“I have some questions for you,” Topaz said to me, her rough accent dropping smoothly away, and the more urbane, cultured tones of an educated person replacing them.

“Go ahead.” I was in cover and virtually invisible, moving nothing but my eyes as I looked for signs of motion... or the pulled threads of magic. I might see something before she felt Pacts operating nearby, maybe.

“You obviously know a great deal more than your appearance would seem to indicate. I admit to never seeing someone using pure Wizardry as effectively as you do.”

I inclined my head just a fraction. “We all have our specialties.”

“Yes.” She looked up at the sky above, which was rapidly closing as the vivus on the ground was eaten away, neutralized, and dispersed by the concentrated power of millions of undead nearby. “Did you see the sky?”

I frowned, and sighed. “I did.”

“I know all the stars in the sky, all the constellations. I know the entities that are bound to every planet, star, and moon, I can feel them staring at me from the sky...”

“And those weren’t the entities you were seeing... or at least, they weren’t in the right places.”

She took a deep breath. “I’m not even sure that was the moon...”

“It wasn’t.”

She closed her eyes, quietly cursing under her breath. “I was hoping very much I was wrong.”

“So was I,” I admitted.

“What has happened?” she asked, staring at me, as if I had the answers.

“I can’t verify it, because the Shroud’s severing us from the dimensions means interdimensional location spells are totally wonky, as they can’t sense where what is relative to what. But I believe the combination of the Shroud coming and possibly the Curse of the Sun bringing magic back forced us out of our original universe, into one that could tolerate and support this level of magic.

“It could also be an active side effect of the Shroud. A low magic universe can’t support the power of the Shroud for long. So quietly moving the planet to a realm where there’s enough magic to keep it around may be a side effect of coming to an out-of-the-way planet like ours.”

She stared at me calmly. “You talk like an experienced planar traveler,” she noticed.

“You speak like someone who has had dealings with extraplanars,” I replied evenly.

“I have,” she admitted, shrugging. “When you’ve as many Pacts with as many entities as I have, information is more valuable than gold, and the things that have it, know it.”

“Agreed. But the Earth isn’t in our solar system anymore. It could be literally anywhere, and we don’t know what’s actually outside the planet right now. How bad was it for you?”

She looked up at the hole that was almost gone, shutting away the faint blue of the day beyond, hiding it behind dark grey whorls of chained souls and intermittent, angry hate lightning.

“Pretty bad. There’s things out there... some were looking, some were not, but none of them had any plans to come down. The Shroud has a very powerful dissuasion effect on them...”

“They didn’t want to become undead slaves to an entity that could slaughter a world.” I could only grimace. “The implications for when we get rid of the last Dark Clergy are pretty ominous. If the people can’t handle it... it’s going to be bad.”

“So... you have to make the world tough enough to handle it.”

“Pretty much.”

She looked out over the wasted landscape of abandoned, crumbling buildings, crumbled and necrotized plant life, and pondered the implications.

I was pretty sure she had all the mental Stats at base 23, just Consuming other people and taking their brains for her own. Add on how old she was, and other bonuses from Class Levels taken or stolen, and she was probably close to rivaling me in one form or another.

It made her exceedingly dangerous, but it didn’t mean she had the information resources I had.

“How conversant are you with Heavenly laws?” she asked me at last.

“For what purpose? I don’t propose to understand Good... it’s a foundational power of the multiverse. That’s like asking a bacteria to understand you.”

She clenched her fist. “Is it capable of breaking a Hell Pact?” she asked more precisely.

“Technically, yes. Realistically, no. All the Profound Alignments can break Pacts... it’s just energy expenditure, and they are beyond limitless. But if they break a Pact, tit for tat comes in, if not complete collapse of the Pact system.

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“Now, they could negotiate with Hell to withdraw the Pact, but that means a price has to be paid, and if there’s one thing Hell is good at, it’s drawing every drop of blood they can for something.

“At this point, you’re dragging in I don’t know how many souls, innocent and guilty, to Hell with you. Your value is very high, and the fact that you still didn’t get away in the end is at least as valuable as you getting away in the end, and that only from a propaganda standpoint.

“In short, your price is high, and someone would have to be willing to pay it. Hell is totally aware of it, too.”

She frowned unhappily. “There’s definitely no way Heaven is going to pay that price for me...”

“Probably not,” I agreed, given what she was and what she did. “The price you’d have to pay to be worthy of that sacrifice is probably not something you want to pay, either.”

She grimaced despite herself. “No, you’re probably right on that. Is there any other way?”

“Screw Hell over.”

“I beg your pardon?” She suddenly sounded very interested.

“Technically, treachery might do it... do something So Awesome for Hell that they forgive your Pact. Which is self-defeating... do something that awesome for them, when you die, you’ll be theirs, anyways, and it’s pretty much a given that whoever you stabbed in the back is going to end you sooner rather than later. All you’ve done is bought some time and infamy for yourself... and changed who is gunning for you. Or added to them. Whatever.

“So, you have to screw Hell over so bad they want to get rid of your Pact, because the cost of keeping it active on you is just too high.”

She thought about that, and probably a whole lot of different trains of thought were going to work on that. “Anything else?”

“Well, you can avoid the torment end of it by entering the hierarchy directly. Devour and accept the status of a devil. You’ll avoid some of the torment and keep your identity somewhat, but you’ll still be condemned to Hell.”

“I’d rather not go Down at all,” she was quick to say.

“Well, the final solution is to A-bomb yourself.”

“What?” She wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly.

“The central blast area of an atomic weapon is hot enough to obliterate a soul, and any Pacts it carries with it. It means oblivion, but you aren’t going Down... and it costs Hell the energy it invested in a Pact. As a matter of fact, it would obliterate all your captive souls, and all those Pacts.”

She stared at me for a long minute, thinking that over. “Can’t they just replace them?”

“Locally? Not without the agreement of the other powers, especially if there’s vivus involved. Basically, the Land takes the energy and prevents another Pact from manifesting with it. It becomes a permanent reduction in the amount of Pacts those powers are allowed to grant on this world, AND they lose the power they invested in those Pacts in the first place, and the souls.”

“That certainly sounds more attractive than endless torment...”

“Oh, it’s not endless,” I poo-pooed. “It’s only of a time and scale appropriate to your sins.”

She narrowed her eyes. “So, I’m like a fuel source for Hell, and they’re mining sin off me, and enjoying it, no doubt.”

“Well, you’re doing your best to make it highly enjoyable for them when they finally get you. The ones who run the longest are the sweetest to savor, right?”

She nodded without hesitation. “Long hunts are the most satisfying when you catch your prey.” Her gaze turned north, where the others were recuperating yet. “What about Master Fred?”

“He’s got a Heaven Pact, so as long as he’s Worthy, he’s Bound for Heaven. I imagine Hell can take him, mine him for all his sin and pain, but then he has to be returned to Heaven intact. Hell will get its due... but in his case, I’m pretty sure their due isn’t going to be very impressive.

“I actually would not be surprised if, in a normal world, Hell withdrew its Pact on him. When they get his soul, they’re going to punish him... but all that has to be weighed against what his Hellscars are doing to him now, and the torment his Pact is putting him through.

“Furthermore, he runs his Hellpact 24/7 now.” I smiled slightly. “He vivisizes it all, and feeds the power to the Land when he’s not doing anything else. You don’t see it because he’s channeling it through Sleipner, the Obelisk, or just down his Sword, but he’s effectively transferring Hell’s power to the Land constantly, all the time.

“The greater powers of Hell can’t stop it, or most likely they’d take action, either trying to kill him or consider neutralizing the Pact.”

Despite herself, Topaz found herself smiling. “Now that is screwing Hell over,” she agreed with a nod. “Using its power to make a world stronger, even a little bit. Over time, that is going to add up to a lot...”

“Exactly.” I gave her a sidelong glance. “Vivus makes many things possible. For instance, it can also burn souls away that are resisting the cycle of death. It’s a reflection of how it eats undead so greedily. So, it could eat away the Hellpact bonds of the souls you’ve consumed, and send them on their way... which would be right into the Haze, and so not in any better situation. It can’t eat the truly Pactbound... but if, for instance, there’s some total arsehole souls you would like to unburden yourself of, you could feed them to vivus and be rid of them.”

She actually straightened slightly. “Oh, oh that sounds very useful indeed. I’ve had to put up with some severe assholes for a very long time, indeed...”

I glanced up at the Haze. “Instead of being consigned to the Haze, and then whatever afterlife awaits after that goes down, they can choose oblivion, too. Vivus won’t mind feeding them to the Land.”

Her eyes half-closed as she inhaled deeply, muscles twitching all over her face as her teeth appeared in a rictus grin. “Well, now. Well, well, well.” Her crystal-gold eyes popped open. “How does one do that?”

“Have Fred take Idiot and stab you in the chest, the point just touching your heart. A manifestation of the Sword will enter your Pactspace. Dump the souls on the Sword.

“Of course, the vivus is going to burn you, but endure the pain. It won’t take long.”

All the muscles twitching on her face calmed down abruptly. Her eyes flipped open. “A matter I will take care of in due course,” she said calmly, a grim light in her eyes. “You know about the Pactspace...”

I inclined my head. “Kinda hard not to be able to see your soul with all those Runes stamped on it, aye?”

She lifted her hand abruptly. “May I?” she asked, staring at me.

I lifted an eyebrow. “If you wish.”

She reached out and put her hand on my face. I could feel her strength just with that simple touch. Even though she was gentle, the strength of steel behind it was not something I could resist. She was fully capable of tearing my head right off my shoulders.

Her fingertips sparked and burned against my skin, as various forms of Holy energies inside me made their displeasure known. At the same time, all those unwanted dark Divine Domains reacted with great familiarity.

She withdrew her smoking fingertips, watched the charred flesh heal with a neutral expression. “You have a non-broken, expired Heavenbound Pact,” she stated firmly. “Why is it not active? If you can use Holy powers, you should be worthy of Swearing one...”

I flicked a finger up at the Haze. “Shroudborn...”