-Da / 1n-

Your Dynasty is aberrant.

Humans merge

with everything.

-Aj / 102-

I had noticed.

Observing them for

these millennia,

they are a most

resourceful Dynasty.

-Da / 1n-

I thought the invasion

of the 33 Dynasty

six-odd centuries ago

would have ended it.

Instead, they proliferate more.

-Aj / 102-

The 'White Kiss'

they call it.

And no.

They do not even know

what the do.

The Sect.

Ink.

Rotters.

They call the Dynasties

they know are different.

Most they find ways to merge with

and call the results "mancers."

Most powerfully,

a breed of them

has integrated the

21Dynasty.

The results of the pairing

rule the rest.

They call them

'The Dynasts'

or

'The Black Court'.

-Da / 1n-

What of the ones they call

Imminent?

Seericides?

I have searched

and cannot find

the point in their history

where they merged with

the 3√4 and 7√3 Dynasties

to produce them.

Though the way the x√y Dynasties

swim within the dimensions

of time

makes such locations difficult.

-Aj / 102-

Aj has interacted with them

through its agents

among the 102th Dynasty.

They know of the Real

and the doom that threatens

to end All and Real both.

-Da / 1n-

If they travel through time

in different directions than

the rest of

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the Mon

the Ascen

the 2 x 7 x 13

the Dynasties

then perhaps they can find

the time we lack

to save everything.

-Aj / 102-

Aj will try

to find a way

to connect with them.

For the Aj's

god-slaying

verse-ending

slowing of the Construct

cannot keep pace

with its ravenous

expansion.

Aida had only visited Ryk's training ground a few times, but it consisted of a variety of low, crudely-constructed platforms, shallow trenches, pits, and patches of thick greenery scattered about where most of it lay trampled flat. On taller platform stood on the far side, lashed together from vines, rope, and logs. More obstacle course than battlefield, with Ryk racing from one area to the other, jumping pits, pausing here-and-there for a second at a time, and lashing constantly out with his spear.

As Aida, Ghille, Ryk, and Eth came out of the narrow footpath through the tangle and onto the training ground, they found it populated by dozens of versal soldiers in Jaxe's purple livery. Beyond the tabards draped across their chests and backs, the warriors lacked any uniformity of weaponry, armor, dress, or hair style. Some wore heavy bronze breastplates and helms, others simple leather vests and caps. A few hefted large round or rectangular bronze-rimmed shields with spears or long bronze blades, while others carried just the spear or blade. A scattering among them carried bows or crossbows while a handful drew leather slings and polished stones or readied javelins as they came into sight.

A dozen Ferals carried the full panoply of arms, their eyes rising and weapons coming to hand as they turned to face Aida and her companions.

They barely caught Aida's attention, however, as she locked on to the three figures lounging at the heart of the grounds: the broad-shouldered, albino Jaxe. The long-haired, pretty, haunted Clef Hand, and the handsome, grief-wracked Alerestro.

"So he did send you," Aida said bitterly as she saw him.

"Yes," Alerestro spat. "And sent messengers to keep him appraised of your doings besides. Should the order have come through, we would have slit your throat in the midst of an erotic distraction, or at least initially. Until your barbaric sorcery won over Viviana and led her to her doom."

"Your doom now." Aida pointed a finger at him, her rage cold. She growled, then clutched at her neck. Without the strings she felt naked.

Alerestro laughed. "I filed at your strings subtly once when you took them off to bathe. I had hoped they would fail in combat when you needed them most, but this will do as well."

"Enough reminiscing with the help, Mother of Shitholes," Jaxe said, tossing the immense steel blade he'd cut Broadaxe in half with from hand to hand. He waved his arm at her. "Oopsie, it works again."

"Not for much longer," Aida promised. "When I'm done with you, there won't be enough left to grow back."

Jaxe laughed loud and hard. Wiping at his eyes, he grinned at her. "I see why all the menials and Wretches love you. Outnumbered twenty-to-one you still have the guts to make threats."

"Paragons are never outnumbered," Ryk said, his voice rich and confident.

"The hundred-odd warriors with me might care to correct that," Jaxe said, looking among his men. "If any of them knew there numbers enough to count to a hundred, that is."

"I know your count by heart," Ryk said, stepping forward and rolling his shoulders. He leaned his large square shield on the ground and rested his long spear across his shoulders as he met each of their eyes in turn. "I've watched and rehearsed each of your deaths my whole life. You there, you die with on a wooden stake through your foot and another through your chest. You with the shaved head, a spear through the heart and you with the beard, you catch it through the neck. You, in the back, I but finish off after an unexpected party joins the fray. You there, ponytail, you I kill with my sandal."

"What of me, Paragon? How does this Dynast die?" Jaxe said, snorting derisively as he looked among his worried-looking men. "Come, fools, he's but one man, Paragon or no. Your weight in currency to whomever brings me his head."

Eth stepped close to Ryk, rising on tiptoes to speak softly in his ear. Aida barely caught her words, but they clenched her heart.

"For love."

"For love," Ryk said, mechanically. "And for a death no one will ever forget."

"Ryk," Aida said, taking a step towards him. He was already in motion, however, sprinting towards a cluster of warriors near the edge of the training ground. Ten paces from them, he suddenly threw his spear through the neck of the man he'd told a minute earlier would die exactly so. The man gurgled and thrashed, crashing into and clutching at the man beside him. The other fellow tried to disentangle him so he could take aim with his bow.

Ryk spun his shield with both hands to knock the spear completely from another man's grasp then continued the spin to hurl the shield straight into the teeth of a second. Before his shield had even touched the ground, Ryk dived and rolled away from two others, their swords scything through empty air. Ryk came up with spear in hand, the haft swinging to shatter the ankle of one of the swordsman, then darting in and anchoring against a tree behind Ryk to bear the brunt of the other's charge. Bloody steel erupted from the second swordsman's back with the force of his charge and he fell lifeless as Ryk slid his spear free and charged the archer.

The rest of Jaxe's warriors stood dumbfounded at the sudden violence until Jaxe roared at them, pointing first at Jaxe as he slew the archer, retrieved his shield, and disappeared into the Tangle, then to Aida. "Your weight in currency for him and the same for her."

He took a step forward himself, but when Ghillie stepped before Aida, he halted to stare at her hatefully.

Get out of sight, Ghillie signed to Aida with one hand as she drew half-a-dozen red-tasseled needles with the other. The Feral leapt, rolled, and came up hurling a need as an arrow and a couple sling stones whistled past.

"Come," Eth said, tears streaming down her face. "Nothing we can do but get in their way."

"There's too many," Aida said, watching as dozens of soldiers rushed towards where Ryk had disappeared while a dozen-odd closed on Ghillie. Unexpectedly, a flurry of arrows flew from the jungle where Ryk had gone, each striking lethal blows to eye, throat, or armpit.

Eth grinned ferociously in spite of her tears. "You underestimate us. What do you think we were doing this whole time out here? That's not a training ground, it's a death trap."

Aida let Eth lead her into a thicket, out of sight but still able to see most of what went on. A dozen warriors in a rough line charged towards Ghillie, crunching through a layer of stacked dead branches cleared from the training ground. Suddenly, most of them were falling over, clutching at their feet and shrieking more as they hit the bushes. One managed to stand up after, hopping a few paces on his good leg while he struggled to pull a sharpened wooden spike out of his sternum.

"Sharpened bits all over under those branches," Eth said. "Took forever to whittle them all down and plant them."

The few who managed to avoid the spikes hidden among the branches fell limply with Ghillie's needles jutting from them. A dozen others on the far side of the bushes crashed into each other in their sudden halt to avoid a similar fate, splitting into two groups to circle around the swathe of fallen branches and their moaning fellows while Ghillie vanished into the Tangle.

A group of archers, slingers, and javelineers, meanwhile, climbed the tallest platform at the far edge of the training ground, seeking a height advantage over their elusive prey.

"Three... four..." Eth muttered as they scaled it.

"Waiting for something?" Aida said, scanning the area around the training ground for sign of Ryk. She heard shouts and cries from somewhere in the Tangle along with little snatches of movement as Jaxe's troops pursued him, but she couldn't see anything clearly.

"We built that platform to barely hold under the weight of five. There's five. Six. Seven."

"So it's going to..." Aida didn't have a chance to finish her sentence before the platform groaned, cracked, and collapsed in a heap of splintering planks and shearing logs. The men atop it screamed, a few leapt clear, but most went down with it.

Jaxe, meanwhile, ground his teeth together and glared at the spot where Aida and Eth hid. Muttering to himself, he began to walk slowly towards her. Alerestro stood beside him, looking among the rapidly-increasing body count with alarm. Cleft Hand seemed more excited than concerned, rubbing his good hand over his maimed one then pointing to where Eth and Aida hid while bumping Jaxe with his elbow.

"I know where they are, you cretin," Jaxe roared, shoving the man away hard enough that Cleft Hand crashed into the Tangle.

The half-dozen who had circled to Aida's right around the booby-trapped branches had disappeared into the tangle. Their shouts and curses implied they were having as poor a go of it with Ghillie as the others were with Ryk. Those who has circled around the other side, however, glanced back at Jaxe as the Dynast shouted and pointed towards the grove where Eth and Aida hid.

"Crap," Aida muttered. "What the hell are we going to do? Don't suppose you hid some strings here somewhere since you know all this was coming?"

"No," Eth said, distracted. She rose, grabbed Aida's hand, and pulled her along with her towards a cluster of boulders randomly clustered inside the grove. "We know what happens this way; you getting another set of strings right now could mean we win easily now and lose everything later."

"So Ryk has to die out there just because you don't want to chance it?" Aida half-snarled, half-sobbed.

"Exactly," Eth shot back, her glare hot. "I love him too, remember? You think this is how I want it to go? Everything gets tighter as the weave narrows down to the final point. One small step out of place or time now and we don't have the margin of error to try to correct. That step could carry us off the path and into the abyss."

"They're going to find us here, we should go. And I don't see why-" Aida began, taking a step towards the back of the grove.

Eth grabbed her tightly and dragged her to back to where they'd been standing before. She adjusted their positions minutely for reasons Aida couldn't begin to fathom, but she knew better than to argue.

"Ho there, found them!" one of Jaxe's troops called, ducking under a vine and coming to a halt ten meters from them. Thrashing and rustling in the growth around them for a moment, then the half-dozen who'd come after them were there, arrayed in a rough arc around Eth and Aida. They looked them up and down appraisingly. At first Aida thought the looks were sexual evaluations, but she realized they were more likely a scan for weapons.

Eth, however, seemed to take the first interpretation. She took a small step forward and lifted her shirt to show a bit of midriff. "No need to rush out there and get killed by my Paragon. We could have a bit of fun here first."

"What the fuck are you doing?" Aida hissed behind her.

"Stay there. You move, we die," Eth hissed back at her before turning back towards the warriors whose looks had definitely shifted away from weapon appraisal.

The one who'd found them first grinned and looked among his fellows. "Wouldn't hurt to get some bonus pay out of this."

"You first then," Eth said, inching her shirt a bit higher. She pointed towards the boulder nearest the man. "You can take me right there."

"It's an Imminent trick," one of the others said, stepping pointedly away from the indicated boulder. "Can't never trust them."

The first one shook his head, leaned his spear against said boulder and began to tug down his skirt. "What trick? Six of us against two unarmed women. They even want it."

"One is a sorcerous Dynast and the other sees the future," the other said again, putting on of the other boulders completely between him and where Eth and Aida stood. He pointed his spear at them. "I ain't doing nothing they say."

"Alerestro said he wrecked that one's strings so she's been clipped. And the Imminent wants it."

"I do," Eth practically purred, taking a step towards him. "Want to have us right there on that boulder? Could take turns."

The first smiled and sketched a crude bow. "Right here, my lass."

He slapped the top of the turtle shell with his hand and lost a leg.

It took a few seconds after, staring and shaking amid the gore and screams for Aida to realize what happened.