Truth’s immediate thought was to smash up the room. If the ritual space was destroyed, then there could be no ritual, and no danger from the ritual. This thought was followed almost immediately by the thought of what two Tier Eights (or possibly Tier Nines) could accomplish in an environment where they supremely did not care about taking prisoners. This smoothly transitioned his first thought into sabotage, somehow reversing the spell so it landed on the casters, but he had no idea how he could actually do that. And at the center of it all, the spell and his troubles, was Harmony.

He didn’t know exactly what would happen if the spell was interrupted, but since Harmony was both the focus and the sacrifice, it wouldn’t be anything pleasant to look at. He smiled grimly. Harmony either didn’t see it or couldn’t imagine it, but Truth knew- it wouldn’t stop at his pain. This spell would take Harmony’s life.

“Alright Mr. Medici, we have about fifteen minutes before Mr. Red and Ms. Black arrive, so why don’t you pull off your shirt and start practicing?”

“You can practice ritual scarification?” Harmony was pulling off his shirt even as he asked.

“Certainly. Here, let me help you.” Truth watched the office lady tape a stencil to Harmony’s chest. Truth snorted. Harmony kept it shaved. Which would be completely in keeping with ordinary Jeon fashion, of course, but after not shaving for most of a year, Truth felt a little disdainful. The sneer quickly fell off his face when she handed him a long marker mounted on a dagger handle.

“Everything is the same except the marker, of course. Same handle, same weight distribution, and of course it’s a Divine Practice Ritual Rehearsal marker made by our Hugo Rune bespoke implements brand.”

“Oh… I have one of their styluses.”

“That’s nice. I think you know what to do from here?”

“Yes. Is there somewhere to wash up before the ritual?”

“No need to worry- if you recall step number four of the ritual-”

“Is a ritual bathing by blind warriors, yes.” Harmony nodded and got to work, carefully tracing the intricate path laid out by the stencil.

His hand was quite steady, apparently not minding that in a little over fifteen minutes, he would be doing this with a silvered steel blade. The marker slowly drew out the shape- a square, held by a circle, inside a network of criss-crossing lines. Then within the square was a complex rune, formed from swooping curves and clusters of dots. Truth stopped trying to count how many strokes it would all take after the twenty-fifth.

It took about seven minutes the first time. Harmony didn’t bother asking for the time. He just got straight back in and started again. Someone would tell him when it was time to stop. He didn’t shave any time off the second time around, but Truth could see he was more sure in his movements. Truth nodded slightly. Harmony had a good head on him. No way he would screw up something this important. His System would be silently assisting him too.

At around the twenty minute mark, Harmony was interrupted by a handsome looking older gentleman.

“No, don’t get up. Mr. Medici, I am Mr. Red. I, along with Ms. Black will be conducting this Grand Working. Now, I’m assuming that Ling didn’t explain why we are doing any of this, yes?”

“She mentioned terminating a growing cost, Sir?”

A meaningless smile flickered across the ritualist’s face. He wasn’t in costume yet. For now, Mr. Red wore a gray suit with a restrained tie. Not a speck of red on him.

“True, so far as it goes. I’m not accustomed to explaining my instructions, Mr. Medici, but this is one of the rare exceptions. It is actually important that you understand the significance of all this, and why it must, specifically, be you that does it.”

Truth’s eyes widened.

“Mr. Medici, I trust you are aware that Starbrite has been under constant attack for almost a year now?”

“I hadn’t realized it had been that long.”

“It was somewhat covert before, but it has degenerated into outright terrorism and criminality. It was very quickly apparent that this wasn’t mere industrial sabotage or espionage. These were deliberate atrocities aimed at our people.”

Harmony nodded, his eyes going hard. Mr. Red continued slowly punctuating his words with little jabs of his hands.

“We haven’t been idle ourselves. Both directly and through the appropriate agencies. Primarily, though, we have relied on our PMC. For every one of ours their butchers took, our brave soldiers killed ten or a hundred of theirs.”

Harmony nodded even more firmly at that.

“But it was always a losing trade. We only have so many capable people. Our casualties quickly added up. Added up to disaster. We have lost members of the C-Suite.”

Harmony gasped.

“Oh yes, and more than one at that. Our losses of personnel and irreplaceable magical equipment have exceeded our most abyssal fears. We haven’t lost yet, Mr. Medici, but another year like this one, and we will.”

“Sir?”

“Starbrite is eternal. We, the poor stewards of his will, are not. Corporations are people, Mr. Medici, and for all our power, we cannot defend everyone. As the saying goes, the defenders have to succeed every time. The assassins only need a single victory. Our enemies unmake us, one company funeral at a time. And it’s quite intentional. By destroying certain key businesses, they paralyze our ability to move our armies. By pinning down our armies, our people become vulnerable.”

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Harmony looked sick.

“It’s all of a single piece.” Mr. Red gave another of his meaningless smiles. “The war with Onis is, at best, a distraction. A year ago, it never would have happened. I could have slapped their President in front of a full parliamentary meeting, and their Vice President would have been holding a basen for me to wash my hands in afterward. Then the worm would have thanked me for the privilege of serving. But now they think they can test us, because we are collapsing from within. Which leads me to you.”

“How may I serve?”

“By doing your duty as instructed. As your brother did before you.”

There was a sudden quiet in the room.

“We finally, finally, got a piece of one of their top agents. “They” being the enemy, likely Siphios, but possibly including elements here in Jeon as well. And you know what? Our best divination spells just… slid off it. In my one hundred and twenty years working here at Starbrite, I’ve never seen anything like it. They just slid right off. Like the person we were looking for didn’t even exist.”

“How is that possible, Sir?”

“Oh, we figured it out. The little freak is some vat grown thing, soaked in natural treasures and loaded up with a very specific set of spells. Useful for only one thing- murder. I wouldn’t even trust this… creature… to boil water, let alone work out an amortization schedule. It’s diabolical, but effective. Still, our working wasn’t useless. We were able to divine something with it.”

“Me, Sir?”

“Who will lead us to our enemy? Who is their greatest weakness?” That’s what we asked, and you were the answer.”

Harmony blinked at that. Mr. Red smiled, a little more honestly this time. “Wondering how we could find their bane even if we couldn’t find them?”

“Yes Sir.”

“Very, very complicated spell design, and sacrifices made on a scale you hopefully cannot conceive. You might consider it the equivalent of sacrificing a good sized town. Likewise, the spell wasn’t aimed explicitly at our enemy. It took some finessing, and the results are naturally not guaranteed. But at this point, the cost is comparatively negligible. It’s you. Which leads us to something rather interesting. Your brother.”

“Truth.”

“Yes, the remarkable Truth Medici. He was being groomed for high office. Very high. He might even have stepped into the C-Suite one day.”

“Sir?!”

“Oh yes. Not in a managerial role, but his dedication and talents, properly nurtured, would have made him a world-class powerhouse. He would have been a second Frobisher. We subjected him, covertly, of course, to an incredible array of personality assessment tests, and you know what they said?”

Harmony had learned to keep his face still, but Truth could see him biting back the words in his heart. “No, Sir.”

“They said he was, by all common usage of the words, a psychopath.”

That made Harmony jolt.

“He had only the vaguest grasp of morality, and was completely incapable of distinguishing right from wrong, good from evil, and evaluated the world entirely on the basis of benefits. With a single, massive, exception.”

“Starbrite.”

Mr. Red sighed. “No, Mr. Medici, his siblings. You were the only things he was capable of loving. And he did love you. And since he did love you, he calculated what would provide you the most safety and opportunities within his limited means. And that was Starbrite. We delivered for him, and you, so he was unquestionably loyal.”

“He loved the company Sir.”

“It looked like that, perhaps. But he didn’t. He loved what the company did for him, and for you. It’s not a bad thing. Not a bad thing at all. It certainly never troubled his superiors. You see, he believed in the company like he believed in gravity. Without Starbrite, nothing made sense. Nothing worked. So it was worth giving his all. By giving every scrap of himself to the company, the world kept working, and his siblings were safe. Even if it cost him his life, they would be cared for.”

Harmony slowly shut his eyes. “Yes Sir, that does sound like him.”

“Yes. And he did give it his everything. The details of his final mission are, as you know, so utterly classified that I cannot discuss them with you even now. But I can tell you this- there were recordings of it. He, almost single handedly, saved an entire team of elite Natural Philosophers, as well as their research materials. The results of which… have been incalculable. Simply incalculable.”

“Thank you for telling me, Sir.”

“He held the line against a literal army. He was shot, blown up, hit with flying stones, and still, still, kept shooting. He managed the rare feat of killing not one but several people after he died, due to crashing spell birds and wounds that eventually turned fatal. Despite everything. Despite the pain. The fear. The chaos. Despite what it might cost him, he never quit. Not even for one second.”

Silence settled in the ritual room again.

“I can see you understand my point.”

“Yes Sir. This won’t just hurt, will it?”

“No, Mr. Medici, it won’t. I personally put your chances of leaving this room alive as less than one in twenty.”

“As high as that, huh.”

There was another long pause.

“Why, Sir? If I may ask?”

“You may. It’s why I’ve explained all this. The spell will work infinitely better if you understand the risks, the consequences, and the intention of the spell. This spell will very likely kill you. You do have a slim chance for survival. You will need to fight like absolute Hell, and get some lucky breaks besides, but it is possible. The pain of the spell will surpass anything you have known before. Your very soul may be at risk of shattering. It’s a non-zero chance, at least.”

“But if it works, we kill the people who have been killing our people.”

“It is more nuanced than that, but… yes. We draw them out. Force them to reveal themselves so we can focus our power on them and crush them. And yes, the weakest of them will simply be instantly exterminated. This move will slaughter their most effective agents. It won’t save Starbrite all on its own, but it will go a very long way.”

“So what do you need me to do?”

“I? Nothing. Starbrite needs you. Your siblings need you. Everyone who counts on you, needs you to step up. They need you to clench your teeth and say, I can pay this price, and I will. Because it’s worth it. Because the company will keep my people safe. Because this world doesn’t make sense without Starbrite lighting the way. They need you to push through, Mr. Medici. To reach the end of the ritual, performing every step as perfectly as possible.”

“To be the willing sacrifice.”

“Yes, Mr. Medici. To be the Hero. To be the one who pays the price. To take the place of your late brother, and be the man your family needs you to be. A Starbrite Man.”