The first thing to really dredge his mind from the almost sleep-like shock it had fallen to was a notification that his refresh, which he’d been running automatically, had failed. This snapped him out of his fog, and he checked his stats.

His endurance had fallen to 0, meaning all spell checks would fail twice as frequently and all mana costs had increased. He could recast the doppel, but he was hours from the city and needed rest anyway. There were no trackers on him, no pursuers behind him. It was time to let the doppel fade and assess his surroundings.

It had been six hours of mindless racing, after all. God knew where he was now.

“Woah,” he said, voice both unnaturally loud and instantly lost in the abyss of black trees around him. Ylia slowly came to a halt, nickering anxiously. “It’s alright,” he said, stroking her mane as he slid off her back. “Just some trees.” It wasn’t the inky forest that had his mare so spooked, though. She picked up well on his emotions and was as on edge as he was.

“Light,” he said, waving a hand to summon an orb. The newfound illumination didn’t reveal much, just some trees, a few bushes, a couple boulders, but at least he wasn’t about to dismount into a thicket of brambles. As he slid off Ylia’s back, she knelt to the ground, closing her eyes, her breathing slow and taxed. Elzio guided his orb around the thick woods. The light spell was cheap and easy. Even as fatigued as he was, he couldn’t fail it. Maybe he’d increase his mana regen rate when he leveled. Or maybe just his base pool. That was a tomorrow decision, however. For now he needed rest. So he deactivated his light spell and sank to his knees.

He didn’t have much. No saddlebag containing any tent or bedroll or even a musty blanket. There was no shelter, no sentry, no guard. All he had was a bundle of rope, 20 mana, and a weary horse.

That and abject emotional and physical exhaustion. It was this that, more than any comfort, eased his sleep as he leaned against his steed, closed his eyes, and was soon lost to the world.

—

An embassy from Pyrthet had entered the woods, and with him, the echo’s fate was sealed. The man had not entered how she had expected, however. This was no small group, flying the reds and oranges of Pyrthet, issuing forth a statement that she had been challenged by the Pyrthet Nexus to do battle. As the lower leveled nexus, she would have a grace period of a day’s time to arrange her arena. At that time, the arenas would sync, and the echo, with a thousand scant points to spend, would fall before her foe.

It had not, thus far, played out this way. Instead, a man, clutching a weary horse, had staggered into her clearing, slid off his steed, and crumpled to the ground. He had fallen into a deep slumber before the echo had even a chance to approach.

How strange. As a nexus, she was close to powerless against the mortal, and he against her, but she could still flee. Find a new hiding place and extend her life for a few more months before another greater nexus found and consumed her. It made little sense for the man to barrage so close to her and not even issue forth a challenge. It benefited neither.

The echo approached the man. She could not help it. She was curious. Perhaps he anticipated this and lay in wait. Perhaps this was a trap. Still. She could not help it. Her lot in life was an early death. Self preservation had not become important to her yet.

As she grew nearer, his demeanor changed. A peaceful look crossed his furrowed face, the hard lines around his dark eyes smoothing to reveal a younger man than she expected. The light from her being bathed him in a cool, silver light. Her experience with mortals had been limited, but she thought he might have seen fewer than thirty cycles around their sun. He was troubled. His jaw was set in a hard way. The dark hair around his brow was damp with sweat against his pale forehead.

No, this man did not come here to issue a challenge. He came here fleeing something. The echo was almost sure of it.

So she did something not quite aligning with her basic instinct.

She took a risk on an unknown mortal.

—

Elzio woke from a deep sleep as abruptly as if someone had splashed cold water against his face. He felt his face, but there had been no sudden deluge. There was no sign of an intruder in the area around him, no prints in the leaf mold, nothing illuminated by the dim light of the clearing. However this didn’t necessarily mean there was no foe.

Swallowing deeply, Elzio reached for the small knife at his belt, knowing that he wouldn’t last long in a fight against a creature of the woods. He focused his magical energies, and found that they sprang to him much sooner than they had last night. All around his stats had improved. Had he accidentally leveled up in his sleep? No, surely that would be impossible. He’d never heard of such a thing. But still, even his eyes seemed sharper in the pale moon’s glow.

He froze, hand still planted on his dagger. The pale moon’s glow? There had been no moon when he’d dismounted, and the sun had not yet started its ascent.

His eyes drifted further out in the clearing, searching for the source of the light.

It hovered about twenty feet from him, partially obscured by several trees, peering out from budding leaves: a shimmering, shifting, pulsing core of energy. Of light. Pale white light that normally would have looked so weak against a true nexus now shone bright in the absence of any other illumination. The echo’s aura, encompassing his weary body, felt stronger than had the powerful shroud of the Pyrthet Nexus.

“I know you,” Elzio said, voice a whisper. “You’re the forest echo. The one we were to—” He stopped. What was he about to say? The one we were planning on killing? Did it matter what he was going to say anyway?

The echo’s intensity shifted. It wasn’t that the light grew brighter, or that it even made a real sound, but there was a low, guttural hum that reverberated through his bones.

I know you too.

Despite being inherently supernatural and inhuman in every sense of the word, Elzio grew aware—moreso than he ever had talking to Loreth—that he was communicating with a living being. It… No, she. She had a distinctly personal note to her voice. Something alive. Something human. Almost angry, but more afraid. And above all that, within it, was a note of curiosity.

“I’m Elzio.” The words slipped from his mouth while he was still contemplating if he should speak or run.

The light shifted again. Hello, Elzio. I am an echo.

“Echo. I’m pleased to meet your acquaintance.” He stuck out a hand and immediately winced at the gesture. He could be forgiven a lapse in judgement here and there, given his situation, but nothing could prepare him for the intense embarrassment after attempting to shake a nexus’s hand.

Echo, thankfully, didn’t respond to the hand. She perceived him in a way he found rather scrutinizing, though not terribly judgemental.

I do not think you have come here to challenge me. There are many things wrong with you.

A laugh broke its way through Elzio’s exhaustion-induced shock, and his hand, still outstretched, dropped to his side.

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“Yes, there’s a lot wrong with me. I just learned that someone has been raising our nexus like a lamb for slaughter.” The laugh was still in Elzio’s voice, though it was starting to border on hysterical. “Imagine that. A level 15 nexus just waiting for a neighboring nexus to reach 5 so that she can consume it. And the man who arranged this? Sir Thomas Kieren, the head councilor of the whole damn city. The man who over saw the hero program. The man who had faithfully worked for Pyrthet for decades, since before Loreth even died and reincarnated. Had it been a ruse the whole time? Did Sir Thomas always have his eye on the throne? Does any of it matter?” Now Elzio’s laugh choked a bit in his throat before dying abruptly. “It doesn’t, does it? I can’t do anything. I’m a dead man walking. My whole life has changed in less than a day.”

Mine has in less than a minute. I do not know what you want, but your arrival has confirmed that I am to be targeted by Nexus Pyrthet. With your warning, I may now escape to survive another day.

Elzio stared, jaw almost slack as he processed her words. Of course she’d run. As a level 1 nexus, she had the same odds of beating the level 3 Pyrthet Nexus as the Pyrthet Nexus had of beating Nexus Deluuth.

Well, maybe not not quite so bad of odds. The ratio may be 1:3 for both, but the Pyrthet Nexus had some clear weaknesses, even despite Elzio’s best efforts to reduce them. With 2000 more points than Echo, of course the Pyrthet Nexus would be nearly unstoppable, especially given how expensive it would be for her to summon heroes, but in the right hands, she could win.

There was no world where a nexus with 5000 points beat one with 15000. The ratio didn’t matter. It would be a slaughter.

He relocated his dropped jaw, thoughts more sorted, when he noticed that Echo had retreated quite a bit.

“Wait!” he shouted, voice bouncing back across the weathered trees. “Do you want to die?” He hadn’t considered the best way to ask his question, make his proposal, since he really hadn’t the time, and again he winced as his voice echoed through the woods.

The blurted question—in all honesty, it had probably come off as a threat—did succeed in stopping Echo’s retreat. In the space of a thought, she surged at him, ignoring any physical terrain between the two until she was practically on top of him.

So I am to take this as a challenge after all? That is not a good question to ask, Elzio.

Again, the sheer human nature of her question startled him. Echos weren’t reincarnated mortals, the way true nexi were, so why did she seem to hold so much more weight than they did?

But he put his ponderings on hold to respond to her, since he was moments from losing his only ally.

“Wait, wait, let me rephrase.” Why was it so much easier to talk to a teacher or councilor than to this echo nexus? “I’m not threatening you, I’m just… honestly tired and afraid and my words aren’t keeping up with my brain. I’m speaking stupidly, and I’m sorry.” The admittance stung, but his exhaustion muted the embarrassment. He took a deep breath. “Please let me start over. As an echo, your purpose in life is to feed a larger nexus. No one volunteers to protect you, no one outfits your arena. You can conscript a few low level fighters at full cost to fight for you, and but heroes can’t die in echo battles, so they wouldn’t even really try to defend you. If you’re really unlucky, you’ll summon heroes from your enemy’s city, who will actively throw the battle. Your chance of ever reaching level 2 is essentially nothing. You’ll exist until you’re killed.”

If Echo had a face, it likely would be fixing him with an expression of irritation, another charmingly human emotion.

I am aware.

“Wonderful.” He held up his hands, vying for a few more moments of her time. “So we’re on the same page.”

Hardly.

That was fair. “Hear me out. Your only chance at survival is a high-leveled, experienced hero volunteering to fight for you.”

And are you such a volunteer?

Elzio’s heart skipped. Yes, this had been the natural conclusion of his statement, but he hadn’t expected her to reach it so quickly, nor did he expect the thrill of excitement it sent through his body. Was he volunteering to help her fight Loreth?

Logistically and logically, it made the most sense. Loreth was doomed once Sir Thomas put in motion his plan to sacrifice it to Deluuth. Once Loreth fell, the city would fall to Deluuth’s rule. Taking out Sir Thomas was their only hope of avoiding this fate, but the only way to do that would be to take out Loreth. Defeating a nexus in battle would massively power Elzio beyond any forces in the city. He could walk right in and obliterate Sir Thomas on the spot. Or he could get a confession, which was the more rational conclusion

There were other options, of course.

He could ride back to Pyrthet and bring before the councilors his evidence: one copied note he claimed came from Sir Thomas’s study. Were this to fail, he would face execution.

He could attempt to warn just his teammates, urge them to defect, but in that scenario, he’d be seen as the defector. After all, he had fled. Sir Thomas held all the cards now, and Gods knew what stories he’d crafted to explain Elzio’s escape.

He could do nothing, knowing that the city would fall in a matter of a year or two. He could picture his teammates, three stalwart, enthusiastic heroes celebrating after leveling the Pyrthet Nexus to 5, only to have Sir Thomas challenge Deluuth. The unmodified odds of surviving a loss against an enemy nexus were about 15%. Elzio could see their faces now. Kia’s eyes widening in immediate panic, whirling on the other two, desperate for an explanation. Bereth’s lips starting to form something, an excuse, a theory, but freezing every time. Nance’s face shifting from fear to determination as she tried, in vain, to assure her team that there must be something they were missing. Maybe all of them would die. Maybe one would survive.

Even if they didn’t volunteer, if they heard that Loreth was fighting Nexus Deluuth and decided they wanted no part in it, Loreth would just conscript them, force them to fight. And even if he didn’t, it didn’t matter because once Nexus Deluuth took over, the entire city would be plunged into despair.

“Yes, I am such a volunteer.”

The two stared at each other for several long moments following Elzio’s pledge. After a few seconds of contemplating the consequence of his actions, his attention shifted to Echo. She had formed into a ball of light, more solid than before. Beyond this, she did not change in form, nor did she grow closer or larger or brighter. She was still and silent, and Elzio wondered what she could possibly be thinking.

I accept your offer. I do not know yet what it means to have hope, but perhaps I will learn. Perhaps I will die. It will depend on you, for I know little of the world of combat. I know little of the world entirely.

“I can’t imagine what that’s like.” Elzio perched on a nearby boulder, eyes fixed on his new ally. “I can’t imagine not knowing the world. Not wanting to.”

A hum in the air radiated off her, and he quite thought she seemed annoyed.

I was not spawned with the creation of your Pyrthet Nexus, but rather that of a new one, a recent one. I have roamed these woods for a scant few months. My knowledge is not lacking. My opportunities are.

Elzio held up his hands. “I didn’t mean to imply that you were stupid, or even remiss in your curiosity.” How could he? It was one of the things that had piqued his interest. “Just that I can’t imagine your situation. Being born sentient but with the knowledge that crossing paths with any other sentient beings, would seal your fate? What would that even feel like?”

Sentient beings is an odd choice of words to define humans. Her voice was cold, annoyed. You are right, however. Any human that sees me would immediately report my whereabouts to those who would butcher me for experience. Perhaps ‘sentient’ was not the right word choice. What mindless cruelty could spur a people to see me as such, when I have not, cannot, harm them back?

It was a rhetorical question, but Elzio still bristled at her almost condescending aura. “Our choice is to follow our nexus or be banished from the city. There aren’t exactly cities or towns out there that don’t follow a nexus. Most people aren’t going to risk getting kicked out to the wilds just for—”

An echo.

“People aren’t— Echo’s don’t—” The brief influx of energy seeped from his mind as he tried to justify his words. “I’m sorry. That isn’t what I meant. I’m not… I’m not sure what I meant, but my intent wasn’t to indicate you were less than a regular echo. Or maybe I’m only just realizing you aren’t.”

You appear tired. Her words were softer this time, perhaps realizing that the Summoner was in desperate need of uninterrupted sleep. I will watch over you. You have volunteered to fight for me, and I do not take this generosity lightly. Sleep now. You will know if trouble approaches.

Elzio trusted her. He was, after all, instrumental to her survival. And he had officially volunteered, and she accepted. There would be no double cross now. So instead of worrying, or even plotting, planning, or scheming, Elzio lay back down beside Ylia, who hadn’t stirred at all from her slumber. No matter how smart a steed, she lacked the capability to interact with a nexus how Elzio could. What he perceived as a full conversation would just be the odd twinkling light, and, of course, her master talking to himself. Not interesting to a horse in the slightest.

He couldn’t fight a small smile as he leaned against her. Tomorrow would be a strange day indeed, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t looking forward to it.