Eris must have thrown me into Paradise, I realized, as I landed and regained my bearings.
Skyscrapers stretched upwards, each one hundreds of floors tall. Most of the windows were covered in jewels, and every building was interwoven with a dozen others through an overwhelming quantity of skywalks. You could probably cross the city without ever needing to enter the street level. That was good for anyone who lived there, because the street was as filthy as the buildings weren’t. Garbage bags lined the street, and grime, rot, and rust covered the lowest floors of the buildings, at least on the outside.
Far in the distance, I could see this district was surrounded by four massive walls. Black and white stood on one pair of opposite ends, and red and blue on the other.
Paradise wasn’t a dream, but it was conceptually so similar that I could use my abilities as though it was. As a result, I couldn’t drag anyone into a dream here.
I took a moment to consider the situation. Eris was fighting William, and her odds were probably not good, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that. Copper was missing, and possibly dead, but even if he wasn’t, he was in the dream and I was in Paradise. I couldn’t help him.
What could I do here that was helpful to my objectives or helpful in general? I could try to find and free any angels or people being dissected into angels. The sponsored quest made it more tempting. I mean, this wasn’t the time to be worried about making a profit from the situation. I was at serious risk of dying. But it still meant that if I did make it out I’d acquire a good amount of collateral profit.
I needed to figure out where the Angels were either made or stored. Now that I had an objective, it was simply a matter of figuring out how to act on that objective. I’d never gotten involved in Paradise’s mess until much later, usually well after William had died. I had no idea where the angel-making workshop would be.
At least, I hoped it was a workshop. I’d never seen any evidence that this Paradise had ever had an angel factory, but I usually only came when it was more wrecked than this. Angel factories were horrific. I really didn’t want the first run I encountered one to be the run where everything was real. Angel Workshops would be bad enough, but mass production made the entire process crueler and more overwhelmingly awful.
I was startled by Sandy’s voice coming from a speaker. Unlike before, it was a single male voice, distorted by static. “Thresher, you’re not going to find anyone by wandering aimlessly. Anyone in this district was earmarked for the Workshops, and by now they’ve either been taken or escaped.”
“That’s horrible.” I said, reflexively.
“It is indeed an atrocity.” Sandy said, “Regardless, you should look for a rail transit terminal, which, relative to this speaker, is four blocks towards the black wall and one block towards the red one. Once you’re there, enter your full name, and it will take you to rendezvous with a Vermin team who will provide you with our Angel stockpile. We’ve managed to steal some, you see, and we’d like you to free them. After that, they’ll brief you on some options for your next steps.”
“Why are you helping me?” I asked.
“As far as I can see, you and Eris are the only ones who can break the bindings.” Sandy said, “Without being able to unbind the Angels, any triumph over William would be pyrrhic at best. Now go!”
I nodded, and ran for the skyrail terminal.
---
[New Bond Established: Sandy (?) - Distant]
[New Skill Acquired! “Seer of Strife”: Within a Dream, grants a slight precognitive intuition of how to move your weapon to successfully defend yourself or attack another, and a similar intuition for selecting weapons. However, this cannot grant experience with the weapon, and can be toggled between “Attack”, “Defense” and “None”. In either case, the intuition will not be concerned with anything other than successfully attacking the enemy or defending yourself, and so may suggest inefficient approaches, such as taking a lethal blow to land your own or successfully parrying a strike that will break your weapon.
There will be a two-second shutdown when toggled. Temporal Distance of the precognition scales with Dream Manipulation and Potency both. At your current stats, your intuition grants you a fraction of a second of precognition. This ability will function better or worse depending on outside factors.]
---
The skyrail itself was a monorail, like a small train car sitting on a single rail. Inside was well-lit, and could’ve been a bus back on earth. Windows lined the sides, but I couldn’t see out the front, and therefore couldn’t see where the rails went. The car moved with terrifying speed over the city, and I could see the gleaming upper half of most of the buildings in the city. All of them looked solid, but the level of wealth they showed off varied dramatically, and between sectors of the city. The plainest were somehow made from brick, and the wear in them was already obvious. The rest were covered in increasingly ornate metals, slowly progressing from dull to tacky.
In the very center of the city was the worst of the lot. A massive skyscraper stretched to the sky, and was haphazardly coated in priceless gems. I should clarify here, not only was it at least twenty stories higher than the next closest skyscraper, but it was at least half a mile across on each side. The rest of the district was only marginally less horribly ornate, though the other buildings were dramatically less excessive. In the distance, past all the district walls I had seen, a single massive silver wall surrounded the entirety of the city. On one side of it, apparently-empty forest was all that could be seen. On the other side, nothing but water could be seen.
The Skyrail suddenly arced downwards, shifting from one rail to another, and the car plummeted beneath the ground. Once it did, it moved through a dark corridor for a few seconds, and then violently slammed to a stop. The room it dropped me off in was dim, and I could barely see.
“Welcome to shelter twenty-three, holy one.” The car’s speakers announced.
Two people stood waiting for me as I exited the car. I couldn’t see well enough to make out their actual appearance with any certainty.
“You’re Ashlyn, right?” A woman said, “I’m Twelfth, it’s nice to meet you.”
“I am.” I said.
“Good.” She said, “I was worried Sandy was wrong again. I mean, the odds sounded good, but you can’t blame me for doubting him.”
“He said something about unbinding angels?” I asked.
“Ah, yes.” She grinned, “Follow us.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
I did.
The corridors were clean, with metal plating on the walls, floors and ceiling. Once we got out of the landing area, the hallway was lined with some kind of glowing crystal, so I could actually see Twelfth and her teammate.
Twelfth was a handsome woman, but in a way that felt generic to me. Her brown hair and unmarked brown skin somehow felt like she’d stepped out of an advertisement. She was wearing a plain blue dress. She was a little over five feet tall, and seemed tiny at that.
Beside her, her teammate was a scrawny man in black robes that made him look like he’d spent his life working as a bookkeeper. Nothing else seemed notable about him.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Bunker.” the man said, “Outside the city.”
“You should introduce yourself, Slayer.” Twelfth huffed at him.
“Just did.” Slayer said.
“If you say so.” Twelfth said, “Sandy’s been grabbing any bound angels they can. Obviously we’re not stupid enough to try to use them, but this is a disposable location. If you do turn on us, we’re not exactly giving away any priceless intel. When you’re working with Matches before the day’s done-”
“Trust him.” Slayer said.
“He’s been wrong before.” Twelfth said, “Prophecy is a throw of the dice. Sandy’s very good at it, but prophecies are always a chance, not a certainty.”
“Sandy’s a prophet?” I asked.
“Prophet, Seer, Oracle, there’s no meaningful distinction. At least not when it comes to this.” Twelfth said, “If you try to peek at the future, you’re only going to get a feel for the probable outcomes. There’s always branches and gaps. We’re here.”
The room was a bland storage chamber, shelves lined with bland boxes, and with a single rack of scrolls on one side. Each scroll looked like the ones Marie had pulled out before, and I began by pulling out one, touching it with Thorn, and channeling [Infusion of Self] to corrupt the seal. After about a minute, the seal shattered, and something flew out of the room in a gust. I began to repeat the process on the other scrolls. It wasn’t hard, just tedious.
“Brief me on what we’re doing next.” I said.
Twelfth grinned. “We want you to help take down the Imperial Workshop. It’s not the only one, but it is the worst of them. Sandy says that has the best odds for your cause and for us. If you’re comfortable writing a blank check, I’ll take you in while pretending to have captured you. You’ll break it apart from inside.”
“Solo work?” Slayer sounded genuinely upset about this.
“I’m not going to be in real danger, Slayer.” Twelfth said, “It’s to make sure nobody else has to go through what you did.”
“This sounds dangerous.” I said, “And can you actually sell the story?”
Twelfth grinned, “I’m good at dancing out of danger. Besides, William’s been pulling back the staff so he can invade ‘Hell’. Now that the invasion’s live, he’s not going to leave more than the barest skeleton crew. Anyone competent or dangerous will be put in the invasion.”
“Foolish.” Slayer said, “Can’t stab a hurricane.”
“If he asked anyone with an ounce of sense, he’d know that.” Twelfth agreed, “Of course, his loyalists don’t have any, and the treacherous members aren’t going to fight him on it.”
“So they’ll fight and die for a cause they don’t even believe in?” I asked.
“Classified.” Slayer said.
“Yeah, you don’t need to know that.” Twelfth said, “Are you in or out?”
“I’m in.” I said.
“Then finish off the Angels while I get changed.” Twelfth said, “Slayer, remove F7 and H3, those will come out swinging. We can’t risk her today. She’s worn out already.”
I tried to make conversation with Slayer, but he didn’t respond to anything I said. Still, I finished up unbinding all the angels, and by the time I was done, Twelfth was back.
[You have freed 107 angels! The Global Quest Wrathless Virtue has awarded you 1070 Moonlight Shards!]
“How do I look?” She asked. She could’ve passed for Hector completely, including the same spear. There was no difference I could spot, except for a vague feeling of beauty about her that Hector lacked.
“You look fine.” I said, “I don’t think Hector’s quite that beautiful, though.”
“Thank you.” Twelfth said, “Yeah, I can’t do anything about that, but as long as we don’t run into anyone who knows him too well, we should be fine. You done?”
“Except for the two you said not to unbind, yes.” I answered.
“Good.” Twelfth said, “Catch!”
She tossed a bundle of paper at me.
“What is this?” I asked.
“It’s a map of the building.” Twelfth said, “I figured you should know. There’s only one way in or out that doesn’t require access codes that we don’t have. It’s a skyrail dock on floor 139. The section of the armory that has angels is on floor 133, and it’s clearly marked. The rest is just to help you get there and get out.”
“Got it.” I said.
“Then let’s get going!” Twelfth said.
---
“Slayer isn’t coming with us?” I asked.
“Yeah, no.” Twelfth said, “He’s still recovering from the shredding, and he doesn’t have an impersonation ability. Put these on.”
She held out a pair of handcuffs, and grinned at me.
“Why?” I asked.
“These are real divinity-suppression handcuffs, but your powers don’t work the same way.” Twelfth said, “If you’re wearing them, they’ll think you’re helpless when you’re not.”
“I haven’t outlived my usefulness yet, have I?” I joked, as I put on the handcuffs.
“No, you haven’t.” Twelfth said, “I still think you’re going to betray us, but I’m following Sandy’s plan anyways. I’ve gotten used to doubting his predictions and being wrong by now.”
“Why do you keep doubting, then?” I said.
“Sandy’s cursed, probably.” Twelfth said, “I have a few seer tricks myself, but nothing half as good as his. No one ever believes him when he gives the predictions directly, though. I’ve seen it myself.”
With that, the train pulled into the massive building I’d seen in the center of the city before. With a quiet chime, it said, “Now arriving in the Grand Basilica Commons.”
“Game face on now. I’m Hector, not Twelfth.” Twelfth said, and grabbed my shoulder. She marched me out of the train and through the district, my hands held bound in front of me.
The floor we arrived on looked like a massive shopping mall, with stores lining every inch of the path. The floor was decorated with colorful glass tiles, and the ceiling was decorated with more modest amounts of jewels. The walls held some form of abstract pattern that was beautiful but didn’t really look like anything.
After a few minutes of walking, she turned to me and said, “Nice, right? The glory of paradise turned into a cheap shopping mall. Upwards is the actual residential section, and then the Chapel beyond that. Of course, you won’t be seeing any of that, because you’re going down to the prisons.”
We walked through the streets. Even here felt deserted. Only a handful of people seemed to be here to shop, the rest were all working inside the stores.
“This is a divinity-only area, of course.” Twelfth said, “Mortals have their own slice of paradise, as they deserve.”
“As they deserve?” I asked.
“Regardless of whether they deserve the heights of luxury, they don’t deserve to have to be constantly reminded of their own inferiority.” Twelfth smirked, “I’m sure their own sector is just as wonderful for them, and they don’t have to always feel ugly or powerless with the constant reminders of Divinity.”
“Are you just parroting the party line?” I asked.
Twelfth grinned, “That’s my real opinion, or my name isn’t Hector.”