Some memories are cherished. They are like a splendid pearl kept in one’s pocket to be taken out and gazed upon during moments of reflection. They become polished and made free of imperfections through constant handling. We revel in these recollections and they become the moments from which we define ourselves; facets in the jewel we call our conscious mind.

There are other kinds of memories.

They eat away at us — forgotten but never truly gone. We push them down into the darker parts of our psyche. There we keep them hidden. We bar these remembrances from our waking thoughts through an endless vigil. It is only in our dreams that we confront our demons, as they tear and claw against the hells we’ve fashioned in their image.

They wait in those depths and fester until the day we take them with us into our final rest. Or, we confront them and risk a fate more dreadful still: acknowledgment. In acknowledgment, we would see the truth of ourselves, and of the world. We would then be forced to face the certainty that we are weak, insignificant creatures in a vast and uncaring universe.

I had one such memory. I forged another at the moment I took the life of my best friend. This was twice now that I’d watched a man give up hope as his body betrayed him. Troy had asked for death, begged me to kill him. I had agreed, not in anger, but in mercy born from recognition.

I had seen that same look upon the face of my father. I had worshiped the man, even as his body gradually failed him. A strong man had been left a broken husk, nothing more than a shade trapped in a prison of his own flesh. The final time I had seen my father his eyes had held the same acceptance that I saw in Troy’s.

In our final moments together, my father had briefly opened his eyes to look up at me, and even though he had long since lost all power of movement, I felt his hand tighten, slight and brief, around my own.

I had thought it a positive sign, but he never saw the morning.

For years I’d blamed myself. I’d pushed down the memory, completely forgetting that look in his eyes or the feeling of his hand grasping my own. It was the only farewell he could give, and yet I had never acknowledged it. I’d never understood the significance of the look in his eyes or the message contained in the final desperate grasp of his hand.

Now I spoke farewells to someone else. Mortality claimed my friend, and as it took him it left behind memories that resonated with pain long repressed.

I had torn Troy’s head from a pool of pulsing flesh. At that moment, it was the face of my father that I had seen. The face I held in my hands was that of a man grateful to meet his final rest. I should have mourned him, and I would, but for a short time I clung to feelings of joy at having been able to release him from his prison.

I had failed once, but not this time.

Troy would not have to suffer a slow, torturous death as my father had. I refused to push down either memory. Instead, the two memories became linked inexplicably as I made a new realization about myself. I would hold onto these memories and take them out when nothing else could give me strength. I was not broken, and I was not weak. I could kill, but I could also build and protect.

Perhaps I was going mad. If the Fisher was to be believed I already was. So, what? If I was crazy, then so was everyone. It was no more rational to love the memory of my father than it was to hate or kill. I could do all three. I held the proof in my hands.

I lingered in the room for a moment, but I had more work to do. I set the only recognizable piece of Troy on a small bed in the corner of the room and covered it with a sheet. I didn’t look back as I walked out into the narrow passageway.

I was full of conflicting emotions. Memories of my father filled me with joy, but I also felt regret and mourned the death of my friend. These thoughts brought with them feelings of guilt and reminded me that I had failed to find my mother. I’d barely even thought of her in days. I might still have a family — something to cling to from a world now lost.

And Liv. She was my first love, and her husband was now dead at my hands. I feared she was caught up in this mess as deeply as Troy had been. I had to find her, or what remained.

A pragmatic corner of my mind whispered that I should have forced the creature to speak. Troy had left me with many unanswered questions.

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I set those concerns aside by focusing on what I needed to do next. Clumsy and Gun Girl were still bound on the floor and appeared to be unconscious. I searched them and found what I was looking for on Clumsy’s belt.

She had been carrying two explosive satchels identical to the ones Catayla had used to bring down the bridge. It had only been a hunch, but it seemed that if the scout had been carrying them, then they were probably standard issue.

I fumbled with the device for a moment, but I had seen Catayla use them and I had a near-perfect memory. After depressing a small black button for several seconds, a sharp beeping sound alerted me that it was armed. A shape made of interlocking curves appeared on a small display. It looked almost like a stylized drawing of a knot that was slowly unraveling.

I tossed both charges into the room behind me and slammed the hatch shut. I wanted to be gone before they detonated but I took the time to bring the two guards with me. I couldn’t be sure that the explosion wouldn’t be larger than I expected. Fire or smoke could also spread out of the room and kill the Peacekeepers. I was going to negotiate with Sebbit and being responsible for killing two of his subordinates probably wasn’t the best opening gambit.

Once the two women were cocooned in chains of eldritch energy, I began retracing my steps back through the aircraft carrier. I dragged the two soldiers behind me while ignoring the occasional thuds as armored heads collided with unyielding steel.

The middle level of the Yorktown opened to a wide aluminum ramp that led down to a narrow wooden pier. I propped the two Peacekeepers against a post at the bottom of the ramp and released their restraints. Once the chains had fully dissipated, I turned and prepared to leave.

I felt a moment of unease, scratching at the back of my neck. I expected my entrance to be easy, as there was most likely only a skeleton crew left behind at the Yorktown. My escape, however, had gone unexpectedly well. I hadn’t so much as seen another soldier.

That didn’t always mean they weren’t there …

Before the thought was finished the explosives I had placed detonated. The sound was a muffled thud, but it was loud enough to draw my gaze. As I looked up a bright flash filled my vision.

In the same moment, something heavy collided with my skull. Closely behind the impact was an air cracking boom. My vision filled with swimming lights, and my skull reverberated like a bell.

The hit had launched me forward. My head landed first, and I bounced and skidded across the pier. I came to a stop inches away from the guardrail, one hand extending beyond the edge of the pier. My arcane shield was still active, but that one shot had depleted over eighty percent of my mana.

One more shot like that and I was as good as dead.

Reacting on instinct, I threw my hands forwards and a wall of swirling shadow and fiery embers grew up in front of me. This caused the pier to explode into splinters of concrete splinters and the section I was laying on fell into the cold water of the Cooper River.

Bullets broke through the surface of the river, creating dozens of spiraling tails as they cut through the water around me. A nearly overpowering rage burned inside me. I had gone to all that trouble to spare the lives of those two guards. Whoever was attacking hadn’t even waited till I was clear of their unconscious comrades before opening fire.

I held back the anger, using it to focus myself. I couldn’t control it; my emotions were still too raw from all that had happened. All I could do was aim the rage in a useful direction.

Behind me were two injured guards and who knew how many guns aimed in my directions. In front of me were answers and freedom. Tiller was with Sebbit, fighting an army of monsters. It was also likely that the cultists were behind the army, just like they had been the cause of the dome and the herd of behemoths.

I couldn’t get answers from Troy, but if I could get my hands on another cultist, I might be able to learn what had happened to him. They might even be able to give me information about Liv, if she wasn’t with them.

Liv couldn’t be my only priority. I had friends on both sides of this conflict. That included Catayla. The blue-scaled scout was still my friend, and I had promised her it would stay that way. Whatever happened, I needed to make sure I protected those I cared about. During moments of rage, it was easiest to think about the simplest motivations.

I split off a small portion of my focus and a shadow doppelganger rose up above the waves and began charging towards the Yorktown. The copy was created from pure eldritch energy, which meant I could control it like any other construct. I used this ability to propel it through the surface of the river and I launched it directly towards my attackers.

It wouldn’t be able to fly for long. My control got weaker the faster it went or the further it got from me. I had given it the rifle I plundered from Gun Girl, and it strafed the Yorktown with covering fire. With luck, the Peacekeepers would be caught off guard by an image of me flying through the air like Peter Pan’s homicidal shadow. The surprise wouldn’t last long, but it might buy the clone a small amount of time before it was inevitably cut down.

Hopefully, enough time for me to escape unnoticed.

I decided to ignore the fight behind me, and instead swam south towards the larger battle. I could sense the opposing armies as a vortex of eldritch energy. It was like a reverse tornado, a wide base of swirling energy that fed upwards into a narrowing cone that ended about fifty meters above the ground.

Whatever was at the top of that cone was absorbing energy at an unbelievable rate. Even the near unlimited energy released by the dungeon core would only be the tiniest fraction if compared to the energy that was concentrated at the top of that cone.

Thousands fought within that ever-growing storm. I couldn’t make out any individual shapes, but the frantic nature of the energy surrounding the battlefield told me the fight was much more pitched than I had anticipated.

I had expected the Peacekeeper to be mopping up when I arrived. Instead, it seemed as if they had found a real fight.