"Ever since the Smithy turned her away, she's been fanatical," a feminine voice ground out.

"She's hounding the recon teams and other commanders, scoured every report, and she's still making plans for additional reconnaissance. We've spent so much time placating her obsession that we may as well have looked for the boy, in the first place. It has to stop."

Displaying the same frustration as the first figure, the second voice was sharp and only subtly masculine. He stood straighter but was still mindful not to speak out of turn. Each of them had used the enchantments of The Veil's twisting halls to meet in private. Stood on the way to nowhere, the hallways wound on endlessly until they willed themselves to find a destination. Here, only the lowest and most powerless of the sect could intercept them but they had no fear of them. Should they even understand what they had stumbled across, such individuals could be dealt with.

As they looked towards the third cloaked figure, their agitation was plain to see. None of them would act without a unanimous agreement, such was their pact, but their patience was well and truly stretched. They needed for Tiera to break off her search before she found out on her own. Her volatile temper was well known and it wouldn't end well for anyone if her ire were directed towards them. Their war needed soldiers like her, only it wouldn't do if they weren't in their image.

----------------

Tiera felt her stomach freeze and roil. What were they telling her? These were her brothers and sisters in arms, they stood for something. They all stood for something, yet what they were saying went against the creed they had always served. Their whole mission was to protect this pocket of space, the greater realms depended on them.

When her commanding peers had sent a messenger requiring her attention, she had presumed there was a kernel of information about Otis' kidnapping that had appeared or that the cults had made a move. In the deepest recesses of their chambers within her barracks, reserved for discussing only the most classified information, they had waited for her.

The room was dominated by the large table in the centre of the room. Able to create unending variations of large-scale maps or detailed recreations of a particular battleground. They had been short on time but it was here that the enchantments had been modelled for the compressed space surroundings of Otis' home. Now, disused, the deep black of the table set a sombre atmosphere for the meeting, deprived of its usual glow.

Illuminated by the fireplace, Rigor was propped back on his elbows, letting golden mana flit from each of his hands. He was snide and egotistical but his grasp of illusions and the ability to control the battle-field wasn't rivalled by many. Sheera, head of the recon units, stood in the darkest corner of the room. She had always been a keen scout but as she levelled higher she became increasingly taciturn. Meeting Sheera's intense eyes briefly, Tiera was reminded that the woman didn't have an off switch; always working, always watching. Pharos loomed, he stood front and centre, as was his straightforward personality. Every unit needed two Knights capable of leading from the front, as such he was Tiera's counterpart.

"What's the news?" Tiera had started.

Optimistic, she couldn't believe the reply.

"Tiera, you need to stop. He's gone," Pharos had said, "we need the resources to be spent elsewhere".

There was no emotion in his voice. Suddenly, the atmosphere felt appropriate. Each of them seemed hostile and united against her. She was well aware of the cost of continuing to search for Otis but everyone knew the potential a late bloomer had. At the very least, whoever had taken him couldn't be allowed to monopolize such a valuable asset. Otis was nice and she had an instinct to protect him but, if she was clinically objective about it, he was an asset. His potential couldn't be understated.

"He was an asset, another blacksmith isn't worth looking for," came the snide preemptive reply, from Rigor.

The reaction was jarring but she knew her comrade well enough to know his views. For those who managed to step into the command structure, the knowledge of what they were really fighting for changed many of them. When they had been granted the knowledge that they belonged to the true plane of existence and what The Veil was... the effect was immediate. It changed your perspective and altered your morals. Even the most principled of them found themselves more callous than the moment before. For some, for people like Rigor, they became purists. Buried within the command structure, these views were propagated and allowed to fester. Some extremists believed in mana only being for those who embraced the "right path". To Tiera, this was a disgusting attitude but it wasn't something she could fight against.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"He's too valuable an asset to let someone else ha-"

"He belongs in the smithy. We should focus on someone who can fight for us. It'll be years before he can become a real asset to us. A real asset would actually help us, now."

The drawn-out emphasis Rigor placed on certain words was grating but Tiera couldn't let her temper get the better of her. They always came to a compromise. If she could secure even a small amount of the recon unit's time hope wouldn't be lost. She just needed something. She could bring Otis back.

"I don't have the scouts," Sheera said definitively.

"We're not saying that ancillary classes aren't useful, but we need to direct resources to help us now," continued Rigor.

"There's been no trace, no possible lead. He's lost, sister," Pharos declared.

Only now, with her counterpart's intervention did it dawn on Tiera that this meeting had been prepared. It wasn't a coincidence that she was the last to arrive, it was orchestrated. To have such a staunch position was rare at the best of times. The hulking Knight had chosen to model himself after Thescene and rarely spoke unless they felt they had the power to enforce their decision. In Tiera's eyes, this was weak and timid but Pharos had done well to reach his current standing.

"Just allow me to dedicate my own time to reading the scouting reports. If there's a lead in any of them, we can't afford to miss it."

"You cannot waste your time on hopes and maybes when we're already on our knees," piped up Rigor.

"But it gives us a long-term hope. What's the point of saving tomorrow if we lose everything the day after."

"Focus on your duties, this search is not of your concern. Sheera will let us know if any information comes forward," declared Pharos.

"Bu- that... what?!"

Tiera had become flustered, for the first time in a long time. They weren't making sense, they'd risked so much and lost so many just for them to give it all up? In the back of her mind, she was beginning to think Haekril had had more than one meaning. 'If only you had let us bring him into the fold,' he had said. Maybe he wasn't talking about threats from outside The Veil.

"We can't give up on our first surviving la-"

"One true born late bloomer takes out a backwater solar system and suddenly everyone thinks these pale imitations are all that. We. Don't. Need. Them."

"When did you stop looking?" Tiera said, quietly.

Rigor had finally had enough of the "discussion" and had revealed too much about their own attitudes. The background thought that Haekril had been hinting about a different kind of threat became too overwhelming to push aside. The sudden silence confirmed as much as Rigor's sudden glance towards Sheera.

"He was worthless."

Sheera's harsh words confirmed it. Everything she had thought had been wrong. Everything she had researched and planned had been based on lies and manipulation. All at once her hopes were dashed. There was never going to be good news. All that anticipation or all of her effort, it all crumbled in that instant.

Furious tears sprung from Tiera's eyes, as the betrayal sunk in. Pharos, allowed mana to flow freely in his hands in case she reacted further but there was nothing left to do. What was there to do when her whole purpose here was being sabotaged, from the inside?

Turning on her heels, Tiera left.

'They lied to me. They cheated me... they're... they're fucking traitors.'

-------------------

Bathing with a bucket would have been a cruel punishment mere weeks ago but now it was one of the highlights of his day. Sore, dirtied, and tired the heated water was surprisingly comforting.

Looking at his ragged clothes drying, near the fire, he lamented not having the time to craft something better. Otis found his [Manipulate] skill to be infinitely useful but having the time and mana to practice creating anything that didn't aid him immediately was wasted. Admittedly, he would have to find the time one day. The fabric offered almost no protection and would soon be threadbare in too many patches to be worth keeping. It was a matter he'd have to consider another day but he'd have to source some rags that matched his companions.

After scrubbing himself as clean as was possible in the dusty slave city, he returned to Mooch and Zlatan.

Mooch had taken the longest to recover but he was awake now. The strain in his eyes showed the fierce migraines hadn't left him yet. As a ranged specialist, it would take more time for him to recover from the punishment he'd endured than his close-combat counterpart. Whilst Zlatan was more of a traditional tank and could take more punishment, after the adrenaline wore off Otis got the impression he was more fatigued than he wanted to let on. Mental attacks were often harder to recover from than the exhaustion of fending off an opponent in a physical confrontation. Although it was Otis who fell, it was Mooch who had taken the most concentrated assault. It was like a boxer losing in the first round versus a gruelling match that lasted the full twelve rounds; being able to endure the damage didn't mean he wasn't far more heavily injured.

Sitting around the fire, in the ever-present light of the city, his two companions filled him in on their theories about who had sent Tarot. Otis felt like he was playing against the house in a poker tournament. Either the person responsible for sending Tarot was a higher-ranking slave who had a disdain for late bloomers but didn't want to risk upsetting the powers above them or it was the overlords that targeted him. Maybe the novelty of having a late bloomer in their roster was wearing off.

Otis had known he was in for a rough ride of it, slaves were usually fairly miserable across all of history and he didn't expect the magical world to be much different. Now, he realised that it wasn't just likely that he would die but imminent. He needed to escape or he would be killed. In this, Otis had no doubt.

It didn't seem like he could expect to survive for long but he still couldn't help but imagine the scarred face of the Knight who saved him before.

'Don't let them kill me,' Otis thought nervously, as he recalled Tiera's steely gaze.