Dave stood before General Nox, his body thrumming with the stolen luck of countless souls. Myriads of gold threads permeated his entire bloated body, dancing around the massive golden core thrumming in his stomach, keeping him hyper-aware of everything around him as if he was an orchestra conductor wielding a piano made up of a thousand gold keys, each of which lead to a different outcome.

The ex-programmer stretched his invisible fingers and began to play his invisible symphony, seeking the right words and right actions, ones that would allow him to win and lose at the same time.

In another minute, he knew exactly what he had to do. The symphony conductor made his own bloated body collapse onto its knees, tears filling his eyes, head slamming into the ground. His blubbery lips opened, his voice trembling in just the right tone as to sound believable to his audience, a party of the Verdant Republic Archmagi surrounding the Shadow-wrapped General.

"Mighty General Nox!" Dave cried. "I beg you, spare my miserable, worthless life!"

Nox's shadowy form rippled with laughter. "And why should I spare a pathetic worm like you, Lumir? Are you not a servant of the Bankers?”

“I don’t serve any Bankers!” Dave declared, his entire blubbery body trembling. “I surrendered Shandria to you completely and utterly because I want your Divine Shadow to rule and to protect this city forevermore!”

“Her Divine Shadow,” Nox rubbed her chin. “I do like the sound of that.”

Dave raised his head slightly, his eyes wild with gold-thread-woven desperation. "I am a great Prosperitymancer and my skills could be of great use to you!”

“Hrmmm,” Nox tilted her head. “I could use another mage in my court, especially one that could help me take down more city states.”

"Spare me, I beg you!" Dave insisted, slamming his head into the ground, hooking onto the greed of General Nox with his words. "I will give you all the luck of Shandria! Every last drop! Just let me live and I’ll serve you for as long as I live, prove my worth!"

General Nox turned to a stern-faced, beardly mage at her side. "Veritasmancer Goostak, is this blubbering idiot speaking the truth?"

The truth-sensing mage focused intently on Dave for a moment before nodding. "He speaks no lies, General.”

“Excellent,” Nox clapped her hands. “Guards–collar him and the ex-empress.”

"Thank you, oh merciful General!” Dave’s golden threads moved his lips as he spoke to Cedez inside of Nox. “I swear on my life, I will be your loyal friend and assistant from this point on forevermore! I will help you make Shandria prosper! I will tell you everything I know! I’ll help you defeat the Bankers or whoever else will try to stop you!”

Two mages stepped forward, producing ornate collars inscribed with runes. Dave felt the cold metal clasp around his neck. Beside him, Lari winced as she was similarly bound. Her eyes stared at Dave filled with sadness and fear, not understanding as to why he was doing this.

"Now then, my new pet," Nox purred. "I order you to transfer all of your luck to me!”

She extended a hand formed of writhing shadows, revealing a single human pinkie.

Dave's heart raced as he reached out to the pinkie, the collar on his neck forcing him into obedience of what he planned to do anyway.

This was the moment of truth, the crescendo of his performance.

He reached deep within himself, to the vast well of luck he had stolen from the city and its countless souls. As he prepared to transfer it, he focused not on Nox's outstretched finger, but on something deeper - the suppressed soul-shard of Cedez he believed still existed within the General's body.

With a deep breath, Dave grabbed the pinkie and unleashed the torrent of luck. Golden threads erupted from his body, a blinding storm of fortune and possibility. They swirled into the pinkie like a river of gold pouring from the fat Duke.

As all of his luck left him, Dave collapsed onto the ground, wheezing as his muscles were no longer able to support him. Dave choked, feeling that his blubbery body was now completely empty of magic, useless, unable to do much of anything else, the magical crystalline core weighing a ton, tearing his organs apart with its weight.

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For a moment, nothing seemed to happen.

Then, the shadow around Nox began to twist and warp. Nox's form shuddered, her silhouette stretching and reshaping. The Verdant Archmagi watched quietly as their General's appearance shifted around.

Blades of darkness danced across the body of their General like ferromagnetic fluid, adding detail that wasn’t there before. Fox ears sprouted from the top of her head, twitching and alert. A shadowy dress formed around her body, elegant and flowing. Behind her, a bushy tail manifested, swishing back and forth.

As the transformation settled, Dave found himself staring not at the monstrous General Nox, but at a shadow-wreathed, upscaled approximation of Cedez.

The foxgirl looked left and right.

“Hum,” she said. “Now this is interesting.”

“Are you alright, your excellency?” One of the Archmagi asked.

“Perfectly lovely, Archmage Susolei,” Cedez purred in reply. “Why, I’m filled with luck to the brim, so much so that I’m feeling rather spry and foxy! Our duke has given me quite a veritable well of power. I must say, I'm impressed by his incredible dedication to our… cause."

Dave, still wheezing on the ground, managed to look up at her. "I live... to serve... your Divine Shadow," he gasped out just as his heart stopped.

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

Dave opened his eyes with a groan, rubbing the fading ache in his chest from the simulation-created heart attack. Before he could fully regain his bearings, he was enveloped in a tight embrace of something warm, dark and fuzzy.

"You did it! Woo! I knew you could do it!" Cedez squealed, hugging Dave tightly. Her fox ears twitched with excitement as her tail swished back and forth as she glomped the ex-programmer. “Great job!”

As Dave blinked, he saw the others stirring around them in the fading hexagram-circle of the Crown Tower Arcane.

Remicra sat up, shaking her head. "That was... intense," she muttered.

"Indeed," Sherlock agreed, the golem's crystalline eyes igniting to life as the gears within the golem clicked, allowing him to rise.

Svenn looked left and right with the eyes of his elkin hosts. "That was a rather curious dream,” he commented with one of his lips.

“Hey Remy,” Dave turned to the armored dragoness. “What’d you see in there?”

"I was... a Lumis Archmage named Evelyn Kettlecrux,” she said. “I had… incredible power to bend metal to my will, the ability to create anything I could imagine. I was contacted by the Bankers, offered to rule my own city. I refused, sliced the representative of the Bankers with a hand-blade and surrendered Warship Sangria to the mages of the Verdant Republic.”

Dave nodded, turning to Sherlock.

“I inhabited the body of Veritasmancer Goostak,” Sherlock replied. “A rep from the Bankers of Arx approached me, tried to appeal to my desire for knowledge, offering me access to the secrets of Arxtruria if I simply betrayed Nox, stabbed her with a cursed blade while she was distracted. I must admit, it was tempting… I did want to know how this vast Dyson-type megastructure was made and my power told me that the Banker was entirely honest about his intentions, but I chose not to sell my soul in exchange for greater knowledge.”

"I was scattered among various soldiers and lesser mages,” Svenn revealed. “I was offered a steel gun by the Bankers, to assassinate Nox with, promised a position in the Officer Core of the reformed Verdant Republic that would be turned into a Monarchy under the leadership of Empress Sari.”

“Well done everyone,” Cedez got up, dusting herself off. “The crown should be on the next floor, ready to be put on by our lovely new leader of Shandria.”

"Who did you inhabit?" Remicra asked Dave.

"Duke Lumir," Dave said. "I met Shandria's Empress and surrendered the city to General Nox, making sure that Cedez was the one who got it, not Nox."

His voice fell as Dave stared off into space, realizing that Lari was gone, collapsed into non-existence just like the rest of Shandria from two hundred years ago from the Test of Loyalty. “Lari… I thought I'd have more time... damn it."

He realized that even though it wasn't truly her, speaking to Lari had reopened old wounds and brought back memories of his friend from Earth.

Remicra seemed to sense his change in mood. "Dave? What's wrong?"

He sighed. "I... I saw Lari in there. My best friend from Earth, the girl who saved me from myself, helped me heal after a car ran me over. Well, not really her, but a version of her. She was the Empress of Shandria. I wasn't able to help her. Our paths never crossed here on Arx. The Isekai summoning between us separated us by a gulf of two hundred years."

Dave felt a wave of melancholy wash over him as he thought about Lari.

Remicra placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, not sure what to say.

"No despairing!" Cedez tilted her head at Dave. "We have Tower-business to conduct. You can despair all you want after Svenn is crowned Empress of Shandria!"

"According to your memories as Archmage Argon, there were three crystal cores found in Warship Sangria. One of them must have belonged to Empress Sari," Sherlock pointed out. "Her soul still could be contained within the crystal core. If we make or locate another one of these golem bodies, she can be brought back."

"Lari died a long time ago," Dave shook his head. "I don't know if I'll be able to pull someone who died so long ago with Phantomancy even if her skill core is intact. I don't know if the Ward reshaped history just to mess with me... if that's even going to be her in that core!"

"Maybe... if you level up enough, you'll be able to bring back the souls of mages who died hundreds of years ago," Cedez commented. "Don't give up hope, darling!"

"Maybe," Dave sighed, not feeling entirely confident.