> “People die. Kings die. Prophets die. Nations die. Whole ideologies, entire paradigms of perception, decay and become one with the abyss. You have to ask: is anything, really, eternal? All of this philosophizing is interesting, but is built on a, in my opinion, fundamentally flawed precept: that the absence of eternity is equivalent to something being meaningless. If I take an even bigger step back, and think about your thinking about thinking, I realize that the precept is ridiculous in a local context; i.e., the ‘shut the hell up, Dan, you’re sitting there worrying yourself silly about nothing’ principle, then things become a lot clearer.”

Daniel Kafkorczi,

“Lakeside. Brosiad. Stargard. Fairdawn. Gontad. These five settlements we know are likely to be anti-Archon. Of the five, Lakeside, Stargard, and Gontad have Tears within three days’ travel of them, if you’re going by foot. The only issue is, I’d have to be at least level 35, maybe level 40, to transport you guys along with myself. Some insane level of power I might never reach, not in the next few days or weeks or months, but who knows. But at the moment, I’m thinking I jump to Stargard, get Direnian aid, and then to Gontad, to get the help of the Druid Council there, then, lastly, I go to Lakeside to see about Walsh aid. Maybe get to Drumlin if I can manage it, try and make sure our old friends are as secure as possible.”

“Okay, but what do we do in the meantime?”

“Make sure Helena wakes up eventually, and rally the people here in Brosiad. More Demons will pop up, and they’ll need to be routed out and executed. Just as we’re making our final moves, the Archons will be too. Speaking of-- people don’t age while they’re in the Spirit Realm. Zara, Greg-- you both have , and Zara, you have a Talent and the ability to defend against even the Archons, if only for a short time. If things go really bad, and it’s looked like we’ve failed, retreat to the Spirit Realm, to its farthest reaches. It’s possible that some fragments will endure, even after the total collapse of the Clockwork.”

“I don’t know about you, but I won’t do that. It would be a betrayal of my basic principles.” Zara said firmly in response.

“Alright, alright. In that case, I’ll get going.”

Bim walked off toward the nearest Tear, wondering if he’d ever see his friends again. But saying long goodbyes wouldn’t help anything; if they succeeded, they’d meet again soon, and if they failed, oblivion would be swift and uncaring.

✶

Prinner Wilholm, a man in his late twenties, whose weapon of choice was a crimson-colored axe, walked briskly down the streets of Cardona, a quite probably suicidal mission statement ringing in his mind.

The first bunch of rioters he encountered numbered half a dozen; at a guess, their highest leveled member had broken level 10, nothing more. One of them was in his late teens, a child. They were dealt with quickly; Wilholm’s pronunciation of their guilt and acting out of their sentences was swift and oddly quiet. They left barely a scratch on him when he was done.

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He encountered his first real challenge, a group of more than fifty protestors, clogging the streets, torches and simple weapons in hand. “Disperse, or be executed for treason against the state.” Wilholm recited, his Class acting through him more than his own will driving him on.

“Damnation, man, what’re you talking about?” A older, middle-class man asked, bamboozled. “We could overrun you like a bug before a cart. You should get moving back to the Palace, or you’ll get yourself killed.”

Prinner Wilholm sighed, took a deep breath, and nodded. Too easily, he drew his axe and readied his shield. Then, without much fanfare, charged into the thick of things.

He had three down before the wounds started becoming serious. A jagged glass shard shoved into his scalp; chunks of hair torn off, spears and trowels stabbed into him, drawing blood. was having to go into overdrive to keep him on his feet, but he was alive, and berserk.

Level 21 granted!

Talent advancement unlocked!

🠊 !

Wilholm found Tolsom, that and thorn in his side, in the base of operations downtown, directing various squadrons to lock down the city.

“Where in Damnation have you been?” Tolsom asked, unfazed by the blood soaking through the ’s clothes and splattering his arms and face. “The Battalions are sailing, and going to be shipping out down South in a couple of days! We need everyone on deck to make sure--” Wilholm’s axe cleaved the ’s head from his shoulders in one smooth motion, sending it flying to land in a far corner of the room. Looking at the frozen, shocked faces of the dozens of soldiers under his command, he barked: “Well, get back to it! We’ve got a war on, folks!”

✶

Stargard was a beautiful city. Though not a Fortress City, it was considered the closest man-made equivalent to one that you could get. Its towering bronze and steel walls rose over a hundred feet into the air, securing its bustling inhabitants from even the greatest assaults. Stargard had never been taken, unlike the Fortress Cities of Cardona or Baraheim in times past, making it arguably the fifth most defensively robust settlement on the planet. And when it came to commerce, art, and leadership, Stargard thrived there too. It was a city of miracles, of great and small happenings, of people of high levels and low, and it was situated at the edge of the world. It had, in short, everything.

Of course, when half a dozen people spontaneously convert into level 20+ , even the city that has everything is going to struggle to endure. When Bim arrived in the city thirty-seven hours after stepping out of a Tear in the air, he found a city in lockdown, a city in chaos.

But wasn’t that everywhere nowadays?

A Demon formerly known as Artemy of the Gulls, now known simply as the Breaker of Souls, was level twenty-two, but leveling fast. After all, Starguard’s average was level 14 at the lowest, and their , numbering in over two dozen, were level 20, minimum. If the Demon hadn’t had that nifty ability to survive almost any harm, he mused that he would’ve probably died at his inception a day and a half ago.

He leveled again as he took four to his chest while tearing out the spine of one of Stargard’s great warriors, Salimos the Blue, a level 31 , with some difficulty.

Level 23 granted!

gained!