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A week after their return to Earth, Vincent was ready to make his first trip back to Stellarterra. There were no new recruits to bring with him, but Bee had enchanted a lot of trinkets, and he hoped those would make a good addition to the mercs’ skills.

There was the matter of making sure he had as many Karmic Charges as possible, though, so he had postponed his trip until after the first stage of the talent show. Which was to follow in minutes.

“You’re on,” the assistant said.

“Let’s knock their socks off,” Vincent said, entering the stage briskly and sending kisses in the air. Behind him, Lila followed, carrying a small cage covered with a velvet drape. “I miss you, everyone,” Vincent yelled, waving around.

“Did you?” someone with a microphone hissed in an unfriendly voice.

Vincent froze. It was the blonde from the jury who had given him her phone number. What’s she, again? Actress? Singer? Shit! She must be mad I didn’t call her… and maybe jealous of Lila too! Fuck…

Swallowing a lump, he continued in a less self-assured tone. “Err… Today, we would like to demonstrate mass hypnosis. I will let my trusted assistant and friend, Lila de Rosa, continue.

Albeit she stared a dozen daggers at him, Lila pulled the drape from the cage, put the item on the floor, and opened the door. “Don’t be afraid of Sven. He’s the gentlest spider in the world. He comes from another planet and can talk. Right, Sven?”

“Truly so, beautiful girl,” Sven chirped, advancing on stage. His hair had been coated with hair gel to make him appear smaller. Nevertheless, the spider was as big as a cat. People whispered in public, and the jury asked themselves if it was a remote-controlled toy. As for the voice, they all believed it was ventriloquism.

“I’ll count on you two to charm the audience while I travel to an alternate reality to save an alien planet,” Vincent said, dressing himself in the Raven’s armor, spear in hand, then disappearing. Uff… I hope that the blonde will be less cranky with me gone. Anyway, it’s for the public to decide…

A scream made him jolt, pulling his attention back to reality. He had aimed to arrive east of Cottbus, in the Wrocslau Khan’s camp. He was in a room, a sort of cellar, with bars at the windows. People were screaming, and Vincent realized they were afraid. He was in the doorframe, and behind him, a blaze raged. Profiled by the light of the inferno, his shade, armor, and spear appeared ominous.

“Don’t be afraid, I will not harm you!” Vincent shouted. “Where did I land?”

“We’re in Cottbus, sir,” a young man said. He was protectively sitting in front of the others.

There were another three people there: a stocky man in his sixties dressed in all black, a woman his age, and a younger one. The women had a weird uniform with white collars and a deep blue scarf around their hair.

“Are you nurses?” he asked.

“We’re nuns,” the younger woman said.

“I am a nun,” the older one said, pursing her lips and speaking in a vinegary-like voice. “You are a whore, inviting men in our midst—”

“We were just… reading poetry together,” the young woman yelled back. “I don’t even want to be a nun, my parents—"

“HEY!” Vincent yelled. “I don’t care. What happened here?”

“Prince’s Valor’s army has besieged the city, sir,” the young man said. “The local garrison has switched sides, welcoming him, then that arrived,” he pointed toward the window.

The fire was spreading behind Vincent, engulfing the building, maybe forty yards away. He could see dead bodies lying on the corridor, and the smell of burned flesh was reaching his nostrils. Retching, he advanced into the room, closing the door behind him.

“Let me see,” he asked.

Above the city floated an abomination of a spaceship, shaped like an immense rusted barrel with bay windows on its front. It was shooting a giant flamethrower at the buildings below, also plowing the city with a blue beam that made the buildings rise in the air, then fall down in pieces.

“Dragon, do you copy, Dragon, do you copy? This is Axe Raven. Over.” Nothing but static replied on the radio. “Shit…” Smoke was beginning to enter the room.

“Sir, help us. Maybe we can pull the bars out together,” the young man implored.

They were not in a cellar but a pantry one or two stories above the ground, probably the hideout of the two lovers. Vincent could see the scenario rolling in his mind: the young ones had been discovered, and the older nun and what was most likely a priest had arrived to scold them. That saved their lives because the rest of the monastery was all ruins, as far as he could see from the window.

In his Menu, the Karmic Charges had started to roll up, which meant Lila and Sven had performed well. However, Vincent’s part was only secondary, so he gained only twenty Charges.

“You have a few more minutes to live,” he addressed the young couple. “Do you want to die in sin or like honest, married people? I’m a duke and have the power to bond you together if so you want.”

“Son, I’m a Hussite priest!” the old man spoke for the first time. “I should be the one—"

“How long would your ceremony would take?” Vincent asked.

“Not long. Maybe half an hour?”

“We don’t have that much. So, what do you say, guys?”

After looking into each other eyes, the two lovers nodded, holding hands.

“Do you…” Vincent looked at the man.

“Karl.”

“And…”

“Anna.”

“Wish to marry each other? Great. I pronounce you husband and wife,” Vincent said after they confirmed their intentions.”Now, get behind me.”

Striding was broken; Vincent felt it in his senses as he looked through the window at the garden below. He knew instinctively the targeting was malfunctioning. Breaking the bars was possible, but there was no rope to climb down. He sent his spear into storage and kicked the wall with his foot. It showed cracks, and at the second kick, it fell outward, leaving a gap ten feet wide.

“Come here,” he beckoned the newlyweds. “Grab my neck and hold tight.”

Taking the two by the waist, he jumped, landing safely, then returned to bring the priest and the nun. The monastery courtyard was sizable and safe from the fire and the collapsing building. The spaceship was also getting away. His Karmic Charges increased by six from tricking the two into marriage and the four lives saved. This demonstrated that marriage, even if it was a bit rushed, was a good thing.

“You guys should leave the city and aim for the hills,” he told them. “I’ll have to take care of that thing… whatever it is…”

“Thank you,” the young woman said, then the four ran away, the priest panting while struggling to keep up. More fasting and less scolding would be good for you, Vincent thought.

Trying to get the radio to work failed again. He was on the point of activating his ring connection when he heard a voice.

“Vincent, do you copy?”

“Bee?”

“Yes! Wow… this ring stuff is so neat. I have news. We got to the next stage.”

“Listen, this is not the best moment—”

“And you won’t believe it, but there’s a martial arts team in the competition. Brigid is in it.”

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

“The princess?”

“Yeah… She caught bullets with her teeth stuff. Anyway… She was asked why is she there and told she wanted to humiliate you. Quoting: ‘I want to make Vincent bite the dust. He’s a man with no honor.’ Everybody thought you two were in love, and you dumped her.”

“Shit!”

“Yeah… And they weren’t going to make it, but as soon she said that, the blonde in the jury gave Brigid’s team the platinum buzzer, sending them to the next stage.”

“Fuck… never mind… Problem for another time. Look, Bee, my Striding is malfunctioning. I got diverted several miles west into the city. Any idea why?”

“Hm… It could be the System… I think it included some sort of navigation in the world map. Is there anything out of the ordinary with you? I dunno… do you have a cold, or—”

“There’s nothing out of the ordinary… Ah… except a giant spaceship setting the town on fire.”

“A what?”

“A—”

“I heard you the first time; I was just… surprised. Maybe it has a warp drive. The first thing that comes to my mind is that anything that messes with space could influence your ability.”

“I understand…”

“Have to go… Brigid has announced a press conference, and I have obtained a press badge. I want to inspect that armor of hers. I think it’s also a pod, like the Queen’s.”

“Don’t get yourself killed,” Vincent sighed, closing the communication and starting another with Dragon. He had to wait for a few minutes until the mercenary answered.

“Axe Raven? Dragon here. I’m a bit busy.”

“Don’t tell me you’re running from a spaceship?”

“I’m doing exactly that… We’re in the Bug, trying to lure that thing away until we can call an orbital strike. You’re here?”

“Bingo. I landed in the city instead of the camp. What’s going on?”

“You tell me. All was smooth; the town surrendered, and then the ship appeared and started to burn everything.”

“I’ll see if I can help… Don’t call the strike without telling me.”

“Sure.”

The ship had almost disappeared behind the line of the roofs. Vincent took the System ball out of storage, holding it in front of his eyes.

“Hey. Is Elkandaros around?”

The System: The Grand Archetype subroutines are sleeping. Hey, we’re back on—

“Can you wake him up? I have something like a problem here.”

Elkandaros: I am hearing you. What do you need of me?

“There’s a giant ship that interferes with my ability. Can you—”

A loud static noise burst from his radio, and then the Archetype’s voice spoke through it. “If you modify your armor to carry the diamond, I can assist you in calibrating your jumps in real-time.”

“Great…”

The Raven Armor felt Vincent’s desire on the spot, and the metal started to shift. A nook started to grow until it became a slim metallic backpack. Twisting his arms backward, Vincent inserted the crystal, and the armor squeezed itself around the object.

“Here you go. I trust you’re tough enough to resist bullets or—”

“Yes, the diamond support can withstand a good amount of damage. I detect the problem. That ship is constructed around the pod of Thorrak, the Archetype of Oaths and Dwarves.”

“How can a pod—”

“I can tell you only this: When this personality’s owner was very old, he made a second voyage to the spiders’ planet and returned with the pods. Everyone thought they were meant to help the Archetypes live longer and, in turn, help the System. But the real Elkandaros told me that the pods were made with a special mini tech—”

“Nanotech?”

“Tiny constructs and advanced materials that could shapeshift.”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“And that provided a powerful energy source; those pods could be used to travel in space by themselves. I’m detecting that the dwarf has connected his pot to the ship. He must’ve found such a source.”

“Vincent, the ship is at a safe distance from Cottbus,” Dragon spoke from the ring..” Can we call a strike?”

“Affirmative, I’m still in the town. Keep me posted... Oh… Dragon?”

“Yes.”

“I think that ship might have a nuclear engine or something. Maybe— Shit…”

A line of fire crashed into the land, making a giant plume of smoke erupt toward the sky. However, the ship was still flying.

Dragon’s voice came back. “The ship has disappeared for a second. The rod has passed through it without doing any damage. We’re down to two rods.”

“So little? How?”

“We fired some at the Byzantines to make them retire… they’re switching to lightning bolts… We have to retreat.”

“I’ll go in and see what I can do. Vincent out. Elkandaros, are you sure you can help me jump?”

“I will try. Make a try first to check. Maybe to the end of the garden?”

Vincent Strode right up, for three miles. It worked… maybe just with a slight deviation east, but it could have been the angle of his eyesight. He dismissed his armor and summoned his army tactical suit with minimal gliding wings.

Cottbus was a large city as big as Pragwyn and an important trading border town between the Federation, Wrocslau, and the Vikings. Berlin was not a thing on Stellarterra; the capital of the Germanic provinces of the Celtic Federation was in Munich. Passing through the middle of the city, from west to east, was a hundred yards width line of destruction.

Lower in altitude and miles ahead, the immense rusted barrel was turning eastward toward the Mongol camp. The Bug was zig-zagging, avoiding the lightning bolts the ship threw with abandon. The blue beam and the firethrower had stopped.

“It’s a mining ship,” Elkandaros said. “I do not detect any shielding.”

Vincent Strode on the ship's upper hull, resummoning his armor. The speed was slow, and he had no problems standing up. In the distance, there was a hatch, and he walked toward it, trying not to stomp his feet on the hull. The mechanism was a wheel, and after turning it leftward, the hatch opened. There was a stair beneath, and Vincent took it.

“Any idea where the controls are?”

“Maybe forward,” Elkandaros replied in a low voice.

Vincent ground his teeth. That much was obvious. The ship was at least a thousand feet long and three hundred in width. That could mean a labyrinth of corridors and spaces. He proceeded as fast as possible, enveloping himself in both his Outsider’s Cloak and Shadow Armor. The first lagged behind, as he hadn’t trained extensively with it, but it muffled sounds better.

The ship’s plan was simple. Layers of floors, twenty feet high—for whatever reason—wider as he descended. After the tenth floor, filled with conducts and cables, followed the tanks, a black emptiness. Vincent returned to the ninth story and proceeded onward.

He passed a cantina, which was empty, and a few empty public spaces that were probably meeting and training rooms. There was nobody there. Or nobody human. A loud noise of sniffing made him stop and hug the wall. A large shape advanced, its head in the air. It was a giant mole covered in armor, as big as an elephant or not much smaller. Its three-foot-long claws were covered in a thick metal sheet.

“The Dwarves train them to dig into asteroids,” Elkandaros whispered. “Very tough beasts.”

Vincent had no idea moles roared, but this one did and rushed him. He Strode aside, plunging his spear into the beast’s flank between two metal sheets. It hit a leathery hide and did not do much damage, but it enraged the beast. A claw swipe made Vincent duck and retreat and cut through the corridor wall like through paper, exposing a public bathroom with rows of showers. The monster was not only strong but also very fast.

“Why don’t you shoot it?” Elkandaros asked.

“Too noisy,” Vincent groaned. He used his Stride attack, propulsing himself into the beast. That broke both the armor and the monster’s back. A torrent of blood erupted from the mole, running on the floor. A thrust with the spear, enhanced with Dark Damage—in the head, and the beast remained still.

There was no time to rejoice, though. A second beast, then a few more, appeared from the direction the first had come.

“The fuck with the noise,” Vincent swore, pulling out his assault rifle. Both the weapon and the bullets were enchanted, and he added a coat of Dark Damage as well because it had worked well against the first mole.

He started to shoot bursts of three bullets. He took out the mole ahead, then the one behind, and then the walls started to collapse, revealing a dozen monsters sniffing the air. Vincent Strode returned to the corridor to the first set of stairs, extracted a few dirty socks and a T-shirt, threw them on the ground, and then jumped up one floor at a time, leaving a trail of used clothes. He finished his track on the ship’s hull again, waited half a minute, then traveled back to where he had fought the first beast. As anticipated, the space was empty; the lure had worked.

The System: I can understand why, but littering is still bad.

“Shut up, asshole!”

This time, Vincent ran forward at full speed. There were no more opponents, and two hundred feet later, he reached the command center, a vast space as wide as the ship, with a window revealing the landscape below. The corridor ended on a ledge. In the middle of the empty space floated what should have been a dwarf, but it was more massive than Vincent in height and width. His body was covered in thick armor with long cables stuck in it. Conversely, the filaments ended inside strange machines destined to drive the ship. Thorrak, the Archetype of Oaths and Dwarves, the tag said.

One such cable was passing two yards from Vincent. He changed his spear’s form into a cleaver blade polearm, registered as both an axe and spear, and cut the cable in one stroke, making sparks flow.

“Stop, idiot!” the dwarf yelled. “We’ll crash!”

“No, you’ll crash. I’ll be fine,” Vincent said, extending his ar for another cut. His guess was that the dwarf couldn’t fight while being tied in those lines and that the enemy’s size was due more to lots of hamburgers than exercise. Below them was only a forest, with still a few miles to the Mongol camp. It was a good spot to get rid of the ship. “Do you surrender?”

“Surrender?” Thorrak sneered. “I swore to get revenge on you, Vincent Valaška, or die trying. You cost me millions! Millions! Hard earned money that—”

“Die trying it is,” Vincent said, taking his gun out and emptying his magazine in the dwarf. The armor repelled most bullets, but a few hit Thorrak in the neck.

“Auto-destruction!” the dwarf gurgled, producing a dead-men switch and pressing the button. Around him, the space started to bend and whirl.

“I advise against using Stride. You risk being torn to pieces. I can’t calibrate your jumps anymore,” Elkandaros said quickly. “That’s a strong spatial distortion, maybe even a black hole.”

“Fuck!”

The magazine was empty, and replacing it would have taken precious time. In a last-ditch attempt to escape the upcoming explosion, Vincent summoned his pocket universe, Outsider’s Refuge. The space collapsed into itself for two more seconds, and then the ship was gone, and he found himself floating in the air.

“Err… that didn’t look like an explosion to me,” he said.

“I think it was a diversion, and the dwarf ran away,” Elkandaros mumbled. “I’m sure he had a strong heal or a Rezz to revive himself. Thorrak is a shrewd opponent.”

“I need a bigger gun,” Vincent complained.

The System: You need to charge more Dark Damage into your hits. You’re still unused to your full potential. Since we’re back here, why don’t we go up and check on my secondary mainframe? I can show you the location in your mind.

“If there’s a new System around, they found it already. It must be guarded. I won’t jump blindly into a trap.”

The System: Maybe they didn’t find it but built their own—

“Axe Raven, this is Dragon,” the radio said. “Did you disintegrate that ship?”

“It run away. I’m coming in,” Vincent said, dismissing the Refuge and jumping inside the camp.