Chapter 15:

“Explain, and do so quickly and concisely, Lieutenant Mischief. How is it that I am summoned to this world for an Essence Deficit and a lack of recruits to more core worlds, and instead find a poor masquerade and a claim that all your gods are dead?” Kintsugi summoned a pair of comfortable chairs from shadow and memory, one across from the other, and bid the Trickster to sit. The idea, of course, was preposterous, that an entire Pantheon could be killed and the Bureaucracy would know nothing about it. But she would let the Iridium Immortal before her hang himself with his own words before she passed judgement.

There shouldn’t even better any of the Immortal Legion on a backwater world like this, not without a crisis and a massive deployment. Kintsuji sat back and laid her chin upon her closed fist while she summoned the memory of wine again - a useful trick, for one as old as she was. Often the best things she had experienced no longer existed in anything but immortal memory, and being able to summon them at will was a good way to stave off the ennui of existence across thousands of lifetimes.

“Well, that was us, in a round about fashion. My men and me I mean. We had no way to get a message out through the usual channels, and eventually I came up with the idea of choking the planets’ essence and the cultivation level of the humans here until they sent an auditor. Only took a few centuries. Then when I saw you coming here in the future with that…transient soul, I knew the best way to get your attention would be to influence a member of the family.” He laughed a single, hollow note at the end, and began turning the enchanted wooden mask on his hands, around and around, as though deeply nervous.

Kintsuji supposed he had good reason to be afraid. For a disarmed Iridium Immortal to sit before an angry Celestium Goddess was like a child facing down an onrushing steam train. There would be only one option if he didn't find a way to avoid the path of the train, after all. In another time, or another circumstance, Kintsuji would feel sorry for the poor man, so out of his depth. Her soft heart was notorious for it all over the multiverse. But she could also play heartless very well, and soldiers always responded better to the stick then the honey when facing a superior. “Why not start from the beginning. How did you get here?”

The soldier blew out a breath of air, and looked up and away, as though staring into the depths of memory. “My unit and I were a scouting team investigating a movement in the banks of the River, a few thousand years ago. It was a sudden and temporary shift and led to hundreds of thousands of souls missing the water, and their chances at rebirth. Was a bitch to clean up, let me tell you,” he looked like he was about to go into a diatribe about the event, but Kintsuji glared at the man, and he stumbled to a halt, regathering his narrative. Inside, though, she was thinking about Arcadias’ memories of her death that she had locked away. The river had shifted then, as well, though there was no way to know how long ago that was. She had been adrift in the void for a very long time by the time Kintsuji stumbled across her. A coincidence? The Goddess had stopped believing in that a long time ago.

“We were tasked with finding the origin of the shift, and tracked it back to this system. We were scanning the surface when our ship was attacked. Something took us out before we could even mount a defence. We crash landed here on Axis and have been stuck here ever since.” That was concerning. The Iridium Immortals were the main army of the Celestial Bureaucracy, the overarching governing body of all know Pantheons throughout known realspace. They weren't individually powerful, in the scale of conflicts in which they were deployed, but units and patrols of the Immortals carried with them the might of the Bureaucracy themselves. Their gear was therefore absolutely top of the line, and enchanted so even a High Celestium War God would have trouble taking one out without a protracted battle, and would certainly have taken wounds in return.

“That doesn't explain the dead gods comment, that mask you are holding, or the reason none of this has been reported to the nearest field office.” Kintsuji replied, maintaining her cold demeanour, but there was a kernel of doubt within her now. But that was the power of a Trickster, wasn't it? They excelled at placing doubt in their marks.

“Have you tried sending a message with whatever fancy ship you have up there? It's impossible. Whatever took us down has messed up the local space so bad that you can’t get a message out - and we didn't exactly have a working ship!” He pleaded, sounding more than a little desperate for Kintsuji to believe him.

“Then why not use whatever communication array the local Pantheon have in their palace?”

“Because it's on the moon.” The fake god replied casually, as though it was obvious.

“That shouldn't be an obstacle even for an Iridium rank. Surely your unit has a teleporter who can range at least that far?” He looked at me confused, before his eyes started skittering around in his head and his fingers clutched the arms of his shadow chair in seeming panic.

“You can't see it, can you? But you're a High Celestium Auditor! If you can't see it then it must be…but it can't be! They're not supposed to exist anymore!” He shouted at himself and started punching himself in the leg.

“Can't see what!?” Kintsuji was forced to reach forward and grab the man's hand before he did himself damage, so desperate was the strength of his assault on himself. Instead of helping though, it only caused him to thrust his fox mask at her.

“Here. Put it on, look at the moon. You'll see what I mean.” Kintsuji ran a dedicated Identify on the mask, but could find no trap. Still, she looked questioningly at the man before her. At his urging, she gave in and complied with his request. By her estimate, even if it was trapped, it was the trap of an Iridium rank. She was a full two ranks above his and Rank Disparity was hellish on punching up through the ranks. Punching down, however, it was devastating.

Kintsuji had of course studied the moon of Axis many times over the last few years as she got established on the surface and prepared her report before she went to meet the Pantheon. The ruined human cities sitting on the surface fascinated her. To think they were built by a people who had been denied access to the System. Just built through grit and human ingenuity. Kintsuji often wondered what had happened to those people, ninety thousand years ago. It was one of the great mysteries of this world, and even as Arcadias’ family had looked for evidence of what happened, so had Kintsuji, though she had never managed to visit the moon. It had always seemed she was too busy in the last eight years. It was a mystery she had long wanted to bring to the Pantheon and demand an answer - but she would need to finish her work here first before she could demand reparations for their dysfunction in managing this world and its livestock.

When Kintsuji placed the mask over her eyes, though, and looked at the moon, instead of those ruined cities and green and blue surface, instead, the entire moon was blocked by an iridescent, pearl sheaned shield, that covered the entire planetoid, and was apparently completely invisible to her normal, high Celestium Perception. “The masks belonged to the old gods, we think. There were about twenty of them that we found in various temples when we realised we were stuck here. They let us access the domains of the real gods who owned them, and fulfil the roles they left behind. But it isn't our power, and it isn't infinite. It also lets us see things like that.” He gestured at the moon and the shield that was even now hanging in the sky.

“But, that's a Divinium Bunker Shield. They were only ever installed on hardened military installations during the War in Heaven.” Kintsuji felt herself stutter to a halt as her thoughts ground through the implications. “What in all the ten thousand Hells is going on this planet!?” to her horror, the Trickster before her just started laughing. Though there was no humour in the sound.

“Isn't that the billion Essence question?” He wheezed and slumped in his chair. “Really thought an Auditor would be able to save us. Shoulda known better. This world is a curse.”

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Mia ran. She had been running for days, or so it seemed to her. It was always night in this forest. The sun never rose or fell. The only change was when the heavy rains came and pounded the entire forest like a solid wall of water. They were the only times when the things didn't come out into the night. Moving through the rain was practically torture, freezing, pounding, skin rending torture, but it was also the only time she could take the time to gather food and water. So, Mia ran, skittering from one patch of shadow to another, desperately gathering berries, roots, mushrooms, bark, and drinking as much water from the runoff streams as she could stomach.

If the rain didn't pour from the sky, then Mia hid. She found caves, or holes in the ground, or the tops of the dark and twisted trees, and stayed there until she could move again - as the lack of rain brought the monsters.

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There wasn't just the terrifying lion in this forest, not even close. There were wolves, snakes, giant rats, and worse in the forest. But not one of them was alive. She could smell them before she saw them, and with the damned ears that were now glued to the top of her head, hear them even sooner.

If you saw them in the shadows, you could almost think they were alive. But they were horrors. Rotting flesh and pock marked skin. Mangy fur and exposed bone.

They stank like the worst offal pile Papa Milos had ever produced and every one of them made Mia terrified beyond what she thought was possible.

In the days Mia had been in this horrible, horrible place, all she had done was run, hide, fight and sleep - the last in ten minutes snatches when the adrenaline dropped out and she collapsed. She also did one last thing, with desperate hope in her heart - search for her little sister.

She wasn't like her parents, or even like Arcadia. Mia was the one who loved to fight, who wanted to be a hunter and hunt monsters. She trained every day for the day she got her class and could join the same guild as her parents. But she wasn't brave. Mia had never been brave, and no matter how much she learned and fought and trained, that feeling had never gone away.

Not like Arcadia. Her little sister was fearless, always had been. Nothing had ever fazed the pink haired girl, and Mia doubted anything ever would. She was always calm, smart, and put together. Mia always said it was her job to look after Arcadia, like her parents wanted her to. But the truth was, it had always been Arcadia at the front of the pack, ever since she was old enough to run. Right now, Mia would have given just about anything to have her sister leading her into some trouble or other.

“Mia!” The sound came through the rain, distorted, distant, almost like Arcadias’ voice. Mia didn't run towards it. The lion and its creatures had used the trick before. They liked to call out in voices that Mia knew, or thought she knew. Sometimes sounding like they were looking for her, sometimes sounding like they were hurt and needed help. The worst was when she was trying to hide and snatch a few minutes of sleep and they would call out in mocking taunts.

Mia was honestly glad of the rain in some moments, because it hid the sheer amount of tears she had shed in the last days. It would help if she actually knew what she had to do, but all the lion had said to do was run. And she had run so far and was so tired now.

“Mia! Where are you!?” the voice called again, somewhere in the darkness. Mia had been getting a lot of practice with her shadow manipulation since being dropped in this wet dark hell, and she used that now to slip between the trees, the shadows stretching and swallowing her every time she moved. Her new ears twitched at every sound, but trying to get away from the voice in the rain was the only thing to do. The creatures might prefer not to come out in the downpours, but that didn't mean there weren't dangers, and Mia realised her mind was so tired she wouldn't be any good to anyone.

“MIA!” The voice bellowed, sounding just like Arcadia when she was lost or had gotten in over her head. Or even more like when Mia did.

Mia slid down an embankment and into a fast flowing brook. Water poured over her ruined shoes and ragged trousers, and it's freezing temperature only added to Mias’ misery. But the running water would help hide her scent and maybe her tracks. The nine year old girl also clutched the tied up remains of her overshirt to her chest, tied into a bundle and filled with the scant collection of roots and berries Mia had been able to grab in this storm.

But it was time to make a break for a cave she had spotted earlier in the day…night…before the storm. It was small, but deep, and fallen scree covered a lot of the entrance. It would be difficult for the lion or the wolves to get inside, so all she would have to worry about were the rats and the snakes, which weren't as deadly in small numbers. In another scrap of cloth, Mia had tied the four glossy black stones that had been inside the heads of some of the ones she had stabbed with her new shadow knives. Say what you will about using shadows as a weapon, the things were sharp, and they could cut the written flesh of the creatures like butter.

But they took a lot of Essence, and Mia didn't have much. It was simply too dangerous to rest long enough to give my new essence regeneration time to work properly, and every shadow I manipulated drained away a tiny portion, either from its empty receptacle or from my main core. Even trying to rest for more than an hour at the height of a storm would give the creatures that much more of a chance to sneak up on her.

But she could cover the entrance to the cave with branches and leaves and maybe sit for an hour, and eat some of the tough, sour roots and the tart berries and let her shoulders relax. Just for a little while, just for a minute.

“Mia, look out!” That was a new one, and Mia span on her heel, seeing the movement from the corner of her eye before leaping to the side to avoid the rotten wolf that came barrelling through the trees. Mia managed to pick herself up and dash to the nearest tree, where she could stick her hands into the shadows there and rip free two long knives. With weapons now in hand, she turned to face her opponent…opponents, plural.

Mia looked at the three decaying wolves that had found her with a sinking heart. While the torrential rain was already stripping the jellified flesh from their bones, they would last long enough that Mia didn't know if she had the strength to see this combat through.

She was exhausted, stressed, terrified…her hands shook where they held the daggers and her footing felt unsteady in the shallow water of the stream. A voice in the back of her head repeated a single phrase again and again, like a heartbeat: Give up! Just give up! Give up! Mia wondered if listening to it or ignoring it were the best ideas, and if she still had enough tears to cry they would have begun to fall. She didn't even find Arcadia…

“Mia! Duck!” The strange voice called through the rain again, but it sounded different this time, more real, more solid. The darkness seemed to recede for the first time since she had been placed here by that horrible Goddess, Kintsuji. Mia wasn't sure at the last moment if she ducked or if her legs simply gave out, but her head got out of the way.

Above her, two flaming comets of blue fire tore through the air, one a ball no larger than a robins’ egg, that flickered with both blue fire and yellow light. The other was a larger, rougher piece of stone, that tore at the air as it passed. Mia watched, half submerged, as they flew through the air like Mum's firebolts, and ripped through the rotting flesh and waterlogged bones of the lead wolf. Its skull and shoulder came apart under the barrage, and with a sickening splatter of vile fluids, it toppled and fell into the same water as her.

Mia scrambled before any of the fluid touched her, as it could make you desperately ill, and so was scrambling backwards when two figures leapt over her, burning with the shining light of a rising dawn.

One was humanoid, in shape at least, but had the head and fur of a tiger, and the thick, scaled tail of a lizard, with a bright golden light perched above it. The figure held a shining silver spear that burned with blue flame, and yelled a savage warcry, the words of which were lost under the running water, pounding rain, and explosive impacts of burning projectiles striking the wolves.

The other was a monstrous blue beast, made of fire and light, with shining eyes and flames burning from the tips of its fur. Burning blue objects floated in lazy circles around the beast, and as it leapt over Mia, one flew away at the speed of an arrow and crushed the leg of one of the remaining wolves. Even stranger to Mia, the monster spoke like the Lion had done. “I'll deal with this one. Their bones are weak and wet. Use your tail!”

Mia saw the tiger headed one nod, and thrust the spear out to one side, where a crackling portal into nothing opened and swallowed the silver weapon, it's blade no longer shining with blue fire. Instead, the figure ran low to the ground, tail held straight out behind them to keep their balance at such a low angle, before seeming to grip the ground with one hand and use her momentum and braced arm as a pivot, spinning through a rotation. The heavy seeming tail span with the force of a hammer and the ball of sunlight at its end bloomed with more blue flames. The charging wolf that was coming for the figure, mouth open, and rotten black tongue lolling, was caught across both front legs by the scaled pile driver, and Mia heard the wet snap of rotten bone as both legs were broken clean off by the maneuver.

Unfortunately, the wolf was large and heavy, and its momentum carried it forward regardless, where its teeth collided with the shoulder and arm of the figure and the two went rolling in a wet and muddy ball.

The blue Beast tackled the other one with the rocks and stones it had circling its head. Every few seconds it would dodge a blow and hammer it with a projectile coated in a blue sheen and wisps of fire. Over the space of less than 30 seconds, the creature reduced the rotted wolf to a pulp of broken bones and putrid flesh.

Meanwhile, the tiger headed creature had managed to grab the momentum of the charge and had turned it to its advantage. Red blood poured from a wound on its shoulder that was streaked with slime and gore from the ground and from the putrid monster, but its other arm rose and fell repeatedly with a dagger coated in flame in its hand, stabbing and burning into the broken wolf until it went still.

Suddenly, the forest was quiet again. The rain began to peter out, and silence crept back into the clearing as the pair stood there panting for breath and searching the woods around them for more threats.

Mias’ ears couldn't pick up anything, but that didn't mean anything. There would be more of them soon. Mia realised she was at the end of her run. She didn't even have the strength left to pull herself fully out of the stream. She never even found her sister.

The tiger headed creature put it's knife away and stalked towards Mia, its eyes gleaming even if the backlight of the ball of sunlight behind it cast most of its body in shadow. Mia tried to stay awake, tried to fight a little longer, but she couldn't hold on to consciousness.

With a final, tearful gasp of “Arcadia,” Mia passed out, and knew no more.