He died afraid for his life. Which was fair; he'd been about to die. But what I couldn't get over, what was sticking in me like a knife, was that he died afraid of me. His untrained eyes had been too slow, staring at me instead of the Thing that had killed him, turned him into mince meat, blended him into chunks. Fuck a closed casket; they'd be sending him to his family in a sealed keg if they sent them anything at all. I'd saved everyone in that room except for the one innocent – And he'd died afraid, of me.

In the cruel freedom of the nightmare, I could be in multiple places and multiple times. I was me and I was the waiter. I was feeling the flesh puppet unfurl from its corpse vessel, and I was closing my Talon through its spine. I was watching the unhinged 'guest of honor' seize my coworker by his throat, and I was recoiling in horror as he was decapitated. Over and over, endless and eternal, the dream wouldn't let me go. I was stuck. I was stuck. I was stuck.

A hand from behind me placed itself mercifully over my eyes, blinding me to the horror. It was soft, not at all like my calloused and tempered Eagle's Talons, and yet it was my hand, too. He used to say he had a pianist's hands and the musical talents of a monkey with a tambourine.

"Let it go, man," said a familiar voice – the most familiar voice. "You're too young for a regret like that."

We were to the side now, still in the private office above the Kingfisher's nightclub at the moment of the attack, but thankfully free from watching it in first person. Alan turned me by the shoulder so that I wasn't facing the scene head-on, but it remained in my peripheral. It would remain in my peripheral, I thought, haunting me for a long time to come.

"No," he said in his firmest tone. His friends would call it his 'Dad Voice' whenever he ran a game for them. "We're putting it to bed tonight. This doesn't work if we're both guilt-stricken. One of us has to be free of it, and lord knows it isn't going to be me."

Alan looked haggard, with long, dark bags under his eyes and a beard messier than it had been even during his college years. His clothes were those he had been wearing that fateful day, the business casual outfit he'd brought to play test Arcane Rhapsodies: Legends of Love and Battle, Echoes of Fate, where Legends Converge and Destiny Resonates, but were torn and sweat-stained.

"Crazy that we can actually remember that dumbass name in here; hope we didn't forget something to make room for it," he said, scratching his beard. "And if I look like shit, it's because you won't take any goddamn time off. Swear, it feels like a year since we landed here. That asshole isn't helping either."

Alan jabbed his thumb at something over his shoulder, but I could see nothing there but the shadows in the corner of the room. He seemed surprised by the absence, tugging on a chain he was now holding that led into the darkness.

He sipped his teeth. "Great, it's sulking because I didn't let it murder a child. My demon roommate is sulking – unbelievable the things I've got to put up with. You have to find a better solution than sleeping behind the Suzakumon every night, by the way. I swear to God, fucking Sabrina the Teenage Witch nearly broke into here the other day. If I can't even rest at night, things are going to get pretty wacky up in our shared headspace."

I squinted at Alan, or, at me, or, at old me, I mean, or, at part of me, or – "Sorry, what's going on? I'm so…"

My head started to turn back to the moment the Flesh Puppet shredded out of the server's body. Jesus Christ, you'd think my first tentacle monster experience in this world would have been a sexy one.

Alan grabbed my chin and made me face him again, sighing as he did. "Dude. Seriously, I'm fully capable of feeling enough guilt for both of us. Trust me on that."

God, he really did look like shit. Though, with his sleeves rolled up, his forearms were strangely brolic, and if I had to guess, he had lost about five pounds. Could personality constructs lose weight?

"Yeah, well, I've been getting a lot of psychic cardio in while carrying your ass and wrestling," he gave the chain a sharp tug, "our homicidal house guest. At our current pace, I'll either be looking like Goku in a month, or I'll be dead."

I reached out a skeptical hand and poked his shoulder. "Alan? You're in my head? Wait. Of course you are. Why am I in my head? Oh, I'm dreaming, duh. Am I? Wait," I paused, suddenly unsure of everything I ever thought was real, "what's going on? Hey! You're me. Cool."

He rubbed his temple. "Holy shit, I'm going to scream. Just shut up and focus on what I'm telling you, okay?"

"O—"

"No! I said shut up. Nod instead."

I nodded.

"Good, now listen carefully; I'm not sure how much you'll remember when you wake up. You need to start meditating more and putting some time between adventures. I'm getting better at being a psychic entity, but I'm so, so tired, man. Do you understand me?"

I nodded.

He let out a sigh of relief; I was still focused enough to pay attention, and I knew that it was very important that remained the case, even if I couldn't recall exactly why that was. "Okay, good, because if you remember back to how there were references in the book to types of evil – Lesser, Greater, all that jazz – this thing," he held up the chain in his hand, "is a little splinter of a Tyrannic Evil. You know, the step right below Titanic? I'm pretty sure the Carrion King is right up there with the Lord of Flies and the Father of Lies."

It felt strangely significant that he was avoiding the names, or rather, he was avoiding a specific name—

Alan held up a finger. "No thinking, just listening. Our Patron is a clever little shit, but so am I, and this is my head." Wispy blue sparks crackled across his arms as he said the words and his brown eyes flashed a glacial blue – fighting spirit from Alan? How strange. "Or, our head, sorry," he corrected sheepishly. The battle aura vanished, leaving behind only the air of mediocrity that I would expect from a mortal from his Earth. I questioned whether I had seen it at all.

He continued, "I can handle the Corpse Eater. What I need from you is to make sure this," he shook the chain, "doesn't get stronger faster than I can get better at dealing with it, which means you absolutely cannot be calling on his Mantle for anything short of a life-or-death situation. If a Triad boss makes you his bitch in Social Combat, then too bad. Live and learn. Get his ass back later. Those Powers are the nuclear option, and that is not at all hyperbole. Do you understand?"

I nodded. Never trusted crow-boy to begin with.

"Great. Remember, meditate and rest. And have fun, too; our sanity and our mission genuinely depend on it. You can be the excitable, whimsical hero, and I'll be the broody, responsible one. Having two disparate personalities doesn't have to be a curse. We can have the best of both worlds."

Turn our weirdness into a strength – I liked that, very Black City Kung Fu of us.

"Exactly! Excellent, and speaking of, if I've got to live with this psycho, he might as well be of some use." Alan called into the darkness, "That's right, you bastard, I'm giving you permission. Go on then, before I change my mind." Turning back to me, he added, "Don't worry, I'll keep the dead with me, but sleep is too important for recovery for you to be having recurring nightmares. And I'm not sure James Li can stay James Li while he's actively grieving, not with all the other bullshit you've got on your plate. Grief can break the best of us, and we don't have the time to put you back together the old-fashioned way."

I frowned, feeling like I was underestimating me, but before I could say anything, the shadows in the corner began to coalesce into the shape of a tall, gangly man. Black, malodorous Famine, both the physical sensation and the Platonic Ideal filled the space of the nightmare. Burdensome and menacing, they would have crushed me to the floor were it not for the chains wrapped around the figure, oppressing it as it was oppressing me. This was the Hakkotsu no Ha's psychic emanation, the part that was left inside my spirit when I became bound to the Carrion King's sword.

Ken had told me he thought the Bleached Bone Blade was one of the death god's ribs hardened to steel. I hadn't, couldn't have, understood what that meant at the time, not without seeing it like this. Here was a thin barb embedded in my soul, one I may not have noticed were it not for the system, and yet already this fragment was capable of devouring Light with its presence. It rotted hope, dominated reason with casual ease. It was pure, visceral longing for Eschaton and Apocalypse, for the rise of the Seven Suns and the end of samsara.

Darkness swallowed the dream as it stalked forward, a black silhouette on a black background save for its bone-white short sword. My nightmare continued to play out, looping in the darkness, me decapitating the Flesh Puppet, it murdering the waiter. I may have found myself drawn back into the scene were it not for Alan's comforting hand on my shoulder, reminding me that he was in control of what was happening. The figure, for its part, seemed equal parts excited by the prospect of destruction and resentful to be commanded as it was. Still, it did as it was told.

The Hakkotsu no Ha neatly bisected all three of the subjects in the nightmare with a single stroke from the specter. As the bodies fell into the milky darkness of the ground, with them went my feeling of guilt. I was still upset by my failure to protect the waiter, but I was detached from the intense distress that had captured me all night.

"Great. Now fuck off." Alan jerked his wrist and sent the creature flying off with a crack of the chain. I looked at him, impressed by his ongoing transformation into something that befitted this strange universe. He shrugged. "It's our mind, James. It's just an unwanted visitor."

The setting shifted to his aunt's lake house, from before it had been crushed underneath a large oak and sold off. We were seated side by side on the swinging bench on the porch, next to the chipped antique ceramic dog statue, overlooking the still waters of the manmade lake. I could smell the grilled hot dogs and could hear the sounds of a family reunion, but the people were absent. They should have been there on the lawn ahead, playing crochet and taking turns jumping into the water.

Alan shrugged. "It hurts to interact with their facsimiles, so I generally avoid it. The past can inform our present and our future, but we can't live there," he explained. "I'll let you have at it in a moment, though. Just remember, meditate, rest, and stay loose."

I woke to the welcome smell of coffee wafting through my bedroom door. JingJing must have made a pot before she left for her 5 AM flight. That was nice of her, though I was surprised I could still smell it; I'd deliberately turned off all my alarms and set my phone to Do Not Disturb last night so I could sleep in and get some much-needed rest.

Rest – that reminded me of something. My dream, maybe? Yeah, I'd had a meaningful dream, hadn't I?

I groaned. The more I tried to remember the dream, the faster it slipped out of my mind – I hated that feeling. At least the takeaways were still there this time, something about resting, meditating, and…hot dogs? Loose hot dogs?

"What? No, that can't have been it."

I crossed my arms and glared at myself in the ceiling mirror. Waking up to the reminder that the Producers had installed a ceiling mirror in my bedroom was like a daily prank from my horny overlords. But for some reason, I felt like I'd already decided to blame Funikugami rather than SkinDimensional Media for this morning's bad mood.

"Guy probably ate all my hot dogs. Gah, what an asshole! Stupid death gods, stupid Cranes, stupid ceiling mirrors – hot dog stealing jerks, the lot of you. I bet you didn't eat them loose. Put 'em in buns, didn'tcha? Ha! Idiots."

I threw off my too-nice-for-my-lifestyle silk sheets, rolled off my too-big-for-this-room bed, and left one absurd room for another. Smoothie poked his head out from under the couch before disappearing again. I couldn't tell if he was still upset by the flea bath JingJing and I had given him last night or if he was still adjusting to the new environment. He might have also just been tired; poor guy had a long day yesterday.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

It was almost noon, and I'd have to head off to work soon, but considering the speeds I could reach with my Sash, there was enough time for an easy morning. The dossier on the Tigers tempted me from where I'd left it on the counter, but its contents would surely be more stressful than what was called for currently. While I couldn't put off reading it for the whole of the weekend like I wanted to, I could at least afford myself a few hours free of hard thinking.

I poured myself a cup of cheap pre-ground, my Alan half reminding me to stock up on some single-source whole beans on the way back from filming. What was the point, he asked, of stealing thousands of dollars if you were still drinking this universe's equivalent of Folger's? Even the half of me that had been microwaving two-day-old coffee three weeks ago could agree to that. Rich people who tried to live like they were poor were freaks, and not in a good way.

The liquid was hot enough to fill the air with aromatic vapor and the distinct sizzle sound as it hit my mug. That was odd. My little twenty-dollar drip pot had a heat plate at the bottom, but it shut off automatically an hour after you made it. JingJing would have had to have left over six hours ago to catch her flight.

My cousin and I had showered the viscera off at Kas's place – separately, mind you – so that I could get changed into the other outfit from Garibaldi's, and she could 'borrow' a dress from his guest room; one of his daughter's she'd left there on vacation, I assumed. From there, we swung by a twenty-four-hour pet supply store and took a cab back to my place to get the traumatized Smoothie acquainted with his new home. JingJing and I were, of course, badass martial artists who were, of course, completely unaffected by watching an alien horror burst out of a man like the world's most fucked up piñata. We chose to focus entirely on Smoothie rather than talking about anything that had happened in the Kingfisher. Once the cat had been fed, bathed, and dried, we settled in for a round of cheesy kung fu movies and delivery pizza. As for why we continued to avoid any discussions about Triads or our family in favor of roasting the martial arts on screen, well, those topics just didn't come up organically, of course.

On a hunch, I cracked open the door to the meditation chamber and spotted my cousin sipping her own cup of coffee cross-legged on the wooden faux porch.

JingJing turned and grinned. "Hey, you."

"Yo. Thanks for the coffee."

"Your coffee, mate."

"Yeah, but it tastes better when I don't have to make it." I sat down facing her, using one of the wooden posts as a backrest. "Figured you'd be halfway to Melbourne by now."

Her smile fell slightly. "Eh, there's no rush. Was a one-way, this job. Not sure it was meant to be, but I think you mighta thrown a spanner in the works."

"Sorry about that."

"Nah, fuck 'em." JingJing opened her mouth but decided against whatever it was she was about to say. "How're you holding up, by the way?"

"Been better, but work'll cheer me up. I'm the only stuntman on this set, too; that's a first for me. Pretty excited, to tell you the truth."

"Oh, yeah? Reckon it'll be your breakout role, then?"

I laughed. "No way, not like I've got lines or anything. It just means I'll be getting more screen time. No extra money, but, honestly, I'm a slut for screen time."

"Ha! Sick."

We sat in silence for a moment. I could tell that I'd intruded on her thoughts by walking in when I did.

"Must be nice," she said finally, "having a gig you can be excited about for more than the pay…" I let the sentence hang there, sensing that she had more to say. "You know, it's not like we work for the Cranes. We're mercenaries, most of us. The Cranes, they just always got a job, and they throw heaps of cash at their problems. I charge by the fucking word, and a fucking lot too. Turned thirty last year and I've got a house in Melbourne and another in Sydney I bought on a lark. Fuck. Used to skull Goon by the sack and get into scraps with bogans three times a week, and now I've got two houses, Jimbo. Two fucking houses."

I wouldn't normally let anyone call me any variety of 'Jim', but it was somehow charming in JingJing's Frankensteined Chinese-Australian accent. "Hey, you don't have to sell me on it." I paused. "Sorry, did you say, 'skull goon'? By the sack?"

"Come on, James, you and your mum fucking despise the Cranes. Should'a heard the choice words she had for me when I stopped by two days ago; wouldn't even let me inside. And you – you made your stance clear as day, mate. The stones on you, you beauty, threatening Hou to his face like that, and with a Stance that even old Vinny couldn't see through. I kept forgetting your outrageous Qi was in the room every time I blinked. Do you know how fucked that is? Because Vincent sure as hell did – thought I was finally going to see his Black Hole techy the way he was looking at you."

"Vincent He has a Black Hole technique? What does that mean, exactly?"

She winced. "Ah, fuck, forget I said that. Can't be sharing their secrets, not even to you, sorry."

"All good, don't have any plans to fight him anyway. As for me and the Cranes, I don't know where I stand, but you heard me tell them that they could hire me for monster hunting. It's a little different than being their messenger, but not so different that I can look down on you for it. All I was doing last night was trying to get out of there with as much information and as few obligations as possible, JingJing." That, and trying to stop the coming gang war, but it became obvious early on that Hou had no interest in that. Annie would be disappointed, but I wasn't sure what I could have done in that situation. "While I've got you, and since we're on the topic, how did you think I handled the meeting?"

She laughed hard. "Are you kidding me? Before you put your life on the line for them with the flesh puppet, I thought I'd be smuggling you out of the country. Do you have any idea how disturbing it is to meet a completely blank slate in real life, someone who could be or do anything? People aren't afraid of the dark, James; they're afraid of the unknown. Least Hou can't kill you now, though, not unless you do more than threaten him." JingJing looked wistfully up at the fake sky of the meditation room. "I was putting together plans and everything – was gonna try to sell my houses fast as I could and go on the run with you. I've got a bugout in Tassie, by the way, if you ever need it. I'll give you the location before I leave."

"That bad, huh? Oh well, what are you going to do." I sighed, running my hand through my hair. The meeting would be something to think about later, preferably with Maki or Kas around to bounce ideas off of. Studying JingJing, though, I thought I'd found the real reason she'd put off her flight home. "You seem disappointed we're not cached away in a cargo hold if you don't mind me saying. I know that look in your eyes, that's the look of a youxia, not a mercenary."

"Is it?" JingJing reached into a pocket and fished out a cigarette. Again, I'd have stopped anyone else from smoking inside, but she found a way to make it charming, even more so now that I knew it was something she did when she was stressed and not just her constant routine. "Yeah, guess it is. Been thinking about what you said after we got back here. Wouldn't have been a cargo hold, by the way. Mao's the comptroller for their shipping company, and he's frightening at what he does."

I tried to rack my mind for what I could have said to move her. I was pretty sure we'd just shot the shit about dumb martial arts movies for three hours.

JingJing lit her cigarette and offered me the pack. I thought about it but waved her off, not yet ready to be a regular smoker, maybe after a few more gritty fights with eldritch horrors. "It got me thinking," she continued, "Man, it would be pretty sick wandering around, fighting and fucking as much as I wanted, getting into shit for no reason other than that I was there."

Ahh, okay, it was clicking now. We had watched Hero on the Horizon, one of the worst films from a storytelling perspective in my collection. The Filipino studio that made it was simultaneously insanely ambitious and hilariously bad at managing money. After failing to complete a single project, they tried to save themselves by splicing together three unfinished movies with the same actor, and one with an actor that looked kind of similar to the first guy, but not enough for it to be believable. Even after they'd dubbed over all of the lines in every scene to try and make it work, the result was an unwatchable, confusing mess. They'd included every fight and sex scene from all of the movies, which meant that every five to eight minutes, the main character would go from encountering a unique situation and group of people to absolutely beating their asses, with the action broken up by gratuitous nudity and sex. One of the sex scenes went completely unexplained; one second, he had just finished beating a gang of men in a tea shop during what was obviously meant to be the 1800s, and the next, he was having sex on a modern-day cruise ship. It was awesome.

"I know exactly what you're talking about. That's about as pure a life as a warrior can live. What's stopping you? I've got the acting dreams, personally, but otherwise, I'd be right there with you."

She groaned loudly. "I don't know! I've been trying to answer that question for hours! I've already got plenty of money. My mates would completely understand, and there's the internet these days, so it's not like I couldn't talk to them anymore. And, since I started this messenger business, my Art's pretty much stalled out. I'm not much better now than I was six years ago."

"I mean, JingJing, it sounds like you've spent hours trying to talk yourself out of a great idea."

"Jimbo, the 'great idea' is me becoming a homeless maniac."

"Fighting, fucking, skulling goon by the sack – whatever that means."

"I do miss those days." She rubbed her face. "Fucking hell, am I really considering this?"

"You've been considering it for hours." I smiled and took a long sip of coffee, pretty certain I had managed to convince her to give up her mercenary ways without a single Social Skill roll.

JingJing nodded, slowly at first but with increasing certainty. "You know what, Jimbo? You're fucking right." She stood up. "I'm gonna stop thinking about it and just do it. I'm walking back to Melbourne."

I nearly choked on my coffee. "I'm sorry? To where?"

"There'll be some swimming involved, of course, but that's just what I need to break through this plateau I've been in with my Art."

"'Some?'"

She let out a long breath and rolled her shoulders. "God, feel so much better having made up my mind. Thanks, Jimbo, I needed that. You're one sick cunt, mate, and a damn fine cousin. Want a quick blowie from a girl who looks almost exactly like your sister before I go?"

"I…"

"Ha! Just fucking with you, mate. Unless…" She gave me a searching look. I blinked up at her mouth agape. "No? Alright then, maybe next time. Well, better give Smoothie a kiss goodbye. Can't leave the little man thinking I won't miss him."

> [Ally Quest Complete!]

>

> Convince Li 'Blink' JingJing to become a youxia.

>

> Reward: 10XP, +2 Survival

>

> Bonus, Without any rolls: Upgrade Eagle's Talon

>

>

>

> [Master Feat] Eagle's Talon

>

> Your hands can shred steel as easily as they can flesh. Ignore the hardness of most objects, and up to 3 points of Damage negation when dealing Murderous Damage with your Eagle's Talon in a grapple.

Just one normal person, all I wanted was one normal person in my life.