The five entered Quet’s room, shutting the door and turning off the lights at Quet’s behest. Quet pressed against a nondescript section of the ground-floor wall. “Made th–”
The wall section sprang forward, revealing itself to be a concealed drawer. Half a dozen large, stuffed toy sharks, having been packed like sardines into the drawer, sprang out and spilled around Quet’s ankles. She pressed the drawer back into the wall. “Wrong closet. I’ll clean those up later.”
She tried another section lower down, this time revealing half a dozen of what looked to be wooden suitcases inside the concealed compartment. She blew the dust off of one of them and pulled it out and onto the floor. “As I was saying, I made these when I was first learning matrix construction techniques. Inexperienced fool that I was, I chose Cree style to focus on first.”
The other four sat in a circle around Quet as she placed the rectangular box in the middle and opened it. The top split in two like a set of double doors, making the old hinges squeak in protest. The inside was revealed the inside to be hollow and lined with dull, carved glyphs.
Quet winced. “Amateur work. With the Mapuche style, I could make an improved version in three– no, two months. And more portable, too. ‘Hey, let me just carry around half a dozen crates of glyphs, good to have the absolute basics on hand. Oh, I’m supposed to do a single, halfway complex spell? Sure, let me just hire a moving compan–’”
“Just turn it on,” said Waia.
“Right, okay. Yes.” Quet pressed down on a glyph in the middle of the box’s floor with her thumb, making the whole contraption light up with a green glow. A translucent jade copy of the world faded into existence a foot above the box, roughly the size of a beach ball.
While the orb began to increase in luminosity and detail, Quet continued speaking. “This little thaumaturgical mistake is tuned to sweep the planet’s ambient magic field and detect the thaumic resonances of Primus souls. I had to really turn up the sensitivity so that Deus didn’t just drown out every other Domain in the Mediterranean, so this thing should still work for the weakened Domains. We just can’t use it for too long. This was before I figured out a good emergency self-disassembly matrix. The carpet’s flammable, and I doubt any of you want a demonstration of that fact.”
Omet looked at the depiction of Mexico on the globe. In the southern half, a collection of tiny, multicolored pinpricks of light lit up and seemed to fight for dominance right about where their home was located. “Well, it’s picking us up, at least. Would be nice to know how many Domains are left, actually.”
The five observed the globe, looking out for any colors that weren’t green. On occasion, someone spotted the odd solitary, dim light. Aside from that, the western hemisphere was scanned with terrifying uneventfulness.
Dread mounted on Horan’s face. “They’re all… mortal. I– I didn’t think it would even happen that fast…”
“Looks like they got to all the others who were still doing okay.” Mark looked back at the globe, then pointed at a spot near the globe’s equator. “Hey, I’ve got a big one.”
The entire group crowded around him, trying to spot what he had seen. Sure enough, another cluster of dots slightly larger than the one in Mexico was located in northwestern India.
Quet and Omet groaned at the same time as Horan’s elated fist-pump. Waia just shrugged. “Alright. India. Don’t know much about them, but if they’ve made it this far.”
“No! No!” Omet waved their hand through the dots, making that patch of the globe fuzzy and indistinct for a few seconds. “We’ve still got something like half the planet left to check, we are not jumping to any conclusions!”
“The sweep extends in all directions,” said Quet, sitting cross-legged on the floor and hugging one of the shark toys to her chest. “India would’ve been hit close to last… Yup, that’s the Maldives covered. We just saw the location of every living Primus on earth.” She promptly closed the box with her foot, making the projection vanish in an instant. “Safety.”
Omet buried their face in a nearby beanbag chair, their frustrated scream muffled by the cushion. Meanwhile, Horan straightened up. “No, no, this is… Okay, a total of five still-immortal Domains, one of which consists entirely of me, that’s… Yeah, it’s a lot. But, but, India’s a pretty good one to have left over.” He began to count on his fingers as he spoke. “They’re pretty strong, given the former size of their civilization, even though there’s quite a few of them. Best of all, they’re not a bunch of idiots like the Norse.”
“Unlike the Norse?” Quet slid the box back into its resting place. “Yes. Not idiots? Eh…”
“Oh come on,” said Horan, “You people give them too much flak. They’re only a problem if you… Don’t do what I do when I’m around them. Breezy Slide isn’t something you’re born with, you know. It just takes training. Not even that much, really.”
Omet lifted their face out of the chair. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, and I can already tell you’re telling us to do something dumb.”
“Wh– Am not!”
Mark shot Horan a glance. “You absolutely are. I’m the only one who’s gotten into your head enough to understand your bizarre thought process, and I know exactly how stupid you’re being.”
Waia looked between Omet and Horan. “I mean, I’ve never really dealt with the Indians, so I don’t know who’s overreacting right now. Nor do I care, really. If we ask them to help us deal with the cult trying— and succeeding— to kill us all, are they gonna say yes?”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Of course.”
“No way.”
Horan’s and Omet’s answers came in at the same time. Horan looked at Omet, thought for a moment, and concluded with a “Maybe. Probably.”
“Good enough, get ‘em on the phone.” Waia made for the door. “Meanwhile, I’m gonna check out those towns Mark was talking about. See if I can figure out where the ones I’m after are hiding.”
Omet caught up with her. “Hey, we just tried to explain to you why immediately heading out and fighting stuff is a bad idea. We should at least wait until we contact the Indians before doing anything like that. And that by itself is gonna take a while, because we don’t have their number. I’m not sure they even have a phone, let alone one that still works these days.”
“Eh…” Mark shrugged. “Some reconnaissance on our part might be good, actually. We don’t know how long we have until the Servants find us. Maybe they have already and are mounting an attack as we speak. We should probably check on them, at the bare minimum.”
Waia held her hand out at Mark. “Thank you! Finally, someone who doesn’t want to just sit around and let the problem come to them! You and me, Mark. We’re gonna be the ones who actually get things done around here.”
Horan brought his arm around Omet’s shoulder and pulled them close. “And we are gonna be the ones who use our regal persuasiveness to get the Indians on side… Wait, how are we gonna do that?”
Quet pulled another hidden drawer open and removed a dusty box labeled ‘IMPRQOVE— URGENT’ in permanent marker. “I figured out how to do a proper dimensional translocation matrix thanks to notes I took in the Down Below. I just ended up misunderstanding a few variables, and now the matrix only takes you to the place in the Down Below that you were in most recently. They’ll still work for our purposes, though.”
“Oh, that’s impressive work, good job.” Omet bent slightly under the weight of Horan’s arm. “I still think trying to convince the Indians to stick their necks out for us is a bad idea.” They glanced over at Mark. “It took me a while to remember anything that stuck out from the rest of the mush of most Old World Domains, and then I realized that there isn’t much to separate them. No offence to Horan, he’s cool, but there’s not much east of the Atlantic besides caricatures of how rich humans lived in the middle ages or something.”
“That changes nothing,” declared Horan.
Quet raised her hand. “I’m willing to take one for the team, I guess. If it means Omet doesn’t have to. I already hate meeting new strangers, so this’ll be something I’m familiar with.”
Horan let go of Omet and shook his head at Quet. “Sorry, but considering all the moving parts that doing something like this on such short notice involves, it’ll just be me and Omet heading out. Mark and Waia are occupied too, so you and everyone else here can deal with the preparations. We’re coming to them, so it’s customary that we set up the frills for the negotiation social. We’re Primoi, we all know the b–”
Waia let out a groan, one meant to convey just how much disdain she had for this new aspect of the conversation. “Really? You’re all just leaning into stereotypes at this point, when you could be doing things. It’s pretty hard to find a situation where a party is less appropriate, and you do it anyway! We have bigger things to worry about than hors doov… dew… However you pronounce the party snacks!”
Horan stepped towards Waia, arms clasped in front of his chest nervously. “Okay, yeah, this feels a little inconsiderate for us to be doing when our lives are at risk, but if we’re bringing the Indians over to our place, it’ll take some dazzle to tide folks like them over. And…” He ran a hand through his hair. “This really isn’t something we should be sparing expenses on.”
“Well, sure.” Quet trotted over to Horan’s side. “That’s, yeah, that’s something I can do! I can probably find someone downstairs who can handle responsibility better than me. Or Omet can just go splitsies and be both here and there, actually.”
Omet nodded enthusiastically at the rest. “That. I’m doing that. Should’ve been obvious from the start.”
Horan shrugged. “Yeah, the Indians probably don’t know you can do that. Just don’t tell them you’re only half with them, and they probably won’t get insulted.”
“Fine then.” Waia stuffed her hands in her pockets. “Jobs assigned, plan made. I guess we sit on our hands now until you’ve all worked up the courage to do your jobs?”
Horan lifted up a torn flap of leather from the shoulder of Waia’s jacket. “I mean, you could clean yourself up, for starters. You’ve spent three-something months wearing the same clothes that you very visibly lost a fight in.”
“Hey!” Waia pulled away from him. “I didn’t lose that fight, they chickened out before I could finish the job! ‘Waia never loses’!”
“Inside voice, please.”
Waia huffed. “Doesn’t matter how long it takes or how many people I need to go through, I’m finishing what that smug little…” She turned away and went for the door. “Fine, I’ll change. But you’re not helping.”
“Check if you can borrow some of Teca’s wardrobe,” added Horan, “He’s got the same biker style as you. Pretty sure he’s still downstairs, if you want to ask.”
Mark hesitantly stood next to Horan once Waia was gone. “This might be mean, but I’m starting to regret going with her alone.”
“I do remember her being more, uh… pleasant, is the right word,” agreed Quet.
Omet sighed. “Let’s just give her some time to cool down and get settled in. This is a lot for all of us, and it’s coming all at once. We can do something relaxing this evening, something to take our minds off all this.”
Quet took a deep breath and winced at their sibling. “Actually, we should probably start by ripping the band-aid off and bringing the Greeks up to speed on the whole Orsinus thing.”
Omet shrank into their cardigan. “Should’ve expected that, actually. Not what I had in mind when I said ‘relaxing’, but I guess I don’t have much of a choice on that front.”
“Yeah…” Quet made airquotes with her hands. “It’s not really ‘ripping the band-aid off’ when we’ve been avoiding it for three months.”
Omet glanced around the dark, cluttered room before turning back to Quet. “Hey, are you gonna be using that beanbag for anything?”
“...Nothing planned, no.”
“Cool, thanks.” Omet faceplanted into the cushioned fabric, arms splayed wide. “I’m just gonna lie here for a while, if that’s okay.”
“Nah, it’s cool.” Quet sat by her desk and opened up several drawers built into the legs. “I’ll keep myself busy by going through my collection for any matrices that might be useful for prepping this place. That’ll hopefully assuage the lingering idea that our home could be attacked by murder cultists at any moment.”
“Yeah, um…” Horan left the room with Mark in tow. “Some time to gather our nerves would be nice.”
Alone with her sibling, Quet looked from the glyph-filled drawers and toward where Omet was lying. “This is worth breaking our May local-meals-only tradition prematurely, right?”
“Mmf.”