside portals before Tony. Believe me, some of those places are terrible. Some of those places are places people should never be in. And a kid got stuck in one of them. Trust me, take the punishment and be happy it’s the only one we’re getting.”

Tony grumbled a little but didn’t say anything. He remained on his seat for a little longer before clicking his tongue and pushing himself to his feet like some tired old man.

“I still don’t like this,” he said as he walked up to the door. “Not one bit.”

Alfa shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

The commissioner had started writing up his resignation letter right in his office when she’d delivered the update on what had happened. How Melmarc had survived and who had saved him. There was a part of Alfa that knew she would lose her job. There was also another part that worried for her own safety.

She had a feeling that the Lockwoods would not be satisfied with just taking her job. The powerful tended to be like that. With the Gifted, it was often far worse.

Tony opened the door but didn’t leave. He took a quick glance outside before closing the door back.

“Any news on what’s going to happen to those guys that did a number on us?” he asked in a low voice. “They had to be Delvers, right? Wasn’t their presence breaking a few laws regarding the treaty between the police and the Delvers?”

“Leave it, Tony.” It was all Alfa could bring herself. “Just leave it.”

“But they gotta pay, boss.”

“Why?” Alfa snapped at him. “Must everybody pay for something? Leave it alone, Tony. They saved the kid. Our reward and gratitude to them is in letting the matter die. This isn’t some show and we are not some detectives that chase justice to the ends of the world at the risk of our lives and the detriment of human empathy. So just leave it.”

Tony looked at her, a frown on his face. He looked like he was going to say something else, but he didn’t. Instead, he opened the door, walked out, and closed it behind him.

Alfa sat quietly in her office for another hour. From what she’d gathered, her detectives had gotten one-month suspensions. She had gotten three, all without pay.

She wasn’t poor so it wasn’t a problem. There was the income she still got from investing what she’d gained from her short time Delving, and there was her husband’s source of income. Strictly speaking, she had enough money to not even work for another day in her life. She only worked because she liked the job.

After the hour in her office, she finally stood up. She opened her door, stepping outside into the bustle of the building. She locked her door behind her and was about to use an enchantment to make sure it stayed locked but stopped short.

The only person she used the enchantment lock because of was no longer around to be worried about.

Besides, it’s not like it ever kept him out.

Even now she still had no idea how Naymond kept getting past her enchanted lock. He was a [Sage] not an [Enchanter] or a [Mage], so it had never made sense.

She left without placing the enchantment and made her way out of the office space. When she got to the building’s elevator, there were others inside. She stepped into it quietly and waited. It took six stops, picking up more people and losing more people before she was finally the only one in the elevator.

Once she was alone, she pressed the emergency stop button. Then she clicked the basement button three times in quick succession. The elevator jerked once for reasons she knew nothing about before it started its descent.

She stood quietly through the descent until the elevator came to a stop. She stepped out when the doors opened.

In this section of the building the walls were matte black, reflecting none of the white light that shined down from the ceiling. The ground, however, was a reflective marble black that reflected the light. This place had no staff stationed in it. In fact, only a handful of people that worked in the precinct were aware of its existence.

Her footsteps had no sound as she walked. There was no echo, no sign of life. She had only the sound of her breath to announce her presence.

It wasn’t really surprising because despite the reason it was built, it was rarely ever used. Right now, only one staff member was present.

Alfa turned down a few paths before she got to her destination. It was a simple cell filled with enough enchantments that she wasn’t strong enough to undo them, and she had tried for fun once upon a time.

On the other side of the bars, inside the cell, a man sat casually on the ground in a three-piece suit. He watched her like an adult watching a child. He tried to look unbothered, but there was something to his face that told her something worried him.

It annoyed her to know that she wasn’t what worried him.

“Hello, detective,” he said simply, his voice gentle, soft.

Alfa hated it. Still, if there was one thing she could say for certain, it was that the [Sage] in front of her wasn’t the same [Sage] she’d been working with for the last few months. He was different now, as if he’d finally taken off his mask

Or put one on.

It was in his silence, his calm eyes. Gone was all the joviality and childlike shenanigans that always hid behind his eyes. He still gave off the feeling that he was up to something or knew something that you didn’t know. But it was different this time. Where it had always just seemed like something that would annoy you, now it felt like everything hidden behind his eyes were things that could get her killed.

Like the last time she’d been here, she suddenly didn’t want to be here.

But she had to be here.

“Hello, Mr. Hitchcock,” she said. “None of the Delvers that went in after you are taking my calls or my husband’s calls.”

Naymond shrugged. “I can’t say I’m surprised. They lost two of their team members and one of them probably has no choice but to retire from Delving.”

Alfa frowned. Naymond was right. They had owed her husband a favor but, in the end, the cost of the favor had ended up being too high. If anything, The Blight now owed them a favor.

It didn’t matter right now. Right now, only one thing mattered.

“So,” she said, putting in as much authority in her voice as she could muster. “Is this the day you tell me what happened on the other side of the portal?”

Naymond gave her a slow smile.

“Perhaps,” he said.

…

Olatunji Oluwapelumi sat quietly in her bedroom reading her email on her phone. She still couldn’t believe that three of the top Gifted schools in the country were offering her a scholarship for a special Gifted program in their school.

Even though she had never considered going to any of them, it wasn’t as if she had never dreamed of it. Her parents were rich, but they weren’t rich enough to afford it. They were human rich, not Gifted rich, and definitely not Delver rich. It was completely normal since she was the only Gifted in the family.

What that meant was that while they could afford to send her to a Gifted school that actually trained their Gifted to become Delvers, those schools were definitely not one of the top schools.

But the offers made sure that she could attend such a school. The best part was that the scholarship accounted for housing and feeding. It was practically a full ride. And the program claimed that it was designed with intensive training with the intentions of making those who attend it as good as they could possibly be.

Edulard, Fallen High or GreyHounds, she wondered.

She came to no conclusion as she placed her phone on her bed and laid down. Not for the first time since the conclusion of her mentorship program her mind went back to Melmarc, the very tall boy with the soft hands.

Remembering his hands, she stroked the inside of her palm. Hers were not hard, but compared to his, she wouldn’t call them soft.

But that wasn’t why she thought of him. She thought of him for a different reason. Mr. Hitchcock had made her feel safe enough to share her opinions and she had shared them in Melmarc’s presence.

And a few days ago something happened to her that she wanted to share with them. She would’ve liked to say that it wasn’t that much of a big deal, but it was.

It was a huge deal.

She pulled up her interface and looked at her stats.

Stats

[Mind 2, Balance 1, Mental 3, Mana 8, Faith 20.]

Since she’d gained her class up until a few days ago, her [Faith] [Faith] stat had been a simple eight points. Then a few days ago, she’d gotten a notification informing her of an update to her [Faith] stats due to something called an ‘establishment of dominance.’ She had no idea what it meant then and had no idea what it meant now.

All she knew was that having a stat jump of twelve points was a huge deal at her rank. And it worried her terribly.

As she stared at it, only one thought came to mind.

What does it mean?