In Which Our Hero Loses Hope; a Lover Avenged, and Man’s Empire Crippled; Our Hero’s Too Solid Flesh Melts; On the Firmament Efficacy of Place; The Empire Cannot Hear the Emperor;

In the secret caverns beneath Lerma, capital city of the Empire of Man, in the deepest chamber of the palace dungeon, Ilina of Lisba stood alone, exhausted but victorious. The Locus’ last guardian, a hulking rat-wolf-man-thing, lay on the floor, dead. The same went for the rest of the dungeon’s inhabitants. Every creature that could fight and die, had fought and summarily died trying to halt her progress, all to protect the Locus’ and their own continued existence.

Outside and aboveground, beyond the Emperor’s Palace, the few other people who knew of the Locus have all expired of natural causes over the past month. Three weeks ago, the Imperial Mage Primate swallowed his staff whole by accident as he entered his office. A week later, the entire mage personnel behind the Status-Skill Index System (SSIS) vanished in a Necrotic Void Cloud accident and the subsequent cave-in. That same week, the Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Kindness slipped on wet garden pavement and fell onto his own shears.

The Emperor himself and the Grand Vizier are to perish tomorrow due to an equipment malfunction at the annual assassination ceremony. The Director of the Non-Existent Bureau and all heirs Princeps are expected (obligated, really) to die in the power struggle to follow. So it goes.

So when Ilina finally began her infiltration, she was alone in her effort and in the knowledge that such a place even existed. Alone, except for the Locus itself.

Now, Ilina stood victorious.

Exhausted and heavily wounded, but victorious.

The cadaver of the wolf-rat-man-beast thing dissolved into the pure ousia that had made up its being. Shadows shrank away from the chamber’s walls, and the seams in the marble panel glowed bright octarine as fluid mana—pure and rarified potency— seeped through, strong enough to give off visible light, though maddeningly incomprehensible to mundane eyes.

The air itself shone octarine, which quickly decayed into blue and infrared. The air’s motions, with all its swirling eddies and turbulent vortices, became visible, coloured by a slick oily sheen of bubbly reddish green and ripples of bluish gold, tinted here and there by the dying screams of innocent hues caught in the clash of unnatural lumens. Purple was trampled under the panicked stampede, its remains mangled beyond recognition, while Yellow and Brown shook in their hose and leggings.

The shining, whirling, and whistling whorls of power coalesced into a single maelstrom in front of Ilina, until its movements died down, and the light condensed and resolved into the image and form of a woman, the person of the thousand year old locus. Its name was also Lerma, originally, a name later inherited by the city founded above her domain, though she’d taken to using other names since.

“Ilina,” the woman said, testily, “you didn’t have to fight them all.”

“Charlotte,” Ilina sighed, then rushed forward, breaking into tears as she wrapped her arms around the Locus’ avatar. “Oh, Charlotte, I’m so sorry.”

Charlotte’s expression softened, and she laid one hand on Ilina’s back, and the other on her head. The girl’s knees gave, and Charlotte caught her and set her down gently on the floor, placing a chaste kiss on her forehead and stroking her disheveled hair.

“Hush, baby,” She murmured, “It’s all good now.”

“I’m sorry, I had to, I had to give them a chance, I—”

“I know, darling, I know.”

“They killed Emma,” Ilina said, then stopped to wait for Charlotte’s response.

“Who.”

“Gamby and his men. The Bureau found out. They took Harrod first, and he told them, and they killed Emma.”

“Ilina . . .”

“I couldn’t save her. I’m so sorry.”

“Oh, Ilina . . .”

“I couldn’t save her,” the girl spoke again, “so I killed them.”

Charlotte frowned. “Gamby?”

“All of them.” Ilina’s voice cracked, and her breath grew so ragged that she had to pause until she’d calmed down enough to speak again.

Meanwhile, Charlotte rocked her back and forth, and let air flow through the passages to cool the cramped chamber.

“I,” Ilina faltered, and let out a small giggle, “I bribed the officials and killed all the judges.” She pulled her head up to look Charlotte in the eyes. ”It’s going to take the Empire years to recover from all of the damage.”

“You’ve come to free me,” Charlotte said in realization.

“I have.”

Charlotte stirred, as if to stand, but Ilina held on tighter.

“Sleep with me,” she said.

“Perhaps later.”

“Charlotte, please. I need it. I need you.”

“And you do have me,” Charlotte decided to change the subject. “How do you plan to do it?”

“Do what?”

“Free me from my bonds.”

“I brought this.” Ilina let go of Charlotte and produced a dirk. It was made entirely of white brass, and had their names engraved on either side of the handle. More importantly, it was an object born of the Locus’ own essence, a gift given to Ilina years ago.

“You, you still had that? You said you’d lost it.”

“I hid it in my father’s garden before he died. My brother had sold the house since, so I had to break in, but the blade was still there.”

“There’s a certain poetry in your using that blade.”

“You trust me, right?”

“Always. You need not even ask.”

“I’m going to stab your core.”

“I see,” Charlotte said, “That won’t work at all.”

“What do you mean it won’t work?” Ilina tilted her head, confused.

“I have enough essence that if my core shattered, it would only reform. It wouldn’t even affect me.”

“I thought the blade drains mana?”

 “By essence, I meant ousia,” Charlotte clarified, “not mana.”

“Oh. Then I don’t know what else to do.”

Charlotte stood up and lightly tugged at Ilina’s arms.

“Come,” she said, “there’s something I wanted to show you.”

Hero didn’t bother counting the pills in her hand. She downed it all with a mouthful of water.

March was late. She was always late, and that has always been a bad habit of hers, but now, she was especially late. It’s been two hours since she said she’d be here, and as far as Hero could tell, March had already been on her way over from her classes when she’d called and promised to visit Hero in hospital, and bring the violon-guitar. She’ll be the one to take care of it from now on, since Karen was never really one for the fine finger work.

Hero had really needed to see March today. Today was important. Not to mention someone had to tell Karen afterwards. Karen couldn’t come, what with the dark spectre of her exams looming over the horizon; this was Karen’s future at stake, which at the moment carried more weight than whatever future Hero had left.

March must’ve gotten stuck in traffic. It was definitely the right time of day for it.

Still, it would’ve been nice to have her here for this. Would’ve been even better if things hadn’t gotten to this point in the first place, but there was never any changing that. Hero’s condition had always been terminal, and it was only ever a question of living the best life she can in the time had left.

But Hero’s family would never let her. They were against any thought or mention of Hero’s mortality. Never mind what the long line of doctors had to say, the doctors could be wrong; never mind the cancer, nor her weak heart, nor her brittle bones, nor that one incident with the used needle; never mind the fact that no one else has had the consumption since Edwardian England; and most definitely never mind anything else she’d much rather be doing instead.

Hero’s family was of the firm belief that one should never say die; that one must rage against the dying of the light, even if you had to throw the whole house into the fire to keep it going. ‘Tis nobler in the mind to have suffer’d and lost, than to have never suffer’d at all. Given the choice between pain and no pain, choose pain. You only die once.

Money was no object, after all, and technically, neither was time (time is a concept). So long as they could pay people to keep Hero in bed, they need only stop by for an hour weekly to get rid of those pesky guilt feelings, then they can go back to their parties and pub crawls and the sympathy of their buddies from work.

Because life must go on; if not for Hero, then at least for the living. So it goes.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Hero had hoped that when she got to the end, she’d have something to show for it. That, if she were an artist, for instance (and she was), she’d have made a lot of art. Or, if she were a musician (and she was), she’d have made a lot music. If she were a writer (which, spoiler alert, she kind of was)—you get the point.

And she did do those things. Not a lot, but some. She did paint some, and draw some, sing some, write some, back when she was still living with March and Karen. She’d made videos as well, videos of a particular nature the two would surely enjoy, if they don’t find it too disturbing that she’d left those behind.

But it wasn’t enough. All of it wasn’t enough, not by far. Hero wished she wasn’t dying, that she hadn’t gotten sick, that she hadn’t lost her whole life before she could live it, like really live it. She wished she had more time, a whole life to record in bright paints and pixels, instead of disappearing ink.

But she was dying. Knowing that, Hero wished she could’ve gone out with something big. A magnum opus, like in that one book with the pig and the spider.

Maybe a one hit wonder with March. Record a song, maybe even a whole album, and they could paint the cover art themselves, and shoot the video with just Karen looking pretty for all of five minutes. Easier said than done, and like as not the results could turn out crap, but it could have been nice in the doing. But they never had the chance.

In truth, Hero hadn’t seen the two in person for nearly half a year now. They kept touch over the internet, until her laptop and her phone were confiscated because, put together, those were very nearly as radioactive as an unpeeled banana. They never let Hero too close to bananas, either, so there’s that.

She had tried to content herself with reading her old books, until they took even those away as well. A girl came—Hero knew not whether the girl was a hospital nurse or an attendant privately hired by the family—and carried off the encyclopedias and the art texts and the novels and the manga and the magazines. For surely, reading would be too taxing on poor sensitive Hero, with her fragile maiden’s constitution; why, she’d drop dead tomorrow rather than next week!

Hopefully, the girl kept the stuff for herself, at least. Much of the material had been in rather good taste, and might offend the family’s tacky sensibilities. Better that the books end up in the hands of a pretty young thing to enjoy instead.

And the videos too, hah.

Perhaps if some other person suffered the same illnesses as Hero, they’d feel betrayed by their own body, disgusted. But not Hero. Hero loved her own body and knew exactly how beautiful it was before the sickness.

She used to look at herself in the mirror often, keeping track of every new development that her body went through. And, lovingly, Hero had etched every detail, every contour, curve, and dimple into her memories and her soul. This was her body. It was healthy, it was whole, and it was beautiful, and not even the ravages of disease will fully ruin that.

So, before first inevitable changes came for her to see, Hero had covered up the mirror in her room and put it away.

It mattered none, in the end, but Hero didn’t care. It mattered to her, and that was the end of it.

“This is my womb,” Charlotte announced as they entered a small chamber of dull, dark, and murky red crystal. The walls were chipped and flaked like sea ripples, the floor smooth, and the ceiling high and domed, glowing softly at its peak.

“Really,” said Ilina, “So this is where you birth your monsters.”

“Creatures. And no, those I can form anywhere in my domain,” Charlotte said, “This chamber has a specific purpose.” She motioned to the center of the room, where four crystal spheres hovered on pedestals. One sphere seemed rather smaller than the rest.

“There are Workings in the walls, in the floor, and the ceiling,” Charlotte continued. “And Makings around the pedestals, wards in the doorway. All of it is ousia.”

“I understood none of that,” Ilina said, “so why are you explaining all that so suddenly?”

“. . .” Charlotte opened her mouth to speak, but found no answer. “I’m sorry. Emma would . . . no, never mind.”

“Emma would’ve loved it,” Ilina said it for her. “I am sorry.”

“You have to stop apologising.”

“I’m sorry,”—Ilina caught a tiny glare from Charlotte—“It’s just, I should be feeling worse for what happened, and yet . . .”

“Don’t blame yourself for what you feel or don’t feel, you hear?” the Locus said, and then, more softly, “How did it happen?”

“I don’t know. I came too late, she was already gone.”

“And when was this?”

“Around two months ago. I think.”

Not knowing what else to say, Charlotte pulled Ilina into another embrace.

“I’m glad you’re here at least,” she said, “You were gone for so long, I’d assumed you’ve both died. I’ve done my grieving. So when you stepped inside, alive, I was relieved.”

“I’ve been so busy fighting and killing,” Ilina sobbed, “I felt so angry and desperate, but I kept myself from crying this whole time, and now . . .”

Ilina trailed off. Charlotte said nothing and gave Ilina all her attention.

“Now I just feel tired.” Ilina said weakly. “And empty, and numb, and not much else.”

“And love?”

“I . . . I don’t know.”

“You’ll feel better when you’ve had time to rest and get your feelings in order.”

“I hope so,” Ilina said. She wiped at her tears, or tried to, but only managed to smear blood and grime on her face, so Charlotte did it instead, materialising a handkerchief from thin air. “Why did you bring me here, anyway? I doubt we walked all the way here for sex.”

“We didn’t,” Charlotte raised an eyebrow as she said that. “You sound so eager, for someone claiming to feel so empty, numb, and tired.”

“I want to feel something, anything. And I can wait, just you watch.”

Charlotte let go of Ilina and turned away to look at the softly glowing crystal spheres.

“What are they?” Ilina asked.

“They’re yours.”

Mine? Ilina puzzled. Then she realized. “Baby cores?”

“No,” the Locus spoke with conviction. “They aren’t dungeons. These aren’t cores, and they need not have cores at all unless they choose to. Dungeons are lifeless mockeries, an insult I’ve suffered for far too long. No more.”

“Charlotte . . .”

“My children will be alive, and they will be able to use ousia. They will be loci, or if not that, then some form of sprite, at least.”

“Charlotte.”

“But not yet.” The Locus turned to look at Ilina. “These are . . . They’re like seeds, or eggs. Embryos, but not quite.”

This time it was Ilina who embraced Charlotte. “So they’re mine?”

“Yours and Emma’s. From your essence, and hers, and mine.”

“Why’s this one smaller than the rest?”

“I ran out of material.”

“Oh. And Emma—” Ilina did not continue. Perhaps someday she’ll be able to say the words without feeling something break inside of her, but right now she felt she won’t recover, if she broke any more.

“It matters little,” Charlotte said, “These are but shells right now, without the spark of life. Even after they’re given life, it will take them years to develop consciousness.”

“So how will you spark them?”

“With much difficulty. Or, much loss of essence, at least. This is where you come in. I want you to go to my core. Do what you were planning to do, and do it before I can recover ousia. Or else it will just feed again.”

Ilina looked thoughtful. “He’ll blame me for this, you know. And he’ll blame me for what happened to Emma. He’ll blame himself first, of course, but he’ll still blame me.”

“Let him. I don’t care what he thinks.”

“He’ll blame me for you too. He’ll think I killed you.”

“You will have.” Charlotte said, with a slight edge to her voice that made Ilina go stiff. She continued, more gently, “This place isn’t just my domain. It is my body, and my very being. The Empire made it into my cage. We’re killing most of me, to save whatever’s left. End my interminable suffering, one way or another.”

“I could lose you too.” Ilina murmured, “I don’t want to risk it.”

“Ilina, please. I need you to do it.” Charlotte was almost begging, now, taking on a vulnerability that, to the girl, seemed to come out of nowhere.

“Okay.” Ilina said. “For you, and for Emma.”

“Go.”

“I love you. Really, I do.”

“I know,” Charlotte said, “I’ll find you when it’s over.”

Hero felt the pills trying to fight their way back up her throat. She fought them back down. Better not to choke on her own vomit, she thought, that wouldn’t be dignified. Wouldn’t want to stain the sheets, either.

Just as the edges of Hero’s vision began to go dark, she caught a glimpse of movement through glass panel on the door.

The door opened, and in walked two familiar figures wearing sweet, cheeky smiles.

Hero felt her eyes well up with tears, and she broke into a grin, and then there were hands on her cheeks, and two sets of lips kissing her own, and hands placed lightly upon her chest. There was much laughing and crying, and questions of ‘how?’ and ‘why?’ that were left mostly unanswered amidst all the laughing and crying. And then March sat down to the side to play a little song. “You should hear it,” she said, “It’s not much, but it took all year.”

Karen talked about this and that, and Hero listened, and then there was a stretch of companionable silence as the two took turns holding her, and kept her warm, all of them basking in each other’s company.

“I’m so happy you came,” Hero said, finally, “I love you both to death.”

“You too, dummy,” Karen said.

“Are you guys gonna be alright without me?”

“Of course we are.”

“We’ll be fine,” March said, “You should get some rest.”

The girls kissed her cheeks.

And then she lost consciousness, feeling all warm and fluffy inside.

The ground shook, and the tremor was felt across the entire capital. Within the locus caverns, the very air shook with a rumble and a thrum, and the occasional flash or flicker of ousia and light.

Unstable power welled up within the Locus; the center couldn’t hold, and something had to give.

Chambers collapsed, rocks fell, and things died. In the more intact areas, dust and minute bits of stone rained down. Every crystal tablet, line, and anchor that powered the web-like matrices of the Skill and Status System broke, and shattered.

The System itself did not cease to be, strangely enough.

Which wasn’t in keeping with how this sort of thing usually goes.

Removal of the cause is generally expected to likewise remove the symptom, and undo all its prior effects. General expectation was, you kill the dark lord, and the blight would disappear. Your skin would clear, the crops would get watered, and a rainbow would paint the words ‘Never Again’ in big letters across the skies.

And yet the System remained, despite its base being reduced to ruins.

Out in the farther reaches of the Empire, Status interfaces glitched, flickered, bugged out and buggered up for a second, and Skills failed to activate, yet the System held, sustained by its own existential inertia.

The System was no mere spell, no simple Working that broke with its anchor artifact, no mere Shaping that lost cohesion when no longer held together by an outside force. It was a Making of unbelievable weight and complexity, though bloated and dysfunctional.

It was monstrous amalgam of mana thrown together by human hands, one that fed off the energy of those who used it, siphoning mana from client-side.

But that didn’t mean maintenance wasn’t necessarily. It was very much necessary. And now, all those responsible for said maintenance, as well as anyone otherwise aware of the System’s inner workings, were gone, their natural lifespans cut short by likewise natural accidents.

The System that had long been the center of all things within the imperial gyre was left sagging, yet suspended through the ether by its own weight of being.

Silent, subtle, and unnoticed, things began to fall apart.

Wish we could’ve had more, Hero thought. So that’s what took March so long. Karen . . . I’ll miss them . . . but then there wouldn’t be a ‘me’ to miss them anymore, would there?

Hero let herself trail off there, waiting for the embrace of oblivion.

I’d be real pissed off if there was an afterlife after all . . .

Hero waited. And waited, and waited. Oblivion didn’t come. At least, not any oblivion she knew of, not if she could still question whether this was oblivion or not.

I’m still thinking, so I still exist . . . there’s something deeply wrong with that.

Hero bated her nonexistent breath.

This is taking too long. Shit, did I only blind myself? Or is this what Hell is like? Though I’ve never heard of any hell like this . . . Ah, but this is actually clever, isn’t it? Continued consciousness in utter black silence. It’s not even black, it’s just nothingness . . . Shit.

“Um, sorry about that,” Hero heard a voice say.

So I survived, huh. Well that’s just embarrassing.

“Karen? March?” Hero mumbled. How could she mumble? How could she speak? “And here I thought I’d died . . .”

“You did,” said that same low and feminine voice. “Sorry about the dark, let me fix that . . .”

And then there was light.

A Goddess? Oh Goddess, please tell me I won’t be seeing game text and status screens. I might just kill myself again.

The voice chuckled. “I see we are kindred souls in more ways than I thought.”

The light—it was red, mostly—resolved and focused, parted into separate shades and shapes. A ruby red tint painted her entire vision, which, curiously, Hero found to cover a full three-sixty by three-sixty.

She was in a small chamber made of something stone-ish—hard to tell through her red vision—and there were two women, one standing before her, the other sitting down a ways behind. They both looked like they’ve been through a lot.

“Hello. Hero, was it?” the voice came from the woman closer to Hero.

“Hi . . . ?” Hero would have bit her lip, if she had lips.

The woman smiled. “I fished your soul out of your body just before you died, before it could break apart.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

“I’m Charlotte,” the woman said, then, gesturing towards the other woman, “She is Ilina. We are your mothers in this life. There was another, Emma. She was from your world, I think.”

Hero was silent.

Then Charlotte smiled more brightly. “Oh, how lovely,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting twins.”