“Hey…hey Hero, wake up.”

Rover’s voice startled me from my blinkless staring at the pages of my own Grimoire. My head snapped up and I dismissed the thing at once, frantically, forgetting for the second time that the wolfman wouldn’t be able to see it, anyway.

My mind still whirled with eldritch knowledge as one of the tent’s opening flaps was tentatively withdrawn, and a canine snout poked inside it.

“Wake up, Her–oh, you’re already awake. My apologies, I–”

“It’s fine,” I snapped back, more tersely than I’d meant to, still well on-edge. The lycan shrunk away slightly in response, chastened, and I sighed.

“My apologies, my friend. I didn’t get…enough sleep,” I admitted, not entirely lying.

“Ah,” he replied, nodding understandingly. “Not sure if I’ll get much, myself. Dungeon’s put us all ill-at-ease, I reckon.”

It wasn’t the Labyrinth that had me unnerved, currently, but I returned his nod in kind all the same, rising whilst rubbing my eyes, before awkwardly exiting the canvas lean-to. It was pitch-black outside, the moon, if such a thing even existed within the bowels of the World Titan, concealed by the thick canopy above our heads.

The only light allowing some measure of vision in the darkness was that of the dying fire, and it cast great shadows every which way about the small clearing we’d settled in. They crept across each illuminated surface like little nightmares, all grasping claws and crooked teeth, disturbing my already unsettled mind, far more malicious in form than the cute creatures that served Thaum’s employ.

I was not looking forward to this watch.

“Well,” Rover said, nodding my way once more, producing an adorable yawn despite revealing a mouth filled with viciously sharp incisors. He shook himself briefly in a maneuver that reminded me of Fang, nodded a third time, and shambled off to his own tent.

Leaving me alone with Vox.

The man was outfitted in the same trappings as ever, a sharp charcoal-gold suit that complimented his auric eyes. His refusal to change clothing made me think his apparel, like mine, was also self-cleaning. He’d already seated himself by the fire and was quietly stoking the flames, taking care to not let it die completely, nor produce too much light.

Perfectly controlling it.

Vox raised an eyebrow at my approach, gesturing politely to the log directly across from him. At his suggestion, I sat. He returned to gazing deeply at the embers of the dying fire, but before long, he spoke.

“Something on your mind, lord Hero?” Vox asked, courteous as ever.

I took my time in responding, closely examining the Master who refused to meet my gaze. Again, the question was frustratingly innocent. Could Vox sense my distress with his Blessing, or was he just making conversation? I now knew Broadcast, his Blessing and my Gift, to be a Major Shard. Just how much had it warped his psyche?

I breathed in and out slowly, closing my eyes, relaxing my posture and calming my churning soul. Two could play at his game. I made sure my song was absolutely featureless before responding to the man.

“Where do you think Blessings come from?”

Vox twitched slightly. Got you.

He played it off well, the momentary lapse in facade disappearing as quickly as a freshly-born spark in the pitch-black night, but both of us knew I’d seen his surprise.

“An unusual question…,” Vox stated slowly, still stirring the flames, not looking up at me. “Are you asking about my religion, lord Hero?

“I’m asking about your opinion,” I replied.

“Hmmm,” the man hummed, twirling his makeshift poker in the air, the burnt, ember end releasing a small cascade of incandescence as it did so.

“Well, unfortunately for you,” Vox muttered, “I’m an atheist.”

“So, you don’t believe in the High Priest?” I pressed. He smiled in response, as if my inquiry had amused him.

“That depends on what you mean, I suppose,” he said, lips upturned wryly. “I certainly believe that the High Priest did exist, at one point in time. I don’t doubt that he was a potent…Blessed. Perhaps, the most potent of us all.”

“But, a God?” Vox asked, rhetorically, still twirling his wooden scepter. “The purveyor of all powers? That, I doubt.”

“I see,” I said. “Do you believe in the Warrior, then?” Vox turned to look directly at me, fixing me with an intense expression I couldn’t quite place.

“Oh, yes,” he replied. My brow furrowed slightly as I held his gaze.

“So where do you think Blessings come from, if not the Priest?”

The Master broke eye contact with me once more, staring off into the distance.

“Need they truly have a source?” he asked. “Perhaps, Blessings simply…came into being.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I retorted. “Everything comes from something.”

“Does it?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at me genuinely. Vox prodded his twig in my direction. “Does the sun? Does the sky?”

“Of course,” I replied, unsure where the man was going with this, refusing to believe that he didn’t have some guesses as to where our powers came from. He struck me as a type not unlike myself, a person unsatisfied with the unknown, a man who wanted to know everything.

“The sun is a star,” I recited, remembering Mom’s lessons from long ago. “Energy and hydrogen, condensed in space. Our planet formed around it, after generations.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Interesting,” he replied, eyeing me curiously. “A rather academic take, for an Aristocrat. Milord is certainly well-educated.”

Oh shit.

I’d gotten caught up in the argument, foolishly, just like back at the library. But then, did it matter? After all, guesses about my education were more like than not to lead Vox in the wrong direction. He’d never suspect the truth. My mother’s case was entirely unique, no one with her upbringing stayed in the wilds for long.

I didn’t respond to his probing, regarding him just as blankly as ever. Thankfully, I’d managed to keep my song completely still. Eventually, Vox shrugged, mildly, as if the quasi-accusation had been entirely benign.

“Regardless, my question stands. Energy? Hydrogen? Where did they come from, then?”

I paused for a moment, before replying. I knew this one, too, and didn’t see any point in feigning ignorance now.

“A detonation,” I answered. It’d been one of the first things she’d taught me. “At the very beginning, the universe exploded into being, emitting forth energy and matter.”

“Fulmination theory,” Vox responded instantly, still regarding me strangely. “Very…Old Europe of you.” I said nothing.

“And?” He asked.

“And what?” I replied.

“And,” he continued, “what prompted it? What existed before the explosion?”

“Before…?,” I murmured, brow furrowing. I’d…I’d never thought about that.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “Nothing, I guess.”

“Nothing, then something,” the Master mused, twirling the stick. “If it could be so with the universe itself, why not with Blessings?”

He chuckled all of a sudden, seeming…genuine? For the first time since I’d met the man, Vox’s song changed. Its placid surface, mirrorlike not moments ago, rippled slightly with mirth. It almost made me give myself away by gawking.

It was…strange.

From the beginning of this conversation, no, from the very moment I’d met the man, I’d been dead set against him. But how much of that was just…me? If my guess was right, I’d been reading people’s emotions from birth.

I’d always thought myself particularly empathic, but now I knew different. It was my ability to hear the song. It always had been, I just hadn’t known it. So, what if the only reason I mistrusted Vox was that I couldn’t read his mind?

Here, under the scarce light of the dying fire, it felt like the man was actually being honest with me.

“I’m being facetious,” Vox admitted. “It’s easy enough to just ask questions; anyone can do that.” He shook his head. “And I’m being unfair. You’ve been entirely upfront with me, lord Hero, it seems untoward that I don’t pay your honesty back in kind.”

“And of course,” he continued, still smiling slightly as he stirred the flames, “I have an opinion. Everyone does.”

He paused for a moment, his smile disappearing. He looked up from the fire, regarding me once more with that intense expression, eyes narrowed, head quirked slightly to the side.

“I believe,” he stated slowly and precisely, “The origin of Blessings to be none other than the Warrior, himself.”

I didn’t bother hiding the surprise on my face from the man, but took care to ensure my soul was as flat as ever.

“What?” I asked, genuinely confused by his proposal. “Why on earth would the Warrior Bless us? He only ever wanted to rule. He sent the Titans to–”

“–Titans to punish us for our rebellion, yes, yes. I’m well aware of the Faith’s dogma, thank you, milord,” Vox said, waving his hand dismissively, some of his previous sarcasm reappearing for a moment.

Swiftly, though, it dissipated as the man fixed me with another stare. “Tell me, lord Hero, do you…believe in all the Faith’s claims?”

“No,” I accepted quickly. In fact, I knew outright that many were false, my own glossary confirming what prior doubts I’d nursed. “But that doesn’t mean they’re wrong about everything, either. Or are you suggesting that the Titans aren’t intent on humanity’s destruction?”

Vox leaned back, twirling the stick once more in that graceful, dancing manner.

“The Warrior was defeated some eight hundred years ago,” he mused, avoiding my question. “Imprisoned. By us. Are any left, I wonder, to tell his side of the story?”

I regarded the man incredulously. “And what, possibly, might his side be, lord Vox?” I asked.

Vox was still leaning back, eyes cast upwards to the sky, as he responded in simple, succinct sentences. “The Warrior granted us Blessings…” he whispered.

“But it wasn’t enough.”

His head snapped down.

“We wanted more.”

His eyes met mine, mesmerizing.

He fixed me with that same intense gaze, but now there was something else. His song had started to move, to creep outwards, towards me. It reverberated with the truth of his words, making me feel slightly lightheaded.

“He offered us powers, but we didn’t want powers. We wanted the means to grant powers. So we rose up against him, led by the strongest of us all. His own favored son, betraying him.” Vox’s golden stare pierced through me, nailing me to the spot even as his song inched closer.

“He gave us everything, and still we weren’t satisfied. Can you blame him, lord Hero? In his place, would you have done differently? We tried to kill him. Can you fault the Warrior for responding in kind?”

I didn’t know. I tried to respond, but only mumbles came out. My mind was growing blurry, I must not have gotten enough sleep. The tendrils of his song were almost upon me, barely any space left between us two–

Suddenly, Vox’s head snapped to the side, and his visage contorted in fury.

Screaming a curse, he spread his arms wide, and the area around us exploded in sound, sonic waves pulverizing the trees, uprooting the tents and their inhabitants, scattering the fire into countless pieces and throwing me onto my back.

I gasped breathlessly, the wind knocked out of me.

“FUCKING INSECTS! FUCK!”

The normally impassive man screamed in a, this time, not at all ephemeral rage, hands waving in complex patterns, distortions thrown through the air all about him. I couldn’t see what he was doing except through the song, the destruction of the fire having extinguished all light in the clearing.

But I did hear the screams.

All around me shouts rang out, my companions crying in some mixture of alarm, confusion, and pain. I, too, felt an odd sensation, almost like tiny pins and needles all across my body, but for the life of me couldn’t figure out what exactly was their source.

Then a gleam of light burst forth from the sky, a massive second sun taking shape in the center of clearing. Radiance poured off of Glare in a great cascade, illuminating everything.

I looked down at my now lit form and I screamed, too. My entire body was shifting and rippling like a humanoid fluid, a sea of grey and yellow. I was absolutely covered, head to toe, in insects.

Tiny insects, so small my eyes alone could barely perceive them individually, but I heard them just fine.

~~~

SUB-NODE #3GG8, UNIT DESIGNATION:

WEAPONIZED AUTONOMOUS SCOUT-PREDATOR

~~~