One of the locals held up an empty, grease-stained paper plate. “Refill!”

Quet rolled her eyes, cleared her throat, and looked down at the glyph which lay in the middle of a metal tray on the floor. She bellowed a shaky ‘New York style!’ in the best Brooklyn accent she could muster, and a steaming half-and-half pizza appeared on the tray, already cut into eight perfectly even slices.

The locals gathered around Quet’s circle of pots roared with approval and snatched up the fresh slices in seconds. Quet swallowed her own spit and turned to Kris behind her, the local who had been working the pots before the group’s arrival fifteen minutes prior, “Hey, uh, how are things on your end?”

“Looks about ready to serve,” said Kris, examining the brown meat in the pots. “But I’m getting a sneaking suspicion that this stuff is going to be overshadowed. Already has been, really.”

Quet shrugged. “Well, it’s the journey, not the destination. It’s normal for sous chefs to dispense wisdom, right? I wouldn’t know, I’ve never done this before, it’s great.”

Kris raised an eyebrow. “You’ve never been a sous chef before? How’d you learn to cook then, since you act like a professional?”

“Completely self-taught,” said Quet. “At least, no long-term mentorship program, just the occasional consultation. It was pretty hard to find a long-term teacher in fifteenth-century Mexico for this kind of thing, given the ‘unmanliness’ of the profession. I mean, they turned out to be right in my case, but it was still inconvenient at the time. The past sucked, man.”

“…You have had such an interesting life.”

“Eh, not really.” Quet started switching off the camping stoves. “Just ten boring lifetimes with enough stuff between them to count as one interesting one.”

On the other side of the circle of pots, one of the locals nudged Mark. “Hey, new guy. You haven’t gotten your own slice, you want me to reach over and get one for you?”

“I’ve eaten nothing but Neapolitan and bacon-and-feta pizza for the past five months,” said Mark. “I’ll take the brown meat.” He held out his plate and let Quet ladle a dollop of unidentifiable ‘meat’ for him.

Quet started tipping all the pots of brown meat into a single large saucepan. “Hey, um, any other takers for the meat stuff?”

No response whatsoever came back.

“Told you,” said Kris.

Quet shrugged. “As long as you have some means of refrigeration available, the brown meat can wait for later, probably indefinitely. The brown meat is forever, after all, but the pizza is now.”

“Or…” Mark grabbed the saucepan’s handles and hefted it onto his lap, boundless greed in his eyes. He removed his gloves and savored the feeling of hot metal against cold skin.

“That works too,” said Quet. “I like how much we’ve been winning today.”

“Your optimism is starting to get annoying,” replied Kris.

“Means I’m doing it right.” Quet leaned towards the glyph on the tray, grimaced at the amount of grease and cheese residue coating its surface, and yelled “New York style!” again. She turned back to Kris. “So after th–”

“Before you talk about anything else,” said Mark, setting the empty saucepan back on one of the stoves, “we should probably discuss the more imm–”

“Did you eat a liter of brown meat in fifteen seconds?” asked Quet.

“Yeah,” continued Mark. “As I was–”

“Wi–with your bare hands?”

“Yes, now can we please move on to when we actually leave?”

Several of the locals near Mark groaned at his question.

Mark rolled his eyes. “Look, whether or not we’re fun to have around, we still have a magic everything-fixer to find, and if we end up spending another four months making nonstop pizza for four dozen people, the Servants are gonna end up doing something that puts us all in the grave for good. So like it or not, we need to keep moving. I’m sure the citizens of Portland, Oregon can have all the pizza they want once they have their friends and families back.”

Horan shrugged. “Yeah, fun as this has been, I’m not letting a random room in the sewers turn into some drug-lotus trap for us. We can do with a break from nothing but clouds and snow day in and day out, but we did come here for a reason.”

“See? Horan gets it.” Mark reached a hand towards Quet. “Hey, can I s–?”

“Rainier’s right about a hundred miles from here,” said Waia, “if we move in a straight line.”

“…Oh, okay.” Mark retracted his hand. “I was gonna… Hey, how do you know that? Like, off by memory?”

Waia purse her lips and shrugged. “Dunno, I… saw it? On Quet’s map? Look, it– that’s what it is, now what are you going to do with that info?”

“…Alright, well…” Mark narrowed his eyes and hummed quietly to himself for a moment. “…We won’t be able to go in a straight line, but we do have Waia to clear a path through the snow for us now, so… Before, I’d put that as another two weeks from here, but thanks to Waia, we can probably manage that in just under one.”

Quet snapped and pointed a finger gun at Waia. “Nice.”

Waia shrugged. “Just walking.”

“So I say we do a three-to-one ratio,” continued Mark. Two days here, starting now, then six more on the road. We can figure out what to do after that once we actually get to Mount Rainier.”

Quet returned from refreshing the pizza-glyph, still facing the crowd of locals. “But that’s the last one! You’ve all had plenty!”

Another groan rippled through the crowd.

Mark frowned. “What are these people, six?”

Quet sat down cross-legged across from the other three. “Okay, so we’re here, in this room, for forty-eight hours, yeah?”

“I mean, you three can wander around up top if you want,” said Mark. “See the sights. Just don’t get lost.”

“My point is,” continued Quet, “is that everything we need to get in order here? Because if we’re good on the planning front, I feel like I wanna start having a real look around this place. See if they have any glyph-carving tools or whatever. It’s been too long, Mang.”

Mark sighed. “Yeah, that’s everything.”

“Awesome.” Waia got to her feet. “Hey, Quet, wanna see how far away I can melt things from?”

“Ooh, scientific.” Quet got up and followed Waia into the crowd.

Mark sat alone with Horan, quiet for a few moments. Eventually, he thought of something to discuss. “So, my stomach is really starting to hurt, I probably shouldn’t have eaten that much brown meat that fast. Later, I’ll probably have t–”

“Okay,” interrupted Horan, “how about we talk about what I wanna talk about.”

“Yeah, alright.”

“Good, because, uh…” Horan chuckled. “You know what day it is today?”

“Horan, I don’t even know whether or not it’s day at all. My circadian rhythm is determined by the roll of a dice.”

“Well, one, it’s ‘die’, but also, it’s October sixth.”

Mark blinked. “…Okay. Is that my birthday?”

“No, it… Is it?”

Mark shrugged. “This is what happens when you don’t think about something for several years. The details fade away.”

“Then stop throwing me off my game, dude!” Horan took a deep breath. “I’m trying to explain that October sixth was the day Thel cut up my left eye and threw me through a wall into the Sahara Desert.”

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

“…So, it’s the one year anniversary of us meeting?”

Horan grinned. “Exactly.”

Mark nodded. “Okay, is this the part where you give some big speech about how much you’ve learned?”

“Oh, no–no–no.” Horan curled his upper lip and shook his head. “The past three hundred and sixty-five days have constituted what has quite decidedly been the worst year of my life, and I have gained almost nothing of value.”

Mark shrugged and nodded. “Yeah, that’s probably the most reasonable response.”

“To put things into perspective regarding how well I’ve adapted to all this, by the way,” continued Horan, “Whenever I wake up, it takes a couple seconds for me to mentally remind myself that no, I’m not in my personal bedroom in the extradimensional palace quote-unquote ‘inside’ the Great Pyramid. So, uh, bare minimum, the awfulness of the past year hasn’t yet been enough to override five consecutive millennia of persistent routine. So there’s that.”

“Best we can hope for,” replied Mark. “Now what?”

Horan shrugged in turn. “Who says there’s a ‘what’ after now? It’s a cool landmark, isn’t it? In our relationship?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Mark stood up, wincing at the feeling of blood rushing back into skin that had been pressed against the hard floor. Also at the inhuman amount of brown meat sloshing around in his gut. Also the general sensation of joints that hadn’t been prepared to suddenly have pressure placed on them. All in all, the act of standing had harshly reminded him that he was, in fact, entering his late thirties.

Horan noticed Mark struggling to move and floated to his feet. “Hey, c’mon, let’s go meet some new people.”

“Don’t ruin a good thing,” mumbled Mark.

-

Waia flexed her arm and instantly liquefied the brick that had been placed in front of her. “Okay, that’s… I think that’s as far as I can push it without Amping. Starting to feel like I can’t clench my me-ness any harder.”

“Noted. Also, gross.” Quet squatted down, picked up a stick of green chalk and drew a line over the middle of the already-cool puddle of slag. Then, she produced a length of measuring tape and held it between the line and an identical one on a puddle a few inches closer to Waia. “That makes two metres and eighteen centimetres, which to you is…” She turned to one of the locals watching the scene. “You there. Canadian. Convert to imperial.”

The local shrugged. “About seven foot two?”

Quet raised both fists in the air. “Sublime!”

The local glanced from Quet to Waia. “So, are you American then? I thought you were supposed to be crazy old or something.”

Waia sighed. “Technically yes, but don’t ever describe me like that.”

“Alright, and, like…” The local gestured at the chalk lines on the floor. “Is this what you people do in your free time? Melt stuff for fun?”

Waia folded her arms over her chest. “As a trend. I bet one of the reasons we never went public is because every scientist on earth would want nothing more than to study us and find out how none of us ever get bored by doing the same thing over and over for hundreds of years.”

“It’s comforting…” mumbled Quet.

“And look at where it’s left everyone now, right?” Waia performed a chuckle. “I kept telling in my Domain that rating human musicians from a hundred years ago isn’t some radical thing anymore, and now everyone but me–”

“Okay,” declared Quet, quickly standing up and walking over to Waia’s side. “We don’t need to make things all depressing for everyone here, right? We’ve, uh, we’ve got a whole mood built up, no need to ruin it.”

“I…” Waia scoffed. “Okay, fine. Today’s been too long to get into this. Typical.”

One of the locals sitting nearby looked up at the two Primoi. “Never thought the two-metre-tall immortal amazons would be the ones coming to folks like us for help.”

Waia shrugged and turned to walk away. “Has to be someone. Hey, uh, Quet, I’m getting antsy. Let’s see if we can jus–”

“May I have your attention, please!”

Quet jolted at the sound of someone shouting into a megaphone, a sound which was only made worse by the acoustics of the enclosed chamber. She turned to see the source of the noise, and her heart dropped into her stomach.

Five figures wearing standard Huntsman equipment stood at one of the processing station’s many entrances. One of them had removed his gas mask to speak into the megaphone, which had since been clipped back onto the Huntsman’s belt now that the Servants had the attention of everyone in the room.

“The five of us are here on the behalf of the Servants of Reckoning, and we don’t mean any of you harm.”

Quet and Waia both shifted back into their human forms before they could be picked out of the crowd.

“We picked up a hotspot on our infrared scanning equipment, and we came here to make sure you’re actually people. We and several more of us, who are still above-ground, have come to Portland to track down an extremely dangerous individual called the Burning One. It’s a member of a race of immortal beings called Primoi, the same things that took our loved ones from us and ended the world. The Burning One is one of the most dangerous of these Primoi that we know of, and has killed tens of thousands of innocent people.”

Mark and Horan emerged from the crowd and grabbed Quet and Waia, quietly pulling them towards one of the entrances on the other side of the room from the Servants.

One of the locals looked to the person to their left, who shook their head in response. “Yeah, sorry, but we know someone who’s making things up on the spot when we see them.”

“I understand that we don’t seem like the most trustworthy people,” continued the lead Huntsman, “I really do. But I promise we have your best interests at heart, just like we do with all of humanity. Right now, the Burning One poses a direct threat to everyone in the city, so we’re down here to inform you about it and encourage you all to keep your heads down while we blockade the city and–”

Several locals began to shout the Huntsman down.

“It– It’s to… We–” The Huntsman brought the megaphone back up. “Quiet! Please!”

The locals backed down, shouted temporarily into submission.

The Huntsman grimaced and lowered the megaphone. “Look, we’re going to blockade the city anyway. The Burning One needs to be stopped here, or it’s going to wipe out what’s left of North America. I’m down here, me and my team, because we really don’t want anyone else to get hurt. From the bottom of my heart, we’re here for your own good, so please cooperate. We won’t fight back if you make things hard for us, but if you make a scene, the Burning One will come for you, and it won’t hesitate to slaughter every single one of you.”

“Those’re awfully easy words for you to say, eh,” said one local. “Don’t mean they have to be true.”

“Yes, I…” The Huntsman sighed and looked at the floor.

One of the other Huntsmen removed her gas mask and patted the Huntsman in the lead on the shoulder, looking out at the crowd. “This ain’t easy to deal with all of a sudden, I know. We all do. Hundreds of thousands of people have had pretty similar reactions to y’all, all over the world, us included. But we were able to set aside our basic survival instincts and learn to work for something greater than ourselves. We ain’t here to hurt you, I promise. What Trevor here was trying to get here is that we came here with relief efforts for you all, since we know firsthand how hard it is to get by these days. We’ve got food supplies, clean water, blankets, the whole package. Call it a show of good faith.”

One of the locals folded their arms and huffed. “Well, looks like our old meal ticket’s been chased off…”

“I… Yeah, sure.” The first Huntsman gave a slow nod at what the local had said. “We mean it when we say that our first concern is to keep people like you safe, and the first step of that is you people helping us find and deal with the problems that arrived just ahead of us. If you have any idea of what they look like or where to find them, tell the Huntsmen at once. Among the Servants, we have a policy where any Huntsman who manages to kill a Primus, or any civilian who aids a Huntsman in killing a Primus, receives more than enough of a reward to put you on top of everyone else around you.”

Some locals attempted to protest such a statement, but the crowd at large was already looking amongst themselves for the shapeshifting giants that had arrived half an hour prior. But the Primoi had already vanished from their midst.

–

Waia gripped the bars of a drainage grille that led further down into the sewers, melting the rusted iron into a puddle that cooled down enough to solidify in seconds. She ushered the other three through the opening.

As he landed atop five inches of frozen sewage, Mark pounded the concrete wall of the sewage pipe with the side of his gloved fist. “They knew we’d try that! Of course we would! And now they’ve got us trapped in here! We don’t get a chance to feel safe for thirty minutes!”

“Bright side,” mumbled Quet, “there’s no way they’re going to nuke their own guys. So as long as we can get away without them knowing, it’s olly olly oxen free, right?”

“And how do you propose we do that?” asked Mark.

Quet decided to stop talking.

“Okay, just…” Horan put his hands around Mark’s shoulders. “It’s been recently established that safety might not play as big a role in Mark’s decision-making than would be preferable, so I’m going to take over for him real quick and say that we should just play this one, uh, safe.”

“Safety plays the biggest role in my plans,” mumbled Mark.

“Yeah, says you.” Horan cleared his throat and moved away from Mark. “Look, as long as we don’t draw too much attention to ourselves with our climate-inappropriate outfits and/or magic powers, we don’t need to worry about getting caught. Until Torch or a Chosen or whatever else comes up here, at which point we’ll probably get sniffed out pretty quick.”

“Exactly,” said Mark, “which is why–”

“Which is why,” continued Horan, glaring at Mark, “we should still focus on speed. Waia, you can probably tunnel out of here without going aboveground, right?”

“Not if I want to leave enough un-collapsed space behind me to let three other people follow me,” said Waia.

“…Okay, that’s out.”

Mark nudged Horan with his elbow. “If I could actually get the chance to add something to all this, I would actually suggest that Horan has the right idea. I’m not an idiot, man.”

“Yeah, I might’ve done a bit much,” mumbled Horan.

“But there’s got to be some hole in the Servants’ blockade,” continued Mark. “A full perimeter of the city and surrounding sprawl would be something like a hundred miles long, and they’d have to deal with rivers, ruined terrain, stuff like that. If they got here as fast as they did, they can’t have much in the way of numbers. If we act fast, we can find a weak link and move on into Washington before the city is properly encircled.”

“And what happens if we can’t do that?” asked Waia.

“We can,” replied Mark coldly. “Horan, Waia, you head aboveground and look for ways out up there, discreetly. Quet and I will do the same thing underground. There’s a river just to the east of here, we meet up where the highway we’ve been following crosses over, one hour from now. Horan has a watch.”

Quet raised a hand. “But isn’t tha–?”

Mark grabbed Quet by the wrist. “You can complain on the way, we have places to scout.”