“Finally, we’ve got it back!” A cheer went up from a crowd of workers in the divine relations department, distracting Tracy from her paperwork. She was doing her best to focus on the work in front of her, but since she had personally met Lempo’s child she was having difficulty maintaining her usual emotional detachment. She never bet on the outcomes of these fights, but just this once she was tempted to watch the fights unfold.
If it was not me throwing her into the dueling maze then it would have been someone else, she comforted herself, but the thought rang hollow. She could almost see her father’s stern expression as he lectured her on personal responsibility.
Tracy itched around one of her horns with frustration. I hate this work, she realized. Unable to resist any longer, she dropped her pen with a sigh and wandered over to the makeshift viewing area.
Her coworkers were gathered around a series of tubes, the ends of a large network of light pipes that brought images from within the maze to their office. One of them was fiddling with the end of one of the reflective tubes, moving it around in front of a mirror to reflect the light onto a wide screen.
“C’mon, they’re in that hole over there,” one of the viewers groused, pointing. “Bring the view over there.”
The controller put his hand on the light pipe and scrunched his face. The other end moved, getting closer to the hole in the ground. “This a pain in the ass. She broke all of the ones I put into the room.”
“Yeah, what cursed ability was she using? That should be banned, right?” another one complained.
Tracy strode up to them, her boots sounding sadly hollow as she strode across the carpet. “If she used an ability banned by the Divine Treaty, then the pantheon would have taken action. You should avoid spreading rumors like that. There are many among the Asura and Naga who take those accusations very seriously.”
A few of her co-workers gave Tracy dirty looks, but they didn’t say anything out loud. It helped that she was twice any of their heights and could crack their skulls with her pinky.
They would talk behind her back, she was sure, once she was too far to hear. She held in another sigh. For people who were tasked with upholding rules, many of those who operated the Pillars were, in her opinion, too lax when the rules applied to themselves.
One of these days, I’ll quit, she promised herself. Her parents would be disappointed, but they would get over it in a hundred years or so.
Tracy turned her gaze to the screen. The Beloved child of Lempo was pulling herself out of a hole in the ground – caused by a deficiency in the maze’s formation that bothered Tracy to no end. She had asked the cleaning crews to investigate what impurities got into the system and caused the bubbles, but they had blown her off. One of them had even claimed that the imperfections added character to the maze, and that their unpredictable nature made the environment more realistic.
Her co-workers had other thoughts on their minds. “Seriously? It’s over already?”
“We missed it! If her ability isn’t already banned we should petition the gods!”
One of the Minotaur whistled. “By the Heart, forget about the fight, look at ’er! She’s naked as a Nymph in Spring!”
One of these day, I will definitely quit, she repeated to herself.
“Are those the old man’s pants?” one of the other watchers asked. “Why’d she turn ’em into a bag?”
“Maybe she likes being naked,” repeated the Minotaur. His nostrils flared as he shoved his head closer to the screen, as if he could inhale her scent through the device.
Tracy imagined cracking one of the idiot’s horns off as she glanced at the screen. The gorgon had tied the pant legs closed and stuffed the pants full of something, turning them into an awkward bag. She was completely naked otherwise, her divine armor mysteriously missing. She hadn’t looted the old man’s divine dagger either.
The gorgon staggered like a reanimated corpse at first, her stiff movements slowly loosening as she made her way through the cavern until she found the dagger that she’d dropped before her transformation. Then she continued her wandering until she found the old man’s shirt.
Bel put on the shirt to a chorus of booing from Tracy’s co-workers. Satisfied with her clothing, the gorgon picked up her pants-bag and continued her determined walking. The shirt was long enough on her that her sword belt turned it into a tunic, but that only prompted Tracy’s co-workers to ask for different camera angles as the gorgon strode through the maze.
Tracy growled, loud enough for the people nearest to her to look up in fear.
Tracy didn’t doubt for a moment that the gorgon would defeat the last objector, but she wasn’t going to wait around listening to her co-workers. She turned away from the crowd and went back to her desk to work.
The commotion died down over the next hour; no one was currently fighting and they eventually tired of gawking. Tracy was finally making good progress when a skittering set of footsteps dragged her out of her productive space.
She looked up to see a familiar, unwelcome face. “Doug,” she greeted him frostily.
Doug was a man so greasy that she’d be tempted to use him for cooking in the event of an apocalypse. He was some kind of wind-weasel, with emphasize on the weasel. Tall and nervous, he wore an untrustworthy grin that never left his face.
“Hi there Tracy! How’re thing in divine relations? Any excitin’ god on god action in the big Up There?”
He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.
Tracy stared blankly at him, waiting for him to get to the point.
“Well,” he began, his eyes shifting around nervously, “you remember that bet you placed? Five to nothing, clean sweep for the Beloved child of Lempo?”
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Tracy’s heart lifted and her eyes lit up like lightning bolts. “You don’t have the money, do you?” she breathed.
The weasel waved his blade-hands. “Whoa, whoa, keep it down, okay?” He glanced around nervously. “Look, I’ve got it, I just can’t get it, uh, quickly. You know, liquidity this, long-term investment vehicles that…”
He leaned over her desk. “Look, I’m the guy who sets the odds, so…”
“Oh, by the pantheon,” Tracy beamed, “you’re on the line for it, aren’t you?”
His grin cracked slightly, like an old stone wall yielding to a heavy hammer. “Look, the girl wagered so many Tokens! So many! And I thought I had all of Lempo’s abilities mapped out, but–”
Tracy laughed. “The goddess of change and upheaval? All of her abilities? Mapped out?” She bent over her desk, laughing and beating its surface until she had to gasp for breath.
Then she looked up at Doug’s expression and laughed harder. “Oh, sorry, sorry, I just, I just can’t get enough of this. All mapped, out, wow!”
The weasel scratched behind his head with irritation. “Yeah, yeah, I learned my lesson. Dumb move on my part, I got it. Look, you’ve met this girl – what can I get away with giving her?”
Tracy’s eyebrows went up. She hated the bookie. Loathed him. He was a sign of all the corruption that was eating away at the administration of the Pillars like a terminal case of tooth decay.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t be useful.
“Information,” Tracy answered after a moment of thought. “It’s the one thing you can give away without losing anything, and it’s something she needs.”
Tracy tilted her head and glanced at her loathsome co-workers. “That and a nice set of clothes.”
----------------------------------------
Bel should have been satisfied that she had finally figured out how she was supposed to fight Technis, but all she could feel was a tired fury. Sure, she knew how to fight him now, but how many more things were going to get in her way? Would the Pillar people even let her go? She had the impression that they expected her to die in their stupid maze.
Meanwhile, the people of Satrap – or, more realistically, just Lempo’s priests in Satrap – were waiting for her to show up and save them. Bel understood why Lempo had wanted her to leave Satrap at first, and why Lempo didn’t want to tell her what abilities to take right away. Clearly, she had to grow stronger and more experienced. She was ready now though, and she didn’t want to waste any more time with other people’s nonsense.
Bel stalked through the hallways of the maze, determined to find this stupid Dhvaras and finish things.
Her body ached, her injuries burned, and she’d lost Kjar’s gift, but she’d gained things as well. She had finally replaced her last snake, even if this one was a jerk with unknown abilities. Bel felt along her braided nest of hair, verifying that the little miscreant was still imprisoned. It hissed feebly at her touch, and she nodded in satisfaction.
She had also gained an entire pair of pants full of the material that made up the Pillars. Thanks to her ability, the Pillar had disassembled itself into tiny, easily swallowed cubes of metal. Bel spread her fingers, admiring her new, indestructible nails. Backed up by her gorgonic heritage and her ability to slightly alter her shape, she had gotten them sharp enough to scratch the surface of the Pillar itself.
Finally, Bel smelled spicy. It was Kjar’s ability letting her know that the essence mirroring ability from Lempo was pushing a fine line between allowed and heresy. The smell was almost enough to make her nose itch, but not quite. Bel liked it. It made her feel like she was rebelling against the system. The system needed some chaos and change, in her opinion.
Bel grinned when she also caught a whiff of sulfur in the air; she was expecting the Dhvaras to be waiting in a room still filled with magma. Bel pressed farther into the largest room she’d glanced into. Large stone pillars thrust out of a sea of magma, forming a treacherous walkway.
The walkway split, leading to caves near the ceiling that Bel could just make out from the light of the incandescing stone. Farther along, Bel saw several pathways leading down towards a few flat arenas that were barely above the level of the slowly flowing magma. Her final opponent rested in the center of one of them, content to wait until Bel either starved to death or confronted her. The tall Dhvaras woman leaned upon her spear, glowing slightly in Kjar’s Sight.
Bel’s lips twitched. “Good to know that Kjar doesn’t like her either,” she muttered. “I guess it’s time to wrap this up.”
Bel made her way over the gaps between the stone pillars with deliberate movements, avoiding any reckless behavior that would overtax her injuries. Sweat dripped from her body, soaking her new shirt. The Dhvaras stood when Bel was still a good distance away, so Bel dropped her pants-bag before proceeding.
Her opponent was tall and thin, and wore an angular suit of mail that covered her from head to toe. The armored plates had a dark, sooty appearance, making Bel think of an angry fire poker. The blade of the woman’s spear glowed with an inner heat as she tilted it towards Bel.
Once Bel reached the same platform as the other woman, the dhvaras lifted her visor and spoke. Her voice rang with the authority of the divine tongue as she declared, “I am the princess of the Darkened Hearth, and I will claim your head for the–”
Bel ignored the woman’s nonsense and stalked forward with the easy confidence of a hunting animal. The snick of her dagger leaving its sheath cut the dhvaras woman’s words short. She quickly lowered her visor and hefted her spear in response, pointing it in Bel’s direction. The magma behind her trembled and rose into the air.
Bel activated her mirror essence ability, gritting her teeth at the pain and discomfort. Her skin felt dry and tight from the heat, and the ground felt sharp and uncomfortable on her unprotected feet. Bel tensed as the woman manipulated a wave of magma, ready to leap away if her ability didn’t work as she thought it would. The magma surged forward like an eager hand, but it lost cohesion and fell into a puddle halfway to her. Bel skirted around the dangerously hot substance and continued towards her prey.
The interference is emanating from me, so the closer I get the worse it should be for her.
The light on the dhvaras woman’s spear dimmed after Bel closed another few steps. As she waved it in frustration, Bel continued her advance. The stalking gorgon could tell exactly when her ability began to interfere with the woman’s cores: the dhvaras hissed with outrage, the sound echoing behind her heavy visor. She thrust her spear at Bel, but it was an angry strike made clumsy by her sudden loss of abilities.
Bel was operating under the same restrictions, but she had lived most of her lifetime with a broken core, and she knew what was happening. She parried the spear thrust, catching the spear on her dagger’s guard and redirecting her opponent’s weapon as she stepped closer.
With the advantage of her longer reach negated, the other woman quickly jumped backwards, out of the range of Bel’s weapon.
Then she shrieked with pain. Her heel had landed in the molten rock – a minute prior it would have been fine, but without her abilities Bel assumed that it burned. She stumbled away from the unexpected pain, straight towards Bel.
At the last moment, she attempted to point her spear in Bel’s direction, but Bel swept the spear aside with an upward swing. Then she stepped forward and slammed the pommel of her dagger onto the woman’s head.
The clash of metal filled Bel’s ears as the woman fell to her knees. Her helmet was dented, but she was only dazed.
Bel reflexively kicked her to the ground, forgetting that her body wasn’t as tough as she expected. She cursed her stupidity as she pressed her throbbing foot onto the woman’s arm, immobilizing her weapon as she searching for a hole in the woman’s armor. Her throat was protected by a plate that covered her face down to her chest. Her visor had only a small slit for the eyes, which is where Bel thrust her dagger.
Bel felt a bit of shame killing the proud warrior so crudely, but she resisted the urge to look away as the woman thrashed her death throes. She had to learn to use the ability if she wanted to prepare for Technis, and she had to kill if she wanted to survive.
Bel relaxed as she released her ability and strength flooded back into her body. Then she reached down to take the woman’s essence. Just as she’d encountered with the old man, the woman’s core was in poor shape. The woman’s ability patterns had broken as she died and there was less essence that Bel assumed should have been there.
A small price to pay for an easy fight, Bel thought as she cleaned her dagger with her fingers, flicking away the blood and gore.