Selanora walked among the refuse of humanity and hated every second of it. The smells, noise, and general throbbing of filthy outerworlders made her want to draw her cloak even tighter about herself. The worst part seemed to be that her paladin was enjoying it!

[Wipe that smug look off your face, Leng.]

[I’m sorry, but you look like you’ve seen a bug in your soup.]

[Her heartrate has increased as well!]

[Not helping, Danford.]

[They’re just provincials, my lady, if any of them try anything, you or I can cut them down in an instant.]

As Leng telepathically spoke these words of reassurance to Selanora, a swarthy man with a long beard full of knots and beads made eye contact with the Magical Girl and smiled. Of course the upper half of his teeth were entirely missing, the rotting bottom row to most likely follow the same course. Noticeably absent were the barbaric automatic joint cutters every elder and sickly child had to wear in this society, but she did not dwell on this as her heart froze. The older man stood up from his mat and approached them.

Selanora readied herself to cut him in half along with every other filthy cretin within her sword’s considerable reach, but Lang interposed himself between herself and the foul smelling assailant.

“Gal thanki yuv pert lassi. Yuv ucki mansome, I’ll tell yer what.” A stream of this cursed planet’s crude language poured alongside the foul breath of the old man. Selanora had no idea what he said, but Leng laughed and jerked a thumb back at her.

“Ni van? Gal be a handsomeful en no funner en she ganter. Mare banchi ben fem.”

The old man laughed and slapped Leng on the back. If it was Selanora whom was being touched uninvited, she would have removed the hand that dared reach her, but Leng laughed alongside the native and actually seemed to mean it.

[Danford, what did they say.]

[Eh…]

[Don’t tell her, Dan.]

[Leng, quit fooling around with the savage and let us be onward with our mission!]

[Now hold on, Sal. I think he has something for you.]

The old man indeed was reaching into the voluminous folds of his robe, another infraction that put Selanora on edge, but he did not withdraw a knife or pistol. Instead he held out a plastic flower to Selanora and grinned even wider, exposing the rotting gum disease colonizing his mouth.

[You should take it.]

[And why should I?]

[Because it would avoid offending him and drawing undue attention to ourselves.]

[And it’s the nice thing to do too.]

She was getting ganged up on by three men at once and she did not like it, but Selanora sighed and snatched the fake flower from the old man. He did not seem offended by Selanora's lack of gratitude or graciousness, instead only laughing more as she stalked away.

[He could have had a weapon.] Selanora's displeasure rumbled in Danford's and Leng's minds.

[I know you've been pinging that 'Detect Threats' skill non stop since we got here.]

[Can you blame me?]

[ME-GO no, this is probably the most dangerous planet in the outer colonies.]

[Then why aren't you being more careful?]

[I may not have a fancy skill, but I have a danger sense of my own, and its telling me that we shouldn't stick out any more than we already are.]

Selanora looked around again. Every building should have been white, but resembled a collage of green and browns from accumulated filth and dust. The people were a mishmash of indentured conglomerate menials or displaced barbarians whose planets had only been civilized a few centuries since. And the noise. Every hour there would be some man standing at a tower in the middle of the city and he would screech the most ear rending cry that a human throat was capable of. Selanora could have understood if it was some sort of call to prayer or way to keep time for the huddled masses without time pieces, but as far as she knew it was for none of those reasons. The best explanation she got was from Danford, who could only hypothesize that it was some sort of mourning ritual.

Selanora knew what those savages were mourning and as far as she was concerned, the atomic fire that the Imperials rained down on this evil planet may have been the only good thing that they may have done before their genocidal campaign was stopped. Too bad they missed this place.

Perhaps it was not entirely a shame that this remaining monument to the vile Sorcerer Kingdom still stood. Afterall, if it was not here, then she would likewise not have one of her moles in place to gather information about these Lich Lords that attacked Apophyllion. One of said moles had contacted her, through the usual means of a public chatroom on the web novel site Imperial Highway. User 'Sully Man43' had made a post asking if there were any new fanfictions about Selanora fighting in the Great War. A common enough story, though it was not like she checked, but in this case he had also specified that the story contain no romance and no sexual content, which to Selanora's great disgust was extremely rare. Danford regularly checked those forums for messages from her agents and when they had discovered that one, they had set off almost immediately. It was too bad about those girls.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

It was not too surprising that young woman to ultimately not rise to the warrior's calling, not everyone was built for the hair trigger anxiety of dodging monsters' claws and seeing shapes move in every shadow. That Noblesse girl though, that was a real shame with that case. She looked like she had it in her to take a life and not dwell on it. Flip the switch and compartmentalize the sword swinging banchi inside of her. In a way, Selanora thought that they were alike, perhaps almost too much so. Ultimately that girl's sense of honor forced her to follow her friend to the ignoble route of being a mana battery girl. Of course, Selanora would not have actually tried to ruin the poor girl's Magical Girl career, she had been a bit hot blooded when she threw down that challenge, but now she regretted it in hindsight.

Oh well, there was no going back and changing it now. She'd look a fool if she did. Maybe she would let the blonde girl sweat it out for a few years and then let her off the hook. There were worse places to work than the Royal Mana Manufactorum.

Selanora banished the thought of those girls out of her head as soon as they came to their destination. Like the rest of the city, it was a dirty looking building, squat and a mixmash of several different cultural architectural styles, but Selanora would have summarized it as just "ugly". No matter, her detect threats skill was still telling her that it was safe to go inside, so she did, making sure to only open the door with her foot rather than her hands.

To say that it was nicer inside than outside was not saying much, but it was nice to escape the heat of day. The overly sweet stank of incense clogged Selanora's nose and she would have walked out on that principle alone had she not been there to visit the owner of this squalid shop. A pale, fat man, whose body odor somehow overcame the rest of the smells, scurried over and started bowing at Selanora and Lang.

"Ah, welcome, welcome! Bibitz's shop is the finest used bookstore in the city, I'm sure you will find no better one in all the world!" Some sort of ratlike beast with tiny wings was perhced on the shopkeeper's shoulder and it hissed at Selanora. The high ranked Magical Girl gave the disgusting creature an invisible pulse of her power, usually strong enough to make grown men quake, but it stood its ground and glared at her with beady, red eyes. Strange, but she had a mission to complete.

"I'm here to buy a self-published novel."

"Ah, we have many of those now a days, what title in particular?"

"Mojave Knights."

She did not know how, but Bibitz's demeanor became even more groveling. "Ah, my lady, ah, ah! I have been waiting eagerly for your arrival."

"Keep your tone down, worm. I'd not have the whole city know a Magical Girl walks among them."

"Ah, indeed, they may not be amenable to that, forgive me." Bibitz bowed and then lilted deeper into his shop. How such a rotund, little man walked so lightly was beyond Selanora. "Please, please, follow me."

As the party moved deeper into the store, the books became less and less modern and dustier with disuse. Finally at the very back, where the cloying smell of incense still reached them, Bibitz stopped and whispered, "Bibitz thinks he found something that may, ah, interest the lady."

"It took the better part of a month to reach this mudhole, Bibitz, so you better have something for me."

"Ah, of course, of course!" Bibitz motioned with his hands and leaned closer. Selanora had to steel herself to not lean the other way. "I found information about the Lich Lords."

Selanora stiffened and asked, "Turlock?"

"Nay, nay. Nothing more on him that you do not already know. Have you heard of Helfaust?"

That name did not sound familiar to Selanora, so she asked Danford.

[Sorry my lady, but even classified records do not have anything on him.]

[Maybe this weasel brought us out here for nothing.]

[Why don't we just listen to what he has to say?]

Selanora paused her council with the others and refocused on the shopkeeper who had been wringing his hands in the awkward silence.

"Tell me, who is this Helfaust and why is he important enough to summon me across the galaxy?"

"Ah, he is a Lich Lord my lady, but not one who fought in the Great War. He was an ancient ruler, the third High King in an age before the stars fell and my people took the skies."

"Skip the history lesson, what does that have to do with the present?"

"His prison has been discovered?"

Lang broke in, "What do you mean prison?"

"Ah, my lord, in my people's ancient ways, when a Lich Lord was deposed, they are not killed. They cannot truly die unless one discovers the secret to annul their immortal spell, so the old kings used to lock their rivals in stone sarcophagi and bury them forever."

"Brutal," Lang muttered.

"Indeed my lord, but our world demands such action. She can be an unforgiving place to those who cannot withstand reality."

"Where is this prison? Did he escape?" Selanora used her detect threat again, but nothing pinged. The range varied based on locations, but on this world it extended to almost two blocks and once again she did not feel anything pop up.

"Ah, if he did, I think we would know. Not much is known about him, other than being exceptionally gifted with the deeper secrets of the undead. I have only found out about this due to the closure of a recent construction site in the local mountain range."

"Yabanchi?"

"Ah, no, my lady. The workers have all either quit or gone missing. Rumors of voices from nowhere and objects shifting on their own. Before the foreman shut down the site for good, he made a report that I was able to intercept with some difficulty." Bibitz took out a book from one of the shelves and pulled a page out of it. Selanora took the proffered paper and read the scrawl of the construction manager. It was written in the planet's foreign tongue, so Danford spoke in her mind as she looked at it.

[We need more support if we're going to continue this dig. After losing another two men this week, I had to raise the pay rate, but the locals refuse to step foot back on site. The local translator we used must have leaked what was written on those stone doors that were discovered last month. Can't get them to come back since they're all afraid of this "Helfaust the Forsaken". Recommend off world workers.]

Selanora looked up from the letter and asked, "Where is this foreman? I think I want to ask him a few questions before we visit this site."

"Ah, about that my lady, he will not be able to do that."

"Why not, whether he answer willingly or not, I will have answers."

"That is not what I mean," Bibitz held out his hands. "He has been missing for a month."